Side Streams

We all know about the mainstream — the usual way of doing things.  But sometimes Jesus invites us to wade into the muddy waters of the side streams.  This Sunday was our High School Baccalaureate, so I wanted to encourage the young people to follow their faith into the side streams …

Side Streams

Psalm 1; Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 

I think you already know what I am going to tell you today, but I am going to tell you again, anyway (even though it doesn’t have anything particularly to do with the scripture lessons for today):

If you want to follow Jesus, stay out of the mainstream.

You know what the mainstream is: the ideas and behaviors that seem normal, regular, conventional, and parent-approved. The mainstream is about control, ambition, competition, acquisition, and complacency. If your attention to the mainstream wanders, it is drawn back by the television you watch, the radio you listen to, the texts you get on your cell phone, the video you watch on Youtube. Mainstream pushes us to think certain ways, to behave certain ways, and (especially) to want certain things.

If we are going to follow Jesus, though, we have to question the way we are pushed to think, we have to critically evaluate the way we are pushed to behave, and we have to be very wary of the things we are pushed to want.

Jesus was really never in the mainstream. From the very beginning – remember the stable, the shepherds, and the wise men? – from the very beginning, his life was different from other people’s. By the time he was twelve years old, he was debating the religious leaders in Jerusalem. He questioned them, he pushed them, he chided them for not understanding what was right in front of them.

Then when it was time to choose his companions, he chose working people, not scholars or experts. He spent a lot of time with people on the margins of respectability: tax collectors, sick people, people with disabilities, prostitutes, Samaritans and other gentiles. He taught them, healed them, ate with them, and invited them into the kingdom of God’s love and mercy.

He spent most of his life outside of the city, and as far as we know didn’t come back to Jerusalem after that twelve-year-old time until the last week of his life. Almost as soon as he got there, he got in trouble for turning over the tables of the money changers in the temple.

He spent his time in villages and on hillsides and in boats. He talked about shepherds and bread, about farming and vinegrowing, about cleaning house and building barns. I don’t think he paid much attention to the commerce of his time, or the politics.

There’s no record that he cared much about the clothes he wore, the home he lived in, the means of transportation that he used, or the particular food he ate. He seems to have come from a large family, but more than once he told people that they had to leave their families if they were going to follow him.

Time and again through the centuries, people have tried to domesticate Jesus, to make him mainstream. For hundreds of years, up to the time when I was growing up, we pretty much took him for granted, pretty much thought everyone was a follower of Jesus, except for a few Jewish people maybe. Being a church member seemed like a kind of mainstream thing to do.

But even then, people who were following Jesus weren’t afraid to step out of the mainstream. People who followed Jesus and believed slavery was wrong became leaders in the abolition movement. People who followed Jesus and believed that war was wrong became conscientious objectors; people who followed Jesus and believed that war was necessary to fight evil joined the military and fought bravely. People who followed Jesus and believed freed slaves had a right to education started schools for them. People who followed Jesus and had compassion for the sick founded hospitals and nursing schools; the ones who worried about children started orphanages and children’s homes. People who follow Jesus believe that gay and lesbian persons are children of God and work for civil rights for them, including equal marriage rights. People who follow Jesus and believe in religious freedom insist that other faiths are treated with dignity and fairness.

People who follow Jesus are not afraid to step out of the mainstream and wade into the muddy side streams where marginalized people live. People who follow Jesus are not afraid to be unpopular, out of step, idealistic, and hopeful. They are not afraid of doing what is right, and they are not ashamed of saying why they doing it.

Remember, the mainstream is about control, ambition, competition, acquisition, and complacency.

Jesus, on the other hand, is never about these things. Jesus is all about surprise, humility, reconciliation, generosity, and joy.

The truth is, we all spend a lot of time in the mainstream. What Christianity does, though, is remind us that the mainstream is not the whole story, nor even the best story. The best story is about mercy, forgiveness, healing, and new life. The best story is about peace and love, even when they are difficult – especially when they are difficult. The best story is about the ways we are invited into God’s work of compassion and justice – even if it takes us way out of the mainstream. And sometimes the best story of all is about a community, like our church, that invites you into those side streams, travels with you, and promises to pull you out of the mud if you get stuck. Just try that in the mainstream!

Prayer for May 24, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of hope, we pray this morning for worthy dreams and aspirations.

Help us, Lord of Life, to look around and see those places that are most in need of your prophetic word, of your pastoral touch, of your healing gesture. Do not let our vision be fogged by habits or prejudices, but give us clear eyes and hearts. Let our dreams be big dreams, dreams that reflect your hopes for humankind: dreams of peace, dreams of healing and reconciliation, dreams of justice, and dreams of love.

And then, God of possibilities, fire our imaginations. Let us join in your work of creation by imagining new solutions for old problems, by imagining new relationships where old ones have been breached, by imagining new music where old songs have grown dull. Do not, we pray, let us be discouraged by past follies or failures, or disappointed by occasional complications. Unfetter our ways of thinking so that we can see connections where others have seen discontinuity, and where we can see distinctiveness where others have seen uniformity.

We dare to pray, further, that you will be our companion when we take risks and our sojourner when we stray from familiar paths. Strengthen our resolve but do not let us become deaf to real feedback and concerns from others. Let us be courageous without being brash, foolish, or proud. Help us to work together with brothers and sisters who share our dreams, and do not let our spats interfere with our common goals.

Finally, Lord, we ask you to bless our dreams and make them part of your holy way. Let our words and actions testify to our faith and humility, and to your power and benevolence.

All these things we ask in the name of the one who inspires our noblest aspirations, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …