Another Week Later

I seem to be bad at updating... crazy busy is what it’s been. But it’s been good, it really has. I know that last week I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing - I didn’t. There are some things that I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing... but it’s getting better. I’m sure it is just an experience thing. The more I do and the more I succeed or the more I fail and am able to pick myself up off the floor, the better it gets. The perfectionist in me just doesn’t like not knowing what I’m doing, it makes me feel like a failure. I recognize this and try and tell myself it... but there is a disconnect between my brain and my heart. But it’s getting better and things really are going pretty well.

I preached this past Sunday and since most of my friends seem to be posting their sermons on their blogs, I will do the same at the end of this entry.

In other news, I went to Cedar Point on Monday with Joel. It was a good way to get away and enjoy riding some roller coasters. I’ve always been a thrill junkie and will ride almost anything. Well, Joel and I rode all the biggest, baddest roller coasters in the park including one that launches you to 120 mph in 3.8 seconds, goes up 90 degrees to 420 feet before coming back down at 90 degrees and 120 mph again before stopping. Click here for a link to a movie of the coaster (you’ll need Quicktime to view it). It was nuts, but it was freaking awesome!!

And now for the sermon:

Sermon - September 3, 2006

Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sometimes the biggest obstacle I face is myself. Never was this more apparent to me than last summer while I was working as a chaplain at the Ohio State University Medical Center. During the course of the summer I provided pastoral care to those who needed it. I spent time with people who were dying of cancer, people who just lost a spouse, and people who were watching the chest of their sister just to make sure she took another breath. It was not an easy job, especially at first.

Last summer started much the same way internship has started. I was thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim on my first day. Ok, so maybe it was the third day, but it felt like the first day. My supervisor decided that I should have the most critical unit in the hospital, the Medical Intensive Care Unit (or MICU). Somewhere along the way I had said I liked a challenge and he decided that was the best place to get it. So on the third day of my new job, Marge, the staff chaplain who normally had MICU, took me up to the floor and introduced me to a few people, mostly staff and nurses. During the introductions she got a page and had to go to another unit in the hospital. She left me up there all by myself.

I had no idea what I was doing! I was petrified. I didn't know anybody and really I didn't even think I knew how to do my job. But I really wanted to do a good job. I really wanted to get it right. But I wasn't quite sure what was right. So after walking around the unit for a little while, I took the first step and found somebody to visit.

It didn't go well, but it didn't go horribly either. I was too focused on doing the job right - even if I wasn't clear about what that meant. I couldn't listen to the husband of the patient. I was too busy paying attention to what was going on inside of me. I walked out of the room and because I was so busy paying attention to my job and doing it right, I cannot possibly tell you what he and I talked about. I was so wrapped up in myself, in finding the right thing to say, in questioning every move I made, that I missed out on what was right in front of me. I was so busy doing my job that I forgot to do my job.

The Pharisees were so busy doing their jobs that they forgot to do their jobs. God had chosen the Jews to be the light to the world. That was their job, to be God's people and then to help others be God's people too. God had given them the law - a set of guidelines to go by in order to do their job. But most of the time these rules left a lot up for interpretation and like me they didn't really know what they were doing. They were not clear about how they were to do their job. They wanted to get it right, they wanted to please God. But the more they focused on trying to do their job, the less they were able to do it.

The more the Pharisees tried to follow the law and do their jobs, the more they fell into routines. Routines were easy to keep, easy to follow. You know what is expected of you as long as you stick to the routine. The longer I was a chaplain, the more I started to develop and stick to routines - things I knew that worked. For the Jews that meant keeping everything clean. It was routine; everybody, all the elders and the Pharisees did it. They kept everything clean - it was simple, it was easy - they all knew how to do it and what was expected. The problem with routines is that we become so comfortable that we miss out on what is right in front of us. We continue to be so busy doing our jobs that we forget to do our jobs.

We often get into routines in our own lives too. We wake up to go to work at the same time every day. We respond to our spouses in the same way we always respond when they ask us how things are going. We eat the same food on Thursdays that we have always eaten or order the same meal we always order at a particular restaurant. We go with what is safe - we go with the routine.

Church can become routine too. We only talk to the people we know and don't say hi to people we don't know. We worship the same way because it is what we have always done. We sing the same hymns because they are familiar and we like them. Sometimes we aren't even open to new ministry opportunities because we've never done it before. It isn't routine. It isn't safe. It isn't comfortable. It might be that we think it is dangerous or possibly even just wrong.

Like any people in a routine, the Pharisees were afraid of looking at anything outside the routine. This is why the 'dirtiness' of the disciples was such an issue to the Pharisees. The disciples were followers of a man claiming to be the Son of God and yet were not clean people. They did not follow the rules, they didn't follow the routine. How could they be children of God without following the tradition of the elders? The Pharisees were so busy worrying about the cleanliness of others they couldn't do their job. Cleanliness was the ditch the Pharisees had fallen into and they couldn't see what was standing just outside.

Instead of being obsessed with God, they were obsessed with cleanliness and making sure everybody lived according to the rules.

Jesus notes their misplaced obsession. He tells them, "8 Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' 8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

"You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." They were so busy doing their job that they forgot to do their job.

More importantly, you've missed what was standing right in front of you. It isn't about the routine. It isn't about being clean or unclean. It is about loving all people - regardless of who they are. The Pharisees have abandoned the commandment of God - the biggest commandment of them all - Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The Pharisees were so busy doing their job that they forgot to do their job. They were so consumed with doing things right, they forgot about God completely and failed to see the disciples, the people standing right in front of them.

We miss things right in front of us. I missed the husband of the patient in MICU. In fact, I missed a lot of people at that hospital. We might miss the person sitting next to us - the person who desperately needs someone to talk to. We might miss our kids who need their parents to listen to them. We might miss our boyfriends, girlfriends, or spouses. We might miss what is standing right in front of us all because we are too busy doing our jobs to do our job.

We get so wrapped up in doing what we think is right that we lose focus of what we should be doing. The Pharisees wanted to exclude the disciples because they were different, because they didn't follow the rules. We exclude people or ideas because they are different, because they don't follow the rules. But Jesus turns this upside down. It's not about doing the job right - because Jesus has already done it.

See it isn't about what is on the outside, about doing things right. It is about what is on the inside, about what is in our hearts. "14 Then [Jesus] called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile… 20 And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

These are things that are within each of us. All of us have demons inside, none of us are exempt. The Pharisees' routine is a sham. Nobody is clean - all of us are dirty. No matter how hard they work to stay clean, they will always be dirty. That is without Jesus. Jesus heals us - he makes us clean. Jesus healed people everywhere he went - including the entire region of Gennesaret. Wherever he went, people came to him and were healed. He also cast out demons, including in the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman, the lowest of the low. The sickest of the sick are healed. Whatever ails you, whatever defiles you, Jesus casts out. Whatever makes you dirty, Jesus cleans away.

Jesus breaks down the walls that live within us. He casts out the demons that haunt us, the ones that drive us nuts. He casts out the demons of loneliness, hurt, anger, and pain. He breaks down the walls of isolation, pride, and contempt. He fills our hearts with perfect light that casts out the fear of failure. Everything from within, everything that we battle, Jesus casts out. He helps us battle our worst enemies, ourselves. He helps us to see God, to bring us closer to himself. We defile ourselves, but Jesus cleans us even in the worst of our grime.

Jesus frees us from the need to do our job right. Jesus frees us to see what is right in front of us - to see the people we need to see. To love unconditionally, to love others different from ourselves.

Jesus freed me to do my job as a chaplain. He freed me to be able to listen to people - to hear what their concerns, their hopes, and their fears were. I fell into a routine because I didn't think I was good enough or had enough to offer. But I found out that I had more than enough because I had Jesus and Jesus is always more than enough. I am more than enough because I am a child of God - a child that Jesus set free to live boldly in the world.

Jesus reminds each of us that we are children of God, just as he reminded the Pharisees that they too were children of God. Jesus brings our focus back to who we are and who we worship, God. Jesus frees us to be ourselves. It isn't about rules, how we worship God, or even what we look like. It is about the power to live as children of the light, children of the same God. It is about being able to be authentic, about being able to worship God with everything within us. It is about Jesus healing us and giving us the ability to do these things. It is about Jesus cleaning up the grime in our lives, the nastiness that gets in our way. It is about being clean, about being holy - all because Jesus does it for us. Amen.