Youth Moment: Why Can’t We Be Friends?

We have a lot of kids gathered here today, which is wonderful, and I wonder if everyone knows each other already.  Let’s introduce ourselves.  Now, let’s say I’m friends with this group of kids on my right.  If I also become friends with the kids sitting on my left, does that mean I have to stop being friends with the first group of kids over there?  Of course not.  Friendship grows as it is shared!

I had a friend in kindergarten and first grade, who didn’t know this.  So she told me that I could be her friend one week, and then another girl we knew would be her friend another week.  We had to take turns being her friend.  It was kind of silly, because we all could have been friends together!

Sometimes older brothers and sisters in a family worry when a new baby comes along, because they think that the baby will get more of their parents’ love and they’ll have less.  But in reality, parents’ love grows and expands to include all of their children.  And this is what the Gospel story is about today.  People are worried in a situation that they’ll get less because they had to share so much, when Jesus just wants them to realize that they are all children of God, and to stop their silly argument.  And we will be God’s children forever, both now and in heaven. 

Thanks be to God for the gifts of friendship and love!

Broken, Re-shapen: Counting the Cost

Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

(Look these up at bible.oremus.org)

In the Scriptures today we have the prophet Jeremiah going down to the potter’s house to see how clay can be shaped into one thing, then broken down and re-shaped into another--a metaphor for our own lives; we have the Psalm which reminds us how God has knit us together in the womb and knows much more about ourselves than we ever will; we have the letter to Philemon in which Paul asks for the freedom of the slave Onesimus, in order to return to Paul as a servant of his own free will.  And then we have a Gospel which says we must hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, even life itself, if we are to be Jesus’ disciples.

First of all, I would completely understand anybody who said they didn’t like these passages about Jeremiah and Jesus, or talk about them like everything that’s wrong in the Christian church as we know it.  Neither of these sound like the gentle, loving Jesus or God we might prefer.  So I think it’s worth addressing what these passages might really mean.

To Hate, Or Simply Dismiss?

Let’s start with the Gospel and especially at that word, “hate.”  The root word is probably better understood as to ‘disregard, or dismiss.’  That’s a little more comforting than ‘hate,’ but still, it doesn’t sound all that comforting.  It wasn’t comforting back in the day either, when family was absolutely central to one’s life and livelihood.  People didn’t just go gallivanting off for any reason besides to try to earn a living in times of crisis--certainly not to fulfill individual curiosity.  Even adult children were expected to stay home and work the family business.

What if a situation arose where you had to disregard your family’s wishes, though?  There might be times--what if everyone in your family was racist or homophobic, or what if everyone you knew supported a war that you did not, and you had to say, “I just don’t think that’s right?”  It takes a lot of guts to stand up to the people you love, and Jesus was asking that crowd, which probably included a lot of people from good Jewish families--to probably upset their families quite a bit.  If they did become disciples, their families probably wondered what they did wrong, how their loved one could betray them like this, embarrass them in front of everyone like this, they probably prayed for their mortal souls and hoped that someday they’d finally see the light.

Yes, Jesus had a reason for such hyperbole.  Jesus was not asking them to simply show up once a week for sixty minutes, sing three hymns and listen to a sermon.  Jesus was not even just asking them to help out at a food pantry now and then.  Jesus was asking them to turn their entire lives around, to break down the status quo and social custom, in order to practice barrier-breaking love.  Everybody they knew was probably going to hate them for this.  They might be disowned and lose everything they had.  And they might very well get themselves killed for doing so.  Perhaps the closest thing in recent history we have to compare to this is getting on the bus and heading south to de-segregate lunch counters in the Civil Rights era.

And as was wisely observed by our friend Aaron this week,* Jesus would likely not be welcome in most of our churches today.  He would look funny and possibly smell funny; he would have radical ideas that would disrupt the status quo; Jesus in fact has a history of being kicked out of congregations. He was a radical, counter-cultural prophet.  Discipleship had a high cost, Jesus didn’t want people entering into it lightly--and so you might say if you became a disciple, to turn against your loved ones, pick up your cross, and part with all your possessions, then you, my friend, were about to hit rock bottom.

Well, what would you be willing to give everything for?

When you join the military--that’s a situation where you really go all in: you have to decide that you are willing to part with your life or limbs or health.  Sure, there are folks who never see combat or come out just fine; many others are just not so lucky.  I do sympathize with all the young people who signed up prior to September 11th, 2001, and thought it was just a good way to pay for school.  Many have paid with their lives.

Some people do give everything to take a courageous, even if unpopular stand.

I’ll tell you the story of a man who gave pretty close to everything for what he believed, and many rejected him for it.  Recently, Veterans for Peace held their national gathering in Madison and my husband had a chance to meet S. Brian Willson.  Brian grew up by all accounts as a good son and good citizen who went to serve in the Viet Nam War; when he returned, he joined other veterans who went on to protest nuclear arms and all manner of warfare.  As a trained lawyer, he documented the consequences of U.S. foreign policy throughout Central America and other countries.  In 1987, while sitting on the railroad tracks to protest a Navy train carrying munitions, for which he fully expected to be arrested.  Instead, the train sped up and ran him over.  He lost his legs and a part of his brain.  An ambulance nearby even refused to help, because of the stand he had been taking. Later, he would learn that although he had never used violence against the government, the FBI had labeled him a "terrorist," and the train had been directed not to stop.  However, even after a lengthy recovery, Brian has never stopped protesting war.  Now, when he attends protests, even on prosthetic legs, he dances. You can learn more about the story here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Willson

Broken Down and Re-Shapen

Let’s go back to talking about Jeremiah for a moment:  the audience was the Israelites: God’s chosen people.  They believed that because they were God’s chosen people, they couldn’t possibly be wrong.  They’d gotten comfortable in ways of exploiting the vulnerable and currying favor with the powerful.     Systems and structures of unjust power were about to be broken down as a natural consequence of their corrupted ways. During the time of Jeremiah, the Israelites would go from complacent prosperity, to the fall of Jerusalem, to being captive to Babylon, to exile in Egypt.  However, like clay, they weren’t simply discarded; God was still with them, even in exile.

There are other ways of being broken down, and re-shapen.  Recently I had the opportunity to see a video, Loving Someone With an Addiction, which talked about the point at which families would realize that they weren’t helping matters by paying the legal bills, the bail, the rent, while their loved one kept spending all their own money on drugs, or kept getting into trouble.  At some point, they realized if their loved one was going to get better, they would have to let them face the natural consequences of their addiction, even though it hurt to see.  It wouldn’t be until they hit their own rock bottom, when the consequences became costly enough, that they might actually be able to be receptive to recovery.

From Useless to Useful

Let’s talk about another guy that was close to rock-bottom.  Back in the Greco-Roman world of Paul, anybody could get into debt or trouble, and be sold as a slave into someone’s household.  Onesimus was a runaway slave, and he was in big trouble; a wanted man.  His owner, Philemon, had the right to punish him severely, including killing the man.  Somehow, Onesimus runs into Paul, who is in prison, and when you were in prison like Paul, you needed helpers to get your messages back and forth, and even to bring you food and clothing and medicine.  And oddly enough, Paul knows Philemon--he’s one of the leaders in the church at Colossae, which “meets in his house.”  Paul didn’t just keep him.  Paul sent this man back to face the potential consequences, but also offered another, more constructive path forward. However, Paul asks that this “useless” person be returned to Paul, since he was indeed ‘useful’ in his employ.  it’s a play on words, as the very name Onesimus means, “useful.”  He becomes quite useful indeed, later on, as we believe he is one of the first bishops of the new Christian movement.  His life and his world of being a slave is broken down, and re-shaped into service for God.

Asking For the Terms of Peace

There’s one more thing I want to talk about, since it comes up in the Gospel text as well as in our current events, as we hear about rulers counting the cost of going to war, and I think it’s a very appropriate question to ask, whether we can truly afford a military solution in Syria.  The heads of churches in Syria and the Middle East, and the heads of churches in this country as well, ask us to pray for peace and to not support the use of such violent means as missile strikes, because they will simply lead to more killing.  I think we may also have to be prepared that if we bomb, others might bomb us back.  I think we have to be prepared that if we use a military solution, even if we say we’re just making a quick strike, that it will become another ten years or more before we’ve seen the end of things.  There are so many options on the spectrum between bombing and doing nothing, and somehow we always manage to overlook them all.  My entire life, we have been tangled up in Afghanistan and Iraq--going back to the 70s and 80s, and we might well be for the rest of my life--we sell weapons to one side and then the other, and we use them ourselves.  It’s brought nothing but grief to us and to them.  Granted, you don’t make a lot of money by not selling weapons to warring countries, or by using weapons ourselves, but the cost of war is so much higher than the price of a real peace, built on truth and reconciliation.

So yes.  As a nation, then or now; or as a people; or even as just our own selves, it is possible to hit rock bottom for any number of reasons.  Everything we thought we knew might come smashing down around us.  And yet, there is good news, even in these painful moments.  As long as we are living, we are never completely destroyed; we may just be knocked down into our bare substance.  No matter what we do or what happens to us, God has known us in our inmost being; God knows our substance; God will even be with us as we take courageous stands; as we struggle to find God’s path for us, to follow in the footsteps of Christ.  By God’s grace, we are being re-shapen into something new.

Thanks be to God!

*Several people have indeed noted this wisely, but most recently this was mentioned by Aaron Bates.  Thanks for the good point!

More on Philemon: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1767

More on Jeremiah: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1767

Prayers This Week:

All who are struggling with serious or long-term illness in body, mind, or soul

All who wrestle with chemical dependency

For the people of Syria, that true peace may come through truly peaceful means; and that we be moved with compassion to feed, shelter, and welcome the many refugees

For the safety of all participants in our local area “Iron Man” competition this weekend

All who are wrestling with discord in their families and homes.

When Young People Leave the Church

Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Friends, if you haven’t heard, over the past few weeks, there has been an awful lot in the media, especially the religious media, about young people leaving the church.  It has been on the minds of every pastor I know.

Now, I want to say, that these articles are nothing new.  Right now they talk about Millenials leaving the church, but a few years ago, it was about Generation X leaving the church, and before that, there were actually articles about Baby Boomers leaving the church.  Well, I know that my audience this morning is primarily Baby Boomers, as well as folks who are in what’s called the ‘Greatest Generation,’ who survived the Great Depression and World Wars.  But friends, I know that many of you, because you have told me so, are worried about young people not being in the churches.  Sometimes you are worried about your own young people, your grandchildren and children, not being in church.  So I know this is on your hearts, even if you haven’t seen the news.

In fact, the way you feel about this might even be well described in today’s scripture readings, when you’ve tended the young vine and given it every form of nurture you could, and saw how strong and vibrant it grew for a time, and now you’re left shaking your head and wondering, with a worried heart, what exactly happened?  You might even feel, if you’re the parent or grandparent of a child who is no longer involved in church, like you live in a house divided, like the Gospel says, two against three.  You may even be looking around this room, and many of you do tell me you notice more gray heads in here now than there used to be--and you may be wondering how to interpret the present time.

So let’s talk about that.

First of all, I should say that at age 35, I am firmly planted within Generation X, and I have spent a fair amount of my pastoral career helping interpret the actions of adult children my age and younger, such as Millenials, to parents, who are usually Baby Boomers.  And I don’t actually mind this, it is kind of fun.  But if you find yourself in this category, I want to first say, relax.  More often than not, your kids are actually fine.

When to Worry:

Granted, there are times to worry.  If your kid is heavy into drugs, drinking, gambling or crime, headed on a path to destruction, then yes, it is time to worry.  In fact, not having a church might be the least of their worries at that moment.  Even then, Jesus still loves them and they probably still love Jesus, but the depth of their problems is making it hard to focus on that relationship right now.  What they might need more than anything in that moment, is you and a strong network of friends who can be that love of Jesus to them, truly invested in their well-being and recovery.

When NOT to Worry:

However, I also believe, and it has been true for me and most of my pastoral colleagues, that there is some need for young people to become independent and define themselves, not only in becoming independent from you, but also even from ‘Mother Church.’  After all, there is more to the world than you have taught, or your home congregation has taught, however lovingly, and to an extent it is healthy to take time away and question those things, and decide which parts to carry forward--just as we all here probably do not do everything exactly as our parents did, now that we are adults.

And I have to confess, that while I did go around to lots of churches of different backgrounds in my twenties, I admit I also spent a fair number of Sundays just simply sleeping in.  Part of that was being at work until two or three am the night before (if you’re curious, I worked at both a bar and grill and a Pizza Hut).  Other times, it was sheer laziness, or the opportunity to go to brunch. I spent plenty of time worshipping at the “Church of the Holy Comforter,” complete with pillow.  And all of this was knowing full well I was going to be a pastor.  Perhaps, in part, because I was going to be a pastor, and would never sleep in on a Sunday again.  

And, granted, some young people are still in the church!  As a young person, when I was in church, I hated having it pointed out to me that very few young people came to church.  Sometimes I felt it was hard to be seen for me, and not just my age.  More on that in a moment.

There are a few things though, that I think we as Christians, should probably talk about first:

Organized religion has a lot to answer for, and I’d almost be more worried if your kid hadn’t noticed.  Let’s list the things....clergy sexual abuse.  Homophobia.  Sexism.  Racism. No drinking, dancing or playing cards.  Corruption, and million-dollar preachers on corporate jets.  Hating people of other faiths.  Bombing abortion clinics.  The list goes on and on.  And when you see Christians on TV, not just in the movies, but speaking as experts on the news, they tend to be the most hateful and least reasonable.

I’ll admit I cringe, even as a pastor, at the word ‘Christian,’ because of the deeply nasty, negative connotations it carries. Sometimes, when a person says, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” what they mean is, “I have faith, but I don’t want to be lumped in with the extremists.” Not always, but often enough.

It’s almost never about not loving Jesus.  It is often about how to follow Jesus faithfully in a world where churches and Christians don’t often seem like friendly and welcoming places that really want you.  It’s hard to belong to a church and call yourself Christian when doing so may make you look like you identify with the people who are hateful and intolerant.

That’s the big, wide picture.  Now let’s talk closer to home, just being a younger adult, looking for a new home church in their new adult life:

An Invitation to Life Together:

Finding a new church can be as intimidating as finding a life partner.  And your church probably is, in a way, your life partner.  A young family says to a new church the things that you say to a new spouse: “I want to raise my kids with you.  I want you to be there when I’m hurting, and I want to be there when you’re hurting.  You and I share the values that I think are the most important.  And, we can really have fun together.”

There are some other things about the home church.  Especially given that everyone has graduated and moved on, well, you don’t really belong to the high school youth group anymore.  You also don’t really belong at the senior ladies’ coffee, no matter how cute they think you are.  It’s, um, a little like moving back into your parents’ basement.  Or maybe worse, back into your old bedroom.  Sure, there’s a little comfort in the familiarity, but everything has also changed.  Sometimes, finding another church is like moving into somebody else’s parents’ basement.  In the ‘social real estate,’ you don’t have to ‘own’ a whole big thing to feel like a real adult, but it helps if there’s at least a little something that’s really yours, which you can claim for yourself.  It’s similar with church.

It’s hard to come back and be the only one like yourself.  We might say, “bring more people like yourself!”  But it’s just not that easy.  For those of us at different life stages, it’s like being the only single person when all your friends are married now.  Or being the only couple with kids when everyone else isn’t at that point.  Or, it’s like being the only widow in your bridge club, or anywhere else you used to socialize as a couple, and everyone else in your social circle still has their husband.  You all still love each other, but it’s honestly very awkward.

As churches, we have to do our very best to make it not awkward.

Just a few more things:  It’s not all about the music, but it is just a little bit about the music. And, it’s not all about the technology, but it’s a little bit about the technology.  It’s not all about the liturgy and tradition, but it’s a little bit about the liturgy and tradition.  Simply put, everybody has to take turns, just like in any family.

There are churches that are all about the new music, technology, and traditions, and they do attract many young people.  Young adults can also outgrow them when they become older, and some do.  We don’t have to get rid of everything we hold dear, but we do have to make room for young adults--and not just at the kids’ table.

I want to break away a bit from the age groups and talk more about the life stages.  After all, I’m 35, and I have tiny kids at home.  Other people my age have teenagers at home.  Yet other people my age aren’t married, or have no kids.  We’re at totally different life stages.  Jorge’s in his early fifties and has small kids at home.  The other guy his age here is Tom, who has grandchildren the same age.  Same age, different life stages.  Which is not all bad.  In fact, sometimes that is the glue that can help bridge the generation gaps.

Finally, I’d like to talk about how the world has changed.

Fifty years ago, in reality, life was probably simpler.  There was a time not so long ago you could marry straight out of high school, get a job that supported your family, and live on one income, freeing up (usually the wife) to raise the children and be active in the church.  This all helped people who were raised in the church to stay in their same churches, or at least easily join a church and find your place.  Now, it’s not right to get married so young.  You have to get your education.  Both spouses usually need to work full-time to make ends meet.  This leaves a lot less time to volunteer everywhere, including the church, and many young families are pulled in so many directions that they don’t have any real time together.   I’ll be honest--many churches today exacerbate that problem, because we are built on a model that worked really well for the baby boomers, fifty years ago.  

A lot of times, young people come back to church when they have kids, who have faith questions, and they don’t feel equipped to answer them on their own.   They need to learn alongside their children.  They need mentors to be their own heroes of the faith, people to tell them and show them how it is possible to grow meaningfully in our lives of faith.  When church can be a place that families are truly together,--and not again pulled in all different directions, there is a real blessing that we have to offer today.

The Good Gardener

Friends, the good news is (and there is always some good news somewhere) is that God, the constant gardener, is a good gardener, who still loves everything God has planted.  God has regard for the young vine, and also for us.  Where we have wandered, where we have failed, and where we have failed to welcome the wandering--God still nurtures us.  God still loves us, and calls us together as one people, all family, all children of God.

Prayers This Week:

For those facing addiction, and their families

For those wrestling with mental health issues

For those recovering from stroke

For those struggling to find a church home

For all who travel

For children and teachers preparing for back to school

Beyond Things

Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

What This Message Is Not About

It would be so easy to preach this week’s Scriptures as a pointed stewardship lesson, that God blesses us with so many things that we should be ready to give everything to God, and by the way, we have a mortgage on the building, so, you know, be generous....right.  Give as you feel led, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

Instead, let me talk a bit about parenting.  After all, the Gospel story starts off with a sibling dispute over the inheritance--something that causes a great deal of pain in families.  And you can definitely hear the parent in God’s voice speaking throughout the passage in Isaiah.

Let’s Talk About The Kids

My family and I went back to our old neighborhood this week, and pretty soon all the parents were hanging out talking about our kids--sharing both the joys and the frustrations.  Many of you know that banter.  And I wonder, what if God talked about us the way we talked about our kids?  How would that sound?  “Oh, you know, Adam and Eve, they were so cute and agreeable at first, but then they made a total mess out of my garden--so I put up a gate to keep them out of there--but then they just went out and made even bigger messes, I can barely keep up with it all!”

Well, God does often talk about us as though we were God’s children, because we are.  And we really hear that today in the reading from Hosea.  We hear how God raised us up like a child, and such vivid imagery:  I taught them to walk, I held them in my arms, I healed their injuries, I lifted them like infants to my cheek, I fed them.  Can’t you just see that?

And yet, that relationship was mired in pain.  For as much as God tended and nurtured the children, they ran away from God, and found themselves increasingly mired in trouble, and wouldn’t turn back and seek help, they put their trust in powers, like powerful political alliances (aka “friends”) that would ultimately betray and destroy them.

Hosea:  The Perfectly Dysfunctional Family

I noticed that several folks commented (but nobody complained!) that some of the usual Bible readings were absent last week while I was away.  Part of the reason for that was they were kind of doozies.  The upshot of the story was that God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, and then have a couple of kids which he was supposed to name, “Not My People” and “No Pity.”  Well, ouch.  God’s point in this was to create a totally dysfunctional family, where there is no love, no mercy, and no fidelity, to serve as a metaphor for what had gone wrong in the relationship between God and God’s people.  Granted, this didn’t go over well: mostly because it was weird, and also, as far as God’s people knew, it was a time of relative prosperity.  Everything was going great, so, what’s the big deal?  In reality, things were about to go horribly wrong in ways even they could see: As the scripture reads, the sword rages in their cities and they are in danger of returning to captivity and repression.

When Things Go Horribly Wrong

I think most of us have known situations where a child has been raised lovingly, and still somehow ends up down a wrong path that leads to their destruction.  Perhaps the most frequent metaphor today would be drug addiction [CBS This Morning 8/5/13 reported on the new heroin epidemic].  But there’s any number of things that could happen, that are truly frightening.  And for those of us who are parents, we may wonder if there is any reason we would ever abandon one of our children, or even kick them out of the house.  Perhaps ultimately, and realistically speaking, if the child was endangering the others who lived there, to protect the rest of the family, we might have to say, “you can’t come home right now.”  Now, I don’t want to ever think about any of that happening to my kids--who are rascals, but they’re also so young and innocent right now--but it might.  I can parent to the best of my ability, but I realize that even as a pastor, my family and my children are not immune to the ills of this world.

And that’s where we hear and understand God speaking through the prophet Hosea in today’s reading.  [Insert your own children’s names here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick:

“How can I give you up, ____________?  How can I hand you over, ________?  

[Insert your own name here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick.

Insert the name of anyone whom you love deeply, and you begin to get the picture....yes, I think we can begin to tap into those feelings and relate.

The good news is, even when we have done things to break God’s heart, God doesn’t write us off.  God instead chooses compassion and continues to invite the rebellious child home.

++

It’s Not About the Little Things

Sometimes, our relationships are painful, but nothing huge and tragic has caused it.  Sometimes, things just ‘get in the way’ of our relationships.  Not just material things, like the inheritance dispute between the brothers in the Gospel story, but things, you know, stuff that happens, and builds up, and forms into walls and barriers between us that are so hard to tear down, without tearing each other down in the process.

Granted, it’s easiest not to let those walls get built up in the first place--to handle the issues while they’re small, and not let them blow up into big things.  When those little things get blown up, then we know the relationship is in trouble.  After all, even churches die, not because they ran out of people to invite, but because they got caught up fighting over little things like the carpet and blew all their energy, and pffft, there they went.

Who among us doesn’t have a relationship we wish could be better?  Who among us doesn’t have words or mistakes we wish we could take back?  

All these human divisions, God seeks to break down, bridge, or transform.  We’ve talked in the past few weeks about those walls of animosity between Jews and Samaritans--folks who were really two sides of the same coin; and today Paul speaks to us of Greek and Jew, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian (and who are those guys anyway--we’ve forgotten, because the division didn’t really matter)!  God is inviting us to not let those little things--and they are really little things, that we make into big things--stand in the way of love.

Beyond Things

So let’s talk about that Gospel verse again, but in a non-traditional way.  Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to build bigger barns--or churches, for that matter.  Really it’s hoarding, or at least not sharing, that is the problem.  We have a beautiful new facility, and God does call us to share it--to share our sanctuary, share our classroom space, even our lawn, and not keep it to ourselves.  Things will probably get dinged up a bit in the process, and we’re going to need two things:  a good-sized can of touch-up paint, and a load of graciousness.  After all, it isn’t really our building, but God’s.  When we can overlook the little things, and use wisely the big things we have been given, all of our relationships, and all of us individually, are deeply blessed.  God wants for us far more than we can imagine.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this Week:

For all who struggle with addictions; mental health concerns; and for all who are facing abuse of any kind.

For those who come to harm when working in far-off places.

For our Sikh brothers and sisters as they remember the shootings in their sacred space one year ago.

For our PCUSA friends who are gathered at the Big Tent conference in Louisville, KY this weekend.

For all who are traveling

For all who are ill or injured

For those who are dying, and for those who are grieving

For peace in our world

Lyrics for the Lectionary:

When reading the Scriptures this week, consider the following:

A Thousand Years, Christina Perri (Hosea)

Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotiye (Hosea)

Paradise, Coldplay (Hosea, Luke)

How To Save A Life, Fray (Hosea)

Feel the Tide, Mumford and Sons (Psalm)

Mary, Martha, and Malala

Mary, Martha, and Malala

Luke 10:38-42

Usually when I read the Gospel story about Mary and Martha, I think about the ‘Mommy Wars,’ you know, stay at home mother vs. career woman, and the animosity between women in the two roles over the past several decades.  Or I think of slightly burnt-out volunteers in churches, wondering why nobody will help them.  Or I think about a devaluing of women’s work in general, perhaps even by Jesus, if you read the story that way.  After all, Jesus, supper isn’t going to fix itself.

Ah, but a series of events this past week changed how I see this scripture verse.

First, I happened upon an article talking about AIDS education in Africa.  The missionary health worker arranged a training and invited the community.  The chiefs and important men of the area sat on the benches to one side, in places in honor.  Most of the women opted to stay towards the back and chat during the presentation.  The missionary concluded that the women had not heard much of presentation and commented, “perhaps this is what Paul meant by saying women should be silent in churches.”  They needed to be able to hear the literally life-giving words being shared at the front of the room.  [I’ll link it here when I find the article again].

Well, perhaps.  I wasn’t in the room, so I don’t know how much the women heard.  Or maybe they’d heard it all before. Who knows.  But it reminded me of my time working throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, and particularly of public space and private space, and especially women’s space, and men’s space, and the roles and actions that each one plays.

Much like in Bible times, when guests come, a feast is prepared out of anything the family has on hand.  The table is set and the men of the family and the guests are seated.  Once the guests have had their fill, the women and children of the family are fed, always in a space separate from where the guests are.

My years of human rights work took me to many family homes in those regions, and after a while, I realized, we rarely saw the women of the family when we were visiting, especially if we brought male colleagues along with us.  The men of the family hosted us in the front room or parlor.  This was partly a protective measure, in cases where the guests were not well-known to the family.  There was also the practical measure that someone needed to get dinner on the table.  However, as a foreigner, even though I was a woman, I was granted space to be in the room, and at the table, and participate in the conversation.

At first, it was exciting to be at the table, because the conversations were always political and often radical--I always learned something I didn’t know before.  But after a while, I tired of the conversation and wondered what the other women were doing.

Eventually I’d excuse myself to go in the back with the women.  In doing so I learned how to cook some amazing food, and I made several friends.  I also got to see real life in so many homes, since the best was put into the room where guests would be received.  I also got to see women truly ‘at home,’ with their heads uncovered and their hair down, and able to relax in private family space.

In Bible times, most women didn’t get to go to school.  Granted, many families couldn’t afford to send any children to school; and many boys apprenticed with their fathers to learn the family trade.  Wealthy families may have privately instructed their daughters, but most education for girls was in-home domestic and religious education. Boys who went to yeshiva, or religious school, would have become literate in Biblical languages in order to read Torah, and would have been encouraged to debate religious ideas with the rabbis.  Girls would not have this opportunity.

Yet even today, in many places around the world, women face major obstacles in getting a complete education, especially outside the home. In places where families don’t have enough money to pay for the books, clothes, and supplies needed to send kids to school, the boys are usually sent and the girls kept at home.  Sometimes the obstacle is not just economic, but political: the recent story of Malala, the girl who was shot for being a vocal activist for girls’ education--who not only survived her injuries but also gave a speech at the UN for her 16th birthday, reminds us painfully of this today.  

Speaking of pain, let’s go back to Martha, in her kitchen, apparently fuming. It’s not that Martha’s wrong.  She may be bitter, but that’s understandable.  It’s that Martha is doing exactly what the world expects of her, which is good in its own right, but she’s also feeling left out, and perhaps nervous at what’s happening in the next room.

After all, Jesus breaks barriers by talking to Mary in the front room.  Mary breaks barriers by participating in the discussion. And Jesus gets that someone has to put dinner on the table, because elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus is out there washing his disciples’ feet and breaking bread and pouring cups and then even after the crucifixion and resurrection, he’s out on the beach grilling up fish for breakfast.  

I think, more often than not, Jesus got it, and still gets it.  Jesus gets that women and men need to have equal access to the table, to the conversation, and equal responsibility to the chores at hand.  

So let’s not pit one sister against the other.  I believe Jesus is saying both sisters have a place at the table.  Sure, we all have our responsibilities, but in our life of faith, we look for ways that all may share the responsibilities--men and women, young and old, everyone together--so that we all may not only have but enjoy a place at the table, together with the Teacher.

May it indeed be so.

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Two recent pop songs for Mary and Martha:

“What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E

“She Will Be Loved” by Maroon5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjVuRTm-dc

(disclaimer--these are songs that come to mind and seem to resonate when studying passages for the week.  Not all parts of all songs fit; I try to preview and prevent explicit content, but there may be in the lyrics or videos content which may be either graphic or triggering for some viewers.  I’m always willing to discuss these further, either online, or in person at church).