Sheep and Goats

Gather around. Let me tell you a story. 

You see, when the Son of Man (that's Jesus) comes in all his glory (to this mess of despair that we've made of the planet), and all the angels with him (and that's the scary kind of angels, you know, the ones with flaming swords and like eight heads and eyes just, like, everywhere, not the cute ones with, like, blonde curls and ish), then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 

All the nations (like, everyone, everywhere, without exception) will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Do you have the mental image in place? Jesus, throne, scary angels, and literally everyone else in the world, and he's going to split everyone up, like apparently shepherds used to do. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. Not literal sheep and goats. That's just an image. He's going to split the people up and put some on the right and some on the left. His right and left, not ours. We there? Perfect. 

So then the king (also Jesus, the Son of Man, from before) will say to those at his right hand (the sheep, remember?), "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."

See, that's how you get to be a metaphorical sheep, the people on the right hand, the ones that go on to the good place prepared since before the Earth began: you feed the hungry and you give water to the thirsty and you welcome strangers and you give clothes to those who need them and you take care of the sick and you visit those in prison. These are the things that you do. 

But see, the metaphorical sheep are a little confused, because they ask him, "Lord (Jesus again), when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" 

See, they didn't understand what they were doing when they were feeding and watering and welcoming and clothing and caring and visiting. They didn't know that in the way they were living their life, they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. So Jesus breaks it down. He says, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." 

And now he turns to the rest of the people, the goats, those at his left hand, and he says, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (so, you know, hell); for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."

So what Jesus and all his scary righteous angels is saying here is that the goats Jesus are going to hell. So the goats panic. They start making a case for themselves. "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" Jesus, if I had seen you, I certainly wouldn't have treated you like that. I know that you are worthy of my attention and care. You're Jesus. The Lord. The King. I know how to treat people in positions of power and authority and I unquestionably wouldn't have ignored your needs. Here. Have a tax break. 

Jesus is having none of this. He says to the goats, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." 

So, you know, when you let food assistance programs for low-income children expire, or when you do not fix drinking water crises, or when you turn away refugees and immigrants, or when you let people sleep out on the streets, or when you limit access to medical care, or when you turn a blind eye to overcrowded prisons and mass incarceration, or worse, profit off of it, you go to hell. 

Which is what happens. The goats go away to eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.

Now, what do we take away from this story?

Because we do treat it like a story, like some over-the-top thing Jesus said that we get to gloss past because we don't really believe in hell anymore. We don't believe in angels and the eschaton, so Jesus is just telling us that we should be nice to people, but, like, on an individual level, because we don't think that the nations are actually going to be brought before the throne. We don't think we're going to be judged on the systems we create and participate in.

But if you visit the poor and sick, or even the semi-rich and sick, how can you not want to tear apart the heath care system and fix it? If you visit the imprisoned, how can you not want to reform the prison system and the justice system? When you see the hungry and those that die from lack of water to drink, how is it that you can go back to your homes and sleep in comfort? 

And I think that's part of the point. How can we, as people who ignore the deep pain of the world, pretend to have hearts that could abide being in the presence of the living God? Of course we would be sent away from the throne. We couldn't stand it. When we see what actual goodness looks like, our apathy toward those who suffer would infinitely torment us. Our regret and shame would tear us into pieces. When we really understand the pain our selfishness causes and the pain we could have stopped if we ever looked outside of ourselves, our only response will be to cry and grind our teeth. Being measured and found wanting? That's hell to me. Knowing I caused another pain and that my heart was so hardened that I didn't even care? That's torture. That's eternal punishment. I think we can take Jesus at his word on this one.

So go. Be sheep. Be the righteous one who feeds the stranger on the street and the hungry in your community. Be the righteous one who fights for housing programs and potable water initiatives and health care and criminal justice reform. Meet needs. Do not allow injustice to stand in your presence. This is more than enough work for a lifetime, but we have to do it.

It's the work that Jesus tells us to do.

Normal

In the months leading up to and the months after the election, we reminded ourselves that this is not normal. This was not politics as usual, this was not governance as usual, this was not the behavior we expected from those seeking office and those in office. It was important, we told ourselves, to remember that this was not how things were supposed to be. We couldn't settle in and let this become our new normal. I remember reading several very earnest thinkpieces about this. A whole bunch of tweets, too. 

It's an open question, I guess, as to whether we actually settled into a new normal or not. Depends on your definition of normal. Normal is what you're used to, maybe, and eventually what you're used to becomes what you expect and what you expect becomes what you think is right. The ever-present veneer of stress that's coated everything from the last year maybe means that low levels of panic are the new normal, but I guess that's up for debate. It's not like it hasn't been a stressful year in my individual life, in its own small way, and it's hard to separate the subjective from the objective, or the shared subjective from the individual subjective. But regardless, we're all worn down, I think, and rightly so. If you're not, you're not paying attention. 

These past few weeks have given us a powerful example of that. If you think our nationwide conversation around sexual assault is telling us something new, you haven't been paying attention. If you think it's an anomaly, you've been living in a different world from everyone else. Those with power have always abused that power, whether it's the physical power to force themselves on someone or the social power to make someone do something they don't want to do and then keep quiet about it. Talking about sexual assault forces us to see vulnerability in myriad forms and confronts us with all the ways in which we have not protected or cared for the vulnerable. 

Advent is a time of repentance, though goodness knows we never think about it like that. It's a time of confronting what we've allowed to become normal, to measure our lives, our communities, our societies against the standards brought to us by the prophets and by Mary and, eventually, by Jesus. We have settled into either presumption or despair, asserting that this is the best we can do or that this is just the way things are, but that is not what the prophets tell us. The prophets scream that this is not normal. This is not the way that things should be. This, our world, our lives, these things are not right. They are not just. They are not love.

And so we must repent. We must turn away from these things that should not be and turn toward the vision of things as they will be. The mighty are sent away empty because they have already received their reward and the vulnerable are cared for and kept safe. The world at war because of pride and conceit will become the world at peace, where weapons are changed in shape from things that end life to things that tend it. The unfixable mess of a world that we have made will be redeemed into the world as it should be, where an end to tears comes not from hardness of heart but from healing. The new normal of the kingdom of heaven will be a beautiful rest compared to the normal built from the turbulent norms we've let accumulate here. 

So this Advent, as 2017 drags us on through its final month, let's seek a new normal. Let's tear down the norms inside of us that we've accepted in our presumption or despair and rebuild our expectations with justice in mind. Let's prepare ourselves for the night when we, with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and all of the least of these gather around a manger and see a normal that we never could have expected: all the unjust powers of this world brought to their knees by a vulnerable little baby asleep in the hay. 

Oh, Jesus. 

Get here soon. 

A Little Self-Confidence

You know, I can change my own oil. I can rotate my tires, check my fluids, change my wiper blades, fix a blown fuse. I can mend my own clothes, sew on a few buttons, patch a couple of holes, hem my dress pants. I’ve changed the locks by myself before. I make a mean casserole. I’ve re-caulked a shower. I’ve done my own taxes for a decade now. My cookies are generally well-received. I am extraordinarily competent.

I’ve got ribbons galore. Swim team, science fair, various academic competitions. Certificates, trophies, graduation caps, all sorts of knick-knacks showing my achievements. I’ve got handwritten notes and pictures and poems telling me how much I’ve meant to people. Postcards, birthday cards, thank you cards, clippings from newspapers I’ve been in. I’ve got boxes of this kind of stuff, stored away in various places because it’s all important, these physical reminders of organizational and individual kindness, gratitude, recognition. I am quite accomplished and very loved.

I have been all sorts of places. Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Berlin. New York, LA, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas. I have friends across the globe and around the nation. I’ve performed in front of tens of thousands of people and have been on national television. I’ve been on a panel with world-renowned theologians. Hundreds of people read what I write. In the span of one conversation, I can talk with you about Milton and quantum mechanics and the Social Trinity. I can explain black holes to a third grader and holiness in speech to a toddler. I can set up a portable planetarium system in twelve minutes. I’m good at what I do.

I’m funny, you know? And charming. And gorgeous. And witty. I’m a fricking delight. I have excellent taste in music and popular culture and books and art. I have a beautiful voice and intelligent eyes and hair that a Disney princess would envy. In summary, I’m brilliant, I’m kind, I’m capable, and I’m cute as hell.

Whew.

Narcissism.

Sometimes it’s good for the soul.

Because, see, I live in a world that will tell me something completely different about myself. Or… maybe not completely different, but different enough to matter. I live in a world that will say to me, “Are you sure you want to travel alone?” or “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t be lifting that!” or “Do you know how hard it is to be a pastor?” I live in a world that has, at best, a complicated relationship with my intelligence and my body and my capabilities.

And I’m lucky.

I have plenty of people who affirm my place in ministry, who are excited about my smarts, who know I can do most things I put my mind to and celebrate that, and who think I'm wonderful for a myriad of reasons. When the world gives sound to the awful voices in my head that say I'm unworthy and unlovable and unloved, I have patient friends and family who remind me that those voices lie. No matter how right they sound, they lie. 

But I need to be able to tell myself that they're lying too. In all humility, I know my worth and my capabilities and my limitations. I do, in fact, have a balanced idea of myself, more or less. But I'm very good at listing off my faults and my "growing edges." I could be better at listing off my strengths. Should be pretty easy to do. I've been carrying mountains for decades now. 

So once more, from the top.

I can change my own oil. I can rotate my tires. I can...

For Christ's Sake

On Sunday morning, we had one of the most powerful All Saints Sunday services that I've ever been a part of. The church was full of people gathered to mourn the losses of the past year and to celebrate lives, long or short, lived well and lived deeply. The bell tolled more than seventy times as the list of names was read and the chancel was aflame with candlelight. The congregation was grieving the loss of both its oldest member (just a few weeks short of her one hundred and third birthday) and its youngest (just a few weeks past his and his twin brother's first birthday) and still, there was an abundance of joy. They lived in the place where hope meant deep strength rather than weakness.

It was beautiful.

It was beautiful and I was going to write about it.

I was going to unpack the service and really dig into the comment one of the parishioners made about it. ("It was heavy this morning, ladies. I know you gotta do it, but...")

I was going to let us sit with this lone empty high chair, which hit me like a sucker punch to the gut as I walked into the fellowship hall, because there should be two of them. This child should not have to grow up without his brother, nor this mother live without her son, but the fact of this emptiness remains and that's why we have Sundays like yesterday.

I was going to be deep and encouraging and I intended to share all of the gifts given to me that morning with all of you.

And then what happened in Sutherland Springs... happened.

Happened again.

How is this happening again?

How are we doing this insane dance again? How was once not enough? Playing like thoughts and prayers are sufficient when what does the Lord require of us but to do justice? Where is this famed mercy that we're supposed to be loving when people are bleeding out on the church floor? What kind of God are we walking with if we continue to allow instruments of murder to be easier to obtain than medical care, when we enable death and curtail life? Our hearts are cracked, every single one of us, with deep chasms that scream for fulfillment, and we pretend like bullets are safe things to have within reach.

God.

I swear.

Is one dead kid not enough? Wasn't twenty? How high does the pile of corpses have to be, exactly? I'd love it if you'd give me a number, just, you know, an upper limit for the number of acceptable gun deaths in a given period of time, because apparently we live in some twisted reality where that number is not zero. I mean, parents of toddlers put covers on all the outlets but it's not like we're outlawing electricity. We're just taking precautions because we decided that one kid dead from electric shock was too many. I don't understand how you can even pretend to be on the side of life when you value access to guns more than the safety of the most vulnerable among us.

So, is it a question of legislation? Or is it a question of enforcement? Training? Equipment? Is the real issue here domestic abuse and toxic masculinity and broken community? Radicalization and terrorism? Fear? Guilt? Greed?

You know, I honestly don't care anymore. It doesn't matter to me which fix we try. I just need to know that we can all see that there's a problem here. I need to know that we all know that this is not what normal should look like, that this is not what good or even fine looks like. I need us to acknowledge that this is not the life that we were freed for.

Dear God, what have we done that we continue to have Sundays like yesterday?

Music

I'm not having much luck processing the past week or so, so instead, let me offer you a Spotify playlist: 

Use it in good health. Do some dancing, do some listening, have a good time. 

Vulnerability

I have been told, recently and frequently, that I need to work on my vulnerability because, as a pastor, people are going to want to see that vulnerability from me. People keep saying to me, "They want to know you're human!"

Really.

They want to know I'm human.

What, this shipwreck of a body isn't enough to convince another person that I'm human? You need to see something more than this frayed hair and these frumpy clothes, these wrinkles and these rolls, the dozens of tiny scars and scrapes and cuts on my skin, in order to know that I'm human? I walk around daily in my vulnerability just like you do, but I don't demand proof of emotion before I see you as human.

And while we're at it, why should I have to join the scores of people I know who have outed themselves as survivors of sexual harassment or assault? For many of us, that just comes with the territory of having a female body. But maybe you want some more disaster tourism of the emotions on your timeline so sure, let me tell you about the time that I got catcalled when I was in a vulnerable state. It got to me so much that I had to write about it so that I could get it out of my head. Is that enough for you to accept that there's a problem? Or do you need something "more real", something that would "actually count"? Because I can go digging back into the pain and panic of another story I don't tell for a reason, if the #metoo isn't enough for you to believe me, but don't expect me to like you on the other side of that. I'm not Jesus. You don't get to dig your finger into my side to see if it still hurts and expect graciousness from me.

I just don't understand what you think I am, if I have to start naming my troubles in order for you to see that I'm human. I'm here, aren't I? Is there any person on this planet that hasn't had a share of sorrow? How do you walk through this life, live in a limited body like this, without trouble visiting your doorstep? Who do you think I am, to have avoided being ravaged by the same deep pain that has seeped into the soil of this world and ruined you in some way too? Do you need to see how my mind hurts? My body? My heart? Do I need to unravel every one of my monsters for you before you can say, Me too? Do I have to show you how a comment can send me into the depths of my fears about myself before I earn the right to have you to sit down across the table from me and call me sister?

Listen, I hear all y'all when you say that I need to open up more, but I'm still kinda puzzled. How do you not see the bandages I've wrapped around my wounds? Sadness seeps into my every smile like a beacon-- how did you not notice that? There are days when I've used every ounce of energy I have left to drag myself to the places that I need to be, where commitment is the only thing propping my shoulders up and Someone Else's kindness is the only thing that can find its way out of my mouth, because goodness knows I have nothing left to give. You're telling me that on those days you don't see how I'm taut like a cello string a turn away from snapping? I'm that good at hiding it?

Well. Coulda fooled me.

Guess that makes me kinda human, huh?

Attention

Our attention is a gift.

Our attention is a gift that we give freely to the things that make us happy, the things that make us feel something: sometimes our friends, sometimes our family, sometimes our relationships, sometimes our jobs, usually our pastimes, varied as they are. Sometimes it is a gift that we give without thinking, usually to the internet. Or dogs. Sometimes it is a gift that we give begrudgingly, usually to a lecture. Or a sermon. Sometimes it is a gift that is given conditionally. Actually, I think that often, it is a gift that is given conditionally.

Because we are finite. We are so small and we live such brief lives. We know this, somewhere in our cores, and so we give the gift of our attention when we have a chance of getting something back. We make our attention transactional. I gave you my attention so now you need to give me something. Give me happiness. Give me validation. Entertain me. Stay with me. Praise me. Love me. Keep me. See me. See me. See me. See me because I saw you.

I think transactional attention is dangerous. I know why we do it, why I do it, but knowing why doesn’t make it any safer. Transactional attention, giving our attention to what can give us attention back, means that we will not willingly give our attention to what most needs our attention. We will not give our attention to the things that make us uncomfortable, or hurt us, or require something precious from us with no hope of repayment. We will not give our attention to the things that need us, especially if those things need us to change. Somewhere along the way, our attention became commodified. Our attention became money. And money cares only for money.

Friends, loves, let’s be different.

Let’s give our attention away.

Let’s give our attention away and let’s be generous with it.

Let’s lavish it on those who need it. Let’s search those people out. Let’s renew it over and over and over again so that when a hurricane hits (and another and another) or an earthquake strikes or a famine devastates or outbreak threatens or a gunman murders, we will be there with our attention and our compassion and all the aid that we can give. We are so limited, but we still have so much to give.

And I know it’s difficult. I know that our stores of charity and kindness have been depleted because the energy that we would use to renew those stores is going to just simply keeping our heads above the water of the confusion and disorganization and dysfunction of American society and politics, the realm of those who are supposed to be our public servants, but we can not let this steal our hope. I know that getting out of bed in the morning carrying the weight of all the tragedy that we should not have to bear is a mighty struggle in and of itself. We were not meant to live like this. It is hard.

But I also know that we must. We are called to. Whatever we need to do, whatever steps we need to take to renew ourselves so that we can pour out our attention on others, we need to do this. I understand that our attention will not suture a gunshot wound or feed a starving child or rebuilt the power grid in Puerto Rico, but our attention will reach those who can do those things, or at least those who can provide the money required for those things to happen. I think that we need to lavish our attention because I do actually believe that people really are good at heart and that if we just pay attention, if we just see, we will be compelled to act out of love for our neighbor and we have so many neighbors.

Your attention is a gift.

Give it.

http://www.umcor.org/umcor/resources/news-stories/2017/september/5-things-you-can-do

https://hispanicfederation.org/unidos/

http://www.americasblood.org/where-to-donate.aspx

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-donate-mexico-earthquake-relief-20170920-htmlstory.html

https://www.rescue.org/