Consolation - Psalm 148, Luke 2:22-38

Sometimes there is a moment, a point in time,
where all the elements are present and things click into place.
Maybe it’s the moment you first lay eyes on someone –
and – click – you know, you just know this is the person you will marry.

Or maybe it’s the split second you complete a project, do something really well,
and – click – you realize this is my calling,
this is what I will do with my life.

You can’t predict this kind of moment. It just happens.
You could chalk it up to mere coincidence,
but if you are sensitive to the idea of God’s Spirit working in you,
if you do believe that you are part of something bigger than yourself,
then these moments of sudden awareness
are nothing less than God working God’s purpose out – in you and in me.

Simeon and Anna are two of those characters in the Scriptures
who take up little space in the story,
but the brief references we have to them make me want to know more.
Simeon, we’re told, had come to the realization through God’s Spirit
that he would not die before he saw the Lord’s Messiah.
Is that something he would keep to himself, I wonder?
Or is it the kind of thing he would tell over and over –
until all his friends had heard it a hundred times.

Can’t you see him at the Men’s Lunch on Thursdays waiting for an opportunity
to slip into conversation yet again how the Holy Spirit had revealed to him
that he would see the Savior before he died.
We all have our favorite stories, why should he be any different?

And Anna…what was she like?
Married seven years and a widow for eighty-four.
Did she still wear her wedding ring?
Was she literally in the temple every time the doors opened?
Did she have a daughter who tried to get her interested in other things -
Going to yard sales? Playing Canasta?

We tend to attribute supernatural abilities to people we find in the Bible,
imagining them to be more alert to God’s plans than we could ever be.
They’re in the Bible, after all!
But could it be that Simeon and Anna’s ability to see in Jesus something extraordinary
had to do not so much with extra special supernatural powers
but simply with their WILLINGNESS to see?
Their DESIRE to see?

Something clicked into place for Simeon and Anna when they saw Mary and Joseph
offering their sacrifices in the temple,
lifting up their son, their first born, to dedicate him to God
Was it because they had some kind of divine ESP?
Could it be that they recognized God’s savior
because they EXPECTED to see God’s savior?
Simeon and Anna both lived in a state of expectation.
They knew the story of God’s covenant with God’s people inside and out
and they knew God wasn’t finished yet.

As it was, Simeon and Anna didn’t have it so bad as Jews living in Jerusalem.
The Roman presence was annoying
but they had free access to the temple.
And, let’s face it, they were old.
Simeon may have been as old as 53!
What difference did it make to them if Israel ever found her consolation?
What did it matter to them if God’s Messiah ever came?

But it DID matter because Simeon and Anna saw themselves, they saw their lives,
not as individual tracks running parallel
but as part of a complex web of relationships reaching back into the past,
back to Abraham and Sarah
and reaching forward into the future,
forward to a time when there would be no artificial barriers
separating any of God’s children,
forward to a time when both Jews and Gentiles
would worship God together.

They knew they would never see the end of Salvation history
BUT they expected to see God’s hand at work – day by day,
and they expected to be part of the process.

Mary and Joseph brought Jesus into the temple
and for both Simeon and Anna there was this moment where it all clicked,
a moment where it all came together and they knew
there was something special there in their midst.

Luke says they recognized something special in Jesus,
and that’s part of it, sure, but I wonder….
I wonder if they didn’t also recognize something special about Mary and Joseph, too.

I don’t mean the angelic visitations
or the circumstances surrounding Jesus birth.
I mean their presence there in the temple,
their full involvement in their religious tradition,
their example as poor but proud parents who have come
to dedicate their son to God.

And maybe it wasn’t just Mary and Joseph that Simeon and Anna noticed,
but the whole picture – the priests in the temple,
the other devout people gathered there to worship God,
to offer their prayers for the fulfillment of God’s plan for God’s creation.
Maybe it was the community of faith gathered around the baby boy
that gave Simeon and Anna a new sense of hope for the future,
a feeling that in this faith community
God truly could do wonderful things through this one child.

We have the privilege this morning of observing the sacrament of baptism
as we welcome Tyler Gregory Fahy into God’s family.
While it is our usual practice to encourage parents to have their child baptized
in the particular church where they are active,
the Session took into consideration Tyler’s special situation.

Tyler is Carolyn and Greg Frahm’s grandson.
Carolyn and Greg are relatively new members of this congregation,
but they have quickly become active in the church’s life.
Tyler is part of a military family.
His parents, Megan and Nat, live in Eastern North Carolina
and Nat just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
They are waiting for new orders, so they are somewhat betwixt and between.

In a few moments Megan and Nat will present Tyler to be baptized
so you old people, listen up!
You young people, take notice!
This is the kind of moment where things can click into place,
the kind of moment where we expect God’s Holy Spirit to be especially active.

All indications are that Tyler is not God’s Messiah come again,
but his little life still represents the power of great potential.
We see this potential not only in his small self,
but also in those who take seriously their responsibility to introduce him to God’s love.
There are his parents, Nat and Megan, who will shoulder the larger share
of this responsibility,
but clearly they can’t do it alone. No parent can.
His sisters will help, his grandparents, too.

And then there are the rest of us.
We won’t have the opportunity to have much of a direct influence on Tyler,
but we’ll still be his family of faith in the larger sense.
Anytime we love a child, or support a parent,
we’ll be doing it on Tyler’s behalf.

But more than that, most of us are old.
If Tyler grows up to do something that benefits all humankind
most of us won’t see it. Most of us won’t benefit from it.
Most of us probably can’t even imagine the new things Tyler might do,
but neither could Simeon and Anna’s contemporaries
imagine a time when there would be no barrier in worship
between Jews and Gentiles.

The point is, even though we can’t SEE the future,
we are part of the future – part of Tyler’s future.
When we baptize him in a few moments
implied in the promise we make to him and his parents
is that we will care about his future.
We will do everything in our power to lay the groundwork for his future
so that God will be able to accomplish great things
through him and his generation and in generations to come.

All of this doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing for Tyler,
Simeon was looking for consolation in Jesus, but it was a funny sort of consolation he found.
When he looked at the innocence and purity of the baby before him
he knew the world into which Jesus had been born
was not nearly so innocent or pure.
He probably wished he could have bitten his tongue off rather than say it,
but he was honest about the feeling of foreboding he had
concerning Jesus’ ultimate fate.

Still, it was consolation just the same;
consolation found not in only Jesus’ potential,
but in his parents, the temple and the family of God
who cared enough to welcome the new baby boy into the fold
and launch him into God’s future.

What I Want for Christmas - Philippians 4:8-14

Philippians 4:8- 14

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.

This homily was written for the Longest Night Service, a contemplative service that focuses on the more somber mood of the season for some.


There’s one question I dread every year about this time:
“What do you want for Christmas?”
It used to be easy.
“I want a Tonka truck and a set of dinosaurs to go with my army men.”
Or when I got older: “I want an eight-track tape deck and Neil Diamond’s greatest hits.”
Now I don’t know.
Sometimes it feels like I want the moon.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve already got everything I could ever need.

What do I want for Christmas?
I want time to count the stars in the winter sky.
I want to be with people who like me.
Most of all, I want to be like Paul – content – content in whatever circumstance,
content with what I have, content to rely on God’s strength in all circumstances.

There are so many unspoken rules that go with Christmas –
expectations, real or imagined, put on us by others, put on us by ourselves.
There are sweet feelings we associate with Christmas, but maybe bitter ones, too;
and memories that sustain us, but maybe also memories that tie us in knots.
Add all that to a relentless 24 hour news cycle
peppering us with one tragedy after another
shrill commercials on TV demanding that we buy more,
harsh rhetoric spewed between Republicans and Democrats -
it’s no wonder the season can be so hard to face.
I’d hazard to guess that none of us want for Christmas a pounding head, watery eyes,
and a churning gut.
What we want is peace.
And sometimes, let’s face it, SOMETIMES it seems like best way to find peace
is to curl up in a ball with the shades drawn.
But Paul sees it differently.

In Paul’s eyes, God’s peace is not achieved by passive retreat.
God’s peace is gained through maintaining an intense, active focus
on those things that are honorable, just, and worthy of praise.
This isn’t just the power of positive thinking,
It is also the practice of intentionally turning away,
turning away from what is destructive or corrupt or sordid,
turning away from those things
and then making a point then to notice the elements in our lives –
large or small – that bring light instead of darkness.

When it comes to what I want for Christmas,
what I really want is an experience that has the ring of authenticity.
I want the knowledge of something true,
and I want to feel a divine vibration that hums
in my sternum, my patella, and my sacroiliac!

That kind of gift can’t be had by curling up in a ball.
I think Paul would say it can only be had by choosing to be the very thing we want.
If I want authenticity, I need to drop the pretense.
If I want truth, I’ve got to stop running away from it.
If I want to be touched by something beyond myself, I have to open up, not ball up.

All this AND, I need to be willing to be with others and let others be with me -
Paul says it best when he says to his friend in Philippi,
“It was kind of you to share my distress.”

The best gift of Christmas, I think, is the gift of creativity,
of finding ways look at the season with fresh eyes.
Fresh eyes like those of the little boy who was tapped to play the inn keeper
in the church’s Christmas pageant one year.
He was eight years old, but he was new to the story of Emmanuel, God with us,
He’d grown up thinking the Christmas story was about a boy who wanted a BB gun.
But from the start he had compassion for Mary and Joseph, the weary parents-to-be.
He felt the drama of their arrival in a town packed to the gills with other travelers.
And he was distressed by the one line he had to say,
“I’m sorry,” the line went, “There is no room in the inn.”
“I can’t just turn them away,” he said.
But the director of the play was a stickler for tradition.
She wouldn’t hear of any changes.

When the day of the performance came the characters took their places.
It was going very well. Marks were hit, lines remembered,
Mary and Joseph looked the part.
When they came to the inn and rapped on the cardboard door,
The innkeeper opened it wide.
Joseph held up his head as, in a loud voice, he requested a room
noting that his wife was great with child.
Mary kept her eyes cast down. She didn’t say a thing.

The innkeeper took it all in, cleared his throat and said his one line perfectly,
“I’m sorry, there is no room in the inn.”
There was a pause. He started to close the door. Joseph started to turn away.
But then, unwilling to let it end this way the innkeeper turned back and said,
“Aw, what the heck, I’ve got no rooms but won’t you at least come in for a drink!”

What do you want for Christmas?

Magnify - Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:39-55

As a child one of my favorite things was the magnifying glass
my parents kept in their desk drawer.
I was allowed to play with it as long as I was careful.
I’m thinking now of the years before I learned
that you could focus the rays of the sun with a magnifying glass
and start a major fire.

There was a cartoon of that era featuring a detective dog
modeled loosely on Sherlock Holmes
with the stereotypical deerstalker cap, overcoat,
and a large magnifying glass he carried around looking for clues.
I was that detective, magnifying smudges to look for fingerprints,
examining crumbs under the table,
and, when off duty, down on my knees
looking at various beetles and stink bugs close up.

I don’t know how magnifying lenses work exactly.
I remember studying the properties of light in a physics class long ago,
but if I ever understood it, I’ve forgotten.
I’m content to just call it one of the wonders of science.
It is a wonder – taking something small and making it big;
using the properties of something as basic as light
to make visible that which is invisible,
to bring front and center that which is obscure.
I’m fascinated with magnification,
so when, in Luke’s first chapter, Mary says to Elizabeth,
“My soul MAGNIFIES the Lord,” I sit up and take notice.

Relying on Christmas carols and Hallmark cards as my sources,
I have always assumed that Mary was a peasant girl,
one low-born in her society to parents of modest means.
There is no basis in the biblical account for this assumption,
but there is also no reason to believe that her family was wealthy
or high up on the social ladder.
All indications are that she was just an ordinary young woman
from an ordinary family
living in an ordinary town outside of Nazareth.

Being an ordinary young woman in an ordinary town,
I think it’s safe to assume that Mary became engaged to Joseph in the usual way.
It would have been an arranged marriage following the usual protocol
with a representative of Joseph’s family petitioning a representative of Mary’s family
to begin negotiations.
These negotiations would involve how much Mary’s family would pay Joseph’s family.
This payment would be more if there was some perceived flaw in Mary’s suitability
or less if her reputation was intact and her family respected in the community.
Joseph’s reputation would also enter into the discussion.
Was he a catch? Could he support her?

As the story goes, God’s angel appeared to Mary and announced God’s intention
to use Mary as the conduit through which God would enter the world in human form.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
Crazier still is Mary’s response to this pronouncement. It’s so…well…ordinary.
She showed fear, that much we know, because the angel said, “Be not afraid.”
She showed incredulity, too. “How can this be?” She asked the angel,
“For I am still a virgin.”
But what she said next…it’s so ORDINARY,
which, of course, considering the circumstances makes it EXTRAORDINARY.
She tells the angel, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord,
let it be with me according to your word.” Just that. Nothing more.

So, let’s recap.
An ordinary young woman, in an obscure little town,
is engaged to an ordinary man in the customary way.
There’s no reason in the world that anyone beyond her family should notice Mary.
No indication that she is destined for anything but the usual daily struggle for survival
working long, hard days with the occasional moments of rest or recreation.

But God has other plans for her.
She becomes pregnant.
Joseph is a standup guy, who plans to dissolve their arrangement quietly
until God’s angel gets to him as well.
Probably to avoid undue scrutiny by the neighbors,
Mary makes an extended visit to her cousin Elizabeth,
who has her own blessed birth to consider.
Elizabeth greets her with the kind of delight only another woman feeling blessed by God
could express.
That’s when Mary can’t keep it in any longer.
Like a Broadway musical there is a meaningful pause
and then she breaks into song.
And what’s the first thing she sings?
“My soul magnifies the Lord….”
“My soul magnifies the Lord….”
Mary is so astounded by the turn of events in her life,
she is so flabbergasted by the fact that God has literally and figuratively
“enlarged” her
that in turn she holds a magnifying glass up to God.

In case there is any doubt, she wants to make it clearly visible to anyone watching
that what is happening in her and through her is God’s doing.
God owes her no privilege, no reward,
yet there she is
on a marvelous, scary, incredible journey, with God at the wheel.

Mary’s vision of God, the image she magnifies and projects
is of a God who does not favor the wealthy
or give special perqs to the well connected
or butter up the pompous and the proud.
Her vision is expansive, all-encompassing, and uplifting –
Through her lens God appears mighty large indeed.

How different that is from what we often see.
Instead of a magnifying glass, we and others act like we’re looking at God
through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars
Instead of magnifying God, we reduce God.
Instead of our vision becoming broader and brighter,
it becomes more narrow and filled with shadows.

So we pay attention to the negative, overlooking the positive.
We obsess about what we don’t have instead of what we do have.
We conduct ourselves like perpetual referees,
ever vigilant for the smallest infractions on the part of others,
yet expecting our own infractions to be overlooked.
Or maybe that’s just me.

I’ve had a painful reminder this past week of how easy it is
to reduce instead of magnify the goodness in life.
Because, unlike Mary, I allowed my soul to reduce instead of magnify
in a very public way right here in this room,
I need to also try to rectify the situation right here, in public.

Last week I opened my sermon with a memory of a Christmas party I attended
at the home of friends in the town where I grew up.
In my description of the party I used literary license,
embellishing the situation for cheap effect.
What I said was mean in the most literal sense of the word – petty, small-minded.
To top it off, I even used the family’s real names.

As you probably know, I post my sermons on the church website.
Unbeknownst to me, someone actually reads them.
Cyberspace has no secrets and someone notified the family mentioned
that my sermon was out there.
They read it and were rightfully hurt and angry.
Fortunately, they thought enough of me to let me know it.

This week has been a week of deep self-examination.
It is not my practice to be so cavalier with the facts.
Certainly it is not my practice to say hurtful things about someone in public.
So why this time? Why this family?
They are a family well known in the town where they live –
civic minded, generous, and loving.
Children and grandchildren are all talented
and in general make the world a better place.

I have had to come to terms this week with a deep-seated, long dormant envy of them.
I wasn’t consciously aware of it, but I’m pretty sure that is what made me
narrow and darken my vision of this family instead of magnify and brighten them.
I realize that when I was growing up
I envied their talent, their poise, their apparent ease
at making their way through the world.
This long dormant envy rose up and got the better of me.

I have made my apology to this family,
and they have been gracious in accepting it.
It’s a hard lesson, but one I hope will stick with me.
And Mary is a good role model for me to follow.

She was an ordinary young woman caught up in extraordinary circumstances
who rose above the social ostracism she must have faced
as an unwed mother-to-be.
She was magnified by God in a most extraordinary way,
She did not narrow her vision, did not allow it to become clouded
with envy or arrogance or self-promotion.
Instead, she enlarged, she brightened, she magnified the Lord,
and, in so doing, managed to magnify all those around her as well.

Bigger Than a Baby - Jeremiah 33:12-16, Luke 21:25-36

Being a follower of Jesus is hard.
I don’t mean that in the way some of you may think I mean it.

If you grew up in the Bible Belt
following Jesus was hard because it meant staying away from the “sins of the flesh.”
things like smoking, drinking, dancing, playing cards, going to movies, carousing…
Or maybe you think following Jesus is hard because you have read your Bible
and you hear it telling you to give up all your worldly possessions
and live among the poor;
or to join mass demonstrations against the war machine
or to commit your life to missionary service in a third world country.

Following Jesus is hard, but avoiding sins of the flesh
or choosing to forego the “American Dream” for a life of activism and service
isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m saying something different.
I’m saying that following Jesus is hard because it requires us to live our lives
as though everything we do is being filmed in front of a Green Screen.

Green screen technology is a technique used in producing movie special effects
where actors have to say their lines and go through their motions
as though they are, for example, being chased by a dinosaur
or falling fifty feet into the mouth of an active volcano.
They do their acting in front of a large green screen,
and only later is the dinosaur or the volcano edited into the scene.
When acting in front of a green screen, the actors have to really stretch their imagination.
Everything they do when they’re on the set
has to be done within the limitations of that particular moment
BUT while holding that moment in tension
with a vision of the larger reality they have in their minds.

There is a story,
There’s an ending, too.
But the actors are only part of the process and their role is limited.
They contribute to the story, maybe even adlibbing along the way,
but they ultimately have to trust the director to bring it all together.

Following Jesus is like living our lives in front of a green screen.
The promise of the gospel is that in Jesus, the kingdom of God has come near.
The values of kingdom life – of justice and mercy and hospitality and peace
are operative, they are valid and true,
but they do not yet hold sway.
We catch glimpses of God’s kingdom among us
but these glimpses are fleeting.

So, when it comes to following Jesus, we have a story. We have an ending.
But, in the meantime, we are left to play our roles
within the limitations of each particular moment,
while still holding the ambiguity and confusion of each particular moment
in tension with the sure and certain vision of God’s promised reign.

In other words, if we are going to follow Jesus,
we have to ACT with kingdom values of courage and confidence and hope
even when we are standing knee deep in catastrophe.
If we are going to follow Jesus,
we have to INVEST in the kingdom commodities of forbearance and generosity and love
even when we are being hammered from all directions
by pettiness, greed and hate.
Now THAT’S hard. But that’s what the season of Advent is all about;
living between the already and the not yet.
These weeks before Christmas are definitely bigger than a baby.

When we read the words of the Prophet Jeremiah
we remember that they are written in a time of Jerusalem’s collapse.
The Babylonians have overrun the Holy City
taking the best and the brightest off to Babylon in exile leaving the city in shambles.
Judea’s kings had tried to stave off the invasion with tricky alliances.
They’d refused to believe Jeremiah’s dire warnings,
listening instead to their in-house prophets with their Polyanna propositions.
But all their political maneuverings and sunny denial has come to nothing.
It looks like the end of God’s experiment with God’s covenant people.
In Jeremiah’s words, “This place is waste.”

In front of the green screen, the actors’ faces are contorted with pain and disbelief.
They carry their possessions on their backs
passing through the city gate that now hangs crooked on one hinge.
Jeremiah fares no better than any of the rest of them.
He too is forced to leave Jerusalem,
to leave everything he’s ever known to go to a foreign place.
But Jeremiah is different from his fellow actors.
Because he is not only acting in the moment.
His perspective is not limited by what is happening around him.

He knows that God’s story is not through.
He knows that even through the present trial is devastating to the Jewish identity
God has a different ending in mind for God’s people.
Even while he is leaving Jerusalem to go to Babylon,
Jeremiah is singing of a future when they will once again return.
The wasteland will become a green pasture where all God’s sheep may grace.
The tiny green speck growing out of the still-smoldering stump
will slowly develop – into a twig, into a sapling, and finally, into a mighty tree.
Despite all evidence to the contrary,
The Lord’s righteousness will prevail and Jerusalem will finally live in safety.

In Luke’s account of Jesus’ last visit to Jerusalem,
Jesus gives HIS vision of what is to come.
We read of distress among the nations
and people fainting with fear and foreboding
and it sounds dreadful, like something we just as soon avoid.
But we have to remember that Jesus is speaking to people
who daily live under constant fear of the whims of Rome.
Their every move is scrutinized for even the slightest hint of rebellion.

We also have to remember that by the time Luke is writing his gospel
the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed by Rome,
no stone left one on top of the other.
Jesus’ audience and Luke’s readers are both looking for deliverance.
Acting in front of their green screen their shoulders slump with exhaustion,
their heads hang in hopelessness.

Jesus acts as one among them, his every move dogged by those who want him dead.
But he is not limited only by the present.
With the threat of those who would kill him he holds in tension
the sure promise of God’s deliverance,
the certainty of the full expression of God’s kingdom drawing near.
Even though they are knee deep in catastrophe,
hammered on all sides by pettiness, greed and hate,
Jesus invites them to stand up straight and keep their heads up
so they too can catch a glimpse of God’s promised conclusion.

Following Jesus is hard.
It requires us to hold the reality of the particular moment in which we find ourselves,
difficult as it may be,
in tension with the glorious vision of God’s Kingdom fully realized.
It is not for the apathetic or the self-indulgent.
But what a difference it makes.

It was early this past Thursday morning.
Son Will and I were out for an early morning ride through the mountains of NC.
We stopped at a Bojangles restaurant, the only place open for breakfast,
and as we ate I was watching CNN on an overhead television.
They did a story on the benevolent work of Nnamdi Asomugha,
a star cornerback on the Oakland Raiders football team.
Asomugha is Nigerian by descent, but he was born and raised in Los Angeles
and he is one of those occasional people who come along
and view wealth as a responsibility more than a privilege.
His favorite projects have to do with encouraging at-risk children
to go to college.

This particular story has to do with Asomugha’s response to an earlier CNN story
that featured a young African American high school student, Kenneth Chancey.
Kenneth and his younger sister live with their father at the Union Rescue Mission
and have to walk past drug addicts and mentally ill women and men
through the stench and the refuse every day to get to school.
Kenneth’s classmates don’t know he is homeless.
He is a star running back on the football team,
and has been named best overall academic student.
He hopes to go to Harvard and become a physician.
Asomugha saw Kenneth’s story and has reached out to help him.
Through his foundation he will make sure Kenneth has support to succeed.

Kenneth and his father and his sister
are acting in front of the green screen of their life
surrounded by the misery of Skid Row. That is their particular circumstance.
But like Nnamdi Asomugha, Kenneth is somehow able to hold in tension a vision
of a future with a different outcome than his present circumstance would suggest.

In one scene in the CNN report on Asomugha’s benevolent outreach
Nnamdi and Kenneth go to the roof of a tall building next to the Union Mission Shelter.
Nnamdi says, “If you look down you can see the Mission.”
On cue, the camera pans down
and focuses on the milling people shouting, pushing each other, huddling in fear.
“Yes,” said Kenneth, “But I make a point when I’m up here to keep my head up.
That way I can see the whole city.
That’s the view I choose.

“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.””

What Sort of King - 2 Samuel 23:1-7, John 18:33-37

When the American Revolution was over
and the colonies had won their independence
King George, III of England reportedly asked the American painter Benjamin West
what General George Washington would do next.
When learning that Washington intended to resign his commission
swear allegiance to a civilian government
and go back to his farm
the British King said, “If he does that he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Washington did go back to farming,
despite encouragement from some of his subordinate military commanders
to seize the opportunity to become a king himself.
And when he later returned as our nation’s first President,
he refused to serve more than two terms in office,
choosing to relinquish power instead of exploit it.

We don’t want a king – it is against our national DNA –
BUT it would be nice for somebody to be in charge,
somebody to marshal the troops and lead an army into battle if need be -
whatever it takes to keep us safe.
We don’t want a king,
but we do want somebody we can look to who exudes confidence
and carries himself with a bit of a swagger,
somebody who has the pluck and chutzpa you and I may lack.
We don’t want a king.
Or maybe we do.
It’s for sure we don’t want a tyrant keeping us under his thumb
but it would be nice to have someone to do our worrying for us,
someone to tell us right from wrong, good from bad,
someone who could eliminate by royal decree
all the uncertainty that lurks around every corner..

Come to think of it, we MIGHT want a king,
so when Pontius Pilate, Roman Governor of all Judea, asks Jesus his question
we stop what we’re doing and lean in to listen to what Jesus will answer.
We lean in to listen because rumor has it Jesus might be a king,
but frankly, as he stands before Pilate, he’s not doing too well.

In the twenty-four hours prior to his appearance before Pilate,
Jesus has been arrested without a fight,
he’s been interrogated by the high priest Caiaphas,
he’s been held prisoner overnight
and he’s been roughed up by Roman guards looking for a little sport.
So when Pilate looks down at Jesus, his lip bleeding, his right eye nearly swollen shut,
it’s not without a touch of irony in his voice that he asks,
“So, you are a king?”

Pilate needs to know the answer to that question in a most literal way
for a very pragmatic reason.
He’s heard the charge that some of the Jews are calling Jesus king.
If he was looking out his office window in the Antonia fortress
Pilate could have seen Jesus riding a donkey through the city gate,
could have heard people shouting, “Hosanna in the highest.”

An attempted insurrection is the last thing Pilate needs
with the city crowded with pilgrims.
The week of Passover is a security nightmare,
so even though Pilate can see through the transparent scheme
of the Scribes and Pharisees who clamor for Jesus’ arrest,
even though he senses that Jesus poses no threat,
he can’t ignore the possibility that Jesus is secretly gathering an army
to challenge the authority of the Emperor and the right of Roman rule.

So, you are a king?
If by some miracle it was David standing there,
Pilate wouldn’t have to ask.
If by divine fulfillment of Israel’s wildest hopes David had been physically reborn
there would have been no question.
For one thing, David would not be under arrest.
If he was standing before Pilate it would have been with a fighting force
of armed men ready to do battle.
David may have had his sensitive side, playing the lyre, singing psalms,
but he was a warrior to the core and the only instrument he showed his enemies
was an iron rod, the shaft of his spear.

David was a conventional king, the kind Pilate was worried about.
Jesus was not.
This is what Jesus meant when he said,
“If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would be fighting.”
As it is, the only military command Jesus ever made was to Peter the day before
when he told Peter to put his sword away.

When Pilate asks Jesus, “So, you are a king?”
Jesus turns the tables and puts Pilate on trial. “You say that I am a king.”
He doesn’t say “No,” but he doesn’t say, “Yes,” either.
He leaves it up to Pilate to decide.
It’s clear that Jesus is not a king in the way Pilate means,
yet he claims a kingdom, nonetheless,
a kingdom marked not by violence or by domination but by truth.

“My kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus tells Pilate.
“My followers do not fight.”
“I came to testify to the truth.”
Pilate hasn’t a clue what Jesus is talking about,
but he visibly relaxes, assured Jesus is no threat to the iron grip of Rome.
In a world-weary voice Pilate then breathes out another question.
“What is truth?” he asks, confident he already knows the answer.

Pilate, the politician, knows from experience that truth is whatever the Emperor says it is.
John’s readers know different.
John’s readers know that truth has been staring Pilate in the face the whole time.
They know that Jesus is the Word made flesh,
the revelation of God to the world.
He is the one who is about to be lifted up,
the one who will draw all things to himself
the one who will be enthroned as the greatest power in the universe.1

If we are ambivalent about a king, it’s for good reason.
It’s in our DNA not to trust kings.
Yet in uncertain times we are like the Israelites who came to Samuel clamoring for a king,
demanding that God give them someone to fight their battles,
to keep them safe from all the uncertainties swirling around them.
Despite the warning from Samuel that a king would take their sons and daughters,
would take their crops and livestock,
would ultimately take them and press them into his service,
they were willing to trade it all for just a tiny scrap of unqualified security.

We would never install a throne in the White House,
but we have our royalty just the same.
We tolerate king-sized bonuses at Goldman Sachs
because as much as we rail against them
we’ve bought the line that they are the kings of Wall Street,
and without them we’ll never return to economic prosperity.
We treat sports heroes like royalty
asking them to lead our team into battle and secure for us the victory.
And despite that unfortunate little stint in prison,
we still elevate Martha Stewart as Queen of the Domestic Arts
and lean on her heavily to help us create the perfect holiday table.

If the concept of “King” still leaves us ambivalent
maybe it’s because we know we should be following Jesus,
continue to make Pilate’s mistake instead.
We continue to admire conventional power
and strive for someone else’s idea of perfection,
not quite able to bring ourselves to accept gospel truth
that blesses the meek and the makers of peace.
We get impatient with paradox, with salvation delayed
forgetting that suffering love carries no whip
and that drawing all things to oneself can take awhile.

This Thursday we will celebrate another Thanksgiving.
Our Kings will take the field and fight for touchdowns and extra points.
The Caucasian among us will perpetuate the myth of benevolent Pilgrims
choosing to ignore the less-than-flattering Native American side of the story.
Some of us will labor under the stress of trying to create the perfect meal
and the idyllic family moment,
and exhaust ourselves in the process.
Others of us will lower the window shades and sink into lonely depression
dwelling on what we once had or what never has been.

But this is Christ the King Sunday, the last day of the Christian Year,
the day we lift up the craziest notion and hope beyond hope that it’s true.
Today we hold out for ourselves the vision
that the humbled man who stood before Pilate is, in fact, our Risen Lord,
that the one who was tortured between thieves reigns in glory now.
He will not fight our battles for us, but he will go into battle by our side
as long as our fight is just and right by gospel standards.
He will not give us a crystal ball to show us the future,
but he does assure us that the future is under his control.
And this Thursday he will not keep you from overcooking the turkey,
he will not make your team win,
he will not send balloons or pull up the window shades.

But he will be your king.
He will hold you in the hollow of his hand.

_______________
1 I am indebted to Leonard Beechy’s article in the November 17 issue of The Christian
Century under “Living the Word” for November 22, 2009, p. 20 for the general outline
and content of this sermon.

Always Something New - 1 Samuel 1:4-20, Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25

From time to time I teach a parenting class over at Rockfish River Elementary School.
Without fail, I can always count on someone in the class bringing up the issue
of how quickly young children change.
I remember that feeling as a young parent:
just when you think you’ve learned to predict your child’s behavior
and mastered the care of your child’s needs
the little rascal goes and does something different!

That compliant, happy little snuggle bug has a second birthday
and suddenly turns into a prickly force of defiance whose only word is “NO!”
That self-confident, curious, hard working seventh grader
has a summer growth spurt and suddenly becomes clumsy, sullen and lethargic.
Parents all feel tested to the limits by these changes
and can be seen late at night, leaning hard against the kitchen counter,
shaking their heads and muttering, “It’s always something new.”

As daunting a task as change can be for a parent,
none of us would prefer the alternative.
Sure, we’d like some stages to last a little longer,
but in our hearts we all know that when it comes to child development,
something new is usually a good thing.
When things STOP changing, that’s when we’re in trouble.
When days and weeks and months and years go buy and there is NOTHING new,
that’s when life becomes almost unbearable.
In the story of Samuel, Hannah’s life has become almost unbearable.
She would LOVE to have the problems of parenthood
but in a culture where women are valued only for their ability to bear children,
she has none.
She shares her husband with a second wife, Penninah,
who is never NOT pregnant
and who parades her fertility in front of Hannah whenever she can.

That Elkanah loves Hannah best may have taken away the sting at first,
but over time it has lost it’s power to distract her from her perceived inadequacy.
The women in my lectionary study group all agree
that Elkanah wins the prize for the “Most Clueless Man in the Bible”
with his statement, “Why are you sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

Compounding Hannah’s private despair is the fact that
she’s living in a time of general stagnation and distraction in Israel.
The chosen people of God are not really a nation at this point.
They are a loose confederation of tribes who have been scrapping
to gain a toe-hold in their Promised Land.
It is a time referred to in the Bible as the time of the Judges,
charismatic men and women who gain power from time to time
by either strength or wisdom
and whose leadership extends only so far as they can effectively rally the troops
for battle against one of the many tribes who are native to the area.

Abraham’s covenant with God to be the father of a nation who will be a light to all nations
has faded into the distant past.
The shared victory over slavery in Egypt
and the unifying passion of Moses has long since evaporated.
The book of Judges ends with this telling assessment,
“All the people did what was right in their own eyes.” (J udges 21:25)

This is a time before the first temple, before Jerusalem.
The center of worship is further north in Shiloh.
Eli is the chief priest but things have become so stagnant for him
that he’s become as apathetic as the ones he serves
performing his priestly rituals, just going through the motions.
It’s been a long, long time since anything new has presented itself;
a long time since he has been genuinely surprised.

Can you imagine such a predicament?
Maybe you’ve been through such a time or are going through such a time now.
Maybe it’s a job you’ve long since outgrown,
or a marriage that’s been on automatic pilot for years.
Maybe you’ve become stagnant in your faith development.
You’ve settled into a pattern, a routine that hasn’t varied
and you’ve insulated yourself.
You’ve insulated yourself against trying anything different.
That way you can’t fail.
You’ve insulated yourself against entertaining any new ideas.
That way you can’t be disappointed or make any mistakes.
As a result, there’s nothing new in your life.
Sure, it may be easy this way, there’s no challenge, no doubts to struggle with.
But is “easy” what we’re really after here?


Hannah and Elkanah go to Shiloh as a part of their dutiful religious observance,
probably part of their usual routine.
There Eli makes the ritual sacrifices on their behalf.
But Hannah decides that the routine is no longer acceptable.
She can’t go on any longer with things as they are.
She takes advantage of their proximity to the temple
and she presents herself before the altar of God
to pray like she’s never prayed before.

That the old priest Eli has drifted so far from a genuine experience of God
is evident by virtue of the fact that he is perplexed by the sight of Hannah praying.
He’s forgotten what genuine, heart-felt prayer looks like.
He thinks she’s had too much to drink.
But she assures him that she is pure in her motivation,
and he sees that she’s the real thing and gives her a blessing of peace.
Jaded as he is, it’s done old Eli some good
to warm up in the glow of Hannah’s faithful devotion.

It’s always something new.
When it comes to children, that’s a challenge.
When it comes to life, it’s what we hope for.
It is so easy to become complacent,
to go for the lowest common denominator,
to do just enough to get by.
But for a life of faithful obedience to Jesus,
stagnation is not an option.
It goes against everything Jesus stands for.

The author of Hebrews underlines in bold strokes
the notion that Jesus is our ticket out of complacency and stagnation.

The author reminds his readers that under the old system
the priests would stand at the alter day after day,
and time after time after time they would offer sacrifices for the peoples’ sins.
But it was a mindless, meaningless task.
All this repetitive sacrifice accomplished
was to highlight how stuck they were in their sinfulness.

But Jesus came and offered something new.
He made the lasting sacrifice.
He reconciled us to God once and for all.
He scrubbed us clean in our baptism,
pulled back the curtain on forgiveness,
and cleared the way for us to approach God’s throne of grace.

But the author of Hebrews doesn’t leave his readers there.
Having affirmed God’s action on our behalf,
he then completes the thought by underscoring our need to respond to God’s action
with actions of our own.
“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,” he writes,
not neglecting to meet together but encouraging one another in the faith.”

Today we honor and remember our veterans,
women and men who by draft or by choice have devoted themselves
to the service of our military.
To some it’s a calling. To some it’s an adventure. To some it’s a job.
Though engaging in combat is the quickest way to promotion in the military
I’ve met enough military people to know that they are typically the last ones
who want to go to war.

They more than the rest of us understand that there is no glory in battle.
They know that the mere existence of a standing army
is a testament to the reality of human sinfulness.

Though war may sometimes be necessary,
and those who fight may fight with courage and nobility,
there is nothing noble about war itself.
It is the clearest example we have of a lack of imagination.
It is the ultimate sign of stagnation, of stuck thinking,
of an unwillingness to consider something new.

Nine months after Hannah’s fervent prayer Samuel was born.
Though the gift of a son was what she’d longed for,
Hannah recognized that Samuel’s birth was bigger than her desire alone.
She recognized that his birth heralded something new God was doing,
not just for her, but for her people as well.
so she dedicated him to God and put him in a place
where he could be a part of God’s new thing.

Since the dawn of human existence we have learned very effectively
how to provoke one another to war.
It’s the easiest thing in the world. But is easy what we’re after…really?
Wouldn’t it be something, though,
if we, like Hanna became fed up with doing things the same old way,
responding in the same old ways,
capitulating to the same old arguments about how things can never change.
What if instead of doing the same old thing provoking one another to war,
we did the new thing instead. What if we prayed?
And what if we provoked one another to love and good deeds?
What if we finally provoked one another to peace?

A Sparkle of Generosity - Lev. 19:9-10, Ruth 2:1-16, Mark 12:38-44

In the late 1950’s, DC Comics introduced its readers to Bizarro World.
It was a cube shaped planet inhabited by opposites of DC Comic super heroes
like Batman, and Superman, and the Green Lantern.
Not only that, the preferred attitudes and personality traits of Bizarro world inhabitants
were the opposite of what we would call normal.
Stupid was smart, ugly was beautiful, and greed was good.
If you were kidnapped from your home on earth and transported to Bizarro world
you wouldn’t know who were the villains and who were the heroes.
You wouldn’t be able to trust your own eyes or ears.
Everything would seem backwards and upside down.

Those who heard Jesus teaching in the temple that day
must have thought they had been transported to Bizarro World.
He sat right there and told them the most backward, upside down thing.
“Beware the Scribes,” he said.
“What?”
“Beware the Scribes.”
You can see the wheels turning in his listeners’ heads,
wondering why he would say such a thing.
The Scribes were pillars of the community.
The Scribes were the good guys, the ones who really knew God’s law.
The Scribes had it all – wealth, respect, reputation.
You could tell they were important by the robes they wore,
by the long prayers they said.
But Jesus insisted on following that Bizzaro train of thought.
“Beware the Scribes,” he said.
“The ones who like to put on their fine robes and be bowed to in the shopping mall
and have front row seats in the Synagogue
and sit at the head table at banquets.”
Because even while they’re saying those long prayers of theirs,
they are, at the same time, signing the foreclosure notice on the homes of widows.

You see, if a woman’s husband died she was not deemed qualified to manage the estate.
So a religious leader with an impeccable reputation,
a Scribe,
would be appointed trustee of the dead man’s property.
That Scribe would charge the dead man’s estate a management fee
and, believe it or not, the Scribes would take advantage of the situation,
and siphon off more and more of the surviving widow’s property.

No one had the nerve to object to this, certainly not the powerless widow,
because it was always done in the name of God and for the good of the Temple.
Everyone in Jerusalem assumed that was just the way it was.
Everyone was conditioned not to question the status quo,
EVEN the widows whose livelihood was being consumed.

Mark tells us that on that last day Jesus taught in the Temple,
that last day before the precipitous tumble of events leading to his crucifixion,
Jesus sat down in the Temple opposite the Treasury,
a position Mark’s readers would immediately recognize as a position of judgment.
There Jesus watched as the people paraded up to the keeper of the Temple coffers
and made their contribution,
each donation called out aloud for all to hear.
The wealthy walked up with their entourage,
grinning broadly at those gathered,
making grand sweeping gestures to make sure they had everyone’s attention.
As they came forward each subsequent gift would be greater than the last,
causing the onlookers to gasp or even applaud the generosity of the giver.
You can bet the Scribes were there to offer the biggest contributors
an invitation to the club for dinner that evening,
or maybe two tickets to the chariot races on Sunday.
But then came the widow, that confounding widow.

The bare facts of the story are clear enough.
The woman shuffled forward and gave two of the tiniest coins there were in that day.
What she put in wouldn’t buy a lemon drop.
It wouldn’t buy a single thread in one of those fancy robes the Scribes wore.
You can imagine the snickers and the scornful looks she got
from the wealthier people gathered there
as her meager offering was made public by the money collector.
But Jesus spoke up, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more
than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
For all of them have contributed out of their abundance;
but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

The question comes when we try to sort out this poor widow’s motivation
for giving the Temple coffers her last little coins.
For the longest time, commentators have seen her gift as a supreme act of devotion,
and they have made her a model of generosity to be trotted out on Commitment Sunday
to shame everyone into pledging generously to the church budget.
“THEY gave out of their excess, but SHE gave sacrificially!”
Doesn’t that just make you want to write the church a big old check!
The trouble is, making the widow a model of pious generosity
doesn’t fit with the context of the passage.
Jesus has just accused the Scribes of devouring widow’s houses,
and now Mark has introduced into the story one such widow.
Revealing the widow’s offering of all she has
is not meant to hold her up as a shining example,
It is meant to denounce the greedy, morally bankrupt practices of the Scribes
that have created her desperate predicament!

As a judgment against the Scribes,
some now see the widow’s offering as an act of defiance.
They imagine her storming up to the collector’s money chest
and angrily throwing in her two tiny coins
as a way of saying, “There! That’s it! You got what you wanted!
Now you’ve got it all!”
That’s a satisfying image in one way,
but I think it’s more a Hollywood version
than an accurate estimate of what really happened.

More troubling in my mind than a defiant widow who, in her frustration and anger,
throws in her last two coins in this world,
is a widow who quietly acquiesces to the Scribes’ corrupt authority and gives readily,
not out of pious devotion to God, but out of unquestioning acceptance
of the Scribes authority, despite their obvious corruption.
Even though it may mean the end of her,
she, like everyone else, just goes along, not uttering a peep in protest,
because that’s just the way it is.

In his book, “Deer Hunting with Jesus,”
Joe Bageant, a journalist from Winchester, VA,
tries to describe the mindset of the working poor in his hometown.1
As he describes them, I am reminded of this widow,
who does what she has been convinced is the right thing to do,
and, in doing the right thing, only manages to prop up the very ones
who have driven her into poverty.

Bageant is talking about the man who bags his groceries,
the woman who stocks the shelves,
the janitor who cleans up after them all.
He pulls no punches in pointing out that they are in many ways their own worst enemies.
Bageant writes here mostly about the white working poor,
those hard-headed descendents of Scots-Irish immigrants
who see receiving help from others as a sign of weakness
and who do not value education,
the one thing that might get them out of poverty.

But the many challenges as the working poor put in their own way
are nothing compared to the barriers erected by their own society.
Bageant cites conservatives who shamelessly manipulate the working poor
by playing on their frustrations and fears,
and also liberals who have not clue what makes them tick
and quickly dismisses them as ignorant red-necks.
No one, in Bageant’s view has a monopoly here.
In his view, Democrats and Republicans are equal opportunity exploiters.

The people who heard Jesus denounce the Scribes in the temple that day
must have thought he had traveled to them from Bizarro World.
What was he thinking?
But Jesus knew that he was the one talking sense
to a society that itself had turned upside down and backwards.
They were the ones who were doing the opposite of what God intended
learning, as they had, to turn a blind eye to the injustice that infected every aspect of
their society, even the holy Temple and those who supported it.

In the very foundation of the Jewish law there is provision for the poor,
compassion for the outcast and the stranger in their midst.
Leviticus is very explicit in it’s instruction to leave part of the harvest in the fields
for the poor to glean.
In the beautiful little story of Ruth, Boaz is our example of a man who has prospered
yet has not forgotten his responsibilities to the poor.
As Ruth showed mercy and kindness to Naomi,
so Boaz, in a sparkle of generosity, showed mercy and kindness to Ruth.

Today is commitment Sunday, the day we intentionally consider
how we will choose to give ourselves to God in the coming year.
We hope you will pledge your time and your energy and also your money.

There is no Church Tax to pay, no guilt to labor under, no one looking over your shoulder
to see how “faithful” you are.
If you choose to give, give as Boaz gave, out of gratitude to God for all God has given.
Give out of recognition of the interconnectedness we share with all of God’s children.
Give with a sparkle of generosity and an attitude of joy.

1Bageant, Joe, Deer Hunting with Jesus, New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2007

Choose Well - Ruth 1:1-18, Mark 12:28-31

Every day we have choices to make about how we live out our faith,
and it is important to choose well.

At Columbia Seminary this past week I met a young man from Hungary.
Though he wasn’t even born until Soviet influence had begun to wane
he knew the stories of what it was like for the church under communist rule.
He told me that the Communists kept the churches open for appearances sake
but they appointed their own priests.
And though no one was barred from attending worship,
there was always a man in a black suit seated in the back
taking the names of those who came
Those who chose to practice their faith would be out of a job the next day.

Every day we have choices about how we live out our faith,
and sometimes it’s the seemingly small choices that can have the most lasting effect.

The book of Judges ends with a pessimistic assessment of Israel’s prospects
under the inter-tribal rivalry and haphazard leadership that marked the era.
But Ruth, the book after Judges,
ends with the foreshadowing of the coming King, the great one, David himself.
David, in fact, is a descendent of Ruth, the main character in the story.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Before the birth, before the king, a choice has to be made.
It may seem at first like a small choice,
an unimportant choice made by a seemingly unimportant woman.
But sometimes a seemingly small choice make a huge difference.

The choice Naomi’s husband Elimelech makes to leave Bethlehem and travel to Moab
to find food for his family seems like a no-brainer.
But there is a touch of irony in the fact that Elimelech leaves Bethlehem,
(the very name of the city means “House of Bread”)
and travels to Moab in the East across the Jordan River;
Moab, one of Israel’s many enemies;
Moab, whose women Israelite men are expressly forbidden by God to marry.
Desperate times, though, call for desperate measures.

In a nutshell, Naomi and Elimelech have two sons.
Elimelech dies.
The two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, defy the Deuteronomic law
and marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.
Ten years later, Mahlon and Chilion die.
This leaves three women, one Israelite and two Moabites.
Three women, grieving great loss
and without male protection in a male dominated culture.

But then the rain falls in Bethlehem, the grain grows and the harvest once again ripens.
The wind shifts and word drifts in on the wind that the famine in Bethlehem is over.
Given her bitter grief over the loss of her husband and her two sons,
it’s remarkable that Naomi credits God for the end of the famine in Bethlehem.
She has been a foreigner in a foreign land for too long.
It’s time to go home and cast herself on the mercy
of whatever family she’s got left there.
What Naomi DIDN’T need was two extra mouths to feed.
In her commentary on Ruth, Katharine Sakenfeld notes that Naomi is in survival mode.
No matter what affection she may have toward them,
Naomi doesn’t need to feel responsible for her sons’ widows.
SHE may be able to see beyond the fact that Orpah and Ruth are Moabites,
but she knows her clan-conscious tribe won’t be so welcoming of foreigners.
Naomi is going to need all the goodwill she can get from her Judean relatives
and Orpah and Ruth are likely to be liabilities for her more than assets.

Then there’s the other thing.
Naomi feels cursed by God.
She has lost so much and she wonders what she could have possibly done
to deserve the loss and grief that has enveloped her like a heavy, coarse blanket,
smothering her, taking from her sometimes even the capacity to breathe.
Why should two innocent women be further struck by lightening
just because they happen to be standing under Naomi’s private storm cloud?

What Naomi has to say to her daughters-in-law makes sense.
“Go back to your Mother’s house,” she tells them.
“And God be merciful to you.”
Though it pains her, Orpah is obedient and follows Naomi’s direction.
Nobody can blame her for that.
But Ruth? Ruth is a different story.

Naomi orders Ruth to go home.
Ruth has a choice to make and there is a context for that choice
The cards seem stacked against her.
She had a husband but he died. In ten years of marriage she had no children
putting her in the category of Sarah and Hannah and Elizabeth
a category the Bible calls “barren.”
In a culture that defines a woman through her husband
and by the number of children she bears, Ruth has nothing.
Nothing, that is, but loyalty. Nothing but endurance.
Nothing but affection. Nothing but hope.

Naomi wants only to survive, but Ruth is more interested in thriving.
Naomi can’t see beyond her bitterness,
so it falls to Ruth to live into the moment,
to embody the gracious giving of a God she’s only beginning to know.

So Ruth offers to Naomi a remarkable gift.
She offers her what in Hebrew is called Hesed.
In English it’s translated “kindness” but it’s so much more than that.
It’s mercy, it’s peace, it’s steadfastness, it’s commitment. It’s a gift.

“Where you go, I will go,” Ruth vows. “Where you lodge I will lodge.”
Easy enough. But then she adds,
“Your people shall be my people, your God my God.”
This passage is often used in weddings
and every time I read that part about “Your people will be my people”
The two who stand before me always give a nervous little laugh.
They know that’s a tall order!
But Ruth isn’t just saying, “I’ll try to put up with you’re crazy family.
She’s saying, “I not only will go with you
but I will subject myself to certain rejection by your people as a foreigner.”

To top it off Ruth even vows, “Where you die, I will die.”
Naomi is older than Ruth and will likely die first.
Then what.
Even though Ruth will always be a foreigner in Bethlehem,
she is promising not to go back home to Moab
even after Naomi is no longer around.
She’s putting everything on the line.
She’s in it for the long haul.
This is more than duty, Ruth is telling her.
This is more than affection.
This is Hesed. This is steadfastness. This is my covenant. This is my choice.

The Scribe comes to Jesus and asks,
“What is the most important of God’s commandments?”
Jesus replies, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
The second most important commandment is this,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Everyday we have choices to make about how we live out our faith,
choices about whether or not we will take advantage of the opportunities we have
to offer Hesed to our neighbor.

This past week I was at Columbia Seminary studying the sacraments,
thinking about how to make the sacraments more vivid in our worship here.
The faculty made themselves available to the six of us who were on campus
and I scheduled a meeting with two of the women faculty
who specialize in the theology of worship.

I don’t mind telling you, I was nervous.
I was afraid I wouldn’t know enough to carry on a conversation with these women.
I was intimidated by their credentials and feeling ill prepared.
When I emailed Dr. Long and Dr. Moore-Keish to confirm our meeting,
Dr. Long wrote back and said she would try to be there,
but that her mother-in-law was near death and she may be called away.

We met for an hour and both professors were there
and they couldn’t have been more gracious and helpful.
At the end of the hour I asked about Dr. Long’s Mother-in-law.
Her face clouded and she said, “She doesn’t look like herself anymore.”
Her voice caught as she spoke and a tear came to her eye.

Now, I tell you this not to hold myself up for any great prize,
but as an example of how powerful it can be if you stay alert to opportunities
to offer even a small gesture of mercy and peace and compassion
when the context calls for it.
These opportunities happen all the time and they usually fly right by me!
But this time the Spirit moved me to ask Dr. Long her mother-in-law’s name.
She said, “Her name is Belle.”
I suggested we might have a prayer for Belle before we left.
I mean, they’re theology professors! They’re not going to say “No!”
So we held hands, these highly intelligent theology professors and me,
and I offered a prayer for Belle and for Dr. Long and for her husband.
When I finished, Dr. Long’s tears were spilling over.
She paused, caught her breath, and said,
“That’s the first time in all of this that anybody’s prayed for me.”
* * *

“Love God, love neighbor.”
That’s it? That’s it!
It is so simple, yet so profound.
In God’s realm it’s not about the grand gesture or the flashy show.
It’s not about the big production or the once in a lifetime opportunity.
It’s about mercy, and peace, and steadfastness and covenant.
It’s about trusting the process when the road gets narrow,
staying on coarse when the light gets dim.
It’s about careful consideration of what and who is most important in your life.
It’s about recognizing all God has given us
and about being generous in our gifts to God and others.

Though our lives we are given the opportunity to be a source of Hesed to others,
to be fiercely devoted to those around us,
even when the economy tanks and familiar institutions crumble.
God gives us the choice and even the strength to follow through with the choice.
but ultimately the choice is ours.
It is important to choose well.

Choose Well
Ruth 1:1-18
Mark 12:28-31

Every day we have choices to make about how we live out our faith,
and it is important to choose well.

At Columbia Seminary this past week I met a young man from Hungary.
Though he wasn’t even born until Soviet influence had begun to wane
he knew the stories of what it was like for the church under communist rule.
He told me that the Communists kept the churches open for appearances sake
but they appointed their own priests.
And though no one was barred from attending worship,
there was always a man in a black suit seated in the back
taking the names of those who came
Those who chose to practice their faith would be out of a job the next day.

Every day we have choices about how we live out our faith,
and sometimes it’s the seemingly small choices that can have the most lasting effect.

The book of Judges ends with a pessimistic assessment of Israel’s prospects
under the inter-tribal rivalry and haphazard leadership that marked the era.
But Ruth, the book after Judges,
ends with the foreshadowing of the coming King, the great one, David himself.
David, in fact, is a descendent of Ruth, the main character in the story.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Before the birth, before the king, a choice has to be made.
It may seem at first like a small choice,
an unimportant choice made by a seemingly unimportant woman.
But sometimes a seemingly small choice make a huge difference.

The choice Naomi’s husband Elimelech makes to leave Bethlehem and travel to Moab
to find food for his family seems like a no-brainer.
But there is a touch of irony in the fact that Elimelech leaves Bethlehem,
(the very name of the city means “House of Bread”)
and travels to Moab in the East across the Jordan River;
Moab, one of Israel’s many enemies;
Moab, whose women Israelite men are expressly forbidden by God to marry.
Desperate times, though, call for desperate measures.

In a nutshell, Naomi and Elimelech have two sons.
Elimelech dies.
The two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, defy the Deuteronomic law
and marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.
Ten years later, Mahlon and Chilion die.
This leaves three women, one Israelite and two Moabites.
Three women, grieving great loss
and without male protection in a male dominated culture.

But then the rain falls in Bethlehem, the grain grows and the harvest once again ripens.
The wind shifts and word drifts in on the wind that the famine in Bethlehem is over.
Given her bitter grief over the loss of her husband and her two sons,
it’s remarkable that Naomi credits God for the end of the famine in Bethlehem.
She has been a foreigner in a foreign land for too long.
It’s time to go home and cast herself on the mercy
of whatever family she’s got left there.
What Naomi DIDN’T need was two extra mouths to feed.
In her commentary on Ruth, Katharine Sakenfeld notes that Naomi is in survival mode.
No matter what affection she may have toward them,
Naomi doesn’t need to feel responsible for her sons’ widows.
SHE may be able to see beyond the fact that Orpah and Ruth are Moabites,
but she knows her clan-conscious tribe won’t be so welcoming of foreigners.
Naomi is going to need all the goodwill she can get from her Judean relatives
and Orpah and Ruth are likely to be liabilities for her more than assets.

Then there’s the other thing.
Naomi feels cursed by God.
She has lost so much and she wonders what she could have possibly done
to deserve the loss and grief that has enveloped her like a heavy, coarse blanket,
smothering her, taking from her sometimes even the capacity to breathe.
Why should two innocent women be further struck by lightening
just because they happen to be standing under Naomi’s private storm cloud?

What Naomi has to say to her daughters-in-law makes sense.
“Go back to your Mother’s house,” she tells them.
“And God be merciful to you.”
Though it pains her, Orpah is obedient and follows Naomi’s direction.
Nobody can blame her for that.
But Ruth? Ruth is a different story.

Naomi orders Ruth to go home.
Ruth has a choice to make and there is a context for that choice
The cards seem stacked against her.
She had a husband but he died. In ten years of marriage she had no children
putting her in the category of Sarah and Hannah and Elizabeth
a category the Bible calls “barren.”
In a culture that defines a woman through her husband
and by the number of children she bears, Ruth has nothing.
Nothing, that is, but loyalty. Nothing but endurance.
Nothing but affection. Nothing but hope.

Naomi wants only to survive, but Ruth is more interested in thriving.
Naomi can’t see beyond her bitterness,
so it falls to Ruth to live into the moment,
to embody the gracious giving of a God she’s only beginning to know.

So Ruth offers to Naomi a remarkable gift.
She offers her what in Hebrew is called Hesed.
In English it’s translated “kindness” but it’s so much more than that.
It’s mercy, it’s peace, it’s steadfastness, it’s commitment. It’s a gift.

“Where you go, I will go,” Ruth vows. “Where you lodge I will lodge.”
Easy enough. But then she adds,
“Your people shall be my people, your God my God.”
This passage is often used in weddings
and every time I read that part about “Your people will be my people”
The two who stand before me always give a nervous little laugh.
They know that’s a tall order!
But Ruth isn’t just saying, “I’ll try to put up with you’re crazy family.
She’s saying, “I not only will go with you
but I will subject myself to certain rejection by your people as a foreigner.”

To top it off Ruth even vows, “Where you die, I will die.”
Naomi is older than Ruth and will likely die first.
Then what.
Even though Ruth will always be a foreigner in Bethlehem,
she is promising not to go back home to Moab
even after Naomi is no longer around.
She’s putting everything on the line.
She’s in it for the long haul.
This is more than duty, Ruth is telling her.
This is more than affection.
This is Hesed. This is steadfastness. This is my covenant. This is my choice.

The Scribe comes to Jesus and asks,
“What is the most important of God’s commandments?”
Jesus replies, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
The second most important commandment is this,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Everyday we have choices to make about how we live out our faith,
choices about whether or not we will take advantage of the opportunities we have
to offer Hesed to our neighbor.

This past week I was at Columbia Seminary studying the sacraments,
thinking about how to make the sacraments more vivid in our worship here.
The faculty made themselves available to the six of us who were on campus
and I scheduled a meeting with two of the women faculty
who specialize in the theology of worship.

I don’t mind telling you, I was nervous.
I was afraid I wouldn’t know enough to carry on a conversation with these women.
I was intimidated by their credentials and feeling ill prepared.
When I emailed Dr. Long and Dr. Moore-Keish to confirm our meeting,
Dr. Long wrote back and said she would try to be there,
but that her mother-in-law was near death and she may be called away.

We met for an hour and both professors were there
and they couldn’t have been more gracious and helpful.
At the end of the hour I asked about Dr. Long’s Mother-in-law.
Her face clouded and she said, “She doesn’t look like herself anymore.”
Her voice caught as she spoke and a tear came to her eye.

Now, I tell you this not to hold myself up for any great prize,
but as an example of how powerful it can be if you stay alert to opportunities
to offer even a small gesture of mercy and peace and compassion
when the context calls for it.
These opportunities happen all the time and they usually fly right by me!
But this time the Spirit moved me to ask Dr. Long her mother-in-law’s name.
She said, “Her name is Belle.”
I suggested we might have a prayer for Belle before we left.
I mean, they’re theology professors! They’re not going to say “No!”
So we held hands, these highly intelligent theology professors and me,
and I offered a prayer for Belle and for Dr. Long and for her husband.
When I finished, Dr. Long’s tears were spilling over.
She paused, caught her breath, and said,
“That’s the first time in all of this that anybody’s prayed for me.”
* * *

“Love God, love neighbor.”
That’s it? That’s it!
It is so simple, yet so profound.
In God’s realm it’s not about the grand gesture or the flashy show.
It’s not about the big production or the once in a lifetime opportunity.
It’s about mercy, and peace, and steadfastness and covenant.
It’s about trusting the process when the road gets narrow,
staying on coarse when the light gets dim.
It’s about careful consideration of what and who is most important in your life.
It’s about recognizing all God has given us
and about being generous in our gifts to God and others.

Though our lives we are given the opportunity to be a source of Hesed to others,
to be fiercely devoted to those around us,
even when the economy tanks and familiar institutions crumble.
God gives us the choice and even the strength to follow through with the choice.
but ultimately the choice is ours.
It is important to choose well.

How Not to Write a Resume Job 38:1-7, Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Unemployment in the U.S. is nearing 10%.
Whatever the reasons for this, it’s a hard time to be looking for work.
The first step to finding a job is to write yourself a good resume.
Some people are better at this than others.
The trick is learning how to put the proper spin on your qualifications and experience.
For example, you want to put, “I’m a fast learner.”
You don’t want to put, “I backed up the fork lift without looking where I was going.
I’ll never do THAT again!”
You want to put, “I’m known for running a tight ship,”
not, “I’m such a nag I was voted ‘Most likely to annoy,’ by my colleagues.”
You want to put, “I was the sales leader last quarter.”
But you may not want to reveal that what you were selling
was chocolate bars to raise money for your son’s band uniform.

The whole point of a resume is to focus on your strengths,
not to LIE necessarily, just to try to show yourself in the best light possible.
After all, if we were to tell the whole truth who would hire us?
“I pad my expense account every chance I get.”
“I will not hesitate to stab a colleague in the back if it gets me a promotion.”
“I spend fifteen minutes of every hour
checking my fantasy football stats on the internet.”
“I get bored easily.”

In classic theological terms, when it comes to the workplace,
or any other place for that matter,
we are sinners.
It’s one of those things we all have in common.
We are experts in our inhumanity –
choosing comfort over integrity,
choosing war over peace.

This isn’t a modern phenomenon.
It’s been going on for a long time.
The whole book of Job is one author’s attempt
to understand the question of sin
and why bad things happen to seemingly “good” people.
Job suffers one calamity after another
and his friends try to convince him that his misfortune is God’s punishment for sin.
Job, however, protests that he is innocent
and that a righteous God would not punish an innocent man.
So Job stands before God and asks, “Why?”
And God answers Job’s question with another question saying,
“Who are you to question me?”
When it comes to sin the author of Job says,
there are no answers.

When we read the sermon we call the letter to the Hebrews
it’s clear that the church to whom the sermon is addressed is struggling
with their own obedience.
They’re suffering from a sagging spirit.
They seem to have a problem with motivation.
Their hands are drooping, their knees are weak.
They’ve even started neglecting meeting together for worship.
They’re tired of being different,
tired of holding themselves to a higher standard,
tired of trying to resist the temptations that assault them daily,
tired of failing.
Reading between the lines,
it appears that they have started to question if they’ve made the right choice
in choosing to hire Jesus as their savior.
They’re wondering if the self-denial is worth it.
They’re wondering if their life together as a community of faith really means anything.
They’re starting to question if the abuse they suffer from being different
has any lasting benefit.

You know how that is – right?
If you grew up in church you remember getting dressed in those uncomfortable clothes
and pulling out of your driveway to go sit in Sunday school
while your friends zipped up and down the street on their bikes, free as birds.
You’re all too aware of the times you’ve wanted to hurt somebody,
to exact your revenge swiftly, bring your enemies to their knees,
and yet because you are a follower of Jesus you’ve done your best to stuff it down,
swallow the anger, absorb the hurt.
You know what’s its like watching people pass you on the career ladder
because they’re willing to play ball with the boss,
while you stew in your sauce of Christian ethics.

Like the Christians to whom Hebrews was written we hired Jesus as our savior
because he seemed the one most likely to get us out of our predicament.
We know we have this problem with sin
and he seemed the one who could make that problem go away.
Maybe you initially chose to hire Jesus as your savior
on the recommendation of a friend,
His references were good.
His pedigree seemed impeccable.
His resume was full of action words and bullet points.
But, honestly, are you happy with his job performance?
What if you were decide that today his contract is up?
You know there are many other candidates vying for the job.
Would you rehire him?
In this day and age is he still what you’re looking for?
Or should you cut him loose and look for something different?

If we’re going to hire someone other than Jesus to be our savior, who should it be?
How about John Rambo? That’s a thought.
He’s the fictional muscle bound tough guy who lives by the code that might makes right.
He’s appealing because he’s able to see the world in black and white.
There are good guys and bad guys in Rambo’s world,
and they’re easy to tell apart.
There’s no gray area. No ambiguity. If you’re not for me, you’re against me.
Rambo would definitely keep us safe.

Who can we hire to be our savior if not Jesus?
Maybe we should hire our Mother as our savior.
After all, in Mother’s eyes we can do no wrong.
Mother will give us nothing but nurturing love and acceptance no matter what.
If we mess up we can blame it on someone else.
If we run up debts Mother will pay them off for us.
We would be free of all responsibility if Mother was by our side.
Mother would definitely keep us comfortable.

Who can we hire to be our savior if not Jesus?
Maybe Hugh Hefner, founder of the Playboy Corporation
could be our savior. We could hire him.
He’s getting up there in years, but he’s still got that Playboy spirit.
If Hugh Hefner was our savior,
the first thing he would do would be to tell us to lighten up!
Pleasure is the key, he would say, and the pursuit of pleasure our ultimate concern.
He would tell us not to sweat the small stuff.
He would tell us not to sweat period!
Effort is for chumps.
Self-indulgence is the answer.
Hugh Hefner would surely keep us feeling good!

We’re in the market for a savior. Should Jesus’ be rehired
or should we look for another.
The original readers of Hebrews had to make that very decision.
Sagging, dispirited, world-weary – could Jesus still be the one
to make them hope again.
Did he still have the substance that would help them get their second wind?

The truth is, by modern standards Jesus’ resume is lacking.
He doesn’t offer safety, or comfort, or pleasure.
He hasn’t maximized any stake-holder’s profitability,
or streamlined any corporation’s functionality.
His one start-up effort was severely undercapitalized from the beginning
and the franchise is limping along at best.
He IS qualified as a high priest, the author claims
but even those qualifications come not from the established Ivy League line of Levi.
but through the unaccredited, mysterious line of Melchizedek.

Jesus’ primary qualification it seems is his acquaintance with weakness;
that and his sensitivity to God’s calling.

He is, we’re told, well versed in every test, every trial, every temptation that besets us,
yet, through it all, he is without sin.
He is without sin.

We’ll big deal! He’s God, right?
He can put on the cape, fire up his X-ray vision, leap a tall building with a single bound.
Of course he’s without sin, he’s GOD!
No.
The author of Hebrews wants us to know that Jesus is without sin because he’s HUMAN.
He is “human” in the fullest expression of that word.
He is human as God created us all to be human:
- subject to weakness, assaulted by temptation, beset by uncertainty
and yet he endured the sufferings without compromising his humanity.

As my former preaching professor Tom Long writes,
“It was Jesus who walked, as the high priest, into the great sanctuary
and, on behalf of us all, placed himself into the offering plate,
the one thing God truly desires: a human being fully alive.”1

If we’re honest with ourselves,
we can never have a truthful resume that doesn’t include sin.
But if we continue to employ Jesus as our savior
then we also have the right to include the one thing that makes all the difference.
Human. Like Jesus, we are human.
With God’s help, may our humanity toward one another
be the qualification that defines us.


1 Long, Thomas G., What God Wants, Christian Century, (March 21, 2006, p. 19.)