Love and work, work and love, that’s all there is.

-Sigmund Freud

Gratitude as the gospel speaks about it embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not so holy. Is this possible in a society where gladness and sadness, joy and sorrow, peace and conflict remain radically separated? Can we counter the many advertisements that tells us, “You cannot be glad when you are sad, so be happy: buy this, do that, go here, go there, and you will have a moment of happiness during which you can forget your sorrow? Is it truly possible to embrace with gratitude all of our life and not just the good things that we like to remember? Jesus calls us to recognize that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every movement that we have lived and to claim our unique journey as God’s way to mold our hearts to greater conformity with God’s own. The cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life.

Henri Nouwen, from an article called “All is Grace,” Weavings, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992

All is grace

An intriguing irony of the gospels: the best teachers are not the really religious people of the day. Lessons come from a good Samaritan, an ostracized woman delivered from demons, a hated Roman centurion, a Canaanite mother referred to as a dog, a foreign leper, children regarded as worthless in that society. They know and show what it means to have a relationship with God while the clergy du jour stumble along cluelessly as blind guides. Jesus himself, born a homeless refugee, incarnates God’s presence with us. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised these days if we’re taking moral lessons not from the most popular Christian preachers, but from sports and entertainment figures, including late night TV comedians. Such lessons came to me last week as I watched Anderson Cooper interview Stephen Colbert. I commend it to you. Many of you have probably seen it already. One clergy friend pondered showing the interview in lieu of Sunday sermon. These two guys talked a lot about the political situation, subject of another column. But what captured my interest was Colbert’s rich theological insights into the human experience of suffering, something I suspect we each know something about. As one of my mentors used to tell his congregation: “Suffering is the promise life always keeps.” A bit bleak, perhaps, for a Monday morning. But tell me it isn’t true? Colbert knew loss from an early age, his father and brother killed in a plane crash. He recently wrote a condolence letter to Anderson Cooper, who had experienced his own loss. I think that’s what triggered the interview, in which Colbert said: “The bravest thing you can do is to accept with gratitude the world as it is, to love the thing that I most wish had not happened,” Colbert had asked: “What punishments of God are not gifts?” When pressed to explain, he said: “It’s a gift to exist. It’s a gift to exist,” Colbert, slightly changing emphasis in the retelling. “And with existence comes suffering. There is no escaping that. I guess I’m either a Catholic or a Buddhist when I say those things.” There’s more: “If you are grateful for your life…then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for. And then, so what do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person, which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it is like to be a human being if it is true that all humans suffer.” Colbert went on to say that this is partly why he is a Christian, because in Jesus, God comes to suffer among us. In several places in the gospels, it says that Jesus regarded the people with compassion, a word which literally means “suffering with.” Karen Armstrong says that word is at the heart of all great religious traditions. That’s something for which we can give thanks. Scripture calls us to give thanks in all things. That doesn’t mean we don’t wish bad things hadn’t happened. But the difficult things, which we all know something about, can become a bridge, creating deeper connection with God and neighbor. Going back to the gospels, I imagine that the best teachers were those who knew suffering. Give thanks in all things? It reminds me of a college friend, who ended his religion papers with the acronym SOKOP: Sounds okay on paper. Easier said than done. That is certainly true when it comes to gratitude in the face of suffering. All of this, it seems to me, must be our own interior work. A person of privilege like myself can only tell myself to be grateful in the limited suffering I’ve experienced. Mostly rich people problems. I can’t tell that to people who become deathly ill with no warning, to toddlers put in cages, to parents separated from children, to spouses widowed after gun violence, the list is unending. I can only enter into the counter-intuitive dynamic by which greater human community is gained through loss. It’s a message of resurrection. It’s Easter after Good Friday. This week, may we each be given grace to act on the challenging scripture from I Thessalonians (5:18): In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact: Rev. Jay Sidebotham jsidebotham@renewalworks.org RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement. www.renewalworks.org

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You must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing.

-Phillips Brooks

So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

-Romans 12

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

-I Corinthians 12

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

-Ephesians 4

Repurposed

A friend and spiritual advisor also happens to be an extraordinarily talented ad guy, creative director in an ad agency in New York. In a tough business that can seem singularly secular and often mean-spirited, he has thrived for years, working with wit and wisdom, while preserving a kind and gentle spirit, letting his light shine, sharing the spirit of Jesus.

He has used his gifts in that world for good, harnessing the considerable influence of his agency to develop (for instance) a city wide campaign to alleviate hunger by painting faces around potholes in the street indicating hungry mouths, reminding city dwellers that hunger surrounds us. In one campaign, he invited pedestrians to take selfies with huge spoons (7 feet tall) to support soup kitchens. He arranged for top notch chefs to provide meals where the wealthiest and most destitute in the city dined together in style. He’s good at what he does, using gifts and skills and experiences to shine God’s light and love.

I know a priest, an excellent pastor, who spent years working as a flight attendant. I can’t help but think that the experience of air travel, handling complaints and anxiety with grace, is excellent preparation for work in a church.

One of my favorite preachers worked as a Toyota car salesperson before she made the slight career shift to seminary. In fact, one year she was awarded best salesperson in North America. She brought those compelling gifts of persuasion to her preaching. Homiletically speaking, she knew how to close the deal.

A parishioner manages money for people. He functions as pastor, invited into the most intimate family conversations, bringing the compassion of the gospel and a gift for listening into those settings.

Jesus called his disciples to leave fishing nets and follow him. He suggested there were transferable skills. They would now be fishing for people. Jesus called Peter to a new life. He didn’t disregard Peter’s history but transformed it. Jesus called Paul to spread his gospel of grace. The energy of the apostle was transformed, changed from someone who obsessively ran from town to town persecuting the church to someone who ran from town to town obsessively promoting the church. Same person. In some ways, same gifts. Same work ethic. Repurposed.

We each have gifts. We each have life experience. The God of creation is extraordinarily creative in putting those gifts to work. Sometimes to humorous effect. And what’s even better, quite often the Holy Spirit not only takes our assets but also takes our deficits and transforms them into useful resources to accomplish God’s mission in the world. In my work in advertising and in the church, I’ve had moments of success and moments of failure. Some projects really took off. Others bombed. Each were teachers. The work I get to do now often seems to be the summation of those peaks and valleys. God seems to work that way.

God uses not only the work we may have done, but our personality types, our family histories, our hobbies, our relationships. In short, it seems that there is not much that God cannot in some way repurpose for the way of love. Wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5)

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1,2

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Luke 9: 28

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Change is good. You go first.

Dilbert

Change

When I served at a church in New York, we decided to begin an evening service, a more informal worship experience designed for folks who’d been out of town for the weekend, a service where people could come casually, maybe straight from Central Park or the beach. We called it our “Come as you are” service. The slogan for our advertising for this service: “Wear your Sunday worst.”

The design process for the service took six months, an extended period of prayer, discernment and planning. We decided to do a test drive on one Sunday, October 10, launching the first service with great fanfare. It was quite different from the traditional morning worship. As one congregant noted: This is not your father’s Episcopal Church. We had a great crowd, but that first night, the service went on way too long. A lot needed to be tweaked.

In the week that followed, we made changes, implemented the following week, October 17. The service was shorter. A few things eliminated. Others done differently. I thought it went well. Much to my surprise, at the end of that second service, I was met by a few irate parishioners who said: “Why did you change it? That’s not how you did it last week?”

They might as well have been uttering those six most dreaded words: We’ve never done it that way. I realized how quickly human beings, especially Episcopal human beings, settle into tradition. We all want the security of a predictable and fixed experience. We struggle with change. One week was enough to establish immutable tradition. Does that surprise you?

Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, a mysterious story told in the first three Gospels. Jesus climbs the mountain with three buddies. The special effects start. Jesus is changed, transfigured in an amazing pyrotechnic display that includes cameo appearances from Moses and Elijah. It’s amazing and the disciples are bowled over, so much so that Peter, who tends to over-verbalize but who probably says what everyone else is thinking, tells Jesus: “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s fix this moment in time. Let’s make a visitor center here on top of the mountain, a place for you and Moses and Elijah to just stay put. We don’t want this to end.” Peter is looking at institutionalizing this moment, something some religious people sometimes do. Just occasionally.

Jesus will have none of it. He knows this powerful experience is not the destination. It is meant to equip him for what lies ahead, the journey toward Holy Week. In short order, they go down from the mountain.

I don’t want to come down too hard on Peter. He exhibits truth about all of us. We want things to stay the same. That presents challenges, since the Christian life is about growth, transformation, movement, change.  And we all know how much we like change.

This week, I invite you to reflect on the story of the Transfiguration. Give thanks for your own spiritual experiences, your encounter with Jesus, however that has unfolded in your life. What have been your mountaintop experiences? How have they equipped you to move forward in your life, to grow? And then consider if there is some new thing unfolding in your life, your work, your neighborhood, your church, our nation? How are you resistant to change? How are you open to it? How can you and I be transformed as the reading from Romans in the column on the left suggests.

Think about where Jesus, where God, where the Holy Spirit might be calling you to grow, to learn, to change, maybe even be transfigured. And know that grace surrounds you and strengthens you as you navigate the growth opportunities ahead of you.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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Leading for Discipleship:
A conference especially for those
who have worked with RenewalWorks
Sept. 30-Oct. 2
Wilmington, NC
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As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

–From Galatians 3

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

-A prayer for the human family, from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 815

Will you continue in the apostle’s teaching, the breaking of bread, the fellowship and the prayers?
 
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?
 
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
 
Will you strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being?
 
I will with God’s help.

-From the Baptismal Covenant

Create in me a clean heart

Maybe this happens to you. I go through phases when a phrase from the Bible or Prayer Book or hymnal lodges in my brain. I find myself thinking about it in the middle of the night, when I’m stopped at a traffic signal, walking on the beach. Of late, here’s the phrase on my mind:

Create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me.

It comes from Psalm 51, which appears in a lot of our liturgies. It’s a psalm about the need for change. In my own life, I’m aware of a need for a change of heart, a new heart on a range of topics. One of those pertains to current discussions about race. Those conversations surround us, in news conferences and political debates, in newspapers and among pundits. They go on in our churches, around dinner tables, and for me, in my heart. The question is often framed this way: Is this person a racist or not?. It’s framed as an either/or. One or the other. We often hear folks rise in self-defense: “There’s not a racist bone in my body.”

I don’t know about you, but for me, I don’t think the key question is: Am I a racist? as if some people are entirely racist and others aren’t racist at all. The question I ask myself: How am I racist? How do I behave in racist ways? What are my racist bones? While I’m too embarrassed or ashamed to detail in this email my own racism, trust me, it’s there. I have done racist things, thought racist thoughts. I have prejudices. I often brim with judgment of others based on how they speak, what they look like, how they dress, where they’re from, where they go to church (or don’t), where they went to school (or didn’t), which bumper sticker is on their car. That kind of judgment, including racial judgment, is in my bones, with roots in early age. I grew up in suburb of New York. In that proudly progressive but mostly segregated community, relatives and neighbors and preachers taught and modeled (wittingly or unwittingly) discrimination based on race and gender and other factors. I have to admit it’s kind of in my DNA. And I’m not alone.

Last week, our church hosted a pilgrimage of teenagers from many parts of the country. The focus was the history of race relations in our part of the world, as a way to envision a better future. We realized we are both part of the problem and part of the solution. In the course of our conversations, a wise person cited Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

St. Paul was on to the same thing when in the Letter to the Romans he said; “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” For me, I’m mindful, as the verse from Psalm 51 circles for a landing, that racism and prejudice and judgment make up part of who I am. Again, I’m not alone. It’s part of our collective DNA, as Jim Wallis notes in his book: Racism. America’s Original Sin. The dynamic is at work in our country, in our national leadership, in our schools, housing and employment, in our churches, in systems and structures and in our hearts.

And so I ask, with St. Paul, (see Romans 7) who will deliver us? You may not want to get into politics on a Monday morning. This may not be an issue for you. If that’s the case, pray for those of us who struggle. Pray, because this is a spiritual issue. It has to do with daily spiritual practice. It has to do with following Jesus, who threw racial and gender and social distinctions out the window. It has to do with the human family.

Here’s some good news: We are led by a Presiding Bishop who sees racial reconciliation as a huge part of the loving, liberating, life-giving Jesus Movement. In baptism, we are called to persevere in resisting evil. Whenever (not if ever) we sin (Including the sin of racism) we are to turn. We are to seek and serve Christ in all persons, even when Christ comes well disguised. We are to respect the dignity of every human being, those who are demonized or dehumanized, those described as animals or infestation, those excluded or detained.

In all of those challenges, we are to commit ourselves to a new way of life. But as the Baptismal Covenant reminds us, we will only get there with God’s help, who promises to create in each one of us a new heart and to renew a right spirit within us.

Which leads me to pray: Dear God. Could you hurry up?

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4

A prayer for the Feast of Mary Magdalene, observed today


Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

An Episcopal priest named Robert Morris speaks about the commonplace and frequently unnoticed ways that people rise above their loneliness and fear as “ordinary resurrections.” He points out that the origin of “resurrection” is the Greek word “anastasis,” which, he notes, means “standing up again” and as he puts it unpretentiously, “We all lie down. We all rise up. We do this every day.” The same word, as he notes, is used in Scripture: “I am the resurrection and the life.” But in an afternote directed possibly at fellow members of the clergy, he observes, “The Resurrection does not wait for Easter.”

Jonathan Kozol, Ordinary Resurrections 
(pp. 107-108)

Ordinary Resurrections

This morning, think of someone who is, for you, a spiritual hero.

For me, Martha comes to mind. We were in seminary together. She was a successful, Ivy League trained lawyer in New York, very much at home in her native Upper East Side. She left that to pursue ordination in the Episcopal Church, a move that probably only a few would consider upwardly mobile. Not too long after ordination, she accepted a call to lead a congregation in the South Bronx, a place that had all kinds of challenges. Decades later, she still leads that community with grace and strength and courage, a church and a school offering a community center. 

Her work drew the attention of Dr. Jonathan Kozol, a Harvard educator who has written a number of books about the plight of poor children in our nation. He admits he is not a particularly religious person, but he began to hang around this church in the South Bronx and he got to know many of the children.

His earlier books that could be totally depressing gave way to a couple books that spoke of the inspiring promise unfolding in this church, under the leadership of Martha. One of those books is entitled “Ordinary Resurrections.” In it, he describes what he has learned from these urban children, what he has learned about hope. He notes that the word “resurrection” in Greek is “anastasis” which really means to stand again. And he notes the ways in which resurrections happen all the time, as you can read in the excerpt above.

At heart, we are an Easter people. We center our calendar around the Feast of the Resurrection (a.k.a., Easter). But as the New Testament says, because Christ has been raised, we also can be raised. Resurrections, even the most ordinary resurrections, can come to us. How have you experienced resurrection? When has a dead end become a threshold?

All of this brings me to another saint we can remember this morning. Today is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. She is often mentioned in the gospels, and comes up a lot in church history, often disparaged because many in our tradition have not been able to make sense of the truth that probably the most faithful of all the disciples was a woman. For those who still imagine that women should not have voice in the church, we must acknowledge that she was the first person to preach about the resurrection. If she had not gone to the tomb and witnessed the resurrection and proclaimed that good news to the disciples, those disciples might still be in the upper room, locked behind doors, figuring out how to move forward, working on a strategic plan.

Jesus’ resurrection became a threshold for all the disciples, including Mary Magdalene. His resurrection, celebrated on this day when we remember Mary Magdalene (read the story of her witness in John 20), is celebrated every Sunday. It invites us to a life of ordinary resurrections.

And that is good news worth proclaiming when the politics of our day may seem like a dead end, when many of our churches seem in desperate need of new life, when health crises and broken relationship and debilitating loneliness seem like a big stone locking up the tomb of our lives.

Resurrections can happen. As sure as the sun comes up in the morning, they can happen today, in your life. Believe it to be true. Give thanks for saints who demonstrate that possibility, because we need to see what that looks like in real life. And live this Monday, July 22, in expectation that the God who raised Jesus from the dead can do a new thing in your life, in our church, in our big and beautiful and broken world. 

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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I will bear witness that the Lord is righteous; I will praise the Name of the LORD most high.

Psalm 7:18

We hear the word evangelism and think automatically about someone telling somebody something so that they’ll change. But the truth is that evangelism is as much listening as it is sharing. It involves two people actually sharing their lives with each other. They share their stories and a new story gets written. That’s what evangelism is. It helps all of us find our way into a deeper relationship with God. And if there’s a deeper relationship with God, there’s going to be a deeper relationship with each other as well. That’s the bigger picture of evangelism. It’s more than just telling you how to get to heaven.

Michael Curry

Mostly evangelism is not what we tell people, unless what we tell is totally consistent with who we are. It is who we are that is going to make the difference. It is who we are that is going to show the love that brought us all into being, that cares for us all, now, and forever. If we do not have love in our hearts, our words of love with have little meaning. If we do not truly enjoy our faith, nobody is going to catch the fire of enjoyment from us. If our lives are not totally centered on Christ, we will not be Christ-bearers for others, no matter how pious our words.

Madeleine L’Engle

Calling all semi-evangelists

In the course of conversation with members of Episcopal congregations, I ran across a woman who had an interesting reaction when the topic of evangelism came up. You see, our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry talks a lot about evangelism these days, making it a priority for our church. This woman wasn’t sure what to make of all that. She confessed: “I don’t know why we’re talking so much about evangelism.’ She said “Everyone in town who ought to be Episcopalian already is.” In other words, we didn’t need any more folks, thank you very much.

Her comment got me thinking about evangelism: why we do it; whether we should do it; how we might do it well; how respectful we can be; how tasteful we need to be. I suspect we’ve all been on the receiving end of folks we meet on doorstep or airplane or dinner party, folks with religious devotion so deep they are convinced we must see things their way. I remember what Dave Barry asked: Why is it that people who want to tell you about their religion almost never want to hear about yours?

My musing about evangelism led me back to one of my theological guides, Charles Schulz. Charlie Brown approaches Rerun, asking what he’s doing. Rerun says: “I’m with Linus, who is across the street knocking on doors, telling people about the “Great Pumpkin.’  Rerun says; “I’m standing over here so no one will know I’m with him.” Charlie Brown asks: “What kind of evangelist are you?” Rerun replies: “I’m a semi-evangelist.”

I may claim that title for myself. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is that evangelism best begins with ourselves. I’m convinced that we also need to evangelize within our own churches, reminding people that the way of love is nothing but good news. Too often church folk are associated with bad news, practicing what one preacher called ‘teeth-gritting Christianity.” Gandhi once said “I would be a Christian if it were not for the Christians.” Too often church folk don’t really seem to believe the good news that love is unconditional, that all are welcome, that we respect the dignity of every human being, that Christ is present in all persons, that grace is true. On some days, when I look at the state of American Christendom, it’s enough to make this priest a none.

A friend told me about a radio interview he heard with a pastor of a mega- church, thousands in attendance. The interviewer wanted to know how over 20 years, the pastor had grown the church. The pastor responded: “It’s simple. I just make one convert each day.” The interviewer pressed him on how to do that. The pastor said; “I am that one convert. Each day, I need to be converted.” In other words, the best evangelism was to tend to one’s own journey, one’s own faith, one’s own spiritual growth, one’s own discipleship, one’s own love of God and neighbor.

As a semi-evangelist, I’ve been exploring different (maybe tepid) ways to be an evangelist. Recently, when walking through airports, I’ve been whistling familiar hymns. It has sparked a number of interesting conversations, even people telling me they needed to hear that. I’m learning from folks at the check out counter at grocery stores and restaurants. Often, in this neck of the woods, they will say, “Have a blessed day.” I’ve been trying to say that, too. Sometimes, I’ll get in a conversation with someone, and they’ll reveal a challenge, and I’ll say: “How can I pray for you?’ Other times, I’ll ask a question like “Where have you seen God at work?” I’m amazed how many people have a story about God in their lives. Those are my recent meager efforts as semi-evangelist. Any other suggestions?

So calling all evangelists, or semi-evangelists: What’s the good news that is part of the story of Jesus? Where do you hear that good news? How does it touch your heart? And then think of a way to share that good news, in word and action, to listen for that good news in the lives of others.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Jesus (John 8)

You will know the truth and the truth will make you odd.

Flannery O’Connor

The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.

David Foster Wallace

Dependence starts when we are born and lasts until we die. We accept our dependence as babies and ultimately, with varying degrees of resistance, we accept help when we get to the end of our lives. But in the middle of our lives, we mistakenly fall prey to the myth that successful people are those that help rather than need, and broken people need rather than help. Given enough resources, we can even pay for help and create the mirage that we are completely self-sufficient. But the truth is that no amount of money, influence, resources, or determination will change our physical, emotional, and spiritual dependence on others.

Brené Brown

Dependence Day

Welcome to this week that includes the Fourth of July. For the church, it is observed as the Feast of Independence Day, one of the few national holidays making its way into the liturgical calendar (along with Thanksgiving and Labor Day). So in this week when there will be summer time fun and days off and celebration it’s worth asking what this Independence Day has to do with our lives as people of faith.

I was not able to find the word “independence” in scripture. But the word “freedom” comes up a lot. That may because the notion of independence may make us think of the freedom to do whatever we damn well please. It may suggest autonomy or even license, things often pursued in our culture.

But as usual, Jesus comes with slightly annoying reversal of the ways we think about things. Jesus said that you will know the truth and the truth will make you free (interesting enough, those words are carved in stone over the entrance to the CIA building in D.C.) And what is the truth Jesus taught? For me, it is a call to discover freedom not so much in our independence but rather in our dependence on God and our dependence on each other.

Augustine picked up on that and talked about faithful discipleship as a matter of service to the one in whose service is perfect freedom. In the 19^th century, theologian Freidrich Schleiermacher described faith as a matter of absolute dependence. Paul Tillich built on that to see faith simply as the acceptance of being accepted. In our own time, many people discover that is only in recognition of a higher power that they find freedom from powers that otherwise control them, even captivate them. A favorite rendering of the first of the beatitudes puts it this way: Blessed are those who know their need of God. As a church, we affirm our dependence every time we offer the baptismal covenant and say that we will fulfill its promises with God’s help.

From that place, we recognize our dependence on others and their dependence on us. Aka, community. That’s why in Jesus’ economy love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable. One day, Jesus discovered his disciples jockeying for position, trying to figure out who would get platinum status, who would nab corner office in heavenly corporate headquarters. Maybe they were imagining a life of powerful independence, reflective of their own magnificence. After all, they had been with Jesus from the start. They had bet on the right horse. Soon they would be in charge. Independent. Free agents.

Jesus spoke instead of the greatness that comes to those who serve. Yesterday’s reading from the letter to the Galatians put it this way: 

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants to one another.

None of this is to detract or distract from this week’s celebration of the blessings of freedom that has made our nation great, freedoms to be cherished and protected and practiced now more than ever.

But in this week, as in every week, we are to celebrate the freedom that comes when we grow to depend on the life of the Spirit, and then to let that freedom find expression in service to others. How might you do that today?

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

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Almighty God, by whose providence your servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Savior by preaching repentance: Make us so to follow his teaching and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and, following his example, constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A prayer for the Feast of John the Baptist, June 24

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

A reading from the Gospel of Luke (chapter one)

In the early 16 ^th century, Matthias Grunewald painted an altarpiece for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim, Germany.  The monks of the monastery cared for plague sufferers, treating their skin diseases. In the center of that painting, the image of the crucified Christ is pitted with plague sores, showing patients that Jesus shared their afflictions. Google it. It’s grim. A graphic illustration of compassion, which literally means to suffer with. Imagine its impact in a hospital filled with folks suffering in inexplicable ways.

The altarpiece conveys the violence of the crucifixion. The suffering Christ is set in the middle, Mary Magdalene and Mary, Jesus’ mother to his right, and John the Baptist to his left. John the Baptist stands with arm extended, index finger pointing to Christ. For Barth, John the Baptist was key to interpreting Grünewald’s piece. “John the Baptist can only point” (Church Dogmatics, I/1, 125). The painting is not about John the Baptist. It is about Jesus. For Barth, witnessing means “pointing in a specific direction beyond the self and on to another” (Church Dogmatics, I/1, 111).

Karl Barth kept this picture of John the Baptist over his desk where he worked incessantly, writing theology about everything, day in and day out. Apparently the man never had an unexpressed written thought. Every morning Karl Barth would wake up, read the newspaper, and stare at this painting by Grunewald. Before he would teach theology or write, Barth would meditate on this painting, particularly on John the Baptist. He said that, as Christians (whether a theologian, pastor, teacher, mother, doctor, store keeper, etc.), our job is to be the pointing finger of John the Baptist. The only thing we should do, the only thing we can do is point to Jesus. Barth said that this scene painted by Grunewald is the sum of all history, from creation in the past to eternity. He said that we are that pointed index finger. He said that within that finger rests the weight of salvation.

Today is the Feast of John the Baptist, as eccentric character as can be found in scripture, and that’s saying a lot. At one point, Jesus said that there was no one greater born of woman than this guy. So what was the key to his greatness, a timely question in a world where we debate what makes us great? I think it has to do with this sense that he knew how to point. He had obvious gifts. He had a whole ton of followers. And he knew he was not the messiah.

In light of that, he becomes a model for us, teaching us how to make it through this week in late June. It has to do with remembering that we are called to point to Jesus. We are called to point to love breaking into the world. We are called to notice compassion, identifying with the suffering from which none of us can escape.

So how will you honor June 24, the Feast of John the Baptist? It seems to me that it will come with our creative response to this call, to figure out what it means for each one of us to point to Christ. We live in a world where grace and love are in dangerously short supply. We can point to Jesus in ways great and small. An act of kindness can point to Jesus. A blessing, spoken or enacted, can point to Jesus. A prayer of hope can point to Jesus. An identification with the pain of the world can point to Jesus. You get the idea. Go for it.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

Register Now!

Leading for Discipleship:
A conference especially for those
who have worked with RenewalWorks
Sept. 30-Oct. 2
Wilmington, NC
Click here for registration and more info