Well, I was really hoping to do some thoughtful Advent-related posting this month.
Yeah. Not going to happen.
Christmas preparations taking over.
Sermon to write. Snowed in all week. Gotta run.
Peace to all.
I don't know how to link to a clip from last night's show, but if you haven't seen his conversation with Mike Huckabee, go to Comedy Central's website and watch it. "If you're so convinced that marriage is the bedrock of society, why wouldn't you want more people to be able to buy into it?"
Good question. Followed by many, many more, and some seriously great biblical zingers to boot.
I love him.
Received a Christmas card this afternoon.
On the front: slightly cheesy, but nonetheless earnest, Standard Nativity Scene.
Inside: wishes from senders for "peace, hope, and love."
On the back: "this card produced by the National Rifle Association of America." Which, apparently, wishes you peace, hope, love, and a big ol' handgun in case the first three don't work out.
Am not sure whether to laugh or throw up.
This Advent season, we are using a 'new' (as in, unknown to me) version of the Creed. I'm guessing it was written by someone in this congregation.
It has a lot of accurate points. Basically good theology (with a few exceptions). I don't mind the fact that we change the words, even though I think both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds are perfectly good, because it is good to make yourself really think about what you're saying, and sometimes a change from the familiar does just that.
But basically, I hate this creed.
You can tell it was written by someone who really wanted to meld 'change' and 'tradition,' and unfortunately ended up with 'awkward.' It is not the Reese's Peanut Butter of creeds, the kind where old chocolate meets new peanut butter in a creamy, sweet, slightly salty, melt-in-your mouth perfection of taste explosions.
Excuse me while I go get a peanut butter cup, apparently.
No, this combination of new and old is more like Joan Rivers after plastic surgery. With apologies to Mr. President-Elect, not all change is good.
However, despite having a deep love of liturgy, I have very few resources for new creeds. Does anyone have a suggestion for me?
I'll just sit here and eat this peanut butter cup for awhile.
Sally at RevGals writes,
And yet our shops and stores and often our lives are caught up in a world that looks very much like the one of ancient Rome, where we worship at the shrine of consumerism....
Advent on the other hand calls us into the darkness, a time of quiet preparation, a time of waiting, and re-discovering the wonder of the knowledge that God is with us. Advent's call is to simplicity and not abundance, a time when we wait for glorious light of God to come again...
Christ is with us at this time of advent, in the darkness, and Christ is coming with his light- not the light of the shopping centre, but the light of love and truth and beauty.
What do you long for this advent? What are your hopes and dreams for the future? What is your prayer today?
In the vein of simplicity I ask you to list five advent longings....
I should list things like world peace, and the end of global poverty and AIDS, and a healthier, ethical economy, and indeed I do pray for those things. However, seeing as I am not currently in the running for Miss America...
Honestly, I only long for one thing. Anyone who has read this blog will probably know what it is. But today's query is poignant, because overnight a dear, wonderful blogging friend gave birth to a daughter. She and her husband, like Beloved and I, had a long struggle with infertility. It just so happens that the name they had already chosen for their daughter is the same as the name I have dreamt about for a long time.
So today, there is a beautiful (well, I haven't seen photos yet, but of course!), beloved girl in the world with my daughter's name. And she is not my daughter.
As delighted and truly, truly happy as I am for my friend, all my joy over other people's children is always tinged with sadness.
I long for a child. There is nothing else on my list.
I love my in-laws. Really.
But if I get more more freaking email from them about some petition to help prevent banning Christians from the airwaves, or help put prayer 'back' in schools, or put flags on every surface that manages to keep still for five seconds, I AM GOING TO LOSE MY MIND.
I did finally, at this last "aak! they're trying to take pastors off the airwaves! the athiests are taking over and soon they will eat your children!" email, inform them of the value of www.snopes.com. Hopefully in a gentle manner.
What I really wanted to say was, "your email informs me that there is someone who would like to ban Joel Osteen from the airwaves. To that person, I say, BRAVO."
But I refrained. Barely.
It's a trifecta: three excellent, unique, wonderful, totally absorbing works of art.
The movie: The Visitor, featuring Richard Jenkins (one of those actors I think of as That Guy I Totally Recognize From A Whole Bunch of Movies But I Can't Think of Any Of Them, Why Can't I Think of Them, It's Driving Me Nuts). It's a very quiet film, and it takes a bit to get into it, but it's absolutely worth that initial patience. See it.
The book: 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. How had I never heard of this book? "Charming" is an overused word, but there is no better one for this book. If you, like me, are an Official Inveterate Reader, I suspect you'll love it. Super short. (Good for pastors in Advent.) And delightful. Read it.
The documentary: The Rape of Europa, which I got sucked into on PBS a few nights ago and was completely worth the Early Morning Crankiness as a result of staying up too late in order to finish watching it. I had heard, once upon a time, a little bit about the amazing work of sneaking art out of the hands of the Nazis, and about the vast art collections of Hitler and his cronies. But this story, not only about stealing art, and how it survived, and what is still missing, is amazing. Watch it.
And a tentative fourth recommendation: The Madonnas of Leningrad, which I am borrowing from my niece, and which intrigued me because of its connection to the documentary above. Interwoven with a woman's memories of helping preserve the contents of the Hermitage is her current struggle with dementia. Most of the time, the struggle with dementia or Alzheimers is told from the perspective of the caregiver. This one comes from the voice and mind of the woman losing both. Heartbreaking, and lovely.
One of the things I find difficult about parish ministry is the level of attention. I completely understand why people sometimes just want to come to church and sit in the back and leave before coffee hour - yes, sometimes that is a cry for help and should be attended to, but you know what? Sometimes you just don't want a lot of attention.
If you are a pastor and you get a fairly dramatic haircut, you get a lot of attention. The problem is, you can't do anything about that. Except never cut your hair or change its style in any way, which is a solution too dramatic for me. I like a little change once in awhile. I just don't need four hundred and twenty-four people commenting on said change.
My very, very (naturally) curly hair has been an object of much discussion while I have been at Still Quite New Congregation. Seriously. Nine months in, and I still get some comment almost every Sunday: "is that natural? You're so lucky! It's so curly!" And my personal favorite, from a junior high kid: "my grandma says you have the curliest hair of anyone she's ever met." Thanks, kid.
So, as you are gathering, I got my hair cut about two weeks ago. On a Saturday. And the next day, it was as if there was nothing else to talk about in the world. "It's so short! It's really cute! Boy, that's really different!" (My least favorite: the usher who said, "hi, Butch." What the hell does that mean? Should I be offended? Not sure. Let it go.)
I did notice two distinct trajectories. One: the women noticed and commented frequently. (I realize this next bit is a little gender-biased; not trying to enter sexual politics here, just noting my experience.) Even if all they did was comment about how short it was, they commented.
And two: the men mostly noticed, but didn't comment. Not out loud, anyway. Mostly they looked at me like, "something is different, but I'm not sure if I should say anything about it." This happened a lot during communion distribution. So much so that I briefly considered (not really) saying as each puzzled-looking guy received the bread, "this is the body of Christ, given for you, and yes, my hair is different."
I bet St. Paul never had to deal with any of this crap. I mean sure, he had the whole "thorn in the flesh" thing, but I'm guessing that was not a coded reference to the fact that people were overreacting to his snazzy new 'do.
All I wanted to do was insert a link for Feasting on the Word, the fabulous commentary mentioned in the post below.
What is a 21st century pastor to do? Google it.
And so Google, in all its wisdom, gave me several options. One was for the book itself, available through Cokesbury or amazon.com.
But the other, actually the first one at the top of the page, was equally intriguing:
"Feasting on the Word Christian Gift Dinnerware," it said, "developed as a way of getting God’s Word in front of people—on their tables—to aid in the process of meditating on God’s Word."
What is a 21st century pastor to do with that? Click it, baby. (You know you want to. Voila.)
I would like to believe that the makers of said dinnerware are genuinely faithful people who want to contribute some goodness to the world. I was going with this theory until I saw the "prosperity place setting," which, among other pieces, includes a bread and butter plate with the verse, "God gives power to get wealth so that He may establish His covenant."
Okay.
Sometimes, all you can do is quote the great Homer Simpson: "Jesus must be rolling over in his grave."
(I do have to say, however, that I was surprised and delighted to read the verse on the "patriotic collection mug": "Pursue Peace." From Leviticus, of all places.)
Before starting on tomorrow's list o' Thanksgiving preparations, there's a bit of time to prepare for Sunday's sermon. Advent - finally!
Every year we get this "beginning at the end" Sunday, which is simultaneously fantastic and terrifying. Reading the newest commentary on my shelf (Feasting on the Word, edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor), I came across this quote in relationship to Sunday's Isaiah reading:
God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mk 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which God is with us and helps us.
Will that preach? It might need more interactive discussion than the pulpit would allow. But it certainly sticks with me. We'll see how it might influence Sunday's proclamation.
If you've ever seen The Natural (and, if you haven't, you should), you'll recognize that title from the smarmy consultant who comes to talk with Roy Hobbes' pitiful teammates at the lowest point of their season. "Losing...is a disease," he says, as the scene is inter-cut with examples of the team's inept play.
If losing is a disease, then every team I've followed in my life is terminal. Let's check it out, shall we?
From Songbird over at RevGals:
In a minor domestic crisis, my food processor, or more precisely the part you use for almost everything for which I use a food processor, picked the eve of the festive season of the year to give up the ghost. A crack in the lid expanded such that a batch of squash soup had to be liberated via that column shaped thing that sticks up on top.
Can you tell this is not my area of strength?
Next week, I'm hosting Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please answer the following kitchen-related questions:
1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it?
Yep. Have one. Planning to use it tonight in the making of French Onion Soup (food processors are great for slicing large quantities of onions). It's just the classic Cuisinart one, without any fancy attachments. Oops...am now treading into the territory of question two:
2) And if so, do you use the fancy things on it? (Mine came with a mini-blender (used a lot and long ago broken) and these scary disks you used to julienne things (used once).)
I use the disks for slicing onions and other veggies, and for grating stuff (good to grate zucchini for zucchini bread). Right now, I'm missing the little white insert you put in the top to keep stuff from flying out. This is a bit of a problem, but placing a towel over the opening seems to be working fine.
3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties?
My KitchenAid standing mixer is my very favorite kitchen appliance. I love it. I use it all the time. I also have a KitchenAid hand-held mixer, good for smaller things like whipping cream. But for a big batch of cookies or bread, there's nothing like the standing mixer. It's one of my favorite Christmas gifts of all time. And one of the things which, when I saw it on my countertop, caused me to think, "Wow - I'm a grownup now."
And isn't that color delightfully retro?
The aqua is, admittedly, super cute. However, having grown up surrounded by harvest gold and avocado green appliances which were also 'super cute' in their heyday, I've decided to stick with white appliances. Even though there are a ton of charming colors in the land o' standing mixers.
4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much?
Have one. (I was about to write that my excuse for having all these kitchen gadgets is being fairly recently married, thus the registry, but then I realized that I had all of these particular gadgets as a single person. No wedding gifts represented here at all. So I have no excuse, except that I really like to cook.) I probably use the blender less than any other kitchen appliance, but I have recently discovered a Winter Squash Soup recipe which requires use of the blender, and I love it. So said appliance may be getting more year-round use, branching out from its regular summer routine of margaritas and fruit smoothies.
5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most?
Well, now I do have to get into the wedding registry gift items. One of the great things we received was a set of very nice kitchen knives. I have to admit that, although I poo-pooed the expense of such knives for years (when I couldn't afford them, mostly), it turns out that a good knife is worth its weight in gold. We recently had them sharpened after four years of use, and I think we need to make that an annual event. I would give up a lot of other gadgety-type things for a good set of knives.
Bonus: Is there a kitchen appliance or utensil you ONLY use at Thanksgiving or some other holiday? If so, what is it?
This year will only be the second time we've hosted Thanksgiving, so I have no real traditions in that regard. But, growing up, we did have an electric knife which only came out for Thanksgiving, the use of which was utterly fascinating to the kids. I might have my dad bring that over just for old times' sake.
Today I finally made time to go to a local text study for clergy women (I think we should post a handwritten sign on the door: NO BOYS ALLOWED). Text study is one thing I've really missed in this place, since there is no organized study that I'm aware of in the area. The women's study is only about 10 miles away, but since there's usually a fair amount of traffic involved, it does take awhile to get there. Worth it, though. I've always been the only woman (or, for awhile, one of two) in my local clergy groups. And though I grew up with brothers and lots of male cousins, and so am not much bothered by being the lone female, I have to admit - it's nice to have a change.
We were talking about the first Sunday of Advent, a season I currently love and loathe, for lots of reasons. The love outweighs the loathe, without a doubt, but the latter does tend to rear its ugly head at unfortunate moments. This will be my fourth Advent of still-hoping-to-get-pregnant, which is a particularly hard state of being when there are all these readings about babies showing up out of nowhere. On the one hand, those stories give me great hope and comfort. Although sometimes they just feel like a knife to the heart. Lectio torturous, of sorts.
So we were talking about the first Sunday of Advent and all its now-but-not-yet-ness, waiting for something which has already happened and is yet to be fulfilled. And I said something about how it's very different to wait for something you know is going to happen, as opposed to waiting for something that you have no guarantee will ever happen. "I suppose it's a bit like pregnancy," I said, "that you're waiting for something you know is going to happen..."
"But you don't know that," interrupted one woman. "You don't. You don't know for sure that it will happen, so you're still hoping."
So I think I hit a tender spot for her.
Which brought up something I've been thinking about for a long time now, something that Gannet Girl summarized perfectly in a comment she wrote on my last post: "The world is full of onlookers concealing whole oceans of pain."
A few years ago, I read a book called Torture and Eucharist, by William Cavanaugh. Amazing book. He writes about the 'disappearing' of people in Pinochet's Chile, about how the church was complicit, or at least largely silent, while thousands of people simply vanished from their daily lives. Eucharist, he writes, is the church making visible that which is invisible: celebrating the body and blood of Christ not just as 'long ago,' or 'not yet,' but as right now, right here. So too, he writes, is our work to be in all areas of life: that the church ought to be about the work of making visible the invisible, giving voice to the silent, re-membering those who were 'disappeared.'
I'm thinking about this work for Advent. Making visible the invisible. That the world is full of onlookers concealing whole oceans of pain. That, so often, we keep our pain invisible from others - with the result that we cause more wounds, because others don't know about the tender spots. I spoke about pregnancy as a different kind of anticipation because, from my vantage point right now, the fact of being pregnant means you have crossed the great barrier I face, and you're on the other side. I wonder if the woman who spoke up in text study might have experienced a miscarriage or a stillbirth, and so she spoke from her knowledge that even being pregnant is not a sure thing. And then there is Gannet Girl, and others like her, who know that being born doesn't protect your children from disappearing still, in one way or another. And there is the new mother in my congregation whose child arrived in their home to be fostered and then adopted, for two days of sheer joy, until they got a phone call from The Powers That Be saying the child may have siblings in the foster system, so they may need to take her away.
Sometimes pain simply cannot be shared. Not for awhile, anyway. Added to that, however, is the constant force in our culture determined to prevent us from showing our wounds to anyone. Be strong. Just do it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Be a soccer mom with lipstick, or whatever that whole fuss was. And the church goes along with it. "How are you?" we ask briskly on our way out of the sanctuary, expecting only, "Fine." Believe me: I am not about to confess my infertility grief during worship. But then again, I am only adding to a certain false pretense by not doing so.
How long, O Lord? How long do we wait? How broad is this ocean, when you cannot see the other side.
There are some questions no text study can answer, of course. But it is good not to be alone in the asking.
There were a lot of "what if" scenarios presented to us during the seminary years. What would you do if someone confessed a crime to you? What would you do if a sex offender wanted to join your congregation? What would you do if the women's group FREAKED OUT about the color of the kitchen? (Answer: trick question. We were specifically told to stay away from anything regarding the kitchen.)
But I never heard this one:
What should you do if your sort-of ex-boyfriend (now happily married as, I might add, are you) joins the congregation you are serving, just in time for his lovely wife to give birth to their first child, a child you will be part of baptizing, said baptism to take place, coincidentally, on the weekend which is simultaneously the beginning of your fourth year of trying to get pregnant AND the weekend when it becomes apparent that your first attempt at artificial insemination has failed?
Preferred answer: skip church.
Actual answer: smile, and keep going.
Long weekend ahead, my friends. But, as a wise woman (my mother) told me,
It will all be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.
So, I guess it's not the end. Yet.
A headline on today's cnn.com:
"Palin decries 'extreme partisanship'"
Know anyone who might have been contributing to that lately, Governor?
(insert sound of crickets here)
The fifth commandment, as you may remember: "You shall not kill."
Temptation, thy name is Junior High Retreat.
We had our annual fall Junior High retreat this past weekend, and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in youth ministry. All Sunday afternoon and most of yesterday I spent thinking about why, and about what we can do differently. I'm wondering if some of my frustrations are inherent to youth ministry in this time and place (I suspect strongly that is the case, actually). And I wonder what the church ought to do given the particular challenges youth and families face.
I should say, right off the bat, that I really like junior high kids. It was definitely an epoch in my own life I'd rather not repeat, but I think that only adds to my fondness for them. It's a hard time, and I think most adults (while acknowledging their own general misery at that age) underestimate how painful a time it can be. In spite of their difficulties, though, junior high kids are still more likely to be, in short, kid-like: they can be much more enthusiastic, interested, and engaged than high schoolers, who are generally occupied looking way too cool for whatever activity is going on at the moment. So I like these kids. I'm predisposed to enjoy spending time with them.
Unless they are, to be short again, a collective pain in the ass.
We had a few very specific problems on this retreat. Let's list them here, shall we?
1. We (the staff who ran it) were not nearly as organized as we should be, or normally are. There are a few reasons for this. Those can be easily changed.
2. Cell phones on retreat are the work of the devil. More on this later.
3. The big, not-sure-what-to-do-about-it problem, the one infecting not only the junior high kids on this retreat but, I believe, our whole blooming society: entitlement. I deserve because I am.
About problem number one: we can fix that. We've been in transition mode with retreat planning, and hopefully this retreat demonstrated that we need to finish up that transition, pronto. I'm not much concerned about that one.
About problem number two: yea, verily, though indeed there will be some weeping and gnashing of teeth about it, we will be banning cell phones on retreat. A letter will be going out within the next two weeks to all families explaining this, well in advance of any retreat coming up on the calendar. We had limited cell phone usage to free time, but it turns out that even that created problems, because the kids were not really present at the retreat once the cell phones came on. This group of kids never bonded, at all, and although I strongly suspect this particular group would have had challenges with that anyway, the cell phone thing killed it.
I'm sure there will be some parents who will FREAK OUT that they can't contact their kids at any given moment to tell them something really, crucially, life-alteringly important, like...oh, wait. None of the cell phone contact had anything to do with that. We will just have to return to the caveman days, like when I was young, when you had to contact the chaperone if you needed to speak with your kid. Believe it or not, parents, kids survived those retreats. In fact, your kid stands a much better chance of surviving at a retreat precisely if they don't bring their cell phones, because if they do, I might KILL THEM. (Oops. Fifth commandment issues again.)
So that one will be a bit tricky, but we can do it.
As to problem number three: I just don't know. What really discourages me is this: that the kids who behaved well are that way because their parents teach them to be that way. And, conversely, that the kids who were horrendous were so for the same reason. But that group in the middle, that group that could go either way depending on the strength of their peers to drag them along: the church seems to be making no difference whatsoever in the minds of that group. This was a retreat on the beatitudes, for pete's sake. CALM DOWN AND BE MEEK FOR A SECOND, KID.
I've said it before, and I believe it, that youth ministry especially (all ministry, really) is about planting seeds, and you don't always see the results of that. But the strength of these kids' negativity about absolutely everything ("this food sucks," "Why are we here?" "I hate this," "my parents just make me come," "this is dumb," etc.) is hard to overcome.
I'll get over my pessimism eventually. But for now, I'm feeling rotten about youth ministry. Not a good feeling.
Except for one thing: yesterday I went to my alma mater to preach at chapel. It went well. And one of the chapel attenders was a kid from my previous congregation who, honestly, was a pain in the ass in junior high. (For quite different reasons than I've outlined above, but still.) And now, he is an enthusiastic, thoughtful, funny, generous, intellectually curious college student aiming for a religion major, wanting to teach theology.
I need to cut out a picture of him and post it somewhere prominent for a few weeks, I think.
Next week I am preaching in chapel at Alma Mater University, something I haven't done since my senior year some thirteen years ago. It turns out that the nerves do not improve with time.
Campus Ministry has this very green-y theme on spirituality and sustainability, with a monthly focus on biodiversity and compassion. It's a very cool theme, but I have to admit that I had NO IDEA where to go with that when they first brought it up. (This is the problem with being a Lectionary Preacher. You have no idea what to do when you ask, "what's the scripture for the day?" and the person responds, "Oh, you can choose your own." It's like leaping off a cliff.)
Eventually, I remembered a poem I had read some years ago about compost. The text of the whole poem, which will be printed in the chapel bulletin, is below the sermon.
And yea, though it is only Thursday, and though I could have been working on a few other things before this sermon, I actually finished it. I think. So, because I have some advance time for feedback - a rarity - I thought I'd publish it here and see if it makes sense.
I don't do sermon titles, by the way. Sorry.
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A few years ago, I was converted to the ways of composting. I’ve never been much of a gardener, but my mother assured me that composting was the secret to success. It’s easy, she said. Choose a spot for your compost pile; maybe even get one of those fancy black plastic compost bins that the county gives out once in awhile. Put it in a spot that doesn’t get a lot of sun, on top of some wire mesh so you don’t get rats. Dump some dry leaves in the bottom, and then start adding all your food scraps. No oil, no meat, no dairy, she said, but everything else is fair game: orange peels, carrot shavings, coffee grounds, egg shells, apple cores.
So we did this. We set up our fancy black compost bin in the right spot, with our rat-proof mesh on the bottom. We put in the leaves, and then we started adding food scraps. Day after day, we’d throw them in and imagine that, in the spring, we would open the bottom of the bin and out would burst this dark, loamy, rich soil, the kind that grew tomatoes the size of your head and corn as high as an elephant’s eye.
So imagine my dismay when I opened the bin some weeks later, hoping to catch my first glance of soil, and instead all I caught was a horrible smell of rotting food, something akin to oranges that have been sitting out in the sun for weeks stirred with a cup of coffee you left on the counter three months ago, with just a hint of rotten banana. What was this? This was supposed to be easy. What had gone wrong? What do I do? Step one: call my mom.
She gave us some tips for successful composting, but the most important tip can be summed up in one word: worms. We had none of them and apparently, this is a composting disaster. Because it turns out that the worms do most of the work in your compost pile, chewing through the scraps to make them into good soil. Without the worms, what you basically have is a pile of rotting food. Add worms, you get dirt. We got some worms.
Which made me think of the book of Jonah. I realize this is probably not most people’s first reaction to the word “worms,” but being a pastor and therefore sort of a bible nerd, it is what I thought.
You remember Jonah. Maybe from your youth, since it’s a popular children’s lesson. From the Veggie Tales movie or, if you are slightly older, from flannel boards in Sunday School. Jonah is called by God to preach to the people of Nineveh, a city in Assyria. “Their wickedness is great before me,” says God to Jonah, so Jonah is go and warn them to change their evil ways lest the Lord bring a calamity upon them.
This is a problem, however, because the Assyrians in general are known for their brutal ways, and they are historically enemies of Israel. In today’s terms, let’s say that a presidential candidate who suggested diplomatic talks with Assyria would be scorned, to say the least. But nevertheless, despite Assyria’s reputation, God sends Jonah to Nineveh.
So Jonah, being a stand-up courageous guy, promptly gets on the next boat to Tarshish, which is like being told to go to New York and buying a bus ticket for Los Angeles instead. Unfortunately for Jonah, once the ship is at sea, it runs into a terrible storm, and the sailors on board figure someone on this boat must have really angered the gods. They cast lots to see who the offender is and, naturally, the lot falls to Jonah. So Jonah offers to walk the plank, figuring that the sea will quiet down once he’s at the bottom of it, not to mention the fact that diving off the ship will take care of any chance he might have to go to Nineveh.
Here comes the Sunday School part: Jonah is swallowed by a great fish, which transports him straight to dry land and spits him out onto the shore. One more time, God tells Jonah to head to Nineveh, and this time Jonah does it, though with a rather heavy heart. Jonah walks all over the city shouting, “forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! Change your ways or perish!” And here’s the amazing part of the story – not the fish part, that’s interesting, but the amazing part is this: that the people of Nineveh actually do change their ways, and repent of their evil. The transformation is so complete that the king commands even the livestock to be clothed in sackcloth, and repent of any evil cow deeds they might have committed. Such as methane gas, I suppose.
And what of Jonah? Jonah is the most successful prophet in Israel’s history. In fact, he is the only prophet who ever got people to do what he said. No one else even came close to this level of success, and how does Jonah react? That’s what we read this morning. “But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” For Jonah, the only silver lining of preaching to Nineveh was the satisfaction of watching the whole evil, disgusting, enemy city get wiped off the map by God. Jonah never actually wanted to succeed: he just wanted to watch his enemies suffer. It is one of the most central, beloved confessions Israel has: the Lord our God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love – and Jonah hurls that reputation against God in his fit of anger. “This is why I never wanted to go!” he yelled at God. “Because I know you are GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL and ABOUNDING IN STUPID STEADFAST LOVE and I HATE THAT!” And Jonah goes off to pout.
So God appointed a bush, a shrub, to grow up and shade Jonah, which makes Jonah happy. And then, at dawn the next day, when Jonah is still sitting there hoping that God will smite Nineveh any minute now, God appoints a worm to eat the bush, so that it withers. You’ve been wondering where I was going with this, right? Worms.
In Jonah’s case, it’s a worm God chooses to teach about compassion. “You care so deeply about this shrub you didn’t even plant,” says God, “and you think I should not care about a whole city full of people? Not to mention the livestock?”
In the case of my compost, it’s worms that transform a pile of rotten food into good, rich soil – it’s worms that turn the past into the future. The poem you have printed in your bulletin puts it this way: “Soon enough, we’ll shove wheelbarrows of dark October compost and watch the dry dirt bulge, mulch of worms and beetles making of debris a kingdom.”
There’s another way to translate God’s choosing a worm to teach Jonah: “God appointed a worm,” my version says, but you could also translate it this way: “God ordained a worm.” Which is either really good news or really bad news for ordained pastors, depending on your perspective, but that’s beside the point.
All of us come with piles of things we would rather ignore, cover up, walk away from. Families that hurt us. Friends that turned out not to be friends at all. Reputations we no longer want to carry. Perhaps you come to this place entirely sure of who you are and what you are doing here, and what comes next; and perhaps you are here with no real idea of who you are, or who you are supposed to be, or what you are going to do once this particular adventure is over. Your pile may be filled with confidence, or fear; with failure, or success, or all the times you simply didn’t try at all. We come with grudges, and frustrations, and self-centeredness, and laziness. We come with tears we have cried and tears we have caused, with our hopes and fears in a time which encourages both.
Should we not attend to these things, if we shove them into corners of our minds and try to forget them, be unwilling to stir them up and let some light in, they will become nothing more than rottenness, and trust me: the smell of that isn’t good.
But God ordains worms. God does the work of churning, of chewing through our pasts, of turning our decay into good soil, so that a new future can be planted. God gives us courage to be worms, to tumble and churn what we would otherwise be afraid to confront. We may even be worms for each other, one way of tending to the needs of the saints; and others may be worms for us.
For God is indeed gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, making of our debris a kingdom, turning rottenness and decay into compost, into good soil, into new life. We will sing it in just a moment – and you thought there weren’t any hymns about composting, didn’t you? – in the water and the witness, in the breaking of the bread, in the waiting arms of Jesus who is risen from the dead; God has made a new beginning from the ashes of our past; in the losing and the winning we hold fast.
It’s the secret of good compost, in one word: worms. Making rich soil, new life. Christ saves us from decay we’re destined for, says the poet. And we respond, may it be so. Amen.
October Compost, by Walt McDonald
Leaf rakes go back, go back and trees give up
more leaves than roots can use. Pack down
the pounds of locust leaves, the aspen gold
and fat catalpa bark. All summer we stacked
the pantry, hauled bushels of ears to neighbors
and the town’s food bank. Now come the geese
from Canada, fields with loud flocks
pecking grain and corn. Our yard’s a compost.
Bring out pitchforks and garden hose, turn
barrels of garbage for the garden, tumble,
churn it like sauerkraut steamy and damp.
All seasons whisper resurrection.
I need this gray decay. Since March,
I’ve wrestled bales of barbed wire,
bossed the herds, but fall brings cattle trucks.
Runt calves and old cows ride to slaughter.
Fall feeds the soil, and harvest saves
the stalks as silage to make cold cattle fat.
Fall saves migrating geese from freezing,
leads us to spring, tilling the earth
till springer cows give birth.
Christ saves us from decay
we’re destined for. Soon enough, we’ll shove
wheelbarrows of dark October compost
and watch the dry dirt bulge, mulch of worms
and beetles making of debris a kingdom.
Come, shirtsleeve months, come
bawling calves cavorting in corrals.
from Climbing the Divide, published by University of Notre Dame Press.
Maybe my favorite thing is that it was clear, decisive, and over by 8:05pm (my time). I really, really wanted to go to bed knowing who had won.
Or maybe my favorite thing is that the "m-word" is no longer "Maverick." Can you spell M-A-N-D-A-T-E?
Or maybe my favorite thing is that John McCain, after a long-fought campaign, conceded with grace and class, which is no easy feat.
But overall, I still think my favorite thing is Obama's victory in Virginia, the former seat of the Confederacy. That's good stuff.
What a great night. Hard roads ahead, to be sure, but that can't cancel out these early days of excitement.
Image from www.cnn.com.
Technically, I didn't vote today.
This is only because I live in an all-by-mail voting area, so I voted last week. My only problem with that scenario (well, actually, I have more than one problem, but the one on my mind today) is that, when you vote by mail, you don't get the extra-cool I VOTED sticker.
I want me a sticker.
But mostly, I want to fall asleep at my desk and wake up when it's over. Wake up in the morning to a blue, blue sky, if you know what I mean.
In the meantime, I must admit that I am getting almost no work done today. Only a few more hours until the first polls close...
So, I was really proud of the pumpkins I "carved" (as in, hollowed out and then punched repeatedly with an apple corer...thanks, Better Homes & Gardens). Check them out...
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