Questions

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4:41

Reading this question that Jesus’ disciples ask one another after he calms a storm that overtakes them while they are crossing the Sea of Galilee often takes me back to the sanctuary of Ventura Community Presbyterian Church sometime in 1978.  I was listening to Darrell Johnson preach a sermon on this text.  That weekend I took a break from my studies at UCLA, drove up the coast to spend some time with my mom and stepdad and we went to church on Sunday.  I can still hear Darrell’s voice asking the question as he repeated this part of the text several times in his sermon. 

The calm waters answered one of the disciples’ questions: “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”  But it also raised this second question: “Who are you?”  And it’s this second question that fuels the discipleship journey.  As we follow Jesus, we never really stop working with it.  It just keeps coming up.  Who are you, Lord?  Who are you and what difference does that make in my life?  Who are you and who am I?  Why do I get to experience this?  What does this experience of following you tell me about my life in this world? 

Bumper stickers, bookmarks and billboards love to proclaim: “The Answer is Jesus.”  But I think the real power in Jesus’ ministry, both then and now, is that his presence, his actions, and his words occasion lots of questions.  I believe he is, indeed, the answer.  Yet the reason I know him to be this is because he has invited me to work with so many good questions.  It’s those questions that keep us going.  The hunger to know more about this one who has captivated us, intrigued us, angered us, and above all else stuck with us despite all the reasons we’ve given him to roll his eyes and walk away, is the reason we keep following.

There is comfort that comes in the wake of the disciples’ first question.  The roiling sea that they feared would take their lives was calmed.  They relaxed. “Oh, wow, he does care whether or not we perish.”  Yet soon after another question occurs to them that stirs up all sorts of feelings within them. The same one who makes it safe to be in the boat, now himself feels a little unsafe. And part of what lies underneath that second question is some thought about whether they want to continue to hang out with him once they get to the other side. He is, after all, now a bit scary.

Part of the reason I so vividly remember that sermon I heard in 1978 is that it got me thinking about a Jesus who was more complex, more interesting, one who made me curious, one who I wanted to follow. It got me thinking about the Jesus who feels a bit dangerous because he is alarmingly direct in his encounters with us.  He gets us to ask questions we might not otherwise ask and as such invites us to deal with truth about him and about ourselves that we might not otherwise engage. 

The answer is indeed relationship with this one in whom all things cohere, but we won’t know that if we don’t take the risk of stumbling along behind him and working with all of those disturbing questions he invites us to ask.  I think what happened for me that day I heard Darrell’s sermon, was that Jesus started to be more than a divine being who long ago solved the problem of sin by dying on a Roman cross.  He became a living Lord who was inviting me to consider and live an abundant life right now.  Who are you, Lord, and who am I? 

David Rohrer
3/2/22

2021

In many ways 2021 was the year of unmet expectations.  That great hope of a post-Covid “opening up” and return to normalcy, never fully materialized and as we stand on the threshold of 2022 many of us are not expectant so much as we are just tired.  

Nevertheless, 2021 was a year where we soldiered on and, in spite of those unmet expectations made some pretty radical changes and tackled some major projects. Never in my pre-pandemic, wildest imagination could I have predicted that Emmanuel would be a place where people had the option of worshipping either in-person in our sanctuary or on-line via Zoom.  Apart from the necessity thrust upon us by the pandemic we never would have spent close to $25,000 to create our own little TV station. We landscaped and lighted our parking lot median in 2021.  We also significantly reduced the balance on our mortgage which now stands at about $116,000.  In a year when we haven’t spent much time in our building we have done a great deal to secure and upgrade these capital assets.  

The lesson I keep learning during the pandemic is that flexibility and attentiveness are important resources.  As many of the familiar grooves of our religious practice get erased, we need to keep asking why those grooves were in place and how we will carve out new ones that will accomplish the same ends.  If we cannot meet together in person to “encourage one another and stir up one another to love and good works” (ala Hebrews 10), what new tools can we develop to avail ourselves of this essential resource?  We have addressed this question with respect to providing for Sunday worship but many other aspects of our life together have atrophied in this time.  And like parents worry about the effect of the pandemic on their children’s social development, as pastor I worry about how our isolation from each other is breaking down the relational cohesion that sustains us as a congregation.    

So as we look ahead to this coming year, I ask you to join me in prayer about paving some new pathways that will enable our mission to the community and our fellowship with one another.  Curiosity and creativity will be our friends in this endeavor.  Jesus does not intend for any of us to walk the way of faith alone.  Whereas the pandemic keeps calling us to keep our distance from each other, the way of faith invites us to seek out one another and encourage each other.  I do not have a lot of ideas about how to address this dilemma, but I know we need to at least be acknowledging it and seeking to remedy it.  I look forward to what we will discover and how we will adapt to develop some new ways of coming together for mission and fellowship in the coming year. 

Dave Rohrer—January 30, 2022
(Note: this piece was initially published in Emmanuel’s Annual Report for 2021)

Intelligent Disobedience

“Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they left for their own country by another way.”
Matthew 2:12

One of the Christmas gifts Mary Ann and I received this year is that our guide dog puppy Latifah graduated from the program on December 2nd and has now moved to California with her new partner, Mike.  Mike was born with a progressive retinal disease.  He is 37 years old and Tifah is his third guide dog.   The photo to the right is a picture of the two of them in action.  Tifah is doing what she was trained to do.  I can’t tell for sure, but it appears that she is either showing him an obstacle in his path or letting him know that they are at an intersection where he can push the crosswalk button. Tifah has been trained to step into his path, stop and look up at him in these circumstances.  In certain circumstances guide dogs are taught to deploy something called “intelligent disobedience.” Tifah has learned to refuse to obey a command to go forward when following through with that command could expose her partner to harm. 

The preacher in me is captivated by this metaphor of a guide dog’s intelligent disobedience.  It is a metaphor in search of a scriptural text.  Perhaps it is an illustration of Peter’s line in Acts about obeying God rather than the religious authorities. It’s also a picture of Martin Luther’s civil disobedience in defiance of the ecclesiastical powers as he declared “here I stand, I can do no other.”  It’s an example of maintaining an unrelenting grasp on Truth instead of going along with widely accepted cultural lies.  In short, it’s a choice to potentially make a lot of people mad because choosing to appease them is not something our conscience will allow us to do.  

“Joseph took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.” Matt 2:14-15

Intelligent disobedience plays a role in Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story.  Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth is not the stuff of warmly lit stable tableaus that feature a cast of characters who seem to have little to do other than pose for pictures.  It’s a harsh story that features a paranoid narcissistic King who wants to make sure that the rumors of a Messiah born in Bethlehem do not become a spark that ignites people’s imaginations to dream of some ruler other than himself.  It’s a story of the clash between Truth and Power and how certain people make an intelligent choice to disobey the powers and stand for truth.

Matthew points to how Joseph and a group of astrologers from Persia, choose to defy what is expected of them in order to obey a greater priority.  Joseph stands against cultural expectations when upon learning of Mary’s pregnancy, he chooses to go through with the plan to take her as his wife rather than what people expect him to do and “quietly dismiss her”.  Also after the baby’s birth, he takes the seemingly foolish risk of heading off to Egypt with his new family rather than staying in Bethlehem.  The Maji take the risk of Herod’s displeasure when they choose to disobey him by sneaking out of town without fulfilling his request that they return to him and let him know where he can find the child.

On Christmas Eve we bask in the gentle light of the silent night.  We join that cast of characters around the manger in quiet appreciation of the gift of birth.  But on Christmas Day the sun comes up and we face into living into the “now what?” of Jesus’ birth.  We’re going to have to decide what we are going to do with the information about the Word becoming flesh and how that makes a difference in our lives.  We’re going to have see life through the lens of the commandment to love God and love neighbor.  We’re going to have to start that process of learning and relearning the truth that we can’t look at life through this lens without running into conflict with the Herod’s of this world.  We’re going to have to deploy that resource of intelligent disobedience when we inevitably encounter those things that ask us to erode life rather than nurture it.  And when we do, we’ll be resting in the Truth that sets us free.

“As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark a false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”
(Wendell Berry, from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”)

 David Rohrer
12/25/21

Offering Our Best

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
(Christina Rosetti, from “In the Bleak Midwinter”)

I get a smile on my face as I recall how in March of 2020 I was having conversations with the session about being back in the sanctuary for regular in-person worship by Easter of that year.  We are now 20 months beyond that time and the hoped-for return to normalcy has not yet materialized.  One third of us are back in the sanctuary for worship on Sundays and two thirds of us are worshipping on Zoom.   The staff and program of the church look substantially different.  The 70 chairs we have removed from the sanctuary and stacked up in the narthex serve as an apt metaphor for our current reality. 

But here’s what hasn’t changed:  God still loves us.  Jesus is still Lord.  The Spirit is still brooding over the waters of our chaos breathing new life into being.  And Emmanuel Presbyterian Church is still here.  Maybe those chairs in the narthex are our version of the large stone, the Ebenezer or Stone of Help, of 1 Samuel 7 that reminded the people that the “Lord has brought us safe thus far.”

Who would have predicted in February 2020 that in December of 2021 we would have in place tools that allow us to host 2/3 of our worshipping congregation in someplace other than the sanctuary?  Who would have known that in the even in our absence from our building we would continue to significantly pay down the principal on our mortgage ahead of schedule?   Who would have guessed that while our doors have been closed, we would be welcoming into our worship services several visitors, new members and former members who have moved away? 

The Lord has done far more than keep us safe.  We are being welcomed into a new day and a new way of being the Church of Jesus Christ.

So I am writing to encourage you to keep up the good work and help us to address one of the ways that the pandemic has changed our life together by disrupting some of our habits.  In spite of all of the good things I report above, one difficulty we are facing is that our year-to-date unrestricted giving (the money you give that we use for our basic everyday expenses) has decreased by a little over $21,000 in 2021.  In other words, this time last year you had given about $21,000 more than you have given this year.  This is not a cataclysmic problem.  We have reserves to cover this.  But that solution of using reserves is not a sustainable one beyond this year.    

Even if you have not been infected with the Covid-19 virus, it has hit us all in a variety of ways.  At the most basic level it has disrupted our rhythms and invited us to evaluate once unquestioned habits.  At deeper levels it has brought us to places of anxiety about things like our kids’ development, wellbeing and education, our financial situation, our health, and our loss of relationships. We are as a congregation in amazingly good shape in spite of all of this.  Your good will and flexibility have helped us to persevere.  Our monetary reserves have helped us to finance both our shortfall and some major improvements to our building and grounds.  But we also have to acknowledge dips in giving trends, think more deliberately about our priorities and thus identify when and where we will need to spend some of our savings and at what point we will stop dipping into those reserves as we face into questions of long-term sustainability. 

This is not an unfathomable problem that immobilizes us; we will get through this.  But we will also need to acknowledge that solutions will not come by simply waiting for things to open up and get back to normal.  We are already in that proverbial "new normal" and this will require us to step up and work together on how we are going to deal with the new realities delivered up to us by the circumstances of our day.  I am pretty sure that things will not go back to being the way they were, instead we will have to receive and respond to the changes this pandemic has made.

At the most basic level I write to ask you to continue give toward the support of this congregation.  But more than that I am asking you to bring an offering.  When we bring an offering we offer up our best to God and wait to see what God will do with it.  Determining what is our best is a matter settled in the quietness and privacy of our own hearts.  That kind of offering is not something that can be compared with what others do. It is not something that simply responds to news of specific costs and deficits. It is a matter of articulating our gratitude to God for something we have received.  When we bring an offering we do not need to worry about the question of having enough because we will be giving in response to God and therefore operating on the assumption that we will have what we need to do the work that God has called us to do.  

Dave Rohrer
12/20/21

 You can contribute to Emmanuel online at www.epcbothell.org.  Click on the word “Contibute” and the right end of the menu headings on the Home page.  This will take you to our online giving portal.

Making Space

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;
Let it be with me according to your word.”
Luke 1:38

Each year as I come around to Advent I return to familiar texts and ask myself, “What passages will I reconsider this year?”  Where do I dig to find that vein of ore that has so far remained undiscovered? How do I listen for that voice that “I have not heard” (Ps 81).  What fresh breeze of the Spirit might turn my head and awaken a new insight?

 It is not a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but it is a case of familiarity producing a longing, a kind of emptiness that wants to be filled.  I want something to blow out the walls of my stunted imagination and usher me into a broad and open space where I take in the majesty of the whole thing in a new way.  The Word becoming flesh, God emptying himself of his divine prerogative and becoming human, the One who holds all things together joining us in the entropy and chaos of this world.  How do we talk about it?  How do we let it in?  How do we reconsider this familiar and utterly unbelievable mystery in such a way that it gets into us, takes up residence in us and so transforms some otherwise untouchable area of our lives?  How do we become pregnant with this mystery and let it grow inside us until it is ready to be born?

 I suppose these questions are the reason that the story of the Annunciation in Luke 1 usually rises to the top of my list of texts to reconsider during Advent.  As a male I don’t know much about being pregnant.  I have only watched it from afar and then at the end of nine months watched the emergence of, and eventually held, the little ones who grew inside of my wife, Mary Ann.  But the story of the annunciation asks me to consider the ways in which pregnancy is an apt metaphor for our spiritual lives.  It invites me to consider how I am pregnant and how to make room for something that is going to be born.  It reminds me that we all have to turn our questioning gaze toward Gabriel and deal with his outlandish and incomprehensible message that God is asking to take up residence inside us.  Along with Mary we wonder what these words mean and then have to decide whether or not we want to make space for God.  We have to ask ourselves if we want to pray that prayer “Let it be with me according to your word.”

The icon above is something I saw in 2007 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.  They were hosting an installation of icons from St Catherine’s Abbey, a monastery on Mt Sinai that was established sometime in the second century and holds some of the oldest icons in the world. This one is different than most icons of the annunciation.  Mary is usually depicted with her hand up, her palm facing Gabriel as if she is fearful and trying to ward him off.  But here she is simply turning her head.  Her weaving project has been lowered to her lap, and she looks to the one who has interrupted her work.  Her gaze is not fearful but questioning.  She is more Queen of Angels in this icon than she is terrified teenager.  Seated on her throne she is considering what is being said to her and seems to have the agency to be able to say no.  No one is forcing this pregnancy on her.  She is getting to choose.  And the Holy Spirit is hovering between heaven and earth waiting for her approval.

Mary is a picture of all of us in this moment.  There is a sense in which the question put to her and the decision she has to make are things we share with her.  We all have to work with the question of whether or not we will respond to God, whether or not we will make space for God.  What’s more, we never stop working with this question.  The opportunities to grow in our relationship with God, the process of discovering the ever-expanding dimensions of God’s love for us, will never end.  At the end of each day we will always be able to retire with the expectation that a new day will also give us a new opportunity to hear “a voice we had not known” and embark on a new journey into the “broad and open space” of God’s love.

Joy to the World, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king.
Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

 David Rohrer
11/22/21

Choosing Faithfulness

“When [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves;
but he was asleep. And [the disciples] went and woke him up saying,
‘Lord save us!  We are perishing!’”
Matthew 8:23-25

There are many stories in the Gospels that depict Jesus as one who calms things down.  Whether it is the raging of a crowd of people who want to stone a woman caught in adultery or the tumult of a storm during one of those many boat journeys over to the “other side” of the Sea of Galilee, the four Evangelists point again and again to the way in which Jesus excelled at speaking into and defusing the anger or anxiety of those around him.  In fact, one might even say Jesus spent a good portion of his waking hours inviting people to let go of their fear and choose an attitude of calm faithfulness instead.

 But that said, for most of us urgent anxiety is our default programing and faithfulness is a learned behavior.  What’s more, learning to choose calm faithfulness is something that happens in stages over the course of our lives. 

I love Watanabe Sadao’s depiction of Matthew 8.  In a way, it gets a chuckle out of what was in the moment a frightful situation for the disciples.  It is a depiction of the truth that they only knew after the fact; after they had the experience of Jesus stilling the storm.  It captures the absurdity of their fear.  At one level it is a picture of a ship of fools. But it is also tender in its critique.  For our eyes are drawn not to their anxiety but to the peace-filled, sleeping face of Jesus.  We see those eyes that will soon open to behold the source of their fear.  We see that liminal space between their anxiety and his calm.  We see the truth that bridges the two worlds. He is there and will be there and that truth of his presence is what has the first and last word. 

 I look at this print and see in it an invitation to choose faithfulness.  Choosing faithfulness is not about trying hard to acquire “more” faith.  It is not the choice to work harder at believing something.  It is not simply thinking hopefully and positively about a tough situation and saying to ourselves: “I know that Jesus will make this all better.”  Faithfulness is trusting in the trustworthiness of a relationship.  It is about resting in a reality that the storm cannot touch. It’s about knowing that irrespective of the outcome of the storm there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ.

 It is never easy to experience a sleeping Jesus.  We want him to be always up and active and making sure nothing bad happens.  We want him to be “in control” as we define control.  But life tells us that this is not his promise to us. Bad stuff happens.  The diagnosis catches us unaware.  The earthquake hits.  The fires rage.  The betrayal sneaks up on us and drops us to our knees.  The death of our loved one ushers us into deep loneliness.   These are the moments when it feels like Jesus is asleep; these are the times when it is not clear to us that he cares whether we are perishing.  

 Yet the absence of anxiety on his part is not an expression of indifference, or worse, disgust at our weakness.  It is rather the peace of knowing what the rising water cannot destroy.  The trouble it brings is not the last word.  The last word is love.  Not even the flood waters can extinguish that flame.  He will remain faithful to us and he invites us to respond in kind; to choose faithfulness to him and allow our response to the trouble to be shaped by the truth that there is nothing that can shake us loose from his grip. 

 David Rohrer
08/24/2021  

Prayer

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

Psalm 46

Requests and Answers.  These are the bookends that hold together our most common conception of the substance of what we call prayer.  We follow Jesus’ advice to ask the Father for what we want, and we wait to find out what God will answer.  At the beginning of the meeting, we ask for God’s presence and guidance.  When we dismiss the meeting, we ask for safe travel home and a good night’s rest.  For the sick we ask for healing.  Amid confusion, we ask for wisdom. In fear, we ask for courage.  In the face of war, we ask God to engineer peace.  When our loved one is struggling, we ask God to intervene and mitigate the trouble. When we anticipate a potential peril before us, we ask for safety.  Sometimes we receive what we have asked for.  Sometimes we just hear crickets in the silence that follows our request.  

Some say, “prayer changes things”, but others say, “what’s the use.”  Some believe that amassing an army of people praying for a certain outcome increases our odds of achieving it.  While others contend that the only prayer worth praying is “Thy will be done.” And as Wendell Berry’s character Jayber Crow observes: “Come to think of it, there isn’t really much need to pray that one either.”    

The thing about the prayer that falls between the bookends of Request and Answer that gives me pause is that it can become more of a transaction than an encounter.  Most certainly it is an aspect of prayer, but it is not all that prayer is.  Prayer is much more than a transaction. It is born of relationship with God.  It is an outworking of that relationship.  It is what happens when we become aware of God’s presence.  And when we see it in this light, we begin to understand what St. Paul meant when he called on followers of Jesus to “pray without ceasing.” We can pray continually because there is no situation we can encounter and no place we can be that God is not also there with us.  We can pray “without ceasing” because : “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” 

That’s why I have come to love Ruth Burrows’ simple description of prayer in her book The Essence of Prayer.  It was one of the books on a reading list for a class I am taking on spiritual direction and prayer.  She likens prayer to the act of stepping across a threshold into the presence of God and then choosing to “hold ourselves there.”  That threshold is nothing more and nothing less than our choice to pay attention to the presence of God.  Once awake to God’s presence the encounter can occur.  The relationship can be enjoyed.  Indeed, requests can be made, answers will be heard, but the reality of what is occurring at that moment is about so much more than a transaction; it is the manifestation of a relationship.  And when we are in the presence of another with whom we are in relationship, we can talk and listen and be silent.  We can share ourselves and take up what the other shares with us.

Prayer is not something we do only in holy or private places, nor does it require us to bow our heads or kneel.  Prayer happens as we recognize and respond to the presence of God in the everyday activities, relationships, and endeavors of life. As we learn to discern, step into, and remain in the light of God’s presence wherever we are, we learn to pray.  

Indeed, prayer changes things, but most importantly, prayer changes us.  For as we come to know God, we also come to know ourselves.  This is a truth acknowledged by such diverse personalities as Ignatius Loyola and John Calvin.  These men were contemporaries. In many ways they were brothers in thought, even though they were on different sides of a growing chasm in the Church.  Nevertheless, both were rooted and grounded in the steadfast love of God.  For both, prayer was primarily about relationship with God.  Bringing ourselves to those places where we acknowledge God’s presence and holding ourselves there; saying what we know and listening to what God has to say.

 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
Ephesians 1:15-19

 David Rohrer
06/12/2021  

Dreaming Dreams

“I will pour out my spirit on all flesh”
Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17

 
“Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions.” I have been chewing on this phrase since our celebration of Pentecost this past Sunday.  In these words, used both by the prophet Joel and the apostle Peter, we see a picture of one of the things that points to the presence of the Holy Spirit.  What I see in this in this picture is the prediction of the healing of an age-old conflict between young and old.  I see an invitation to both young and old to “think of things that never were and ask why not?” It is permission for the young, who have an open future before them, to picture what they might initiate, and liberation of those at the end of their years from the burden of leadership and the freedom to ponder and bless the frontiers their successors will cross.   

As I approach the 64th anniversary of my birth I continue to grow in my awareness of how my place along this continuum has crossed the mid-point.   And I want to be an old man who dreams dreams.  This aspiration has led to memories of the elders I have known who dared to dream dreams.  One of them was Ebba Smith.  Ebba was in the congregation I served in Pasadena in my early 30’s.  She was the widow of a Presbyterian minister and lived at Monte Vista Grove Homes, the retirement community for Presbyterian ministers and missionaries that was about a mile from the church.  My friend Doug, who was my age and pastor of a neighboring Presbyterian church, knew and had worked with Ebba on social justice causes and once said to me: “I want to be like Ebba when I grow up.”      

In a war-torn world, Ebba had dreams of peace.  In the face of obvious inequities, Ebba had visions of justice.  She was in her 80’s and she had amazing energy to act on these dreams.  I saw how these dreams kept her young.  In an era before email, Ebba was great note writer, and all of her notes were   written on “stationery” that was made of the blank backs of repurposed envelopes or the junk mail she had received. The first note I got from her after I became pastor was an explanation of why I would probably not see her waiting in line to greet me at the door after worship.  She told me not to worry about this.  It was no sign of disapproval of the sermon or some unmentioned animosity toward me.  She said, “I just don’t have the time.”  Once worship was over, Ebba was on to other things, and for Ebba, idle “chit chat” with the pastor was not one of them. 

A few months before she died she suffered a stroke.  Following the stroke I went to visit her in what the residents of the Grove called the health center and she was playing bingo in the rec room.  She didn’t see me come into the room. I went and sat next to her and when she looked up and noticed me she stared at me with a look of utter consternation and said: “Can you believe it?  Me, playing bingo.” In spite of her dismay, her humor was still fully functional.  She had not stopped dreaming dreams.  While days occupied by bingo did not bring her joy and the physical energy that had characterized her life into her 80’s was now severely diminished, there was no doubt that the soul of this dreamer was fully intact.  She now occupied that place where grief and liberty had become companions.  What she could no longer do was released to others, and with that release she was free to take up the gift of peace.

Unfortunately, the experience of aging does not assure this transition.  Instead of dreaming dreams we can fall prey to its opposite of nostalgic fear.  When what appears to be ahead frightens us, we easily default to the work of tightening our grip on what was.  Later in Acts 4 & 5 when the old men on the Council in Jerusalem are discussing among themselves how to respond to the young men who have experienced and are preaching about relationship with Jesus, we see this happening.  Some want to punish these young men and quell the energy brought on by the outpouring of the Spirit.  It’s just too new, too different, to threatening.  But Luke tells us about one old man who was still open to dreams.  Gamaliel comes forward and advises that august body of ecclesiastical elders to hold on loosely to this situation.  He reminds them of stories where the work of God could not be contained by human power and says: “if this plan or undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God.”  (Acts 5:38-39)       

When religion speaks only of preservation and cannot acknowledge the possibility of transformation, when our imaginations can only take us back to warm memories of what was and we stop straining to see what might yet be, when we no longer dream dreams, we have effectively stopped trusting God.  As St Paul assures us, what God is up to is always more than we have the capacity to imagine.  Thus large doses of humility, curiosity and patience are the best way to supplement a diet that is rich with change.  Often our first experience of change is one of loss.  Yet even in that loss God is still with us, Jesus is still Lord, the Spirit is still at work.  The best thing we can do is to loosen our grip and recognize that we are always being held by the One who holds all things together.

 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.  I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21

David Rohrer
05/29/2021

Exile and Restoration

“Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.”
Psalm 126:4

 
This season when I have been preaching sermons based on the words of Old Testament prophets, and especially sermons based on passages from Jeremiah and Habakkuk, has provided an opportunity to reflect on the era of the Babylonian exile.  The catastrophic losses that Israel experienced through this event made an indelible impression them.  It changed everything.  It meant loss of home, loss of culture; but hardest of all it meant a breach of trust in their relationship with God.  Suddenly God was not who they thought he was.  The One who promised that David’s descendants would be on the throne in Jerusalem forever seemed to have reneged on that pledge.  Who were they now without Zion and, more to the point, what was Zion now that God had withdrawn his favor? 

In light of this, prophets like Habakkuk and Jeremiah invited people to step back, to wait, to watch.  If God is not who you thought he was, then who is he?  If God has withdrawn you from Zion, then take this opportunity to enquire whether or not he might still be with you even here by the waters of Babylon.  Where might you find God’s comfort now that all the familiar sources of comfort are gone?  The work they did in this era was fruitful.  In the absence of the Temple new ways of worship were developed, new songs of praise and lament were written.  The synagogue was born and became place where the words and the promises of God were heard, and exile proved fertile soil for the composition of some of the most enduring Psalms. 

Then after 70 years away from Zion, after the deaths of many of the people who were sent into exile, after Cyrus of Persia had defeated Babylon and decreed that the Jews could return to their beloved homeland, they went home.  But home was not at all what they had left 70 years before.  Biblical scholars label this period “The Restoration,” but little of their earlier experience was restored.  The work of rebuilding the Temple and the wall of the city was started but the early results of that work were not very promising.

Ezra reports an example of this at the occasion of the laying of the foundation for the Temple (Ezra 3:8-13).  At the worship service celebrating this event the priests led the gathered crowd in the familiar response: “The Lord is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”  Yet there were competing perceptions about just how good God had been to them.  For while half the gathered crowd shouted in affirmation, the other half, made up of older people who had seen the earlier version of the Temple, “wept with a loud voice . . . . so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.”  What was a sign of restoration and renewal for some, was for others an invitation to hopelessness that did little more than underscore the irreversible history of their defeat.

While it is a bit of a stretch to draw too strong of a correlation between our 17 months of COVID-19 sequestration and the 70 years of Babylonian Exile, there are lessons from the Exile that speak to our current place in this saga of the pandemic.  Now that we are in the process of what we call “opening up” there are some truths about Israel’s experience of restoration that might help us to understand what to expect in the transition that is before us.  The most prominent of these lessons is to remember that “restoration” is rarely about going back to the way things were before the dislocation. If our comfort is derived merely from an experience that things are getting “back to normal” we are bound to be disappointed.  COVID has changed many things and the process of opening-up our sanctuary as we come out of COVID will be a much longer and more complex process than our quick response to the crisis that closed us down in March of last year. Going forward is not necessarily a return to normalcy, rather it is a matter of moving forward into a new place that is based on the truth that COVID could not touch: God’s love is steadfast, and Jesus is still Lord.

I am grateful for your prayers and positive spirit as we anticipate our return to in-person worship. I ask for your gentleness and patience as we walk across this familiar threshold in the wake of very unfamiliar circumstances.  When we return we will be “returning” to many new things.  We will have a congregation gathering not just in-person but a congregation also gathering on-line.  We won’t initially be singing but listening to music recorded for the worship service.  We will be wearing masks and there will be fewer chairs in the sanctuary.  The shoulder-to-shoulder post-service levity and libation in the narthex will not be a part of our experience.  And we will not initially have programing for children during worship.  Those are all loses; all reasons to moan along with those at the laying of the Temple foundation who could not see what might lie ahead but could only feel the loss of what had not been restored.   

It’s ok to feel grief and dissatisfaction that is born of loss.  But it is also important for us to recognize that loss is not the only reality at play in these times.  There is a kind of “severe mercy” that grows out of loss.  Sometimes having things taken away highlights what cannot be taken away and so leads us into a deeper appreciation of the grace and love of God.  Isaiah says it well:

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 43:18-21

 David Rohrer
05/22/2021  

Dual Citizenship

“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”
Luke 4:24

I am pretty certain that one of the reasons I have been able to sustain an almost 40 year career in congregational pastoral ministry is that I love reading the Bible.  The oft quoted line of Karl Barth about the “strange world of the Bible” comes to mind.  In pastoral ministry I have had the weekly opportunity to read, study, pray through and talk about some part of the Bible and it has been a fascinating place to spend my time.  It has opened me up to a world that I would not have known.  It has informed me about an identity that I possess that is at times in conflict with the identity informed by my genetics, history and geography.  It has helped me to set my life in a bigger context and stretched my otherwise stunted imagination.

The Bible has helped me to understand that I am a citizen of two kingdoms.  I haven’t had any say in the creation of either of these kingdoms. I have been placed in each of them by circumstances or powers that were not subject to my initiative. But one thing I do have a daily say in is the question of how I am going to navigate the tension of belonging to these two vastly different, and often conflicting, orders.     

The writers in the Bible who have been the most help in navigating this tension are the prophets. In seeing the big Truth of a Kingdom that remains largely hidden to the vast majority of their audience, the prophets have a heavy burden to bear. The gift of dual citizenship can be a rather severe mercy.  It isn’t easy to give witness to something that people have a hard time seeing, or perhaps what few actually want to see.  But that’s their job and the report of how they did that job has much to teach us about finding our footing on what is often a rather rocky path of living our faith.

Prophets are not accepted in their hometowns because they cause discomfort.  Like the pain we experience as the physical therapist shows us the limits of our tight, weak muscles, prophetic words point to truth that is hard to bear. The pain of the stretch is something we would rather avoid.  But the stretch expands our movement and so delivers us into God’s “broad and open space.”  Or perhaps more specifically, it places the life we live in the little kingdom of this world into the big context of the Kingdom of God.  And when this happens, we are both beset by a conflict and delivered into the clear air of truth that sets us free.  How’s that for a strange world!

But that’s the one we occupy the minute we say yes to Jesus’ invitation to “come and see.”  We say yes to this status of dual citizenship and staying in shape for the journey of following Jesus requires a number of stretches that teach us about muscles we never knew we had.  God no longer fits in our box.  The magnitude of God’s justice, grace and mercy begin to teach us that God is not merely concerned about the success of our little kingdom, but that God actually has room in his heart for everything he has created.  In Jesus, God gives witness to his desire to reconcile all things to himself.

 Over and over again history tells the story of how we have tried to resolve this tension of dual citizenship by futilely attempting to squeeze the Kingdom of God into the cramped and constricting containers that hold the kingdoms of this world.  It doesn’t work.  But that doesn’t keep us from trying.  It doesn’t keep us from wielding the tools of judgement, hate, arrogance, might, and fear, to wedge out those who don’t “fit” in our kingdom all the while hiding behind the delusion that we are somehow purifying the Kingdom of God.   

 Last time I checked God had not relinquished his exclusive right to the title “Refiner’s Fire.”  So for now, in this confusing place of holding dual citizenship, perhaps the better characterization of the Way on which Jesus has called us to walk is the work of simply enjoying rather than striving to usher in the Kingdom of God.  Humility is a great liberator.  For to be delivered out of the pit and into the broad and open space of God’s love is above all else a call to a lived gratitude where we strive merely to pass on what we did not produce and what we cannot kill; to love as we have been loved and so shine with the light that illumines the pathway to life.

David Rohrer
04/24/2021