The Earth Will Kick Your Ass

People seem to think that the planet is like this big puppy that we all have on this really short leash. Because we are I dunno, superior, or God-empowered to "subdue" it or whatever. And I don't mean to get on an "inconvenient" soap-box here, but that kind of thinking is really not right.

Think of the planet like a huge slumbering dragon, who is tolerating all our bad behavior, but only for so long. Because eventually the dragon gets tired of it, wakes up, and eats us.

That's the thing I've always said. People talk about saving the planet, and what we really need to do is save the people. The planet will be fine. Nuclear Holocaust, biochemical plagues, fire, brimstone, whatever. The planet will eventually rekindle (say, give or take a 10,ooo years.) The human beings are going to be the ones who are toast.

That's why i find it utterly hilarious when the earth fights back in small spurts. These are like the grumblings of the dragon. When it rolls over in its sleep and crushes a few houses. Or when, say, millions of rats flee flooding in overdeveloped parts of the world and come tearing through the farmland causing devastation to crops and disease.
Or when, for instance, the ocean currents suddenly change because their temperature has differentiated, and the ocean returns millions of tons of garbage to our beaches that we had dumped into the sea.
That stuff is great. We need more of it. Somehow I think that is the only thing getting through to some people to say... hmmm. Maybe we should really do something before we wipe ourselves completely off the face of the earth. Cause that's the effect of all this. Don't worry about the earth. It's a tough planet. Humans though? We are fragile. And there are a lot of us to feed. And we panic easily. Worry about us. Save the Humans.

Easy Rider

Luke 10
Galatians 6

One of my good friends had a great grandfather in his family who was a circuit rider. His father still keeps his original saddlebags in excellent condition on display in the living room. His father ended up being a Methodist minister as well oddly enough, so the bags were of special significance.

A circuit rider was the original American Missionary. During the 1800’s, they travel on horseback a path that took them from small town to small town, and in most cases traveled routes that would take them nearly two months to complete. They took the words Luke to heart, taking only what they could carry in a pair of saddlebags as their only worldly possessions. In our society such simplicity of living seems almost unreal.

They led lives of hardship as Peter Cartwright describes auto biographically; “A Methodist preacher, when he felt that God had called him to preach, instead of hunting up a college or Biblical Institute, hunted up a hardy pony, and some traveling apparatus, and with his library always at hand, namely, a Bible, Hymn book, and Discipline, he started, and with a text that never wore out nor grew stale, he cried, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.' In this way he went through storms of wind, hail, snow, and rain; climbed hills and mountains, traversed valleys, plunged through swamps, swollen streams, lay out all night, wet, weary, and hungry, held his horse by the bridle all night, or tied him to a limb, slept with his saddle blanket for a bed, his saddle-bags for a pillow. Often he slept in dirty cabins, ate roasting ears for bread, drank butter-milk for coffee; took deer or bear meat, or wild turkey, for breakfast, dinner, and supper. This was old-fashioned Methodist preacher fare and fortune.”

It was a hard calling to be that kind of preacher, and still is. In a lot of little Appalachian communities the circuit, or Charge-preacher, is still prevalent. I went to school with a fellow who is now a four-charge preacher, meaning, he has four churches to pastor. Thankfully we are not all called to so hard a life.

Though, sometimes I think we must thrive of difficulty. I was guilty of it so many times in college. Putting off a paper until the last night, as if just writing it wasn’t challenge enough, I needed the added incentive of typing 25 pages in one sitting. There are also times in the spirit however, in which we try to make them harder than they need to be.

One example is in the study of the scripture. I’ve heard students come to me many, many times after having wrestled with certain pieces until it just nearly drives them insane. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read is that, when dealing with scripture, don’t get bogged down. There is a lot going on in almost every one of the passages here, and they are filled with meanings and sometimes social connotations that we just don’t get on the first or second or third or twentieth reading. Instead, we need to allow scripture to be the spiritual beast that it is, and allow it to speak to us. If there is something we might not quite get, there is no shame is setting it aside, letting it rest, and coming back later. Yet, there is some part of us that thinks that if we worked harder at it, thought harder at it we would gain understanding.

There is a story in the lectionary this week about a general in the Ancient Syrian Army. He was used to hardship out on the field. He was used to boot camp, and army rations, and orders that were tough to carry out. The Bible also says that he was used to winning. Now this alone should tell us something about NAY’umun. It tells us a lot about the kind of man that he is. And yet, we can perhaps also imagine the degree to which his leprosy was afflicting him. This is a man who was used to battle wounds and scars and pain that has to go ignored and untreated until the task is finished. And yet, he was so undone by this disease he goes to his King to beg leave to travel down into Israel.

He is granted leave and goes first to the King of Israel, but finds his way to the household of Elisha. He goes there in full pomp, and why not, he has earned his honored rank and title. His chariots and horses go with him and as he comes to the gate of Elisha’s house a servant greets him. The servant gives him a message that if he is to be cured that he should go and wash in the Jordan.

This proved to be too much. Not only was the master of the house not going to meet with him (this is just after he has met with the King remember), he tells him to wash in the Jordan. Which, while it held a lot of significance it was still a river that was used for all kinds of things. NAY’u-mun doesn’t actually come out and say that it’s dirty but I think he implies it as he complains and rails at having to go bath it in.

See, NAY’umun doesn’t want the easy solution. He doesn’t trust it. He thinks it won’t work, that it’s just a waste of time and he is bitter about the trip he took to get there. He is angry with the prophet and angry with himself for being taken in by the idea that his help would come from the Lord.

A knowing servant came and pleaded with him, saying, “What could it hurt?”

But how like all of us is this proud general? How many times in life do we look to the hard road because the easy seems too good to be true? Sometimes the call to personal ministry doesn’t seem difficult enough and so we refuse it or undermine it before we have ever even attempted it.

Christ sent out a call to his Disciples. It’s a simple message. He asks that the disciples bring a message of peace, and the message of His divinity. No enormous messages of intricate faith, no mysteries of the cosmos revealed. Much to their credit they comply with the simple message and meet with success.

Much like the circuit riders of old, what did they have time for but to bring some of the most basic messages to the common folk of the mountains? It’s very hard to run a sermon series on the finer points of living when you only see a particular church once in every six weeks.

Yet there is something heartwarming in coming to grips with the simple message—and the simple charge.

Paul has something here at the beginning of chapter 6 that is also easy in its simplicity. Instruction on how to deal with the common sinner.

Paul knows that the church is Galatia is a trying church and perhaps in their overzelousness to find and perform the will of the Christ, they have been a little too harsh with some of the brothers and sisters who have been tempted and succumbed. So many things being with good intentions and end up spiraling into a witch-hunt, trying to find someone to blame for it all.

Note too that here, no sin is specified. Paul does this purposefully to exercise the point that action for the person does not change according to the sin. It could be the foulest thing imaginable to man or a casual gray and innocent action. The reply should be the same. We are to approach the brother or sister in a spirit of meekness. Never, never, never in the Bible will there be ascribed an action of superiority when dealing with a weaker believer or outright sinner. The spirit of meekness is one that makes us self evaluate before hand and see with our own hearts our nothingness before the cross. Paul specifically asks for this confession in verse 3. We are to be prepared to bear one another’s burdens, and, in verse 5, we are to realize our own responsibility. This last verse seems at odds with the previous verse as far and sharing burdens goes, but it is talking about our own understanding of taking responsibility for our actions in regard to this sinner. If we meet a sinner with condemnation and rebuke then we will have to bear the burden of those consequences.

And is this really asking so much? The only thing that it denies us is the ability to be spiritual bullies. Lording our own righteousness against someone who has yet to find that peace. And maybe we can say that we would never think about doing that, but I might surprise you to say that the majority of the un-churched wholly expect it from us.

But this is an easy thing. To meet those suffering with sin with open humility and a readiness to help them shoulder the burden of their actions. Be ready to visit, to talk, to smile, and weep.

Jesus sends out the disciples into the very homes of people to share the Good Word with them. I know that whenever we have houseguest there is open conversation. A dinner together, a favorite dessert… I know that the disciples who went out, knew and loved those people they stayed with in openness and humility. Jesus says to approach the mission field like lambs to symbolize that meekness.

And what is there reward? What do they reap from these actions? The submission of the evil sprits plaguing those people. Aside from that they returned with a joy in their hearts. That is the power that comes from this easy way of living.

And even now I know there are some of us who are still skeptical. We still say, surely it must take more than that. If I have peace, and give peace, accept who Christ is, meet sinners with humility and a preparedness to shoulder some of the load… the return on that is joy and power over evil in the Name of Christ? There must be more to it, we say.

And so we invent ritual, we make pomp our shield and traditions our armor. We say, there, this enormous laundry list of actions is what is REALLY required of a Godly life. Now this complex belief system, THAT is what it takes. When the reality just isn’t so.

Hopefully somewhere we hear the voice of NAY’umun’s servant. Who whispers and says, “The answer is easy. Why not just try it?”

We have a real call from Christ. In Luke 10 at verse 1 it makes a point of saying there were 70 disciples sent out. That number has a message. It is the same number that Genesis chapter 10 uses to tell us the generation of Noah’s family, the tribes of the world. It is also the number of men who sat on the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews.

In this number Jesus is telling us that the message is to go to the entire world, and that we will have the authority to back that message up.

So we receive this call, to seek the world, not all at once; the idea is to get the understanding that what we have isn’t for the select. It’s for every one of our neighbors and co-workers and friends and family and classmates. Additionally we know that we have the authority to back up the claims we make on Christ’s behalf.

Maybe its about time we did something that was easy. Faith becomes another burden to be checked off the laundry list of items we keep. Jesus says that we should be joyful not because we have power over spirits, but because we have received salvation. That understanding can be very freeing in our lives if we allow it to be. It was meant to be. If we can alter our perception of, even our own church family, so that we don’t see a pasty white school marm with a ruler standing over our heads ready to crack us on the knuckles every time we sin, we’ll be better off. Instead, imagine friendly Paul, sitting in our home, listening patiently to our self-examinations, and our confessions, maybe kindly saying, you know such and such is a wrong way to live, will you let me help you with that? Wouldn’t you feel a lot more like confessing?

Hard work is a definite virtue. But sometimes Christ intends the easy road for us to follow. Our anger and our pride can get in the way of that, but the cleansing that is there for us to receive is worth us letting go of those false gods. Only then can we accept the easy call that Christ has for each of us, the call to go to people, some who will be brothers and sisters in the faith, and some, who will be strangers to God, but people and therefore His Children. But to go to them, and meet them with humility, share their burden, and renew the acceptance of Christ.

That is the kind of easy living that is going to lead us into a life of daily joy and empowerment in the Spirit; that kind of easy living makes the church a stronger place for being able to meet one another with real burden-sharing humility. And more than those, it creates a life that lives actively in the Salvation that God has provided for us.

America!

It seems like in the past few years there have been a lot of, well, let’s say disgruntled people, in our country. There has been the staunch divisions seen and revisited a hundred times. The feelings of unity that the country might have shared at one time seems shattered, and now as the National Holiday approaches I hear whisperings that we don’t have much to celebrate this year.

In places all over the country we hear either the hard-liners, who believe whatever the government says patriotism, and the depressing embarrassment of those who might claim to be Canadian when traveling abroad.

More than a hundred years ago there was written a song that has the power still to bring a tear to those patriots who will really sit and listen to it. “American the Beautiful” was written by Katherine Bates and in 1895 first published by The Congregationalist. Following 9-11 Dan Rather quoted the last verse of the song and nearly burst into tears on air.

It’s a great song, and maybe instead of being overtly proud of the mistakes our country has made, or terribly embarrassed by our grand successes we can all unify and look at the verses for what they are. A message of hope.

Bates was living in the gilded age, but there were tragedy enough even in her time. True she was a Wellesley girl, but she writes in a time in which there have been horrible train wrecks, the Homestead Strike claimed American lives and left families thrown out into the street, Lizzie Borden had been brought to trial just the previous year, and not long before that was the Wounded Knee massacre.

Surely a woman living in such troubled times as these couldn’t have been able to see the beauty in the country around her. And yet she does, with such piercing clarity that a century later we read her words and are taken in by the verse.

In the first verse she relates the physical power that the country has. She wrote this taking a cross country train trip and was inspired by what she saw. And yet, she reminds us that the most beautiful part of the country is the brotherhood we share. The crown of all we have that is good.

The second speaks of pilgrims, but not those who landed on the rock I think. Instead, these are the passionate pilgrims who make a way through the wilderness. The pioneers of action and social view who make plain the path we need to take. And the confirmation is in the self control they must exercise, because the path is not for person gain or liberty, but the Liberty of all the nation’s people.

Verse three reminds us of the heroes that prove their belief and faith in what the country was founded all. All races and all creeds have died for the causes of the nation, and as the songs goes, if they love this country and love mercy more than their own life, then they are truly our most noble children.

And then the fourth. And this is the hardest I think, especially now, having suffered on our native soil, we have come out of our heady belief in our immortality, to see the reality of our fragility. We are no longer un-dimmed by human tears, and yet, this verse’s integrity is in tact.

The last verse begins, speaking about the patriot dream. That is the intangible thing, that goes beyond, that, as she says, sees beyond the years. She talks of Hope.

And that is what makes us beautiful. What makes America Beautiful, is that amazing ability we have to hope. She had it even in 1895, when there were trains exploding and people dying, and massacres, and crazy murders – she still sat on that train and was inspired by her nation, and by the people that dwell in it. She looked at all the squalor and filth and said, “ah, but look what we could do.” And she wrote verse that still strikes to the core of us.

We teach our children in school that the American flag is a symbol. That the colors stand for Courage, for Purity, and for Justice; that might not be quite right. The flag stands for the Hope of those things. The Flag doesn’t promise that beneath its shadow you will, without a doubt, find those things.

Instead the Flag says, “Here are our hopes.” When we are at our best this is what we endeavor to do. This is what we wish for our whole nation. These things above all else. These are the ideals we will fight for, these are the dreams we will instill in our children, and our children’s children.

This holiday I hope that no matter what our political affiliation, no matter who’s man or woman is in the political offices, no matter what our varying stands on all of the turbulent issues at hand right now, we can all take a day to relive the Hope that Bates captures. No matter what you think of the country, put out a flag in pride for what it stands for. Raise it will all your heart behind it with the understanding that we can all stand together on Hope that someday, “beyond the years,” we will look at cities that truly do gleam without corruption or pollution or selfishness and know that the time for our tears is over, and the time for Brotherhood has arrived. Hope with me, and work for that hope, “from sea to shinning sea.”