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Looking in the Mirror

James 1:17-27

Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola

August 30, 2009

 

1:22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.1:23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 1:24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

 

Every Sunday we put a mirror up and look at ourselves.  It is God’s mirror.  As we look into that mirror, images are reflected back to us that give us an idea of who we are in God’s eyes, of how God feels about us, and of what God would have us do as disciples of the Risen Christ.  As we first gather at 10:00, we look into the mirror and see a worshipping people, a people who acknowledge and praise our Creator who provides for us, who cares for us, who stays with us every day, in the midst of our joys and our troubles.  As we settle into worship, we settle into a gaze, God’s gaze, as we sing hymns of praise and adoration, as we hear choir voices that remind us of God’s loving presence among us. 

And then we take an even closer look at ourselves in God’s mirror.  We see ourselves as imperfect humans who misstep and falter, who hide our eyes and turn away from God and God’s mirror.  And as we dare to look again into the mirror we see a forgiven people, a welcomed and beloved people, a people with whom God is deeply in love. 

And then we turn to the mirror of God’s word in Holy Scripture, more reflection of our loving and caring God, and how our God invites us to live day to day with those around us in the world. 

And then we look in the mirror once more to see a praying people, a people who care deeply for each other and the pains of the world. 

And once more we look in the mirror and see a people of discipleship and ministry, with questions of how God would have us spend our time, talents, and money.             

We leave Sunday morning worship with a blessing--a benediction inviting us to take the mirror of God with us—as it continues to reflect that we are a beloved, forgiven, empowered people, beckoned by God to do the ministry of the Risen Christ.

 

1:22But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 1:23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 1:24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

 

In this passage from the Epistle of James, James is attempting to tell the Christian reader that faith and works must go hand in hand.  What we learn, believe, and assent to in our hearts, what we see reflected in our God-given image, must be realized in our every day lives.  Otherwise, we ignore our God-given image, we do not heed the faith we profess, we do not proclaim the Godly knowledge we have learned.  Without this wedding of intention and action, Christianity, God’s ministry, God’s purposes in this world are not fulfilled. 

James goes even further.  He tells us that the acts that reflect our faith the most are acts of loving kindness toward the most vulnerable members of our community.  For James, these vulnerable ones are summed up into two groups:  the widows and the orphans, the most vulnerable ones in ancient times.  We certainly can think of many groups today that fit the profile of vulnerability in this world, precious ones in need of our ministry.

It’s not always that easy, is it, to look at our reflection in the mirror of God? Yes, the mirror of God can be joyous at times, and we can’t stop gazing at ourselves singing and speaking words of praise and adulation.  The mirror of God can be difficult at times, because as much as we yearn to believe that what we see reflected is a child of God whom God loves totally, with whom God walks closely; such knowledge is almost too much for us to take in.  The mirror of God can be sobering at times as we realize that we do not always act as a people of God and sometimes fall away; and we would rather walk away from our reflection at those times.  The mirror of God can be painful at times, as we look at the reflections of grief and sorrow, illness, loss, and hardship for ourselves and for others surrounding us.  The mirror can be challenging at times as we attempt to discern our ministry in this world; our ministry in this church, our ministry as followers of Christ, to honor the will of the Risen Christ to help those who are most vulnerable.

I would say that for our community of faith, this day, Rally Day, is a challenging day to look into the mirror.  We have just dedicated our teachers to the spiritual guidance and education of our children.  I believe such ministry of teaching fits a 21^st century version of James’ invitation to care for the most vulnerable in our midst.  Our children are very vulnerable.  They are also the future of this church, our church.  They are the future of Christianity.  If we can teach them of God’s incredible love for them, God’s hand of loving guidance in everything they do, how to spread that love to others, how to minister to the last, the least, and the lost; then we certainly are fulfilling our commitment to our God; our call to continue this church, our church into the next generation.  If every Christian church fulfills such a call, then perhaps Christendom is not dead; perhaps it is dormant and can rise again into the future. 

We have blessed our children to the care of our teachers.  We have held up a mirror to our teachers as our children’s guides along their spiritual walk.  But what is our role as a faith community?  To pray fervently, of course.  To encourage our teachers and tell them we appreciate them, surely.  To make ourselves available to these young people as their elders to whom they look as their mirrors, most assuredly.  They can learn of God’s love in a classroom and see that love from their teachers.  They can learn about putting faith into action through their teachers and their lessons.  But to feel God’s love from the people of their faith community, to have that mirror of loving acceptance turned toward them every time they are with us, to look upon us as reflections of Christians doing God’s work, is a crucial ministry for each and every one of us.

I would say that the coming weeks are joyous weeks to look into the mirror.  We look into the mirror of call; the call of your new settled pastor and the shared ministry that we began last January.  We celebrate that call at a service of installation on the afternoon of September 13.  At that service the Northeast Association of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ joins us to affirm and celebrate our call together.  They are the ones that officially install any pastor into the ministry of the local church, and so they will install me into the ministry of this church.  And as we celebrate, we look into the mirror of a call that God has ordained and blessed.  We look into the mirror of discerning a shared ministry that puts our faith into the action of service to the least, the last, and the lost.

I would say that the coming weeks are challenging weeks to look into the mirror.  This is the beginning of the new programmatic year.  Summer is past and we look toward a year of worship, education, and ministry.  Education for our children and youth is well underway.  As we look into the mirror, what education does God desire for us, the adults of our faith community?  Your pastor through the support and cooperation of your education committee is poised to provide.  What has God laid on your heart:  a Bible study?  A book study on a particular topic?  A support group?  A prayer group?  What do you need to learn more of your God?  What do you need to increase your faith, to voice your doubts?  What do you need in order to live more faithfully in this challenging world?

As we look at our ministry and mission of our church, reflected in the mirror is a desire to grow and to thrive as a vital congregation in this community of Morrisville.  But what does that mean?  Growth does not only mean more numbers in the pews.  Growth means increasing our love of God and one another; growth means learning more of our relationship with God; growth means learning how to live as Christians in this secular society; growth means an outpouring of our love to our neighbor and the care of the most vulnerable. 

Certainly we would love to see more people fill our membership roles.  People come to church anew when invited by members of a congregation who are very excited about their faith community.  They come back when they feel welcomed and are greeted warmly before, during, and after the service.  They stay because there’s a place for them and their children to grow in faith and to serve in God’s mission.

As we look into our ministry and mission of our church, we are aware of financial crunches, not much unlike financial crunches in most churches.  We are poised to begin our stewardship campaign.  But stewardship does not only mean looking into God’s mirror for what God would have us give of our monetary resources.  Stewardship also means discerning how God wants each of us to spend our time for the health of our church; how God wants each of us to discover and give of our talents and gifts for the ministry of our church.

 

1:22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.1:23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 1:24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

 

Doing what we hear is not always easy.  Such integration of faith and action, intention and behavior, is a process that can take a lifetime of practice.  It begins with hearing that God loves us unconditionally, knowing we are accepted no matter what.  It proceeds with realizing that God want us to rise to the creation God intended for us at our beginning, as God’s word teaches us in Godly ways.  As we assent to God’s love, as we listen even more closely to God’s guidance, we can own even more fully what God has planted in our hearts. We can nurture our own faith and the faith of others.  We can allow God’s word to have its full effect in our lives; to allow God’s word and teaching to change us:  our worldview, the way we look at ourselves and other people.  Let’s look into God’s mirror, take in what we see, carry the image, our image, with us everyday; and allow our image to guide our thoughts and our actions--so that we can be doers and not just hearers of God‘s word.  Such is a lifetime journey; a journey that beings right now.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Welcome in Distractions

Mark 7:24-30

September 6, 2009

Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola

 

What I’m about to share with you happened a couple of years ago, but it is still vivid in my mind.  At that time I was serving the Congregational Church of Weston, MA as their Resident Pastor.  It was a Sunday morning before worship. I was feeling a bit more rushed than usual because I had not yet finished my part of worship.  I was not preaching that morning, but I had not yet completed writing my pastoral prayer or the offertory prayers.  I settled at the computer in the main office very early, before everyone typically began to gather, determined to complete preparation for worship ministry for the folks of the faith community, hyper-focused on the tasks of the morning.

And then it happened.  I heard a couple of voices that sounded very unfamiliar.  And they seemed to be speaking to me.  O no.  I hoped not.  Not right then, please God.  Maybe they were visiting and just greeting different people out in the hall.  But it was way too early for folks to arrive, particularly visitors.  As I glanced out of the corner of my eye, there they were, standing in the threshold, looking at me, one with the sweetest smile, the other with the grumpiest frown.  And they were asking a question.  They were asking for directions.  I looked quickly around.  The senior pastor was nowhere to be found.  He was occupied with practicing his sermon for the morning. 

I found myself mildly annoyed, somewhat because I had never heard of the place for which they were seeking, partly because I do not trust MapQuest for directions, but mostly because I had been interrupted out of the focus of my prescribed ministerial task of the morning.  As I looked up this unknown address on the confusing website of Mapquest, I found my impatience growing.  These women were sisters, and as is sometimes common with sisters, they were bickering between themselves.  One wanted to tell me all about her life and the other loudly chided her for “bothering me” with such stories.  And I had tasks to do, ministry to prepare for, all for the good people of the church, for God’s sake.

             As I handed them their directions and they bid me good bye, I started to breathe a sigh of relief, when my breath was sharply stopped by one of the woman’s words.  Her very sincere and tearful expression brought pause to my hurry and re-calibrated my focus.  She said to me, “Pastor, thank you so much for your time. I will remember you and this church at Christmas time with a Christmas card.  You have been so kind to us.”  At that moment, in those words and through that woman’s eyes, in what I had seen as a moment of distraction from the ministry of the day, I heard God’s voice.  God spoke to me through this woman loudly and clearly.  I realized that through these women God had visited me in these few moments, in this blessed distraction from these blessed outsiders.  God had provided me opportunity for ministry, not in the tasks, not in the hyper focusing of a busy morning preparing for worship for the people on the inside, but for women from the outside who looked to me for help, not because it was my allotted ministerial task, but just because I was there and that I could give the help they needed: because God wanted me to provide such ministry at that moment.

As a preacher, it is not typical for me to ask folks to identify with Jesus in the Gospel story.  Usually we feel more comfortable identifying with disciples, with those whom Jesus heals or teaches, or with the crowds, as they struggle to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ ministry and message.  But today I’m going to suggest just that:  to put ourselves in the sandals of Jesus.

And perhaps it is not so difficult to identify with the picture of the Jesus in this Mark passage, the very human picture of Jesus.  Here we see a different side of Jesus than we’re usually accustomed to, a different Jesus than the one who readily and compassionately instructs the disciples to feed thousands; a different Jesus than the one who freely heals and comforts the afflicted.

We see a Jesus who is tired, a Jesus who so desires to get away from all that has been pre-occupying him that he goes out of the land of the Israelites and into the land occupied by the Gentiles.  He really wants to get away.  He has certainly tried before.  Just prior to the feeding of the five thousand, when he had heard of the murder of his cousin John, he attempted to retreat to a deserted place, but the crowds were there when he arrived.  He tried to get away again, only to be beckoned by the disciples to calm the waters so their boat did not capsize.  In the land of Israel, everywhere Jesus went, his reputation preceded him and crowds would flock to him. 

We also see a Jesus who has been so single mindedly focused on ministry.  And it seems like his journey and his God given job had gotten even more focused and more difficult.  In the passage immediately preceding our passage today, as he shared a meal with his friends, he was chided and harassed by the religious leaders of the day for not washing his hands properly before a meal.   

So the weary human Jesus, the Jesus dedicated to the tasks of a ministry, yet much in need of a break, ventures into a foreign land, the land of the Gentile. Surely he can get away this time.  His reputation will not follow him here.  And then it happens. A woman approaches him, a Gentile woman whose daughter is in great need of healing. 

But she is not the focus of Jesus’ ministry, the lost sheep of Israel.  She is a distraction.  She is not a member of the inside faith community.  She is an outsider.  She does not approach tentatively or in a whisper. She does not come with apology or pause.  She comes with expectation.  Mark tells us that “She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

Jesus is not impressed nor is he moved.  He’s so focused on what and to whom his ministry is, he just doesn’t want to be bothered with this distraction, this outsider.  What are you doing, woman?  Don’t you know I wasn’t sent to you and your kind.  And it’s not fair for you to ask.  Can’t you tell that I’m called to God’s service for the people of Israel and you are not part of that group?  You’re just not included.  Don’t you understand that? 

She does not understand.  Perhaps she is driven by her mother’s heart for her daughter.  Perhaps she is so aware of his reputation of compassion and healing power that she knows his Godly side will overcome his exhausted, rude, irritated human side.  Perhaps she knows that Jesus is from God and that Jesus heals, and that her daughter needs healing.  And as she insists, Jesus begins to shake off his narrow focus.  Jesus begins to realize that God is speaking to him, through this distraction from the outside, through this Gentile woman.  And he does help.  And his help shows her that she is most welcomed into God’s healing love.  What was distraction becomes the focus of ministry.  What was outsider becomes the welcomed child of God.

In my work as a psychologist over many years I heard stories of folks being focused and getting distracted, and sometimes finding God in distractions.  I recall one single mom’s story.  She was understandably focused on caring and providing for her two children.  One day she was preparing supper after a tiresome, hectic day at work.  She recalled that as she cooked, she was concentrating on a problematic issue at work in which she was worried about her relationship with her boss, while at the same time thinking about how to afford school clothes for her children in the fall.  She only had a short amount of time to prepare and serve the food before putting her children to bed and working a bit more on unfinished tasks from her job, hoping to stay in her boss’s good graces.  Quite pre-occupied, she faintly heard her daughter say, “Mommy, can’t you hear me?  I’ve been asking you.”  Evidently, her daughter had been tugging at her clothes for quite some time. “Mommy, I want you to come outside with me.  I have something to show you”  “Not now, can’t you see I’m busy?”  “Mommy, mommy, come quick, I have something to show you!”  “Not now, child.  I’m cooking supper for you and your brother.”  “No, mommy, it’s really important. You have to come now.”  Although this mom was annoyed by this distraction, she was also a bit concerned at her daughter’s insistence, so she followed her daughter into the yard.  “Look, mommy,” her daughter exclaimed, eyes dancing and lips grinning as wide as wide could be, “I found this pretty flower and picked these for you and the wormy likes them too!”  The mom looked at her daughter’s glowing and grinning face, and then looked at the bunch of milkweed that she had picked that had a caterpillar on it about to form a chrysalis.  The mom told me, “I was stopped in my tracks by the sheer joy on my daughter’s little face, the love in my daughter’s voice, the newness of life on this milkweed.”  Dinner was delayed that night. This caring and wise mom recognized God in this distraction; saw God in that which was very much outside her focus, although her focus was indeed noble and right.  She saw God in the loving face of her daughter, and in the caterpillar about to turn butterfly.

Over the years in ministry I have heard stories of good people, religious people, excluding the outsider, only to hear God’s voice in the outsider’s voice.  I recall the story of a father who had forbidden his daughter from hanging around with some friends because they were “from the other side of the tracks”, which meant they were not of his religion, race, or culture.  The daughter tearfully attempted to tell her dad that these friends were the best she had ever known, true and loyal, in whom she could confide.  The Dad’s noble mission was to raise his daughter in faith and into a life of love and success.  He could not reconcile his mission with his daughter’s friendship choices.  One day, he saw his daughter running toward home, hair disheveled, clothes torn, tears streaming down her face.  He also saw what he thought was one of “those boys” running after her.  He ran outside to defend his daughter from what he assumed were the worst consequences of her acquaintance with this boy.  Before he could begin his tirade and hurl his threats at this boy, the daughter screamed at him, “a car almost hit me and Benny  pushed me into some bushes to save me”.  As the dad stood frozen, attempting to take in his daughter’s words, he noticed that Benny’s leg was bleeding.  Evidently Benny pushed his daughter out of the way, but was side swiped by the car, driven by a drunk teen.  The driver of the car was one of the “good kids” in town, a member of the Dad’s own church.  That Dad heard God’s voice that afternoon—the voice of faithful friendship from an unlikely outsider.  He heard God’s voice many days after that as he got to know Benny’s mom during visits to Benny in the hospital.  They  prayed together by Benny’s bedside in the few days he spent in the hospital recuperating from a severe laceration.  They found God in their midst, welcoming them to the same table.

I wonder what stories we would have to share, examples in our lives of being focused on the ministry of caring for families and work, being pulled away by apparent distractions outside of our focus, only to find God in those distractions.  I wonder what stories we would have to share, of misconceptions about outsiders, only to find God in the presence of these outsiders; in the humbled realization that to welcome them is to welcome God in our midst.

Jesus knows our stories firsthand. Jesus rejected the distraction of an outsider.  Jesus insisted on keeping this woman on the outside because she was of different religion and culture.  When there are times that we are so focused on a task at hand that we miss God’s presence in the distraction, we are in good company.  When there are times that we exclude outsiders, those who are different, missing God’s presence in the outsiders, we are in good company.  We are in the good company of the human Jesus, the One from God, who learned as he went along, grew as he learned, turned to God for all he could become, saw God in the distractions, saw God’s face in the face of the outsider. 

What are the distractions in our lives that deter us from our focus? Distractions where God is surely found? Who are the people that we tend to ignore or exclude?  People in whom God resides?  Let us turn to our Jesus for help.  Let us learn from Jesus.  Let us grow from our learning.  Let us become all that God intends for us to be.