Sunday, August 31, 2008 ~ Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Matthew 16:21-28 "A Citizen in the White House” Something new is stirring. Something is about to happen. Something old is about to die and something new is about to begin. It always happens this way. Old yin gives way to new yang, then, old yang gives way to new yin. What no longer works, stops working, and a new thing comes into being. Our births were just like this. The old way inside our mothers could not hold – too small, too dark. Gills gave way to lungs and we longed to breathe, not water anymore, but air. “Let me out,” we all said once, “lest I die in here.” Mother’s bodies gave way, and out we came, slipping into a new world, some came screaming and some silent, but those who lived, came out. Jesus had been out with traveling the country with his followers. He had been patiently teaching and healing, using his spiritual gifts on behalf of the community. For three years he gave himself away so that he could be fully alive. But it became time, he could feel it coming, lungs gave way to light, longing to breathe, not dust anymore, but God. Jesus, knowing old was giving way to new, gave this spiritual teaching: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Our country changed, just four days ago, on Thursday, August 26, 2008. We became a country that began to imagine that a black man, a bi-racial man could become the next President of the United States. We began to imagine Michelle Obama, her daughters and her husband in the home of the President, the White House. Can you see the Obamas on the front porch, there between the tall white columns? Can you see Malia, age 10, trying out her first lipstick in a White House mirror, and Sasha, age 7, riding her bike around the rose garden trying not to fall over into some thorny bush? Can you imagine seeing for the first time a citizen who looks like you standing there for the whole world to see, accepting the nomination of the Democratic National Convention to become a candidate for the presidency? Finally it’s not “just us” in the courts, but justice at the highest possible level of participation in our country. Until now, the only folks of color we could imagine in the White House were the servants and the guests. But now we can see it, now we can imagine it, a whole new kind of citizen in the White House. Old gives way. Something new is stirring. We cannot hold it back. We humans change, we do not stay the same. We lift ourselves out of our old miseries and addictions, our histories of trauma and of being left behind. We move out our stuck places and our fears, moving into our new lives – some of us quickly, some of us slowly, but all of us surely and constantly. Sometimes we chose our movement and sometimes the movement is chosen for us. Sometimes our loved ones become ill, new memories flash up, our partners and our idealized lives walk out the door for the last time. Sometimes we are nominated, sometimes we nominate ourselves. We might go into new life kicking and screaming, we might go joyfully or something in between, but the only thing that does not change is change itself. Change can be, as my friend Pam says, “Hell hard.” But pretending all is not in flux is harder than hell. This is what Jesus is teaching us. Something new, something for Christ’s sake is becoming new everyday. Clinging to what does not give us life, clinging to what does not give us peace or peace to the world can kill us way before we die. On the trauma and burn intensive care unit where I worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, when it came time to make life decisions, when it came time for a family to decide whether or not to withdraw life support, it was almost 100% of the time true that the least resolved member of the family was the most adamant that life support be continued, regardless of the patient’s condition. The family member most in conflict, with the least degree of peace with the patient, would be the last person to agree to let the patient pass this life, even if the patient was suffering. My work as chaplain was to go to that person to try to help them, if they could, come to peace, to forgive themselves or to forgive the patient. Sometimes it took months. We long to live, to know our purpose, to be free to serve, to love. Even our elders confined to their homes or to beds not their own are able to choose ways to be fully alive. Don’t we want to live fully until our death for our sake, and for the sake of something larger than our little selves. I think we do. I think we do. But how? Here are some ideas for how, for now. One. Show up for community. Sometimes we need to breathe together, for the one who has forgotten to breathe. Two. Notice what your community asks of you. Each of us has a gift for this community, each gift vital for the spiritual survival of us all. Notice what the community asks of you or what you are drawn to do because this may be your divine purpose. Someone in this church waters our plants, someone remembers to pray. Someone give an offering for the poor, and someone receives that offering. Some preach, some sing, some cook, some cry. It is all necessary. Three, take a break from community. Rest and reset. Pray alone. Write in your journal, draw in your sketch book. Yell at God. See a movie. Get a baby sitter and have some pleasure. Take a walk. Know your limits and don’t exceed them. Four, follow the crazy feeling in you that you were made for a purpose for this world. Don’t get caught up in achieving, in binding wealth, in trying to make some one love when you God loves you anyhow anyway. You, your gifts were made for this world. You were made by God, in her image. Add to the creation of the world with your gifts. Be the citizen in the white house, compose a most beautiful song, heal the sick or yourself, or be the Sullivan Square bus driver, but do it for the sake of justice and love. Take up your cross of work and being in the world. You have permission from Jesus. Get to it. Five, trust in God’s presence. Grow deeper into your spiritual lift by being attentive to God’s presence. God is the beginning and the end. Although the world is swirling around you, threatening your equilibrium, though you are wearied by the changes and chances of this life, God’s presence is always available. This does not change. You may lose the frequency, but you can find it again. You can find God in community, all alone, in the bathtub, by the river of Babylon where you hung up your harp. Find God and trust. Six, read your Bible, pray everyday (sing the children’s song). Mary Oliver, the poet who lives near P’town, asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” And Rumi, the 13th century Sufi poet answers: This being human is a guest house
