Sermon: Who do you say that I am?

A week ago, I preached a sermon that drew heavily on our Africa experiences, and thought I would post it here, just in case anyone wants to read it. (Cross-posted from my blog, the thin paper vault.)

Peace,
Melissa

---
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. (Matthew 16:13-20)
---
It happened to us twice. Two different times, sitting in two different mud-walled churches with tin roofs, two different Maasai choirs singing worship from deep in their souls, clothed in red and blue plaid and their fanciest beadwork. It happened to us twice, in two different Maasai churches, as part of a time set aside for the formal exchange of lengthy greetings, filtered through two layers of translation. It happened to us twice, while we were sharing and learning about life in the Tanzanian bush and in suburban America.

It happened to us twice: a raised hand on the far side of the church, and a Maasai man or woman standing to ask us questions about our faith and culture. Twice, we were posed the question “Are you Christ followers?” And then the follow-up question, “How does that make your life different?”

More than wanting to know what Christianity is like in a different land, more than wanting to know what the church is like across an ocean that none of them would ever see, these men and women wanted to know who Christ was to us, on a deeply personal level. They wanted to know that believing in Christ had changed our lives. They wanted to know that our faith and discipleship mattered - really mattered - in our lives.

For these communities of faith, gathered out in the dust under the shade of thorny acacia trees, following Jesus was nothing other than a life-changing commitment. Christ following meant abandoning some long-standing tribal and cultural practices and adopting a new worldview where all humans, male and female, are equal in God’s eyes. They expected nothing less from us. They wanted to know that our experience with Christ was just as personal, just as powerful, and just as life-changing as the Christ that they had come to know.

“Are you a Christ follower?” the asked. And, “How does that transform your life?” Or, in other words, “Who do you say that Christ is?”

* * *

Jesus arrived at Caesarea Philippi. This Jesus was the one who even before birth was called “Immanuel,” God-with-us, the one who will “save his people from their sins.” This Jesus has already taught, healed, and performed wonder after wonder, and yet been asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus arrived at Caesarea Philippi, a political threat and a curious figure to the villages. And so he asked his disciples about all the rumors that were flying about him, and about the Son of Man, the Messiah that the whole world was hoping for. He asked them, “Who do people think the Son of Man is?” The disciples told him, ‘Some think John the Baptist, some think it’s Elijah, there are a few who think it might be Jeremiah, or maybe one of the other prophets.”

Jesus pressed the disciples, asking more pointedly, “What about you? Who do you say I am?” And Simon Peter, always first to run off his mouth, confidently declared, “You are the Christ. The Messiah. The Son of the living God!” And Jesus said, “Blessed are you.”

* * *

A quick trip to Google is all it takes for us, in our current day and age, to answer Jesus’ first question, “Who do people say I am?”

• Author Geza Vermes says that Jesus is, “an unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth.”
• Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness.”
• Mikhail Gorbachev says, “Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”
• Camille Paglia says, “Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improviser. His parables are great one-liners.”
• And John Lennon, in his infamous quote about the Beatles, says, “We're more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don't know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.”

Google, television, radio, and any quantity of books, interviews and articles can tell you a lot about Jesus. But they can only get you so far. They can only answer that first question Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”

But the question that Jesus really wants to know the answer to is the second question, the personal question: “Who do you say that I am?” It’s not good enough for us to know what other people believe about Jesus. The life of faith begun at baptism is a life of discerning the answer to the question, “What do I believe?” It’s the point of our Christian education and confirmation ministries. It’s the purpose of sharing the Word together in worship and in personal devotion. It’s the goal of meeting Christ at the table in bread and wine.

When Peter speaks up and proclaims, “Jesus, you are the Christ,” Jesus turns around and says “Blessed are you.” I don’t think he says this because Peter said the “right” answer. Jesus tells Peter that he is blessed for having proclaimed his own faith, rather than regurgitating any secondary sources. “Blessed are you,” Jesus says, “for believing in me, and not just in stories and second-hand reports about me. Blessed are you because you felt God’s grace stirring in your soul and have come to believe in me, the one whom he has sent. Blessed are you because you have seen me - really seen me! - and believed.”

* * *

Sitting on those narrow benches, kicking the dust under our feet and smelling the breeze at it blew in through the cracks where the tin roof met the mud walls of the churches, our group looked at each other quietly, trying to come up with a simple answer to a question that seemed so complicated: What does following Christ really mean to you?

Whether they knew it or not, the eager Maasai women and men who posed the questions were asking us to disregard what everybody else thinks about Jesus. They were asking us to disregard what we’ve read or studied. They were challenging us to disregard all of the good answers that we could quote other believers and other theologians. They were pushing us to resist talking about Christianity in the third-person.

I wish I could tell you that we stood up and shared with them glowing testimonies of the ways that each of us have experienced Jesus in our lives and come to be transformed by him. And I wish that I could tell you that we shared story after story about how Christ was using us to bring real change to our communities here at home. But we were quiet. Maybe it was too big of a question. Maybe it was too complicated to explain through two layers of language barriers. Maybe we were shy, or just out of practice when it comes to talking about the personal side of our faith.

All I know is that those moments of quiet and stammered half-answers about Christianity in America sparked in me a new desire to draw closer to Jesus, so that I, too, can talk in easy, concrete, faithful terms about my relationship with Jesus, just like the members of the congregations who hosted us did. I want to be able to say, confidently, things such as “God is the one who brings the rain. Jesus is the one who brings equality. My faith liberates and empowers me from the cultural hardships of being a woman. Jesus is the shepherd of my soul.” Or, in the words of Peter, “Jesus, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent by God to redeem the world.”

The good news for me, for you, for our group of Tanzania travelers is that we can keep looking for the thin places in our lives where we encounter Christ in transforming ways, and we can keep practicing our lines so that we speak in a vocabulary of faith. The good news is that God opens up safe spaces where we can search our hearts to discern where God is really working in our lives. And maybe, in this moment right here and now, the best news of all is that we come together week after week and practice our faith in this community or other worshiping communities like this. We pray prayers that help us find our words. We sing songs that help us expand our imaginations and our vocabularies. And, week by week, we stand up together, our voices supporting and being supported by the whole people of God, and we practice again the words of our faith every time we begin the Creed with the words “I believe.”

I would invite you right now to reach forward and grab a red hymnal. Turn to page 229 in the front, which is part of the rite of Holy Baptism.

As I ask each question and we respond, I invite you do think about the words you are saying, perhaps more deeply that you’ve ever considered them before. Think about the words that communicate the faith of the deepest parts of your heart. Think about the words that challenge you, or the words that are hard for you to agree with. Think about what it really means to you to say the words “I believe.” And consider this your way, today, to answer the question posed to us by Jesus: “Who do you say that I am?”

Do you believe in God the Father?

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Psalm 121, annotated

A few weeks ago, I spent an afternoon where, amongst other agenda items, two key things happened: I had the chance to share my Tanzania experiences with friends, and we all read Psalm 121 together. Talking about Tanzania had put a lens on my hearing of the Psalm (if that odd metaphor makes any sense) that made me understand exactly why the Maasai understand the Bible in such a close, personal way.

Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills —
from where will my help come?

There we were, far into the dusty bush, hills rising up around us, following a man on a motorcycle to where he thought Dr. Friberg's clinic was. Out there, it felt empty, unprotected. The mountains protected us, perhaps, but also cut us off from the village we had left behind.

My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

All life happens according to the turn of the seasons. Work happens during the daylight, herding and farming happens according to the rainy and the dry seasons. God is creator and more than creator: God is the one who brings the rain.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

We slept out under the stars one night, outside in the dust, away from the shelter and meager protection of our tents, open to the world around us. It was only then that I realized that our campfire stayed lit all night. And the Maasai warriors who just seemed to be hanging around with us and our guides? They sat there, by the fire, all night. They talked and drank chai, and watched over us. Not just that night when we slept outside, but every night that we camped. That is the life of the bush: warriors keeping guard at night, staying awake, ready to fend off whatever might approach the camp.

The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

Northern Tanzania is near the equator, the sun rising and setting at predictable times, diving the day cleanly into twelve hours of light and twelve hours of dark. During the hottest parts of the day - noon until around four - the difference in temperature between sun and shade is remarkable. In the sun, you feel your skin burning. In the shade, you feel remarkably refreshed. And at night, more stars than you've ever seen before. In the darkness, I can see our group huddled around Carole's stargazing app, swiping the phone across the sky and tracing constellations - seeing the Southern Cross, and looking at the Big Dipper upside-down. But also in the darkness, so much uncertainty. So dark you couldn't see the thorny acacia limbs that reached out to snag your hair, and even a flashlight couldn't give you a full sense of where you were or what was ahead.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.

I saw a young toddler with AIDS and a heart defect, an old man so ill and frail and in peril because he was refusing to eat. We shared conversation and faith with a Maasai choir who, upon our departure, told us "We hope that you will be able to come to us again, but if it is not meant that we should cross paths again in this life, we look forward to meeting you anew in heaven." Life and death are real. I think about the drought and famine in Horn of Africa, and can only imagine the life or death prayers being raised up to God, the one who brings the rain.

The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

"There won't be as many men as usual," Dr. Friberg told us as we were driving out to the Maasa choir rehearsal, "because the men are traveling, finding pastures and water for the herds in this dry time." They were on the move, leaving the thorny protection of their bomas, going forth, and hoping to return home safely when their journey was done. Later that weekend, we walked to worship at a different small church in the bush, and on the way back to our camp, we walked in the company of many Maasai children, who accompanied us on our journey as we all headed back to the safety of our homes.

In many and various ways, this is indeed the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Peace,
Melissa

Copied from my journal: Home visits with Mama Sara

I wrote pages and pages in my journal while we were in Tanzania, which was time consuming, a little tedious....and now, two months later, unspeakably valuable to me as I try to hold onto as many details and memories as I can of our trip. This blog post is an excerpt from my journal reflecting on Monday, June 28, which was our first workday with the Fribergs after our first night at the hostel in Mto wa Mbu.
---
28 June 2011
It is hard to think about where to begin telling today's story. My heart is full to overflowing, and it's hard to find the right words.

The easy things: I slept better in my tent [here in Mto wa Mbu] than I did in any of the hotel beds [during our first three nights]. Quite peaceful, save the avocados falling from trees that sounded far more like baboons falling out of trees! So loud!

We began the day with devotions with the clinic staff. We met some of Dr. Steve's nurses and other staff. I loved watching him really in his element. We all shared hymnals and did our best to join in singing...our Swahili is more than a little, well, underdeveloped.

Mama Sara and Bethany Friberg

For the morning, I was part of one group that went into the village to do home visits to AIDS patients. We went with Mama Sara (Maya Lomayani) who is this amazing woman - schoolteacher and pastor's wife, a beautiful, happy, graceful woman with a huge heart. We wandered with her toward town, learning some Swahili vocabulary, watching the baboons along the side of the road, fending off vendors, crossing the aqueduct along the side of the road via a narrow, rickety bridge, and trying our best to keep from stepping on sleeping dogs and the chickens that were constantly underfoot.

Our first visit was to a young woman named Rukia, who lived with her mother, Zubeta, in a small, two-room mud house. Zubeta greeted us and ushered us in, pushing us back into the bedroom, saying, "Sit on my bed," and finding an array of stools and seats so that we could all sit and visit together. Mama Sara told us about just how sick Rukia had been, and how thin she had been before she finally was tested for AIDS. She told us how improved she was now that she was on medication. So surreal: here I am, sitting on a bed, squashed into a tiny, dark, dusty bedroom, sitting between Matt and lovely Rukia, being cared for by two women who have next to nothing, who were quiet but absolutely pleased and grateful for our presence. There was a surprising lack of cultural divide.

Visiting Rukia (red bandana) and Zubeta (purple headcovering)

Our group outside of Rukia and Zubeta's house

Our next visit was to Agnes, a 20 year old woman, HIV-positive, with twin 2-year olds: Hamisi, who has both HIV and heart problems, and Hassani, who is healthy. They lived in a tiny hut, built by her neighbors and on their land (at Mama Sara's urging) after her husband had died. This was a quiet visit for us. Agnes was heppy we wer there, certainly, and happy just to watch us as we stuck stickers all over Hassani, as he sat in Sara's lap and played with her necklace. He was also fascinated by Mike's watch and Matt's ring.

Agnes and Hamisi

Mama Sara and Hassani

From there, we walked to our last stop, all the while trying to have Sara help us bolster our Swahili vocabulary. She was very good and patient with us! She also, throughout our walking, encouraged us in our looking and question-asking.

Walking with Mama Sara

Our last stop was to a woman named Mariam, who lived with her son, Abdallah, and her father. Abdallah is nine, in second grade, adorable and polite, and was proud to show Jan all of his schoolwork and the high marks he was receiving in school. Mariam is HIV positive, but Abdallah is not. She was the most talkative of all the people we visited. She told us of how she was diagnosed with HIV after Abdallah was born, and how she moved back here with her family when she learned the news. Her father himself is quite sick - typhoid or malaria, probably. We went in to visit him, and in a horrible and awkward moment, we accidentally broke his already-rickety bedframe. We quickly took up a collection among our little group to pay for the repairs. He barely noticed, he was so frail. He hasn't been eating, and refused to speak, and it was heart-wrenching to leave him.

Leaving Mariam's house - Abdallah is the kid in the white shirt, clinging to Mama Sara

Truly Sara does amazing work - part nurse, part community organizer, part pastoral care. An amazing woman.

She took the other half of our group on visits after lunch, and then joined us for dinner. She thanked us deeply for coming, and for the work that we are doing. As is the custom, we offered our own words of thanks back to her before giving her some serious hugs she left.

The afternoon group - hopefully they will post some of their own stories soon!

---
I wonder if I will ever see Mama Sara again. Since our trip, she has emailed our group, updating us on some of the people we visited and asking for our continued support. Hopefully we can find meaningful ways to continue to partner with her, even from the other side of the world!

Peace,
Melissa

Make a joyful noise

If you asked any member of our traveling group to share some highlights from our trip, every single one of us would include one particular event in our various short lists: our mid-week visit to a Maasai church to watch their choir rehearse.

We drove from the clinic, which was at the edge Mto wa Mbu, a poor but busy and thriving town, out into the dusty bush. We left the paved highway for a gravel road out into the dry wilderness, and then left that gravel road for a road of pure dust. We passed giant termite mounds, some dry bushes, the occasional dry acacia tree, and Maasai bomas, which are circular homesteads fenced in with thorny branches, containing 8 or 10 circular mud huts. And then, out in the middle of nowhere, with dust at our tires and mountains in the distance, a small church building came into view.

The Maasai are a large tribe who live in Tanzania and Kenya, and who are, historically, herdsmen and nomads. They wear red and blue garments (plaid is the most traditional fabric), wear lots of beaded jewelry, shave their heads, and walk around in sandals made from motorcycle tires. The men carry spears and machetes, and even the youngest boys have herds of goats and cattle to manage.

Maasai Christianity is a fairly new venture - in the last decade or so. Christianity has had an enormous impact on Maasai communities that have chosen to adopt it. In traditional Maasai culture, women are viewed as property and often beaten, polygamy is the norm, young women are married off to men an entire generation older than them. Christianity, however, teaches that everyone - men, women, children, slaves - are all equal in God's eyes. Christianity has offered women the opportunity to have a voice and has helped women gain respect and dignity. Moreover, the Maasai, herdsmen and nomads, feel a special kinship with the Bible, believing that the book must have been written just for them, with all of its references to Jesus as a shepherd and with all of the stories of the wandering Israelites.

As we all sat on one side of the church, watching the choir rehearse, I think that we all felt transported to somewhere entirely new in time and space. The music was ancient, their voices primal. Watching them, wearing the same garb as Maasai men and women have worn for generations, we felt like we were someplace far off in the past. Except that there was an exuberance and a freshness to their faith that made us feel so very much in God's here and now. It was a mix of very old and very new; very primal and very alive; very poor and yet so very rich.

There are so many words that could yet be said about this evening - maybe others from the group will share their thoughts - but I think that I have said plenty, and I need to shut up and let you watch and listen to some of what we experienced!



Peace,
Melissa