Follow Me @jesus

Pentecost 12A Follow Me @jesus

Matthew 16:21-28

August 31, 2014

 

Since social media has come on the scene,

            every day it seems, I get requests from people to “follow” them.

 

They ask me to follow their blog,

            or follow them on Twitter.

What ‘following’ means is that I get their blog updates

or their tweets every time they post.

 

It’s quite easy to follow.

            A couple of clicks, and you’re there!

And once you start following someone,

            they give you suggestions of others you can follow too!

There are days where I start following a dozen of people or places in one sitting!

 

Following someone on social media comes with perks.

When I follow a person I get their insights or their wisdom or their humor.

When I follow a nonprofit I get pictures about what they’re doing.

When I follow a theater company or a music group, I get discounts.

When I follow a store I get coupons.

 

When I follow someone on social media, I get things…

Maybe that’s what Peter was expecting.

A Labor Day Meditation

A Labor Day Meditation

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once pointed out the fact that whether we take time to recognize it or not, all life is interrelated. We depend on each other. In his words, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. . . . Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.”

As we begin this Labor Day weekend, I share a meditation from The Rev. Sam Candler, dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta. [i]

I live today because someone has labored. I live today because many, many, people have labored. On this Labor Day, I give thanks for them.

I eat today because someone served. Someone cooked. A grocer sold me the food. Or a local farmer at a farmers market sold it to me directly. A distributor supplied food to the grocers. A laborer tilled the soil. Another farmer planted and planned. Years before that, someone else prepared and cared for the very soil.

I wear clothes today that someone else sewed. Someone designed. Someone developed the store. Someone else marketed and advertised and kept the books and answered the telephones.

What Would You Do?

Pentecost 11A: What Would You Do?

Exodus 1:8-21

August 24, 2014

 

Exodus says, “There arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph…”

Now that’s a problem….

 

It’s a historical problem because Egypt didn’t have kings…

so they couldn’t have a new one!

Egyptian rulers were called ‘pharaoh’, not king.

 

But of course the Bible is not a history book,

it’s a book of faith.

This verse reflects a faith problem as well.

He’s Finally Free.

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith lately – the deep kind, the sustaining kind, the kind that gets you through something like what happened to James Foley, the New Hampshire reporter who was brutally executed this week.

From all the accounts I’ve read, James found hope and consolation in prayer.  It wasn’t the first time he’d been kidnapped.  In 2011 he and two colleagues were kidnapped and released in Libya.  After that ordeal, in a letter to Marquette University, his alma mater, he spoke of the power and strength that came to him through prayer.  He and a colleague would pray together.  He said, “It felt energizing to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone.” [i]

We have not heard how Foley sustained himself during this second ordeal, but in the aftermath of his death, his parents, John and Diane Foley spoke outside their home in Rochester, NH. It was not a press conference filled with anger or threats of retribution.  Their words were words of sadness, of gratitude, and of an abiding sense of hope:  “Jimmy’s free.  He is finally free!”

Remarkable.

I don’t know whether or not John and Diane Foley always had such faith or if theirs is a faith rising out of the suffering they have endured. I don’t know how I would endure such pain myself.

But today I am grateful that James Foley grew up in a family which nurtured his faith in a loving God who was there in the midst of his captivity, with whom he could share his deepest fears and hopes, and who consoles his family now.

Jimmy’s free. He is finally free.

 

In Christ,

Pastor Jen

[i] http://www.marquette.edu/magazine/recent.php?subaction=showfull&id=1318951203&archive

Shouting For Healing

Pentecost 10A Shouting For Healing

Matthew 15:21-28

August 17, 2014

“It is not fair to take the children’s food

and throw it to the dogs,” Jesus says.

This is a hard story to hear.

Some suggest that Jesus spoke with a smile on his lips.

Others remind us that the word he used for “dog”

really means “puppy,”

and so when he says that the Canaanite woman

Is a dog, he is saying something more like,

she is rather cute and cuddly….really?

I love my dog…

I find her adorable…

and she was an even more adorable puppy…

But I would still take offense if someone

suggested I was like her!

I don’t think we can soften what Jesus said.

Thinking About John

Robin Williams

I’ve been thinking about my cousin John a lot this week.

John committed suicide a few years ago. He was depressed, he had a history of drug use…and he had a wife and a teenage daughter and two sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins.

I am not alone in having a family member who has taken their life and for whom the news of Robin Williams’ death brings back painful memories. Many of us have been touched by suicide in our families and most of us have been touched by depression in ourselves or the people we love.

In the wake of suicide, we can feel guilty (Could I have done something? Was it because of something I did or said?), angry (How could she do this to us? Didn’t he care about us?), frightened (Could I ever get so depressed? Is he in hell?), sad (Why didn’t she see another way? What pain he must have been in!), and a host of other emotions.

At times like these, it’s good to remind each other:

• It’s not your fault.
• It’s normal to be angry.
• We place our hope and our trust in a loving and merciful God.
• There are places to go and people to talk to for help. If you don’t know where to turn, call 1-800-273-8255.

Out of the depths we cry to you merciful God. Meet our confusion with your peace, our anger with your mercy, and our sorrow with your consolation. Help us be still and know that you are God and that nothing in life or death will separate us from your love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.   (Prayer from “Prayer Book for the Armed Services,” ©2013, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Augsburg Fortress Press.)

And We Ate Chicken

And We Ate Chicken

 

It was about a 30 minute van ride from our hotel in Nuevo Concepcion to the village of Chacocoyal. We arrived and the church had already gathered, waiting for us for who knows how long.

 

They were seated on plastic chairs in the hot sun. As we moved towards the seats near them, they redirected us to another spot where there were chairs under the roof of the porch so we would be in the shade.

 

After a time of worship together, we moved our chairs into a big circle for introductions. Everyone introduced themselves by name and by the role they had in the church – and everyone had a role.

Looking For Hope

Looking for Hope

Last night was a difficult night for me here in El Salvador. We had moved north to one of the rural communities and it was so pleasant. We walked the couple of blocks from our hotel to the town square without fear.

 

We stopped to watch a boys’ soccer game and admired the beauty of the Roman Catholic church in the square. There were a number of heavily armed security police walking around too, but they seemed friendly.

Mauricio

Mauricio

Mauricio lives in the village of Piedra Azul (“Blue Rock”) in the region of San Rafael, about 150 miles east of the capitol San Salvador. He is in his early 20’s and is the church council president. He studies communications at the university.

It takes some effort for those from Mauricio’s village to attend high school, let alone college. There is no high school where he lives, so those few students whose families can afford the cost of transportation take a bus some distance from home each day.

University is a whole other matter. Mauricio spends two weeks at a time living away from family so he can take classes.

After a morning devotion and conversation about the text for the day – the story of the Good Samaritan – led by Pastor Donald, we are invited to ask questions of church members about life in this region of El Salvador.   We hear about living at the base of a volcano. We hear of its eruption this past December forcing the evacuation of the village. We hear residents tell of “sleeping like rabbits” now – one eye closed and one eye open, alert for signs of another eruption.

And then Mauricio speaks. He says that he’d like to talk about the recent increase of Salvadoran youth to the United States.   There are six youth from the village who in the past six months have attempted the journey to the United States. One boy has made it (on his fourth attempt) and there is a celebration planned for this weekend.

Someone asks Mauricio a question – they want to know what he sees as his future ten years from now.   At first, Mauricio seems surprised by the question. Then he answers that he believes in several years only women will be left in the village.

But then he is asked to answer the question personally, as a young college student… and Mauricio breaks down. He swallows hard to hold back the tears and simply shakes his head.

His pastor speaks up and offers words of encouragement. Other adults share their hope for the future.   But the picture of Mauricio shaking his head in despair lingers in my mind. This is why I believe I came to El Salvador – I needed to listen to Mauricio and other Salvadorans like him.      

Why Children Are Coming

Why Children Are Coming

 

In one of the more poignant stories of the Old Testament, the mother of Moses is faced with a terrible decision. The command of Pharoah is  that all male children be killed. For a little while, his mother is able to hide him. But it comes to a point that she no longer can protect her son. Desperate to find a way to help him survive, she places him in a basket and releases him into the Nile.

 

As I’ve been in El Salvador this week, this is a story that I’ve heard a Lutheran pastor here use to try to explain why children in Central America are making the dangerous journey across the border into the United States. In many cases, mothers and fathers are making the terrible decision to release their children to travel to the United States simply because like the mother of Moses, they want their children to live.

 

There are estimates of 12-14 homicides every day here in El Salvador. In the past month, a ten year old boy was decapitated on his way to school. He was killed by a gang because his school was in the territory of a rival gang. A teenager with special needs (a Special Olympian who excelled in the shot put) was killed by a young gang member as part of a rite of initiation.

 

In the small Lutheran church where we worshipped on Sunday, we prayed for two teenage boys who were being harassed at school to join gangs. They were sent to live with relatives. Other children aren’t fortunate enough to have relatives with whom to stay, and some drop out of school completely out of fear.

 

Though the situation in El Salvador and the rest of Central America is dire, it is not hopeless. On Monday morning we heard Angel Ibarra, the Vice Minister of the Environment (a Lutheran), describe his country as a critically ill patient, close to death. However, he said, by knowing he has the support of others the patient still has hope.

 

As long as there are others listening there is hope.

 

 In the meantime, children are coming. Some will be sent back. But they will try again …and again… for as long as mothers and fathers desire life for their children.

 

It’s a story at least as old as Moses and his mother.