David Cameron's Sermons

On Beyond Zebra

2012-01-29T14:03:00.001-08:00

Mark 1:21-28
1 Corinthians 8:1-13

One of my all time favorite books by Dr. Seuss is “On Beyond Zebra.”1
It is a gentle, typically zany Seuss-ian commentary on the confining constructs of life
under which we needlessly labor,
when we have the capacity to go so much further.
When we are toddlers one of the first things we learn is the alphabet;
26 letters that in various combinations make up every word in the English language.
But, in a challenge to this early limitation of 26 letters on our word-creating capacity,
Seuss writes:
"You can stop, if you want, with the Z.
Because most people stop with the Z.
But not me !!!
In the places I go, there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!

It doesn’t have Seuss’ rhythm or rhyme, but when I read the opening chapter
of Mark’s account of Jesus’ ministry
I hear faint strains of Dr. Seuss’ unwillingness to live within proscribed limits.
Mark writes, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good
news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near....”

The kingdom of God, the expansive realm of God’s mercy and grace,
the liberating arena of new possibilities that no arrest warrant, no palace intrigue,
no power on earth can limit has come near, so close that we can touch it,
so close that with a boost, perhaps, we can get our foot up onto the first step
climb aboard, and go for the ride of our lives.

The ride of God’s realm moves at breakneck speed in Mark’s gospel,
as in every other sentence, almost, Mark uses the word “immediately”
to propel Jesus along.
With a splash Jesus is baptized, with a great ripping sound the heavens part
and God gives Jesus some fatherly approval.
The Holy Spirit shoves Jesus out into the Wilderness to be tempted,
and then Jesus invites Simon, and Andrew, James and John,
to drop what they’re doing and IMMEDIATELY follow him.

Out of breath, these first disciples find themselves with Jesus
in the Synagogue on the Sabbath in Capernaum, Simon and Andrew’s home town.
Jesus opens his mouth and teaches the worshippers gathered there,
teaches them compellingly, raising up goose bumps on their arms,
making the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end,
teaching with a kind of authority that turns on lights and opens up horizons
and causes the congregation gathered there to imagine
something greater than dull drudgery, petty bickering, and rigid mediocrity,
to imagine something greater than themselves.

Pity the poor scribes who are confined only to the script their tradition offers,
charged with the task of sticking to the lesson plan no matter what.
“OK, class,” they would say, “repeat after us. This is an ‘A.’ ‘A’ is for ‘Apple.’
This is a big ‘A,’ this is a little ‘a.’ ‘A,’ ‘A,’ ‘A’.
OK, now, this is a ‘B’….” and on and on and on.
But then Jesus comes into their class room, comes onto their turf,
and though he is from their tradition, he is not confined to their tradition.
Because in Jesus the realm of God is coming near,
he can go on beyond ‘Z’ is for ‘Zebra.’
His alphabet begins where their alphabet ends.

There are no transcripts available for what Jesus said in the synagogue that day
that had the congregation so inspired.
But if we don’t have the words he said,
we at least have a visual depiction of the point he was there to make,
a video of an encounter Jesus had with a man there
and with, for lack of a better term, the spirit of opposition
that had ensnared the man.

There is an exchange in the Synagogue between Jesus and this enslaving spirit;
a battle that looks at first like it’s going to be a “knock down, drag out” affair
except that the spirit of opposition proves all bluster with nothing to back it up.
In this visual image Mark provides, even without knowing all Jesus said,
we see clearly what that early scene in the Synagogue is all about.
The system that is in place in all Judea is a system
meant to keep the people in their place,
meant to carefully proscribe the limits of life under Roman rule,
meant to reinforce the Scribes’ authority to promote tradition
and draw in the reins when anyone makes a move to do anything differently.

The man with the unclean spirit
is just an extreme example of the confinement
felt by everyone who lives in that system.
They are, by all indications, stuck at “Z is for Zebra.”

But what Mark is telling us in his breathless style,
is that in Jesus the realm of God rushes in, brushing back the confining forces,
tearing a hole in the fabric of the tent the people live in
and allowing them to see what exists beyond the walls.

Like a miner emerging from deep underground,
they blink at the brightness, the likes of which they’ve never seen,
and they marvel at the new thing Jesus has brought into their midst.

If Mark is going for a powerful cinematic impact on his audience;
if he is introducing the new possibilities that open up to followers of Jesus
as they begin to grasp that God’s realm is no longer a dream
but is actually beginning to germinate right there in their midst,
then Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, is trying to explain that new reality
in very concrete ways
that his arrogant, worldly, sort-of-thick-headed friends in Corinth can understand.

You may remember from a couple of weeks ago,
that the people of Corinth liked to live their lives according to slogans.
They weren’t quite as catchy as “Just do it,” or “Things go better with Coke,”
but they were powerful slogans, nonetheless, that dominated church behavior.
Two weeks ago the slogan of the day was, “Everything is lawful.”
And Paul had to counter that slogan with the caveat,
“Well, everything may be lawful, but not all things are beneficial.”

Today we’re introduced to another couple of popular slogans the good people of Corinth
are tossing about.
One is, “We all possess knowledge.”
Another is, “No idol in the world really exists.”
When Paul quotes these slogans back to the Corinthians,
he’s setting up his response to another issue that’s been tearing apart the church –
the question of whether it is acceptable for members of the church
to buy and consume meat from the various pagan temples in the city
where animals are sacrificed to idols.

Reading between the lines in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians
we see that there are intelligent people in the church
who take pride in their ability to consider all the theological nuances of an issue.
When it comes to meat offered to idols, their argument goes like this:
We know from the Hebrew Scriptures that “God is one.”
Therefore, idols don’t exist.
Even the most elaborate statue in the most ornate temple is just a thing.
So what if a bull is butchered and the pagan temple priests chant their chants?
Because we believe in the one true God, we know it’s just a meaningless show.
Why let good meat go to waste? Besides, they have the best prices in town!
We can see their point, right? They make good sense.
Why should I restrict my freedom in Christ because somebody else just doesn’t get it?

Even Paul can’t argue with their logic.
They are on absolutely sound theological footing.
Using all 26 letters of the alphabet they have made their case.
They’ve sewn it up, A to Z.
That’s when Paul remembers that, like Dr. Seuss, following Jesus
invites us to go on beyond Zebra.
With Jesus there are places we go and things that we see
that just can’t be captured within the usual confines of conventional rationality.

Where, for the Corinthians, knowledge is the key. For Jesus, and for Paul, it’s love.
“Knowledge puffs up,” Paul says. “But love builds up.”
It’s for the sake of love that Paul confronts the Corinthian smarty-pants.
“Yeah, Paul says, “YOU know that there is but one God
and it doesn’t phase you in the least to eat meat sacrificed on pagan altars.

But what about your brother in Christ who grew up bowing with his family at those altars.
What about the one whose earliest memories involve those chants,
and whose deepest religious emotions are stirred
by the mere aroma of ribs barbecuing on the grill?
What about the newest converts to the way of Jesus who face intense family pressure
to quit fooling around with that new-fangled Christian nonsense and come back,
come back to the temple of Aphrodite and be a part of the family once again?

You and I don’t have to look beyond the first headline or listen past the first sound bite
to see the corrosive damage done when we focus on knowledge and not on love,
when we are so concerned about being right, we forget to be gracious.
There are times when we have to stand against the tide, to raise our voice in protest,
to do what we believe is the loving thing even when it is the unpopular thing.
Even then, though, we need to expand our alphabet and rip open the tent
to let in the light of God’s realm as we stand firm in humility and make our case in love.

Living in an A-Z world we are trapped by the limitations of traditional assumptions
and the constraints of expectations that serve only to keep us from knowing
the power that is available to us as followers of Jesus,
the power that enables us to do things differently.
As the people of Capernaum saw, in Jesus there is a new kind of authority.
In him there is an expansiveness that can set us free, not to abuse our freedom
and assert our rights at the expense of others,
but to use our freedom to serve others in love.

Maybe that feels like it’s beyond your capacity?
Maybe you think you’re too set in your ways to come out of the tunnel into the light?
OK, Dr. Seuss would say, You're stuck in a rut.
But on beyond Zebra, you're anything but!
When you go beyond Zebra, who knows ...? There’s no telling
What wonderful things you might find yourself spelling!
So you see! There's no end to the things you might know,
Depending how far beyond Zebra you go!"

_____________
1 Geisel, Theodore (Dr. Seuss), On Beyond Zebra, New York: Random House, Inc., 1955 (renewed 1983).

This Old World

2012-01-22T13:33:00.000-08:00

Mark 1:14-20
1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Last Sunday afternoon I was outside with Will and listening to a story on my little radio
about the legacy of Ronald Reagan.
What really brought me up short in the story was not the conversation about Reagan,
but how his biographer, Craig Shirley, characterized life in the 1970’s
that set the stage for Reagan’s rise to prominence.
Shirley said, "You had rampant inflation [and] high interest rates;
we were losing [the] Cold War.
Americans had become rampant cheap consumers of the '70s –
disco music or pet rocks or leisure suits – all of those things that really summed up
what was really a very bad time for the American people."1

I heard that and I thought, “Hey, wait a minute! I HAD a pet rock!
Whaddaya mean, “Cheap consumers of the ‘70s?” Whaddaya mean, “Bad time?”
You’re talking about my era there, Bub!
You’re talking about my bell-bottom jeans, my wide paisley tie,
my poster of Farrah Fawcett.
You’re talking about CB radios and the Waltons and “the Fonz.” (ayyyy!)
“Cheap consumers!” Huh!

For all the uproar of the ‘70s – Watergate, the Ayatollah Khomeini, lines at the gas pump,
it was my “coming-of-age” time and maybe more than any stage of a person’s life
that’s the time that seems so important, so permanent, so enduring.
But then, of course, that world passes away.
No more shag carpet, no more Bee Gees, no more “10-4, Good buddy.”
What seemed so lasting and enduring vanishes. Poof!
The truth is that every stage of life requires some “letting go”
if you’re going to move ahead from “old world” to “new world.”
Every passing stage of life requires that you have an emotional and psychological
rummage sale to clear the way for the tasks you have to tackle in the next stage.

It’s true on a personal level.
A parent dies, a relationship ends - the tendency is to deny the old world is ending.
That’s understandable. We sympathize. But ready or not, the new world is coming.

It’s true also on a societal level as well,
though on a societal level letting go of the old world is tougher to manage.
It’s tougher because there are always competing claims at work; divided loyalties.
It’s harder to advance on a societal level because fear of change runs deep
and there are always people who gain power by exploiting that fear in others.
Not that I’m saying every new idea or different way is good or useful or free of self-interest,
or that human progress is inevitable.
But I do believe in general, as the 19th century slavery abolitionist Theodore Parker said,
that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Because men and women of courage have fought for the right to be free, to vote;
the right to be judged not by the color their skin but by the content of their character,
we have moved forward, inch by inch,
as the old world passes away and a new world emerges.
Still, on a societal level, new fears come up and are eagerly exploited by some,
and one step forward sometimes feels like it’s met with two steps back.

The theological term for the study of the end of the old world
and the beginning of the new world is “eschatology.”
In the most extreme “eschatological” corner we find the likes of Harold Camping,
who told us last year the world as we know it
was going to end first in May, then in October.
In the same vein we have those who warn us
that the Mayan calendar chiseled in stone long ago runs out this year, 2012,
so surely that means this is it. Come next New Year’s Eve this old world is finished.

The Bible includes a few different views of eschatology, depending on the book.
The gospel of John presents what’s called a “realized eschatology”
in which the realm of God is imagined as already fully present among us.
Through belief in Jesus we have already begun our eternal life even here on earth.
In some places Paul speaks of an “imminent eschatology” presenting a scenario
where Jesus is coming again soon, so we’d better focus on getting ready.
The gospel of Mark, in our passage today,
expresses what scholars call a “proleptic eschatology;”
a view that says God’s realm is near or partially realized;
that we catch glimpses of it any time we see love expressed to God and neighbor,
but we have to patiently wait for the Kingdom’s full glory to be revealed.

If we look at Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
we find Paul trying to walk an eschatalogical tightrope
with his friends in that troubled church.
Some in the church have been so caught up
in the expectation that Jesus will come again soon
that they’ve started divorcing their spouses or abstaining from sexual relations.
They’ve started acting like Harold Camping’s followers:
quitting their jobs, closing their bank accounts, taking their children out of school.

Because Paul does seem to think that the time is short until Jesus comes again,
he does write his friends that it’s good to keep their footsteps in this present world light,
and their engagements with this present world simple,
so that they can stay flexible and not be so wrapped up in this present world,
that they can’t let go when the time comes.
But human relationships still matter, Paul assures his friends,
and daily chores still need to be done,
and we must ultimately live with the lack of certainty that’s part of our limited capacity
to know the mind of God.

The Presbytery of Santa Fe has been promoting the coming conference with Phyllis Tickle,
a church historian and author who has been trying to articulate
the anxiety we’re all feeling about the passing away of the old world
we in the World War II and Baby Boom generations have known.
She and others have come up with the idea that every five hundred years society
and especially the church seems to go through a major shift in it’s understanding
of where authority lies and how we should order our life together.
Like most major transitions this shift doesn’t happen all at once.
It takes about 150 years to lead up to it and about 150 years to adjust to it
so if you’re lucky you get to live in the 200 years or so of stability in between.
We’re not so fortunate.

Five hundred years ago we had the Reformation
that was preceded and made possible in many ways
by the new technology called the printing press.
At the same time Europe saw an economic shift from independent fiefdoms
with lord’s and serfs to larger nation-states ruled by Kings and governments.
All this was accompanied by an erosion of the church’s power
brought on by the Enlightenment and science and Copernicus’ discovery
that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.

Now, five hundred years later, we’ve seen more challenges to the Church’s authority
by Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s theory of the human psyche.
The new technology is the internet and the world wide web
and the power of the nation-state is being eroded by forces of globalization.
Christian dominance as THE civil religion has been upended
and people are free to adhere to any religion or no religion and still find acceptance.
The old world is passing away before our eyes.
It’s scary and threatening and just like 500 years ago, it triggers an automatic reaction
to fight against change and rail against infidels and yearn for the good, old days.

When we try to find somebody to blame for this devilish change (and don’t we always)
Phyllis Tickle tells us the most likely candidate is Michael Faraday.
It is through Faraday’s research on electro-magnetic fields in the early 19th century
that electricity itself was able to be harnessed for technological invention.
That led, of course, to the light bulb, the movie projector, the microwave oven,
and finally, in it’s most evil forms, Facebook, Twitter, and iPads.

Her point, of course, is that change isn’t anyone’s fault
no matter how much we want it to be.
Change happens because the old world as we know it and love it,
even with all it’s warts and gaps and twisted, ugly parts,
the old world as we know it is passing away.

What then are we as followers of Jesus to do?
Both of our passages today give us something to consider in this vein,
though they each reflect a little different eschatological understanding:
Paul’s more imminent, Mark’s more proleptic.
From Paul we learn the gift of living “as though.”
Human relationships like marriage, human emotions like grief and joy,
human endeavors like buying and selling all have their important place
in the lives of Jesus’ followers.
But relationships, emotions, and endeavors are secondary, Paul would say.
Our daily dramas, our political loyalties, even our church commitments
are never to anchor us so firmly in one place or mindset that we fail to live
“as though” the old world is passing and lean into the new thing God is up to.

From Mark’s story of Jesus coming on the scene and his call of his first disciples
we learn the gift of quiet assurance that, in turn, leads to affirmative response.
In Jesus, Mark tells us, we have assurance that the Kingdom of God is near.
If we can’t grasp it in our hands we can at least feel the vibrations from it.
So, like the child who is able to sleep soundly because she knows the parent is near
we don’t have to fear change as the old world passes.
Simon and Andrew were fishing when Jesus invited them to leave their old world behind
and, we’re told, they immediately left their nets to follow Jesus.
Is it possible that we, too, can be even half so sensitive to God’s call in our lives,
that we would be willing to follow in a new way
even if that new way is still unclear or even uncharted.

If I’m honest I have to admit that for all the fabulousness of the 1970’s
I don’t really want to return to that time. That world has passed.
Besides, did anyone ever look good in double-knit polyester?
And for all the uncertainty of the days ahead, for all the parts of the old world we grieve,
I hope we can muster the nerve together to step bravely into the new world
God has in store for us.
_______________
1 Raz, Guy, “Will the Real Ronald Reagan Please Stand Up,” NPR, All Things Considered, Sunday, January 15, 2012.

2 Tickle, Phyllis, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008.

You Are Not Your Own

2012-01-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

Samuel 3:1-20
1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Truthfully, how would it sit with you if your boss or your elected official
came up to you and said, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price.”
That statement would take on added weight if you happened to be
in Charleston, South Carolina on Chalmers Street looking at the old slave market
where in a shameful part of this nation’s history
human beings were literally “bought with a price.”

In the city of Corinth, a cosmopolitan Roman city where the motto was “Anything Goes,”
captured enemies and the desperately poor were sold into slavery every day,
bought with a price.
Slavery was part of the fabric of daily life in the Roman Empire,
and a status to which no respectable person aspired.
What a curious statement, then, for Paul to make to the Christians there.
It seems tailor-made to arouse resentment, even rebellion, among those who heard it.
“You are not your own, you were bought with a price.”

To understand all that was behind Paul’s statement,
we have to first understand the alternative world view it represents.
Paul was writing his letter in the context of an understanding of life
that says: as followers of Jesus, as members of a congregation of believers
we are part of the broad sweep of Salvation History that began way back,
at least as far back as the story of Abraham and Sarah.
As followers of Jesus, as members of a congregation of believers,
our story is inextricably woven into the story of God’s covenant relationship
with a peculiar band of tribal people who were not especially noble or pious.
Though there are individuals in that long story who stand out as great leaders,
not one of them is without serious flaws,
not one of them stands alone in his or her accomplishments,
but always as one player among many in the ongoing drama.

Our passage today from Samuel tells us there were really dark days in that long story,
days when, even in the temple, the word of the Lord was rare, and vision was clouded.
In the days of Eli the priest, and Samuel the boy,
the covenant with God had been trashed by Eli’s sons, the priestly heirs-apparent.
The future looked grim and it was every man for himself.

Proverbs tells us that “Where there is no vision, the people perish,”
but, though his eyes were dim, old Eli kept alive a vestige of hope;
recognizing in his young charge Samuel a new generation not yet entirely lost.
It was Eli who was perceptive enough to imagine that God might still speak
and the best advice he ever gave was when he told Samuel to be still and listen.
Eli had failed in his responsibility to train up his own sons in the way they should go,
but at least he didn’t offer excuses and try to deflect the blame
when the hammer of God’s judgment came down on him and his family.
Eli did not stand with his sons who dishonored their covenant with God,
but the old priest clung to that covenant relationship, God’s promise to be with us,
even when he knew that his own legacy was lost.

“You are not your own. You were bought with a price.”
This does not fit within the dominant themes of our American story.
One theme of our American story is that winning is everything
and money is power,
and the only people worth noticing are those who do the buying,
not those who are bought.
The actor Charlie Sheen went through his very public meltdown last year.
dissolving into a living caricature of this particular narrative;
desperate in his obsession to portray himself as a “winner.”
Coaches are fond of telling their teams,
“OK team, go our there and win!
Nobody ever remembers who comes in second.”
And, above all, we want to be remembered.

Another theme of our American story is that
you must NEVER compromise your individuality.
If you have any value as a human being, this theme goes, it is as a loner;
as one who doesn’t have to depend on anyone else.
Relationships are for the weak, and only get in the way of doing what you want to do.
In story and in song we memorialize the lone hero.
We envy what we perceive as the freedom of the individual who needs no one.

But into the thick of these very American themes come Paul’s provocative words,
“You are not your own. You were bought with a price.”
Paul needs to remind his friends in Corinth of this fact
because they are mostly, if not all, Gentiles.
They have not been saturated with stories of a covenant-making God from birth.
They have been weaned instead on Greek philosophy,
and a particular religious outlook that devalues the physical and the material
and celebrates instead a disembodied divine spark in each person.

Unlike the holistic Hebrew understanding of creation
where body and spirit, flesh and soul are joined in one indivisible unity,
and where you can’t touch one without touching the other,
the Corinthian culture saw the physical self as irrelevant.
So when they chanted in the streets, “All things are lawful”
what they were saying was, “It doesn’t matter what we do, Silly,
It only matters what we believe.”
In their minds this gave them license to do whatever they wanted to do
with no regard for how their behavior affected anyone else.

In his absence Paul had heard rumors of community-destroying behavior
among the Christians in Corinth.
For example, when it was time to observe the Lord’s Supper,
some were arriving early to eat up all the food before everyone got there.
Some were taking fellow church members to civil court
filing lawsuits instead of trying to work it out as fellow followers of Jesus.
There was talk of women and men selling their bodies for sex,
and others ready and willing to shop.
And in one particularly notorious incident, Paul heard of a man, a member of the church
who had taken up with his step-mother.
That would certainly make Sunday dinner with the family awkward.

The point is, the followers of Jesus in Corinth didn’t see the disconnect.
They were celebrating their freedom in Christ to do as they pleased,
believing that it was their right to do so.
Hadn’t Paul himself preached that that it was the Holy Spirit in them
that marked them as members of Christ’s church and not their adherence
to Jewish laws like getting circumcised and keeping Kosher?
It was “Eli’s sons” all over again,
blaspheming God by forgetting the covenant,
by forgetting that believing and doing go hand in hand
and that we are nothing in Jesus if we are not bound together in Jesus.

“You are not your own. You were bought with a price.”
It’s easy to see how down through the years people have taken this passage
from 1 Corinthians and made it all about sex.
This passage has been thrown like a bucket of ice water on hormone-driven teenagers
and anyone else who by dress or behavior or gender orientation
has pushed the envelope or threatened the status quo.

But Paul’s message is both more general and more specific than we may appreciate.
The overt problem in the Corinthian church was a misuse of their sexuality
but the root problem was that, in their misguided celebration of freedom,
they had lost sight of who they were and whose they were.
In general Paul addresses the situation by saying,
“You are both mind and body, both spirit and flesh,
and the image of God is in your scarred face and your middle aged spread
as much as it is in your spirit or your soul.
Whatever you do that affects one part of you, affects the other part of you.
It’s how we’re made. It’s how we roll.

And whatever you do also affects those with whom you are in relationship.
There are no unconnected individuals in God’s realm.
There are no lone heroes in God’s church.
It took me years to understand that when my high school coach warned us,
“During the season you need to stay away from girls because they’ll mess you up,”
he wasn’t talking in terms of a Sampson and Delilah dynamic
where the wily female lies in ambush to rob the male of his strength.
He was simply saying, if you’re going to be on this team,
then think like a team member.
Keep your focus on your connection and your responsibility to each other.

Paul is also saying something more specific, though, to each of his Corinthian charges
and his words echo down to us as well.
He is saying, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price.”
Sacrifices have been made on your behalf.
God in Jesus has laid a claim on you and you belong not to yourself, but to God.
And, because we all belong to God, we also all belong to each other as well.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and the genius of Martin Luther King, Jr.
was that no matter what people of the white race did to him
he never allowed himself or those who followed him to forget
that the success of the Civil Rights Movement
was not to be found in a reversal of power but in a sharing of power.
He never lost sight of our interconnectedness that transcends race,
and his dream always involved the coming together of the children of former slaves
and former slave owners in mutual purpose and in shared prosperity.

For all the talk of religion in this country we forget that we are not our own,
that by God’s grace we have been bought with a price.
We too much prefer the grand illusion of being absolutely unfettered and free.
Such freedom is an illusion, sure enough,
because if we are not servants of God we are in bondage to something else.
As the prophet Bob Dylan said, “You’ve got to serve SOMEBODY.”

These days when a word from the Lord sometimes seems as rare as hen’s teeth,
the answer is not to assume God has abandoned us and left us on our own.
The answer is to trust that the story of a life together in community
with a Covenant-making God who loves us
is still better than any other alternative narrative out there.
And we will be fine if we keep faith in that story and focused on our connection,
if we be still together, if we be quiet together and listen.

Hands

2012-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

Genesis 1:1-5
Mark 1:4-11
Acts 19:1-7

It’s surprising to me, but I’ve discovered
that you don’t have to have hands to get along in this world.
Just ask Jessica Cox from Tucson, AZ.
Jessica was born with no arms or hands, yet this remarkable young woman
is a black belt in Tai Kwon Do and has her pilot’s license.
She makes a living as a motivational speaker and, in my mind,
her accomplishments make her the rare motivational speaker with authority.

Hands are apparently NOT essential to a full life or a happy existence.
Unless you’re the goalie, hands are even a liability on a soccer field.
But hands ARE generally useful appendages to have around,
and if you spend anytime looking at hands,
you know they are indeed remarkable in their diversity.

Think of the hands of the people you know and have known.
About the only thing I remember of my grandfather are his hands – large and calloused
He was a tobacco farmer and his hands were rough and strong, but gentle.
I remember the blue veins on the back of my mother’s hands
as she sat doing the mending -
how they smelled of roses from the lotion she used.
I remember Kathryn’s hands when we first began dating,
how I wanted to always be holding one.
I remember how tiny were the hands of each of my children
when I first laid eyes on them in the delivery room.
My hands sometimes seem to belong to someone else;
doing things I’m ashamed to admit.
But when all is said and done they are my hands,
and they are my responsibility.

It’s not unique with me, but when I think of God the Creator
I think of someone seated at a potter’s wheel.
Genesis tells us that in the beginning “The earth was a formless void,
and the wind of God – in Hebrew the ruach, the spirit of God –
swept over the face of the waters.”
In my mind I imagine the Creator
dropping a big lump of wet clay into the center of the wheel,
and then the wheel spinning as the Creator’s great, gnarled, strong hands
cup the clay, pushing it, pulling it, working it into shape, little by little,
until it becomes the world.

We speak often of God’s hand, usually of God’s GUIDING hand –
and we might imagine God’s guiding hand manifesting itself
as a light touch on the elbow to gently steer us in the way we need to go,
or maybe a firmer poke in the ribs to more firmly motivate us
However God guides us, one of the gifts of our faith we know through Jesus
is that God’s hands are always open to us, ready to embrace us.

John the Baptizer had pitched his tent in the wilderness,
dressing like a prophet, preaching like thunder,
practically daring anybody to come to him, own up to their sin, and be baptized.
I’m not sure what he looked like, but I’ll bet his hands were a mess.
Skin cracking in the desert heat, knuckles red and chafed,
fingernails split and torn down to the quick….
Balled into fists, his hands must have looked like pile drivers
but people swarmed to him anyway, left the comfort of town
and ventured out into the waste places
because John’s were, above all, the hands of an honest man;
a man who readily admitted HE was not the destination they sought,
but only a flag man whose job it was to point the way.

Even Jesus let John lay one big, old hand on his head,
while putting the other between his shoulder blades,
allowing himself for the last time before being taken down off the cross
to trust the full load of his life – body, soul and spirit - to another human being.
John knew Jesus was no ordinary candidate for baptism;
that Jesus was going through it simply as a means of identification with the people
but John felt honored just to be a part of God’s drama
and he let his hands do what came naturally.
When Jesus came up out of the river we’re told that a voice came from heaven
saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
Nothing goes so far in building a child’s confidence
as a pat on the head from Dad.

Hands. We’re talking about hands.
Hands have the capacity to carry in them a great deal of authority.
Think of a symphony conductor –
keeping all those instruments in perfect harmony with the wave of his hands.
or a football coach using hand signals from the sidelines
to tell three hundred pound linemen where to go and what to do,
or a traffic cop, able to stop an eighteen wheel tractor-trailer
just by holding up her hand.

Hands can carry in them a great deal of authority
and it’s the authority of Jesus that Paul’s hands carried with him to Ephesus
as he met with newly minted followers of Jesus there.
The recent converts Paul met had been led into the faith by Apollos,
a fellow from Alexandria, Egypt who had proven himself an effective teacher.
Apollos was a good chap, a fine fellow, but he’d overslept one day in seminary
and missed the class on the Holy Spirit.
Consequently, his teaching and practice of ministry had a big hole in it.
It happens. Nobody’s perfect.

Apollos had the practice of baptizing converts into the baptism of John.
That is, he focused on the power that comes from confessing your sins;
the new lease on life that comes from being forgiven, starting over.
But the power of release, the power of coming clean, strong as it is, is incomplete.
It is the strength that came through John’s baptism,
but remember, John said, “the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.
I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Paul carried in his hands the authority, not of baptism by water,
but baptism by the Holy Spirit.
And Paul laid his hands on those followers of Jesus
and they were filled, we’re told, by the Holy Spirit,
and they began to exhibit certain gifts of the Spirit –
gifts of uninhibited praise,
gifts of clear insight into what God was up to.

The difference in the baptism of John and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is this:
The baptism of John represents the best of what we have to offer God –
our confession, our desire to start over.
That’s important, but it can only take us so far.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit represents the best of what God has to offer us –
grace that gives us the capacity to be faithful in difficult times;
power to do that which we otherwise could not do.

Today we ordain new elders.
Remembering Paul’s example, we will lay our hands on them
and pray for them the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
What we do here today is not to signal that they are a notch above the rest of us.
It has nothing to do with their greater WORTHINESS in God’s eyes.
It is, in fact, a recognition that, apart from God’s Holy Spirit,
they are quite useless to us as leaders of Christ’s church.

Today we offer God our hands – some are strong, some are weak,
some are rough, some are smooth,
some show the scars of a rough road already traveled,
some are as yet unblemished.
We offer to God our hands,
and we pray that God might grant our hands the privilege
of carrying in them the power and authority of the Holy Spirit.

And we ask especially that this power and authority might be conveyed today
to those who have answered God’s call to lead this church,
so that they will not have to rely on the shifting sands of public opinion
for their authority,
but so they will be able to carry their authority – God’s authority – in their hands.

Beautiful Feet

2011-12-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 52:7-12
Luke 2:8-21

It was my first time home to Gastonia, North Carolina after having gone away to seminary
and I was sitting in the chair of the barber who had cut my hair all of my 22 years.
My father had apprised him of my sense of call to ministry
and my enrollment in seminary
and the first thing he said to me was, “I didn’t know your feet were so pretty.”
Actually, in his North Carolina accent I believe he said “purty.”
I had no idea what he was talking about until from his good Baptist knowledge
of the Bible he quoted to me Isaiah 52 – King James Version, of course:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.”

In case you’re wondering – no, my feet aren’t “purty.”
They’re big, ugly feet that show damage and scars from fifty-five years of abuse.
But, of course, the poet writing in Psalm 52 was not thinking about scars or bunions
or ingrown toenails when he first scratched these lines on calf skin.
He was thinking of the runner, the messenger racing to get the word out,
the fleet feet pounding the ground, the long strides hopping logs and skipping stones
to bring good news for a change;
not dire warnings of an advancing enemy army
not grief-stricken notification of disastrous defeat;
but glad tidings, good news, joyful exclamation of God’s salvation finally come.
It’s not the eyes, not the face, not the human form in all its glory
that’s beautiful on this day.
It’s the feet - even big, smelly, dirty feet - that are stunning in their beauty
for the function they perform, for the message they bear.

It might have been the Shepherd’s feet that Mary first noticed
as they timidly came to pay their respects to the new mother.
They must have had dusty feet, stained, perhaps, from stepping in sheep dung,
feet of teenagers next to aged feed standing together to see the child,
to lay eyes on the Messiah.

“What do you want?” Joseph groggily asks the early morning visitors,
the adrenalin from the night’s events beginning to wear off
as dawn streaks the eastern sky.
Jostling now, the tongue tied shepherds trip on themselves
each doing his best to avoid being the spokesman.
Finally one steps forward and in halting words tells of the divine visitation,
the angelic epiphany,
the astonishing identification of Mary’s baby boy as the Savior, the Herald of Peace.

There are many of us on Christmas day who are caught up in the pageantry,
many of us who are touched by the old familiar manger tableau of our childhood
with Mary cradling Jesus in her arms, Joseph standing solidly by, gazing lovingly,
shepherds kneeling in awe, and an angel or two hovering overhead.
But today my thoughts are on feet:
the fleet feet of the messenger who bears good news,
the dirty feet of the shepherds who can’t believe their eyes and ears,
the soft, tiny feet of a newborn baby born into this world not for prestige,
not for prosperity, but for peace –
not just a “temporary suspension of hostilities” kind of peace,
but the “Jewish concept of Shalom” kind of peace,
an all encompassing kind of peace that lifts up justice,
that extends mercy,
that embraces healing and wholeness in body, mind and spirit.

Thursday I participated in the memorial vigil for homeless or formerly homeless
men and women in our city who have died in the past year.
The list of those remembered included Andrew Atencio,
a regular visitor to Immanuel on Sunday morning.
We marched through downtown from the Healthcare for the Homeless facility
to First United Methodist Church for a service of remembrance.
As we walked I looked at the feet of those around me.
Those like me who have good jobs and financial resources wore sturdy, stylish shoes.
The homeless were not so well shod.

Homelessness is tough on feet.
There are few places when you’re homeless where you can sit still for long.
You’ve got to keep moving.
That’s why, along with the snacks we give out to those who stop by our office,
we also offer clean socks.

Maybe the worst psychological effect of being homeless
is that, beyond the endless search for food and temporary shelter and a safe place,
there is no purposeful task for ones feet.
Homelessness involves a lot of aimless wandering,
with no particular destination that holds out the hope of productive service
or meaningful engagement
or spiritual solace.

But then, you don’t have to be homeless to engage in a lot of aimless wandering.
Surely there are even corporate executives who walk into their office every morning
and wonder why they’re there.
It’s not hard at all to stroll through a normal day and have no meaningful engagement,
find no spiritual solace.
The author Frederick Buechner once wrote,
“Generally speaking, if you want to know who you really are, as distinct from
whom you like to think you are, keep an eye on where your feet take you.” 1
If we leave here this Christmas day as those who are privileged to have a home,
as those whose days are not filled with an endless search for food or shelter,
then we are among those most fortunate to have a choice where our feet take us.

Our feet can take us to only to those places where there is money to be made
or pleasure to be had
or safety to be enjoyed.
Or our feet can take us to the telephone to call on someone who needs human contact.
Our feet can take us across the hall or the street to welcome a new neighbor.
Our feet can take us to places that need a word of hope,
places that need our energy,
places where without a word from the Lord, the people perish.

I doubt there are many if any among us here who have physically beautiful feet.
But, as Isaiah understood that is of little consequence or bearing.
When it comes to honoring the Christ child,
when it comes to following Jesus,
anyone’s feet can be stunning in their beauty
for the function they perform, for the message they bear.
_____________
1Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, 1993.

Favored One

2011-12-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 7:1-11
Luke 1:26-38

God calls Gabriel early one morning – wakes him up,
though Gabriel coughs and snorts and clears his throat before answering
in an effort to disguise the fact.
"Look Gabe," God says, "I know you just got in from your last job
and I wouldn’t bother you except this is a very important assignment
and you’re my go-to guy."
Through the fog in his brain something in God’s voice registers with Gabriel,
a kind of nervousness or maybe excitement he’s never heard before.
"Sure, Your Holiness, whatever you need."

God pauses so long Gabriel thinks the line might have gone dead.
"Gabriel, it’s time."
"Time?"
"You know, TIME."
"You don’t mean...."
"Yes, it’s THE time."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I’m sure."
"Why now? Why not next year?"
"Next year will be too late."
"You mean out of the eons of time you’ve got it narrowed down to the year?"
"I’ve got it narrowed down to the day – to the minute."
"But why now?"
"Because that’s my plan."
"You can’t change your plan?"
"Of course I can – I’m God – but there’s no need.
Everything that has gone before has led up to this moment in time."
"Everything? What about when King David got mixed up with Bathsheba...?"
"Everything."
"But what about..."
"Gabriel, it’s time. Will you go for me or should I call another?"

Gabriel swings his feet to the floor and, as he stands, his wings unfurl.
"No, no I’ll go, I mean, I’d be honored. Where do you want me to go?
Jerusalem, I assume – somewhere near the temple complex?"
"Nazareth."
Gabriel bobbles his phone as he pulls on his silver sandals.
The word doesn’t register at first, but then he steadies himself, chuckles, and says,
"You want to hear something funny? It sounded like you said Nazareth."
"I did."
Gabriel snaps to attention. "Nazareth? In Galilee? The armpit of the north!"
"That’s the one."
"Sir, even former residents call it, ‘Na-za-RETH – So Glad I LEFT’."
"That’s where SHE is, though."
"That’s where WHO is?"
"Maria – the young woman whom I’ve chosen to be the mother."
Gabriel is now fully dressed, and though he thinks God has gone a bit daft
he recognizes his place and really is honored to be a key player
as the drama of the long awaited incarnation of God is about to unfold.
"I’m on it, God. Don’t you worry about a thing!"

After hanging up with God, Gabriel pours himself a cup of coffee,
pulls up Google Maps on his computer
and prints out directions to Maria’s house, 42 Olive Tree Lane, Nazareth.
Suddenly, a parade of the Heavenly Host passes by his window rattling the panes
and he rushes out so he can get a better look as he leaves.
Unfortunately, he’s halfway to Nazareth before he realizes he’s left
his directions to Maria’s house lying on the kitchen table.
He remembers her street was something...24, 43...Olive Something Street or Drive.
Anyway, how hard can it be to find the young woman who has been chosen
to be the mother of the Son of God.

It’s night when Gabriel reaches Nazareth – one of those pitch black nights
when even Gabriel’s naturally bright aura is absorbed by the velvety darkness.
He finds himself in a rundown part of Nazareth where half the street signs are missing
and simple house numbers are a luxury no one can seem to afford.
Adults can’t see him as he makes his way through the neighborhood,
but a ten year old boy looks up as Gabriel passes.
"Are you an angel?" the boy asks.
"Yes, I am," Gabriel says.
"I thought so."
"Say, listen," Gabriel says, "I’m looking for an Olive Something Street or Lane -
A young woman named Maria."
"This here’s Olive Grove Drive."
"Does Maria live on this street?"
"I don’t know – the only YOUNG woman on this street lives two houses down.
I forget her name. Mama told me to stay away from her."
"Why’s that?"
"I dunno. Mama tells me to stay away from everybody."

Gabriel picks his way through the broken toys and olive crates
that litter the street until he stands before the doorway of a one-room shack
that leans a bit to the right and smells faintly of mildew and dust and rotting food.
Only a tattered curtain hangs in the doorway
and he instinctively ducks as he steps through.
"Hold it right there or I’ll splatter your brains into next week!"
Gabriel freezes out of surprise – unaccustomed as he is to being addressed this way.
He turns slowly and in the gloomy shadows thrown by a dripping yellow candle
he sees a young teenaged girl no more than 12 or 13
her bones poking through a ragged nightgown
holding half a two-by-four cocked behind her head.
Her eyes gleam with both fear and fury
and he knows she isn’t bluffing.
"Are you Maria?" he asks.
"Who wants to know?"
Gabriel holds his hands out in a gesture of peace and to show he’s unarmed.
"Look, I’m just the messenger. I just need to know if you’re Maria."
The girl lowers her club, but keeps her distance.
"I’m Mary."
Gabriel, a bit confused says, "Are you engaged to a man named Joshua?"
"I’m engaged to Joseph and he’s going to be here any minute
so don’t you try any funny business!"

Gabriel experiences an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty.
He knows he’s tired from working too hard, and he knows how important this task is
so he doesn’t want to mess it up.
But he also doesn’t want to go all the way back without accomplishing his mission.
He could have sworn God sent him to a young woman named Maria
who was engaged to a man named Joshua of the house of David.
Wait. That’s it.
"Hey, listen," Gabriel says, "is Joseph of the house and lineage of King David?"
"He might be."
"But IS he?" he presses, his voice betraying his frustration and uncertainty.
"I SAID HE MIGHT BE!" Mary barks,
Her anxiety fed by his.

Gabriel sighs, makes his decision, and goes into his official mode.
"Then greetings, favored one," he intones, "The Lord is with you!"
Mary snorts, "Favored one?"
Gabriel continues, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God."
At this Mary chuckles bitterly, lays her two-by-four on the table
and sits heavily in the one chair.
"I’ve found favor with God, have I? Tell that to the butcher who cut off my credit."
Not used to being interrupted, Gabriel looks at her hard, "May I continue?"
Mary waves her hand, "By all means."
"And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever
and of his kingdom there will be no end."

When Gabriel is finished Mary looks down, sucks in air, and picks at a hangnail.
Gabriel is suddenly aware of just how young she is AND how fragile.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Mary squeaks, her voice barely audible.
Then louder, "I swear I haven’t been with a man! I SWEAR it!
By the name of our Father Abraham I SWEAR I HAVE NOT!"
Gabriel detects the fear in her voice.
He holds up his hand to signal that there’s more.
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy;
he will be called the Son of God."
By this point Mary’s eyes are wide and her breathing shallow
as fear gives way to panic and panic to awe.
"Are you sure you’ve got the right girl?" she asks.
"I’m just a poor girl from Nazareth lucky to be engaged to a decent man.
Are you SURE you’ve got the right girl?"
Gabriel hesitates a moment, offers a brief prayer, and says with false confidence,
"Yes...Yes, of course I’m sure!"
Mary licks her chapped lips. "You’re an angel, aren’t you?"
"Yes I am."
"And angels don’t lie...do they?"
Again, Gabriel hesitates, "No...no they don’t. I mean, no we don’t."

"So God is going to do this through ME? Have a child through ME?
Doesn’t God know me? Doesn’t God know that I’m no saint?
That I’ve done some things I’m not proud of to get by?
Shouldn’t God find some rich girl in Jerusalem?"
"I asked the same question. Look, take it from me.
You could spend every minute of every waking hour trying to figure God out.
It’s kind of a trademark – God works in mysterious ways.™
So, what do you say? Are you willing?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Are you willing?"
Mary buries her face in her hands and Gabriel thinks she’s going to cry.
But instead, when she raises her head there is on her face a look of serenity.
She says quietly, "Let’s do it.".

Gabriel is checking his Facebook page when a voice comes over the intercom.
"Gabriel, God would like to see you in the garden when it’s convenient."
Gabriel has always liked that about God. Never pushy, never demanding.
"When it’s convenient!" What a hoot.
Still, he’s nervous as he arrives at the edge of the apple trees.
All in all, his visit to Nazareth seemed to go well,
but he has to admit it was one of the oddest encounters he’s had in a long while.

"So, Gabriel! How did it go with Maria? Did you meet Joshua?"
Gabriel gulps, "Well...I...uh...I mean...that is...."
"Come on, spit it out! How did she take the news? Was she pleased?"
"God, to be honest...I think I made a terrible mistake."
"What?"
"I think I went to the wrong house...told the wrong girl...
I told MARY she was going to have a baby, not MARIA!"
God pauses. ‘You mean Mary...the skinny little thing who lives on Olive Grove Drive?’
"Yes. That’s the one.’
"You mean the Mary who spits nails and could burn a hole through a bronze shield
with her glare?"
Gabriel shifts uneasily. "Yes, that’s her."
"You mean the Mary who always seems to find the hard way to do things
and can’t bring herself to ask anyone for anything?"
"Yes, sir, I believe so.”
"Well, I’ll be...that’s inspired!"
"Sir?"
"That’s genius, that’s what it is!"
"Sir?"
"Don’t just stand there...what did she say? Is she willing?"
"Well, I believe a direct quote is, ‘Let’s do it!"
"HOT DOG!" God exclaims.

"But sir, what about your plan?
What about Maria? Wasn’t she REALLY your favored one?"
"Gabriel, you’re a good angel, but you still don’t understand
how I feel about my children, do you?"
"No, sir, I honestly don’t."
"They’re ALL my favored ones.
They just don’t know it until they say ‘Yes’."
"So Mary’s OK?"
"I have a feeling Mary’s going to work out fine."
"But what about your plan?"
"Hey, plans change. I’m God, remember!"

Watercourses in the Negeb

2011-12-11T08:09:00.001-08:00

Psalm 126
John 1:6-8, 19-28

George and Renaldo were nearly at the end.
They’d been wandering in the desert for days, their water gone, their hope fading.
Crawling now on hands and knees, together they ascended one last sand dune.
Renaldo collapsed from the effort but George propped on one elbow,
shaded his eyes, and looked into the distance.
He couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Renaldo, get up! Look!”
“Leave me alone,” Renaldo croaked through cracked lips. “Let me die in peace.”
“No, get up, look!” George insisted.
“I don’t want to get up,” Renaldo murmured. “Just tell me what you see.”

“I see a grove of orange trees so full of fruit the limbs are touching the ground.
I see flowers of all colors, a garden of delights.
And I see water, a river of water, a gushing rush of cool, clear water.
It’s like a dream, like a beautiful dream.”

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream
Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
places this opening line of Psalm 126 in the past tense.
But there is some dispute among translators and Hebrew scholars.
Some say that instead of referring to events in the past,
this first part of the psalm is a description of a dream that is yet to be realized;
a dream that the psalmist hopes will be the result of the prayer
spoken in the second half of the psalm.

It’s like the mission statement of Immanuel Presbyterian Church that begins:
“We are a community of ordinary people experiencing and actively sharing God’s extraordinary love” and ends “Our church is inclusive to all.”
Is that who we are now? Actively sharing God’s love? Fully inclusive to all?
No, that’s not who we are now, every now and then, maybe, but not all the time.
We still mostly live and act in the shadow of fear, of selfishness, of prejudice and doubt.
But our mission statement IS who we aspire to be.
On our best day, as our best, most faithful selves,
that is our dream for ourselves as a congregation.
But we cannot claim this vision of ourselves as fully realized – yet.

So, some say that in Psalm 126 the psalmist begins with Israel’s dream for herself.
One day, the psalmist writes, we will be able to look back and say,
When God restored us, heart, mind, body, soul,
when God restored us it was a dream come true.
One day, we’ll be able to look back on all our troubles and laugh.
One day, our hours and our days will be filled not with grief, not with fear, but with joy.
One day we will be the envy of all the nations as they see how God has blessed us,
as they see for themselves the benefits of our covenant relationship with the living God.

It’s a vision, a lovely vision of God’s promises coming true,
and of God’s people finally coming into alignment with God’s intentions for humankind.
But it is a vision still in the future. It is a vision as yet unrealized.
And until it is realized we continue to look forward to that day.
We continue to yearn for that day;
to pray for that day, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord
like the watercourses in the Negeb, like the arroyos in the South Valley,
like a gushing rush of cool, clear water bringing life to the parched earth,
fulfilling all our expectations of God’s realm fully established.

Psalm 126 is labeled in our Bible as a “Song of Ascents.”
Nobody knows for sure what that means,
but it is thought to be one of a collection of psalms
used in a community ritual by pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Maybe it was a hymn they sang as together they began to climb the hill to Jerusalem
or as they began to ascend the many steps to the temple.
We do know that it is a psalm for dreamers;
for those who are not content with the way things are
and who, against all odds, press on in expectation of something better.

You may be familiar with an initiative begun in February by our mayor Richard Berry
called Albuquerque Heading Home.
The goal of this initiative is to house seventy-five of the city’s most chronic homeless.
by February of next year.
To do this, program coordinators are reversing the usual way of doing things
and instead of making the homeless earn their shelter which rarely succeeds,
the staff will first get the homeless into a stable residence
and then help them stay in that residence with oversight.
It’s not just a humanitarian gesture.
It’s estimated that by housing these first seventy-five of the most chronic homeless,
the city will save $500,000 in emergency room fees and other services.

A video made recently for the mayor’s State of the City address
showed interviews with some of the men and women who are being helped,
many after having lived on the streets for more than ten years.
It’s amazing to me that they even still have the capacity to dream,
and as you might expect their dreams of having a place to call home are quite modest.
To me that makes them even more powerful.
To Shirley, homeless for 12 years, her dream of a place to live involves
“waking up in your own bed, making your own cup of coffee just like everyone else,
taking a shower whenever you want,
being able to breathe – not being a shadow on the wall anymore.”

This advent we need to encourage each other to dream,
even when we find ourselves in the driest drought,
to continue to ascend, crawling if we have to, to reach the crest, to climb the ladder,
to look over the monochromatic wall and littered landscape
and catch a glimpse of God’s future that is unfolding.

Advent is a time of intense expectation, and the brave refusal to give up.
It is a time of bearing witness to the light, of testifying to the light,
of continuing to believe that we as a church ARE called to actively share God’s extraordinary love,
ARE called to put aside our fear, prejudice and apathy to be passionately inclusive of all.
The arroyos seem terribly dry now, with only the slightest hint of moisture,
but in a moment, at the right time, the watercourses will fill again,
a gushing rush of cool, clear water.
In your Spirit, in your Soul, in your Heart now give thanks for the flow of God’s blessing
as the choir leads us in praise to God by way of Vivaldi’s Gloria.

A Future to Be Desired

2011-12-06T08:03:00.001-08:00

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

There’s a story going around about a city slicker named Byron
who grew weary of taking the blame for writing shaky home mortgages
for people with no down payment who bought more house than they could afford
based on the expectation of a continued meteoric rise in home prices.
When someone tried to blame the mortgage broker he would scowl and say,
“It’s not my fault some people borrowed too heavily
on a future that did not materialize.”

The stress finally got to be too much for Byron, so he took his considerable fortune
and bought a huge tract of land with the idea of starting a ranch.
It had always been his secret desire.
A couple of old-timers convinced him that to start a ranch he needed a special cow.
They were willing to sell him such a cow if he would first build a fine barn,
fence in at least 200 acres, and construct a showplace of a house.
Byron had to borrow the money to do all this but he told himself it would be worth it.
With the special cow the old-timers had promised him
he could already imagine pastures filled with the finest grazing cattle.

The cow was delivered after Byron arranged a line of credit for half a million dollars
and forked it all over as he and the two old-timers had agreed.
The creature looked a bit shaky, but Byron put it out to pasture and waited.
Nothing happened.
Finally Byron called the county extension agent who drove out in his pick-up.
Byron pointed to his prized animal and said, “I think something’s wrong with my cow.”
The agent said, “Something is wrong with your cow. Your cow is a bull.
No, check that, he said, circling the animal and bending low. Your cow is a steer.

Byron immediately drove to courthouse bench where the two old-timers always sat.
They weren’t there, but there was a note taped to the bench.
It said, “It’s not our fault if some people borrow too heavily
on a future that does not materialize.”

Psychologists will tell us that we are happier
when we learn to live more fully in the present,
but we can’t ignore the fact that most of our choices, most of our plans
are clearly affected by the kind of future we desire for ourselves.
Our deepest desires lead us forward
and it’s only wise to consider carefully if the future in which we’ve invested
is one that has a prayer of coming to pass.

Our scripture lessons today are passages written some six hundred years apart
but they are both written to people for whom the future is uncertain.
The passage in Isaiah is written to Jews who’d been living in exile in Babylon.
King Cyrus and the Persian army have routed the Babylonians
and the decree has come that the Jews can go home – back to Jerusalem.
Theoretically this is good news – a victory has been accomplished.
But practically what the Jews are being told
is that they should leave behind them the only life many of them have known;
a life into which they have become fully assimilated;
and return to a city – Jerusalem – that is in ruins
and live among people who may not be too excited to see them.

The opening verses of Mark’s gospel describe the first days of Jesus’ ministry
and the role of John the Baptist as his forerunner.
But what we’ve got to remember is that these words are written by Mark
some forty years after Jesus’ death -
written to a tiny Christian community, some Jews, some Gentiles,
who are under siege by the Roman army putting down a Jewish insurrection.

Neither audience – not the Jews in Babylon nor the early Christians in Jerusalem
have any reason to envision much in the way of a future for themselves
based on current events and a realistic assessment of the present situation.
But Isaiah and Mark both write as though victory is theirs;
as though they cannot imagine a better time to be alive.
God’s hand is at work, they both proclaim,
and the future ahead of those who are called and empowered by God,
has never been brighter.

This is the second Sunday of Advent, and even though we celebrate this season
mostly by looking back 2000 years to remember Jesus’ birth,
Advent really should be more about looking forward into the future;
about mining the scripture for signs of what God has in store for us
AND deciding if God’s future is what we desire.

The season of Advent reminds us that God calls us toward a particular future,
and if we fail to factor God’s call into the process, we make one of two big mistakes.
Either we settle for a future that is too shallow,
or we settle for a future that is too small.
When I think of a future that is too shallow, I think of poll numbers that show
that many teens and young adults these days desire only to be famous.
I also think of those in my generation approaching retirement
for whom their desired future only means financial security.
But these shallow desires for a fantasy future never seem to factor in
a wilderness experience.
Yet, there it is, in both Isaiah and Mark.
God’s future always involves a wilderness experience.
In Mark the people are explicitly called to meet John in the wilderness.
In Isaiah there is no way back to Jerusalem except through the wilderness.

If we are set on a future too shallow,
our impulse is to try to go around the wilderness or buy our way out of it.
But those who desire God’s future learn to embrace the wilderness,
understanding that with God’s guidance the wilderness doesn’t destroy us.
Instead, in God’s hands, the wilderness becomes for us a teacher
adding depth and substance to the future we desire.

If one mistake is desiring a future too shallow,
the second mistake is desiring a future too small.
Choosing a future too small has nothing to do with whether you travel the world
or never leave the town of your birth.
It has nothing to do with whether you climb Mt. Everest
or dedicate your life to caring for an ailing parent or a child with special needs.
By choosing a future too small I mean choosing a future that never asks you to change
or that never requires you to put the needs of another ahead of your own,
or that never asks you to keep a promise even if that promise proves inconvenient.

God’s future for John the Baptist was for him to wear funny clothes and eat funny food,
and say things to people they didn’t want to hear.
And God’s future for those whom God called to John
was that they should repent of their sins – come clean, so to speak,
and together become a part of God’s new creation as followers of Jesus.
When you and I allow ourselves to live into the future God has for us
we might as well accept the fact that we will likely stick out
as different from those who have chosen
for themselves a future too shallow or too small.
If you refuse to hold tight to your money and choose instead to be generous
people will criticize you for being irresponsible.
If you tenaciously honor your commitments and give others the benefit of the doubt,
people will criticize you for being naïve.

When daughter Katie was at Elon University, we used to get their monthly magazine.
and I remembered an article about an alumnus, Dr. Aiah Gbakima.
He seems a perfect illustration of someone who has chosen to live into God’s future.1
Dr. Gbakima battled poverty and disease as a child in Sierra Leone.
Most of the people in his hometown suffer from river blindness,
a disease carried by river-breeding flies.
He himself contracted the disease just before coming to the United States
to pursue a college degree.
Fortunately, with quick treatment he was cured of the disease
without any permanent damage to his sight.

Gbakima could have pursued a future of financial security, even fame.
He did well enough in school, earning a PhD from UNC.
He could have pursued a future of self-protection
deciding to isolate himself from the poverty and disease of his childhood
that could only serve to drag him down.
But Gbakima sensed a calling, a future neither too shallow nor too small.
He earned his degree in immuno-parasitology and is now vice chancellor
of the University of Sierra Leone where he continues to find better ways
to fight river blindness among his people.
He continues to go back to the wilderness of poverty and disease and civil war
because he has learned to desire the power of God’s future.

This Advent I urge you not to make some city slicker’s mistake
of borrowing too heavily on a future that has no chance to materialize.
That’s a bum steer.
But instead I urge you to desire God’s future for your life.
This is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Whether you are nine years old or ninety, God has plans for you.
______
1 Chapman, Julie, For Love of Country: Aiah Gbakima Fights to Save His Homeland, The Magazine of Elon,
p. 11, Fall, 2008.

Release

2011-11-28T07:43:00.001-08:00

Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

My mother used to can tomatoes.
We had a large garden and Dad always planted more tomato plants than we needed.
We used to plan our vacations around when the tomatoes were due to get ripe
because if there was anything worse than being lazy in my house
it was being wasteful.
We ate the first ripe tomatoes – in sandwiches, in salads, or just sliced on a plate.
When we were beginning to sprout tomato plants from our ears,
that was the signal for Mom to go to the store and get new lids for her jars.

To me, it’s one of life’s mysteries that it’s called “canning” but you use jars
with special lids that can be tightly sealed.
If you know anything about canning, you know that the key is to get the temperature
high enough to kill any bacteria and help the lids seal properly.
My mother used a large pressure cooker made especially for canning
because steam under pressure gets hotter than the normal boiling point of water
insuring that the resulting sterilized sealed jars of tomatoes
will keep a long time without spoiling.
Of course, you have to regulate the pressure inside the canner so that it doesn’t
get away from you and explode, leaving your kitchen coated with tomato sauce.
Hence the phrase, “Letting off steam.”
Sometimes you get to the point in canning or in life in general
where you’ve just got to find a way to release.

Release. That’s the theme of this first Sunday of Advent
It reflects the content of the first stanza of what is our “Theme Hymn” for this Advent,
“Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”
In the first stanza we sing “From our fears and sins release us….”
and if the Black Friday riots over two dollar waffle makers
and the use of pepper spray to gain advantage over fellow shoppers is any indication,
this season, this year, I have a feeling we need this kind of release more than ever.

The prophet Isaiah tackles the “Sin” side of the equation.
Chapter 64 offers, at first glance, an odd, discordant note in the context
of a larger portion of Isaiah that celebrates the end of Israel’s exile in Babylon.
In the midst of exuberant language celebrating Israel’s freedom from captivity
and the possibility of rebuilding Jerusalem even better than before
comes a recognition on the part of the prophet
His people are not ready to accomplish what God has in store.
They have unfinished business, burdened still by bad habits and past mistakes.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence,
as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil.”
In other words, the prophet is asking God to turn up the heat,
to increase the pressure, like a giant pressure cooker
bringing things to the point where something’s got to give;
where business as usual just doesn’t work anymore;
the point where release has to occur – either that or explode.
“We’ve all become like one who is unclean,” the prophet says.
“Even those things we do that we think are so righteous,
that we wear like a feather in our cap,
are nothing more than a soiled, stained, filthy rag in God’s eyes.”

Isaiah doesn’t generate a litany of his peoples’ sins here in chapter 64
but there are other places he scrawls them across his pages.
The big sin that keeps coming up in Isaiah
is that the people keep forgetting their covenant relationship with God.
They act as if there is no God or, worse, they worship other gods.
They fail to see God’s image in others
trampling the needs of the poor, ignoring the stranger,
withholding from the hungry, taking what is not theirs.
They have blood on their hands, he charges,
and they do not pursue the things that make for peace.

Isaiah wants his people to know that God has great things in store for them
but as long as they remain arrogant and prideful and unwilling to change
then, in his words, they will “fade like a leaf.”
They will become so insubstantial that they wind will just “take them away.”

So, stoke the fire, Isaiah says. Get that water boiling.
Build up some steam, ramp up the pressure, what ever it takes
to get these knuckleheads to release their stubborn resistance that weighs so heavily
and fling themselves into the future God has in store.

“From our fears and sins release us.”
If Isaiah tackles the “sin” side of the equation,
it’s Mark who takes on the “fear.”

All of you songwriters out there know what a “bridge” is when talking about a song.
It is a transitional section occurring near the end of a song
that is different from the rest of the song and It serves to take the listener
from the middle of the song to the end – a bridge.
But not only does this section act like a bridge, it often also serves to intensify the song.
It may involve a change in key or tempo that ramps up the intensity
and gets listeners ready for the climax.

That’s what Mark is up to in the thirteenth chapter of his gospel.
He inserts a bridge in the form of a particular kind of writing
called “apocalyptic literature” – “apocalypse” meaning “revelation.”
It is very different from what precedes it and what follows it
but it serves to carry the reader from the narrative of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem
to the final week of his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
In Mark’s version, Jesus borrows heavily from the Old Testament prophet Daniel
which, next to Revelation in the New Testament is the most extensive example
of apocalyptic literature in the Bible.
In the early half of chapter 13, Jesus speaks of a time when things will get very difficult,
when people are going to have to head for the hills
when the heavens will be shaken, stars will fall from the sky.

Most biblical scholars believe that Mark was writing his gospel during a very difficult time
in first century Jerusalem – between the years 66 and 70 to be exact.
This was a cataclysmic for people in Jerusalem.
There had been an insurrection – a rebellion of Jewish zealots against Rome
and to put down the insurrection Rome had sent a large army
to lay siege to Jerusalem – to bring it to it’s knees.
Surely those in Mark’s audience were asking themselves, “What will become of us?”
They were whispering in doorways, writing secret notes to one another
some cursing the Zealots, some singing their praise,
some wondering if they should risk trying to leave Jerusalem altogether,
others vowing to resist to the end.

Of the Gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John –
each had a different reason for writing his gospel – a different audience
sharing a good bit of the same material, but each also including unique content.
Mark wrote first, and Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source.
Matthew and Luke each have a couple or three verses taken from Mark 13,
but only Mark includes a full chapter of this kind of apocalyptic writing;
a full 37 verses where Jesus quotes Daniel on the battle between Good and Evil,
37 verses with Jesus outlining that though things are bad and may get worse,
there is a big change coming;
a big change coming where the powers of oppression and the destruction of war
that seem so insurmountable
will be overturned in an instant when God’s Deliverer comes.

You can hear Mark’s readers anxiously asking the question,
“When is this going to happen? Tomorrow? Next weekend? Three weeks from Thursday?
Make it plain! Give us a timetable! We can’t hold out much longer,
You can imagine them trying to hold their fears at bay,
trying to avoid melting into a puddle of anxiety.
It might be possible IF they can have a definite date to look forward to,
if they can mark a big red “X” on the calendar to help focus their energy and attention.

We know the feeling.
When am I going to find a job? When is this blasted economy going to get better?
Will salvation come before the bank forecloses?
Will deliverance mean I’ll beat the cancer that stalks me in the night?
We know what it’s like to long for a timetable,
to want to know the end game so we can call on that last reservoir of strength
and courage that will sustain us until deliverance comes.
But then Jesus abruptly switches gears.
“About that day or hour no one knows,” he says.
Ahhhh…You can hear the collective sigh of disappointment.
He continues, “There are signs you can look for,
but nothing more definite than the first leaves of summer.”

You understand that each of the gospel writers rearranged Jesus’ words to fit his purpose.
I think that by arranging Jesus’ words the way he does,
Mark is telling his audience who find themselves in an incredibly tight spot,
It’s not enough to manage your fears. You’ve got to release your fears.
By including this very provocative apocalyptic style as a bridge in his gospel,
Mark turns up the heat, builds the pressure, focuses on the worst case scenario
in order to convince his readers that the only way they can keep from exploding in fear
is to release their fear. Just let it go.
Let go of the calculating. Let go of the strategizing.
Let go of the idea that they can keep fears at bay through stress reducing techniques.
“God is our refuge and strength,” the psalmist writes, “A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains
shake in the heart of the sea….(Ps. 46:1-2).”

“From our fears and sins release us.
The season of Advent reminds us of both the promise and the effort required
in keeping faith though difficult times.
The promise is that by the grace of God we CAN find release from the sins and fears
that cripple us and hold us back and fool us into thinking things can never change.
The effort required is the discipline of staying alert, of keeping our eyes wide open
as we look for signs that tell us of God’s coming.
In the meantime we do well to remember Isaiah’s words of both comfort and challenge:
“O Lord,” he writes, “You are our Father; we are the clay.
You are our potter; we are all the work of your hand (Isaiah 64:8).”

Surprise on the Factory Floor

2011-11-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

Ezekiel 34:11-24
Matthew 25:31-46

Cindy works in a customer service call center for a large manufacturer.
On this particular day she’s training a balding, slightly paunchy, middle-aged new employee.
The new hire listens as Cindy is rude to a caller, berating the customer for being hard to please
and refusing to give the customer satisfaction regarding his complaint.
When she hangs up, Cindy gloats to the new trainee, “Now that’s how you do it!”

Bobby is a production line supervisor for the same company Cindy works for.
He is patiently advising the same new employee who’s a little slow on the up-take
how to work quicker without cutting corners,
maximizing production while maintaining the highest quality possible.
During their time together, Bobby reveals that his wife is disabled
and he has a nineteen-year-old daughter who is bright but can’t afford college.
In response to a direct question from the trainee,
Bobby reveals that in the 20 years he’s worked at the factory, he’s had only two small pay raises.

You may be ahead of me here.
You may recognize this as an episode of the reality TV show, “Undercover Boss.”1
It’s a series that first aired a couple of years ago and the official premise of the show goes like this.
“Each week, we follow a different executive as they leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their companies. While working alongside their employees, they get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their companies run.”2

At the end of each episode of Undercover Boss, the various unsuspecting employees
are driven to the corporate headquarters and ushered one by one into the CEO’s office.
They are shocked, of course, to find that the “new employee” with whom they’ve worked
was really the Big Boss in disguise.
Based on what the Big Boss observed and learned about each employee
there then follows a time of reckoning.

Cindy, the rude customer service employee is read the riot act
and assigned to a six week training program with the warning to shape up or else.
Bobby, on the other hand, is promoted to factory foreman with a generous pay raise,
and his daughter is given a company-financed full scholarship to the college of her choice.
You can imagine - can’t you? -
Cindy and Bobby both reacting to their respective punishment and reward
by saying to their Chief Executive, their Big Boss, “I didn’t know it was you.”

I didn’t know it was you.
A couple of weeks ago we read the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids,
how the foolish ones failed to have enough emergency lamp oil on hand
and as a result got locked out of the wedding banquet.
We noted how here at the end of Matthew’s gospel there is an increased intensity in Jesus’ teaching
as he finds himself in Jerusalem, surrounded by enemies
trying to get through to his not-so-bright disciples just what’s at stake.
He’s trying his best in the short time he has left to differentiate for his disciples
between the kind of life that reflects God’s intentions for God’s creation,
the kind of life that resonates with meaning and purpose and joy and wholeness,
and the kind of life that is discordant, jagged, self-destructive and at cross purposes
with what God intends.

As with the bridesmaids who ran short of lamp oil,
Jesus is using this last parable of separation of the sheep and the goats
to tell his enemies and friends alike that choices have consequences,
that it does make a difference how we live, that it does matter that we keep awake and alert
to what God is doing in the world.
But he’s also using this parable to tell those who would follow him
that it would be a mistake to get into an endless ethical discussion
about what constitutes a good deed.
I can go around and around about what is required of me,
what percentage of my income I should give to the church or the United Way,
how far I should go in giving someone a hand up,
how deep I should delve into the complications of my neighbors’ lives.

If I’m busy arguing about ethics chances are what I’m really up to
is figuring out the minimum I can get away with.
I’m working out of that old scarcity model I spoke of last week,
wanting to make sure that if I do good then I get full value for my investment,
full recognition for my sacrifice.
If that is my focus then I have failed to grasp the underlying theme of God’s promise.
God’s promise is not prosperity, but peace,
not recognition, but relationship.

Isn’t it interesting that in Jesus’ parable both those identified as the “righteous”
and those identified as the “accursed” respond with the same question,
“When did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison?”
The “accursed” offer their ignorance as an excuse, a justification of their inaction.
After all, the Big Boss was in disguise,
The one with the power to hire and to fire didn’t give them the information they needed
to calculate properly their return on investment. It’s not fair!
“We would have grilled you a steak if we’d known it was you!
We’d have popped the cork on our finest bottle of champagne,
thrown you a party, opened to you our closets, given you some Tylenol, baked a file into a cake.
We would have made the effort if only we could be reasonably sure the effort would pay off.”

The “righteous” ones, on the other hand, are just as confused, but their confusion comes
not from indignation at being fooled but more from a sense of naive amazement.
They don’t do their job for the Big Boss, you see.
They live and move and have their being not for someone else who may be watching,
but for themselves.
Who they say they are and how they live their lives
is not based on some formula of return on investment,
but it flows out of a seamless integration of their being and their doing.
That’s why when we see it, we call it what it is - “Integrity.”

Do you see the difference? According to Jesus, It is a curse to live as a prisoner to yourself.
Caring only for your own self-preservation is, ironically, the quickest path to self-destruction.
But when Jesus’ mercy - his compassion for the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner –
when his mercy is a guiding value for someone -
when someone consciously chooses patience over rudeness,
forgiveness over revenge, sharing over hoarding - that person’s life takes on a certain sheen.

I’ve seen it.
I suspect you have, too - a parent, a friend, a teacher.
I hope each one of you can think of someone in your experience
in whom you have seen this kind of character,
this easy, natural generosity of spirit that exudes the warmth and kindness of one who truly
takes to heart the teachings of Jesus.
This isn’t to say that such people are perfect, nor that they live charmed lives free of suffering.
In fact, sometimes it’s people who have suffered the most
that have the deepest capacity for mercy.
But such people do seem to have a steadfastness, an unshakeable-ness
that serves as an anchor to everyone around them.

But before I descend too far into the land of mushy sentimentalism,
let me remind myself that I started off talking about how actions have consequences.
There will come a time of separation, Jesus warns,
a one-on-one time of reckoning
where you and I will be called to account for how we have lived our lives.
I don’t know what Jesus means by the part of his story where the king says to the accursed,
“Depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
I don’t know what it means but it doesn’t sound good.
Because I know myself, my own capacity for hypocrisy and meanness and negligence,
I like to imagine the possibility of completing a “Hail Mary” pass in the last second of the game,
a divine dispensation that will get me past the hall monitor and into heaven’s door
without being examined too closely.

If I hold onto that hope for myself, I don’t think it’s fair for me not to extend it others.
Besides, when I look at the consequences felt by the likes of Bernie Madoff and Joe Paterno
for acts of commission or omission,
I tend to think we often make our own Hell here on earth,
that consequences have a way of catching up to us.
Perhaps it is enough to echo the prophet Ezekiel
and say that justice at least means that God holds bullies accountable.
The fatter and stronger the sheep,
the more they will be tempted to push with flanks and butt with horns,
But in some way, at some time, there will be judgment
and God will make the inconsiderate and the power-hungry choke on God’s justice.

In light of this prophecy, we bear the responsibility of examining ourselves, examining our institutions,
examining our government, our economics, our way of life
and asking ourselves the hard questions:
- Am I either by sins of commission or sins of omission taking advantage of the weak?
- Am I enjoying God’s bounty but then fouling God’s creation by my carelessness?
- Am I living out my baptism as a child of God by looking for God’s image in each person I meet?
- Am I living with integrity, so that my actions match the faith I profess.

These are important questions, necessary questions,
but don’t ever forget that we examine ourselves in context – always in context.
God is not our Chief Executive Officer.
God is not the Big Boss with whom we have a limited employment contract
requiring two weeks’ notice for termination of said contract.
We have not a limited contract but a lasting covenant,
and God is not our CEO but our Shepherd.
And when we examine ourselves
we examine ourselves in the context of the covenant, the promise,
that we are the sheep of God’s pasture.
And when we are lost, God will seek us out
when we are scattered, God will bring us together
when we are distressed, or in danger, or flat out exhausted,
the Good Shepherd watches over us and gives us rest.
_________________
1 I got the connection between the gospel lesson and “Undercover Boss” from the “Reflections on the Lectionary” section of the Christian
Century, November 15, 2011, p. 21 by Christine Chakoian.
2 http://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/about/
The entire text of the show’s premise reads as follows. I edited it for time and space.
“Each week, UNDERCOVER BOSS follows a different executive as they leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their companies. While working alongside their employees, they see the effects that their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organizations and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their companies run.”

The Frozen Nut

2011-11-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 55:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21

Dan Bullins, one of our members, has started a new catering business
featuring barbecued ribs and chicken, baked beans, and potato salad.
He has built a giant smoker on wheels he can move around as needed.
This past week he was near the corner of Indian School and Girard
his giant smoker going in the great outdoors
filling the air on Girard Street with the aroma of sizzling goodness.
I stopped by for a visit and a taste.

As we chatted, other cars started to pull over to see what was going on
Then we noticed people walking in our direction, young, old, some strong, some sick.
At first it was only a handful
but then it became a small contingent which quickly grew to a throng
well on it’s way to mushrooming into a mob.
Pretty soon a whole crowd was gathered there
on the corner of Girard and Indian School Road, drawn, I suppose, by the aroma,
milling about, looking like they expected something.

The first ones to arrive quickly ate up what Dan had ready.
They emptied his cooler of the cans of soda, inhaled his baked beans and potato salad.
You know how it’s getting sort of chilly these days and this was not a wealthy crowd.
It didn’t take long until some of those people didn’t look so good.
Some were in ragged sweaters, some in only shirt-sleeves shivering against the cold.
A little boy tugged on his mother’s hand and loudly whined,
“I’m hungry, Mama, I’m hungry.
“I know, Honey,” she said, “I know.”

Since I had been there from the first,
some people seemed to think I could help.
“Hey Mister,” someone yelled, “You got anything to eat? People getting hungry over here!”
It didn’t help that I was standing there with gnawed rib bone in my hand.
I looked at Dan, but he was kind of spooked by the sheer numbers pressing in on him.
I looked at Dan’s big smoker that had just minutes before seemed so large, so ample.
It had shrunk to the size of a peanut in comparison to that mob,
and the empty cooler? It stood open in silent mockery.
“Go back to your homes,” I shouted. “There’s not enough. Not nearly enough.
What in Jesus’ name do you expect ME to do?”

That’s the real question, isn’t it?
Sometimes we read this story of the feeding of the 5000 men
and who knows how many women and children
and we say, “That’s nice.”
Jesus was a nice man. Wasn’t that nice of him to give them something to eat.
It was a miracle the way he multiplied those loaves and fish.
Why, I wish he was here right now.
I could use a fish sandwich.

Sometimes we read this story and think it’s just about food
or just about Jesus and what a special kind of fellow he was – God’s Son and all.
The fact is, the story IS about food – Jesus knew about basic needs.
And it IS about the special identity Jesus bore.
But there’s that other thing. The big thing.
You know what thing I’m talking about.
I’m talking about that Kingdom Economics thing!
I’m talking about Jesus’ refusal to see the situation from the point of view of scarcity…
his refusal to get bogged down in the notion that there was nothing to be done,
that all was lost,
that each had better look out for himself or herself
because there’s surely not enough to go around.

Jesus seized the opportunity of a large, hungry crowd and a little smidgen of food
to challenge his disciples in their practicality.
He grabbed the moment to push them into a place of extreme discomfort
so that they could at least START to be a part of something bigger than their fears.

It’s that Kingdom economics thing.
That thing that gives church treasurers acid stomachs.
That thing that bedevils stewardship ministry teams and church Sessions.
It’s that unmistakable thread that runs through both the old and new testaments
which says that our God is a God of abundance,
a God of an embarrassment of riches

It begins with an abundant creation – plants and trees, fish and foul, beasts and birds.
A Garden of Eden brimming with delights.
We see it in God’s promise to Abraham,
to make him fruitful, the father of a nation with a multitude of offspring.
We see God’s economics at work when the prophet Jeremiah buys real estate
in a town that’s about to fall to the enemy.
As a practical investment it stinks. But it makes perfect sense as a part
of God’s Kingdom economics.

In stories about and by Jesus, what do we see?
not the hard-scrabble, pinched up attitude of “never enough”
but the open-handed, heart-thrilling drum beat of abundance.
Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding.
A few carafes to tide them over?
NO. Gallons and gallons of the stuff.
The waiting father welcomes the prodigal son home.
A bath, some fresh clothes?
NO. The finest robe, a big ring,
and a barbecue to which the whole neighborhood was invited

There IS one place where Jesus warns his followers to be very practical;
to judge wisely,
to count the cost frugally before jumping in.
That was when he was addressing the question of whether a person should choose
to be his disciple.
“No one builds a tower without first stopping to consider the cost,” he says.
Discipleship is not to be entered into lightly.
But his warning is precisely because he realizes that to be His follower
puts a person at uncomfortable odds with the way the rest of the world thinks.

The rest of the world says to fear for your well-being.
Jesus says, “don’t be anxious, look at the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin
and they look great!”
The rest of the world says, “expect the worst,”
Jesus says, “trust God for the best.”

The news is full of economic hand-wringing right now.
Everyone acts so surprised that an economic system built on the assumption of scarcity and competition
has resulted in the worst kind of selfish behavior – the few who have plenty doing whatever they can
to keep from sharing with those who have little.
But when you are of the mindset that there’s never enough
that’s the only possible response there is.
Most of the industrialized world to a greater or lesser degree
accepts the idea as a given that there is not enough to go around,
and that each person is therefore responsible for competing with others
to acquire as much as he or she needs to get by.

Of course, each person has his or her own definition of what “getting by” means.
When you’re looking at life through the lens of scarcity,
even if you’re among the wealthiest citizens in the wealthiest country you never have enough.
The crazy, upside down values of a system built on a scarcity model
tell us that those who need the most to get by
are the ones who should be most admired and celebrated in our society.
And those who get by on next to nothing
are overlooked or, worse, looked down on for their shabby clothing or battered old car.

Let’s face it, part of the cost of following Jesus, of being his disciple,
is to be continually haunted by the question of how much is enough –
whether my economics model matches the one of God’s realm.
And frankly, if I’m honest, I have to admit that I spend most of my waking moments
looking at my life from the point of view of scarcity – that I always need more,
rather than from the point of view of abundance – learning how to live gratefully with less.

You may be wondering about the title of this sermon. “The Frozen Nut.”
It comes from the experience I have every so often
that just frustrates the dickens out of me!
It happened most recently when I was trying to reattach the back rear section of my car
that had popped out due to, shall we say, incautious backing resulting in an
unfortunate coming together of the flimsy rear corner of my car and an immovable object.

The rear section of my little car is plastic so it didn’t dent,
but one section had popped out where two other sections come together
and there are nuts and bolts that hold the parts in their proper configuration.
To get the one section back in place I had to loosen three nuts.
Two of them loosened easily, piece of cake.
But the last one, of course, the one remaining nut I had to loosen was frozen in place.

I applied WD-40 and let it sit, but that didn’t help.
I tightened the wrench and cranked down hard, but the nut didn’t loosen at all.
It simply started to crumple. It turns out it was made not of steel but of a softer metal.
Like with so many other projects where nuts and bolts are involved,
there was that one frozen nut that stood in the way of my accomplishing my goal.

When I read the story of Jesus and his disciples
debating over whose view of economics would hold sway
It reminds me of that frozen nut.
The disciples looked at the situation the way I would have looked at it.
They sized up the crowd, the resources at hand
assessed that a few loaves and fish were not nearly enough to go around
so they came up with the imminently practical solution.
“It’s every man for himself. Send them into the villages
where they can compete for what scarce resources there are.”
But Jesus said, “No, there is always enough. We’re in this together, you know.
You give them something.”

I’m not sure I can do that – look at the world that way,
from a point of view of abundance rather than not enough.
That’s my frozen nut of faith. I’m not sure I’m going to ever be able to get it loose.
Maybe you share my struggle.
What gives me hope is that the disciples never seemed to fully get that nut unfrozen either.
But what also gives me hope is that every now and then
people of faith do act as though they do believe in God’s abundance.

Not long ago I was leaving a gas station having gone inside to buy a snack.
Will was with me, I was in a hurry, and I got careless with my change for a twenty
so that the money I thought I’d stuffed in my pocket actually fell on the floor.
A young man came up to me outside the store and asked if I was missing some money.
I checked and, sure enough, I was.
Without hesitation he held out to me what he had found on the floor..
He looked like he could have used that money more than I,
but in his honesty, he was coming from a place of abundance.
I with I could say I came back to him also from a place of abundance saying, “Keep it as a reward.”
But I didn’t.
From my place of scarcity I thanked him, took it, and put it safely in my wallet.

I always see abundance when I travel to Mexico to build homes in an impoverished area.
Together with people of the community we build for a family a 12’x24’ concrete block home.
That’s a palace compared to their previous tiny shack of tin, cardboard and scrap lumber.
But as little as they seem to have, without fail fail, the family for whom we build the house,
the family who has one pot to their name, will on Wednesday invite the entire crew for a meal,
joyfully, abundantly sharing what little they have.

Once a month we sit down together around the table of our Lord
laden with the good gifts of God’s creation
and hear again about God’s overflowing, never ceasing, more than enough love for us.
We hear again how Jesus takes, blesses, breaks and gives the bread.
We hear again how there is plenty to share.
That no one needs to go hungry.
If I do this enough, one day that nut may turn.
Slowly at first. Rusty and hard, but then a little easier, and a little easier still.
Until I, too, begin to see what there’s always been to see
the ample grace of God that never runs out.

Keep Awake

2011-11-07T08:08:00.001-08:00

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Matthew 25:1-13

If ever there was a good argument for your True Value Hardware store to stay open 24-7
Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids is it.
Young people today just don’t understand the pathos of this story.
Back before there were shopping centers open on Sunday,
back before ATM machines or debit cards with their ready cash at a moment’s notice,
Cromagnon Man and Woman had to actually plan ahead
if they wanted to do something on the weekend.

It doesn’t speak well of the general aptitude of the bridesmaids in Jesus’ story
that fifty percent of them fail to think ahead to purchase enough oil for their lamps
to get them through the customary three day celebration of a friend’s wedding.
I can see it now, can’t you? The five who are riding together
plan to pick up lamp oil after the Friday Bridesmaid’s Luncheon,
but they get to talking, and have one too many Mimosas to drink,
and the groomsmen crash the party even though they aren’t supposed to
so that by the time the bridesmaids leave the luncheon, the sun is setting
and all the shops are closed for the Sabbath.
But they don’t worry. It’s all good. The wedding is scheduled for dusk on Saturday
so even if it gets a little dark, surely the other bridesmaids will let them bum enough oil
to get them through the ceremony.

The five foolish bridesmaids imagine themselves invincible.
They believe that Murphy’s Law does not apply to them.
The universe wouldn’t dare let anything go wrong for them –
they’re too charming, too rich, too good looking.
Yet, wouldn’t you know it.
The bridegroom is delayed – a bad accident on the highway that takes forever to clear.
The five who planned ahead are doing OK, running low on oil, but they should make it.
But there’s not enough to share with the other five,
so one of the foolish five gets on her cell phone to her Daddy
who calls a friend, waking him up, getting him out of bed to go open his shop
to get the ladies some oil.

But by the time the five foolish bridesmaids get back with the oil,
the all night wedding banquet is well underway
and the outside doors are locked.
The five women pound on the doors and scream,
“Let us in! How could you start the party without us???”
The bridegroom himself hears the ruckus and goes to the door.
The porch light is out and bridegroom squints through the peephole
but can’t see who it is and he doesn’t recognize the voices so he says,
“Whatever you’re selling, we’re not buying,
now go on, get away from here.”
Poor foolish bridesmaids.

There’s a hard edge to this story of Jesus that we don’t find in many of his other stories.
We prefer the stories that end, “Oh, that’s OK, no harm done. You meant well.”
But this one ends on a different note,
This one ends with consequences, with accountability.
It turns out it’s a cautionary tale that leaves all who first heard it
and all of us who now read it with the stern admonition, “Keep Awake!.”

If this was the only kind of story we could read in the Bible,
then our understanding of God might be different than it is otherwise.
If we didn’t have the story of the Prodigal Son ending with the father’s embrace,
or the story of the little tax collector, Zacchaeus, called down from the Sycamore tree,
or the story of the woman caught in adultery forgiven of her sin –
If all we had were stories like the five foolish bridesmaids
banished from the party as a consequence of their lack of preparation,
then we might come away with an image of a taskmaster God,
an implacable God,
a God long on punishment and short on compassion.

But we do have stories like the vision of Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones
to soften the hard edge of the foolish bridesmaids.
They are different kinds of stories,
but don’t imagine they are on opposite ends of the spectrum –
one citing God’s judgment, the other God’s mercy.
It’s more accurate, I think, to say that they show different sides of the same coin,
the intertwining connection between mercy and accountability
that is not only the source of our challenge as we seek to be faithful,
but also the source of our strength and our hope.

When Ezekiel had the vision of the valley of the dry bones
it came at a time when Israel had already felt the consequence
of their lack of obedience, their failure to keep covenant with God.
They had failed to care for the poor among them,
failed to worship faithfully,
failed to rely on God and not their own cunning for their security.
As a consequence they had been conquered and led into exile in Babylon,
cut off at the root from the community life that nurtured and sustained them.

Having fallen asleep at the wheel on their covenant journey
the Israelites have already had their bridesmaid moment.
They have been on the outside looking in for quite some time by that point
and the question is no longer, “Why have we been locked out,”
but “Will we ever be allowed back in”
At long last, Ezekiel says, at long last the answer is “Yes.”
As dry and lifeless and unarticulated as the nation’s bones are,
Ezekiel tells of a time when Israel’s bones will again live,
will again flesh out,
will again be animated by the Spirit, the Breath, of God.
The message is loud and clear.
While God has not kept them from experiencing the consequences of their mistakes
neither has God left them without the hope of redemption.

Some of us gathered this morning to make facsimiles of human bones
as part of the planned One Million Bones art installation in Washington, DC.
when one million bones will be laid side by side to represent a mass grave.
We will bring these bones forward as part of our offering in a few minutes.
The One Million Bones project grew out of one Albuquerque artist’s frustration
at the continuing incidents of genocide she was hearing about around the world
even after the well documented failure of the world to act in Rwanda in 1994
when Hutu militias slaughtered the ethnic minority Tutsis
wiping out as much as 20% of Rwanda’s population in 100 days of killing.
After Rwanda the world said, “Never again,”
but in Congo, in Burma, until last year in the Darfur region in Sudan,
in these and other places the killing continues.

The One Million Bones project is not a call for military intervention in these places.
If anything, it is a call for a global step back from violence
and the networks of arms sales, the rhetoric of domination
that keeps the flames of violence stoked.
If anything it is an echo of Jesus’ words to his followers saying, “Keep awake!”
Do not hide your head in the sand. Do not strike an apathetic pose.
Do not get caught with your lamps empty and no way to shine your light.
There are consequences to being ill prepared – awful consequences -
that cut us off from God’s Spirit, that take us out of harmony with Creation.

But the other message is that as awful as it has been,
as many times as we have failed,
as harsh as the consequences can be,
these bones can live.
Where there is grief there can again be joy.
Where there is shame there can again be assurance.
Where there is regret there can again arise a sense of renewed purpose.

In Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids
it seems as though half are self-absorbed airheads and half are perfection personified.
But that’s not the point.
Today we remember the saints of the church who have gone before us.
I’m confident that not one of them came to the end of his or her life
having made no mistakes.
Wisdom is not avoiding all mistakes.
Wisdom is knowing when you have made a mistake and doing your best
not to make the same mistake again.
In other words, wisdom is born of a desire and a commitment to keep awake
to plan ahead and to have a good supply of lamp oil on hand
that will keep God’s light shining in us as we continue our covenant journey.

Essentially

2011-10-30T18:57:00.001-07:00

Ephesians 2:1-10
Matthew 23:1-12

When you speak of the essence of something you speak of the core quality or character,
the aspect of the thing in question without which it would not be “it.”
Having said that, the essence of some things is easier to define than others.
For example, you can look inside your Boy Scout Handbook
and find a definitive list of the essential items
to be found in every prepared Scout’s first aid kit.
If you don’t have antibiotic ointment it may be somebody’s idea of a first aid kit,
but It’s not the essential Boy Scout first aid kit.
On the other hand, someone may try to convince you that they have identified
ten of Bob Dylan’s songs that demonstrate the essence of his identity as a cultural icon
That’s a different sort of proposition.
Everyone can agree on “Blowing in the Wind”
But some may also include “Forever Young” while others prefer “Like a Rolling Stone.”

I bring this up because just last week
John Sitler was installed as a ruling elder in this church
and as part of his installation he was asked the question all elders are asked:
Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what scripture leads us to believe and do…?

You see the dilemma. To answer that question you have to first answer this question:
What are the essential tenets of the Reformed faith?
Throughout the history of the Presbyterian Church some have tried to say
that the essential tenets of the Reformed faith are like items in a Boy Scout first aid kit,
easily defined and indisputable.
But the church, at least the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its forbearers,
has consistently said “No. That’s not the way it is.”
The Presbyterian Church in its wisdom
has affirmed that the essential tenets of the Reformed faith
are clear in the middle but fuzzy around the edges.
Even the earliest Reformers couldn’t agree on a definitive, indisputable list of essentials
because in their wisdom they knew that God’s ways are not our ways
and the individual conscience must remain free to receive new guidance from God.
That’s why the motto of the Reformation has remained to this day
“Reformed and always reforming.”

I bring this up because today is Reformation Sunday,
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a Catholic Priest and Professor of Theology
is said to have posted ninety-five theses on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel.
Martin Luther compiled a list of 95 objections he had o Roman Catholic practice,
several of which had to do with the raising money to build St. Peter’s Basilica
and what Luther saw as a gospel heavy on works righteousness and light on grace.
He circulated this list, hoping only for a scholarly debate not a war with the church.
Unfortunately for him, the printing press had just been invented,
so it wasn’t long before his theses were translated from Latin into German
and distributed far and wide for anyone to read.

As we know, John Calvin, 26 years Luther’s junior, took the Reformation to Geneva
and though he and Luther had their differences,
they did agree on some of the essentials of Reformed faith.

One essential they agreed on is the concept of “grace alone.”
They believed that we are delivered from our sin not by our own righteous behavior,
not through our own purity or piety,
but through the grace of God that can’t be earned but which is freely given.
As the letter to the church in Ephesus puts it,
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
This was a life changing revelation, especially for Luther,
who in his early life had labored under such guilt, trying to attain a holy life
and finding such holiness beyond his reach.
But he discovered in the scriptures the promise of grace,
that though we are weak, God is strong and faithful.
Having found this release from guilt that meant so much to him,
Luther could not stand by and watch the church, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day
lay such heavy burdens of guilt on people seeking to know God.

This leads us another undisputed essential of the Reformed faith.
If we are saved by grace alone, then we are guided in our lives by Scripture alone.
In the Roman Catholic church of Luther and Calvin’s day,
church tradition, Papal decree, was equal in authority to the Bible.
The Reformers, on the other hand, didn’t deny the authority of the church,
but rather made the authority of the church subordinate to Scripture,
Calvin had his own way of saying this.
To John Calvin, the authority of the church was subordinate not only to the Bible
but to the Word of God which, as he explained, was first embodied in Jesus,
then attested to in written form in the Bible,
then preached in the context of worship,
and then made real by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
in the lives of those who listened and obeyed.

It is a failure to understand this living, dynamic quality of the Word of God
that has led some to try to come up with a hard and fast list of faith essentials.
At least twice in the last one hundred years a group within the church,
in reaction to what they perceive as a threatening drift in culture and society,
has tried to create its own “Wittenberg Door” moment.
But instead of posting propositions in an attempt to generate discussion
among people of good faith,
they have instead posted what they consider indisputable declarations
leaving no room for debate.

At the turn of the 20th Century unprecedented scientific advances were under way,
most notably Charles Darwin’s theories about the origin of the species.
German theologians were promoting a more analytical understanding of the Bible as well,
dissecting the literary structure, questioning traditions about who wrote the Bible,
recognizing that there were significant differences among the different manuscripts
that raised questions about cherishes translations.

In reaction to this perceived threat against the Bible, so called “Traditionalists”
later known as “Fundamentalists” made a list of five essential things
a Christian absolutely has to believe to call himself or herself a Christian.
These were:
1. The inspiration of Scripture and the idea that the Bible is without error.
2. The virgin birth of Jesus.
3. The belief that Jesus’ death was an atonement for our sin
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ
5. The historical reality of Jesus’ miracles
Certainly, they thought, all ministers should be wiling and able to affirm these things
and those who didn’t were tried in the church for heresy.

Fortunately for me, the Fundamentalists did not ultimately win the day,
but they didn’t completely go away either.
For the past twenty years some churchgoers have again been disturbed by
what they see as a drifting away from essential church practice and belief.
They point with alarm to church leaders who are more and more willing to recognize
the value of religious traditions that are not Christian.
They also go pale at the fact that the church is no longer inclined
to disqualify people for leadership in the church based on their sexual orientation.

In 2001, a Presbyterian Church in Western Pennsylvania reacted to this perceived drift
and began what is called the “Confessing Church” movement.
They whittled down five fundamentals to three affirmations
one must make if one wants to be considered an “authentic” Christian.
1. Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
2. The Bible is God’s holy Word (meaning without error)
3. Christians are called to live a holy life, which includes the standard of chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage.

It’s interesting that for all the ruckus raised by groups
concerned about the authority of the Bible
there is no support for a definitive list of essentials of the faith
to be found in the New Testament.
The most ancient creedal statement found in the New Testament
is the simple assertion that “Jesus is Lord.”
Our denomination’s Book of Order begins with the affirmation
that Jesus Christ is Head of the Church.
So there is no question that central among the essential tenets of the Reformed faith
is the idea that we as followers of Jesus believe we can best understand who God is
and who we are in relation to God by looking to Jesus.
But equally important to the essence of who we are as Presbyterian Christians
is the understanding that it is God, and not us, who is in charge.
The Reformers were scandalized by the way the church of their day
pretended to know the mind of God, pretended to speak for God with utmost assurance
while still exhibiting little evidence that the Lord of their life was Jesus and not money.

The Reformers said it is by grace alone we are saved so it is egotism at it’s worst
to then pretend that we have the right or the capacity
to control the flow of God’s grace to others.
By Scripture alone they said we are guided in faith, but it is idolatry at it’s worst
to turn the Bible into a rigid monument to nineteenth century piety
instead seeing it as a living document through which the Holy Spirit
continues to inspire and challenge us to new ways of thinking about God.

So many of the so called “essentials” identified in response to recent social upheavals
are not essential at all, but only marginal at best; a product of fear and not faith.
Jesus never claimed for himself a virgin birth.
He never did miracles to prove his divinity but only as illustrations
of the kind of compassion and faith he was looking for from his followers.
Jesus never said one word about sexual orientation
and while the scriptures of the Old Testament, his Bible, certainly informed his life
they were for him not a fence but a springboard for his life in God’s realm.

I’ll tell you what. Even though it’s Reformation Sunday,
forget for a moment the Reformation. Go back 2000 years to the source, to Matthew.
If you’re looking for the essence of what it means to follow Jesus
then nail this to your door.
“The greatest among you will be your servant.”

Recalling the Angels

2011-10-23T12:04:00.001-07:00

Leviticus 19:9-18
Matthew 22:34-39
Colossians 1:15-20

Something you may not know about me is that I have a powerful conscience,
a little voice that helps me sort out right from wrong.
It nags me without mercy if I step even one inch, one millimeter
outside the bounds of what is acceptable behavior.
Once, when I was five, I disobeyed my mother and she told me to prepare for a spanking.
As I assumed the position I said to her something like,
“While you’re at it, you might as well spank me for cutting the pocket of my pants.”
You see, I had misused her good pair of scissors and I was feeling guilty about it.

Now, those of us who are so tightly wound, who have such an active conscience,
like to have specific rules laid out for us so we can be sure of where we stand.
We have a lot in common with the Sadducees and Pharisees of Jesus’ day
who were such sticklers for the law.
They loved to discuss the ins and outs of the 613 points of the Jewish law
and were eager to show Jesus up as a newcomer, a neophyte, a country preacher
who couldn’t possibly go mano a mano with them in debate.
But Jesus confounded them.
He shut them down by refusing to dance to their tune.
He answered their question with an invitation not to follow the traditional script
but to improvise , to immerse themselves in a deeper relationship with the living God.

“What is the greatest commandment?” they asked.
“Keep the Sabbath? Don’t eat shellfish? Avoid wizards at all costs?”
“No,” said Jesus, “The greatest commandment is love.
Love God. Love neighbor. Love self.”

We’ve heard this story before and we tend to think this response was original with Jesus,
especially the instruction to love.
But then we look back in the 19th chapter of Leviticus,
right in the heart of what is known as the holiness code,
right in the midst of all the dietary restrictions and sexual prohibitions
and there it is, verse 18, “but you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

And this isn’t some abstract instruction by the author of Leviticus,
some general admonition to “go therefore and love.”
The author spells out some very specific ways to show the love he’s talking about.
But he doesn’t waste time talking about love between social equals.
Instead, he speaks to the love God’s calls the wealthy to have for the poor,
knowing that it’s hard to get the wealthy to even notice the poor,
much less show love to them.

“Leave some of your crop in your fields,” is one instruction.
If there is bounty, then let the bounty be shared.
“Don’t keep your workers wages overnight” is another instruction.
In a system where laborers literally lived from one day to the next
keeping wages overnight was tantamount to making them starve.

Don’t defraud, don’t steal, don’t discriminate against the deaf and blind.
The kind of economic system pleasing to God
is a system based on generosity instead of greed,
on fair labor practices instead of disregard for workers,
on honesty instead of manipulation or deceit.
And while the Pharisees in their obsession with the letter of the law
were looking for the minimum they had to do to maintain their sense of righteousness,
Jesus was out to fulfill the spirit of the law
in which love of God and love for neighbor knows no bounds.

It would be easy to read Jesus admonition to love God and love neighbor
as a strictly personal challenge,
That’s how we usually express our faith.
That way we don’t run the risk of imposing our views on others.
or getting into uncomfortable conversations with fellow members of the church.
Keep it private. Keep it low key. Keep it as inoffensive and innocuous as possible.

The problem with that approach
is that our faith is not meant to be kept private, or low key, or innocuous.
The image of Christ presented in the letter to the Colossians is anything but private.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;” the author writes.
For in him ALL THINGS in heaven and on earth were created….
things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers,
all things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

If we are followers of this transcendent Christ,
then we are not given the luxury of compartmentalizing our lives –
being generous and fair and honest in my private, personal dealings with others,
loving my neighbor as an individual,
but not allowing myself to be concerned about the forces and systems
that are at work around me in my neighborhood, my city, my country.
If I am interested in following Jesus, in loving God and my neighbor,
then it is my calling as a Christian to do what I can to make sure that
the political and social and economic systems in which I live
are generous and fair and honest.

I’ve never been one to look for angels, at least not as winged creatures who hover overhead.
But theologian Walter Wink’s idea of angels appeals to me.1
Wink writes of angels as the spiritual manifestations of material entities –
the personality, the character, the essence of an institution.
He says that each material entity, be it a school, a business, a church, a football team
each material entity has a calling from God,
that gives it a role to play, a contribution to make to the common good.
I think I understand what he’s talking about.
Immanuel Presbyterian Church has a “personality,” a spirit.
I can’t explain it, but I feel it.
Albuquerque as a city has a unique spirit, a certain “vibe” so to speak
that makes it different from Santa Fe or Washington, DC.

Wink’s point is that when the material entity is living out its divine calling
its angel is intact, its purpose is being fulfilled.
If it’s a school we’re talking about, then in that school there is a palpable joy of learning.
If it’s Apple Corporation, then innovation and design are equally important,
employees are well compensated and have a sense of pride.
If it’s the United States of America, then our calling, our angel dictates
that everyone’s needs are equally represented, laws are administered fairly,
everyone has an opportunity to better their situation and be treated with respect.
The elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, the physically infirm
are given assistance and treated with compassion.

Now Wink also says that material entities sometimes deny their divine calling.
They sometimes lose sight of their purpose, the essence of their identity.
When this happens, it’s as if their angel departs
and the door is opened to discord and corruption and violence.

But even when the angel departs, the divine essence evaporates,
it’s not a hopeless situation.
The divine drama that is played out through salvation history
is that human beings and human institutions, though created by God,
do fall, do lose their way, but by God’s mercy, even though fallen, can be redeemed.
Though the angel of a material entity may leave for a time,
there is always the possibility that the angel can, through the power of God, be recalled.
Again we read in the letter to the Colossians,
“Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.”

So as we look at our institutions, the material entities that are part of our landscape –
As we look at the House and the Senate,
as we look at Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and Bank of America,
as we look at ourselves, our church, our tendency to sit on our hands
while people are going through economic hell,
how are we doing? Would you say our angels are intact?
are our institutions - are we - following our divine calling?

Whatever you may think of the Occupy Wall Street movement,
they are the first to come right out and say that the angel of our country,
the great nation we all love, has flown the coop.
As we are experiencing the greatest economic divide between rich and poor since the ’20s,
and more and more people are falling below the poverty line
and the average age of a homeless person in this country is age nine,
those unemployed teachers and foreclosed homeowners
and college students saddled with huge debt and no prospect of a job
have gone out into the streets and the parks of our cities and towns to say,
“ENOUGH!”

By their presence they are inconveniently pointing out that our angels have fled
and as loudly as they can they are recalling the angels of our banks and corporations
of our Roundhouse in Santa Fe, and our Congress in Washington, DC.
They are recalling the angels of the churches and synagogues and mosques.

I’m not endorsing the Occupy Wall Street Movement. They don’t want my endorsement.
They see us, the religious people, as part of the problem.
Isn’t it embarrassing that it’s the young adults, the unemployed, the aging radicals
who are out there recalling our nation’s angels and not us, not us who follow Jesus?
I keep asking myself is “Where’s that blasted conscience when I need it?”
Why isn’t that little voice screaming at me for being silent in the face of corporate greed?
for not raising an eyebrow when workers have had pension plans looted, jobs outsourced?
for uttering nary a peep as congressional favor has gone to the highest bidder?

I gave Kathryn a preview of this sermon and she said,
“Well what are you going to tell them they should do?”
I’m not going to tell you what to do other than what Jesus has already said:
“Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
I am going to tell myself what to do, though, and you can Iisten if you like.

I’m going to silence the timid voice in me that keeps me quiet by saying
“Be careful, you don’t want to upset anyone.”
I’m going to quit criticizing anyone who has the guts to get out there
and challenge the corruption and the cynical apathy that has stolen our angels
even if he doesn’t speak in pithy sound bites and does have dreadlocks and a drum.
I’m going to trust that God is still in charge,
and that if we have the courage to live out the two great commandments of our Lord
and recall our angels back to their rightful places
then through Christ God will be pleased to reconcile us and give us peace.
___

1 Wink, Walter, The Powers that Be, New York: Galilee Doubleday, 1999, p. 3f.

Reverse Alchemy

2011-10-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9

The number one villain of my early childhood
was that little rascal Rumplestiltskin.
I had an illustrated storybook with wonderful pictures
and I shuddered every time I laid eyes on that dried up, elfin little man –
with his scraggly beard, that pointed hat, those beady eyes.
At the center of Rumplestiltskin’s story, of course, is the miller’s boast to the king
that the miller’s daughter can spin straw into gold.
Little did the miller imagine that the greedy king would imprison the girl
with the threat that if she didn’t spin straw into gold she would die.
Small wonder, though. One way or another spinning straw into gold
has been one of the chief human obsessions down through the ages.

It’s hard to know how far back human beings have been trying to find a short cut
to wealth, security, and ease.
Early on alchemists, forerunners of modern-day scientists, were trying to find a process
by which common metals, lead and tin and iron, could be transformed into gold.
Those who funded the alchemist’s work dreamed of a discovery
that would bring instant wealth and an end to drudgery, suffering and fear.

That’s the fantasy arc of our story, isn’t it?
Not just Rumplestiltskin, I mean ANY story. OUR story.
We want our stories to have that kind of happy ending.
We dream of finding a way to eliminate drudgery, suffering and fear

In today’s episode of “As the Israelites Wander,”
we find the refugees from Egypt camped at the base of the mountain
waiting for Moses’ long overdue return from the crest.
In their idleness they’ve come up with all sorts of reasons for his delay.
Maybe he left the path to take a photograph and fell into a deep crevasse.
Maybe God lured him up there only to smite him.
Or maybe he’s just lost track of time in the gift shop.

Regardless, the Israelites have become impatient,
tired of being stalled, tired of having no clear direction,
tired of trusting in a God and a leader who are JUST SO SLOW and, currently, absent.
In an extreme case of “What have you done for us lately,”
the Israelites refer in our text to “this Moses…”
“This Moses!” As if he were not the one who came back to Egypt
with an outstanding warrant for murder on his head to stand up to Pharaoh.
As if he were not the one who spoke on their behalf to God, time and time again.
“This Moses,” they say, “We do not know what has become of him.”

Aaron, Moses’ brother, gets swept up in their anxiety.
He lets their impatience override what he knows of Moses,
what he knows of his faithful God.
Just because they’ve grown tired of waiting,
the people imagine a sinkhole growing in their relationship with God
and Aaron fools himself into thinking he can jump in and fill it.
In a reverse sort of alchemy Aaron says to the people, “Bring me your gold,
and I’ll turn it into lead.”
“Bring me your gold as a symbol of your insecurity, your boredom, and your fear
and quick as a whistle, lickety-split, before you can say, ‘Bob’s your uncle,’
I’ll mash it all together and make you big shiny blob of nothing.”

What Aaron and the Israelites didn’t know was that what was taking so long
was that God and Moses were on the mountain
carefully laying the foundation for the liturgical practices
that would sustain the people of God for more than a millennium.
God was giving Moses precise measurements and instructions
for building the Ark of the Covenant, the enduring symbol of God’s presence.
Yes, it was talking a long time,
yes, it required an inordinate amount of patience,
and yes, the suspense, the uncertainty was more than a little uncomfortable,
but as your grandmother used to tell you, “Good things come to those who wait.”

Good things come to those who wait. But we don’t want to wait.
We want to spin straw into gold, plastic into IPads,
give our opinion and have everyone agree without question,
state our desires and have them fulfilled, no waiting,
no accommodating anyone else.

Christian Smith, professor of sociology at Notre Dame
has just published the recent findings of a national survey of youth and religion
focusing on young people aged 18 to 23.1
In his results he finds some troubling trends.
He finds from the survey that as a whole this group seems to lack a moral compass.
He’s not troubled so much by their lack of any one particular moral belief,
but by their apparent inability to engage in moral reasoning,
to state what they believe and why they believe it.
Also, Smith is troubled by what he calls
the highly individualistic, consumption oriented mentality of those surveyed
that includes little concept of contributing to the common good.

Before we shake our heads over the sorry state of today’s youth,
we have to acknowledge the many exception’s to Smith’s findings,
young men and women who are insightful and committed to their communities.
And we have to admit, perhaps confess, that whatever traits this age group exhibits
they learned them, at least in part from us;
from what we have done and said, or what we have failed to do and say.
if they are focused only on getting what they want when they want it,
if they will not negotiate or compromise or sacrifice for the common good,
they learned it from us.
Or, they failed to learn something better from us.

As much as Paul loved his friends in Philippi,
he was troubled by a dispute that was causing division in the church.
We don’t know the nature of the dispute,
but it seems that two women, Euodia and Syntyche, pillars of the church
had had a falling out.
Their disagreement had created a rift
and it was eroding the foundation Paul had worked so hard to build.
It was undermining the unity Paul felt was vital to the church’s survival.

Each one of us here knows the kind of situation Paul is writing about.
I’ve have the kind of day when I was tired and out of sorts
and I snapped at a friend, said something I shouldn’t have said
and didn’t really mean.
And my friend, my co-worker, my brother or sister in Christ, equally exhausted,
lost patience with me, got offended, snapped back.
Or maybe a friend and I have a fundamental disagreement
about an issue of faith or public policy
Usually we can put it aside, agree to disagree and get on with vital work.
But one day it can’t be avoided, one day opinions are stated a bit too forcefully,
someone’s sincerity or faith is called into question.

It’s such a mundane thing, such a common thing,
but it’s a prime example of the choice we have,
the critical decision we have to make every day.
It’s an example of the kind of time you and I have to decide if we are willing to be patient,
to endure a bit of discomfort, some awkwardness, maybe a little suffering
in order to mend the tear in the relationship and get the wheels back on track.
Are we able to put the needs of others, the needs of the group ahead of our own needs,
or are we only capable of indulging our egos, saying and doing anything to save face,
unity be hanged!

Whether it’s surviving the wilderness
or maintaining unity in the church, It comes down to patience; the ability to wait.
It comes down to a willingness to acknowledge that anything of lasting value
only comes in the course of time,
only develops through a process,
a process that requires perseverance and commitment and forgiveness.
Straw can’t be spun into gold.
There is no secret alchemist’s formula that promises a quick path to an easy life.

In fact, when we try to bypass the process,
when we try to skip over the hard work of living a moral life,
of being in relationship with God and each other
we end up with a reverse alchemy.
We end up turning what is most precious in our life into rubbish.

Maybe it’s our technology that’s helped make us so impatient,
so unwilling to put in our time and pay our dues.
Or maybe it’s that we’ve just lost sight of what is truly valuable in this life,
what’s worth working for and how to work for it.
In Paul’s mind, it comes down to a choice.
We can be impatient, focus on what we don’t have,
and wallow in anxiety over all the things that are wrong in the world.
We can be easily offended, wear our politics on our sleeves,
dismiss as irrelevant anyone who doesn’t see things our way.

OR we can choose not to worry. Care? Yes, but not worry,
letting God bear the load and letting God be our guide.
We can choose to be gentle with each other,
and gentle with ourselves,
giving each other the benefit of the doubt.
Most of all, we can stay informed but still choose to spend most of our time
thinking about what is honorable, just, pleasing, and commendable.
Even if we are in the trenches fighting injustice tooth and nail,
we can do so while still keeping a steady focus on those people and institutions
that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Listen, straw is straw. Gold is gold.
Each has its place in the world. Each has it’s purpose.
It’s a fool’s errand to try to spin straw into gold,
but, as Paul would tell us, a far more satisfying endeavor to spin patience into peace.

_______

1 Smith, Christian, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. New York: Oxford University
Press, Inc., 2011

Big Mo

2011-10-02T14:40:00.001-07:00

Exodus 13:17-22
Philippians 3:4b-14

It’s football season. I just can’t get enough of the beer commercials
and the endless inane chatter from the broadcast booth
telling us what the quarterback is going to do, is doing and should have done.
Without fail, there’s always a point, usually about the third minute of the second quarter
when the so-called “color” commentator starts talking about “Big Mo.”

You non-sports fans may think I’m referring to a massive offensive lineman named Mo.
But the rest of you who are familiar with sports clichés
know that what he’s talking about is the phenomenon of momentum,
and how often it can change in a game.
Even if on paper the teams are evenly matched,
one team will often come out to start the game more fired up.
That team will dominate play for awhile,
rolling up first downs, scoring with apparent ease,
But then something happens.
It may be something big like a fumble, or something small like a forced punt.
Regardless, all of a sudden, the other team grabs the spotlight.
The other team finds its rhythm, starts to make plays, comes storming back.
That’s the cue for the color commentator to start waxing eloquently about momentum.
He’ll usually say something profound like,
“Big Mo is the most important player on the team!”

It’s not just sports teams who experience shifts in momentum
It happens to individuals, too. At least, it happens to me.
I find that I have periods during the year marked by great activity:
times when my creative powers are firing on all cylinders,
and new ideas are bubbling to the surface with no effort at all.
In these times my faith is secure and God’s grace abounds.
I feel strong and capable and ready for anything.
I love those times.

But then there are other times.
There are other times when I feel hip deep in mud,
weak, sluggish, hardly able to put one foot in front of the other.
In these times I’m unable to focus, my head is filled with static,
I second-guess every decision and I wait for the gavel of God’s judgment to fall.
My creativity shuts down in these times, I’m full of doubt,
I’m not so fond of those times.

Before you refer me to your psychiatrist, let me say that I don’t think I’m alone in this.
From my observations there is inherent in all things an ebb and a flow,
peaks and valleys, times of growth and times when things lie fallow.
There are times when Big Mo pulls a disappearing act,
especially when we speak of our endeavor to live as faithful followers of Jesus.

It’s not unusual to be cruising along undisturbed, confident, feeling blessed by God.
but then something happens, sometimes something big like a major trauma or crisis,
but sometimes something small like a tiny bit of doubt
that worms its way into my psyche.
Suddenly it’s no longer clear how I fit into God’s plan,
I no longer feel a palpable awareness of God’s presence.
Without warning Big Mo evaporates and I feel stuck, stymied, sort of stupid.

I wish I could say there’s something to be done to keep that from happening
but, in fact, as I read the Bible, even Jesus had lapses in momentum,
times when he lost focus, let fatigue get the better of him.
Remember the story of the Canaanite woman who interrupted his meal
asking that he heal her daughter.
Jesus, worn out from the day, snapped at her and called her a dog.
Then we remember the account of him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane,
sweating bullets, begging God, “Please take this cup from me!”

So, it begs the question, what can you and I do when Big Mo deserts us,
when our giant balloon is punctured and all the hot air rushes out?
If we can’t stop it from happening at least there must be something we can do when
we find ourselves depleted or disoriented to minimize the magnitude of the slump,
something we can do to begin once again to regain our stride.

Of all the characters in the Bible, it’s Paul who seems to have the answer,
Paul who unselfconsciously invites his friends in Philippi
to consider the role Big Mo has played in his life.
Such confidence he has that he comes right out and says to his friends there
“You really ought to follow my example.”
But Paul’s example is not as straightforward as it first appears.
There’s a surprising twist to it.

Paul’s initial efforts to gain momentum are very conventional,
the kind of thing many of us might do when we find ourselves in a slump.
We try harder.
By Paul’s own account he was a regular Jewish Wunderkind,
a child prodigy who grew into the model Pharisee.
It helped that he was from the right kind of family.
He graduated Valedictorian of his high school class,
was president of his university’s debate team,
editor of the Law Review in Law School
and became the youngest ever prosecuting attorney.
He was a stickler for the law, and -not bragging, just stating fact –
blameless under the law.

It must have worked for awhile –
head down, legs churning, nose to the grindstone.
M-O-M-E-N-T-U-M. Momentum.
But then - what? - a stress induced stroke?
A seizure of some sort?
A bold of lightning from a clear blue sky?
The hand of God administering a divine dope-slap?

In Acts we read of Paul’s Damascus road experience –
knocked to the ground, struck blind,
drooling, babbling about a voice from above.
After that experience Paul writes, “Whatever gains I had, I count as loss.”
“I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as …”
Our translation says “rubbish.” The King James Version is closer to the Greek here,
In the King James Version Paul says, “I regard them as DUNG.”
I imagine we could think of an even more earthy translation.

All Paul did, initially trying to get “Big Mo” on his side –
the endless study, the unimpeachable behavior,
the cruel oppression of fellow Jews who dared confess Jesus as Messiah –
all this came to nothing.
One day – “Top of the world, Ma!”
The next day down in the dirt. At a dead stop.
All momentum drained away.
It was a crisis of faith for Paul. We know about that.
That day you wake up and realize everything you’ve been doing isn’t working for you,
maybe hasn’t worked for you in awhile but by sheer momentum you’ve kept going.

Maybe you’ve lived your life for someone else,
hoping to find the magic word to say, the most wonderful thing to do
that will gain that person’s or that institution’s approval.
But then you wake up, realize it’s an impossible dream,
one you’ve spent too much of your life trying to make come true.

Or you’ve tried to be a good Christian, following every rule,
defining faith as the absence of doubt,
never allowing yourself to question what you’ve always been told
but then you hit a snag.
You hear your religion professor, your mentor, suggest the Virgin Birth is a myth.
You find out the minister who made Jesus real for you had an affair.
Your grandson, your heart’s delight, tells you he’s gay and always has been.

In either case you’re floored.
What do you do in a moment like this?
Some lose momentum and panic, go into denial, maybe get angry and lash out.
I can’t prove it, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn
that most bullies and tyrants are people who at their core
feel stuck, stymied and sort of stupid.
Acts of violence and cruelty feel in the moment like they can
stir the pot a bit, give a power-rush, help a person feel alive.

But I think if we asked Paul he’d tell us that “What can I do to regain my momentum?”
is the wrong question to ask.
A better question is, “How do I need to be?”
and the first answer Paul gives is “I need to be still,”
I don’t need to get my momentum back, I CAN’T get my momentum back,
not for long, anyway.
Any momentum I gain by my own efforts isn’t going to last.
Because lasting momentum is not mine to earn, it is God’s to give.
My part is to first allow myself to be still.
To accept the loss of my illusions, maybe to grieve that loss for awhile.

The next thing Paul says is that I need to know Christ.
This isn’t a passive “knowing” but an active “knowing.”
Daily I have to resist the temptation to generate a new strategy, build a new scheme,
And that’s hard to do when I’m feeling like a ship without sails or a rudder,
when I’m feeling stuck, and stymied, and sort of stupid.
But I can trust that, through knowing Christ, by cutting through all the cultural accretions
and getting to the core of what it means to follow Christ
I will find that God has something in store for me,
there is a path to follow, a calling to answer that will be revealed
as I choose to live in faithful expectation of that revelation.

Lastly, Paul would tell me, “Press on,” not in a panicky way, but calmly, steadfastly.
Even when the path isn’t clear, even when I have a crisis of faith, press on.
Don’t cling to the past or ruminate on what could have been, but trust God. Press on.
Like Moses in the wilderness, look for the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night.
Lean forward into the future, lean forward, eyes open, hands ready,
mind clear, heart expectant, lean forward,
and don’t be surprised to find Big Mo right there by your side.

The Wellspring of Authority

2011-09-26T12:56:00.001-07:00

Exodus 17:1-7
Philippians 2:1-11
Matthew 21:23-32

My parents drilled into me a respect for authority beginning with a respect for them.
It was always “Yes Sir” and “No Ma’am” when I spoke to them.
Then it was respect for my elders in general.
Anyone five years older than me gained automatic elevation to a place of honor.
Then it was respect for position – knowing who ranks higher in the chain of command
or who has a position in society befitting respect – doctor, minister, judge, teacher.
Then it was respect for the badge.
Even if the one wearing the badge is a teenaged parking lot security guard,
a badge carries weight.
Both of my parents grew up in the general poverty of the Great Depression
and strict respect for social convention; knowing ones place in the pecking order
allowed them the opportunities to get ahead and they wanted the same for me.

All this emphasis on authority has engrained in me a deep need for protocol.
I’m here to tell you it’s not always a helpful trait.
Sure, when you’re younger a deferential attitude might win the boss’ favor,
and a respect for age or position or a badge is a good place to start,
but I’ve found that genuine authority is not a function of age or position.
When authority is gained by coercion or class entitlement
and maintained by threat and intimidation
it is false and hollow and doesn’t deserve respect.
But genuine authority is different.
Genuine authority rises out of integrity and competence
where what is said and what is done meshes perfectly together.
Genuine authority radiates power but still maintains humility.
It never seeks personal advantage to the exclusion of all others,
but always seeks the good of others first.

It is this question of authority that makes the chief priests and elders in Jerusalem
go reaching for their family trees and framed diplomas.
As Matthew tells it, Jesus has returned to the temple
the day after what we know as his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem
which was also the weekend before his crucifixion.
The temple elite had either seen or heard about the adulation of the crowd for Jesus
and had no doubt come to see for themselves what the fuss was all about.
The first order of business for them was to size Jesus up,
inspect his credentials and see if he was really deserving of all the popularity.

If I'd been there I would have been standing right there with those temple leaders
(deferentially, of course, maybe a step or two off to the side.)
Like them I would have wanted to know the basis for Jesus’ authority.
And if I was used to being at the top of the pecking order like the priests and elders
I would have been very skeptical of some country preacher
who probably had not even attended an accredited seminary
rolling into town trying to assert some half-baked agenda.

These kind of things have to be sorted out, after all.
Social order depends on it.
But Jesus has no intention of making it easy on the religious elite.
They need to know what category to put him in,
but he refuses to be categorized
answering their direct request for credentials with a off-the-wall question of his own,
a non sequitur about the origin of John's baptism.
It's a spotlight kind of question Jesus asks,
a question not expecting an answer
but solely intended to expose just how shallow and shaky is the foundation
of the authority of the Jerusalem notables.

“By what authority are you doing these things,” they ask him,
“And who gave you that authority?”
It’s not an unreasonable question.
The Session of this church is charged with keeping an eye on what is taught here
and who does the teaching.
They decide who is invited to preach from this pulpit in my absence.
They’re not likely to pop into the local diner
and snatch up the first person they see to come in an bring the lesson.
They’re not going to search Craig’s List for a preacher
to come in and preach the Word.

Still, we all know that the highest scholarly degrees
the most prominent connections
and all the weight of the FBI itself
mean nothing if the person giving the lecture or wearing the badge
bears no sense of integrity, or fairness, or common courtesy.
One with genuine authority finds the strength to lead from within,
and that one gains followers by appealing to the best in them.
Others lead only through force or calculated manipulation
and gain followers by appealing to their fear.

The people who had followed Jesus throughout his Galilean ministry
knew that his authority bubbled up from the way he lived his life,
not from his fine speeches or his résumé.
So, when he told the parable of the two sons
to highlight the value of actions over words
they surely caught the not-so-subtle dig at the chief priests and elders
who were known for more for their solemn sermons
than for getting their hands dirty helping people in need.
Paul picked up on this quality of Jesus when he wrote to his friends in Philippi
looking to strike the right tone, searching for words to communicate
how absolutely unique the authority of Jesus was when compared to others.

Compassion, sympathy, love, unity – these are the hallmarks of the way of Jesus.
You want to talk about authority, Paul writes, you want to know the root of real clout?
Well, be of the same mind that was in Jesus,
who wasn’t full of himself, puffed up with pride and self importance – just the opposite.
Instead he EMPTIED himself, taking the form of a servant,
becoming obedient even unto death because that was congruent with his calling.

Oh my, our days are filled with people trying to assert their authority,
using any means they can to get us to buy what they’re selling.
It all starts to sound the same after awhile –
just a great cacophony creating static in our brains.
But every now and then somebody lets her actions speak instead of her words.
Sometimes it’s just a simple gesture of compassion or generosity,
but it’s so surprising, so fresh and different we sit up and take notice.

Someone makes a mistake, does something offensive.
But instead of denying it or trying to spin it to make it someone else’s fault,
he steps up, makes a public apology, shoulders the blame,
and, if possible, makes amends.

Someone finds a wallet, a purse, a bag of money and, despite being in need herself
turns it in or tracks down the rightful owner

Someone recognizes another person in trouble, in need of help,
and even though it causes him great inconvenience, maybe even a financial cost,
chooses to give assistance even when everyone else is passing by.

In that vein you may have seen the story this week out of Lakeville, Minnesota
where Josh Ripley, a high school cross country runner running in a meet
came across a runner from another team bleeding from a gash in his ankle
where he had been spiked by another runner’s cleats.
Others kept running on by, but Ripley stopped, and fearing the injured runner
had a damaged Achilles’ tendon, picked the boy up and carried him half a mile
back to the boy’s coach and parents.
Not stopping for praise or thanks, Ripley then resumed the race.
Later when asked why he stopped Ripley replied,
“I wasn’t thinking about my race. I knew I needed to help him. I’m nothing special.
I was just in the right place at the right time.”

Nothing special. Wouldn’t it be great if what Ripley did was indeed nothing special.
Wouldn’t it be remarkable if doing the right thing, showing compassion,
was not remarkable.
But in our world it is special. It is remarkable.
And it is the foundation, the wellspring of genuine clout.
By his actions, Josh Ripley proved himself a leader.
Without diploma or social position or a badge he exudes authority.

I don’t know who taught Josh Ripley to put another’s needs ahead of his own,
what sort of ethical foundation he has that put that idea in his head.
Followers of Jesus are not the only ones who have an ethic of compassion.
But, as followers of Jesus we certainly know that service to others
is at the core of our Lord’s authority.
And as Presbyterians, as those who fit under the label of “Reformed”
we go further to say that any impulse or capacity we have for service or compassion
any hope we have of exuding the authentic authority we see in Jesus
comes not from our own initiative but from God alone.

We read of Moses in the wilderness, who answered the complaints of his thirsty people
by striking a rock with his staff.
He struck a hard, dry, lifeless object and suddenly water gushed forth.
At God’s direction, by no power of his own except the willingness to obey,
Moses became a conduit of God’s power.

It is through this simple willingness to obey that genuine authority is born.
and it does stand out, it offers quite a contrast to what normally passes for authority.
With so many trying to find their authority in credentials or by bullying or by sheer volume,
even the smallest act of mercy is remarkable;
even the quietest voice of encouragement stands out;
even the least flamboyant display of honesty gets noticed.
but for someone with genuine authority, getting noticed isn’t really the point.

Authentic authority, the authority from within, isn’t typically an overnight phenomenon.
It often begins as merely a gurgle, a generous gesture, a bit of selfless service.
But if you and I are consistent in our obedience, and persistent in our service,
and insistent in our integrity
the gurgle becomes a trickle and the trickle a stream
and the stream keeps on flowing from the wellspring of genuine clout
that is God’s alone to give.

Don't Ask What it Is, Just Eat It!

2011-09-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Exodus 16:1-7, 11-15
Philippians 4:8-13

Will Ormond was my seminary professor, my surrogate grandfather and my mentor.
He was from South Alabama and spoke with a thick Alabama accent.
He never married, but his Auntie Marg lived with him until her death in her 90s.

For a man from humble beginnings, Will had a keenly developed gourmet palate
and he liked to experiment in his cooking.
One weekend after I’d graduated from seminary
I was back in Atlanta for a conference and he graciously gave me a room for the night.
The next morning I came downstairs for breakfast.
Auntie Marg was already at the table and Will was busy at the stove
whistling his usual tuneless whistle.

On the table was a half of a grapefruit each that Will commanded us to go ahead and eat.
Auntie Marg, sharp as a tack, muttered something about “Mr. Bossy”
but we dutifully consumed the fruit and I cleared away preliminary dishes.
Then, with a flourish, Will put a piece of toast on each plate
and with a spatula laid on the toast three sautéed asparagus spears
wrapped in ham and melted Swiss cheese.
On top of this wrap he spooned a creamy sauce.
As he spooned on the last of the sauce he said in a gruff voice,
“Don’t ask what it is, just eat it.”
Auntie Marg looked at me through her Coke-bottle glasses
that made her eyes look twice their size and in a deadpan voice said, “You first.”

Don’t ask what it is, just eat it.
Surely that is the subtext of God’s encounter with the Israelites in the wilderness
as they swiped onto their index finger a bit of the manna
God had provided for their nourishment
sniffed it, wrinkled their nose, and asked, “What is it?”

The Israelites had complained against Moses and Aaron,
accusing them of some cruel joke,
blaming them for leading them out of Egypt where at least they had enough to eat
only to let them die of starvation in a desolate place.
If you’re going to die, better to die with a full belly than an empty one.
But Moses and Aaron had rightly countered the complaint by saying
that the people were not complaining against Moses and Aaron, but against God.
For wasn’t it God who had prepared the way for their escape?
Wasn’t it God who still went ahead of them,
guiding them through that barren land?

It’s easy for us, of course, to sit in judgment of these Israelites
as we enjoy this restful, green park, having had our fill of coffee and wonderful treats.
It’s easy to sniff our disapproval at their brattiness,
and wonder why they couldn’t show a little more gratitude, a little more faith.
But in their defense, the wilderness they traveled through
does make the southwest valley of Albuquerque look like a tropical rain forest.
Did God really have to wait until they were parched and starving
to provide water and food?

One of the earliest Bible stories I can remember from childhood
is the story of manna from heaven.
What I remember, however, is how my Sunday school teacher downplayed
the complaining part of the story and focused on the miraculous provision of food.

We still do that.
Sometimes we use the term “manna from heaven”
to refer to something that comes to us that is totally unexpected,
something that just drops in our laps from out of the blue.
We act as thought God’s provision of what we need is a miraculous event
when, in fact, God’s provision of what we need is a daily occurrence.

God can, if God so chooses,
make chocolate éclairs and cheese Danishes fall from the sky.
But the point of the story is that, even when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary,
God provides,
and whatever God provides is sufficient for the day.

Having said that, though, there is no reason to downplay the gift God gives us
when through either mundane or fantastic ways our needs are fulfilled.
In the blades of grass under our feet, in the leaves of the trees around us
the process of photosynthesis is constantly at work
converting the sun’s energy into plant energy.
Ever since high school biology I’ve been able to describe how it works
but, if push comes to shove, I have to admit can’t tell you HOW it works.
It’s a natural process, yes, but no less a miracle of creation,
the byproduct of which is the very oxygen we breathe.

So when some try to eliminate the miraculous aspect of our story
and try to identify a “natural” source for biblical manna,
a naturally occurring nourishing substance
that could account for the heavenly “bread” they miss the point.
Some have hypothesized that it was the resin from the tamarisk tree,
others that it was crystallized secretions of certain scale insects common to the area.
Yum.

But even if they’re right, even if it was a “natural” occurrence, it is no less miraculous.
Again, the important thing to remember here is that God is true to God’s word,
providing, supporting, guiding, nourishing
even to listening to our complaints
because surely God knows our own bent toward brattiness.

I will confess that this story of God’s provision for God’s people
does raise troubling questions for me,
questions that rattle my faith if I dwell on them too long.
I look at the people of Somalia who are going through such a devastating famine
and I wonder where is God’s provision for them?
I look at families with children that are homeless,
mentally ill men and women who wander the streets of our city
and I wonder where is God’s provision for them?

It’s easy enough for we who have enough to say to those who have little,
“God will provide.”
But then as a person of faith, as one who feels called to follow the way of Jesus,
the nagging question that insinuates itself into my psyche is this:
what might be my role to play in the unfolding of God’s provision
for those who are destitute?
How might I as part of the church
be a conduit for the nourishment God would give to those most in need?

There are efforts in Albuquerque to address the needs of the homeless.
St. Martin’s Day shelter provides two meals a day, a place to shave, wash up.
The Metropolitan Homeless Project in tandem with the Mayor’s office
is working to provide housing for 75 of the most chronic homeless in our city
recognizing that it will not only be a humane thing to do,
but will also lessen the strain on city and medical services.
Around thirty people a month stop by Immanuel Presbyterian Church
and we give them a gas coupon, or a healthy snack, clean socks, or a referral.
We don’t have easy answers to our city’s needs much less our world’s needs,
and we should be honest with ourselves and admit that often needs do not get met
because we are reluctant to address a broken system that works to our benefit.
We are slow to have faith that if we relax our grip on our possessions
God will provide.

Still, despite all the questions we have
from the ancient story of a small band of desert wanderers we learn three things.
• God is ready to give us what we need.
• Even when we act spoiled and pitch tantrums God is patient with us
• Faith, not cleverness, is what’s most required from us.

Despite what the bumper sticker says,
the goal in life is not to see who dies with the most toys.
I would settle for what Paul had:
the ability to be content in all circumstances,
the grace of generosity when I have plenty,
freedom from anxiety when I have little.
most of all, I suppose, the courage not to have to ask what it is that God provides
but simply to give thanks, and, if appropriate, to eat it.

Doing What Doesn't Come Naturally

2011-09-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

Psalm 137
Matthew 18:21-22

Two Japanese tourists were in Manhattan seeing the sights.
They got a little turned around so they went up to a bag lady to ask directions.
Very politely, in perfect English, one gave a little bow and said,
“Pardon me, Miss, can you tell us how to get to the Sony Building?”
The street veteran looked the man up and down and gruffly replied,
“Listen, Bub, you found Pearl Harbor, you can find the Sony Building.”

I’m wondering, how many of you remember where you were
when you heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed?
How about when President Kennedy was assassinated?
How many of you remember where you were
when you heard a plane had struck the first of the Twin Towers
of the World Trade Center?

These are three heart-stopping moments in our Nation’s history,
the kind of events that have the power to etch themselves deeply into our psyche
so that we never forget where we were when we first heard the news.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
But as powerful as the events of 9/11 are in grabbing our attention even now,
there will come a time ten years, twenty years in the future
when an entire generation will come of age having only read about it
on Wikipedia.

Like Pearl Harbor, like the assassination of President Kennedy,
there will be only a dwindling few of us who will remember where we were that day.
Those of us who felt the anguish,
who remember the near-global feeling of unity in the immediate aftermath,
and who have been part of the disorienting, disconcerting flailing about
in the ten years since will try to tell our children, our grandchildren what it was like
and we will be met with blank stares and uninterested shrugs.

So, it seems to me that on this tenth anniversary we have a moment in time
which will not come again, a moment in time when we can ask ourselves
with regard to this day ten years ago two questions:
What have we learned?
and Where do we go from here?

We certainly can’t hope to exhaust those two questions in the short time we have
but as always, when we need guidance, it is good to turn to the Bible.
I chose Psalm 137 as our Old Testament reading today
because more than any other passage in the Bible
it distills the natural impulse of human revenge to it’s essence
and I think it reflects where we have been the last ten years.
There is no more raw and honest an expression of the revenge impulse than this:
8O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
9Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

Having seen the towers fall, the Pentagon burn, the plane crash,
we can understand where they were coming from .
The Holy City of Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, the temple destroyed.
The Psalm reflects the shame of a vanquished people.
The Babylonians had hurt the Jews
and the Jews wanted to hurt them back. Period.
That near-global unity we felt after the attacks of 9/11 was all too fleeting
and we should have known it was no match for the natural human impulse to hit back.
But we also should know by now
that doing what comes naturally isn’t always the best thing.
We were shocked by the attacks, surprised, enraged, but most of all, afraid.
We forgot the words of Psalm 46 which says:
God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea….

Looking back over the last decade we see where our fear has lead.
The fear has changed us.
• We have let our choices be governed by imagined worst-case scenarios,
scaring ourselves to death and then thrashing about in our fear.
• We have demonized Islam, persecuting those who wish to live the American way
and practice their religion in freedom and in peace.
• We have let political deception lead us into war
and then we have justified torture as a reasonable tactic of warfare.
• We have undermined civil liberty, another of the most cherished of our American
values, and made ourselves prisoners of the myth of absolute security.
This is what results from doing what comes naturally.
Perhaps it is time to try doing something that doesn’t come naturally.
It’s time to ask ourselves, “Where do we go from here?”

Nine years ago on the first anniversary of 9/11 we had the same gospel lesson.
It happens to be the gospel lesson suggested by the lectionary for this Sunday.
Then as now I was struck by the irony of this passage falling on this day.
“Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against
me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not
seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Nine years ago it was jarring to consider the words “forgiveness” and “attackers”
in the same sentence.
The pain was still too raw.
The impulse to do what comes naturally and hit back was still too strong.
But what about now? What about now?
Is it possible that after ten years of doing what comes naturally,
ten years of letting fear rule our response and seeing the disastrous results
we might be willing to consider an unnatural response? A gospel response?

Our gospel lesson today raises the question of forgiveness.
It reminds us that when we say the Lord’s Prayer together, the prayer Jesus taught,
there is an inconvenient expected reciprocity when it comes to forgiveness,
“Forgive us our debts,” we pray, “As we forgive our debtors.”
We confess our sins every Sunday, daring to approach the throne of grace
because God is a God of unmerited grace, above all a God who forgives.

But the concept of forgiveness is tricky. It raises many questions.
Is forgiveness more for my sake or the sake of the one who has hurt me?
Does forgiveness require repentance?
Can I lay down the burden of waiting for an apology that may never come?
Is there a way to let go of the revenge impulse without looking weak?

Making things more complicated is the troublesome translation problems of our passage.
In the Greek text, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother.
Some translations like the New Revised Standard Version,
see this as a question of in-house relations,
pertaining only to reconciliation among fellow Christian believers.
Others say, no, that it is a question of how we should relate to anyone
and they read “brother” in the broadest sense.
We could quibble, if we wanted,
and proclaim that this interchange between Peter and Jesus
refers only to life within the church – that’s hard enough!
That way we could avoid the distasteful and awkward question
of whether the Christian mandate to “forgive as we are forgiven”
has any bearing on how we should feel and act
when it comes to those who hijacked the planes that dreadful day
and the ones who worked behind the scenes orchestrating the attacks.

My feeling is that if we’re going to have any chance at breaking the stranglehold of fear
and go against the natural impulse of revenge
we’re going to have to go so far as to consider the inconceivable.
There is definitely a theme in the New Testament, especially in Matthew’s Gospel,
of recalibrating the category of “enemy.”
In chapter six in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount he says,
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’
I know, it’s tempting to say, “Yeah, but he surely didn’t mean the likes of Al Qaeda.”
But, again, maybe he did.
It’s hard to love an enemy or forgive an enemy that is not the least bit repentant.
It’s unnatural.
but what would it take for us to begin following the “unnatural” path of the gospel?

First, it would at least require us to recognize the humanity of our enemy.
We need to get beyond the simplistic good guy/bad guy designations of the media
and begin to recognize our attackers as complex human beings with human needs
and, like it or not, as those made in God’s image.

Second, it would require us to acknowledge our own sinfulness, our own failing,
our own need for forgiveness.
I’m not saying we should uncritically accept the accusation that we are the Great Satan
but surely we can agree that neither you or I as individuals
nor we as a country are without blemish.

This is very difficult to talk about, and you may wish you could just close your ears.
It is wise to know that this kind of forgiveness is beyond our capacity alone,
especially given that the attacks of 9/11have made such a deep wound.
In the end, it is only a gift of God’s Holy Spirit that allows us to let go of the hurt.
Still, ten or twenty years from now when we try to express to a new generation
what we have learned from our experience of 9/11 what are we going to tell them?
Will we still be waving the bloody shirt, urging our grandchildren to keep up the fight,
warning them against trusting Muslims,
demanding that they build higher fences and bigger prisons,
going to any extreme in the goal of keeping safe?

Or will we tell them the most unnatural thing of all about Jesus’ message.
That in the gospel, safety is not the goal. Death is not the thing most to be feared.
The thing most to be feared is not living the life God created us to live:
in peace, with compassion, always with an eye toward building bridges instead of walls.
Will we tell them that if we are living as God created us to live,
fear should NEVER find a foothold and revenge should NEVER drive our policy.
because not even death can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

On this tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001
I propose that we resolve to quit doing what comes naturally
and instead choose, by God’s power, to begin to do what doesn’t come naturally.
I suggest that from now on we mark this day with a prayer
from the spiritual rule of St. Ignatius which says:
“Take Lord, receive all I have and posses; my memory, my understanding,
my entire will. Give me only your grace.”

Proper Identification

2011-09-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 13:8-14

It was last year in April that I returned home to Virginia from my first trip to Albuquerque.
I’d been here to interview with the pastor nominating committee.
That first Sunday after my trip had been designated Immigration Sunday by the PC(USA) and with my head full of exotic New Mexican sights and experiences
including the annual Gathering of Nations that previous weekend
and including the very evident Spanish cultural influence here
I decided to preach on the topic of immigration.
National focus was on the anti-immigration law in Arizona that had recently passed
and I felt like I needed to take the bull by the horns

It must have been one of my clumsier efforts,
because even when I told a really funny story, but pointed story, nobody laughed.
And afterward a man whom I liked, and who I believe liked me,
came up to me and said in an angry tone, “I don’t come to church to hear politics.”

I’ll bet there are more than a handful of you who would say the same thing.
And, I get the point.
Nobody likes to hear the preacher expound on a controversial topic from the pulpit
taking one side over another,
perhaps even inferring that those who take the other side are not Christian.
It’s a privilege to stand up here in this pulpit,
and it’s a sobering responsibility to try to interpret God’s ancient Word
in a way that is relevant to our twenty-first century needs.
So I try not to be partisan and preach about Politics with a capital “P”
because that kind of discussion needs to take place in a different forum.
But God help me if I ever get to the point
when I hesitate to preach on politics with a small “p.”

Because politics with a small “p” is nothing more and nothing less than life,
the way we live together in a community,
and our faith, our understanding of Scripture, is highly relevant in that arena.
Politics with a small “p” has to do with the choices we make,
how our moral compass is aligned,
and the fact that our actions have consequences.

Today across Albuquerque, a dozen or so pastors have agreed to address
the topic of immigration from the pulpit
knowing full well that on the one hand, it is a Political topic with a capital “P.”
Immigration is the kind of Political issue where each side is tempted
to score political points instead of seek common ground.
Each side is not above bending statistical data to their own use
and disseminating half truths in an effort discredit the other side.

But immigration is also a political topic with a small “p”,
an issue that we as people of faith cannot ignore
simply because even though we may think it doesn’t affect us, it does.
This Labor Day weekend we should at least acknowledge that the prices we pay
for food at the grocery store are kept artificially low in many cases
because undocumented migrant farm workers farmers pick the produce
and because of their illegal status are often paid less.
Though we may say we don’t want them in our country,
in fact, our agricultural industry can’t do without them
and we benefit from their illegal status.

Undocumented immigrants are our children’s playmates, hotel maids
even a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who “outed” himself recently in the NY Times.
These people are integral to our fun, our comfort, our information
yet they harbor the secret of being in this country without proper identification.

When we are faced with a difficult issue like immigration,
it’s human nature to want to simplify it by looking at it in the abstract,
by reducing human beings to numbers – how many people, how much it costs.
We want to distance ourselves from the issue because we don’t have easy answers,
but the very act of distancing ourselves has very real consequences for human beings.

We as followers of Jesus have to admit that he did not distance himself
from tough issues,
he did not turn a blind eye, especially when people were hurting.
He valued relationships over policy pronouncements,
and when given a choice he always opted for intimate involvement in people’s lives.
And it’s not just Jesus.
Throughout Old Testament as well we see time and time again,
that God’s preferred method is to engage God’s people on an intimate level,
to work one-on-one through relationships,
to challenge abstractions and make things very personal.

When we look at the issue of immigration in the abstract
we look at those who risk substantial sums of money and harsh conditions
to cross the border and think, “Why can’t they just stay home?”
In the abstract we say, “The law’s the law” and don’t allow ourselves to dwell on how
deportation as it is currently practiced is often arbitrary and even cruel.
In the abstract we focus on what it may cost us to educate undocumented children
and extend the rights of citizenship to so-called “anchor” babies.
But, on an intimate level, if we look through the lens of relationships,
if we look at the issue of immigration in a personal way, a relational way,
it’s not so easy to settle for abstract solutions and simple answers.

For example:
Last summer Ramon was taking his sister Rosalinda to UNM to transfer from CNM
Ramon was a fourth year architecture student with a 3.8 Grade Point Average. He graduated from Rio Grande High School at the top of his class and had never been in any trouble. But he had a secret. He was brought by his parents to the United States without proper documentation when he was 4. He is now 23. On his way to help his sister register, Ramon was pulled over allegedly for speeding on I-40. The officer questioned him and his sister and at some point called for the Border Patrol. Rosalinda refused to answer questions, but Ramon, an honest sort, told them that he was from Mexico and had his papers at home. The parents, also undocumented, were called and, instead of letting Ramon be taken away by himself, the father admitted his undocumented status also. The mother and Rosalinda were released, Ramon and his father deported to Juarez. Ramon is now living in Chihuahua and working in a call center. Having lived his whole life in this country he speaks very little Spanish, and if he is ever allowed to return legally to the U.S., it will not be any time soon. His architecture degree is in limbo.

I know. In the abstract it’s his parents’ fault. They broke the law. He’s paying the price.
On a relational level, however, a personal level, how can we not be moved
by the heartbreaking interruption of a promising young man’s life
through no fault of his own.
Can we as followers of Jesus sit back and say, “That’s not our problem.
let the authorities handle it.”
Or, do we go beyond the partisan Politics with a capital “P”
and let our faith inform us as we seek a more personal solution to immigration
refusing to ignore the human wreckage that is piling up
while our policymakers score points in the abstract?

In the continuing story of Moses that is our scripture today,
the issue of proper identification is central to the text.
Moses has lived his whole life as a foreigner, an alien, as one undocumented,
When he turns aside at the wonder of the burning bush
and hears God’s command to go to Pharaoh and be God’s agent
Moses resists that command by reminding God of his undocumented status,
his improper identification.
“Who am I,” he asks, “that I should go to Pharaoh?”.
Furthermore, as one accustomed to secret identities,
Moses makes a demand of God saying,
“If I go to the Israelites and tell them the God of Jacob has sent me
and they want to know your name what shall I tell them?”
“Tell them, I Am Who I Am, “ God says. That will be enough.

In Romans Paul reminds his readers that the most important identification
a person can have in light of God’s law is “one who loves his neighbor.”
And we know from Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan
that in God’s realm “Neighbor” is understood in the broadest of terms.

Just a couple of weeks ago we heard about Antonio Díaz Chacón in Albuquerque
who heard a six year old neighbor girl’s cry for help,
saw her being pushed into a van and got in his truck and followed that van
until the van driver crashed into a pole and fled allowing Díaz Chacón
to rescue the girl.
With modesty Díaz Chacón said he was proud to help.
He said while he was chasing the van he thought of his own two girls —
one 7 years old, the other 5 months —
and how he would want someone to do the same for him.

Hailed as a hero by Mayor Berry, we learned the rest of the story about Díaz Chacón,
how he is undocumented, having come to this country without the proper papers.
Ironically, his hometown in Mexico is Chihuahua.
He has married a U.S. citizen but says he can’t afford an attorney to start the application
for his green card.
In the abstract we should say to Mr. Díaz Chacón, “Tough luck, so sorry, time to go.”
In the eyes of immigration law he doesn’t have proper identification.

But what about on a personal level?
What about on the level where God chooses to engage us?
What about on the level of incarnation – the level of the Word made flesh?
Antonio Díaz Chacón has identified himself as “One Who Loves His Neighbor.”
In God’s eyes isn’t that his most proper identification?

Some of you may greet me when I’m done here with angry eyes and an angry tone
and accuse me of having brought Politics with a capital “p” into our worship.
That wasn’t my intention.
All I know is that when I look at our Lord’s table here before us
and remember that Jesus, in a very personal, intimate way
died on the cross not just for some but for all
I personally cannot avoid this conclusion:
When it comes to the issue of immigration
I do not have the luxury of hiding behind abstractions anymore.

Keys to the Kingdom

2011-09-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Matthew 16:13-20
Romans 12:1-5

Graffiti on the bathroom wall in the Undergraduate Library at UNC.
“God is dead.” Nietzsche, 1882.
“Nietzsche is dead.” God, 1900.
Frederick Nietzsche was a favorite target of the oh-so-earnest members
of my college Bible study group,
though I’m guessing few, if any of us, had actually read his works.
We just knew he had dared to write the words, “God is dead.”
We didn’t know he had put those words in the mouth of a character in a story,
a character who was, in fact, insane.

In the 1960’s you may remember there was a “God is Dead” movement
heralded by the cover of Time magazine asking in bold letters, “Is God Dead?”
This time it was professors of religion, one at Emory University in Atlanta,
who quoted Nietzsche to their own end.
You can bet they stirred up mainline preachers, especially in the Bible belt
though what they were suggesting seems quite tame by today’s standards.
They weren’t saying that God as a deity was dead,
so much as they were saying that the traditional ways of speaking about
and conceiving God needed to be called into question.

Given the horror of the holocaust,
the advent of the atomic bomb,
and the scientific and technological advances of the 20th century
these professors were simply saying that the God of the dominant culture
had been revealed to be nothing more than an idol.
The safe and familiar words used in talking about God
no longer held any meaning.
It was time we were reminded that our ways are not God’s ways
our thoughts are not God’s thoughts
and any effort we make to conceive of God or describe God
is automatically hamstrung by our all-too-human limitations.

God is dead.
Contrary to what I and my college companions assumed,
Nietzsche did not make that assertion with glee.
It was a statement born of anxiety,
anxiety based on what he observed of the inhumanity of war and poverty,
of corruption and hypocrisy among those whom society celebrated.
If anything, Frederick Nietzsche was more a prophet after the manner of Jeremiah
speaking and writing words nobody much wanted to hear or read;
speaking a word of judgment against the religious elite.

Religious leaders of his day thought they had God hemmed in.
They assumed God’s blessing was theirs for the taking.
They did not hesitate to speak for God.
Their God, in Nietzsche’s eyes, might as well have been stuffed or mummified;
an artifact gathering dust in a museum
to be trotted out and propped up whenever necessary.
Their God was indeed dead.

But God Is not dead.
Any god we can trot out for an automatic blessing on ourselves
or our self-made plans and schemes is no god at all – merely an idol;
a fabrication of our own corrupt and wishful thinking.
Any god we try to conform to OUR standards,
or make step to the beat of OUR drum is a pale shadow
of the God who has the power to transform us into instruments of God’s will.

When Jesus put the question directly to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
it was Peter, of all people, who had the flash of insight to say,
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the LIVING God.”
Though in his tenure as a disciple Peter had more ups and downs than a camel’s back,
in this moment, by God’s grace, he seemed to get it.
“You are the Messiah, Son of the LIVING God:”
Not the dead god of money and military might,
Not the dead god of self-promotion and manipulation,
Not the dead god of racial and class division.
“You are the Son of the LIVING God:”
the living God of covenant promise and steadfast faithfulness,
the living God of creative engagement and undying hope,
the living God of bottomless grace and second, third, and fourth chances.

Paul knew this LIVING God.
Paul knew this LIVING God as the only God capable of true transformation;
capable of molding and shaping us,
of breathing new life into us.
He exhorts his Roman friends to present themselves as a LIVING sacrifice
to this LIVING God.
It’s the only reasonable thing to do.
Paul wants his friends to know that God has had it up to here with dead sacrifices.

We all know people (maybe it’s us) who, over time lose their spark.
They get beaten down or they focus on the things of life
that lead to inflexibility, stubbornness, an inability to yield.
They get angry or they play the victim or they just sit and stew.
They come to church and sit in their pew and dare anyone to ask them
to do anything different than they’ve done the last forty years.
This is not the kind of sacrifice God wants – dead - with rigor mortis already setting in.

But we also know people who jump on one fad after another –
who keep their finger to the shifting breezes of novelty and celebrity endorsements.
They seem SO open, so tuned in, so enlightened,
but they are more interested in being conformed to what is popular at the moment
than in being transformed into confident, hope-filled servants of God’s Kingdom.

Paul counsels us in his letter to Rome to pay attention to what is holy,
to what is acceptable.
in the first eleven chapters of his letter he urges us to plant both feet firmly
on the solid foundation of that ancient covenant struck first with Abraham
and carried forward by the apostles.
But he warns us that the foundation of the prophets and the apostles
is not a place to hide out, but a place from which to launch;
that no congregation worth it’s salt can discern God’s will
by sitting in the dark and replaying home movies of the past.

“Present your whole selves to God,” Paul writes
Fully accounted for and reporting for duty.
Present your whole selves to God, ready to be changed
into the people God intends you to be.
It seems almost a fluke that Peter got it right when, speaking for the others,
he said to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
He fans the pitch so many times in the gospel accounts
that it’s hard to imagine him finally connecting with a home run ball.

But at least for a moment Peter is transformed.
Jesus acknowledges as much when he says to him,
“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah…
by God’s grace you are a changed man.
And to signify that change, I’m going to call you Peter…that is…ROCK. and on this rock I will build my church, a LIVING church
so that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

The Gates of Hades. Hades was in Jesus day not a place of torment
but instead simply the realm of the dead,
a gray, colorless place where the dead languished.
Imagine the Department of Motor Vehicles on a Thursday afternoon.
“The Gates of Hades will not prevail,” Jesus promises.
But that’s a big promise and we have all kinds of evidence
that the gates of Hades are strong…nearly overwhelming.

Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
and the popular image we have is of Peter at Heaven’s gate standing guard,
checking credentials,
making sure only the elite and the elect get in.
But maybe that’s not the right way to look at it.
Maybe Jesus entrusted Peter with the keys to the Kingdom
not to keep the Kingdom locked up but to let the Kingdom out.

Think of it this way.
Imagine that he gates of Hades, strong as they are,
keep pushing the gates of the Kingdom shut –
through our indifference to the suffering of others,
through our fascination with violence,
through the fear that rules our every decision,
through our willingness to settle for conformity.

But Jesus gives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
to any of us who are willing to be transformed –
who are willing to let God renew our minds and help us discern God’s will.

Imagine that, as God’s transformed people,
it’s our job not to let the gates of Hades prevail.
Every time the gates of Hades push the gates of Heaven shut,
we are there to unlock the Kingdom of Heaven where we are,
to persistently and faithfully keep letting the Kingdom of Heaven
loose into this world.

Most of the visible signs around us – in the news, in our gossip
tell us that God is Dead, that the Gates of Hades are just too strong.
But we know differently.
And it’s our job to keep letting the world know
that war and fear and death are not the final word
that compassion and cooperation and trust and hospitality to neighbor
are not pipe dreams but are, instead, the ultimate reality,
all appearances to the contrary.

It’s our job to carry the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere we go
so that we can let all whom we meet know that our God is very much alive.

The Cumulative Power of Small Acts

2011-09-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Exodus 1:8-2:10
Romans 12:9-13

What if someone told you that you are going to change the world this week?1
Would you believe it?
Or would you just write it off to an advertising gimmick, a publicity stunt?
What if someone told you that something you say this week is going to save someone’s life
or to keep someone out of jail.
Or what if someone told you that one thing you do or say this week
will very possibly change the course of a nation?
What would you think?

I know, it sounds like the beginning to a cheesy science fiction thriller.
but if you subscribe to the theory that every action, no matter how small,
sets off a chain reaction, a ripple effect that can have profound consequences;
if you believe that no word spoken is spoken in a vacuum,
but, in fact, reverberates out across vast expanses of time and space,
then you begin to understand what I’m saying.
Every act, even a small act, when combined with other small acts,
has a cumulative effect.
Every act, no matter how halting, timid, or seemingly futile in the face of great odds
has the potential, when combined with other acts, to become a powerful force.

The description of the new king in Egypt in the opening passages of Exodus
has a contemporary ring to it.
He is a political hack born to power
who has a political hack’s narrow perspective and love of revisionist history.

All new leaders have to take steps to consolidate their power, to get the masses on board.
A statesperson will do this by crafting a compelling vision,
appealing to the best aspirations of the people.
But compelling visions often require intellectual depth and emotional complexity.
That’s why the political hack prefers the quick and dirty way,
avoiding complexity, appealing to fear, especially fear of the stranger, the outsider,
the one who might come in and snatch away what you have.2

The new Pharaoh has forgotten or has chosen to ignore the vital role
played by Joseph in ushering Egypt through a terrible drought.
He finds the Hebrew people convenient scapegoats
for whatever malaise the Egyptian economy is going through at the time.
Once he’s pinned all the nation’s problems on the Hebrews
he resorts to the typical Tyrants Tool Kit of brutal oppression:
slavery and genocide, killing off all newborn Hebrew boys thus ending the race,
keeping all newborn girls to grow up and serve him.
Ironically, it is members of the gender he saves
who prove, in the end, to be his undoing.

First, there are Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives
whom the Pharaoh orders to kill all Hebrew boys at the moment of birth -
two midwives, two of the worthless gender, two of the doomed race
under orders by the Pharaoh himself to kill half the children they deliver.
It is a Sophie’s choice, a stark proposition, kill or be killed.
It is a tyrant’s form of black and white thinking intended to leave no wiggle room.

But Shiprah and Puah make their own wiggle room.
In the English translation Shiphrah and Puah tell Pharaoh
that they really want to carry out his orders, but those darn Hebrew women
are just so vigorous they have their babies before the midwives can get there.
In the Hebrew text of the story, however, what they really say
is that the Hebrew women are like animals, like beasts,
who are so rough and crude and subhuman
they have their babies without a moments pause,
not like the precious, delicate, genteel Egyptian women.3
Shiphrah and Puah know they can’t meet Pharaoh’s force with force,
but they can undermine his intentions by small acts of defiance, one baby at a time,
cleverly turning Pharaoh’s own ignorance and prejudice to their use
by confirming his opinion that Hebrew women aren’t even human.

This tactic saves Shiphrah and Puah but only intensifies Pharaoh’s efforts
as he then makes a general decree to all the Egyptian people
that everyone is to be vigilant and make sure that no Hebrew baby boy survives.
Once again, though, we see it is a series of small acts,
a providential string of personal decisions made by unrelated people
that add up to have a powerful effect.

A Hebrew baby boy is born.
Using the same word God speaks over God’s creation in Genesis,
his mother declares him “good” and,
despite being a member of the powerless slave class,
resolves to do all she can to save him.
She takes a basket, covers it with tar making a little boat –
the Hebrew word for which is the same word used when speaking of Noah’s ark.
It is a miniature ark, for sure, nothing to look at,
but no less a vessel of salvation,
and the river, the great Nile, meant by Pharaoh to be the means of death
becomes the baby’s means of rescue.
Pharaoh’s daughter comes upon the baby in the basket,
recognizes it as a Hebrew boy, takes pity on the child,
and, in the merciful spirit of rebellion in all daughters everywhere,
recognizes in the beautiful boy the perfect mechanism for defying her father.
The baby’s sister Miriam who has been lurking in the reeds,
approaches the royal princess and offers to find a Hebrew wet nurse for the child.
The princess agrees, so the baby ends up living with his own mother
until he comes of age.
Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby “Moses”
and Moses is saved from the brutal hand of the murdering Pharaoh,
saved by a series of small acts made mostly by powerless women.

One woman alone couldn’t have done it.
Even Pharaoh’s daughter couldn’t have done it alone.
But small acts add up.
Small movements made in courage;
small defiant positions taken in the face of overwhelming odds
have a way of gaining strength, building in power,
developing heft, and weight, and substance until the immovable object starts to move
the unshakable dogma starts to crumble,
the intractable darkness starts to lighten.

We are honoring teachers today, teachers and administrators and staff,
those whose daily small acts, whose daily small gestures of kindness
and integrity, and passion for learning add up in ways they usually never see,
add up to results that can be, in truth, life changing,
community affirming, nation forming.

In this country we have long championed the concept of free public education for all.
In Britain, they trace their free education movement back to one man, John Pounds.
John Pounds was born into poverty in Portsmouth, England in the late 18th century.
At 15 he sustained a crippling injury at the docks and was bedfast for a time.
During that time he taught himself to read,
and, when he was recovered enough, learned the cobbler’s trade.
He set up shop in the most miserable part of the city
and became aware of the plight of poor children who had nothing to occupy them.
He’d bake potatoes and carry them in his pockets through the streets
using them to bribe children back to his shop.
Once there, he taught them to read.

John Pounds died at age 72 having lived and died in poverty,
but he taught hundreds of children to read for free
giving them the means to escape their poverty.
Soon after Pounds death, the Reverend Thomas Guthrie,
a leading Scottish Presbyterian pastor in the Scottish Free Church,
expanded John Pound’s small acts and started the “Ragged Schools” movement
founding schools across Great Britain to provide free education for the poor.

We are here not only to honor teachers, we are here for healing.
It occurs to me that a major source of dis-ease in my life
is associated with a feeling of powerlessness.
And the feeling of powerlessness comes when I forget
the cumulative power of small acts.
I see the problems in my life, in my community and they look so big I get overwhelmed.
I see how big the problem is and how little and weak I am.
I look at what I can’t do instead of what I can do.

Paul wrote to his friends in Rome:
9Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Not one of these actions Paul suggests is a BIG thing.

He wasn’t giving them a strategy for storming the citadels of Roman idolatry.
He wasn’t giving them a methodology for becoming a major player in Roman society.
He wasn’t giving them heavy artillery for beating back discrimination they faced.
He was, instead, suggesting to them small acts, little gestures,
modest movements they could make right where they were using what they had.
And like Shiphrah and Puah in their small act of defiance,
like Moses’s mother with her basket and a prayer,
like John Pounds taking one child at a time, drawing back the curtain of ignorance
when we refuse to become spiritually paralyzed,
when we reject the option of doing nothing simply because we can’t do it all,
when we put our small acts together, the cumulative effect creates great power,
the kind of power that can save a life, or change a nation.

_______

1 Lose, David, “The Butterfly Effect,” posted August 14, 2011 on Working Peacher.org. Dr. Lose holds the Marbury E. Anderson
Biblical Preaching Chair at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN.

2 Barreto, Eric D., “Exodus 1:8-2:10: Faith in the Past, Present and Future,” posted on the Huffington Post, August 17, 2011,
9:10 AM ET. Dr. Barreto is Assistant Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN

3 Willis, Amy Merrill, “Exodus 1:8-2:10, posted on Working Preacher.org, Lectionary commentary on the Tenth Sunday after
Pentecost. Dr. Willis is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA.

Bad News, Good News

2011-08-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

Genesis 45:1-15
Matthew 15:21-28

You’ve heard “Good news, bad news” jokes before. A doctor goes into his patient’s room.
Doctor: I have some good news and some bad news.
Patient: What’s the good news.
Doctor: The good news is that your tests indicate you have 24 hours to live.
Patient: That’s the good news??? What’s the bad news?
Doctor: I meant to tell you yesterday.

The assistant to the Pope, breaking protocol, runs into the Pope’s personal chambers.
Asst: Holy Father, Holy Father, I’ve got good news and bad news!
Pope: Well, my son, tell me the good news.
Asst: The good news is that Jesus has returned as he said he would!
Pope: That’s wonderful! What’s the bad news?
Asst: He’s in Salt Lake City.

An Egyptian official meets with the sons of Jacob.
Official: I have good news and bad news.
Sons of Jacob: What’s the good news?
Official: If I choose, I have the power to save you and your families from starvation.
Sons of Jacob: What’s the bad news?
Official: I’m your brother Joseph, the one you sold into slavery.

Good news, bad news.
When Joseph’s brothers found out that the Egyptian official in the corner office
was the grown-up spoiled little brother they’d thought they’d never see again,
surely they despaired.
They had discovered long before that impulsive actions had consequences.
When they told their father Jacob that Joseph had been killed by wild animals
it sent Jacob into a state of grief from which he had never fully recovered.
Furthermore, they imagined that the drought and famine they were suffering at home
was surely divine punishment for their wickedness toward their own flesh and blood.
They had gone, hat in hand, to Egypt, because Egypt had food to spare.
Little did they know the largess in Egypt was a result of Joseph’s careful stewardship
guided by God’s direction through his dreams.

The scene in the story when Joseph, the great man, next in power only to Pharaoh,
breaks down in loud sobs as he reveals himself to his brothers
is one of the most tender scenes in all of Scripture.
By his faith he is able to perceive God’s hand at work even in his brothers’ wickedness,
even in his early struggles in Egypt,
because, by God’s hand, he has been given important work
and his success has enabled the survival of his family.
All along the way in Joseph’s story
the lines between good news and bad news have been blurred.
Sometimes what seemed to be good news
didn’t, in the short run at least, turn out so hot.
And ultimately, what appeared to be bad news
turned out, in retrospect, in hindsight, to be good news.

We need to be careful here.
It’s clear the storyteller of Genesis fully intends Joseph’s tale to be a prime example
of God’s hand at work fulfilling the promises made to Abraham,
overcoming the worst of human wickedness,
turning bad news into good.
But in our eagerness to get to the happy ending in Joseph’s story
we shouldn’t overlook the pain and wickedness the story contains.

In no way, for example, should we overlook the evils of the slave trade
which is at the heart of Joseph’s story
If we look only at the happy ending ,
then Joseph’s story becomes like the movie “Pretty Woman,”
the one where Julia Roberts plays the prostitute with the heart of gold
who is not the least bit damaged or demeaned by selling her body for sex.
Worldwide, human trafficking is as insidious as ever – bad news for the vulnerable.
Joseph’s salvation story is powerful,
but we should never let our faith in the good news of God’s providence
diminish our compassion for the suffering of others.
While we can affirm our trust that God is present even in the worst times
we should never be too glib in telling someone,
“There, there, look at Joseph. It will all work out in the end.”

At first Joseph’s extended family grew strong and multiplied in Egypt
but the welcome guests in the land of the Pharaohs gradually became less welcome
as they grew more plentiful.
The book of the Exodus begins with the ominous phrase,
“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
This new king stirred up anti-immigrant sentiment
and the peaceful coexistence ended as the Israelites were enslaved.
Good news becomes bad news once again.

Good news, bad news.
Taken as a snapshot in time, it’s not always as easy as the jokes make it seem,
to tell good news from bad news.
Sometimes it all depends on your perspective.
A Gentile of the district of Tyre and Sidon goes to see her neighbor
the one with the mentally ill daughter.
Neighbor: I have good news and bad news.
Mother: I need some good news, what is it?
Neighbor: Jesus, the healer, is in town and he can heal your daughter.
Mother: That’s great news! What’s the bad news?
Neighbor: He’s Jewish, and he’s in a bad mood.

What are we to make of this story of Jesus,
the one story in all the gospels where Jesus is slow to have compassion for one
who lives on the margins of society,
the one time he seems as stubborn and narrow in his perspective as his disciples?

In context, the story of the woman with the ill daughter
is part of an extended narrative in Matthew of engagement and withdrawal
as we see Jesus torn between his ministry of compassion to the sick
and his need for physical and spiritual and emotional rest.
He has been several days in the shore communities of Galilee teaching and healing
and being challenged and confronted by Pharisees and scribes
who have come out from Jerusalem to investigate him.
In need of rest he withdraws from Gennesaret,
heading north into the Gentile district of Tyre and Sidon.
Surely there among the Gentiles he can be anonymous.
Surely there he can rest.

Imagine the scene. Jesus and his disciples, his friends, are in a quiet little restaurant
seated back in the private dining area at a table for thirteen.
Jesus is looking over the wine list,
rolling his neck, trying to massage the knots from his shoulders.
Even Peter, the loud talker in the group, is whispering,
keeping it quiet out of respect for his Rabbi’s need for peace.

Suddenly there is a commotion up front.
They overhear the hostess saying, “Ma’am, you can’t go back there. Ma’am…!”
Then a woman, shouting, “Jesus!” They see her, a Gentile woman, on tiptoe,
looking back in their direction over the hostess and the head waiter
who are trying to block her view.
“Jesus.” She sees him. She yells even louder.
“You, Son of David, have some mercy, Lord!
My daughter, my little girl, is tormented by a demon.”

Well, then, of course, the disciples rise up to protect their leader.
In unison they shout, “Send her away! Can’t we get some privacy here?”
There in the middle is Jesus, the vein in his forehead popping out,
a claw of white hot pain clutching the base of his neck.
On one side the woman crying, “Lord, have mercy.”
On the other side the disciples shouting, “Send her away.”

That’s when we hear the animal references start coming out of Jesus’ mouth:
the lost sheep of Israel, the dogs of Canaan. What’s a shepherd to do?
• The bad news, lady, is that you’re a dog not a sheep.
• The bad news is that according to Jewish tradition there’s a line for God’s mercy,
and you’re not getting cuts in that line!
• The bad news is that every place at the table is taken, and there’s no place for you.
Bad news. Bad news. Bad news. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong approach.
But neither the disciples nor even Jesus see it coming.
Neither the disciples nor Jesus have the imagination at that moment of exhaustion
to see in this woman, in her situation, the possibility for good news.
Only the woman can see it, only this woman who has but the one advantage,
that when you’re already on your knees you don’t have far to fall
so you might as well go all out.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” Jesus says.
Not his finest moment.
But in a burst of insight and creative faith unwilling to accept
that only bad news is possible in any given situation the woman replies,
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

It’s hard sometimes to make out the distinct margins
of the bad news and good news each day brings.
If you expect to find a clear road map and easy answers
to the question of what’s good news and what’s bad news at any given moment,
good luck with that.
As in Joseph’s case sometimes it takes a lifetime of hindsight to sort that all out.

But the witness of the Bible is that God’s unseen hand is at work at all times, in all places.
Even though the story of the Canaanite woman doesn’t show Jesus at his best,
it does tell us that a great faith, a creative faith, like the faith of a tenacious mother
who will not let her daughter needlessly suffer is a powerful force.
She had no way of knowing whether Jesus would respond to her or not,
but that desperate mother did have the insight to understand that in God’s realm
no situation is without, at least, the eventual possibility
of bad news turning into good news.

And that’s no joke.

In the Same Boat

2011-08-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

Genesis 37:1-4, 23-28
Matthew 14:22-33

In less than a month I’m going to turn 55. Double nickels.
It’s a milestone, but I don’t know that it will bring me any practical advantage.
The infants that work behind the McDonald’s counter
see my white hair and already give me a senior discount on coffee.

Reaching this age hasn’t brought me the kind of self-assurance I imagined it would,
that inner confidence I hoped as a teenager that maturity would bring,
I almost got there.
I was almost to a place of perfect self-confidence;
a place where experience and knowledge and talent all dovetailed together.
But that’s the same time I started forgetting the names of close friends,
started finding myself in a room without the foggiest notion why I’d gone there.

But despite the fact that my ship of supreme self-confidence came close but never docked,
there is one thing I am learning as I grow older,
a valuable lesson that I just couldn’t grasp as a younger man.
What I am learning is that despite the many differences that may distinguish me
from all the other people in this world,
In God’s realm we are ultimately all in the same boat.
That’s not a lesson you learn as a young person,
at least not in my Anglo culture, not in a middle-class, suburban world.

The lesson I learned is that “sameness” is to be avoided.
“Uniqueness” is to be valued.
In a country founded on “independence”
the worst thing that can happen is to find myself in a position where I’m not in control.

You may remember the first commercial for the Apple Macintosh computer
that was aired during the Super Bowl in 1984.
The commercial begins with black and white scenes of a drab army of men and women
all dressed alike with shaved heads and vacant stares
marching into a huge auditorium where a talking head is projected on a giant screen.
The talking head is spouting a doctrine of perfect uniformity
and all who listen stare straight ahead, openmouthed.
But in the midst of these images the camera cuts to a lone young woman in a white t-shirt
and red athletic shorts running into the huge hall carrying a sledge hammer.
Soldiers chase her, trying to stop her, trying to foil her mission.
But she is too fast and as she approaches the giant screen she stops.
She begins swinging the hammer over her head and then finally lets it go,
sending it sailing in an arc until it hits the screen exploding the image
and freeing the thousands gathered from the insidious spell of sameness.
This iconic commercial reflects the fact that we don’t want to be like everyone else.
We want to be special.

This fear of mundane uniformity isn’t unique to our culture, to my generation.
The desire to be in full control didn’t begin with us.
It’s the fear described in the story of the Garden of Eden,
the fear that is the root of Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
The serpent promises that if they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
that their eyes will be opened and they will be like God,
in other words, that they will be in full control, masters of their own fate,
beholden to no one, fully unique.

It was Joseph’s uniqueness as Jacob’s favorite that brought him the scorn of his brothers
and planted the seed of their plot against him.
There’s a back story to the tension between Joseph and his older brothers.
Remember how Jacob had loved his uncle Laban’s youngest daughter Rachel
but was forced to first marry the older daughter Leah?
Leah gave Jacob ten sons,
Rachel bore only two, Jacob’s younger sons, Joseph and his little brother Benjamin.

Jacob didn’t try to hide his favoritism toward his beloved Rachel’s boy Joseph,
presenting him with a luxurious coat with long sleeves.
Joseph enjoyed the attention, wore the coat often,
and made sure to fill his older brothers in on the interesting dreams he had,
dreams where the brothers all bowed down to him.
Was he manipulative and cunning like Jacob had been with Esau
or was he just spoiled and stupid?

As the story goes,
Joseph’s brothers are out in the fields herding the flocks, gone for days at a time,
and Joseph is at home with Jacob like Jacob use to say home with his mother.
Jacob sends Joseph out to check on his brothers, to see how they are faring
and Joseph makes sure to wear the coat, that symbol of his father’s favoritism,
the one that makes him stand out from all the rest.
The brothers see him from a distance,
“Here comes that dreamer,” they say. “We’ll give him something to dream about.”

In God’s eyes, we’re all in the same boat –
I don’t mean we don’t have different skills and gifts, unique personalities…
I don’t mean that we should kowtow to the status quo
or always adhere to the lowest common denominator.
But as I grow older I realize more and more something I didn’t know before.
The aspects of myself that seem most deeply rooted and closest to the core of me
are truly the qualities that most clearly connect me with each other human being.
The desire to be loved.
The need to feel useful.
The longing to leave something behind when I’m gone.
The superficial qualities that seemed so important when I was younger,
and which seemed to distinguish me from others or distinguish others from me
now seem like a thin fog that evaporates with the least bit of sun.

The fantasy of achieving total independence, the cultural obsession with being a star,
the idea that my goal in life should be to distinguish myself so that
I prove myself capable of standing alone…
that just leads to loneliness.
It’s the pits – literally, as it turned out, in Joseph’s case.

And then there’s the story of Peter climbing out of the boat trying to walk on water.
The usual interpretation of the story is that Peter was doing a brave thing
leaving his colleagues behind in the boat
and he nearly succeeded until he took his eyes off of Jesus.
He could have duplicated Jesus’ mastery of the natural world
had he just had a touch more faith.
Jesus seems to confirm this interpretation with his reported response
to Peter crying out in fear, “Lord, save me!”
“You of little faith,” Jesus is reported to have said, “Why did you doubt?”

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
As we follow this scene of Jesus walking on water and Peter trying to join him
we need to remember the context – where they’ve been and where they’re going.
Matthew 14 opens with the gruesome details of John the Baptizer’s beheading
at the hands of a cruel and capricious King Herod.
Jesus is upset, wants to be alone, but the crowd crushes in and he has compassion,
teaching and healing until late in the day.
That’s when we read of the feeding of the 5000.
It’s been a long day. Jesus and his disciples have all earned some rest, right?
Wrong. Jesus orders the disciples into the boat immediately
sending them toward Gennesaret, where there will be more crowds, more work.
The sick, the wounded, the mentally ill – crushing in. No rest for the weary.

No wonder Peter wants to get out of that boat and join Jesus in his lake top Lindy Hop;
get out of that boat and tip toe into immortality,
having overcome the all-too-limiting natural laws of gravity and surface tension.
If it’s that or simply stay in the boat with the others and proceed on to yet another day
of offering compassion to a relentlessly coughing, sneezing, oozing mob
which would you choose?

When Jesus chided Peter for being of little faith and too much doubt,
maybe he wasn’t talking about Peter’s failure to walk on water.
Maybe he was chiding Peter for indulging in the distraction of trying to be the star,
trying to be just like Jesus
when his calling, his mission was to stay in the boat.1
Maybe Jesus realized Peter’s real fear wasn’t water (he was a fisherman after all).
Maybe Jesus could see in Peter’s eyes the weariness, the self-doubt,
the fear of not being able to follow through with his calling,
not being able to stick with the hard task of working together with the others
to accomplish what they set out to do in Genessaret and beyond.

We don’t have to succumb to a doctrine of perfect uniformity to follow Jesus.
We are not equally endowed with all gifts of the Spirit. We’re different.
and I say, “Thank God for the differences.”
We admire excellence and enjoy being entertained by talented people.
We elect leaders because they appear to be a cut above the others in ability.
But as we’ve seen star power has a way of fizzling out,
How the appearance of special ability may be all image and no substance.
I’ve had enough of stars.
I’d rather have someone who’s willing to stay in the boat and stick to the task:
the volunteer receptionist who shows up at this church
one morning a week, week after week to spend three hours answering phones.
the retired teacher who can’t quit teaching
and quietly volunteers her time to teach a grown man how to read.
the man or woman dedicated to doing a good job day in and day out
wanting to succeed but wanting co-workers to succeed as well.
the one who can’t get out but who sits by the window and never fails to pray.

In God’s realm, we’re in the same boat,
with so much in common and so little that makes us different.
We don’t have to wear a fancy coat or walk on water to catch God’s eye.
God’s eye has been on us from the beginning.
Growing older isn’t a bad thing when with it comes a greater understanding
that God doesn’t need any more stars.
Growing older can be good when it comes with a sense of peace
about your place in God’s world -
that and a cheap cup of coffee.

1Hoffman, Mark, WorkingPreacher.org, a commentary on the gospel lectionary for August 7, 2011,
Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg, PA. Dr. Hoffman is the source of the interpretation that Jesus was
chiding Peter for not staying in the boat.

Intertwined

2011-07-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Genesis 28:10-20
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:31-33

Hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

These ancient words from Paul’s letter to the church in first century Rome
beg the question, “Do we have the capacity to hope patiently for that we do not see?”
In this time of stagnant economy,
political absurdity,
ecological foreboding,
international edginess;
is there anything that motivates us to patiently keep hanging in there?
In this time of general acquiescence to the idea
that we as “good Christians” are no longer recognized
as the arbiters of social standards,
nor the authorities to whom our culture looks for permission,
Are we without hope now that our future is not clear?
Is there anything out there beyond the visible horizon
that still has the power to keep our heads up and our hearts open
and our fire-boxes stoked and ready?

It’s a question those of us in positions of privilege in this world
may not have had to answer before.
We who because of our family background, our skin color,
or our educational achievement have been assured of a secure place,
a stable existence
and a reasonable expectation of future comfort
have been able to ground our hope in a predictable outcome,
to hope, as Paul would say, in what we already can see.

We who are among the privileged are like Jacob who lived in his family tents
and enjoyed a place of favor in his mother Rebekah’s heart.
Esau was the one who went out hunting, risking attack, getting sunburned,
roughing it in the wilderness to bring home wild game.
Jacob was the one who stayed in the shade, resting on pillows, amusing his mother,
keeping his skin well moisturized, his nails neatly manicured.

But Jacob was afraid to put his future in the hands of his elder brother Esau.
He wasn’t content to trust Esau, as the heir to the family wealth,
to keep him in the style to which he was accustomed.
There was too much uncertainty in that.
There was no guarantee Esau would be a benevolent older brother.
So Jacob and his mother conspired to trick Esau out of his birthright,
to steal Isaac’s blessing by deceit,
thus hoping to keep security and comfort in sight.

That’s the way it is when you’re comfortable.
If you’re not careful you become consumed with trying to manipulate the system,
trying to protect what you have even if it means stacking the deck against others
whom you perceive as a threat.
You put your hope in your own cleverness,
in what you already know.

Jacob found, to his surprise I imagine, that his cleverness backfired.
The scheme he and Rebekah cooked up to keep them together
in their stable, secure, comfortable existence in their tents
instead blew up in their faces and created a crisis of insecurity.
Did they think Esau would just give in?
That he would just shrug his shoulders and say, “Oh well, good game, you win?”
Esau was outraged when he found out Jacob had tricked him out of his birthright
and stolen his father’s blessing that was rightfully his.
While Isaac was alive Esau couldn’t move against Jacob,
but Isaac wasn’t long for this world and Jacob knew his life would be in danger
if he stayed with his family.
So his mother sent him far away, toward her brother Laban’s land,
where he could find a wife and stay until perhaps Esau’s anger cooled.

On his way to this distant uncle’s land in what is today Iraq,
without his usual pillows, without the cool shade of the tent,
without his night cream and baby powder,
Jacob stumbled upon an apparently insignificant spot in the Palestine countryside.
Disoriented, humbled, with no other options he chose a smooth rock,
put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

Hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

As the story goes, a farmer plants his field, anticipating a lovely crop of wheat,
a blockbuster crop that will fill his barns with grain and his pockets with gold.
It’s fertile ground. He knows what he’s doing.
The seed is sown, the tiny sprouts appear
and it’s only the practiced eye of a field hand that distinguishes a difference
among the plants as they grow.
There are weeds among the wheat.
“Didn’t you plant good seed?” the field hand asks.
It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!”
What happened? There’s only one possible scenario.
Sabotage!
A jealous neighbor, a political rival, a sworn enemy has slipped into the field
and sown bad seed among the good.

Greek scholars note that the word translated “weed” is a particular kind of weed.
It’s a plant that, through most of its life cycle,
looks just like the wheat common to the region.
One can only tell a difference between wheat and weed at maturity,
when the wheat develops a head of grain and the weed doesn’t.

“We’ll pull out the weeds for you,” the field hand offers.
But the wiser, patient farmer says, “Let it alone. Wheat and weeds are intertwined.
We hope there will be more wheat than weeds in the end but who can tell?
Let it grow together. We’ll know soon enough which is which by the fruit it bears.
Be patient. At the harvest we’ll know if our hope has been justified.”

Hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

One of the charges leveled against those who follow Jesus is that we can’t face reality;
that we are so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.
The charge by those who have a cartoon idea of what it means to follow Jesus
is that we are cowards, that we prefer to lose ourselves in fanciful stories from the past
and leave more practical people to get on with the business at hand.
As my teen-aged friends would say, “That is SO not true!”

When Paul warns his friends in Rome not to live according to the flesh
we tend to automatically think he’s talking about sex, or gluttony, or drinking beer.
But what he’s warning them against is getting stuck in the trap
of basing their hope only in what they can see,
investing themselves only in what they think can guarantee them comfort and security.
Living by the flesh means that we act like Jacob,
scheming, manipulating, doing whatever we, in our fear, believe necessary
to guarantee our future.
Every act of prejudice, every lie told, every political dirty trick ever done
has been done by insecure people trying to protect what they think they have,
people living according to the flesh
who are beside themselves with anxiety that there’s not enough to go around.

But if we follow Jesus, Paul tells us
we “did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but we have received a spirit of adoption.”
We know we are children of the living God who is fully in control
and whatever sufferings we may undergo in this present time
are nothing compared to the glory about to be revealed to us.
Does that mean we just hunker down and wait to die so we can go to heaven? NO!!!
It means we who are God’s adopted are free to make choices based on what is loving
instead of what is convenient.
It means we are free to stand up to bullies, to say “No” to the greedy,
to offer fair, long term solutions patiently hoping in the future God has in store
instead of giving in to quick fixes and panicky responses
offered by those who live according to the flesh and are overwhelmed by fear.
It means we can look at our fellow human beings as brothers and sisters
who share God’s love instead of as competitors we have to beat out,
or worse, put down and crush.
Paul writes that “The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now”
and from what I’ve seen twice now, labor is tough, it hurts,
but what keeps a person going through the labor pains is the hope of new birth.
As followers of Jesus we are led by the Spirit of God.
We join with all creation in suffering, but always with the certainty
that all the world is in God’s hands.

So we take heart from Jacob’s story,
that even though he started off trying to secure his own comfort
by manipulation and deceit,
God blessed him with disorientation and frustration and failure
so that he finally came around to put his hope in God’s promises he couldn’t yet see
and not in himself.
And we understand that we don’t have to try to pull the weeds from the field.
That’s God’s job.
The wheat and weeds in God’s garden are so intertwined
you can’t tell one from the other anyway.
The truth is, there’s wheat and weeds in each of us.
If we started yanking out the weeds, who among us would survive?

Our job is to receive God’s spirit of adoption, to allow God to nurture us,
to open ourselves to God’s Word, God’s Spirit, God’s guidance,
without fear, without cunning and conniving,
without feeling like we need to exclude others or put others down to be secure.
Then with patient hope we can know that surely the Lord is in this place,
with patient hope we can be more wheat than weed.

Hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Birthrights

2011-07-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Genesis 25:19-34
Romans 8:1-4

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.1

Last week we celebrated the Fourth of July, the birth of our nation,
identified forever as the day in 1776 that the Second Continental Congress
ratified the Declaration of Independence.
We LOVE to talk about our “unalienable rights,”
no one can take away from us, by George!
And while we may not be entirely sure what the “pursuit of happiness” entails,
nor how far my liberty extends when it comes in contact with my neighbor’s liberty,
we know that life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our birth rights
and are not to be trifled with.

That’s why we intuitively understand that in this story of the two brothers,
Jacob and Esau, it’s Esau who has truly messed up.
Even though Jacob is undeniably a Scoundrel with a capital “S”
and is truly despicable in the way he manipulates his elder brother,
it’s Esau who comes away with the stink of God’s disapproval all over him.

This is a great story.
On one hand it’s simply a story that tries to explain why there had always been
animosity between Israel, Jacob’s clan,
and their neighbors, the Edomites, Esau’s bunch.

On the other hand it is a psychological story of conflict, betrayal and reconciliation
that should resonate on a deeply personal level
with any of you who have ever felt neglected by a parent who played favorites,
or manipulated or mistreated by members of your own family.

The beginning of the saga of Jacob and Esau looks familiar.
Like Sarah before her, Rebekah has been unable to conceive a child.
This paves the way for God’s divine intervention;
God’s continuing faithfulness in fulfilling the covenant begun with Abraham.
Notice, though, it’s Isaac and not Rebekah who prays for her to conceive!
She seems almost ambivalent about the whole process,
especially after the twins in her womb begin a prenatal wrestling match.
“Oh Lord, If this is how it’s going to be, TAKE ME NOW!”

But God has plans.
And the oracle Rebekah hears is both personal and political.
“Two nations are in your womb,” God says.
“Two peoples born of you will be divided,
and the elder shall serve the younger.”
The boys are born, Esau first, all red and hairy, but Jacob close behind.
As they grow, they are marked not so much by their similarity as twins,
but by their differences.

Esau is a man of the field, an accomplished hunter,
loved by his father for the game he supplies.
Jacob is a homebody, staying close to the tents,
a comfort and companion to Rebekah and clearly her favorite.
Egged on by these unhealthy cross-generational alliances,
the stage is set for inevitable friction
and Esau proves no match for Jacob’s cleverness.
The story of the red lentil stew exposes Jacob in the worst possible light –
an opportunistic swindler of the first order.

One thing I’ve always admired about the Bible is its refusal to paper over
the darker, rougher qualities of its main characters.
The implication of this story of the red lentil stew
is that it’s a set-up, a premeditated scam, likely thought up by Rebekah,
aimed at taking the family birthright of inheritance away from Esau
and securing it for Jacob.

Is it fair to take advantage of Esau at such a vulnerable time?
No, probably not.
But if Esau is going to treat his birthright with such carelessness
is it right for him to keep it?
In God’s eye’s we have to say, “No” to that as well.
It’s as though, when Esau smelled the stew,
he took a rolled up copy of the Declaration of Independence out of his pocket,
gave it to Jacob and said, “What good is this if I die?”
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Esau to ask himself,
“What good is a bowl of lentil stew if I give up my reason for living?”

Long before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence
God’s people were talking about “unalienable rights.”
Only it’s not so much the “pursuit of happiness” they celebrated
as it was the gift of living in a covenant relationship with their Creator.
Esau had as his birthright the opportunity
to be an integral part of the fulfillment God’s promise,
a lynchpin in the scaffolding of salvation history.
But with this birthright comes responsibility,
a responsibility Esau was unable or unwilling to carry.
He was hungry, he smelled food, he didn’t even bargain with his little brother.
He sold his right as the first born to carry the family wealth and name.
In the judgment of the author of Genesis, Esau “despised” his birthright.

Thank goodness it is no longer the birthright of the eldest son
to be the sole inheritor of the father’s property and position in society.
As the youngest child, I would be left to depend on my own charm and abilities
and we all know THAT would be a disaster.
I can tell you, also, that my sister, the eldest of my siblings
wouldn’t be too pleased either.
But this story of Jacob and Esau isn’t just an interesting tale from a bygone era.
Each of us, male or female, youngest or oldest has rights by birth,
not just rights guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence
but rights that come to each of us as children of God.
We too, like Esau, have the opportunity to be integral to the fulfillment of God’s purpose
to be lynchpins in the scaffolding of God’s salvation history.
The question is, will we honor these rights or will we despise them.

One birthright we have as children of God
is the first one on Thomas Jefferson’s list - the right to live life to the fullest.
Though some days you may feel like the prophet Jeremiah,
cursing the day you were born,
the fact is that each of us has been given this this life.
It is a gift.
But how easy it is to despise this birthright.

Esau lived by his impulses. He was hungry.
He forfeited his future for a bow of beans.
We sometimes do the same,
following our most pressing urge, the path of least resistance
without thinking of the long term consequences of our choices.
But it’s just as easy to despise our birthright to life,
by spending every moment plotting our future while the moment itself slips by.
We bemoan how awful things are
or we fantasize about how good it will be once everything falls into place.
In the meantime, moments and days and years pass like gifts unopened.

A second birthright we have that we find so easy to despise
is the birthright of, for lack of a better word, our customs, our culture.
By swapping his future for a bowl of beans Esau wasn’t just being impulsive.
He was turning his back on his community.
You know you’re getting old when you hear yourself saying,
“Why, back in MY day….”
So I don’t mean to say things should never change!
THANK GOD some things have changed, are changing, and will change!
But it is our birthright to build our lives
on the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before us;
to honor the sacrifice, good sense, and faithfulness of our forbearers.
When we fail to do this, we risk losing a rich resource.

For example, my mother’s entire collective wisdom about parenting
could be summed up in four words – Go outside and play!
Of course it was to get me out from under foot,
but it was also because she knew it was good for me.
But now in many places we’ve taken recess out of the school curriculum
and replaced balls and jump ropes and bicycles with computer games.

Another example: There used to be rules of public discourse and civil behavior.
When everyone followed these rules
even those on opposite ends of the political spectrum
could speak their mind and be heard and even reach a reasonable compromise.
That was collective wisdom at work.
Now we have despised that birthright
and have given over the airways to undisciplined entertainers
and allowed course, inflammatory language to become our expected standard
so we often find ourselves frozen in a polarized standstill.

Esau exchanged all he had for a bowl of stew despising his birthright.
We, in our own ways, are as capable as Esau of doing the same thing.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul refers to this slavery to our impulses
as sins of the flesh.
Not one of us, on our own power, can overcome this slavery
no matter how well we memorize the Declaration of Independence.
But thanks be to God that we are given the power as followers of Jesus
to be free NOT to despise our God given rights to life and community

When we put on Jesus’ yoke as we said last week
and we pull together with him we not only honor our own birthrights
but we see more clearly how to honor the birthrights God gives each person.
And we recognize that our life and our liberty and our pursuit of happiness
is inextricably connected to, interwoven with, and indivisible from
the life and liberty and happiness of each person on earth.
___
1 Jefferson, Thomas, et. al. The Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia: Second Continental Congress, 1776

The Ox Yoke Inn

2011-07-06T14:06:00.001-07:00

Romans 7:14-25a
Matthew 11:25-30

It was the Fourth of July weekend
and, because of gas prices, the Brinker family decided not to make
their usual nine hour trip to the beach.
To their teenagers’ utter dismay,
Fred and Margie Brinker instead made the executive decision
that the family would travel just one hundred eighty-five miles
to the authentic nineteenth century German village in the next state over,
the one with the working farm and the quaint craft shops and bakery.

Margie told Jennifer, the fifteen year old Brinker,
that they could learn how to churn butter together.
And Fred told Jason, their thirteen year old, all about the real working blacksmith shop,
how they could make their own horseshoes to hang over the garage door.
The teenagers just rolled their eyes,
immediately text-messaging their friends that their life was over.

They planned to stay all week, step back in time seven whole days;
seven whole days together to cement their bonds as a family.
Margie warned Fred that he needed to REALLY put his work aside THIS TIME,
and not bring his Blackberry or his laptop.
“After all,” she said, a catch in her voice,
“This may be the last vacation we spend together as a family.”

She’d said the same thing every year since Jennifer was eight
So Fred hardly felt the need to respond.
“I’ll just bring my old cell phone,” Fred said,
“Just in case of an emergency.”

In the final analysis, however, it was Margie who got a call
that she needed to cover for a fellow real estate agent who’d had her baby early.
That cut off one day on the front end.
Then Fred discovered that his biggest client was coming into town and,
since Margie had made a concession to her work, he felt justified doing the same.
That took a day off the back end.
Jennifer and Jason pumped their fists and celebrated when they heard it,
but that gave them just five days…five days together….
Five days was better than nothing.

Fred woke everyone up early the first day of their vacation
which to Jennifer and Jason was so unfair.
They sat in the back of the car in sullen silence, their ear buds firmly in place,
Jason with his Nintendo 3DS handheld game console
and Jennifer with her celebrity gossip magazine.
Fred and Margie chatted in bursts with long silences in between.
They left the city, then the suburbs, and found themselves rolling
under the hot July sun through lovely farmland.
The miles flew by and soon they pulled up
in front of their home for the next five days – the Ox Yoke Inn.

“Welcome, folks!” said the man behind the counter. “You must be the Brinkers!”
“That’s right!” Fred said, cheerfully,
trying not to let his children’s bad mood bring him down.
“Well, my name’s Gunter,” said the man, “And this is Gretel, my wife.”
A plump woman with rosy cheeks and wearing a bonnet
stepped from behind the book case.
“How ‘do,” said Gretel.
“Mighty fine,” Jason said in a smart alecky falsetto voice.
Jennifer snickered which was his best reward,
but Margie pinched him hard on the flesh of his elbow.
“Ow! What was that for?”

Unfazed, Gunter said, “Aaron here will take your bags to room 12.”
A handsome young man a bit older than Jennifer
came around the corner with a luggage cart.
“Aaron,” Gunter said, “After you get them situated why don’t you take a break,
maybe you could meet these youngsters by the pool.”
Jennifer blushed when Aaron looked her way and smiled,
and suddenly her mood brightened considerably.

“But before you go to your room to change into your bathing suits,
let Gretel here get your measurements.”
“Measurements?” Margie asked.
“Oh, yes,” Gretel said, “We MUST get your measurements.”
“What for?” Jason asked, imagining having to wear lederhosen or something.
“You’ll see,” Gretel giggled. “It will be just grand. It’s our specialty!”

Margie and Fred were determined to be good sports
and Jennifer and Jason were eager to get to the pool
so they allowed Gretel to measure the circumferences of their necks,
the width of their shoulders,
and the length from the collar bone to the bottom of the shoulder blade.
They couldn’t imagine what it was for, but they didn’t ask any more questions.

In the middle of the measuring, Fred’s cell phone rang.
Despite Margie’s glare, he answered it, held up his hand indicating “Just this once,”
spoke quietly for a minute, snapped it shut and said, “I know, I’m sorry.”
But then Margie realized she’d forgotten to leave a key for a colleague
who was covering the big open house for her on Tuesday.
“Give me that phone,” she barked, her eyes daring Fred to say anything.
She made her call and then said, “There – that’s it. No more phone.
We’re on vacation.”
“No more calls,” Fred promised as he put the phone in his pocket.

The next three days were full of new experiences –
exotic events like candle making, ice cream churning, horse-shoe pitching.
They even had a sack race with other guests of the inn,
in which Jason came in third.
He would have won, but his Nintendo fell out of his pocket
and he stopped to pick it up.
Fred only made three more calls on his cell phone (that Margie knew about)
and Margie only slipped into the Inn office twice to check her website
and see if anyone was showing her houses.

Jennifer became extremely interested in whatever Aaron was doing
and preferred to sit out most activities and wait by the pool
in case he came to swim.
They laughed some together, which felt good,
but Fred got a stiff neck from sleeping on an unfamiliar pillow,
and Margie’s lower back started bothering her again.

On Friday, the morning of their last full day at the Ox Yoke Inn,
just after the last waffle was served,
Gunter stood to address the dining room.
“We have a special presentation to make,” he said.
“Will the Brinker family come forward.”
They looked at each other around the table asking, “What gives?”
but they rose and went forward.

Gretel stepped up, all smiles, and she motioned to someone just outside.
It was Aaron. He came in with his cart, only this time there was no luggage.
This time there were on the cart two wooden double ox yokes,
like the one on the sign out front.
Aaron looked at Jennifer and winked. She turned red.
Fred looked at the yokes.
They were beautifully crafted - gracefully carved and polished to a buttery sheen.
Margie said, “Those are beautiful. But why are we here?”
Gunter said, “They’re for you.”
The other guests in the dining hall for some reason all clapped and cheered

Margie’s mind flashed immediately to the glass and chrome décor of their home.
“They’re beautiful, but we have nowhere to put them. They’d be out of place.”
Gretel giggled, “Dear, you don’t PUT them anywhere. You WEAR them.”
Fred nearly choked. “Wear them? They must weigh fifty pounds at least.”
“You’d be surprised how light they are,” Gunter said.
“Come on who wants to go first. Jennifer, do you and Jason want to try yours?”
Jason immediately put his hands up, “No way, dude.”
From the dining hall came a disappointed, “Ahhhhh.”
Margie, feeling conspicuous and not wanting to disappoint anyone, gamely said,
“Come on Jennifer, why don’t you and I put one on, just for laughs.”
But Gunter got suddenly serious.
“Oh no, these are custom made to your personal measurements.
One is for you and Fred and one for Jason and Jennifer.
You don’t want to have a cross generational yoke. That’s never a good thing.
Besides, it just wouldn’t fit.”

Fred’s eye started to twitch as he saw each guest looking at him expectantly.
The knot in his neck tightened.
“Why isn’t anyone else wearing these things?” he blurted.
The room erupted in laughter and applause.
“Listen,” Gretel said, patting Fred’s arm. “Just take them to your room.
When you’re ready, try them on. They’re labeled so you’ll know whose is whose.”

The yokes sat on the dresser in their room all that day.
They tried to do other things, but they couldn’t concentrate.
They snapped at each other.
Margie lost herself in a crossword puzzle, Fred took some calls.
Jason did battle on his Nintendo and Jennifer pined by the pool.
Just before it was time to go to dinner, Margie slapped her crossword on the table.
“We can’t go to dinner without trying these blasted things on.
You know they’re going to ask us if we did.”
Fred looked sullen, but then said, “You’re right.”
They called Jennifer and Jason into the room and said, “Come on, kids, just once.”
“You first,” Jason said.

Fred looked at Margie. Margie looked at Fred. They stood side by side.
They picked up the yoke labeled with their names, hefting its weight,
opened the collar and, feeling sheepish, or ox-ish, they slipped it on.

The moment each closed the collar a curious thing happened.
The yoke became weightless. AND it became elastic.
They didn’t have to stand side by side, it stretched as they moved.
“Where’d it go?” Jason asked, wide-eyed.
“Where’d what go?”
“That thing you just put on.”
Fred felt the hairs on his neck stand up.
He said to Jason and Jennifer, “Here, put yours on.”
They put theirs on and, sure enough, they experienced the same thing.
“Wow,” Jason said, “This is neat. And now I see yours again.”
Jennifer also looked impressed but stayed silent.

Fred suddenly had a thought that panicked him.
What if they couldn’t get the yokes off?
He reached up and jerked his collar open and it came undone easily,
but the moment it opened they felt the heavy weight.
When he snapped it shut the weight disappeared.
Then Fred noticed something else. With the yoke on, the pain in his neck was gone.
When he mentioned this to Margie she flexed her back.
It no longer hurt either.
They all looked at each other with the funny yokes on their necks and laughed.
“Shall we go?” Fred asked, offering his arm to Margie.
“Yes, lets,” Margie said.
Then, wonder of wonders, Jason held out his arm to Jennifer – AND SHE TOOK IT!
On the way to the dining room Margie said, “Jason, where’s your Nintendo?”
Jason, looking a little surprised, glanced at his hands and said, “I left it in the room.

When they came to the dining room they had a momentary feeling of self-consciousness,
yoked as they were, but when they stepped through the door they saw a curious thing.
Everyone else in the room was wearing a yoke as well.
Even Gunter and Gretel, bustling around at opposite ends of the room,
were connected by a long yoke.
As they entered the other diners looked up. Scattered applause began
and soon spread through the room until they all were standing and cheering.
Fred and Margie blushed and then bowed to the ovation.
At that moment Fred’s cell phone rang.
He removed it from his pocket, looked at it,
and then dropped it into his full water glass
where it bubbled once and then was silent.

As we go through our lives we are always yoked to something –
to work, to entertaining distractions, to a need for approval, to guilt and regret.
Each has its place and purpose, but not as a yoke.
As a yoke it is heavy. It makes us its slave.
But then Jesus offers us HIS yoke.
Unlike other yokes, his is custom made to fit us each just right.
Without Jesus – without his yoke - we work at cross purposes with ourselves and creation,
like Paul, doing even the things we hate.
With him, pulling in tandem with him, our lives have meaning.

We’re going to have a few moments of silence together when I finish.
In that time, if you haven’t already, I hope you’ll take the yoke Jesus offers –
the yoke of forgiveness, of community,
the yoke of love and justice and peace.
Take his yoke and commit yourself in this time to learn from him.
For his yoke is easy and you will find rest for your souls.

In Him We Are One

2011-06-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

Acts 11:1-18

11Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers* criticized him, 3saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’ 4Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” 8But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” 9But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 10This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.* These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.” 15And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 17If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ 18When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’ - New Revised Standard Version

[In worship this day was a group who had been staff and students at the Ganado Presbyterian Mission just over the Arizona border. The mission was established in 1901 to serve the Navajo, Pueblo, and Hopi populations in the area. At its peak there was a boarding school, a hospital, a nursing school and a church. Only the church now remains. Because there were so many other things going on in the service I limited my reflection on the scripture to the following poem.]

A sheet of sorts, lowered at the corners
appears before your eyes.
And on that sheet there are snakes and turtles
and monkeys and squid, and horse flies,
and snails, two-toed sloths, hawks, frogs, hippos, finches,
and caterpillar worms that measure in inches,
and a voice from the heavens that speaks loud and clear
saying, “Get up, get up, get up off your rear.
Don’t hesitate, don’t be shy, spear it, fillet it, boil up a stew,
dice it, spice it, fry one or two.
Bake it, flake it, whip a frappe,
what God has made clean you must not call profane.”

“But Lord,” you say, “It’s all so icky, nasty, yucky and strange –
so different, so kooky, so freaky and crazy.
Bizzaro, for sure, beyond the pale,
outside the fences, not my cup of tea –
I’m square in your camp, Lord,
but you can’t expect me to go beyond lines
that I’ve always known, leap willingly into some weird twilight zone.
I’m happy to help wherever I can,
but surely ones breeding, one’s culture, one’s background,
one’s genealogical pedigree passed down
through years and years of careful selection
should deter unconditional gestures of welcome.

There’ve got to be standards, guidelines and structure,
otherwise how can we keep good track
of who’s got the right stuff and who has the lack of adequate faith
and competent knowledge (surely a minimum has to be college,
or trade school or at least passing grades) some shelter, a job, a respectable name…”

“NO!” The voice thunders, “I’ll say it again!
What God has made clean you must not call profane!”

We look at our world in all variations - Aboriginal, Asian, Arab, First Nation,
African, Anglo, Hispanic and Jew, they all look so different
and more complications arise when trying to find what connects us.
With our blinders on we can’t see the nexus of invisible strands
that mark each ones yearning to know our Creator,
to discover the source; our hearts, why they’re burning,
why the sun keeps its course.
Shipapu, Kachina, Coyote and Beaver;
the North Road, sand paintings, beauty, the Kiva –
all point to the mystery of God, the Creator,
our common humanity engaged in the task of knowing our roots
and daring to ask who we are, where we come from, what gives life it’s meaning.

As those who’ve found meaning in God’s incarnation,
we carry the Word to those who are searching.
Ganado, the mission, an outpost of learning
built so long ago, yet still having impact
like ripples, like waves spreading out from the Source –
teachers, doctors, nurses,
of course, the message of life through Christ, God the Son,
the foundation, the keystone, in him we are one.

Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 1:1-2, 18-22, 13:11-13

Secret surveillance has gotten out of hand in this country!
Take, for instance, those map kiosks you see in the mall,
you know, the ones that have the “x” that says, “You are here.”
It gives me the creeps. I mean, how do they know?
I’m just kidding. There’s no secret.
There’s a camera in the kiosk, right?
I know it’s there somewhere!!!

Creepy or not, the map kiosk is there to orient you,
to help figure out where you are in relation to other points of interest.
Sometimes it’s OK not to know where you are as long as you feel relatively safe
and are up for an adventure.
But generally it’s a good thing to be oriented.
That’s why if were to come into our kitchen you’d see a big white-board
and in bold, block letters you’d see printed: “Today is Sunday, June 19, 2011”
“The season is Spring”
“You are in Albuquerque, NM.”
“Your name is David.”
Kathryn is good to me that way.

Any of you who have been to college in the past thirty years
may remember going through orientation as a freshman.
You move into the dorm a week early and have an orientation counselor
who herds you around in a big group.
You take a tour of the campus and find out where the important things are located:
classrooms, the library, the laundry facilities – not that you’ll ever go there
but you’ll know where to take your parents when they come to visit.
My orientation counselor showed us where the subway sandwich shop was located
before he dumped us for a group with better looking co-eds.
What he didn’t tell us is what to say to the guy who came by the dorm later
selling pharmaceuticals.
Ah....college.

If you fly to a foreign country need to know at least a few orienting questions
in the language of the country:
“Quand est le prochain train pour Paris?” – When is the next train for Paris?
and “Donde está el baño?” – Where is the bathroom?
If you start a new job they’ll likely put you through some sort of orientation;
who you report to; who reports to you,
the parts of the job that aren’t in the job description.
It’s very important to be physically and psychologically grounded wherever you are;
to be oriented; to know for sure, “You are here.”

Psalm 8 is a psalm of orientation.1
It is a hymn of praise to God the Creator,
giving God glory for bringing order out of chaos,
creating stability and reliability, a sure and certain security for us all.
The psalmist asks a question of orientation
but he already knows the answer.
“What are human beings in the grand scheme of things?
To whom do we report and who reports to us?”
In the shadow of God’s glory it would seem that we are mere worms.
That’s at least what Bildad, one of Job’s “friends” tries to tell Job
as he offers his Job condescending comfort (Job 25:6).

But the psalmist will have none of it.
“You have made them [us] a little lower than God,” he writes,
“And crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
You have put all things under their feet.”

This is not, as some imagine, permission to exploit God’s creation,
to use it like our private spa until we use it up.
It is, instead, a hymn of orientation,
a statement of relationship, setting us squarely in our place
as those whom God trusts to take good care of what God has made.
It is a role both of obedience and great responsibility
and there’s no question where we as human beings stand in God’s order of things.
When it comes to giving God glory
and when it comes to being good stewards of God’s created order
We are HERE!

Today is Trinity Sunday in Christian year, the Sunday after Pentecost
when we consider the tripartite manner by which God relates to us;
the mystical manifestations of God the Three in One.
Since it’s Father’s Day we’ll speak of God the Father,
knowing all the time that God transcends human limitations of gender.

We also speak of God the Son, the Word become flesh,
the incarnation of God as the baby Jesus, born to Mary and Joseph,
who ate, drank, loved and lost like every other human who’s ever lived
and who died a most tragic, painful, and human death by execution.

And we speak of the Holy Spirit, that most illusive of God’s manifestations,
that comes like a wind, like a fire, like a still, small voice
whispering, guiding, comforting, cajoling,
never imposing but always surprising us when we take the time to listen and look.

Nowhere is the word “Trinity” used in the Bible
but it’s a doctrine of the church that very much arises out of the Biblical witness
to the different ways God is experienced and imagined in lives of early followers.
They couldn’t talk about Jesus without talking about how Jesus was connected
to the acts of deliverance by the God of Abraham,
and they couldn’t talk about the God of Abraham without reflecting
on the dynamic interplay of inspiration and obedience
that causes unlikely people to step up and do the unexpected.

Boy Scouts will tell you that to be able to find out where you are in the wilderness
you need to go through a process of triangulation.
It’s not enough just to have one or two points of reference.
You’ve got to have three.
You and I cannot find our place in God’s world without each manifestation of the trinity;
God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer.
It takes all three to accomplish orientation.

It takes all three to know where we stand in relationship with God and with each other.
If we knew only God the Creator we might appreciate the beauty of God’s world
but we wouldn’t have a clue what to do with the suffering caused by a tornado
or the devastation of a flood.
But because we know not only God the Creator, but also God the Son,
we know that no suffering, not even death can separate us from the love of God,
and that, put in the context of the grace of God revealed in Jesus,
suffering can even be the beginning of renewal and growth.

If we only knew God the Son manifested in the life and ministry of Jesus
we might enjoy the stories of one who lived a life of service
and modeled for us a powerful program of nonviolent engagement,
but we wouldn’t have a clue what that means for us.
But because we know God made real to us in the Holy Spirit,
we feel inspiration, we find courage, we immerse ourselves in hope.
When the Holy Spirit lights a flame under our seats
we suddenly find ourselves out there in the world being salt and light and leaven;
we find ourselves being the ones who reach out across social divisions,
the ones who do the ethical thing at work or school in the face of peer pressure,
the ones who do not accept easy answers or rest on tired assumptions
but are always looking for a way to make the love and grace of God visible.

It takes all three manifestations of God for us to be able to triangulate where we are
in relationship to God and to each other.
One isn’t enough. Two aren’t enough.

When Paul wrote what we know as his second letter to the church in Corinth
he was writing to new Christian who had not yet triangulated themselves,
who were not yet sure of their place, their relationship to God and each other.
They were a church in turmoil.
• Some may have felt that all they needed to know of God could be seen in a sunset.
• Some may have respected Jesus as an ethical teacher but saw no reason
to get all mushy about it.
• Some may have had a mystical experience of the Holy Spirit
but didn’t make the connection between that experience and loving their neighbor.

They were a divided church, a church where conflict reigned,
a church built on shifting sand where “Yes” sometimes meant “No”
and “No” sometimes meant “Yes.
They were unstable, unsteady, lost in the universe of accusations and innuendos.
If there had been a kiosk in the church entryway with an “x” marking the spot
saying, “You are here,” they wouldn’t have believed it.
Someone would have surely said, “No I’m not! I’m over there.”

Paul wrote to his friends a very direct and sometimes painful letter.
He reminded them of the grace and peace available to each of them.
He reminded them that in Christ there is no indecision, in him no flip-flopping.
In Christ there is no “Yes” and “No,” but only “Yes.”
Paul encouraged his friends in Corinth to triangulate themselves in the trinity of God:
giving glory to God the Creator
and trusting in Jesus, the Risen Lord, who had anointed them
and remembering their hearts had been sealed by God through the Holy Spirit.

And this is how WE find OUR place in the world. This is how we get oriented.
• We remember that human beings are God’s good creation and not meant to be alone.
• We put things in order according to Jesus’ example,
changing what we need to change to reduce the chaos in our lives,
• And we submit out lives to the power of God’s Spirit who brings not dissention but peace.

If we do that we may not remember what day it is, or what people call us,
but we will know for certain
that when it comes to the steady and unshakable presence
of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit
WE ARE HERE.

1 Brueggeman, Walter, ¬The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1984, p. 36.

If Everyone Jumped Off a Bridge… 1 Peter 1:13-23, Luke 24:13-35

2011-05-09T08:28:00.001-07:00

It’s Mother’s Day and in honor of mother’s everywhere I took an informal survey
of some of those gems of wisdom our mothers used to say all the time.
Among the responses I got from you were practical admonishments your mothers gave:
• “Good posture is a sure sign of self-confidence.”
• “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
There were encouragements to disciplined behavior:
• “Strong language is the sign of a weak mind.”
• If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
And then there were the threats:
• “One more word out of you and you’ll be eating a soap sandwich.”
• Any time your mother called you by your full name you knew you were in trouble.
But the prize for the most politically-incorrect warning goes to –
• “If you don’t behave we’re going to sell you to the gypsies!”
The poor, traumatized soul who submitted that one said,
“I had no idea what gypsies were but I surely did not want to be sold to them.”

I recall my own mother’s gems of wisdom from my own growing up.
I especially remember one thing my mother said often as I got to be a teenager
and so desperately wanted to fit in with my peers.
If I wanted to do something and she said “No,” predictably I would respond,
“But everybody’s going to be there” or “All my friends are doing it,”
Without fail she would then say, “If everyone jumped off a bridge would you?”
One time I remember I was so angry and felt so misunderstood I said,
“Yeah, I would, at least that would be fun.” It’s a wonder she didn’t sell me to the gypsies.

It’s a temptation at any age to want to go along with the crowd, to conform.
It’s hard to stand your ground and do the right thing instead of the popular thing.
We don’t appreciate it at the time, but mothers help us do that.
But, if your mother doesn’t happen to be around
then it’s good to have a friend or a Sunday school teacher or maybe an apostle
to help you fight the urge to conform, the temptation to go along just to get along.

1 Peter claims by its title and by tradition to have been written by the early Apostle Peter.
Some biblical scholars aren’t so sure about that, but we can call him “Peter”
and there’s no disputing the fact that the letter was written to Gentiles in Asia Minor,
to men and women trying to live out their faith in Jesus, their Risen Lord,
to exhibit grace under pressure.

Paul Achtemeier, Bible professor emeritus at Union Seminary in Virginia writes that
the early Christians in the Roman empire were beginning to experience growing pains.1
They’d increased in numbers to the point that they could no longer fly under the radar
with their countercultural practices
and their refusal to worship the emperor and other Roman gods.
Peter encourages his readers not to disconnect from their society,
to be good, law-abiding citizens when it came to honesty or respect for authority.
But he also counsels that when everyone around them is taking part in festivals
that include sacrifices to local gods,
or when everyone is proclaiming “Caesar is Lord,”
then followers of Jesus are not to go along just to get along,
they are not to jump off that bridge just because everyone else is.

The charge against the early Christians to whom Peter writes is that they are stuck up,
and don’t really care about the wellbeing of neighbors.
After all, if they don’t participate in local festivals and other commerce,
the economic engine of the community will stall.
If they don’t offer sacrifices to the local gods
the gods will be angry and will punish everyone.

Your mother would know that it’s a hard thing to swim against the tide of cultural norms;
to be in the world, as Jesus says, but not of the world.
To be in the world but not of the world is to accept the tension inherent in that stance,
to realize that as a follower of Jesus, some conflict is inevitable.
There’s no getting around the fact that the alternative path Jesus offers
is sure to be misunderstood by others.
The values of God’s realm will never sit comfortably even with well-meaning people
when their only allegiance is to personal fulfillment, political stability, or national pride.

Acting as a stand-in for their mothers, Peter reminds his friends in Asia Minor
that they follow a teacher who is neither passive nor safe nor conformist;
They cannot follow Jesus and sit back and take their rest.
Instead Peter encourages them to prepare themselves mentally for action,
to discipline themselves against the temptation to give in to social pressure,
most of all to build their lives around a future hope in the power of God
that will help them endure their present trials.

You’d have to have been immersed in an isolation chamber for the past seven days
not to know that America’s arch enemy, Osama bin Laden, was killed last Sunday.
The predictable response to his death was that crowds in New York and D.C.
and in many cities and towns across the nation turned out to cheer his death.
An intense swell of patriotic fervor has swept the country
as the grief and anger that followed the attack on the World Trade Center
came bubbling back to the surface.
A big part of me wants to join in with everyone else in celebration.
This part of me is glad he’s dead and won’t be killing anyone else.
And I hope the families of those whom he killed in New York and Washington, D.C.
and that field in Pennsylvania gain some small comfort from his death.

What else is there to care about?
Nothing, if you tune in to the media coverage.
No one questions the wild celebration. It is our due.
All the news outlets want to talk about are the peripheral questions
of why Pakistan was so clueless, and what kind of helicopters were used,
and who may be next on the hit list.
Nationalistic pride in being on the winning team;
vicarious personal satisfaction at exacting revenge on our enemy;
a sigh of relief, perhaps, that without bin Laden in the world we’re a bit safer -
this is the current national norm, the cultural expectation, the social standard
and it’s so easy to lie back, conform, and be swept along by it all.

But then Peter’s voice breaks through.
“Prepare your minds for action,” he says. “Discipline yourselves, lean forward in hope
toward the grace that is yours through Jesus Christ.
For it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’.”

I’m not saying I know for sure what the proper Christian response is
to the death of Osama bin Laden.
I do know Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
But Jesus also did not hesitate to single out and oppose those
who were a destructive force in the community.
Jesus did not return violence for violence,
but I have a hard time imagining that he would not do what was necessary
to protect vulnerable people from harm.

Still, following Jesus means doing the right thing, not the popular thing.
It means exercising discipline over our thoughts and actions in a self-critical way
considering that the way of Jesus is usually not the way of the world.
The forward push of God’s grace will not let us simply blend in with the crowd,
so even if it makes us unpopular among those who don’t want to think,
but simply to taste the tangy flavor of sweet revenge at bin Laden’s death,
we have to ask ourselves “What is different for those of us who follow Jesus?"

You may have your own ideas, but here’s what I have to offer.
We in this country love the myth that there are good guys and bad guys.
It’s a comic book level of moral discourse that has allowed us to aggressively
exert our sense of exceptionalism, our claims of manifest destiny.
We have a long history of projecting our own failings, our own evil thoughts and feelings
onto a designated enemy until that enemy becomes such a caricature of evil
that it allows us, in contrast, to imagine ourselves righteous and pure as the driven snow. This, of course, gives us permission to do whatever we choose.

We did it with Native Americans who were living on land European settlers wanted.
We do it with the entire religion of Islam.
We do it with political parties, interest groups, even our spouses sometimes.
They’re bad so we can be good.
But throughout the Gospels Jesus is forever reminding us that
the sun shines on both the evil and the good, that wheat and weeds grow up together.
When someone approaches Jesus and call him “good teacher”
Jesus responds “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
Paul adds his two cents reminding us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Osama bin Laden was, by all accounts, a sociopathic mass murderer
and I feel for the soldiers who had to pull the trigger but I do not grieve his death.
Yet, we have to admit, he was a very convenient enemy.
He was dark skinned, of a different religion, and was from a mysterious part of the world.
Now that the bad guy’s dead, who can we hate now so we can be the good guys?

We who follow Jesus cannot uncritically jump off the bridge of giddy celebration
at the death of Osama bin Laden no matter how many people are doing it
not because he deserved better than what he got,
but because no matter how twisted, he was a child of God, made in the image of God.
We cannot join in the victory dance, not because there is no relief at his death,
but because we as followers of Jesus know that violence is, without exception,
a sign not of strength, but of failure of humanity to live according to God’s design.
We cannot join the crowds who see ourselves only as the innocent victims of attack
because we who try to pattern our lives on Jesus’ teachings
are painfully aware that we are not innocent at all
and that we would have no hope save for the forgiving mercy of God’s free grace.

When, unrecognized, the resurrected Jesus walked beside his two disciples to Emmaus,
they share with them their disappointment that things hadn’t worked out
the way everyone had expected.
Everyone had been expecting a Messiah who would give them a military victory,
one who would exact revenge on the Romans for years of abuse.
All the Jews had been looking for a short-term solution to their problem.
But Jesus unfolded for them the long view of God’s salvation history beginning with Moses.
He gave them a mother’s-eye perspective of the value of not going along with the crowd.

He foreshadowed Peter’s letter with an insight into the enduring nature of hope
when that hope is born not of what is perishable like victimhood or revenge,
but when it is born of what is imperishable – disciplined obedience and deep love.
Thank God this day for mothers, for not jumping off bridges,
and for choosing to say nothing when there is nothing good to say.

_________
1 Achtemeier, Paul, INTERPRETATION, "Between Text and Sermon: 1 Peter 1:13-21," July, 2006, pg. 306.

The Cornerstone - 2 Samuel 7:1-10,16-17, Acts 3:1-10, 4:5-22

2011-05-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

If you’re going to build anything bigger than a tool shed
it’s a good idea to have a plan – a blueprint as they say in architectural lingo.
And in your building plan it’s good to have a primary reference point in the structure
to which everything else is oriented,
and a common set of assumptions with which to build.
Sometimes the simplest deviation can cause a world of trouble.
Like a house I knew of back in Virginia.

The house in question was under construction when we arrived in Nellysford 11 years ago.
Construction had been stalled for some time because of an unfortunate snag.
The couple building the house were U.S. citizens but lived in Australia
and the design of the house was done by one of the couple’s sons
who was an architect in Australia.
The snag in construction came about because the son designed the home
using metric measurements and failed to make allowances for differences
in the U.S. system of feet and inches.
The local Virginia builder converted from centimeters to inches
but something was lost in translation on one end or the other,
and after the elevator shaft was already completed for this three story house
it was found to be one inch too small in diameter for the elevator car.

As I said, if you’re going to build a structure, an edifice, a building of any consequence
you need a set of blueprints to work from
and a common reference point from which to work.

The greatest cathedral is built one stone at a time,
and the most important stone in the building is the first stone; the cornerstone.
This cornerstone must be carefully laid, level and square
and it must be perfectly oriented on the building site.
Every subsequent stone is laid in relation to the cornerstone
and even the slightest deviation will be magnified over the course of construction.

The image of the cornerstone first appears in the Bible in the book of Job
as God, tired of Job’s questioning, underscores the distance between God and Job
saying, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth….
on what were it’s bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone?”
The psalmist in Psalm 118 later picks up the image in a hymn of thanksgiving to God
which, in contrast to Job, highlights the closeness between God and humanity saying,
“I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Of course this rejected stone becoming the chief cornerstone
is the image Peter picks up on in the account in Acts as he tries to explain
to the astonished chief priests in Jerusalem
that Jesus, the one whom they arrested and had killed,
has become the primary reference point in the building of God’s realm on earth;
this Galilean from Nazareth, of all places,
is both the cornerstone and the blueprints
that tie everything in God’s realm together.

These architectural imagages of cornerstones and blueprints
come to mind this Sunday after Easter
as we celebrate both Jesus’ victory over death
and the legacy handed down to us in the form of a beautiful building,
a building just recently recognized as a significant work of architecture
by it’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

It was sixty-eight years ago that the Men’s Bible Class of First Presbyterian Church
bought two lots at the corner of Carlisle and Silver at the eastern edge of Albuquerque
with the idea of starting a new church.
Ground was broken and the cornerstone laid for the first phase of the building in June 1949
and the burgeoning congregation dedicated this first phase on April 23, 1950.

“Immanuel,” meaning “God with us” was chosen as the name of the new church
reflecting, perhaps, relief at the end of World War II
and great expectations for a new prosperity that the post-war era would bring.
Studebakers, Buicks, Fords, Chevy’s and maybe even a Tucker Sedan or two
were whizzing by on Route 66
and people were still coming west to Albuquerque for “the cure” from tuburculosis.
San Mateo marked the eastern edge of the city
and roads north of Lomas were, for the most part, still unpaved.
Nob Hill boasted the Jones Motor Company and the Nob Hill Shopping Center,
the first shopping center west of the Mississippi to integrate parking into its design.
The University of New Mexico was on the rise as well,
graduating it’s first law school class in June, 1950.

“J” was the popular first initial among pastoral leaders in Immanuel’s first years.
J. Elbert Nash came from Wyoming in 1947 to be the organizing pastor
and J. Denton Simms, a former missionary among the Apaches,
came in 1949 to serve as the associate pastor.

But even though Norman Vincent Peale was developing the foundation of his book
The Power of Positive Thinking that would be published two years later,
all was not positive in 1950, the year of Immanuel’s first phase dedication.
In 1950 the Korean Conflict was heating up
and war weary veterans were facing a call back to service.
The Cold war was getting downright frigid as Harry Truman responded
to the detonation of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear bomb
by ordering the development of a hydrogen bomb.
Senator Joe McCarthy claimed that 205 communists worked in the U.S. State Department
and South Africa passed a law officially requiring separation of the races.

Television was coming into it’s own in 1950
though the poet T.S. Eliot tried to have it banned in the United Kingdom.
Eliot was no match for the allure of technology, though a foreshadowing of dread
should have fallen upon every man, woman, and child that year
as Zenith started marketing the first TV remote control, aptly name “The Lazy Bones.”

When the cornerstone is properly laid, the blueprints well drafted
and the construction of the building is rigorously oriented to a single point of reference
then the resulting edifice is solid and strong, functional and beautiful
and it can endure even the most fearsome challenge.
Peter and John found this out over a two day period in Jerusalem
not long after Jesus’ death and resurrection.
With their risen Lord as their cornerstone, their common point of reference,
they set out to construct a building worthy of God’s realm.
Their efforts, however, ran counter to prevailing structures.

First, a man lame from birth approached them outside the temple hoping for a handout.
It was 3:00 in the afternoon, the same hour Jesus breathed his last on the cross,
and it was customary for observant Jews to give money to the poor
as they went into the temple to pray.
The man’s begging was part of the rickety old power structure
built on a combination of oppressive Roman dominance and temple corruption.
Under that construction plan the lame man saw no alternative to begging,
had no expectation but that his days would end with his hands out for strangers’ coins.

But Peter and John were following a different set of blueprints.
They had a different cornerstone that served to orient their every action.
“Silver and gold aren’t in our tool box,” they told the man.
“But we’re glad to share our most important building secret.”
They told the lame man about their cornerstone, the transforming, saving power of Jesus,
and invited the man to stand on his own two feet and learn the tools of their trade.

Of course, if it was just a subtle innovation in building techniques they brought to the mix,
Peter and John might have gone unmolested by the authorities.
An irrefutable miracle of healing is hard to ignore
and if they had been willing to toe the company line in Jerusalem,
swear by the absolute authority of the temple and the temple leadership
they may even have been given a seat at their table – at the foot of the table, sure,
but a seat, nonetheless.

Yet, Peter and John were smart enough to know that the construction
to which they had been called did not use the temple as the primary reference point.
Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, was their cornerstone,
and if the edifice they hoped to build on that cornerstone
was to have any strength or integrity,
everything they said or did would have to be done with Jesus as the center.

The first phase of Immanuel Presbyterian Church was dedicated in 1950.
This sanctuary, the third phase planned by the architect John Gaw Meem,
was built the same year I was, 1956.
(You may be interested to know that John Gaw Meem’s roots were in Virginia
but I digress.)

For over sixty years Immanuel Presbyterian Church has stood as a beautiful structure
at the corner of Carlisle and Silver.
If you look at the blueprints that translate John Gaw Meem’s vision into brick and mortar
it’s enough to make your head spin.
But if you don’t read blueprints, don’t worry.
All you need to know is that when we’re at our best, Immanuel Presbyterian Church
is built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ
and everything we do is oriented around him.

We’ve been added to the National Register of Historic Places
which is a nice honor for those who sacrificed not just to have a nice building
but a beautiful building that would honor God.
But this building will have lasting value not as a monument to a famous architect
and the vision and generosity of its charter members.
This building will only have value if it continues to be a place
of on-going worship and service to a living Lord.

Beyond the Beginning - Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 27:57-28:15

2011-05-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

For everything there is a season, says the preacher in Ecclesiastes,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. (Eccl.3:1-2).
In other words, we all know there is a beginning to things and an end to things

We expect beginnings: the birth of a baby, our first real job.
And we expect endings: the last page of a good book, our final breath.
Beginnings usually make us happy. Endings we sometimes deny
like when we put off writing a will, or bitterly resist giving up a driver’s license.
Yet, on some level we know, there is a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to begin and a time to end.

There was nothing to suggest that Jesus’ life was going to be any different.
If Jesus’ beginning was special, as Matthew suggests,
his ending must have been a huge disappointment to those who knew him.
To be Jesus’ disciple in those final days of his life
must have been like trying to steer a car that’s hit a long patch of ice.
Everything moves in slow motion
and all you can do is watch in horror as things spin out of control.
It didn’t help that Jesus kept hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes
as he hurtled toward the cross.
Every word he said, every action he took
seemed calculated to provoke those who wanted to do him harm.
Can we really blame the disciples for opening the doors at the last minute
and bailing out before the big collision?

Maybe they DID feel bad about the way they just abandoned Jesus in his last day.
Matthew tells us that Peter wept bitterly after the third time he denied knowing Jesus.
But, the scene Matthew paints for us of events following the crucifixion
doesn’t include a single one of the regular cast of Jesus’ most intimate confidants;
Not Peter, not James, not John – none of them.

It’s Joseph of Arimathea, in a cameo performance, who offers a final resting place –
a substantial tomb with an extra heavy stone.
And it’s Mary Magdalene and another Mary,
two women who were of no consequence in first century Jerusalem;
who kept vigil as Jesus was laid to rest.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.
All things have both a beginning and an ending.
It’s what we expect. It’s how we order our lives.
Everything we do we do with the end in mind,

Knowing what we know about death, about the end,
it’s easy to let ourselves obsess about it;
easy to let our dread of the end contaminate every other decision we make.
We store up treasures and, when we run out of storage space,
we build bigger barns because we’re scared we won’t have enough.
The assumption, of course, is that the more I have socked away,
the longer I can put off coming to my end.
It’s a faulty assumption, of course, but I still can convince myself it’s true.

We build bigger armies, finance more sophisticated weapons,
give up our expectations of privacy just so we can feel more secure.
I reinforce my stereotypes of those I perceive to be my enemies
so I can more easily identify those who might be a threat to me,
again, assuming that perfect security is a goal I can achieve
and, if I achieve it, my fantasy is that my end can be put off indefinitely.

All indications are that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the sealed tomb
expecting all they knew about beginnings and endings to be confirmed.
They knew, like we all know, that there is a time to be born and a time to die
and that the fear of death can sometimes make us
a little bit greedy and cowardly and mean.
There was no reason at all for them to expect anything other than
to find a guard of bored, leering soldiers on cemetery duty
keeping watch over a sealed, occupied tomb.

But, as Matthew, puts it, “A new day was dawning”
as the two Mary’s went to pay an early visit to Jesus’ tomb.
Tom Long, in his commentary on Matthew writes,
“Somewhere along the path to the cemetery…they left one world and entered another.
Without even knowing that they had crossed the border, they left the old world,
where hope is in constant danger, and might makes right,
and peace has little chance, and the rich get richer,
and the weak all eventually suffer under some Pontius Pilate or another,
and people hatch murderous plots and dead people stay dead,
These women – Mary Magdalene and the other Mary - they left one world
and they entered the startling and breathtaking world of resurrection and life.1

Everything these two women thought they knew about beginnings and endings
was rendered obsolete that Sunday morning.
They knew, they absolutely KNEW, that the stone sealing the mouth of Jesus’ tomb
would still be in place, because once in place, huge stones don’t move.
They KNEW without a shadow of doubt,
that the Roman guard would be menacing and strong and without mercy.
They KNEW without question that the “behind the scenes” manipulations
of the Jewish elite signaled the end of Jesus’ grand experiment in Truth and Grace.
There’s no getting past the roadblock of powerful men.

But a close reading of Matthew’s gospel tips us off to what the women will find
even if we’d never read about the empty tomb before.
A close reading of Matthew’s gospel leads us to suspect
that the power equation we all think we understand is about to be turned on its head
and what we KNOW to be the end of Jesus is not the end at all.

Way back in chapter one, Matthew has already told us
when it comes to starts and finishes, beginnings and endings, Jesus breaks the mold.
Remember? Mary is found to be pregnant.
It should have been the end of her relationship to Joseph, a righteous man.
But an angel appears to Joseph (there’s that angel)
and rolls away the stone of Jewish law and cultural prohibition
and clears the way for Jesus’ birth.

The Wise Men come to pay homage to Jesus, stopping in Jerusalem first
to pay a courtesy call to King Herod.
Troubled by this potential threat to his power, Herod representing Rome,
consults with – oh look! – the scribes and chief priests - the Jewish elite,
and Herod tries through deceit and finally violence to squash the threat.
But Jesus and his family escape to Egypt
until Herod’s death signals that it’s safe to return home.

When it comes to beginnings and endings, Matthew has already shown us
that, with Jesus, all bets are off, and we have to recalibrate what we think we know.

The women come to the tomb and, always one to put on a show,
God gives a drum roll in the form of an earthquake.2
Lightning flashes, the stone rolls away, and an angel appears, sits on the stone,
and crosses its arms as if to say, “What do you think of THAT!”
The angel says to them, “Come, look inside if you must just to satisfy your need to know
but don’t waste your time here.
Don’t waste your time HERE. There’s nothing to see HERE.
This place that you thought was the end is nothing.
Go quickly and tell his disciples that he will meet them in Galilee, back at the beginning,
not so they can do it all over and hope to get it right this time,
because it was done right the FIRST time.
But tell them to go to Galilee because everything they thought was the end
is really a new beginning.
Everything they thought was the curtain coming down on all their hopes
is nothing more and nothing less than the curtain coming up
on the first act of a new life WITHOUT FEAR!”

The women ran – quickly like the angel said.
The women ran from the tomb laughing and sobbing, dancing and stumbling.
They ran from the EMPTY tomb to tell the disciples what had happened
and along the way they bumped into Jesus
and what could they do but fall at his feet and worship?
When the door has been opened to you
and the way has been cleared for you to step through into a new reality
where political power and military power and even death itself
have been revealed as nothing but paper tigers and candy clowns
what can you do but fall at his feet and worship?

“Do not be afraid,” Jesus tells them. That, and “Go tell my brothers to meet me.”
This is most important.
The disciples – the eleven who were left – had abandoned Jesus in his time of need.
They had scattered in fear,
scattered because they bought into the lie that Rome and the Jewish elite
had power over beginnings and endings.
When the chips were down they had believed what their experience
had told them to believe and not what Jesus had told them to believe.
But with the resurrection that first Easter morning,
Their betrayal was put under a spotlight;
their fear and unbelief hung out for all to see.

Yet Jesus had a message for them. He has a message for us.
“Fear is a powerful thing. Intimidation is scary.
By all accounts, death looms large like a huge stone
ready to seal us in a cold, dark tomb at any moment.
You have given into the fear sometimes.
You have made unfaithful choices as a result of your fear –
choices that look greedy and cowardly and mean.”

“But let’s not dwell on that,” Jesus says,
“Let’s not allow those past choices to be the stone that keeps you in the tomb.
Let’s begin again, you and I, not as teacher/student, not as Lord/subject,
but as brothers, as sisters.
Let’s go beyond the beginning, you and I,
into a life where the stone is rolled away,
and fear does not determine our every move
and Easter faith is our guide.

1 Long, Tom, Matthew, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 322.
2 Ibid.

Deep Well, No Bucket - Exodus 17:1-11, John 4:1-30

2011-04-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Nasty, brutish and short.
No, those aren’t the partners in a high-powered law firm.
That’s how philosopher Thomas Hobbes, writing in the mid 17th century
describes the life of a human being in his or her “natural” state.
Actually, the fuller description of human life by Hobbes
is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
To believe otherwise, Hobbes felt, was to believe in fairy tales.

Hobbes’ famous description of human life as nasty, brutish and short came to mind
when I read the two scripture lessons for today.
In the Exodus account we listen in on the desperate complaints of Hebrew pilgrims
who had left the secure misery of slavery in Egypt
for the insecurity of slavery to the natural elements in the Sinai wilderness.
From the well-hydrated comfort of a climate controlled sanctuary
it’s easy to chide the Hebrew wanderers for their lack of faith in God’s provision.
But if we step outside we can feel the intense sun of the High Desert
and we can see dry, volcanic wilderness from most any vantage point in Albuquerque.
It’s not so hard, then, to imagine the panic brought on by parched lips and swelling tongues
and not a drop in sight.

The human body needs water more than it needs food
and when the resource that sustains life becomes scarce for God’s people,
Thomas Hobbes’ theory seems proved.
The attitudes and behavior of the Hebrew people become nasty and brutish, sure enough.
They aim most of their ire and ill-will at Moses.
But Moses doesn’t shine so brightly in the account either.
He doesn’t offer his people any reassurances of God’s presence or faithfulness,
he in turn complains to God that his people expect too much from him.

Nasty, brutish, short.
Fast-forward 1500 years and we find Jesus traveling through Samaria
on his way home from Jerusalem to Galilee.
Inexplicably he is alone, the disciples trailing far behind.
Pooped by walking in the sun all morning, Jesus needs water
so he stops at noon at a well in Samaritan country.
He stops at a well in Samaritan country and he is thirsty.

Providentially, a Samaritan woman comes along to draw water from the well.
I say “providentially” because typically women came to the well twice a day,
early in the morning and in the evening, not at noon.
Preachers and Bible commentators have long imagined from this small tidbit of information
a colorful back-story for this Samaritan.
Out of their imagination they have pictured her
as a man-eating ingénue with out-of-control appetites.
She has to come to the well when no one else is there
because obviously she is a tart, a strumpet, unable to mix in polite company.

But I wonder, could these preachers and commentators reign in their imaginations
and consider the facts of the story instead of lurid innuendos?
Maybe the woman deserves compassion instead of condemnation.
Maybe she’s had terrible misfortune in her life, burying five husbands.
Maybe she has chosen an unconventional path refusing to marry again
but living with a man because a woman needs a man in that culture to survive.

We know for sure the woman is a Samaritan, what a good Jew would consider a half-breed,
a descendent of those who were left behind to intermarry with other tribes
when many of the Jews were taken from Judah into exile in Babylon,
left behind to continue the ancient traditions and survive as best they could.
Everyone needs a relative to look down on,
and for the Jews it was the Samaritans.

In practice, then, Jews and Samaritans sat at opposite ends of the bus,
and would not eat at the same lunch counter.
They certainly wouldn’t drink from the same cup.
To complicate things,
in the culture of the day, a woman was forbidden to speak with a man
who was a stranger to her, Jew or not.
And a man who was any kind of gentleman would not put a strange woman
in a compromising position by speaking to her in the first place.

According to Hobbes, life in its natural state is nasty, brutish, and short
full of social taboos and harsh judgments
and there was no reason for the Samaritan woman when she got up that morning
to expect that she would be anything other than exhausted by the end of the day.
But maybe because this woman was already living outside the bounds of convention
she was uncharacteristically open with the strange Jewish man at the well
who didn’t seem to care one whit about social niceties.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus says.
“How is it you ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” the woman replies.
“You ought to ask me for a drink,” Jesus says, “And I would give you living water.”
Then the woman, I don’t know - Flippantly? Sarcastically? Dismissively? Plaintively?
- the woman says to Jesus, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep.
Where do you get that living water?”

You know where she’s coming from.
You’ve gone as far as you can go, you’ve stood as much as you can stand,
you’ve taken a chance, even stepped out in faith,
but then you come up against it and suddenly there seems no way out.
Like the people of God wandering in the wilderness
you have no bucket. The well is deep.
Maybe you’ve done all the right things, put the needs of others ahead of your own needs
paid your taxes, voted every election, lived frugally within your means
and still it’s not enough to stave off abandonment, disease, mistreatment.
You know the feeling. You have no bucket. The well is deep.

To those of us who believe that life is fair, who hope to reap what we sow,
to find ourselves in need and without a bucket can be a shock.
To those who are used to being mistreated, worked over, discounted and overlooked
It’s not a big surprise. That’s the way it always is.
No bucket? Deep well? What else is new?

Maybe Hobbes had it right. Solitary. Poor. Nasty. Brutish. Short.
Maybe our tongues are destined to be swollen, our lips parched.
Our hunger insatiable, our thirst unquenchable.
Always jumping from the frying pan to the fire.
Always perched on the edge of a deep well
but with no vessel to draw up the life giving elixir.

If we dare to hope for divine intervention, is that giving into fairy tales?
If we cling to the possibility that Hobbes was wrong,
that in our natural state we are created not for nastiness or brutishness but for love
would that be a sign of weakness?
If we expect more from life than simply exhaustion at the end of the day
are we just deluding ourselves and of all people most to be pitied?

In her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Literature Professor Azar Nifisi
tells of a clandestine reading group she began with a group of women in her native Iran
under the oppressive regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Outside the women were required to cover themselves completely in drab garments.
Inside Nifisi’s home they could dare to be themselves and dream of a different life.
One day Azar Nifisi discusses with her circle a novel by Vladimir Nabokov
and an archaic letter of the alphabet, the name of which Nabokov makes up.
He calls it an “upsilamba.”
Nifisi invites her group to join the author in his imagination,
to let their minds play over this made up word and create new meanings of their own.

One says “upsilamba” sounds to her like the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
Another says it sounds like a dance.
Still another say it evokes the image of small silver fish
leaping in and out of a moonlit lake.
One says she pictures three girls jumping rope, shouting “upsilamba” with each leap.
Another says it is the magic code that opens the door to a cave filled with treasure.
Another says it is an African boy’s secret name.

Nafisi writes, “Upsilamba became part of our increasing repository
of coded words and expressions that brightened the darkness of that oppressive regime,
a repository of vague joy that grew over time
until gradually we had created a secret language all our own.

The woman at the well knows the difference between Jews and Samaritans
but she is surprised that Jesus knows so much about her.
John reports that the woman leaves the well in a state of distraction,
forgetting the water she has come to retrieve.
All the way back to the village we hear her recounting the conversation in her mind,
her brain arguing with her heart.
“Could he be? Nah…it’s not possible! But maybe…?”
The woman walks back to town, goes into the beauty parlor,
takes a seat in a vacant chair, looks around, blinks once and says,
“I just met a man who told me everything I’ve done.
He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?

Nobody had an answer for the woman, not then.
I don’t expect she really thought she’d get an answer anyway.
It’s not the kind of question that really needs an answer – not a verbal one anyway.
It’s like the letter “upsilamba” -
it’s not something you can argue or pin down like an insect on a specimen tray.
It’s more like a silver fish jumping into and out of a moonlit lake, a crazy dance,
a cave filled with treasure, the impossible joy of a suspended leap.
It’s the kind of thing you think about when you can do nothing but weep,
or suddenly feel like breaking into song,
or find your heart filled with prayer.
It’s like water gushing from a rock.
It’s like finding a bucket when you thought there was none.
It’s lowering that bucket into the well and pulling it up,
and then, not content just to take a few sips, you splash your face, your arms,
you dump it over your head.
Hobbes is wrong. Nasty. Brutish. Short. That’s a thirsty life in it’s most UN-natural state.
Why be thirsty when we have living water right here. Drink of it deeply and live.
_______________________
1 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, London: Oxford University Press World Classics, 2008.
2 Nafisi, Azar, Reading Lolita in Tehran, New York: Random House, 2003.

Coming In and Going Out Psalm 121, John 3:1-12

2011-03-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been to Europe you’ve probably seen a castle or two,
Even if you’ve only seen one of the Robinhood movies
you know what a castle looks like.
The classic castle design has an outer wall
and within the wall a courtyard called a bailey
where most of the daily activity of castle life took place.
In the most protected portion of the castle grounds
was the most secure structure of the castle, usually a tower,
sometimes round, sometimes square.
This tower was called the “keep.”
If the enemy attacked, the keep was designed to be a place of retreat,
the “keep” was designed to keep everyone safe.
This makes me think of Psalm 121, the psalm we just sang.
which says, “The Lord is your keeper.”

One of the most attractive elements of the salvation story
that undergirds the Jewish and the Christian faith
is the affirmation that our God promises among other things to KEEP us secure.
In Psalm 61 the Psalmist identifies God as “our refuge, a strong tower against the enemy,”
and In the eight verses of Psalm 121 the psalmist says that God will “keep” us
or identifies God as our “keeper” six different times.
But this promise of security we find in God, attractive as it is, can be misunderstood.
It can be overemphasized.

Even though the Lord is our keeper
that is not an invitation to hunker down and hole up.
It’s not an invitation to become obsessed with eliminating all risk in our lives.
While one leg of our salvation is grounded on a God who keeps our life,
another leg of our salvation stands on the willingness to take risk,
on a certain perpetual readiness to be open to the leading of God’s Spirit
no matter how settled and safe our life seems to be.

If you’re a student of the Bible it probably seems to you like it does to me
that most of those in the Biblical story who are tuned to God’s Spirit
drop everything when called by God and follow the Spirit’s leading.
Maybe it was easier back then.
Or maybe all the indecision and handwringing and self-doubt
has been edited out of the story.

In Genesis 12 we read, “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go,’ and Abram went.”
Just like that.
In the first two chapters of Mark we read that Jesus saw Peter and Andrew out fishing
and with no preliminary sales pitch,
no mission statement or explanation of strategy he said to them, “Follow me.”
Without the slightest hesitation, without stopping even to wash up,
they dropped their nets and followed.
They make their decision so fast it seems there ought to be some sort
of cartoon sound effect to go along with it.

Frankly, that’s why I like the story of Nicodemus.
With Nicodemus the response is not immediate – not at all.
Nicodemus is a man who has a lot to lose and his encounter with Jesus
is not the least bit simple.
That’s indicated by the fact that he comes to Jesus under cover of darkness.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus as the representative of a group,
the elected spokesman of some of the Jewish leadership
who are open minded enough to think Jesus may be authentic.
“We know that you are a teacher who has come from God,” Nicodemus says,
taking a risk just by uttering this vote of confidence.
It puts him counter to the prevailing wind of official opinion,
opens him to censure by many of his colleagues,
makes him vulnerable to ridicule by those in power
who are deeply invested in keeping things the way they are.

But Nicodemus and his secret colleagues have no idea, really, what Jesus is about.
They think that by throwing Jesus the bone of a compliment
they can engage him in a safe dialogue, get him, perhaps, to tone down his rhetoric
in exchange for their promises of assistance.
You may remember that in John’s account, before Nicodemus’ visit,
Jesus has just raised a ruckus in the temple square.
He’s overturned tables using a whip against those who exchange profane Roman coins
for Jewish shekels that can be used in the temple offering.
These moneychangers serve an important purpose in the temple economy
and even those like Nicodemus who were sympathetic to Jesus cause,
must have thought Jesus made a serious mistake,
challenging and interrupting the flow of money into temple coffers.

Nicodemus is there to assure Jesus of their quiet support for his ministry
and, in turn, he likely expects Jesus to be grateful; to act grateful.
Nicodemus is looking for some humility from Jesus,
maybe even a little recognition of the sacrifice Nicodemus is making
risking his reputation to come to Jesus man to man.
Why else would he be so annoyed by Jesus’ response.
“No one can see the kingdom of God, unless one is born from above.”
That’s what Jesus says.
That’s how he responds to Nicodemus’ gracious gesture
of risking his stature among his fellow Pharisees.

Nicodemus must have thought Jesus would say something like,
“Wow, this is great, I never thought a Pharisee would listen to what I had to say.
If I can build a coalition, get the right people on my side,
I can achieve my goals, get the support I want for my reforms.”
But instead Jesus implies that Nicodemus is incapable of perceiving God at work,
that he and his colleagues are spiritually blind, despite their good intentions.

That’s why Nicodemus responds sarcastically.
“Oh, right, I’m going to just crawl back into my mother’s womb,
take up a fetal position, so I can be discharged back out into the world
naked and squalling my head off.”
Nicodemus is a Pharisee,
He is part of the Jewish storytelling tradition.
He knows a metaphor when he hears one.
I don’t think he is the least bit confused by Jesus’ response.
I think he’s perturbed!

Nicodemus and his secret comrades are looking for a secure, non-threatening way
to engage Jesus -
a little scholarly debate, perhaps,
a diplomatic meeting of the minds that will allow them to eventually
introduce Jesus and his new ideas into their established circle.
Nicodemus is offering Jesus a way into the establishment,
and in one brief sentence Jesus lets Nicodemus know
that he thinks the establishment is bankrupt.

“No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” Jesus says.
No one can hope to perceive God’s realm or know what God is up to in the world
unless that person is willing to let go of what is safe,
unless that person is willing to entertain the idea that everything they think
they understand about what God wants from them has been turned upside down.
You want everything nailed down, Nicodemus, you want everything predictable,
but if you want to be part of what I’m about,
you’re going to have to be reborn by the Spirit of God,
you going to have to come to terms with the fact that God’s Spirit blows
in most unpredictable ways.

Then Jesus appeals to Nicodemus’ core identity to bring his point home.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”
Nicodemus’ core identity is as a Jew, a child of Abraham.
but he has forgotten that Abraham was one who left the security of his home
when he was 75 years old to answer God’s call to go to a foreign land.
Israel’s God is a strong tower against the enemy to be sure,
but Nicodemus has forgotten that God’s call to Israel was to leave behind the familiar
and embark on a journey toward the unknown.

What about us? We read Psalm 121 and we like the image of God as our keeper.
The castle keep is a secure place, a place to go in times of danger.
But it’s important that we don’t use safety as an excuse for perpetual retreat,
or let our love for security keep us from answering God’s call
or being alert to the movement of God’s Spirit.
Because another word for the castle keep was the Latin word “donjon.”
It’s where we get our word, “dungeon.”
It points to the fact that it doesn’t take much for the keep to become a dungeon,
for love of safety to become a form of self-imprisonment.

We shouldn’t be too hard on Nicodemus.
He didn’t get Jesus at first, he didn’t drop everything and follow him immediately,
but he did keep hanging around, he did keep showing up
At one point, later in John’s gospel, when the Pharisees are plotting against Jesus,
It’s Nicodemus who sticks up for Jesus,
counseling restraint among his colleagues.
And then at the end, as Jesus’ lifeless body is taken off the cross,
Nicodemus is once again there to help prepare the body for burial.

God’s Spirit does move where it will and to be born from above
means loosening our grip on things here below -
not becoming “so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good,”
but keeping in mind that our citizenship here is provisional,
that we’re all guest workers to some degree with our true home in God’s realm.

It’s never as simple to follow Jesus as the Bible sometimes makes it out to be
and we dearly do love to be safe, to take the risk out of life.
But if the Psalm promises that God will keep our coming in,
it also promises that God will also keep our going out.

So go on, go out; go out and examine your home life, your work life,
or your relationships for places where you have let your fear of change
or your love of security trap you in and endless circle of futility.
Go out and feel the wind, the wind of God’s Spirit that can lift you like a kite
or fill you like a sail.
Ask that God will birth in you, in us as a church, a new way of seeing
that will help us look at the same old scenarios
and see God at work in new and unexpected ways.

Palm Reading - Isaiah 49:8-16a, Matthew 6:24-34

2011-02-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

John Steinbeck wrote his novel Of Mice and Men in 1937.
It’s the story of George and Lennie, two migrant workers in California
with the dream of owning their own place.
Lennie was kicked in the head by a horse as a child
and depends on George to be his protector even though Lennie is the larger of the two.
George also serves as Lennie’s memory
and the two of them keep their hope alive with the recitation of the story
of how they will one day have a place of their own.

“Go ahead, George,” Lennie says, “Tell about how it’s gonna be.”
“OK, someday we’re gonna get the jack together
and we’re gonna have a little house, and a couple o’ acres and a cow and some pigs”
“And live off the fatta the lan’!” Lennie shouts.
“An’ have rabbits! Go on, George, tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden
and about the rabbits in the cages, and about the rain in the winter and the stove
and how thick the cream is on the milk and how you can hardly cut it!”1

Lennie and George have a dream that one day they will escape the daily worry
of where their next meal is coming from
and whether they’ll be able to find work.
Lennie is the innocent brute who doesn’t know his own strength.
George is the hustler, caught up in a cycle of self-loathing
because his own compassion won’t let him leave Lenny and strike out on his own.
When, in the story, we meet Curly, the cruel ranch foreman, we can tell from the start
that things are not going to work out well for George and Lennie, dream or no dream.

It’s the same feeling I get when I read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,
the way he says we don’t have to worry about our clothing or our drink
or where our next meal is coming from.
“Look at the birds, the grass, the lilies of the field,” Jesus says,
and I hear Lennie shout, “An’ we’ll live off the fatta the lan’!”
All the while the Pharisees, stand-ins for Curly, are eyeing Jesus suspiciously,
stroking their beards and waiting for him to make just one mistake.

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life,” Jesus says,
“Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
Yes, but…pardon me if I’m just a tad cynical, Mr. Jesus.
What about my rent, my medical bills, my student loans,
my daily cappuccino, for goodness sake!

Well-meaning people have trouble with this passage for good reason.
On the surface Jesus seems an irrelevant dreamer
out of touch with the real problems with which real people must deal.
“Don’t worry?” Is THAT all you’ve got for us, Jesus?
Don’t worry? When gas is over $3 a gallon, and jobs are still hard to find
and heroin is the drug of choice in our high schools?

Our passage today begins with the warning that money makes a poor master.
Jesus doesn’t say money is dirty or evil or no part of a spiritual life.
He just says we can’t have it both ways.
We can’t say we love God above all else
and then act as if “getting the jack together” to quote George
is going to make our dreams come true.

The problem with wealth is that it gives the illusion that if we have enough money
we can be in control of our destiny.
It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that with the right amount of cash on hand
we can rest easy, settle in, build a wall high enough to keep out the riff-raff.

Nobody’s knocking putting food on the table or having a roof over your head
but the trouble with seeing money as the solution to our problems
is that our problems always seem to be out in front of our money
no matter how much wealth we accumulate.
To put it another way, if getting enough money together
seems like the way to make our dreams come true,
then maybe our dreams are too small.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

In commenting on this verse John Calvin,
the one we look to as the founder of the Presbyterian church, wrote.
“The perverse burdensome carefulness for things of this life,
is corrected in the children of God by an earnest thinking upon the providence of God.”

It’s not “carefulness” in itself that’s the problem.
It’s a “perverse carefulness”, an overdeveloped preoccupation with managing life
that truly becomes a burden to us when it doesn’t have to be that way.

Jesus invites us to lift our eyes, to loosen our grip
to alter our perspective so that we see our life not in terms of what we don’t have,
but in terms of what we do have;
not in terms of all we have to lose, but in terms of all we have to gain.
Jesus invites us to consider not what you and I might be able to a accomplish
if we exercise careful control and oversight with ample amounts of worry thrown in,
but what God might be able to accomplish through us
if we were, as Calvin says “to earnestly think on the providence of God”
instead of the paralyzing fear of not having enough.

At the meeting of Santa Fe Presbytery on Friday right here in this sanctuary
we were all invited to entertain the possibility of a new way to be God’s church.
This new way of being God’s church would not require us to change the way we worship
or to expand our education program
or double our efforts to serve the homeless
though all that could result from this shift in attitude.
The main thing we would be required to do
if we were to adopt this new way of being the church
would be to let go of our worry that the church is going to die.

The dominant model of being God’s church that has prevailed in this country,
especially since the 1940’s when Immanuel was established
is the “Attractional” model.2
This way of being the church assumes that God’s intention is to build God’s church
into a vibrant institution which then serves the spiritual needs
of as many people as we can coax through our doors.

This model seemed to work well as long as we could assume
that most people see the church as relevant to their lives and important to society.
As long as that assumption was accurate,
our main task was to have a beautiful worship space,
a competent, professional paid staff to do the important stuff,
and willing volunteers to fill the supporting roles.
Even when we engage in outreach ministry our aim has been
to make that outreach compelling enough
so that people would be attracted to us, would want to join us.
Presbyterian churches have competed with churches of other denominations,
we have competed even among ourselves, to see who could claim the largest portion
of those who were looking for a church home.

There is nothing wrong with any of this.
But, the assumption upon which the “Attractional” model is based
no longer holds true.
We can spend days talking about what changed,
but the simple fact is that things have changed.
Fewer and fewer people are convinced of the relevance of church life to daily life.
We are graying.
You young adults who are here likely find little support among your co-workers
for your church-going practice.
One of my fellow small group discussion members, a fifty-something attorney from Taos
expressed the worry we all feel when the topic of church comes up.
“We’ve got to find a way to reach more teenagers,” he said,
“Or our church is going to die!”

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your church, whether it will grow. Is not life more than food, and the church more than a building?”

What if, instead of viewing the church as the end result of God’s activity in the world,
we saw ourselves as only one of the tools in God’s tool box.
What if we were to take to heart Jesus’ encouragement to his own disciples
when he said, “Strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.”
From what Jesus said, like it or not, the building of the church is not God’s chief end.
God’s chief end is the redemption of all creation
and we are privileged to have been invited along to help with that.

What if, instead of trying to get people to come through our doors,
we went and found them where they are?
What if we found people where they are – in our neighborhoods, in the check-out line,
and instead of telling them how great we are we listened to what’s important to them?
What if we came to worship and spent time together studying the Bible
and we experienced the mystery of God and remembered the times when God
has been faithful
and we made a point, then, to speak words of peace to our car mechanic
and hope to our hair dresser
and encouragement to our waiter
not so they would think us swell and want to join Immanuel Presbyterian Church
but so God’s peace and hope and encouragement might become real to them
as they carry on with their work.

What if we were to recognize God already at work in the Little League coach
and the restaurant owner and the school teacher
and instead of trying to create a church program to duplicate their work
we went out two by two, as the Bible says, and acknowledged their service
and volunteered to help them
not wondering how it would benefit the church but how it might make God more visible?

If we spend our time worrying how we’re going to “get the jack together”
to keep Immanuel Presbyterian afloat, we will become imprisoned in our worry.
If we let anxiety over church membership numbers
restrict the size of our dreams for our community, our prospects will become dim.
But remember the prophet Isaiah’s words,
how God has promised to say to the prisoners, “Come out!”
and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves!”
Because God has inscribed us on the palms of God’s hands in indelible ink
and though the church as it is may change,
God’s dream for us and for God’s world will never die.

1 Steinbeck, John, "Of Mice and Men," New York: Viking Press, 1938.

2 Roxburgh, Alan and M. Scott Boren, "Introducing the Missional Church: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One," Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009.

The Best in You - Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, Matthew 5:38-48

2011-02-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

Improvisation is an art that doesn’t come easy for me.
Some people seem to have a gift for it, though,
the fluid ability to shift identities easily and act out of a new identity
in a very believable way.
In acting class, an improvisation exercise involves an actor or group of actors
and a prompter who has the responsibility of coming up with a scene.
The prompter sets the stage with the characters and the scene
and the actors have to immediately act it out.
The more removed the scene is from the real life experience of the actors, the better.

For example, the prompter may say to a 20 yr old Hispanic actor
who grew up on a chile farm in Hatch, NM,
“You are a 90 year old English speaking Japanese soldier who for 65 years
has been hiding in a cave in the Philippines not knowing that World War II is over.
The rest of you are a group of paunchy, middle-aged tourists from New Jersey
wearing Hawaiian shirts and short pants and you come upon this soldier’s hiding place.
Now GO!”

If the actor playing the part of the Japanese soldier is a skilled improvisational actor
he will be able to quickly draw from his own experiences of isolation and fear
and imagine the psychological distortion
that comes from 65 years of defining yourself
almost solely in terms of who your enemy is.
He will tap into the confusion that comes from meeting ones enemy face to face
and the bewilderment of finding that the enemy is as flawed and vulnerable as he is.

When we read today’s passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount
I imagine it is an improvisational acting class
with Jesus as the prompter and the disciples as the actors.
The world experience of the disciples gathered at Jesus’ feet
is, by our standards, very limited.
They’re mostly working class men whose whole world is, for the most part,
a small slice of the Galilean province in Palestine.
They are Jews who have always defined themselves in terms of their enemies
and they’ve known nothing all their lives
but the oppressive regime of the Roman Empire
and corrupt Jews who collaborate with the enemy.

They probably know first hand what it’s like to be backhanded on the right cheek
by one of their social superiors, a Roman soldier or a wealthy merchant
intent on keeping them in their place.
They’ve probably had to put up their coat as collateral for a loan
when the fish just weren’t running and their boat needed repair.
They’ve seen friends, old men, made to drop everything and carry the pack
of a Roman soldier barely old enough to shave.

The men at Jesus’ feet have swallowed all this during the day,
feeling powerless, humiliated,
and then sat on their mats with friends at night
grumbling and dreaming of ways to get even.
An eye for an eye, right? A tooth for a tooth?
For what they and their friends are forced to endure every day
the whole Roman legion should be blind,
every arrogant Sadducee and corrupt Herodian should be unable to chew their food.

Violence for violence - it’s the only way.
Jesus’ disciples, like all their fellow Jews, defined themselves,
grounded their identity in knowing who they were against.
Fantasies of revenge played out in their heads
and the Jewish people were sure that one day God would send a deliverer, a Messiah,
who was blameless before the law and righteous in his zeal
and who, like Gideon and Deborah and Sampson of old
would lead the people and, with God’s help, deliver swift justice to their enemies.

We know what they were feeling.
We don’t live under martial law or kowtow to the whims of a dictator,
but we define ourselves by our enemies, don’t we? We always have.
In the beginning our national identity was forged by our hatred of the British.
Hitler gave an unambiguous face to the enemy
and the Soviet Union made our blood run cold.
On 9/11 we found a new enemy in the bearded mug of Osama bin Laden
and what we imagine to be the dark sneer of his Islamic minions.
Our former president responded to the attack on the World Trade Center
by drawing a clear line in the sand.
“If you’re not for us you’re against us.”

But this identity we forge for ourselves in response to our perceived enemy
is not only national. It’s personal as well.
We show movies in our heads of the rotten boss driving off a cliff,
or the backstabbing co-worker being marched out the door by security.
Some kid cuts me off in traffic
and for a moment I am transformed from a mild-mannered pastor into a battering ram
as I envision myself jamming down the gas pedal and slamming into the back
of his stupid SUV.
So Jesus is sitting there and we are gathered around him wondering,
“Is this the guy? Is this the one who is going to help us turn the tables on our enemies?
Is he the Messiah? The Deliverer? The one who will help us in our transformation
from Goat to Greatness? from Victim to Victor?’

And what does Jesus do?
He decides to lead us in an improvisational exercise.
He invites us to step out of our identity that is defined by our enemy
and try on a new identity,
an identity based on who we are in God’s eyes,
who we are as those created by God and claimed by God.

Imagine, he says, that instead of being defined by your enemy,
by your knee-jerk REACTION to what someone does to you or says to you,
you choose instead to be defined by your conscious choice,
by your independent decision to act out of your best self as defined by God.

For example, backhanding someone in Jesus culture
was a sign of superiority and contempt.1
So what Jesus was counseling was not submission but equality.
If someone backhands you on the right cheek as a gesture of contempt,
turn to him your left cheek as well as an invitation to strike you as an equal.
Don’t allow your identity or your reaction to be defined by your enemy’s contempt.

In the same manner, if you are required to give you coat as collateral for a loan
and your creditor takes advantage of your economic distress
and takes your coat in court.
Don’t let this unjust system define who you are.
Give up your cloak as well. Strip naked. Expose yourself
as a way of exposing the shame of a system where some have everything
and others have nothing.

In the same way, if a Roman soldier makes you carry his pack
to the legally mandated limit of one mile. Don’t stop there.
By your own choice, carry the pack another mile to show that you are no one’s slave.

Do you see what Jesus is suggesting?
He’s suggesting that we imagine taking on a new identity.
He’s inviting us to improvise, to seek a different way,
to define ourselves by the best in us not the worst in us.
By his suggestion, Jesus is gently teaching a radical new way
of understanding God’s world.
It is radical – oh yes, indeed!

“You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
Can I get an AMEN?
“You have heard it said, LOVE the one who looks like you and thinks like you
and acts like you
and HATE the one who looks different and votes different and believes different.
Preach it, Brother!
“But I say, LOVE YOUR ENEMY!”
Huh?
That’s right, LOVE the one who drives you to distraction,
the one who makes your skin crawl,
the one who humiliates you on a daily basis.
Why surrender your God given identity to someone who has only contempt for you?
Why surrender the best of yourself to the pigeon-hole someone else has assigned you?
Violence doesn’t work. Revenge DOESN’T WORK.
Our hate does not destroy our enemy. It destroys only you and me.

You may have read the story last week of the 31 year old Albuquerque police officer
Trey Economidy who, in the line of duty, shot to death 29 year old Jacob Mitschelen
after Mitschelen pointed a pistol at him in the course of a chase.
Economidy is a seven year veteran of the force assigned to the gang unit.
Most would say the shooting was unfortunate but unavoidable.
The twist in the story is that after the shooting
Economidy posted a new occupation on his Facebook page for all to see.
This new occupation he claimed was “Human Waste Disposal.”

I cannot imagine the psychological effect of dealing with ugly crime on a daily basis.
But the officer’s self-identification is hard to stomach.
Online comments in response are running half in shocked disbelief at his insensitivity
and half in support of his assessment of those who perpetrate crimes in our community.
What I find interesting though is the fact that Officer Economidy’s friends
say he’s not like that. They say he’s very professional in his interaction with everyone
and he doesn’t abuse his power.
Likewise, friends and family of Jacob Mitschelen say he was a good father
and a hard worker and well liked by those who knew him.

Somehow, though, both of these young men lost their identities,
they lost the best of themselves.
They allowed themselves to be reduced to their reactions to their enemy,
they allowed others to define who they were to a tragic end.

Every day, if we choose, we are all part of an improvisation class.
Jesus is our prompter.
He says, “Imagine that God has created you for something big.
Imagine that if you exercise the best in yourself
and you don’t give away your power to your enemy,
then you have the power to help establish God’s realm on earth,
Now, GO!”

1 Wink, Walter. "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination," Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992.

There's a Choice? - Deuteronomy 30:15-20, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

2011-02-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you can tell when someone just isn’t in the spirit of things.
Like the guy in the jewelry store hunched over the display case,
hands shoved down into his coat pockets
his eyes frozen in a glassy stare.
A rookie reporter doing a local story for Valentines Day
approaches the man, shoves a microphone in his face and says,
“And you, sir, are you celebrating Valentines Day this year?”
Slowly the man’s head swivels on his neck.
Momentarily his eyes focus on the perky young reporter
taking in the large engagement ring on her finger
and the bright-eyed optimism still fully intact.
He leans in close to the microphone and carefully articulates his answer.
“There’s a choice?”

There’s a choice?
Yes, there’s always a choice.
It’s a choice that Moses presented to the Hebrew people
who stood on the brink of arrival in the Promised Land
after 40 years in the crucible of the Sinai wilderness.
In the 40 years since they had escaped Pharoah’s oppressive hand in Egypt
the people of God had been shaped by experiences of God’s grace
when they least expected it.
They had felt God’s favor even when they grumbled and complained.
They had found the courage to move ahead into the unknown
even when the fear inside their heads
screamed for them to turn back toward Egypt,
away from an uncertain freedom
back to a secure, if miserable, captivity.

Most of all, the people of God had given their assent to the gift of the Law.
They had stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and heard God’s commandments,
the chief of which we know as the ten commandments.
They had given their assent to this new understanding of how life is to be lived,
not randomly or haphazardly or merely as a reaction to events.
They had signed onto the idea that a well-lived life is a proactive life,
lived not in reaction to random events
but lived with deliberation, with a big picture in mind,
lived within a moral and ethical framework.

We Christians sometimes have the wrong idea
that the Jewish law is something we are lucky to have escaped.
Just last week, however, we read in Matthew that Jesus came not to abolish the law
but to fulfill it.
We resist the law because we’ve read of how the law was misused,
how it came in its practice to be calcified and rigid.
As practiced the law became a heavy yoke around the necks of God’s people,
a means of manipulation and control in the hands of the Jewish elite.

We don’t want to be manipulated or controlled. We don’t want to be hemmed in.
We like choices, and it seems on the surface
that unlimited choices are what we need.
Any sort of moral code feels restricting
and freedom from all restrictions seems to the immature mind
the best of all possible worlds.
But ask those who’ve tried it.
Life with no framework, no responsibility, no direction is a living Hell.
The law, as given by God, is a gift of freedom from the tyranny of unlimited choices,
and yet God gives us the choice to receive the gift or to reject it.

Now, before I go further, let me be clear.
I am not here to defend the entire holiness code as outlined in Leviticus.
I’m not here to promote kosher cooking
or the Jewish way of removing mold from your house,
or the stoning to death of those caught in adultery.

I would support leaving fallen grapes from your vineyard for the poor
and not getting tangled up with wizards,
but we can and should discriminate among the rules and regulations in Leviticus
based on our understanding of the cultural mandates
reflected in Leviticus that no longer apply.

When Moses said to those who had followed him to the Promised land
“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity”
he wasn’t quibbling in particular about whether his people
were going to choose to go out dancing with unsavory characters
or go to church camp.
He was presenting to them the choice to either live within the vital and vibrant framework
of God’s way,
a way that was woven into the fabric
of who they were and what they had experienced ,
or, to live as though they were spiritual orphans,
unmindful of their past, undisciplined in their present,
and unconcerned about their future.
The Hebrew people DID have a choice.
Moses couldn’t make them love God.
All he could do was lay out in stark contrast the consequences
that awaited them depending on how they chose.
Moses wanted his friends to know that choosing to live within the framework
of God’s design is the path to freedom.
Choosing to ignore God’s design acting as though you have unlimited choices
is a one-way ticket back to captivity in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

Speaking of Egypt…
We have seen a remarkable example of thousands of people choosing life in Egypt
over the past 20 days.
Gaining courage from events in Tunisia, young men and women in Egypt
decided they had had enough of the familiar oppressive regime of Hosni Mubarak.
They rose up in the thousands to demand an end to his dictatorship.
And every tactic the ruling party threw at them –
attacks by security forces,
misinformation campaigns to paint them as Muslim extremists,
scolding and threats and charges of being anti-Egyptian –
every tactic was met with even more protesters,
even stronger resolve not to give in.
The protesters did not return violence for violence.
They banded together in neighborhood patrols to resist the chaos of lawlessness.
They refused to weaken and accept half-measures
which might have benefited some but not all.
They were disciplined, and idealistic, and firm and they chose LIFE!

Now, I don’t know about you, but as one who is redeemed by God’s grace alone
and one who is sure that I’ve done nothing to earn God’s gift of new life
I get nervous with “If…then” statements.
If you do this…then God will do this.
Such statements seem to run counter to the good news of Jesus
and the promise that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God
not even stupid choices.

But there’s a difference between resting securely in God’s unearned love
and actually living our lives in such a way
that we maximize the experience of God’s love.
We are made by our Creator and we come with an operating manual
and if we choose to live according to God’s specifications then we run strong.
But if we choose to live counter to how we were created;
if in our immaturity we think we can cut corners or go our own way
then we break down, we overheat, not at first, perhaps,
but eventually we slip our gears and finally stall out.

You and I choose death when we let fear get the best of us,
forgetting that God is with us even in our distress.
You and I choose death when lose contact with our best self,
when we give into the lies that we are worthless.
You and I choose death when we get lazy and act as though we are owed something
just for breathing God’s air.

But we choose life when we admit our weakness and rely on God’s strength.
We choose life when we push past our fear and take a risk –
trusting, even when it seems easier to run,
leaning forward in faith toward an uncertain future,
even when it’s so tempting to return to a familiar kind of misery.

A man walks through his door at home, puts a small box on the table
and mumbles, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
His wife opens the box, takes out a pair of earrings and puts them on.
“They’re lovely,” she says, “Thank you.”
She leans in, kisses him on the cheek and says,
“They’re lovely, but they’re not what I really want for Valentine’s Day.”
The man sighs and starts to turn away but his wife catches him by the arm.
“What I really want for Valentine’s Day,” she says,
“Is for you and me to go to marriage counseling.”
He starts to protest, but she continues,
“This is not an ultimatum.
I’m not planning to leave if we don’t.
If this is as good as it gets I can live with it, but I think it could be better.
I’ll leave it up to you. You choose.”

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Choose life so that you and your descendents may live.”

The Trouble With Salt - Isaiah 58:1-9a, Matthew 5:13-20

2011-02-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

The Trouble with Salt
Isaiah 58:1-9a
Matthew 5:13-20

MTV began as a music video station on cable TV in 1981.
I never paid for it on cable or watched it that I recall
but somehow I was aware that one of MTV’s early slogans
was “Too much is not enough.”
It makes a good rebellious kind of slogan for teen-oriented TV
but it’s not exactly true, now is it?

I was going to ask for a show of hands of who here has high blood pressure
but I decided that might be an invasion of your right to medical privacy
so I decided against it. But you know who you are.

One of the usual responses to the diagnosis of high blood pressure
is to reduce the amount of salt in your diet – or do away with it altogether.
But if you were raised like me on southern cooking
taking away salt is like taking away oxygen.
You might as well eliminate jazz from New Orleans
or green chiles from New Mexican menus.
Still, country ham and corn bread aside, you can have too much of a good thing.
Salt in moderation can be life enhancing.
Too much salt, however, can be a problem.

Other things are like that. Parenting, for example.
D. W. Winnicott, a British psychiatrist and pediatrician,
coined the phrase, “The good enough mother.”
A popularized version of his research says that after a point,
the energy put into parenting has a diminishing return.
In other words, after a point, if a parent is anxiously trying to be the perfect parent,
the child will pick up not on the love, not on the guidance,
but on the anxiety more than anything else.
There is such a thing as too much parenting.
The challenge is to be a “good enough” parent.
And no, that doesn’t mean “barely adequate.”

Sometimes you can have too much piety.
Some people never spend time in devotional reading, or in prayer,
or in service to others,
but sometimes you find a person who gives to others compulsively
or prays obsessively
or lets involvement with the church destroy other relationships.
Sometimes you meet someone who feels the need to defend his or her faith
to the point of becoming abrasive or smug.
Sometimes you find a person who is anxiously devoted to certain spiritual practices
in the mistaken impression that they can earn God’s favor and stave off calamity.
Even with spiritual practices there is such a thing as too much.

The Hebrew people in the book of Isaiah
who have returned to Jerusalem after fifty years of exile in Babylon
have fixated on the spiritual practice of fasting as a way to please God.
After fifty years they have no more insight into why they were defeated by the Babylonians
than they did when their exile began.
Their perception is that God abandoned them to the Babylonians
and that if they just fast enough God will return to them and listen to them.

What they don’t seem to understand is that God has been with them all along.
God didn’t turn from them, they turned from God
as they got their priorities mixed up,
as they built walls between themselves,
as they forgot their own stories of how they themselves
had once been oppressed workers in Egypt
and hungry wanderers in the desert;
how they had once had to depend entirely on God’s grace and deliverance
and God came through for them time and time again.

Those who have returned to Jerusalem have become compulsive in their fasting,
acting as though this spiritual practice (that can be very meaningful in moderation)
is their magic bullet,
their ticket to a life free of any more disruption,
free of any more sadness or loss or harm.
The problem, of course – you see it -
the problem is that they are going through the motions of fasting without feeling it.
They are following the steps, adhering closely to the rules, hitting every note
but they’re not hearing the music.

They’re not hearing the music so their dance is awkward and a half-beat off.
There’s no grace in their movements, no flow, no feeling, no joy.
Fasting is supposed to help a person focus on God.
Going without food on purpose is supposed to help you and me gain an appreciation
for food, for all of God’s good gifts for that matter,
and thereby live with more gratitude, more confidence, and less anxiety.
Fasting as a spiritual practice is supposed to help us understand
how dependent we are on God for the things that sustain us
and learn that what sustains us is more than carne adovada and sopapillas.
You can have too much of a good thing, even a spiritual practice,
especially when you’re doing too much of a good thing for the wrong reason.
The people of God who returned from the exile to Jerusalem still don’t get it.
Life in God’s family isn’t about following the rules,
it’s about living in relationship.
It’s not about dotting “I’s” or crossing “T’s.
It’s about recognizing and honoring the image of God in each person
and making sure that if one is fed and clothed and sheltered
all are fed and clothed and sheltered.

The people of God came back to Jerusalem and they faced the daunting task of rebuilding.
Surely it caused them some stress.
Stress can bring out the worst even in people who say they believe in God.
It can bring out some ugly traits even in those of us who want to follow Jesus
when the foundation of our faith is thin,
when the foundation of our faith is poured on sand instead of rock,
when there is mostly show and not much substance.
“Why do you fast and then oppress your workers,” Isaiah asks.
“Don’t you remember Egypt?”
“Why do you fast and then quarrel and get into fistfights and forget the needs of the poor?”
“Don’t you remember how God gave you everything you needed in the wilderness?”

This past week has been stressful.
The temperature dipped to one notch below bitter cold.
Pipes froze and burst. Natural gas was in short supply.
Some people cursed the cold and the plumbers who couldn’t get there fast enough.
Others endured the cold and pitched in to help where needed.
Stress can bring out the best in people, too.

Jesus wanted his disciples to understand the lesson Isaiah tried to teach.
“You are the salt of the earth,” he says
when he’s up on the hill, his friends gathered around.
It’s a powerful metaphor.
Salt is a most effective preservative
and it was essential to life before refrigeration.
In the Bible salt is a symbol of steadfastness, of endurance and permanence.
When sacrifices were made in the temple salt was added
as a sign of the eternal nature of God’s covenant.
Women salted their babies as a ritual and a prayer for long life.

Some salt is good, it adds flavor.
Too much salt can be toxic.
Jesus warned about salt losing its saltiness.
I tend to worry more about salt becoming too concentrated.
Some people want to be salty Christians, but they do the same thing
the people of God did back in Isaiah’s day when they finally got home from Babylon.
Out of fear of abandonment or some sort of misguided wishful thinking
some people who want to follow Jesus think that to do it
they have to be the first one to insert a Bible verse into every conversation
or they have to be the most eloquent in their prayers
or they have to defend the Christian faith most vigorously
by denouncing other faiths most forcefully.

In their efforts to win God’s favor
and to magically stave off disappointment and grief and harm.
they forget that what is most important is being in relationship.
What’s most important is being able to see the image of God in each person.

Some people heard Jesus’ teaching and worried that he might be advocating
some soft, watered-down version of the Jewish law
or that he might try to do away with the law all together.
That’s threatening to those whose faith is built on compulsive obedience,
those who think they can earn God’s love with perfect attendance or gold star behavior.
But Jesus’ says, “No, I’m not going to do away with the law.”
He says, “My purpose is to help you see
that obedience is a blessing when it comes from a grateful heart.
Living according to God’s prescription is life-giving
not when it divides, but when it helps build connections and promote peace.”

As you come to Christ’s table this morning
don’t do it because you think it will make you look good
or because you think you should.
Come as a way of saying “Thank you” to God for your daily bread.
Come as a way of offering yourself to be in relationship with God and each other.
Come as a prayer to God that God will make you salty enough
and good enough
and ready enough to serve others in Christ’s name.

Humble Beginnings -- Micah:6:6-8, Matthew 5:1-12, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 25-31

2011-01-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

Your elders have been reading a book together for the past few months.
It’s called, “Christianity for the Rest of Us.”
The author, Diana Butler-Bass, set out to discover two things:
one – if there are any churches among what we call “mainline” denominations
who are not dying, but, in fact, thriving,
and two – if there are such churches, are there any common denominators among them,
any common traits that account for their vibrant life?

The encouraging news is that she did find thriving mainline churches.
She also found ten common traits that seem to account for their vibrancy.
One of the ten traits she identified is an actively expressed concern for “justice.”
Of the mainline churches she labeled as thriving,
they each in some way educate themselves and get involved in
opportunities to create a more just world.

Seems simple enough, right? “Justice.” “Doing justice” helps make a church healthy.
In our minds we all probably feel like we know what she’s talking about.
But when we try to tease out the threads of what justice really means,
it becomes more complicated than it first appears.

People outside the church understand justice as at least the appearance of “fairness.”
As long as everyone appears to get a fair shake
and seems to have equal access to goods and services;
As long as people are theoretically equal in the sight of the law
then those outside the church feel they can go about their business
with a clear conscience, that justice is being done.
It’s a passive approach to justice.

But inside the church we are called to a higher standard of justice;
The prophets, Jesus, and Paul among others
never judged a nation or a crowd or a faith community
simply on whether they were good citizens and obeyed the letter of the law.
The criteria by which the prophets, and Jesus and Paul judged their audiences
were always based in kindness and mercy and compassion;
always based on a preference for those who are weaker,
those who are ill-equipped for whatever reason
to negotiate life with cunning and shrewdness like the rest of us.

Having said that, however, I think the Biblical witness is clear
that there is more to justice than simply showing compassion to those in need.
This is what we struggled with most as we talked together as a Session recently
about what it means to make justice a priority in this church’s life.

None of us has much stomach for getting embroiled in political disputes
and we’ll all had the experience of somebody trying to cram their idea of justice
down our throats.

At the church I attended as a college student,
I heard the story of a long time minister who in the sixties
left his pulpit in the middle of his sermon one Sunday
as anti-war protestors out in the street could be heard chanting slogans.

The minister passionately agreed with those who thought the United States
should get out of Viet Nam and as he strode down the aisle toward the outside door
he removed his robe, tossed it aside and proclaimed,
“Any of you who call yourselves Christian will join me outside.”
Some, I’m sure, joined him.
Others, however, were understandably upset
at having their faith called into question because they either had
different ideas about the war or different ideas about how to express their dissent.

We know there is injustice in the world, in our nation, even in our city.
If we’re honest we’d prefer not to know it.
We know the dangers of imposing on others our own sensibilities of what is just or unjust
and we surely don’t want others imposing their views on us,
so the safe thing is to ignore the systemic causes of injustice
and simply try to make better some of the suffering injustice causes.
The safe thing is to ignore government policies or cultural biases that penalize some
and reward others
and quietly and sincerely express our regret
that we just can’t do anything for fear of upsetting somebody.

Because the thought of addressing injustice seem so thorny and complicated,
because our friends or we ourselves have a vested interest in keeping things as they are,
because we all know people who are outspoken and strident
and seem much more interested in the spotlight than in effecting change,
we are reluctant – even afraid – to ask too many questions
or get even get involved at all.

Yet, we all know what happens when good people choose not to get involved.
Nazi Germany taught us that.
The McCarthy era taught us that.
The Rwandan genocide taught us that.

We know what happens when good people satisfy themselves
with sending food to earthquake victims in Haiti
while U.S. food aid policy toward Haiti benefits our own country’s food industry
and makes it impossible for Haitian farmer’s to compete.

We know what happens when good people stay quiet
as mortgage brokers and banks and investment companies
are allowed to operate unchecked to maximize their short term profits
and bump up their bonuses.

We’ve put great energy into the idea that we want to be a neighborhood church
We want to be helpful to those who drop by the church during the week,
those who come to us hungry or without adequate shelter.
We can feed them. We can pay for a cheap hotel room for a night.
But their presence in our reception area begs so many other questions.
Why, for example, is there not enough work with decent wages for those who want to work? What are the different causes of homelessness?
Is there affordable housing in the city?
What about the mentally ill? Are we doing enough in this city for them?

This church had a great outpouring of love at Christmas in Don Whatley’s memory
giving generously to the school system’s homeless children’s project he worked with.
That was a compassionate act – a good act –
but we can’t claim it was an act for justice.
It made them feel loved, no doubt, but it didn’t address their homelessness.

I’m the first to say that some of those who drop by our church try to con us.
They are clearly after something they can sell to buy drugs.
Do we turn them away or do we try to help them?
I do my best not to get taken in by their con or support their habit,
but their addiction does raise the question about rampant drug abuse in our city.
It raises the question about the effectiveness of local, state, and national drug policies.
We as a society put a lot of tax dollars into arresting and incarcerating drug abusers.
Should we be putting that money into treatment programs instead?

We are not faithful to our calling as Christians if we do not address these questions.
We are not faithful to our calling as Christians if we do not go beyond
strict legal interpretation and obedience to cultural and social norms
as we try to answer these questions.

Paul reminds us that God has a tendency to turn social norms on their heads.
He writes, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not,
to reduce to nothing things that are.”

And Jesus reminds us that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (justice)
will be persecuted.
Tom Long, in commenting on Jesus’ eighth beatitude writes,
“Much money and power are invested by many in maintaining injustice.
Seeking the right does not win universal approval; it stirs up snakes!”1

No, we can’t right every wrong,
but we can carefully choose where to put our energy and we can work for justice.
We can do our best to align ourselves with God’s intentions for God’s creation
and seek to place ourselves at the intersection where God’s past and present
overlaps with God’s future kingdom as it unfolds.
On this day when we seek wholeness and healing in our lives,
aligning ourselves with God’s just intentions is a good step in the right direction.

The prophet Micah had it right, I think, only maybe he got it backwards.
We will thrive as the people of God in this place if we seek justice.
But instead of doing it in Micah’s order where we seek justice and then love kindness
and then walk humbly with our God, I think we need to turn it around.
To keep ourselves from falling into the trap of dividing ourselves into opposing camps
over hot button topics,
or making ourselves so strident that nobody can stand to be around us,
or letting ourselves be seduced into thinking we’re just the holiest, bestest
Christians God ever had the privilege of knowing –

Instead of all that, we need to first walk humbly with God,
reminding ourselves daily that it is God and not us who has the final answer.
Then we need to love kindness – act kindly, not just toward those who think like we think
but toward even our harshest opponent,
Then we can talk about – and we must talk about – being brave enough to take a stand
for the foolish and the weak and the despised of this world.
Because, who knows, in the end that just might be us.
_________________
1 Long, Thomas G., Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion Series, eds. Patrick D. Miller and David L. Bartlett, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 50

2011-01-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

Self-fulfilling Prophecy - Isaiah 49:1-7, I Corinthians 1:1-9

2011-01-16T14:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we need people to see in us those qualities that we cannot see in ourselves.
Sometimes we need someone else to see God’s image in us and raise the bar for us
so that we don’t end up settling for a purpose too mundane or a calling too small.

My senior year in college I was hired to be a Resident Assistant in one of the dorms.
I probably pretended it was for some noble reason like helping freshmen find their way,
but really I did it so I could get a free room in the dorm all to myself.
My Resident Director for the area of campus where I lived was named Charlie
and he had been doing that work a number of years and he was good at it
Fortunately for me, in my interview for the job, Charlie was able to see something in me
beyond my naive, sheltered, self-absorbed, clueless self
and I think he took me on as a project.

Charlie was one of those people who delights in exaggerated flattery. It’s like a game.
If he would introduce me to someone he’d say something like,
“Janet, have you met David Cameron?
David is the coolest guy on campus. He’s smart and funny
and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t one day find a cure for cancer.”
I knew he was full of baloney and had his tongue planted squarely in his cheek,
but there was a part of me that basked in this kind of flattery,
a part of me, when I was in Charlie’s presence, that felt smarter and funnier.
His nickname for me was “the Gentle Giant,”
and, I swear, I became more gentle, kinder, more thoughtful of others in that year.
Because of Charlie’s influence that year, I may have actually helped one or two freshmen
find their way – at least from the dorm to the student center.

One of the most interesting things I learned in seminary about the letters of Paul,
is that most of the time you can tell from Paul’s greeting,
the way he opens his letter
what the issues are in the church to whom he’s writing.
Sometimes it’s only after you read the entire letter that it these clues become evident
but they are there.

With the exception of his letter to the Galatians where he was really angry,
Paul begins his letters with flattery, flattery that often seems over the top,
but he does it for a purpose.
In no letter is this opening flattery more effusive
than his first letter to the church in Corinth.

If you look at the squabbles and challenges going on in the Corinthian church
it’s a wonder why Paul even bothers with them.
Corinth was a port city with all the challenges usually found
in a cosmopolitan city where there is plenty of money and lots of people,
many of whom are transient and far from home.

From the body of Paul’s letter we discover in the Corinthian church there were
• Factions within the community as different members
swore allegiance to different leaders, some disputing Paul’s authority.
• There was scandalous behavior going on between a man and his step-mother.
• There were members of the church suing one another in public courts.
• When they had a common meal together some greedily gobbled up everything
before everyone had a chance to be served.
• And some who had been given certain colorful gifts of the Holy Spirit
were acting superior to those who had other, less dramatic gifts.

But when Paul opens his letter to this unruly group what does he call them?
He calls them “sanctified.”
He calls them “saints.”
He tells them that he always gives thanks to God for them,
for how they have been enriched in Christ, in speech and knowledge of every kind.
He gushes on and on about how they lack not one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit
and how they have been made strong and will surely BE strong to the end.

Such flattery!
Who’s Paul trying to kid?
Why doesn’t he just blast them from the beginning,
call them on their bad behavior from the very start?
Why this high praise for people who seem determined to self-destruct?
Come to think of it, shouldn’t Paul just cut his losses and turn his focus elsewhere?
spend his time in prison writing to a more appreciative crowd?

As rotten as those Corinthians who followed Jesus could be,
Paul chooses to first illuminate the strength in them, not their weakness.
He chooses to initially highlight evidence of where grace had gained traction in their lives
instead of immediately rubbing their noses in the skid marks of their dysfunction.

In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul spells out his strategy more fully.
In chapter five he writes, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a
human point of view;...So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation....”

As disappointing as the behavior of his brothers and sisters in Corinth could get,
Paul makes a conscious decision not to look at their faults
before he first tries to see them as God sees them;
see them as those who, despite their shortcomings,
have been sanctified, set apart, for service to God.

Some may look at Paul’s strategy and call it manipulation.
Maybe it is.
But if it is manipulative, it is manipulative with the goal in mind
of raising the bar for his friends in Corinth,
challenging them to live up to God’s intentions for them.

Others may look at Paul’s opening compliments and call them dishonest –
pretending the church-goers in Corinth are something they’re not,
contributing to the equivalent of grade inflation,
giving out All-Star trophies just for showing up to the game.

But notice that it’s not the Corinthians themselves Paul is praising.
It is GOD”S work IN them that he holds up for examination.
He doesn’t credit them with any particular accomplishment.
But he does highlight in them their POTENTIAL for accomplishment
given the work God has already begun in them.

God has set them apart – SANCTIFIED them,
but what good is that if they don’t honor God’s intentions by doing God’s work?
God has called them TOGETHER to be saints,
but what good is that if they keep dividing themselves into factions?
God has given them every gift of the Holy Spirit
but what good is that if they honor only some of those gifts
and look down their noses at others.

Yesterday was the 82nd anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth.
King was an educated man with many gifts
and he was not without his flaws.
But in my opinion, his genius, the most important gift he had and exercised to great effect,
was his capacity to keep believing in the goodness of the white race.

Even when his house was being bombed,
even when his friends were being roughed up and arrested,
even when snarling dogs and fire hoses were assaulting young women and men
who were doing nothing but walking together in peaceful protest
King did not lose his faith that God’s image is in every person,
that evil may be strong, but goodness is stronger,
that each person, no matter the color of his skin or the circumstance of her birth
has the God-given capacity to do the right thing.
Even when members of his community were urging him
to give up what they considered the idealistic nonsense of non-violence
King held to his dream that justice could prevail
by unapologetically and persistently appealing to the best in humanity.

The horrific events last week in Tucson have made us pause and consider
what we have come to as a nation and where we want to go from here.
Whatever Jared Loughner’s state of mind or motivation for doing what he did,
this jarring tragedy has caused at least a momentary lull in our national bickering,
and gives us the opportunity for some introspection if we will take it.

When we look for the worst in people we will find it.
When we lower our expectations of each other, those expectations will be met.
When what is wrong becomes our obsession
we lose our capacity to see what is right.
The times of our greatest strength as a nation have come
when we have focused not on our differences but on what knits us together,
not on our individual weaknesses but on our collective strength.

It is the easiest thing in the world to complain.
It is a cheap and short-lived satisfaction we gain when we put someone down.
It takes effort to see the good in someone who disagrees with me.
It takes a mature faith and a broad vision to keep focused on God’s design
and avoid being distracted by petty bickering.
I’m all for having strong opinions and working hard to achieve what you believe is right,
but we also need to be humble enough to admit that human perception is always limited.
Human wisdom is always flawed.

Every one of us here has the chance to alter our perspective.
Every one of us here can choose to look for God in each person we meet.
It’s not the easy choice.
The easy choice is to focus on what we dislike, to be offended;
to build myself up by putting someone else down.
The easy choice is to define who I am not by what I like but what I hate.

But if Paul could see God’s hand at work
in that ragged, pretentious, deeply flawed church in Corinth,
If Martin Luther King, Jr. could see the possibility for justice
in the brutality of racism,
If Charlie could see potential in a tall, goofy, inexperienced knuckle-head like me,
surely we all can take this opportunity to pursue the harder choice,
the more mature choice,
the Christ-centered choice
and look first for similarities before we look for differences,
look first for strength before we look for weakness,
look first for God’s image even in those whom we perceive as enemies,
because it is surely there.
And we nee to see God’s image in each other, raise the bar for each other
so we as a church do not find ourselves settling for a purpose too mundane
or a calling too small.