from your WebWeaver, Doug King
[3-15-07]

Psalm 5:1-12

To the leader: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.
Give ear to my words, O Lord;
give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you.
The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful.

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
will enter your house,
I will bow down towards your holy temple
in awe of you.
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouths;
their hearts are destruction;
their throats are open graves;
they flatter with their tongues.
Make them bear their guilt, O God;
let them fall by their own counsels;
because of their many transgressions cast them out,
for they have rebelled against you.

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
so that those who love your name may exult in you.
For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover them with favour as with a shield.

Jeremiah 18:1-11

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

2 Corinthians 4:6-12

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

Lisa Larges
February 25, 2007, North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Decatur, GA
 

A while back someone gave me a copy of a sermon preached by their pastor in their New England Unitarian Congregation¹. The pastor had taken as her subject the title of a country song – an avenue of exploration that opens up whole new vistas for sermon fodder. Imagine the possibilities – "I don’t Care if it Rains or Freezes, All I need is My Plastic Jesus sitting on the Dashboard of my Car," or, "I’ve Been Roped and Thrown by Jesus in the Holy Ghost Chorale."² In this instance the song was Polecat Creek’s (you remember Polecat Creek) "You’d Rather be Right than be In Love."

Immediately it struck me as a succinct diagnosis for what’s ailing the church. Maybe it could serve as an epitaph for the Presbyterian Denomination – we may need one soon enough – "Here lies the church that would rather be right."

A few weeks back I was talking with a pastor of a little Texas church in the middle of tearing itself apart. I don’t know what the fight was – maybe the time of the service, maybe her preaching on "social issues," maybe the color of the curtains in the parlor, or maybe, God help her, contemporary worship music. She had a refreshingly easy, philosophical attitude about it all. "People are people everywhere," she said, "in church people are people with a vengeance."

I’ve done my time in the church that would rather be right. Sad to say, I’ve even done my share of feeding the fire. But I just don’t have the strength for it any more. There is no life there – no creativity, or joy, or energy, or enthusiasm, or delight, or fun, or pleasure of any sort other than the cold clammy pleasure of being right. It’s a soul-sucking business.

I’d rather the church that would rather be in love. I’d rather the church that doesn’t spend a lot of time or energy making sure all of its doctrinal ducks are exactly in a row; a church that may not always use the correct theological fork; a church that turns in its homework with several misspellings, some gaps in its reasoning, and a few of the questions left blank. But a church where the people are thriving. A church where the children, even the goofy, gawky teenaged ones, even the ones struggling with their own sexual orientation or gender identity feel safe and cherished. A church where each person is not only welcomed, but valued. A church where, more often than not, you go out the door carrying a renewed certainty that you are a beloved child of God.

A church that spends its time and energy trying to get the "love one another" part right, hoping that if they do that even a little bit well, then the rest of it, the doctrine of the trinity, free will, transubstantiation, and even the color of the curtains in the parlor, will come out alright. A church that knows the demands love makes on a community. A church that understands that love is messy and complicated, grounded in action, forgiveness and grace. A church that has, "Judge not Lest Ye be Judged – It’s That Simple" carved above its open doors.

I’d rather the church that would rather be in love. And it breaks my heart that the Bible has been claimed by the church that would rather be right. The Bible (RTM) of the church that would rather be right is the source file for just which of your neighbors is going to hell, and the name of the road they are taking there. It’s the playbook for Armageddon, giving your saved soul a secret gleeful knowledge of the end times and your place in glory. In the church that would rather be right, the Bible is a weapon – "the sword of the Lord."

So it is that even the devil can play in the Bible wars. This exchange over the interpretation of Scripture between Jesus and the devil wasn’t the first round in the Bible fights – Rabbis had by this time made an art form of arguing over the Torah – but it was a good skirmish nonetheless.

Following his baptism in the River Jordan we read in Luke that Jesus, "full of the Holy Spirit was led in the wilderness by the Spirit for forty days and was tempted by a ... televangelist." The three temptations the devil sets before Jesus are diverse in scope; the devil is probing for a weakness, but in each case they are a temptation against vulnerability. (Maybe that is the heart of temptation itself.) You needn’t be vulnerable to physical need – "turn these stones to bread"; to powerlessness – "I will give you authority over all the earth"; or to suffering, even suffering unto death – "throw yourself down from here and angels will catch you."

Though he is hungry, tired and alone, even so, Jesus is not afraid of his own vulnerability. A good Rabbi, Jesus is at ease in himself and at home in the Scriptures. "It is written, we do not live by bread alone." "It is written, you shall worship the Holy One your God, and God only shall you serve." "It is written, you shall not tempt the Holy One your God."

By the third round, the devil is ready to fight Scripture with Scripture. "Throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘God will give angels charge over you to guard you. On their hands they will bear you up lest you so much as dash your foot against a stone.’"

The devil is right of course. I mean, the devil is not misquoting Scripture. The Psalmist does indeed literally say that angels will bear you up. If God had meant it as a metaphor, God would have written, or caused David to write, "The following is a metaphor." Or there would have been a footnote, "The Holy of Holies shall not in any way be found liable for any injury, physical or emotional, sustained due to an incitement to action caused by reading these verses." Jesus, being a good Rabbi, wasn’t a literalist.

Which is to say that the Bible is complicated. I mean, if you like … read it! As a guidebook for living it is a bit difficult to follow. As a rulebook it is not always altogether clear, sometimes contradictory, and at the least, full of a lot of extraneous detail. Some of that detail is downright disturbing. The Bible doesn’t go lightly on the violence – some of it gruesome, horrific violence, the kind of stuff you don’t want your children reading, the kind of stuff that can really mess you up.

And, if we can chat openly for a minute, aside from the violent bits, there are long stretches in Scripture that are just plain hard to plow through. Maybe sometime in your life, you, like me, have set out to follow one of those plans that takes you through the Bible in a year by reading each day a certain number of chapters from each Testament. Maybe you too, even by the Book of Numbers, which isn’t very far in at all, found it to be pretty hard sledding through page after page of excruciating detail giving the exact measurement of every doodad or whatsit.

For some of us the Bible is the source of the kind of trauma that leaves lasting scars. Too many same-gender loving people can quote you, word for word, the six verses in Scripture that have been used to define us as sinful or outside the bounds of God’s good creation. Too many of us who are transgender, bisexual, gay or lesbian have given over far too much of our lives in shame and self-hatred trying to fix something that needed no fixing – trying to squeeze into a mold that we were never meant to fit, all because we’d been told that that was what the Scriptures demanded. Others of us, out of a healthier sense of self-preservation, have simply rejected the Bible and the church that proclaims it.

For Jesus, the Scriptures were none of these things. Not a rulebook, not a weapon, not a goad for his own shame, not a strange and ancient collection of stories and curiosities. Instead, it was life to him. There in the wilderness, hungry, tired and alone, lured by the seductive suggestion that he should seek refuge in a false security, the Scriptures kept him centered in the truth of himself. The devil worked to insinuate fear, but, relying on the Scriptures, Jesus remained open. The devil offered him an invulnerability to hunger, powerlessness, suffering and loss; the Scriptures gave him only the certainty of grace.

Maybe it is that the Scriptures can be a means of grace for the church that would rather be in love. Maybe its time we took back the Bible. Maybe it will help us find our way together. Maybe we can find there the same source of confidence of the assurance of God’s grace that will hold us true to the center of ourselves, and open to one another and the leading of the Spirit.

The Bible is complicated. Through story, poetry, law, prophesy and epistle it’s the narrative of the human hunger for relationship with the Holy. Through story, poetry, law, prophesy and epistle it’s the narrative of the divine hunger for relationship with humankind and with all creation.

It’s time to take back the Bible. It is simply abhorrent that the Bible should be used to terrorize same-gender loving and transgender people. It’s time to take back the Bible and speak a strong, clear word of liberation, welcome and grace.

In our advocacy work for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks in the church, one of the pieces of wisdom we’ve received is: "In the south, you have to talk about the Bible." So, let’s talk about the Bible. There are many sincere, gentle people, (Southerners and non-Southerners alike) for whom reexamining their traditional understanding of Scripture represents a significant threat. There are others of us still nursing our Bible burns that are reluctant to engage the Scripture in any meaningful way. Maybe, gathered in the church that would rather be in love, we can come together across all of our differences and discover together what God has for us in Scripture, which can be for us a wellspring of joy, and a Word of life.

– Lisa Larges, February 25, 2007, North Decatur Presbyterian Church.

On Sunday, March 25, Martha Juillerat preached a sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Reflecting on the death of a dear friend - a member of a "family" composed of six friends, three of whom were estranged from their birth families because of their sexual orientation - she led the congregation of St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Wayzata, Minnesota, into a profound encounter with the dark side of the season of Lent, and the hard - beautiful - realities of living and dying.

We've published an earlier sermon by Juillerat on --  well -- T-shirts?

[4-7-01]

Psalm 23 
A non-sermon with no title

Martha Juillerat - 3/25/01

The phone rings. It is Freddy - Sylvia is in intensive care. She got the flu or something over Christmas and she just kept getting worse. They thought it was pneumonia, but now they're not sure. She hasn't responded to anything. They've ruled out all the biggies: AIDS, tuberculosis. They're testing for lupus - her sister has lupus - but lupus doesn't usually set in this way. It's acting more likely a viral infection. As Freddy relates all this, it becomes obvious that she has spent a fair amount of time on the Internet trying to fill in the gaps in explanations left by busy doctors. Freddy says they expect that Sylvia will be out of intensive care in a couple of days, as soon as they get her stabilized, but she's very sick right now.

Although an exact diagnosis may not have been nailed down yet, it is clear why Sylvia is so sick. Sylvia is an artist, a painter who has worked a string of day jobs to support her artistic habit. Like many artists, she is often without health insurance, and this was the case in December when she first got sick. She waited too long to go to a doctor, and then the doctor sent her home because she didn't have the money to go to the hospital.

She waited until she could no longer stand up on her own before relenting and calling an ambulance. How do these things happen in the richest country on the face of the earth? Sylvia's partner, Allyson, has perfectly good health insurance through work, but Sylvia isn't considered "family," so she can't get on Allyson's plan. All these little things straight folks take for granted.

I call Tammy at work. Social worker that she is, she asks the practical questions: Sylvia and Allyson live in the "Land of John Ashcroft"; have they gotten any of the legal work done that would protect their right to make their own decisions? As soon as Tammy gets home that evening we call Allyson. We give her the name of a good lawyer, someone who has been known to go to bat for gay couples. We encourage her to take care of herself. My heart aches for Allyson and I think: we should be giving her casseroles, not the names of lawyers.

At times like this theology either feeds us or fails us. Traditional theologies often falter in the face of suffering. We pray earnestly for one person's healing and celebrate when recovery comes, but what then do we say when prayers for another appear to fall on deaf ears, and healing doesn't come? In the same way, it is impossible to celebrate in the newfound faith and conviction of one who was spared death in a plane crash when your loved one was among the 200 others who died. This sort of theological hypocrisy, if you will, is what drives us to seek other answers, to find language that speaks to a different kind of God.

Process and reductionist theologies, from Paul Tillich to the Jesus Seminar and even John Spong are almost a relief to read, giving us fresh new language for things that we always suspected were true. But once again, what may serve us intellectually may not speak to the heart when we need it to.

Now, this may not be true for many of you, in fact it's probably blasphemy to even say this in a liberal church, but I have to confess that images like the "ground of being," "vitalizing force," or the "cosmic Christ" are cold comfort for me when pain or grief suddenly come rushing in like floodwaters. Like the student in Chris Smith's sermon on anguish, I sometimes find myself saying, "So what?" Finding God language that speaks to both my head and my heart, my intellect and my personal experience, is an ongoing process. Ultimately, I believe for any theology to be considered truly authentic, it must be tested by fire, gut-checked against reality again and again and again.

As the days pass, Sylvia's breathing becomes much more labored. Her doctors decide to do a lung biopsy, and to put her on a ventilator to give her lungs a chance to heal. As we had hoped, the lawyer we recommended has sprung into action, and just before Sylvia is taken into surgery she arrives at the hospital with papers for Sylvia to sign: advance directives and a durable power of attorney, giving Allyson the power to make the kinds of decisions that any spouse should be able to take for granted.

The news from the biopsy isn't good. A virus has ravaged Sylvia's respiratory system, and she has extensive lung damage. She must have been sick for longer than she let on. Armed with this new diagnosis, Freddy returns to the Internet, scouring for bits of information she may have missed earlier.

In the meantime, Sylvia's medical bills are now soaring into the tens of thousands; Tammy shifts back into social worker mode, on the phone helping them to think about social security disability, medical assistance, General Assistance through the county. Is there someone at the SSA office who could help? Have they thought about calling legal aid?

Somewhere along the line I tell a nurse friend of mine about Sylvia's condition. "That's serious stuff," she says. "She could die from that." Suddenly a thought that had been kept at bay in the back of my mind forces it's way to the front. But I don't really think that's possible. She's young and strong, and she's holding her own. She's only 42; this would be different if she were 82. If she can hold her own surely she can fight her way back from this.

I'm preparing to leave for Denver next week. I arrange my travel plans to stop over in Kansas City on the way. One of Sylvia's lungs collapsed yesterday, but despite these setbacks she's still holding her own. She's young and strong. She'll be able to hold her own.

That night I lie in bed; my mind races. My left brain is packed with an ever-growing list of things I need to get done before I leave for Denver. My right brain is spilling over with concern for Allyson and Sylvia, and rage over the mountain of legal and financial trouble being heaped on them for no good reason. A voice in my head shouts out, "I don't know how to pray." Tonight I wish that, for just one week, I could be one of those Benedictine nuns who cloister themselves away to do nothing but pray for others.

German theologian Dorothy Soelle says that prayer often begins when one enters into a dialogue with oneself, embracing reality and speaking it. In the same vein, Simone Weil suggests that prayer is "absolutely unmixed attention…continually concentrated on the distance there is between what we are and what we love." The only prayer I can form tonight speaks from the heart to reality: "God, this is so sad."

One of those storefront churches along I-94 in Minneapolis has put up a huge sign visible from the highway that says, "GOD WILL FIX IT." There was once a time when I wanted to believe that. As a result, when I was much younger I spent a lot of time being angry with God. God was an elusive up-there-out-there judge, the eternal all-powerful fixer of things who could, by virtue of some grand plan, arbitrarily choose not to fix things. This was a god whose seemingly capricious nature brought far more pain than comfort. Who needs a god like that?

I can't say exactly when this began to change, but over time I stopped believing in an omnipotent, all-powerful Lord and Savior. In recent years I have come to know God as life and love - a comforter, like the friend who can't fix anything, but whose silent tight hug now means everything. God is in my life and my work and my play, as close to me as breath itself, as close as the breath Sylvia now labors so hard to take in, as close as the breath we find ourselves holding every time the phone rings.

Mid-day Tuesday Freddy calls. Sylvia's other lung has collapsed; how soon can I get there? I call Tammy, who leaves work early to help me pack the truck for Denver. Sylvia's chances aren't good, I tell Tammy, but there still is a chance. She's only 42. She's still holding her own. I realize that this has become a mantra. Perhaps I think if I say it to the universe enough times, the universe will finally get it. Perhaps I say it because I just can't believe this is happening.

I arrive in Kansas City early Wednesday afternoon. Sylvia's room is in the corner of ICU. The room is dark, the only light coming through a window with partially closed blinds. Sylvia is no longer conscious. Machinery and tubes surround her. Despite this, she looks quite peaceful, like she is sleeping, except for the rhythmic way in which her chest rises and falls, in tempo with the ventilator.

A wall is covered with cards, and there are a few small stuffed animals on a window ledge. Allyson shows me a doll that Susanne made. Everyone in the household, I'm told, including cats and dogs, has contributed a snippet of hair or fur to the stuffing. Also stuffed inside is an amulet, small gemstones offering strength and peace, sand taken from a beach for warmth, even a couple of marbles, in case she feels like she's losing hers. I realize this is the prayer I was looking for the other night.

Allyson tells me that they almost lost Sylvia last night. She says she feels like a death-row prisoner that's just been given a last-minute reprieve. But she is still hopeful that Sylvia will pull out of this.

Allyson mentions that there's no place like ICU to hear lots of bad theology. Ironically, she does tell me that a group of Benedictine nuns cloistered up in Northern Missouri actually has been praying for Sylvia. Allyson tells me that a few of Sylvia's relatives have been struggling to understand how this fits into God's great plan. We express our common disdain for this thinking. I ask her what she's making of all this God-talk. Rather than answer the question directly, she talks about Sylvia, about the great things that she brought to their relationship. Sylvia demanded honesty and often held Allyson's feet to the fire. She had brought out the very best in Allyson, and they just seemed to fit together so well, enjoyed each other's company so much. Allyson would have a thousand reasons to be angry - angry at God, at the system that denied them insurance and access to healthcare. I'm grateful that in this hour she is simply able to celebrate the gift. She says she's not sure what all this has to do with spirituality, but I think maybe it's just this: "Thank God for Sylvia." There's no way to explain what's happening to her or why, so maybe that's all we need to say: "Thank God for Sylvia." We sit in silence for a while.

Around 5:30 Sylvia's vital signs slowly begin to drop. A doctor says that her heart will probably give out soon. In an hour's time our thinking has suddenly shifted from living to dying. Friends stop by throughout the evening to say their goodbyes, and a few stay through the night. About an hour before dawn Sylvia quietly slips away.

Sleep-deprived and wasted, the rest of the day becomes a blur, filled mostly with practical matters like keeping Allyson away from some of the homophobic relatives and making sure no one lays claim to Sylvia's things in their house. I have to leave for Denver the next day, and we decide to have our own sort of memorial service when I return.

I dread having to make that drive across Kansas. If you've ever done it, you know what I mean: I-70 across western Kansas has to be one of the most intensely boring stretches of highway in North America, especially in the dregs of winter. But on this day I find that the solitude serves me well. I now have the time to think about Sylvia's friends who streamed into the hospital: artists and bohemian-types, a number of whom introduced themselves as "Sylvia's strays," the stories they told about her, how much they obviously cared for each other. I think about her paintings, which so clearly opened a window to her soul and helped us to touch her life again.

I am compelled to make some sense of this death. The question of whether Sylvia would have lived had she had the money, the access to healthcare, looms large for us, as does the obvious prejudice Sylvia and Allyson faced in simply living their lives together. In this death that one could interpret as senseless, I am finding new purpose, renewed conviction to change such conditions in this world. Dorothy Soelle writes,

If God is not thought of as an alien superior power but as that which occurs between people, then the relationship to this [person] does not end with death. Then it is not over and done with in the course of an individual life. There is too much left unfulfilled in this life. There is no alien sorrow: this sentence includes even the dead. Their pain is ours, their death is not simply the "death of others," radically different from mine. We can live in such a way that our life portrays a hope that other[s] will suffer no longer.

As a musician, I often turn to music to speak to me when words are inadequate. I put on a CD of a piece by Randall Thompson, a choral work that contains only two words: "Alleluia, Amen." In the end, maybe that's all we need to say - alleluia, amen.

A major
Ghost Ranch event this summer!

July 28 - August 3, 2008

Paths toward Peace and Justice:
Spirituality, Earth-Care, and the Prophetic Word in a time of Violence

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