On being left behind

I've moved about eighteen times in my life. I am quite used to getting settled in a place for about a year, then packing all of my things and starting over again in another place. What I am not used to, however, is being left behind.

I started thinking about being left behind as I listened to the first lesson last Sunday. The disciples watched as Jesus ascended into heaven, then were scolded for looking up to where he had gone into the clouds. I cannot imagine what the disciples must have been feeling as they watched the Lord ascend into heaven (Acts 1:9-11). You see, I am not used to being left behind.

I have always been the one to leave a place first. When I left for undergrad, I had to go early to start my job, making me one of the first of my friends to leave for college. I was the first one of my three roommates to move out of my dorm room after our first year. Even through seminary, I did not waste any time moving out of the dorm and into my apartment or up to Durham to be with Daniel. But now I find myself being left behind and I feel like one of the disciples looking up at the sky going, Okay, so what's next? 

In the past week, there have been a half a dozen moving trucks moving my beloved classmates on to their next adventure, most of them heading to internship or Clinical Pastoral Education for the summer. Others were headed to camp or to vacation. Many of our friends have not left quite yet, but they are making plans are will probably not be around much longer. As I hear each person talk about their plans for the next few months I find myself feeling a combination of anxious, jealous, and angry. We have no plans and we aren't going anywhere. I'm feeling quite left behind.

I imagine God peering at the disciples as Jesus ascends into heaven, thinking Come on now, you've work to do, don't just stand there. I am trying to remind myself the words of Acts... "You don't get to know the time. Timing is God's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit" (paraphrased from The Message, Acts 1:7-8). I am not entirely sure I am comforted by the words, but they're there. And I keep reading them.

And we do have work to do. We are called in this time more than ever to love one another fiercely and not let this time of anxious waiting come between us. We are called to love those who are left behind with us, and nurture the relationships with those who have left us. We are called to smile and nod as people tell us the Spirit is at work. And, I suppose, we are called, as we feel left behind, to keep repeating those words (whether we fully believe them or not)... You don't get to know the time. Timing is God's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit.

Accepting Hospitality

A normal question we encountered over and over again at the beginning of our time here in Malaysia was, "how do you find Malaysia?" It seemed every time we saw anyone from church, they would want to know how we were getting along - especially with the weather. (It's quite hot here, if you haven't heard.)

After a few weeks, the questions turned to food. No matter what time it was or what we were about to do, every time we got into the car with someone, they would promptly ask, "Have you eaten?" We never tried it, I would guess if we had ever said we were hungry, they would have put the pedal to the floor in search of acceptable food choices.

In these past few weeks together, we have been getting a different question when gathering with folks. "What will you miss the most?"

The food.
The people.

Table fellowship.

"In the beginning was the Word. It was only when human beings appeared that the Word became food on a table. We know that language allows us to understand each other and to express what we think and feel. We humans, however, are more than language. We humans are cookingage, i.e., that which allows us to prepare the food with which we can nourish not only our body, but also our spirit. It was when we started to cook our first meals and when we started to conjugate the incarnate Word that we noticed that we were human. Both table and Word humanize us. No wonder it is essential that the table on which our meals are served be conjoined with good conversation: at the table, the word is essential."  -- Forward by Joaquín Racionero Page

(From "Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist" by Angel F. Méndez Montoya, vi)

Hospitality is about more than giving. I think there's also an element of receiving in it too. Showing hospitality has been instilled in me from a young age. My mom was always hosting parties and dinners when we were growing up. It seemed no matter where we moved, one thing remained constant -- our house was a place to gather, a place to eat, and a place to have fellowship. I don't remember going to as many parties as we hosted when I was growing up. It wasn't just parties, either. We constantly had people staying at our house overnight. Later, Mom would laugh and called the house Hotel Habermehl, but I remember it vividly. No matter who it was -- grandparents or friends of friends -- everyone was welcome at our house for as long as they needed to be there.

Therefore, as I grew older, I became very good at hosting and not so great at receiving hospitality.

Okay, let me be clear: my body rejects hospitality like it rejects red meat and dairy products. I'm simply not very good at being taken care of. I'm the worst guest if you expect me to just relax and receive. I'm the kind of guest you invite over before the party so I can clean your house and help bake the pies. I'm not entirely sure what it is about receiving that grates me. It probably has to do with my perfectionist tendencies and my over- achiever work ethic. Whatever it is, I was in for a rude awakening in Malaysia.

Learning to accept hospitality and assistance has been the hardest for me this year. It has taken me nearly six months to even write about how it has affected my life. We spent the year without a car, in a foreign place, with foreign food, immersed in a different language. All of these things meant I had to learn how to accept the hospitality of others.

We had to ask people (in the beginning, they were complete strangers) to take us to the grocery store.
We had to call people to ask them what words meant in an Indian restaurant.
We went to lunch with people who ordered food for us without even knowing if we would eat it.
People drove us home from church and restaurants constantly because we had no way of transporting ourselves.
We were completely reliant on other people for things we never would have imagined before.

It was weird. It drove me insane. I fought back against it. But it changed me and formed me into a woman who can -- even if I don't really want to -- accept hospitality. And as I reflect on all the things I could miss about Malaysia, my heart keeps going back to the people, their hospitality, and especially their food. It's how they show that they care deeply for us and want us to be happy (and fed). And my goodness, is it biblical and wonderful. I miss it desperately and I can't wait to get back for more.

Unnoticed Miracles

Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

A sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent, preached at St. James Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. 

It’s a miracle! This is it! The virgin conception! This is what we’ve been waiting for this whole season! We’ve been waiting for this big miracle— the miracle that the angels proclaim, the miracle that prophets had been writing about for centuries. It’s finally here! 

We like to get caught up in the big miracle stories of the Bible — and the virgin conception and birth is one of our favorites to tell and speculate about. How did God do it? Was it real? When did she find out? 

We love these big, important miracles in the Bible like the flood, the manna, plagues, parting of the Red Sea, the feeding of the thousands, the healing stories of Jesus' time. 

We get so caught up in waiting for the big miracles that we forget to look for the smaller, unnoticed miracles in the story. In this case, Joseph’s side of the story is full of little miracles if we look a little bit closer. 

Here we have Joseph who finds out about Mary’s pregnancy. And of course he would think that she has committed adultery. 

Doesn’t expose her to the authorities, so he decides to divorce her quietly. 

Which at first doesn’t seem like such a righteous thing as the text tell us it is. 

But we know from the law that any woman who commits adultery will be stoned to death. 

So Joseph essentially chose to spare Mary’s life by divorcing her quietly and possibly infringes on his own honor and status in society. Even before the angel shows up in his dream, he is already planning to do something unexpected. It just shows the kind of person Joseph was — he was kind, compassionate, and a little bit subversive. 

And God uses this man to further God’s mission. God sends an angel to his dream and the angel tells him not to be afraid. “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,” the angels says. The angels says, “she’ll have a son and you’ll name him Jesus.” 

And he did. He took Mary and married her — despite the ridicule that he would get. Despite the risk to his reputation and status in society. And what’s more — he takes the word of God and he raises Jesus as his own son, giving him a name, a home, and a trade. A miracle. 

That’s what a miracle is after all — when God, in all of God’s glory, opens our hearts to lean closer and listen more clearly and love more fully. But those kinds of miracles aren’t flashy. They aren’t always exciting. The in-breaking of the Kingdom of God is actually quit hard sometimes. 

Which is why we would rather wait for God to act, wait for God to do something explosive and amazing. 

We do the same thing with the stories in our lives, don’t we? We are always waiting for the big miracles, the ones we can turn into TV shows or movies or Facebook posts. 

We spend a lot of our lives waiting for miracles like this one. Searching for where God is breaking into the world to save a loved one from a disease or bring two estranged people back together. We are waiting for miracles all the time. 

But we want the big kind of miracle — we want the kinds that really knock our socks off with how amazing we are. And we sit and we wait for them, hoping and praying that they happen soon. 

But, I think, when we sit and wait passively for miracles to happen to us and for us, we forget that miracles -- the little ones, if there are such things as little miracles -- really are happening around us all the time. They might go unnoticed to most of the world, but that doesn’t make them any less significant. Because from what I have noticed, God tends to work through the small miracles. God tends to work through the everyday things and relationships we have with people. 

Just recently I heard a story about a young pastor and his wife: 

A man was locking up the church one evening when he finds two little boys - about 2 years old and the other 7 months old - almost naked in a pile of trash outside of the church - they were only wearing diapers. 

Unsure of what to do, he called the pastor of the church and the pastor and his wife rushed over immediately. As the pastor arrived and they talked about what to do, the parents of the little boys came out of the woods near the church and told the pastor and his wife that they were homeless and cannot take care of their children. 

The pastor asked if he might take the boys home to clean them up and keep them warm for the night. The boys were covered in bug bites, when they pulled the shoes off the older boy some of his skin came off with it. They were so filthy, the pastor and his wife bathed them once, drained the water, and bathed them again. 

The pastor and his wife came back to the woods the next day to talk to the homeless couple about their situation. After a few weeks of taking care of the boys, the homeless couple asked if they might sign custody over to the pastor and his wife. The pastor’s wife says they barely hesitated, “of course,” she said. The pastor and his wife already has three children, but without hesitation they invited two more little boys into their home, and eventually adopted them. 

This is the kind of every day miracles God works through. And if we had the courage to look around us, we would be able to see these things happening in our lives and the lives of other every single day. 

Just this past Thursday, we had one here in the church - A group of men from Grace Lutheran Church drove about five hours to deliver all of the hurricane relief supplies. Then a group of people from this church took time out of their days to come and receive donations those donations. It was an outpouring of love that was beautiful to behold. 

It’s these kinds of miracles that God works through. We like the big ones — the ones that they make into movies, like the ones where children die and meet God and come back and tell everyone about it. God works in those miracles, there’s no doubt about that. And those are the kinds of miracles we long for, aren’t they? The big kind — the kind we can post pictures and a Facebook status about. The kind that make it into the newspaper. 

But the most important and incredible miracles this world has ever seen came not in all the flashiness of Hollywood and not with thousands of pictures documenting the moment. It came in the birth of a baby we call Immanuel, God with us. The most significant miracle in all the world came into the world as a baby because God wants so badly to be in relationship with us that God actually became one of us. So that through him we might find salvation and become a part of God’s work in the world too. This miracle lives on as the body of Christ, and we are taken up into that miracle every Sunday as we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ together in the Eucharist. We become a part of this miracle. 

So that we might be a participants in and recipients of God’s incredible in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. So that we might point to the miracle that is Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.