Service: Loving with the Gloves Off

Our church is doing a series of guided discussions right now on 5 commitments of membership: Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, Witness. I'm delivering the homily on Service, and guiding the conversation as all of us teach each other what that means for our community. Pretty cool really -- this wild, participatory style of church. We're working hard to elevate each discussion above simplistic lectures like "give more," or "pray more."

I'm unabashedly biased in believing my nursing experience is the highest practice of service, because it demanded providing dignity and respect in the lowliest of work. (I respect your right to believe your calling is the highest form of service. In fact, I hope you feel that!)

When I think about service, this story from my practice floods my mind inescapably.

I cared almost daily for a man very ill with AIDS, as well as a handful of other chronic, fatal diseases. On top of that, he had a couple antibiotic resistant infections. Going into his room required dressing head to toe in protective gear. He was dying. He couldn't accept that. He was gay. He and his family wouldn't talk about that. His illnesses were taking him down an excruciating path, toward an excruciating death, and he was not equipped to face and plan for that.

My job was to help deal with the symptoms I could ease, and facilitate conversations to help him plan. I had a clear agenda. I wanted to help him face his reality, and in that process, alleviate some of the coming suffering.

Shortly before the end, I went in for yet another visit. Garbed in a garish yellow gown and blue rubber gloves, and all the defenses necessary for my other patients, but that felt like brick walls between him and me, I sat beside his bed.

It's strange to me now that I don't remember what we talked about. I tried to discuss death with him. He shut that down emphatically. Perhaps we talked about his loneliness. I remember him becoming more and more emotional. And it became clear to me that he needed touch. Not safe, clinical touch. Human touch.

I removed my gloves and grabbed his left hand in both of mine. Skin to skin. And, he cried. He said, "I don't remember the last time someone touched my skin."

...

We sat in that moment for a long time. My agenda abandoned, and perhaps a bit of my clinical distance and superiority, too, I knew to leave this experience just where it was for both of us.

It was messy for me. Not just because of the diseases, or the tubes, or the particular thick and pungent humanity that coats long-term hospital patients. Because I wanted to take this guy from denial to life- and death-changing courage, and I knew our limited time frame. Service, in this instance meant shelving my agenda, and sitting very still. And coming back, despite fruitless attempts, and despite my brain twitching to steer the conversation down a "useful" path, over and over again. I had to let him teach me how to be his caregiver.

Service is ongoing. Messy. Demands presence. Demands you be aware of your humanity, and the humanity of the person you serve. Service requires humility. True service removes the barriers that keep us feeling safe and clean and separate from the humans we serve with, and for.

Post Script: After the rich, rich discussion with my church today, I want to add some of what they shared on Service. Two insights struck me most. The first associated courage with service. It takes deep courage to abandon agendas. Lost agendas mean lost control. Lost control means the neat lines making me server and you servee fade. It takes courage to subvert your human propensity to judge, and replace it with acceptance and forgiveness.

The second insight bluntly raised the spectre of suffering -- calling out our tendency to serve until the Other's suffering gets too close, too real, too implacable. At that point we pull away. The man above was dying, in pain and alone. Nothing could change that. And, as often happens, these circumstances perpetuated themselves. Because, most of us don't know how to sit in another's suffering, so we shy away, or become cheerful and soulless. We put on bright protective gear and pretend things are really better.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus removes his clothes, wraps himself in a towel and washes the well-traveled feet of the disciples. He took off the layers, and the one layer he added became the tool of his Service. He told them he meant this for a clear example of how to live. I can't even imagine how the world would change if we lived this bravely. But I know the moments that have changed me most started with removing the outer robes of pretense, or knowledge, or self-sufficiency. These actions deepened my experiences of serving AND being served.  

The Thinning Veil

This week's lectionary reading for All Saints Day took us to 1 John 3:1-3. This is the written version of the sermon I delivered on that text. There will be a video. Maybe.

Sermon from 1 John 3:1-3

I’ve been present to many deaths. I’ve always found it a profoundly earthy, human experience. While many have, I’ve never witnessed a mystical event at death. Despite this grounded view, I still sense that in the moments that surround dying the boundaries between past, present, and future, between life and death and hope, seem paper thin. Witnesses to the death also bear witness to the life. They grieve their present loss. And many times, speak of hope for reunification. This heaving, unsettling change forces us to confront the interweaving of realities we often keep separate.

This weekend we celebrated All Saints, day a trio of days – All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day –  to commemorate those who died, and celebrate their influence on us in our present faith. As a nurse who cared for the dying – in a society that largely ignores death, and has no social language for grieving and shared grief – I appreciate a time devoted to focusing on more than just the physical, present realm. We honor the saints who brought us to our present, grieve the loss of ones who impacted our lives, and look forward to meeting with them.

One poet I read refers to these holy days as a thin space, where barriers and boundaries between present, past, and future become less perceptible. I call it a thinning of the veil. Apostle Paul refers to it as seeing through a glass darkly. We get a sense of the connectedness of our past, present, and future, but the connection is mysterious, and the future only hinted at.

It feels like John also talks about this thinning of the veil of time and reality. In fact, John wrote this book in order to combat the kind of hyper-compartmentalized thinking that caused people to claim Jesus was simply a spirit (a heresy called Docetism). John calls up a much richer view and loops in and out of the present, past, and future.

A closer look at the passage:

3:1 God’s love is lavished on us (NIV). That word lavished sounds like a sloppy, slathering kind of love -- not a metered unit of love per recipient. This past, present, and future love establishes our identity as Children of God. Though we’ve found this identity, we haven’t found home – the world doesn’t recognize us yet.

3:2 We’re promised a mystery. Even the disciple Jesus loved dearly didn’t dare specify what happens on the other side of the veil. He just knows we’ll arrive at the completion of this transformation to Christ-likeness we’ve been working on all along.

3:3 This gives us present hope. And, this hope causes us to participate in our purification.

This idea of a thinning of the veil captured me from the first reading. We create a false dichotomy that prioritizes and separates this world or the next. Ever heard the phrase, she’s so heavenly minded she’s no earthly good? Some entirely lose the value of this gift of creation, its potential, its hope for redemption; and live only with a construct of heaven in mind. I used to live this way. This life was only about getting to the next. But lately, my problem has been different, and possibly less creative. I get so wrapped up in this time/space/reality, in the physical realm, the here and now, I have no use or time for some mysterious future.

John thins the veil between these realities and asks us to hold in tension a past predicated on God’s love, a current identity as God’s children, and a mysterious future transformation to God’s likeness. He implies that holding this tension brings the believer to desire and participate in purification.

We are faced with a paradox. We are already and we are not yet. We are God’s children. We have yet another transformation to come. We constantly live in this thin space of tension.  I find it a very hopeful, if difficult place to hold.

“As Christians caught between realities, we need to accept that in this state there will be creativity and new ways of being. We need to remain open to this reality and allow it to move within our lives and transform our beings.” (Grace Ji-Sun Kim)

I love the focus on creativity and new ways of being. Tension often does produce creation, and in this case, the very tension works toward our transformation into Christlikeness.

We live multiple experiences of Already/Not Yet – day-to-day situations that heighten our awareness of the thin veil between our reality and our future. Think of the immigrant who left one land for another, but hasn’t yet arrived at home. They live in between identities and societies and modes of living. Sometimes out of this great risk and tension creation emerges – good food, beautiful art, new relationships.

In times of great transition, like marriage, divorce, or parenthood, we face already/not yet. When I became pregnant I was immediately a mother, but had no idea what being a parent meant. This identity is always becoming and evolving and transforming me. Out of that great risk and tension a new life emerges and a new family is grown.

Times of great risk, that cause us to want to run to our false dichotomies, and reinforce the barriers between realities, have the most potential for creation and new life.

Here’s why I think this imagery of the thinning veil moves me so. Without it, I wouldn’t have come back to faith. The rational world I immersed myself in left me dry. It didn’t feel like I was living the whole human experience. And, according to Christian teaching, I wasn’t. In Christian teaching, this paradox IS our truth.

We are pure, and in need of purification.

We are God’s children, but on a journey to take on God’s likeness.

We are unique individuals, but part of a corpus, a body of other individuals, a whole and a part.

We are living constantly in a physical realm and a spiritual realm, between life and death.

We are chosen, and we choose.

We live, to die, to live again.

Our God came to be like us, so we could become like our God.

Here’s the crux of it. In this tension, we are becoming more like Jesus, and somehow, becoming most our true selves.

The work of living in the thinning veil is part of the transformation into Christlikeness. When we focused on the greatest commandments, to love God, and love others, I prayed we would be transformed to love as Jesus did. Living in the tension is that work. We begin to sense, as he did, Spirit moving on earth. We see Kingdom come and to come. We trust God more, and find open, liberating faith. We see the broken world as he did, headed toward redemption.

As we transform, we desire to participate in purification. We burrow into the community of faith. We pray. We study God’s word.

The Spirit uses these spiritual disciplines to purify us. We cannot purify ourselves. In holy community we are made holy – Wesley says “No religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness.” In prayer we face a great mystery. My rational world kept me from engaging in this paradox of prayer, but as my faith has grown, I can’t help but prophesy, and preach, and pray and share. Prayer focuses my attention on the Jesus I want to be like. When we study God’s word, we can begin to see all scripture through the interpretive lens of Jesus.

Our identity is an affirmation of the love God lavishes on us. John enthusiastically exclaims that God named us God’s children, just as in the gospels God proclaimed Jesus, “my son, in whom I am well pleased.” Think of the power Jesus expressed as God’s son. We are similarly empowered to join with Jesus in seeking justice, in creating, in sacrificially loving, in building relationships that transform our community and our world. As we are transformed, our world is transformed. This place that does not recognize is, that is not our home, is being redeemed through us.

When you participate in Communion, the veil is thin between your person and Christ’s person. Between you the individual, and us the present body of Christ. Between all of us, and the saints who came before us.

This week, when you love someone who votes on the other side of the ballot – I mean the kind of messy, sloppy, set you at the table, give you pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin beer and make you family kind of love God lavishes on us -- the veil is thin.

When you hold your sick baby, and your heart seems to ache with the flow of compassion and tenderness you never knew you were capable of, you are being Jesus.

When you grieve the loss of someone who died, leaving a gaping hole in your world, the veil is thin.

When you give sacrificially to your church, or a needy person, or a friend in pain, or forgive someone who hurt you, you actively transform your world.

When you listen intently to someone at work, you are holy.

When you create art that reveals the beauty of our reality, you cooperate in the holy spirit’s purification of you. 

The reality is that the veil is always, and was always thin. Every space is a holy space. Every moment a holy moment. Living in the awareness of that – not out of a sense of obligation to be perfect every second, but rather aware the Spirit of God is constantly working that out – causes us to be more invested in living the love of Christ. As we do, we become ever more like him.

In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Judgment, Justice, Mercy

My sermon from the lectionary reading: Genesis 29:15-28. Can I just say, I have NO idea what to title this. Anyone with a pithy take on that, please help a girl out. 

Parental Advisory: Explicit Content!! I say that only partially tongue in cheek. We will be discussing some very hurtful, distasteful behaviors today.

To sum up where we’ve come from: Jacob has tricked his family, met God in the desert, and finally arrived at the home of his mother – Laban’s land. The scripture prior to our reading indicates Jacob saw Rachel and her sheep – it actually mentions her sheep a couple different times – and was attracted. One presumes to Rachel. But it seems the sheep didn’t hurt, either.

Let’s be honest about what’s happening in this story. Last week by gazing intently into the story of Jacob’s vision of God we learned something deep and rich about God’s continuity and grace from age to age. This week, staring intently into the story of Laban’s trickery, we learn something deeply unsettling about human sin. Last week we saw God’s mercy joining the sinner. This week we cry for God’s justice for the oppressed.

Prayer candles: Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Give Us the Vision

Hello Friends. The blog series has been on hold as I'm drawing some new boundaries in my own life -- practicing before I preach, I hope. I will return to the series as things settle. In the meantime, this is the sermon I preached from the Lectionary this Sunday, on Genesis 28:10-19a -- better known as Jacob's Ladder.

So... Jacob. Human, flawed Jacob. 

To recap: Jacob is on the run because he stole his brother’s inheritance and blessing. His family is fractured because of his actions.

I’m really tempted to distance myself from this guy. He’s a thief. A con artist. A backstabber. His life, boiled down to a few pages of text, leaves an ugly trail (although, if our lives were reduced to the same literary fate, I suspect it wouldn’t be too flattering, either). While culturally, Jacob’s life is light years away from my own, from our society, I can’t honestly separate us too much from him.

Let’s update the culture a bit. Imagine if the story of Jacob’s ladder were instead the story of Jacob’s corporate ladder, we’d have the makings of a great corporate success. In this context, he’s scrappy. He’s innovative. He’s intelligent and seizes opportunities. He takes action.

There are other ways Jacob’s experiences track with my own. The consequences of my actions, and others’ actions have pushed me into the wilderness. I’ve lived godlessly, looking out primarily for “number one.”

If I indulge the urge to clinically view Jacob’s life as history, or myth, but regardless, utterly separate from my reality, I miss out on something truly beautiful and hopeful that happens when God presents Jacob with the vision at Beth-el. 

From the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

It turns out, I’m desperately in need of this vision. My world is in need of this vision. It’s my prayer that we’ll receive the vision God unfolds. Because here, for a moment, in a complicated, and sometimes dark narrative, God’s being grabs center stage with clarity.

We lose God in the Old Testament – at least the God Jesus manifested at the Incarnation. My own faith and faithlessness hits a brick wall with some of its passages. I think moments like this vision suggest God has always been God. That Jesus isn’t some fluke expression of the Trinity that just evolved a couple thousand years ago. Jesus himself says “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father."

This text clearly reminds us there is more happening in the Old Testament. In this space God pierces the darkness of the human tale.