Vines and Branches

The Son is the vine; the Father is the vine-grower.  I’ve experienced this metaphor for the relationship between God, Jesus and the disciples in several varieties.  First, there’s the coloring book version: green vines and purple grapes winding around a chalice with a little loaf of bread there for good measure.  Then, there’s the artsy-crafty kind: dried grape vines fashioned into decorative wreaths for any season of the year – even the religious ones.  Many of you experienced the kinetic type at our last EVENT: stomping on grapes to make a mash for wine making. Some of you helped with kneading bread dough too.

 When Steve and I visited Sonoma County last month, I got a brand new perspective on this gospel story.  Not only did we get to taste some amazing wines, thanks to my friend Ken - - the same Ken who rescued me from my near cactus garden fall years before - - but we also drove around and visited several wineries.  More than once, Ken said “you are tasting wine that was grown just outside these doors.”  He explained the different varietals and how several wines can be made from the same grapes using different techniques.  Steve was taking all this in.  I just kept staring at the vineyards….acres and acres and acres of vineyards as far as the eye could see.  “Jesus is the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower,” I thought to myself.  Wow. 

If this metaphor gave me any enlightenment, it was that the reach of Christ is beyond comprehension and the vine-growing Father provides loving care.  The Spirit’s help is most definitely required. Grapevines don’t just bear fruit by themselves; they must be tended through a special creative process that makes possible the wine we choose to enjoy with friends and family.  Ken gave me a great way to remember this process – each of the rooms at his office are named for steps in the process: Bud Break Lobby, Harvest Board Room, Crush Conference Rooms, Fermentation Tank (Kitchen), Storage Tank (copy & work room), and Wine Cellar & Tasting Room.

With a little imagination, you can make each of these vineyard processes match up to a step in one’s spiritual journey.  Let’s see:

·         Bud Break: stirring of the spirit – sensing God’s presence with us – knowing that something is ready to burst forth

·         Harvest: engaging in a ministry – gathered together with others of the same stuff ready to fully become the Christian we’ve declared ourselves to be

·         Crush: experiencing difficulty or temptation as we are led into becoming something/someone new, a crushing experience often

·         Fermentation: maturing…sometimes with heat added…but knowing we get better with age

·         Storage: those times when not much is happening, when we need to set idle and await God’s next move

·         Wine Cellar & Tasting: arriving where God wants us to be and enjoying the gifts of the Spirit

But, Ken’s clever room name scheme forgot a step, I’m afraid.  It’s the step that we know is necessary and the one we probably fear the most:  The Pruning Room.

While most of us don’t own vineyards, we do understand the concept of pruning.  It’s when we cut out the plant material that is keeping the tree or bush or vegetable from growing at its fullest potential.  We hear it referred to as ‘cutting out the dead wood’ and that is true some of the time.  However, pruning also means cutting back live growth or removing sucker plants in order that the plant can concentrate on growing straight or producing better tasting produce.  When we talk about it that way, it sounds violent.  It’s especially so when we talk about ‘cutting out the dead wood’ as taking away employment from people we no longer believe to be productive or who we deem too expensive to keep around.  Unfortunately, I’ve heard too many church people interpret this part of the gospel in this violent matter.  “If you don’t accept Jesus, you’ll be cut away and burned in Hades.”  That makes me shudder.

I believe that this message in John’s gospel has more to do with the consequences of not being in community (with God and with each other) than it does with dogma.  Jesus wants us to abide in him as he abides in us. 

This is an intimate relationship into which we are invited.  We are vines emerging from a central root that are to cling to each other, support each other, and eventually that relationship will be visible to the world because of the fruit that is being produced.  Those vines that choose to stray from the community cannot access the community’s resources.  Without support, without love, they wither….some die. 

The community for whom this gospel was written was under persecution.  It was imperative that they stick together – supporting each other in prayer – in order for the faith (and them!) to stay alive.  There would have been no benefit in quarreling about matters tangential to the message of God’s love for them – love that was made manifest in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  What mattered was how they loved each other and how that love spilled out into the dangerous world they lived in, like grapes heavy on the vines.

It also matters that we remember that the vineyard is not ours, but God’s.  The vine dresser knows best how to coax the best fruits from the vines.  God may ask us to pinch off or cut out some idea or emotion or habit that is keeping us from fully taking our part in the community or preventing us from producing the best fruit.  I don’t think it would take much effort on anyone’s part to come up with a few of those things for ourselves if we just think about it for a minute or two.  Yes, this pruning is uncomfortable, but it is necessary for a fruitful relationship with God and equally fruitful relationships with each other.  This pruning may be uncomfortable but it is not to be feared.  God is not punishing us; God is helping us grow. 

So come to the table, drink and eat, and abide in Christ. The wine we are about to share is our tangible reminder that we are divinely entwined with one other.  Entwined and rooted in the same Lord who is Love.

(c) 2012 C. B. Park/All rights reserved

PT Reflections

I love vacations. Getting away from the routine and visiting new places always gives me a thrill.  But, as much as I love visiting friends and seeing cool stuff, I love availing myself of public transportation.  While we were in San Francisco, Steve and I made our way around the City thanks to MUNI busses and cable cars.  Our $21, 3-day pass got us everywhere we wanted to go for less than the cost of one night’s parking fee. 

Of course, “PT” is not as beloved out here in the Midwest, the home of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors.  Buses and trains take the place of cars, you know.  For me, that’s the point.  I’ve never been a fan of driving.  It’s something I have to do. It’s something I’d rather someone else did.  I can get a lot of knitting done, or just enjoy the view, when I don’t have to pay attention to the road.

Public transportation holds another advantage for me.  It puts me in touch with a city’s people.  The cable cars are a fun treat for a tourist, but they are everyday transportation to a lot of people in the Bay area.  C. S. Lewis used a bus to transport people between heaven and hell in his book The Great Divorce.  On the busses, I saw people of all ages, all colors, all economic strata.  It’s a lot like what I think heaven will be.  (Honestly, I think hell will be like walking up to Nob Hill…never mind that beautiful Grace Cathedral’s at the end of the road! But, I digress…)

I invite you to drive your car to a suburban Park and Ride someday soon.  Don’t take an express bus – it’s full of people just like you. Instead, take a local and travel along with the people who make up this metropolitan area.  Let it be a reminder to you of the diversity of people with whom God has peppered this planet.  Let it help you remember that not all of us share in the advantages of suburban living and that, for many, the bus is their way to work or to the grocery store or to the doctor’s office. 

I wonder.  Perhaps if we had better public transportation, we might have a little better understanding of each other.  Busses and trains certainly cut across a bunch of barriers.  Then, again, are we willing to let those barriers disappear?

It's Inevitable (Sermon for Lent II, Mark 8:31-38)

At first glance, Peter’s concern for Jesus seems to be as one friend to another.  He took him aside to talk with him privately.  There was no public outcry that what Jesus was saying was ridiculous and out of line.  In Mark’s gospel we don’t really know what Peter said.  The rebuke could have been anything from “stop talking like this, we don’t want you to get hurt” to “quit this cross-talk, Lord, I didn’t sign up for this.”

Jesus’ response is rather shocking.  First of all, he used his outside voice so that all could hear.  Second of all, he equated Peter’s rebuke to the will of Satan.  Finally, he directed his message to the entire crowd.  Friends, it is the last piece of the response that frightens me the most.  By relating that Jesus calls the crowd to hear his message, Mark is making it very clear that Jesus is talking to the hearer of the message today as well as the crowd way back then.

There was only one thing that the crowd in first-century Palestine would have understood the directive of taking up one’s cross to be.  It would not be the image as we use it in the 21^st century.  Today, it just rolls off of our tongue when we are talking about something that inconveniences us.  “Well, I guess that’s my cross to bear.” 

Our understanding cannot compare with the cruel, tortuous, bloody death that awaited those who dared threaten the Roman Empire.  This bloody image was one Jesus would have been oh so familiar with, having been somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10 when the Romans crucified thousands of Galileans condemned for insurrection.  Jesus knew full well what he was risking and if was going to be required of him, he knew it would be required of his followers.

It frightens me that I have signed up for this difficult discipleship.  It frightens me that I signed my son up for this as an infant.  It frightens me that our young people will affirm their commitment of this next week.  But it doesn’t frighten me here as much as it would if I were preaching in Syria or the Sudan or in Columbia.  We are relatively safe in our suburban bubble.  Here, our sufferings will most likely be from our own bad choices and not what may be forced upon us.  We’ll not likely lose our lives in the tradition of Perpetua and her Companions or even the Martyrs of Memphis.  Yet, following Jesus does require us to acknowledge two uncomfortable facts:

1)    Suffering is inevitable.  None of us are going to get through this life without some kind of pain.

Of course, we do everything possible to prevent suffering; the pharmaceutical industry is clear evidence of that.  And, there are specific times and reasons for pharmaceutical intervention.   The problem is that when we mask over all kinds or degrees of pain, we lose the lessons that suffering teaches us.  Suffering gives us a glimpse of God’s own Self. 

Martin Luther said that to know God truly is to know God hidden in suffering.  The Buddha taught that suffering is not only pain, grief or despair, but also being separated from what we love, not getting what we want, and being forced into proximity with what we hate.  Suffering can also come from our own self-loathing or fear of what we do not understand.  We can only learn from suffering if we are willing to get close to it.  That’s certainly more easily said than done.

No one wants to suffer; we don’t even want to be near it.  We avoid the places where it happens.  I’ve heard too many stories of people who have been abandoned by people they thought were friends when disaster strikes.  It’s as if cancer, tornados, or violent crime can be transmitted through talking.  Getting too close to suffering reminds us that we may be only a split second away from suffering ourselves. We hover over our children to protect them from being hurt, often to their detriment.  We refuse to see the hungry and the homeless in our own neighborhoods, insisting that these conditions only exist ‘somewhere else’.   We want to believe that gates and security systems can keep out accidents, natural disasters, disability or disease.  Problem is they can’t.

 Jesus didn’t want to suffer either – we need only look at the Garden of Gethsemane to know that.  Yet, without it, redemption is short-circuited.  But, for our redemption, Jesus gave up his will to the Father’s and bore a real cross.  And, that’s what leads me to fact number two:

2)    Something has to die.  

Resurrection isn’t from the living, it’s from the dead.

Jesus was warning his disciples that God’s way is not a way where everything is a bed of roses.  God’s way is to be among those who suffer and die.  Jesus said that the he MUST undergo great suffering. Suffering and death are required.  There are no exceptions for anyone wishing to be his disciple.  Putting our minds on divine things means finding God in those places where we can’t imagine God being: in uncertainty, danger, and suffering. 

For us to find God there, we have to go there. We must toss away our suburban security blankets and wander into worlds that are different from ours.  If we are not suffering ourselves, we need to put our egos aside in order to stand with those who are suffering.  “Not what I want, but what God wants” is the mantra of the Christian disciple.

Experiencing our own suffering allows us to be present for others who are going through similar circumstances.  Therefore, if we mask our suffering, we have denied God’s gift of future ministry for us.  Our egos are all wrapped up in this.  There is a difference between the single parent struggling to make a life for his/her family who accepts the hardship as ministry and the self-absorbed person who says ‘it’s okay, don’t change the light bulb, I’ll suffer in the dark.’  This ministry is not one where we compare our experience to the one in our presence but one where we are silent companions in our knowledge of their pain.  Resurrection in the reign of God hinges on our willingness to let self-centeredness die away in order that we can be open to standing with those who are suffering and, yes, dying.  We know this because Christ’s resurrection means that we can be confident that God is with us when we are uncertain, in danger, or inconsolable.

Karen Armstrong, a British theologian and historian, writes: “If we push suffering away and pretend that the ubiquitous grief of the world has nothing to do with us, we will remain confined in an inferior version of ourselves.”  There is a great gift in standing alongside those who suffer.  Suffering strips away everything that is not authentic.  When we are in partnership with God in these ministries, we see not only God’s true Self but also our own. The question is – will you like what you see?

Take these thoughts away with you this week: Will your Lenten discipline move you closer to Jesus’ requirement of his disciples?  Will your taking on or giving up help you bear the real cross that you are currently experiencing or that may be waiting for you?  If not, it’s not too late to reassess.   And please keep our confirmands in your prayers. Amen.

 

Karen Armstrong in Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (Fourth Step: Empathy).

(c) 2012 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

rest

I listened today to a fine theologian who was channeling another fine theologian.  I'll leave off the names for now.  It's the message that is important:  America is Babylon.  America is empire.  We have all been assimilated.  In our assimilation we have been rendered silent. Exhaustion, despair, anger, disappointment, and fear have sapped us to the point that we can no longer be imaginative.  The 'borg' know this.  Imagination brings us freedom. Imagination rejuvenates the Self.

It's way too easy to be Type-A-always-busy-being-productive because the empire rewards this behavior. Wait - take that back.  I allow the empire to reward this behavior.  Then, when I'm burned out, it isn't my fault.  I am seduced.

Rest. Rest gives back the Self, the Self that is lost in busyness.  It's okay to just sit.  It's okay to just be.  I can't listen if I'm always talking, always praying for and not just being ready to receive.  It's okay to quietly wait for God.

Give the Spirit Some Room

[This is what happens when your sermon inspiration comes from a Saturday Night Live skit and an adult book about putting children to bed.  Christmas Day 2011/(c) All Rights Reserved C. B. Park]

Gabriel appeared to a maiden

as one candle burned a small flume.

“Don’t be afraid, Mary, you’re favored!

You can give the Spirit some room.

You’ve been chosen by God,” said the angel.

“to lift people out of their gloom.

If you are willing, a child you shall bear

if you give the Holy Spirit some room.”

“How can this be?” said Mary.

“I’m betrothed to Joseph, my groom.

He will not approve of this message

or give the Holy Spirit some room.”

“O’er you shall hover God’s Spirit

and you shall conceive in your womb

a child whose name will be Jesus.

Won’t you please give the Spirit some room?”

And so Mary conceded to Gabriel

permission for God’s Spirit to loom.

Mary bore Jesus in Bethlehem;

the world gave the Spirit some room.

On this gift of a child I ponder

when the world seems headed only for doom

Does my ‘yes’ to God still matter?

Why should I give the Spirit some room?

St. Stephen said yes and they stoned him

His assent led him straight to the tomb

Preaching the Good News is dangerous, friends

Do you dare give the Spirit some room?

The children in Bethlehem did nothing wrong;

Yet Herod prevented their bloom.

Mothers still weep for their children.

Holy Spirit, are you here in this room?

Before we get lost in dark sadness;

Before we descend into gloom;

Recall stories that have given us courage

When the Spirit’s been given some room.

Moses led the slaves out of Egypt;

David’s kingdom did nothing but boom;

The prophets gained a voice for God’s people,

For they gave the Spirit some room

Saint Catherine wrote of her Friendship

with the Lord, whom she knew as her groom.

She’s remembered now, all over Europe

Because she gave the Spirit some room.

Saint Martin de Porres loved all work

even cleaning with brush and with broom.

“Our labors bring us closer to God,” he said.

He gave the Spirit some room.

Martin Luther called Rome to repentance

“Stop this nonsense!” he said with a boom.

“We’re treating God’s people unjustly;

Please give the Spirit some room!”

You and I may never be great saints

Or remembered long after the tomb

But we have the chance to share God’s love

When we give the Spirit some room.

So say yes to the angels around you

Help them to wash away gloom

Share the story of Jesus then wait patiently, friends

Give the Spirit some room.

Amen.

Happiness is a Warm Puppy and Baby Jesus

Okay, she's not a puppy, but she is warm.  Abby is snuggled up next to me on my sofa. I realize that many people frown upon animals who sit where people sit, but I don't think there's anything more soothing than petting a furry head.  Zac - the older one - is sleeping on his bed near the hearth.  His days of sofa are long gone and we both know that if he sees another Christmas it will be a miracle.  Christmas is constant; so is the cycle of life.

It's never easy to celebrate the holidays when you are aware of who isn't there.  This year, we miss our Val - the sheltie who came with Zac, but left us in September.  Other years it's been a grandparent or a parent or a sibling.  Future years will be the same.  Christmas is constant; so is the cycle of life.

The hope that comes with the Word made flesh is constant.  When emotions betray me, I close my eyes and go to the manger.  Jesus cries, just like me.  I pick up this small child and hold him to my heart and we comfort each other. 

When I open my eyes again, Abby looks at me like she understands.  God was present in the manger.  You have to wonder if 'dog' was too.

Mean ol' Flu

Time flies whether you're having fun or not.  Just where did November go?  I think it is somewhere over the rainbow amidst a diocesan convention, a myriad of meetings, and (oh yes) a major holiday. 
It should come as no surprise that I've spent the last 2 days sick.  Flu overtook me and, although I protested, flung me into bed with chills and aches and exhaustion. 

"But, Flu, my parents are here.  I don't have time for you."

"You are not in control at the moment."

"Flu, this isn't fair.  I have to work on Sunday."

"Life's not fair. Neither am I."

"How about this then - Kevin invited his friend Clayton and his family over for dinner.  I can't be a good hostess if I'm in bed with you."


"Kevin can cook. You taught him. So there. I have you now."

No one can argue with Flu.  Don't even try.