Nadia Bolz-Weber's Blog, page 2

Romans Chapter 7

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Even I can't help admitting that there is a bunch of stuff in the Bible that's hard to relate to. A lot has changed in the last 2,000-4,000 years and I have no form of reference for shepherds and agrarian life and I don't know what it's like to have a king or a Caesar and I don't know a single fisherman much less a centurion and I guess I can't speak for all of you but personally I've never felt I might need to sacrifice a goat for my sins. That's the thing about our sacred text being so dang old is that it can sometimes be hard to relate to. Things have changed a bit over the millennia. 

But one thing has not changed even a little bit and that's the human condition.  Parts of The Bible can feel hard to relate to until you get to a thing like that reading from Romans we just heard in which Paul says I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

Finally. Something I can relate to. This I know about. I too do not understand my own actions.  I too can't manage to consistently do what I know is right.  Paul's simple description of the human condition is perhaps a most elegantly put definition of what we now call addiction. 

It's no secret that I am a recovering alcoholic. By the grace of God I have been clean and sober for over 19 years. But boy do I remember that feeling OF powerlessness that comes from not being able to control your drinking. I'd wake up each morning and have a little talk with myself "OK Nadia Get it together. Today is going to be different. You just need a little will power." Then inevitably later that day I'd say "well, just one drink would be ok" Or I'll only drink wine and not vodka. Or I'll drink a glass of water between drinks so that I won't get drunk. And sometimes it worked but mostly it didn't. In the end, my will was just never "strong enough" Like Paul, I did the thing I hated. But that's addiction for you.  It's ugly.  Yet on some level I feel like we recovering alcoholics and drug addicts have it easy. I mean, our additions are so obvious.  The emotional, spiritual and physical wreckage cause by alcoholism and drug addiction has a certain conspicuousness to it.

But the truth is, we are not actually special.  I mean, our whole culture is addicted. It's not just drunks who wake up in the morning and say today it's gonna be different. Perhaps some of you have done some "self-talk" recently.  Perhaps some of you have tried to garner up just a little more will power. Today I won't eat compulsively or i'll not yell at my kids or I'll not spend money I don't have on things I don't need. Today, unlike yesterday I won't consume pornography or flirt with my married co-worker or look up my ex-boyfriend on facebook. Today I will finally stand up for myself.  Today I will not play video games.  Today I will really look for a job.  Today I will not lie to myself. Today I will start meditating and become a vegan and start training for a marathon and go back to college and go to the container store so I can organize my closet and be in control. But we're not. We're not in control.  That would be the point. We're addicted to poison and people, and praise and possessions and power.  And sometimes I think the church and society fuel a very particular addiction to proving our worthiness.

We live in a worthiness driven culture. The pressure to be successful, hide your weaknesses, get ahead make your own way in the world … to pull yourself up by your boot straps, win at all costs and be as impressive as possible to the most people as possible is what drives our entire cultural and economic system. So naturally we think that we should be able to solve our problems through will power and a protestant work ethic. The human will, whether it be a strong will which thinks it can take care of its own problems or a weak will which just dissolves in the face of addiction is just about the worse place to look for salvation.  The source of my problems simply cannot also be the solution to my problems. I need something or someone external to myself to save me from myself. There simply is no amount of self-talk that is going to save me.  No amount of self-help, no amount of determination or gumption. There is God and God alone.

The 12 steps, which Richard Rohr calls America's single yet very important contribution to human spirituality works precisely because it isn't a self-help program at all.  That's the point.  Isn't it interesting that one of the most truly transformative things to come out of America....the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is based not on proving your worthiness but on admitting your failure. 

 The genius is that the people who started AA recognized that addiction isn't a drinking problem or a gambling problem or a food problem. It's not a problem of the will see, it's a problem of the soul.  It's a putting something in the center of our lives other than God problem.  And as such it can only have a spiritual solution.  It took us awhile to figure this out but St Paul knew it all along.  Because as long as we hold out thinking that just a little more will power will do the trick we remain hopeless.   As Paul says, I can will what's right but I cannot do it. 

So who will save us form this body of death as Paul calls it?  Well, the world gives us but one solution: our will. And as the saying goes -when the only tool I have is a hammer, all my problems look like nails.  And I just pound away at everything.  But the Gospel changes all of that.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us to lay down our silly little hammers and let God do for us what only God can do for us.  Jesus doesn't say "the solution to your problem is to just try harder"  And our brothers and sisters in 12 step fellowships can tell us that the freedom we gain from our addictions (and new ones crop up all the time mind you) but this freedom comes only from  admitting that we are a mess and that our will is not going to save us… …  believing that God and only God can restore us - and then turning our will over to the care of God. And when confronted with our own sin and addictions we no longer need defend nor deny because we no longer live under the tyranny of the will.

And it is tyranny to be sure.  The burden of the too strong or too weak will is heavy. It's exhausting. It's futile. And so we come here today and we hear Jesus say lay it down. Lay down your addictions and fixations and compulsions and all the ways you suffer from the additions fixations and compulsions of others. Lay them here he says at the foot of the cross lay them atop the blood and tear soaked dirt at the foot of the place where God allowed human will to take its inevitable course. Lay your weighty burden on the holy ground where human ambition was allowed to play itself out to it's logical conclusion.  Here is where you can be free from the bondage of the self. Jesus says for the weary and heavy laden to come to him. You can stop believing in your sin management programs and futile exercises in will power because he is simply stronger than all of it.  We can all take comfort that it is not our wills but the will of the God who named and claimed us which has the strength and power to transform us. Us. The addicted, the proud, the lazy, the failures, the washed-out and those on top of their game.   Lay it down and he shall give you sweet rest - for your worthiness lies not in the strength of your will but in the unyielding determination of God's Divine Love which is simply too fierce to leave you unchanged.

Text: Luke 14: 15-24

One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, 'Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!' Then Jesus* said to him, 'Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, "Come; for everything is ready now." But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, "I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my apologies." Another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my apologies." Another said, "I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come." So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, "Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame." And the slave said, "Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room." Then the master said to the slave, "Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you,* none of those who were invited will taste my dinner." '

Grace Peace and Mercy is yours from the Triune God.  I bring you greetings today from your brothers and sisters in Christ at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver Colorado.  It's an unbelievable honor to be here with you today.  I'd like to thank the class of 2011 for asking me to be your preacher and I'd like to thank God that I am able to give this sermon just under the escatological wire as it were.  This week I posted a question on Facebook asking exactly when Eastern Standard time the righteous are expected to float off like Mary Poppins and I was assured that it wouldn't matter one bit since, let's be honest, after the rapture most of PLTS would still totally be here.

So, let's get to it shall we? Perhaps, dear graduates, you are sitting here today wondering if you now have what it takes to serve this church.  Perhaps you are sitting here having listened to the lectures, defended your dissertation, survived the scrutiny of internship thinking Am I now prepared?  Do you really have what it takes to serve the church as a pastor or lay leader or educator and the answer is: don't be silly. Of course you don't.  If you are worried that you have weaknesses and deficiencies and short-comings or as we recovering alcoholics call them, "defects of character" you can stop worrying.  You're right.  You really don't have what it takes.  But fortunately,  you do have the God that it takes.  And the question is not will your failings and weaknesses and short-comings get in the way….the question is will your strengths get in the way?

I think this is what we see in this parable of the great feast. A feast where the  A-listers – the ones who supposedly have their game together, who own land and can buy oxen-- the impressive folks, the totally invite-able ones make really lame excuses for not showing up  "Oh wow, a feast, huh? I'd love to be there, but my kids are in the Highly Gifted Soccer league on Sundays". So the host sends his servants to instead call the poor the lame and the blind – and it's these  riff-raff and not the A listers, who sit at the table gladly partaking of the feast set before them. 

See, sometimes it is the strong able-bodied parts of us that fail to heed the invitation.  My bishop said the greatest spiritual discipline is not praying the daily office, or leading a vegan lifestyle, the greatest spiritual discipline is just showing up. See, those in our parable for today who were invited initially were all able to actually come to the feast un-aided.  They were wealthy enough for horses and able bodied enough to arrive on their own volition….but they didn't show up. Those who did come were those who could not get there without help. The blind needed guides and the lame needed carrying, if they were to make it to the feast.

The same can be true of us: that the property owning, healthy, secure parts of us can't hear the invitation.  Because, sometimes we are so busy trying to be strong and self-sufficient and successful that we forget that we actually are hungry.  That's what's great about the parts of us that are poor and lame and blind…at least these parts of us know how much we can use a good meal.

God invites those parts to dinner, because God will not be deterred by our excuses, or our delusions of self-sufficiency: God sees where we are weak and hungry even while we are trying to hide it from ourselves and each other.

Most of you come to this commencement with real strengths for leadership.  And I'm certain these strengths will serve you and your students or parishioners well.  God will use your successes to be sure …but if you really want to witness the handiwork of the Spirit, just watch how God will use your failures.  Just wait till you glimpse the masterful redemption that springs forth when you ask forgiveness for having been a total ass, just watch how grace will rush in to fill the spaces of your shortcomings.

 God reaches again and again into the graves we dig ourselves, continues to reach into our failures and yank out new life:  just as God brought forth the universe from nothingness and water from a rock and babies from barren wombs and a church from a bunch of forgiven sinners. So don't be afraid of your deficits, but rejoice in the spaces where you have nothing to offer, for this is the very canvas on which God's best work is shown forth…just wait.  I promise you this.

Not that long ago when I was in seminary I said:  I just want God to use me.  And I've regretted it ever since because honestly some times I can feel used  by God. See, embarking on Word and Sacrament ministry I had some real strengths.  I understood post colonialism. I was a confessional Lutheran.  I could distinguish Law from Gospel, patriarchy from womanism and in pastoral care class I learned how to tilt my head and show concern in my eyes while saying "tell me more about that". 

And while I'm not going to say that these strengths were useless, I am going to say that God has used my weaknesses a whole lot more. What God has really used in me are the things I'm no good at, where I have no choice but to ask for help.

For example, I'm not naturally a pastoral, nurturing, come to me I'll listen to your problems kind of person.  Naturally I'm a slightly misanthropic-for-the-love-of-God-please-stop-whining kind of person – so the fact that I genuinely  do care for all the folks in my church is only because I was forced to ask God for help in managing this impossible part of my job description.  The fact that I sincerely have a deep fondness, concern and even love for all my parishioners can clearly only point to God's grace and mercy. I don't think well, I'm just a better person now than I was before seminary…trust me, I'm not.  But God's strength is indeed perfected not in our strengths, but in our weakness, our poverty, our hungers.

And I simply cannot feel spiritual hunger pangs when I'm on a sugar high of personal charisma or graduate level education or economic privilege.  It seems that only when those things fail me and I'm up against the limits of my personality or skill set that I turn to God for help.

And brothers and sisters I am here to report that we have a faithful God.   A God who will provide for God's people.  A God who never tires of being for us what we simply cannot be for ourselves.  A God who calls every part of us to the feast.

So when you go from here to serve God's people, don't offer to them only the invite-able parts of yourself:  your confidence, your skill, your intellect…but offer them also your weakness, your smallness, your blindness and poverty. Offer them the blank spaces so that they may see God's creative mercy rushing in.

For what I wish for you is this:  Not that you might be strong and admirable and shiny in your ministries, but that may God use your weaknesses.  May you continually die to self-sufficiency and rise to Christ; may your people see in you the work of a God who has always used the most questionable people to do God's work. As you go on from here both prepared and unprepared for what awaits, may you, like the apostle Paul, boast gladly in your weakness so that the power of Christ may dwell in you.  Amen.

I'm not so much of a blogger anymore but several people have asked for my response to the fact that Sojourners, described as a progressive Christian commentary on faith, politics and culture seeking to build a movement of spirituality and social change, has refused to sell ad space to Believe Out Loud an organization who is helping churches become fully inclusive of all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

I'll start by telling a short personal story.

Two days after Osama Bin Laden was killed, my father asked if he could read a sermon I wrote a few months back, "Loving Your Enemies Even When You Don't Really Mean It" to the guys at his men's prayer breakfast.  Here's what you need to know about that: my Dad is a member of the Church of Christ (they do not ordain women…indeed women are not even allowed to be deacons or lead a prayer at worship) and the men to whom he was reading my sermon are (to the best of my understanding) wealthy, privileged, and both theologically and politically conservative.  Later that day when we spoke he said "That sermon was so powerful Nadia, I can't imagine the teachings of Jesus being put more poignantly.  You could have heard a pin drop in that room." I was thrilled.  Until he said "Of course I didn't tell them who wrote it".  And then my heart sank.

I texted him that "perhaps for those in the room who believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ simply cannot be preached by a woman it might be important  to know who wrote the sermon they just heard".  He texted back "I'll fight one battle at a time, thank you very much"  Did this feel like shit?  You bet.  Did I feel betrayal? No question. But even in the midst of this I was grateful that 2 days after Osama Bin Laden was killed and amidst the inevitable celebration of our "victory", that a group of wealthy conservative men heard the message about how Jesus calls us to love our enemies.  And they may not have had ears to hear if they knew I wrote that sermon.  This is the ambiguity of our fragile, messy human existence.  I long for black and white, I really do…but that's not how I experience the world. 

My name is on the Sojourners God's Politics Blog and I serve a church that is self-described and indeed is "queer inclusive".  Some of my progressive Christian friends and colleagues are calling for a boycott of Sojourners until they make a bold stand for the full inclusion of our GLBTQ brothers and sister in the church. I respect this.  I too want to take the strong stand for those who are always asked to eat last and least at the table or who are prevented from coming to it in the first place. The change needed in and indeed being experienced by the church right now in terms of full inclusion calls for bold action by those who are willing to take a stand.

But as I thought about what to say or do in response to Sojourners I felt confronted by a terrible ambiguity.  The ambiguity is this: Sojourners has, in my assessment, done more than any other organization to call Evangelical Christians to the reality that a central part of following Jesus is a concern for the poor, a truth largely absent from much of American Evangelicalism.  They have a platform to speak about social justice to those who otherwise may not have ears to hear and this is critical.  While mainline Protestantism is on a clear trajectory toward full inclusion (shout out to the PCUSA here) our free-church Evangelical brothers and sisters are by-in-large not there yet.  By taking a stance on GLBTQ issues Sojourners may lose their ability to be a voice for the poor in the more conservative areas of the church. 

Are the poor more important than GLBTQ folks?  Is it ok to throw the rights of one group under the bus so that another group's rights might be upheld? I wish there were really clear back and white answers here but the fact is that we live in a much more ambiguous world than that.  As a Lutheran I confess to living in the tension of being simultaneously sinner and saint and living in a world filed with the paradox of such. 

So here's my response: I confess the ways in which I have favored the rights of one group over another.  I confess the ways in which I long for black and white answers to questions that elude them.  I confess the fact that by staying in relationship with Sojourners I may be hurting my GLBTQ brothers and sisters.  I confess that I may very well be wrong about all of it.

But perhaps by being the sell-out who claims to try and change the system from the inside I might be the one who is changed into one through whom the gospel can be proclaimed to those with whom I disagree.  And who knows, maybe one day I might actually preach at a Church of Christ and if that happens may I be granted humility and grace….because I don't naturally have those in my heart.  Trust me on that one.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's kind of weird how we've named Thomas "Doubting" Thomas.  We don't give the other characters in the New Testament little nicknames…like needy Nicodemis or Co-dependant Martha.  But poor Thomas is stuck with Doubting Thomas.

         Yet the fact of the matter is this: when Jesus encountered Thomas Jesus didn't label him doubting Thomas. He didn't judge him. He came to Thomas just as he was, doubts and all, and offered him peace.

One of my favorite moments during Holy Week was when on Maundy Thursday we were singing a song that repeated these lines "Take O Take Me As I Am".   We sang this beautiful song over and over.  But what made it so powerful was that we sang this while assembling bleach kits for the needle exchange. We sang  Take O take me as I am while putting cookers and condoms and bleach in sterile kits for outreach workers to give to IV drug users on the Denver streets.  Take O Take me as I am indeed.  We took this action which says to active drug addicts "you are loved as you are"  while we ourselves sang a prayer asking God to take us as WE are.  Indeed, God does takes us as we are with or with our asking – we just ask in that song that we may believe it to be true.

I think our gospel text for today is about God taking us as we are.

See, a week before Thomas touched the resurrected wounds of Jesus, the other guys were sitting together in that upper room… it was the night of the first Easter, and I suspect that having denied, betrayed, and abandoned Jesus - the disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings, wondering what had they done.  It wouldn't be a stretch to think they were perhaps passing around blame and justifications for the death of Jesus – it was the fault of the Priests who condemned him and there just wasn't really enough room for them at the foot of the cross with all those women there and maybe if that sleezy Judas hadn't sold him out this wouldn't have happened to begin with… on and on.  It's kind of what we do when we know we've really blown it.  Because the truth of our own shortcomings is often too much for us to bear.  So we either tend to make our faults about someone else or we try to make everything about our faults. Either way it's basically just narcissism.  But anyway….  There they are in their cozy little locked room blaming themselves, blaming others, trying to figure out what in that crazy Mary Magdalene meant by "I have seen the Lord". 

And it is here,  here sitting amidst doubt and Fear and locked doors, amidst blame and justifications that the disciples encountered the risen Christ. It is here that He chose to appear to his beloved Christ deniers – those he loved who abandoned him.

Because notice that the text doesn't say "and when they had repented of what complete asses they had been; and when they had perfected their faith and the purity of their doctrine; and when they had achieved the right condition of personal morality THEN they were worthy of receiving Jesus."

No.  There they sat. Fear, doubt, betrayal  and I suspect more than a little shame.  But it takes more than locked doors and lack of faith and low self esteem to keep Jesus out.  In fact; when we are at the point in life when our failings and shortcomings are so unfiltered…. when we are at the point in life when we have blown it completely, when we are so undeniably aware our need for God's grace –it is then that God comes to us just as we are bringing us peace and forgiveness. It's just like God to barge in uninvited through our fear and locked doors to remind us, whether we like it or not, that we are forgiven, that we are more than the sum total of our bad choices and more even than the sum total of our good choices.

This whole thing is an example of what My friend Kae says about God, that God is always saying an insistent "yes" to all our polite "no thank yous"

         Because a week later their friend Thomas, who missed it all the first time, was with them in that same room again.  He had said a polite "no thank you" to the news that Jesus has risen from the dead.  It's something we've all done and yet we call him the doubter. As though it makes him somehow distinct.  As though Thomas doubts and we do not. The only way this would be at all fair is if we all shared this name like…oh, there's Doubting Amy and Doubting Bill and I'm Doubting Pastor Nadia.  Because the reality is that we are all doubters.  But sometime doubting isn't the opposite of having faith…it's a component of having faith.  Doubting can mean that we haven't forgotten the story.  Doubting means that we don't have it figured out all on our own and the best thing about doubt is that at least it's honest.  So if that's where you are…if you are a doubter like me, then it's ok but you should be prepared for something.  It's a thing I never hear people in the church talk about but I know it exists because I experience it all the time: it's called tests of doubt…not a tests of faith…but tests of doubt.  And you should probably watch out for them.

         See, when I was sure that this whole Jesus thing had nothing to offer me – when I had been so alienated by conservative Christianity and so clear about my dislike for organized religion… when I thought I had unwavering rock solid doubt, I wandered into a church that challenged all my certainties I had about the Christian faith. It was my great crisis of doubt.  When I was welcomed into a little Lutheran parish in Oakland California and was so freely given absolution and Gospel and a literal chunk of bread which I was told was Jesus and that it was for me I slowly began to lose my doubt.  So watch out for this brothers and sisters.  watch out. Because I don't think that faith is the biggest threat to doubt, the biggest threat to doubt a barging in God revealed in Christ.

So if you would like to protect your doubt I suggest keeping your distance from the following:  avoid People who have heard the Gospel and actually live as though it's true, avoid receiving the Eucharist or receiving forgiveness or receiving strangers and by all means don't sing hymns for they are most dangerous. Politely say "no thank you"

But know this: whether doubt is something that you fear or something that you foster be prepared for it to be tested again and again by this God who rudely barges into your locked doors and offers you peace and breath and spirit and then sends you out to do the same for the world God loves enough to keep saying yes to all of it's no thank yous.

I had the freezing-cold honor of preaching to 10,000 people last Sunday at the 64th Annual Red Rocks Sunrise Easter service.  If you'd like to watch the video of it you can do so here http://72.35.76.65:3737/ccceaster Sermon starts at about 53 minutes in. If you have a Mac you'll need this to view the video http://8help.osu.edu/784.html

I've often wondered what people in America think when they actually read the story of Jesus rising from the dead for the first time. There's simply no way the story could adhere to their expectations. I imagine them reading and re-reading it, shocked that they can't find a single mention of bunnies or rabbits or painted eggs or white sales at Macy's. Because let's be honest,  that is what our culture thinks Easter is about.  Easter in America is really just an excuse to eat chocolate and buy new bedding, and each year we pretend that we can't really just eat chocolate and buy new bedding whenever we want, which I think is so adorable of us.  But honestly the church's presentation of Easter isn't less odd.  For many churches Easter is another word for "church show off day"…when we spiffy up the building and pull out the lilies and hire a brass quintet and put on fabulous hats and do whatever we have do to impress visitors. It's kinda like the church's version of putting out the guest towels.

And don't get me wrong,  I love chocolate and I love fancy music  I mean...if I could possibly listen to the Alleluia Chorus while eating a Cadbury Egg I'd be in heaven.

But this all has very little to do with the actual Gospel story because the gospel story is not fancy, its, downright messy. See, Easter in the Bible may be the greatest story ever told. It's just not the story we usually choose to tell, because its not a story about new dresses and baskets and flowers and candy and spiffyness. Really, it's a story about flesh and dirt and bodies and confusion and its about the way God never seems to adhere to our expectations.

Because think about it, Mary Magdalen stood there at the empty tomb that morning while her expectations of what was possible collided full force with the God of Abraham and Sara.  Her certainty that she knew how this whole Jesus thing was ending slammed right up against the full force of God's suffering and redemptive love and though it was nothing short of divine revelation in the flesh Jesus still didn't look very impressive, not in the churchy Easter sense.

See, when Mary Magdalene stood at the tomb she didn't encounter some perfected radiant glowing spiritual Jesus that first Easter morning.  Seriously, no offense to gardeners but Jesus couldn't have been looking all that spiffy and impressive if she mistook him for a gardener: And I like to think that Mary Magdalene mistook the resurrected Christ for a gardener because Jesus still had the dirt from his own tomb under his nails.

Now, I've been in a whole lot of churches and I gotta say, In most of them there is no dirt under the nails of the resurrected Christ. Because we've had to clean him up to look more impressive at Easter. And my theory is this:  I think it's because we go straight from Christmas to Easter, we go from the sentimentality of the Baby Jesus to the glory of the resurrected Christ, Santa Claus to Peter Cotton Tail, so quickly that we don't bother with the messy important parts in-between: namely, what Jesus taught, how Jesus lived and how Jesus died. So, since there's basically 10,000 of you guys just sitting here this morning, I thought I'd fill you in on the messy parts real quick…

See it starts here: Once upon a time, the God of the Universe was basically fed up with being on the receiving end of all our human projections, tired of being nothing more to us than what we thought God should be: angry, show-offy, defensive, insecure, in short, the vengeance-seeking tyrant we would be if we were God. So, at that time, over 2,000 years ago, God's Loving Desire to really be Known overflowed the heavens and was made manifest in the rapidly dividing cells within the womb of an insignificant peasant girl named Mary.  And when the time came for her to give birth to God, there was no room in our expectations – no room in any impressive or spiffy or safe place. So this God was born in straw and dirt. He grew up, this Jesus of Nazareth, left his home, and found some, let's be honest,  rather unimpressive characters to follow him.  Fishermen, Tax collectors, prostitutes, homeless women with no teeth, people from Commerce City, Ann Coulter and Charlie Sheen.  If you think I'm kidding…read it for yourselves.  These people were questionable. So, with his little band of misfits Jesus went about the countryside turning water to wine, eating with all the wrong people, angering the religious establishment and insisting that in him the kingdom of God had come near, that through him the world according to God was coming right to us.  He touched the unclean and used spit and dirt to heal the blind and said crazy destabilizing things like the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and sell all you have and give it to the poor.

And the thing that really cooked people's noodles wasn't the question "is Jesus like God" it was "what if God is like Jesus".  What if God is not who we thought?  What if the most reliable way to know God is not through religion, not through a sin and punishment program, but through a person. What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God's self in Jesus?  

         Because that changes everything.  If what we see in Jesus is God's own self, revealed, then what we are dealing with here is a God who is ridiculously indiscriminate about choosing friends.  A God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business anymore.  A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him, but went to the depths of Hell rather than be apart even from his betrayers. A God unafraid to get his hands dirty for the ones he loves. This, this is the God who rises to new life with dirt still under his nails.

So while the churches may try and clean up Jesus so the visitors will be impressed today, The God of Easter, the God who brings life out of death  doesn't want to make you impressive, this God isn't satisfied with making you good or nice. IF you think that's what resurrection looks like, if you think it looks like perfection and piety and therefore you haven't experienced it, you might be wrong. Because God isn't about making you spiffy.  God isn't about making you nicer.  God is about making you new.  And new doesn't always look perfect, with a fabulous new dress because like the Easter story itself, new can be messy.

New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don't actually deserve it.  New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I'm right. New looks like the lumpy awkward forgiveness we manage to scrounge up despite ourselves.  New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn't live without and then somehow living without it anyway.  New is the thing you never saw coming …never even hoped for, but ends up being what you needed all along and it happens to all of us. Because as Jesus said…the world according to God is near to us. And God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and pulling us out of the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.

So by all means enjoy the lilies and chocolate and fancy music. But know that if there is anything impressive about following Jesus it's that you are loved so powerfully by God that God has swept you up into God's own story of death and life and life after death.  And if there's anything impressive about Christians, it's that we are a people who still have the dirt from our graves under our nails, while we stand here shouting Alleluia! Christ is risen.

But the hour is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 25The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

The story of the woman at the well is the longest recorded conversation with an individual that Jesus had in any of the gospel accounts.  And isn't it really  just like Jesus to linger in public talking to a half-breed divorcee? She walks up and in the unforgiving light of a noon sun Jesus just sits there for everyone to see languishing in conversation with a discarded woman. Much has been made of the outsider status of this person Jesus talks to the longest… she's a woman and a Samaratin but she might as well be a homeless trannie with bad teeth or An Enron executive, or a meth-addict, or Ann Coulter, or the guy who bullied me in High School. The point being that Jesus just sits there chatting it up with whoever we wish he'd have the good taste to dislike as much as we do.  I'm sure there were important things to do, important people to see but he just seems to have no concept of time. I imagine his disciples were beyond irritated – they kept butting in tapping their watches Um…Jesus?  It's lunch time.  And Jesus just sits there talking with her as though he's got all day.

She's carrying more than a jar with her.  The woman at the well. As she walks up to the well at the noon of the day…hours after the respected and respectable women of her village have already come and gone she walks up burdened by a water bucket and a story.  The text is silent on why she has had 5 husbands, the church has always assumed she is a floozy but she very well may have simply been discarded, widowed, abandonded or maybe some combination of all these things, but the point is…I'm willing to bet that her past whether it be as victim or vixen is connected to why she's at the well at noon and not at sunrise with the other women.

She's come for water but she carries with her a jar and a story.

There's this thing about this passage which has always baffled me.  It's toward the end…she has a conversation in which Jesus lets on that he knows she's had 5 husbands and the man she lives with now is not her husband and she runs back to her village saying come and see a man who told me everything I've ever done...  as though that's a good thing.  I, for one, would very much not enjoy having someone tell me everything I'd ever done; other than sounding really time consuming, there are things I really don't want to be reminded of.  So then why would Jesus telling her everything she had done lead her to believing he might be the messiah?  Here's the thing: I think there's more to it than Wow this Jesus is a great psychic soothsayer fortune teller guy.  I think it had to have been more than the fact that he told her what she'd done.  I think it had to have been the way in which he told her what she'd done without implying that what she'd done defines who she is. 

Perhaps standing there in the stark and unforgiving light of the noon sun she came carrying more than a water jug.  She came carrying her past as a mark of identity thinking and being treated as though she is nothing more than the sum total of her mistakes or the sum total of her victimization.  And taking his sweet time Jesus says yes.  what you have done and what you have left undone and what has been done to you and what has been left undone to you has really happened, yes, it's true.  And it is not who you are. And in that moment suddenly the distance between how others see her and how God sees her disappears.

She came carrying more than a water jug in the stark light of a noon sun, she came carrying the past as a shackle and the future as the key.  She knew the future was the time in which the messiah would come and make everything right, a time some time out there when the Christ will be revealed. And Jesus says to her I am he. Jesus speaks to her the truth of who she is by speaking to her the truth of who God is. Jesus says to her now is the time in which God seeks you in the very truth of who you are in this, the present moment.

In today's gospel Jesus says the hour is here for us to worship God in truth and God seeks such as these.  The hour is indeed here in which God is seeking you in truth…the truth of who you are not the regrets of who you were, not the ideal or the promise of who you might become – God is seeking you now in the truth of who you are.

There is a crass but true saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: "When you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future you're basically pissing on the present"  How often are we not present to others, not present to ourselves and not present to God in the moment because of regret, nostalgia, and worry.  We too allow ourselves to be so absorbed with either the hurt or the glory of the past or we allow ourselves to be so absorbed with either the fear or hope of the future that we miss the only thing that is real which is the sacrament of the present moment.

I love the way Paul in his epistles uses the word "now". In his letter to the church in Corinth he writes: For God says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, Paul writes, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! I just don't think that when Paul says Now he meant that one moment in time 2,000 years ago when he penned the letter.  I think he meant the NOW.  The present moment continues to be the "acceptable time" in which God is present to you in the truth of who you are.  In other words, Ram Dass didn't invent that whole Be Here Now thing. 

So, if the Samaratin woman at the well did come burdened with more than her water jar, then I think verse 28 is pretty great – it goes like this: -then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29"Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

I guess that's what I wish for you. That you know how known you are.   That you are filled with the love of a God who knows you and loves you…that you are so filled with the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the present moment that you leave your water jug or whatever it is you think you came here for …leave it here at this table where God is seeking you in the truth of who you are.

You may be here this evening and feel like nobody could ever love you, if they knew who your really are. But the good news is that God knows it all, God's seen it all, and God loves you. May you leave behind whatever it is you think you came here for and instead be filled with the truth of this present moment, the truth that there is quite enough of God's love for everyone, because God sees you through the indiscriminate eyes of Jesus.

(my thanks to Rev. Paul Fromberg for letting me steal the last 3 sentences of this sermon)

Here's a name for you: Rollen Stewart. Born Feb 19th, 1944. Ring a bell?  You probably know who he is you just don't know his name although it's not like you're gonna run into the guy at Starbucks or anything since he's serving 3 consecutive life sentences on kidnapping charges in a California penitentiary.  His other claims to fame include being Married 4 times, being  jailed by Moscow police at the 1980 Summer Olympics, and stink bombing Trinity Broadcasting Network. And most recently Rollen Stewart is known for coming in #1 for most common response on my Facebook wall when I posted the question when you hear or read the words "John 3:16" what does it make you think or feel or remember?  You see, Rollen Stewart is the wacky rainbow wig guy who is famous for holding up  John 3:16 signs at big sporting events.  And while I don't have the data to back up this claim I'm willing to bet that his antics didn't win a whole lot of so-called unbelievers over to Jesus.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  

Here's the thing: I got 47 answers to my question what does the term "John 3:16" make you think about and while a lot of folks answered "rainbow wig guy at football games" what was more heartbreaking than that is how many negative reactions people have to this verse. Here's a sample:

John 3:16 is a message of exclusion – as in we are the ones who will be saved – clearly not you, another person said :The way some Christians talk, God has it out for the world, and another: this verse is thrown in people's face in a violent-feeling manner; as if aggression will get someone to believe, and finally My friend Brad just simply said that John 3:16 makes him think of Weirdos and Violence.

         Wierdos and violence.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  What have we done? As this season of Lent calls us to confession and repentance I'd like to take this opportunity to confess what the church has done to make people think so negatively about John 3:16.  Because when did a verse about the extravagant and self-giving love of God become about exclusion and violence? When? well basically as soon as it was heard by sinners.  And here's why: Pastor Barb Martens once put it like this: for some people the good news is that there is an in group and an out group and for others the good news is that there is no longer an out group.  In other words, the fact that this love of God in Christ is truly for me is not enough – I must – and let's be honest, the church feels it must- then add to the gospel.  And what the church will add every time is an exclusion clause. For God so loved – us but not them, For God so loved Christians but not Muslims, for God so loved America but not Iraq.  I wonder if we think that this story of a world-redeeming, self-emptying, life-giving, faith-creating, people-loving God is not good enough news unless it excludes someone else?  And let's be honest, the best way to exclude someone else is to make the entire God-loving-the-world thing not about God's extravagant Love, but about our belief.  Then see, the ball is in the church's court and when it becomes about belief then we have a situation in which we can determine what exactly is the right kind of belief, the right style of belief and the right amount of belief and viola! we have ourselves an in group and an out group. An in-group who has seen fit to offer our gift of belief or pure doctrine or morality to God in exchange for Love.  And then, see, we deserve to be the in group and those who did not offer these things in exchange for God's love clearly deserves to be the out group.  They had their chance and they blew it.

There's no better example of this than when the church decides who deserves to take communion. When we set up boundaries around Christ's table we treat it more like our table. As though to say  The fact that this is the body of Christ broken for me and the blood of Christ shed for me is not enough unless I know and preferable can determine who it is not for.

I confess to you that the church can turn the good news of God's love into something that makes people think of weirdos and violence by adding our made up requirements to it - but it can also happen by taking things away.  Because the John 3:16 verse is modified and given a whole other meaning by what comes before it and what comes after it. Listen to  John 3:15-17

the Son of Man will be lifted up,  15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

          16For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

          17Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The world is saved through Christ Crucified and lifted up…that the world might be drawn into relationship with the true nature of God.  The nature of God revealed in a rough hewn cradle and cross.  Based on people's reaction to John 3:16 I suggest that maybe what this has been made into instead is this: Christ came to condemn the world but some of the world might be saved through our belief.

But what I learned at Lutheran seminary is this: Christian Faith is simply not a if…then….proposition.  If you believe then you will be saved,  It is a Because…therefore proposition. Because God loved the whole world therefore God came to us in Christ so that there would no longer be any confusion about the matter.  Because God loves the world, therefore we are free to do the same.  Because God loves the world and God creates faith in us therefore we are free to believe. In other words, belief is not what we offer God in exchange for God's love, belief is what is created in us by the Holy Spirit when we have an encounter with the Word of God - be it the Word made flesh in Jesus high and lifted up on the cross given for us in bread and wine  or when we have an encounter with the proclaimed Word of God and forgiveness of sins.

God has claimed you in this story.  God has swept you up into God's redemptive love for the whole world and there is nothing for you to add: no amount of belief, no giving up of sweets during Lent, no good works nothing. Because  God loves the world, God came and was made human, ate with sinners and bureaucrats, died an innocent death and was lifted up on a cross, so that all might believe in God –therefore there is no exclusion clause to be added to God's love -  therefore you can trust that this is a God for you and with you and there is nothing you can add to that and nothing that can be taken away from that.  And if this story of who God is in Christ makes any sense to you at all cling to it - but if the church has instead given you the weird and violent message that Christ came to condemn the world but some of the world might be saved through our belief then forgive us our sins as God forgives all those who sin against him.

 In the name of Jesus,

Amen.

Sometimes when I'm bored I kinda like to fill in sound effects that I think the crowd listening to Jesus might have responded with. He takes familiar passages And says "you have heard this (and everyones like "yeah!) and then he goes but I say this" (and everyone's like booo)   he does this with messianic authority several times in the Sermon on the Mount like in today's reading when he says: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' (and everyones like "yeah!) 39But I say to you,  if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; (and everyone's like boo!) 

Jesus takes the part of the law of Moses which prevented disproportional punishment….  the let the punishment fit the crime statute found in Exodus 21 and turns it on it's head like Jesus loves to do. OK, fair enough.

But then the next part says this.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

So where exactly is it is written you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies ?  That's just not found in the Torah.  I searched for it…it's not there, sure the love your neighbor thing is in the old testament but hate your enemy?  good luck , it's like trying to look for "God helps those who help themselves" It's simply not in the Bible.  But then I realized why love your neighbor and hate your enemy sounds so familiar …. 'cause, it might not be in the Bible, but I'm pretty sure it's in my heart.  It's like, in our DNA.  So if you're trying to find where Love your neighbor and hate your enemy is found don't look in the old testament…look here.  When I realized this it felt like a bad horror movie "the phone call is coming from inside the house" See In my heart I want to savor my anger and resentments.  I mean you may be able to turn them into love but my anger and hatred is special.  It's justified and if I can get other people to hate the people I hate then all the better.  Knowing why each of my enemies clearly deserves to be hated is like a big delicious meal, until I realize I'm the main course.  Because hatred is simply a corrosive form of spiritual bondage.  So Jesus says Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.

          Now before we go on let me say this: loving your enemy and praying for those who persecute you is not the same as saying that it's ok that someone has caused you emotional, spiritual or physical harm. I don't think Jesus is saying that we should dismiss, discount or diminish the very real harm done to us by damaged people.

So when Jesus says love your enemies I just don't think he means try and muster up a positive emotional feeling about despicable people. Loving those who persecute you is simply not the same as saying you should feel affection toward the people who have hurt you, or that you should feel fondness for people who are mean to you at work.  I just don't think this about our feelings. Because the Greek word Jesus uses when he tells us to love our enemies is Agape and  Agape love simply isn't about what we feel in our hearts.  It's not a sentiment. I actually don't think it has to do with feelings at all…agape is the love that's only possible through the indwelling of God's spirit.

 And I don't think he means think nice thoughts even.  Remember when your mom made you apologize to your brother or sister and you just kind of phoned it in "sorry." and she was like "say it like you mean it…it doesn't count if you don't mean it"  Yeah…this isn't like that.  I think loving our enemies might be too central to the gospel…too close to the heart of Jesus for it to wait until we mean it.  I don't mean it. And my heart, remember… the very place where I found that impulse that I am to love my neighbor and hate my enemy isn't going to purify itself.  So if God is waiting for that same heart to feel nice loving warm pink fuzzy things about someone who is my enemy well, I think God might be waiting awhile. 

So if it's not a feeling we try really really hard to create in our own hearts maybe Agape-ing… loving our enemies is actually an action.  Because given the choice between feeling the thing and doing the thing I think the doing of the thing that is what's critical here. And maybe "really meaning it" is not the prerequisite to just doing it and maybe the action we take is simply this: you pray for those who persecute you.  Commend them to God.  You don't have to feel affection for them…just hand em over.   Because this counter-intuitive act of enemy love requires prayer.  It doesn't require the right feelings of niceness or generosity, It requires that we commend our enemies to the one who has perfected the love of enemy. It requires being in the prayerful presence of a God who was killed by God's enemies and then rather than retaliation, rather than violence, rather than an eye for an eye God used that same death to be the very thing that ends up being the source of their salvation.

So maybe when Jesus says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you it's not so that you can be good.  It's so you can be free. this freedom from the corrosive distortions of hatred this freedom from having to protect our selves and prove ourselves and preserve our rightness.  Well, this is the freedom of the Gospel.  This is the freedom of a God who loves God's own enemies enough to die for them.

I'll end with a story about how you just never know when God might make your enemy your friend.  A man named Chris Roseborough hosts a conservative Christian talk radio show called Pirate Christian Radio. And a couple months after he had spent 2 of his shows talking about me and how I am disobeying God by being a female pastor and how I'm a heretic because I have gay folks in my church and well, you get the idea.  Well a couple months after this he showed up to a conference I was speaking at in the Twin Cities.  Now you should know something about me.  My first response to almost everything is screw you.  Now I almost never stay there but I almost always start there. God usually pretty quickly moves me to something a little more gracious but that doesn't change my wiring.  I'm a fighter.  So when I heard he was there I went into a little mini rage screw that guy he shouldn't even be here, don't show me who he is I'm not talking to him.  Clearly he was my enemy.  But the next day a middle aged guy with a beer gut and a bad goatee walks up to me after I had spoken extends his hand and says "Hi. I'm Chris…" I swallowed hard, extended my hand said a quick "help me" prayer and we proceeded to have a conversation about our need for God's grace and forgiveness of sins and the Eucharist.  A conversation in which he cried twice.  At the end I said "Chris, I have 2 things to say to you. 1. You are a beautiful child of God and 2. I think you and I were desperate enough to hear the gospel today that we might even hear it from each other.  Now Chris calls me about every couple months and we talk for like an hour.  He hasn't written about me or talked about me on his radio show and he's gotten in a lot of trouble form his followers for calling me his friend.  Now…did this happen because I managed to make my heart feel really nice warm fuzzy feelings toward him? clearly not.  I can't stand the guy.  This was a loving-my-enemy that only could flow from the heart of a forgiving God.  The same God who in the book of Ezekial says I your God will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I  your God will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

And THAT is what freedom feels like.  May it be so. Amen

Blog friends, I have a website now just like a real grown-up. It's at www.nadiabolzweber.com and i may be moving the blog over there if i can figure out how!

Last week one of you told me about a friend of yours who, when her young brother died tragically, her church said irretrievably stupid things to her like "it must have been God's will" as though that is a comfort, as though pawning suffering off on God is doing anybody any favors whatsoever. To be honest, and call me a heretic, but this is a concept in theology that's always bugged me.  It's called "the sovereignty of God" it's the idea that everything that happens happens because it's the will of God.  Everything. The problem is that this idea of God's sovereignty seems to most often come up when something awful has happened.  So when someone is grieving the death of their child or is facing untreatable cancer and the church makes the claim that God is controlling and even willing all of this to take place seems to just a) make people feel worse and b) make God seem like a heartless bastard.  And I am just gonna go out on a limb here and claim that maybe making suffering people feel worse and making God out to be a heartless bastard is not what the church is supposed to be doing.

Anyhow, I bring this up because I started wondering about why God's sovereignty is never brought up when we talk about the beatitudes.  Blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn…why do we play the It's God's will card when it comes to suffering but never when it comes to blessing?  Why don't we ever make big cosmic claims about God controlling everything that happens when it comes to the way in which God insists on blessing that which the world deems undesireable?

One reason is maybe because I think it can be easy to view the sermon on the mount as pure exhortation.  It can be easy to view the beatitudes as Jesus' command for us to try real hard to be meeker, poorer and mournier so that we might be blessed in the eyes of God.

But what if the beatitudes aren't about a list of conditions we should try and meet to be blessed.  What if Jesus saying blessed are the meek is not instructive –what if it's performative? meaning the pronouncement of blessing  is actually what confers the blessing itself.  Maybe the sermon on the mount is all about Jesus' seemingly lavish blessing of the world around him especially that which society doesn't seem to have much time for, people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance. So maybe Jesus is actually just blessing people, especially the people who never seem to receive blessings otherwise.  I mean, come on, doesn't that just sound like something Jesus would do? Extravagantly throwing around blessings as though they grew on trees?

So I began to think this week about what our relationship to receiving and giving blessings might be if it's the giving of a blessing itself, and not the ability to meet the conditions of receiving a blessing that make the receiver blessed

It's a pretty Lutheran idea really, this whole because of  not in order to thing.  You see, you live lives worthy of the gospel because you have received grace upon grace.  You don't live lives worthy of the gospel in order to receive this grace. 

It's a pretty critical distinction, but the hard thing about looking at it this way is that for some of us it can be easier to try and meet the conditions of receiving a blessing that to simply receive a blessing. 

A couple years ago I experienced this weird thing where old ladies kept blessing me in ways that felt super awkward.  Walking off the stage after I spoke at an event at St. Mary's cathedral in Memphis, a  British woman in her 70s walks straight toward me and in front of God and everybody, embraces me. Not a friendly "thank-you" hug, but it was like embracing-with-the-intent-to-bless.

I had just read aloud an essay about my call to ministry; how it involved stand-up comedy and suicide and AA and pornography strangely and it was about seeing the gospel from the underside of our lives. And now before I know what was happening some proper old Brittish lady is blessing me.  Red cardigan covered arms enfold me as this stranger whispers in my ear "God has given you something." She kisses my cheek not breaking the embrace even a little: "Jesus walks with you." Again she kisses me.  Again she whispers a blessing but always she keeps embracing me.  Me.  A heavily tattooed Lutheran who swears like a truck driver.  I don't feel worthy of any of this But it feels like God's own self blessing me with warm breath and a scratchy sweater.

When I sit back down I think, "What the hell just happened?"  My friend Sara, having seen the interaction, slides into the pew next to me saying, "Girl, you gotta just submit and let people bless you."

It's hard though.   But she's right.  we need to let people bless us.  Maybe letting ourselves receive blessings is part of the Christian life.  It's just not one that people talk about much because we're so busy worrying about what we should be doing for others.        

A week or so after the scratchy red cardigan old lady blessed me…again just as I finish preaching at Church of the Beloved in Edmonds, Washington, it happens again.  Almost exactly like the last time, only this time it's a Franciscan nun in her long brown habit. With a hand on each of my shoulders, she looks me in the eye without a hope of me turning away. "You have been blessed."  She chokes up and embraces me.

I think looking back that maybe God had somehow caught on to the fact that 70-year-old women are the only people whose blessings even I can't resist.

So if we have a God who, out of God's sovereignty blesses the poor the hurting, the peace making and the meek then I wonder what a Church might look like that submits to these blessings offered us by God.  Perhaps you yourselves have your own version of old ladies with scratchy sweaters who are bringing you God's own blessings.  Look for them this week perhaps in the form of a text message or love from a pet or someone who lets you in front on them on I-25 or a smile from the homeless guy you just handed a dollar.  Submit to these blessings brothers and sisters.  Because God is a God who blesses in order that we might be blessed in order that we too might bless.

So if there is something we take away perhaps it is not to try and fulfill the conditions of receiving God's blessing, but perhaps being God's people is being a people who, like God, bless the world around us not on the basis of the world's values but on the basis of God's values. So I say let's just make up excuses to bless people and places and things because it just seems so Jesusy and kind of fun and I'm pretty sure that human blessing and NOT human suffering is  "God's will".