Cutting Ties

So … what are you going to do? Are you going to wait and see what this Adam Hamilton conference proposes? Go to another denomination? Hope for a breakaway denomination? Or stay and work toward change? It's a question I have asked others and spent a lot of time thinking about myself since the decisions of General Conference.

One of my Lenten disciplines was to be in discernment for where God may be calling me vocationally. This meant: prayer, meditation, reading, conversations with friends, conversations with Bishops and forcing myself to refrain from jumping to a plan. As Lent concluded and Easter came I still had no answer, which I suppose means my discipline was a success, although it didn't feel like it.

Even though I am living in a different conference, East Ohio conference has always remained my home conference. The Bishop that ordained me and that allowed me to serve in another conference advised me to keep my connection to East Ohio conference and so I have. I have lived in two different conferences since then but remain tied to my home conference, travelling back for that big family reunion at Lakeside we call Annual Conference. It has felt good. I look forward to jogs by Lake Erie, conversations on the cottage porches of former colleagues and mentors, meet-ups for ice cream and the beautiful sound of voices in unison singing “For All the Saints” as we gather not just with each other but the great cloud of witnesses.

When I pull into Lakeside and see the lanyards with name tags, smell the water and watch the kids eyes widen with joy I am flooded with memories. I remember sitting on the shore when I was a preteen on a confirmation retreat and making a promise to always be best friends with the woman who is still my best friend, I remember the flood of candles in the dark when I was a youth leader and brought teens to Youth Annual Conference, I remember big welcoming hugs from saints who have gone before me, new friendships made, late night walks home from ordination parties and of course seeing parishioners and family members stand in support as the Bishop laid hands on me and called me pastor.

I made vows to my beloved church, vows I hold dear and have worked to honor. So now here I am at a crossroads, with so many others I have sat beside in the sticky wooden chairs of Annual Conference. What will I do?

I know that remaining in a denomination where the callings and gifts of my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters are not welcomed is not an option. I can not stay standing as fellow children of God are pushed out. I will not raise my children in a church where, if they are gay, they will be told one day that who they are is not beloved, precious and Imago Dei. I have seen the lasting pain on the faces of those who were made to feel safe and loved in their home church only to be told it was all conditional.

Does that mean I stay and work toward change, discern if God is calling me somewhere else ... cut ties?

The other day I was asked a question. A question that filled me with both pride and humility, made me smile and cry. A woman that I first met when she was 14 years old and a member of the church where I was the associate pastor asked me the question. She asked me if I would be the person on stage with her when she is ordained at East Ohio Conference this June.

It is a reminder to me of the hope and promise still alive in my home church. It is a beautiful expression of the love I have given and received in my years of ministry. It may also be a beautiful way of saying good bye, knowing that as long as people with her passion, intelligence and courage are working in The UMC then it is in good hands. I don't know. I am still discerning.

One thing I do know is that no matter where I place my ordination, no matter what church I serve, what role I have … the sanctifying grace I have seen, the people I have loved, the church I have vowed to serve … it will always be tied to my heart.

No Answer

After the PTA meeting last night, I got the kids to bed and started watching The Real Housewives shows my husband refuses to watch. My husband had a work meeting and at 9:15 pm texted “I'm on my way.” I watched a few more scenes of fancy lunches at beach houses in the Hamptons and checked my phone. It had been over 30 minutes and he still wasn't home. The drive home takes about 12-15 minutes. I texted him, no answer. I called, no answer. I started to worry. I text again, nothing. I call again, nothing. I had the laptop next to me and I remembered that if he was signed into Google then Google maps would show me where he was. We discovered this once when he called me for help avoiding a traffic jam on the interstate. I click on the location button and it shows him in Pueblo, a city about an hour away. So now I am panicking. The logical thought would be “he meant he was on his way to dinner, which they usually do after that meeting and the location feature isn't always accurate” but my first thought was “someone wanted to steal his car, threw him in the trunk and drove it to Pueblo.” There was a voice of reason inside me trying to be heard but worst case scenario flashes overpowered it. This was all within a matter of minutes before I reloaded the page and it showed he was at a restaurant downtown. I breathed a sigh of relief, closed the computer and thought “I'm going to be a wreck when my kids can drive.”

I have always been a worrier. I can remember being very young and crying because I thought my mom must have died in a car wreck when she decided to pick up a pizza on the way home from work and was late getting home (in the pre-cell phone days). I knew all of this was a risk when I decided I wanted to be a mom. I also knew that my desire to have children outweighed my fears and that whether or not I became a mom I would still have attachments. Being a mortal attached to mortal people breeds anxiety.

I know that my worry comes from my inability to accept what I can't control. The fact that I worry about something has no bearing on the final outcome, but it is hard to avoid. One of my Lenten disciplines this year is to allow myself to be in discernment. I have veered from the path I always expected myself to take since I was called into ministry when I was thirteen years old. I realize that a sense of calling at age 38 may look very different from what it looked like 25 years ago and so I really want to allow myself to be open to whatever God's calling might look like for me right now. Part of that process is reminding myself that I am happy where I am and there is no urgency. I am using tools like meditation, conversations and journaling to try to keep myself open rather than rushing to find an answer.

I am also trying to take fear out of the equation. How many of our decisions are influenced by fear? Part of letting go of fear is fighting that same battle I have fought so many times with worry. I need to stop pretending as though I have control, accept that things change and life is unpredictable and unload the weight of the world that keeps creeping onto my shoulders.

I came across this passage as I was reading The Interior Castle written in the 16^th century by St. Teresa of Avila. She writes:

It's tempting to think that if God would only grant you internal favors you would be able to withstand external challenges. [God] knows what is best for us. [God] does not require our opinion on the matter, and, in fact, has every right to point out that we don't have any idea what we're asking for. Remember: all you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God. I promise you that this is the highest perfection to be attained on the spiritual path.”

My husband came home safely. He had in fact meant that he was on his way to dinner and then accidentally turned the vibrate on his phone off. He felt really bad for worrying me. I was just happy he was home. That worry was over, but a new day brings new risks, fears and unknowns. And so I keep working, discerning, letting go, breathing deeply and doing my best to live this life.

We're All Chickens

Sermon from Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church 3/17/19

I remember the way it glittered in the sun, the gold on the Dome of the Rock reflecting off the cathedral crosses and Temple remains.  The city of Jerusalem was a thing to behold.  Our first glimpse was from our tour bus window, we stared as our Methodist pastor tour guide called out a hymn number to the group of almost all Methodists and I avoided eye contact my Episcopal husband lest I see an eye roll at yet another Methodist hymn.  But he too had his eyes glued to the window and honestly, singing felt like the right response.  It is a place of such story, such legend, such turmoil, such hope, it’s amazing that it is also real stones and roads that you can walk and behold. 

          As we followed tour guides, listened to lectures, touched rocks and worshiped in churches one thing became clear- there is something inexplicable about Jerusalem.  You can hear it in the Bible stories and hymns we sing- a place both longed for and beloved and yet also feared and dreaded.  A place of worship, praise, reunion and stability and yet also a place of battle, war, conflict, separation and change.  It is as if it was placed at the meeting of two tectonic plates that can’t quite come together and so it shifts and rumbles, and you just know that at some point something seismic will happen. 

          It is a city that is in the news headlines we read and the ancient scriptures we read- claimed by different ethnicities and religions, a hot bed of spiritual activity, cosmic encounter and political turmoil.  Three major world religions have deep roots and claims to it and in some places that looks like shared worship spaces with well-respected and understood boundaries and in other places it feels like tension and unrest. 

          As I looked upon this glittering city I remembered the words of the Gospel read today: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  You can hear this tension, this dichotomy in Jesus’s words.  It is his focus, where he is destined to go, the culmination of his journey and yet he knows it is where he will be rejected, despised and suffer.  His words sound like those of someone who is frustrated but also deeply in love.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that will let him down, the city that will nail him to the cross and also the city he loves and longs to gather under his wings.  The city of frustration and hope, longing and despair … death and resurrection.

          It’s like our Lenten journey.  We begin with a reminder of our mortality.  Ashes smeared on our head as we are told that one day we will die and all of this around us that we value so much will be dust.  We reflect on temptation, sacrifice and mortality as the darkness of Good Friday comes nearer.  But we also enter our Lenten journey with confession, we kneel together and repent for what we have done and what we have left undone and we gently move our fingers from our forehead to our chest to our shoulders as a sign of our blessedness, our redemption, our forgiveness.  We walk this Lenten journey with Christ knowing that the darkness of Good Friday will not be the end and hoping to better ourselves for life ahead.  It is a time of honesty, vulnerability, darkness, sadness and also hope, togetherness, promise and anticipation.

          It’s complicated ... kind of like gathering chickens.  Up until last summer when I read this passage what came into my mind was this beautiful mother hen, extending her wings as her sweet young sensed her invitation and nestled into her warmth and protection.  But then a friend asked me to gather her chickens for her and it was not at all what I pictured.  Sure, I was not their mother hen, but it was far more chaotic than I had imagined.  Chickens don’t care when you call out to them, they don’t listen to whistles or hand claps, they don’t even seem to have any purpose in where they are going or any plan, they are just running around all feathery and messy.  You just have to be patient, throw that food into the coop and shut the door as fast as you can.  It’s a little crazy, at least for someone like me with no experience.

          So now this is more like what I picture: Jesus with arms extended, wondering what we are thinking, hoping and waiting for us to come while we run around in a hurry to walk in circles making a big mess around us.  We are all just a bunch of chaos full of longing and rejecting, loving and hating, pushing and pulling, peace and conflict, joy and despair … just like that holy and complex city of Jerusalem. 

          A couple of weeks ago I beheld a holy mess from my computer screen as I watched The United Methodist Special Session of the General Conference.  I have been a member of The United Methodist Church my entire life and this June will have been an ordained United Methodist pastor for ten years.  I don’t want to talk about United Methodist polity or the complexities and details of what happened at that conference as much as you don’t want to hear about it.  I am exhausted of all of the commentary and social media posts about it.  But I will say that what I watched unfold was so very human.  It was all these people gathered together trying to be church.  They were praying and singing, holding hands and worshiping and then yelling and shouting, condemning each other and breaking a part.  Apparently an arena full of Methodists that was about to be filled with layers of dirt for a monster truck rally can be as complex and chaotic as the holy city of Jerusalem. 

          But people will and did point to what happened and say “you see!  This is why I don’t go to Church!  They can’t even get along!  They are all over the map!  I would rather just worship God on my own!”  And you know, they aren’t wrong, we do mess it up.  We argue, we push and pull, we are all over the map and we constantly confess that we mess up.  We are frustrating, we are chaos, we are human.  Sometimes we say the wrong thing, sometimes we don’t even know where we are going, sometimes we even hurt each other.  And we all have days where we think it would be easier to just be by ourselves. 

          But there is Jesus … with arms stretched, wide like a mother hen, beckoning us into his warmth and love.

          When those Pharisees come to “warn” Jesus about Herod, they may not have the purest intentions.  They wanted to see what he would do.  It is another instance of people putting Jesus to the test.  If they tell Jesus how much danger he is in will he change his plans and save himself?  Or will he press on, knowing what can happen? 

          Jesus does not turn back.  He presses on.  And not because he doesn’t know the chaos he is about to enter, not because he has false expectations of the people he is trying to save, not because he is naïve, not because he doesn’t see the hurt people cause each other, the ways they reject his love or those who betray him.  Not because he doesn’t know that those who wave palms before him will shout “crucify him!”  not because he doesn’t know that the Church charged with carrying out the sacraments, spreading the Gospel message and being his hands and feet will make mistakes, will hurt each other … will be human.  He presses on because in all the complexity and all the chaos, in all the messes we make and the ways we fail each other- we are God’s beloved children, we are created in  God’s image and longed for by our Savior.  Jesus presses on with outstretched arms beckoning us to come to him because no matter who or where we are, there is a spot for us in the warm, loving and nurturing body of Christ.   

The UMC: Watching and Waiting ...

Years ago when I started a blog I titled it “Looking Out the Window” and that is just what I feel like I am doing as I watch what is happening in The United Methodist Church. I have been a United Methodist since I was born. It is the church that guided me, taught me, nurtured my faith and supported my calling. I went to a United Methodist Seminary and read through the sermons of John Wesley while sitting next to George Whitefield's thumb in The United Methodist Archives. I grew up going to plenty of UMC conferences (Explorations '98 and '00, Youth Annual Conferences, Youth Jams, etc.), I worked as a youth leader at three different UMCs. When I was serving in West Ohio Conference, I went to back-to-back annual conferences as my membership was (and is) still with East Ohio. And in June of 2009, a journey that began with a sense of call at age 13 brought me on stage in Hoover Auditorium in Lakeside, Ohio for one of the most meaningful moments of my life … my ordination as an elder (pastor) in The United Methodist Church. It is very much home.

And yet, here I am looking at it through a window. I am currently working at an Episcopal Church and have been raising my kids in The Episcopal Church since I went on VLOA- family leave status in 2013. Since then I have attended Annual Conferences, done supply work at UMCs and maintained relationships and connections in The UMC but I am not in the thick of things as so many of my UM clergy friends are.

Both churches where I served as pastor I would characterize as predominantly conservative congregations and there were moments of tension over various things The UMC did that were perceived to be in favor of same sex marriage or changing the language of the Book of Discipline regarding homosexuality. I remember the emotions, focus and energy those required of me. I thought of that as I was reading a post about support/counseling/care opportunities for clergy at the upcoming special session of the General Conference.

Perhaps I should back up a bit because not everyone has an inbox full of UMNS stories on what is happening. A special session of The United Methodist General Conference (representatives from every UM Conference/Area in the world) has been called to deal specifically with The UMC's stance on same sex marriage and the ordination of what the Book of Discipline would refer to as “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”

I thought about offering my own synopsis of the three main plans (or 5 according to some sources) being put forward, but I am definitely no expert and recommend instead googling the work of “The Commission on a Way Forward” or the Council of Bishops' statements.

All of this is to say the church of my baptism, confirmation, first sermon, wedding and ordination may be breaking. It is quite possible that the institution will do what so many institutions do best which is nothing, but even that will not be without consequences, fractures and pain. I wonder what will happen to the churches I have pastored that I remember so fondly and hold in my heart. What will happen to the seminary that is so dear to me and my husband? What will happen to the conference I call home and the one I am currently living in? What will my future in The UMC look like?

Most of all I find myself thinking about those who do not have any distance from this right now. Those who are in the thick of things. Those who are loving and listening to those who have very different views and holding onto hope of unity. Those who feel angry and hurt by angry and hurtful words. Those who get into the pulpit with a pit in their stomach and trembling hands because while they know God is with them, the emotionally-laden words can become personal and it hurts.

Even though I may have a little distance at the moment, I can't pretend this issue is not important to me or that I have no investment in which way this goes. There is a reason I tremble when I talk about it. My convictions, passion and beliefs are so deep and so important to me. This is hard. So while I watch I am doing what I can to stay informed, being careful with my words and praying, praying, praying …

Bad Parenting

Last week there was no school on Monday. Tuesday we woke up to a blizzard outside and an email saying school was cancelled. My kids were thrilled, we love snow days. The day started great: I made pancakes and bacon and let them stay in their pajamas, but as the day went on it turned less fun. All three of us took turns being cranky and short with each other. One of the kids cried at least every hour and I was constantly getting blamed for their unhappiness (you won't let me have candy, why can't I do this, etc.). In a last ditch effort to save the day I bundled up with them and we had a snowball fight, but of course that ended in frozen fingers and sadness. My oldest kept saying he wished daddy was home and my youngest wished grandma could come over. So at the end of our cooped up bonus day home I felt like a terrible mother.

I often get stuck in my head second guessing and doubting but especially when it comes to how I am raising my kids. I just so badly want to do it right. I was a straight A student, always turned in my assignments on time, and followed directions well. I wish parenting could be as clearly defined as school. I would love to know exactly what I need to do, and when I have done it a gold star by my name would be great.

I let my kids have a piece of candy or a sweet every day, once a week I put a frozen pizza in the oven and call it dinner, I let my kids play video games or play on the tablet for an hour each day (more on Saturdays when I want to sleep in), I worry about them, sometimes I hover, sometimes I let them do things other parents wouldn't, sometimes I lose my temper and yell, sometimes I push them too much with my high expectations, sometimes I don't push them enough and enjoy babying them, I haven't devoted enough time to teaching them how to ride a bike, I say no when they ask me to play video games with them, I tell them about things happening in the world that might frighten or worry them, I give them processed foods for snacks and I only buy organic when it is on sale. Before I had kids I thought I would teach them a foreign language before they turned 5 … I haven't. Some of those things will seem like terrible parenting decisions to some and some will seem like parenting wins to others.

Next I could list things I am proud of, but who even knows what that is because every single decision can be criticized, picked apart and in hind sight seem like a bad one. Trying to always do everything right is very hard. On that snow day when the kids and I were all getting frustrated my oldest said “I get mad at myself because I want to be perfect at everything.” That crushed me. I felt guilty that maybe he picked that up from me. I also felt so much compassion for him and wanted badly for him to know how much he is loved unconditionally.

When my husband and I traveled to England for ten days last summer it was our first time being away from the kids and stepping out of my everyday situation gave me the opportunity to reflect on it. I was well-rested, relaxed and in the moment. I told myself “this is how I need to be.” This is who my kids want. They want me to be myself … relaxed and in the moment, not trying to predict all the mistakes I am making that they will tell their therapist about 30 years from now.

But life happens, we get tired, we get frustrated and we get caught up in trying to do everything right. The other day I was talking to a mom that I think is great. Her kid is kind, intelligent and well-spoken. In fact, everyone that knows him says these things about him. She is great at her job and a great mother. She casually mentioned a conversation she had with some other moms about how they all felt like bad mothers. It surprised me because of course she isn't a bad mother. I guess we are all just trying our best and then trying even harder to be ok with that.

I thought about that, went home, decided we were making our own pizzas that night, let the kids put pretzels and goldfish on their pizzas, carried dinner downstairs and let them watch tv while we ate. We left the mess downstairs to deal with later. And we were all happy …

Pita Bread and Family

     A couple of days before Christmas my brother and I decided to make a Lebanese feast from scratch using our great grandmother's cookbook and following all of the notes she and our grandmother added in the margins. There were some hiccups along the way. First we could not find everything we needed for our ambitious plan. My brother, now used to living in New York City was surprised at not being able to find any ingredient imaginable within one block. Nevertheless, we donned our aprons (I wore a bright red apron with giant cat faces and Santa hats while my brother got a handmade one with gingerbread people on it). We followed the directions carefully, except for that I don't eat red meat so ground turkey would have to do in place of lamb, and by dinner time the house smelled like Tita's and everything was ready to eat … except the pita bread. We did not account for all of the many phases of pounding, kneading and wrapping in various bedding that were involved. By the time the bread was finished my kids were in bed and we were slap happy as we pulled out a ridiculous number of round loaves from the oven. Our mom mostly watched from the dining room, but she did help fan the door when the smoke alarm went off.

     Some time later as I was throwing the hardened extra bread that never got eaten outside for the birds I wondered why we went through all the trouble. But I also smiled remembering my brother punching the dough, his twerking demonstrations/tutorial and the barrage of personal questions he was compelled to answer held hostage in my kitchen and it seemed like time well spent.

    My brother has changed a lot over the years as have I and we do not get to see each other often. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by how little time we had to catch up on so much time. Sometimes I had to remind myself he is that same guy I used to carry on my hip and take for walks in the stroller because he has changed so much. Maybe that is why we wanted to cook from our Tita's cookbook. No matter how much has changed, no matter how far apart we live and how much I dislike talking on the phone- we have a shared story. We lead such different lives and yet we share this same history.

In addition to the time with my brother and mom I also spent a lot of time with my in laws this Christmas and it all got me thinking about family. Family is something that I think about a lot but do not write about or talk about much with strangers as it can be so complicated and it feels like I am telling other people's stories that are theirs for the telling. Of course I am referring not to my own two children, but the family from which I come.

     As I was unpacking the other day and reflecting on the great trip we had visiting family I took notice of my travel make-up bag. I thought about how much I have used it and what a great gift it was so many years ago, but I couldn't share that with the gift giver today. That is as far as I will go with details, but it got me thinking about how complicated families can be. People move away, they surround themselves with new people, have different experiences, learn different things, perspectives change and yet here we are in relationship with these people who knew us before all of that and who may now be very different from us. Over the years hurts can build up, resentments, secrets and assumptions, but also laughter, love, memories, shared trauma and gratitude. Sometimes I wonder if we all just want to know that we are proud of each other.

     Deep relationships are dangerous territory and yet the joy I feel when I see my children developing a brotherly bond with each other is indescribable. I love when my kids roar with laughter as my dad tells them his childhood stories, I love that when we arrived in another state with cousins they hadn't seen in a long time they immediately started playing together and wanted to be together every second. I love that my mother in law watches the Marco Polo videos I send her of the kids over and over and over again. I love that my sister in law and I never had a lull in our conversations. My heart melted when my youngest came into the living room and curled up on his great-grandmother's lap. And I love that my kids think spending time with my mom is better than Chuck E. Cheese.

     Like making pita bread from scratch, maintaining relationships usually takes longer than is convenient. And being family with another person goes through ups and downs … phases. Sometimes it hurts and doesn't seem worth it but then you realize that it was never about the end product, but rather it was about the mutual growth it took to get there.

Sermon from Grace and St. Stephen's 12/23/18

Monday morning is my time.  All of the other days are full of work, kids and other commitments, but Monday morning from 8:30-11:30 am my youngest is in school and I have some time to do what I choose.  So Monday morning was to be my time to work on this sermon.  I walked my oldest to school and as I am eating my breakfast my youngest comes to me coughing and with snot coming out of his nose saying he can’t go to school.   “Ok” I say “but if you stay home mommy can’t play with you because I have to work and you can’t have any sweets all day and we can’t go to see the Lights at the Zoo tonight.”  He agrees.  So I start digging into the scripture trying to focus and of course I am constantly interrupted by requests, questions and comments.  I can’t help but smile a bit when he only cracks the door and whispers as if that is less of an interruption.  But by the fifth interruption I was super frustrated. 

          As my level of frustration was rising with every footstep running down the hall, I was also sitting there looking at these scriptures for today and … quite honestly finding them to be super frustrating as well.  I mean I love the Magnificat or the song of Mary from Luke’s Gospel today, but reading it in the context of the other scriptures today I found it blaringly frustrating. 

          The Psalm today is Psalm 80 and the people are begging God for help.  They are begging God to please stop being angry and please hear their prayers.  It says that they are eating bread of tears with bowls of tears to drink as their enemies laugh at them.  It is raw, painful and honest.  It is also urgent.

         And then we read the passage from Luke, this beautiful hymn from Mary, which, like Psalm 80 is Hebrew poetry, a hymn in the same style- meant to allude to the ancient Psalms.  That connection would have been clear for the original Jewish audience.  It might be understood as a response to the pleas and prayers in the Psalms, a fulfillment of the hopes and dreams, an embodiment of the longed for salvation of which the psalmists wrote. 

          So, just to be clear, that means that basically God hears these pleas and prayers in Psalm 80 and is like “it’s ok, in over 1000 years a teenager of no social standing will have a baby and he will be hated and killed on a cross …. So take comfort in that as you drink your tears.”

          I don’t know if that was the answer they were looking for. When I pray I hope that my prayers will be heard right away and all the more with bowls full of tears and enemies encroaching.  So the seemingly distant and delayed response is frustrating.

          And then we have these words of the Magnificat- the mighty thrown down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry fed, the proud scattered-  these beautiful words, these words of justice and hope.  I hear them and I look around at what this world is and that justice and hope is hard to see.  I read these words of justice and hope in a world full of injustices and despair and it feels … frustrating. 

          Frustrating because what is on the news is not the lowly being lifted up and the hungry fed but rather the face of a seven year old girl, the age of my son, and she has died of dehydration trying to cross the border into this country.  And a story about how over 85,000 children have starved to death in Yemen.  And while we argue about who is to blame and the solution is unclear- what is clear is that the hungry continue to not be fed, and the lowly are not lifted up and it feels … frustrating.

          And if that is too distant than just outside of our doors are people struggling to survive these cold winter months.  In our own front yard are hungry people not fed, lowly people not lifted up and it feels … frustrating.  The scales are still tipped to the rich and the few waste food while the many go hungry and so these words of Mary, this hopeful song does not seem to match reality … a reality that is frustrating.

          With these thoughts wrestling about in my mind as I am working on this sermon I am interrupted again.  My four year old tells me that the mailman is here and asks if he can give him the chocolate covered pretzel we bought at the church bake sale.  So I open the door and he runs across the yard in bare feet and the mailman says thank you and my son bounces in delight and comes back with a smile. And I feel a little less frustrated.  Then my brother in law messages that he will be bringing my husband’s grandma down from Ohio to Texas so we can all be together after Christmas.  And I feel a little less frustrated.  And I get a message from two more people willing to volunteer at the school for the health screenings when I thought we would never find anyone who could help.  And I feel a little less frustrated. Then I get a call from the school asking if the special needs teacher can have a school shirt from the PTA because a kid threw up on her as she was caring for him and as I hand her the shirt I see her smiling face, hear her appreciative words, see how the sick child with special needs has been cared for and I feel less frustrated.  And I look around and see Christmas trees and twinkle lights and people all around me celebrating the birth of a savior born to lowly parents with a challenging message of self-sacrifice and deep love.  And all around me I see people who live in a frustrating world with frustrations mounting and yet walk the path of justice laid out by Christ.  And the frustrations fall into the background as signs of love and kindness become clearer.  I forget that I was frustrated as the sun goes down and sends a beautiful pink glow on a world full of people loving each other and serving Christ through their actions. 

          Being a youth pastor again has reminded me of just how much hope there is for the world we live in.  Often young people are characterized as uncaring, undisciplined, violent or weak and yet as I work with the teens of our church I find young people who care deeply, are thoughtful, intelligent, work hard and are generous with each other.  They have many frustrations and deal with a variety of struggles and yet their hearts are full of love and possibility.  It is inspiring and nurtures my hope.  It makes it easier to see God’s daily work toward justice and peace and harder to let the frustrations dominate my worldview. 

          Today we hear the words of an unwed pregnant teenager living 2000 years ago under an oppressive government and with few resources, certainly with her share of frustrations.  And her words ring out over the years, over the generations- her words of hope; her words of God’s acts of love, justice and mercy in the past, in the present and in the future.  She tells us who God was for those people singing Psalm 80 drinking their tears and crying out to a God who did listen, who was with them and who lived in relationship with them for generations.  She tells us who God is for us today in the midst of our frustrations, in the midst of our pain in the midst of our world and who God will be thousands of years from now.  And we call her blessed.

          Sometimes the work of justice, the work of God, the hope of the world is hard to see, sometimes it is buried under frustration, under injustices, under pain, under tears … sometimes you need to squint to see it, you need a magnifying glass to behold it and then when you do you recognize it as what has been, is and will be, what is all around us, what is in us and what knits us together.  And Mary’s song, Mary’s soul, magnifies the Lord, it is that magnifying glass making clear what seems hidden. 

          In her book Love Warrior, Glennon Melton writes about a conversion experience she had.  Her parents sent her to a priest after she told them that she was still an alcoholic with an eating disorder and had just had an abortion.  She goes to a church she has never been in and writes of her experience of Mary:

“I look up higher and see that I am standing beneath a huge painting of Mary holding her baby.  I look at Mary and she looks at me.  My heart does not leap, it does not thud- it swells and beats steadily, insistently.  My heart fills my whole chest but does not hurt, so I do not break eye contact with Mary.  Mary is lit up bright but I am in soft, forgiving light.  She is wearing a gown and her face is clear.  I am wearing a tube top and my face is dirty, but she is not mad at me so I do not bother to cover myself.  Mary is not what people think she is.  She and I are the same.  She loves me, I know it.  She has been waiting for me.  She is my mother.  She is my mother without any fear for me.  I sit in front of her and I want to stay here forever, in my bare feet, with Mary and her baby around this campfire of candle prayers … She is what I needed.  She is the hiding place I’ve been looking for.”

          Mary is a young woman of rebellion, courage and hope who can see God in the midst of frustration, who can sing joy even as she plays her part in a story of loss and death.  Her soul magnifies the grace of our God who looks at an imperfect people and an imperfect world and continues to plant seeds of justice, who continues to move our hearts to love and peace. 

          Christmas is almost here.  A savior born in a lowly manger to parents of no social standing is about to come.  A vulnerable baby with few resources laid in a feeding trough.  So take out your magnifying glasses because if you look closely, if you look past the frustrations and pain and sorrow you can see that this baby born to an unwed teenager is God made flesh.  Emmanuel.