From Empty to Full, Part 2: The Lord Makes a Way

 

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

There is a little story that I tell sometimes on Christmas Eve. A woman lost her most valuable possession: a diamond ring. So upset, she called her sister, who came over right away to help her look for it. They got down on their hands and knees and began searching, inch by inch over the carpet in the living room. When her husband got home he saw the two women crawling around on the living room floor, intently looking at the carpet, serious as could be. He asked what they were doing. His wife said, “I lost my diamond ring and we’re looking for it.”

Well, he got right down on the floor with them to help in the search. The three of them were now crawling on the floor, inch by inch, searching for the lost ring. After what seemed like hours of fruitless searching the man looked at his wife and said, “Are you sure you lost it in here?” and she said, “No! Not at all. I probably lost it in the room across the hall.” He said, “So why aren’t we looking in that room?” and she answered, “The light is a lot better in here.”

This is one of the less appealing qualities of being human. We might be the most advanced of all God’s creatures, but when it comes to searching for what we need to fill us up, to make us complete, we are the worst. We seem to always look in the wrong places. And very often, for the wrong things.

Last week I said that the story of Ruth is a story of loss, of emptiness and longing to be full. Ruth, Orpah, and Naomi lost the men in their lives, thereby losing their social status and their economic security. In some ways they have lost their identity, their sense of who they are. Naomi even changed her name because she could no longer see herself as Naomi, which means pleasant.

Naomi and her family, Elimelech, Chilion, and Mahlon, all came to Moab as refugees; driven out of their homeland by a crisis of famine. They worked to make a home for themselves in this strange land, the sons even marrying local girls, in some ways becoming part of the community. But then the loss of the three men erased everything that might have been gained. Naomi is still a refugee – even more vulnerable now than she was before.

And so she is in a position of needing to find a new way to survive. She knows that the most logical place for her to look is back in Bethlehem, the place from which she came and where the famine which drove her away is now in the past.

And Ruth decides to go with her. This is not necessarily the logical, sensible thing for her to do. Indeed, Naomi urged both her daughters-in-law to go back to their parents’ house, that new husbands might be found for them. Orpah did the logical, sensible thing. Ruth did not.

Ruth looked at Naomi. She saw a woman growing old with nothing and no one in the world. She saw a journey ahead of her filled with dangers and hardships. And she saw that, at the end of the road Naomi still would have no one. Naomi would still be a widow, if she made this journey alone.

Ruth considered these things when she made the decision to go with her.

It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t logical. It promised her no security and little hope of finding a future. But it was the caring thing to do, and so she went to Bethlehem with Naomi to seek a life.

Naomi and Ruth left Moab empty and journeyed to Bethlehem. For Ruth and Naomi, what they were is no longer. In Bethlehem they will discover what and who they will become.

The first thing Ruth did was to go out to find a place where she could glean. Gleaning was something she, as a widow and a stranger in the land, was entitled to do. When the workers go out to harvest the fields, they walk with their scythes and their baskets row by row, cutting the grain from the stalk. But they won’t get every last bit. Some small amount will be left on the stalk. Some small amount will fall to the earth, and the gleaner is permitted to gather what she can.

This is decreed by the law of Israel, in fact. In the book of Leviticus we read, “When you reap the harvest you shall not reap to the edges of your field or gather what falls to the ground. Leave it for the poor and the stranger” Everyone, even the poor and the stranger, has a right to eat.

Ruth found a field where the reapers were at work and she found a place behind them to glean.

It happened that Ruth found herself in the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi. And Boaz was a kind and righteous man, who took notice of Ruth.

It is possible that Boaz noticed Ruth because she was pretty. It is possible that Boaz made it a habit to notice the people who worked in his fields because it was good business. Possibly, it was a combination of these things. But the story tells us that Boaz was kind to Ruth because he knew of Ruth’s great kindness toward Naomi. And so it goes.

He instructed his workers regarding Ruth, that the women should welcome her, and the men should leave her alone. He insisted that Ruth drink from the water that his men had drawn and eat from the bread and wine that had been prepared for the workers. And at the end of the day, Boaz made sure that Ruth went home with plenty of grain, that her gleaning shawl was full.

It was a good day of gleaning for Ruth, with the promise of more good days to come. But no one is going to get rich or fat off of gleaning. It is a means of survival, at best, hand to mouth. While the harvest season lasted, Ruth was out every day, gleaning behind the women in Boaz’ fields, bringing home food every evening for Naomi to prepare a meal for the two of them. And while Ruth was working, Naomi was thinking.

At the end of the season, Naomi told Ruth to wash and anoint herself with perfume, to put on her best clothes, then go down and see Boaz. “He will tell you what to do,” Naomi says to Ruth. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

We don’t know exactly what happened on the threshing room floor, although we can imagine. We do know that when Boaz awoke and found Ruth beside him, she said to him, “You are next of kin.” The term is laden with meaning that Boaz understood perfectly. To be the next of kin meant having the right to redeem. To be the redeemer meant taking Ruth as his wife, taking responsibility for her and Naomi and their family property – property that Elimelech had left behind years ago during the famine. It needs to be a man who will redeem Naomi and Ruth and make them whole again, and Boaz is that man.

And so it came to be. There was still one more detail to work out, which you can read about at the beginning of Chapter 4 if you like. But once Boaz had that taken care of, he married Ruth. And Ruth bore a child, giving fullness of life back to Naomi. Naomi who was empty is once again full.

And so we have a happy ending. It is a wonder that things ended this way. At every turn of this story, things could have gone from bad to worse. Every move Ruth and Naomi made was a risk. Everything could have turned out differently.

This is also true: at every turn, Ruth had an option that might have been easier for her. She could have stayed in Moab. Once she was in Bethlehem, she could have chosen a young man for herself out there in the fields – apparently there was interest. As was clear from the beginning of this story, Ruth had options. But Naomi did not.

And Ruth, in her faithfulness, chose the way that would offer the best chance for Naomi as well as herself. Ruth married Boaz so that Naomi would also be cared for, and so that the line of Naomi and Elimelech would continue.

And just in case the reader doesn’t care all that much about the line of Elimelech and Naomi, we are told that Ruth’s son Obed became the father of Jesse, who became the father of David. King David.

Through the story of Ruth we see the hand of the Lord at work. We see these women crossing from risk to safety and eventually to fullness. And it all happens through Ruth, the Moabite woman.

It all comes down to something called hesed – a word that appears several times in this little story. Hesed is a Hebrew word that is often translated “lovingkindness.”  Most often it is used to describe the abundant goodness of God. But here in this story it is used to describe Ruth.

Ruth showed abundant kindness. She went beyond what anyone expected of her. She did the things that she could do for Naomi because she was the one who could do it.

And Orpah? We never hear of her again. Back in Moab, she made the self-interested choice. It was not necessarily a bad choice – it was the practical thing, the logical thing. But Ruth was different. Ruth did the faithful thing. The hesed thing.

From this little story of Ruth we see a human acting in the image of God. Ruth makes decisions based, not on what is in her interest, but on what is good and right. Ruth looks beyond herself, she sees the needs of another, and she does what she can.

But let us not close the book on Ruth and move on to the next thing. We can benefit from pausing for a while on this one small life. Hundreds of years before Jesus, we see Ruth living according to the teachings of Jesus, going beyond what anyone expected. We see a kindness, a goodness, a generosity that is Christlike.

This is the life we, the church, are called to live. It doesn’t always appeal to us. It doesn’t always seem to make sense to us, seem logical or practical to us. Yet, this kindness, this self-emptying love? This is what will give us fullness.

We have choices in life. Even when we feel like there are no choices, it turns out that there are. Just as Ruth made the choice for hesed, lovingkindness, we have that choice too. In a state that seemed utterly empty, Ruth took the choice that carried Naomi along with her and led them both to fullness. We always have that choice too.

So let us be mindful of this when we seek our fullness. Whatever feels like fullness to you – a big checking account balance, a hefty retirement account, luxurious vacations – whatever it is for you. We will never find fullness there. Seek the way of lovingkindness and you will be full.

Photo: ChurchArt.com 

From Empty to Full, Part 1: When There Is No Way

 

Ruth 1:1-18

Mark 12:38-44

Joan Chittister said life is made up of a series of defining moments. Some of the moments are shared experiences: the great depression, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 – these are a few of the big ones that come to mind. All of us experience them together and, not only do they contribute to the formation of who we are personally, they shape the culture we are all a part of.

But other experiences are personal: an illness you experienced, a conversation you had with someone, a marriage, a job, a child – things that become part of the story of who you are. And that is what it is – a story.

I think one of the defining features of being human is the search for meaning. It is important for our lives to have meaning, and so we look for it in our experiences, we make meaning out of the pieces of our lives. This is what we are doing when we tell our stories.

The book of Ruth in the Old Testament is such a story. It takes pieces from life experience, puts them together in a meaningful way, and tells something true. I don’t know that all the characters in Ruth really existed. I don’t know if the events actually happened just as they are written. What I do know is that the story of Ruth tells deep and meaningful truths about life, truths that connect with our own experiences of loss and hope, despair and fulfillment.

The story begins long, long ago – in the time when the judges ruled, a period of time early in Israel’s history. When the people settled in the land God had led them to, there was no king. There was, instead, a series of individuals anointed to serve as judge over the people on sort of an ad hoc basis. It was a time of erratic, inconsistent governance.

And during this time, there was a famine in the land. Famines, even today, are periods of great migration, because people who have no food need to go in search of food. If they live in places where the systems of government are not functioning well, they are on their own to find a way. It so happened that during this famine, a man of Bethlehem took his wife and two sons and migrated to the land of Moab – a foreign land – because in Bethlehem there was no way for them to make a way.

The man’s name was Elimelech and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth.

Some of us have been given names that have special meaning, but in the book of Ruth, the names of the characters we have just been introduced to are surprisingly blunt in their meaning. Elimelech literally means “My God is king,” and by this we know Elimelech was a righteous man. Naomi means “pleasant,” so I guess she was pleasant.

But their sons’ names are a bit disturbing. Mahlon means sickly and Chilion means frail. Imagine: I’d like you to meet my son, sickly, and my other son, frail. Obviously, we don’t expect much of them. You might as well name your child He gonna die soon.

And they did – die soon. As did the patriarch, Elimelech. And we are left with three widows.

In ancient Israel a woman whose husband died was not necessarily called a widow. It was only if she had no living sons to care for her. In ancient Israel, to be a widow was to be utterly and completely vulnerable. Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah were widows.

Now on her own, Naomi decided that it was time for her to go back to Bethlehem. She had heard that the famine was over, so she knew it made the most sense for her to make the difficult journey back to her homeland. She told her daughters-in-law what she intended to do, but that she had no expectation that they would come with her. Ruth’s and Orpah’s families were in Moab. The thing that made sense for them was to go back home to their parents’ houses and hopefully be remarried.

Here is where names are important again. The name Orpah actually means “the back of the neck.” And the name Ruth is an allusion to the word friendship.

So, after some initial protestation, Miss Back-of-the-neck turns her back on Naomi. But Friendship stays. Then Pleasant and Friendship make their way to Bethlehem. Only, when they get there Naomi tells the people, “Call me no longer Naomi; call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.” Mara means bitter.

The story of Ruth is a story of loss, of finding oneself empty. The place where this family began was Bethlehem, which literally means “house of bread.” But the house of bread became empty of bread, and so the family was forced to emigrate. Moab is a place where there is food, but in every other way may feel empty to them. The two sons marry, but they have no children, and then all three of the men die, leaving the women in complete emptiness. Naomi even speaks of the emptiness of her womb, her inability to provide husbands for Orpah and Ruth.

These women were in a state of emptiness because the world they lived in left them this way. Just like the widow in the Gospel of Mark who gives her two small copper coins to the temple treasury. Naomi had nothing. The widow in Mark’s gospel had nothing. But they were not poor because they were lazy, or because they had made bad choices in life. They were poor because the system they lived in was designed to deprive them of any good choices. The system they lived in was designed to keep all the power in some hands and out of the hands of others.

And somehow, this widow Jesus observes was expected to give all she had so the ones in power don’t have to feel the pinch in any way. How does that even happen? Who decides this is a system that makes sense?

You might feel that the story of Ruth and Naomi bears some similarities to your own story. If there is a part of your story where you had nowhere to turn, no one who would help you unless you handed over your dignity; if there is a part of your story when you begged for someone to understand what you needed, but they all just smiled sadly and shook their heads; if there is anything like this in your story, then you know.

And even if you don’t, all you need to do is think about the men, women, and children who come through the doors of H.O.P.E. every Tuesday and Thursday. All those who step up to our kitchen door Tuesdays and Thursdays for a wholesome meal, because they are hungry.

Sometimes I think of that saying, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” And it frustrates me that so much of what we do as a church is handing out fish, one fish at a time, one day at a time. And I wish we could, instead, hand people the power to fish for themselves, the freedom to provide for themselves.

But there are so many obstacles all along that way. Sometimes the change that the system needs is bigger than people are willing to risk. A kind of change we can’t imagine.

The system that left Naomi empty felt perfectly normal to them. The system that left the widow in the temple destitute felt righteous and just. And I wonder what we feel is normal, is just, and still leaves people with no way to make a way.

At times like this I feel we are far from the kingdom of God.

I don’t know for sure what it will take to bring us closer to the kingdom of God, closer to the love of neighbor that Jesus teaches. Until then it will be necessary to keep handing out fish, every day. Until then, the Naomis of the world, the ones who don’t have any good options, will continue to struggle in a world that beats hard against them.

But perhaps there is a word of hope coming from Ruth, when she says to Naomi, where you go I will go.

I will go with you.

My prayer for us today is that –

until the day comes that this world looks like the kingdom of God, no matter how long that takes;

until the day when we can stop handing out sandwiches at our kitchen door and we can stop packing up bags of food for little children to take home for the weekend;

until the day when the Ruths and Naomis don’t have to walk that lonely road searching for a way when it feels like there is no way;

my prayer is that, every day until then, we make them the promise Ruth made: I will go with you. I will be there with you.

May it be so.

Photo: ChurchArt.com

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 4: Citizens of Heaven

 

Mark12:28-34  

To what can I compare this scene in Mark 12?

I am remembering the experience I had about 20 years ago of being examined for ordination on the floor of presbytery. It is an experience one goes into with fear and trembling. Picture this.

As you, the examinee, stands in front of the gathering, they proceed to ask their questions:

Where do you stand on eschatology? Would you say you’re a premillennialist? Postmillennialist? Amillenialist?

Are you more a Zwinglian or a Calvinist on the matter of the eucharist? Or, heaven forbid, a Lutheran???

Do your views on God’s sovereignty and human free will conform more to a Reformed or an Arminian theology?

And then one person stands up and says, “Tell us something about God’s love.” This scribe who approaches Jesus in Mark 12 is that person.

This scribe knew the answer to his question before he asked Jesus, and he was appreciative of the answer Jesus gave. Love God and love your neighbor. This, he knew, is what it’s all about. And the truth of the matter is, they all knew that love is the most important thing. It’s just that it’s all too easy to forget the most important things.

As we finished Chapter 10 last week, I said we were right at the critical point in Jesus’ journey, where everything was about to change. They were about to enter Jerusalem, and now they are there.

And he has been assaulted with test questions, trip-you-up-and-haul-you-in-for-further-questioning questions. The authorities want to do their job and they think this is doing their job. But it seems like in their overwhelming concern for getting the details just right, they have lost sight of the “why” and even the “who.”

In the middle of all this, a certain scribe draws near to Jesus, and asks him a question that gets at the essence of everything. Among all God’s commandments, what is really the important thing? They actually have a conversation that really matters, just the two of them, while, presumably, argument continues all around them. Then Jesus leans in close to this scribe and says to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

And for each of us, in our heart of hearts, this is what we want to hear. “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Because as followers of Jesus, this is what we call home. And we deeply long for it.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, “We are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. He will transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.”

For four weeks now we have been talking about our identity - the who of it all, who we are in Christ. Over this time, we have looked at a few qualities of the identity we take on as Christians: we are first of all, forgiven. And as those who are forgiven, we practice forgiveness toward others – the two are inseparable. Secondly, we are friends. Jesus said there is no greater love that to lay down your life for your friends. And when we open ourselves completely to one another, in solidarity and compassion, we are laying down our lives for our friends.

A third quality is this: Jesus calls us to be salt and light for the world; to have a transformational impact on all around us.

In all these things we have the opportunity to radically change the world for good. Simply by living into our identity. And today we come to the why. Because we are citizens of heaven.

If we have been given a glimpse of the realm of God, then we know some of the ways it is different from this world we live in. Rather than vengeance there would be forgiveness. Rather than hatred there would be friendship. Rather than each of us retreating to our caves and turning our backs on the needs of the world, each of us would be salt and light in the world. We know that this is God’s desire for all of us – wholeness, shalom.

And we know that our souls long to be there.

We are all seeking, longing, aching to be not far from the kingdom of God. And so we practice this great commandment of love – to love the Lord with all of our being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And so in doing this we draw near to the kingdom of God.

Today we observe All Saints’ Day. We remember those servants of the Lord who have gone before us, particularly those who have died in this past year. It is, at the same time, a day of sadness and a day of thankfulness. Because when we remember these saints, we recognize all the ways they brought more love to the world. We remember how they walked in Christ’s way and practiced living out the greatest commandments.

We are thankful that they served as models of faith for us. These are the ones who taught us how to be faithful disciples, how to practice compassion and mercy and forgiveness. How to be a true friend. Because they lived, the world is not the same as it was before.

But we know, as well, that these saints also had models of faith who came before them, ones who taught them to walk this way in their time. Because this is not something one does alone. We are all a part of the great communion of the saints, the whole family of God, living and dead.

Let us give thanks for the identity that was bestowed on us in our baptism.

Let us give thanks for all the saints who have walked before us, showing us the way.

Let us live our lives always remembering the most important thing. Love. Let your decisions be made according to love of neighbor.

Photo: ChurchArt.Com

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 3: Shaped by Grace

 

Colossians 4:2-6

Mark 10:46-52  

Sometimes in the movies, and sometimes even in real life, there are critical moments where time slows down. Moments when you notice every second of what you are experiencing, when it feels as though a message is being conveyed to you. The message is: in this moment, everything changes.

I have had that feeling about our journey these last few weeks in Chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel. Time slowed down. We have not rushed through it. We have not used the Cliff Notes version of this. We have absorbed every word.

Because there is an important message. And everything is about to change.

He is drawing near the end of his journey. He is taking his disciples from Galilee, which was home for most of them. It was the sticks, out at the margins of civilization. But now they were leaving Galilee and moving toward Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was the center of Judaism, but these Galileans were not strangers to it. Like all Jews, they had traveled up to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices at the temple. But this journey to the city was unlike any they had taken before, because this sacrifice will be unlike any that has been made before. When they enter the gates of Jerusalem they are walking toward his crucifixion.

They are on the last leg of their journey today, passing Jericho and heading into Jerusalem, when the entourage passes by Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. Bartimaeus listens to the movement around him and hears that this is Jesus passing him by. He begins to shout out for all he is worth, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People try to shut him up because, I guess, people who are in need shouldn’t draw attention to themselves and their needs. Because, I guess, making other people see their need is rude. Offensive.

But this is a very large crowd on the move, and large crowds make a lot of noise. Bartimaeus crying for mercy should not have been a problem because who would hear him anyway? Jesus hears him, as it turns out.

Jesus stops in the middle of the road when he hears Bartimaeus’ voice calling to him. He stops and causes everyone else to stop too. There is silence as they all look to see what has caused this interruption in their programming. Jesus, standing still, says, “Call him here.”

And the word makes its way to Bartimaeus on the side of the road. Suddenly they all want to be helpful. Bartimaeus leaps up and throws off his cloak, scattering the coins he has collected so far this day, and he runs to Jesus. Jesus asks him a simple question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

It is the same question that he asked James and John, the sons of Zebedee, just last week. But now, instead of asking for power and glory, Bartimaeus simply says, “My Teacher, let me see again.”

And Bartimaeus, his sight restored, is now on the way.

Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well,” but the word that is translated as being “made well,” is one that has another meaning. And we might just as easily read this as saying, “Your faith has saved you.”

Your faith has saved you, is the message to Bartimaeus, by giving you new vision. Your faith has freed you from the blinders that kept you from seeing the world as God sees it. Your faith has enabled you to see everything – absolutely everything – through Christ Jesus. And this makes all the difference in the world.

When we become followers of Jesus it is as though we are walking through a curtain – on one side of the curtain we can see things in one way, and on the other said of the curtain we can suddenly see what we could not see before. And this new vision leads to new values, new priorities, new desire to live in the kingdom of God, in mutual care and harmony with all of God’s creation.

It is not about putting on blinders that shut out the bad stuff or sticking our fingers in our ears to shut out the discordant noise. When we begin to see through Christ Jesus we see it all as God sees it all.

And we can see that this world God loves is not about transactional relationships – where the one question we always ask is, “What’s in it for me?” but instead we might ask, “What do you need? What do you want me to do for you?”

Kim and I went to the Civic Center last Thursday to cast our votes in this year’s election, and I have felt a lot of anxiety about it. Not anxiety about how I voted, because I am clear about my values and how they direct my decisions in this matter. But just anxiety about the state we are in and about what may come. These are not easy times.

Yet, I know that there are higher powers on the move; there is greater wisdom than yours or mine or anybody running for office. The universe does not turn on our votes. The world does not turn on Kamala Harris’s abilities or Donald Trump’s faculties.

Regardless of the outcome of these elections, we know there will be challenges ahead. There will be suffering that cries out to be alleviated, there will be need that cries out to be filled, there will be conflicts that require the efforts of peacemakers.

No matter who we choose to lead our nation, our nation will need us to see the world through Christ.

And know ourselves called to be salt and light in the world – this is who we are in Christ Jesus. We share this vision with others as we go on the way –

The way of Jerusalem…the way of the cross with Jesus.

But even as we walk through the darkness we can be confident. On this way, we are surrounded by love, we are filled with purpose, we are clothed with righteousness and shaped by God’s grace.

In this new life, with new vision through Christ, we are shaped by God’s grace so that our every action, every decision, every intention reflects it.

May you, like Bartimaeus, boldly ask Jesus for what you need.

May you embrace the gift of new vision through Christ.

May you be on the way with Jesus.

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 2: I Call You Friend

 

John15:15

Mark 10:35-45

You’re sitting with a friend, and suddenly your friend says, “Look. I need to tell you something but please promise me you won’t be mad.”

When your friend says, “promise you won’t be mad,” you know that friend is about to tell you something that is guaranteed to make you mad, right?

Same situation here. Jesus’ friends say, “promise you will do for us whatever we ask of you,” because they are about to ask something from him that is really too much to ask.

But Jesus plays along. “What do you want,” he asks them. I imagine him grinning at this moment. They say to him, “Give us the best seats in your glory. The throne at your right hand and the throne at your left hand. Please, thank you.”

Listen, this is a weird thing for them to ask. Even for these guys who are predisposed to saying weird and inappropriate things, this ranks up there with the weirdest. Weird, because of what they have just heard Jesus say.

This happened while they were on the road, right after the exchange with the rich young ruler. Right after Jesus told the rich man that he would need to sell all his possessions. Right after he told his disciples about all the things that would happen to him – not nice things. He would be handed over to the chief priests, who would condemn him to death. He would be mocked and spit upon and flogged and finally killed.

Somehow, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they found this to be a fitting time to say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Really? Where are their heads at? Quite possibly, they are desperately seeking something to make them forget.

Because, as Peter said to Jesus after the conversation about riches and heaven, they have staked everything on him. Each of them has left everything and everyone to follow him. And they are beginning to see where that might lead. They are beginning to see that if Jesus is the one who will suffer and die then they, too, might be the ones who suffer and die for his sake. This teacher, this friend, is showing them things they did not really want to know – about himself; about themselves.

There is a novel by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, called Identity, in which one of the characters tells us he believes that friendship is for the sole purpose of knowing who we are. Friends are like a mirror, he says, and we ask only that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it. And this makes me wonder: What happens when the friend who polishes the mirror forces us to see something about ourselves that we do not care to see?

“I have called you friends,” Jesus said, “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” All of it.

The topic today is friendship because this is a dimension of our relationship with Jesus. Throughout the time they spent together, Jesus had different kinds of relationships with his disciples. He was their teacher, he was their healer, he was their guide. But then he lifted their relationship up to a higher level: friend.

A friendship is a relationship between equals. Friends may not be equal in every sense, but the basis of the friendship is the acceptance that one does not “lord it over” the other. One does not patronize the other. Friends do not jockey for position and undercut one another. Between friends there is honesty and acceptance and care.

Jesus says to them, “I have called you friends because I have told you everything.” And what is not said but surely implied is that he has told them everything because they will need to know it, because they will need to carry on without him in a short period of time, continuing his work of healing and teaching and leading. What has not been said but maybe should be said is that he tells them everything, the truth, with the expectation that they will be able to handle it.

But friendship is not only honest, it is patient, and surely Jesus knew that it would take his friends some time for them to arrive at acceptance. Some of the things he said they would get right away. Some of it they would push back against because it was harder to accept. And some of the things he said they would try to convince themselves were just the opposite of what he meant to say, and they would respond with non sequiturs, like special requests about the seating arrangements in his throne room. And then, when that was not enough to diffuse the tension they felt, they would bicker with one another about who asked first and who had priority. And it is clear that Jesus still has much to teach his friends.

I spoke to you last week about forgiveness being a part of our identity in Christ. That we are, first and foremost, forgiven by God for everything in our lives that weighs us down and binds us up. And, as ones who are forgiven, we are also called to be ones who extend forgiveness to others.

I think we all know that forgiveness is also an essential element of friendship. Without forgiveness I don’t know how a friendship can survive. Resentment and grudges stand in the way, blocking the flow of love from one friend to another. If you have been hurt by a friend, only forgiveness will save the friendship. And very often, getting to forgiveness requires a level of honesty we have not been accustomed to practicing. Perhaps even the level that Jesus talks about – I call you friend because I tell you everything. Including, I tell you where my soft spots are, my vulnerabilities, because I want to trust you to honor them, be tender about them. I trust you to treat me in the way you would also want to be treated.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. This is what Jesus said to his friends, his disciples. He was certainly foreshadowing his death, but it strikes me that his words may suggest something else as well. To lay down your life for your friend may be to open yourself up. To let that friend see you and know you for who you are. To lay down your life can happen when you are simply and purely yourself, the person God made you to be.

And, yes, that is actually risky. We take a risk when we take off our masks, when we stop pretending to be whatever we think the world will value but instead choose to just be what we are deep inside. We take the risk of disappointing others or being scorned by others. We take the risk of losing a friend, perhaps, a friend who no longer likes the mirror we hold up for them.

But the greater risk is hiding yourself, keeping yourself locked up in a dark closet for fear of what others might see, or maybe what you might see. There is no risk-free life.

But even more significant than the risks are the rewards, and in friendship there are so many. There is the reward of feeling the lightness that comes when we unburden ourselves from deceit and judgment. There is the reward of the comfort we find when we share ourselves with a friend and find a kinship. C.S. Lewis once said that a true friendship is born when one person says to the other, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”

I thought I was the only one, but now I know that I am not. When we embrace friendship, we know that we are not alone in our fear or our confusion or our doubts. And there is so much more good we can do in the world when we do it with friends. We are a force of nature.

This is what God has made us to be – friends, in the truest sense of the word. It is our identity in Christ Jesus, to be his friend, and to share that friendship with others, even the most unlikely people.

I call you my friends. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Picture: ChurchArt.Com

Identity - Who We Are in Christ, Part 1: You’re Not Going to Believe This

Ephesians 4:31-5:2     

Mark 10:17-31  

One of my sisters, when she was a very young child used to ask an interesting question. She wondered, “When am I going to turn into a boy?” She never did, actually. But young children can express some funny ideas about their sense of identity.

There is a lot of work involved in developing your own sense of who you are, and this was part of the work for my sister when she was four years old.

When we grow into adolescence we tend to look to our peers as a means of figuring out who we are. We want to be accepted by them, we want to be liked, and we want to like ourselves. We want to know who we are, and one dimension of that is knowing who we are not.

We finished our five-week study on risks we must take for peace last week. And in our final discussion we talked about how hard it can be to talk to people on the other side of an issue. We get really dug in on our attitudes and beliefs about things, so much so that we can lose our ability to communicate with the people who are dug in on the other side. Where we stand on something, what we are for and what we are against, becomes a fundamental piece of our identity.

As we struggle to sort out who we are and what matters to us, there are many possibilities competing for our attention and allegiance. To a large degree this matter of identity is a choice we all make. And the choice we make will determine a lot about who we are in the world and what our impact on the world will be. The impact can be significant.

Last month there was a 58-year-old man caught hiding in some trees near Donald Trump’s golf course. He was apparently intending to shoot the former president. Law enforcement, trying to get a handle of his motives, discovered a handful of things about him: that he is originally from North Carolina, but he lived most recently in Hawaii. That as a younger man he was once called a Super Citizen for coming to the aid of a crime victim, but in later years he was charged with possessing weapons illegally. And that at one point he tried to put together his own army to defend Ukraine.

He was described as a man in search of a mission, someone trying to figure out who he is. And most recently, it seems, he began to think that his mission, his identity, was assassin. But in some important ways it seems clear that he really had no idea who he was.

What do you say about yourself? What do you want to be written on your tombstone? I’ve kept a blog for about ten years or so. When I first set it up I was asked to create a profile, which would tell readers something about who I am. I struggled with what to put out there. How did I want to identify myself? There are so many ways. Eventually, I landed on this: “Wife, Mother, Pastor, in the order in which they became a layer of my identity.” I could say other things about myself, too, but in saying this, I am saying that these are the words that define me best, these particular relationships and this particular work. In choosing these identifiers, I am saying something about what is most valuable to me. But, as important as these identities are, there is something yet more important – for me and for you.

Remarkably, no matter what identity we were born with, no matter what identities we have made for ourselves, each of us has been given a new identity in Christ. In the language of our faith, to become a Christian is to be reborn into new life, to become a member of a new family, a new body – the body of Christ. It is astounding. Yet I wonder how much we are aware of that particular identity in our daily lives. In all the decisions we make, how much are we influenced by our identity in Christ?

In the coming weeks we will take a closer look at this identity. We will dig into the qualities of this new life we take on with our faith, the values we adopt as our own when we decide to follow Jesus. We begin today with this story about the rich man who approached Jesus.

Mark calls him rich. Matthew adds that the man is young, and Luke calls him a ruler. And so we sometimes lump it all together and call him the rich young ruler who approached Jesus with a question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

He seems sincere in asking this question; he really wants to know. He is probably a devout man who seeks to live his best life, and he’s well on his way there. He’s doing well financially, that is quite clear. He is devoted to obeying God’s law, that is also clear. But there is something in him that is still unsettled. He has the notion that there is still something more, some sort of calling, perhaps. Whatever it is, he yearns to know.

So Jesus tells him: You should sell all your possessions and come follow me. And the man was shocked. He went away grieving because he, in fact, had many possessions.

Now I believe most, if not all, of us should be able to identify with the rich man in this story, because we too have many possessions. We might have a little less than our neighbors. We might lack a few things that we feel, if we only had them, would make our lives complete. But, still, we have a lot. And perhaps there is another thing you can identify with about this man: the idea of living without our possessions is frightening.

To the rich young ruler, if I may call him that, what Jesus is asking doesn’t even make sense. He may very well have been taught as a youth that riches are a sign of God’s favor, a reward for righteous living. Why on earth would he give them up?

The rich man walked away heartbroken, grieving because while he kept all his many possessions, he sensed he was losing something of greater value. He left in defeat, and Jesus remarked, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” His disciples were greatly astounded, Mark says. In answer to their astonished expressions Jesus said, “But all things are possible for God.”

All things are possible for God, particularly all the things that are not possible for humans. There is nothing a human being can do to earn their salvation. There is no way for a human to inherit eternal life, but with God it is possible. Because every way you fail to live into God’s image, every way you fall short of God’s design, every way you neglect this relationship with the divine, God extends forgiveness.

We are forgiven, this is the first mark of our identity in Christ. God extends forgiveness for our every shortcoming, for every ornery act, for every bit of selfishness or narrowmindedness or spitefulness. For every way we can fail to live into God’s image, God is willing and able to forgive. Wipe the slate clean. Offer us a fresh start, new life. In Christ Jesus, God is turning everything upside down and inside out and, as hard as it is to believe, it’s true. Thanks be to God.

But there is one more thing. One thing that goes hand in hand with being forgiven and that is this: to be one who forgives.

As Jesus showed in so many ways, one requires the other, they go hand in hand. We who are the forgiven must live lives of forgiveness, extending the same gift to others – all the others. If not, we find ourselves in the dank, dark room that Desmond Tutu describes, trapped in there with stale air and all our sins. Trapped, because it is forgiveness that makes us free.

This is a choice for each one of us. A choice to forgive others, as we have been forgiven, to be imitators of God, as the letter to the Ephesians says. To offer a new beginning to others, just as God has offered to us.

To live into this identity, the forgiven, what will it mean for your life? Is there someone you have held a grudge against? Is there someone you have had a falling out with and now it is too uncomfortable to reach out in friendship? Is there someone whose politics or opinions are too offensive to you and so you have cut them off?

Is there someone you cannot talk to because it might feel like walking across a minefield? Make up your mind to forgive. Forgive, as God has forgiven you. 

picture: AdobeStock_369837295