Storydwelling

Sermon at Madras United Methodist Church, January 28, 2018

Mark 1:21-28

21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

 

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

 

The words of the late Leonard Cohen in his song “Anthem.”

 

Words of hope in a time of chaos.

Words of encouragement in a moment when it feels difficult to muster more energy.

 

At least, that is my situation.

 

I have been struggling with insomnia lately;

perhaps it’s my pillow,

or that I am known to check my email right before bed,

or that I carry excitement and anxiety in my body and my bones

as I and others begin to form a new spiritual community.

 

That is work that might keep one up at night.

 

And so Cohen’s words: that light comes from the hard, cracked places–

that feels like good news.

Cohen himself, a Jew from Canada,

said that that line was about resurrection.

 

And I dare say we have all known the cracked places:

the death of a parent,

the loss of a job,

the empty nest–

the everyday cracks and losses that accompany this human life,

and whose brokenness reveals some new grace to us.

 

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.

———

 

Jesus’ first public act of ministry is in an encounter with man who,

coincidentally, ironically,

we today might call “cracked.”

 

The people said that he was inhabited by demons.

We might draw a dotted line between demonic forces then and

mental illness now.

We might best understand this man in today’s terms as one

who wrestles constantly with pure evil.

Mental illness,

addiction,

a binding force that will not let him be free.

 

And yet he is not really broken.

This illness, this force, has so seemlessly taken over this man

that those around him cannot tell where one stops and the other begins.

Where human stops and demon begins.

 

He is probably someone in the community who people write off by saying:

“Oh, him, yeah: he’s cracked.”

His affliction and his self are united;

the man’s voice, the demon’s,

the demon’s body, that of a man.

 

They are one in the same.

 

Not so far from the writing off we do when we say, well:

he’s a felon,

she’s an druggie;

he’s a bum,

she’s a welfare queen.

 

Affliction and self are united in

the world as it is.

No one is better than the worst thing they have done.

No one is more whole than the most broken parts of them.

 

So many have accused the young women who stepped forward to

tell their stories of abuse as gymnasts at the hands of their doctor–

accused them of being in it for the money and the publicity.

 

And yet they have run the risk that whenever they

perform,

give an interview,

plan a playdate for their child–

 

“Oh yeah, she’s one of those victims.”

 

In the world as it is,

we are not able to discern where human stops

and affliction begins.

———-

 

In the world as it was, in the cultural-political situation of

Caperneaum and the entire peninsula

where Jesus lived and did his ministry,

people may have been like us: not able to discern where human stopped

and affliction began.

 

But the original hearers, those huddled around the table,

listening to this new story, the Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Mark,

were able to discern something else:

where human stopped and occupier began.

 

These are working-class and poor folks,

both Jewish and Gentile,

who knew well what it meant to be occupied.

They lived under the thumb of Caesar,

subject to high taxes and a life of hard physical work.

Their land was not their own.

 

They know what it is to be occupied by military forces.

So when they hear this story–

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”–

they hear military language.

They will hear it again several stories later when Jesus heals another man afflicted by demons.

The demons will call themselves “legion.”

What might be a personal story about the desolation of mental illness,

might also be a very political story about the desolation caused by military occupancy and

economic oppression.

 

Which may not be so different from mental illness after all.

We know that undocumented people in this country suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts more than others.

We know survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts more than others.

 

Fear makes us sick.

 

And, if I’m being honest, it makes us all sick,

whether we are safe and secure

or we fear each new day;

we are not all okay until we are all okay.

 

Both occupier and occupied suffer under systems

that do not let us see where

human stops and affliction begins.

———–

 

There is a crack in everything–that’s how the light gets in.

And if there isn’t a crack there:

someone needs to make it.

 

We are reminded of this over and over again in Scripture:

as Jesus is being baptized, the heavens are “torn apart”;

as Jesus dies, the curtain to the temple is torn in two.

 

The Prophet Isaiah prays to God:

“oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you.”

 

There is a crack in everything–that’s how the light gets in.

And if there isn’t a crack there:

someone needs to make it.

 

You see, Jesus has come to do a new thing.

In the One wearing flesh, God making all things new.

Putting a crack in the system

that separates us from one another,

breaking open the system that makes us call one another names

rather than calling one another “beloved.”

 

God knows: that’s how the light gets in.

 

To the relational God–

the One who creates and calls us,

the One who heals and sustains us–

you are absolutely better and more beautiful than the worst thing you have done.

You are, without a doubt, more whole than the most broken part of you.

Jesus makes holy trouble in that temple–

puts cracks in the system–

for the sake of us all seeing that we are children of God,

when we are afflicted, and when we are at peace.

 

Your demons are but temporary.

Whether they occupy your body,

your mind,

your freedom.

They say nothing about who and whose you are.

 

Your belovedness cannot be put into question.

———-

 

The belovedness of that possessed man–

for Jesus, there was no doubt.

 

And so his act of healing was an act of

breaking.

Breaking the lie that says we are how we act,

we are what ails us,

we are mere canvases on which unjust systems can paint

the identity they wish us to have: felon, druggie; victim, illegal.

 

Jesus’ healing act

was an act of breaking.

The man was shaken.

 

This is what “exorcism” can look like: for individuals and for communities.

What withdrawal from drugs can look like.

What hard years of therapy can look like,

what the back-breaking work of revitalizing a town can look like.

What it can look like for a community to reclaim its identity after the occupiers leave.

 

We are shaken to the core,

weak and weeping,

broken.

Cracked.

 

God storms in to those places

that are desperate for it.

That need to be splintered, shattered, burst.

God goes into those places in our lives

that are desperate for the light.

 

So that we might know that we are made to be beloved,

and that there is no affliction–

personal or societal–

that can take that away.

 

God charges in to do the terrifying work of

healing us and our world,

over and over again.

 

So, there will be cracks.

Thanks be to God.

Because that’s how the light gets in.

I’m just going to leave this right here.

Sermon at Grace First Lutheran Church, January 21, 2018

Mark 1:14-20

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

 

We didn’t do as much running yesterday. Mostly stopping, waiting.

Then walking a little.

It didn’t feel like marching,

but, in the tradition of those who have fought for civil rights for decades,

a “march” is the best word to describe

the gathering of 3500 people yesterday in Drake Park

at the now-annual women’s march.

 

There are many who wonder:

what do all those people stand for?

There were a thousand different signs. Signs for

reproductive rights,

chants of general outrage and determination.

 

One said: the situation is so bad, even introverts are here.

Another, held by a little boy, said: “future first husband.”

And yet another:

They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.

 

There are many who wonder: what do all those people stand for?

Perhaps a better question might be: what do all those people hear?

 

I was there. So I can humbly say,

All those people heard a call.

And to march seemed like the best way, right now, to respond.

All those people heard a call.

And they needed to respond by

gathering together with others who had also heard it,

to talk, to laugh, to listen,

to be friends and sing a few songs together.

 

Sounds familiar to church people, yes?

—————-

The call you hear may not have brought you to the women’s march yesterday.

Maybe it did.

But maybe it didn’t.

 

But it did bring you here this morning.

To gather with others who also heard it,

and wanted to be with you to talk, to laugh, to sing a few songs together,

and to listen:

to the story of a man who also heard a call,

and in hearing it,

issued a call of his own.

 

Jesus begins his ministry immediately after his cousin John is put in prison.

Green light.

In the news of John’s arrest, Jesus hears it: the call.

The call to proclaim a different reality from the one they live in.

They live in a system that would arrest a preacher who

threatened to break open the political norms

and break all the religious rules.

John was too dangerous; so he was put in prison.

And an invitation is issued.

 

Green light.

 

And so Jesus knows his ministry will be an inherently dangerous one.

Jesus knows his ministry will also be an inherently responsive one.

Jesus’ ministry will be about call and response.

About invitation.

 

The piercing injustice of John’s arrest is the invitation; and Jesus responds by proclaiming the good news: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God is near.”

 

That proclamation issues the next invitation: “repent, and believe in the good news.”

 

Green light.

 

This call and response way of life continues down the Galilean seashore, as Jesus sees fishermen at work. Bent over their nets, pulling in enough fish to eek out a living alongside their brothers, their fathers. The sight of their very lives; that is the next invitation.

 

And so Jesus responds with yet another call: “Follow me and I will send you to fish for people.”

 

And on it goes.

 

Green light.
———–

 

And that might be the best way to describe my ministry call here in Bend.

Officially, I have been called by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church to curate a new spiritual community here, in partnership with our local congregations on the ground and our ecumenical and interfaith partners.

 

Unofficially, I am here to listen.

And to try and cultivate ways we might all respond together.

To invite people we’ve never met before into that.

And then to listen again.

 

Bend is inviting me. Inviting us.

Inviting us to listen to stories about

young people who have moved away from family,

working families who can’t afford to live here anymore.

Millennials and boomers alike who want to belong

and want that belonging to show them ways of making impact on this city.

Young immigrants who study and work to create a new future for their families,

and retirees with pensions who cannot figure out their purpose.

Gay and lesbian people who still fear hate crimes here;

business and city leaders who wish their workers and their waiters could afford to live close by to their jobs.

 

This is what I hear, and it invites me. Every single day.

These stories of our lives and our neighbors’ lives are a clarion call,

a shrill trumpet sound piercing our routine, or, better yet,

a big. green. light.

It shines in the darkness and it will not be overcome.

It issues the proclamation and the invitation: repent, and believe the good news.

 

Jesus and his followers probably understand “repent” in the way that their ancestors had– the ancient Israelites in exile in Babylon. This word, to them–Shuwb in Hebrew–meant to return, or go back. The invitation to come back home.

 

The ugliness of the world; the hardest parts of our own stories–

these can be the call. The invitation.

And in response, Jesus says: The time is now. God is near. Come back home.

 

Return to the one God has made you to be.

————-

 

An invitation if I’ve ever heard one.

An invitation that sometimes makes people march.

Makes them sing.

Makes them come to church.

 

Sometimes gathers them in a room to share a meal with DACA recipients,

like the work we are doing with the Neighbor Love coalition.

Sometimes leads them to start a firewood ministry to help people heat their homes, like Nativity Lutheran’s program.

Sometimes causes people to wonder: why can’t people in Bend afford to heat their homes? Which is the question I and some emerging leaders are starting to ask in the process of community organizing.

 

And sometimes the “invitation to return home” guides people through a process of discernment so that they can prepare to call a new pastor that will lead them into the next invitation, the next response.

 

Always inviting.

Always responding.

 

It never, ever stops.

From the first day of Creation,

to the awe-filled magi at the manger,

to the day when we return home to God for good,

God is always inviting.

And eagerly awaiting our response.

————

 

I know this to be a vulnerable way of life,

this eagerness,

this anticipation,

this waiting.

I am in the practice of inviting people

all. the. time.

 

To share their story over coffee. To deepen their financial investment in this new ministry. To make a practice of inviting someone else to coffee.

 

Invitation, invitation.

Because I have never heard of Jesus posting sign-up sheets, vaguely asking for volunteers.

It is always invitation, invitation.

Come with me, you, yes you, and I will send you to fish for people.

 

Invitation is vulnerable. Waiting by my email, by my phone, for someone to invite me more deeply into their life, for someone to say they are just curious enough about a new community of belonging and justice to walk with me one more step on this road.

 

Simon and Andrew, James and John: just curious enough about a new community of belonging and justice that they will drop their nets and take that next step.

 

Those invitations are vulnerable.

Whether it is asking for a new job,

or for a first date,

we have all experienced that vulnerability.

 

Because invitation is not really invitation without it.

And relationship certainly isn’t relationship without it.

And, in my experience, God isn’t God without it either.

 

If we have a God who is always inviting us,

then we know we have a God who eagerly anticipates our response.

And so we must have a God who is vulnerable for the sake of a relationship with us.

 

But we knew that already. We know the cross.

 

God invites you. God anticipates your hearing of your call.

And God never stops issuing the next, most loving claim on your life.

To march.

To sing.

To come to church, maybe.

 

Most of all: to come home to the one God has made you to be.

 

Green light.

Sermon at Bend Church, December 24, 2017

If I had to sum up my life in just one word, it would be “yes.”

Yes, I am beloved: by my family, by my spouse, by my community.

Yes, I feel called to the meaningful work of loving people and loving the world.

Yes, I believe our God chose to wear flesh and be born into a dusty manger one long, dark night two thousand years ago.

Yeses everywhere.

Yeses my whole life through.

Yeses every Christmas season.

 

Except not this one.

 

All of a sudden, “yes” is beginning to feel hollow.

A little empty. A little too saccharine and simple.

My gut knows that there is power in yes–

 

especially the “yes” of a brave Palestinian teenager who consented

to carry the Messiah in her womb–

 

but my gut also fears what happens when there is too much

nodding of heads,

murmurs of agreement,

rubber-stamping.

 

Too many “uh-huh”s and too many “paths of least resistance.”

We know that old-fashioned term for someone at the office who never stands up for what he believes in…

 

A “yes man.”

 

Heaven forbid I become a “yes” woman.

Heaven forbid we become “yes” people.

 

Heaven forbid.

Literally.

————-

Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in high heaven! And on earth, peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.”

 

The angels have come to bring good news: good news for

all people and

good news especially for those scraggly shepherds

keeping watch that night.

 

These are men who occupied the lowest rung on the ladder in their society:

living isolated out in the fields,

protecting themselves with hidden knives kept in their robes,

perhaps suspicious of a culture that cast them out–

a society that would not admit their testimony in court.

 

These are men who, along with thousands of others, lived under the rule of

the one they called

Prince of Peace.

Lord.

Savior.

 

In other words, they lived under Caesar. This Caesar–Augustus–was known for resolving conflicts through violence and victory.

And so he named himself:

Prince of Peace.

Lord.

Savior.

He could trace his genealogy back 1,000 years.

That meant something back then. Power. Legitimacy.

His family lineage, his ability to violently control land and people:

this meant he could control the movements of people across borders,

impose high taxes on the poorest, and force his subjects to call him “Lord.”

 

The very first listeners to this story would have known:

The angels have an agenda.

————-

 

We have good news for you, the heavenly host say.

Good news for those who occupy the lowest rung.

Good news for the ones who are isolated, the ones who are suspicious.

 

The real Prince of Peace has been born,

among you, from out of your own people.

The Gospel According to Luke will later tell us that Jesus’ lineage can be traced all the way back to Eve and Adam, the very first people God created.

 

And this Lord, Christ Jesus, will bring peace for all the lowly ones.

 

Peace, the kind that comes through justice, not victory.

 

The Marys, the Josephs,

the shepherds of the world,

the lowly ones–

 

have been made by Caesar to nod their heads,

walk the path of least resistance,

murmur their “yes” to the latest round of violence and oppression.

 

Until the heavenly host appear to tell the shepherds that God has come to live on Earth and to say:

 

HELL NO.

Not any more.

————–

I think of the strong and deep ‘no”s that have shaped history.

 

Rosa Parks, when it was demanded that she give up her seat on the bus to a white person.

No.

 

The first responders who arrived on the scene after September 11th, refusing to resign themselves to what others thought was inevitable.

No.

 

The many women and men who have suffered from abuse and harassment in their workplace, who were pressured to stay silent to protect the abusers.

No.

 

Because their lives, and the lives of all God has created on Earth, have a worth

and a blessedness that require defiance.

 

Our God who chose to wear flesh and bones that night, shows us that, without a shadow of a doubt:

You are worth the impossible pregnancy,

the hard-fought labor.

 

You are worth the controversial mission and ministry,

the anticipated persecution by the empire that was and is.

 

You are worth the vulnerability and the struggle,

the road to the cross.

 

As much as you are worth God’s life,

you are worth God’s death.

 

As much as you are worth God’s YES,

you are worth God’s HELL NO.

 

No to homelessness or housing insecurity,

no to rising housing costs that force people out,

no to the circumstances and the systems that create them.

 

No to hunger and disease,

no to the separation of families across borders,

no to the oppression and fear that accompanies it all.

———-

 

We celebrate tonight the gift of that defiance.

 

That Christmas night, in the face of poverty and confusion, God entered in.

Because God delights in what God has created. God loves it.

 

A wise priest once told me that every time a child comes into the world, it is Christmas.

It is a sign of God’s delight in Creation.

 

In some ways, It is a big ol’ YES to what God has made.

 

But God’s YES is the inevitable NO to the powers and principalities of this world.

NO to the ways that we are all participants in systems we did not create but that

bind us and our neighbors up in a web of fear and forgetfulness.

 

Jesus’ birth was the ultimate reminder.

Christmas is our remembrance of that reminder.

 

A reminder that not everything goes.

“uh huh” isn’t good enough.

Yes doesn’t always cut it.

 

Whatever does not support and celebrate the worth and life and dignity and beauty of every little piece of God’s Creation– whatever stands in the way of that or seeks to cut it down–

 

God says NO to all that.

———-

 

There is holy defiance there.

But there is also relief there.

 

That in that dusty manger, God says the words we have not been able to say.

Because we have been silenced.

We have been choked up.

We have forgotten.

 

God says the words we cannot say.

 

Tonight is a silent night, a holy night,

because we have been given permission to be speechless in the face of the

profound love of the One who made us.

 

To revel in that sweet defiance.

To celebrate, to notice, to reflect.

To love and be loved.

 

The burden of defying all that is hurtful and wounded in this world

lies not on us, but on the one,

born of a poor Palestinian teenager,

whose birth was first celebrated by the lowest of the low,

and whose mission on Earth was that most defiant kind of love.

 

The burden lies not on us,

but we may find we cannot help but

respond to that kind of love with our own version of

hell no.

—————

 

We defy, and we also rest with the blessed assurance that…

 

…in the quietest of moments,

in the most common of things–

 

God is there.

 

In the fear of a young mother,

the tension between lovers

the wondering: will there be a place for us?

 

God is there.

 

In the cry of a baby, and its longing for milk,

in the low of the cattle

and the smell of sweet straw.

 

God is there.

 

In all of it: God defies conventional wisdom,

God stands up to systems of hierarchy and oppression,

God says no: no longer will I be separate from my own kin.

 

It is a sweet, silent urging that

there is truer, there is more perfect

wholeness intended for us and for all of Creation.

 

Intended for you.

 

And to whatever may stand in the way of that wholeness,

God stands defiant with a

no.

 

And to that, on this Christmas night, we say YES, God.

May it be so.

 

Sermon at Nativity Lutheran Church – November 17, 2017

John 1:6-8, 19-28

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,'” as the prophet Isaiah said. 24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

 

[The kiddos help us remember our baptisms]

Do you still feel a little sprinkling on your skin? I hope so.

That is yours. You get to keep it.

No one can take it away from you.

 

Which is the meaning of baptism for me.

You get to keep it. It’s yours forever, even after the desert air is drying it from your skin.

You get to keep it and remember it.

 

Though it’s barely there.

As there as the ice cubes in my cocktail.

As there as the snowflakes on my tongue.

Just barely.

But meant for you to keep.

 

So just try and ignore all of the rules we have placed on baptism, okay?

Like, in Lutheranism, you can only be baptized once, or else you’re doing it wrong.

And remember that Lutherans baptize babies but Baptists and Mennonites and lots of other folks wouldn’t dream of it. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.

And, only in an emergency, when no ordained people are around, can one Christian baptize another.

And, oh yes, please remember that, in order to be a member with voice and vote in a Christian community, you must be baptized.

 

All of a sudden that sweet evaporating gift on your skin has become fraught.

Political.

Exclusive?

 

“Why then are YOU baptizing if YOU are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

 

Fraught. Political. Exclusive.

 

We don’t understand fully what baptism meant to Jewish sects living in the first century; perhaps it was a ritual cleansing.

 

It seems to be more about alliances, allegiances and transaction.

 

Ownership.

———-

 

John is faced by a group of powerful folks who clearly “own baptism.” They are the standard-bearers of religious experience. And “who,” they ask, “are YOU?”

 

When faced with interrogation, for we can faithfully translate “ask” as interrogate, John responds with his testimony: who he’s not and what he senses he’s here to do.

 

To the question, “Who are you?” John tells his own story.

He does not offer a new systematic theology of baptism.

He does not lash out against theirs.

He does not offer a program for how to fix this misunderstanding so that everyone will understand it the same way.

 

He witnesses to his own experience, his own story.

To the light that illumines all humankind.

That’s all he owns.

It is his forever.

 

Though the dry desert air sucks it from his skin.

And the religious standard-bearers insult it, fear it.

His story, on the tip of his tongue, just barely existing.

But it is his.

 

Besides the camel hair and the locusts we heard about last week,

his story is all he owns.

And he owns it.

—————–

 

I had to be taught how to tell my story.

It didn’t come naturally.

And I honestly didn’t think I had one to tell.

 

I grew up quite loved by my parents.

I had access to every opportunity.

I have a drive to be perfect and well-liked,

but it shared space with a suspicion that all was not well: with my soul or with the world.

 

I learned to tell my story from the knot in my throat.

 

And I had an opportunity to share parts of it on a recent trip to Cuernavaca with other Oregon pastors, as well as theologians and practitioners from Mexico and Peru.

I spent some time with a young man named Alberto, who does human rights work in Mexico City. He is my age–30–and in Mexico, it is great luck for a young man to reach the age of 30.

Violence from the drug war plagues his peers and his country.

This is a part of his story.

Meanwhile, my brother, too, is a part of the equation of the drug war. He has struggled with heroin addiction for most of my life.

 

And so Alberto’s pain and mine are different. I would never say that they are the same.

His pain is one of helplessness in the face of a violent, ruthless economy, a disregard for human life, and an apathy on the part of his government.

My pain is one of helplessness in the face of an addiction wrought by privilege, biology and deep spiritual wounds.

And so Alberto’s pain and my pain are different.

But they are connected.

 

We, all of us, tell our stories of addiction and incarceration;

violence and fear;

of power that silences;

of sexual abuse and harassment.

 

Our pain is different,

but it is connected.

 

And we can never un-know it.

Because we have shared our stories.

 

Though the desert air dries it from our skin,

we own them.

 

—————-

 

This is one of the foundational principles of community organizing:

that we live in the world as it is, but we sense there is a world as God dreams it,

and that the most powerful instruments we have in bridging that tragic gap

are our stories.

 

And when we learn our stories,

and practice telling them,

and listen to others’ stories,

we find have a bond of mutual investment in our shared liberation

from the forces of death and darkness

that threaten the livelihoods, the freedom and the joy of all people.

 

And that bond is powerful.

Stories are powerful.

And no matter how little or how much you or I may own in the world as it is—

a car, a house, a boat, a company,

our stories can build real power

if we “organize” them in a process of shared discovery and accompaniment.

 

Community organizing and the power of story are the ground on which we will cultivate a new spiritual circle in Bend: an ever-widening circle that builds spiritual and relational power for the sake of belonging, community and impact on the common good.

 

It will be a community where we celebrate God’s good gifts and where we roll up our sleeves to show one another our wounds. “Here’s mine. Where do you hurt?”

Organizing bonds us in that way.

But also propels us. Because we will then roll up those same sleeves to work and walk alongside one another as an act of healing and disruptive justice.

 

And this is inherently improvisational.

We know that faith life, activities of fellowship and service, programs–even the wood lot and food pantry: they are born of story and will change with story. They cannot and will not always remain the same.

Operating out of our stories is inherently improvisational.

Because I cannot anticipate your story, and you cannot anticipate mine.

And we will only know the work once we have walked alongside one another.

 

The first words that Jesus will utter in the Gospel According to John are: “what are you looking for?”—curiosity. Invitation.

 

Because there is no road map for this.

There is only a compass.

 

The Word alive in each of us. Our stories.

 

——

 

And no one else can own them.

How frightening for the religious establishment.

How frightening for the world as it is: the world that says what you own is what you are worth.

The world that says I have something, and so I will give you a little.

The world that decides who gets to bestow a baptism of worthiness on whom.

 

The John who baptizes testifies to his story–

shows the Pharisees the most holy thing about him–

and in so doing disrupts the system of holiness.

 

He prepares the way for the one who will not only disrupt but will offer a new way of knowing God:

a way that says, “These are my wounds. Where do you hurt?”

 

The one who will break down the narrative of who is servant and who is served.

The one who will speak in invitation rather than theology.

The one who will reveal that the most worthy thing about us, well–

 

You get to keep it. It’s yours forever, even after the desert air has dried it from your skin.

You get to keep it and remember it.

 

And tell it. And hear other people tell theirs.

And we get to walk lock step with friends and companions on a road of deep, wounded and joyful mutuality.

 

There are no rules, no polity, no partisanship.

No program, no script, no map.

Only a Word.

 

John 1:9-14

The Word was coming into the world–

was in the world–

and though the world

was made through the Word,

the world didn’t recognize it.

Though the Word came to its own realm,

the Word’s own people didn’t accept it.

Yet any who did accept the Word,

who believed in that Name,

were empowered to become children of God–

children born not of natural descent,

nor urge of flesh

nor human will–

but born of God.

And the Word became flesh

and stayed for a little while among us;

we saw the Word’s glory–

the favor and position a parent gives an only child–

filled with grace,

filled with truth.

 

The Word that broke all the rules.

That still is.

And it belongs to you, and you to it.

Forever.

 

Own it.