Worship ~ May 1st

Audio Recording

Reflection – Shawn Mai

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Shawn and I’ve been a member here at West Denmark for almost three years.  I am also a called Lutheran pastor to specialized ministry.   My role in ministry is as a chaplain and chaplain educator.  My call is through the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA to Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN. 

As an educator,  I work with students from all different faith traditions…I’ve had students who are all kinds of different expression of the Christian faith, Jewish, Buddaist, Humanist, Muslim, Ba’Hai, Pagan who want to be professionally trained spiritual care givers.  The role of a professional spiritual care giver has shifted from a religious role years ago to an emotional and spiritual support for patients, families, and staff.   My context is in a hospital, so the people I see and my students see are going through some kind of health event. 

I also serve as Chair for my national professional association, ACPE.  We are a roughly 1200 member organization of psychotherapists and CPE educators.    In a week we will commence with our annual conference with the theme: Freedom, Wonder, and Liberation: Anti-Bias Practices of Spiritual Care and Education. 

As I prepared for some conference addresses and today’s worship service, I found some interesting cross sections between the conference and our scripture reading.  Let me say more:

There is a bed rock ethic that is articulated in many of the major religious traditions throughout the ages.  

In Judaism, the Torah commands, “Love your neighbor as yourself-I am God.

The Hindu wiritngs instruct, This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.” 

Muslims learn from the Quran, “Serve Allah, and join not any partners with him; and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer you meet.”

“Love your neighbor” is almost universally ascribed to. 

The poet Mary Oliver said “Love yourself, then forget it. Then love the world.”   For a person who had no declared religious identity, that sounds prophetic and lines up with the universality of love your neighbor.

Today’s biblical reading in the narrative lectionary is the Story of Saul’s conversion.    It is a story animated by “love your neighbor”, in the least it is two very different people coming together in a moment of transformation.

Saul had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus.  After the blinding light and being struck down, Saul was instructed to go into the city and wait for what was to come next. 

Annanias was instructed to go to Saul, who he knew violently persecuted followers of Jesus.   The focus of Saul’s life was to do away with the likes of Annanias.

This is two very different people coming together with an unknown outcome.

Doesn’t this sound like a story for our time.  Saul saw himself as one to purify the temple, bring integrity to the faith.  Annanias is one of these new Jesus followers who is seeing the world from a very different vantage point.

This story in Acts reminds me of our societal culture today.   We see and are fearful of the violence we saw in Minneapolis around the killing of George Floyd.  We see and are fearful of the violence we witnessed at the United States capitol on January 6th.   Unfortunately, this dynamic between Saul and Annanias is all too familiar.

Annanias’s prayer and Saul’s transformation reminds me today of my own work examining prejudices and the impact of my life on others.  I may not be actively out killing those who I disagree with, but how does my indifference to the suffering of others’ bring about violence to the oppressed.

What am I blind too?  What scales need to fall off of my eyes?  How do the ways I see the world bring connection and where do the way I see the world keep me “safe” but disconnected.   I bodily feel disconnection when I walk into the downtown Minneapolis Target through a sea of African American men who feel threatening.  I bodily feel disconnection when I stop at a stoplight and the person with a sign is staring at me.  I come up with all kinds of reasons not to roll down my window and give the person some money. 

The stories that run through my mind are quite creative.  I can make up all kinds of stories about who I am and who they are.  Most of them are rooted in fear and always get me off the hook in the end.

No doubt Annanias had some of those same stories going on in his mind when he went to Saul.   The Saul and Annanias story is a conversion story AND it’s a story where some force moves Annanias to overcome his fear.  What is that energy that draws us toward the other?  What ultimately causes us to behold one another?  Why do those moments of connection feel so different that feeling left fearful, angry, and separate?

There was an experience recently where I felt a different response.  Chuck and I were walking through the skyway with our grandkids on one of our Fridays and there was a disheveled dirty young man with a sign about being homeless.  I could feel the tension in my stomach.  Here are the kids, how are they understanding this?  Before I could come up with my usual story about why not to engage, Chuck stopped, brought George and Sylive with him and asked the young man about his story.  Chuck not only offered money, but he offered friendship. 

In the 17th verse of the story today, Annanias not only prays for Paul but he enters and calls him brother.   This kinship language emerges throughout the New Testament.    Brother, sister…Everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone.   So this connects with the three words I mentioned at the beginning.  Freedom, Wonder, and Liberation.  Here is how this story forms my definition of these words:

Freedom

Freedom is living into the truth that I am not a separate self.    There is more that connects us as human beings than separates us.  We share the earth, we breathe the same air.  We can pretend to be separate but that is not sustainable.

Wonder

Wonder is how connectivity works.   How I behold the other with dignity, care, and love leads me toward freedom.   When I live out of curiosity and love I open myself up to authentic connection.   Reminds me of that Plato quote:  Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.  Appreciate how universal struggle is. 

Liberation

Untethering from the chains that bind me means letting go of the fallacy of separateness.   Liberation is letting go of fear and loving with abandon. 

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is shawn and i’ve been a member here at West Denmark for almost three years.  I am also a called Lutheran pastor to specialized ministry.   My role in ministry is as a chaplain and chaplain educator.  My call is through the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA to Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN. 

As an educator,  I work with students from all different faith traditions…I’ve had students who are all kinds of different expression of the Christian faith, Jewish, Buddaist, Humanist, Muslim, Ba’Hai, Pagan who want to be professionally trained spiritual care givers.  The role of a professional spiritual care giver has shifted from a religious role years ago to an emotional and spiritual support for patients, families, and staff.   My context is in a hospital, so the people I see and my students see are going through some kind of health event. 

I also serve as Chair for my national professional association, ACPE.  We are a roughly 1200 member organization of psychotherapists and CPE educators.    In a week we will commence with our annual conference with the theme: Freedom, Wonder, and Liberation: Anti-Bias Practices of Spiritual Care and Education. 

As I prepared for some conference addresses and today’s worship service, I found some interesting cross sections between the conference and our scripture reading.  Let me say more:

There is a bed rock ethic that is articulated in many of the major religious traditions throughout the ages.  

In Judaism, the Torah commands, “Love your neighbor as yourself-I am God. 

The Hindu wiritngs instruct, This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.” 

Muslims learn from the Quran, “Serve Allah, and join not any partners with him; and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer you meet.”

“Love your neighbor” is almost universally ascribed to. 

The poet Mary Oliver said “Love yourself, then forget it. Then love the world.”   For a person who had no declared religious identity, that sounds prophetic and lines up with the universality of love your neighbor.

Today’s biblical reading in the narrative lectionary is the Story of Saul’s conversion.    It is a story animated by “love your neighbor”, in the least it is two very different people coming together in a moment of transformation.

Saul had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus.  After the blinding light and being struck down, Saul was instructed to go into the city and wait for what was to come next. 

Annanias was instructed to go to Saul, who he knew violently persecuted followers of Jesus.   The focus of Saul’s life was to do away with the likes of Annanias.

This is two very different people coming together with an unknown outcome.

Doesn’t this sound like a story for our time.  Saul saw himself as one to purify the temple, bring integrity to the faith.  Annanias is one of these new Jesus followers who is seeing the world from a very different vantage point.

This story in Acts reminds me of our societal culture today.   We see and are fearful of the violence we saw in Minneapolis around the killing of George Floyd.  We see and are fearful of the violence we witnessed at the United States capitol on January 6th.   Unfortunately, this dynamic between Saul and Annanias is all too familiar.

Annanias’s prayer and Saul’s transformation reminds me today of my own work examining prejudices and the impact of my life on others.  I may not be actively out killing those who I disagree with, but how does my indifference to the suffering of others’ bring about violence to the oppressed.

What am I blind too?  What scales need to fall off of my eyes?  How do the ways I see the world bring connection and where do the way I see the world keep me “safe” but disconnected.   I bodily feel disconnection when I walk into the downtown Minneapolis Target through a sea of African American men who feel threatening.  I bodily feel disconnection when I stop at a stoplight and the person with a sign is staring at me.  I come up with all kinds of reasons not to roll down my window and give the person some money. 

The stories that run through my mind are quite creative.  I can make up all kinds of stories about who I am and who they are.  Most of them are rooted in fear and always get me off the hook in the end.

No doubt Annanias had some of those same stories going on in his mind when he went to Saul.   The Saul and Annanias story is a conversion story AND it’s a story where some force moves Annanias to overcome his fear.  What is that energy that draws us toward the other?  What ultimately causes us to behold one another?  Why do those moments of connection feel so different that feeling left fearful, angry, and separate?

There was an experience recently where I felt a different response.  Chuck and I were walking through the skyway with our grandkids on one of our Fridays and there was a disheveled dirty young man with a sign about being homeless.  I could feel the tension in my stomach.  Here are the kids, how are they understanding this?  Before I could come up with my usual story about why not to engage, Chuck stopped, brought George and Sylive with him and asked the young man about his story.  Chuck not only offered money, but he offered friendship. 

In the 17th verse of the story today, Annanias not only prays for Paul but he enters and calls him brother.   This kinship language emerges throughout the New Testament.    Brother, sister…Everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone.   So this connects with the three words I mentioned at the beginning.  Freedom, Wonder, and Liberation.  Here is how this story forms my definition of these words:

Freedom

Freedom is living into the truth that I am not a separate self.    There is more that connects us as human beings than separates us.  We share the earth, we breathe the same air.  We can pretend to be separate but that is not sustainable.

Wonder

Wonder is how connectivity works.   How I behold the other with dignity, care, and love leads me toward freedom.   When I live out of curiosity and love I open myself up to authentic connection.   Reminds me of that Plato quote:  Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.  Appreciate how universal struggle is. 

Liberation

Untethering from the chains that bind me means letting go of the fallacy of separateness.   Liberation is letting go of fear and loving with abandon. 

When I can move toward vulnerability, I move toward freedom.  When I am liberated from judgement, I am liberated from fear.  AMEN!