Sermon for Lent 4: The Arms of God

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32: The Story of the Prodigal Son

The video referenced in the sermon can be found on youtube:  The Artist is Present

There are a lot of stories in Scripture that are sort of blinding in their familiarity. Certainly, the prodigal son is one of them. You can tick through the stock interpretations pretty fast—we’re all sinners, God loves us anyway. No, we’re the older brother and we’re well-behaved but embittered, and God’s kind of a jerk.  No, God is a jerk, but that’s because we’re worse, and it’s supposed to be about how limited and petty we are, which makes God look good by comparison .  Everybody’s buttons get pushed somewhere. 

Every time this comes around in the lectionary—and this is the third time, since I think we were in “C” the year I started here—every time, Marcia reminds me how much she hates the story and how unfair it is. And of course it seems unfair. It is unfair, if you hear it as being good being its own reward. Hogwash. Being good is fine, but it’s not just fun for the sake of it either.

The thing about a parable, though, is that we’re not supposed to take it at face value like that. A parable isn’t a tidy allegory where all the pieces fit together, where we can assign everybody a part and ask them to read out loud and enunciate clearly. I mean, who would you be? You’d be the younger or older brother at every other moment, left for dead because you’re so bad or practically walking dead because you’re so good.  We can to oscillate throughout our hours, nevermind how much we change in a lifetime.

But what if we tried to stop reading the parable just about us?

What if we stopped, just for a minute, gleaning information about ourselves, looking for the judgment or the acquittal? What if the prodigal son isn’t about the son at all, or even the brother? What if it’s all about the parent, running through the field, wondering if his eyes could be deceiving him because the sight is such a wonder?

This week, I watched an astonishing video from a performance piece by Marina Abramovic. Abramovic is a superstar of performance art, the kind your grandmother warned you about, where you pay money to watch someone starve themselves for a month or cut themselves with a knife.    

Having done all those things, in 2010, for 2 ½ months she sat in a gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and invited anyone who wanted to to come and sit across from her. For however long they wanted, people could just sit. In silence. And she’d look at them. And they’d look at her, for as long as they’d want to. A lot of people came to see her and sat down and cried. Then, they’d put themselves back together, and then someone else would come.

I don’t know why it came around now, but this week a facebook friend posted on his page a video that came from this endeavor, now three years old, of Abramovic being surprised by her former partner, another artist whom she’d worked with, whom she hadn’t seen for over twenty years. They had been deeply in love and pushed all kinds of artistic boundaries together, but eventually felt called to go their separate ways. Rather than a final cardboard box in the trunk, however, when their relationship was over they walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends and met in the middle, in order to say goodbye.   That was in 1988.  It was over, and they agreed they’d never meet again.  

22 years later, in 2010, she’s doing her biggest show ever at the Museum of Modern Art.  And all kinds of people come—whoever has the patience to wait their turn—ordinary people, famous people, all bringing their own anxiety and their own pain to the meeting, but largely anonymous. But then Ullay comes.  He’s in his sixties, but well dressed in fancy jeans and a red shirt.  Between visitors, she looks down and collects herself, and as she’s doing this, eyes closed, he sits down, stretches his legs as though to calm himself, and settles down. He’s clearly self-conscious.

And she looks us and smiles a little, and she smiles a little, and he kind of shakes his head, and the camera focuses on her face and she begins to cry, slowly, and it goes to him and he looks, and shakes his head a little, and then she moves forward and extends her hands over the table. And her hands are out, just for a split second, and you hold your breath and you don’t know what he’s going to do.

And he takes her hands. And everyone has been so well-behaved, but they all start to clap—they can’t hold it in. They have witnessed something deeply profound.  And they just sit there and hold hands, and then he gets up and she covers her face with her hands, and the next one comes.

That is the moment that this parable is about.  Hands extended, she reaches into space, not sure what will happen. 

In the story, the son comes home, fearful and ashamed. He comes planning to ask his father to treat him as a hired hand, to give him just enough to live on. I am no longer worthy enough to be called your son, he rehearses.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

That moment that is the prodigal son coming home.

Where there is so much reality, so much emotion just poured into this one moment. And all the crazy stuff, and all the drama, and all the time that Marina Abramovic spent being the premier performance artist of Belgrade and New York, those nights spent setting her fingernail cuttings on fire—all of that stuff just falls away.  No longer worthy to be called anything, because the moment doesn’t call for naming or definitions. There is only the truth of a relationship that was so powerful only a landmark visible from space could contain it.  And there’s redemption, and forgiveness, and no, they’re not going to go back to how things were—the younger son isn’t going to be put in charge of the farm, after all—everything has changed—but the truth of their connection has not. 

So, too, the truth of our connection, God’s desire for us burning hotter than the sun, reaching out God’s arms for us.

This is how Henry Nouwen describes it:

 "Here the mystery of my life is unveiled. I am loved so much that I am left free to leave home. The blessing is there from the beginning. I have left it and keep on leaving it. But the Father is always looking for me with outstretched arms to receive me back and whisper again in my ear: 'You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.' " (quoted from The Prodigal Son, excerpted at Spirituality and Practice)

What does that change for you?  Where is your heart moved toward love, away from judgment or self-satisfaction?  For whom do you receive the gift of God’s compassion, believing it for yourself, being freed to offer it to others?

'You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.' " Amen.

I had been hoping for unicorns...

this is based on a piece I wrote for the Christ Church weekly newsletter; more of these are at www.ecrier.blogspot.com

As I do every so often, this morning I was with the Sisters of Saint Anne in Arlington, saying Mass for the convent. Our Gospel was the story of Lazarus and the rich man—Lazarus who suffered at the gate of the rich man’s house, poor and begging, and the rich man, who after death found himself in burning flames while Lazarus and Abraham snuggled together in heaven. As I wrote last week, I’m pretty agnostic about an individual “Big Bad” (i.e., Satan/the devil) but I do believe that there must be some  sense of wholeness and restoration for us in the passage from life to death, and that must certainly include a sense of sharing in the suffering that we’ve inflicted.

Let me explain a little more.

Nice as it sounds, I don’t think that everything is unicorns and fluffy clouds after we die.  Even for the purest in heart, our puny minds can’t even imagine how grace-filled and beautiful it will be to be united with God.  I think we are fully known now, but we don’t fully see. Then will see “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13.12) and know as we have been fully known. As we are known, now—then we will know. And part of that knowing surely must be how we are linked to others, how the suffering of one person hurts us all. In our life together now, we hide those connections; we don’t see the suffering of the animals we eat, or the panic of polar bears losing the ice they depend on.  We don’t visit the factories that make our stuff, don’t feel the depth of the unending fear of those who live in war zones and suffer genocide.  We allow them to stay far away—frankly, we prefer it that way.

How would our world change if we enacted Christ’s call to love our enemies? We barely even try to imagine because we’re too afraid they’d shoot first.

But in that “face to face” encounter? All of that has to fall away. The cost of our lives comes into focus. Suffering will no longer be invisible. And yes, I think it’s going to hurt. Not because God wants to punish us—and likely not with literal flames (IT’S A METAPHOR!)—but because seeing the real nature of reality that we can only dimly imagine now will show us how we are linked. And if a Pakistani woman whose husband has been killed by a drone strike really is my sister, those unicorns and fluffy clouds are going to feel pretty far away.

Still, the heart of the Gospel is forgiveness; still Jesus forgave even from the cross. I also don’t believe that what we do is forever.  I can’t imagine that anything we ourselves can do can trump God’s power to restore all things and all persons.  Only God can do forever.  We can pray—with our hearts as well as our hands and feet. We ask God for the grace to be bold enough to witness suffering—not to hide—and strong enough to do something about it. We’re called to inhabit the space between, of grieving oppression in the world as well as acting on it. Righting injustices but also thanking God for full bellies and access to health care.   Bringing the “Kingdom/kin-dom of God” to be right here and right now, and helping to knock down that wall between “heaven” and “earth.”

In baptism, we embrace the covenant  “with God’s help”—a lot is wrong, but a lot is possible, too. And we know we’re not working alone.

The ashes inside

 “Ashes to go” is tomorrow, in which intrepid clergy and people take their little pots of dust to the streets, stationing themselves on street corners and bus stops offering a prayer and a cross. When you get down to it, whether you do it in a church or on the street corner, all of the ashes we do in church are “to go,” since it’s pretty easy to wipe them off your face as soon as you get tired of people looking at you funny. What’s more interesting to me are the ashes inside—what I think Ash Wednesday is more about.

When I was first ordained, I preached an Ash Wednesday sermon at Emmanuel in Boston with the refrain: Everything is not fine, and it’s fine. I think that “not fine” quality of human life is what I mean about the ashes inside. We may look organized and presentable on the outside, but inside we all have some pretty sorrowful moments. Our relationships with God are not only pleasant and moral add-ons to life as usual; they are the core: bone and sinew of waking up in the morning. And that is hard work.

This fall, when I was on sabbatical, I found myself searingly aware of what a mess I could be; all that dust on the inside. Without having to run a church all day and write a sermon every week what I found in my soul was not so attractive. I was writing, yes, some, and I was singing, yes, some—both the things I set out to do. But I also spent a long time wallowing in professional and maternal angst—too much work, not enough work, too much parenting, not enough parenting. Nevermind any time to crash on the couch and read dark Scandinavian novels.  I love my parish and love parish ministry a lot, but wonder at the end of the day what else I should be doing.  My poems are full of me trying to convince myself to rest—that I have everything I need and that I am everything I need to be—but somehow I never quite buy it. Of course, I also, now back to running a parish, I have guilt over not writing more poems.

After those encounters, particularly in thinking about my role in the church and the church in the world, I find myself needing Ash Wednesday in a different way—kind of more of an evangelical “me and Jesus” kind of way.  I need a deeper sense of my own value—because I’m not going to earn it.  After last fall, I really know I can’t. My in-process chapbook of my poetry from that time is called ashes/what remains—they are the record of what was left when everything else is stripped away.  My spirituality has always been very comfortable with grappling with the suffering and evil in “the world”—consumer capitalism and all the sexism, heterosexism, classism, racism, and that whole birdcage of oppression: as the baptismal covenant puts it, “the powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”  I’ve spent less time in my prayer and parish work thinking about my own need. It feels much safer to focus on the world.

Ash Wednesday is about acknowledging that vulnerability; that however I end up using my gifts with writing, or preaching, or leading, at the end of the day God loves me the same and I am in just as much need of love and forgiveness.   I’m made of dust; holy dust, loving and loved dust, but still dust.  And I can’t work harder to become more loved. So what does this have to do with bringing ashes to the train station? Part of it is what I was writing about when I was thinking through my huge tattoo—that scary as it feels to be so public, there is nothing to lose and we have to be brave. Loving God and loving our neighbors come down as pretty much the same thing, and offering our love of God to our neighbors is just what we’re called to do.  

Plus—if you haven’t noticed?  People aren’t exactly in a hurry for the opinion and approval of the church. The esteem of big institutions and fancy and articulate clergy saying important things while people listen with rapt attention is not the reality of the world—and how freeing that is.  I love this arcane ritual of ashes, dust, and vulnerability—so why not offer it up? My desire to invite others into it doesn’t mean that I harbor any resentment to those for whom it’s not meaningful. If you believe, as Mary Daly pointed out in the 70’s, Christianity is just a necrophiliac religion based on worshipping a dead patriarch, I’m okay with that.  I will be happy to sit down and have coffee with you and talk about how patriarchal so much of it still can be.

Otherwise, this is what stresses me out about it:

            I will seem like a crazy fundamentalist

But I’m not.

            I will seem like I’m judging people

But I’m not.

I will seem like I’m pushing my religion on other people

By practicing it where it can be seen? Really?

It will be awkward. I will have to talk to people I don’t know

No argument there. 

            It will seem like we’re offering “cheap grace”—spirituality without an invitation to deeper transformation.

Honestly? That’s better than no grace. 

Legitimately (I think), I worry most about the theology being misunderstood—we don’t put ashes on our faces because we hate ourselves, or because we think that Jesus is dismissing us as inadequate nothings.  When we do this in church, it’s in the context of confession, forgiveness, and repentance; hopefully the mini-ritual of ashes on the sidewalk will lend itself to people pursuing deeper reflection.  Ashes are about recognizing that we are made of earth—metaphorically as well as literally if you think about where the stuff of the stuff we’re made of comes from.   I love Ash Wednesday because it reminds me of my connection as a creature to the creator, a Creator who always, always wants to return to relationship no matter how idiotically I’ve screwed up.  (Since it’s not technically Lent yet, I can say this):

Alleluia, Amen.

Olly Olly Oxen Free

 while I'm being (perhaps unnecessarily) self-revelatory on the internet, here's one of the poems i wrote last fall

Olly olly oxen free

I am listening for silence,

tired after

a long hour of seeking.

Prayer:

the simplest, most complicated thing.

The Christo negro hangs on the wall,

souvenir of long-ago pilgrimage.

Crutches and eye patches littered the pathways

up to the cross.

If I but touch the hem of his garment

No tattered edges of cloth here.

Only the hum of the boiler,

ticking of slow radiators,

growling stomach.

Noisy critics pour water on the embers

of my desire—

you’ll never get anything done.

What is it that you want,

I ask myself.

Remember the sweet Buddhists:

be gentle on

yourself, on others.

It’s good advice.

Why should it be so difficult?

I write my poems in labyrinthine

circles.

Coming closer to the center, but no—

only to find myself again on the outside.

Not lost, exactly,

neither to end at a new beginning

I once would have said

that hunger is a gift;

the peril  of that old

self-sufficient lie more dangerous

than starvation.
I even wrote a poem about it.

From the bottom of the well it looks different.

Silence only magnifies the echoes.

Come, come and climb down with me—

we will be lonely together.

It will be an adventure,

giggling children in the dark—

hiding from our mother’s call.

Count to ten!

Ready or not, here I come.

Mother Mary sends her son

to share in our cruel games

The sleek winners cry foul

as he changes the rules.

We will all be released

but will we follow?

The ladder hangs down the well

just within reach.

Ashes to Go

Our chaplain in seminary used to say that it was God's cruelest joke that so many clergy are introverts. God gets you into this ministry-you imagine quiet moments of prayer and solitude, mulling over sermons and preparing liturgies. Then you get thrown in front of a church and your inner panicker goes into high gear. Church is great-but there are people everywhere. I love my work but I will say that a quiet room and a book or a blank page are high on my list of favorite things.

It is, then, maybe God also getting a kick out of our discomfort with a new movement in the Episcopal Church: ashes to go. No music, no liturgy, not even a roof: clergy and lay people taking to the streets and standing in prayer with anyone who comes by.   Last year, I remember hearing about churches doing it, and it seemed like a nice, but impractical, idea. We Episcopalians have not often aligned ourselves with people walking around the sidewalks announcing the end of the world-are we slipping into some apocalyptic rabbit hole? Surely we don't want to be unnecessarily confrontational, do we?

Maybe, maybe not. I am inclined to say, though, that we make an awful lot of assumptions in thinking that all that is right and true can be found within our four walls. We may be intellectually open to the strengths of other traditions, but when it comes to participating in church, we expect people to get with our program. I recently read a piece by the Rt Rev Stephen Lane, the Bishop of Maine, in which he asks the question: where is the "frontline" of your church? It got me thinking-most of what we do at my church happens, well, at my church. It's wonderful and grace-filled, but we also tend only to share that with those who come to us, rather than going out to meet people where they are.

That was not exactly Jesus' style. Last night, as the parent helper in my daughter's Godly Play class at Grace Medford, where my husband is the rector, we heard the parable of the Great Banquet. Putting out the familiar pictures and green felt, the storyteller began. Someone wanted to have a party, and invited all of his friends, but they wouldn't come. They had to take care of their property. They had just gotten married. Another had to check on some livestock they were buying. So what does the host do? Get more people to come in. The poor, the blind, the sick, the outcast. And when there's still room, he casts the circle wider. The banquet grows and grows. No longer confined to those they already know-the ones with the right job and the right views-now, absolutely everybody gets in. I realize now also that the story doesn't say anything about the guy being mortified at having to talk with new people.

Too often, the church does not tell the story of a Great Banquet-too often, we are an intimate dinner party, entranced by our own cleverness and style. I don't know what Jesus would have said about taking our ashes to the streets-I don't know what he would have said about ashes in the first place, since he was pretty clear on instructing people not to look dismal about fasting and prayer-but I am confident that whatever the church can do to come near to others is the path that Jesus would have us walk on. Would it be "better" if people came to an hourlong liturgy and had time for music, reflection, and a sermon about the tradition and theology of the day? Quite probably. The liturgy for Ash Wednesday is a great service. And surely, I hope all of you who are reading this go to church...

Church is my job, so I know I'll be there. But for the person getting on the train who still needs eighteen more cups of coffee,  for the homeless person as they walk from the shelter to breakfast at the Salvation Army, for the man who stopped going to church after his wife died, for the boss who has to fire someone and the employee who's worried the pink slip is coming, for the mom who is worried that her kid will get sick at school and she'll have to leave work early-for all of those people, I think the payoff for me feeling a little silly will be worth it. So I and a few other intrepid souls will be there on Carter Street. No judgments, no strings, no gimmicks.  Ashes are startling in their simplicity--we'll go out with just the dust we came from and a prayer for God's grace.  An opening of our hands and one deep breath of hope.

 I wrote this initially for our parish email newsletter; the last four years or so of that are on www.ecrier.blogspot.com.