And A Little Child Shall Lead Them

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist and Rev. Gin Courtney


Youth Sunday

Proverbs 3:13-18
Luke 2:41-52

So. Madison Square youth. I must say I am impressed. Here you are, among your peers, not merely sitting in worship but actually leading in worship. Telling all of us, through the prayers you have written and the songs you have chosen, what you think is important about faith and friendship and family.

So let me tell you what I have heard, and you tell me if I got it right:

In your Call to Worship I have heard a desire for wisdom and learning, for openness and transformation. In your Prayer for Reconciliation I have heard a desire for creative positivity in the face of negative thoughts, criticisms, challenges and temptations. In your Assurance of Grace I have heard an attitude of gratitude, a desire for a fresh start, and a plea for the love and support of God to embrace you through whatever comes your way, no matter how difficult. And in your music selections I have heard a basic trust in the grace of the God who will always love you and save you and defend you and protect you.

If what I have heard is really what you wanted us to hear, then I say, “alleluia.” You are on the right track. At least as far as I am concerned. Stay on it! And if what I have heard is really what you wanted us to hear, then the rest of us in the church can pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Because somewhere, somehow in the midst of whatever chaos surrounds us, and surrounds you, you have heard us, lo these many years. You have heard God speaking through us. You have somehow gotten the message that we have wanted you to get all along. Which is that no matter what you are a Child of Blessing and a Child of Promise. Which means that no matter what God has given you gifts of knowledge and insight and understanding that will sustain your life and the lives of those who cross your path. And that no matter what God has given you strength and courage and support to share the best of who God created you to be in this broken, messed up world . . . that is still so painfully struggling to love God and to love neighbor.  And, I might add, to love itself.

And you are telling us today not only that you get it but that you want us to get it, too. Which is good because we need to be reminded. Just like the parents of Jesus did in the Gospel lesson from Luke that Chaplain Gin read for us this morning.

Imagine what it would be like to be the parents of Jesus. Think of the responsibility! The panic of your 12-year-old lost in Jerusalem. Not because he wants to see the big sights in the big city. But because he wants to keep on learning about God! He can’t get enough of church! He is hanging out in the pews, asking questions of the preacher, maybe even writing his own prayers and choosing his own hymns. Nothing stands in his way. Not a soccer practice. Not a term paper. Not a part-time job. Not two parents who would really rather get back home to Nazareth already.

He is into this! And they are into him. “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” Just like we are all amazed at what you have put together for worship today. We need to be reminded that this is what really matters.

So here’s the question. What do you think it was that captivated Jesus so much in the temple? His teachers would not have been reading from the New Testament, like we are. The New Testament hadn’t been written yet! They would have been reading from the Old Testament. Perhaps even the very same passage from Proverbs we have read together this morning. The one that urges the pursuit of wisdom, just like you did in your Call to Worship. The one that says learning and insight and understanding are more valuable than all the wealth you could possibly possess. That wisdom holds the key to happiness. That wisdom yearns for peace.

Perhaps it was the call to pursue the wisdom of God at all costs that led Jesus to the desert to find his true vocation. Perhaps it was the call to pursue God’s wisdom that led him to a ministry of healing and justice and concern for the most vulnerable in our midst. And that led him back to the temple twenty years later to challenge those who were using religion as a curse instead of a blessing. And that sustained him as he hung on that tree of death and trusted the wisdom of God to transform it once again into a tree of life. Which is one way to understand the resurrection.

This is the real truth of what I think Jesus was learning and teaching in the temple that day. It was about instilling in him deep down into his very bones that he was a Child of Blessing and Promise no matter what. Which is what we are trying to instill in you every Sunday in worship and Sunday School, no matter what else we might say or do. It’s about making sure you know it. Really know it!

Not just today. But someday far away we haven’t even thought of it. When you really need it. Like Jesus did. And, of course, today.

This is why I hope you keep coming back to worship. Why I was so glad to see you here last week listening to my other sermon on wisdom. Why I want you to ask questions of me and of your teachers and share your thoughts with us. Just like Jesus did. And why I hope you will keep leading in worship. And tell me and Chaplain Gin when you want to do this again. And not let anything else get in the way. Because this is what really truly matters. This is what will save your life.

And even though our number one job is to instill a deep faith in you to sustain you through the future, the truth is we really do celebrate how wise you are becoming, right here and now, just as the teachers and preachers in the temple with Jesus did. You have given us an amazing worship experience. And we are shouting Alleluia!

Amen.

And now a word to the grown-ups. We have been talking a lot in the past few months about what kind of programming Madison Square should be providing for children and youth. We have hired a fabulous Christian Educator and pulled together an equally fabulous group of volunteers to lead the way in the months and years to come. And all of this is very, very good.

But here’s the thing. If our goal is to instill a lifetime of faith in our young people, there really is no substitute for bringing them to worship. There really isn’t. The research reveals that a whopping 80% of teenagers whose primary engagement with the church is through some “other-than-worship activity,” like a youth group, will quickly leave the church once they graduate from high school. The social club was more important than the faith. But if they are in worship regularly with a primary adult figure we can keep at least half of them. Perhaps more. Because there is something deep in our bones that happens through the ritual of worship that keeps us coming back for more. And that reminds us, at least in a community like Madison Square, that we are never ever apart from God’s embrace. And so we keep coming. Which is what Ruby Gage wants to share with you . . .

“Good morning people of Madison Square,” she says. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t be with you this morning, so instead I wrote this to be read to you:

“I have been asked to tell everyone, especially the kids, what lessons I have learned from the people here at Madison Square that I would take with me to college and into my adult life. I can’t tell you how hard it was to come up with ONE thing to talk about. I could think of tons of advice that people have given me, about all sorts of things. The more time I spent trying to decide what was the most important, the more indecisive I got. Something hit me though. In thinking about all this advice on how to be an adult, I couldn’t tell you when someone actually becomes an adult.  Legally, it’s when one turns 18, but we all know that eighteen-year-olds ARE FAR FROM ADULTHOOD. So when is it? When do we grow up?

“I tried to think about what I could find in the Bible about this and all I could come up with was that God might not really want us to grow up. There are verses about responsibility and teaching kids to be good, but when it comes to being a “grown-up” the Bible kinda tells us to do just the opposite. In the gospels, there is a story, one that we’ve all heard before, about how children were brought to Jesus. Anyone remember what he said? “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:16)

“So does this mean that we can skip growing up, and go join Peter Pan and the Lost Boys in Neverland? No, it just means that sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of the way a child looks at life. Sure it’s carefree, but it’s also pure. They see the world as the beautiful thing that it is. I have learned that this lesson, looking at the world like a child, is sometimes the easiest solution to the problem at hand. Of course we need to think about grocery shopping, laundry, bills, and other adult things, but we also can’t get so caught up in being an adult that we forget about God.  I don’t need to worry about how I’m going to get through this or that, because “Look at the birds in the sky. They don't plant or harvest or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are more valuable than they are, aren't you?” (Matthew 6:26) God will take care of us, and sometimes, we adults forget that.

“A child doesn’t. They know God will heal them when they fall off their bike and scrape their knees, they will eat tonight, and they’ll sleep in a bed close to parents that love them unconditionally, just like God does. They say their prayers, and trust blindly that God is listening. How many times have we wondered if God was really up there? If he cared? I know I’ve asked myself that before. Sometimes we just get lost in life. The hustle and bustle and our little worries make us forget about what God can do for us. We are doubtful, because sin has entered us in the form of “adult responsibilities.”

“So even though flying takes “faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust,” life just takes faith. That is the best lesson that you have taught me, and I know beyond any shadow of a doubt, that with this in mind I’ve got nothing to worry about. Thank you for that, and for everything else that you have done for me (including the quilt that got me through my first night). I love and miss you all. Ruby”

The Beautiful Feast of Life

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

 

Proverbs 9:1-6

John 6:48-51, 58

This is how my favorite theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker refer to the sacrament of communion in their book Saving Paradise (from which I have quoted over and over and over again in the past year, and will continue to do in the months to come)

Communion, they say, or the eucharist, as it is also called, does not have to be about glorifying a violent death as somehow sanctioned by a sadistic God who wants us to suffer. This is the trap into which we Christians too easily fall when we hold up a mass-produced weapon of Roman torture, designed solely for the purpose of terrorizing and killing, and claim that this cross wields the will of God. That God insists on a violent act to save us from our own violent acts.

I say we have had quite enough of terrorizing and killing and violence. With how many more shooting victims flashing before our television cameras and Facebook pages in just this past week alone? And those are just the ones we know about.

I say communion is about life! That community is about life! About abundant life, as John’s Gospel puts it. About finally figuring out how to live together in peace in this great garden God has given us. From the very beginning. With Jesus, himself, as “the Bread of Life.” Which is the way he describes himself in our lectionary text this morning, in a passage that very likely reflects some of the very earliest eucharistic practices.

Jesus tells us we will “live forever” when we eat this bread of life. That it is even better than the manna in the wilderness God provided to our ancestors. That it is the beautiful feast we were always meant to have. In a lush Paradise brimming with fruit and birds and rivers and trees. Every part of it meant for our pleasure. Every part of it meant to sustain life. Not take it.

You know . . . the garden. Eden. Where the tree of life grows. And where—don’t we wish we didn’t know it—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grows.

You know the story: Adam and Eve . . . a snake . . . a fall . . . and then nakedness, banishment, brutality . . . mortality. All because we now know evil. Perhaps even more than we now know good.

The problem with our humanity is that the good thing we have been given by God in this garden of life just doesn’t seem quite good enough on its own. And so we eat of that blasted tree. And we have been paying for it ever since.

It is confusing, I will admit. Because according to the Book of Proverbs we are supposed to be seeking the Wisdom of God. A wisdom that is better than gold or silver or any other form of wealth. And according to the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom is there, in that garden, at the beginning of creation, like a master worker, like a delighted child, “hewing the seven pillars” on which the ancients believed the earth was founded, right there with God: planting the tree of life, delighting in the human race, and then planting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From which we are not supposed to eat. And from whose fruits we have experienced so much pain.

And yet we are supposed to be seeking wisdom!

According to Genesis, there is a “crafty” serpent enticing Eve and then Adam to eat the fruits of this tree, even when we shouldn’t. But according to Proverbs, Wisdom is also there, from the beginning, shouting at the crossroads, commanding Adam and Eve to seek her at all costs. And I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

So we join Adam and Even in this paradise of creation God has designed for us to enjoy, feasting on the tree of life, but utterly confused and somewhat demoralized by the tree of Wisdom. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree that has fallen into such disrepute. Do we eat? Or don’t we? That is still the question.

The problem—I think—with Adam and Eve and the snake and the fall is not that they—and we—seek the wisdom of God. It is that they—and we—think we should be able to eat the fruits of wisdom before we have tended the roots of wisdom. Because the consequences of knowing evil are too much for us when we eat before we are ready for the responsibility. And God knows it.

This is why we have communion. The Beautiful Feast of Life. To tend the roots while we feast on the fruits.

“Wisdom has built her house,” the writer of Proverbs says in our lectionary text today. “She has mixed her wine and set her table.” And she is still calling. “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

To me that sounds just a little bit like Jesus. Okay, a lot like Jesus. The bread of life. The cup of saving love. The Word of God—and some would say the Wisdom of God—made flesh in our midst. Finding a way to feed five thousand in a fractured economy. Calling all who are simple and all who are wise to come together at the table. And walk in the way of insight. The way we were meant to all along. With just a little piece of bread and a little cup of juice. In a beautiful feast of life. To share with everyone we meet.

We who are in the mainline Protestant churches tend to celebrate this feast on the first Sunday of the month, often sharing a loaf lovingly baked by a faithful parishioner. Offered emphatically—in this church at least—to anyone who is hungry, no matter who you are or where you come from. Simple or wise or somewhere in between. And tasting a small drop of the cup of saving love. Just enough to sustain us in the Spirit through whatever trials may come our way.

The early church did it a bit differently. Not better or worse. Just different. It was more like a potluck. Right in the middle of worship. Every Sunday. After the sermon, they would bring their offering, just like we do. They were committed to sharing their common wealth. So they brought money, yes. Just like we do. But then they also brought a great variety of food. Grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, pears, apples, mulberries, peaches, cherries, almonds, and plums. And flowers. Roses and lilies.  

The first part of their liturgy was much like ours: singing psalms, reading Scripture, praying, preaching. (With sermons that lasted a whole lot longer than 15 or 20 minutes!) But when the sermon was over, those who were not yet officially baptized into the Body of Christ were dismissed. It was the belief of the community that these confirmands were still tending to the roots of Wisdom. They were not yet ready, they believed, for the fruits.

Those who had already endured the rigorous ritual preparation for Baptism were ready for the fruits. They had trained their minds and their bodies and their spirits to resist evil and turn toward the good. But even still they believed they needed help to resist the evil they saw swirling around them. And so they anointed themselves anew before the feast. Their eyes, ears, and hands transformed every Sunday with oil and water and wine. It was a way of training their senses of sight and sound and touch and even smell. In the ways of justice and peace. In the ways of non-violence. In the ways of Jesus, the Wisdom of God made flesh.

The beautiful feast of life that was their communion became a weekly workout of honestly seeking Wisdom, of laying aside immaturity, of learning how to walk in the way of insight. The beautiful feast of life that was their communion became a weekly reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant. Bathing in the grace of the Wisdom of God, yes. But also responding to that grace by cultivating ethical action in tending that garden. With Wisdom. The way it was meant to be all along.

Now you could hear all of this and wonder in horror if I am about to argue for a closed communion table here at Madison Square. I am not. Jesus fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish and nowhere does it say he demanded a baptismal certificate. If Judas and Peter can feast at this table, so can you and I and anyone else who needs to eat.

What I am saying is that I think we have something we can learn from the early church about the rigors of our preparation for this beautiful feast of life. At least if we are intentional about what we are missing in these three or four Sundays “in-between.” If we remember that our worship is somehow “incomplete” today without it.

What I am saying is that I think we should imagine ourselves on these “in-between Sundays” as something like those catechumens in the early church. Still “in preparation” for this Beautiful Feast of Life. Still immersed in a rigorous training program of relinquishing of all that is violent within ourselves. Still tending the roots of God’s Wisdom growing deep within us. In order that we might partake of the fruits of God’s wisdom among us in the Beautiful Feast of Life that is to come.

Because it is coming! In two weeks when we will also celebrate the life of Bob Frere and commend him to the eternal Wisdom of God. In a sanctuary that will look very much like a garden. With an invitation to keep on tending it with ethical grace.

In the meantime, we prepare. Letting go of the violence within us that would violate that garden. Training our senses in the ways of non-violence. Because Wisdom is still calling. And Jesus is still waiting. To welcome us all to the banquet where we will finally—and forever—live in peace. I pray it may be so. Amen.

When Grief Meets Grace

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:12

Psalm 130

(A song of rising)

From within the suffocating darkness

of what I will never comprehend

I cry out to you, Holy One

—You who exist eternally—

I plead with you:

Hear my voice!

Force your ears to listen,

to respond to the sound of my pleas!

But if you kept track of transgressions, Holy One, who would stand?

With you there is forgiveness . . .

. . . in order to inspire reverence.

With my whole being I ache for your ever-eluding vision,

like those who watch for the morning,

even more than those who watch for the morning.

Await the Holy One, all you people with whom God perseveres—

wait expectantly, confidently, defiant against despair—

Because union with the Eternal Existence is “hesed”:

a steadfast, persistent, NEVER-ENDING LOVE

beyond anything we can possibly know with our minds.

And union with God is an exponentially-increasing

and ultimately everlasting

repayment of our crushing debt

in this world and the next.

And God will repay the debt for all of our transgressions,

because we are the people with whom God chooses to persevere.

Her mother’s death was beautiful, Kathy Sakai whispered in response to my question. When I asked her how that moment we all dread, and that she had endured—the death of her mother—had affected her life. It was the most beautiful moment she had ever known, she said. And she was right.

The room was decorated for Christmas. The continual coming of Christ. With white Christmas tree lights glowing in every direction. And candles burning brightly through the winter darkness. And tinsel sparkling with delight from the windows. With a bowl of warm ginger water and a vat of lotion mixed with lavender oil sitting at her mother’s bedside. Ready to bathe and anoint her body upon her death. Which is exactly what Kathy and her sister-in law and her niece did. Led by a hospice caregiver who was very much with child.

Wow.

The combination of their bathed and oiled palms massaging her mother’s bathed and oiled body settled them all into a peace that passes understanding. Every stroke of their gentle, firm hands overlapping one another in a gift of unqualified grace.

Another dear friend offered hymns in the background. Her still, small angelic voice singing one life into being through the pregnant woman’s womb. And one life into ending through Kathy’s mother’s death. And all life into being again and again and again in an embrace of a moment the mystics call “the eternal now” and what I would call “the fullness of time.”

And it really was beautiful. And it really is who we are. Every one of us bound up in this moment together. Which, with Kathy’s permission, has now become a shared memory for us all.

If we have to die, which we really don’t want to do, but we really do have to do, someday, hopefully far away, this is how we want it to be, isn’t it? At the end of a long and well-lived life. With the baptismal covenant re-enacted in its purest form. And a thousand angels singing us through the suffocating darkness of what we will never fully comprehend, into the everlasting light of the steadfast, persistent, never-ending hesed love of God. Beyond anything we can possibly know with our minds. Bathed in the font of our identity flowing forever in oil and water and tears and laughter.

This is how we want it to be. If it really does have to be. And, of course, it does.

The reality of our mortality has been much on our minds here at Madison Square in these past several weeks. In our Wednesday Conversations on heaven and healing and hope. In the several brushes with death we have been through together just this week with many we love. In Kathy sharing her story with a pastor . . . and now with a congregation.

And in the tragedy of yet another mass shooting just one week ago. This time in a house of worship not all that different from ours. On a Sunday morning not all that different from this one. Among a group of people not all that different from us. Coming together in their own sacred moment of “home.” Practicing in their own way what it means to love their God and their neighbor and perhaps most importantly themselves, in this time of deep pain. Met with a bullet and a hate crime and a crying out in anguish.

And we must join them in this cry. Because in the deep truth that the writer of Ephesians is trying to tell us, they are us, and we are them, in spite of the vitriol of racial and religious supremacy that would argue otherwise. As the writer of Ephesians keeps trying to tell us, we are one with one another. And God is doing everything God can to keep breaking through these barriers we keep insisting on constructing. The barrier between Jew and Gentile in the first century being not very different at all from the barrier of Christian and Sikh and Muslim and Hindu in our own.

And so we must join them in the crying out “from within the suffocating darkness of what we will never comprehend.” Joining with the psalmist in pleading with God to listen. Speaking, perhaps the truth of our deepest fear: Are you even listening, God? Do you have ears to hear? Do you care? Are you there?

The thing about the psalms is they do not gloss over the depth of human grief with mere platitudes about God and greatness and grace. They tell it like it is. As we must. That it hurts. That it leaves us aching for that ever-eluding vision of wholeness and hope that flows from our baptismal covenant. The one we glimpse for brief moments in stories like Kathy’s with her mother but that far too easily fades when we face the fear that comes in violence and the too-soon taking of a living, breathing presence in our midst. And it does not make sense. And there is no way to explain the unexplainable. Or excuse the inexcusable. Or console the inconsolable. And so we plead with God to listen. To hear. To care.

And God does.

With a reminder that our baptism into grace asks something of us in return, as well. And it is time for us to take heed of that call.

In the days of the early church, confirmands into the faith of Christ committed themselves to a rigorous process of preparation for a life of non-violence. Of stripping away the anger and the indignity and the aggression that was deep within them. Of refusing to return evil for evil but to respond to evil with grace.

The way Jesus did.

In the days of the early church confirmands into the faith of Christ would face to the west and renounce the forces of darkness. And then face to the east claiming allegiance to the light. And then strip off the clothing of their old life and wade through the waters of the font of their new identity. And receive an anointing in oil on the other side. And wrap themselves with a new robe, in a new self. With a singing celebration to carry this moment of heaven here on earth with them always. Just like Kathy did with her mother. Which is why I will always remember the moment she shared as a re-affirmation of the baptismal covenant.

This is the call to each of us today, as well. Re-affirming our baptismal covenant and the grace it proclaims. But also re-affirming the commitment we make in return to keep on stripping away the anger and indignity and aggression that continues deep within us. And prepare ourselves over and over and over again for the non-violent gift of grace we are meant to become in Christ.

It is harder than we wish it were, or we wouldn’t be here today crying out in anguish again and again and again, right along with the Ephesians in the first century. Which is why Paul must remind them, and us, to keep on practicing the grace we have been given and the grace we are to give in return.

Even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard.

“Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” the writer of Ephesians tells us. “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander,” we hear again and again and again. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

Let’s just admit it. It is easier said than done.

The problem with anger and bitterness and wrath is that it is real, no matter how much we cling to our baptism in grace. And the reality of anger and bitterness and wrath is that it is how we deal with our pain. We call it “grief.” And so I would suggest that the admonition to “be angry but not sin,” as the writer of Ephesians encourages, must be more like praying psalm 130 to its fullest than it is like glossing over the very real rage we carry from whatever wounds the violence of this world has inflicted on us and on the ones we love. It must be about the reconciliation that can only begin by naming the anger, and the hurt, and the hope. And dealing with it truthfully as soon as is humanly possible so that the grace of God can somehow transform it for “building up the body.”  In order “that our words may give grace to those who hear.”

The psalmist does not hide from the pain and the anger and the grief that she feels and neither should we. She sings through it. Crying out to God. Crying out to community. Calling forth an active, listening, truthful response that every one of us needs to hear:

Which is that none of us can stand if God is keeping track of transgressions. Not one. That the pain we receive becomes the pain we inflict, if we are not careful. Whether it is intentional, or whether it happens without our knowing.

So what are we to do?

A generalized search on Amazon.com will reveal over 40,000 religious titles addressing the topic of anger. We could read our way into wholeness and hope and healing.

But I think ritual matters more.

I think it is not enough to reason our way to the beloved community of grace. I think we have to actually practice it when we come to worship every Sunday. Grounding ourselves over and over again in the glow of the “eternal now” we claim in our baptism. Touching God and each other over and over and over again in a shared memory of a room filled with candlelight and oil and the healing touch of two mothers giving birth to the grace that will always meet our grief. With one part of our body always pregnant with life. And one part of our body always pregnant with life beyond death. And every hand and heart and hope in touch with the healing love of God. In union with the God who really does choose to persevere with us. Even when we find it so hard to persevere with ourselves. And singing us into the fullness of time.

And I think if we can keep drawing ourselves back to the memory of that moment when we worship, as if it were happening still now, because it some mysterious way it actually is, perhaps we just might be able to “imitate Christ, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us. A fragrant offering,” like lavender mixed with lotion. Welcoming every one of us home.

“So then, putting away falsehood,” the falsehood that would deny the reality of our mortality, or the grace that meets our grief, we might live fully in each moment. As members of one another. In the household of our faithful God. Expectantly, confidently, defiant against despair. Kind to one another. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us.

I pray it may be so. Amen.