Spiritual Leadership

           

            I can remember how deeply impressed that I was with what Dr. Martin Luther King had to say during the days of the Civil Rights Movement and how distressed we were when he was killed by a lone assassin in Memphis.  I also was lifted by Billy Graham and the way that he helped this country count its blessings and move forward in honor of God.  There were also some television preachers who annoyed me.  I would listen to Jerry Falwell and wonder how he could ever think that he was eligible to be given a pulpit or Pat Robertson who always let us know how far we were from God’s love. Mr. Robertson even told us once that he had re-directed a hurricane from our shores with his profound prayer. in all of this ,I am afraid that we have lost our deep spiritual leaders who could lead us out of the depths into the glory of God.

            I can’t tell you how disappointed that I was when Franklin Graham, Billy’s son, spoke at the memorial service for those killed in the collapse of the twin towers in September, 2001.  He offered a speech that blamed the entire Muslim world for that atrocity.  He lowered rather than lifted my spirit.  I came away from that speech angry and distressed that we seemed to have so little understanding of how it is that God works in this deeply dangerous world.  I’m sorry for this because I think that we need spiritual leadership in this terribly raucous time to lead us back into the place that God would like us to be.  I am not impressed with the statements of bigotry and hate that have been so evident in this political campaign.  I want this country to be respected around the world.  When hatred seems to be the driving force in our political world, I can’t see how the rest of the world can have any respect for us.

            There is certainly hope.  We have had a series of terrible events in this world that I think have brought out the best in many people.  There have been the terrible floods in the South, particularly Louisiana; the fires in California and the destructive storms in the Midwest that have sometimes spilled over into our area.  In each of these places, lives and homes have been lost and there has been great suffering.  Also, in each of these places there have been heroes who have given their all to try to rescue  and give back lives to people who without their help would have lost everything.  I have been watching these same saints working in the terrible earthquake in Italy to bring small children out of the rubble and to make partly whole what might have  been completely lost..

            Jesus always tried to rescue rather than condemn.  When he came upon need, he did all that he could to give life and health back to those who had lost it.  There is the beautiful story of the woman that he met in Samaria who asked him to heal her daughter.  Jesus at first argued with her telling her that it was not proper to throw the food of the people to the dogs.  The woman replied to him that even the dogs ate the crumbs that fell from the table. Jesus was taught by this encounter and told the woman that her daughter was at that moment healed.  He caused the child of a Roman soldier to be healed and given back her life after all of the people around her knew that she had died.  Jesus even told the thief on the cross beside him on Calvary that this day he would be with him in Paradise.  There is a singular beauty to Jesus’ encounters with people in these ways.  When I read about them, they increase my faith and tell me that my role in this world is to pay attention to what our Lord did and to follow in his way.

            In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer tells us to remember to always show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so many have entertained angels unaware, and to remember those in prison as though we were in prison with them; and those who were being tortured as though we were being tortured ourselves.  This is a call for empathy and compassion, two of the great words that Jesus exemplified during his life.  It is exactly what those responders are doing in the floods, fires and destructive weather to help the people around them.

            I can see in all of this why God has created the Church.  We are here to give life and hope to the world not by the things that we say, but primarily by the things that we do.  Working to restore that which has been lost is our mission.  For Dr. King it was civil rights.  He went to prison during that battle.  He eventually lost his life on behalf of the sanitation workers in Memphis who were striking for a better work life.  I wonder what he would think of our political process today.

            Our religious life is the key to all of this.  When we treat each other with love rather than with hate we set the stage for redemption.  Redemption not only for the crises that we and others are facing but also redemption in the eyes of our God for all that we have done and what we have not done.  God bless us on our way.

Religion and Faith

           

            There was a picture on television this week of a little Syrian boy sitting in a chair, covered with blood and debris, just traumatized.  He had been a victim of an air raid in Aleppo that was a part of the incredibly harsh war that is being waged in that country against the rebels and ISIS by us along with the Syrian government and the Russians.  It was a horrible picture that reminded me of the picture of the small child who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in the midst of the outflow of Syrian refugees trying to get away from the horrible violence in their country. There was also a story in the paper this week talking about the first responders in Aleppo, who freed the young child in the photograph; how they are targeted themselves when they move in to try to rescue victims who are in collapsed buildings.  Many of them are killed doing this work.  What is notable to me is that these first responders ask no questions before they rescue.  They don’t care what the religion is of the victims.  They are simply aware of the need that is before them..  I also remember the picture taken by the photographer Margaret Bourke-Wright of the dust bowl family in the middle of the depression.  They were in California and they looked hungry and scared in the middle of their own trauma. That picture became a symbol of the depression that the whole country was experiencing.  Those pictures and stories are heartbreaking because we would all like to do something to take care of these people, although from far away, that is usually impossible. 

            Taking care of these people sounds like a small thing, but it isn’t.  I am touched by Jesus’ compassion in the Gospel of Luke when he is in the synagogue on the Sabbath and sees a woman who is all bent over hand can hardly walk.  He doesn’t hesitate.  He goes to her and he says: you are free from your ailment. He laid hands on her and she stood up and began praising God.   The leader of the synagogue was indignant, telling Jesus that there are six days in which to do your work, but not on the Sabbath.  Jesus yelled at him and made a great case for a woman bound by her illness for eighteen long years who ought to be freed from it, perhaps particularly on the Sabbath.  Jesus didn’t care what that woman believed; he simply knew that she needed to be healed.

            Again we have the collision of religion and faith.  Jesus is showing the people in that place the beauty of faith, the exercise of what our religion teaches us.  Doing nothing on the Sabbath is an article of religion.  Healing a woman bent over and in misery is an article of faith. Taking care of people in Aleppo in collapsed buildings is an article of faith. This is what our Lord taught us over and over again.  We are here on this earth to take care of what we find around us; to make the world a more habitable place for everyone.  Are there problems?  Of course there are.  Fixing as many of them as we can is our mission.  We aren’t sent by our Lord to make everyone believe the same things.  We are not theology teachers in this world to be sure that everyone has the right religion.  Actually, that sounds silly.  We are more like God’s emergency workers here in a chaotic world to rescue as many people as possible from the effects of the chaos that they have experienced. 

            Every week we come to our churches to worship and to lay our lives at the foot of the altar.  We are painfully aware that our lives are full of things that we wish we hadn’t done.  We ask our God for forgiveness in our confession every week.  That is why we can all approach the altar without fear that we won’t be accepted.  Everyone is invited to this altar to receive the sacrament.  That is why we are here.  I once heard Krister Stendahl, who had been the dean of  Harvard Divinity School tell me that once when he was celebrating the Eucharist at Harvard Chapel, a Sikh had come to the altar rail to receive the sacrament.  A Sikh, he said.  Wasn’t he worried about what he believed?  No, he wasn’t.  He was holding out his hands for the sacrament and I gave it to him, Dr. Stendahl said.  That is the distinction between faith and religion.  We offer the sacrament to anyone who comes because it is our command from our Lord.  What we all believe can come later, when we find ourselves in the presence of our God.  Then we will know.  Right now, we need our faith.

             I have always known that we aren’t the only religion in this world.  Muslims can claim a space, as can Jews, Hindus, Buddhists Sikhs and people of all of the ways that there are in this world of worshipping our God.  Respecting each other’s religion is one of the ways that we have of making this world a better place.  Remember, Jesus was never a Christian.  He was a Jew from the moment that he was born until his death.  Yes, he became the Christ and the basis of what we believe as Christians, but he never negated the other religions that had been created to celebrate the goodness of God.

            Can you imagine anyone saying harsh things about the Dalai Lama, or about Elie Wiesel, who survived the Nazi Concentration camps. Or about Brigham Young or any of the people who created religious communities in our history.  They were all faithful, and they were all flawed, but their work in this life was always to make this world a better place for everyone.  They also, by the way that they lived their lives, had something to teach all of us about the meaning of faith and how it can make a difference in this world.

            Our mission in this world is to make a difference.  When we help one another, we show our love, which is an outgrowth of our faith, and a response to the call of our Lord.

Our Possessions and our Responsiblity to Others

            We lost our little dog Gracie recently.  She had been declining for some time; we took her to the vet several times and gave her the medication that was prescribed.  Last Saturday night, she was unable to move her back legs, she lay on the floor panting, obviously in pain.  We looked at her and knew that we couldn’t simply let her lie there; that we had to do something about it.  We called the veterinarian and took her there.  We held her as they gave her an injection that put her to sleep.  It was a hard thing for us to do, we loved her dearly; but it was necessary.  Suffering is not something that I wanted for that little dog.  We owed her that much.

            Most of us have had moments like that in our lives; times when we have had to let go of those whom we loved.  Generally we have no choice in the matter.  Both Rosie and I have lost our parents and our grandparents and our uncles and aunts.  A dear friend of ours lost his daughter also recently..  Life is beautiful, but it has an end date.  We all know that.  It is necessary to live our lives with that in mind.

            Jesus was asked by a man to tell his brother to share his inheritance with him.  Jesus replied with a statement that said that he should take care and not let his life be ruled by his possessions.  He followed that with a parable about a rich man whose land produced in abundance.  He said:  What shall I do?  I shall pull down my barns and build larger ones so that I can store my crops.  God said to him, you Fool!  This night your life will be required of you.  We need to be very careful.  Our lives are not about our things and the wealth that we have accumulated.  We live our lives in the sight of God, with all of the ways that our God has given us to live.  We are asked to take care of one another; to love each other and our neighbor with the same Love that God has lavished on us.  Our possessions are simply tools to be used in the living of our lives and the exercise of that love.

            When I look around this world, I don’t see much of that being done.  I see great divisions in our political parties; all of them trying to accumulate the wealth that they need to meet their needs.  I hear terrible things coming out of the mouths of these leaders and I worry where their anger will take us.  This nation needs to have deep concern for those who are poor, outcast, without means to take care of themselves.  We can’t simply build bigger barns to store our wealth.  We need to use the great resources that we have been given by our God to take care of God’s people who are in need.

            I am discouraged by our current political situation.  We can make jokes about Donald Trump’s wild statements or about Hilary Clinton’s baggage; but ultimately we need to decide what is right for the good of this country and beyond that for the good of the world.  We are not the only ones who live here.  There are countless refugees from places where there is great distress; there are many immigrants who have come to our country who want nothing more than to live healthy lives.  I know that God loves all of these people and demands from us that we open our eyes to see the hurt and the devastation around us. 

            It is not necessary that we live lives of fear.  Those who wish us ill are certainly not a majority and with the help of our God can be managed.  We will find ways to do that.  We need to curb the anger that exists among us, pitting people of color against our police, and people of means against those who are poor so that we can all move ahead together.  Whatever we need to do that well is what our government needs to provide.  Shouting damning statements back and forth is certainly not the answer.  It was great to see the police and the black lives matter group gathered in Dallas to mourn the lives of the officers who died and to support each other in their common grief.  That is the way forward.

            We will bury the ashes of our little dog and cry our tears of grief and then we will get on with our lives and try to make those lives of ours count in the greater plan that our God has for this universe.  Let us continue to love and comfort each other and be the angels that God intends us to be for the good of the earth.