Kirkepiscatoid

Diocese of Missouri November-December 2012 Mission to Lui, Republic of South Sudan

(The April 2012 team of missioners from the Diocese of Missouri to the Diocese of Lui, Republic of South Sudan, with Bishop Stephen Dokolo and his wife Lillian, courtesy of Lui Network)

When I was 25 years old, and was considering the possibility of returning to school to go to medical school, one of my dearest mentors told me, "If you weren't going to be a doctor, I think you'd either be a firefighter or a missionary." I told him in no uncertain terms just how full of baloney he was about that "missionary" thing. I had pushed religion to the periphery of my world. I had walked out the door of the institutional church and had no intention of ever returning. I thought his statement was absolutely crazy.

Well, it's official. I am hereby officially eating those words I told my mentor over 25 years ago. In fact, he's 81 years old and I told him, "Well, I was wrong and you were right." I think he was glad to have lived long enough to get an apology from me on that one!

You see, I am on the team of missioners traveling to Lui in the Republic of South Sudan from November 25-December 12. Believe me, it's exciting. I hope I can bring something of myself to these people that they need to prosper in God's service. I am sure this trip will change me, but am not speculating on the "how" of that--I think I'll leave that one open to the Holy Spirit.

If you would like to read more about my diocese's relationship with Lui, my blogging pal Lisa Fox has written about it many times on her blog. Two of my favorite posts she's written on Lui are here and here. If I were to pick the person who could match my own excitement about this trip, it would be Lisa.

I invite you to be a ministry of presence for our team. There are many ways to participate in this ministry:

1. Follow the action in the next few weeks on the Lui Partners Network.
2. Hold our team in prayer at this time. (I suspect I will be thinking, "Toto, we are definitely not in Kirksville," a lot on this mission.)
3. Offer a donation to the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri here. Please select the "Diocese of Lui" button. Also, at the bottom of this page is a box where you can earmark your donation; if you would earmark it in support of missioner Maria Evans, I'd be very grateful.
4. Publicize this mission on your blog or Facebook page, or via Twitter.

Thank you in advance for your prayers and support. I hope to be able to blog "boots on the ground" some, as well as upon my return!

Remembering "The Saint of 9/11"

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Lord, take me where You want me to go,
let me meet who You want me to meet,
tell me what You want me to say,
and keep me out of Your way.
--Prayer of Mychal Judge, OFM

If I were allowed one edit of "Holy Women, Holy Men" it would be to give Fr. Mychal Judge a feast day on Sept. 11.

I won't re-iterate the whole story; it's well described at this site. Additionally, you can watch the documentary on him here.

But for me, he's why those of those of us who embrace a more catholic form of Christianity (be it of Episcopal/Anglican persuasion, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox) pay attention to the calendar of saints and liturgical feast days.

We forget just how human saints are when we start writing icons and creating paintings and statues. But I can sit with the humanity of Mychal Judge.

Friar.

Alcoholic.

Gay man.

Follower of Jesus in a way that sometimes ran afoul of those who had authority over him.

A person unashamed to laugh loud, weep deeply, pray always--and in the hour that became the hour of his death, to be unafraid to enter the gates of that Hell called the North Tower to find his sheep, praying almost until the moment of his death.

He's a saint to me because my deepest hope is that I could have that level of fearlessness in following Christ, and my deepest fear is that I would not.

But because of him, I can feel confident that someone whose humanity I can identify with IS capable of it. God forbid and God willing, I hope I could do the same if it were me.

St. Mychal, pray for us on this September 11.

Sitting and being

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(Page from the Book of Job in the Syriac Bible of Paris, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, August 26, 2012)

Daily Office Readings for Sunday, August 26, 2010:

Psalm 146, 147 (Morning)
Psalm 111, 112, 113 (Evening)
Job 4:1-6, 12-21
Revelation 4:1-11
Mark 6:1-6a

Job 4:1-6, 12-21 (NRSV):

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: “If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

“Now a word came stealing to me, my ear received the whisper of it. Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh bristled. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ‘Can mortals be righteous before God? Can human beings be pure before their Maker? Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth. Between morning and evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without any regarding it. Their tent-cord is plucked up within them, and they die devoid of wisdom.’

Job's friend Eliphaz means well. In our reading today (and in the subsequent paragraphs of this passage) Eliphaz, relating his dream, reminds Job of something that's an important reminder to all of us--that we're a pretty small speck in the universe, and it's not about "us" but about God--but then Eliphaz messes up his own soliloquy at the end. He finishes off with that "Are you SURE you haven't done something wrong? You HAD to do something wrong to have God THIS mad at you," bit.

Eliphaz reminds me a lot of those people, who, when I've been in the middle of a major life stressor, say things that they think are "kind"--(or even "Christian")--and by my way of thinking, they're so theologically far off the mark that I want to just take a stick and clobber the person--but they're my friends, so I don't. (Well, and also because it would be assault and the State Board of Healing Arts would have issues with that.)

"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle." (Baloney. God is not a personal spiritual fitness trainer, forcing me to do spiritual ab crunches "for my own good," and with a "no pain, no gain," mentality.)

"God needed an angel so that's why so-and-so had to die." (Oh, give me a break. God has plenty of angels. And if I die prematurely, and I find out that was the reason, God and I are gonna have some words, for sure, pulling me out of the middle of all the good stuff I was working on, and away from all the love in my life. That sounds kinda imperiously needy to me.)

"Everything happens for a reason." (Well, maybe, but I don't think the reason is, "Because God is a manipulator and a micromanager.")

But you get the drift.

The fact is, we have no right to project God on any other person. We have enough to do in sifting out God's call in our own lives. As painful as it is for Job's friends, Job needs to be in his place of misery to get where he is going in his relationship with God.

I have read the book of Job many times in the deepest darkest hours of my own lament, and trust me, I can become very Job-like, figuratively throwing ashes on my head and not eating or sleeping well and generally looking pitiful. But like Job, there's a place where God finally watches all this dramatic misery and finds a way to say in a roundabout way, "Oh, for crying out loud, Maria, you act as if I'm not in charge around here. Get over yourself." But other people telling me to get over myself never works.

The more I read the book of Job, the more strongly I wish his friends would have just sat with him in his misery and just been with him, with few words. Maybe just pray alongside of him or offer sacrifices for healing of his tragic troubles.

This is a place where, when we fast forward, any of us might begin to see where "just being who we are in our parish community and at worship" is critically important. It's where services such as healing services, comfort services, recovery services, and "blue Christmas" services can be deep wells of ministry. It's where things like blessings and anointings become important parts of that healing. Who can each of us be in those places as steadfast people of love and quiet faith? I know when I look back at the hardest times of my life, the people who just hung out with me and checked in with me "for no reason" were the people I came to love more deeply in a new way, and it often made room for me to be the same way for someone new, who was going through a rough patch.

Where is each of us called to simply sit and be, in the course of another person's pain? Where's the empty spot in the life of the church where we can fill a vital ministry of presence for others?

Doing the right thing even when it feels wrong

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(Photo of caution sign courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, August 19, 2012)

Daily Office readings for Sunday, August 19, 2012:

Psalm 118 (Morning)
Psalm 145 (Evening)
Judges 16:15-31
2 Corinthians 13:1-11
Mark 5:25-34

2 Corinthians 13:1-11:

This is the third time I am coming to you. “Any charge must be sustained by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” I warned those who sinned previously and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will not be lenient— since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful in you. For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God. Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed.

But we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. This is what we pray for, that you may become perfect. So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Our Epistle today evokes remembrances of those times in our lives where we have been in the un-enviable position of knowing in our heart of hearts that we made a decision or chose a path of action that ultimately was the right thing, but all external evidence at the time we did it screamed that we had failed. It's a reading that is flanked by two other readings supportive to it--we are reminded in the story of Samson that all of us are vulnerable to other people in certain ways or to certain people, and our Gospel story today of the woman with hemorrhages calls to mind those feelings of uncleanliness over things to which we were powerless.

Also, on a personal note, as the mysterious powers of the Daily Office Lectionary often do, this particular scripture came up on a day that for me, is the anniversary of a day some years ago that began my own personal dark walk through a situation where, in retrospect, I had done the right thing but it sure didn't seem like it at the time. In fact, for a long time, the verdict would have been that I was the transgressor.

All of us have situations that show up in our lives where even those close to us think we're making a mistake, or popular opinion is that we are "the bad guy," or just where we happen to be carries preconceived notions. The communities of the early church, Corinth included, were probably looked upon with a lot of preconceived notions and there's no doubt rumors circulated about them that were less than flattering. In a way, it's no different than when people hear the word "Christian" and think that community believes things that may or may not be applicable ("doesn't believe in dinosaurs," "ignorant," "hates GLBT people," etc.) As individuals, words carry preconceived messages, too. In things like divorces, the firing of employees, child custody suits, arrests, and charges, people are going to believe what they choose to believe. The only truths that last in those stories are the truths that are borne out over time--and of course, the problem is we all have to live long enough for those to surface. It's why in all communities with a public face, the church included, that infighting and dissension become magnified in the public eye. Human nature is that people are quick to tear down anything that has been raised up for any reason.

Paul's exhortation to the people of the church of Corinth is to do things for a greater truth--the truth of the Good News in Christ. He asks them to do something that is a hallmark of Twelve Step Programs--to look to themselves first, and test themselves first as to their motives and actions--to always be open to self-questioning and the possibility that what, at the moment, feels like "failure" may not ultimately be failure, but instead, growth.

When you look back at the stories in your own life, where are the places that felt like "failure" but turned out instead to be growth spurts? Where are the places that felt like despair that turned out to be seeds of a bigger hope?

Praying with Snakes

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(Snake handling in church, Harlan County, Kentucky, 1946, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Daily Episcopalian, August 23, 2012)

In my mind, Mack’s situation was different from that of a starving child or a civilian wounded in war. He was a competent adult who decided to stand by what he understood to be the word of God, no matter the consequences. And so I’ve started to come to peace with the fact that everyone in the crowded trailer, including myself, let Mack die as a man true to his faith.
--Lauren Pond, from the May 31 Washington Post article, "Why I watched a snake-handling pastor die for his faith"

This story still haunts me--not so much from the story, per se (I have no intention to handle vipers, personally) but because this is how the popular media views "faith."

Randy "Mack" Wolford was one of a small group of people whose ministry takes the words in Mark 16:17-18 literally:

And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Yet, I could not help but think of what Jesus said in Matthew 4:2-12, based on Deuteronomy 6:16: "Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

It's disturbing that for the writers of secular news, "faith" is too often defined as "doing things that reek of magical thinking, including some pretty crazy things." Faith is seen as handling snakes, or thinking the world is coming to an end on a particular date, or eschewing evolution for a literal seven day creation. Now, these are the more severe cases. But even with the smaller stuff, it's clear that magical thinking is equated with Christianity in the secular press.

However, before we get too high and mighty about Mack Wolford's untimely and tragic death, the truth is, we're all guilty of some degree of magical thinking somewhere now and then. Fact is, any time we are praying for a particular outcome, we are, albeit in a usually very minor way, putting God to the test. We pray for our loved ones to change their behavior, or for something to be reconciled with an "and everyone lived happily ever after," ending. We pray for uncertain medical diagnoses to turn out benign over malignant, or perhaps we pray for malignancies to be Stage I when we fear Stage IV. We pray for rain and for the cessation of rain. We pray for safe travel for our particular loved one but don't think ten nanoseconds about every other person on the road in that prayer.

Oh, I think at the time, we're just being earnest. From another angle, though, it's pretty clear we, at times, assign outcomes to our prayers and pray for the things to happen in a certain way so that our petitions are fulfilled by our specifications.

Show of hands--how many of us have prayed for a specific outcome, and the exact opposite thing happened?

Yeah, me too.

Truth is, too often we've played God in our prayer life, and too often, the results reminded us we're not God. If we're not open to the awareness of the futility of praying for things to meet our specifications, it can breed feelings of skepticism and disbelief, as well as resentments towards God about the outcome. God's neither the celestial suggestion box, nor a supernatural catalog order form.

That said, it's not cause to chastise ourselves, either, when we come to that realization that we've been blurring the lines between our wills and that nebulous thing called God's will.

The other truth in this complex thing called prayer is that it's only human to express our desires to God. Sometimes, prayer is the only means by which we ever get around to revealing the deepest core of those desires to ourselves. It's why one of my particular favorites among the collects available following the prayers of the people is this one:

Almighty and eternal God, ruler of all things in heaven and
earth: Mercifully accept the prayers of your people, and
strengthen us to do your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

That collect doesn't say, "Do all the things we just asked." It simply asks for God to receive our prayers, and to strengthen us to do God's will. It asks for God to hear us, and for us to hear God. It changes the focus to the relationship rather than the outcome.

What changes in us when we stop handling the deadly snake of praying for a particular outcome and instead invest in the act of prayer being the purpose of prayer? Will we discover that we get "bitten" by the outcomes of our life situations less frequently?

Showing our scars

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(Damage to memorial in St. Margaret's Church in London, from being hit by an oil bomb during WWII.)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, August 12, 2012)

Readings for Sunday, August 12, 2012:

Psalm 66, 67 (Morning)
Psalm 19, 46 (Evening)
Judges 11:1-11, 29-40
2 Corinthians 11:21b-31
Mark 4:35-41

Judges 11:1-11, 11:29-40:

Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.” Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him.

After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.” But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.” So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” “Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
The sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter is, frankly, one of the most awful and misongynistic stories in the Hebrew Bible, and it's very difficult for me to read it and hope for finding much of anything redeeming in it. Even Phyllis Trible's attempt at deepening this story in Texts of Terror doesn't do much for me. The part that particularly irritates me is that the girl was just dancing and singing like folks of that time normally did after a great victory (think of a cross between what happened after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and escaped the Egyptians mixed with people chanting, "USA! USA!" after Olympic events) and she just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with regards to Jephthah's vow. If that's not enough, Jephthah speaks to his daughter like this is somehow HER fault. (What's with this "YOU have brought me very low; YOU have become the cause of great trouble," garbage, anyway? Let's all sing another verse of Blame the Victim.)

There are so many things in the Bible that my first thought is "What bright light bulb allowed THIS to be left in as Holy Scripture?" that I do not like at all. This story. The rape of Tamar. Paul's statements in the Epistles about women and the ones people now use to claim the "sin" in stable, loving homosexual relationships. Several things in Revelation...no, I take that back. Pretty much all of Revelation. I think I'd even let the three or four good verses in there go by the wayside to get rid of all the apocalyptic stuff.

But then I step back and think, "Well...maybe that's the point. Maybe it's there to remind me I don't have to like everything that happened in the Bible in order for it to be a transformational experience in my life or in my community of faith. Everything doesn't have to go my way to feel closer to God." In fact, maybe I'm not supposed to like it, in the same way I no longer have to like the seamier side of American history in order to appreciate being American. I probably should not like what happened at Wounded Knee, nor what happened under the Jim Crow laws of the South, nor what happened to Carrie Buck under the eugenics laws of the early 20th century in Buck vs. Bell.

It rings hollow, truthfully, when we try to justify everything that happened in Holy Scripture as actually being holy acts, or try to skirt around them by means of Christian apologetics. It's also just as hollow when we attempt work-arounds with the failings of Christianity. We don't have to like what the Jesuits did to the natives of the southwestern U.S., we don't have to like Martin Luther's anti-Semitism, and we don't have to like how the Episcopal Church "converted" Native Americans by making them feel sinful about their own cultures and traditions, only to, sometimes, abandon them after they did it, much as our church did to the Alaskan natives to some degree. Pretending that the institutional church's icky past is not icky, is...well...even more icky than if we would just fess up to it.

Perhaps our call is merely to sit silently with these things and feel them, and only then postulate what actions would help us to do better and then act accordingly. I think about a time I worshiped in St. Margaret's in London. There's a place where a German oil bomb damaged one of the walls in 1940. The folks at St. Margaret's didn't try to cover it up or rebuild it; instead they opted to make the repairs necessary to preserve the integrity of the building, and they worship there now, scars and all. Perhaps the challenge for us on many levels is to worship anyway, despite the scars, and to focus on the integrity of our "building," the body of Christ, in the present moment, allowing our corporate past sins to be what they are. Perhaps our task is not to attempt to justify their existence, but instead to embrace a new one.

Too old? Too small?

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(Etching of Gideon and the angel, by Ferdinand Bol, circa 1640, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, August 5, 2012)

Judges 6:1-24 (NRSV:)

The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. The hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian the Israelites provided for themselves hiding places in the mountains, caves and strongholds. For whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land, as far as the neighborhood of Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in. Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites; and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery; and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land; and I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not given heed to my voice.”

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.” Gideon answered him, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” He responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.” Then he said to him, “If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.” So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

The story of Gideon's call reminds us today of the standard, stock answer we humans tend to give when we first hear and recognize it..."You've got the wrong person. I'm too (fill in the blank.) I'm just a (fill in the blank.)" I'm the lowest member of the least, no-account clan in town. The Bible is full of these "I'm too" and "I'm just a" moments. I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm too slow of tongue. I'm just a boy, I'm just a shepherd, I'm just an outsider.

We're also reminded of those time when our efforts are destroyed by others, seemingly just for the sake of doing it, and how it teaches us hoarding instincts. The Israelites are planting seed, and as soon as anyone notices it sprouting, here come the Midianites and the Amalekites to lay it waste. Anyone who was ever a younger sibling can recall those times sitting happily, stacking blocks or Legos, only to have an older brother or sister lurking around the corner, watching intently, and then, just at the right moment, roar through the room smashing those carefully-planned construction projects. We are taught from an early age to do those things we really care about in secret.

When the angel accepts Gideon's offering, a fire springs up, and we all know the converse of the old saw "Where there's smoke, there's fire"--where there's fire, there's also smoke--smoke that everyone can see. The Midianites and the Amalekites can surely see smoke off in the distance, and it's clear someone has something to offer.

The terms of the offering are interesting, too. Gideon is told to pour out the broth in the pot--to throw out the stock. Any of us who've ever cooked a roast or a chicken would never think of such a thing. Pour out the stock, how crazy is that? We can make noodles out of that. We can make stew. Why, there are all kinds of goodies we can make of that, and one never knows when we might need it. But no--Gideon is told to pour off what we'd normally hold back and save.

As we grow in faith, one of the discoveries we often make is that God constantly calls to us to offer up more of what we have, even in times when we feel there are vandals at the gate, lurking in the shadows to tear our works apart. We're told to sow time and time again, even if we are afraid. God's antidote to fear is "keep doing ministry." I remember a very fearful time in the life of my parish when a wise friend's best advice was "just keep doing your ministries, keep doing what you sense that you are called to do." Turns out she was right about that.

Another thing we discover is God just sort of chuckles at "I'm too..." and "I'm just a..." and says, "You know, I've heard that one before." I suspect God has heard them all. Like the angel in our reading today, God simply sits patiently under the oak tree waiting for us to come around to God's way of thinking, and says, "You silly thing, I've been sitting here all along."

What, do you suppose, is in the works for your life, where God has been quietly, patiently sitting under the oak tree at your house, waiting for you to come around to God's way of thinking about your part in it?