That was one of the last free weekends before Thanksgiving and Finals, this semester sure has flown by. If you haven’t come by the Foundation before, it’s not too late, you’re always welcome.

Restless Hearts devotional study will be continuing this week on Monday at 6:30.

This Thursday is our annual Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner. We’ll be having a huge feast instead of forum. I’ll be making two turkeys so there will be plenty for everyone, bring friends, and a dish if you can. Other than the turkey we do the dinner pot luck style so we get a variety of tasty dishes. If you can, please e-mail Becca (rjw5x) with a dish you can prepare. If you need help getting to the grocery store, Becca can help you arrange something, and if you need a kitchen, feel free to use the Foundation. This is one of my favorite Thursdays, I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

On Friday, Prayer Parters are meeting at the Foundation at 6 for dinner and to meet your partner. If you haven’t signed up yet and want to, there’s still time, just let Melissa (mlh9j) know. At 7 we’ll be having a game room/movie night with the projector, so stop by even if you’re not participating in Prayer Partners.

Here’s what we’ve got going on this week:

Monday

6:30pm Restless Hearts devotional study in Foundation living room

Tuesday

12:30pm Lunch at the Pav - an informal, social lunch in the back room of the Pavilion in Newcomb. Bring your PlusDollars or bag lunch. Look for the tables pushed together.

8pm Faces of Faith first-year small group. Meet at the Foundation.

Wednesday

5pm Yoga class in Foundation living room. Mats are provided or you can bring your own if you have one. Wear loose fitting clothes.

Thursday

6pm 2nd Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner! Bring a dish! Bring a friend! Bring your appetite!

Friday

1:30pm Prayer group in the Foundation chapel

6pm Prayer Partners dinner

7pm Game room/movie night

Sunday

11am Worship at Wesley Memorial UMC

6pm Informal Sunday Night Worship at the Foundation

Feel free to contact me with any questions or issues.

- David Lessard (dal5r)

Wesley Foundation President

We are pleased to announce that Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), will be our Jim McDonald Lecturer this year. Jim Winkler has re-energized the work of the board around a three-part vision: to help United Methodists link mercy and justice; to connect the work of the board with local churches and annual conferences around the globe; and to be the premier denominational advocacy agency on Capitol Hill.

The Jim McDonald Lecture honors our former director’s ministry and his passion for ecumenism and for the intersection of church and academy. Thanks to Wesley Memorial for partnering with us to bring Jim Winkler to Charlottesville. The year’s Lecture marks our 8^th and is on Sunday, November 16, 2008, with three opportunities to participate:

• Jim will be the preacher at the 11am Sunday morning service at Wesley Memorial UMC (www.wesleymem.org).
• After church, we will move next door to the Wesley Foundation for a chili lunch and workshop from 12:30-2pm. Jim Winkler’s talk is entitled “The Election’s Over: What About the War in Iraq?” Following Jim’s presentation there will be time for questions and discussion as we enjoy lunch together.
• Sunday night at 6pm Jim will close the day as preacher during our Sunday Night Worship at the Wesley Foundation. Join us for a service of Word and Table.

Please make room in your schedule to attend one or all of the events during the Lecture and spend some time with Jim Winkler while he is here. Feel free to make announcements and invitations at your church and with friends and others who may be interested.

All events are free and open to the public. We do ask that you register for the lunch so that we can provide enough food for everyone. (Please register by noon on November 14^th.) Directions and parking information are listed on our website and on the church’s website.

For more information contact Wesley Foundation Director, Rev. Deborah Lewis (deborah AT wesleyuva.org). Contact our office manager, Sharon Bolmey, to register for the lunch (434-977-6500 or sharon AT wesleyuva.org).

It was great seeing some old friends and catching up at the alumni gathering this week.  

Of note this week is our Spring Break Mission Trip Interest Meeting.  It will be held after Forum at 8pm in the living room.  If you’re interested but can’t make it, e-mail Lauren (ltg6s).  I’m really excited for our trip this year, we’re going to be working on repairing houses in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (www.umrc.org).  We have the cheapest (and best) spring break trip of any group on Grounds every year, and while it may seem early to think about spring break, it’s time to start thinking about fund raising.

Here’s what we’ve got going on this week:

Sunday

6pm                  Informal Sunday Night Worship at the Foundation

Monday

6:30pm             Restless Hearts devotional study led by Deborah

7:30pm             Meet for Flag Football.  Wear pocketless pants.  Game is at 8 at the fields.

Tuesday

12:30pm            Lunch at the Pav - an informal, social lunch in the back room of the Pavilion in Newcomb.  Bring your PlusDollars or bag lunch.  Look for the tables pushed together.

8pm                  Faces of Faith first-year small group.  Meet at the Foundation.  

Wednesday

5pm                  Yoga class in Foundation living room.  Mats are provided or you can bring your own if you have one.  Wear loose fitting clothes.

Thursday

6pm                  Free Thursday Night Dinner in the dining room

7pm                  Forum - Helping a Friend with Lenny Carter from CAPS (Counseling And Psychological Services)

8pm                  Spring Break Interest Meeting

Feel free to contact me with any questions or issues. 

- David Lessard (dal5r)

  Wesley Foundation President

Revelation 7: 9-17

It’s popular to say “I’m no saint” when we’re about to choose something we think we ought not to or when we don’t want to hear what anyone else has to say about what we’re doing. “I’m no saint” effectively means, “Don’t look to me for answers. I don’t have it all together and I didn’t sign up to be anyone’s role model. I’m not here to be perfect.” Well, John Wesley’s ideas on “moving on to perfection” aside, being a saint isn’t about perfection. It’s not about spotless living or what the Roman Catholic Church has to say about you after you’ve died.

All Saints Day is a celebration of all Christians in every time and place, and uses “saint” in the New Testament sense, to refer to all Christians. It’s a celebration of the solidarity of the living and the dead, understanding that there are already times – like our Supper at this table – when our voices and spirits join the closer harmonies of heaven. The blessing of this annual Feast Day of All Saints is that it gives us a yearly moment to pause and remember and give thanks and draw inspiration from all the saints who have traveled with us this far.

It’s a blessing too broad to measure, the gift of saints.

My life has been full of saints. Tonight I want to remember just one of them to you. Later on in our worship we’ll light candles in memory or honor of the saints in our lives and I hope you will share with us how you have been blessed by the saints in your life.

My dad’s dad, Granddaddy Lewis, never told us when he dropped out of school. He was one of 10 children from a farm family and at some point before high school he dropped out to farm and help the family full time. Granddaddy was a smart man but ashamed enough of his level of education that he wouldn’t tell us how far he went. My granddad was the one who taught me how to lick an ice cream cone so that it didn’t melt and drip all over my hand before I got to enjoy it. He was the one who took me and my brother on a grand tour of all the monuments and sights in Washington, D.C. one spring break in elementary school, joking in line at the Washington Monument that maybe I’d better not take a picture of the White House from there because in my photo I might get Jimmy Carter looking out from one of the windows. He was the one who used to let me, my brother, and our cousins practice driving his pick-up truck on an old dirt road in the country – when we were barely teenagers.

One of my favorite stories he used to tell is from his own childhood. His grandfather (David Graves George) was the man who wrote the folk ballad “The Wreck of the Old 97.” This grandfather worked on the trains and once got caught between two trains, damaging his hip and forcing him to walk with a pronounced limp, one leg shorter than the other and with a thick-soled shoe on that foot. Well, my grandfather had a definite mischievous side and one day at his grandparents’ house he decided to take all the shoe tacks from his grandfather’s cobbler’s bench and nail them into the bench itself. Whenever I asked my granddad about this and how old he was when it happened he would say, “Old enough to know better.” As the story goes, when his grandfather saw what he’d done to the cobbler’s bench he started to chase after him, running with his pronounced limp. There they were, my sprightly young, mischievous granddad running away from sure punishment at the hands of his angry, limping grandfather. They were running in circles around the house and his grandmother was watching this with worry. As they came around again, my granddad beginning to edge further away from his struggling grandfather, his grandmother encouraged him to take another lap or two to gain a greater lead. Then she had him run inside where she had time to hide him under the clothes in the clothes hamper before his grandfather could see and long enough for his grandfather to cool down before meting out the punishment.

When Granddaddy told us stories like this one, his eyes would twinkle with delight and mischief, even when he was quite old and could no longer see. This twinkle and his charm won him friends among the nurses and orderlies in the hospital unit where he lived during the last few months of his life. His body was giving up on him but he received every visitor to his room as a gift and an occasion for hospitality and conversation.

When I moved to Atlanta for seminary, my granddad – a lifelong Red Sox fan – abruptly changed his allegiance to the Atlanta Braves. He had some misgivings about me moving so far away and to such a big city and it was his way of connecting with where I was and supporting what I was doing. A few years later when I had my baseball conversion experience and became a Braves fan myself, Granddaddy and I would watch games together and talk about the players. But for a long time I had no idea that he’d chosen that team for me, that when we was cheering for the Braves he was also cheering me on.

There is so much I could say about him and how his life – his Christian sainthood – blessed my own life. But one of the most striking is something my dad told me after my grandfather had died. My granddad often worked on big construction projects, especially on building dams. At one point, when my own father was only about nine years old, my grandfather had the opportunity to take a well-paying job on a dam in California. He didn’t take the job. His reasoning is what catches my attention in such a striking way. In discussing it with my grandmother he said, “If we go out there then our children will grow up out there. And that will be their home and some day when we come back here they’ll be grown and have families and they’ll stay out there, and we won’t get to see our children and our grandchildren.”

I was struck by how connected he was to a family that did not even entirely exist yet. I was struck by how thorough and thoughtful his considerations of moving were and by how much his deepest values informed his decision. As the story was told to me, he didn’t talk about God or wonder how Christ would have made the decision. But in a most Christian way, he understood who he was, what his life meant, and where his deepest calling lay. As a living saint who understood at a profound level his connection and relationships to other people – present and future – he made a simple decision that, among many other things, brought me to this place with you today.

This is what a saint looks like. I have known others and I have a hunch that you have seen a few in your own life. They may have already passed on or they may be present here and now in this room. They may be older and wiser or a brand new person in your life. God works through us all, in ways we recognize and in many ways we don’t see until we’ve gained another perspective further along the journey.

Sometimes we need a vision to see more clearly what is all around us.

Revelation offers us such a glimpse. “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heart; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7: 14, 16-17).

It’s a promise of what is to come beyond this life and it’s already begun to take shape here and now in the community of saints. God’s reign has already begun and it is yet to come in its fullness. It’s here in this Body of Christ that we practice it, that we help God bring it about, that we demonstrate in the midst of an imperfect world the sanctifying perfection of life in God.

You may be “no saint” but watch who you say that to around here. Look around at these gifts from God. Look around and give thanks for these fellow pilgrims. Remember who has shown you the way and who has received what you had to give. Remember the ones, like our friend Don Hemmer, who have died this year.

Sometimes blinking through tears of sorrow and sometimes tears of joy, we gather around this table to the feast Christ prepares for us. We gather in a circle, and in circle beyond circle all the saints gather with us, pressing in shoulder to shoulder in that great cloud of witnesses. And as we feast God wipes away every tear and welcomes us home.

Thanks be to God!

© 2008 Deborah E. Lewis

]]> http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/28/sunday-night-worship-2-november-2008-all-saints-sunday/feed/ http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/this-week-at-wesley-9/ http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/this-week-at-wesley-9/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:03:33 +0000 director Wesley News http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/this-week-at-wesley-9/ Hi Everyone,

Family Weekend Dinner went great last Saturday. It was wonderful meeting some of your parents and having dinner with them.  We have a fun week full of activities coming up, if you haven’t come by a Wesley event, now is a great time, all are welcome.

Flag Football IM continues this week.  Meet at the Foundation at 7:30 on Monday and wear pants/shorts without pockets.

Round 3 of our Comparative Religion 101 Forum series commences with Professor Sachedina discussing Islam 101.  He is one of the most inspiring and well-spoken professors I’ve had the good fortune of meeting while at UVA.  This Forum should prove very enlightening and I highly recommend you make an effort to make it.  Thursday at 7 after dinner.

On Halloween we’re going to host a Murder Mystery Party at 6pm (dinner included).  Contact Becca (rjw5x@virginia.edu) for more info or to RSVP.

Here’s what we’ve got going on this week:

Sunday

6pm                  Informal Sunday Night Worship at the Foundation

Monday

6:30pm             Restless Hearts devotional study led by Deborah

7:30pm             Meet for Flag Football.  Wear pocketless pants.  Game is at 8 at the fields.

Tuesday

12:30pm            Lunch at the Pav - an informal, social lunch in the back room of the Pavilion in Newcomb.  Bring your PlusDollars or bag lunch.  Look for the tables pushed together.

8pm                  Faces of Faith first-year small group.  Meet at the Foundation.  

Wednesday

5pm                  Yoga class in Foundation living room.  Mats are provided or you can bring your own if you have one.  Wear loose fitting clothes.

Thursday

6pm                  Free Thursday Night Dinner in the dining room

7pm                  Forum - Islam 101 with Professor Sachedina 

Friday

6pm                  Halloween Murder Mystery Party

Saturday

10-11:30am       Homecoming Open House at the Foundation – Come by before the game to meet some of our alumni and enjoy a few snack!

Feel free to contact me with any questions or issues. 

I hope to see you some time this week.  Happy Halloween!

- David Lessard (dal5r)

  Wesley Foundation President

]]> http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/this-week-at-wesley-9/feed/ http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/sunday-morning-worship-26-october-2008/ http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/sunday-morning-worship-26-october-2008/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:56:15 +0000 director Wesley News http://wesleyuva.org/2008/10/27/sunday-morning-worship-26-october-2008/ In God’s Time

Psalm 90

We’re coming close to the end of the Christian year now, when the current year goes out in a brilliant blaze with Reign of Christ (or Christ the King) Sunday and the new year begins in darkness with a lone Advent candle to light our way.

It seems as good a time as any for Psalm 90…God, you have been our dwelling place for generations…A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday… a dream… While we struggle all our days and then our years come to an end with a sigh…Help us to count these painful blessed days, to develop wise hearts…Give us what we need in the morning, give us as many glad days as hard days, Give us vision to see your work and bless our work that we may strive for the same thing.

A sweep of a poem and a prayer, asking God for help in the struggle that occupies our days and asking for some sense to it all before we are extinguished like a sigh. It’s a great psalm for this time of year.

But what an odd thing our lectionary does, offering only verses 1-6 and skipping to the end for verses 13-17. We read the whole psalm this morning but the lectionary reading left out the middle verses, 7-12. Lectionary readings often carve away sections of text or verses of a psalm and I am not always sure what the reasoning is behind the selective readings, but sometimes the hardest, grittiest, most heartfelt and sincere parts get clipped out. Psalms are notorious and glorious in their insistence on bringing all of life before God. Nothing hidden, nothing held back. The soul laid bare before God, warts and all.

So how odd that our lectionary cuts out all the “good parts” from Psalm 90. I tend to think that any time we pull out a favorite line of scripture with complete disregard for its context, we are missing the point, or at least part of the point. Reading only the first few verses and then the last few makes Psalm 90 may make it more “palatable.” Read that way the psalm basically proclaims that God is eternal, powerful, has been with us a long time, and then makes a plea for God to make our work prosper. Palatable but problematic.

Where is the longing for sense in the midst of senselessness? Where is the railing against death? Where is the grappling with the pain of life and the meanness of some of our days? Where is the recognition of how short and tiny our lives are and how desperately we want them to mean something beyond our short life spans? Where is the contrite heart asking God to teach it wisdom?

Maybe not so palatable after all.

Psalm 90 is often used in funerals and memorials and it is fitting that we come across it in our readings this Sunday before All Saints Day and this week in our congregational life as we mourn and give thanks for the life of John Hilker. Praying Psalm 90 at a death makes more sense than the chopped up lectionary reading. What an appropriate time to pause and ask how it is that things happen as they do. What a fitting place to wonder about the fleetingness of our lives and to give thanks that this life is not the whole story.

But I think we also miss part of the point if we hold Psalm 90 in reserve and bring it out only for funerals.

Two of the most interesting and strangely humorous verses are some that were left out of the lectionary today. Verses 9 and 10 read: “For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” A rough paraphrase might be: This is hard and full of grief – and we only get to live it for 80 years. Please give us more!

Why would we want to flatten this plea? Why would we want a thinner prayer? There is a fullness to this psalm as it struggles with and resists life’s trials, as it questions God for answers to what seems senseless, and as it shifts perspective towards the end.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm in the Psalter attributed to Moses. While it’s unlikely that Moses wrote it, there are good reasons to hear it as “an imagined prayer of Moses” (The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Vol. IV, p. 1041). Right before it, Psalm 89 closes with aching questions: “How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?…Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol?” (Psalm 89: 47, 48, 49). Psalm 90 is the first psalm of Book IV of the Psalter, following Book III’s long lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, including Psalm 89’s “announcement of God’s rejection of the covenant with David” (NIB Commentary, p.1040). Psalm 90 comes right after this, claiming Mosaic authorship.

What would it mean in that context – or in ours – to harken back to Moses’ time? Moses’ story all takes place when God’s people had no land or Temple, a time not so dissimilar from the exile at the end of Psalm 89. Moses and the Israelites had to rely on God for everything while wandering 40 years in the desert, eating manna and drinking water gushing improbably from dry rocks.

One of the most striking parts of Moses’ story is that he never reaches the promised land. After all those years, all that struggle with the wayward people, all that faithfulness, and all those trips up the mountain to have a conversation with God, Moses dies in the wilderness. God takes him up Mount Pisgah for a good look around, letting Moses drink in the view across the Jordan, but that’s all he gets.

We are told that it’s because God was “angry” with Moses. The word “angry” in that part of the story is from the same Hebrew root as “wrath” in verses 9 and 11 of today’s psalm: “For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh…Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.”

We might begin to see how Moses stands in for Israel’s experience and, more broadly, for human experience. One commentary puts it this way, “We always come up short, in terms of time, intentions, and accomplishments. What initially seems like a depressing message, however, is actually an encouraging one. If the great Moses came up short, then perhaps it is not such a disaster that we do too. Moses’ death was a reminder that God, not Moses, would lead the people into the land. Our time, therefore, is not all there is to measure. God’s time is primary…our time must be measured finally in terms of God’s time” (NIB Commentary, p. 1041).

Time is an odd constant, isn’t it? It’s family weekend here at UVA, a good reminder of how quickly times passes. For those of you visiting your student, you may have experienced some pinching-yourself moments since your son or daughter went off to school. That little baby who used to fit into the crook of your arm is in college but it seems like those crook-of-the-arm days were just last year. Students, you may feel time speeding up with each year you’re here, until suddenly you’re a fourth year looking for a job. Transitions remind us of how transitory our lives really are… going to or graduating from college, the death of someone beloved, the birth of a child, the beginning or ending of an important relationship…transitions remind us that, like Moses, we are not really in charge of this story and that God does not measure time like we do.

Some times, some days, some transitions are easier to live through. Even joyful. But even then we sometimes struggle: Why can’t this day last? Why does this time feel so short while the hard times feel so long?

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days…(v.14).

Remember how Moses and the Israelites ate in the wilderness? God sent just enough manna for that day, each and every day. Except for the day before the Sabbath, they were to gather only what they needed that day, not to stock up for later. God would give them what was needed for another day another day.

That’s the discipline of a lifetime. Being present to the day at hand and thankful for what is given. Living day by day, expecting God each day and giving thanks for the gifts of that day. Cultivating this sort of daily thankfulness and trust is the practice of our lives. As the psalmist says, “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (v. 12).

However many days I have, whatever they may contain, and wherever you take me, God, thank you for the days and for the gift of your presence. Thank you for all that you have done before me and for what will come when my story is over. Thank you for what you do with me and without me.

Psalm 90 is a potent combination of fear, desire, need, grief, love, faith, and hope. We don’t get anywhere by cutting out the fear and grief. We don’t get more love or faith or hope, a fuller life, or closer to God. We get somewhere in our spiritual practice, in our love of God, in making sense of life, and in trusting God’s promises when we practice being thankful. When we commit ourselves to the practice it becomes our primary orientation in life – being thankful for the gift of life and the many gifts it contains.

The poet Jane Kenyon died young and struggled for a long while with leukemia before her body finally gave up. She and her husband the poet Donald Hall both wrote prolifically about the journey. One of my favorite of her poems is called “Otherwise” (Otherwise, Jane Kenyon, p. 214).

It sounds like someone who has read Psalm 90. It sounds like someone who knows that dying is not as bad a death as being estranged from God and missing the point. It sounds like someone who lives day by day…..

“Otherwise”

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

As Psalm 90 follows 89, Kenyon’s poem “Notes from the Other Side” (p. 215) follows “Otherwise” and it is the final poem of the collection. She imagines what it is to be freed from our limited grasp on time. She imagines where her life ends and where God’s promise will take her:

“Notes from the Other Side”

I divested myself of despair

and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching

one’s own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,

no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition

does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first

clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.

Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves

to be mercy clothed in light.

Thanks be to God!

© 2008 Deborah E. Lewis

The Open House is a time to see each other, meet students, board members, and re-connect with alumni. Snacks and drinks will be provided and you’ll have time to take a tour through the building.

Parking and traffic are real challenges on football Saturdays, and there’s no great way around this. Frankly, the best way to overcome this is to come early, and get in one of the UVa parking garages. (The church parking lot is not an option as they sell those spots to tailgaters, and police block off side streets like Lewis Mtn. Rd. and Thomson Rd. to all but residents.) Anyway… it’s more time-consuming than usual to get there, but obviously it can be done. Carpooling would be a good idea as well.

Dan Moriarty (DMoriarty AT explorelearning.com)

Chair, Alumni Relations Committee

On Saturday we are hosting our family dinner at 6pm in the dining room at the Wesley Foundation.  The cost is $15 per person and this is a fundraiser for our spring break mission trip to the United Methodist Relief Center in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

We also need volunteers to prepare and serve the meal.  It’s a great time cooking and serving and hanging out – contact Helen Ross to volunteer (hrr2v).

Sunday after the 11am worship service at Wesley Memorial the church is hosting a lunch for students.  Come with or without your family and enjoy the home cooked meal provided by the congregation.

Come introduce your family to our Wesley family or just spend some time with us this weekend yourself!

Go Hoos!  That was a nail-biter football game last Saturday, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.  We have a fun week full of activities coming up, if you haven’t come by a Wesley event, now is a great time, all are welcome.

Flag Football IM starts this week.  Meet at the Foundation at 7:30 on Monday and wear pants/shorts without pockets.

Round 2 of our Comparative Religion 101 Forum series commences with Deborah talking about United Methodism really is and how it differs from other denominations. Thursday at 7 after dinner.

Restless Hearts devotional study has changed times to 6:30 on Monday to accommodate Flag Football.

Family Weekend Dinner is this…weekend.  Saturday at 6:00pm in the Dining Room.  Bring your parents or come help serve!  It’s a fundraiser for the Spring Break mission trip. Let Helen know if you want to come eat or help out (hrr2v@virginia.edu).

Here’s what we’ve got going on this week:

Sunday
6pm Informal Sunday Night Worship at the Foundation

Monday
6:30pm Restless Hearts devotional study led by Deborah
7:30pm Meet for Flag Football.  Wear pocketless pants.  Game is at 8 at the fields.

Tuesday
12:30pm Lunch at the Pav - an informal, social lunch in the back room of the Pavilion in Newcomb.  Bring your PlusDollars or bag lunch.  Look for the tables pushed together.
8pm Faces of Faith first-year small group.  Meet at the Foundation.

Wednesday
5pm Yoga class in Foundation living room.  Mats are provided or you can bring your own if you have one.  Wear loose fitting clothes.

Thursday
6pm Free Thursday Night Dinner in the dining room
7pm Forum - United Methodism 101 with Deboarh

Saturday
6pm Family Weekend Dinner.  Come show your folks the Foundation!

Feel free to contact me with any questions or issues.

I hope to see you some time this week.  16-13, woohoo!

- David Lessard (dal5r)
Wesley Foundation President

Matthew 22: 15-22

Jesus would have been a horrible presidential candidate.  Don’t get me wrong:  I love him – and I hope you do, too.  He has a great platform.  How can you top the kingdom of God?  But he would have been a horrible candidate.

Today’s candidates seem to cultivate the skill of staying “on message.”  Sarah Palin famously announced, one or two questions into her debate with Joe Biden this fall, that she wasn’t too concerned about answering the questions the moderator asked because she had certain things she wanted to say.  If you watched the final presidential debate last Wednesday (or any of the others) you saw both McCain and Obama practicing less obvious forms of the Palin pronouncement.

It seems that no matter the question, the topic, the mood in the room, or the spiraling, out-of-control state of the economy, today’s candidates have a script and they are sticking to it.  It gets so tedious and ridiculous that I fantasize that if Jesus himself walked in at the middle of the debate and said, “I have something you haven’t thought of and it could solve the health care issue,” both candidates would say – talking over top of each other – “That’s a nice idea, Jesus, but have you heard about my plan?”  I could go off on the whole debate scenario here, about how there is really nothing debate-like about the debates and how they are not much more than nationally-televised 90-minute soap-boxes.  The only part that resembles a debate is that they take turns talking – when they aren’t taking turns interrupting one another.

But I’ll refrain from (further) ranting.

I’m afraid that most political dialogue in our country resembles the debates.  Whether it’s a conversation, an article, a panel discussion, or chatting at a bus stop, we tend to go into political conversations ready to talk and refusing to listen.  And what is there to listen to anyway, if the other person is poised as we are to do all the talking?

If the topic of abortion comes up and two people on opposite sides of the issue want to talk about it, there is not usually much to talk about.  At the most basic level, the one who’s pro-life is not ready to accept that there may be more than one way to practice being pro-life or that the period between conception and birth could be categorized as anything other than life.  At the most basic level, the one who’s pro-choice is not ready to accept the same definition or starting point for life or that anything or anyone else could trump a woman’s choices about her pregnancy.

I said, “at the most basic level” but that is not even true.  At the most basic level there are not only two, opposite sides.  At the most basic level, there are questions about authority and care for children and health and the ethics of decision-making, and how we receive and respond to the many gifts of life.  At the most basic level, we are humans trying to make good choices about tough, complex, real-life scenarios.  So why do we settle for the paucity of vision and integrity involved in a “two sides” issue?  Why do we pitch our tents with the pro-choicers or the pro-lifers and never look back?  What about “option C” (Jan Richardson, http://paintedprayerbook.com/)?

Jesus loved option C.  It’s why he would have made a horrible presidential candidate.  The Pharisees ask him about paying taxes to the emperor (Mt. 22: 17).  Is it lawful?  It’s a simple “yes” or “no” question.  A or B.  Lawful or not.

But Jesus refuses the initial premise of the question.  He reframes it and goes for option C.  He says, It’s not about paying taxes or not, it’s about knowing where your allegiances lie.

He asks his questioners whose image is on the coin used to pay the tax and they respond that it’s an image of the emperor.  What Matthew (and Mark and Luke) record him saying is, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s” (vv. 19-21).

When you are looking for A or B, yes or no, and you get C, it can be maddening, humiliating, thwarting, frustrating….or it can be enlightening and life-giving.  It can be life-transforming.  What would option C look like on the issue of abortion or health care or the war in Iraq and Afghanistan or the economy?  What would it look like in your own life?

Ernie and Joey got me to squirm last week when we played “stand for what you believe” during forum.  They posed tough choices like “Is war ever okay or never okay?” and then asked us to stand on one side of the room or the other.  A or B.  Nothing in the middle.  I tried hard to comply – really!  But there were about 3 questions when I just absolutely could not take one side or the other.  I could not agree with enough of one position or the other to stand solidly on that side.  Or I could not agree with the initial premise of the question enough to agree that the two sides presented were adequate or mutually exclusive.

That made it hard to play the game.  But – without elevating my poor gamesmanship to the level of good discipleship – isn’t that what Jesus does when they ask him about the taxes?  It is a question meant to entrap him:  either you choose the emperor and deny God or you choose God and incur the penalty for unlawfulness.  Jesus avoids the trap and somehow manages to answer the question while also going beyond it (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII, p. 420).  His answer enables and condones paying taxes but it also renders the question moot.  If I give to God the things that are God’s, isn’t that everything?

We trap ourselves when we settle for this being a primer on paying taxes.  Yes, the Pharisees and Herodians pose a question about taxes, but what they are really interested in is laying a trap for Jesus.  They are annoyed by now with his sneaky parables and upstart ways and they attempt to get him to say or do something for which they can rally the crowds to execute him.  For them, the question is a trap, with taxes as the bait.  Jesus sees this but he also has his own point to get across.  For Jesus, it’s not about the taxes.  It’s not even about the emperor.  It’s about God.

I had a great theological discussion with Annie this week.  If anyone is hankering for some good God-talk, she’s your woman.  I highly recommend doing some theology with her.  In the middle of our conversation she told me that, during a long and very stressful struggle to settle some decisions, she had an epiphany when she realized, “It’s not about me; it’s about God.”  What a freeing and transformative moment!

It’s not about the taxes or the emperor and it’s not even about you or me.  It’s about God!  It’s interesting to me that I most often hear only half of this answer that Jesus gives.  Maybe that’s how you’ve heard it, too.  What I usually hear is, harkening back to older translations, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”  That’s usually it.  Just half.  As Woody said we when we were discussing it this week, “‘Render unto Caesar’ is just the throw-away line.”  Exactly.  What about the “rendering unto God” part?

We aren’t so unlike the Pharisees and Herodians sometimes.  We look to the Bible for guidance and answers but sometimes what we really want is a loophole.  Sometimes we’re looking for something to bolster the status quo, something to sanction what we plan to do anyway, something that seems right but that’s really only half an answer.  Or half a life.

We settle for “give to the emperor” and leave God out of it altogether.  We want this to be a story about civic duty.  We want this to bolster either the Obama or McCain tax plan.  We don’t want this to mean more work for us, more discipleship.  We want a one-size-fits-all solution with no wiggle room or ambiguity or nuance.  Thank God we don’t always get what we want.

All those “wants” have to do with us and what would work well in our lives.  But notice that Jesus doesn’t say, When you’re faced with a tough question about civic duty and religion here’s how you sort out your own thoughts and feelings on the matter.  All he says is, Who does this belong to?

Well that makes it simpler and more complex at the same time, doesn’t it?  Who do you belong to?  Whose Body is this?  Whose are all those October-Song-singing trees outside?  Give to God the things that are God’s…It all belongs to God and that simplifies our allegiances and makes more complex how we might behave in a given situation.

We might be pro-life Democrats or anti-war Republicans.  We might redefine terms like “pro-life” and “anti-war.”  We might refuse to accept the contrived “two sides” of our current political climate.  We don’t accept that paying taxes means our highest loyalty is to the state.  We recognize that in every moment of every day we are God’s blessed children and that our whole lives and all that is in them belongs to God.

Annie’s right.  It’s not about us; it’s about God.  What a freeing and transformative realization!   Now, what are you going to do about it?

Thanks be to God!

© 2008 Deborah E. Lewis