Roots and Wings
On Sunday I baptized two young people in my congregation–one was thirteen, and one was thirty. Both talked–f
rom their own developmental place–about the importance of faith and the church in their lives. The teenager talked about the church as a place where–unlike other parts of his life–he’s not bullied, but loved for who his is.” He said, “Jesus was bullied, so I think he understands how I feel, but Jesus was also surrounded by people that loved him, and that’s how church feels to me.”
The thirty year old is someone I’ve know for much of his life. He was unsure about baptism for many years–he’s the kind of person that needed to talk it through, to think it through–he needed to be absolutely sure. He described baptism as “coming home.” It’s coming to a faith that has meaning and makes sense, and coming into a community that loves and cares for each other.
After they confessed their faith, I baptized them with water from the same river that our spiritual ancestors had baptized their own for the last 300 years, and I welcomed them officially into the body of Christ (even though we all knew they’d been part of the body for some time). I prayed that the holy spirit would be present to these two young men, just as the dove descended on Jesus at his baptism.
And just as I said “Amen,” a dog appeared out of nowhere, fully immersed himself in the water beside me, emerged and shook loose his coat, baptizing me and everyone gathering around me. To me, I saw this dog not as an unexpected intruder, but as a sign of the Holy Spirit at work.
After the Holy Spirit showed up in kanine form, I had this twinge of sadness that my kids haven’t yet chosen baptism. In the Mennonite tradition, baptism is about an “adult confession of faith”, and both kids are at the age where baptism would be an option for them.
I will not be that parent–especially as a pastor–that forces their child to make a confession of faith. I counsel anxious parents to let their child make their own decisions, and trust that they will follow in the way of Jesus.
But we ultimately don’t know if our kids will do that. We don’t know that they will choose Christianity. Maybe they’ll choose nothing. Maybe they will choose a brand of Christianity that we don’t like. Or maybe they will choose another religion altogether.
Someone recently reminded me that parenting is about providing our kids with roots and wings. Our roots are the Christian faith–the stories, the example of Jesus, and the values we instill. The wings are the freedom to ask the 
questions, to be their own person, to be fully the people they were made by God to be.
I feel pretty good about the roots, but some days–like the days I baptize teenagers that aren’t my children–I feel a little sad that my kids have the freedom to choose not to be baptized, not to follow in the way of Jesus.
This is the most challenging part of parenting–the letting go part. I can’t make my kids love Jesus as much as I do. In fact, trying to make them will have negative consequences, I’m sure. But, I have to trust that they will make good choices and surround themselves with good people, seeking God’s spirit as they go.
Whether my children choose baptism at thirteen or thirty–or maybe never–I have to trust that God’s Spirit will be at work in them and on them, in whatever form the Spirit takes–a dove, a still small voice, a sigh too deep for words, or maybe a wet dog.
This piece has also been published at Practicing Families and Mennoworld blog.
Seen and Known
Seen and Known
Sermon preached at Germantown Mennonite Church,
based on John 15:1-8 and Acts 8:26-40
Our story in Acts is about a dark skinned transgendered person who read the words of the prophet Isaiah, and wanted to know more of whom the prophet wrote.
Our story in Acts is about a disciple that heard the spirit speaking to him, and ran towards this unfamiliar person.
First let’s talk about the Ethiopian eunuch:
The word “eunuch” is one of those words that means something different now than it did then. At the time of Jesus, eunuch could mean many things–it could mean someone asexual, transgendered, someone born with ambiguous genitals, or someone that was surgically castrated.
This Eunuch fit into one of these four categories. We don’t know the details but given the violence that we’ve seen this year towards transgender people in our society, I’m imagining that this eunuch from Ethiopia was transgendered–as beautiful, intelligent and bold as Laverne Cox or Janet Mock.
The eunuch was from Ethiopia, and was responsible for the treasury of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. They were brown skinned, a curiosity in Gaza, where the skin was a lighter shade–more olive than brown. GIven the news of this week, I imagine the Eunuch was from Baltimore, but found themselves in somewhat uncomfortable territory, there on the side of the road in Gaza.
Imagine this dark skinned, sexually suspect eunuch, this transgendered Baltimorian, sitting in their chariot on the side of the road, reading the words of the prophet.
You are like a sheep being led to slaughter,
you are like a lamb that is mute in front of its shearers:
like them you never open your mouth.
You have been humiliated and have no one to defend you.
Who will ever talk about your descendants,
since your life on earth has been cut short?
Imagine this child of God, longing to know more about the person for whom this prophet wrote, a longing that came from personal experiences of humiliation, of defenselessness, of threats to their body? Perhaps they were wondering if the prophet was speaking of them?
Let’s talk about Philip:
Philip was a disciple of Jesus before the resurrection, and now was a leader and apostle of the newly formed and quickly growing church in Jerusalem. The church was so new that it had very little order, few rules, and permeable boundaries. The church was wild and full of potential, and the apostles were doing all that they could to hold it together. The church was made up of all sort of people–the weirdos, the outcast, those that knew Jesus, those that could relate to Jesus, and those that needed someone like Jesus to love them and care for their most basic needs.
In Acts 6, the apostles learned that the widows were not being fed, and the community was upset. Someone needed to be chosen as the chair of the first church in Jerusalem hospitality committee–Philip was assigned this task along with Stephen. There they became the front lines of welcome. They fed, they embraced, they loved. They knew the names of every person that they served.
Steven didn’t last long in this role, though. Shortly after being assigned to hospitality, he was stoned in the streets–the first martyr for the faith.
So then there was Philip–serving as the chair of hospitality. A perfect candidate to meet the sexually suspect, dark-skinned foreigner. So when God sent Philip to the eunuch, Philip went. Just another assignment as the chair of the hospitality committee of the first church of Jerusalem.
Philip saw the eunuch, ran towards them, spoke directly to them, and was invited into the carriage. Philip, who was accustomed to extending the invitation of hospitality, received it from the eunuch.
The story of the Ethiopian eunuch is about a lot of things for me this week. It’s about the lives of transgendered folks in our country who need to be seen and known. Last week, Bruce Jenner was interviewed on national television about their transition from being a male to a female. Jenner’s story is so far from my own, that I struggle to know what make of it. It’s not my lived experience. But I know enough transgendered people in my life to know that the most important thing I can do is to see them, to love them, to embrace them as God’s beloved, and make space for their voice.
The story of the Ethiopian eunuch is about our brown skinned neighbors in Baltimore who need to be seen and known this week, after the tragic death of Freddie Gray. “Black Lives Matter” has been the phrase of the year–in Ferguson, in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, and all over this country. It has become too easy to ignore the impact of mass incarceration, failing public schools and racial profiling on people of color in our communities. It’s easy to ignore, because for most of us, these issues do not impact us personally. They are not our lived experience.
But, ignoring these systemic problems means that we don’t see each other. It means that our communities don’t see police as humans, and the police don’t see suspects they hold as humans. Our systems teach us to put people into categories of good and bad, smart and ignorant, wealthy and needy, and to judge people according to these categories. These categories keep us hidden from each other.
This is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said about riots in 1968– “…it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”
The protests in Baltimore are an attempt by people of color to be seen and known after decades of violence and intolerable conditions in thier city.
Transformation happens when we are seen and known.
Weren’t the disciples transformed when Jesus came into the upper room, breathed his spirit on them and said “peace be with you”? Wasn’t Thomas transformed when he was given permission to bring his whole self to Jesus? Weren’t the disciples transformed when they walked with Jesus on the road to Emmeas?
And are we not transformed when we bring our full selves before God, and God sees us and knows us?
Jesus saw Philip and knew him. In John 14, Philip said to Jesus, “‘Lord, show us Abba God, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen Abba God; how can you say, ‘Show us Abba God ‘? Do you not believe that I am in God and God is in Me?’”
Philip, familiar with the front lines of seeing and knowing in the First Church of Jerusalem, was flung into Gaza to be in relationship with someone so different from his own lived experience. And there they were transformed.
Jesus says in the gospel of John, “Live on in me, as I live in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself apart from the vine, neither can you bear fruit apart from me.
This Easter season, we’ve come to know the disruption that new life and resurrection brings. Resurrection asks us to put aside our efficient categories, to take off our CNN and NPR news filters, to stop letting other people be defined so narrowly. Easter season demands that we see and know each other as God’s beloved.
Friends, descendants of the First Church of Jerusalem, and members of the First Mennonite Church in this new world–how will you live the legacy of Philip and the Eunuch? How will you see and know?
I Hate Mother’s Day
I hate Mother’s day. Passionately.
When most moms I know are appreciating cards from their kids, breakfast in bed, and general doting, I usually beg my family to leave me alone for Mother’s day. After a morning of pastoral duties, I crawl into bed, put the covers over my head, and wait for the day to end.
I wish I wasn’t so damned dramatic about the whole thing.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer on my 18th birthday, and my first several years of adulthood were spent in and out of hospitals with her, learning more about cancer, adhesions, chemotherapy and radiation than any young adult should ever know. She died when I was 22–the age when I was just beginning to like my mom, as my adolescent eye-rolling and snarkiness was ebbing.
After my mom’s death, Mother’s day came to represent the unfinished business of my relationship with my own mother. I needed to do something to remember my mother and mark her end of suffering and my ongoing pain, so, I turned Mother’s day into this awful day of tribute to what never was. I walked with my sister in law (whose mother also died of cancer) and my friends at the Mother’s Day Race for the Cure in Philadelphia. I wore my mom’s name on my back “In memory of Reba”, and my friends wore her name on their backs too. We walked together, in what felt like a death march, even though we were surrounded by thousands of perky, pink wearing people all around us.
When my kids were stroller-aged, I would bring them with me to the walk. But as they got older, they wanted to do things to celebrate me, not remember their grandmother, who lived only in their memories, through stories I’d tell about her.
Two year ago, my husband came to me the week before Mother’s day, and asked the perennial question, “What can we do for you on Mother’s day?” I prepared my annual speech in return, “Just leave me alone, and let me sleep.” Before I could really finish it, he stopped me, “Amy, the kids and I want to celebrate you. We know this is a hard day for you, but can you let us celebrate what you mean to us?”
I had to say yes. But I didn’t want to. And I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Before Mother’s day that year, I talked to my friend, Jennifer, from college, who lost her mother to cancer a few years before I did. She shared my dislike for Mother’s day, but she also realized that her kids needed an opportunity to celebrate their mother. Our issues around our own mothers were not our children’s issues, and we should not impose it on them. We needed to find a way to be celebrated by our children.
Jennifer suggested that I make a Mother’s day practice of taking a selfie with each of my kids. Jennifer and I didn’t have nearly enough pictures with our mothers, and we wanted our kids to have many more pictures with us.
So, after a Mother’s day nap, my family took me to the park. We sat on a blanket in the sunshine with sandwiches from our favorite deli. We played frisbee. We watched the dogs run and play nearby. And, I made sure to take pictures with each of the kids. I took pictures for them to have later, and to share with their own children. I took pictures for me, to remember that moment when I put my anger at the unfinished business aside, to make room for celebration. And, I took the pictures for my mom, because she’d be mad if I passed my baggage onto my kids.
As Mother’s day approaches, I still hate the idea of it. It forces all my issues to the surface of my deep pool of loss. It still makes me want to hide under the covers and wait for the day to end.
But this day is not about me and my unfinished business with my mother. It’s about celebrating the love my family has for me, and receiving that for the beautiful gift that it is. So, every year, I try to open myself a little wider to the love my family has for me, and every year I try to release more of that unfinished business with my mom. It doesn’t make the day easier, but it gives the day a focus. And that’s the best I can hope for on this day that I still really, really hate.