Authority Omelets

Read me first! Matthew 21:23-32

 Jesus is making a mess. Something inside of him has been unplugged, a switch has been flipped, or maybe, rather, the slow trickle in the dam has finally succumbed to the pressure. If a few cracked eggs are needed to make an omelet, then Jesus has brunch ready for everyone.

So let’s just review a minute, shall we? In just the first half of this chapter, Jesus has stolen a donkey and her baby, or rather, told two of his followers to steal a donkey and her baby, he’s ridden in to Jerusalem, through the back door, somehow mysteriously on both the colt and the donkey, and gathered a mob of people around him. They’re shouting, waving palms, and proclaiming that he is their messianic-healer-king. They’re proclaiming that he’s the one to redeem Israel, that he’s the one with the power, with authority. And when he enters Jerusalem, it says the whole city was in turmoil. The whole city resembles Louisville or Portland or even Pittsburgh. People are taking to the streets, people are shouting and throwing rocks into houses and shops, people are making messes. Everyone is asking “Who is this guy?”, and the crowds are responding, “This Is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee!” There are riots in the street. There are protests. There are shouts and mobs and tear gas and rubber bullets thrown into the chaotic scene. 

And does Jesus tamp it down? Does Jesus calm everyone down and say, “Ok, guys, that’s enough civil disobedience for one day, let’s take a rest and talk it through in a civil manner?” Nope. He goes straight to the heart of it all and adds more fuel to the fire. He stirs up the wasp nest. He enters the temple, the center of civil and religious life, the place where all of this “order” is maintained, where the status quo is upheld, where “civility” — through power, manipulation, and societal control — is maintained. And what does he do? He kicks out all the merchants who are selling goods, all the consumers who are buying their wares, and makes another huge mess. He overturns tables. He spills the coins everywhere. He throws chairs and releases the doves. And then he opens the doors. He lets the blind and the lame into the temple, where they would have hardly been welcome, he brings them in to where they don’t belong, and he heals them, he makes them whole, he returns them to community.  And then all the kids come storming through, putting their grubby, sticky hands on all the relics, running through the aisles, knocking over the sacrifices, shouting and laughing and tugging on the shirtsleeves of the righteous and dignified.

This is righteous Jesus. This is civil-disobedient Jesus. This is riotous Jesus. This is temper tantrum Jesus. This is Jesus at his scariest and most out-of-control. And the chief priests and scribes, the maintainers of order, the ones who orchestrate how Jewish society is supposed to live and be and organize itself, are angry: they’ve lost control, their system is unraveling, and their precious structure, balanced precariously on a pin of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts,” “ins” and “outs,” inclusions and exclusions, begins to teeter, begins to totter, begins to fall off its axis.

Then Jesus goes to bed. He leaves the dishes in the sink, the laundry in the washer, the wet towels strewn across the bedroom floor. He leaves his mess, and goes to bed.

But then he wakes up and returns to the city. And out of his own fleshy, physical need, out of his own hunger, he looks for figs on a fig tree and finds none. Ignoring the fact that it is probably not even the right time of year for a fig tree to be bearing fruit, he curses it, and it shrivels and dies. You get the feeling that Jesus is all emotion at this point, that he’s lost his reason, that maybe, he’s gone a little mad. He tells the disciples that with faith, they’ll be able to do the same thing too, they’ll be able to shrivel trees tell mountains to throw themselves into the sea, . 

Jesus is making a huge, emotional, political, theological mess, and we’re only half way through the chapter.  Jesus is breaking down walls, literally and figuratively. Jesus is forcing the entire city of Jerusalem to see things in a new way.

And finally, now that we’ve finger painted the scene in messy swirls of blue and red and yellow until it turns a murky brown, now, we’re ready to engage with today’s lectionary passage. 

After stealing a donkey, after marching in to Jerusalem as if he were king, after inciting a riot and overturning the tables in the temple, after healing outsiders and listening to children, after withering a fig tree out of his own spite and hunger, after giving his disciples that same power, he returns to the Temple, begins to teach, and the chief priests and scribes, looking around at the unrest and broken windows and the graffiti on the walls, come up to him and ask him, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Anyone else need a break? A stiff drink? A pause to catch your breath? 

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

And I use that language on purpose, for a reason. I use that rated PG language to show that these guys aren’t messing around, they’re not kidding, they’re angry at all this disorder, and they’re threatening Jesus. Who gave you the right to make such a mess? Where do you get off? “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you such authority?” Who the hell do you think you are? 

They’re talking about boundaries. And Jesus has crossed them all. Jesus has destroyed all the us-and-them paradigms. Jesus has reversed what is considered sacred and what is profane. Who do you think you are, to feel so free to tear down these divisions, to cross out these lines, to eliminate the walls we’ve so carefully built to keep things neat, and orderly, to keep things making sense, to keep things under control. Who are you, to be making such a mess? Who do you think you are to be letting all this mess into our city, into our temple, into our reasonable, ordered lives? 

And Jesus answers them like any good teacher would. He answers the question with a question. He makes them a deal: “I’ll tell you, if you tell me.” It’s a traditional pedagogical move. It’s the socratic method. He’s giving them the chance to think, to examine the situation, not just give a knee-jerk reaction to what is going on around them. He is offering them an opportunity to change their minds, to cross a boundary, to erase a division. “Where did John’s authority come from? Heaven? Or Humans?” He asks. Either answer will cause them to shift their worldview. Either answer will force them to see things in a new way. Either answer will deconstruct the world that they have so very carefully constructed for themselves. So they choose neither way. They choose to stay stuck. 

So he gives them another chance, this time in the form of a story. 

Who does the father’s will? The kid who says he’ll do something and then doesn’t? Or the kid who refuses to do something, and then does it anyway? The kid who is trying to please their dad in the moment by appeasing him, or the kid who causes conflict at first but then eventually goes and does what he’s asked to do. Who does his father’s will? The kid who gives the right answer, but never acts, or the kid who tells the truth about how he feels, but then changes his mind? The kid who sticks to what he thinks and what he wants, or the kid who is changed? 

Now, neither of these kids are going to win the “Son of the year” award. Neither of these kids are perfect sons. All of us are either hypocrites or remorseful. Most of us are both. But none of us do exactly what God asks exactly when God asks it. 

But Jesus isn’t asking for that. Jesus isn’t looking for the one who can do all the right things all of the time. He’s asking for the one who, at the end of the day, does what God wants him to do. God is looking for the one who will tear down their own boundaries, their own notions of what they think and how they feel, who will tear down the walls that they have built up for themselves, and go and do what God has asked them to do. That’s what the first son does. He changes his mind. He turns around. He shifts his worldview. He is transformed. He’s different. He grows. He destroys a small part of the box he has constructed for himself, and he steps outside of it, beyond it, to do God’s will.

That’s what Jesus is doing with these questions. Jesus is giving the chief priests and the elders of the people a chance to change their minds, a chance to reexamine their worldview, a chance to break down the walls and structures and barriers that they have so carefully formed for themselves in order to keep themselves safe, in order to keep the world making “sense,” in order to have the authority to say who is in and who is out. 

But the real authority belongs to those who are willing to change, those who are willing to see things anew, those who are willing to say how they feel, in complete honesty, and then change their minds, and do something different. Jesus’ authority doesn’t come from drawing dividing lines and standing sentinel at the gate, determining who is in and who is out. Jesus’ authority comes from repentance and changed minds. Jesus’ authority comes from a broken and a striving people. Jesus’ authority comes from the cross. The cross - that place of humiliation and despair and brokenness. That place where all of that gets transformed into redemption and new life and resurrection and the breaking down of divisions between us and God, between us and each other. And that’s where our authority comes from too. Not in our ability to keep things neat and tidy, not in our understanding of complex ideas, not in our wall-building or our dividing or keeping things under control. Our authority comes from the life-changing, transforming, boundary breaking work of the cross. The tax collectors and the prostitutes and the blind and the lame and the children get this. They understand it. Because they’ve been on the other side of the wall, they’ve been excluded from the temple, they are the most helpless of the helpless. They’re the son who changes his mind. They see things anew. They’re transformed. 

Jesus comes to make a big ol’ mess of things. Not just in the world, but in our hearts, too. Jesus comes to cause turmoil and questions and conflict and confusion so that we can stop what we’re doing, and change our minds. We can recalibrate. We can adjust, amend, reconfigure.

I have a mini-panic attack every time I drive out to the church. Well, every time I get in my car to go anywhere, really. I pass by house after house, yard-signs covering every patch of grass, inching themselves right up to their neighbor’s property line. Now, to be honest, my anxiety comes mostly from my fear that who I want to win the presidential election will not win the presidential election. I have my own opinions that I think are the right opinions, no doubt. I’m scared about what is going to happen come November, scared for myself, sure, but also scared for those who live outside of the boundaries that those with so-called authority have built. I’m scared for our present day prostitutes and tax collectors and children and lame and weak and overlooked and all those who have been kicked out of this white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy that we’ve built for ourselves. But mostly, I’m scared because we have lost the ability to change our minds. We’ve lost the ability to cross over boundaries. We’ve put up sign after sign after sign in our yard, only to show whose side we’re on, only to build deeper trenches and higher walls, only to insist on who belongs and who doesn’t. We’ve hardened our hearts to each other and lost our ability to change our minds. We think we know better. And we are not moving. We think we have the authority because we are right.

But authority comes from transformation. Authority comes from changing our minds. The kingdom of God belongs to the tax collectors and the prostitutes, not because they think the right things or made the right choices, but because they saw the truth, and they changed their minds. They saw things differently. They answered “no,” at first, but then they changed course, they turned around, they went a different way from where they were originally headed. They rewrite their synapses. They rewire their brains. They fill in the trenches they’ve been stuck in and forge a new path. They make a mess. They start over. They tear down walls and upend tables and create a space for others to enter in. 

We’ve all set up boundaries for ourselves. We’ve all determined who is in and who is out, even when that means that we reject our own selves. But Jesus comes in and upends those tables, he scatters loose those coins, he tells us that this is not the way things have to be. Change your mind. Look beyond. Because of the signs and the rituals and the belief systems and the politics and the rules that we’ve set up for ourselves, there’s a whole world we’re missing, a whole kingdom of God that we’re losing out on. 

Come. Make a mess. Join the riot. Protest in the streets. Tear some stuff down. Break some rules. Change your mind. Pull the yard signs out of your yard so that you can see and hear and know the guy on the other side. Create a space for others to enter in. That’s the only way anyone ever changes their mind. Jesus comes to make a mess in our hearts and change our minds. The kingdom belongs to such as these. 

Thanks be to God.

Too Many Air Quotes: It's Not Fair. It's Love.

Matthew 20:1-16

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” 

I say that to my kids all the time. And just like I did when a former therapist first introduced the maxim to me, every time they hear it, they roll their eyes. They hate it when I say this. Probably because I say it all the time, probably because they don’t quite understand what it means, and mostly because they know it’s true and they just don’t like it. I usually pull out this proverb when the boys are fighting over something. It’s not fair, Levi says. Jonah got more screen time today. It’s not fair, Jonah says, you didn’t make Levi spend more time on his homework. It’s not fair, Levi cries. Jonah got to choose the movie two weeks in a row. It’s not fair, Jonah cries. Levi got ice cream and he didn’t have to finish his carrots. 

And on and on it goes. “It’s not fair!” 

I’m sure I said this as a kid though, too, because one my Dad’s famous adages that I remember is “Well, kid, life’s not fair in the city and surrounding suburbs.” I have no idea where he got this, or what it even means exactly, but he used to say it to us all the time.

But when my kids argue that “it’s not fair,” and my “comparison is the thief of joy” aphorism isn’t working, some days, we just give in to their argument and agree with them. “Yup,” we say, “It’s because we love the other brother more.” That usually stops them in their tracks. At least it did the first time we tried it. Wait, what? What do you mean you love Levi more? What do you mean you love Jonah more? It startles them because they know that it’s not true. They know that we’re being ridiculous. 

We love them both. Entirely. Completely. Fully. Of course we don’t love one more than we love the other, even if one of them happens to be grating us a little raw at the moment. We do our best to keep things “fair,” but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes, Jonah gets invited to more birthday parties than Levi. Sometimes, Levi happens to be with Dad when he decides to stop at Duncan Donuts for a treat. Sometimes Jonah gets to stay up later and he gets to try the paddle board out on the lake on his own and he gets to watch the scary movies, simply because he’s a few years older. Sometimes, Levi gets to choose what he wants for dinner, well, because, he’s more willing to try different foods. 

We are all born, it seems, with this inherent sense of “fairness.” We want things to be equal among us, or, if that can’t happen, then we want to be sure that we have more than the unlucky schmo next to us. And isn’t that definitely the case for us Americans? We live by this set of rules that we think can and should apply equally to everyone. Everyone has a fair chance. Everyone has an equal start. Everyone has had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and forge ahead and start from scratch. The United States functions under this ideal that if everybody gets up at sunrise and heads into the vineyard, everything will be equal, everything will be fair. It’s very idealistic, and the spirit of it is to be commended.

But woe to the American who sleeps in. Woe to the citizen who doesn’t immediately apply himself as soon as the sun comes up. Woe to the single mom who has to drop her kids off at day care and then take three busses before she can get to work. Woe to the man suffering from chronic, debilitating depression, who can’t get himself out of bed before noon. Woe to the immigrant who has fled her home, escaping violence, a child in her arms. Woe to the young kid who made a choice to try that hit just this once and now can’t live without it. We’re all given an equal chance, we say, and it’s our choices that keep us where we are. Our choices and our work ethic are the only things keeping us from the “American Dream.” Except, here’s the thing. NONE of us got where we are today because we were the first ones in the vineyard. None of us were the first ones to show up at sunrise. 

We do our work and we thrive and we grow and we live our lives because we benefited from the work of those who went to work before us. We stand on the backs of those who showed up for work way before we did. Folks who paved the roads and laid the pipes. Folks who tended to the land and planted the first crops. Folks who built our infrastructure. Folks who marched and fought for justice and equal rights for women and for minorities. Folks who invented the vaccines and discovered penicillin. Folks who lived on this land long before any of our ancestors even thought to set foot here. 

The truth is, we’ve all built our lives on the knowledge and work and manipulation and subjugation and the oppression of those who’ve come before us. Some of us more than others, but still, all of us have benefitted from the back breaking work of another. Tell me the story of how you got here and I’ll guarantee that you’ll tell me about a whole host of people, about a whole community, a whole civilization that got you where you are - for good or for ill. You’ll tell me about a whole bunch of people who got to the vineyard and started working way before you did. And if I talked to them, they’d tell me of a whole bunch of people and a whole community and a whole civilization that helped them get to where they were. 

Sure, our choices are important. But, by nature of our humanity, because we are connected to one another, we are also affected by the choices of those around us. What you do affects me. What I do affects you. No man is an island, as John Donne wrote much more eloquently than I. No one starts with a blank slate. No one. No one has really ever pulled themselves up by their bootstraps because it simply can’t be done. None of us can do a thing without all those people who showed up to work at the vineyard before us. 

And back and back and back and back. 

All the way back to the beginning of time, when a speck of dust needed a jolt of energy to make a star, when gravity brought planets to that star, when cells connected with other cells and became microbes which became organisms, which relied on other cells and other microbes and other organisms in order to survive. There has always been a thing before us. Always. Until we get to “God.” The owner of the vineyard. And even then, God chose to need us, God chose to become part of this needy, vulnerable, dependent life that relies on another for its very existence. Every person is part of our story. All of creation is part of our story. We can’t have it otherwise. None of us showed up to work at the vineyard right as the sun came up. We have all come to the vineyard a little bit late. Some of us later than others, but still, all of us, late. None of it is “fair,” especially for us Americans who took over a land and subjugated its people and stole others into slavery and swindled and bribed and fought wars and exploited the land in order for us to get to where we are. None of us “deserve” what we have. We’ve all benefitted from the backbreaking work and the sacrifices and the oppression of the ones who came before us. Some of us, more than others. 

I say all this, not to make us feel guilty, but to recalibrate where we find ourselves in this vineyard parable. We all assume that we’re the first ones to show up in the morning. We all relate to the ones with the so-called work ethic. That way, we can throw judgment on those who come after us. 

That way we can claim to be victims when folks who didn’t work as hard get paid the same as we do. 

It all goes back to us trying to explain to our kids why life isn’t fair. Life isn’t “fair” because life is a gift. Life isn’t fair because God loves us all as God’s children, not as God’s employees. It’s a terrible business model. This cannot be found in “The Art of the Deal.” God is a terrible entrepreneur. It’s sure to bankrupt God. But giving and giving and giving, no matter when we show up for work, no matter how much work we do, is God’s nature. 

And when we shout out to God that “it’s not fair! Billy got more than me!" It’s just as ridiculous for God to tell us, “Well, it’s because I love Billy more.” Of course God doesn’t love Billy, or anyone else, more than God loves us. And that also means that God doesn’t love them any less, either. In the parable, everybody gets their daily wage, a denarius, enough for one’s “daily bread,” just enough to survive on. God gives us enough. There’s enough to go around. Enough for the day. Enough to survive, whether we showed up at dawn or twiddled our thumbs waiting around in the marketplace all day. Like manna from heaven, God intends for all of us to have enough, whether we “deserve” it, whether we “worked” for it, whether we “earn” it, or not. 

Like manna from heaven, we’re all meant to have enough, enough for right now, enough for the day. And if we take more than we need for the day, it molds, it rots, it gets stale. We are meant to have no more and no less than what we need for this day, whether we “deserve” it or not. 

See, God functions under a totally different economy. It’s not an economic exchange of goods and services. It’s not a system of competitive markets and stocks and bonds and ownership of that which was never ours to begin with. It’s a free gift. In God’s economy, our very humanity is what “earns” us a place at God’s table, with enough for the day, enough to survive. That’s it. That’s all that’s required. It’s certainly not “fair.” And it’s kind of offensive. It goes against our American work ethic sensibilities. I’m sorry if this offends, but the God revealed to us through Jesus Christ is not a capitalist. 

No. It’s not fair. It’s love. 

And God calls us to this same kind of crazy, impractical, radical love. God doesn’t want us to simply be fair to each other, although that would be a very good start. God wants us to love each other. That’s why Jesus says the “kingdom” of God is like a landowner who pays everybody the same, whether they earned it or not. The term “kingdom” is inherently political. It’s about systems. It’s about community. It’s about how we treat one another. How we live with one another. How we care for one another. And ultimately, how God rules us all. 

That’s why the landowner keeps coming to the marketplace, again and again. The landowner just longs for people to join in on the work. He doesn’t so much care about when. He doesn’t so much care about how much. He just wants them to come, to show up. To be there. To join him. God comes back to the the marketplace to gather up more workers because God is relentless, God is stubborn, God is a fool for love. God brings more of us to God’s self because God loves us. Because God delights in us. Because we were made to work in God’s vineyard. 

And It’s our greatest joy, it’s us being who God created us to be, to work in God’s vineyard. The longer we can work for God, the more fulfilled we are. We may still only get a day’s wages, but suddenly we start to function under and entirely different currency. We will have the experience of working toward the fruits of God’s kingdom, and we will see the radical changes that come about in people’s lives when they get enough to survive the day. We might find that, once we’re fed, once our needs are met, we are all more than willing to do the work, to show up, to gather up God’s fruits for the good of the kingdom.

So let’s stop comparing. It steals our joy. It takes our focus off of the work of God that we are privileged to do. 

Let’s work so that everyone, whether they “deserve” it or not, gets fed, gets what they need. Because when they do, they too can focus on the work of God that they are called to do.

Life is not fair in the city and surrounding suburbs. But it is love.

Thanks be to God.

Prone to Wander, Lord I Feel It

Matthew 18:12-20

Remember that time when you got lost at the mall or in the grocery store? Remember that sudden panic you felt when suddenly, mom is gone? Remember the terror? The fear? As kids, we used to love to hide in those circular clothing racks at the department store. We’d tuck in there, arrange the chiffon blouses just so, and giggle at the fact that we had disappeared. My mom would get so mad. Or, having to deal with yet another one of our temper tantrums, she’d “left” us at the end of the cereal aisle, kicking and screaming because we wanted the box of Lucky Charms. 

But when the time came to peek out of those neatly hanging clothes, or we suddenly turned off our tantrum to realize that our audience is gone, we’d experience this terrifying feeling that we were alone in a world full of strangers. We were on our own. Mom was gone. 

Maybe you stopped, paralyzed, dead in your tracks. Maybe you wandered around, calling out “Mom? Mom?” Maybe you tugged on the hem of a familiar looking skirt only to look up in horror into the face of someone who was decidedly, NOT mom. Maybe you cried until the store manager came over and he took you to the front of the store and reported your presence through the loudspeaker. 

That feeling of being lost, that feeling of being utterly alone, that hopeless chasm of nothingness that we felt as small children, is still there, still tucked somewhere under our rib cage. We can still access it. We still feel it. In fact, I bet we feel it more now than we did when we were little. Because we’ve screwed up a lot more. And a lot more is at stake. Any time we’re separated from the ones we love, anytime we’re distanced from our community, any time we’ve made a mistake or pissed someone off or “sinned against” another, we come to realize that we’re a little bit lost, a little bit alone, roaming around in unfamiliar territory. We’re in trouble. We’ve made a wrong turn. We’ve wandered off from the fold. It’s fear that we feel. And fear can get us to do things that’ll just make things worse.

Every summer, my family would pack up the strollers and the snacks and the baby wipes and the sippy cups and we’d go to the Indiana State Fair. It was this strange, fascinating place in the heart of the city where we’d get to see real farmers and real cows and giant pigs and tiny piglets and eat greasy food and watch the ferris wheel spin around in the sunset. It was crowded full of people and tractors and livestock and food trucks and carnival rides. There were noises and smells and flashing lights. So much to look at. So much to grab our attention. So much to stop us in our tracks, staring a little too long at the old fashioned kettle corn machine or the ducklings as they climbed up and then slid down their slide over and over again. 

And every year, we got the same lecture. If we were separated, we were strictly ordered by Mom and Dad to stay put. Don’t move. Don’t go looking for them. If we saw a police officer, we could ask for their help, but otherwise, we were to wait for them to find us. It was all very practical. Don’t go wandering around looking for them because then we’d just end up even more lost than we were before. In our trying to rectify the situation, we’d just end up making it worse. We might find more danger. We might encounter some folks intent on doing us harm. If we just stayed put, Mom and Dad would search high and low for us, in every nook and cranny, and eventually, they’d find us. But if we kept wandering around, odds are, we’d be constantly missing each other.

It was the same when we were teenagers. If we found ourselves in some sort of trouble - if we’d gotten drunk or pulled over or the police crashed the party - my parents told us just to call them, that no matter what we’d done wrong, they’d come and find us. They feared that if we tried to solve the problem by ourselves, if we tried to hide that we’d done wrong, we’d just end up making things worse.

That’s why I love this passage today. It’s so very practical. Even if it’s not very easy. It gives us instructions for what is inevitable in any long term relationship. We’re going to wander away. We’re going to mess up. We’re going to hurt each other. We’re going to break our promises and we’re going to build up walls of resentment that will erode our relationships. That’s the nature of family. We’re going to spend ten years loading the dishwasher wrong, until finally one night, your wife just loses it on you. Or we’re going to watch our partner, for ten years, load the dishwashing wrong, and we’re going to lose it on them. We’re going to “borrow" and then break one another’s toys. We’re going to refuse to share, and we’re going to lie. We will call each other names. We will chase each other around the house and punch each other in the arm and tear up the drawings just to be spiteful. 

We will say things we don’t mean. And we’ll say things that we do mean. We will lose our tempers and yell and throw things and go to bed letting the sun go down on our anger. We’ll be disloyal. We’ll choose someone else. We will lie and cheat and steal and betray and abandon and forget. We will neglect. We will assume. We will take each other for granted. We will. I used to spend so much time and energy trying NOT to do these things, only to encounter the inevitable: sometimes, even with our best intentions, we’re going to hurt each other. We’re going to let each other down. Whether it’s by doing or not doing, there’s going to be a rupture in the relationship. 

So what do we do when there’s a rupture in the relationship? What do we do when we’ve been hurt by those we love, by those who are supposed to be in our family, our church, our community? 

To be clear, this passage isn’t about the evils outside of our communities that do us harm. This passage is not about the strangers in the dark alleys or the unbridled hatred of a terrorist organization. This passage is about what we should do when someone we know, someone we love, hurts us. What do we do when we’re separated, distanced by the pain done to each other,  when we can’t seem to find each other? What do we do when someone we love is lost?

So often, this text is used to tells us what to do if we disagree with someone. What to do if someone’s lifestyle choices are different from our own. It’s been used to justify our rejection of one another, to justify us saying who is in and who is out. If you don’t vote this way or have these kinds of relationships or support this political agenda, then you’re out, you don’t belong. If you make this or that choice, or you don’t follow our rules, or think this or that about infant baptism and transubstantiation and the ordination of women, then that’s it, you’re wrong, you’re out, excommunicated, lost, separated from the flock. And you deserve to be. After all, we tried, right? We tried to tell you to straighten up. We brought some buddies with us to convince you to stop whatever it was you were doing. And then finally we set the whole church on you, in order to bully you into doing or acting or being something different from who we are. We take a lasso and we swing it over our heads and we grab you by the horns and drag you in. We get you to toe the line. We get things back under control. We get people to behave. You can belong, we say, as long as you behave. But that’s not what this passage is about at all.

And that’s why I’ve added a few more verses to our lectionary passage today. Because context is everything. Because this passage isn’t about behavior; it’s about belonging. It’s not about dragging the one who has hurt you back into the same situation, the same place where the hurt was experienced. It’s about changing the situation and the place altogether. 

It’s not about getting them to come back to you. It’s about going out to them. 

I’d wager my salary that, nine times out of ten, we don’t really mean to hurt each other; we just find that we’ve gotten a little bit lost.

So, Jesus says, “go out there.” Go find them. And then you tell them they’ve hurt you. And if that doesn’t work, you bring some friends along so that they can hear your story, too. And if that still doesn’t work, then you grab your church to come with you, and you tell your story to the whole community. You tell them that you’ve been hurt, you tell them about the pain, you tell them what has happened that has caused you so much grief. You tell your story. You are heard. 

But the point is that you go out to the one who’s done the damage. You go out into the wilderness, out into the uncertainty, you take some risks and you try to find the one who has hurt you.

And that is so hard. Because you’ve got to go out and actively find the one who hurt you. You’ve got to take the risk of telling them that they hurt you. You have to be vulnerable. You have to admit that they had enough power over you to do some harm. You have to show them your wounds and the scars, you have to tell them that they caused them; somehow, you have to try to get them to understand your pain, and that’s no easy thing.

And we’d much rather just lash out. We’d much rather make them pay. We’d much rather punish and do to them what they have done to us. 

Or we’d rather sever the relationship. Give it up. Let it go. Ignore the hurt and the pain and just move on. 

That’s what we do when we’re scared. Fight or flight. Get them a taste of their own medicine, or run away.

But Jesus tells us that neither option is the right option. Between letting people abuse you and you abusing others, there is another option. There is a third way. Between getting revenge on the one hand, and ignoring your own pain on the other, there’s something else you can do. You can go out there, go out into the wilderness, go find the person who is lost, go get them, and then tell them the story of your pain. And if you do that, and they still don’t hear you, then you bring some friends along who can hear your pain. And if that doesn’t work, then you bring your whole community out there, and you tell the story again. You send out a search party. You find the one who’s lost. You tell them the story of the scars they’ve made.

And if that still doesn’t work, if you still can’t find them, or if they still can’t hear you, if they keep running away, then, Jesus says, treat them like a Gentile or a tax collector. But, fair warning, be reminded how Jesus treated the Gentiles and the tax collectors. Be reminded how Jesus taught us to treat the Gentiles and the tax collectors. No one is ever really lost for good, no matter how far away they seem. No one is ever truly a lost cause, no matter how much damage they’ve done. Sure, you’ll need to protect yourself. You might need to stay away for awhile. You might need time to heal. But if there was love there once, there can be love again. We all wander away from each other. And we can all find our way back home. But we’re gonna need some help.

And sometimes, sometimes you won’t be able to do this with your own power. Sometimes you’re not going to be able to risk yourself and tell your story and tell the one who hurt you just how much you’ve been hurt. Sometimes the chasm is too wide. Sometimes you just can’t get there from here. Just remember that Christ is there, reconciling us, reconciling us to himself, and to each other. Christ is present, making up the difference. Christ is the one who can forgive even when we can’t. Christ is the Good Shepherd who goes out to find all of his lost sheep. The power to reconnect us, to bring us back into community, comes from Christ. And where two or three are gathered, there he is. Christ is there. Even when we can’t be. Christ is the Good Shepherd, always pursuing, always tracking, always searching, looking for us, finding us.

When you’ve hurt someone, stop what you’re doing. Stay. Stop running around. Stop making things worse. Just wait. And be ready to receive. And then be open to change. Be open to hearing the story of how you’ve hurt someone. Be open to being found.

When you’ve been hurt by someone, go and tell them. Tell them the story of your pain and where it came from. Be vulnerable. Take the risk. If they hear you, maybe they’ll come back home with you. Maybe they’ll want to belong again. And maybe they won’t. Either way, you’ve voiced your story, you’ve named your hurt, and you’ve left a trail for them to follow back home.

And if you can’t do that, then it’s ok. That’s what Christ is for. Christ is the ultimate Story of pain and betrayal and reconciliation. Christ brings us all home, eventually. 

The Christian faith has never been about staying the same. Staying stuck. Staying where we are. Being frozen in fear. The Christian faith is about going out there, out into the wilderness. Going out to find the one who has hurt you, reaching out, and trying again. It’s about growth and change and disruption. It’s about rupture and repair. It’s about sin and reconciliation. It’s about death and rebirth. It’s about taking the risk to go where we’ve never been so that we can be changed, we can be molded, we can try again. It’s about belonging, even when we’ve hurt each other, even when we’ve wandered away, even when we’ve lost the ones we love. It’s about being found, and all the mending that can happen when we are, when we find each other.

If I strayed, if I wandered, if I disobeyed, my parents told me to stay put. They told me to stop getting myself more lost. They told me that they would come and find me. And then they did. And after they shook me by the shoulders and told me how very terrified they were, after I saw the tears in their eyes and heard the fear in their voices, after they said they looked everywhere for me and they almost lost hope and they were about to give up and about how their hearts were broken, and how could I do such a thing, I’d hear them, I’d say I’m sorry, and maybe I’d tell them my side of the story, and how hurt and scared I was, and then I’d say I’m so sorry again, and they’d say they’re sorry too, and then they’d wrap me up in their arms and bring me home again.

I’d be found. And they’d be found. 

Thanks be to God.

Rocks and Blocks, or, Jenn is a Labrador Retriever

Go to here first! Matthew 16:21-28

 Well, we’re here. We’ve come to it, finally. The point where Peter really…makes a really big mistake…to put it delicately. It’s that point in our story that we know is coming, but we still cringe when it happens. He was doing so well there for a second. He’d gotten it right. He’d raced to the head of the class. He’d earned the gold star, the pat on the back, the A+, he’s brought the apple for the teacher. But now, he’s failed the class. He’s gets the dunce hat. He’s sent to the corner. He’s scolded, rebuked, and sent to the end of the line. “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus responds. And it’s as if I can feel Peter cowering before him, like a dog before a rolled up newspaper. 

I mean, how does Peter survive such a rebuke? 

I mean, the absolute worst thing that could be said to me, the most horrific experience I could ever have is for someone that I loved, someone I looked up to, someone I adored, to tell me, “I am so disappointed in you.” And Peter gets this? He’s called Satan?

I remember, once, in first grade, my teacher, Sister Bernadine, caught me talking to a neighbor during the afternoon announcements. She silently walked over to the chalkboard and wrote my name underneath Christopher and Jason, the class troublemakers, in her formal cursive script. She didn’t say a word. Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to keep it together, I really did. But rarely, once I get started, am I able to get myself back under control. Someone removes a tiny pebble from the dam holding it all together, and that’s all it takes to tear down the entire structure, water gushing in every direction with all of its pent up force. I was in trouble. Sister Bernadine was disappointed in me. I’d made a poor choice. My perfect record was now marred. I was just like all the other trouble makers, all the other mistake makers. 

I’m a Labrador retriever. I’m loyal. I’m trustworthy. I want to please. I’ll do practically anything for a treat or a compliment. All I really want to do is curl up with my favorite person on the couch and get scratched behind the ears and be told that I’m a “good girl.” And if I’ve done something wrong, I rush to fix it. I’ll make it right. Whatever it takes. I’ll bring you a meal. I’ll do your laundry. I’ll apologize profusely and paw at your leg to make sure that you’ve accepted my apology. I’ll sit at your feet, big puppy dog eyes looking up, just waiting for the moment when you look down at me and ask, “who’s a good girl?” And then you grab the fetching stick and take me out to the backyard. 

I’ve lived most of my life like that. Terrified to make a mistake. Terrified to disappoint. Terrified to make a poor choice or say the wrong thing or hurt someone’s feelings. I became a “people pleaser.” I’d sit back, watch intently, feel all of the emotions in the room, and then choose to do whatever somebody else needed. 

I’d focus all of my energy into anticipating people’s needs, meeting them before they even knew they had them, soothing any uncomfortable feelings before they were even felt. Always sensitive to the slightest look of disapproval, I thought that if I could just avoid doing anything wrong, avoid making a mistake or choosing the wrong thing or being the first in line at the buffet, I’d avoid all uncomfortable confrontations. If I could avoid saying the wrong things, if I kept my head down and never dared to take a risk,  I’d be ok. I’d be accepted and loved. I’d avoid rejection and all the hard stuff that comes with it. 

I was desperate to get it right. To get it all right. Parenting and politics and social justice and money management and relationships and climate activism. Every moment, every choice, was balanced on the edge of a knife. One wrong move, one wrong step, and the whole thing would come crashing down. My life was a series of building blocks, one set precariously on top of the other, and I’d hardly breathe for fear that one wrong move would send the whole thing tumbling down. I wanted to do right. I wanted to be moral. I wanted to please and I wanted to be chosen. And most of all, I wanted to be included. So I filled my life with nevers and always and shoulds. I tiptoed across life. I walked on eggshells of my own making. Because, oh gosh, what would happen if I screwed up? What would I do if I made a mistake? Nothing would ever be right. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Sometimes, when Dan and I go for a walk together, I won’t watch where I’m going. I won’t pick up my feet high enough, and I’ll get caught on the seems of the sidewalk, or I’ll trip over the tiniest pebble in my path. “Trip spots” I’d call them. And then I’d laugh at myself for my own clumsiness, my unique ability to let even the smallest things catch me up, scuff up my shoes, have me reaching out, hands first, to catch my fall. 

Those same blocks, those same bricks, those same cornerstones are also the same things that trip us up, have us going tail over teakettle, scraping our knees, scuffing our elbows, kissing the pavement. All the good intentions, all of my desire to avoid hurting feelings, to serve others, to please God, to avoid mistakes, became a stumbling block for me. Just like Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus will build his church becomes the rock that trips Jesus up. These “trip spots” come out of nowhere, when we least expect them, even when we think we are so sure footed, so confident that we know where we’re going and what to expect. 

But some things are unforgivable. Or they feel that way. Like there’s no coming back from what we’ve just done. Even when they come from our best intentions. Or what we think are our best intentions, but usually come from some form of wrong thinking. The depression hits hard, and we think everyone would be better off without us. Or we go the extra mile and end up spraining our ankles. Or we say yes to someone else’s need and find ourselves sinking in our own quicksand. Or we avoid the uncomfortable conversation and it builds up until we’re shouting and saying things that we don’t mean. Sometimes we do things that can’t be repaired with a hopeful wagging of our tails. 

Sometimes we do things that can’t be fixed with a time out or a wooden spoon to the rear.  Sometimes, like Peter, we say or do things in the name of avoiding suffering, only to cause more suffering. 

If Jesus had said to me what he’d said to Peter, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d skulk back into the shadows, my tail between my legs, tears streaming down my face. If I’d reached too close to the stove, and my mom swatted my hand back in fear of me getting hurt, I’d be so ashamed at my actions that I couldn’t hear or feel the love behind her terror. I’d be scolded in the name of my protection, but I wouldn’t hear the protection, only the absolute, total and complete condemnation of my very self. I didn’t just do something wrong. I was wrong. 

But no. Not Peter. Somehow he preserves himself, he hears the love behind Jesus’ reprimand, he goes off, licks his wounds and then comes back for another round. 

How does Peter keep going? How does he keep showing up? How does he keep trying over, again and again and again? Even after he’s royally screwed up? I mean, what keeps him from cowering into the corner, from packing his bags and going back home to his fishing and his net mending and his quiet life by the sea? How does he hold on to himself, hold on to Jesus’s love for him, even while he’s being scolded, even while his hand is swatted back because he got too close to the fire? 

Well. I think, he’s stubborn for one thing. 

And he knows his stories. He knows that all of the major characters in the Hebrew Scriptures, from Abraham, to Jacob, from Moses and David, are all screw ups in their own right. And yet. And still. God uses them, God’s stubborn love sticks with them through all of the cycles of failure, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Peter has heard the stories. He’s learned from their mistakes. And he’s paid attention as God comes back, again and again, to adjust, to reform, to revive and set these guys on the right path again.

And Peter’s malleable. He’s changeable. 

He’s open to being molded and formed, and like a pile of clay that hasn’t been centered just right, he’s open to being smooshed down again, thrown back on the wheel, ready to be spun and formed and soaked and smoothed back up again. 

And somehow, he is absolutely sure of Jesus’s love for him, so much so, that he has the audacity to keep coming back, to keep trying again, to keep showing up, as he is.  

Jesus scolds Peter, using the harshest of terms. And somehow, Peter hangs in there. Somehow he hears the love behind the rebuke. Somehow he shows up again, ready to hike up the mountain, ready to build three temples at the top in honor of Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Ready to see Jesus shining like the sun and ready to fall flat on his face when he hears the voice of God. Ready to follow Jesus to the cross, where he’ll screw up yet again and deny him three times. Ready to jump out of his boat half naked at the sight of him, swimming to shore, ready to share a meal and confess his love for him. Ready to bear his own cross. Ready to give up his life for the sake of his church, for the sake of his Jesus.

Somehow a repair is made. A brokenness that has shattered the relationship is sealed together again. Peter is cut to the quick, cut to the core, and he still finds a way to get back up again. 

The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t tell us how, but somehow, in the space between the rebuke and the reality of Jesus’ suffering and death, Peter holds on. He doesn’t let the rebuke disqualify what is at his very heart - that Jesus loves him, will always love him, no matter how many times things fall apart and are sewn back together again. What would happen if we were to do that for each other? 

What if when things break apart, we stuck with it long enough for the repair to be made, long enough for us to keep practicing rupture and repair, long enough for us to keep screwing up and hurting each other, but then coming back together, mending the seams, welding the joints, gluing us back together again? 

The thing that tears us from each other can be the thing that brings us back together. The thing that breaks our heart can be the thing that binds it back together again. The pain, or the mistake, or the brokenness is where the light shines through. The stumbling block can become the rock upon which everything else is built.

That’s what happens to Peter. That’s what happens on the cross.

Once in my relatively conservative Christian college, I was taking a World Religions class. The professor was small in stature, but his presence took up the whole room when he taught. He’d challenge us and convict us and try to teach us an entirely new way of looking at things. I was terrified of him. But there was something about him, a lightness, an enthusiasm, a joy, that came from somewhere other than the praise and worship bands and the chapel talks and the other chaplains and professors who were there to give us all the right answers. He tugged us out of our evangelistic stupors and got us to ask the hard questions. I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to like me. Well, one day, he returned an exam to me with barely a flick of the wrist, without a hint of eye contact. 

And written at the top of the exam, in his scrawling, messy, red ink, were the words, “I am afraid that you are hopelessly lost in my class.” 

The tears welled up in my eyes. I ran back to my dorm room full of rage and self righteous anger. I vented to my roommate and excoriated this professor for his faulty pedagogy and his heretical attitude and his haughty, judgmental pride. Then after I wore myself out with lashing out at him, I proceeded to beat myself up. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough for his class. Maybe I was a failure. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was hopelessly lost. I was all wrong. I was broken. 

I don’t know what it was. But something, something made me get up the next morning, pull on my torn jeans, tuck my hair behind my ears, and walk over to the professor’s office hours. His door was open, his back to me. He was hunched over a book, and his office was cluttered and full of Krishnas and Buddhas, brass Shivas and tiny clay cups. I knocked lightly on his door. “Hello?” I said tentatively, my heart somewhere up near my throat. He turned around. He looked a little surprised. “I don’t want to be hopelessly lost,” I said. “I care about this course and I want to do better. Tell, me, how can I do better?” He smiled. “Pull up a seat” he said. 

Later, I’d call him “guru.” I’d call him “Chacha,” which means Uncle. He’d bring home the ring from India that Dan would give me that summer. He’d take me to India and show me how things are made sacred just by the touching. I’d ask more dumb questions. I’d get off track. I’d make assumptions and come to my own conclusions and he’d show me the folly of my ways. We’d drink beer and I’d visit his house, and he’d tell me stories and he’d say how glad he was that I came back, that I came to his office, that I tried again.

Thanks be to God.