 Danielle, welcome. Thanks so much. It's been great to be here. I appreciate it. Oh, I just, I didn't even notice. I just, you know, I was just thinking as all those women were standing up here, what would you have done without all that goodness in your churches? But the handful that I do know are just beautiful and amazing and gifted and wonderful people and I adore them and I just can't imagine what would have happened if the church didn't have their gifts. I'm grateful for them. So every summer in New Mexico the Pueblo Native American clans come together for their most important summer ritual. It's the corn harvest, the corn dance and it's their responsibility to make sure that they do all they can to ensure a good harvest and the dance that they do is a prayer for growth. Each clan has their own kiva or spiritual society and each kiva makes elaborate preparations for this dance. And the kivas have dug deep holes in the ground because it is their practice to pray in the belly of the earth. Which gosh, why don't we do that? And so they dig these deep holes in the ground so that they make their prayers from the belly of the earth. And so when it comes time for the corn dance some stay in this earth chapel all day long. They fast, they pray without ceasing from sun up to sun down. Others of them leave the kiva at an appointed time and they form two long lines of men and women and they're dressed in brilliant and elaborate traditional dress and they stream to the center of the festivities where they will dance and chant and sing and pray hour after hour from dawn until sunset without ceasing. It's a vitally important function of the clans. It's their responsibility to ensure a good corn harvest and every person plays a vital role in this prayer of growth and supplication. Because everyone will benefit from the corn, it's the job of everyone to do their best to dance well in prayer for the harvest. The intricate headdresses and the complex foot movements and the subtle chant intonations are sacred and every detail is meant to be performed to perfection. And then later in the day they send in the clowns just as the rhythm has become steady and resolute just as the form of the dance and the chant and the private prayers and the belly of the earth have become constant and unbroken just as everyone is feeling solid and good and deeply reverent, the clowns come. They step on the feet of the man leading the dance to disrupt his stomping. They poke fun at the dancers by standing uncomfortably close to their faces and doing weird things. They laugh. They tug at headdresses. They yelp and whoop in the middle of the chants in the times when it would never fit with the rhythm. Some of them run and grab babies out of the hands of mothers and run them around. They're called the Koshari and their bodies are painted black and white and they have dried corn husks in their hair. Often they have rabbit skins on their body reminding everyone and these clowns are an utter nuisance but theirs is the most sacred role of all. The purpose of the Koshari is to disrupt the form just as the form of the dance is becoming stagnated. The Koshari arrive to break the solemnity to bust up the aura of spiritual fervor to obliterate any feeling of self-righteousness. Just as everyone begins to feel that the rhythm of the corn dance will never be broken the Koshari arrive like hammers to ensure that it is. Is that considered holy? Why is this the most sacred act of the entire corn dance? Because the corn dance is a prayer for growth and growth demands that it forms. The Koshari don't settle for life as usual they come wearing rabbit skins as I said to remind their brothers and sisters of death so that they may invoke them to new growth or what we would call resurrection. And resurrection as we know is never life as usual it's life that's new right in the middle of everything we know. And as important as their role is these clowns it would be inaccurate to say that the Koshari are always enjoyed. They're not they're a nuisance but they are embraced because they remind the Pueblo clans that the world is not under their control. No matter how well they perform this corn dance the world is unruly and mysterious and most importantly always changing and if they are to grow and survive they must be people who learn to live and dance in the middle of disruption. Our Native American brothers and sisters know a thing or two about disruption do they not they also know about displacement and dismissal and yet these clans have survived in the midst of deeply oppressive forces for hundreds of years they haven't died out nor has the role of the clans nor has this hallowed dance that has been performed for centuries. Their ritualized openness to change has allowed them to be people of renewal in the face of the most impossible circumstances and as is often the case they have been keepers of a deep wisdom that science is only now discovering because the truth is now we know change is actually the only constant it's the only one we have I don't know a lot about science but I am interested so I read books that I don't understand and glean like things from them that probably aren't exactly true here are a couple of those things if you happen to have like a degree or something I know I'm probably saying these things wrong you can come and tell me more about it later physicist as I understand it are just now beginning to think that what they saw as constant actually may have just been because they didn't understand the world at its smallest level it's like oh yeah we think nothing is going on and then they got a microscope and they're like oh actually there's a lot going on there's no constant down there that we thought even the speed of light I read earlier this year is not constant what? that's like the one thing I got from science class why isn't the speed of light constant? well I can't explain that to you I was really confused but apparently it has something about when you get down to the level of photons stuff gets weird and it's not constant anymore and apparently if I have not already freaked you out enough time is also not constant are you even kidding? every time I try to read an article about how or why time isn't constant my head starts to hurt because it's like the multiverse and like I don't know too many things that I don't understand what you're thinking about neuroscientists as you know can now prove that the brain and the body are in endless flux with one another so so much so that it's problematic to say that we have anything resembling a fixed self right? we can't figure out how to talk about consciousness or anything of substance like because there's no sense in which we are like this substance that's the same all the time no that's not how it works we're composed of millions of choices and actions that we take every day and we are equally affected by the millions of actions and choices that other people and other creatures and the ozone layer makes every day all around us we are affected by all the millions of choices all the time it is a dizzying dance of accommodation and disruption this is what led the sixth century greek philosopher heraclitus to say you can't step twice in the same river once your foot's in it it's not the same anymore he was adamant about professing the about professing the constancy of change in the universe is something that wasn't true he said you can't identify the universe as static which in his time wasn't the most popular thing to say but the other thing that he said is that despite the fact that the universe seems lots more in motion than we often anticipate he deeply believed in a unity of creation that was deeper and more profound than we could see and he tried to figure out a way to say okay how can I describe this unity that is underneath all the movement and chaos and change that's happening and he came up with a word logos yes that one despite all the change that happens and the logos the logos the word all things are connected and one the logos is the source of order in the universe that by which all things come into being and all things come to pass john the evangelist knew this he had heard of this idea which is why the gospel he writes in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and as reverent as we are want to make Jesus the word the word of God often serves as a disrupter to our norms the form breaker to our expectations the one who calls us right in the middle of our self-righteousness Jesus continually disrupts our uniformity to bring us into fuller unity it's always what he does it's a little annoying the most sacred role Jesus plays for us this may be the most sacred role Jesus plays for us his willingness to unsettle us just as we're getting comfortable because Jesus is not the statement or the doctrine or the book of discipline he's the word and as the word he is both utterable and unutterable both known and unknown Jesus is both the holy dance and the sacred clown and his deepest calling is to bring us into new life and resurrection I arrived at college in seminary with a deep love for theology I liked to think about the big ideas of God and I was eager to pursue a unified theory of God I thought that there was one nobody had told me there wasn't and so like Einstein who thought he could come up with a unified theory of the universe I thought well there's got to be one of those for God also and though not Einstein I can read a lot so I'll try I came to seminary and thought there's got to be this way to find a place for all those weird old testament passages and even for things like human suffering and death maybe like me though you found that theology's best answers still fall short of describing the world's deepest mysteries shoot for every systematic theology that has been written even the most beautiful ones there is a clown just waiting to disrupt the logic within it I heard Walter Brigham and speak earlier at Perkins this year I imagine some of you were there and I love that he said there is a problem that we have with the God of the Old Testament and that is the God who inhabits the text of the Old Testament that's the problem as if to say good luck getting around that guys it's constantly a disruptive act and process Karl Barth the German theologian who may be on record is trying to write the longest attempt of systematic theology oh my gosh get an editor buddy we have things to do gracious well Barth my seminary is obsessed with Barth so boy did I get to read like three fourths of that thanks guys it's really helpful he saved his treatment for the Holy Spirit until the very end which was a dumb thing to do but that's another story for another time as he was writing the section of the Holy Spirit he came to the uncomfortable truth that oh the Holy Spirit is not particularly fond of being confined and so all of these categories that he thought were going to just fit right in he could just keep that thread going all the way through and add the Holy Spirit to it it wasn't working and as that realization set in one of my professors said Bart said I'm going to have to go back to the beginning which he didn't of course but even if he had the ending would always be the same the Spirit of God continually disrupts our forms it's why Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit the wild goose because in their experience the Spirit was unruly and prone to loud honking how lovely it would be for us to be asked to bear witness in a world of consistency and met expectations that would be lovely as it is however we are asked to bear witness in a world of both fear and wonder in a world of both dance and disruption and perhaps we bear witness best when we embrace the creative tension that seems to be ever present in the nature of the world and maybe just maybe because that's how God intended it what would it look like if we didn't reject our clowns or shun them or even resent them but bore witness to them as holy disturbances what if we saw them as not disturbances at all but as those who bear witness to the sacred that has been removed from our sight Rudolf Balrow said when the forms of an old culture are dying the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure I read that in a book a couple of months ago and I thought oh darn it I'm gonna have to sit with that one for a while because I hate it because really who wants to be insecure I think of insecurity as such a terribly negative thing it's something to be avoided at all costs I have two middle schoolers so believe me I have reacquainted with the apex of human insecurity that we call middle school and it is not pretty it isn't you know everybody with middle schoolers know or you just think take three seconds to think of your middle school experience you know it's not good our middle school principal always says yeah there's a reason why no one has a middle school reunion he's a wise man enjoy it this is a one-time thing kids you don't want to come back here who wants to be insecure I don't but when I think about the power of this story that I heard about this dance when I think about the power of those who dance knowing that the clowns are coming the best term for them is bravery they are not afraid to be disrupted they're not afraid to be insecure that's because they're planning to hold their noses and grit their teeth until the clown leaves them clowns leave them they don't face the disruption with clenched fists like they're determined to stick to the rhythm no matter what happens and determined to get right back on beat no matter how many times they're interrupted that's not bravery that stubbornness right the beauty and bravery of this act that they do is their willingness to be open even while they're dancing for one of the most fervent things they believe in what a contrast I do tai chi sometimes and the lovely thing about tai chi is that you realize that you have to hold this sort of softness and firmness of life so you hold a really firm pose like tight with your legs your arms are just like flowing and you experience in your body the contrast of those things openness and firmness strong back and open heart sometimes we say this is what it is these people who do this dance they don't own the sacred and they know that the good news of that is they also don't bear the burden of carrying all of the sacred because they know that they've come to know that their only job is to behold the sacred in wonder in whatever form that it takes peaceful dove or hunking wild goose sermon on the mount Jesus or eating with the person that we like least Jesus the gust of a mighty wind or a still small voice the question isn't only whether we can bear witness to the sacred the bigger question is whether we can bear witness to the sacred and all its forms I'm reminded in the gospels that miracles nearly always are preceded by disruption just like that like literally it's perfect I'm gonna buy you coffee later if we think of every miracle story that we know it was preceded right before that by a disruption think about it friends of a lame man lowered him in front of Jesus from the roof which had to have been quite a spectacle the woman who suffered from bleeding kept reaching out for the hem of Jesus cloak even though we know that by law really she wasn't supposed to be out there mingling much less reaching for him what a disruption Jesus only fed the 5,000 after the disciples became anxious because the crowd wouldn't leave and it was lunchtime and they didn't have anything to eat before it, total disruption a demon possessed man shrieked and fell down and yelled at Jesus before Jesus sent the legion of demons into a herd of pigs the sea of Galilee burst over the sides of the boat with brute force before Jesus rose to still them a blind man and Jericho shouted out to Jesus for mercy only to be shushed by the people leading the intercession but he just shouted again even louder the second time and Jesus stopped and healed his sight after disruption comes new life we know this after disruption comes new life well what's the biggest disruption that we know Jesus dying on the cross and what was the new life well Easter it's almost enough for us to say send in the clowns that seems to turn out well it's almost enough but old habits die hard and it's so very hard for us to let go of our very deep fears of failure and that's what it is we're terrified of disruption because we think it might lead to failure and it's not a risk we find worth taking I know this dance if you come over here I'm going to mess it up and then like what am I going to do then we ministers and lay leaders we people of the church we are unapologetically earnest people we spend so much of our days in the trenches of the human condition binding up the broken hearted listening to the heart broken seeking to liberate the oppressed attempting to bring spiritual meaning to an endlessly busy culture bless our hearts we do not have time for clowns we can't suffer setbacks we are earnest people with an urgent mission in a world that is going mad there is no time for clowning around the clock is ticking all of which is true but the deep mystery is that when we enter into our job as Christ's witnesses with too much fervor and fists that are clinched in fear we have lost our witness already what will we add to the world when all that we can bring it is fear and anxiety and aggression what are we going to add to the world doing that what the world needs is people who trust the dance so much who can hold their peace so well no matter what's going on around them that even the clowns are welcome what the world needs are people who can take a deep breath and look at the world in wonder and not in fear Margaret Wheatley wisely writes the fear of error seems the darkest of Darwinian shadows when errors hold so much peril play disappears creativity ceases only fear and struggle persist and paradoxically we make even greater errors we say to one another for the first time how can we live with so much fear we can't the good news though is that our world is not a world of get it right or die it's a world of infinite possibilities because it's changing all the time there is no mythical window of opportunity that will be lost forever there are definitely moments when things are moving more in our favor or the universe is aligning yeah, we should listen to that but also we should remember that the universe is a far more forgiving place than we often give it credit there's not a window of opportunity being of people of faith we should know this scriptures filled with people who missed their window of opportunity Abraham and Sarah missed it like a zillion times while waiting for Isaac like literally a zillion I counted one time the Israelites in the wilderness had bad choices some of them in rapid fire succession as if they had no memory at all David was a terrible decision maker he was totally incompetent in making good decisions this is to say nothing of the entire band of disciples who quite often looked like the 12 Stooges people made mistakes they had failures they had disruptions and all of them found more opportunities to get it right the next time we have a window of opportunity we have windows of opportunity the world is always changing if we missed it that moment just get right back into it the next moment did you know that in the patterns of evolution you can see that the universe is primed towards innovation it's openness that's flexibility that's windows of opportunity we only believe that the world runs on competition and survival of the fittest but in actuality the world runs on innovation and flexibility the universe is constantly looking for unique and new possibilities the 14 billion year old story of the universe says that life is supposed to happen and it says that life happens even when we thought it would be rather impossible for life to happen so we can't let the story of world as a machine or world as competitive battlefield become our primary story because life is about invention more than survival it's about creation more than dominion or defense when we're in survival mode it demands results it's impatient and anxious when we focus on survival we're usually leading with problem solving and I mean a certain kind of problem solving which is about making what you don't like go away problem solving so if we took this and applied it to the clowns we could easily solve the clown problem we could just lock them up or send them away we could decide just we don't need their role in the dance anymore nobody really likes it let's just get rid of it or we could be really crafty and say like hey let's keep the clowns but let's just make them like fun just make them fun problem solved unless we remember those words those gut-wrenching words of Rudolf Bravo the new culture is created by a few who are not afraid to be insecure problem solving for survival isn't our only choice system scientist Peter Singh says that we should move from problem solving in this way to creating and creating involves not making something you don't want go away but actively bringing something you care about into reality it's a shift of perspective you're not doing this you're doing this when we create we don't ask what's wrong we ask what's possible he says he calls people who are these creators, animators which is a pretty cool word it's fun to call yourself that you put it on your card pastor, comma, animator these kinds of creators are people who bring life into a new way of thinking thinking and seeing and interacting in ways that create energy and focus they aren't special people they aren't ordained people we're all called to be creators and animators together animators are people who can come into any situation and find a way to bring new life new forms into being while holding on to what matters most bearing witness means living a life of creativity and not problem solving it means letting go of the form and allowing the disruption to bring about something new and perhaps unexpected you guys did that 60 years ago you ordained women as a result bearing witness means taking our calling seriously but also taking the pressure off enough to live into our calling with joy and wonder what we find when we take a moment to exhale and to realize there's not just a window of opportunity we can laugh it off we can take ourselves less seriously what we find as a result of that is joy in between fear and wonder lies the possibility of joy joy which has room for the harsh realities of the world and the awe-inspiring wonder of the world joy has room for our reverence and our laughter our delight and our pain last week I went to hear Dacher Keltner speak he's a psychology professor at UC Berkeley and the founder of the greater good the science center and his most recent work he's working on is exploring how awe the experience of awe creates deep positive change in us to which I was like yeah I know I'm a pastor get on it scientists we knew that already but go do your little experiments and we'll be like yeah you got it but what he's found in just a few things that he's looked at is that experiencing awe makes us wonder and question everything well sure it does you stand in front of the ocean you think and our response to things that are too vast to understand is awe and it gives us perspective it disrupts the form of the norm for us and we are opened up to something bigger than ourselves and it also gives us joy people who experience awe they're finding are more connected to others and get along better with others they become more generous more compassionate and less self important which is a pretty great movement towards discipleship right sounds like good results in one study he mentioned they had students at UC Berkeley go outside in two groups and in the first group they had these students stand up for one minute and just stare at the trees and then for the other group they had them stand for one minute and stare at the science building for them and then they had I don't know how they come up with these studies too it's like are you high when you think of these studies anyway they had someone come by the two groups and drop a box of pens and do you know what happened the group that had stared at the trees for one little baby minute were like way more interested in helping the person pick up the pins like just a better person already which go to the park later I guess is what we should say ah invokes wonder it invokes wonder when we're in awe we can't put our experience into words we can't categorize it our whole normal life becomes destabilized in the face of this awesome experience and that can transform us in ways that stability never could stability may be comfortable but I think it also may be overrated sometimes we need a little stability right we got to like get up every day but too much we can go on autopilot we don't give thought to our actions because everything is going to be just as it was I don't know if you've ever had this experience but sometimes I've gotten to the experience where I've realized that I drove all the way home from somewhere and I didn't make one conscious thought while in that process I was like am I in my driveway right now like I got on the highway and I like dropped a kid off at their house I wasn't even I don't even know I just I met my driveway right now I didn't think one time about it which is a little terrifying actually stability can breed familiarity and familiarity sometimes can breed in attention note the words on the knob disengage stability can allow us that if we have too much of it if we're stable we don't have to ask questions or grapple with difficulties or confront challenges that are in every way impossible we choose instead to live comfortably because we have the choice thank God for the clowns who force us to reengage and put our hands mindfully back on the wheel so that we can ask ourselves now where are we going and also is that where we want to be going because that is when we bear witness real and true thing happening in front of us that's when we bear witness to the wonder of the world that God loves stability doesn't suit us fear definitely doesn't suit us wonder does will we choose to bear witness to the world in fear yeah it's there or in wonder I was talking to my daughter last night actually when I was tucking her in and she was having a difficulty with something she was scared and I said honey I guess you're just gonna have to decide like is it worth it to you to overcome this fear or is it not you're gonna have to decide that she was like mom I am afraid like I don't get to make a choice about that and I said well no you're right if you feel afraid in your body physiologically you don't have a choice about that but in two seconds you do start having a choice feel the fear yeah you don't have a choice about that two seconds later you can be conscious and decide to do something about it what are you gonna do what are you gonna do baby girl you're gonna live in fear and wonder it's a tough question I was glad I was the one asking it not having to answer it for myself parenting win yes how do we bear witness in a world of fear and wonder we smile when they send in the clowns we could do that we could smile because we know that disruption is not a step back but maybe a step forward we smile because the clowns remind us to set down the burden of our earnestness and look with wonder at the mystery of the sacred instead we smile because we're not afraid of being insecure and we're not afraid of making mistakes and maybe we're not even all that afraid of fear after those two seconds we remember that Jesus said don't be troubled trust in God trust also in me and so maybe we will even when we're surrounded by clowns I was thinking about Psalm 23 the other day and I was reminded yet again that I had to give you that you had to see that slide I was thinking about Psalm 23 and I was reminded again which is helpful for me that the love of God is not something I have to hunt down with laser-like intention I can be a little bit much sometimes you hardly know me but I'm sure you've already noticed that that's probably true I don't have to put finding the love of God on my to-do list because the Psalm does not say I don't know if you know surely Danielle did everything right and God rewarded her or surely Danielle knew where God was and what God was doing and followed one step behind in perfect synchronicity at all times it says surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever goodness and mercy follow us what a wonder as we leave this place and as you are commissioned to do good work in this beautiful world of wonder may you remember that goodness and mercy follow you and may the assurance of that give you the courage to dance no matter what distractions may come your way I'm a fan of blessings these days and so if I may I'd like to leave you with a blessing from Maureen Hilliard may you be blessed with vision in these shadow times may light invade the darkness may it be a soft brilliance as bare as candlelight guiding you through twilight till dawn and when the dawn breaks may you find yourself upon a threshold may you enter and go through and may you emerge into the dance a whole and holy new dance of grace Amen