Sermon for Christmas Eve, "The Verbs of Christmas," Luke 2:1-20

Sermon 12/24/18

Luke 2:1-20

The Verbs of Christmas

As I shared in my Christmas letter this year, I recently finished reading Anna Carter Florence’s book Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community. Anna Carter Florence is a professor of preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, and I have had the privilege of hearing her preach and lecture when I’ve attended the Festival of Homiletics, a preaching conference. Two memorable times stick out to me. Once, she designed her preaching and worship around the conference, held in May, as an Easter Morning Service. We started out singing Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, and she preached a resurrection sermon. Like most of the other attendees, I’m usually leading worship on Easter Sunday, not attending worship. It’s been 15 years or so since I just attended worship on Easter Morning. I didn’t realize how much I had needed it. I think I cried through the whole service. And this last year she preached on the book of Job, one of the hardest books of the Bible to figure out, and she blew me away, helping me understand the scripture in a way I never had before. I find her preaching to be a balm for my soul. So, when I heard her mention her new book, Rehearsing Scripture, I knew I had to pick it up.

I was so glad I did! I found her work profoundly moving, and I also found it practical, with many concrete suggestions for how we can read scripture together. She takes themes from theatre and acting, something she has experience with in her background, and she applies them to how we read scripture. One of Carter Florence’s first guidelines is to “read the verbs” in a text.  She invites readers of scripture to focus less on the nouns in the text, and more on the verbs, the action of scripture. Focusing on the nouns keeps us separate from the Bible stories, she says, because the nouns can be so unlike ours - confusing names and places and objects. If we focus on the nouns, which are strange to us, it is hard to notice how much we have in common with our biblical forebears. But, our verbs haven’t changed. We share verbs with people in the Bible.

She writes, “We all have verbs - the same ones, actually. You and I share verbs with Adam and Eve and Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Miriam and Ruth and Naomi. We share verbs with Mary and Joseph and Peter and James and John and Martha and Lydia and Paul. We even share verbs with Jesus. That does appear to be the whole point of the Incarnation, doesn’t it? - that God came to share our verbs. The Word became one of us and lived among us. Apparently, even God thought the best way to reach us was to meet us, verb for verb. Meet us and raise us and change the whole game.” (20)  

God came to share our verbs! I’ve certainly never heard the incarnation, God becoming one of us in the birth of Jesus - described quite like that. Carter Florence gives some guidelines for how we read the verbs of scripture. She says that we should note “who gets what verbs”: For example, in Genesis 3, what verbs does God get and what verbs do people get? What verbs does Adam get and what verbs to Eve and snake get? And, we should note in what order the verbs appear, like how in Genesis 1 God says and then right after there is. It gives us a pretty clear sense of our place in the creation. God first, the creator, then us, the creatures. And, we should ask what verbs surprise us and why. Where is there a verb in the text that catches us off guard, catches our attention? (Chapter 3)

What happens when we apply Carter Florence’s questions to our Christmas story? What happens when we focus on the verbs of the nativity story? What does the angel do? What do Mary and Joseph do? What do the shepherds and Magi do? What are their action words? Once we figure that out, we get to the most important questions of all: What is it that God does at Christmas, and what will we do in response? What will our verbs be, because of how God acts in the world and in our hearts?  

So, I did as Carter Florence suggested, and looked over our text from Luke 2 and focused on the verbs, and who gets what verbs, and what order they show up in. When we do that, here’s what we get. Emperor decreed. World registered. All went. Joseph went. He went. Mary was expecting. Time came. Mary gave birth. Mary wrapped the baby. Mary laid the baby in a manger. Shepherds lived. Shepherds kept watch. Angel stood. Glory shone. Shepherds were terrified. Don’t fear! See! Angel brings good news. Shepherds will find. Baby lays in manger. Angels praise. God favors! Angels left, went to heaven. Shepherds said. Shepherds go. Shepherds went with haste. Shepherds found. Baby lays in manger. Shepherds saw. Shepherds made known. All heard. All were amazed. Mary treasured. Mary pondered. Shepherds returned. Shepherds glorified. Shepherds praised because shepherds heard and shepherds saw what angel told. This text really moves when we focus on those verbs, doesn’t it? Let’s take a deeper look.

I notice Mary and Joseph’s verbs. I admire Joseph’s verbs. Joseph went, went, went (and of course Mary with him!) If you’re in worship on Sunday, you’ll hear the scriptures about what happens while Jesus is still a baby, you’ll find that the little holy family has more much travel ahead of them. Joseph does a lot of going where God tells him to go. And Mary gets an impressive set of verbs - Gave birth. Wraps the baby, lays the baby down. Treasures. Ponders. Her verbs succinctly deliver to us the Savior of the World, and in the midst of so much busyness, she just reflects in her soul on all that has happened. I’m not sure I’d have it as together as Mary does. The angels have dramatic verbs. Glory shines near them. They praise. They issue imperatives - verbs that leave no wiggle room - Don’t fear! See! Find!  

But when I’m looking for a set of verbs that we might share more fully in this Christmas story, the shepherds really shine in this text. Depending on how you count, they get almost half of the verbs in this passage. They live. They keep watch. They are afraid. But they will find the baby, the Savior. They talk. They go. They go with haste. They find. They see. They tell. They hear. They are amazed. They return. They give glory. They praise, because they heard, and they saw.

It is their verbs that I connect most to in this story. They’re living. They’re working. That’s just their day to day. Living and working. Can you relate? They’re just doing their everyday thing. But then God speaks, through the angels. As a rule of thumb, when we’re reading the verbs in scripture, God’s speaking should be followed by our acting. And we certainly see that here. The angels speak on God’s behalf to the shepherds, and it prompts their let’s-make-haste reaction. The shepherds are terrified when the angels first appear. As much as we (say we) long for it, sometimes the ways God shows up in our life are terrifying! We didn’t mean like that, God! Maybe just a warm feeling during the Christmas Eve service, not showing up in all your glory sending us on a quest! Disrupting all that living and working we’re used to doing!

But the shepherds move beyond their fear because of the words of God through the agnels. Once the shepherds act, they find that things are just as God through the angels have told them. How do we react when God speaks to us? What has God shown you? What do you do in response?  The shepherds go, and they go with haste. And they find the good news God has told them they will find: a savior, a great joy, a sign of peace for all people. They see it, and they tell how God sent them. And everyone hears and is amazed.

And then, they return, the shepherds, back to their flocks. They haven’t abandoned their lives. They don’t become celebrities. They’re still shepherds. They return, though, praising and thanking and glorifying God for what they’ve experienced. I wonder: How do you think their lives might have changed? They’re still shepherds, but maybe they think differently about what that means. Maybe they think differently about how God works in the world. Maybe their faith is forever strengthened because God spoke to them, and they went and saw. Maybe they understood for the first time that God wasn’t just for the priests and the scholars and the religious authorities. God was for them! Maybe what they heard and saw and did gave them to courage to hear even more from God, see even more of God at work in the world, and do even more in response to God’s amazing gift in the Christ-child. What will their next verbs be? We don’t know, but I bet they get some new ones, after God changes the world like this.  

How about you? When you return from your visit to the Christ-child this Christmas, what will your verbs be? Hopefully, we can start by sharing some verbs with the shepherds. We praise. We glorify, because Christ is born and God is with us. God speaks and we act. What will we do because of what we have heard and seen? What will your new verbs be? Amen.  

Festival of Homiletics: Anna Carter Florence

Here it is, the last post of reflections from the Festival of Homiletics! On Friday morning, we got to hear both a lecture and a sermon from Anna Carter Florence. She's been one of my favorites at the Festival since the first time I heard her speak about pastors and plagiarism. She was booked in a room that was too small for the crowd that was there to hear her, and from then on, she was given bigger spaces. Two years ago, she preached at the opening worship service at the Festival, an Easter Sunday service for all of us preachers who never get to attend Easter worship, and I found myself crying during the opening processional, unaware of just how much I needed to be in a resurrection service I wasn't leading myself. 

Carter Florence's lecture was titled, "The Book of Esther and a Truth for the World.” She spoke about her class called "Rehearsing Scripture" (see book on these themes here). Each semester, the class would spend time with one text, one story. And this particular semester, the focus was Esther. She talked about how enriched their experience of the text was after celebrating Purim with a Jewish congregation. She said, "We knew Esther was about parody and reversal, we just didn’t know what it would be like to reenact that, pushing the limits in the sanctuary." But "this is what we do when we read about a genocide that almost happened but didn’t." She continued, "Esther means: I am hiding. My students knew all this, but they were tossed in the deep end after practicing in the shallow end. And the experience helped them asked new questions, like why are identity questions so often at the root of violence? Does hiding who we are perpetuate/allow violence for others? Does pushing against the sacred help us figure out what is sacred?" 

Carter Florence talked about "play for the sake of justice" and described four "Roadmarkers" that make for the epiphany of scripture, drawing on her theatre background: 

1) Performance/rehearsing scripture is subjunctive. It happens in “as if” mode. What if we rehearse the text as if we are soldiers, as if we are teens, if we read it with a real congregation? Subjunctive is the first roadmarker: rehearse possibilities. Change one variable. See what transpires. 
2) Performance/reading of scripture is liminal. Plays at edges. Pushes limits. Takes us past limits of acceptable/believable/possible. What is more unbelievable? Margaritas in the sanctuary (as she and her class experienced with the congregation celebrating Purim), or ignoring genocide? 
3) Performance (reading scripture) is duplicitous. It isn’t the real world as we know it, but is more real than the reality we live. We expect theatre, but why does it seem to hold more truth than our every day lives? 
4) It is dangerous. Real lives are affected. Real change happens when we rehearse scripture. 

She also shared with us "rehearsal practices" for rehearsing scripture: 

Staying in the scene – walk into the text and keep listening. Don’t break character. Don’t interrupt once it starts. We would sometimes make the mistake in acting as though we were only one in a scene, not part of an ensemble. Stay in it to find something true to say together. Rehearsal reveals things about the script, but also about ourselves. Scripture is much better at reading us than we are at reading it. Requires great compassion and love for one another.
Switching roles - Rehearsing scripture is the first place where we learn to switch roles in our sacred stories. Think of how many different roles Sunday School kids get to play in the Christmas pageant over the years! Each time shows us something new. Every text is worth an annual pageant. 
Pushing the limits - Rehearsal is time for careful pressing against boundaries and limits. We can’t change play or cast or hurt or violate. But we can suspend judgment. It only happens in rehearsal or set aside space. Do it like Max in Where the Wild Things Are - he has adventures and then goes home for supper. Can we tolerate dissonance without shutting down, or questions without calling others heretics? If answer is yes, you can move forward. 
“What if? questions about scripture can change the reading faster than anything else. (Sticking to script while changing the one variable!) One very effective what is question to ask: “What if we read this text as an underground community of believers?” Slaves, Christians in communist countries, Jews in Nazi Germany, original readers of text. We take our free and open reading of scripture for granted sometimes. Descendants of slaves and descendants of Pharaoh have important things to wrestle with. 

***
Carter Florence preached her sermon, "Blessings for Latter Days" on Job 42:1-17. This sermon was transcendent, and my notes in no way do it justice. I tried to describe to colleagues after what she said and did a terrible job. So note below I include a link to where you can purchase his sermon.  

Job Scholars conclude, “Those speech cycles (from Job's terrible friends) are insufferable by design. It’s what the author of Job was going for in those chapters. Job is the puzzle that can’t be solved.” 

Carter Florence said, "What words say and what they do are very different matters. It is one things to expect galling speech to make you mad – it is another thing for it to happen. The point of Job perhaps is not inspiring us, but infuriating us, so that we can’t stand one more word of terrible teaching about suffering." 

"If you’re going to be a talking theologian, you better be a walking theologian, all the way to the White House."

How the author chooses to tell the story is as important as story itself, Carter Florence said. Chapter after chapter of tiresome speeches. Chapter after chapter of Job-splaining! His friends telling Job how to feel. 

One outcome of a function-driven reading of Job: we pool our rage, and throw it at Job’s friends. We could critique them/the book of Job and call it a day. But, Carter Florence says, that's too easy. It protects us from our own story. We have to play this script – some days as Job but we are often Job’s friends. Searching for words and failing. We must speak, speaking is inadequate. 

She had her students participate in a Worst Words of Consolation Ever Contest! What were the worst things people ever said when you to you to "comfort" you when you were broken and grieving? Results? Everything collected was a paraphrase of what Job’s friends uttered. 

The message we/others/the world seems to speak to suffering: "If you are not ________ enough, you deserve _______, it’s God’s will so accept it." 31 chapters, weeks, years, centuries, this Author of Job wants us to FEEL IT, how it enrages us, wants us to feel it. Job’s voice refuses to accept their view of the world. They DO NOT get to name his experience, and they DO NOT get to come in between him and God. 

Political preaching: It's lament. It's dispute. It's embodied preaching that is unafraid to name truth and experience for yourself. "Political preaching feels like freedom and restored order." 

You can purchase a recording of Carter Florence's sermon here. (Scroll to the bottom.) I have never purchased a recording before myself, but I think I will have to with this one!

I didn't take notes, but you can also find the excellent remarks from Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren here. 

Festival of Homiletics: William H. Lamar IV and Yvette Flunder

Nearly done, really, with my Festival of Homiletics notes. Second to last set. Some brief notes from two more speakers: William H. Lamar IV, and Yvette Flunder. 

William H. Lamar IV is the pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in DC, host church for the Festival. (The church was wonderfully hospitable to us, by the way. They went out of their way to welcome a huge crowd to their space all week.) 

Lamar preached a sermon titled “Seers,” based on Leviticus 25:8-12, 18-24 and Revelation 21:1-5, 21-22.

He said, "Preachers are here because we’re thirsty, hungry, and thirsty, hungry people keep showing up at our churches." His grandfather told him, "Before you preach, I pray that you have heard something and seen something. If you ain't heard nothing and you ain’t seen nothing, you got nothing. Then say nothing. Get someone else to preach. But if you’ve seen and heard, God will give you power." The scriptures tell us that God is not about "all new things, but all things new." 

Too often instead of reflecting God’s glory, he said,  "we have refracted God’s glory." We’ve taken and bent it and sent it in a different direction than God wants. We're meant, called to reflect God's glory. 

***
Bishop Yvette Flunder, Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and pastor at City of Refuge United Church of Christ gave a lecture titled, “The Second Book of Acts.” 

She said, "I believe we are writing the Second Book of Acts right now with our lives. It’s probably time for us to gather in is a few more epistles. An extended canon." 

She spoke about her struggle with Paul's imagery that we are "grafted on" to God's covenant: “I have a real problem with the idea of being a contingency plan. I am not an afterthought. I am the apple of God’s eye.” 

"What are the acts of the apostles currently?" she asked. "The future needs to hear from our present. What is cultural and what is theological? When do we abdicate theology/God to remain culturally comfortable?" 

She made me laugh when talking about Paul - we're of the same mind perhaps. She said, “Bless his heart. I released Paul, and allowed him to be a human being,” and talked about whether we can give him room to grow in his theology throughout his writing. 

Speaking on Acts 21:17-36:
"What do we do, like Paul, for the aroma, for the cultures, for the smells we like, the practices, etc.? To what degree are we defending things by custom/tradition that we no longer believe? So what do we now believe?"

"We sanctify bad stuff with time," Flunder said, when it really started out bad and stayed bad." 

She said we have a habit of writing our books of order when something negative happens, and then we are so burdened down that we can’t do the will of God. 

She said that our institutions don’t know how to sway like trees in an earthquake. They’re like the buildings – they crack. Their facades, the unneeded and unnecessary things fall off. We need to "stop building monuments on the will of God – our facades are in danger. Sometimes we go wrong way because we are told it is the only way. But God has a better way." 

Flunder concluded, "Let’s start gathering (new) Epistles!"

Festival of Homiletics: David Lose

Still a few more posts about May's Festival of Homiletics! I think I have two more posts after this one. I don't know if you're tired of them, but they help me to actually retain the content of all the great preachers I heard. Up today: David Lose. Parishioners of mine might recognize his name - he's the source I'm most likely to quote in my sermons. I love his unique and pastoral perspective on the texts, and he brought a unique perspective to the Festival's theme of Preaching and Politics.

Lose lectured and preached. His sermon was titled, "Nothing Comes from Nothing," based on Isaiah 55:1-13 and Matthew 20:1-16.

Isaiah's text starts with "Ho!" Untranslatable in the Hebrew, the word serves as exclamation of delight, joy, surprise, or just to get our attention. It is always emphatic. It says, "Pay attention, this matters!" Isaiah's message is: "Stop looking and start living. It is hard to believe this promise, but listen! This is for free!!"

We have Isaiah’s promise, Lose said, but no record of response. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard is Matthew/Jesus's attempt to respond.

The last-hired workers work an hour – after all, a little is better than nothing, because nothing comes from nothing. But, grace and mercy screw everything up!Day in day out, grace messes with our order and is the last thing we want. If it turns out that something comes from nothing, what will we do?

There's no more counting in Jesus’ world, Lose said. We are willing to kill and die for our false sense of order, sense of control, until we realize we were never in control in the first place. Being out of control scares us! It makes us vote for anyone who promises law and order.

But when you realize you have nothing, then God’s word of daily bread for free is finally good news. It never will make sense. It is always absurd. But it is good news. The moment you say you’ve got nothing, you hear God say, “Nothing! Now that’s something I can work with.” No one has done enough to "earn" from God – we deserve nothing – but we given all things through God! Creating something out of nothing happens to be one of God’s favorite things to do. Nothing comes from nothing – except for with God.

***

David Lose

Lose's lecture was titled, "The Gospel of Jesus: Political or Parabolic?" and it was particularly fascinating. I hope my notes convey any sense of it.

"How do we persuade one another?" Lose asked. Science tells us that when we're presented with conflicting facts that go against our deeply held convictions, it isn't our rational brain that responds, but the part of our brain that responds to threatening information. "We don’t distinguish between intellectual threats and physical threats."

Lose talked about how taste tests showed that people liked New Coke better than Classic Coke - but we still hated New Coke as consumers. Taste tests also show that people like RC Cola better than other colas, but we still don't buy that the most (where it is available.) Why? Because we like the "story" of Coca-Cola, and who we are as soda drinkers - our place in the story, and we reject things that don't go with this story. Lose talked about a professor sharing this story with his family - how people like RC better, but wouldn't believe it even after they saw taste-test results, and the professor's family wanted to take the test themselves. Test results? They preferred the taste of RC. But they weren't persuaded! Even with the results, the facts, they still didn't believe they liked it better, and got angry at their husband/father for trying to tell them otherwise.

We use stories to make sense of our lives and organize our experiences. When we get together, we share our stories. We have stories we tell ourselves: I do this _____ because I believe that ____________. The political parties in the United States are keepers of a particular story about what America is. What is the most compelling story of America? There is more than one. John Kerry wasn’t relatable, but George W. Bush told good stories. Facts are unpersuasive.

Lose argues that most political preaching that happens can take place because it takes place in very homogeneous communities: You are preaching to your choir that tells the same story as you are telling.

Jesus clearly didn’t take a homiletics class, said Lose. He rarely quotes scripture. When he does, he usually does for 1 of 2 reasons. 1. To answer a question. (But then he tells a story.) or 2. In order to reinterpret scripture or to call a passage into question, to challenge validity of it.

Yet, we preachers are taught to start and stick and end with text. This is not what Jesus does (in the synoptics)! Mostly he just tells stories. Improbable stories. Intriguing stories. Dysfunctional but familiar family dynamics. Filling us with wonder. Violence and power grabs. Mercy and grace. Reversals of fortune.

He isn’t trying to persuade his audience. He’s trying to overwhelm them narratively with a better story, more life-giving story, more filled with God’s character than one they are currently living. And he didn’t just tell parables. His whole life-ministry-death-resurrection is one whole parable. To throw one story alongside another to see what happens – that’s what parables do. A familiar-enough-to-be-recognized story that is challenged with twists and turns.

Jesus threw his life’s story alongside the story of empire. He’s raised! But that’s just another story, right? And those who see him are "in joy disbelieving," even while they see it. Resurrection is not even quite meant to be explained, but entered into.

What story can we tell people that will overwhelm their story? This story: You are enough. You have enough.

Lose concluded with two hunches:

Hunch 1: We share Jesus best through telling stories of scriptures, and our lives as people transformed by faith.

Hunch 2: Parables are helpful but hard to interpret. Whose parable is it? How you see and understand Jesus will influence how you interpret parables.

I found this lecture to be brilliant, and I've been mulling it over a lot. I'm fascinated by how people change their minds about things, about long-held beliefs. Our current political/cultural context should tell us, as Lose says, that facts are not persuasive. But Jesus is, isn't he? So how can we tell people a better story - the story of the life-transforming work of Jesus? I'll be thinking about that.

Festival of Homiletics: Jacqui Lewis and M. Craig Barnes

More Festival of Homiletics catch up. Jacqui Lewis preached a sermon titled,
"Identity Politics," based on Matthew 6:9-14, Jesus sharing what we call the Lord's Prayer. I didn't take a ton of notes during worship, but the sermon was excellent. Lewis's style was extremely engaging. We were roaring with laughter, but her points still hit home - there was a lot of poignant truth in the midst of the humor.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis

Lewis spoke about Jesus being born in scandal. "We have let the world whiten up and nicen up that baby, who was brown enough to go undercover in Egypt." Our salvation, Lewis said, is corporate: "We're not saved until everyone is saved." We develop theologies of "it will all get better" in light of our current realities, but Jesus says in his prayer "now." Of God's reign on earth, God's "now," Lewis says she knows what it looks like: It looks like a "die-in" of activists saying "I can't breathe," referencing the death of Eric Garner at the hands of police. "It tastes like sweet Hawaiian bread."

"Safe preaching is too costly," Lewis said. "We don’t have the luxury of that. We’re on the precipice." And, "We have the gift of liberated tongues."

M. Craig Barnes

I've heard M. Craig Barnes preach and lecture before at the Festival. I found him particularly compelling this time around. He lectured on “Preaching in the Age of Anxiety," focusing on Matthew 4.

We are judged in so many places by others and self, Barnes said, and what we see is not good. So we go out to be judged by John the Baptist. John points to Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t even have a winnowing fork! And this one who is without sin identifies totally with us. And when he is baptized, God is "so-pleased" with Jesus. When Jesus is identified with us in baptism, God says that Jesus is "beloved of God," which claims us as God's beloved too, not because we are judged good enough, but because we’ve always belonged to God, and in Christ, God has found us.

We’re anxious, though, Barnes argued. We wonder: is God really saying this about us? Are we really beloved?

The first temptation of Satan for Jesus is not to eat, but to not be hungry. We are always hungry. It is when we reach for what is not given to us by God that we destroy the garden, Barnes said. "We always sacrifice freedom out of our anxiety." Barnes spoke about the anxiety of the privileged class. We are enslaved by desire for happiness and fulfillment. Sure the next thing will fill us up. This is how Satan tempts Jesus, with his conditional language: “If you are the son of God…” But our yearning is necessary. Yearning is a part of our created condition that is meant to be an embrace and a call to worship. We shouldn't communicate that yearning will be eliminated. But it can be focused. We're meant to be yearning for God.

The second temptation is the temptation of certainty. At the top of the temple, Satan says, "if God catches you, then you can be certain that God loves you." We would love to be certain! "But few things are more dangerous to our spirituality than certainty. We live by faith not by certainty." The more certain you become the less room you have for faith, God, and one another. Creeds don’t start, “I know” but “I believe.” We crave certainty of one miracle, Barnes said, but it would be deadly to our souls. Jesus is harder on those of us with a little faith than on those of us with no faith at all.

Speaking to a room of pastors, Barnes said that we love to do well at the church and are tempted, then, to be necessary at the church. To be the messiah at the church. But, being necessary robs us of being chosen. "You’re too important to be necessary. You are cherished by God. We can’t cherish things that are necessary. Cherishing comes as a choice, but if it is necessary there is no choice." We should stop knocking selves out to be necessary, Barnes urged. It is also futile, he insisted, to think that what you want is to be protected. That isn’t what we really want. We want to be loved. If we are loved, we can live with the insecurity of all life.

In the third temptation, Satan says, "I’ll give you all the kingdoms if you worship me." Jesus doesn’t say, “I don’t want those.” Devil wants to tempt us with our goals – let me help you with what would really tempt us. To clergy, "I can give you pastoral success." The devil says, "You have to ease up, though, on your high ideals. You just have to be a little complicit with 'the way it is!'" The temptation is the devil saying, "Be realistic. This is the best it can be." The temptation is to demonize others, other Christians. But, Barnes reminded us, "Not only do we allow sinners in our congregation, but frankly, that’s only who we allow in. And we say to each other, 'In Jesus Christ you are forgiven.'" “If you find a church like this," Barnes said, that doesn't want anyone who is a sinner (however they qualify that word), "they don’t need a pastor." And for pastors who say they want a congregation that already has it all together? "It’s like saying want you to be a doctor, but don't want to be around sick people."

Barnes concluded with a reminder that there is a stark difference between truth and clarity. "You can be flagrantly racist and clear about what you think. Truth is often found in nuance, in places that are not so clear." A thought-provoking lecture. 

Festival of Homiletics: Walter Brueggemann

Day two at the Festival of Homiletics included two appearances by Walter Brueggemann, who is one of my favorite theologians. He's so brilliant and compelling, and it was a delight to hear him again in person. We were told that this would be his last appearance as a Festival speaker, and since Brueggemann is 85, it seems reasonable that he might want to slow down on his speaking engagements. I felt especially blessed with the opportunity to hear him, then. He both preached and lectured, although with preachers, it is hard to tell the difference!

His sermon was called “Meat, Anxiety, and Injustice," using 1 Kings 4:20-28, 9:15-19 and Luke 12:13-31 as texts. Brueggemann talked about how high taxes and low wages for peasants meant lots of meat for Solomon. He had huge places to store his wealth. He still didn't have enough - he wanted more and more, a relentless carnivore who lets his greed fuel his anxiety and his anxiety justify violence.

Jesus's story about bigger barns could be about Solomon, Brueggemann said. The main had extra grain. He could have shared it. Let the land lie fallow. But instead he stores it up. He wants more. He doesn't have enough yet. He congratulates himself. And then he died. He was about to do good. About to share. About to be generous. But he died. "He could not end off the holy reckoning in the night."

So, what's it about? Jesus tells us: "Get out of the anxiety system, because it will kill you. You will pursue the goal of more until you die because more is an illusion. It is a system meant to keep us frightened that someone will get yours. It keeps us dissatisfied, keeps us busy, because if you are busy, you won’t think any dangerous thoughts."

Can any of you, Jesus asks, by participating in the anxiety system enhance your life? No!

The Good News: there is an alternative to the anxiety system! God has been supplying all creation already with fresh water! All creation knows this, says Brueggemann, but we’re the only ones who instead think that more is better.

Photo by Daniel Sheehan

Brueggemann said, "We can’t do justice when we’re anxious. The regime of anxiety is fake news. Our anxiety does not add a nanosecond to the well-being of our life." What if ministry is the call to refuse survival anxiety and budget anxiety and pension anxiety? Jesus calls us to be disciples away from the table of much meat. To love Jesus more than these.

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Brueggemann's lecture was titled "The Joker Amid Class Warfare." My notes from this lecture are mostly unedited. It was just so. much. I was typing as fast as I could!

8 theses, 2 texts, 5 conclusions

Eight theses: 

1. The justice agenda is participation in class warfare that requires imagination and movement beyond our comfort zones. 
2. Class warfare is characteristically waged from above by the powerful haves. 
3. Many people in mainline congregations have sympathy for the class ware that is waged from above. We’ve learned to the read the bible so that the issues of class warfare are not noticed, and lectionary mostly leaves them out. 
4. Combatants in class warfare from above mostly do not want it noticed or talked about and when they’re raised from below the predictable reaction from those above is that those below are waging class warfare! 
5. Much of the Bible is preoccupied with class warfare. Moses/Pharaoh. Between kings who preside over surplus, and prophets who promote justice. It is not different in NT, where Jesus is representative of subsistence farmers of Galilee, and has to go to Jerusalem to be judged/condemned by Rome. 
6. The church when energized by scripture is an apt arena for the conduct of class warfare. In fact, only place that can be spoken about seriously. Contradicts our need for “nice” spirituality. Not necessarily abrasive and confronting, but needs to teach about theses conflicts of interest. 
7. Class warfare always features two combatants: the powerful and the vulnerable, the haves, and have-nots, the rich whites and poor people of color. Is unequal because the interest of vulnerable have-nots is not explicit, is not organized, or recognized as legitimate force. From above: well-articulated, well organized, well mobilized, regarded as legitimate.  
8. The good news in the gospel narrative is that there is a third participant in the dispute about justice: the God of the Exodus, parent of Jesus Christ. This particular, peculiar God is NOT neutral or indifferent, but has taken sides in the struggle for justice.

"Unless the pastors of the church help summon Yahweh to participate in class warfare, we know we will not win." 

Two texts: Psalm 10: A map of justice advocacy, calling Yahweh back to involvement in the world. 

The voice from below is unembarrassed, does not ask politely, gives God big imperative: Rise up! Notice us! Don’t forget us! "Praying for miracles is so different than the social justice prayers progressives pray that expect NOTHING." 

The Joker God is the third participant in the struggle for justice. A third party is in play, summoned by the poor who have no other advocate. And then the map of justice is radically altered, world is open to radical resolve. Jesus comes to make “effective room” for God. 

Luke 18:1-8: Jesus says, "If you pray this way, you won’t lose heart." Meek, timid prayers are a sign of having lost heart. 

Judge: "The only way I can get rid of her is to give her justice, so I gave her justice!" Do you think God will long justice if you cry out day and night?

I wonder, says Jesus/editor, if there will be people capable of such prayer? I wonder if there will be the capacity to summon the joker. A question left unanswered. Left for us to answer. Faith is the resolve not to give in to the low ceiling. The resolve that the holy must be summoned, has not been nullified. "The agency of God matters decisively, but that agency must be summoned." 

Psalms are addressed to God, but designed to be overheard. Psalm 10 both shames and recruits the congregation. A strategic maneuver to redraw the map of injustice, to include the Holy Joker who does Easter. 

Five Conclusions: 

1. In good creation, everything works for good. And the haves and have-nots are engaged in neighborliness. All work for the common good. 
2. When the Creator God is silent or asleep or indifferent, the powerful are free to occupy the space of creation in ways that prey upon the vulnerable. Good creation requires sustained attentiveness of Creator or the wicked will occupy that space. 
3. The poor dare to summon God back into the enterprise of creation confident that when God can be mobilized God can be restored. (Psalm 44) Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep! Awake! Come to our help. Redeem us. Act for the sake of your tenacious solidarity (steadfast love.) We don’t use this psalm because we have trimmed God down – it is too much of an affront – so how can we summon God back to justice struggle? 
4. It is the work of the church and its pastors to pray without ceasing, to be an engaged friend of the court, to file petitions on behalf of others, uncompromising intercessions, unaccommodating imperatives. (Psalm 88) It is the vulnerable who bear the brunt of the failure to tell the truth, but they have allies in the psalter, the church, when we are not derelict in our duty. 
5. When God is summoned back into play, neighbors can be together in a shared well-being that is the work of evangelical justice. (Psalm 133) Good neighborliness yields abundance in contrast to the scarcity produced by predation. Justice is a theological matter that concerns the character of God and our relationship with God.