Julie’s News from Maryland

So, last week I wandered into the paint store and bought a little can of white paint and a paint brush. I hoped against hope that one coat of paint would cover the awful green and black. But, my hopes were quickly dashed as it was clear that the green was easily showing through the white paint.

By the time I finished the first coat my hand was a bit sore, but I dutifully started the second coat, at which time I discovered that 2 coats were not going to cover it. But now I was committed so I kept going. As I added the second coat I discovered that the nicks and grooves in the wood were beginning to show a bit more prominently than they had with just the first coat. Of course I hadn’t noticed them at all when the thing was green and black, but as I covered it with paint it was obvious that the cabinet was not without flaws.

After letting the paint dry overnight, I added the 3rd coat of paint the next morning. Again, as I added paint the little flaws in the wood became even more noticeable, as were the drips and drops of the sloppy paint job I had done the night before.

As I was doing all this work, I remembered my father repainting my brother’s dresser when I was a child. Instead of just painting over the paint that was already there, my father followed a much more complex process.

First he used some sort of solvent to strip the paint from the wood. That stuff smelled terrible and the fumes would sting your eyes if you got close. We were warned not to touch it because it would burn our skin.

After the paint had been essentially melted from the dresser, my dad used a very rough sand paper to remove the remaining flecks of paint and to smooth any big cracks in the wood. Finally, he used a smaller and finer sand paper to finish the rough edges and make the wood pretty and nice.

When he called us back into the garage to see the exposed wood, we learned that his careful and meticulous work had revealed a beautiful wood grain that had been hidden under all that paint. My father had discovered an incredibly detailed and gorgeous piece of furniture.

His plans to paint the wood changed immediately because we all knew that it would be a shame to cover that wood with paint. Instead, he chose a stain color appropriate to the wood and set about bringing about the full glory of that piece of furniture by staining and shining it to show off all that it really was.

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In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus talk about fear and conflict. I have to admit that I’m never really fond of gospel passages full of fear and conflict. My first reaction when I read these passages is to just be a little annoyed. Can’t Jesus just say something positive that will make me feel good about everything. But when I really listen, when I really hear what Jesus is saying, I realize that Jesus is telling me the truth about my life and there is hope in what sounds only like fear and conflict.

The first fear that we hear Jesus address is a fear of those that might kill the body. We live in a world where harm could come to us at any time. It is a real fear. Some live with that fear more readily than others, but it is true that those external to us could harm us both physically and emotionally.

Next Jesus talks about how dangerous it is to preach the gospel and to speak the truth: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Don’t we know how true that is? I’m sure that Roy Hayter could tell us about the conflict that arises when he talks about the need for affordable housing in our surrounding cities. Reminding people that God wants us to respect the dignity of every human being always brings disagreement and conflict. But what about when we just share our own personal faith? I know I find myself holding back my experience of faith when I’m unsure that someone will be receptive to what I am saying.

And then there is the family conflict. (READ THIS PASSAGE) I know that many people in this room have come to the Episcopal church from other traditions, and I suspect that some family conflict was involved in that. Maybe you come from a staunchly atheist family and have embraced the gospel, that has to cause some consternation. What about the family tension that arises from our call to serve the church – how many of you have found yourself torn between an obligation at church and a family obligation?

Jesus finishes by reminding us that “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Following Jesus is clearly not an easy thing. It doesn’t come with lollipops and roses. We aren’t going to live a simple, happy, carefree life once we become Christians. But don’t let this list of fears and conflicts fool you – there is hope here – and I’ll get to it, I promise.

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When I moved to seminary three years ago I found myself full of fear. I didn’t know anybody. I was afraid that I wouldn’t make friends and that I would find myself alone. Like that old dresser, I was being stripped of all the paint I’d acquired – I lost my friends, my well respected position at the office, my status in the parish as a leader. All the layers were stripped away. And I have to admit, just like that paint thinner, the fumes stung my eyes and my skin felt burned. There I was, completely vulnerable to anybody that might want to hurt me.

And then I ran into conflict. You see, I had the audacity to assert that children belong in worship. I know, it’s a radical idea, but I spoke it with conviction, but maybe not with much tact or diplomacy. And man did I get clobbered. It was like the rough sand paper that my dad had used on that dresser. The community blasted me. And while I stood firm in my conviction that I was speaking the truth, I began to refine my message slightly such that I wasn’t totally offending everyone every time I talked about it. The community helped to smooth my really rough edges.

And then there was the conflict at home. My marriage had been tolerating some tiny flaws, but my self-involvement in seminary were quickly turning those flaws into huge cracks. It was time for Rick and I to take out the sand paper and do the hard work of refining those nicks and imperfections. It was tough work, but necessary for our marriage and our family to leave seminary in tact and be ready for a parish.

And I think, at the end of it all, as I look at myself now, I see that all that stripping away and sanding and refining, has exposed something so much more beautiful than what was there before. This process of living into the fear and stepping into the conflict has given God the opportunity to form and shape me in ways that would never have happened if I hadn’t been willing to be part of this journey.

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One of my favorite author’s is Anne Lamott. She lives in Marin County and has written several books about her faith journey. I think my very favorite quote of hers comes from an article that she wrote about Easter. She writes about how transformation is not about fixing up your old self, but rather how it is about getting a completely new life. I’ll read you the quote:

(READ THIS FROM PAPER) “Jesus’ promise was not that he was going to try and patch up our old raggedy-assed lives, but that he wanted to give us new life. Now, this is not what I would do, personally, if I were anyone’s savior. I would at least try spackle, caulking, dry cleaning fluid. Maybe some nice new furnishings to hide the bare spots in the rug, the water-stained walls; some chemicals to kill off the dust-mite ashrams in the old sofa. But Jesus says, as (my pastor) put it, you can’t get to the good stuff without killing off the old stuff.”

Jesus’ promise was not that he was going to try and patch up our old raggedy-assed lives, but that he wanted to give us new life.

Jesus’ promise was not that he was going to try and patch up our old raggedy-assed lives, but that he wanted to give us new life.

When I painted the cabinet for my kitchen, I patched the old life. I took the easy way out. Rather than stripping the old paint, sanding out the imperfections, and then painting the prepared wood, I just added paint to what was already there. And what happened? I ended up with a mess.

I think a little of the green still shows in some places. Every little nick and crack looks like a crater. The doors have so much paint on them that they don’t close completely anymore. And every time I look at it I see all of the imperfections.

And isn’t this what we try to do in our own lives? Instead of giving up the old and taking time to prepare the wood properly, don’t we just try to add a new layer of paint? We’re so reluctant to give up what we have, that we just add paint to it, exposing the cracks and the old paint.

But when my dad painted the dresser, he gave it new life. He exposed the beauty of what was hiding underneath all those layers of paint that someone else had used to try to patch it up. He carefully prepared the wood so that he could stain and polish it to make it shine. He gave it the opportunity to be all that it was.

And that’s what happened to me at seminary. Had I stayed here, with all of you, and gone to a seminary close by, I wouldn’t have been stripped of all that mattered to me. I would have been in a place where everyone would have believed in all my radical ideas. My marriage would have continued without any repair. We would have been comfortable and safe and I would have just added layers of paint.

But the truth is, had we done that, all of our flaws would have been exposed to anyone looking at us. We would have looked and been as messy as the cabinet in my kitchen.

And this is the hope of the gospel my friends. Paul writes to the Romans (READ THIS FROM THE BIBLE): “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Jesus was raised so that we might walk in newness of life. New life! We get new life! We don’t have to keep working to patch up the old life, we get to have new life!

New life probably means being exposed and feeling vulnerable. It means being involved in conflict when we speak the truth. It means that sometimes our family won’t be so happy about the choices that we make.

We will get stripped and sanded and exposed. But as we allow ourselves to be stripped and sanded we get prepared – prepared to be polished by God to be all that we are. We lose our old selves and we gain new life in Jesus. We become new. And in our new selves, we begin to strip and sand and polish the world around us. Jesus works through us and in us to make the world new!