On being neighbors

I learned earlier this afternoon of the vandalism to the property of our neighbors at Anshe Emet Synagogue.  Horrible, awful things were spray painted on their walls and I won't re-post them here.  

We are moving quickly towards Jerusalem, to Holy Week, that most sacred and holy time of the Christian Year. The sad truth is that historically this time of year is a time when Christians have persecuted our Jewish brothers and sisters, using our Sacred Story as support of that persecution. In particular, the Gospel of John, has been used to support or as rational for lashing out against Jews. I've often included in Holy Week bulletins reminders about the context of such verbiage. This is one from an older bulletin:

“The Jews” in the gospel text are to be understood as Judean leaders hostile to the Johannine community. They are not to be interpreted as members of the Jewish faith or race throughout history. Many, including church officials, have promoted and justified anti-Semitism using a literal interpretation of these texts. They have erred profoundly. As Christians, we share a common faith heritage with the Jews.  Indeed, Jesus was a Jew.

A simple text, I know, but I think an especially important reminder as we move into Holy Week. Now more than ever we must boldly and clearly claim our Sacred Story, our Scripture as one that teaches of a God who moves to earth to love us all, to take on our skin, to move with us, as one of us, to stop the violence that we human beings are so damn good at. May we be a people who promote peace with our words, our actions and our lives. May we be a people who proclaim the profound love of a dying and rising God, who stops at nothing to welcome all into God's saving embrace. And may we never, ever use our faith as a weapon. 

Heartbreak

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD:I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.--From the 31st chapter of Jeremiah

I'm mucking around with the idea of the heart and heartbreak, what it means to have our hearts break. The image is usually one we associate with romantic love--getting our hearts broken with a painful break up. Who hasn't known that pain? And I think of the horrific story of Trayvon Martin, one of far too many children gunned down in the violence that comes from humanity's brokenness. Reading the story of the murder of Trayvon Martin is, at least for me, heartbreak. Heartbreak over the loss of a child, heartbreak over the racism that still permeates our culture, heartbreak over a system that would look the other way,  heartbreak that is filled with both sorrow and anger (is there really any breaking of our hearts that doesn't have both?).

One of my peers told me the other of an old teaching that said God breaks open our hearts so that God's covenant can be poured into them. I love this image. To have God's love, so heavy and so full, etched onto us, flowing into our hearts--it is almost too much to bear.

Mary Oliver's poem Lead is also running around in my head. This is the last part of it:
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

In this season of heart-break, may we be aware of the Love that is so heavy it is almost too much to bear, Love that breaks us and Love that breaks for us.

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!

I'm late in posting for last week. My apologies! Last week was a full, wonderful, long and holy week. So apologies for not getting this posted sooner.

I mentioned this in my sermon, but I've been focused (bordering on obsessed) on the idea of covenant. You can't step into the Scriptures appointed for Lent and not be. The Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament is filled with some of the most prophetic and vivid images of God and humanity wrestling with what it means to be in covenant relationship with each other. Covenant, as understood in the Biblical context is something deeper than just a written contract--it involves God and promise and humanity. And then Jesus comes along and takes it to the next level, the deeper level, himself becoming the new covenant. Covenant isn't something to enter lightly and it's not something you just leave.

Yet we live in a time and age when it's easy to walk away from each other. Marriage is as disposable as our paper cups. Heck, even Baptism some times feels like something that you can just abandon. How often do we baptize a child and then never seem them or their parents again? Of course, the promise with Baptism is that even when we walk away, God does not as we are marked as Christ's own forever (and there ain't nothing you can do about that).

How do we, in 2012, understand covenant as it is presented to us in Scripture? How do we understand God's promises, God's covenants with us in this day and age? What does it mean in this time to enter a covenant relationship, such as Baptism, or Holy Union or Marriage and make promises in the name of God, to enter a covenant relationship? The comment section is open!