Simplicity, Authority, Race, and Justice

This is the transcript of the sermon I preached on Sunday, December 7. Take a look at the scripture reading here.

We're exploring having a "simple Christmas." Simplicity is often about saying no - not allowing Christmas to be about stuff or about doing all the things or about being overwhelmed. Simplicity is often about what we reject, and we thought about that last week.

But much more importantly, simplicity is about how we say "yes." It's about saying "yes" to the right thing.

Both Mary and Elizabeth said "yes" - even though it was very risky for both of them. But living in simplicity makes it easier to take a risk, because living in simplicity is putting just one thing first. In simplicity, we don't have to try to balance spending time with family, and giving, and being financially responsible, and choosing healthy amounts of sleep and rest, and worshiping God and going to work and keeping the house clean. We don't have to try to balance, because we're putting just one thing first. For Mary, it was being the servant of the Lord. For Elizabeth, it was being filled with the Holy Spirit. Both followed their one job, even to the point of great risk.

Mary, when she said "yes" to the angel, to God, Mary risked estrangement from her family and her community. Choosing to have a child outside of marriage would have been very serious and risky. But she could do that, because she knew that her job - her one job - was to be the servant of the Lord. Her job was not to make her family happy, or to fit in with her community, or not to disappoint anyone, or to be a good fiancee for Joseph. Her job was to be the servant of the Lord. So when the Lord asked something of her, she didn't have to balance all that other stuff. She could simply say yes to her one job, even when it meant risking real loss and difficulty.

Elizabeth also risked estrangement from her family and her community by following the Holy Spirit's prompting and blessing Mary. Blessing a woman who was having a child outside of marriage, standing with her and accepting her, would have been very serious and risky. But Elizabeth could do that, because she knew that her job - her one job - was to follow the Holy Spirit that filled her. Like Mary, her job was not to make her family happy, or to fit in with her community, or to avoid disappointing anyone. Her job was to follow the Holy Spirit within her. So when the Holy Spirit within her whispered, "Bless this woman," Elizabeth blurted out with a loud voice, "God has blessed you above all women!"

That's a big deal. Think of the scariest things you have said, the times when you stood up for something that was good and right, even when it terrified you that it would break a relationship - or maybe it did break a relationship. How much easier it is to just be silent! How much easier it would have been for Mary to say no. Or for Elizabeth to say no to the Holy Spirit and refuse to welcome Mary into her home. How much easier it is to not take that risk!

But that's living in duplicity, not simplicity. That's dividing our loyalty between many things, rather than giving our undivided loyalty to the only one who will never abuse it, the only one who will never ask of us things we cannot or should not do, the only one who has the capacity to seek the best interest of all those around us and ourselves too.

When we live in simplicity, when all our loyalty is pointing only to the God of love, when our one job is to be the servant of the Lord as Mary was, or to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit as Elizabeth did, when we live in simplicity, then we can say "yes" even when it's risky. Because we know we only have one job, and we know it's the most important, most love-centered, the best job we could possibly have. It makes it easier to take those risks - we don't have to balance all the things. We just have to follow the God of love.

So I invite you to consider how God is inviting you to say "yes," even when it's risky. How are you called to throw balance to the wind and give yourself wholly and simply to being the servant of the Lord, to following the prompting of the Holy Spirit?

And as I invite you to consider saying "yes" to God even when it's risky, that's what I'm going to do now. I'll never ask you to do something I'm not willing to do myself. In the spirit of standing with those who are vulnerable as Elizabeth stood with Mary, in the spirit of simply following God no matter the cost, I need to speak today about Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice. The Holy Spirit has made it clear that that is my job today. So here goes: this is me saying "yes" to God with Elizabeth and Mary, speaking, as they did, the words the Holy Spirit has put in my heart, whatever the risk.

My heart is broken this week.

My heart was broken last week, when the Grand Jury in Ferguson chose not to indict a police officer for killing Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Yes, there are ambiguities in that case, there is some evidence that it was an instance of self-defense; there is also some evidence that it was not, but - hopefully - that's what would have been decided at a trial. But with this decision by the Grand Jury, there will be no trial. Just to be clear here - there has been no trial and there will be no trial. The Grand Jury is the group that decides whether there will be a trial or not - they're not meant to be the ones to hear all the evidence and make a final decision. And in this case, they decided not to have a trial. Which is hard to understand given the public ambiguities of the case, that's the point of a trial, to decide what is true, and we didn't get that chance. But I wasn't in the courtroom. I'll give the benefit of the doubt to those who were.

But then this week happened. This week another Grand Jury decided not to indict another police officer for killing another black man, Eric Garner. This time it's on video. I can't even watch the video all the way through because it's horrifying. It's wrong. But again, there will be no trial.

And then, this week, I learned about the death of Tamir Rice, which happened a few weeks ago. Tamir Rice was a twelve-year-old black boy who was messing around with a toy airsoft gun in a parking lot. Someone called it in to the police, saying that it was probably a toy. The police car got there, stopped, and literally within two seconds, an officer had fired two shots at him, hitting him once. He died a day later. He had two seconds. Again, on video. I hope, I hope there will be a trial.

This is not to say that any of these people were totally innocent; of course they weren't, nobody is. But that's a long way from saying they deserved what they got. It's a long way from saying nobody should be held accountable for these deaths.

Talking about this today is scary for me. It's uncomfortable, because I don't know what you all think about this, and it seems to be a place of great division in our country. It's risky also because I know I don't have the perfect thing to say - I'm still figuring out what I think and feel about all of this, and what I say today is not going to be perfect, it's going to be filled with my heartbreak and anger and fear; I pray that it doesn't come across as attacking, that it's helpful even in its imperfection. Talking about this today is risky because I know my own ignorance - I want to have certainty about what happened so I can make a certain judgment, and that's just never going to happen; I want to have certainty about whether our justice system is racially prejudiced, and there is no statistic that can honestly tell me that, because statistics measure human things with human bias and human error, and they're interpreted by people, many of whom are trying to push a particular agenda. This is risky for me because it means being honest about the racism that lives in me - as much as I don't want it to be in me, as much as I continue to work to change that, it's real, and if I'm going to talk about this with any integrity I have to admit that it's real. So this is a risky, scary subject for me. It would be easier to talk about other things, to say "no" to this call from God.

But I'm trying to live in simplicity. I'm trying to remember that I have one job: to be a servant of the Lord. To follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. My job is not to stand here and only say things that you will agree with. My job is not to try to balance all the different opinions that might be in this room. My job is not to say the perfect thing, or to know everything, or to make a judgment about any of these cases or about our justice system.

My job is to say with Mary, "I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me as you have said." To speak out with Elizabeth in blessing of someone who is vulnerable.

As a friend of mine said: I will not allow the fear of saying the wrong thing cause me to say nothing.

So this is what I need to say, what God has put in my heart to say.

In the footsteps of the Magnificat, which says that God has "scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations," God has "pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly," - in that spirit, let's talk for a moment about power and accountability.

It has got to be so hard to be a police officer. I have so much respect for those who choose that career. It has to be very, very hard to have to make life and death decisions in seconds. It must be very difficult to have that kind of power and responsibility.

And that's why we have to have greater accountability. Accountability is absolutely crucial for those in power. We've seen how power can be abused and then covered up when there's not enough accountability, when there's no consequence for abusing power, when there are people above or outside of the law.

We've seen what happens when there's no accountability. We saw it when the Catholic Church covered up sexual abuse rather than holding priests - those in authority - accountable. We've seen it in the failure of financial oversight and ethics that contributed significantly to the global financial crisis of 2008 - a crisis that we are still recovering from - the global economy was decimated because of a failure of accountability. When we don't have accountability, people get really, really hurt.

Power is hard to deal with. The saying is, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Sir John Dalberg-Acton). There will always be people in power. And they will always need to be held accountable, for their own good - for everyone's good.

That's why I have an accountability group of other pastors. That's why our church has a Safe Sanctuary policy that includes specific limits and protections for me, as a person in authority here, and for other adults in the presence of children, youth, and others who are more vulnerable. That's why in politics, we publicly elect leaders and officials - so that we can then hold those in authority accountable. That's why we have a free press - the purpose of that is to keep those in power accountable to the public.

That's why professions like doctors, psychiatrists, and lawyers have professional associations and licensing boards that have very high standards of accountability. In many of these professions, even the appearance of impropriety is enough to merit consequences, because it breaks trust, it causes everyone to lose confidence, so people end up not trusting any priests, or any psychiatrists, because one did something that was questionable. That's why even the appearance of impropriety by those in power actually causes harm - because it breaks people's trust.

Accountability is crucial. It's crucial in order to protect all of us - not just to protect us from abuse, but also to protect us from committing abuse. Because power does corrupt, and we need help to maintain the ethical standards that we wanted to uphold when we became pastors, priests, politicians, judges, and doctors. I really believe that most folks who have these positions of authority sought them out in order to make a positive difference. And in order to keep on that track, we need people to hold us accountable, to tell us when we have stepped over the line into abusing that power, to help us know when power is beginning to have a corrupting influence. Because it does. It does. And none of us want that.

I have so much respect and gratitude for those who are called to law enforcement. I believe that police can make a huge difference in the safety and well-being of a community. I believe people enter law enforcement professions in order to make a positive difference.

And wow, that is a lot of power.

In many cases, it is literally the power of life and death.

The more power, the greater degree of accountability is needed to prevent abuse. I appreciate that these police officers are being held professionally accountable (Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, has resigned; Daniel Pantaleo, who restrained Eric Garner, has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty). But when we're talking about the power of life and death, professional accountability is just not enough. The criminal justice system has to come into play.

And that's why I think it's wrong that these two Grand Juries decided that these two officers didn't need to go to trial. That's why I think it's wrong that when criminologists try to research homicides committed by on-duty law enforcement officers, often called justifiable homicides, there's not enough data. These homicides are not consistently reported. There's some data, but it's given on a voluntary basis, department by department, which means it's definitely incomplete.

By the way, the data that there is shows this: young black men are 21 times more likely than young white men to be killed in the course of arrest. The data that there is shows that in cases where there are fewer indicators that the situation was already violent - in other words, the cases where it's less clear that the person being arrested was acting threateningly or violently - in those cases, where the use of force is more questionable, it's even more likely that the person who was killed is black.

This is based on incomplete data, on some departments choosing not to report - but that's not a reason to throw out the statistic, it's a reason that we have to have more information. We cannot hold our brothers and sisters accountable if we don't have more reliable, and fuller, information about what is actually happening.

Many folks believe that it's okay that there was no trial in these two cases, because they went through the system just like any other case. It's true that they went through the system. It's also true that 200 years ago, white people who killed black slaves and went through the system - they wouldn't have been indicted either, because it wasn't a crime. 130 years ago, men who beat their wives wouldn't have been indicted either - because it wasn't a crime. Let's not forget that our God knew firsthand that a perfect criminal justice system is a myth. Let's not forget that Jesus was found not guilty and then sentenced to death anyway, and it was totally legal. But it wasn't just. It wasn't right.

Perhaps these police officers were, in fact, not guilty of crimes as the laws are currently written, but that does not mean this was right. That means we need to get busy re-writing some laws. Or at least we need to think about it. Please, let's at least not have the arrogance to assume that our justice system has perfected what centuries of human societies have never done perfectly.

And finally, I need to say something about race. A Pew Research Center poll asked folks to choose between two statements: Michael Brown's death "raises important issues about race that need to be discussed," or "the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves." Only 37% of white Americans chose the first statement, that it "raises important issues about race that need to be discussed." But black Americans overwhelmingly chose that first statement - in fact, 80% of black Americans said Michael Brown's death "raises important issues about race that need to be discussed." Eighty percent of black Americans think this is important and that it has something to do with race.

I haven't faced discrimination or felt endangered because of my race. I have faced discrimination and felt endangered because of my gender, and because of my age, in very real, very obvious ways. I have had others who didn't experience it, who tried to tell me it was nothing, it wasn't real, it wasn't intentional, it wasn't sexism, it wasn't ageism. It was.* And so I'd ask that before we make any assumption that this has nothing to do with racism, we listen. Listen to the stories. Listen to the stories of our black brothers and sisters teaching their kids not to run when they're going down the street, especially not to run with anything in their hands, because of the real fear that someone will think they stole something and they will be arrested - or worse.

We don't want to believe racism is real. I don't want to believe it. That's not a bad thing to want - I think that comes from a real and good desire in us to give the benefit of the doubt, to assume good intent. But please, let's give the benefit of the doubt not just to white folks saying it's not racism, but also to the black stories that say it is. As much as we assume good intent on the part of the police officers involved, let's also assume good intent on the part of Michael Brown, on the part of Eric Garner (who witnesses say was breaking up a fight when his interaction with the police began). Let's assume good intent on the part of Tamir Rice, who was messing around with a toy - maybe a toy that your children or grandchildren will be getting for Christmas.

Let's listen to these stories. And let's admit that this listening is hard to do in Battle Ground, which is over 87% white, which is a suburb of Portland, the whitest major city in the country. And please, let's not say, "My black friend says Ferguson isn't a big deal." Because 80% of black Americans say it is.

On this day when we're trying to simplify, when we're trying to say "Yes" to only one thing, "Yes" to being the servants of God, no matter the risk, on this day when we remember two mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, whose sons would both grow up to be troublemakers and to be killed for it, completely within the law, I'd like to finish with this from Jesuit priest Father James Martin. It's a little bit long, but it's worth it.

You can support our country's police officers, as I do. I know a few police officers personally (as well as a former police officer) and I deeply admire them for putting their lives on the lines every day, something that I do not do. (Remember the police officers who sacrificed their lives, or who were ready to sacrifice their lives, on 9/11.) You can believe that the vast majority of law-enforcement officials are trying to do their best in often extremely complicated situations. I see that almost every day in the streets and subways of New York City. You can appreciate the sometimes nearly impossible challenges of dealing with the volatile and dangerous people they must encounter. I see that too almost every day in New York. And you can understand that many of their decisions must be made in a split second, under the kind of pressure that few of us will ever know.

You can think all those things and still be appalled by the death of Eric Garner, who died after being subdued by police officers on Staten Island. His fatal confrontation with police was captured on video and has been widely viewed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ka4oKu1jo

At the beginning of the video, Mr. Garner seems belligerent. On the other hand, he had, according to witnesses, just broken up a fight on the street, so perhaps he was still tense as a result. He was also under suspicion for selling "loosies," loose cigarettes, which is illegal. But Mr. Garner was also unarmed, and the chokehold or "vascular neck restraint" (or whatever one calls the maneuver shown in the video) and other subduing techniques used by the police led to his death. "The compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," read the coroner's cause of death. (The practice of using chokeholds is banned by the NYPD.)

As the video clearly shows, Mr. Garner, prone on the sidewalk, gasping for breath, chokes out the words, over and over, and calmly: "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe." And then he dies. I am not embarrassed to say that the video moved me to tears. The fear in his voice is overwhelming.

You can admire police officers and still admit that they made a tragic mistake. You can support the justice system and still feel that justice has not been done. You can uphold the rule of law and still feel that the law is not being applied justly.

And if Mr. Garner had indeed just broken up a fight -- being a peacemaker, as Jesus called us to be -- then it is an even more brutal tragedy.

I'm not a police officer, so I don't know what that life is like. I'm not an African-American, so I don't know what that life is like either.

But when a man says, "I can't breathe," you should let him breathe. And if he dies after saying it, then you should have let him breathe.

Fr. James Martin, SJ

So that's what God has called me to say today. It's imperfect, it's not complete, it's risky. But that was me saying "yes" to God anyway.

This Christmas, as we're with family, as we're with friends, as we're online, as we're at church, may we remember that we have only one job - to be the servants of the Lord, as Mary was. And may we do that job with abandon, at all costs, at any risk. And like Elizabeth, may we not be silent when the Holy Spirit prompts us to speak.

Amen.

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*For instance, I recently met someone who said I looked like I was twelve years old, and she was surprised that "they gave that girl a church." When I told her that hearing things like that is not a positive experience for me, she said that when I'm older I'll appreciate everyone thinking I'm young. That's usually the response I get when I let people know that their assumptions about my age are not compliments and not helpful to the work God has called me to.

Christmas Carols During Advent?

I recently saw this picture on Facebook, from a pastor I love and respect. But my feelings are exactly the opposite. Here are my thoughts on the subject.

Advent is a part of the Christian year leading up to Christmas. It starts four Sundays before Christmas, and goes through Christmas Eve. It’s a time of preparation for God’s arrival on Christmas. It's a time of waiting and longing for God to come again, and again, and again, transforming the world.

In the worldwide calendar of Christianity, the season of Christmas doesn't begin until Christmas Day (or Christmas Eve). Christmas continues for twelve days (the origin of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song), and ends with a holiday called Epiphany, which celebrates the magi coming from the east to worship Jesus.

There is great value to that calendar. It says "no" to the over-commercialization and over-busy and over-the-top Christmas all the time culture. (It is the height of irony that the very day after we celebrate gratitude, we run to the stores to buy more stuff. And sometimes not even the day after.) Our culture often misses the point of Christmas, and that's at least in part because we've missed Advent. We don't know what it is to wait for God, to long with all our hearts for a different world. There is great value in Advent.

However, in our current culture, using that calendar misses some important things about Advent and Christmas. For one thing, it means singing Christmas Carols only from December 25 until January 6 – a period where there’s only one or two Sundays, and many people are out of town seeing family. That would mean that some folks don’t get to sing Christmas carols at all – even though many Christmas carols are deeply beloved and meaningful. And it's not just Christmas carols - we barely get to celebrate Christmas at all! Twelve days of Christmas, beginning on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, makes sense in a culture where you have a worship service on each of those days (or at least three or four of them), where you're actually celebrating Christmas for twelve days. But that's not what many of our churches do - and they can't, because as it turns out in our culture, those are the days that kids have off from school, so they're the days when families go out of town to see each other, and (let's be honest) when pastors (including me) are on vacation, and when, frankly, we're more than a little tired of Christmas, having seen it everywhere for a couple of months already.

That's the key thing for me when we focus too much on Advent:

We are missing Christmas.

Advent is important. But it is not as important as Christmas.

Here's my solution:

As a culture we are actually preparing for Christmas much earlier than Advent. That doesn’t always have a spiritual aspect, but it certainly can. The church calendar was never written into stone. It's not Biblically mandated. It ties us together around the world, which is good and worthy, but let me say again:

We are missing Christmas.

What if we shift the Christian calendar a bit?

I use the last two or three Sundays before Advent to emphasize the waiting and longing for a better world that are usually emphasized early in Advent. Then in Advent, the first couple of weeks are about preparing our hearts for Christmas – which includes singing Christmas carols. We’ll start really getting into the celebrating on December 21 with our Spontaneous Christmas Pageant. My hope is that this matches more readily with our current experiences of Advent and Christmas, while still holding the deeply meaningful parts of both.

Here's another article with more reasons for singing Christmas carols during Advent.

Happy Thanksgiving! Blessed Advent! And, soon, Merry Christmas!

Prayers to Try Out

This week in Lent, our church is exploring the practice of prayer. We Christians often set rules around prayer - what we can and can't say or do, what kind of attitude is appropriate - even the lack of rules can become a rule, and we can start to fear structure or routine in our prayers. But in truth, anytime we are being real with God, that is prayer.

For many of us (like me!), that means that we need lots of reminders to be real with God. After all, as much as I want to be real with God, and as much as I know that it's been good every time I've done it before, it's also scary. Because there are parts of me that are selfish, dishonest - there are parts of me that I don't want to expose. And on the other side, there are things that God might say to me that I really don't want to hear, because I like life easy. (This foolishness is truly an everyday part of my life. I need so much help praying that I "pray the hours," getting a reminder seven times a day to pray. All this in spite of what experience has told me - that prayer is one of the best joys of life.)

So here are some types of prayers to try - things to help you be real with God. If you try one and it doesn't help you be real with God, go to a different one. God comes to us in ways we don't expect - I've noticed that the methods of which I am most skeptical have often been the most meaningful.

Prayers to Try

Pray with music – listen to music, sing, play an instrument, with God.

Pray with motion – on a walk or in other exercise, let the motion of your body invite you into a deeper place of connection with God. Dancing can be particularly fun and meaningful (and it's okay if you don't know how to dance).

Pray in nature – notice the particular sights, sounds, smells, and feels of nature as God’s expression.

Pray with poetry – read or write poetry as a time of prayer. Mary Oliver is a great poet to check out; I especially like the poem Wild Geese, which you can find here.

Pray with humor – tell jokes with God, watch for God’s humor in your life.

Pray in silence – spend at least 5 minutes in silence, focusing on one word, and let yourself be loved by God. Check out centeringprayer.com.

Pray with your body – create body motions to the words of a familiar Bible verse or song. I like to use "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Or, a good song is Sanctuary.

Pray with doodles – write someone or something you’d like to pray for, then doodle around it; or write a name for God, and doodle around it, spending the time in prayer. Check out prayingincolor.com.

Pray with a partner - one person shares what they'd like to pray for, and the other person prays for them; then switch.

Pray the hours - using a prayer book, pray specific prayers at specific times of day. Go here for more information and resources.

Pray with a labyrinth – using a finger labyrinth or a walking labyrinth, spend time with God. You can download a finger labyrinth to print here or find a local walking labyrinth here (make sure you call ahead before you go).

Pray in the style of Taize - on the first Sunday of each month, our church offers a Taize-style evening worship service of prayer, song, and silence. Go here for more information.

I often find that current Christian thinking puts down intentional structure, timing, or repeated words in prayers. Personally, I have found these to be very meaningful and helpful, stretching me and inviting me deeper into prayer. If they're not helpful for you, don't use them - but I do encourage you to try them first.

Blessings to you as you are real with God in prayer!

Question and Response

This past Sunday, we had a Question and Response time. Please remember that I don't have all the answers! Here are the questions and responses.

What is sin and how does it affect us?

One of the best ways I know to respond to this is from St. Augustine. To help us understand Augustine's ideas, I want you to imagine a fish.

"Something's not right here, Fred. Do you have a tingling feeling?"

Fish are designed to do certain things: swim, eat bugs, lay eggs, live in particular kinds of water, and so on. When fish do these things they're designed for, they live their little fishy lives well.

Just like fish are designed to do particular things, Augustine says that humans are designed to do particular things. We are designed to have the things that we love in a particular order. We're designed to love God above all. And then somewhere in the middle, to love human beings: our neighbors and ourselves. And then third, way down at the bottom, comes everything else. When we have our loves in that order, we're like fish doing what fish are designed to do: we live our lives and it's all good.

But pretty often we put the things we love out of order: we love material things, or power, or status, or work, or learning, or play, more than we love people. Or we love people - ourselves or someone else - more than we love God. And when we put our loves out of order, we're not working the way we are designed to work.

It's like trying to use a fish as a microwave oven. It's just going to end badly.

That's sin: having our loves out of order.

For example: If I love status more than I love people, then when I make a mistake, I'm going to try to hide it - I'm going to lie about it. That might work in the short run, but it's going to hurt everyone in the long run.

Loving humans more than God is a little trickier, because we're supposed to love people, right? How can we love people too much?

Let's take an example. I love Erik, my husband, very much. But if I were to love him as God, then I would need him to be available to receive my love and attention all the time. It would be pretty disappointing for me when he, you know, went to work, or paid attention to other people. Because Erik's not God, and Erik doesn't have it in him to live his own life and to be God for me.

It would begin to be very obvious that he's not God, and that would be devastating for me. So then I might try to pretend I didn't notice. I might build up this idea of Erik that's actually very different from who he really is, so that I don't have to face the fact that he's not God. And now, you see, I've stopped loving Erik. Now I love this idea that I've created.

Or maybe if I love Erik as God, then I'm willing to do whatever I think is necessary to help and protect him, even at the cost of hurting other people. Again, not loving people, not loving God, and people are getting hurt.

That top-tier love that ought to be reserved for God - it's just too much for humans to receive. And if we give it to humans instead of God, whether to ourselves or someone else, then people get hurt.

That's why it's a sin to have our loves out of order. It's not an arbitrary line. It's because people get hurt when we put our loves out of order. It's trying to use a fish as a microwave oven. It's just going to end badly.

For any particular action, then, the question to ask is: Who am I loving above all with this action? Is it God? Not sin. Is is anybody or anything else? Sin.

Angels: What function do they play? Where do they come from? Who created them and why? What references to angels are in the Bible? Where do the names of angels come from?

The word "angel" means "messenger." This is the primary role that angels play in the Bible. They are messengers from God to humans. For instance, angels tell Abraham and Sarah they're going to have a child, angels come to the prophet Elijah in the desert, and an angel comes to both Mary and Joseph to tell them about Jesus. In addition to being messengers, angels in the Bible also praise God, and sometimes they protect certain groups of people.

An interesting connection here is with cherubim. We think of cherubs - the cute, fat little children with wings. But cherubim in the Bible actually have nothing at all to do with angels. They're completely separate. Cherubim in the Bible have wings, and they're usually made up of a bunch of different animals, all put together - like a lion and an eagle, smashed together.

Don't let those sweet faces fool you.

The clouds are hiding lizard/shark/camel bodies.

Cherubim in the Bible protect holy things and travel with God.

What's interesting here is that in the Bible, there are no angels described as having wings. In fact, angels aren't really described in any detail. The idea that they have wings - that comes from the cherubim, not from Biblical angels at all.

Where do angels come from, who created them, and why? In the Bible, it's fairly easy to see a progression from God being directly present in people's lives (God is WALKING AROUND in the Garden of Eden) to God being a little more distant. As that progression happens, angels come into place to bridge the gap between God and humanity. They are created by God to be intermediaries (messengers), and to praise God and protect particular groups of people.

There are two named angels in the Bible: Michael and Gabriel (see Daniel 8-12). Michael is the protector of Israel. Gabriel is a messenger - in fact, he brings the messages to both Mary and Joseph.

Other names for angels come from later Jewish traditions, especially mystical (highly spiritual) traditions, and especially from the time in between the Old Testament and the New Testament. There are references to angels in the book of Tobit, which is not in Protestant Bibles, but it is in the Bibles of some other churches, like the Catholic church. There are also references in the book of Enoch, which is in almost nobody's Bible. It's a mystical Jewish writing from that time between the Testaments. These extra-Biblical writings are where many of the names of angels come from.

There is no United Methodist doctrine or stated belief about angels, the devil, or demons. Many United Methodists believe in them. Many don't.

I think that if we understand angels as messengers, then something really important happens: Anyone can be an angel. We are all potentially angels - if we speak God's words. It also means we've got to listen to each other, because anyone around us could potentially be an angel: a messenger of God.

Where in the Bible does it deal with Lucifer being cast out of heaven?

In Isaiah chapter 14, there's a long, long taunt against the king of Babylon.

"Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

It says the king of Babylon has set himself, basically, as a god, as a part of the heavens, like a star. But the real God is going to nip that right in the bud.

So it says, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!"

Now, the Bible is very, very clear that this is directed at the king of Babylon. If you read only Isaiah, you would have no idea that this might be talking about some sort of devil. But these things often have layers of meaning, so it's certainly possible that it's a statement both against the king of Babylon and against the devil.

Keep this Isaiah passage in mind, because we'll come back to it in a minute.

Next, we need to look at the book of Enoch, that Jewish mystical text that's not in the Bible. This is where we find the clearest account of the devil falling from heaven. Most of our ideas about what that looked like come from the (non-Biblical) book of Enoch, and they're enhanced by much, much later (non-Biblical) writings like Dante's Inferno and John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Remember, the book of Enoch was probably written in between the Testaments, and it looks like at least part of Enoch had a significant influence how people thought when they were putting together the New Testament and in the early church. The idea of the devil falling from heaven is echoed a couple of times in the New Testament.

In Luke 10:18, Jesus says, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning." Then in Revelation 12, there's a description of a war between Michael and his angels on one side (Michael is the angel protector of Israel), and "the dragon" and his angels (read: demons) on the other side. It says, "The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world."

So there are three Biblical mentions: Isaiah, one sentence from Jesus, and this image from Revelation.

Let's go back to Isaiah, because this is where the name "Lucifer" comes from.

Long before English was a thing, the original Hebrew text of Isaiah was translated into Latin.

The Bible wasn't written in English. You're thinking of The Lord of the Rings.

In Latin, there's a word - just a word - that means "day star" or "morning star." The word is lucifer. Small "l."

Later, people had the story from Enoch in mind of the devil falling from heaven. They saw the echoes of that story in Luke 10:18 and in Revelation. And they saw it echoed way back in Isaiah, too. They figured that must be talking about the devil as well. That's when "Lucifer" began to be known as a proper name for the devil, rather just a word for a star.

Who was the heavenly group that Satan was part of - the "heavenly beings" in Job 1:6? Where did they come from?

In the book of Job, there's a scene described like this: "One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them."

So we have these heavenly beings - which could also be translated as "sons of God." And Satan, it says, was among them.

"Satan" here is a very bad translation. We think of "Satan" as a proper name, as the devil, the personification of evil. But that idea did not exist when the book of Job was first written and read.

The Hebrew word here is ha-satan. You see the word "satan" in there. But the "ha" at the beginning means "the." "The satan." We would never say that with a proper name. We wouldn't say "The Rachon," for instance. A much better translation here would actually translate the word ha-satan instead of using it as a name. Translated, it means "the accuser."

So: "One day the heavenly beings [or sons of God] came to present themselves before the LORD, and the accuser also came among them."

To picture this, imagine a modern-day courtroom. There's a judge - that's God. There's a prosecuting attorney, who brings charges against people. That's the accuser. And there are other people too, who have other roles: a defending attorney, a bailiff, and so on. Those are the "heavenly beings."

"Your Honor, why are there no women in this courtroom?

And why are those guys in front of you reading and knitting?"

Keep the modern courtroom image, and add in an image of a royal court. There's a king or queen - that's God. There's some sort of police force that goes around and keeps an eye on the people - that's the accuser. And there are other people too, knights and such, that are the heavenly beings.

This picture has actually happened one other time in the Bible. In 1 Kings 22, the king of the time is Ahab. He's a bad guy. Ahab wanted to go into battle, and his pet prophets - the ones he paid to tell him he was awesome - told him that he would win the battle.

But then a real prophet, Micaiah, came to the king and described this scene: God was sitting on a throne, Micaiah said, and all the host of heaven was standing around. Just like the heavenly beings from Job. God asked for a volunteer - one of the heavenly beings needed to go trick King Ahab into going into battle. So one of them volunteered, and that's why Ahab's prophets thought he'd be okay. It was a trick from God to get him to go into battle and be killed.

By the way, it's stuff like this that got the prophets killed.

Nobody tells the king he's a fool.

So the picture of the heavenly court from Job echoes this picture from 1 Kings. But there's an even earlier mention of the "sons of God" - back in Genesis 6, they actually get married to human women and have children. Awkward.

These images of "sons of God" or "heavenly beings" are the forerunners of the images of angels that we have today. They're intermediaries between God and humanity. Because God is just so cool that we can't even handle it.

What does Job teach us nowadays?

Something to keep in mind in thinking about the book of Job is that it presents itself as a sort of parable. It opens with "There was once a man in the land of Uz named Job." This is something like our formula of "Once upon a time." When we hear "Once upon a time," we automatically know some things about the story that's coming. We know that the story is probably not factually accurate. But that doesn't mean it's not worth hearing. We also know that there's a good chance that the story has some moral or spiritual truth to it, even though it's not factually accurate. And this is how Job presents itself.

The story of Job, as we've seen, begins with a heavenly court. The accuser comes in, and God says, "Hey, have you seen Job? Boy, that guy's faithful!" The accuser says, "Well, sure, he's faithful. He's had pretty smooth sailing. Who wouldn't be faithful? But if you messed around with him a bit, I bet he'd turn away from you." So God gives the accuser permission to destroy Job's family, his property, and his body, as long as Job survives.

Once Job's life has been torn apart, his friends come to visit. For a while, they're silent, which is good. But then they open their mouths and things get ugly. They say, "Job, you must have done something to deserve all this tragedy. Because God is fair."

Job argues and says that he didn't deserve it, which, of course, he didn't. After a while Job gets angry with God for being so unfair. Finally, God comes into the picture and basically says, "Job, who do you think you are?" and then leaves, which is very unsatisfying.

But then at the end of the story, God does scold the friends. Remember, they've been saying that God is fair, but God says they're wrong. The story ends with God giving Job a new family and property and everything (on the assumption, I suppose, that this makes everything okay).

So what does it teach us? In a big way, the book of Job is a response to the book of Proverbs, which basically holds to the idea that if you do what's right, then good things will happen to you. And if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.

So imagine living in a world where, if you got sick, or the animals you were raising got sick, or something happened to your family, then everyone around - including you - would blame it on you. You must have done something wrong.

That's how the world was when the book of Job came into play. People believed that God is fair, so you get what you deserve. It's a really tempting thing to believe, because then if we're just good enough, nothing bad will ever happen to us. But the book of Job emphatically says that we don't get what we deserve.

Today, we've sort of toned down the idea of blaming people for tragedies. But we haven't gotten rid of it. As an example, there's a part of us that believes that if you're poor, it's because you don't work hard or you made bad choices. And if you do have enough, then it's because you do work hard or you made good choices. We often don't bother to find out how hard people actually work or what choices were actually available to them.

To me, the book of Job says that life is not fair. It's just not. So when I'm blaming people for their circumstances, I need to take a second look.

Why does God seem so different - jealous, petty, and angry sometimes, but also a God of love?

The best way to answer this question is to start with a human being.

Let's imagine that we're all going to sit down together and write a biography of our friend Wayne. (Internet people, you may not know Wayne. Imagine someone else.)

So we go around and tell stories about Wayne. My guess is that there would be some overlap, but there would also be a lot of different stories. And we all know only one slice of Wayne. People he worked with would have other stories. Other friends would have other stories. Family members would have other stories. The truth is, even if you feel like you know Wayne, there's a huge amount that you don't know.

And if we put Wayne aside for a moment, and think about the person closest to you, someone you feel like you know really well - even that person can surprise you.

Because human beings are so, so complex. We can take a lifetime trying to get to know just one person, and we can still be surprised.

And if human beings are that complex, how much more complex is God! The Bible has many different voices and perspectives on God for a reason. Imagine if we tried to boil Wayne down to one word, or concept, or story, or even one person's understanding of Wayne. That would be so incomplete! And Wayne's just Wayne, he's not God.

Our picture of God would be so incomplete if it was simple.

Now, there is a core of identity. There are things about Wayne that would show up over and over. And God has a core of identity, too. From what I see in the Bible, and in the wisdom of faithful people since the Bible, that core of identity, that primary characteristic of God - it's love. Love, love, love. It's all over the place.

But! How humans have understood love has changed over time. In a world where dissent or disobedience could put an entire community in danger - in a world where villages were constantly in real, physical danger from bandits and armies and nature and everything else - I think a loving God might have some anger, some judgment. A loving God would keep the community together, united, which means that God might be jealous.

And that's not the only world in which a God who gets angry makes sense. For many victims of abuse or rape, a God who is all rainbows and sunshine and no judgment or accountability - that does not seem like a loving God. Which is not to say there's not forgiveness - there is. But forgiveness is meaningless without judgment.

So ultimately, as we think about God, the best way to approach it is through love. God seems strange in places in the Bible. So let's ask ourselves, How might this seem loving in different circumstances? Or to different people? We won't always get it.

But I'm so, so thankful for the many different voices and perspectives on our one huge, complex, fantastic God.

Do you have other questions? Send them to me or post them below!

No, I didn't draw these pictures.

Every year I write a letter that looks back over the past year and looks forward to what's coming next. This is the letter this year. If you only have time to read part of it, I encourage you to skip down to the pictures and look at that part (the "what's coming next" part). God bless us all, and Merry Christmas!

My Dear Friends,

Being with you for the past year at Milton United Methodist Church has been a real joy for me. I believe that our congregation is truly living out of God’s vision for us. Through the ministries here, we are providing opportunities for folks in our community to know and love God, and to love each other.

One of the things at the core of our church’s identity is the idea that everyone is welcome at God’s table, even if we disagree or don’t understand each other. Folks at Milton UMC take this seriously and show very real hospitality, and I am tremendously thankful to be a part of this church’s witness to God’s welcoming arms!

One way we saw this welcome coming to life this year was with our Blessing Bag service project in February – a project that saw roughly equal parts participation from our church community and from the wider Milton community. Welcoming folks to God’s table continued during Lent and Easter, with meaningful services for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and our first ever Easter pageant. Another first this year was Milton UMC’s participation in Relay for Life. We participated to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and heal the sick, and again, we saw a very large group of folks from the wider Milton community joining our Relay for Life team.

This year, we continued the tradition we started last year of participating in Milton Days. We are becoming known as the church that provides free face painting and brain-teasers. This year, we expanded by having our worship service in the park on the Sunday of Milton Days. It was small (this year), but as I walked around the booths later in the day, several people working the booths wanted to thank us for providing the service. They had been setting up their booths during the service, so we didn’t see them, but they were worshipping along with us!

There were other welcoming moments, as well: for instance, we had our second annual Halloween party. Our children’s Sunday School group began having regular outings as the Second Sunday Society. Our special music group began – The Spice Girls and the Three Wise Guys. Right now, the kids are preparing a very special Christmas pageant. The pageants and kids’ events have been a great way for all of us to invite our friends and families to experience God’s welcome.

For those of you concerned with numbers, you should know that our average Sunday morning attendance is 10% higher this year than it was last year. That doesn’t feel like very much when you’re sitting in the pews (it’s basically adding 3 people), but this is significant. It is a sustainable amount of growth that I hope to see continue next year. This growth reflects real people who have made real commitments to being in relationship with God and people through Milton UMC. God is extending a welcoming hand through Milton UMC!

Because God has called us to display God’s welcome, we have been looking into becoming a Reconciling congregation. Being a Reconciling congregation would mean that we make a public statement that all people are welcome at Milton UMC, regardless of sexual orientation. This decision has not been made yet. We will be having two workshops – on Sunday, February 10, and Sunday, February 24 – that will help us discern how God is speaking to us about Reconciling, through Scripture and our own experiences. I am looking forward to these workshops very much.

In the coming year, I hope that we can start thinking about how God might be working at times other than Sunday mornings. How can our congregation be a home base from which we all create communities of discipleship? Imagine this:

These are people in the congregation – people you see Sunday mornings:

Each two (or three, or five) people in the congregation start a group during the week. They invite folks they know – folks who are wanting to be closer to God and each other. They invite  people who may not be able to attend on Sunday mornings, or may not be interested in attending on Sunday mornings. (Don’t worry, Pastor Rachon will help get the groups started):

Remember, in this scenario, you might not see all the people who are getting closer to God and other people because of our church’s ministries. Some folks in these groups may come on Sunday mornings, but others probably never will. Does that mean they’re not part of the church, not faithful disciples? No, it just means we need to define the church a little more broadly. In fact, these kinds of groups are often much more effective in helping people get closer to God than Sunday morning worship. Each group can focus on what it needs to focus on. And there will be plenty of opportunities for the different groups to meet each other and be one larger community.

One of these groups has just begun – a group of local moms looking for intentional friendships. This is a model I believe could be very effective in the communities of Milton, Edgewood, and south Federal Way, where most of our folks come from. Milton UMC is uniquely equipped to use this model, because our congregation is like a patchwork, made up of small pockets of folks from different segments of the community. God has given us unique gifts and unique surroundings – and I believe that God has an amazing future in mind for our congregation and our wider communities: a future where people have more and more relevant, engaging, and meaningful opportunities to love God and love neighbor.

In closing, one phrase keeps recurring in my mind: “I thank my God every time I remember you.” It’s from Philippians 1:3. Here’s a little more:

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:3-6)

God bless us all. Amen.

Sometimes I write poems.

To Love

What does it mean to love?

To believe in another person’s existence

Enough to bend;

In the intricate painting of a life,

To let another’s colors and brush strokes

Reshape, re-imagine your own –

What does it mean,

When picnics in the shade of the apple tree

Are never perfect like in love songs,

When there are worms in the apples

And it hurts your ankles to sit like that on the ground

But you both smile anyway and lift your glasses to toast

Until a sudden frustration,

Half-meant joke,

Changes the scene: the smiling toasts become arguments, bickering – or maybe

The arguments were always there

And the smiles too

Like those old hologram pictures

Two images always present

And only perspective reveals one at a time.

What does it mean to love,

And what does it mean to grow together

Like moss and branches,

What does it mean to dance by a Christmas tree

And hold hands that gradually become more and more wrinkled,

What does it mean

When your life’s painting and that of your lover

Grow to have the same palette

Grow to be two pictures of the same place

But looking different directions

The stream that begins in your painting

Continuing in your lover’s –

What does it mean

To strip away the protective layers and to be vulnerable, soft,

But only to one person;

To respond to another’s seasons

Like trees respond to the tilting earth

Leaves budding, growing, dying, falling – and simultaneously

To be the seasons to which another’s leaves respond –

What does it mean?

“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;

For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of singing has come,

And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land...

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

(The quote at the end is from Song of Solomon 2:10-13.)