Sunday, June 26, 2016

Stay Close*


13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

A few weeks ago I was in Washington DC with my husband Rob
It was a business trip for him
And I joined in to see the sights

I found it impossible to be in DC
After visiting the national Archives and the Library of Congress
The Lincoln memorial
And the new MLK memorial
and NOT be overcome with thoughts of Freedom
FREEDOM and the COMMON GOOD
Etched in stone

It was also the week-end of the
Nightclub massacre in Orlando

I had one morning to myself  
I visited the Holocaust Museum
Visited…Is not the best word
…I experienced the museum

Freedom and the Common Good etched in stone
Plus
The Holocaust Museum
Plus
Awakening Sunday the news of more hate inspired deaths
Plus
Today’s readings

It wasn’t hard
To find a word

Growing up
my family lived a military-like lifestyle
We moved often…every two or three years
When I was in 4th grade
we lived in a small town in Germany
My parents wanted us to take in
as much as we could
And so we visited lots of castle ruins
and cathedrals
and quaint medieval villages

At the tender age of 11 my parents took us
To the concentration camp at Dachau
It wasn’t a full-fledged museum or memorial at that time
But there were photographs
And a tour that led through barracks,
to fake showers and finally ovens

All the castles and cathedrals and quaint villages…
they all run together
But this visit went deep…

And so when I had that free morning in DC
I thought…
“It is important…It will be heavy…but important”
And so I went

At age 11 it was the utter horror of it all that caught my imagination…
It was almost voyeuristic.
I was not a part of the story.
I was outside looking in.

But now…for my 55 year-old self…quite different
This time I was intimately involved
And I was overwhelmed and confused
by all my questions

The museum carefully sets the historical stage
Germany after THE FIRST WORLD WAR
The burdens of the Versailles treaty
Communism, fascism and
new ideologies are in the air
On our side of the Atlantic
The great depression was a fresh
and still painful memory
Worry over jobs lingered
Increasing isolationism and fear of foreigners
hovered

In this context
I read about the story of the voyage of the
SS St. Louis
And Its 950 Jewish passengers
This was an episode in Nazi forced emigration which was Plan A.
The Final Solution was Plan B

I stopped at the mural depicting the voyage…
The map with the ships itinerary in dotted lines took up an entire wall
Departing Hamburg for Cuba,
Paperwork supposedly in order
The ship arrives
The Cubans are not honoring their original commitment
then Miami, and then other ports…all closed to them
…no place to disembark
...foxes have holes, birds have nests…
no place for these 950

26 days later the ship returns to Europe
to Belgium.

that mural haunts me

I don’t think the designers of this experience
Want the visitors to leave feeling guilty
But rather to leave with lots of questions
the last spot in the self guided tour
is The reflection room
A place to sit with all the questions

We read this morning from
Paul’s letter to the Galatians
It is his great treatise
on the nature of Christian Freedom

My thoughts went back to DC
And back to that room
And back to that Sunday’s breaking news

We hear this from Paul:

But do not use this freedom
As an opportunity for the flesh
Rather serve one another through love
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement
“you shall love your neighbor as yourself”

But
If you go on biting and devouring one another
Beware that you are not consumed by one another

Such vivid language
Biting and devouring

Paul goes on to explain
that Freedom
Isn’t just my license to do as I please
At least not Christian freedom
Christian freedom has a TOWARDS
Christian Freedom is on the move towards love

We are free to discern what that looks like
in our individual lives
and in the lives of our communities
But it is a lot more than
Freedom to do as I please
as long as I don’t hurt anybody
Or tread on anybody else’s freedom.
From a Christian point of view there is no TOWARDS in that

I don’t propose to have any idea what it was like
To live under Nazi propaganda
Or to live in a post Great Depression America
Would I have been cheering at the Nuremburg rallies?
Would I have been protesting Jewish immigration that exceeded the allowed quotas of the time…
Shouting:  TURN BACK THE SS ST LOUIS!

I can’t know
And its probably not a very helpful question anyway
But I can look around my own world
I can look
and I can see
biting
and
devouring
I can challenge myself to say or do something
To undermine the feeding frenzy
I can do that

The price, Paul suggests,
Of NOT doing that…
The price of participating in this biting and devouring…
Is being bitten and devoured.

And in the Gospel we have these mini-stories

The first episode gives of
James and John…the revenge seekers
(the two Mark’s Gospel calls “Sons of Thunder”)

Its important to note that the animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews can be traced
Back to 500+ years
When the Jews returned
From their exile in Babylon
They found that those who had stayed…
The ones from Samaria
Had intermarried with foreigners
They were half-breeds
They were ritually unclean
They were not to be allowed to participate in the building of the Temple in Jerusalem
So they built their own.
On Mt Gerizim
(In today’s landscape they would have had their own nightclub)

Most Jews of the time chose to walk around Samaria…But Jesus walks right on through
(perhaps a hint of the universality of Jesus’ mission)

The lack of hospitality would not have been surprising

So I find James and John
a little comical
Not only do they
respond to rejection with rejection
They go for complete over-kill!
With a scorched earth policy!
They seem to think they can recruit GOD
To destroy on their behalf!!!

And the text says
Jesus Rebukes them
That’s all it says
He rebukes them and they go on their way

They are SO FAR off the mark
This is a place where I would give anything to hear his voice, his tone, his body language
Was it complete exasperation?
He has his work cut out for him
Their whole mindset needs work
Patience!
The Good Samaritan story comes in a few chapters…
Patience!

The next episode gives us HARSH Jesus
Luke is careful
The next three characters are not disciples
Someone said to him…
He said to another…
Still another

There is no room…no time
for groupies
High on enthusiasm and
Low on commitment

There is a sense of urgency
There is no time to wait and get affairs in order
No time time to turn back and make sure you have your family’s blessing

Luke’s mini stories don’t bother to tell us how these would-be disciples responded
Did the first one’s enthusiasm dissipate?
Did the comment about the “dead burying the dead” sting too much?
Did the last one turn back and refuse to make the decision his own?
We can’t know.

But I can ask myself
How do I handle rebukes?
Do I get defensive and walk away?

So here is where I landed
Maybe the message is
Stay Close
Stay Close
I don’t have to wait until the plan is clear
The 401K is vested
The loose ends are all tied up

Stay Close
Stay Close
and it will be easier for my discipleship
to seep into all realms of my life

Stay Close
And maybe I won’t get sucked into propaganda thinking…into biting and devouring

Stay Close
And the tension between family and discipleship
…Between flesh and spirit
will be more manageable

Stay Close
Don’t run away
Rather Allow myself to be rebuked
Because that is where learning and growth happen

When have I ever learned anything important
From being praised anyway?

I think that is what I was invited to do in that reflection room at the Holocaust Museum
Stay close
Let myself be rebuked
Rebuked in a Jesus way
Rebuked by being told the truth in love
Rebuked with an intimate invitation
To Stay Close

Weekly
In this gathering
We pray:
I confess…
By what I have done
And what I have left undone
I confess

I confess my incompleteness

Not to worry Jesus says
Stay Close
Stay Close

I have more to show you

No comments:

Post a Comment