Julie’s News from Maryland

Imagine. Four men framed for murder by their government. The government is tracking a major criminal, with lots of undercover officers infiltrated into the criminal organization. Someone ends up dead. The local government pursues justice - and gets a lead from a known criminal who fingers four men. The men are tried and convicted of murder. Meanwhile, the agency investigating the criminal organization knows that the criminal lied about the four men, knows that a government agent was involved in the murder as part of the criminal investigation. But, says nothing. Two of the four men die in prison and two of them are released when documents surface 30 years later.

Sounds like a great crime novel, doesn’t it? Might even make for a great movie of the week. Makes you wonder if it could be true - probably happened in the former Soviet Union, the KGB covering up the crime and letting the four men take the fall. Or, maybe it was South America somewhere - Columbia, Guatemala - a drug cartel possibly? It is a true story. And it happened right here in the good ol’ US of A. Our FBI agents in Boston were so intent on bringing down the mafia that the four men’s lives were “acceptable collateral damage.” You can read about it here.

But it wasn’t just four lives was it? What about their wives? Their children? Other family? Business associates - did any of these men own businesses that provided jobs for other people? What happened to those people? Countless lives were changed by the inaction of our government agents who thought that these four lives were dispensable for their greater cause.

Sometimes I get lazy and I let myself believe that we are the good guys. I believe all those things that my elementary school history textbooks taught me about us being the good guys - as they skipped over the genocide of the Native Americans and all the other selfish ways that we have behaved all these years. Then, I come across an article like this and I’m reminded that we really aren’t all that much better than all those “other people” we want to condemn. Sure, we don’t torture people openly (or at least we didn’t until recently - or maybe we have just been less willing to publicize it as much as other dictators are). Sure, we don’t just throw people in jail without lawyers (or at least we didn’t until recently - now we have an entire camp of them in Cuba). Sigh.

I knew I’d get almost to the end of Harry Potter and then just stay up all night to finish it.  I never should have picked it up tonight.  I only had about 150 pages left.  I thought maybe I would just read a little bit, one chapter before I went to bed.  But, then, then it got good.  So, I read some more.  Only 50 pages left.  But it was after midnight.  50 pages would take less than an hour, but still, I was tired and it was time to go to bed.  But I was right in the middle of a good part, I couldn’t just leave it there, could I?  So, I kept reading.  And I finished it.   Such a great book.  I’ll be careful not to give anything away, but it all made sense and it was so worth it to stay up.  Though, I bet I won’t feel like that when the alarm goes off in 6 hours.  The one dang morning this week that I have to get up for an appt and it would be the morning after staying up late into the night to finish Harry Potter.  Oh, but it was so worth it!

I’m a little more than halfway through the new Harry Potter book - it’s 759 pages and I’m on page 388.  I bought it last night after dinner and have read periodically through the day.  How is it that I can read 388 pages of a Harry Potter book in just over 24 hours, but it takes me a week to read 100 pages of systematic theology or ethics.  Criminy.  If only seminary reading could be this easy and quick.

So far I really like it.  I want to keep reading, but know that I’ll be toast when the kids wake up early tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep soon.  Can’t wait to find out what happens! 

Tammy Faye Messner died on Friday.  Larry King made the delayed announcement today, at the request of her family.  She appeared on Larry King Live on Thursday and she looked like a skeleton.  She was very ill and it was clear that she would not live much longer.  As crazy as she  might have seemed with that whole PTL thing in the 80s, she was an incredibly faithful woman.  On a previous Larry King Live she was talking about her faith and she said something that has stuck with me ever since:

“I’ve stopped telling God how big my problems are and I’ve started telling my problems how big my God is.”

I hope that she is now at peace and is no longer in pain.  And I pray for her family as they grieve. 

I was reading an article this week about the settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the sexual abuse victims this week. At the very end of the article, a parishioner in the diocese is quoted as saying the following:

“It’s making me reevaluate my views of whether people in the ministry should be married. People do have needs,” she said.

Do people really still think this about pedophiles? Do people think that normal, heterosexual men will turn into child molestors if their sexual needs with women aren’t met? This is so so so wrong. Pedophiles, as described by wikipedia and many other sources, are people that are sexually attracted strongly or even exclusively to prepubescent or early pubertal children. Children are their primary sexual attraction - not women, not other men, not anything else. Pedophiles that prey on children are people that are attracted to children - not people whose “needs” aren’t being met by some other source.

Every organization, every church, every school, every every organization that includes children must be diligent and watch for the predators among them. They are out there, in every place and every walk of life and they are sneaky and intentional about hurting children. It is a terrible terrible thing. But, it doesn’t have anything to do with celibacy (or homosexuality either, for that matter).

A few fun links for this great week of Harry Potter:

 

You scored as Albus Dumbledore, Strong and powerful you admirably defend your world and your charges against those who would seek to harm them. However sometimes you can fail to do what you must because you care too much to cause suffering. Albus Dumbledore 85% Remus Lupin 80% Hermione Granger 75% Draco Malfoy 75% Sirius Black 70% Harry Potter 70% Ron Weasley 50% Ginny Weasley 45% Severus Snape 45% Lord Voldemort 15% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

And a list of Ministry Sorting Hats and Hogwarts Churches - when you go to this link, scoll down to the posts on July 8:

Rebel Without A Pew

So, I broke my own very well publicized rule that sermons should be about Jesus. When I went to prepare my sermon using last Sunday’s readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, I was really captivated by the reading from 2 Kings 5:1-14. It is such a great story and it really captured me. So, I decided that I would use that text for the basis of my sermon. The connection between the OT reading and the gospel reading was not immediately obvious to me and I only had a couple of hours to write the first draft of the sermon (I was at the preaching conference), so I just went with the OT reading and skipped the Jesus part. I justified this to myself by remembering that there are three parts/people/entities/whatever-you-call-them in the Trinity and preaching about God and God at work in our life is almost as good as preaching about Jesus. So, here you go, a real live sermon from me that doesn’t include Jesus.

You can listen to the audio version of the sermon here.

I happen to think sermons are oral events, so the audio version is far superior to the written text, but if you really just want to read it, you will find it below.

Have you ever been at a party and walked up to the table of food and surveyed what was there. As you looked at the spread you pick up a slice of apple and take a bite only to discover that it is a slice of pear?

I know when that happens to me I’m always a little startled and confused. The flavor and texture certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. And it usually takes me another bite to figure out exactly what it is, since I was so set on it being apple. In just those few seconds between noticing the slice of apple, picking it up, and putting it in my mouth, I created an entire set of expectations for it – what it would taste like, what it would feel like. We just can’t help setting expectations like that – it is part of who we are. It is how we navigate the world

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In the reading from 2 Kings today, Na’aman a commander of the Army of Aram, which is in Syria – so just north of Israel, has leprosy. He learns from an Israelite slave who is working for him that there is a prophet in Israel that can heal him. So, with the permission of his king, he travels to Israel to seek healing.

Now, Na’aman travels a long way, it’s a long trip. And, I would guess, being the commander of the Army, he’s not walking or even riding an animal, he is probably being carried by slaves. And, like all of us, as he lounges there on his ride, he’s probably thinking about what is going to happen when he arrives in Israel. He daydreams about how the prophet will greet him – coming out of his house to welcome him, making a big fuss, rolling out the red carpet, that sort of thing.

And then he imagines the big magic show that will cure him. Everyone in town will gather as they see this really prominent man and the prophet talking. The prophet will wave his arms over Na’aman (nothing up my sleeves) and call on God to bring about healing. Na’aman imagines himself as the center of attention as he is healed of his leprosy. And how everyone will make a big fuss about him – whooing and ahing as it happens.

I suspect that the story that Na’aman crafts in his head gets more and more detailed as his journey continues. Each time he thinks about meeting the prophet the story gets more elaborate and interesting.

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Finally, he arrives at Elisha’s place. And what does Elisha do? Do you remember? He sends a messenger out who tells Na’aman to go wash in the Jordan river seven times.

That’s it. No big greeting. No fanfare. No crowds of people. No magic show. Just a simple instruction from a simple messenger.

And Na’aman gets angry.

He’s come all this way. He’s a big important guy from a nearby commanding army and the prophet doesn’t even come out to greet him?! AND, he’s not going to get a magic show?! All he has to do is go wash in a river?! He could have done that at home. Na’aman was expecting a magic show and now all he gets is a bath in the river?! That no one will even see?! No spectators, no crowd, no center of attention.

Na’man is beside himself. The mismatch between what is happening and what he expected to happen has left him angry and confused.

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Now, I believe that Elisha was intentional about what he was doing. He wasn’t just being lazy, “I’m right in the middle of dinner – tell the guy to go bathe in the river!”. No. Elisha knows something about God’s healing that Na’aman doesn’t know.

Elisha knows that healing from God isn’t about being prominent, important. God’s healing is not about our power, it is about God’s power. God offers healing to all of us, no matter how powerful or weak we think we might be.

Elisha also knows that healing from God isn’t about magic tricks performed by the right person saying the right words. God doesn’t need an intermediary. And neither do we.

Finally, Elisha knows that healing from God isn’t about a big fancy show – it’s not about being the center of attention. It is about being in a quiet place, humble before God.
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Na’aman expected to be greeted as the important person that he was and then be made the center of attention as a magic trick was performed on him for the world to see. But, instead Elisha sent him away to take a bath in a river by himself. And when his expectations weren’t met, he is angry and starts ranting and raving about it.

And isn’t it interesting what happens next. His servants say to him, “Are you kidding? You’re angry because all he asked you to do was go to wash in the river? You are suffering from leprosy – wouldn’t you be willing to do anything to make this go away? Why are you complaining about going to wash in the river? Quit your whining and go take a bath.”

And I can just see it. I can just see the look on Na’man’s face. That “oh, yeah, you’re right look.” The “geez, I guess I was sort of overreacting to that wasn’t I” moment. And so he goes to the river - alone and humble. And he washes with no magic tricks. Where no one can see. And he is healed.

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We all have expectations. We can’t help but form expectations. Some of them are little – like the expectations about the apple. Some of them are big expectations: about our career, or our family, or our retirement.

And, I think, our expectations have a lot in common with Na’aman’s. They often make us the center of something or at least center around what we need or want. They probably give us a little more importance than we might really have. And sometimes our expectations make God’s work in our life look like a magic show. When we imagine the world as we would like to see it happen, as we imagine healing for the broken parts of our lives, we imagine a little bit of fanfare, a bit of a magic show, a bit of the crowd seeing the great thing that happened to us.

But that’s not how God’s healing works.

God’s healing is about God’s power, not ours. We don’t need to be powerful or important for God to heal us.

God’s healing happens in relationship with God. No intermediary necessary.

God’s healing happens in the quiet places in our hearts. It is not about fanfare or a magic show. God heals us when we step away from needing to be the center of attention.

Expectations can be a good thing. They can help calm our anxieties and help us navigate our world. But they can also get us into trouble. Sometimes we get so invested in what we’ve imagined as the perfect outcome, that we find ourselves unable to engage in the reality of what God is actually doing in our lives.

What we learn from Na’aman’s is that we have to get past our expectations – we have to look beyond what we think the perfect outcome might be. We have to listen to the voices in our lives that help us see what is right in front of us. We have to look for the opportunities that God is providing. We have to accept God’s healing as it is being offered, not as we imagined or expected it to be.

Ok.  I know this is totally shallow.  I know that this makes me a terrible consumer in the bad bad capitalistic system in this country.  I know that it is meaningless in the big scheme of things.  But, you know, I’m pretty excited about it.  Today, I got an iPhone.  I met with my former boss for whom I’ve been doing some contract work and learned that he had got us iPhones as a bonus now that the project is finished.  I almost squealed I was so excited!  Since getting here last week I’d seen a couple of them and gotten to play with them. They are so so slick!  So very Apple Computer!  It really is as awesome as it looked in the demos, maybe even better.  When I was looking at a friend’s iPhone last week I felt that tug of the Valley - “come back. work here.  have all the cool toys.”  So when I got one today I could hardly believe it!  I’m very excited about it!

It’s almost time to leave. Only 3 more days and then we go back to New York. Earlier today I had been feeling like we still had a lot of time left here, but then I opened the calendar to add an appt and realized that it is just 3 short days. Not very much time left at all. And then I got sad. I really don’t want to leave. I want to stay here. I want to enjoy being in the beautiful weather - the warm California sun, playing at the parks and going to the beach. I want to spend more time with our friends, letting my kids play with kids they’ve known their whole life. I want to participate in all the fun stuff happening at church this summer - wonderful wednesdays, thursdays in the park, wednesday night dinners, vacation bible school, even the campout.

I think what I am figuring out is that I don’t feel lonely here. When I am here, I know people. I know people everywhere I go. I know people at church. I know people at events. And I don’t just know a few people, I know almost everybody. And they are people that I’ve known a long time. They know my story, I know theirs. In New York, we still so often go places (an event at the kids’ school, an event at church, a party with Rick’s friends from work) and we don’t know anyone, or we only know a few people. And even the people we do know, we don’t know very well. We are still in that “getting to know you phase” with a lot of people. It feels so tiring sometimes to go to an event simply because it is so much work to get to know people. Sometimes I don’t even feel like going (Me! the extrovert!) because I just don’t have it in me to have all the superficial getting to know you conversations.

I suppose it isn’t as bad as it seems this very moment. We have lots of friends at seminary and I feel like I belong there now; we all feel comfortable there. I don’t nearly feel the intense loneliness that I did at the beginning. But being here and feeling so NOT lonely has reminded me of the bits of loneliness that I do still feel in so many places and situations in New York. Sigh.

In the very crowded Jet Blue terminal on Friday evening, a young mother was walking her 1 year old daughter around. Well, holding her daughter’s arms up so the little girl could “walk”. Ella and Nicholas spotted her as she toddled past us and they both started to play with her. They took turns entertaining her and making her laugh. It was very cute. As we boarded the plane, we discovered that the family was sitting in the row in front of us. Thus we spent various parts of the flight flirting with the baby and playing peek-a-boo with her. Waiting for our bags, we chatted with the parents a bit and learned that they live in Brooklyn and are visiting family in the Bay Area. We wished each other happy vacations and after a few last minute peek-a-boos with the baby, we parted ways.

Ok, here is where it gets strange. Today, Rick and I took the kids to Santa Cruz. Nicholas has been talking about going to Santa Cruz for a month - the rides, the beach, the shells, the special toy he can only get there. I decided that today might be good - hoping that the crowds might be a bit smaller since it is a Monday and it is before the holiday. I surmised (right or wrong) that more people will take time off after the 4th than before. Anyway, after parking in the main parking lot, we started sorting through our things trying to decide what we would carry and what we would leave in the trunk. As we were doing so, all of a sudden I heard Rick say, “Oh. No way!” A bit startled, I inquired and he said that the people that just parked next to us were the people with the baby from the airplane. And, sure enough, it was them. Needless to say, they were equally surprised to see us. We chatted for a minute and as they wandered away, the father said, “Hey, when are you guys leaving, just so we can be prepared?” We compared notes and we are leaving several days before them.

How strange is that? I wonder if there is meaning in those encounters. Could there be more encounters with this family? Interesting.