Compelled to Trust

It's comin' on Christmas, and I've got lots to think about this season. As I enjoy being at home in Iowa, sitting in front of the fire with an endless supply of coffee and cocoa, I am also attempting to finish my ordination paper before the beginning of the new year. This is the paper that will be submitted to the committee that decides whether or not I will be considered for ordination in the United Church of Christ. Not a small deal. And as I work on that, I must also begin to think about how to navigate my final semester at Divinity school. One million questions come into my mind as I think about what's in store in the next six months:

Where will I live? Will I stay on the east coast? Will I stay in Connecticut?
What if the perfect job comes along and takes me away from the people I care about?
Am I willing to start all over again meeting new people and making new friends? Should I try to stay close to family?
Will I be good at this? What if I fail? What if I can't find a job? What if I find a job but it's not the right one?

All of these questions, and so many more, are in my mind as I write a paper that is primarily about faith. I am reminded, as I work on this, that my faith instructs me to trust in God. It was faith that brought me to Divinity school, faith that carried me through, and faith which must now carry me onward. And so, after asking all the questions that fill me with anxiety, I am compelled to ask one more question, which is: am I willing to trust God? Am I willing to trust that whatever happens, I can do the work I am called to do, even if it doesn't look exactly like I think it should? I hope that the answer to that last question is yes. I can only imagine that as the next few months go by that question will continue to challenge me, and that there will be times when trusting God will be difficult. I've been struggling to come up with my new years resolutions, so perhaps this should be my primary resolution this year. Trust. To trust God, but also to trust my family and friends who support me. And of course, to trust myself-- perhaps the hardest resolution of all!

God's Vision

"He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’"

In the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, we are told of a man who- by all outward appearances and human standards-- should never have been the one chosen by Jesus that day. Not only was he a tax-collector, he was also a rich man, part of that category of folks about whom Jesus said— only a chapter earlier in Luke's gospel-- it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for one of them to get into heaven.

So why did Jesus choose him?
Surely there were others in the crowd that were more pure of heart, more righteous and just in their dealings with others. Yet in the end, it is Zacchaeus who is the unlikely disciple. The one who surprises everyone with his gesture of hospitality and his commitment to justice. He never would have been chosen by us, but he was chosen by God.

When Jesus stops to regard Zacchaeus in the tree, he doesn’t see what the rest of the crowd sees. Where others see a corrupt and over-privileged man, Jesus sees a heart ready to break open to receive the good news. Where others see a man making a fool out of himself, Jesus sees the possibility for transformation and conversion.
He sees Zacchaeus in a way that no one else does, and he announces to a stunned crowd that this man, too, Is a son of Abraham. In this story we see the realization of Jesus’ statement that with God, all things truly are possible. No one is beyond redemption. Not one of us is in a place to dismiss anyone else. This story is radical because it offers a much needed commentary on the glaring difference between how we see things, and how God sees things. It reminds us of just how often we are out of sync with God. Particularly when it comes to how we view and judge other people.

It is this issue of seeing, and being seen by God, that captivates me as I read this passage. Like many similar stories throughout Luke’s gospel, this story reminds us that where we see the despised and shameful, God sees beauty and humility. Where we see unworthiness, God sees a heart ripe and ready for the gospel. And perhaps most importantly, in those places where we do not see at all, it is the people who are invisible to us who are in fact God’s unlikely disciples.


Who are the people we dismiss?
Whose are the voices we silence?
Who are those that we do not see because of some artificial label that has been placed upon them?
Who are those we have left out on a limb— alone?

I believe that it is in our communities, our relationships, and our covenants with one another, that God makes God’s self present in our world. I believe that the Holy Spirit works and moves among us. But if we can’t see one another, how can we possibly aspire to see God? So often, we let ourselves be divided by labels, leading to the kinds of hurtful assumptions which keep us from truly seeing one another.
From seeing each and every person as a potential messenger of hope and peace in a broken world.

The apostle Paul cautions us that we are not to conform to this world. But I can’t help feeling that every time we allow ourselves to be divided by categories that are mere constructions of our own limited vision—

Liberal,
Conservative,
Democrat,
Republican,
Evangelical,
Progressive--

we are in fact conforming to this world in a way that is not in line with God’s vision. When we let ourselves be divided in this way, we are not seeing as God sees.
While these kinds of labels may accurately describe some aspect of ourselves, the story of Zacchaeus reminds us they are not the sum total of what God sees in us.
If they were, Jesus never would have acknowledged Zacchaeus in that tree. And perhaps then there would have been no conversion, no reversal, no hospitality, and no justice in that moment.

But if we were to see as God sees— if we were to see one another in the same way Jesus saw Zacchaeus, imagine the possibility for conversion, hospitality, fellowship, and for justice. Imagine the opportunity for transformation.

To see as God sees— to be conformed not to our human vision, but to let our imaginations become a part of God’s vision for us and all creation.

God's Flame Within

Last week I embarked upon the final leg of my seminary journey. I am in my last year at Divinity School, and find myself equally excited and terrified. I'm excited for a final year of friendship and fellowship, laughter and tears, fun, and profound experiences. I'm excited to soak up one more year of amazing classes at Yale-- to learn as much as I possibly can from the amazing professors and resources in this place. I'm excited to see what lies ahead for me-- what new experiences might await me. But yes, I'm also terrified. The future is uncertain, and there are not a plethora of jobs awaiting those of us who graduate this year. I'm nervous about leaving YDS-- this place where I've met so many amazing people-- to once again start over, meet new people, and find my place in a much larger, much scarier world.

As the first week of classes came to an end, I found my fear overcoming my excitement. So this morning I sat down with my good friend Henri Nouwen to reflect upon the coming year and try to regain some perspective. I was reminded, reading the words of this wonderfully spiritual man, to take some time in silence and solitude to tend to God's flame within. How wonderful it was to sit in silence for 45 minutes and simply be. To sit and let myself reconnect with God's flame of love that resides within the human heart. That flame that so often gets drowned out by all the noise of the frenetic world we live in. It's easy, at a place like Yale, to get caught up in the verbosity of the place. Everyone has something to say-- and one feels compelled to join in the endless chorus of debates and opinions swirling around. But words can only point to the truth, and our limited language can perhaps never truly embody ultimate truth. So to take time for silence-- to re-member oneself and one's connection to God-- is an immensely valuable exercise.

After sitting in that place of solitude and quiet this morning, I feel more connected to why I came here in the first place. I remember God's amazing love, and I tend the flame that is God's presence within me. I tend that flame so that when it comes time to let someone else warm themselves with that flame, I will have enough to share.

Farewell Little Cell

Today is my last on-call shift at the hospital. (And there was much rejoicing!) I can't say I'm going to miss it. It's hard to say what part of it I enjoyed least-- wearing three different pagers and the excruciating wait for one of them to go off; responding to a page to hear the words: "we have a full-trauma coming in"; spending endless hours in the stuffy on-call room which makes Harry Potter's broom closet seem like a luxery suite; drifting off to sleep only to be startled awake again by the pager; or the simple and indeterminable boredom of the hospital. There are only so many hours one can spend wasting away at the computer or watching episodes of The West Wing on DVD.

Perhaps there are things I will miss-- the satisfaction of knowing I handled a difficult situation with calm and confidence, or knowing that my presence helped someome get through a traumatic moment in their lives. I do not leave this experience empty-handed. I leave with the stories of other people who's lives I entered into-- however briefly-- at incredibly difficult and painful moments. I have a feeling these people will stay with me for a long while. And even after I forget individual names and faces are blurred over time, I know I will remember the lessons I learned about just how fragile life is, and how precious we all are.

Bridge-building Theology

"Now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought now. For he is our peace, in his flesh he has made the two groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us... that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God... So he came and proclaimed peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to God. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God." --Ephesians 2:13-19

So I have a little confession to make this morning. Despite the fact that I’ve chosen to preach on one of the New Testament epistles, I have to admit that I have always had something of a love-hate relationship with them. Ephesians is no exception to this. For example, there are lovely passages like the one we heard this morning— beseeching members of the Christian community to see beyond their divisions and prejudices. But on the other hand, a little later on, one comes across the passage which describes how wives should obey their husbands and slaves should obey their masters. I often end up struggling with how to deal with these texts. Not wanting to accept them without question, but not wanting to throw them out entirely either.

One way that liberal interpreters tend to get around this problem is to make the argument that the letters of the early church were written in a particular time and place, for a particular group of people, in very particular circumstances. Now it’s helpful to keep this in mind, especially when faced with those passages that seem so contrary to our notions of what Christianity should look like. But for liberal Christians who adhere to this kind of interpretation, one of the side effects of labeling something as being for a “particular people in a particular time”, is that sometimes we forget that there are words there for us as well. And while the writers of the New Testament epistles weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, every now and then they got something so incredibly right that the words are just as true and profound now as they were then.

The passage from Ephesians that we just heard-- I believe-- is one of those passages. And while it certainly was written within a particular historical and cultural context— it is also a text that speaks to all people, in all times, and in all places.

In its historical context, this morning’s passage had a very specific purpose. At the time, there was a huge divide opening up between two ethnic groups— Jewish followers of Christ, and Gentile converts. There were all sorts of arguments about how strictly Gentile converts had to adhere to Jewish law, some even arguing that the law should simply be abolished. Not to mention all the old animosities between the two ethnic groups that had been present for hundreds of years. Gentiles, for instance, viewed their Jewish neighbors as strange, cultish, backwards, and subversive. Jews, on the other hand, saw Gentiles as immoral, lawless, idolatrous, and oppressive. Neither of these groups was particularly keen on forming community together. But the author of Ephesians was deeply aware that in the midst of this new thing that was happening— in the midst of this new creation-- this new chapter in salvation history--these ethnic clashes threatened to tear apart the fabric of this new religious movement. The writer of Ephesians was also deeply aware that such clashes were contrary to the very core of the message that Christ had come to proclaim.

Not that the writer of Ephesians was saying something entirely new. Perhaps the author was thinking of Isaiah 56, which proclaims that when the day of salvation comes, God’s house will be opened up to become a “house of prayer for all people”. Israelites and Gentiles will be gathered up together as God’s people-- no longer separated by the very human barriers of mistrust, prejudice, hate, and fear.

Or perhaps the writer of Ephesians knew about Jesus’ strange habit of bringing together some of the most radically diverse characters he could find. Consider, for a moment, Jesus’ disciples. We don’t hear much about the character of Simon the Zealot, (Zealots were Jews who radically challenged the sovereignty of the Roman empire) but according to the gospels, Simon the Zealot was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. A fact that is perhaps unremarkable in and of itself. Until one considers another one of Jesus’ disciples-- one who is perhaps a bit more well known-- Matthew the tax collector. Matthew the tax collector served that very Roman Empire that Simon the Zealot would have been plotting to subvert and overthrow. It’s hard to imagine two more diverse characters. To illustrate just how odd this might have seemed back then, imagine a pro-life, Evangelical Republican working side by side for justice with a pro-choice, socialist leaning democrat. It’s pretty hard to imagine. At least for me! And yet, Jesus chose both of these men to be in his inner circle of disciples. It makes me wonder, if Jesus was around today, who would end up in that inner circle? I’m willing to bet that it wouldn’t just be liberals and progressives.

And so the writer of Ephesians is attempting to pick up where Jesus left off-- attempting to break down old walls of division between Gentiles and Jews. It’s a message that I’m guessing made a lot of people very angry, because to give up our old prejudices and open the door to the unknown and unfamiliar can be pretty frightening.

This is something we know all too well in our current world. Prejudice, fear, and the threat of the unknown continue to be the sources of many of the dividing walls we put up between ourselves and those who are different than us. Sometimes, our dividing walls are literal— such as the Berlin wall, the Jewish Ghettos and concentration camps of WWII, or the wall in Jerusalem that currently separates Palestinians from Israelis. Other times, the dividing wall is constructed on paper, in the form of unjust laws. Such as segregation and Jim Crow in the United States, Apartheid in South Africa, or a current law which says that who you love dictates your ability to serve your country. Finally, there are those dividing walls that are a little harder to define. Walls put up within our own hearts and minds. Walls that keep us from fully accepting “the other”. Walls of racism, sexism, classism, or homophobia.

It is this last category which is to blame for all the others. The walls of concrete and stone being physical manifestations of our inner fears. And while there is nothing in the Ten Commandments that says, “though shalt not make a wall between thyself and thy neighbor”, I believe that our never-ending human need to divide ourselves from others who are different than us is one of the great sins of humanity. I also believe that as long as we are separated from one another out of fear or hate, we are also separate from God.

So what then? How can we take this word— as is so often our weekly prayer in this church-- and make it a living word for us today?

I don’t know how many of you have seen any of the footage from the UCC General Synod that happened several weeks ago. If you haven’t, and you watch only one speech or sermon from that gathering, watch the sermon of Reverend Otis Moss III. His sermon— which was electrifying— was about God’s punctuation. About something he called “comma theology.” He talked about our audacity as finite creatures to put a period where God would have us put a comma. One of the examples he gave was that of American history. American history, he said, is a “series of contradictions between those who write periods, and those who know that God writes a comma.”

For instance:
If the color of your skin is black, you are only three-fifths of a person.
PERIOD.
If the color of your skin is black, You aren’t allowed to eat in this restaurant. PERIOD.
If the color of your skin is black, You probably shouldn’t come to this school. PERIOD.
But then, Reverend Moss said, God sent a coma to Alabama in the form of a 26 year old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.

Now just in case you think I’m getting a bit off track, let me assure you that all of this is not unrelated to our subject this morning. We’re really talking about the same thing, just using different vocabulary. But instead of commas, and “comma theology” I would like to talk about bridges, and bridge-building theology. Martin Luther King Jr. was a bridge builder, as were so many of the men and women who came after him in the civil rights movement. As were the men and women who founded this denomination—building bridges across four different denominations to form the one United Church of Christ.

It would be hard, I think, to over-emphasize the importance of bridge building theology. Because it’s not enough to simply recognize these walls of division. It’s not even enough to break them down. If we break down the walls, but do nothing to break down the hate that built those walls in the first place, those walls are going to come right back up again.

And so, like the prophet Isaiah, like Reverend King, like Jesus himself-- we are called to go one step further. Where a wall once used to be, we are called to build a bridge.

And just as the dividing walls of concrete and stone have their origins in the hate and fear that reside within the human heart, so too must our bridges of care have their origins in the divine presence of the spirit within our own hearts and minds. The work begins within each of us. It is then, and only then, that we have the capacity to continue the work of reaching out to others. Especially to those who are different, especially those with whom we disagree, and especially those from whom we would most wish to keep our distance.

If we want our church to be relevant, if we want our church to thrive, we have to be willing to be bridge-builders. We have to be willing to step outside our comfort zone-- into the realm of radical diversity, radical inclusively, and radical love.

This means different things for each of us, by the way. Only as individuals can we determine what dividing walls need to be broken down within our own hearts. And that is my challenge for all of us this morning. To ask, what are the ways that we separate ourselves from others, and from God. What can we do to begin to break down those walls of separation and division and begin to build bridges in their place?

It’s a question that, if we take our faith seriously, we must begin to ask ourselves. Because in Christ there is no east or west, no north or south. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. God is not white. God is not black. Not red, and not yellow. God does not label anyone as legal or illegal. God is not a democrat or a republican. God is not a conservative, and God is not a progressive. There is only the one God, the one spirit, the one Christ-- whose prayer-- “that they might all be one”-- remains our prayer of hope for all creation.

Being Relevent vs. Being Useful

“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our natural response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore out greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer.”

-Henri Nouwen, from “The Way of the Heart


One of my biggest pet peeves about the church today (and I mean ‘church’ in the most general sense) is how irrelevant it can seem. Amidst all the injustice and suffering in the world—war, poverty, famine, racism, homophobia, etc—what is the church really doing to make things better? Sometimes it can seem like the church actually makes things worse!! One of my big questions over the past few years has been how to make the church more relevant. Because of that, I sometimes get preoccupied with how I personally can be relevant, which is what leads to my obsession with being “useful”. Nouwen’s quote really speaks to this, and really convicts me.

This quote came along at the perfect time, because I think my experiences at the hospital are finally starting to teach me that a ministry of presence is in fact very relevant-- perhaps as relevant as it gets. I’ve been able to build relationships with a few of my patients, and for the first time, I feel like I’m actually doing ministry.

I am also starting to see the direct ways in which this is making me a better pastor. By letting go some of my anxiety about being “useful”, I am getting better at being fully present. I’m learning that there is no way to really be in solidarity with someone if your own anxiety prevents you from being fully present. If I am preoccupied with how nervous I am, then I am not giving my full attention to the other person. But if I am fully present, I walk out of the room feeling like the interaction went well, and I am blessed with more confidence for the next visit.

Not only does this make me a better pastor, but I think it makes me a better person. Because when we fully open up ourselves to another person, when we are fully present with them, we expand our own humanity. In all the human suffering we face, we can recognize that none of it is truly alien to us. Nouwen goes on to say that this kind of compassionate solidarity helps us see that “the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own hearts.” In thinking about how the church can be relevant, I think this is a profound observation, because the realm of the human heart is where the church can often be the most effective agent of change. And it is the realm of the human heart that we deal with every day as chaplains!

The "Business" of Healing

I had my attention called to this article from the New Yorker by one of the chaplains at Yale-New Haven Hospital. I thought it was interesting because it offers an analysis of the health care crisis that isn't the usual private vs. public plan debate. The overall point the author is trying to make is that America's health care problems are due in large part to the fact that health care in this country is profit driven rather than patient centered.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

Having spent all of last summer interviewing doctors about what they thought was wrong with health care in America, I have to say that I think this article is spot on. Almost every doctor I spoke with bemoaned the fact that health care has become a business-- controlled not by doctors but by HMO's, insurance companies, and drug companies. Of course this isn't true everywhere, as is evidenced by some of the examples cited in the article. But if the national debate doesn't start to address the problem of profit-driven health care, in the end, it won't matter who ends up footing the bill for health care reform-- it will become unsustainable.

CPE really puts things in perspective.

More specifically, the patients I see on the oncology unit really put things in perspective. Again and again, I find myself talking to people who are dealing with more suffering than any one person should have to deal with in one lifetime. People who are fighting not only cancer, but cancer and kidney disease. Or cancer and depression. People who have lost years of their lives in their struggle with disease. People who struggle alone, with no family and few friends to take care of them. People who fight the horrific disease that is cancer only to know that if they survive, they will face another struggle when they have to go home and face outrageous medical bills that they have no insurance to cover (or their insurance just doesn't help enough). While Yale-New Haven Hospital doesn't turn anyone away, that doesn't mean that at the end of the day, they aren't going to send out a bill. Once the patient leaves the hospital, however, it's not the hospital's responsibility anymore.

It's a hotbed of suffering, the hospital. And it puts my life wildly into perspective. It makes me wonder about the strength of my own faith. Has it really ever been tested? How would my faith fare if I were to suffer the kinds of trials that I've seen over the past four weeks? Would I be like one of my patients, who talked about how the prophet Isaiah said that even though we walk through fire, God doesn't let us get burned? Or would I be like so many others, who are angry with God, or have simply ceased to believe in a God who would allow so much suffering? I'm always impressed with the former, and I can't blame the latter. I get angry at God too, on their behalf.

In the midst of all the suffering, however, my committment to the gospel is strengthened. Too many of us go through our lives blind to the suffering that happens in our midst, and CPE has been a reminder to me that this world needs people who are willing to take off the blinders and really see people who are suffering. To really see them, and acknowledge their pain, and love them. Isn't that what Jesus would do?

Getting in the boat

Today I am at the hospital for my third 24 hour on-call. One of the joys (?) of summer chaplaincy. I was sitting in the on-call room thinking to myself that it might be about time to start that blog I was always thinking about starting. To my surprise, I came to this site to find I had started the blog more than a year ago and forgotten all about it! Better late than never!

CPE has been an eye-opening experience in so many ways. I'm only one month in, but I've already learned so much--mostly about myself. Specifically, I've learned that some of the assumptions I had about myself and my own beliefs are in fact full of hot air.

I always thought that I had faith that God was in control. I always felt confident that I could rely on God's wisdom and power-- that though I might not always understand God's will, I trusted it.

Then CPE began.

I found myself relentlessly frustrated by the fact that in almost every situation I encountered, there was nothing I could do to make things better. I was powerless. I couldn't fix things. Most of the time, the most I can do on a practical, concrete level, is get someone a glass of water. I was overjoyed the other day when a patient asked me to call their pastor for them. Something to do! Something to make me feel needed and useful!!

Of course, I know full well, and knew going in, that my role here is not to fix anything. It would be pretty prideful of me to think that I could, really. Chaplaincy is, more than anything else, a ministry of presence. I need to get over all my own bullshit (or at least leave it at the door) and make myself fully present to each person that I see. I always talk about how we are all called to be the hands and feet of Christ... and this is a very real opportunity to live that out. Now is the time for me to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Realizing how powerless I am in the face of disease, tragedy, and death, I have become keenly aware of just how much I don't trust God. In every situation, my gut reaction is always, "what can I do?" Which may not be so bad all of the time, but it may also get in the way of my ability to simply be present with people. If I'm always trying to find out what I can do, I may just miss out on the opportunity to really listen, to really be present. Now is not the time for me to be an activist. Now is the time for me to be still. To listen. To pray. And to trust in God's power- rather than my own.

The stories in the revised common lectionary for today are the story of David and Goliath in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the story of Jesus calming a storm in the Gospel of Mark. What an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand is a character who trusts so completely in God's power that he goes up against a powerful military enemy with no armour and nothing but a sling shot. On the other hand are a group of Jesus' very own disciples, panicking in the midst of a storm at sea despite the fact that God was right there with them in the boat. I was reflecting on these stories as I started my on-call rotation this morning. I was thinking about the fact that the point of these stories may not so much be that God is some kind of cosmic "fixer", even though in both of these cases, God provides miraculous outcomes. I was thinking that the point may actually be that the real miracle is that through all the storms we face in life-- including disease, death, tragedy, and loss-- God is right there with us, in the boat. So maybe that's what hospital ministry is about, in a way. As the chaplain, it's not my job to "fix" anything, but to climb into the boat, in the midst of the storm.