and to walk humbly with your God

Luke 18:9-14

Here is the problem that we face when we act justly and love mercy - when we live our life in all the right ways, we tend to get proud and boastful about it.

One pastor wrote about his favorite sermon to preach.  He had never tasted alcohol in his life, and he would often preach against the dangers of alcohol.  He was reading this story in the Bible, when he realized that if a sermon is too easy to preach, he probably shouldn't be preaching it.  He was so proud of his accomplishment of staying away from alcohol, that he thought the rest of his sins were somehow less bad.

As soon as we get our act together, it becomes so easy to begin judging others for not living in the right way. And in this passage, we find Jesus lifting up the man on the ground, and rejecting the man who is so proud.

And so, of the list of three - the list of how we should live our lives, "to talk humbly with your God" is the third and the final.

This is one of those impossibly complicated things to explain, "to walk humbly with your God."

Let's begin with humility.

I'm rather convinced that humility is one of those things that most people just don't understand.  I think that we try and find some way to show humility.  We find some act that is a symbol of humility.

And all of these little actions, they show that we value humility - but they don't make us humble.

I once saw a foot washing ceremony that left me feeling very confused.  A foot washing ceremony is used as a symbol of humility and service.  I have seen really beautiful services that included a foot washing.  In this one, a very wealthy leader of a large community had invited one of the church leaders up on the stage.  They were both in suits.  The leader rolled up his sleeves, and prepared to wash the other man's feet.  But, he noticed that he was still wearing his watch, and it was obviously a very expensive watch.  He gently took it off, and waved for someone to come over and take it from him before the ceremony.  One of his staff members ran over and dutifully held on to the watch throughout the service.  After the other man's feet were washed, the leader took his expensive watch and put it back on.

And, in this service, who showed humility?  It was the staff member who was a servant to the wealthy leader.

Do you want to grow humble - go sit on the street in the cold and beg for change.  Crawl on crutches and maimed legs from place to place and wait for the kindness of strangers to make things better for you.

When you are humiliated, you will be made humble.  When the whole class joins the lecturer in laughing at your mistake, you will feel what it means to be humble.  

When I have gone with the group that does the feeding ministry, I have seen some really humble people.  I have seen people who have been humbled by their difficult circumstances.  Christina, will now come up and share some words about the feeding ministry which will be next week.

In the church, we value humility; when we meet a truly humble person - we are in shock.  I don't know how many of you had a chance to meet Hans Vaxby when he was in Lviv this summer.  He is retiring this year after serving as the Bishop of the United Methodist church in Eurasia.  When you meet Hans, he immediately asks you to just call him Hans.  He doesn't like to be called Bishop or Mr. Vaxby.  He prefers the simple use of his first name, Hans.  He just exudes humility.  In everything he does, he just does it humbly.  He gladly steps aside so that others can step up.

As Christians, we work to imitate Christ.  It is  Christ hanging naked on the cross that shows us what true humility is.  They ripped out his beard.  They beat him.  They hung a sign over his head which read "King of the Jews"  They humiliated him.  And humility is that he forgave them.  In humility, we never try to boast about our own accomplishments and good deeds.  They are all rags compared with the glory of Christ.

My favorite hymn comes from the Spanish language.  What it says is simple: When the poor ones who have nothing share with strangers, then we know that God still goes that road with us.  When the thirsty give water to others, then we know that God still goes that road with us.  When we show humility, we show that God is real, and that God is by our side.

Matthew 28:16-20

When we read the scriptures that record the great commission, we read Jesus calling us to go out into the world and to share the good news of Jesus Christ.  In the English version, they translated the first word "Go" as a direct command.  But, this wasn't entirely correct.  It would be better translated, "As you are going"  This great commission, this call to go into all the world - this is a call for us to keep walking on the road we are on.  This is a call for us to live our lives - to go to the university, to show up to work, to go on vacation, to eat dinner with friends - and in doing those things, to walk humbly with our God.  We are not called to stand on the street corners and yell and scream about our faith, we are called to humbly live life and through that, invite others to join this road with us.

And this same scripture, it ends with the final thought, "I am with you always"

In days of great success and in days of terrible failure - God is with you.  When I am able to live out my faith fully, and when I am a terrible witness of God's love - God is with me.  Like the thirsty who give water, when we share our time and energy with this ministry - God is with us.

As we walk in humility, God is with us.

Wordless Wednesdays

The coat room under the staircase at the University.  Also, Hogwarts. 

Story Saturday

The pain was immediate and entirely convincing.  I had only bent down to pet my cat, but as the pain shot through my spine, I lunged for my bed.  After twenty minutes of total immobility I called to my roommate and asked him to hand me my computer so I could call my sister.  My closest friends reference my roommate as my other cat.  It's nothing he has done wrong, nor is it the way I treat him - it's simply our communication patterns.  He doesn't speak any English and my Ukrainian is hit or miss on my best days.  When we don't understand each other, Vittya simply walks away and finds something more interesting, like a ball of string or a laser point on the wall.

After I called him back and tried again, this time in Ukrainian, I explained that I was in a lot of pain.  Vittya's Ukrainian instincts kicked in and immediately he offered me a dozen wives tale remedies.  He called his mother who had the other 27 he could write down.  I called my other cat back into the room again and this time he handed me my computer so I could call my sister, the doctor.

I don't know why I'll never trust wives tales.  Maybe I feel that for medical advice to be real, you have to really fight to get it out of your doctor.
 
Rebecca sighs in a loud, prolonged way anytime I begin a medical question.  I wonder what it would look like if I did the same each time I was asked to pray at a family function.  I can imagine Debbie rolling her eyes at being asked to pick out a note on a piano.  This time, I'm clearly on the edge of tears and Rebecca finds it in her heart to render a diagnosis.  "It's not cancer."  This is really progress in getting a diagnosis from her, and I calm down enough for her to explain what probably happened.

Vittya came back with an additional 47 folk-remedies from his grandmother; and I sent him out to go fetch some tylenol and an ice-pack.  He cocks his head to the side, and I try the sentence again in Ukrainian.  I'm amazed at how slowly my brain works when I'm in pain.

After three tries with the Ukrainian word for ice-pack, I phone a Ukrainian friend to translate.

I thank Rebecca and she prods me to move my toes - a feat that I am still capable of - and she tells me that I'll be fine and to stop being a baby.  Exactly what I had hoped to hear from her.

Vittya offers to begin calling his aunts for more remedies, but I just thank him for the ice-pack and try to get some rest.  His confused look tells me that probably after I rest I will be able to speak in Ukrainian again.

(to be continued ...)

to love mercy

We are told to love mercy.

And who loves mercy?  People who have been shown much mercy, love mercy.


When we think of someone who has been shown much mercy, we cannot help but think of King David.  It was during the time when the king should have been off to war, but this king stayed home.  And when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof, he called his servants to go and collect her for him.  Although David had many wives and concubines, he wanted Bathsheba and he took her.

Her husband, Uriah, was at war.  When she became pregnant, David called her husband back hoping that everyone would be bad at math and he wouldn't get caught.  But, Uriah refused to leave the gates of the palace.  He begged to return to the battlefield to serve his country.  David sent him back, with secret instructions for the general to send him first and have everyone else pull back - ensuring his death.

An adulterer and a murderer.  Shevchenko wrote about David in his well known poem, Kavkaz.

Бо благоденствує! У нас
Святую Біблію читає
Святий чернець і научає,
Що цар якийсь-то свині пас
Та дружню жінку взяв до себе,
А друга вбив. Тепер на небі.
Об бачите, які у нас
Сидять на небі! Ви ще темні,
Святим хрестом не просвіщенні,
У нас навчіться!.. 

These are the kind of people who are sitting in heaven.  And what is more, David was known as a man after God's own heart.  David was known for his goodness and faithfulness.  David was shown mercy by God.



We are guilty of tremendous sin, and our punishment is death.

We deserve that death, but Christ hangs on the cross in the way of our punishment.  This is what we deserve, but our of God's great love - we receive something else.



Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.  People who love mercy, they show mercy.

We are not ashamed or embarrassed to be in need of mercy.  We love the mercy that God shows us.  When I stand before you, dear friends, I feel so entirely inadequate.  I feel like I don't have anything to say, or that my life is too messed up - and I realize that a lot of those feelings stem from some embarrassment of all the mercy God has shown me.  God's mercy is something that we should love and delight in.  I need a tremendous amount of grace and mercy from God.  I stand before you as a sinner, who knows the great love of a merciful God.  And, I think that's a pretty great place to be.

It's hard to understand the exact words used in this verse.  This idea of mercy is complicated.  The word in the original Greek is Chesed (хесед).  It is this idea of loving kindness.




The first time I remember hearing about the slavic world, was when I was a teenager.  Americans are known around the world for not knowing much about the rest of the world - and sadly, this is true.  When I was a teenager, a family friend, Diane, came to one of my classes with a guest.  This man worked for the government and worked with international aide.  It was so interesting, because at first he began talking about coming to Ukraine in the early 90s to help the poor Ukrainians.  He told us about the collective farms, and that the tractors they used were very inefficient - they left a lot of the crop behind on the ground.  So, this man brought tractors in from the US that were much more efficient.

And this is often our understanding of justice that we learned about last week.  There is a problem, and we go in and we fix it.

It was the story I had grown up hearing, about how America helped other countries.  But this man, he went on - and he told us the rest of the story. Before his arrival, after the inefficient tractors had gone through, old women had followed behind and picked up the rest.  They had gleaned the field.  The had sold some of this on the roadside and had taken the rest home for their families to eat.  The story of Ruth is a story of mercy.  .  These women without a kinsman, without a man to provide for them, they were left to the mercy of the community.  This community could have left them for dead, but instead they were kind enough to allow them to glean behind the farmers.  Ruth's mother-in-law is named Naomi.  Her name meant sweet, but when she was left alone without a man to provide for her, she asked to be called "bitter" instead.  It is through this that Ruth meets Boaz and is able to provide for her mother-in-law.  It is through their mercy to Ruth's mother-in-law, that she returned to being known as Naomi.  Through pain and suffering she is made bitter, through mercy she is made sweet.

This American continued the story in a way that really surprised me.  With the new, efficient, American tractors; there was nothing left for the old women to glean.  These women began to suffer terribly.  They lost income and they lost food.  This man went on to explain to us the way that he and his team had ruined the lives of these women by not paying attention.  He saw a problem and fixed it, but he created many, many more problems.

But our sense of doing justice must be tempered by our love for mercy.  Mercy is tenderness and gentleness.  If this man had spent more time studying and observing, and listening to the people he wanted to help - he could have shown mercy to these older women as well.

It was such a powerful lesson to me about consequences of our actions.  That even when we try to do good, we can still cause harm.  When we talked about justice, the verb was "to act" or "to do"  when Micah talks about Mercy, he isn't calling us to go and to do something.  There isn't an action that is part of this.  Mercy is one of those things you can't plan for.  You have to love mercy every day. You have to joyfully receive God's mercy, and in doing both of those - you will be able to show mercy as well.  


My grandfather is a big, tall, strong man.  All of my life, he has seemed to be bigger and taller and stronger than all of my friend's grandfathers.  He's got a big smile and thick glasses, and people almost always like him.  He makes strangers smile and remembers their names.  When he was in school, his nickname was Radar.  His glasses were very thick, but he wasn't allowed to wear them on the football field. But,  It seemed he always knew where the football was, and he was always one of the best players.  My grandfather is very Italian, and their stereotype is that they will do anything for those they love.   He and my grandma were high-school sweethearts.  One day, he was walking my grandma to her house and another boy pulled up in his truck.  The boy said that he was in love with Elaine, and my grandpa said, "Well, so am I - the only difference is that she loves me back."  The other boy tried to run him over with his truck.  I just assume that the other boy spent some time in the hospital  after that.

My grandparents have been married for almost 65 years.  As my grandma has gotten older, she has lost her memory.  She usually doesn't recognize me, and often forgets who my mom is as well.  Sometimes she doesn't even recognize her own husband.  My grandfather was always the stereotype of a 1950s husband.  He earned the paycheck, and grandma did everything around the house.  When grandma started forgetting recipes and burning food, grandpa learned how to cook all of their favorite foods and how often to serve them.  He washes all the dishes.  He keeps the house spotless.  He does the laundry and irons the clothes.  And he doesn't correct or argue with grandma.  When he is reading the mail she just brought in, and she decides she should check for the mail, he watches out the window to make sure she is safe.   He helps her all day long and makes sure she is comfortable.

My grandpa was always so rough and strong and manly.  It surprises our whole family to see how gentle and tender he is with grandma now.  I think because we here are all so young, it's hard to think about love in very real ways.  We think about love in terms of lust and affection.  We think about doing fun things with someone special.  I don't think when we are young and we are in love, that we think about helping someone in and out of bed and sitting with them through scary doctors appointments.  We probably don't think about real love and the real ways that we will show it when it really happens.

This word, Chesed, it is used in Genesis 20:13 to describe Abraham and Sarah's relationship when they are both well into old age.  And this is our example of showing mercy to one another.  We must care deeply about each other's feelings.

When my grandparents were married 65 years ago, this wasn't something they were thinking about.  They weren't thinking about their old age.  They were young and in love.  But each day, they grew in love and kindness.  They learned to show each other mercy.  And, when grandma's memory began to fail, to show mercy was the natural reaction for grandpa.

When we love mercy, we care more for the feelings of others than for our own.  We show mercy because we accept mercy from God.  Go forth this day, and show others the mercy you have received.  

Wordless Wednesdays

My Ukrainian teacher and my cat, Mefodyi.

Story Saturday

I'm certain she was the old woman I had watched in the church.  I love when older adults begin conversations with me, but it is a rare occasion when I notice an older person before they notice me.  I was waiting for a bus in a small town, and there were no benches at the bus stop.  I was on vacation at the time, so I plopped down on a stone wall and began reading a book.  In Lviv, or somewhere where people knew me I would not sit on a dirty, cold surface - I have a reputation to keep - but out here in the village, it seemed less harmful.

 This grandmother clearly felt I was playing Russian roullete with my life by sitting directly on the cold stone.  Her general opinion of young people was on the low side - I think most older people who haunt emptier and emptier churches have a low estimation of young people.  I try and be nice.  She says that she has even seen young people wearing flip flops this fall.  I try to not convey by my facial expressions that I had been tempted to work on my toe tan today as well.

And then she asked the inevitable question.  "How old do you think I am?"

I've never been asked this question by an American, but in this corner of the world it's a fun game to liven up beet picking season.
 
I usually pick an age, divide by two and then add ten years.  She looked about 120 - so I guessed 70.  She was 78.  I use to just take 10 or 15 years off of my guess, but that's too risky.

And long after she had shuffled away, I crept back up to my seat on the stone wall.  Through my gloves, I looked at my knuckes which, even through the thick leather of my gloves, show the arthritis of someone much older than my years.  And I wonder how many more winters I'll survive here.  I can imagine going to my high school reunion in a decade and holding an ancient bell-horn to my wrinkled, fuzzy ear and asking my former classmates, "How old do you think I am?"

To act Justly

To act justly - part one of a three part sermon series.

Luke 18:2-8

We begin with this story to talk about the idea and concept of justice.  Justice is a hard concept to talk about, because there are so many different ideas.

What does justice look like in our world?  This is hard to determine because everyone has a different idea of what justice should look like.

Perhaps we should begin with what Micah was probably referencing.

God had laid down very fair laws for the Jewish people to follow.

For example, God had laid down very fair laws regarding wealth and land.  There should be a "year of Jubilee" every 49 years in which all of the land and the wealth was re-divided.  All debts would be forgiven and all stock-piles emptied.  The idea, of course, was the final knowledge that God was the giver of all good things.  The land and everything on it belonged to God, and no one could sell God's land for all eternity.  If you were wealthy because of your faithfulness to God, your wealth would quickly be returned to you.  If you were in debt up to your eyeballs - you had the chance to start over and try to be more faithful to God.  Historians believe the Jewish people did this ... only once.  Oddly, the Samaritans who were despised by the Jews followed this idea for thousands of years.  But, for the Jewish people,  it was too much for the rich and the powerful to give those things away - so they created some symbol to replace it and they continued the celebration without anything real to celebrate.

It was similar with many of the laws God had handed down.  The Jewish people would follow and delight in the laws set down before their God for some time, and then they would begin to go their own way.  This cycle continues over and over, and when the people ignore God; things grow worse and worse for them.
But in this call for just acts, we see something larger than just following the rules.  We see a greater call to faithful living, and a greater call to make things right in the world.  

Micah writes as someone whose town had been destroyed by the enemy - and that enemy had in turn been destroyed by God's hand.  And yet, Micah isn't talking about this long-range God-sized justice.  He isn't talking about the Justice of God destroying our enemies.  He is talking about what we as people must do.  As a community and as individuals.  

And the world asks, "What is justice?" and our response is usually, "to follow the rules" or when asked what is justice, we see visions of our enemies lying dead in the path of God - but Micah doesn't hold up either of these things as the true justice.  The justice God calls us to is something bigger and grander than either of these two visions.  Justice is when God's shadow falls on all of the earth.  It is when all is as it should be.  And this justice, it is God's justice.  God will accomplish this - and God will use us to accomplish it.
So when Micah says, "Act justly" - this is talking about us personally.  It's not even talking about the bigger, giant changes needed in the world.  It's talking about us.  That we as individuals and as a group should act justly.

When we act justly, we act as though the world around us is imaginary.  We choose the way of justice in the face of the bribery, corruption, and scandal that surround us.  We don't say - well, I'll sit around until things get better and then I'll go along with them.

There is an old story of a man walking on the beach.  He notices a young boy walking along the beach coming in the opposite direction.  The young boy stops every few feet and stoops down.  He picks something up, throws it into the ocean and continues on his way.  A few steps later he does the same thing.  Over and over again.  When their paths cross, the old man gives in to his curiosity and asks the young boy what he is doing.  The young boy explains that he is picking up starfish and throwing them back into the Ocean.  The old man understands that the boy is trying to save their lives, but he can remember seeing hundreds of starfish on his walk just today.  He laughs condescendingly and says to the boy, "There are so many starfish, and so many miles of Ocean.  Do you really think you can make a difference?"  The boy stoops over, picks up a starfish and throws him back into the ocean. "I made a difference for that one, didn't I?"

When we act justly, we are a people of action.  We go out and we do something.  In our own small way, we act.  We speak out in the name of the poor, we give voice to the voiceless.  We challenge our governments to make no laws that tear rights away from people - even people we might disagree with or might not like.  We work to make the world better in any small way that we can.  

When we choose to act justly, we understand that this is our small part.  We have no audience.  We are not trying to impress anyone.  We are imperfect, we are sinful, we often act unjustly.  But that doesn't stop us from believing in a better world and acting in our own small way for justice.

Let me give you an example of a small thing I do to act justly.  I am especially opposed to bribes when it comes to education.  It hurts the entire country when someone can get a degree through bribery and not through their own hard work and merit.  There isn't much I can do to end bribery.  I'm not in a position of power to refuse bribes, and while I refuse to pay them - this often leaves me in a very hard place.  In talking with many students, I heard very good things about the department of translation studies.  I did some more research and heard from every student that none of the teachers in the department would accept bribes.  Everyone who graduates from that department has earned his or her diploma.  I volunteer in that department because I am proud that they do the right thing.  In my own small way, I can reward the just choices of the department and, as a native speaker of English,  help to make it a little bit better and a little bit stronger.  This is not a huge step.  This is not some beautiful scene in a movie where the protagonist stares down the nazi tanks.  This is just one young person doing something small to act justly.

The movies, they always have the same plot - that there will come some day when you have to make some decision to do something really great.  And, this idea is purely an invention of Hollywood.  You cannot choose in the dire moment to become brave and to act justly to save the world.  Each morning, when you wake and put your socks on you must make the save decision.  You must decide to live each day with the prayer "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  You much choose each day to act justly.

Olena Teliha, the Ukrainian poet who was executed at Babin Yar, had many chances to escape to safety.  Once, a friend asked her why she did not run and protect herself.  She said, "I have told others to stay - and now I must stay myself."  In each small decision to act justly, there is also a large decision to act justly.  Our small, daily decisions - they form who we are.  when we choose each day to live justly, we choose to be people of justice.

I think when we begin down this path that leads to justice, we cannot travel very far without thinking about judgement.  About the way our actions are judged by God and by others.  If we act justly, I can guarantee you that the world will judge us harshly.

Micah's words, they call us to act justly.  In the smallest things, when we act justly - God is preparing us for larger things.  And in the end, when we have gone beyond this world; we will hear the words - well done my good and faithful servant.  When we act justly, we will be judged rightly.  We will be able to stand before our God with open hearts and share in God's embrace.

To act justly means to get our hands dirty.  It means to stoop down into the world of the unjust, and to bring back one small thing onto the surface of the just.  When we act justly, we do not care what punishment the world might have for us, we only care what good God has in store for this world.  To act justly means to act first - to act long before it is cool, popular, or even safe.

On the day before she was executed by Nazi Germany for distributing anti-nazi flyers at her university, she told the high court, "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."  Perhaps the ancient words rang through her ears - "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

These priests and nuns who walked hand in hand with black protesters for equal rights, they were the first to do that.

When we go and share bread and food with people begging on the streets, we are also making the decision that we believe it is wrong that they must be on the streets.  Someday, this small decision might lead us to bigger decisions.  Perhaps some day, as an adult, you will open your home to someone in need - or you will pass a new law through the Duma to create a more fair system for the poor in Ukraine.  Someday you may be asked to give up something truly precious for others.

Micah reminds us what the Lord requires of us.  This is all that we need to do.  And the first part of that equation is to act justly.

To remind us to act justly, come and place your own handprint on this cloth after you have finished praying.

Wordless Wednesdays

The pumpkins slowly rot, and the decorations that adorned my house in childhood adorn my house in adulthood.  Halloween came and went.  A small group of friends gathered at my house for a small dinner party.  We talked too loud and laughed a lot.  I have always promised myself that I would have a Halloween party at my apartment some day, and even though the dishes still haven't all been washed - I'm glad I kept that promise to myself.  .

I always promised myself that I would have a Guy Fawkes day party every 5th of November, but here is the day and I just don't have the energy for a party.  Jonathan Pound loved this holiday so much.  We would always watch V for Vendetta and have a large group over.  

Almost a month ago, I hurt my back.  With the diagnosis of a herniated disc and a rather scary MRI view of it protruding, I have slowed down significantly.  I've had to put off some of my favorite things, and I've had to take the long view on some issues that at perfect health might have been solved a bit more quickly.

I am about finished with my daily treatments and will be able to begin having treatments every other day.  This will free up a lot of time in my schedule.  These daily treatments have taken five or six hours out of my day (less if I take a taxi to the hospital - the hour tram commute is such a huge waste of time!) for almost two weeks.  I am just sapped of energy, but thankfully - the pain is decreasing.

A new friend, Mikita, fell down a flight of stairs and is in a coma after two operations.  I pray for his recovery, and am reminded again how lucky I am to have my health and to have insurance to cover the medical care.  His family couldn't afford the third operation the doctors recommended.  

My friend Den shared about interning at the psychiatric hospital when he was doing his counseling rotations for his social work masters degree.  I think that when my Ukrainian is stronger that I will go there and volunteer.  I hate hospitals, and I can't imagine living in one.  Den shared that many of the young people are forced to live there because their parents don't agree with their lifestyle choices - so they have them committed.

I have begun re-reading Brennan Manning's "Ragamuffin Gospel."  If you haven't read it, please go and find a copy and read it.  It is such a wonderful book.  It is so good to focus on grace and freedom.   I sometimes think about how much of my Christian education focused on teaching me to be a "good kid."  I wish that I had learned more about grace in Sunday school.  I hope that I teach more about grace in the future.

I've thought about starting a Manning Monday - which I'm almost certain Bill Beatty did at one point, but I'm entirely too tired to check at the moment.  We'll see.