Lessons on Communication from Job

 

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html

Rev. Molly F. James, Ph.D.

DFMS Noonday Prayer

Psalm 122; Job 5:8-9, 20-27; John 16:33–17:5

Commemoration of Conrad Weiser 

July 13, 2023

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

So today we commemorate Conrad Weiser, who was a peacebuilder between Pennsylvania settlers and the Indigenous People, particularly the Mohawk and Iroquoi. He had a gift for facilitating communication across difference. So much so that when he died, an Iroquois man said, “We are at a great loss and sit in darkness ... as since his death we cannot so well understand one another.”  And relations between British colonists and the Iroquois deteriorated after his death. 

I find it amusing that our OT reading is from Job. While the passage we just read is okay on its own, as it emphasizes that we can trust in God. This passage in its wider context is much more problematic. Here’s a refresher, in case you haven’t read Job lately. God makes a bet with Satan to test Job’s faithfulness. He sends all kinds of tribulations Job’s way - he loses family members, livestock, property, and has no end of physical suffering. In the midst of it, his friends come to see him and offer pastoral support. Although, I am very glad that Job’s friends never came to visit me in the hospital. While they are correct to affirm God’s goodness and righteousness, the only way they have to explain suffering is that Job must have done something very wrong to deserve so much pain and suffering. So basically they have come to see Job to find why he screwed up and to affirm their own superiority. 

Think of how it would feel in the midst of great loss and personal suffering to have people come to see what you did to cause it?  In the midst of great suffering, I am not sure we even want to hear a lot of sermons about how righteous God is or how everything happens for a reason. We don’t need platitudes or all those unhelpful things people say. I am sure we have all had the experience in the midst of our own suffering when we find ourselves having to comfort someone who has come to see us, because it is clear that our suffering is causing them great anxiety. I lost count of the number of people who told me about their relatives who died from cancer upon learning my diagnosis. I know they were trying to make a connection, but it was really not helpful to be reminded that I had a life threatening illness. 

So I find it intriguing that on a day when we are commemorating someone whose gifts for communicating across differences supported peace in Colonial America, we read from Scripture’s most profound lesson about how not to show up when your friend is suffering. 

What are we supposed to remember and take away on this day? I think it is the importance of communication and humility. We need to honor each other’s differences and never assume we have all the answers. If someone we love is suffering, don’t try to explain it. If you are not sure what to say, just be present. Knowing we are not alone in suffering means more than all the theological treatises we could ever read. Incarnate God’s presence. Affirm the truth that we are beloved and will never be alone. 

And don’t bring them your anxiety. If you are not familiar with the idea, I commend to you the concept of the ring theory (see picture above), which I first encountered in an opinion piece in the LA Times (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html). 

Wherever you find yourself in the circle, you are only allowed to dump out. Never in. 

If only someone had drawn this diagram for Job’s friends. Fortunately, we have it, and we have countless good examples of listening and being present in Scripture, in history, and in our own lives. So we can follow in the footsteps of the women at the cross and be steadfast and present whenever someone we love needs us. God is with us always. May we live and act in ways that always point to that truth. AMEN. 

The Who and the What of our journey

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

St. John’s, West Hartford, CT

July 4, 2021

Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; Mark 6:1-13

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I love to travel. And I have been blessed that in my current role, I get to do that a fair amount of it (the last year being a notable exception of course). I love seeing new places and meeting new people. I especially love seeing the breadth and depth and diversity of the Church in so many different places. Those of us who are frequent travelers usually have a system setup that makes it easy to pick up and go. This allows us to not be unpacking and repacking all the time. It allows us to enjoy our time at home and only have to do a little laundry. The airplane safe toiletries already in the suitcase. The backpack with snacks, a water bottle, tissues, a first aid kit, travel pillow, headphones and whatever else we might want for the next flight. We have all our stuff ready to go.

So, what are we to do with texts like our Gospel this morning. Jesus “ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.” Take nothing for the journey? What? Nothing. Not even a change of clothes. No snacks. No money. This seems like a harsh instruction. I want to push back on the text. I want to argue with Jesus. I want to say how experienced a traveler I am, and I know what I need. It’s not much. I can carry it all myself, so really won’t it be okay if I just bring a few things? Please?!

I could get myself all worked up about this. Worked up into quite a state. Bound up in my own certainty, my own thinking. But then I pause. I take a deep breath. I hear the voices of wise and beloved people in my life who invite me to consider how my narrow focus and need to plan and be prepared might actually be keeping me from hearing the deeper message, the deeper invitation at the heart of today’s text. 

Ultimately I think there are two key points for us in this text. The first is just a few lines back in the Gospel. Notice something important here - Jesus sends them out two by two. He does not send them out alone. There is no emphasis on rugged individualism here. No lone rangers. No going it solo. The work God calls us to is meant to be done in a team, with a partner. And it is meant to be done in community. Notice that Jesus does not send them out to be hermits in the desert. He sends them to towns and villages. He sends them to share the good news with others, but invites them not to be too invested in the outcome. If what they have to offer is not received by the community, it is okay to shake the dust off your feet and move on to another place, another community. In other words, it is okay to “fail.” It’s okay if it doesn’t all go perfectly or right the first time or the fifteenth time. What matters is the journey and that we do not work alone. 

There. That’s it. Not alone. That’s what really matters. That is what Jesus is trying to communicate to the disciples. It’s about teamwork. It does not matter WHAT you take on the journey. It matters WHO is on the journey with you. Tunics and sandals and bags. That’s just stuff. You can find stuff anywhere. What is not easily found is a companion for the journey. 

And this brings us to the second point in Jesus’ commands to the disciples. Priorities. Jesus is telling them not to take all the stuff with them, because he wants them to understand that it is not about stuff. It is about people. It’s about connection and community and learning together. And the messiness and glorious joy of being in relationship with other human beings. It is about knowing that what is possible together is far more meaningful, impactful, and rewarding than what would ever be possible on our own. It’s about people.

And isn’t that a truth that we have had reinforced over this past year, over these months of challenge and struggle. No amount of stuff. No amount of two dimensional interactions on Zoom can match the glorious gift of a hug or the gift of simply being able to reach out and hold the hand of someone we love. Amidst all the stress and strain, amidst all of the loss of this year. Amidst all of it, I hope that we have also been given the gift of clarity. The opportunity to reassess our values and our priorities. Life is indeed fragile and uncertain. As the oft quoted words of poet Henri Frederic-Amiel say: “Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” I hope that as the world reopens and we return to so many things we have missed - like the joy of gathering together in person to worship God - we will not lose or forget the gifts we have been given. 

We will deepen our focus on those who journey with us. We will put more energy into the WHO. We will be less concerned with the WHAT or the outcome of our efforts. It is the connection that matters. It is the relationships that matter. No doubt the world needs the Good News. No doubt it needs more love. It needs more kindness. May we be swift to share those gifts as we venture forth into the future of a world reopened. May we join together in transforming ourselves, each other, and this world to more fully resemble God’s kingdom, God’s dream. A more beautiful future is possible, if we have the courage to follow Jesus’ lead and step into it together. Amen. 

Anxiety, Lilies, and staying connected

 

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

May 12, 2021

Psalm 119:97-120; Baruch 3:24-37; Luke 12:22-31

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


“And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Oh my. I struggle with this passage and this line in particular. In fact, it is enough to inspire worrying about worrying. Jesus is right. Worrying doesn’t DO anything. But it is not as simple as just deciding not to worry. It does not seem to just be a switch I can turn off.

And there is so much anxiety just floating in the air right now. What are the most recent guidelines? What can I do now that I am vaccinated? What will life be like this summer? When can we travel to see family? What is it going to be like when we go back to the office? How do we keep from being on pins and needles, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for things to shutdown again because of another surge? How do we know that we will be safe? How do we keep our loved ones safe?

Like all of you, I am no stranger to fear and anxiety. My most profound experience of them was in the months following the end of my chemotherapy treatments. Once I had finished them and was sent back to my “normal” life, I felt adrift. I did not know what normal was anymore. I was out of survival mode, and I finally had the emotional and mental space to begin to process the magnitude of what I had just been through. I began to really grapple with the reality of my own mortality. And I was scared. The recurring question was, “If cancer, this terrible thing I never thought could happen, did, what was there to protect me from all the other terrible things in the world?” I wanted someone to promise me that I would have a long, full life with no more tragedies in it.

Of course, no one could give me that promise. There are no guarantees about how long we have. Whether we are in the middle of a pandemic or not. It is just that the realities of the pandemic have brought all of us face to face with mortality more often than we might like.

So what do we do? It would be easy to get ourselves all stirred up or feel like we are in knots in the midst of everything. And no doubt there are times that we do. But we are not powerless. The anxiety does not have to be the dominant narrative in our lives.

We can remember the rest of the passage - remember the flowers and the birds. Remember all the ways God is present in the world and in our lives. God is with us. We are never alone. And we can seek out the resources that help us to be grounded and connected. While it can be tempting to withdraw and isolate ourselves when we feel anxious, connection is the key. Relationship is the key. We need each other. We need conversation. We need support and care. We need the people whose wisdom widens our perspective, who remind us of all the sources of hope that surround us. What are the lilies in our lives? Where is the beauty that takes our breath away? We need the people who help us laugh at ourselves, at life, at the world. We need the people whose presence brings a smile to our face. We need people whose very being helps us remember that no matter what happens today, we are a beloved child of God.

It is true that we cannot add hours to our life by worrying. We can add quality to our lives by taking care of ourselves. By seeking out all the resources that help us to care for our whole selves. By seeking out the relationships that restore our souls. By ensuring we have enough time with the people who make us laugh, keep us humble, and inspire us to be more faithful followers of Jesus. Amen.

Solid Foundations

Pouring the foundation of my parents' home

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

Argula von Grumbach, July 14, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

My mom is a teacher. Over the years she has taught math, writing and literature to kids. She spent all of my childhood teaching grown-ups how to build their own houses. She and my dad built the house in which I grew up. She loved that work and teaching, and the school liked having someone who was not a professional engineer or contractor on the faculty. It reinforced their point that anyone could learn to build a house. So my mom spent years teaching people how to heat and cool their houses; how to build their house appropriately for the climate in which it was situated; and how to build the proper foundation for their house. Over the years, especially in the summer months, I sat in on some or all of many of her lectures. I couldn’t help but think of all her lectures on foundations when I read today’s Gospel. 

I thought of her teaching her students how to calculate all the factors. What kind of ground is it? Is the house going to be on posts or is it going to have a full basement? Then my favorite part was the slide show. There were loads of photos of all the different kinds of foundations you could build, and lessons in how to pour concrete correctly. How to spread it. How not to get stuck in it. How to be sure it sets properly. Foundations are complicated!

And building a solid, strong foundation matters, just about more than anything. That is the lesson that I have carried with me from those lectures. Here is the thing. It does not actually matter whether you are building a tiny little shingled cottage or a mansion or a skyscraper. If you don’t get the foundation right, the building will not stand. It will not last. It does not matter whether the building will be a smart home where you can control the lights and the heat from your phone or an off the grid house that is made from salvaged materials. It does not matter whether the countertops will be granite or the bathrooms will be made of marble. What matters is the foundation.

The same is true for our own lives, particularly our spiritual lives. What is our foundation? How are we grounded? Our foundations do not all have to look the same. It depends on our context, our climate, and what we want to build.  But it is not about keeping up appearances. What matters is the substance - not the looks. 

So where are we finding substance and strength these days? What might need shoring up and bolstering in our lives? What might be mere window dressing that we can let go of because it does not actually impact what really matters?

For me, I am finding substance and strength in two important things, which I think are intertwined. They are connection and learning. In this world of remote work, it could be very easy (particularly since my personality tends this way) to become supremely task oriented. To make my day all about the “to do list.” But that could so easily lead to isolation. Strength is found in community, not in isolation. I am grateful for the ways in which more time at home allows more meals and activities with my family. I am grateful for the gift of technology that allows me to stay connected with friends and colleagues who are at a distance. And another one of the many reasons I am grateful for this chapel group is that  you all help me stay connected - to community and to God. You also help me keep learning. There is so much uncertainty in our lives right now. So much unknown. It can be easy to pull back and just focus on what we already know. Or easy to think that we have to have all the right answers. My communities, my connections remind me that I don’t need to figure it all out right now. The point is to keep learning, keep gaining wisdom and finding new perspectives. 

Having a strong foundation is not about being immovable or stagnant. It is about being grounded and connected, so that I can weather whatever changes come. We do not and we cannot know what the next weeks and months will hold for us. What we can know is that we can thrive in the midst of whatever if we have grounded ourselves in relationship with God and with those whose presence enriches and enlivens our journey. AMEN.    

Cultivating Connection

Embed from Getty Images

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Dunstan, May 19, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Be ready. At first, I read our Gospel today, and I feel exhausted. Be ready? God, I am already tired or weary or whatever the word is for the kind of tired that is not just fixed by more sleep. Now you want me to get ready? That just sounds like more work, and I don’t even know what I am preparing for . . . I just know I will be blessed if I am “working” when God shows up.

And then I pause. Then I take a deep breath. I think, does work purely for the sake of work, does valuing “being busy” above all else really match up with what I know about God? No. It doesn’t. So what other interpretation might there be?

What if the “work” into which God is inviting us is not just more tasks, more accomplishments, more tangible proof that we are “productive”? What if the “work” God is inviting us to is the work of our hearts and souls? It is indeed true that we do not know what tomorrow will look like. Sure, we could make some educated guesses. We could analyze the data we have to make some logical predictions about what the future will look like. But we cannot account for all the variables, and as we know all too well, we can often get thrown a curve ball that we did not see coming. So our preparations cannot be limited to the particulars of all the scenarios we think might be possible.

The best preparation we can do is to cultivate our gifts and our habits, so that we are ready to respond to whatever the future brings. I think there are two “habits” or practices that are particularly worth cultivating in our lives, especially in a time like this. The first is being grounded.

Being grounded means that we are connected to God. We stand firm in the truth that we belong to God. We are beloved of God, not because of what we do, what kind of material wealth we have or how famous we are - or any of the ways society measures success. We are beloved of God because we belong to God. Because God loves us. Period. Full stop. We do not earn that love. It is a gift, pure and simple.

Life is full of tempests, of changes and chances, of tumultuous times that can easily knock us off that sure footing. That can temporarily (or even permanently, if we let it) blind us to that foundational truth of who and whose we are. And so we must be in the habit of cultivating our connection with God, so that we can find it quickly in the midst of a challenge.

That probably looks a little different for each of us, and yet I am guessing that prayer and worship are a significant part of that. I would also bet there is something else that helps that connects with the second “habit” we can be cultivating - each other.

That second habit is collaboration. It is connection and community. It is NOT isolation. In our land of rugged individualism, in a society that consistently rewards individual achievement, it can be easy to think that we have to do it all on our own or that it is somehow a mark of strength or superiority to be able to go solo. But it is not. Jesus didn’t. The disciples didn’t. The women at the tomb didn’t. Paul didn’t. Again and again in Scripture we are reminded of the value of having a partner or even multiple teammates in our ministry. The story of Dunstan, who we honor today, is also a reminder that we are not meant to journey alone. He revitalized monasticism in England, and set a precedent for centuries that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a monk - someone who lived in community.

We need each other. We need companions on the way. We need the wisdom and perspective that comes with shared insights and different points of view. We need the encouragement and the gift of being able to care for each other. We need the reminder that we do not ever have to bear our burdens alone. We need the reassurance that comes through holding the faith for each other in moments of fear or doubt. We need the fullness of joy that comes only through being in relationship.

I hope as we go through this week, and the weeks ahead, we will keep making space for all those habits that renew our connection to God, that help us feel grounded and rooted. I also hope we will keep reaching out, keep seeking connection, keep looking for opportunities to collaborate, so that we never feel lonely. The future is indeed uncertain, but we CAN be prepared for anything if we ground ourselves in the truth that we are, each of us, a beloved child of God. And if we keep ourselves connected to those who make the journey a delight. Amen.