Stones

This sermon is for Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered Pride Sunday service which Chalice holds in combination with Forest Hill Christian Church in San Francisco each year during San Francisco's Pride activities.


Joshua 4:1-8

The Hebrew people were on the very brink of entering the land promised to them.  They just had to cross the Jordan River and they would be in their new homeland after 40 some years of wandering in the wilderness.  It was indeed a momentous occasion if there ever was one.

But how to remember such an occasion?  How to make sure the future generations would know how important this event was?  How would those who followed know that this spot on the Jordan was where the water stopped flowing so that the people could cross over and the ark of the covenant would remain dry on the shoulders of the priests carrying it?

Joshua told a member of each of the 12 tribes to select a stone from the river and carry it to the bank where it would be placed as a memorial.  Then when their children and grandchildren asked them “What do these stones mean?” they could relate the story of their entrance into the Promised Land. 


“What do these stones mean?”  We all hope that future generations will look back kindly on our lives and ask “What does this mean?”, “What does that mean?” “ Why did you do this?”  A part of being human is hoping that somehow our name and legacy lives on beyond us.  We all want future generations to look back from some future date and remember something we did or said that changed something for the better.  “What do these stones mean?”

What stones are we leaving behind in the struggle for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people?  What markers are there that will cause those who come after us to stop and give thanks for our work, for our perseverance, for our very selves?

Perhaps some 30 or 40 or 100 years in the future, someone will come across a pink triangle and learn that homosexuals were incarcerated in the Nazi death camps and forced to wear that pink triangle as a symbol.  The pink triangle helps us remember that l/g/b/t people have sometimes suffered with their lives for being who they are.  They’ll know that the symbol was readopted to honor those who died in the concentration camps.  What do these stones mean?

Maybe someone will come across a rainbow flag and discover that gay pride movements swept across many cities and these flags were flown to show the world that l/g/b/t people are proud of who they are.  The flag was developed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker to highlight the diversity that’s within the gay community.  It’s frequently flown now across the globe wherever l/g/b/t people can openly express who they are.  What do these stones mean?

Possibly someone from the future will find an “I do support the freedom to marry” sign and wonder in amazement at the fact that there was a time when same-sex couples were denied the right to marry the person of their choice.  They will find out about the struggle we are in the midst of right now for that one part of equality to be gained.  Maybe they’ll also learn of the struggle of people to serve in the military without regard to sexual orientation.  Or of ministers to be ordained and serve as God calls them regardless of their orientation.  What do these stones mean?


What stones will you leave behind?  Will future generations know of the work you did to make our world, their world a better place, a place where equality for all people is assured?  Will people know of your work and dedication to bringing in God’s realm to a needy world?  In the shadowed corners all around us, have you brought the light that shines forth from within you that is a reflection of God’s love?

Truly, we are leaving behind stones all the time, stones that will indicate how deeply we were involved in creating a more just and equal world.  We set up stones as markers when we write to our representatives about issues; when we volunteer our time; when we give of ourselves with our talents, or our resources; when we work for justice in our world and the the world that is yet to come.

“What do these stones mean” is indeed the question that will be asked by those from yet unborn generations.  When the stories of the struggle for justice for all people are told, will your name be included?  Will your work be found amidst the stones that are left behind?

Despair & Silence

1 Kings 19:1-15a

It’s very tempting with this passage from 1st Kings to focus on what is called the theophany or the appearance of God to Elijah. That’s the dramatic part, as well it should be. Preachers who use the lectionary are no doubt going on about the wind, earthquake, & fire and the lack of God’s presence in them.  And very likely, much is being said about the sheer silence or still small voice as many of us grew up hearing about it.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  That theophany is important and has a lot to teach us.  If we expect to find God in all the noise and hubbub of daily living or even the unexpected noise of major events and don’t look for God in the silences, we’re on the wrong track and Elijah would be the first to tell us so.  To focus on that event, however, in the midst of this story is to miss a major point of the passage.

But let’s back up a bit and find out what’s really going on.  Just prior to this narrative, Elijah has a showdown with the prophets of Baal.  Baal, you might remember, was the god of the queen, Jezebel.  In fact, she was working to institute the worship of Baal in the northern kingdom of Israel, there where worship of Yahweh was supposed to happen.

The prophets of Baal had sacrificed a bull and placed it upon an altar and they cried to their god throughout the day to bring down fire upon the altar, all to a stunning non-result.  The silence, as one might say, was deafening.

Elijah took his turn then.  To make the trick even more astounding, he had the bystanders pour buckets upon buckets of water upon the altar until it flowed out and filled a trench that surrounded it.  Then Elijah called upon Yahweh to ignite the altar, which happened in no uncertain terms.  In fact the fire was so hot that the water in the trench evaporated.  As would happen in those days, Elijah, the winner of this contest, then massacred the prophets of Baal.  Then he went on to end the drought that Israel had been going through, adding a nice little twist to his victory.

That’s when we pick up today’s reading.  When Jezebel finds out about all that’s gone on, she hits the proverbial royal roof and makes some fairly strong & nasty threats against Elijah.  In fact, within a day’s time, she says, he’s going to be as dead as those prophets of Baal find themselves.

Now Elijah may be one of the greatest prophets in Jewish history, but in the end he’s still just a human.  And he does what any human in their right mind would do; he makes a run for it.  He doesn’t want to stick around to see if Jezebel is good for her word and hits the Israelite highway.  He runs so far, we’re told that he ends up about as distant from her that he can and still be in Hebrew territory: Beer-sheba, which is the southernmost point in the southern kingdom of Judah.

There he does an odd thing.  Having escaped death, he asks God to kill him.  In the midst of his despair, he asks God to take his life, because it’s just not worth living anymore.  But, you know, people in despair and desperate situations don’t always make sense.  So we’ll just have to chalk this request of Elijah to that despair and likely utter exhaustion.  He is ministered to by an angel who feeds him.  Elijah gets a little more rest, undoubtedly needed and deserved, and then heads out into the wilderness for forty days and nights. 

Forty days and nights.  Sound familiar?  It has echoes of the forty years that the Hebrew people spent in the wilderness. It means a really, really long time.  And where does he end up in that wandering time but Mt. Horeb, which we know also as Mt. Sinai,  Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the commandments that are the basis of Judaism.  Mt. Sinai, where Moses was allowed to view God, or at least God’s backside, during another well-known theophany.

Important things happen on mountains in the Bible.  Anytime there’s a mountain, you should pay attention.  Think about it:  Ararat, Sinai, Carmel, Pisgah, not to mention the Sermon on the Mount and the mountain top transfiguration event.  So Elijah, in his despair and desire to stop living, ends up on a mountaintop.  And then today’s theophany comes in.  Elijah encounters God, but not nearly in a way that he expected.  After all that’s happened to him, Elijah meets God in sheer silence.  And from that experience, Elijah is sent on his way, back up to be the proper thorn in the side of Ahab and Jezebel that he was called to be.

“Called to be.”  Is it possible that through all that has happened in this story that it boils down to vocation or calling?  Is all this about Elijah’s calling to be a prophet of Yahweh?  If so, how can any of us relate to it?

I mean, we’re not going to have a face-off with the prophets of some forgotten deity.  No queen is going to threaten our lives because we messed with her prophets.  We probably even won’t ever have to go on the lam because we’ve peeved the wrong person. 

You know what though?  Each of us here assuredly knows something about despair.  Some of us may have even considered that the world would be a better place without our living presence at one time or another.  We have all heard God’s call to us (because God doesn’t just call certain people you know) and struggled to maintain some semblance of sanity in the midst of that call.  We may have felt that our calls and vocations were not properly supported and felt frustration when responses were low.

And that brings us right back to that theophany of finding God in the silence.  Because if we don’t make the space to listen, really listen for and to God, we’re going to stay frustrated and in despair; stuck without the strength we need for our wilderness wanderings.

In many ways this congregation could be seen as being in that very situation.  We have listened and heard God’s call which has led us to start Homework Central and be instrumental in beginning what is now known as Home and Hope, serving those whose lives are on the margins here in San Mateo County.  We have provided a warm place of acceptance and inclusion in our worship and community life.  We have looked both outward and inward, caring for others and ourselves with the same intensity and devotion.  And yet, we find ourselves on the run, in despair.  Are we, as a congregation, better off dead?

I think we know that answer to that question.  Because no, I firmly believe, God does not want us to cease to exist.  We need to find the answer in the silences though.  We need to seek out God’s call; to renew our commitment to our vocation as a congregation.  That doesn’t mean doing, doing, doing, necessarily.  All that doing can be as distracting as the wind, earthquake, and fire.  Once we’ve done all our doing, we need to listen, really listen to God in the silence and then move forward from there.

Do You See

Luke 7:36-8:3

I must admit to some ambivalence when it comes to this morning’s reading from Luke.  I’m unsettled by it and not sure what to do with it.  (Which may explain why this sermon sat as a blank screen on my computer so long.)  But I’m confused about with whom I am supposed to identify in the story.

I want to identify with the woman who comes and washes Jesus’ feet.  She is quite the role model.  She doesn’t care about convention or the proper way of doing things.  She bursts into this dinner uninvited, probably as the only woman in the room, and shows her gratitude and joy at Jesus’ feet.  She has what in Yiddish they call chutzpah and I admire that.

But I worry that I’m more like Simon, the Pharisee who invited Jesus into his home in the first place.  Simon might be an okay sort of guy.  He’s curious about this traveling preacher who’s in town.  So he invites him over to share a meal.  Not a bad start.

But from there it’s down hill for Simon.  He doesn’t offer the usual good host sort of things: water to wash off hot, dusty feet or oil for anointing his guests’ heads.   Not even a kiss to greet his guest.  There’s no way he’s going to earn the first century good housekeeping seal of approval that way.  But that’s not why I fear I identify with Simon.  It’s his reaction to the woman at Jesus’ feet and then to Jesus himself that has me nervous.

You see the woman who came in was a sinner.  We’re told that right off.  Now we all know about sinners.  We know that all of us are sinners; we’re human, we just can’t help it.  But we also know that some people are “capital S sinners.”  Well, this woman was a “capital S sinner” without a doubt.  Her sins were well-known and, undoubtedly, well-discussed in the community.  Her reputation wafted into the room long before the scent of the perfume in her jar made it.

Jesus asked Simon a question: “Do you see this woman?”  It’s a simple question, and of course Simon saw her.  But did he really?  Or did he just see the sin that she carried around with her.  Simon wondered why Jesus would affiliate with such a person, but in our eyes, we wonder why Jesus was associating with Simon. 

I’m still stuck however with worrying that I’m more like Simon than I am like the woman.  I want to think that I’d be the one on my knees, weeping and cleaning feet.  But more likely, I’m sitting at my table judging others, deciding whose sin is allowable and whose isn’t; who is a “capital S sinner” and who isn’t. 

I want to relate to the woman for a couple of reasons:  first she puts herself into this wholeheartedly without reservation.  She’s in it mind, body, and soul.  She doesn’t hold back and I admire that in her.  But second, I know too what it means to need to be forgiven and the release that finding that forgiveness brings.  Knowing the grace that brings about transformation is a joyous and beautiful experience.

And who doesn’t dislike Simon?  He’s judgmental and hypocritical.  I can really get going when it comes to casting aspersions on him.  He doesn’t do what’s proper, he doubts whether Jesus is a prophet, and he is too much like one of the good old boys of Judea of the time.  He’s disgraceful in his behavior.

I mean, look at me being open-minded and open-hearted about the woman while seeing through the thin facade to the core of Simon.  I know his type.  And then, of course, I realize that I’m acting no differently than Simon is and here I am haughtily dividing the world into two types of people--the sinners and the “capital S sinners.”  The more things change the more they remain the same!  I can almost hear Jesus saying, “Gerry, do you see this man?”

Because that, I believe, is the highpoint and most important section of the reading, that question, “do you see this woman?”  It’s one that I should be listening for time after time.  Because I am quick to look past the person and just assign sin to any number of people.

There are those who disagree with me politically.  “Gerry, do you see this woman?”  And there are those who read the Bible differently than I do.  “Gerry, do you see this man?”  The question echoes through my head time after time and more often than not, I have to say, “No, I didn’t see that man or that woman.  I only saw their sin or their veneer of whatever it is I’m reacting to.”  I’m no better than Simon, the one I sit in judgment of.

We’re all victims of a sort of tunnel vision that only allows us to see what we want to see in others.  We’re all in need of the question, “Do you see that woman or that man?  Do you really see him or her?”  That tunnel vision has been going for millennia and has caught many off guard.  Simon was using it when he looked on the woman who came into his dinner party and he used it again when he make suppositions about Jesus because of his association with the woman.

We use this tunnel vision all too often and don’t even realize we’re doing so.  We’re called to see though, to really see the other: those who are marginalized, those who are our enemy, those who live lives as different from ours as can be.

Let go of your tunnel vision as best you can.  We can all be more hospitable, more accepting, less judging and kinder than we are.  We can recognize that we are much more like that “capital S sinner” woman who is standing in the need of grace and forgiveness in the story from Luke this morning.  We can try to see, really see, the other.

Give Them Hope

1 Kings 17:8-24

Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights leader whose 80th birthday we commemorated last weekend, is often quoted from various of his speeches as saying that you’ve got to give them hope, “them” being any number of disenfranchised people.  He’d end his speech, though, by saying “and you, and you, and you…you’ve got to give them hope.”

Though Harvey was not Christian, hope certainly is a Christian value.  Paul’s famous chapter about love from 1st Corinthians ends with “faith, hope and love abide” ranking hope right up there with faith and love as enduring parts of our religious life.  Hope certainly isn’t confined to Christianity, but Christians who do not have or promote hope seem somehow lifeless.

Thus is it through that lens that we can read the passage from the Hebrew Bible this morning when we are introduced to Elijah and his time with the widow from Sidon.  But before we get to that, let’s look at what got us to this point.

Elijah was one of the great prophets of Israel.  He was a particular thorn in the side of Ahab, one of the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom.  As Frederick Buechner puts it: “If, generally speaking, a prophet to a king was like ants at a picnic, Elijah was like a swarm of bees.” (Peculiar Treasures, p. 9) Don’t forget that after Solomon’s rule, the kingdom that his father David has built up, broke into two parts: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  There followed a succession of kings in the two countries who ruled with varying degrees of ability and were faithful to God to varying degrees.  Particularly in the northern kingdom, there was court intrigue after court intrigue as murders and abductions occurred to alter the line of succession. 

Into this Ahab came along as king in the north, in Israel.  He took for his wife one whose name lives on to today as a symbol of a suspicious and wanton woman--Jezebel.  Jezebel was not Jewish; Ahab married outside the clan and the faith and Jezebel brought with her her own particular god, Baal.  She even persuaded Ahab to erect shrines to Baal in Israel so that Baal could be worshipped, there in the midst of God’s land.  You can just imagine how well that went over in some quarters.

Now Baal was a storm, rain, and fertility god who allegedly controlled the precipitation in those parts.  So when our prophet Elijah comes along and says that because of all the worship of Baal that’s going on in Israel there’s going to be a drought, it’s a double whammy.  First because a drought is not a good thing and is coming as punishment and second because Elijah is pointing out that this storm god Baal can’t control the weather over what the Hebrew God decides.  Of course, a drought ensues.

This, to put it mildly, doesn’t make Elijah a popular man in the seat of government.  Prophets usually aren’t very well-received by those against whom they are prophesying, typically those in power and rulers.  But Elijah gets a special award for making himself unpopular in Israel by proving the queen’s god to be a false one. 

God, being wise, decides to relocate Elijah until things cool down and sends him on the lam.  At first Elijah spends some time in the wilderness where ravens come with food to care for him.  Then we pick up the story where we jumped in today, in 1st Kings as God calls Elijah to Sidon. 

Now the interesting thing about Elijah, the great prophet of Yahweh, being called to Sidon is that that’s exactly where his nemesis Jezebel came from.  That’s right, she was a Sidon girl from way back and that’s where she learned her Baal worship.  So we have a switch going on--Jezebel, the infidel from Sidon stirring up trouble with Baal in Israel while the holy man from Israel, Elijah, brings his God to godless Sidon.  Truly poetic, don’t you think?

By the way, Sidon shows up again in the Bible, in the gospels.  Sidon is where Jesus meets the Syro-phoenecian woman who argues with Jesus about the crumbs beneath the tables.  It’s another instance of a woman from that region who is doing all she can for the good of her child.  Jesus is out away from his own territory here, just like Elijah.  Surely the early hearers of the gospels would have known this story from 1st Kings and heard the echoes through the centuries of the similarities of the stories.

But back to our story.  So here in the region of Sidon, the town of Zarephath to be specific, Elijah engages a nameless widow.  Of course she wasn’t nameless then, but the author of 1st Kings didn’t think she was important enough to give her name so we can only refer to her as the widow of Sidon--mostly because “widow of Zarephath” is too hard to say.  This widow of Sidon, when we meet her, is filled with despair;  the drought has hit her, being a widow, hard and she has a small amount of flour and oil left to prepare a final meal for her and her son before they die.  She’s out in fact collecting some firewood for this sad last supper when she and Elijah come upon each other. 

Elijah asks her for some bread and water whereupon she recounts the doleful tale of her and her son.  Elijah says something that we should always remember; his first words are “Don’t be afraid.”  He then tells her to go use up the grain and oil to bake him some bread because there will be more provided.

“Don’t be afraid.”  Easier said than done but the widow follows Elijah’s instructions and indeed there continues to be food enough for them to survive on.  And then the twist in the story comes along: the son, the only thing the widow has, dies.  She blames Elijah, essentially, and I imagine the whole thing leaves Elijah just a bit stunned.  Elijah however rises to the occasion and takes the boy to his own room where he expresses some anger at God but then goes on to bring the boy back to life.  The widow rejoices and proclaims Elijah to be a “man of God.”  Happy ending.

Twice in this story though we find the widow in despair; desolate even.  We would think that there wasn’t room within her for hope at either time in the story.  It’s just in those times of despair, of utter and complete desperation, that sometimes hope creeps in.  We sometimes need to get down to rock bottom before the possibilities of transformation occur to us.  Logic doesn’t enter into it.  If the widow had been logical she would have said that there was only enough grain and oil for her and her son and that was that.  She would have never agreed to feed this strange man from a foreign land.

Hope sneaks up on you when you least expect it usually.  It’s transformative; it transforms that despair into possibilities, maybe even probabilities.  Against all logic, hope works.  Sometimes it’s astounding, sometimes it’s rather ho-hum.  But it comes when it’s needed. 

Mind you, not all hopes are fulfilled; some hopes remain dry as dust.  Hope in the midst of despair though provides life at the time, even if the hopes remain unfulfilled.  As I said, hope often runs counter to logic so hope gets us to shed the equation of if X then Y and think of new possibilities.

Where in your life do you need hope.  Perhaps it’s right here, in this church where hope is needed.  And in some ways, hope has taken a hold here.  The youth rally this week, for instance, is definitely a sign of hope that defies logic.  Logic would say, “We have very few youth so have no need of a youth program.”  Hope says, “Let’s have a rally to invite youth into our midst.”

Between our two congregations, certainly we are in need of hope and there are signs of that hope hereabouts.  Don’t be among those who would deny the hope.  Live into it instead, doing whatever you can to promulgate the hope that all of us need.  As Harvey Milk would say, “and you, and you, and you...you’ve got to give them hope.”

Lady Wisdom

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8

We all know what a proverb is, right?  According to my dictionary, it’s “a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.”  Of course, the idea of a proverb comes from the Hebrew Bible, where we find a whole book, or a good portion of a book at least, of them.

A problem comes in, of course, when we hear a saying and aren’t sure whether it’s from the Bible or somewhere else.  Something like “God helps those who help themselves.”  Though it sounds like it, it’s not from the book of Proverbs or any other book of scripture.  It’s from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac.

The proverbs that we are used to hearing from the Bible, the short aphorisms that give out those pieces of advice, come in the last chapters the book, after eight chapters of poetry that introduces us to the concept of the proverb.  What we heard today is part of that poem.  

Of course, poetry is the perfect way to introduce a collection of proverbs.  We need language beyond the usual way of communicating to set up the advice and truths that are about to come.  Poetry speaks more than the words it uses.  For the class on the Bible that I’m currently teaching one of our alternate texts is a novel by Brian McLaren in which he covers the scope of the Bible.  Early on, two of the characters are talking and one says, “This talking about God isn’t easy, you know?” to which the other character replies “Right.  It’s like a lot of things in science.  Language is the best tool we have, but it keeps getting in the way.  So in science, we revert to mathematics.  And in theology, we revert to poetry.  Mathematics and imagination are two ways of talking about about things beyond normal language.”  (The Story We Find Ourselves In, p.41)

So it’s not surprising that first poetry is used to introduce the proverbs that finally show up in chapter nine and second that in the midst of this extended poem, the character of Lady Wisdom, or Madame Insight as Eugene Peterson in The Message Bible calls her, shows up.

According to our text Wisdom was brought forth from God.  The verb that is used that is translated in the NRSV as “brought forth” is a verb that connotes the birthing process.  Wisdom is birthed by God, who is simultaneously both masculine and feminine.

The second part of our morning’s reading from the book of Proverbs is good credentialing of Wisdom; we read that she was there at the beginning helping God to bring into being all of creation.  But she wasn’t just there as an observer, she was an active participant who rejoiced with God at every step of the process.  She applauds and dances with joy as God brings forth all the good things of heaven and earth.  As Peterson says in The Message, she was there with God “making sure everything fit.”

Thus what is to come in the following proverbs, we’re told in poetic form, is wisdom, not technical knowledge.  And there is a major difference between the two, of course.  In this day and age we tend to worship at the altar of technical knowledge which can and has led to some problems, while downplaying wisdom.

Technical knowledge created that marvelous invention the television while wisdom tells us when to turn it off.  Technical knowledge brought us the computer and wisdom may remind us that it’s only a tool and that the thoughts of the human are still vastly superior.  Technical knowledge allowed us to drill for oil in the very depths of the oceans while wisdom, if we had listened to her, may have told us that our addiction to oil would lead to problems.

It’s no accident that the Psalm for today is Psalm 8, the great and glorious hymn to creation that it is.  It ties to our Proverbs text nicely.  We read there this morning about God giving dominion to us humans over all of creation.  But dominion does not allow us to use up and destroy for our own pleasure.  We have to remember that Psalm glorifies God and God’s creation first and foremost.  We are a part of that creation and have a major role to play. 

A little over a month ago, a oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 people and, since then, has killed countless birds and fish and other sea life, threatening the towns of the Gulf Coast.  And it appears that the latest attempt to stop the flow of that gushing of oil is not going to work.  So we are back to struggling with technical knowledge to help us out of this mess, which is both a literal and figurative mess.

Wisdom, had we listened to her, would have warned us off from drilling so deeply to a place where we cannot reach if and when there is a problem.  And of course, there was a problem.

Wisdom, as compared to technical knowledge, is a relationship which we develop over a lifetime.  Technical knowledge comes and goes and if we worship at its altar we’ll eventually be left feeling empty and dry.  Wisdom, on the other hand, refreshes and renews us  Being in a relationship with wisdom fills us and leads us to God.

Now don’t think I’m some luddite who is locking himself away in a closet away from all technology.  Quite the contrary.  Wisdom allows us full use of technical knowledge with the caveats that come with it.

We walk, arm in arm with Lady Wisdom, seeking God.  Lady Wisdom guides us and dances around us, lifting our spirits and enlivening our souls.  If we are willing to pay close enough attention to her, we shall certainly find ourselves in God’s company before long.