Archbishop Desmond Tutu

There is a great Q & A in the NY Times Magazine.

You can find it here.

A new book by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writing with his daughter, Mpho Tutu, comes out March 9, 2010, Made for Goodness: And why this makes all the difference.

There is a you tube video and mention of his book with his daughter here.

“I speak to audiences across the world and I often get the same questions. ‘Why are you so joyful?’ ‘How do you keep your faith in people when you see so much injustice, oppression and cruelty?’ ‘What makes you so certain that the world is going to get better?’

What these questioners really want to know is what do I see that they’re missing? How do I see the world and my role in it? What are the spiritual practices that uphold me? What do I see in the heart of humanity and in the sweep of history that confirms my conviction that goodness will triumph?

This book is my answer.” ~ Desmond M. Tutu

Sermon: March 7 (3rd Sunday in Lent)

Loving Father, you comfort us in times of misfortune: Our brothers and sisters have suffered a great tragedy and they need your healing. Send your Holy Spirit to soothe the anger, fear, and sorrow of their broken hearts. In the darkness of this moment, shine the light of your radiant love. Be their companion in their grief. In their pain, make them strong in courage, dry their tears, mend their hearts, and gently call them to newness of life. We thank you for the assurance of your love, shown in your Son Jesus, who suffered for us, died, and rose again to prepare our place in your eternal home. Amen.

Sitting in the Checkout line, I see the headlines…

· Satan Captured
· Heaven Is a Neat Place
· NUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CHAPEL

Of course, these are outrageous lines and also nonsense, only there to try make us buy their tabloid. But what about these titles?

· Hurricane Katrina God's punishment for sin in New Orleans
· Tsunami in SE Asia formed by sin and faithlessness (and)
· Haiti’s earthquake was divine retribution for a pact with the devil that was sworn long ago

People actually said these things and believe them too. They look to the bible and see divine punishment and make judgments upon today’s tragedies. We have even heard people say that 9/11 was a day God punished America. In their words are no comfort or caring but finger pointing and judgment. Certainly you can find such judgment in the Bible but there are other voices in Scripture that question the idea that sin brings calamity. One could look at the book of Job or read in Isaiah, the call to seek out & call upon God, to turn to the Lord…

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Thankfully, we are not God, we don’t know it all, for there is much we do not understand, but this we can be sure, it is Jesus who reminds us that God does not work that way. On Wednesday nights, we have joined our brothers and sisters from the Lutheran Church for our annual Lenten study. We have been looking for God in the rubble of Haiti. Asking the questions: did God cause it? Why didn’t God prevent it?

In Today’s Gospel, Jesus is confronted with such questions, some told Jesus about the Galileans who Pilate murdered…and of course there was the Tower of Siloam that fell on 18 people who were killed. Obviously they were sinners right, Jesus? Where is God in all of this? Jesus replies, were they bigger sinners than you? No. BUT, you will perish as they did if you do not repent.

I think the point Jesus makes is that our lives have uncertainty, and tragedy befalling a person or family or nation does not mean that God is angry with them, against them or caused it. The frailty of the flesh is that we are mortal and things do happen to us, but we also need to repent of our fear of death and live our lives with God’s gracious gifts. And to illustrate his point, Jesus tells us a parable about a barren fig tree.

The owner wants it cut down for wasting the soul because it has not produced anything for three years, but the gardener says to let it be, while the gardener tries again to help it produce fruit. As parable about the Kingdom of God, it Jesus who is reminding us that we are to produce such good fruit, fruit that comes out of repentance, that is born in a life lived fully. Jesus is the divine gardener who is looking to help our barren lives produce.

If we spend our times condemning others for their supposed sin, pointing out where God has acted against them, we will miss God really acting in the world through us & others. Miracles do happen, There is much to our mysterious God in the ways that God moves through our world in the Spirit. And in the midst of tragedy, whether caused by the Pilate’s of our world who murder others, or in natural acts when earth shakes and towers fall, we are called to live into our faith. In the midst of the tragedy of Haiti, the voice of the Episcopal Bishop, Duracin speaks clearly to that faith:

“As for resources, we have next to nothing. The wreckage is beyond imagination. However, this situation delivers us into faith. I look at this as a baptism. We who are still alive have had the blessing of survival, but in many ways we have died to the ways of the past. We have the opportunity to rise up and start anew. In this moment of grief and mourning, life must continue.”

But Bishop Jean Duracin also sees God’s hand in the tragedy, through the Spirit of God helping them live again…

“It is natural to question, but we hold on in faith to God – God who is always good, the God of infinite compassion. That we were struck by this tragedy does not mean God is not with us. He is here. We must always remember that God lives in this world. There is pain, but there is also joy. He gives us assurance not of the life that ends, but the life that is eternal. In the middle of all the deaths, there is a God of love and of life, and we must shout Alleluia with the living.”

This is our witness too, in the midst of our lives, there is a God of love and of life, and we must shout (or maybe in Lent whisper) Alleluia with the living. That is also evident in the lives of others in Haiti…

Romel Joseph was born to a poor Haitian family, he became so accomplished in the violin that he won a Fulbright scholarship to study at Julliard. He returned to Haiti in 1991 &opened the New Victorian School to teach music to the children of the poor. The New Victorian School was destroyed in the Haitian earthquake. No students were in the building at the time of the quake but Romel was trapped inside the rubble for 18 hours. Tragically, Romel's pregnant wife perished in the earthquake. Romel was flown to Miami where he was treated. Doctors don't know if he'll ever be able to play the violin again. Yet, even in the heartache and wrenching loss, Romel Joseph is determined to rebuild the New Victorian School. "As long as Haiti has children, you have a purpose being there. As long as there are kids there, they have to have a reasonable level of health and they have to have an education. I need more than an earthquake to make me stop my work in Haiti."

[As reported by the Miami Herald, CBS News and National Public Radio.]

That is fruit the Jesus is talking about in the faith of a Bishop, and in the determination of a teacher & musician. And the Gardener said, “Let it alone …If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down…” May we bear that good fruit that God expects from us in our lives today. Amen.

Reflections on Suffering & Serving: Lent 2010

From the Humane Society:

Lent is in full swing. During the 40 days before Easter, many Christians worldwide observe the season with prayerful reflection, fasting, and abstaining from meat and dairy products. Some folks use this time to actively serve others with good works.

The Humane Society of the US has delicious recipes for Lent as well as ideas for helping animals in your community. Find out more about animal protection issues in your state, as well as perfect projects for youth groups.

Phoenix at odds with church that feeds needy

Speaking of faith & politics, I just saw this over the wire...

PHOENIX – On Saturday mornings, crowds of homeless gather with other needy people at picnic tables outside a church in an upscale Phoenix neighborhood, listen to sermons and settle in for sausage, pancakes and scrambled eggs.

The pastor says it's the Lord's work. Neighbors say it should be done elsewhere.

Residents say the homeless create blight and pose a danger to them, pointing to the case of a homeless felon caught with child pornography in the neighborhood. A complaint prompted city officials to order the year-old breakfast halted, saying it violated zoning laws.

Now, the dispute is in federal court in Phoenix, with the church saying the city is violating its First Amendment rights and a federal law that protects religious groups from city zoning rules.

"This is what it means to be a church," says the Rev. Dottie Escobedo-Frank of the CrossRoads United Methodist Church. "We're just trying to take care of some people who are hungry and trying to reach out to our neighborhood."

City officials say they've never disagreed that the church is doing good work, but that it's operating as a charity dining hall in violation of zoning laws. The church is on a busy street, lined with homes with well-manicured lawns.

Read the whole thing here.

A Prayer for Lent

Grant us, Almighty God, that by our annual observance of Lenten discipline, we may grow in the knowledge of Christ, and make our lives worthy of his love; for his sake, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Sermon: February 28 (2nd Lent)

You can imagine the wanted posters up around Israel, with titles declaring him Activist, Criminal, Rebel. All the terms that Herod would have used against Jesus. John the Baptist was already arrested. His cousin Jesus had now attracted enough attention from Herod, think of the healings, the parables, and Jesus who never accepted Herod’s authority and avoided his capitals. Some Pharisees felt they had to warn Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him. And Jesus replied,

"Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way."

Those words remind us that Jesus lived in a time where politics and religion were intertwined, as they are today. He knew that Herod Antipas had no power to stop him but he also knew there was a price too…

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!"

Jesus knew he would get into trouble from the powers that be. He challenged them directly and indirectly. But they would not interfere in his mission, in what he was called to do, in his proclamations, in healings, in all that was part of his ministry. 2,000 years later, sometimes we lose the sense of the provocative nature of his ministry but not always. I think of…

Those in the unofficial Church in China, who stay hidden to hear God’s word without oversight from the Chinese Government.

A Washington DC Church which started a soup kitchen; local residents took the church to court to shut them down.

A National Church Body that was denied an opportunity to advertise during the Super Bowl when the network rejected their ad showing that gay people were welcome at their worship services.

The IRS announced that it will investigate an Episcopal Church for a sermon given just before election day that criticized the president and the war.

These are but a few examples of where Churches get into hot water because they were following God’s call to mission and those in power reacted. But we can also get overly connected with the political system too. In a study of the religious habits of young adults, the Millennial Generation, the study concluded

“But youth's religious disaffection and dropping out of organized religion is largely due to discomfort with religiosity having been tied to [conservative] politics."

For many in the younger generation have looked at the Church being too cozy with partisan politics, that the Church and the parties have become too synonymous, that the Church is OK with the status quo. Religion and politics has been of the American landscape, especially when we consider the movements to end slavery (the abolitionists) to the suffragettes to the temperance movement, to the civil rights movement & today with our care for creation with the environmental movement. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it,

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

We must have a voice in today’s politics but it must go hand in hand with our Gospel beliefs. When Desmond Tutu, the retired Anglican Archbishop of South Africa was criticized for being too political , he said

“I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.”

The challenge remains for us to not get tied down to the politics of the day but rather make sure what we are doing is in line with the Gospel. John Danforth, was once a senator from Missouri and an ambassador to Sudan, he also happens to be an Episcopal Priest. When asked about his view on religion and politics he said,

“it's what like St. Paul says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I mean, you're not going to know, and that's the point, to bring to this humility, but to bring to it a good-faith effort to try to live a faithful life and to try to act in the realm of politics as a faithful person. Knowing, however, that you are not the grand oracle of God's wisdom and that God's truth is not your truth — there's going to be a gap there — and a recognition that the other person who has come to very different conclusions also has made a good-faith effort to be a follower of the Lord. So, I mean, I think it's a matter of good faith and trying your best, but bringing humility to bear.”

Danforth’s moderate approach has much to be said for it. Whenever we enter into politics faithful, humility should also be with us. As I thought about how some might today be bringing their faith into the realm of politics in a way that make it the conscience of the state and not a tool, I think of a group called the elders.

“The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.”

They are working in places like Cyprus and Sudan, Gaza and Myanmar, to “promote dialogue and peace building; and supporting efforts to alleviate human suffering, particularly caused by armed conflict, extreme poverty, injustice or intolerance.” Two of the elders that I know best are Jimmy Carter, our former president and Desmond Tutu, both of whom are doing this out of their own faith. It strikes me that what they are doing is what Jesus talks about

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”

And I think we get it right, when we know that Jesus would be walking with us, to help alleviate poverty and end war, to help reconcile those torn a part, to raise the concerns of those in need and to help witness to the love that God has for all of God’s children.

“Despite all of the ghastliness in the world, human beings are made for goodness. The ones that are held in high regard are not militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They have a commitment to try and make the world a better place.”(Desmond Tutu)

Amen.

Speaking of Faith

This page is the transcript of an interview with John Danforth entitled: Conservative Politics & Moderate Religion

I used his thoughts in my sermon & it is well worth a read (or a listen if your prefer) on politics & religion.

Favorite quote of his:

Well, I think you, you know, I mean, it's what like St. Paul says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I mean, you're not going to know, and that's the point, to bring to this humility, but to bring to it a good-faith effort to try to live a faithful life and to try to act in the realm of politics as a faithful person. Knowing, however, that you are not the grand oracle of God's wisdom and that God's truth is not your truth — there's going to be a gap there — and a recognition that the other person who has come to very different conclusions also has made a good-faith effort to be a follower of the Lord. So, I mean, I think it's a matter of good faith and trying your best, but bringing humility to bear.