Wallerin' Around

We have two dogs - an older beagle-basset named Alero and a young beagle-coonhound named Harley. Lately, they've taken to escaping the confines of our fencing to go on unapproved runs around town. Alero, the elder, has developed a strange habit - at some point either before, during, or after her travels, she will find standing water and, well...

Waller around in it for a while.

(I know that the word is "wallow". However, I think it's undeniable that the more informal version - "waller" - does a much better job of evoking the image here.)

Sure, she drinks some. You can tell that it's partly a functionary thing - trying to cool off. But partly, she wallers for the sheer enjoyment of it. Of being surrounded by the water, submerged in it. Even when she can't get completely immersed - as when she dips in the little plastic kiddie pool we bought for this purpose - she twists and turns and writhes around, trying to get as covered as she possibly can. Only when she is soaked, nose to tail, does she trot out to air-dry (on the hardwood floors!).

I have long felt this way about Scripture. We often go to Scripture for the purpose of stripping it to its essentials, of pruning away the discomfort and the internal conflicts so that we are left with a clear, concise message, unmuddled by complexity and history. Just as the younger dog, Harley, refuses to touch water except to drink, so we refuse to hear the bits of Scripture that indict us or make us feel uncomfortable. Just as he must be dragged kicking and barking into a bath, we often must be pulled by something (a teacher, a pastor, a parent, or simple persistent curiosity) into the depths of the ancient text that we call Bible.

But there is another way to experience Scripture. Not to search the dusty pages for a quote to use in spiritual battle, or a line from a story that distills our faith into a sound-bite, but to waller around in the text. To get it all over us, and let it soak us to the bone in history and tradition. Get to know the stories of the Bible, get to know the characters in them. As much as we can, get to know the people who wrote them and the people who read them and the world they lived in. Hear the words the way they heard the words. Care about the things that they care about. Ask the questions that they ask. See what came before, and what came after. Try to taste hidden meanings and forbidden meanings and plain old everyday meanings. Roll around in the dirt and the water of Scripture's world, and make yourself a part of it. That's how we make it a part of us.

As I write this description, of wallering in the pages of Bible, I recognize that they make another demand upon us. To waller as well in the world where we have been placed, in the lives of other people. To waller in the dust of poverty, to roll around in the fears of pain and loss, to cover ourselves in the shame of humiliation and degradation. It is our calling to get all muddied up with the dirt of this world - the hard stuff, the painful stuff, the sorrowful stuff. It is our calling to forsake all ivory towers and places of clean rest, to live in real community with those around us. To see people who suffer, to feel the pain of hunger and the grief of loss alongside them.

It is our calling, as followers of Christ, to waller around in this life. To cover ourselves in the rich history and tradition of Scripture, and to be covered in the real tangible joys and pains of other people.

Just as my dog wallers in the water.

Just as God became flesh and wallered among us.

Amen.

Surprising the Grump

I was in a foul mood recently. No particular reason, I guess. I was at the supermarket (a stressful place for many of us), and between the vitriol of the election season and an empty mid-afternoon stomach, I found myself, for lack of a better word, grumpy. It's a frustrating state to be in - grumpy people are no fun to be around, but they're also no fun to be.

Behavioral science has taught us that we respond to our physical sensations and our emotional states much more strongly than we do to our intellectual knowledge. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of a bunch of things including Neurosciences at Stanford, describes having a fight with his wife (who is also a brain researcher). After a while of fighting, one of them stops and says to one another, "Honey, remember what the half-life is on the autonomic nervous system."

Meaning, "Let's not just keep fighting just because we feel angry."

Our bodies and our moods can lie to us. They can control our behavior and our thoughts, which in turn makes us moodier yet. Sometimes, it takes something jarring to break our brains out of a negative cycle.

In our recently-begun Bible Study on Acts, this past Wednesday brought us the story of the Pentecost. I know we're a little behind liturgically speaking, but that's okay. What struck me was how jarring the scene must have been for the other people.

Think of it - you're a Jewish citizen of Egypt, making your pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks. A month and a half ago, at Passover, you walked nearly three hundred miles to Jerusalem, then walked back. Now, it's time for another pilgrimage, and so you and your whole village make the trek again.

You arrive in Jerusalem. You're tired, you're sore from the journey, you're both excited to begin worship at the festival and (secretly) a little anxious for the pomp and circumstance to finish so you can enjoy the city with your family. In short, your emotions are raw. This is a high-stress situation, and the last thing you expect is for your world to change.

There is a commotion. Maybe it's in the street. Maybe it's in the Temple itself - Acts 2 is unclear. But through the shouts and the cries, through the din of the city and the roar of the worshipers, you hear a voice calling in your own language. Here in this place, so familiar in faith but so foreign in every other way, you hear the language of your childhood, the language of your heart.

"The Christ has come! The Christ has conquered death! Now is the time for the Kingdom - call upon the name of the Lord!"

Would this stop you in your tracks? Would this knock you out of your grump, make you forget the pains of your feet and the anxieties of travel, just for a moment? Would it make you pause and listen? Would you have stopped to investigate? Would you have seen the crowd of Jesus-followers, shouting in all languages and in one language? Would you have possibly even seen a Something that looked like tongues of flame and sounds like a rushing wind?

One thing that you can always say about God is that God surprises us. God knocks us off guard. We're creatures of mood and fancy; we can so easily get worked into a rut of anger, or despair, or pain, or fear, but then, something happens...

Back at the supermarket, I saw somebody making faces at a stranger's baby. The baby was thrilled with the silliness and attention, and the face-maker was thrilled with the response. Slowly, I saw smiles creep across faces all around. Everybody who saw the interaction was brightened and blessed by it. My grump was jarred open, and joy poured in.

All it takes sometimes is a surprise - a joyous, even holy, surprise. Whether in the form of a zealous crowd shouting Gospel in a hundred tongues, or the infectious smile of a child, God surprises us.

Lord our Joy and our Comfort, break into our lives again today with a ray of hope, a spark of joy, a hint of your fullness and glory. 

Amen.

A Church in Growth

Hello!
Welcome to my blog. Here, I will be posting thoughts, musings, devotions, sermonettes, and anything else that seems fitting. This is the first of (hopefully!) a long series of posts.

As I've been researching for our upcoming Bible study on Acts, I've been struck by the predicament of the early church. That is, how to go about the mission of the church in such a highly divided and divisive world?

"Now when these words came to their ears their hearts were troubled, and they said to Peter and the other Apostles, Brothers, what are we to do?" - Acts 2:37

In the earliest days of the Jesus Movement, believers sought to find a place for themselves in the world. Many believed that Christ would be returning immediately, and that the proper response was to hunker down, stay away from the sins of the world, and await Paradise. Many believed that the Way of Jesus fit perfectly into the classical Jewish tradition - that his teachings encapsulated the Law and the Prophets, and that the fullest expression of being Jewish was following Jesus. Many believed that Jesus - in his teachings, his death, and his resurrection - invalidated Jewish tradition, providing anybody and everybody with access to God regardless of ethnic history, circumcision, or liturgical tradition.

The stories of Acts play out this confusion. They show us much controversy and dispute about where the church should go, whom it should seek out, and how it should behave in community. The larger question at hand is always this: What does it mean to be church?

For Luke, writing Acts, the answer is deceptively simple: In all things, proclaim Christ. The apostles spread the Good News of Christ in a variety of ways.

• By unity and prayer - (Acts 2:42)
• By baptism, which publicly proclaims God's grace  - (Acts 8:12-13)
• By study and interpretation of Scripture - (Acts 6:26-35)
• By opening themselves and opening God up to the marginalized and those considered unclean - (Acts 10:45-48)
• By performing acts that brought life and wholeness - (Acts 3:2-8)
• By standing up to the authorities who would limit justice and love - (Acts 4:8-10)

The apostles gave many speeches and direct pleas trying to convince people of the Gospel. Still, some of their most visible and effective strategies were not words, but actions. Let us model them by proclaiming God in all that we do. As in the quote commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Preach the Gospel always; if necessary, use words.