By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical PriestO God you call us on journeys whose ending we cannot see, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Good morning, Saints! It is wonderful to be with you for the 14 weeks of Father Poppe’s sabbatical. Fr. Poppe’s on his way to Africa,
To go on this journey we have to believe there’s more to life than what we’ve found: more joy, more purpose, passion and peace. Like Jesus in the gospel for this morning we have to be willing to leave
Jesus bursts on the scene in Mark’s gospel with no advance warning, no introduction, no birth narratives, no stories of growing up, for all we know he’s just a carpenter from Galilee come down with everyone else to this crazy prophet John baptizing in the Jordan. John was a kind of performance artist, as all the prophets were—enacting the story of repentance, the story of being new birth. It was the enactment of a distance closing—the huge distance between guilt and forgiveness, brokenness and wholeness, being lost and being found. Jesus, not in need of forgiveness, goes anyway leaving—literally—home and mother, job and identity—on the river bank with his clothing. He steps out into the water and discovers a distance has been closed for him too.
The heavens were torn apart. The Greek word means “split open.” The membrane between heaven and earth, between God and Jesus split open—it’s very much a birth image—and the Spirit descends like a dove into him (says the Greek) and from within heaven comes a voice: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. They were words that would have been familiar. The first part from Psalm 2:7 for the king’s coronation—“You are my Son, this day I have begotten you,” or, in the words of the Message: Today is your birthday. The second: “With you I am well pleased,” is an echo of Jesus’ beloved Isaiah, one of the Servant Songs: Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delights! The suffering servant by whose wounds we are healed.
He sees himself with new eyes. It’s a shattering insight, an experience that divides life into “before” and “after.” The Spirit drives him out into the wilderness, the place of no illusions and no resources of our own. There is no one to impress, appease or distract; no place to hide from angels, wild beasts, Satan, and God all of whom see us more clearly than we see ourselves. We’re alone with God, alone with ourselves. The temptation is to run away, head back home and try to carry on as before. There is the temptation to take control from God: Yes, Lord, I know you rent the heavens and came down but I got it from here! I’m good to go. Gotcha covered. There is always the temptation NOT to be who you ARE because the devil knows that once we discover who we are then we are well on the way to discovering what we can DO, which is to make a difference in this world beyond our wildest dreams.
Satan aids and abets our “going it alone.” Some of you know I was an interim at St. Mark’s, WO, several years ago. It was a wilderness experience—poor, black, urban, mission: which one of those words did I know anything about? “We can do this,” I said rolling up my sleeves as they watched. “Busy, busy, busy,” they said. It was like trying to turn a battleship. Eventually I got tired—just like they’d gotten tired, 35 people rolling around like marbles in a shoebox in a landmark church that sat 400. Eventually I got it. I’d never met a circumstance—not at work, not like this—that I couldn’t woo and win by sheer force of personality. And when we all got to the end of our collective strength we finally realized: We don’t have anything but God. What a funny thing to say: if we had God who could have more? The place might close. It might stay open. We couldn’t control it. We were thrown back on God. It was total surrender. And I have to tell you our spirits caught fire, my preaching caught fire. In practical ways and spiritual ways we asked and received, we sought and found, we knocked and doors were opened—file cabinets, computers and a secretary materialized, 3 Sunday School teachers, energy and hope. I left a new person.
A new clergy couple came—wonderful spirit filled people. Eventually, still, the church closed. Being faithful doesn’t make things always turn out the way we want them to: Father, take this cup away from me; being faithful means discovering that the worst thing is never the last thing. The worst thing is never the last thing. It’s never the end of the story. Like Jesus, we came out of that wilderness with good news and were sent forth to proclaim it. God loves us. If we really want to experience that we have to stop trying to change ourselves, and others and our circumstances by our own efforts, on our own terms, under our own power. We need let go of who we’re trying to be so that God can free us to be who we are.
We need to change our minds. That’s the first sermon Jesus ever gave. I have it on my desk, in slightly different translation than we heard this morning: After John’s arrest JESUS came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God and saying, “The time has come at last—the
No less a prophet, priest and teacher than
Girls and women have a similar problem. Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history,” wrote Myra Sadker (1943-1995) who pioneered much of the research documenting gender bias in
The Congressional Resolution Designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month” first passed in 1987 speaks of the historic contributions to the growth of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways by American women of every race, class and ethnic background women’s critical economic, cultural and social roles in every sphere of life. It tells of women constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home, women’s unique role as the majority of the volunteer labor force of the Nation, the role of women in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic and cultural institutions, women’s leadership in every progressive social change movement; women’s leadership in securing not only their own right of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement which create a more fair and just society for all; the Resolution concludes that “whereas despite these contributions, the role of American women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued, in the literature, teaching and study of American history therefore be it resolved that march be set aside as Women’s History Month… the Congress and President calling upon the people of the United States to observe these months appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities.”
When women’s history is taught the self esteem of girls and women goes up and their vision of what is possible expands. The respect of boys and men goes up. Achievement by girls and women increases. And violence against women decreases. We need to know who we are. “You are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased.” What might happen if we changed our minds and believed this good news? If our self talk weren’t about our “fat thighs” and how sensitive, dumb and emotional we are and instead was: God loves me. I am God’s beloved. God is pleased with me.
Like the narrator sang last weekend in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: You are what you feel. What we think may be wrong but if we believe it it’s true for us. Our beliefs change our reality. If we want to change our LIVES we have to change our THINKING and to change our thinking we have to be aware of it. I saw a therapist on television who said he told his patients to put a rubber band on their wrist for a week and snap it every time they said or thought something negative about themselves. Red wrists at the end of 7 days show us a lot about our thinking. I told this story to my kids and for days when they heard me say something negative about myself they’d say: Snap! Most of us wouldn’t be friends with people who talked to us the way we talk to ourselves.
God says: You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased. God is not in heaven slapping the divine forehead saying to Jesus, “Oh, no! There goes Anne being Anne again!” God is not in a state of shock and surprise that we are the way God made us. We are not a disappointment to God. God made us black, white, gay, straight, lesbian, male and female. God made us who we are as we are for a purpose. Want to know your purpose? You need to learn who you are. If we want something to be useful we first need to see what it is. What are its given characteristics: is it a dahlia or a donkey an orange or an automobile. I wasn’t created to be a Carmelite nun under a vow of silence, you know? Much as my family and friends would like it from time to time. I’m a TALKER. That’s what was always on my report card: “Talks too much in class.” Oh well, now I talk for God. God doesn’t seem to mind. God made me fired up and ready to go. I’m learning to accept I’m more your crashing ocean deep than your still silent pond. I’m learning more how to surf the waves of my enthusiasm rather than let it send me cart wheeling onto the beach in a heap. Point is: I’m not a mistake. You are not a mistake. You are not a disappointment to God. God loves you: Full stop. No disclaimers.
Jesus believed God loved him—fully, utterly, completely. Everything else he accomplished flowed from that. Jesus found his identity in God. Jesus found his strength in God. When John was arrested he came out of the wilderness preaching what he had discovered. That God’s love makes all things possible. It was enough to sustain Jesus to the cross and beyond. It is enough to sustain us. “Change your mind” Jesus calls to us “and believe the one that can make all the difference if only you will let it in: You are God’s beloved. With you God is well pleased.”
© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven
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