Eyes on the Prize

Eyes on the Prize: Get Out of Jail

Easter 7

May 29, 2022

For Beloved Community and Mountain Community Mennonite Churches

©Vernon K. Rempel, 2022

Lectionary reading from the Revised Common Lectionary:

May 29, Easter 7

Acts 16:16-34 NRSV

With Paul and Silas, we came to Philippi in Macedonia, a Roman colony, and, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Additional Text:

Song: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

—Sing a couple of verses of the song

This is the last of four reflections

that connect songs with our Bible readings.

Today, it’s this wonderful

It’s based on the older song

“Gospel Plow.”

Keep your hand on the gospel plow…

Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now

Keep your hand on the plow, hold on.

It appeared in Alan Lomax’s book

Our Singing Country

which resulted from his travels

and incredible recordings

in tiny backwoods homes,

rural towns, and even jails.

He cites two books where the song

is included:

English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians

and

American Negro Folk-Songs.

It is called a folk song and a spiritual.

In “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize”

the “hold on,” which referred to

keep your hand on the plow,

became a metaphor for holding on

to the struggle, to the movement.

It seems to be uncertain where

this version of the lyrics came from,

but it became an important song

in the civil rights movement

if the 1950s and 1960s.

It reflects not only the aspiration

of keeping on the journey

but also the experience of

being put in jail – incarceration.

The lyric “Had no money for to go their bail”

is of course not from the Bible story

but from the experience of

wanting to get out of that locked room.

It is visceral – who can stand to be locked up? –

and has particular resonance in our culture

where we are a world leader in

locking people up.

The freedom of the slave girl

The Bible story wonderfully has

three ways that we need to get out

of jail – get our “get out of jail free” cards

in life’s game of Monopoly!

There are three needs for freedom

in our story, three ways of being in

metaphorical “jail.”

The first is:

those who are caught need freedom

Pink Floyd sang

“Money, it’s a gas…”

Money fuels bad behavior,

in our story,

using the body of another for profit.

It’s possible to use money

in covenant relationships

where it’s practical as exchange

but we also care to be honest

and mutually supportive.

Or it’s possible to use money

like a tone-deaf machine

that presses the bodies of others

into my profit.

Where have we felt caught in this?

The slave-girl in our story needed

this freedom, as slaves everywhere

and always have.

Not to mention many workers caught

in wage misery.

God has created all people for

dignity and freedom.

That’s part of what echoes in this dong.

—Sing a verse.

The freedom of Paul and Silas

The second freedom needed in our story:

Those who work for change need freedom

Sabotage of good deeds

for the sake of change

is built into the very nature of the system.

The system wants to persist.

It chugs on mindlessly.

And will try to sweep your

legs out from under you

if you begin to be effective for change.

So with Paul and Silas.

Costing people money

by freeing a slave!

My rabbi mentor Ed Friedman

used to say “no good deed goes unpunished.”

And yet, “keep your eyes on the prize.”

Sing verse from the song.

When freedom comes, sometimes the

very foundations shake and tremble.

The old foundations, we know them well,

sexism, racism, selling ones soul for power

over others – the domination game.

Where have we been stopped when working for freedom?

Where have we “kept our eyes on the prize?”

The freedom of the jailer

The third freedom needed:

The functionaries of oppression need freedom.

The jailer in our story

also needs freedom,

and salvation comes to his house!

An example from our culture: racism.

Racism hurts people of all skin colors,

just not in the same way,

just like jailers and those in jail

are all diminished and harmed

but not in the same way.

Racism hurts the people addicted to it,

and it hurts the ones they hurt even more,

far more.

But it throws harm around like a

spatter machine painting the world

to look crazy.

This happens with any

attempt to dominate others,

to be the controller, the one

above it all, above them all.

How have we needed to stop

being part of a system of harm?

How have we found our way out

from time to time?

—Sing a verse

Jail is a Spiritual Problem

The myth is that we can incarcerate

our way out of violence.

The Decarceration Project

estimates that we could release

90% of people in prison

with no ill effect or increase

in violence.

(As heard on NPR – date?)

Decarceration Project website:

https://www.tdpnc.org

We have, it seems,

an incarceration addiction

more than an incarceration solution.

It’s like the myth that we can

bomb our way to peace.

I’ve quoted Michael Franti’s

memorable lyric in this connection before:

“You can bomb the world to pieces,

but you can’t bomb the world to peace.”

You can’t incarcerate your way

out of violence.

Michelle Alexander, in her book The New Jim Crow

shows how the strange, uncanny fires

of racism still burn among us, landing

people with darker skin color in lock-ups

in great and disproportionate numbers.

It does not flow from a simple question

of whether crimes are being committed.

It flows from the legacies of

how we live and feel and behave

with each other as governed by

and signaled by skin color.

You would not think this was

a thing anymore.

But it still is.

It has a creepy life of its own.

It’s like an ongoing car-crash

that seems bizarre but unstoppable.

As with questions about guns,

we must pray better so that

we can move around in the world

as people of deep peace,

so that our very presence is more

healing, less reactive, more

assertively calm and friendly,

that exudes wonder and goodness

from our very pores, in all the ways

we live and move.

This is a transformation not of others,

nor of laws or society, but of ourselves,

in ways that lead exactly to

transformation of laws and society.

My heart can be a radio of peace,

a radiant engine of healing and repair,

a broadcaster of welcome and joy.

That is the power of good prayer.

It is developed in specific practices

that shape and build how I enter

the world day by day.

Focusing on others,

on getting others to change,

on wishing others would change,

only sets up triangles,

the three-part structure of

us, them, and the issue:

Us, them and guns,

us, them, and skin color, and so on.

Triangles are a crystallization pattern.

They just stabilize everything

and keep it the same.

We repeatedly get in

relationship triangles

and invest in them

because they offer

emotional satisfaction.

They make us feel good,

in a self-satisfied manner.

In talking about our gun debate,

for example,

in the culture of the United States,

Ramesh Ponnuru notes that

our ongoing back-and-forth about guns

accomplishes little but does something else:

“… the catharsis of lashing out at political and cultural enemies, which is one of the draws of ritualized gun arguments. But those arguments have led nowhere.” —Bloomberg Opinion 5-27-22

What can really make a difference

is a renewal of our relationships

and communities, giving ourselves

to each other, seeing each other,

serving each other.

This, instead of keeping ourselves

angry and trying to win

an argument.

There is no winning.

There is only connecting,

reintegrating, listening,

learning, changing, growing,

if I am signed up for it.

When I pray, I’m doing good work

on how I want to live and move

and have my being.

It is individual, and it is communal.

We pray together. We pray when we sing.

We pray when we walk, laugh, protest.

We pray when we eat, when

we pick up the phone

and when we block spam

and all the other useless

busyness and the distractions

that our helpful technology

also unfortunately creates.

So we pray.

We pray so that the ragged

spinning thing in our souls

calms down and the

fount of living water springs out

of God’s good earth

that is there in each of us.

We are incarcerated

to a culture of guns, race,

war-making – none of

which serve us well.

May freedom from our many jails

be born in each of us.

Sing a verse of the song

One resource:

Since 2014, The Marshall Project has been curating some of the best criminal justice reporting from around the web. In these records you will find the most recent and the most authoritative articles on the topics, people and events that are shaping the criminal justice conversation. The Marshall Project does not endorse the viewpoints or vouch for the accuracy of reports other than its own.

https://www.themarshallproject.org

Discussion questions:

—How do you need freedom from oppression?

—How do you need freedom from “sabotage?”

—How do you need freedom from systems of oppression?

—What great freedom do you enjoy?

https://youtu.be/t6nhCgDrl98

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Purple: Down to the River to Pray

Purple: Down to the River to Pray

Easter 6

May 22, 2022

For Beloved Community and Mountain Community Mennonite Churches

©Vernon K. Rempel, 2022

Lectionary reading from the Revised Common Lectionary:

Acts 16:9-15 NRSV

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Lydia, and “Down to the River…”

In our story for today,

there is a woman named Lydia

who deals in purple cloth.

That’s a detail we will hold onto.

We’ll return to it at the very end.

Purple cloth.

Paul and Timothy feel the call

to go to Macedonia.

They go, and come to the city of Philippi.

On the Sabbath, they go outside

the city gate to the river,

which they have supposed is a place to pray.

This is the third reflection

I’m doing on songs that I love,

and the song that I love

in connection with this passage is,

as you may guess,

“As I Went Down to the River to Pray.”

Probably most of us first

learned of this song through

the Coen brothers’ wonderful

movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?.”

Throughout this sermon,

we’re going to do quick samplings

of some of the songs from the movie,

in addition to “As I Went Down to the River….”

Jump in singing, if you wish.

In the movie, the boys,

having escaped from prison

and from an angry relative,

and are standing in the woods,

at loose ends, hungry,

Delmar is eating gopher on a stick.

Everett and Ulysses are arguing.

Suddenly, they become aware

of a movement of people in white robes

walking gently though the woods

all around.

They are going down to the river

for baptism.

And they are singing:

Sing: “As I Went Down to the River to Pray.” – in D

Delmar is transfixed:

“Appears to be… some kinda… con-gur-gation.”

Soon he has jumped in the river for baptism.

“Come on in boys, the water’s fine!”

In our Bible story,

Paul and Timothy also find some

good waters outside the city of Philippi.

Women have gathered to pray

at the river.

One woman in particular finds

transformation in what Paul and Timothy say.

She is Lydia, and she is apparently

a woman of some means,

a seller of purple cloth.

Ancient-world purple was

made by boiling thousands of snails

in lead vats.

It was an expensive process,

and the cloth was highly valued,

the color of royalty.

So Lydia has a household

of which she is the head.

They all are baptized.

She then invites Paul and Timothy

to come stay at her house.

One of the things I love about

the scene from “O Brother Where Art Thou”

is the transfixed, utterly riveted

face of Delmar as he becomes

aware of the congregation in the woods.

It is the face of salvation, of transformation.

In the same way, perhaps,

Lydia found her heart to be opened

and, it says, she listened eagerly.

Sing: I’ll Fly Away – in C

Ecstasy or Fusion?

The look on Delmar’s face

is a look ecstasy.

He is beside himself,

he’s going to lose himself,

in a good way, in that baptismal river.

The question when we join

congregations or any human association

of any kind, is always going to be:

is it ecstasy or fusion?

As you may know,

ecstasy means to “stand outside” oneself,

ek + stasis = out + stand in Greek.

So it may have been for Lydia,

she listens eagerly, she joins, as it were.

She and her people get baptized.

She invites Paul and Timothy to her house.

There is, whenever possible, I think,

at least a little ecstasy in a good church gathering.

It can happen on Zoom.

But it happens so much more readily

when we can gather in person,

as long as we’re not killing each other

with our viruses.

Unfortunately, joining a congregation

or any other joining can slip over

from ecstasy to fusion.

Fusion is also loss of self,

but not in a good way,

not in a joyful way.

Fusion is surrender of the self

because the burden and anxiety

of living as a responsible person

is just too much.

Erich Fromm’s classic book

Escape from Freedom

is an extended reflection on

how German society could

so surrender to Hitler.

It is a fascinating read in

our era of renewed authoritarianism.

In the latest James Bond film,

No Time to Die,

one of the characters cynically says:

“People want to be told how to live. And then to die without seeing it coming. People seek oblivion.” —Character from No Time to Die, James Bond

This is the tragic, scary, emptiness

at the heart of authoritarianism:

To surrender my life to the masses,

so that I can get away from

the pain of responsibility,

of doing the hard existential work

of figuring out my life

with fear and trembling

among others figuring out their

lives with fear and trembling.

Instead, we look for a savior-figure,

often a strong man, but doesn’t have to be,

anyone to sweep us away,

to take charge.

That’s fusion.

(See two footnotes from Erich Fromm at the end of this document.)

Ecstasy is like it, except in ecstasy,

I get to be outside myself in joy,

with others, and yet we do not

surrender our lives.

Rather, we enrich each other

with our lives.

Sing: You Are My Sunshine – in D

Choosing sides

Is it ecstasy of fusion?

Ecstasy is getting outside myself

to enrich or strengthen myself.

It is characterized by thinking,

flexibility, responsiveness.

Fusion (what Fromm calls becoming an “automaton”)

is giving up myself to the group.

It is characterized by reactivity (not thinking),

rigidity, obtuseness (not responsive).

It is especially reinforced by

having a good strong focus

on an enemy, on someone to blame,

someone to make into the problem.

Joining can be seeking fusion,

loss of self.

Or joining can be ecstatic.

“Come on in boys, the water’s fine.”

Or as with Lydia: “She listened eagerly.”

Sing Angel Band – in D, but just chorus, so start on A (first note of melody is E)

In ecstasy, life and liveliness

are celebrated, there are thrills

of wonder and beauty.

In fusion, everything is turned into

a contest, into two sides, with

me on the inside.

That’s what’s most important!

Remember that Sunday School song:

“One door and only one,

and yet the sides are two.

I’m on the inside,

on which side are you?”

I’m on the inside!

That’s what matters.

We begin to believe that life

is a football game.

And it’s our team

that needs to win.

We say, “At a certain point,

you have to choose a side.”

I think we desperately need citizens,

leaders, humans who answer back,

no, actually, you don’t.

At a certain point, you just

have to pay attention,

listen well, make commitments to human thriving

in all its mess and complexity.

Stop with the side-choosing.

Abortion, religion, race,

these are not football games.

Ukraine is not a football game.

We do better if we put down our flags,

our positions, our chants, and righteousness.

Real life, truth, the stuff in which

we truly may thrive,

is found in the mess, in the muddle,

in what the great Harvard historian Jill Lepore calls

“the haunted middle.”

We need to be real with each other,

not get into polarized sides.

We desperately need more of this

right now in our culture.

Purple Distinction

The thing I love about Lydia’s story

is that she is a dealer in purple cloth.

What a detail that is.

I remember it from my childhood.

The thing is, it is her distinctiveness.

It gives her resources she can deploy

for the sake of community.

She’s that purple woman!

And if Lydia can keep her “purple” nature

while in a congregation,

then she is living in ecstasy, not fusion.

She has not given up the purple,

just to be accepted into a group.

She does not take a side

just to bond with others.

She brings all her purple-ness right in with her.

This is individuality in community,

neither standing alone nor

selling out to a group.

What’s your “purple-ness” that you bring to the group?

What’s your great distinctiveness?

Is it great question asking?

Is it sheep-raising?

Museum curation?

(Someone in our two churches does each of these.)

That’s so much more wonderful

than having a side, making sure

you have a good enemy to bond around.

We very much need to invite

each other to simply and always

be deeply human with each other.

We won’t be perfectly safe.

We won’t always be brilliant.

But we will be on the only side

that matters, the side of love,

the sunny side, if you will.

Sing: Keep On the Sunny-side – in C

Footnotes:

“The first mechanism of escape from freedom I am going to deal with is the tendency to give up the independence of one’s own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking.”

Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, pp. 139-140

“The individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between “I” and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness. This mechanism can be compared with the protective coloring some animals assume. They look so similar to their surroundings that they are hardly distinguishable from them. The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”

Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, p. 183

Discussion questions:

—What stands out for you in our story for today?

—What does it mean for you to join a congregation?

—How might you describe fusion versus ecstasy?

—What are some distinctive traits among us that you love the most?

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Unclean?! – Sweet Hour of Prayer

Unclean?!

Easter 5

May 15, 2022

For Beloved Community and Mountain Community Mennonite Churches

©Vernon K. Rempel, 2022

Lectionary reading from the Revised Common Lectionary:

Acts 11:1-18 NRSV

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, `Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, `By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, `What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.

At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, `Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, `John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

“Unclean” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer”

Dennis Book had the idea

that I might preach about

songs that I like, since

they are clearly a big part

of my world.

So I took him up on it last week

with “Praise, I Will Praise You Lord.”

Then I thought this would

be a good series through

the month of May.

So today, it’s “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

As with “Praise, I Will Praise You, Lord”

this song is a bit of a change for me.

As a song that means something to me

it is a “second half of life” song.

When I young, I certainly knew the song,

but as a young adult, I though it was

just a simple, sentimental sweetness.

Now, however, I think it lives

closer to the heart of the gospel.

Paradoxically, I think it lives

close to our story for today,

and stories like this,

stories where the Holy Spirit

opens up pathways for us

to live with better with our differences,

to overcome tired, unfortunate,

and tragic barriers, even to

stop making war.

Let’s sing this song

which did not make it

into the purple hymnal,

which I, of course,

think is a bit of an oversight.

“Sweet Hour of Prayer”

Peter and the Food

Our Bible story for today is

one of the most famous

and striking of the stories.

Peter, our well-known apostle

who so passionately followed Jesus,

wanted to be the best apostle,

but couldn’t walk on water,

denied Jesus at his hour of death,

wouldn’t believe the women’s witness about the resurrection,

but then came roaring back with a Pentecost sermon

that moved thousands,

and now raised Tabitha from death.

He was called the rock,

but he was definitely not

the rock that doesn’t roll.

He rolled like we all do, finding our way.

Our story finds him drowsing

on the roof of Simon the Tanner.

In his telling, he says he was praying.

Praying, drowsing, sometimes a fine line!

I think this is a perfectly marvelous setting,

what was perhaps a bit of a place of solitude,

up on the roof, set apart from it all,

but with a great view of it all.

In any case, in a dream

God offers Peter food that

for Jewish people is unclean.

Some examples from Leviticus

are the pig, the osprey and owl,

rabbits, camels.

So here’s a sheet full of these foods,

and God says in effect “Take and eat.”

I hear an echo of communion in these words,

an invitation to community.

Although to be true to the text,

it was “kill and eat.” Fresh unclean food!

Peter doesn’t want to.

But God says “what I have called ‘clean’

you shall not call ‘unclean.’”

Peter gets the message, and proceeds

to go to the gentile house of Cornelius

to share the love of Christ, the gospel.

This is a powerful story of inclusion

across a long-standing barrier of exclusion.

It has obvious echoes.

Women preaching and leading.

People of any sexual orientation

singing and praying among the faithful.

People of any skin color rejoicing in full dignity.

How we still contend about these matters!

Even now, in a couple of weeks, Mennonites

will be meeting to discuss questions

related to sexual orientation.

May God give us visions

so that we, like Peter, may

be transformed in our understanding!

There are more obvious hymns

to connect to this passage than

“Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

“There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”

is a very direct choice,

with its lines like “But we make God’s love too narrow….”

and “and we magnify its strictness with a zeal God will not own.”

My beloved Marilyn, as a creative teenager,

wanted to a school dance.

Her parents resisted.

She quoted this line about a strictness God will not own.

Her father was unmoved.

I love that a teenager would employ

a hymn text to try to go dancing!

This hymn does imply that someone

has done something wrong,

which does not match a lot of our prejudices.

It’s just who they are, that we have made wrong.

So it’s not quite a good fit.

Although, interestingly, in our text,

toward the end, Peter’s realization

is that God gives the gift of repentance

to all people, not just the gift of inclusion.

I think this is a powerful side note.

Not that we all have sinned and need to repent,

which is of course true.

But that there is a greatness and a freedom

available to all of us, regardless of who we are,

that doesn’t just regard us with fixed identity

but offers a greater and finer humanity

regardless of who we are.

It puts us all together onto spiritual pathways,

not just sitting around with fixed

identities or problems or preferences.

We all have somewhere we can go.

It’s just not limited or guided

by our old prejudices.

The other sing I considered was

the great spiritual

“Welcome Table”

Sing “I’m going to sit at the welcome table.”

This song is also a direct connection

to overcoming prejudice,

at its roots, for the enslaved human being

brought over to America as a

tool of hard labor in commerce.

God welcomes all to the table,

even us when we are put in the worst

situations, abused, hated, disrespected.

With God, our dignity is restored, honored.

“Sweet Hour of Prayer”

But I went with “Sweet Hour of Prayer”

because I think it holds something

important for us that shows

what it means to find our way

out of the lock-ups of our prejudice,

hate, old opinions, and feelings about others.

And it is simply this.

I don’t think we get home together,

I don’t think we get the movement we want,

just by analysis, as I also noted last week.

For years, as a young pastor,

I tried to come up with the best

argument for including gay and lesbian

people.

I marshaled the good Bible passages,

like ours for today.

I argued that whoever shows the

“fruits of the Spirit” is welcome in community.

I argued that various apparent

exclusions had nothing to do with

the loving people I had come to know.

I even realized eventually that it

wasn’t for me to include “them”

but rather that God was inviting

us all into community, not me on

the “inside” and them on the “outside”

being welcomes in.

I realized we were all on the outside

and the inside in different ways.

And we need to find God’s love together.

This is all good work, I think.

But a deepening was still waiting for me,

a drop from the head to the heart.

These ideas were great,

but I found that telling them

to people who were so angry with me

for associating with gay and lesbian people

did little to convince them.

I need a great practice.

I found this in prayer.

I discovered that what I needed

was to enter into a place of

spiritual communion with the Holy Spirit,

to deliberately place myself

in the presence of this Holy One

who moved in the heart of all things,

before and after, in the midst of

all our hurts and hopes,

our scheming and our planning,

all the stuff we get up to.

I need to relearn a deeper way

to love my enemies who

were so angry and afraid

of what I was doing. And to

see if they could love me

in whatever weirdness and brokenness

I was bringing – at the very least

my addiction to wanting to be right,

wanting to know things.

The Sufi poet Rumi once wrote:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

This is the place of prayer.

Out beyond my ideas,

my constructs,

is a place of rest and quietness

of heart and mind,

a place where all bets are off

except for one: that you can

bet on love.

It’s even better than betting on Rich Strike in the Kentucky Derby!

In prayer, I can rest in love,

in the presence of love,

in the person of love

who lives and moves in all

creation, in all the strings

and bubbles and lights

of the universe.

This is transformative.

I creates a different sort of

capacity for relationship,

and for living with differences

and similarities.

It creates a sense of “more”

and spaciousness, a chance

always to move, to change,

to dance, finally. Yes to dance.

And that’s the last thing I want to say

about “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

You may have noticed

that it’s a lovely waltz 1-2-3.

Whenever I hear this hymn,

I imagine all the poor Mennonites,

unable to dance,

now gathered in a soft-lighted barn,

the animals breathing all around,

the smell of hay.

And they are all dancing together,

all skin colors, all sexual orientations,

all political affiliations,

gathered finally in the great divine dance,

finding steps of life together,

pathways around the floor.

How lovely and wonderful.

And we might say with Peter

“Now I truly see…..”

Sing “Sweet Hour of Prayer” again.

Questions for discussion:

—What is the definition of Christian community to you, focusing on who is in it?

—Has anyone ever felt “dirty” (unclean) to you? Have you ever felt “unclean?”

—What needs to happen for us to move from “unclean” to “clean?”

—How has the Holy Spirit communicated change in your life?

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Praise, I Praise You, Lord

Praise, I Will Praise You Lord: The Architecture of my “Second Half” Conversion

Easter 4 (Mothers’ Day)

May 8, 2022

For Beloved Community and Mountain Community Mennonite Churches

©Vernon K. Rempel, 2022

Lectionary reading from the Revised Common Lectionary:

Acts 9:36-43 NRSV

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.”

So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Additional Reading:

Praise, I Will Praise You Lord, #??

Tabitha

“Tabitha, get up.”*

I’ve always thought this was

the ultimate high-wire act of friendship,

faith, just being real with each other.

Who walks into a room where

someone has died and says “Tabitha, get up.”

At that point, it’s either going to happen,

or your credibility, reputation, even sanity,

will be in serious doubt.

And this isn’t even Jesus.

It is Peter, the denier,

the one who lied to avoid

getting hurt when Jesus

was in mortal trouble.

As much as we say all of

us can be like Jesus,

that he was completely human

like the rest of us,

he still seems to have

some extra spiritual zip.

But Peter definitely seems fully human.

And yet here he is, speaking words

to raise the dead.

Peter, like Jesus, like Mary Magdalene, I think,

first witness to the resurrection,

seems to have waked into a human connection,

and warmth, and wonder, and love,

that are amazing, and are for us all.

Now, I’m not feeling the capacity

to raise the dead.

But I have found new wonder and love

in my older years.

I have told you some about this before.

Richard Rohr, in one of this week’s daily meditations,

writes,

“The intimacy of what Martin Buber called

an “I-Thou” relationship is

a deep and loving “yes” to God,

to others, and to the life that is

inherent within each of us.”

That’s a great way of describing it.

“A deep and loving ‘yes’ to God, to others,

and to the life inherent within each of us.”

The Limits of Reason

I don’t know what all to

do with such miracles.

These stories may raise a lot of questions.

But one thing I have discovered:

My rationality, about miracles, etc. will not get me home.

In college I was very interested in ethics.

Social justice. Analysis.

I was less and less interested in spirituality.

I would argue with people who were

still clinging to antiquated notions

of the virgin birth and so on.

Richard Rohr has another phrase to describe this:

“Squelch spiritual energy in the name of hard-headed intellect and will,”

(—Richard Rohr 5-5-22)

Resulting in legalism, among other things.

For me back then, legalism about

simple lifestyle, non-violence, accountability;

a focus on formal ethics rather than spirituality.

So much so that I had to have a conversion in seminary to prayer!

And despite that conversion, I barely knew how to pray when I first became a pastor. Fortunately, there was lots of grace for learning and growing in the new congregation that I was a part of.

Who knew it would eventually open my heart to praise music.

Muzak and Praise Songs

I used to hate and make fun of muzak.

I was like one of the supreme court justices,

the wonderfully named Felix Frankfurter.

He declared that he had to recuse himself

on a case involving muzak. Why?

Because he hated it so much!

Now that’s judicial honesty!

Bad toneless saxophone playing

a lukewarm version of the melody

from “Yesterday” by the Beatles….

(imitate here)

Actually, I still hate muzak.

I also used to hate and make fun

of Christian praise songs.

Insipid theology, repetitive, boring,

manipulative religious sentimentality.

But unlike with muzak, that changed.

I now like praise songs,

at least if they’re good!

Let’s sing one:

—Sing Praise, I Will Praise You, Lord #131 (blue 76)

Ah, so beautiful, I think.

Toward Love and So On

Here again is some of the architecture

of my “second half” conversion:

For my doctoral studies,

I read the Greek Orthodox theologian

David Bentley Hart, about beauty.

His point was that God has

created the world beautiful,

and it lies all around us.

It is not hidden, except by our distortions.

Like the Orthodox icons,

it’s there for all to see!

Reading this at length,

I began to have a different feel

for faith, for theology.

The world is not about the

structure of my ideas.

It’s about a thorough, built-in beauty.

We are full of wonder whenever we notice it.

Then I began to study with

the Quaker writer Parker Palmer.

He said that the heart of the gospel

is caught in the early-church phrase

“See how they love each other.”

See how they love each other

Then, by strange, unexpected pathways,

I formed a friendship with the disgraced

evangelical leader Ted Haggard.

And he said, the key mark

of a successful church is

that the leaders have to love each other!

This sense of beauty and love

began to play in my heart.

Alarmingly, I began to be moved by songs like

Praise I Will Praise You Lord

and As the Deer Panteth (Deer Pants!)

Then I started visiting Pentecostal services of Ted and others,

and I found the music touched my soul:

moved by the male-dormant

royal-theology music!

But despite that, there was a warm spiritual flow.

Then I found that I liked the evangelical

immigration reform meetings

I was going to better than the interfaith ones,

because there was a spiritual warmth there.

In seminary, the universe sprang to life,

and I began to pray.

After Parker and Ted and so on,

the life became love most amazing.

It was love before that, of course.

But now it was the deep, woven,

vast warm interconnectivity of love

that carries all the earth, carries the universe!

It was agape, philos, and eros all spun together

but once more with feeling,

a feeling for the great Becoming

of all that is, was, and ever shall be.

So now I like praise songs.

Of course some praise songs are better than others

Some are trying too hard to get you to feel it,

versus just letting the joy flow.

But how wonderful when they do.

Back to that first Richard Rohr quote:

“The intimacy of what Martin Buber called an “I-Thou” relationship is a deep and loving “yes” to God, to others, and to the life that is inherent within each of us.”

Out of this I-Thou experience flow

miracles, whatever and what all they are,

and praise songs , and other matters of the heart.

There is so much more than only my

reason can comprehend.

This spirituality is not less than reason.

It does not abandon reason.

It is more, it is “once more with feeling.”

It is remembering that a kiss is not just

lips and mouths but it is greatly defined

by intention and longing and passion.

One other note:

Peter gets into miracle mode.

But there’s wonderful foreshadowing

in our lectionary reading.

Because it ends with Peter

going to the home of Simon the Tanner,

where he will get quite a lesson

in calling people unclean.

And that’s one of the greatest

social-justice lessons ever.

It’s wonderful how the text

moves smoothly from miracle

to justice, from warmth to social inclusion.

It is all a wonder.

I see that now.

*Cf. Mark 5:41 where Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter

speaking the Aramaic words,

“Talitha cumi” – “get up, little girl.”

The magic words! I thought, perhaps, as a child.

(Jairus was a leader in the synagogue.)

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