Isaiah 65:17-25
Luke 21:5-19
What if,
instead of going through the motions of life, planning to meet deadlines, responding to circumstance,
WE RECAPITULATE that this is a Spiritual world, a world of Divine Imagination.
What differences might there be, if instead of following conclusions of the reality we know, we perceived that God was continually reconciling the world in and around and through even us?
As a child of the 1960s, there was a marvelous toy called a SpiroGraph, with interlocking plastic wheels, that turned and worked off of one another. You placed a pen in the whole of a gear and as the teeth meshed and gears worked a beautiful design appeared. But choosing a different gear, beginning from the perspective of another starting point, the design was completely unique.
That is the point of Isaiah.
STOP where we are in this moment in time. Imagine all the circumstances and relationships and responsibilities we have. Because “the different” is only appreciated as different when compared to what we know.
Now imagine what life would be like, if Adam and we, had never broken Covenant with God?
If the child, baptized this day were not the third of this family, but truly known as a Child of God?
Like a parent waiting for the Prodigal to return, like Jesus walking up to the tree of Zachaeus, surely God desires for us to RECAPITULATE and Start afresh from a new perspective.
In a reality where lion and lamb do lay together, where ox and predator both eat straw. Imagine a reality without war, or hostility of prejudice. Imagine a reality without FEAR.
Such a simple, tiny change. To imagine life, not as we have come to fear, but as a gift from God.
A message was recently sent out from the Comedian George Carlin upon the death of his partner.
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings and shorter tempers.
Wider freeways and narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but continually have less, we buy more but enjoy less.
We have bigger houses for smaller families,
Greater conveniences, yet less time.
We have more degrees of education, but less common sense, more knowledge and less judgment.
We have more experts and greater problems, more medicine and less well-being.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read far too little, watch too much TV and pray seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, while reducing our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom and hate too easily.
We have learned how to make a living, without living life.
We have added years to life, but not life to our years.
We have been to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing our own backyard to meet a new neighbor. We have done larger things, but not better.
We have tried to clean the air and water, while polluting our souls.
We have split the atom, but failed to unite across prejudice.
We write more, communicating less. We plan more, accomplishing less.
We have learned to rush and multi-task, rather than to wait and to do one thing well.
We build more computers, to hold more information, to produce more copies, we text in acronyms, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast food and slow digestion,
big men with small character,
steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes and McMansions, but more divorce and more broken homes. These are the days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morals, one night stands, overweight bodies and pills to do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is so much in the showroom and nothing in stock.
These are days where we attend LAUGH THERAPY because Laughter makes us feel good, and we have so little to laugh or feel good about.
A time when technology can bring you these ideas, and the ability to save them or delete.
This week when you are gathered in Thanksgiving with loved ones, remember to give thanks, because they will not always be around forever.
Remember to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person will soon grow up and leave your side.
Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart that doesn't cost a cent.
Remember to say “I love you” to your partner and loved ones, but more importantly to mean it.
A kiss and an embrace can mend hurt, when it comes from deep inside, or be a betrayal when not.
Remember to hold hands, and cherish the moment.
Give time for love to grow and take time, make time to speak!
Give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
And always remember:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
The Gospel of Luke records Jesus saying that,
In the world we have made there will be wars and rumors of wars. There will be persecutions, and fires and floods. But this in not how God intended life to be.
He offers three instructions: DO NOT BE LED ASTRAY,
DO NOT CHASE AFTER THEM,
DO NOT TRY TO PLAN OUT WHAT TO SAY, But trust God.
ULTIMATELY we have one power, one ability.
We may not be able to stop a war, or prevent the Earth from Quaking.
We may not be able to preserve buildings from becoming ruins, but...
We can make our minds to Believe,
We can choose to live our differently because we believe, or we can react and respond to every wind that blows, defensively trying to fight against life.
BAPTISM is making up your mind to believe, that NO MATTER what happens, this child is a gift from God, and we will pray for her. MARRIAGE is making up your mind, right now, before the moment, that you want to love and be loved, to put their needs first.
COMMUNION is a willingness to share and receive, not knowing what is in the heart of another, but committing to be there with them.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Challenging Complacency
Jeremiah 1: 4-10 “I consecrated you”
Luke 13: 10-21 “Mustard seed and Healing a woman on the sabbath”
This morning's is a sermon, I have not wanted to preach.
Like the Rabbi at the Synaggogue it has seemed there were other times and other places,
through professional counseling, group therapy, medicines, and the Law, Church Law and Criminal where such matters could be resolved, that this time could be set apart as sacred. But as I set out for a few days of respite, news of this story broke, and several asked that we speak to it.
Like Jeremiah, I have tried to protest, this is not our problem, it belongs to another church. Many have blamed the Bishop and Church Government, while others scapegoated the one accused, our own history records that when abuse was named many tried to blame the victims. Yet, we cannot. We cannot blame or scapegoat, and we cannot ignore the word that proclaims: God appointed you, knew you and consecrated you, to pluck up and tear down, to overthrow and destroy, in order to plant and to build.
We cannot hide behind defences that claim this is all their problem, or accuse those in authority for seeking accountability and having zero tollerance; we cannot simply scapegoat those abused, or the one accused of abuse. These circumstances involve people we know, those whom we have trusted, our husbands and wives, priests and fathers, grandfathers and teachers and friends. What we speak to this day, is NOT the guilt or innocence of those accused, not the victimization of those abused. What we are called to name, to pluck out and dismantle before we can ever go on, is our complacency, our acceptance and tollerance of abuse.
We live in an idyllic Village in a small town, where all the houses are meticulously kept, the gardens weeded, the lawns clipped, that nothing ever be seen to be out place. We live in a fragile, carefully constructed bubble; yet, time and again, tragedy and scandal have ripped away at the facade behind the gardens and the freshly painted doors, revealing the demons within the idols of our idyllic homes.
We live in a highly structured, overly scheduled time. So much so, that an eight year old declared, “Mom, we went to Day camp, then Vacation Bible School, Little League Baseball then Scout Camp, Band camp and Soccer camp, and rode in a car to see Grandma and Grandpa; when do we get to have Vacation just to play with our friends?”
FAITH is messy. FAITH does not only exist within rigid schedules and controlled order, but has a way of pervading everything we are about. Accepted and planted as a tiny seed, faith grows to become part of who we are; or is neglected and crowded out by our excuses. In this highly structured, ordered, meticulously kept world of ours: Do we have room for faith?
For those of us Ordained, no alegation or charges could be more serious than an abuse of trust. Because ultimately, faith has no tangible, measureable products. We cannot document effectiveness by the number of new members, or contributions, budgets, missions or programs. While ministers officiate at weddings and baptism and funerals, we are not responsible for the couple falling in love or having a baby, or the person dying. No charges could be more serious because the one truth, the only measure that makes any difference, is our integrity. If our actions and relationships cannot be trusted, how can our word? Mentoring a newly ordained minister a few years ago, I recall describing that everything about faith, whether the gift of the Savior, or the Redemption of the world, is about trust. Human Life is a series of brokenness, violations of trust in our family, in systems, in relationships, in authorities, even and especially our trust in God.
Twenty-five years ago, my wife and I bought a large piece of furniture left over at an auction. Over the years, I added a support here, screwed it together there, replaced a piece of broken glass, covered all the seams and joints with gobs of glue. Still, as you walked by, this antique cabinet would rattle and the objects stored inside tinkle, what I thought of as character, really meant that it had several sags and broken supports. So this week, I took everything out. Dismantled the doors and shelves, unscrewed all the screws that had been added, pried out all the old nails and scarped off all the glue. Only after the entire heirloom and its contents were completely dismantled, could the broken pieces be replaced, and the whole assembled without glue, nails or screws, carefully interlocking, one element braced and supported by another. The Antiques RoadShow may find fault that this board and that were replaced over time, but then again the purpose of a piece of furniture is not to be kept in the original box, but to serve the needs of the family.
The agony we feel as friends, is that the accused and the abused are to us real persons, not a news story, but people we know and trust and love. These are not statistics, not objective characters in another place or time. As such we have made excuses, we defend and protect, feeling guilty that we did not know and perhaps somehow we could have controlled the circumstance, could still make everything nice. We also feel guilt, that seeing something we never saw before, we wonder why and which truth to trust. Secrets only have power as secrets, when plucked the secret's power fades.
A few years ago, when a teenager died having been at a field party, one of the recommendations was that we contract for the Driving program to pick up those that have been drinking so that they not drive...but doing so, we ignore that the Law was broken by Underage Drinking, and we add to this our being complicit, our enabling their violation. We ignore the reasons why our children feel the need to get drunk, and the examples we have set for them. We create ways to placate and fix the circumstance without questioning or challenging or correcting the reality.
Complacency was the sin Jeremiah spent his life prophesying against. The nation had endured 60 years of war. 60 years of constant attack and defense. Finally, that war had ended and the people's initial response was thanksgiving, we survived! But quickly, the people made accomodations to justify their new lives. A new attack was coming from a different nation, a different enemy, and the people were so busy defending their satisfaction of what they wanted having survived, they could not hear the Prophet. Reviewing our records, one of the elders was intrigued by the growth in attendance at worship from 1996 to 2002, but the significant drop in 2003. No amount of program, no relationship, nothing we could do as a church could overcome people's developing complacency after the panic of September 11, 2001 had subsided.
The danger we feel as family, is that in acknowledging abuse, we are not conversing about a social problem, this is our Grandfather, our Father, Husband, the one who married us, our family is broken. If we ignore it and hide the circumstance of brokenness maybe it will go away. The circumstance of an abuse seems less than the reality that we are broken. How can we ever sit at table and share a meal, how can we congratulate this other on another year when we feel they violated us so intimately, not only sexually but because of our absolute trust, how can we trust anyone especially God, when they allowed this, when they did this to us?
Part of the nature of abuse is a misuse of power, narcisistically believing whatever I want I should have. And at the same time, negating the humanity of others, to get what we want. We wound and hurt and kill the humanity of those vulnerable. Nothing could make us more human than our trust in one another, our compassion for those we love and care for, and this violaton, this abuse, this brokenness denies our humanity.
We believe in a system of reform, of repentance and redemption, of forgiveness. But the overwhelming obstacle is not forgiving the other person for eating the last piece of chocolate cake not even forgiving the child for playing with matches, or forgiving the person who broke your heart... but trying to forgive someone who so wanted to validate their desires, that you became a thing less than human. How do you forgive someone who took something so intimate, so personal and who cared so little about you as a person, especially when that person was trusted and loved?
The Gospel of Luke does not give us all the information about this healing. We do not know, if she were hunched over unable to stand upright, because of a problem in her vision that she was afraid with every step she might fall... We do not know if there were a problem with her neck or back or her knees. We do not know why, for eighteen years she could not stand upright, but she could not. In the crowd at the Synaggogue on a Sabbath, she was just one more in need in the masses, even less because in that time women were treated as property, being of less value than a horse or mule or cow. Yet, Jesus had compassion for her humanity, and named her as valued, being a daughter of Abraham and this allowed her to stand upright, to be healed and restored.
Years ago, we began relating stories about a fictitious neighbor named Billy, do you remember? All through the night when others tried to sleep, Billy barked. ARF! ARF! ARF!
But do you recall why Billy Barked? ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
Because Billy's Neighbor had a dog that barked when he tried to sleep, and social convention did not allow him to confront his neighbor. He thought it rude to challenge or name how he felt wronged, so he just barked. ARF! ARF! BARK! BARK! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
The question we must ask, is where all the rest of the neighbors were? Why no one else barked, or said a word, either to the owner of the barking dog or to Billy about these behaviors? Do we not each have voices, even to bark? (Listen for congregation's barking)
Faith is not simply about reciting the words of the liturgy, or being entertained by the sermon, or the music. Faith pervades our whole life, sometimes with good, sometimes in destructive ways. We sing Doxology every week, not simply as a routine; but rather naming this foundation, this mantra, this core belief on which all the rest of life is constructed. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost.” Claiming God to be God, we can claim one another as human, and validate every other part of reality as precious rather than abusive. Doxology is that mustard seed, that tiny idea that is planted in our lives that we are human and therefore in need, in need of God, in need of forgiveness, in need of compassion and healing.
The challenge to complacency is the Call of Jeremiah, to pluck up what is planted, to break down the facade, to destroy and overthrow, in order to build and to plant afresh. The challenge to us as a community is to seek out the lost, the wounded, and to affirm their humanity through love and compassion, forgiveness and trust, trust especially when that trust has been broken.
Luke 13: 10-21 “Mustard seed and Healing a woman on the sabbath”
This morning's is a sermon, I have not wanted to preach.
Like the Rabbi at the Synaggogue it has seemed there were other times and other places,
through professional counseling, group therapy, medicines, and the Law, Church Law and Criminal where such matters could be resolved, that this time could be set apart as sacred. But as I set out for a few days of respite, news of this story broke, and several asked that we speak to it.
Like Jeremiah, I have tried to protest, this is not our problem, it belongs to another church. Many have blamed the Bishop and Church Government, while others scapegoated the one accused, our own history records that when abuse was named many tried to blame the victims. Yet, we cannot. We cannot blame or scapegoat, and we cannot ignore the word that proclaims: God appointed you, knew you and consecrated you, to pluck up and tear down, to overthrow and destroy, in order to plant and to build.
We cannot hide behind defences that claim this is all their problem, or accuse those in authority for seeking accountability and having zero tollerance; we cannot simply scapegoat those abused, or the one accused of abuse. These circumstances involve people we know, those whom we have trusted, our husbands and wives, priests and fathers, grandfathers and teachers and friends. What we speak to this day, is NOT the guilt or innocence of those accused, not the victimization of those abused. What we are called to name, to pluck out and dismantle before we can ever go on, is our complacency, our acceptance and tollerance of abuse.
We live in an idyllic Village in a small town, where all the houses are meticulously kept, the gardens weeded, the lawns clipped, that nothing ever be seen to be out place. We live in a fragile, carefully constructed bubble; yet, time and again, tragedy and scandal have ripped away at the facade behind the gardens and the freshly painted doors, revealing the demons within the idols of our idyllic homes.
We live in a highly structured, overly scheduled time. So much so, that an eight year old declared, “Mom, we went to Day camp, then Vacation Bible School, Little League Baseball then Scout Camp, Band camp and Soccer camp, and rode in a car to see Grandma and Grandpa; when do we get to have Vacation just to play with our friends?”
FAITH is messy. FAITH does not only exist within rigid schedules and controlled order, but has a way of pervading everything we are about. Accepted and planted as a tiny seed, faith grows to become part of who we are; or is neglected and crowded out by our excuses. In this highly structured, ordered, meticulously kept world of ours: Do we have room for faith?
For those of us Ordained, no alegation or charges could be more serious than an abuse of trust. Because ultimately, faith has no tangible, measureable products. We cannot document effectiveness by the number of new members, or contributions, budgets, missions or programs. While ministers officiate at weddings and baptism and funerals, we are not responsible for the couple falling in love or having a baby, or the person dying. No charges could be more serious because the one truth, the only measure that makes any difference, is our integrity. If our actions and relationships cannot be trusted, how can our word? Mentoring a newly ordained minister a few years ago, I recall describing that everything about faith, whether the gift of the Savior, or the Redemption of the world, is about trust. Human Life is a series of brokenness, violations of trust in our family, in systems, in relationships, in authorities, even and especially our trust in God.
Twenty-five years ago, my wife and I bought a large piece of furniture left over at an auction. Over the years, I added a support here, screwed it together there, replaced a piece of broken glass, covered all the seams and joints with gobs of glue. Still, as you walked by, this antique cabinet would rattle and the objects stored inside tinkle, what I thought of as character, really meant that it had several sags and broken supports. So this week, I took everything out. Dismantled the doors and shelves, unscrewed all the screws that had been added, pried out all the old nails and scarped off all the glue. Only after the entire heirloom and its contents were completely dismantled, could the broken pieces be replaced, and the whole assembled without glue, nails or screws, carefully interlocking, one element braced and supported by another. The Antiques RoadShow may find fault that this board and that were replaced over time, but then again the purpose of a piece of furniture is not to be kept in the original box, but to serve the needs of the family.
The agony we feel as friends, is that the accused and the abused are to us real persons, not a news story, but people we know and trust and love. These are not statistics, not objective characters in another place or time. As such we have made excuses, we defend and protect, feeling guilty that we did not know and perhaps somehow we could have controlled the circumstance, could still make everything nice. We also feel guilt, that seeing something we never saw before, we wonder why and which truth to trust. Secrets only have power as secrets, when plucked the secret's power fades.
A few years ago, when a teenager died having been at a field party, one of the recommendations was that we contract for the Driving program to pick up those that have been drinking so that they not drive...but doing so, we ignore that the Law was broken by Underage Drinking, and we add to this our being complicit, our enabling their violation. We ignore the reasons why our children feel the need to get drunk, and the examples we have set for them. We create ways to placate and fix the circumstance without questioning or challenging or correcting the reality.
Complacency was the sin Jeremiah spent his life prophesying against. The nation had endured 60 years of war. 60 years of constant attack and defense. Finally, that war had ended and the people's initial response was thanksgiving, we survived! But quickly, the people made accomodations to justify their new lives. A new attack was coming from a different nation, a different enemy, and the people were so busy defending their satisfaction of what they wanted having survived, they could not hear the Prophet. Reviewing our records, one of the elders was intrigued by the growth in attendance at worship from 1996 to 2002, but the significant drop in 2003. No amount of program, no relationship, nothing we could do as a church could overcome people's developing complacency after the panic of September 11, 2001 had subsided.
The danger we feel as family, is that in acknowledging abuse, we are not conversing about a social problem, this is our Grandfather, our Father, Husband, the one who married us, our family is broken. If we ignore it and hide the circumstance of brokenness maybe it will go away. The circumstance of an abuse seems less than the reality that we are broken. How can we ever sit at table and share a meal, how can we congratulate this other on another year when we feel they violated us so intimately, not only sexually but because of our absolute trust, how can we trust anyone especially God, when they allowed this, when they did this to us?
Part of the nature of abuse is a misuse of power, narcisistically believing whatever I want I should have. And at the same time, negating the humanity of others, to get what we want. We wound and hurt and kill the humanity of those vulnerable. Nothing could make us more human than our trust in one another, our compassion for those we love and care for, and this violaton, this abuse, this brokenness denies our humanity.
We believe in a system of reform, of repentance and redemption, of forgiveness. But the overwhelming obstacle is not forgiving the other person for eating the last piece of chocolate cake not even forgiving the child for playing with matches, or forgiving the person who broke your heart... but trying to forgive someone who so wanted to validate their desires, that you became a thing less than human. How do you forgive someone who took something so intimate, so personal and who cared so little about you as a person, especially when that person was trusted and loved?
The Gospel of Luke does not give us all the information about this healing. We do not know, if she were hunched over unable to stand upright, because of a problem in her vision that she was afraid with every step she might fall... We do not know if there were a problem with her neck or back or her knees. We do not know why, for eighteen years she could not stand upright, but she could not. In the crowd at the Synaggogue on a Sabbath, she was just one more in need in the masses, even less because in that time women were treated as property, being of less value than a horse or mule or cow. Yet, Jesus had compassion for her humanity, and named her as valued, being a daughter of Abraham and this allowed her to stand upright, to be healed and restored.
Years ago, we began relating stories about a fictitious neighbor named Billy, do you remember? All through the night when others tried to sleep, Billy barked. ARF! ARF! ARF!
But do you recall why Billy Barked? ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
Because Billy's Neighbor had a dog that barked when he tried to sleep, and social convention did not allow him to confront his neighbor. He thought it rude to challenge or name how he felt wronged, so he just barked. ARF! ARF! BARK! BARK! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!
The question we must ask, is where all the rest of the neighbors were? Why no one else barked, or said a word, either to the owner of the barking dog or to Billy about these behaviors? Do we not each have voices, even to bark? (Listen for congregation's barking)
Faith is not simply about reciting the words of the liturgy, or being entertained by the sermon, or the music. Faith pervades our whole life, sometimes with good, sometimes in destructive ways. We sing Doxology every week, not simply as a routine; but rather naming this foundation, this mantra, this core belief on which all the rest of life is constructed. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost.” Claiming God to be God, we can claim one another as human, and validate every other part of reality as precious rather than abusive. Doxology is that mustard seed, that tiny idea that is planted in our lives that we are human and therefore in need, in need of God, in need of forgiveness, in need of compassion and healing.
The challenge to complacency is the Call of Jeremiah, to pluck up what is planted, to break down the facade, to destroy and overthrow, in order to build and to plant afresh. The challenge to us as a community is to seek out the lost, the wounded, and to affirm their humanity through love and compassion, forgiveness and trust, trust especially when that trust has been broken.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Letting the WORD Speak Sermon
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
There are passages of Scripture, which are so foreign to our lives, we need explanation and interpretation. AMOS vision of RIPE SUMMER FRUIT, of a PLUMBLINE. HOSEA's Call to Marry a Prostitute, the Book of REVELATION. These are not readily applicable to our circumstance, in our world today. Yet, there are others, SO APPLICABLE, all we need do is be Open and let THE WORD SPEAK. This morning's readings are like a collection of the favorite words of Jesus, the had sayings we need to hear.
BUT that is the rub.
This word is THOUSANDS of years old, made authoritative by being in the Orthodox CANON, and coming down to us as HOLY,SACRED SCRIPTURE, layered in tradition, and Organized Religion, the Institution of The Church, Men who light Candles and wear robes, ARE SUSPECT.
Having heard President Johnson, one of his most often repeated phrases with Texas Drawl, whether of the Viet Nam War or the War on Poverty, was taking this phrase out of context to say “Come, Let us reason together...”
To hear the Word speak afresh to us, we have to set each of those ripples of history aside, to know that the Prophet Isaiah, whom we recall with that vision of muttering “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, who dwells among a people of unclean lips. And a mystic Seraphim swooped from the rafters with a burning coal to touch his lips and cauterize away his sin.” Who then responded to God “Here Am I Send Me!” was Called to the most Frustrating Task in the history of Israel & Judah. Abraham was called to conceive a new nation. Moses to set free the captives and find a Promised land. David was called to be a great king, Solomon to be wise. Isaiah was told right up front, you are to preach to a people who will not listen, to demonstrate what is plain and obvious to a people who are blind and refuse to see.
We remember Isaiah as this eloquent Priest and Prophet, who preached reform throughout four generations of Kings, words of “Comfort, Comfort My people says your God”.
“COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER” is not simply an invitation “Let's go for a walk”, but an upfront declaration, “We are at Odds and a Legal Settlement, a Compromise, Reconciliation with God needs to be reached in order for us to go forward.” The point is not so much reasoning and arguing levels of guilt, or loopholes, as recognizing we live in Sodom and Gomorrah, and we cannot buy God Off. The Cancers of our bodies are a SYMPTOM of the cancers in our lives and relationships.
I recall a DECADE AGO, when the Church at the time tried to say, we are going to address these problems in this part of the Church, in this part of our lives, and we are not going to go beyond this RED LINE. As we finished with the building program, before we had made the first payment on the mortgage, we learned the floor joists and timbers in the Sanctuary were cracked and rotting. And we needed to look at our foundations, the ones of stone and mortar, as well as the ones of faith in God, without any boundaries or facades, or redlines. We had to examine and rebuild the INFRASTRUCTURE of who we are and what we believe, otherwise like Isaiah it was preaching to a people who could not listen.
Rather than believing This Village is A STRESS FREE ZONE, we came to recognize we are a community, of people, mortal human people, with divorce and lay-offs and alcoholism and abuse, just like anywhere else. The only way to change from being a people whose sins are as red as blood to become as clean as washed wool, is TO BE WILLING and OPEN and OBEDIENT to sharing the good of the land; anything else will fester.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
In a week when BRIDGES that have been cited as CRACKED AND NEEDING REPAIR collapse, when COAL MINES that have been cited 342 times for violations, CAVE IN, why are we surprised? Our Infrastructure as a nation, our roads and bridges need repair. Our MORTAL Creations do not last forever, we must revisit and repair and wash clean, for we are mortal.
What Peter Jennings described as THE GREATEST GENERATION, were so, because they saw a problem and stepped up to it. The Great Depression, the need for Jobs and roads and schools. The War to End All Wars, Fighting Naziism, and Facsism and Attack upon our way of life, all simultaneously and never giving up. Those of the generation now in their eighties and nineties saw a problem, and had eyes to see.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
Reading the words of Luke, IF THE HOUSEHOLDER HAD KNOWN AT WHAT HOUR THE THIEF WAS COMING, it is hard for us to not imagine circumstances in Connecticut 3 weeks ago. While a family slept in their beds, thieves broke in, beating the man with a bat, forcing the woman to go their bank to withdraw their savings, raping the wife and their daughters, setting
their house on fire. With his wife and daughters murdered, how does this Householder go on? But that is the point, is for us to be open to hearing THE WORD in the midst of this circumstance, but not only this one.
When we first came to Skaneateles, people described that they did not lock up their houses. When the parking lot becomes full, simply leave the keys in the ignition of your car, so that if it is in the way someone can move it. So it is, that in July we were having the roof replaced, when I came down to breakfast and found a young man asleep on our couch. Our sons were watching tv, my wife was making coffee, and I thought this is rather presumptuous of a roofer to come in and sleep on the couch. SO I got him a cup of coffee and gently woke the man. He recalled being at a Wedding Rehearsal the night before where he had had too much to drink. He had come in, found the couch and lay down. After he finished the coffee, we asked if he needed us to call someone, he said no, and went on his way. You do not tell a minister you were at a wedding rehearsal the night before, without the clergy picking up the phone to ascertain, who had a rehearsal that night. Within ten minutes we knew where he belonged, and the minister of the wedding was looking for him. We said nothing more about the matter to anyone, until Christmas time, when one of the college students described having been at a party, where it was shared as common knowledge, if you get into trouble go to the Lindsey's, they have a comfortable couch, they will not call the police, and they will give you a cup of coffee and make certain you are okay. And we decided that was a prety good reputation to have.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also...
Every year, throughout the Season of Lent, the youth of a Church would take enormous timbers out of the basement, and carry these out near the road to erect a Cross. For the forty days and forty nights between Ash Wednesday and Easter the Cross stood for the whole community outside the Church. Each year in April the Women's Circles would have a Rummage Sale called the Trash and Treasure. One year it happened that the ladies carried out a large sign saying TRASH & TREASURE and placed it against the foot of the cross. Within 10 minutes I had a phone call from a neighbor in protest. I tried to respond with “One man's treash is another's treasure,” and “Where your treausre is, there will your heart be also”, but ultimately I went outside and moved the sign to a different location.
And Simon Peter asked, “LORD, are you telling this parable for us, or for everyone?” and the response is: “Everyone to whom MUCH IS GIVEN, of him Much will be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand all the more.” Which is NOT a statement about AFFLUENCE and TYTHING, but rather hearing the Word and doing it.
You have been given a gift of Music, share that music with the world.
We have a Sanctuary, with accoustics for music,...
We have been given teachers, healthcare workers and engineers, and A RELATIONSHIP with persons from a Village in Sudan, so we are asked to respond.
Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?
Are you prepared in case the HOUSEHOLDER/The BRIDEGROOM COMES,
What about if A THIEF COMES instead?
Are we ready to reason together?
There are passages of Scripture, which are so foreign to our lives, we need explanation and interpretation. AMOS vision of RIPE SUMMER FRUIT, of a PLUMBLINE. HOSEA's Call to Marry a Prostitute, the Book of REVELATION. These are not readily applicable to our circumstance, in our world today. Yet, there are others, SO APPLICABLE, all we need do is be Open and let THE WORD SPEAK. This morning's readings are like a collection of the favorite words of Jesus, the had sayings we need to hear.
BUT that is the rub.
This word is THOUSANDS of years old, made authoritative by being in the Orthodox CANON, and coming down to us as HOLY,SACRED SCRIPTURE, layered in tradition, and Organized Religion, the Institution of The Church, Men who light Candles and wear robes, ARE SUSPECT.
Having heard President Johnson, one of his most often repeated phrases with Texas Drawl, whether of the Viet Nam War or the War on Poverty, was taking this phrase out of context to say “Come, Let us reason together...”
To hear the Word speak afresh to us, we have to set each of those ripples of history aside, to know that the Prophet Isaiah, whom we recall with that vision of muttering “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, who dwells among a people of unclean lips. And a mystic Seraphim swooped from the rafters with a burning coal to touch his lips and cauterize away his sin.” Who then responded to God “Here Am I Send Me!” was Called to the most Frustrating Task in the history of Israel & Judah. Abraham was called to conceive a new nation. Moses to set free the captives and find a Promised land. David was called to be a great king, Solomon to be wise. Isaiah was told right up front, you are to preach to a people who will not listen, to demonstrate what is plain and obvious to a people who are blind and refuse to see.
We remember Isaiah as this eloquent Priest and Prophet, who preached reform throughout four generations of Kings, words of “Comfort, Comfort My people says your God”.
“COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER” is not simply an invitation “Let's go for a walk”, but an upfront declaration, “We are at Odds and a Legal Settlement, a Compromise, Reconciliation with God needs to be reached in order for us to go forward.” The point is not so much reasoning and arguing levels of guilt, or loopholes, as recognizing we live in Sodom and Gomorrah, and we cannot buy God Off. The Cancers of our bodies are a SYMPTOM of the cancers in our lives and relationships.
I recall a DECADE AGO, when the Church at the time tried to say, we are going to address these problems in this part of the Church, in this part of our lives, and we are not going to go beyond this RED LINE. As we finished with the building program, before we had made the first payment on the mortgage, we learned the floor joists and timbers in the Sanctuary were cracked and rotting. And we needed to look at our foundations, the ones of stone and mortar, as well as the ones of faith in God, without any boundaries or facades, or redlines. We had to examine and rebuild the INFRASTRUCTURE of who we are and what we believe, otherwise like Isaiah it was preaching to a people who could not listen.
Rather than believing This Village is A STRESS FREE ZONE, we came to recognize we are a community, of people, mortal human people, with divorce and lay-offs and alcoholism and abuse, just like anywhere else. The only way to change from being a people whose sins are as red as blood to become as clean as washed wool, is TO BE WILLING and OPEN and OBEDIENT to sharing the good of the land; anything else will fester.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
In a week when BRIDGES that have been cited as CRACKED AND NEEDING REPAIR collapse, when COAL MINES that have been cited 342 times for violations, CAVE IN, why are we surprised? Our Infrastructure as a nation, our roads and bridges need repair. Our MORTAL Creations do not last forever, we must revisit and repair and wash clean, for we are mortal.
What Peter Jennings described as THE GREATEST GENERATION, were so, because they saw a problem and stepped up to it. The Great Depression, the need for Jobs and roads and schools. The War to End All Wars, Fighting Naziism, and Facsism and Attack upon our way of life, all simultaneously and never giving up. Those of the generation now in their eighties and nineties saw a problem, and had eyes to see.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
Reading the words of Luke, IF THE HOUSEHOLDER HAD KNOWN AT WHAT HOUR THE THIEF WAS COMING, it is hard for us to not imagine circumstances in Connecticut 3 weeks ago. While a family slept in their beds, thieves broke in, beating the man with a bat, forcing the woman to go their bank to withdraw their savings, raping the wife and their daughters, setting
their house on fire. With his wife and daughters murdered, how does this Householder go on? But that is the point, is for us to be open to hearing THE WORD in the midst of this circumstance, but not only this one.
When we first came to Skaneateles, people described that they did not lock up their houses. When the parking lot becomes full, simply leave the keys in the ignition of your car, so that if it is in the way someone can move it. So it is, that in July we were having the roof replaced, when I came down to breakfast and found a young man asleep on our couch. Our sons were watching tv, my wife was making coffee, and I thought this is rather presumptuous of a roofer to come in and sleep on the couch. SO I got him a cup of coffee and gently woke the man. He recalled being at a Wedding Rehearsal the night before where he had had too much to drink. He had come in, found the couch and lay down. After he finished the coffee, we asked if he needed us to call someone, he said no, and went on his way. You do not tell a minister you were at a wedding rehearsal the night before, without the clergy picking up the phone to ascertain, who had a rehearsal that night. Within ten minutes we knew where he belonged, and the minister of the wedding was looking for him. We said nothing more about the matter to anyone, until Christmas time, when one of the college students described having been at a party, where it was shared as common knowledge, if you get into trouble go to the Lindsey's, they have a comfortable couch, they will not call the police, and they will give you a cup of coffee and make certain you are okay. And we decided that was a prety good reputation to have.
Let Those who have eyes to SEE, WITNESS, and those with ears to HEAR, UNDERSTAND.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also...
Every year, throughout the Season of Lent, the youth of a Church would take enormous timbers out of the basement, and carry these out near the road to erect a Cross. For the forty days and forty nights between Ash Wednesday and Easter the Cross stood for the whole community outside the Church. Each year in April the Women's Circles would have a Rummage Sale called the Trash and Treasure. One year it happened that the ladies carried out a large sign saying TRASH & TREASURE and placed it against the foot of the cross. Within 10 minutes I had a phone call from a neighbor in protest. I tried to respond with “One man's treash is another's treasure,” and “Where your treausre is, there will your heart be also”, but ultimately I went outside and moved the sign to a different location.
And Simon Peter asked, “LORD, are you telling this parable for us, or for everyone?” and the response is: “Everyone to whom MUCH IS GIVEN, of him Much will be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand all the more.” Which is NOT a statement about AFFLUENCE and TYTHING, but rather hearing the Word and doing it.
You have been given a gift of Music, share that music with the world.
We have a Sanctuary, with accoustics for music,...
We have been given teachers, healthcare workers and engineers, and A RELATIONSHIP with persons from a Village in Sudan, so we are asked to respond.
Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?
Are you prepared in case the HOUSEHOLDER/The BRIDEGROOM COMES,
What about if A THIEF COMES instead?
Are we ready to reason together?
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Threads Sermon
On the Great Plains of the Frontier winters were harsh, and people were known to become lost even in their own backyards in a snowstorm. So throughout the winter, they would tie a rope from the Kitchen Door (or in this case the Pulpit) to the Barn door (for us the Narthex) so as to be able to find your way from home to work and back again. (Literally tie heavy rope down center aisle.)
Fifteen years ago, I had a friend and mentor who was a retired welder and sheet metal worker, who one day had a mild stroke. Sitting with him in the hospital I asked what happened, and he said:
“All my life, I thought of each thing, each accomplishment, every relationship as individual points. I graduated from High School. I enlisted in the Navy. I fought in the war. I got a job. I got married. We had a daughter, then a son. A full life of accomplishments. Suddenly I realized these were not independent events, separate markers, but that there are threads weaving through and making connection. Just when I came to understand that there were all these strings connecting life, all the pins were pulled out. There are all these lifelines, all these tubes and strings and wires, but I no longer have a clue, how, why or to what they are connected. And more than anything in my life, not knowing the connections, scares me.”
(Hand out seven balls of heavy yarn) Throughout the sermon, if you would continue to pass the threads connecting us one to another. Occasionally, popcorning the balls up into the air for others to catch. Being careful and sensitive NOT to throw the ball at anyone, or hit anyone, but to realize the threads connecting us all.
Those who are physicists and musicians, feel free to jump in here and harmonize with me, but as I understand in recent decades a theory has been advanced challenging Newton's Laws of Physics called “STRING THEORY”. Imagine that across our lifespans and throughout our lives, connecting across time and space there were threads like the chords of a guitar. When stressed with tension, these chords can be plucked or strummed to resonate and make music. So the fact that we seek partners who are very much like our parents' relationships, or that we hear and remember our voices coming out of our children's mouths, or we see our father in the face in the mirror as we shave, is not strange, but a resonance with who we are.
The difficulty according to Quantum Physicists is that related to gravity, length, height and breadth, the diameter of these strings through time and space would be one millionth of one billionth of one billionth of one billionth of one centimeter. We cannot see them, or touch them, they have no weight, though they can provide feelings of somber heaviness, and joy that makes us soar, they can crush us or invite us to dance.
Like the strings of a guitar, what we have to to learn is the tuning, and the fret points. Those familiar places, where we can be confident of connections and resonance rather than discord and dissonance, even though the strings are more tightly stressed than normal, whatever normal is.
Luke is unique in the Gospels, for describing the story of Jesus in the Temple at age 12. Some have conjectured that this was Jesus Bar Mitzvah, as he recited the Law and became a man. But the text is specific, that he was 12 and not 13, that he was a child whom his parents thought was lost, unable to reason as an adult. Rather than being the Bar Mitzvah of Jesus, Luke is identifying that completely and thoroughly human, Jesus feels these tensions in his life, the points of connection and identification. Surely, like Samuel and Isaiah, Jesus could have been a Priest, or conversed with Rabbis as a scholar, but in life he came to discern his Calling. As Christians we resonate with that same Calling, to listen to people, offering healing, prayer and counsel, teaching, compassion and the sharing of a meal, even risking everything to redeem and save those who are in trouble.
A problem related to STRING THEORY, different than height, length, weight, or even the worth or financial application, is that as we begin discerning and recognizing connections among us and between circumstances, we can no longer deny the possibility of connections we may not desire. This is the 7th Day of Christmas in the Carol of the 12 Days of Christmas,
this is New Year's Eve as we make resolutions of what we hope to be and do in the new year.
As much as we live placid and tranquil lives, concerned whether it will ever snow and how to pay bills for the comforts of heat, ...
we are in a world at war, in Iraq and Somalia, Darfur, Congo and over the Holy Lands of the Middle East.
This weekend, Saddam Hussein was executed for Crimes against Humanity.
We take for granted the Death Penalty, and the natural succession of Presidents and Senators, when in so many other nations the State does not have the Death Penalty, and in so many places once removed from office former leaders are killed for what they have done.
Last evening, the mortal remains of President Ford were brought to Washington, to honor him and his legacy as our 38th President.
Ironically he was one of our most athletic and physically fit of Presidents who will be remembered for falling down steps and while skiing. A Healer, who risked forgiveness, and pardoned both the former President caught in the scandal of Watergate, and the young men who had fled our nation to evade the draft to War in Vietnam. One of our most Bi-Partisan leaders, not a larger than life Statesman, but a common man who liked liverwurst sandwiches. A man who did what had to be done, because it was merciful, and humble and just and compassionate, and trustworthy, not because it was what he wanted the Nation to do, not what was politically expedient, economically profitable or popular. He pardoned and forgave others, because though it was not popular, the Nation needed to forgive.
One of the THREADS we have difficulty looking for is forgiveness. We like to imagine that we are self-made, to point to all those points of accomplishment, all the individual relationships we are identified with by association, rather than as Paul named to the Colossians “If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, because God has forgiven you and that is really the only point of relationship that matters. That thread is recognizing that God has forgiven each of us, so we forgive one another, not condoning or condemning, but in our every word and deed, doing everything as a demonstration of faith in Jesus Christ.
We were a generation, who were carefully schooled to stoically watch the Riderless Horse at President John Kennedy's Memorial, to salute without shedding a tear. We could not fathom people questioning the integrity of the presidency. In these 45 years we have learned skepticism and doubt, fear and ridicule, to protect ourselves from being wounded or betrayed by the humanity, the mortality of leaders, rather than looking for relationships and connections between us.
One of the most marvelous examples of what we could do has come out of South Africa. Remember that throughout the 1970s and early 80s that was a place of Apartheid and Genocide. When a new era came, those who had committed atrocities, crimes against humanity, were tried. YET There is the story of a woman, whose home had been invaded in the middle of the night, her husband and sons taken, beaten and killed. When Apartheid ended and these men were found guilty, the woman was asked what punishment she sought. She pronounced that from that day forward, and throughout their lives, these men would become her family, they would honor her on her wedding anniversary, they would honor her husband and sons on their birthdays, they would become to her, what they had taken away, and she would forgive, knowing she had been forgiven by God.
Researching our history, has given this church identity and continuity for the present and future, that we have always been a CIVIC CENTER for this community, a place of education, music and the arts, but especially of mission and involvement in our community. In our earliest days as the Religious Society in this place, we were also the public school and the civic courts. That is a piece, we gave up too quickly. Would that rather than a place for seeking justice, vengeance, retribution, reclaiming what we feel has been taken from us by an adversary, our civil courts sought to create forgiveness between us and one another.
Fifteen years ago, I had a friend and mentor who was a retired welder and sheet metal worker, who one day had a mild stroke. Sitting with him in the hospital I asked what happened, and he said:
“All my life, I thought of each thing, each accomplishment, every relationship as individual points. I graduated from High School. I enlisted in the Navy. I fought in the war. I got a job. I got married. We had a daughter, then a son. A full life of accomplishments. Suddenly I realized these were not independent events, separate markers, but that there are threads weaving through and making connection. Just when I came to understand that there were all these strings connecting life, all the pins were pulled out. There are all these lifelines, all these tubes and strings and wires, but I no longer have a clue, how, why or to what they are connected. And more than anything in my life, not knowing the connections, scares me.”
(Hand out seven balls of heavy yarn) Throughout the sermon, if you would continue to pass the threads connecting us one to another. Occasionally, popcorning the balls up into the air for others to catch. Being careful and sensitive NOT to throw the ball at anyone, or hit anyone, but to realize the threads connecting us all.
Those who are physicists and musicians, feel free to jump in here and harmonize with me, but as I understand in recent decades a theory has been advanced challenging Newton's Laws of Physics called “STRING THEORY”. Imagine that across our lifespans and throughout our lives, connecting across time and space there were threads like the chords of a guitar. When stressed with tension, these chords can be plucked or strummed to resonate and make music. So the fact that we seek partners who are very much like our parents' relationships, or that we hear and remember our voices coming out of our children's mouths, or we see our father in the face in the mirror as we shave, is not strange, but a resonance with who we are.
The difficulty according to Quantum Physicists is that related to gravity, length, height and breadth, the diameter of these strings through time and space would be one millionth of one billionth of one billionth of one billionth of one centimeter. We cannot see them, or touch them, they have no weight, though they can provide feelings of somber heaviness, and joy that makes us soar, they can crush us or invite us to dance.
Like the strings of a guitar, what we have to to learn is the tuning, and the fret points. Those familiar places, where we can be confident of connections and resonance rather than discord and dissonance, even though the strings are more tightly stressed than normal, whatever normal is.
Luke is unique in the Gospels, for describing the story of Jesus in the Temple at age 12. Some have conjectured that this was Jesus Bar Mitzvah, as he recited the Law and became a man. But the text is specific, that he was 12 and not 13, that he was a child whom his parents thought was lost, unable to reason as an adult. Rather than being the Bar Mitzvah of Jesus, Luke is identifying that completely and thoroughly human, Jesus feels these tensions in his life, the points of connection and identification. Surely, like Samuel and Isaiah, Jesus could have been a Priest, or conversed with Rabbis as a scholar, but in life he came to discern his Calling. As Christians we resonate with that same Calling, to listen to people, offering healing, prayer and counsel, teaching, compassion and the sharing of a meal, even risking everything to redeem and save those who are in trouble.
A problem related to STRING THEORY, different than height, length, weight, or even the worth or financial application, is that as we begin discerning and recognizing connections among us and between circumstances, we can no longer deny the possibility of connections we may not desire. This is the 7th Day of Christmas in the Carol of the 12 Days of Christmas,
this is New Year's Eve as we make resolutions of what we hope to be and do in the new year.
As much as we live placid and tranquil lives, concerned whether it will ever snow and how to pay bills for the comforts of heat, ...
we are in a world at war, in Iraq and Somalia, Darfur, Congo and over the Holy Lands of the Middle East.
This weekend, Saddam Hussein was executed for Crimes against Humanity.
We take for granted the Death Penalty, and the natural succession of Presidents and Senators, when in so many other nations the State does not have the Death Penalty, and in so many places once removed from office former leaders are killed for what they have done.
Last evening, the mortal remains of President Ford were brought to Washington, to honor him and his legacy as our 38th President.
Ironically he was one of our most athletic and physically fit of Presidents who will be remembered for falling down steps and while skiing. A Healer, who risked forgiveness, and pardoned both the former President caught in the scandal of Watergate, and the young men who had fled our nation to evade the draft to War in Vietnam. One of our most Bi-Partisan leaders, not a larger than life Statesman, but a common man who liked liverwurst sandwiches. A man who did what had to be done, because it was merciful, and humble and just and compassionate, and trustworthy, not because it was what he wanted the Nation to do, not what was politically expedient, economically profitable or popular. He pardoned and forgave others, because though it was not popular, the Nation needed to forgive.
One of the THREADS we have difficulty looking for is forgiveness. We like to imagine that we are self-made, to point to all those points of accomplishment, all the individual relationships we are identified with by association, rather than as Paul named to the Colossians “If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, because God has forgiven you and that is really the only point of relationship that matters. That thread is recognizing that God has forgiven each of us, so we forgive one another, not condoning or condemning, but in our every word and deed, doing everything as a demonstration of faith in Jesus Christ.
We were a generation, who were carefully schooled to stoically watch the Riderless Horse at President John Kennedy's Memorial, to salute without shedding a tear. We could not fathom people questioning the integrity of the presidency. In these 45 years we have learned skepticism and doubt, fear and ridicule, to protect ourselves from being wounded or betrayed by the humanity, the mortality of leaders, rather than looking for relationships and connections between us.
One of the most marvelous examples of what we could do has come out of South Africa. Remember that throughout the 1970s and early 80s that was a place of Apartheid and Genocide. When a new era came, those who had committed atrocities, crimes against humanity, were tried. YET There is the story of a woman, whose home had been invaded in the middle of the night, her husband and sons taken, beaten and killed. When Apartheid ended and these men were found guilty, the woman was asked what punishment she sought. She pronounced that from that day forward, and throughout their lives, these men would become her family, they would honor her on her wedding anniversary, they would honor her husband and sons on their birthdays, they would become to her, what they had taken away, and she would forgive, knowing she had been forgiven by God.
Researching our history, has given this church identity and continuity for the present and future, that we have always been a CIVIC CENTER for this community, a place of education, music and the arts, but especially of mission and involvement in our community. In our earliest days as the Religious Society in this place, we were also the public school and the civic courts. That is a piece, we gave up too quickly. Would that rather than a place for seeking justice, vengeance, retribution, reclaiming what we feel has been taken from us by an adversary, our civil courts sought to create forgiveness between us and one another.
Sacred Cow or Dinosaur BBQ Sermon
Time has shifted, circumstances have changed that effect our perception and reality.
Reading these words from Isaiah, 4000 years ago, have a whole new meaning and purpose, now.
Everyone who thirsts come to the waters, she who has no money, come!
Why expend your labor on that which cannot satisfy? Incline your ear, that your soul may live, God has made an everlasting covenant with you and through you!
Behold, you shall call nations that you know NOT, Nations that knew you NOT shall run, to you!
A SACRED COW is a program or practice of a people that is immune from attack or criticism, even to be venerated as sacred. The term comes from the Hindu who treat cows as more sacred, more important than people, believing that cows are closer to Heaven than people, that while thousands of people die from starvation, cows wander the streets, never considered as food, even to suggest such would be a profane sacrilege.
Dinosaurs are extinct beasts of the earth, that could not adapt and died off millions of years ago. We all know Dinosaur Barbecue.
The point is, at what point is something sacred, and when does a sacred cow become a dinosaur? Is anything truly sacred, is everything and everyone in the world corrupt?
Don Cross, Ted Kinder and Mark deWitt were in Southern Sudan to build a clinic, not by Chance or Luck, NOT for Profit or Gain, NOT on behalf of the church or Skaneateles, But simply because they possessed the gifts to do this, and they cared so deeply, Believed so much, that nothing could dissuade. In the process of building a Health Care Clinic, they also provided a fresh well of water, for any who were thirsty to come to the healing waters and drink! They provided the wonders of electricity and electric light, a telephone communication system to provide connection and assistance from the outside world. They called to a Nation they knew NOT, and this people of another age and time, who knew them NOT Came Running to Them.
Several years ago, we took the youth of the Church on their first Mission trip. We went to a tiny Baptist Church at the end of what was once a Railway Spur, that now was in a forgotten town. All week long these young people painted and scrubbed the Church inside and out, no small feat as they needed five levels of scaffolding to paint the ceiling. Throughout the week, people from the surrounding community stopped to see what was going on. Witnessing their mission, called people to faith. In a community of 85 residents, with 15 listed on the Rolls of the Church, that week, the Church held an Altar Call and 35 people came forward for Adult believer Baptism. The Church swelled from 15 to 50 in a week. Perhaps it had nothing to do with our presence, but I believe witnessing others giving themselves was aCall to faith.
Responding to these gifts, Ted, Don and Mark have been given African names.
Ted is MABUL (the White Cow of Peace),
Don is MAJUK the Black & White Cow,
Mark is ALEEK the Brown Striped Cow,
If Chuck returns being called TOUGH & STRINGY, we might wonder about their being named after Cattle, because in this Agrarian, Nomadic, Tribal culture the most wonderful gifts have been milk and meat from SACRED Cows. But before their spouses begin to believe these fellas are worthy to worshiped, recognize that what they have done, was to Call to a Nation they did not know literally living in the Stone Age, Calling them with gifts of water, electricity, communication and Health Care. Gifts that have changed that community for ever.
WE agonize over whether WE might be better off without constant communication, without all the electrical devices, pills and potions and salves for our neuroses.
But controling others, Making Decisions for others, is not Ministry.
One of the SACRED COWS we need to made a DINOSAUR is our desire for CONTROL.
Jesus did NOT Call Decision-Makers. Jesus Did not form Committees, or try to Control Others. Jesus Called Disciples and Commissioned them to go Minister to others.
People may seek decision-makers. People came to Jesus wanting “He who had healed and cared for the masses”, to CONTROL PONTIUS PILATE. To control EVIL, either Human Evil in the form of a DICTATOR like Pilate, or in the form of Nature and Circumstance with the Fall of a Tower, a hurricane or tornado. But the point of faith is not CONTROL or Dominance, the point of faith is to discern what GIFTS do we have to offer and how can these work with the gifts of others?
To use a SPORTS Metaphor, there is a difference between Coaching FOOTBALL and coaching SOCCER or BASEBALL. In Football, the Coach chooses the plays and the Quarterback follows through. In Baseball and Soccer, the Coach works with the best gifts of each player, then the team reacts to the circumstance, playing best when they pass the ball around WITH ONE ANOTHER.
Just as MAJUK and MABUL and ALEEK and Chuck are CALLING a people, from the Stone Age, to the 19th Century of running water; and to the 20th Century of Electricity and Telephones, SO ALSO WE AWAKE this morning called to the reality that we are no longer in the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, no longer in the MODERN AGE, or the ATOMIC or SPACE RACE, in the blink of an eye, a heart's beat, we have entered THE QUANTUM AGE. This QUANTUM TIME holds in balance multiple different interpretations of circumstance with a COMMON MISSION, a SYNERGY of TRUSTing that we can cooperate, we can share our gifts. The issue is no longer the LIMITATION of RESOURCES like Time and Energy, but rather how to encourage which gifts to be used when for the Whole Community of Faith, the BODY OF CHRIST.
In the QUANTUM AGE we use the Foundational Building Blocks of TRUST and COMMON MISSION to perceive that what matters is not WHO WINS, or WHO HAS THE MOST, but rather that we are all seemingly playing Catch Up. We lost an hour last night. Life is familiar, but now not quite so bitter cold as a day ago. So what can I offer to make your life brighter?
Take a deep breath and Consider, for what is required is not simply acceptance of an idea, or tolerance of others doing things differently, but an entirely different perspective on life. Generation upon generation we have nurtured the SACRED COWS OF CONTROL and DECISION MAKING, and these are not easy to Sacrifice. But that is the point of Sacrifice. If it were easy, there would be no sacrifice, this is making a gift of what we have MOST desired, all we have known, and trusting God and One Another for what may yet come in life.
According to the APOSTLE PAUL there are DIFFERENT GIFTS, but the Same Spirit, There are different ways of Knowing God, but the same God who is known. In his time, there was a NEED for the gift of CELIBACY, and the Gift of SPEAKING TONGUES, the Gift of EXORCISM, in addition to the GIFTS of TEACHING, PREACHING, CARING FOR THE SICK & CHILDREN. Today the GIFTS that are NEEDED also include COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY,
Knowledge of MEDICINES and DONATIONS,
Supporting YOUTH to Stretch their Wings,
FOOD PANTRIES and Means of Changing the Cycle of Poverty,
SOLIDARITY with those coming out of Prisons,
PERSEVERANCE to Survive CANCER and Still Hope,
Giving Birth to Children in a Time when we KNOW GENETIC PROBABILITIES,
understanding the LONELINESS of AGING,
LEADERSHIP not as Controlling from a desk or Boardroom, NOT as Charisma, but rather WITH TRUST.
There were times when the world needed DINOSAURS, in earlier ages we needed what were to us SACRED COWS, we can only afford the luxury of life in the present because of the sacrifices of others before us. The great risk of being Called from one age to another, is that we must let go what we have trusted and known, what have been to us Sacred Cows.
For the people of Southern Sudan, who not only have lived as long as any can remember in mud huts on the Serengeti, taking water from a watering hole, but now for 20 years have lived with a gun in their hand and fear of others killing them, TRUSTING, seeing a COMMON PURPOSE with those who once were enemies, will be hard. But it is a Calling to a NEW AGE, to REPENT and FORGIVE, and Live Differently, SEEKING ONES YOU DID NOT KNOW.
For the last three years, the Session of this Church have moved from having 24 members to having a far smaller number of 14. We have questioned what would happen with the Sacred COWS of Committees? The Call is to SHARE YOUR GIFTS. Rather than meeting every 3rd Tuesday at 7pm, to meet as needed, to do what is necessary and whatever we can.
Having shared the Names of MABUL, MAJUL and ALEEK, having brought back for John the name of MAGAAR meaning the “Long Horned Bull”, I mentioned to John that his Father and Uncle the Chiefs of Duk County had given me a name as well, they passed on the name of their father DENG AKOL. I asked John what this meant, and he said, my Grandfather brought ideas we had never before considered of challenging what we have always accepted, and instead doing more with others outside our tribe.
Reading these words from Isaiah, 4000 years ago, have a whole new meaning and purpose, now.
Everyone who thirsts come to the waters, she who has no money, come!
Why expend your labor on that which cannot satisfy? Incline your ear, that your soul may live, God has made an everlasting covenant with you and through you!
Behold, you shall call nations that you know NOT, Nations that knew you NOT shall run, to you!
A SACRED COW is a program or practice of a people that is immune from attack or criticism, even to be venerated as sacred. The term comes from the Hindu who treat cows as more sacred, more important than people, believing that cows are closer to Heaven than people, that while thousands of people die from starvation, cows wander the streets, never considered as food, even to suggest such would be a profane sacrilege.
Dinosaurs are extinct beasts of the earth, that could not adapt and died off millions of years ago. We all know Dinosaur Barbecue.
The point is, at what point is something sacred, and when does a sacred cow become a dinosaur? Is anything truly sacred, is everything and everyone in the world corrupt?
Don Cross, Ted Kinder and Mark deWitt were in Southern Sudan to build a clinic, not by Chance or Luck, NOT for Profit or Gain, NOT on behalf of the church or Skaneateles, But simply because they possessed the gifts to do this, and they cared so deeply, Believed so much, that nothing could dissuade. In the process of building a Health Care Clinic, they also provided a fresh well of water, for any who were thirsty to come to the healing waters and drink! They provided the wonders of electricity and electric light, a telephone communication system to provide connection and assistance from the outside world. They called to a Nation they knew NOT, and this people of another age and time, who knew them NOT Came Running to Them.
Several years ago, we took the youth of the Church on their first Mission trip. We went to a tiny Baptist Church at the end of what was once a Railway Spur, that now was in a forgotten town. All week long these young people painted and scrubbed the Church inside and out, no small feat as they needed five levels of scaffolding to paint the ceiling. Throughout the week, people from the surrounding community stopped to see what was going on. Witnessing their mission, called people to faith. In a community of 85 residents, with 15 listed on the Rolls of the Church, that week, the Church held an Altar Call and 35 people came forward for Adult believer Baptism. The Church swelled from 15 to 50 in a week. Perhaps it had nothing to do with our presence, but I believe witnessing others giving themselves was aCall to faith.
Responding to these gifts, Ted, Don and Mark have been given African names.
Ted is MABUL (the White Cow of Peace),
Don is MAJUK the Black & White Cow,
Mark is ALEEK the Brown Striped Cow,
If Chuck returns being called TOUGH & STRINGY, we might wonder about their being named after Cattle, because in this Agrarian, Nomadic, Tribal culture the most wonderful gifts have been milk and meat from SACRED Cows. But before their spouses begin to believe these fellas are worthy to worshiped, recognize that what they have done, was to Call to a Nation they did not know literally living in the Stone Age, Calling them with gifts of water, electricity, communication and Health Care. Gifts that have changed that community for ever.
WE agonize over whether WE might be better off without constant communication, without all the electrical devices, pills and potions and salves for our neuroses.
But controling others, Making Decisions for others, is not Ministry.
One of the SACRED COWS we need to made a DINOSAUR is our desire for CONTROL.
Jesus did NOT Call Decision-Makers. Jesus Did not form Committees, or try to Control Others. Jesus Called Disciples and Commissioned them to go Minister to others.
People may seek decision-makers. People came to Jesus wanting “He who had healed and cared for the masses”, to CONTROL PONTIUS PILATE. To control EVIL, either Human Evil in the form of a DICTATOR like Pilate, or in the form of Nature and Circumstance with the Fall of a Tower, a hurricane or tornado. But the point of faith is not CONTROL or Dominance, the point of faith is to discern what GIFTS do we have to offer and how can these work with the gifts of others?
To use a SPORTS Metaphor, there is a difference between Coaching FOOTBALL and coaching SOCCER or BASEBALL. In Football, the Coach chooses the plays and the Quarterback follows through. In Baseball and Soccer, the Coach works with the best gifts of each player, then the team reacts to the circumstance, playing best when they pass the ball around WITH ONE ANOTHER.
Just as MAJUK and MABUL and ALEEK and Chuck are CALLING a people, from the Stone Age, to the 19th Century of running water; and to the 20th Century of Electricity and Telephones, SO ALSO WE AWAKE this morning called to the reality that we are no longer in the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, no longer in the MODERN AGE, or the ATOMIC or SPACE RACE, in the blink of an eye, a heart's beat, we have entered THE QUANTUM AGE. This QUANTUM TIME holds in balance multiple different interpretations of circumstance with a COMMON MISSION, a SYNERGY of TRUSTing that we can cooperate, we can share our gifts. The issue is no longer the LIMITATION of RESOURCES like Time and Energy, but rather how to encourage which gifts to be used when for the Whole Community of Faith, the BODY OF CHRIST.
In the QUANTUM AGE we use the Foundational Building Blocks of TRUST and COMMON MISSION to perceive that what matters is not WHO WINS, or WHO HAS THE MOST, but rather that we are all seemingly playing Catch Up. We lost an hour last night. Life is familiar, but now not quite so bitter cold as a day ago. So what can I offer to make your life brighter?
Take a deep breath and Consider, for what is required is not simply acceptance of an idea, or tolerance of others doing things differently, but an entirely different perspective on life. Generation upon generation we have nurtured the SACRED COWS OF CONTROL and DECISION MAKING, and these are not easy to Sacrifice. But that is the point of Sacrifice. If it were easy, there would be no sacrifice, this is making a gift of what we have MOST desired, all we have known, and trusting God and One Another for what may yet come in life.
According to the APOSTLE PAUL there are DIFFERENT GIFTS, but the Same Spirit, There are different ways of Knowing God, but the same God who is known. In his time, there was a NEED for the gift of CELIBACY, and the Gift of SPEAKING TONGUES, the Gift of EXORCISM, in addition to the GIFTS of TEACHING, PREACHING, CARING FOR THE SICK & CHILDREN. Today the GIFTS that are NEEDED also include COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY,
Knowledge of MEDICINES and DONATIONS,
Supporting YOUTH to Stretch their Wings,
FOOD PANTRIES and Means of Changing the Cycle of Poverty,
SOLIDARITY with those coming out of Prisons,
PERSEVERANCE to Survive CANCER and Still Hope,
Giving Birth to Children in a Time when we KNOW GENETIC PROBABILITIES,
understanding the LONELINESS of AGING,
LEADERSHIP not as Controlling from a desk or Boardroom, NOT as Charisma, but rather WITH TRUST.
There were times when the world needed DINOSAURS, in earlier ages we needed what were to us SACRED COWS, we can only afford the luxury of life in the present because of the sacrifices of others before us. The great risk of being Called from one age to another, is that we must let go what we have trusted and known, what have been to us Sacred Cows.
For the people of Southern Sudan, who not only have lived as long as any can remember in mud huts on the Serengeti, taking water from a watering hole, but now for 20 years have lived with a gun in their hand and fear of others killing them, TRUSTING, seeing a COMMON PURPOSE with those who once were enemies, will be hard. But it is a Calling to a NEW AGE, to REPENT and FORGIVE, and Live Differently, SEEKING ONES YOU DID NOT KNOW.
For the last three years, the Session of this Church have moved from having 24 members to having a far smaller number of 14. We have questioned what would happen with the Sacred COWS of Committees? The Call is to SHARE YOUR GIFTS. Rather than meeting every 3rd Tuesday at 7pm, to meet as needed, to do what is necessary and whatever we can.
Having shared the Names of MABUL, MAJUL and ALEEK, having brought back for John the name of MAGAAR meaning the “Long Horned Bull”, I mentioned to John that his Father and Uncle the Chiefs of Duk County had given me a name as well, they passed on the name of their father DENG AKOL. I asked John what this meant, and he said, my Grandfather brought ideas we had never before considered of challenging what we have always accepted, and instead doing more with others outside our tribe.
Reality Check sermon
Ten days ago, the temperatures approached 60, the grass was green, daffodils and tulips were beginning to sprout. This morning our homes and Village are blanketed in a layer of snow. SPRING in Central New York. One of the writers for the Paper, described that those two days, a week ago, with a high in the 50s and low 60s were our Spring and Summer and now we are back in Winter again, when according to the Stars and Seasons, Winter does not end until tomorrow.
Late this week, homeowners in this Village and Township went to their mailboxes and discovered that the property they live in was in some cases worth less than they thought, and in many cases was worth a great deal more. That the home that was bought for $60,000 or 100,000 or $160,000; was now worth $300, or $400 or $500,000, or lakefront several million dollars. All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with how well you vacuum, or how lovely is our home, but a simple comparison to properties in other parts of the City, other parts of the State, and to other States. In the end, these values are all Monopoly money, with no estimation of what “HOME” means to any of us.
Today, I am healthy and strong, in the prime of life, tomorrow tests come back saying I
have a Cancer, part of my life is fighting against and killing the rest of me. I undergo radiation, and surgery and chemo therapy, food no longer has flavor, strength just is not there, I have a name for death, for my death, and then suddenly, as quickly as it came, I am told the cancer is gone. Can I believe it? How do we describe the meaning and value of “LIFE”?
A child is born. The most basic and common of biological events. Yet, in that moment, our lives are forever changed.
In the Enlightenment, the assumption was that there is a universal truth, one universal reality, we could all eventually know and understand.
Today, we claim to live in Post-Modern Times, recognizing that women and men are different, our experiences and cultures and circumstance of our lives cause each of us to witness life differently, so everyone’s reality is unique to that person. The problem we each struggle with is the disconnect between our lives and everyone/ everything else.
We imagine ourselves, as separate, the Center of our existence, searching for our fulfillment.
Imagine, what reality could be, if we accepted life different. If we were not cynical, or pessimistic, if we did not try to convince ourselves and the world we are better than we are. If we did not lie, if there were no hate. If we understood ourselves in relationship to God, as the Center of the Cosmos, with nothing of comparison, no desire for Wealth, or Prestige, or War, no desire for Lust, no desire to impress our neighbors, or to have what they possess. A desire only to love God, to love one another, and to love life.
What if routinely, as routinely as we take vitamins, as routinely as we exercise, as routinely as we turn on the television, we could stop from all we routinely do, to reassess, to Check Reality. If we assumed, we are not perfect, and we do not have to be, but we could know what is right, and we could stop periodically throughout life to adjust reality.
Our Scriptures this day describe a REALITY CHECK, where what we thought we knew, what we took for granted, suddenly means something totally different to us.
Jesus went to a wedding. How many of us have ever gone to a wedding, not as Bride or Groom or part of the Bridal party, but simply gone as a guest, a friend of a friend of family? Suddenly, someone realizes that the wine is gone. In a time of LIMITED RESOURCES, SCRACITY, human temptation is to question “Where’s Mine?” Instead, Mary calls her son to attend to everyone else’s problem, asking “What are you going to do?” Rather than questioning, the fairness, or the cost to us, this parent’s REALITY CHECK to their child is “GIVE OF YOURSELF”. “What can you share? What do you have to offer?” Would that as parents, instead of pride and defensiveness and vicariously living through them, we could each tell our sons and daughters, “Here are the problems in our Community, do something.”
The next day, Jesus led his family and his disciples to Capernaum, then at Passover goes up to Jerusalem. He enters the Temple at Jerusalem, the holiest place for Sacrifice, prayer and the worship of God, in the holiest City, at the Holiest Season of the Year, and up and down the aisles are set booths for tax collectors and money changers, behind these are livestock, Bulls and Heifers, Sheep, Rams and Goats and Lambs, cages of Doves, Pigeons and Sparrows.
Imagine the smells and sounds, and crowds and commerce in this House of God.
The Religious Law was to bring for sacrifice an unblemished offering. So not unlike the State Fair, animals we be brought to be judged, judged as worthy of being an offering for atonement of your sins, reconciliation of your life’s worth. If unacceptable, you could trade your animal for another sacrifice and pay the difference. But the money for purchase of a sacrifice could not be common currency of the Roman Empire, or the Greeks, this is money for purchase of a sacrifice in worship, so must be bought with Temple currency. You don’t have Temple currency, then for a fee you can exchange your money. But, as you do, and as you sell and buy your sacrifice, there is a tax assessed.
This, was the setting for the Ark of the Covenant. This was the Temple too Holy for King David to use his hands to build, because he had been too profaned by war. This was the Temple of King Solomon, destroyed and rebuilt. Eight years ago, it took us a full year of construction to build the Offices, Classrooms and Meeting Spaces of this Church. Three years ago, it took three months to build the Organ Chambers, three months to assemble the pieces of the Organ, three months to voice the Organ for this Sanctuary… Imagine the reverence and pride, they felt for their Sanctuary, which had take 46 years to rebuild.
And Jesus, has the reverence, the integrity of faith, to make a whip of chords and drive everyone and everything out of that place. Would that we each could see the Church, NOT as a Tax Right-Off. Not as a place of Religion and Tradition, a building and program. But that the TEMPLE OF GOD, the Temple of our Sacrifice for the wrongs of our lives, was our own body, our own life, given to God. That would be a sacrifice worthy of our sins.
As we mentioned at the Lenten Supper last Wednesday…Irenaeus, at the end of the Second century challenged Reality. Marcion had been teaching that the Old Testament has no validity now that Christ has come. While others, believed the Messiah still was not here. Irenaeus’ gift to the Church, was in describing that the Old and New Testaments both are needed, and that the core teaching of all the Old Testament was the Gift of the 10 Commandments. Not only the Laws themselves, but their gift by God. This was not Hamurabi’s Code, or the Independent Appraisers’ Assessment, like Noah’s Rainbow never again to destroy the Earth; like Abraham and Sarah’s child as proof that God is not yet finished with us; the 10 Commandments are a gift and Promise from God, that God will be in relationship to Creation.
The wonder of the Decalogue, the 10 Commandments, was for the People of the Exodus. They had known Pharaoh, who enacted Laws at whim, Laws that punished, Laws that created Classes among peoples, Laws that made Pharaoh into a God. We nostalgically recall the Crossing at the Red Sea as a Miracle, where Moses and the People were set free. The full text describes the Crossing at the Red Sea as a War between YHWH’s love and Pharaoh’s technology.
After the battle was over, the shore was filled with the broken bodies and broken weapons of Pharaoh’s army. The God who had erupted on Creation at the time of Noah, the God who had decimated the Pharaohs of Egypt, now called the people to God’s Holy Mountain to establish the Laws of their relationship. But instead of a long list of Laws, what God gave through Moses was a simple straightforward PHILOSOPHY of life.
1. HAVE NO OTHER GODS
2. WORSHIP NOTHING ELSE BUT GOD
3. DO NOT TAKE GOD’S NAME FOR OTHER PURPOSES
4. HONOR THE SABBATH
5. HONOR YOUR PARENTS
6. HONOR LIFE and Do Not Kill
7. HONOR MARRIAGE and Do Not Commit Adultery
8. HONOR ONE ANOTHER and Do Not Steal
9. HONOR THE TRUTH and Do Not Lie
10. HONOR YOUR COMMUNITY, Do Not Covet
What would reality be, if instead of worrying about property values, and job security, instead of worrying about what the neighbor’s think, or why we cannot have what they possess, if we followed this foundational code of life? Love God, love one another.
Late this week, homeowners in this Village and Township went to their mailboxes and discovered that the property they live in was in some cases worth less than they thought, and in many cases was worth a great deal more. That the home that was bought for $60,000 or 100,000 or $160,000; was now worth $300, or $400 or $500,000, or lakefront several million dollars. All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with how well you vacuum, or how lovely is our home, but a simple comparison to properties in other parts of the City, other parts of the State, and to other States. In the end, these values are all Monopoly money, with no estimation of what “HOME” means to any of us.
Today, I am healthy and strong, in the prime of life, tomorrow tests come back saying I
have a Cancer, part of my life is fighting against and killing the rest of me. I undergo radiation, and surgery and chemo therapy, food no longer has flavor, strength just is not there, I have a name for death, for my death, and then suddenly, as quickly as it came, I am told the cancer is gone. Can I believe it? How do we describe the meaning and value of “LIFE”?
A child is born. The most basic and common of biological events. Yet, in that moment, our lives are forever changed.
In the Enlightenment, the assumption was that there is a universal truth, one universal reality, we could all eventually know and understand.
Today, we claim to live in Post-Modern Times, recognizing that women and men are different, our experiences and cultures and circumstance of our lives cause each of us to witness life differently, so everyone’s reality is unique to that person. The problem we each struggle with is the disconnect between our lives and everyone/ everything else.
We imagine ourselves, as separate, the Center of our existence, searching for our fulfillment.
Imagine, what reality could be, if we accepted life different. If we were not cynical, or pessimistic, if we did not try to convince ourselves and the world we are better than we are. If we did not lie, if there were no hate. If we understood ourselves in relationship to God, as the Center of the Cosmos, with nothing of comparison, no desire for Wealth, or Prestige, or War, no desire for Lust, no desire to impress our neighbors, or to have what they possess. A desire only to love God, to love one another, and to love life.
What if routinely, as routinely as we take vitamins, as routinely as we exercise, as routinely as we turn on the television, we could stop from all we routinely do, to reassess, to Check Reality. If we assumed, we are not perfect, and we do not have to be, but we could know what is right, and we could stop periodically throughout life to adjust reality.
Our Scriptures this day describe a REALITY CHECK, where what we thought we knew, what we took for granted, suddenly means something totally different to us.
Jesus went to a wedding. How many of us have ever gone to a wedding, not as Bride or Groom or part of the Bridal party, but simply gone as a guest, a friend of a friend of family? Suddenly, someone realizes that the wine is gone. In a time of LIMITED RESOURCES, SCRACITY, human temptation is to question “Where’s Mine?” Instead, Mary calls her son to attend to everyone else’s problem, asking “What are you going to do?” Rather than questioning, the fairness, or the cost to us, this parent’s REALITY CHECK to their child is “GIVE OF YOURSELF”. “What can you share? What do you have to offer?” Would that as parents, instead of pride and defensiveness and vicariously living through them, we could each tell our sons and daughters, “Here are the problems in our Community, do something.”
The next day, Jesus led his family and his disciples to Capernaum, then at Passover goes up to Jerusalem. He enters the Temple at Jerusalem, the holiest place for Sacrifice, prayer and the worship of God, in the holiest City, at the Holiest Season of the Year, and up and down the aisles are set booths for tax collectors and money changers, behind these are livestock, Bulls and Heifers, Sheep, Rams and Goats and Lambs, cages of Doves, Pigeons and Sparrows.
Imagine the smells and sounds, and crowds and commerce in this House of God.
The Religious Law was to bring for sacrifice an unblemished offering. So not unlike the State Fair, animals we be brought to be judged, judged as worthy of being an offering for atonement of your sins, reconciliation of your life’s worth. If unacceptable, you could trade your animal for another sacrifice and pay the difference. But the money for purchase of a sacrifice could not be common currency of the Roman Empire, or the Greeks, this is money for purchase of a sacrifice in worship, so must be bought with Temple currency. You don’t have Temple currency, then for a fee you can exchange your money. But, as you do, and as you sell and buy your sacrifice, there is a tax assessed.
This, was the setting for the Ark of the Covenant. This was the Temple too Holy for King David to use his hands to build, because he had been too profaned by war. This was the Temple of King Solomon, destroyed and rebuilt. Eight years ago, it took us a full year of construction to build the Offices, Classrooms and Meeting Spaces of this Church. Three years ago, it took three months to build the Organ Chambers, three months to assemble the pieces of the Organ, three months to voice the Organ for this Sanctuary… Imagine the reverence and pride, they felt for their Sanctuary, which had take 46 years to rebuild.
And Jesus, has the reverence, the integrity of faith, to make a whip of chords and drive everyone and everything out of that place. Would that we each could see the Church, NOT as a Tax Right-Off. Not as a place of Religion and Tradition, a building and program. But that the TEMPLE OF GOD, the Temple of our Sacrifice for the wrongs of our lives, was our own body, our own life, given to God. That would be a sacrifice worthy of our sins.
As we mentioned at the Lenten Supper last Wednesday…Irenaeus, at the end of the Second century challenged Reality. Marcion had been teaching that the Old Testament has no validity now that Christ has come. While others, believed the Messiah still was not here. Irenaeus’ gift to the Church, was in describing that the Old and New Testaments both are needed, and that the core teaching of all the Old Testament was the Gift of the 10 Commandments. Not only the Laws themselves, but their gift by God. This was not Hamurabi’s Code, or the Independent Appraisers’ Assessment, like Noah’s Rainbow never again to destroy the Earth; like Abraham and Sarah’s child as proof that God is not yet finished with us; the 10 Commandments are a gift and Promise from God, that God will be in relationship to Creation.
The wonder of the Decalogue, the 10 Commandments, was for the People of the Exodus. They had known Pharaoh, who enacted Laws at whim, Laws that punished, Laws that created Classes among peoples, Laws that made Pharaoh into a God. We nostalgically recall the Crossing at the Red Sea as a Miracle, where Moses and the People were set free. The full text describes the Crossing at the Red Sea as a War between YHWH’s love and Pharaoh’s technology.
After the battle was over, the shore was filled with the broken bodies and broken weapons of Pharaoh’s army. The God who had erupted on Creation at the time of Noah, the God who had decimated the Pharaohs of Egypt, now called the people to God’s Holy Mountain to establish the Laws of their relationship. But instead of a long list of Laws, what God gave through Moses was a simple straightforward PHILOSOPHY of life.
1. HAVE NO OTHER GODS
2. WORSHIP NOTHING ELSE BUT GOD
3. DO NOT TAKE GOD’S NAME FOR OTHER PURPOSES
4. HONOR THE SABBATH
5. HONOR YOUR PARENTS
6. HONOR LIFE and Do Not Kill
7. HONOR MARRIAGE and Do Not Commit Adultery
8. HONOR ONE ANOTHER and Do Not Steal
9. HONOR THE TRUTH and Do Not Lie
10. HONOR YOUR COMMUNITY, Do Not Covet
What would reality be, if instead of worrying about property values, and job security, instead of worrying about what the neighbor’s think, or why we cannot have what they possess, if we followed this foundational code of life? Love God, love one another.
Pentecost Sermon
This is the Day the Lord has made! This is a day that means far more than we are prepared for.
This is the Fiftieth Day after Passover, the Jewish Celebration of the Day of Pentecost, which became that Day when Christianity was transformed from the band of witnesses who had known Jesus of Nazareth, to a faith in God and language of belief that changed the world.
That time when the disciples were gathered together in prayer in the Upper Room and they received the Holy Spirit which sent them out into the world in mission and evangelism.
This is Memorial Day Weekend, a National Day of remembrance set aside for honoring those who gave their lives in our War Between the States, the Battle of Northern Aggression, Civil War. Different from Veterans' Day which marks a time honoring those who served in the military, this is a time for honoring the memory of those who gave their lives for freedoms we take for granted. This has become a time of remembrance for all those who have died, all those who have given lives in any war. And we do so, knowing this day, our nation is involved in Civil Wars that divide other nations. Our sons and daughters are serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Korea, and before this day is done, several more will die.
This is also a time for honoring a man among us, who began his education under a tree, listening to stories. Whose life was forever altered by Civil War. Who eventually made his way to one refugee camp and another, studying and learning by the reading of books, and tutorial, who came to America six years ago and now has become an American Citizen and completed his Bachelor's in Sciences. And we know that this is only the beginning, for he will continue his education, then put that academic training to practice in the care and service of others.
Each of our lives are richer, more full than any one else can ever appreciate, because no one else has ever walked in your footsteps or perceived the world through your own eyes. Even more so for us with you, because we cannot imagine what life was like having your home burned, soldiers killing people in your own village, murdering your family. Having to hide from bullets, and hyenas, from snakes and scorpions and soldiers, as you walked the width of your nation. We who have a public education as a childhood responsibility, who learn to read and write before beginning school, who imagine education as that time between athletic practices and SATs, highlighted by Homecoming and Prom and Senior Ball, have difficulty even imagining what you endured in order to learn. We are so very proud of all you have done and accomplished, and the man you have grown to be.
Would that every one of us understood that education is not a test of endurance, or a private acquisition, not an accomplishment to sit upon, admiring what we know and have mastered, BUT Rather that education is a GIFT, a precious challenge that empowers us to see the world differently, allowing us to be used as a resource to benefit all humanity.
In Sudan , supper did not occur until about 9pm at night. Afterward, a friend would turn on his transistor radio, his name is Abdon Machok Deng Malou. Abdon had wanted to go to college, he had a full scholarship, but the war had come, so instead he acquired his education by listening the Voice of America on the Radio. He would take meticulous notes on how to kill molds and mildew, how to sterilize and disinfect, how to fertilize and make things grow. Rom these precious lessons he became the Agriculture Coordinator teaching others. Because of the Civil War, he was not able to follow his dream, but he did not settle and become complacent, he used his mind to continue to learn.
Would hat we could learn to listen and be challenged to help one another. One of our greatest leaders Abraham Lincoln is remembered NOT because he was assassinated. But in part because
when he won the election as President, he sought all those who had run in competition with him to form a coalition Cabinet. The point of an election was not who could smear the other, or who could create the largest number of contributions, not to frament the nation into differing tribes of supporters, but to identify the Nation's leadership, then to use their gifts together.
History has a perverse sense of irony, in his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln professed that “Few will remember the words shared here this day, but none of us dare forget the names of all those who have died or their identity as Fathers, and Sons and Brothers to us all. We came to dedicate a National Cemetery, when in fact all those who spilled their blood have already hallowed the ground on which we stand.”
When what we have settled upon in our memories are the words that were shared “Four core and seven years ago”, forgetting the names and identities of all those who died, cursing us to repeat that war in a thousand other lands, as Fathers and Mothers, Sons and Daughters, all die.
Tragically, each successive generation has gone to war, professing this is the war to end wars. Despite World Wars and weapons of mass destruction, one of the wars with the greatest number of Americans killed was our own Civil War, because both Union and Confederate Soldiers were each American. With all that we have learned in each generation, with all that we now know and understand, we have learned new reasons for wars, new means of scorching the earth, we know of genocide, but we have not learned how to live in peace.
Culturally, a new nation, a new tribe, a new people is formed, NOT when they identify a different ideology or race, or economic system. A new and different people are formed whenever they adopt a different language. The beauty of THE DAY OF PENTECOST, is that on that day, people from every different culture and nation each listened and heard as if of one Language, one people.
On that day, the community of faith changed, from a people hidden behind closed doors in prayer, to being a people who go out into the world. As a people of faith, we have given away what we ought to hold most dear. We have given away the idea of EVANGELISM as if this could only be going door to door , asking others if they will become one of us, as if there were only one right way of coming to God, as if EVANGELISM REALLY MEANT GUILT. Acts of EVANGELISM are a seven year old asking their best friend to come to church with them. A father deciding I am going to worship God and I want each of you as family to join me, as something we can share together. The meaning of the Word “EVANGEL” is Moved by the Spirit. Motivated, Challenged, Impassioned to Act because of what we believe.
Too often it seems we are a people who only believe in two persons of the Trinity. We know God the CREATOR, the God of the Old Testament who gave Promise to Abraham, and 10 Commandments to Moses, who loved David and spoke through the Prophets.
We know Jesus, the Carpenter's Son, born in a Stable beneath a Star, our SAVIOR who suffered and died for us, in order to rise again on Easter. What more do we need than a CREATOR and REDEEMER, a LORD and SAVIOR? But the third person of the Trinity of God, whom we name and know on Pentecost, is the Holy Spirit. That BROODING wind that rippled the waters at Creation, that visitor who wrestled with Jacob giving him the new name ISRAEL meaning one who wrestles with God, that one who blew afresh and challenged the Disciples to go out into the world. The third Person of God, THE CREATOR and SAVIOR, is the ONE WHO WRESTLES with Us and Challenges us, The EVANGEL, who motivates us to question and to act with passion.
One of the best known and least understood stories of Genesis is that of the Tower at Babel. The point is not WHERE DID LANGUAGE COME FROM? Or whether it is right or wrong for people to build Skyscrapers or to reach for the stars and heavens. The point of the Tower of Babel, is that the people decided to SETTLE. And God frustrated them, God confused them with differing languages, in order that we would move on by clan and tribe, until such time as the earth was full and we could listen and wrestle with understanding.
The challenge and frustration of our minds this morning, is that one of the refugees from Sudan, whom we began sponsoring six years ago, to have freedom, to escape war and acquire an education in America, yesterday graduated from LeMoyne College “Cum Laude”, and he is not with us this morning because he has enlisted to serve in the United States Military in war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He escaped Civil War and received an excellent College Education. We struggle to understand. His sense of this is that the United States gave him the opportunity to be free (not to escape war), gave him the opportiunity for an education (not to settle on accomplishments, but to use to help others), gave his homeland freedom that as a Naturalized American Citizen he can now defend against the same enemy. We hold our son in prayer, as he journeys onward.
This is the Fiftieth Day after Passover, the Jewish Celebration of the Day of Pentecost, which became that Day when Christianity was transformed from the band of witnesses who had known Jesus of Nazareth, to a faith in God and language of belief that changed the world.
That time when the disciples were gathered together in prayer in the Upper Room and they received the Holy Spirit which sent them out into the world in mission and evangelism.
This is Memorial Day Weekend, a National Day of remembrance set aside for honoring those who gave their lives in our War Between the States, the Battle of Northern Aggression, Civil War. Different from Veterans' Day which marks a time honoring those who served in the military, this is a time for honoring the memory of those who gave their lives for freedoms we take for granted. This has become a time of remembrance for all those who have died, all those who have given lives in any war. And we do so, knowing this day, our nation is involved in Civil Wars that divide other nations. Our sons and daughters are serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Korea, and before this day is done, several more will die.
This is also a time for honoring a man among us, who began his education under a tree, listening to stories. Whose life was forever altered by Civil War. Who eventually made his way to one refugee camp and another, studying and learning by the reading of books, and tutorial, who came to America six years ago and now has become an American Citizen and completed his Bachelor's in Sciences. And we know that this is only the beginning, for he will continue his education, then put that academic training to practice in the care and service of others.
Each of our lives are richer, more full than any one else can ever appreciate, because no one else has ever walked in your footsteps or perceived the world through your own eyes. Even more so for us with you, because we cannot imagine what life was like having your home burned, soldiers killing people in your own village, murdering your family. Having to hide from bullets, and hyenas, from snakes and scorpions and soldiers, as you walked the width of your nation. We who have a public education as a childhood responsibility, who learn to read and write before beginning school, who imagine education as that time between athletic practices and SATs, highlighted by Homecoming and Prom and Senior Ball, have difficulty even imagining what you endured in order to learn. We are so very proud of all you have done and accomplished, and the man you have grown to be.
Would that every one of us understood that education is not a test of endurance, or a private acquisition, not an accomplishment to sit upon, admiring what we know and have mastered, BUT Rather that education is a GIFT, a precious challenge that empowers us to see the world differently, allowing us to be used as a resource to benefit all humanity.
In Sudan , supper did not occur until about 9pm at night. Afterward, a friend would turn on his transistor radio, his name is Abdon Machok Deng Malou. Abdon had wanted to go to college, he had a full scholarship, but the war had come, so instead he acquired his education by listening the Voice of America on the Radio. He would take meticulous notes on how to kill molds and mildew, how to sterilize and disinfect, how to fertilize and make things grow. Rom these precious lessons he became the Agriculture Coordinator teaching others. Because of the Civil War, he was not able to follow his dream, but he did not settle and become complacent, he used his mind to continue to learn.
Would hat we could learn to listen and be challenged to help one another. One of our greatest leaders Abraham Lincoln is remembered NOT because he was assassinated. But in part because
when he won the election as President, he sought all those who had run in competition with him to form a coalition Cabinet. The point of an election was not who could smear the other, or who could create the largest number of contributions, not to frament the nation into differing tribes of supporters, but to identify the Nation's leadership, then to use their gifts together.
History has a perverse sense of irony, in his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln professed that “Few will remember the words shared here this day, but none of us dare forget the names of all those who have died or their identity as Fathers, and Sons and Brothers to us all. We came to dedicate a National Cemetery, when in fact all those who spilled their blood have already hallowed the ground on which we stand.”
When what we have settled upon in our memories are the words that were shared “Four core and seven years ago”, forgetting the names and identities of all those who died, cursing us to repeat that war in a thousand other lands, as Fathers and Mothers, Sons and Daughters, all die.
Tragically, each successive generation has gone to war, professing this is the war to end wars. Despite World Wars and weapons of mass destruction, one of the wars with the greatest number of Americans killed was our own Civil War, because both Union and Confederate Soldiers were each American. With all that we have learned in each generation, with all that we now know and understand, we have learned new reasons for wars, new means of scorching the earth, we know of genocide, but we have not learned how to live in peace.
Culturally, a new nation, a new tribe, a new people is formed, NOT when they identify a different ideology or race, or economic system. A new and different people are formed whenever they adopt a different language. The beauty of THE DAY OF PENTECOST, is that on that day, people from every different culture and nation each listened and heard as if of one Language, one people.
On that day, the community of faith changed, from a people hidden behind closed doors in prayer, to being a people who go out into the world. As a people of faith, we have given away what we ought to hold most dear. We have given away the idea of EVANGELISM as if this could only be going door to door , asking others if they will become one of us, as if there were only one right way of coming to God, as if EVANGELISM REALLY MEANT GUILT. Acts of EVANGELISM are a seven year old asking their best friend to come to church with them. A father deciding I am going to worship God and I want each of you as family to join me, as something we can share together. The meaning of the Word “EVANGEL” is Moved by the Spirit. Motivated, Challenged, Impassioned to Act because of what we believe.
Too often it seems we are a people who only believe in two persons of the Trinity. We know God the CREATOR, the God of the Old Testament who gave Promise to Abraham, and 10 Commandments to Moses, who loved David and spoke through the Prophets.
We know Jesus, the Carpenter's Son, born in a Stable beneath a Star, our SAVIOR who suffered and died for us, in order to rise again on Easter. What more do we need than a CREATOR and REDEEMER, a LORD and SAVIOR? But the third person of the Trinity of God, whom we name and know on Pentecost, is the Holy Spirit. That BROODING wind that rippled the waters at Creation, that visitor who wrestled with Jacob giving him the new name ISRAEL meaning one who wrestles with God, that one who blew afresh and challenged the Disciples to go out into the world. The third Person of God, THE CREATOR and SAVIOR, is the ONE WHO WRESTLES with Us and Challenges us, The EVANGEL, who motivates us to question and to act with passion.
One of the best known and least understood stories of Genesis is that of the Tower at Babel. The point is not WHERE DID LANGUAGE COME FROM? Or whether it is right or wrong for people to build Skyscrapers or to reach for the stars and heavens. The point of the Tower of Babel, is that the people decided to SETTLE. And God frustrated them, God confused them with differing languages, in order that we would move on by clan and tribe, until such time as the earth was full and we could listen and wrestle with understanding.
The challenge and frustration of our minds this morning, is that one of the refugees from Sudan, whom we began sponsoring six years ago, to have freedom, to escape war and acquire an education in America, yesterday graduated from LeMoyne College “Cum Laude”, and he is not with us this morning because he has enlisted to serve in the United States Military in war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He escaped Civil War and received an excellent College Education. We struggle to understand. His sense of this is that the United States gave him the opportunity to be free (not to escape war), gave him the opportiunity for an education (not to settle on accomplishments, but to use to help others), gave his homeland freedom that as a Naturalized American Citizen he can now defend against the same enemy. We hold our son in prayer, as he journeys onward.
Pete and Repeat Sermon
Long before George Forman named all seven of his sons George Foreman Jr. there was an old Vaudeville joke where a man describes he and his wife had twins, and he is asked so what did you name them, and he says the first one is named Pete, and the other one is Repeat.
As much as we try to multitask, human beings are focused creatures. We concentrate and practice and we perform that duty to the best of our abilities. Multitasking is not so much doing six things all to the same level simultaneously, as balancing this one needs my primary attention while these remain on simmer in my peripheral vision.
Mathematically, you can concentrate upon ONE, or divide into TWO or MORE PARTS. For math cannot make the GIVENS bigger. You cannot treat both halves as if wholes with your full attention, at least not at the same time. As mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, “You will love the one and hate the other or hate the first to love the other.”
BUT, this is the point in Reality where CALCULUS breaks down and the HUMAN SPIRIT steps up. What we are able to do is to respond to the needs of this one as they have needs, then respond to this one, not the same and exactly equal, but as they have needs. The Wonder of God’s creation is that the cell that was an egg, became twin children, not two halves of a whole, but two individuals, two independent and interdependent gifts from God.
Culturally, what we attempt to do by multitasking is both, to enlarge our abilities to do more other things while still focusing upon one; and to transition more quickly.
Primarily what we are describing this morning is what occurs when you do not pay needed attention to “the other things”, the other relationships, all the other stuff of life that we cannot or do not want to give power to by focusing upon at this time.
A parent dies and instead of acknowledging our grief, giving ourselves time to mourn, we take on other responsibilities and devote ourselves to work to parenting, to getting a house ready for sale…But all the while we are grieving and mourning until a part of our soul dies.
The Elephant in the room is who or what are we not acknowledging in our lives?
There is great popular song of the last decade that uses the Nursery Rhyme “The cat’s in the Cradle with the silver spoon, Little Boy Blue and the man in the Moon, when you coming home Dad, I don’t know when but we’ll get together then, I know we’ll have a good time then”. All the child wants to have with their parent is TIME, not to buy a pony, or to learn a skill, but simply to share time together, to grow up to be just like him. And the parent is busy working, providing for the family. And they grow up and the parent then wants to spend time with their child, but he now has other responsibilities in his life, he has grown up just like him.
What an awesome treasure we have in the story of David!
It is a PERFECTLY AWFUL TRAGIC STORY.
Adultery, Murder, Incest, Suicide, Fratricide (Killing your brother). All of which leads to Civil War between those with allegiance to King David, and those with allegiance to his son the future King Absalom, because part of who David is, is a man; part of who David is, is the First Monarch as King of Israel; part of who David is, is in relationship to God. David ignored his relationship with God, and his cultural responsibilities as King, to do what was satisfying to him as a man. He had an affair with Bathsheba, which as we read two weeks ago was principally because when Kings go off to War, David was too old and stayed home despite his desires, and so acted on other desires. We cannot ignore part of who we are, as if it does not exist, as if other parts of our being can be repeated to fill the void.
David denied himself going to war, by so doing created a war at home, in his own Nation and household and within himself. He gave command to his Generals to fight the battle, destroy the enemy, but concerning the young man Absalom, do not harm him for he is the son of the King. We seek RESOLUTION, even when we do not want to accept the answer. Ironically, in the telling, Absalom is continually described by the King as “The Young Man Absalom”, until the resolution of the story, that Absalom is indeed dead, when David can finally acknowledge “My Son is dead.”
We love Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, knowing that the son comes to himself and comes home even when he believes he will be unwelcome, and the father welcomes him. But knowing the Scriptures, before telling that story Jesus would have known of this Prodigal Son story, and how often the child does not come home, and is not welcomed.
What are we trying to do, and why?
We have created a running joke in our relationship, that when there are babies in worship, one of the questions is how long will it take for the Preacher to take them in his arms. And there has been intrigue at MULTI-TASKING, that a man can not only walk and chew gum, or a man can hold and comfort a baby, but that a man can comfort a baby and preach (hopefully coherently). But as a magician explaining the trick, what all of know and few of us acknowledge, is we are here, in worship this morning, and here in this life because we need to witness that there is caring and comforting especially by God.
Something difficult has been happening this summer, something I have never had to experience before. One of the identities we have chosen to claim in this community is as that a Church that throws wide our doors for Weddings. Thus far this year there have been three occasions, where couples have called saying that the minister who agreed to marry them was recently transferred or died, or is too ill to perform the wedding. Checking, I have come to believe these are legitimate stories, and not excuses for a couple turned down by another minister. Yet, a recurrent undertone is WE NEED SOMEONE TO SIGN THE LICENSE, WE HAVE TO FIND SOMEBODY TO STAND IN AS THE OFFICIANT because we cannot get married without having you pronounce us. This denies anything of faith, anything spiritual, a changing of identity that occurs for these two individual persons before God because of the stating of sacred vows. Are we only REPEATING motions, observing the ritual, have we so lost faith behind the gown and flowers and photos and music, that we no longer believe we are changed, or that we should be changed by our stating our vows to each other before God?
Put away falsehood, make a change this very day to be committed to what you believe. Tragically, we live in a culture that has equated everything to a VENDING MACHINE. I showed us. I want what I want and am willing to pay for it. And if you will not provide it, at the time and in the color I want, I will go elsewhere. Faith is illogical. Faith requires we act differently because we have made a commitment, to each other and to God.
A marriage is not a marriage when you give your intimacy and affections to another.
In presenting children for baptism, we are not naming them, or celebrating their birth.
This is a SACRAMENT, literally, A SIGN AND A SEAL OF GOD’S GRACE AND LOVE. As important as anything that we do, are the WORDS/VOWS we each affirm.
Jeff and Lisa, as the parents,
you are making a Solemn Vow as sacred as your Marital Vows that you believe in God,
you recognize these children as gifts given you by God,
and truthfully that you cannot pay for all they need,
on your own you cannot provide all they need, but you will depend upon God.
For us as a church, that we will act as THE CHURCH,
doing what ever is needed,
following the example of Jesus Christ even through death for our faith.
Baptism, is a sign of our CALLING,
as much a Call as that of the Prophets, the Disciples, or Ordination.
From this day forward and ALL throughout their lives, these Children will be known as sent as Gifts of God for the people of God.
As much as we try to multitask, human beings are focused creatures. We concentrate and practice and we perform that duty to the best of our abilities. Multitasking is not so much doing six things all to the same level simultaneously, as balancing this one needs my primary attention while these remain on simmer in my peripheral vision.
Mathematically, you can concentrate upon ONE, or divide into TWO or MORE PARTS. For math cannot make the GIVENS bigger. You cannot treat both halves as if wholes with your full attention, at least not at the same time. As mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, “You will love the one and hate the other or hate the first to love the other.”
BUT, this is the point in Reality where CALCULUS breaks down and the HUMAN SPIRIT steps up. What we are able to do is to respond to the needs of this one as they have needs, then respond to this one, not the same and exactly equal, but as they have needs. The Wonder of God’s creation is that the cell that was an egg, became twin children, not two halves of a whole, but two individuals, two independent and interdependent gifts from God.
Culturally, what we attempt to do by multitasking is both, to enlarge our abilities to do more other things while still focusing upon one; and to transition more quickly.
Primarily what we are describing this morning is what occurs when you do not pay needed attention to “the other things”, the other relationships, all the other stuff of life that we cannot or do not want to give power to by focusing upon at this time.
A parent dies and instead of acknowledging our grief, giving ourselves time to mourn, we take on other responsibilities and devote ourselves to work to parenting, to getting a house ready for sale…But all the while we are grieving and mourning until a part of our soul dies.
The Elephant in the room is who or what are we not acknowledging in our lives?
There is great popular song of the last decade that uses the Nursery Rhyme “The cat’s in the Cradle with the silver spoon, Little Boy Blue and the man in the Moon, when you coming home Dad, I don’t know when but we’ll get together then, I know we’ll have a good time then”. All the child wants to have with their parent is TIME, not to buy a pony, or to learn a skill, but simply to share time together, to grow up to be just like him. And the parent is busy working, providing for the family. And they grow up and the parent then wants to spend time with their child, but he now has other responsibilities in his life, he has grown up just like him.
What an awesome treasure we have in the story of David!
It is a PERFECTLY AWFUL TRAGIC STORY.
Adultery, Murder, Incest, Suicide, Fratricide (Killing your brother). All of which leads to Civil War between those with allegiance to King David, and those with allegiance to his son the future King Absalom, because part of who David is, is a man; part of who David is, is the First Monarch as King of Israel; part of who David is, is in relationship to God. David ignored his relationship with God, and his cultural responsibilities as King, to do what was satisfying to him as a man. He had an affair with Bathsheba, which as we read two weeks ago was principally because when Kings go off to War, David was too old and stayed home despite his desires, and so acted on other desires. We cannot ignore part of who we are, as if it does not exist, as if other parts of our being can be repeated to fill the void.
David denied himself going to war, by so doing created a war at home, in his own Nation and household and within himself. He gave command to his Generals to fight the battle, destroy the enemy, but concerning the young man Absalom, do not harm him for he is the son of the King. We seek RESOLUTION, even when we do not want to accept the answer. Ironically, in the telling, Absalom is continually described by the King as “The Young Man Absalom”, until the resolution of the story, that Absalom is indeed dead, when David can finally acknowledge “My Son is dead.”
We love Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, knowing that the son comes to himself and comes home even when he believes he will be unwelcome, and the father welcomes him. But knowing the Scriptures, before telling that story Jesus would have known of this Prodigal Son story, and how often the child does not come home, and is not welcomed.
What are we trying to do, and why?
We have created a running joke in our relationship, that when there are babies in worship, one of the questions is how long will it take for the Preacher to take them in his arms. And there has been intrigue at MULTI-TASKING, that a man can not only walk and chew gum, or a man can hold and comfort a baby, but that a man can comfort a baby and preach (hopefully coherently). But as a magician explaining the trick, what all of know and few of us acknowledge, is we are here, in worship this morning, and here in this life because we need to witness that there is caring and comforting especially by God.
Something difficult has been happening this summer, something I have never had to experience before. One of the identities we have chosen to claim in this community is as that a Church that throws wide our doors for Weddings. Thus far this year there have been three occasions, where couples have called saying that the minister who agreed to marry them was recently transferred or died, or is too ill to perform the wedding. Checking, I have come to believe these are legitimate stories, and not excuses for a couple turned down by another minister. Yet, a recurrent undertone is WE NEED SOMEONE TO SIGN THE LICENSE, WE HAVE TO FIND SOMEBODY TO STAND IN AS THE OFFICIANT because we cannot get married without having you pronounce us. This denies anything of faith, anything spiritual, a changing of identity that occurs for these two individual persons before God because of the stating of sacred vows. Are we only REPEATING motions, observing the ritual, have we so lost faith behind the gown and flowers and photos and music, that we no longer believe we are changed, or that we should be changed by our stating our vows to each other before God?
Put away falsehood, make a change this very day to be committed to what you believe. Tragically, we live in a culture that has equated everything to a VENDING MACHINE. I showed us. I want what I want and am willing to pay for it. And if you will not provide it, at the time and in the color I want, I will go elsewhere. Faith is illogical. Faith requires we act differently because we have made a commitment, to each other and to God.
A marriage is not a marriage when you give your intimacy and affections to another.
In presenting children for baptism, we are not naming them, or celebrating their birth.
This is a SACRAMENT, literally, A SIGN AND A SEAL OF GOD’S GRACE AND LOVE. As important as anything that we do, are the WORDS/VOWS we each affirm.
Jeff and Lisa, as the parents,
you are making a Solemn Vow as sacred as your Marital Vows that you believe in God,
you recognize these children as gifts given you by God,
and truthfully that you cannot pay for all they need,
on your own you cannot provide all they need, but you will depend upon God.
For us as a church, that we will act as THE CHURCH,
doing what ever is needed,
following the example of Jesus Christ even through death for our faith.
Baptism, is a sign of our CALLING,
as much a Call as that of the Prophets, the Disciples, or Ordination.
From this day forward and ALL throughout their lives, these Children will be known as sent as Gifts of God for the people of God.
The Next BHAG Sermon
There are times when we become so familiar with one another, with an idea, that we take one another for granted. One of the important roles of the People of Faith is always to DREAM NEW DREAMS. We establish statements of PURPOSE and VALUES and GOALS, so as to continue to grow, to change, to be ever new, while having INTEGRITY.
THANKSGIVING for us is a celebration of home, of family, of feasting on more food than we can imagine. Ironically, we know this remembrance began because our ancestors, who had left home and family were in this new land, and they did not have food to eat. They had survived for several months by eating a ration of only five dried kernels of corn per day. This was all they had. After the long hard winter, the natives of this place sought them out to teach them to farm and to hunt. Now with a table laden to overflow with food, our ancestors sat together with the strangers of this place and each received five kernels, to remember and give thanks for what they had been given, before sharing in the blessings before them.
Our reading from the Old Testament, is a recasting of the REIGN OF KING DAVID. We know from all of First and Second Samuel, that though God and the Nation had so long awaited the coming of this figure, the Shepherd King, the boy who stood up to the Philistine Giant Goliath, in reality David had abused power. He had taken what was not his, he had waged wars, and killed both his wife's husband and his son. On his deathbed, the oracle is read describing the life of David in terms of what might have been, the lofty goals and aspirations of having a king whose leadership was as inspiring as the dawn, who new himself to be a sacred vessel of God, a resource for the people, an instrument of peace, a tool of God, rather than the depression of a dictatorship. WOULD THAT ALL OR LEADERS WOULD BE LESS CONCERNED WITH THEIR LEGACY THAN WITH LEADING THE PEOPLE TO PEACE, PROSPERITY AND COMPASSION.
This One Day out of all the year, is designated as Christ the King Sunday. Where there is a season of expectation for the birth of the Savior, the reality of God's great gift, and a time of remembrance, a season of Lenten reflection, the reality of Christ's sacrifice ad atonement for our sins, and a period of reflection, this day, this one day, is to establish goals and dream dreams knowing the fullness of the Trinity, the completeness of the year. The problem of familiarity, with all appropriate apologies to the History Majors among us, we tend to lump all events together as past, present and future. We recall the building of the Pyramids, the Roman Empire of the Caesars, the signing of the Magna Carta, and the Presidency of George Washington, all as equal being our past. SO include Jesus as Christ the King, one more leader, one more King and authority...but as named to Pilate, in the gospel of John, the Kingdom of Jesus is not the same as the Empire of Rome. Born in a stall, a carpenter's son, a rabbi, a criminal executed upon the cross these are NOT our standard descriptions of the reign of a king. These are circumstance of humility, of integrity and loyalty and faith. By Naming Christ as King, the CROSS & CROWN of our Chancel window, we lift up a different AUTHORTY, a different KINGDOM, a different ET F GOALS than we ascribe to in the SUCCESS of this world.
In their books GOOD TO GREAT and BUILT TO LAST Business Management Gurus Jim Collins and Jerry Porras describe that the purpose of business is NOT TO MAKE MONEY. As human creatures, we are volunteers, with a freedom of will to choose where to apply ourselves, where to invest our time and energy, what we want to be a part of. As such, the name that every association can claim A CORE PURPOSE in working together. A CORE SET OF VALUES that describe how we will relate and work together. And A SET OF GOALS.
We have lifted up before that in te earliest incarnation of tis congregation we were so united with the identity of this community as to have been the LOCAL COURTS and THE LOCAL SCHOOLS and the COMMNITY OF CONFESSION for FULL COMMUNION WITH GOD & ONE ANOTHER.
Last Week in the Brunch Forum LARRY WEISS identified for us that in the Re-esablishment of this Church in the building of this our third Sanctuary in 1891, we drew a C&A in the Center window as we go out into the world, claiming identity as CALVINISTS & ARMENIANISTS, that is a Community that accepts CALVIN'S Premise that God PEDESTINED the FUTURE.
All humanity has sinned, everyone is going to die. But also, as named by ARMENIANISM there is FREE WILL, We can change the future, if we commit ourselves, if we dream new dreams and make them.
SO, the CORE PURPOSE OF THIS CHURCH that has been since our beginning, and will be part of this Church's identity 200 years from now, that which sets this Church apart from all else in this community, banks and businesses, schools and courts and residences, and from other Churches is:
WE SEEK TO BE THIS COMMUNITY'S CENTER, FOR GOSPEL & CULTURE, A CATALYST FOR CHANGE WITH INTEGRITY.
As such, we can claim integrity as having been the Church, the center of Gospel & Culture to Jack's Great Grandparents Franklin & Gerri Wight and the VerVoorts,
and the Church to his Grandparents Dick & Joyce Campbell
and his parents Jeff & Julie and his sister Campbell Torrey.
The Core Values we seek to embody are
FAITH in a Culture of Doubt & Cynicism,
HOPE in a World f Fear and Terrorism,
TRUST even in Broken Relationships.
Faith, Hope, Love.
FREE WILL IN A WORLD PREDESTINATION
But Statements of Purpose and Values are only DREAMS and VISIONS, if we do not have Goals to realize our Dreams. According to Collins and Porras, what we need are not simply Goals but BHAGs: BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS GOALS.
Like Henry Ford setting out to make automobiles so available everyone would have one and te horse would become obsolete as transportation.
Like John Kennedy describing that in 10 years we would not only have put an astronaut in space, not only have orbited the globe, but landed on the moon and brought them back.
A Dozen Years ago, with the roof leaking and several windows cracked, with a secret histry of abuses, this congregation named a BHAG of having a Beautiful Church that wold be a Commnity Center for Worship, the Arts, Education and Mission, a resource of God for this community not just ourselves. A place where secrets are confessed, and vows of relationship and love take the place of secrets.
Five years ago, we made a commitment, a BHAG, to support three Children who were refugees from an Under-Developed Wilderness, from 20 years of Civil War, to become self-sufficient. Now, four are enrolled in their final years of college, a Mother and Son have been re-united, with a sister he never knew he had, this son is married with a job and wife and daughter and brand new home.
Four years ago, we owned a Boarding House for Seniors, that always seemed to have vacancies and was in constant need of repair. We listened to a BHAG of rebuilding this house, with suites for every person, and now there is a waiting list with one person moving in as soon as a room is vacant.
Three years ago, we began talking about a BHAG, sharing ecumenically, with real sharing and fellowship between the Churches, suggesting the idea of a Mission Marketplace. The Episcopal Church was more available the first year, and where often a second year sequel is lesser than the first, this year we had more missions, from more Churches in our community and raised several thousand more dollars even than the first year. 26,000 in support of Missions.
Less than two years ago, I was given a BHAG, I received a blessing and curse from a Tribal Chief in East Africa, that if we fulfilled or promises and built a clinic, we would live long full, blessed lives, and the materials for that Clinic and pumps for a well and a generator for electricity are in Kenya, and there is a doctor. And there are volunteers wanting to go to serve.
About the same time, there was a BHAG to read to children in the schools and libraries, and while there could be many more of us doing so, this is happening.
SO What is the Next BHAG?
We are the CENTER OF GOSPEL & CULTURE in this Community.
We are a Catalyst for CHANGE With INTEGRITY.
Christ calls us to BEAR WITNESS to THE TRUTH.
WE DO SO with FAITH, HOPE AND TRUST.
In the next several months, sons and daughters will come home after fighting in an unpopular war WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP THEIR BECOMING PART OF THIS COMMUNITY after seeing so much of violence and death?
OTHERS WLL BE DISCHARGED FROM PRISON.
In this last year we have celebrated the lives of many of our GRANDPARENTS, how can we help one another in the midst of holidays, when there is an empty place at the Table?
We have had a BABYBOOM of BAPTISMS, yet many of these are embarrassed about separation from their children or how engaging their children might be in worship. How can we help one another?
What is our next BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL?
THANKSGIVING for us is a celebration of home, of family, of feasting on more food than we can imagine. Ironically, we know this remembrance began because our ancestors, who had left home and family were in this new land, and they did not have food to eat. They had survived for several months by eating a ration of only five dried kernels of corn per day. This was all they had. After the long hard winter, the natives of this place sought them out to teach them to farm and to hunt. Now with a table laden to overflow with food, our ancestors sat together with the strangers of this place and each received five kernels, to remember and give thanks for what they had been given, before sharing in the blessings before them.
Our reading from the Old Testament, is a recasting of the REIGN OF KING DAVID. We know from all of First and Second Samuel, that though God and the Nation had so long awaited the coming of this figure, the Shepherd King, the boy who stood up to the Philistine Giant Goliath, in reality David had abused power. He had taken what was not his, he had waged wars, and killed both his wife's husband and his son. On his deathbed, the oracle is read describing the life of David in terms of what might have been, the lofty goals and aspirations of having a king whose leadership was as inspiring as the dawn, who new himself to be a sacred vessel of God, a resource for the people, an instrument of peace, a tool of God, rather than the depression of a dictatorship. WOULD THAT ALL OR LEADERS WOULD BE LESS CONCERNED WITH THEIR LEGACY THAN WITH LEADING THE PEOPLE TO PEACE, PROSPERITY AND COMPASSION.
This One Day out of all the year, is designated as Christ the King Sunday. Where there is a season of expectation for the birth of the Savior, the reality of God's great gift, and a time of remembrance, a season of Lenten reflection, the reality of Christ's sacrifice ad atonement for our sins, and a period of reflection, this day, this one day, is to establish goals and dream dreams knowing the fullness of the Trinity, the completeness of the year. The problem of familiarity, with all appropriate apologies to the History Majors among us, we tend to lump all events together as past, present and future. We recall the building of the Pyramids, the Roman Empire of the Caesars, the signing of the Magna Carta, and the Presidency of George Washington, all as equal being our past. SO include Jesus as Christ the King, one more leader, one more King and authority...but as named to Pilate, in the gospel of John, the Kingdom of Jesus is not the same as the Empire of Rome. Born in a stall, a carpenter's son, a rabbi, a criminal executed upon the cross these are NOT our standard descriptions of the reign of a king. These are circumstance of humility, of integrity and loyalty and faith. By Naming Christ as King, the CROSS & CROWN of our Chancel window, we lift up a different AUTHORTY, a different KINGDOM, a different ET F GOALS than we ascribe to in the SUCCESS of this world.
In their books GOOD TO GREAT and BUILT TO LAST Business Management Gurus Jim Collins and Jerry Porras describe that the purpose of business is NOT TO MAKE MONEY. As human creatures, we are volunteers, with a freedom of will to choose where to apply ourselves, where to invest our time and energy, what we want to be a part of. As such, the name that every association can claim A CORE PURPOSE in working together. A CORE SET OF VALUES that describe how we will relate and work together. And A SET OF GOALS.
We have lifted up before that in te earliest incarnation of tis congregation we were so united with the identity of this community as to have been the LOCAL COURTS and THE LOCAL SCHOOLS and the COMMNITY OF CONFESSION for FULL COMMUNION WITH GOD & ONE ANOTHER.
Last Week in the Brunch Forum LARRY WEISS identified for us that in the Re-esablishment of this Church in the building of this our third Sanctuary in 1891, we drew a C&A in the Center window as we go out into the world, claiming identity as CALVINISTS & ARMENIANISTS, that is a Community that accepts CALVIN'S Premise that God PEDESTINED the FUTURE.
All humanity has sinned, everyone is going to die. But also, as named by ARMENIANISM there is FREE WILL, We can change the future, if we commit ourselves, if we dream new dreams and make them.
SO, the CORE PURPOSE OF THIS CHURCH that has been since our beginning, and will be part of this Church's identity 200 years from now, that which sets this Church apart from all else in this community, banks and businesses, schools and courts and residences, and from other Churches is:
WE SEEK TO BE THIS COMMUNITY'S CENTER, FOR GOSPEL & CULTURE, A CATALYST FOR CHANGE WITH INTEGRITY.
As such, we can claim integrity as having been the Church, the center of Gospel & Culture to Jack's Great Grandparents Franklin & Gerri Wight and the VerVoorts,
and the Church to his Grandparents Dick & Joyce Campbell
and his parents Jeff & Julie and his sister Campbell Torrey.
The Core Values we seek to embody are
FAITH in a Culture of Doubt & Cynicism,
HOPE in a World f Fear and Terrorism,
TRUST even in Broken Relationships.
Faith, Hope, Love.
FREE WILL IN A WORLD PREDESTINATION
But Statements of Purpose and Values are only DREAMS and VISIONS, if we do not have Goals to realize our Dreams. According to Collins and Porras, what we need are not simply Goals but BHAGs: BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS GOALS.
Like Henry Ford setting out to make automobiles so available everyone would have one and te horse would become obsolete as transportation.
Like John Kennedy describing that in 10 years we would not only have put an astronaut in space, not only have orbited the globe, but landed on the moon and brought them back.
A Dozen Years ago, with the roof leaking and several windows cracked, with a secret histry of abuses, this congregation named a BHAG of having a Beautiful Church that wold be a Commnity Center for Worship, the Arts, Education and Mission, a resource of God for this community not just ourselves. A place where secrets are confessed, and vows of relationship and love take the place of secrets.
Five years ago, we made a commitment, a BHAG, to support three Children who were refugees from an Under-Developed Wilderness, from 20 years of Civil War, to become self-sufficient. Now, four are enrolled in their final years of college, a Mother and Son have been re-united, with a sister he never knew he had, this son is married with a job and wife and daughter and brand new home.
Four years ago, we owned a Boarding House for Seniors, that always seemed to have vacancies and was in constant need of repair. We listened to a BHAG of rebuilding this house, with suites for every person, and now there is a waiting list with one person moving in as soon as a room is vacant.
Three years ago, we began talking about a BHAG, sharing ecumenically, with real sharing and fellowship between the Churches, suggesting the idea of a Mission Marketplace. The Episcopal Church was more available the first year, and where often a second year sequel is lesser than the first, this year we had more missions, from more Churches in our community and raised several thousand more dollars even than the first year. 26,000 in support of Missions.
Less than two years ago, I was given a BHAG, I received a blessing and curse from a Tribal Chief in East Africa, that if we fulfilled or promises and built a clinic, we would live long full, blessed lives, and the materials for that Clinic and pumps for a well and a generator for electricity are in Kenya, and there is a doctor. And there are volunteers wanting to go to serve.
About the same time, there was a BHAG to read to children in the schools and libraries, and while there could be many more of us doing so, this is happening.
SO What is the Next BHAG?
We are the CENTER OF GOSPEL & CULTURE in this Community.
We are a Catalyst for CHANGE With INTEGRITY.
Christ calls us to BEAR WITNESS to THE TRUTH.
WE DO SO with FAITH, HOPE AND TRUST.
In the next several months, sons and daughters will come home after fighting in an unpopular war WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP THEIR BECOMING PART OF THIS COMMUNITY after seeing so much of violence and death?
OTHERS WLL BE DISCHARGED FROM PRISON.
In this last year we have celebrated the lives of many of our GRANDPARENTS, how can we help one another in the midst of holidays, when there is an empty place at the Table?
We have had a BABYBOOM of BAPTISMS, yet many of these are embarrassed about separation from their children or how engaging their children might be in worship. How can we help one another?
What is our next BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL?
Lost and Found Sermon
Teacher of Preachers Fred Craddock described, people imagine giving themselves to God as if Going into the Bank withdrawing a Cashier’s Check for $1,000,000 to give to God. Instead, God tells us to go back to the Bank, cash that check and take out that sum in quarters. Throughout every day of life, distribute those quarters, as if part of that gift, that covenant commitment to God.
Do me a favor, In your bulletin where this morning’s Old Testament reading is described as The Covenant OF Circumcision, cross out the preposition OF, write in the word AND. Because as human beings, we record life by events and accomplishments, as if once and for all completed, rather than as a new way of life begun. We describe the Covenants of The RAINBOW, CIRCUMCISION, CIRCUMSCRIBING OUR HEART, CRUCIFIXION, as if isolated events in human history. The child was circumcised on the 8th day, the believer was baptized before they knew whether or not to fuss, we graduated from school, we got married, we had a child. All these events, are not trophy accomplishments, each is a name we acquire, an identity found in the person we already are. Have any of us EVER witnessed a Rainbow? This was not only a Covenant Promise once long ago to Noah, but a COVENANT PROMISE for All Future Generations of BLESSINGS for the Future.
The great error of our time is perceiving life as temporary and disposable. Change is so common to us, that we NO LONGER identify ourselves by the Milestones, the Events, Relationships, and Accomplishments, but only by what we want to do next. We ignore the reality of being CIRCUMCISED, BAPTIZED, A GRADUATE, MARRIED, MOTHER/FATHER, VETERAN, HOME OWNER, DEACON, ELDER, TEACHER, GRANDPARENT, throwing these aside for the next accomplishment, the next title, the next HOLLOW THING.
Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. What a marvelous word for our time, According to the Scriptures, 75 years old was the start of Middle Age! From the time of Noah, through the Tower Babel, and all the succeeding generations, God had known and witnessed this family. Generation upon generation, until there was Abram and Sarai who could have no succeeding generation, and God promised to be faithful to them. For 14 years, Abram has lived with the Promise, when at age 99 God promises to create something new in their identity, not only to live with the Promise, but to live with the fulfillment of that Promise.
Nothing will ever be the same. The identity of everyone involved in this story changes. What does it mean, to go from being a son or daughter, to being an adult, to being a lover, to being husband or wife, to being a Graduate, to being a survivor, to being a Parent? For Abram to go from being the BEARER of the Promise, to POSSESSING THE FULFILLMENT, means he is no longer the same, he and his wife and even God have a new Identity. He will be FATHER ABRAHAM, she will be SARAH MOTHER OF KINGS & NATIONS. GOD in addition to being The Creator, LORD, God of our Ancestors, will be El-Shaddai, THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Literally, God of the Mountains, God of the furthest horizons, God of the futures, Awesome, Impossible God.
FAITH IS NOT LOGICAL. Faith is not a matter of knowledge, regurgitation of historic events, names and places, nor of deductively and inductively arriving at conclusions based on that data. Faith is not simply a matter of Ethics and Morals, doing what is right. FAITH is TRUST IN GOD. FAITH is BELIEF in the IMPOSSIBLE. Abram hears this NEW COVENANT with God and Laughs in Scorn. The Covenant is as impossible as having a 9th RANKED College Basketball Team, that seemingly a High School team could have beat, coming from behind to win all four Championship games to become BIG EAST CHAMPIONS. If we can believe in this, and we know God to be known to us by the Identity of Being ALMIGHTY GOD, is anything Not Possible?
Abraham himself, did not believe. Sarah knew her own body, and Sarah did not believe. They laughed at themselves, they laughed at the impossibility of it all. Yet when challenged about believing, the response of Sarah was “I did not laugh”.
The IMPOSSIBILITY of FAITH, FINDING SOMETHING WE NEVER KNEW WAS LOST, disbelieving among the believers is what this passage has in common with Mark.
The Disciples knew Jesus to be a great PREACHER and TEACHER, A HEALER and MIRACLE WORKER, they had seen him feed 5000 people with a few bits of fish and bread, enough so Peter could identify Jesus as BEING THE MESSIAH Sent from God. And Jesus explains the fullness of that identity. To be the Messiah requires SUFFERING and BETRAYAL and ABANDONMENT and ISOLATION and DEATH and RESURRECTION.
According to the Gospel of Mark, for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Resurrection, means Jesus SUFFERS. I grew up in a time in the Church, where we jumped straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Morning. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and a week later Came Back as the Son of God, entering New Jerusalem:Heaven. Two years ago, our culture was scandalized by Mel Gibson’s film, THE PASSION, which focused exclusively on the Suffering of Jesus. But Mark’s point is larger than both of these, the VERY ONE who is given by God as a GIFT OF GRACE, the Preacher, Teacher, Healer, Miracle Worker that is followed and Loved, MUST SUFFER, MUST DIE, in order to be RESURRECTED from Death to Life. Like Peter, we witness loved ones’ suffering and cry out OVER MY DEAD BODY! There is a frightening temptation there, for all of us, especially in a world so ACCUSTOMED to PAIN-KILLERS and Anesthetizing to get through, that we long to ENABLE others to avoid suffering. But the Gospel recognition is that struggle and suffering are and EVEN DEATH are essential to our acceptance of God as being God, of Jesus as being the Messiah, of the Holy Spirit who gives us life.
The point is NOT to inflict SUFFERING ON OTHERS. Our purpose is not to cause harm and suffering so that perhaps the ones we love will have deeper faith! But rather, that when we, or our loved ones suffer, when they face impossible realities, as extreme as Death on the Cross, or lose everything they worked for, or having a baby at age 90, or get pregnant at 19, we believe in them and in God’s Almighty Ability to use every circumstance of life.
This word from the Gospel, could not have been said to any generation as appropriately as to our own. When we have more BILLIONAIRES than ever in History. When the dream of people is to risk all they have for the possibility of $1,000,000 in a Briefcase held by one of 20 beautiful young women; or to spend $1 on a Lottery Ticket with the hope of winning $300,000,000. When Our Business Leaders and Government Leaders, fail to demonstrate leadership, but are repeatedly indicted for Corruption, and are then re-elected as if their selling out their integrity, selling out our trust, did not matter. When individuals cause accidents, in the expectation that The HEAVY HITTERS will win them a large settlement. We need to question, as Jesus identified:
What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
What is your life worth?
For whosever is ashamed of believing, of having faith in God, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed.
So who are you? Are you lost, or are you found? Are you suffering? Are we passing the events of life as hollow milestones, or as a continually evolving mystery, in which we believe God can do all things, even death and life, our death and life, belong to God?
And Remember, Faith is not a One Time event, A Test at the Pearly Gates, some one time catharsis we endure in life, but is met in so many little ways every day.
Do me a favor, In your bulletin where this morning’s Old Testament reading is described as The Covenant OF Circumcision, cross out the preposition OF, write in the word AND. Because as human beings, we record life by events and accomplishments, as if once and for all completed, rather than as a new way of life begun. We describe the Covenants of The RAINBOW, CIRCUMCISION, CIRCUMSCRIBING OUR HEART, CRUCIFIXION, as if isolated events in human history. The child was circumcised on the 8th day, the believer was baptized before they knew whether or not to fuss, we graduated from school, we got married, we had a child. All these events, are not trophy accomplishments, each is a name we acquire, an identity found in the person we already are. Have any of us EVER witnessed a Rainbow? This was not only a Covenant Promise once long ago to Noah, but a COVENANT PROMISE for All Future Generations of BLESSINGS for the Future.
The great error of our time is perceiving life as temporary and disposable. Change is so common to us, that we NO LONGER identify ourselves by the Milestones, the Events, Relationships, and Accomplishments, but only by what we want to do next. We ignore the reality of being CIRCUMCISED, BAPTIZED, A GRADUATE, MARRIED, MOTHER/FATHER, VETERAN, HOME OWNER, DEACON, ELDER, TEACHER, GRANDPARENT, throwing these aside for the next accomplishment, the next title, the next HOLLOW THING.
Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. What a marvelous word for our time, According to the Scriptures, 75 years old was the start of Middle Age! From the time of Noah, through the Tower Babel, and all the succeeding generations, God had known and witnessed this family. Generation upon generation, until there was Abram and Sarai who could have no succeeding generation, and God promised to be faithful to them. For 14 years, Abram has lived with the Promise, when at age 99 God promises to create something new in their identity, not only to live with the Promise, but to live with the fulfillment of that Promise.
Nothing will ever be the same. The identity of everyone involved in this story changes. What does it mean, to go from being a son or daughter, to being an adult, to being a lover, to being husband or wife, to being a Graduate, to being a survivor, to being a Parent? For Abram to go from being the BEARER of the Promise, to POSSESSING THE FULFILLMENT, means he is no longer the same, he and his wife and even God have a new Identity. He will be FATHER ABRAHAM, she will be SARAH MOTHER OF KINGS & NATIONS. GOD in addition to being The Creator, LORD, God of our Ancestors, will be El-Shaddai, THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Literally, God of the Mountains, God of the furthest horizons, God of the futures, Awesome, Impossible God.
FAITH IS NOT LOGICAL. Faith is not a matter of knowledge, regurgitation of historic events, names and places, nor of deductively and inductively arriving at conclusions based on that data. Faith is not simply a matter of Ethics and Morals, doing what is right. FAITH is TRUST IN GOD. FAITH is BELIEF in the IMPOSSIBLE. Abram hears this NEW COVENANT with God and Laughs in Scorn. The Covenant is as impossible as having a 9th RANKED College Basketball Team, that seemingly a High School team could have beat, coming from behind to win all four Championship games to become BIG EAST CHAMPIONS. If we can believe in this, and we know God to be known to us by the Identity of Being ALMIGHTY GOD, is anything Not Possible?
Abraham himself, did not believe. Sarah knew her own body, and Sarah did not believe. They laughed at themselves, they laughed at the impossibility of it all. Yet when challenged about believing, the response of Sarah was “I did not laugh”.
The IMPOSSIBILITY of FAITH, FINDING SOMETHING WE NEVER KNEW WAS LOST, disbelieving among the believers is what this passage has in common with Mark.
The Disciples knew Jesus to be a great PREACHER and TEACHER, A HEALER and MIRACLE WORKER, they had seen him feed 5000 people with a few bits of fish and bread, enough so Peter could identify Jesus as BEING THE MESSIAH Sent from God. And Jesus explains the fullness of that identity. To be the Messiah requires SUFFERING and BETRAYAL and ABANDONMENT and ISOLATION and DEATH and RESURRECTION.
According to the Gospel of Mark, for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Resurrection, means Jesus SUFFERS. I grew up in a time in the Church, where we jumped straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Morning. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and a week later Came Back as the Son of God, entering New Jerusalem:Heaven. Two years ago, our culture was scandalized by Mel Gibson’s film, THE PASSION, which focused exclusively on the Suffering of Jesus. But Mark’s point is larger than both of these, the VERY ONE who is given by God as a GIFT OF GRACE, the Preacher, Teacher, Healer, Miracle Worker that is followed and Loved, MUST SUFFER, MUST DIE, in order to be RESURRECTED from Death to Life. Like Peter, we witness loved ones’ suffering and cry out OVER MY DEAD BODY! There is a frightening temptation there, for all of us, especially in a world so ACCUSTOMED to PAIN-KILLERS and Anesthetizing to get through, that we long to ENABLE others to avoid suffering. But the Gospel recognition is that struggle and suffering are and EVEN DEATH are essential to our acceptance of God as being God, of Jesus as being the Messiah, of the Holy Spirit who gives us life.
The point is NOT to inflict SUFFERING ON OTHERS. Our purpose is not to cause harm and suffering so that perhaps the ones we love will have deeper faith! But rather, that when we, or our loved ones suffer, when they face impossible realities, as extreme as Death on the Cross, or lose everything they worked for, or having a baby at age 90, or get pregnant at 19, we believe in them and in God’s Almighty Ability to use every circumstance of life.
This word from the Gospel, could not have been said to any generation as appropriately as to our own. When we have more BILLIONAIRES than ever in History. When the dream of people is to risk all they have for the possibility of $1,000,000 in a Briefcase held by one of 20 beautiful young women; or to spend $1 on a Lottery Ticket with the hope of winning $300,000,000. When Our Business Leaders and Government Leaders, fail to demonstrate leadership, but are repeatedly indicted for Corruption, and are then re-elected as if their selling out their integrity, selling out our trust, did not matter. When individuals cause accidents, in the expectation that The HEAVY HITTERS will win them a large settlement. We need to question, as Jesus identified:
What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
What is your life worth?
For whosever is ashamed of believing, of having faith in God, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed.
So who are you? Are you lost, or are you found? Are you suffering? Are we passing the events of life as hollow milestones, or as a continually evolving mystery, in which we believe God can do all things, even death and life, our death and life, belong to God?
And Remember, Faith is not a One Time event, A Test at the Pearly Gates, some one time catharsis we endure in life, but is met in so many little ways every day.
The World Is Too Much WIth Us Sermon
Let us pray, Almighty, everlasting God, speak to us that we might hear.
Open our ears to fresh hearing, and where our listening fails, call us anew…
(phone ringing) Excuse me, this won’t take a minute…
Yes, I know but…. Alright… Yes…Okay…Right away. Thank you.
Amen.
We have a need to be connected. To never be out of touch. No matter what else occurs, nothing could be more important than our being available: for our career, for our family, for those who need us. Yet, we are so busy with our lives, we become too busy to listen to God, too busy to be called, too busy to believe.
Too often, we have made “The Calling” a reference to Ordination, to Priests and Pastors, when ordination is the same for all Ministers, Deacons & Elders. The responsibilities of leaders differ, but ordination, the election, the questions that are asked, the responses given, the laying on of hands, are all the same. And the CALL that is available from God, is available to All, not in being elected and ordained, but in Baptism. Every believer is able to pray. Every person is able to reach out to others, to offer forgiveness. At one point, the Pharisees thought this blasphemy, because they imagined only God Could FORGIVE, but though Jesus we know we can. Each of us is able to listen for the Call of God and respond in our way, if we are not too busy to listen.
The word of God was rare in those days.
Priests sought only what they could get for themselves; political leaders were corrupt; society was in turmoil and transition; warring and terrorism had persisted for years. The boy Samuel was waiting upon the ancient priest Eli, when in the night God called him. We have taken the power out of this Call of Samuel story, making this a description of “Childlike innocence compared with religious dogma”. Eli the high priest is too old, too involved with political structures and schemes, having turned a blind eye for too long to what was really going on, to be able to make a difference anymore. While Samuel, the apprentice, a child who spends night and day at the Temple of God, is chosen.
But the Call of Samuel is about a great deal more. God was doing a new thing, God was on the loose, Creating again, creating A New. But for God to begin in and through Samuel, God needed to cut off the former patterns that had become an abuse. There is always a measure of giving up what we know, what has been, when we do something different.
In Franz Kafka’s Novel The Metamorphosis, one family member is depicted as strong and successful, decisive and dominant, while his parents and sister are withdrawn, shy and reserved, unable to make decisions or even speak for themselves. Then one day, the man awakes, unable to speak, and understands that he has become a 6 foot tall cockroach. As he changes day after day, becoming more and more a parasite, withdrawing and secluding himself; the family members each become more independent, developing their own voices and personalities as they accept responsibilities. The beauty of Eli and Samuel’s relationship, as opposed to the one depicted by Kafka, is that Eli does not resent Samuel, but recognizes God’s need to act differently, and is supportive.
At certain times in our lives, it seems as though we can master anything. We apply ourselves and we make reality happen. But at other times we are needed to be supportive, to not protest, to not challenge, to not dominate, but to provide encouragement and support for others to make decisions and to act.
Nathanael sat upon a hillside, in the shade and protection beneath a fig tree, staring out upon the horizon, he meditated upon the problems of the world, oppression, prejudice, hatred, one individual getting ahead by stepping on someone else, if only there were someone who cared, if God could enter in and intervene, calling people to righteousness, to a right and holy relationship with God.
The Gospel of John is different from Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus finds people to serve as disciples and calls them to discover something new about themselves, “You are fishermen and I will make of you Fishers of Men.”
But according to John, once Jesus had been baptized, people began to seek him out, each perceiving in him something different. John the Baptist pointed Jesus out to his own disciples “Behold, the Lamb of God”, the innocence, the sacrifice for atonement, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. Phillip and Andrew left John and followed Jesus and with encouragement from Jesus, Andrew sought out his brother Simon Peter, Phillip sought out Nathanael, and brought them along, to witness “We found him!” “Him, whom Moses, in the Law, and also the Prophets all spoke of”. “Jesus of Nazareth”. “Jesus the son of Joseph the Carpenter”.
The world is too much with us.
We have a preoccupation with our own occupation, seeking getaways to escape reality, to decompress, listening through our earbuds, blocking out all sound, all voices but our own, yet being connected, accessible in case something should happen and we become needed.
Nathanael has spent the afternoon considering all the problems of the world, wishing for someone, the Messiah to come from God, when suddenly he hears all this from Andrew. Does he respond, “Really? I was just praying…” No, Nathanael is a skeptic…”Yeah Right, like anything good has ever come out of a backwater place like Nazareth!”
But he comes to see.
And Jesus provides Nathanael with affirmation: “An Israelite, in whom there is no guile!” We hear this and have no context. But, the father of Israel, the one who was renamed Israel when he was called to faith in wrestling with himself at night was JACOB who would have been known to anyone in Israel. Jacob who was filled with GUILE, who was always SCHEMING & CONIVING. Jacob who sitting beneath a tree had a vision of ANGELS ASCENDING AND DESCENDING A GREAT LADDER FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH. And Jesus provides the affirmation, you will see Heaven Ripped Open and Angels of God Ascending and Descending upon the Son of Man.
What do we seek? To make a difference in the world? To feed the hungry? To clothe those without? To provide for a people who have been oppressed, the families of those we care about? Shall we sit beneath a tree, or sleep in comfortable beds ignoring the challenges around us? What would happen, if we acted like the child Samuel? The next time we heard a challenge, the need for affordable housing, the need for healthcare for people in their homes, the need to provide for others, instead of blaming the government, or wishing someone would do something, we were to respond “I am LISTENING LORD!”
Instead of hearing a ringing in our ears, or all the distractions of this life, we might actually be CALLED to respond like Nathanael: RABBI! SON OF GOD! KING OF ISRAEL!
Open our ears to fresh hearing, and where our listening fails, call us anew…
(phone ringing) Excuse me, this won’t take a minute…
Yes, I know but…. Alright… Yes…Okay…Right away. Thank you.
Amen.
We have a need to be connected. To never be out of touch. No matter what else occurs, nothing could be more important than our being available: for our career, for our family, for those who need us. Yet, we are so busy with our lives, we become too busy to listen to God, too busy to be called, too busy to believe.
Too often, we have made “The Calling” a reference to Ordination, to Priests and Pastors, when ordination is the same for all Ministers, Deacons & Elders. The responsibilities of leaders differ, but ordination, the election, the questions that are asked, the responses given, the laying on of hands, are all the same. And the CALL that is available from God, is available to All, not in being elected and ordained, but in Baptism. Every believer is able to pray. Every person is able to reach out to others, to offer forgiveness. At one point, the Pharisees thought this blasphemy, because they imagined only God Could FORGIVE, but though Jesus we know we can. Each of us is able to listen for the Call of God and respond in our way, if we are not too busy to listen.
The word of God was rare in those days.
Priests sought only what they could get for themselves; political leaders were corrupt; society was in turmoil and transition; warring and terrorism had persisted for years. The boy Samuel was waiting upon the ancient priest Eli, when in the night God called him. We have taken the power out of this Call of Samuel story, making this a description of “Childlike innocence compared with religious dogma”. Eli the high priest is too old, too involved with political structures and schemes, having turned a blind eye for too long to what was really going on, to be able to make a difference anymore. While Samuel, the apprentice, a child who spends night and day at the Temple of God, is chosen.
But the Call of Samuel is about a great deal more. God was doing a new thing, God was on the loose, Creating again, creating A New. But for God to begin in and through Samuel, God needed to cut off the former patterns that had become an abuse. There is always a measure of giving up what we know, what has been, when we do something different.
In Franz Kafka’s Novel The Metamorphosis, one family member is depicted as strong and successful, decisive and dominant, while his parents and sister are withdrawn, shy and reserved, unable to make decisions or even speak for themselves. Then one day, the man awakes, unable to speak, and understands that he has become a 6 foot tall cockroach. As he changes day after day, becoming more and more a parasite, withdrawing and secluding himself; the family members each become more independent, developing their own voices and personalities as they accept responsibilities. The beauty of Eli and Samuel’s relationship, as opposed to the one depicted by Kafka, is that Eli does not resent Samuel, but recognizes God’s need to act differently, and is supportive.
At certain times in our lives, it seems as though we can master anything. We apply ourselves and we make reality happen. But at other times we are needed to be supportive, to not protest, to not challenge, to not dominate, but to provide encouragement and support for others to make decisions and to act.
Nathanael sat upon a hillside, in the shade and protection beneath a fig tree, staring out upon the horizon, he meditated upon the problems of the world, oppression, prejudice, hatred, one individual getting ahead by stepping on someone else, if only there were someone who cared, if God could enter in and intervene, calling people to righteousness, to a right and holy relationship with God.
The Gospel of John is different from Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus finds people to serve as disciples and calls them to discover something new about themselves, “You are fishermen and I will make of you Fishers of Men.”
But according to John, once Jesus had been baptized, people began to seek him out, each perceiving in him something different. John the Baptist pointed Jesus out to his own disciples “Behold, the Lamb of God”, the innocence, the sacrifice for atonement, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. Phillip and Andrew left John and followed Jesus and with encouragement from Jesus, Andrew sought out his brother Simon Peter, Phillip sought out Nathanael, and brought them along, to witness “We found him!” “Him, whom Moses, in the Law, and also the Prophets all spoke of”. “Jesus of Nazareth”. “Jesus the son of Joseph the Carpenter”.
The world is too much with us.
We have a preoccupation with our own occupation, seeking getaways to escape reality, to decompress, listening through our earbuds, blocking out all sound, all voices but our own, yet being connected, accessible in case something should happen and we become needed.
Nathanael has spent the afternoon considering all the problems of the world, wishing for someone, the Messiah to come from God, when suddenly he hears all this from Andrew. Does he respond, “Really? I was just praying…” No, Nathanael is a skeptic…”Yeah Right, like anything good has ever come out of a backwater place like Nazareth!”
But he comes to see.
And Jesus provides Nathanael with affirmation: “An Israelite, in whom there is no guile!” We hear this and have no context. But, the father of Israel, the one who was renamed Israel when he was called to faith in wrestling with himself at night was JACOB who would have been known to anyone in Israel. Jacob who was filled with GUILE, who was always SCHEMING & CONIVING. Jacob who sitting beneath a tree had a vision of ANGELS ASCENDING AND DESCENDING A GREAT LADDER FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH. And Jesus provides the affirmation, you will see Heaven Ripped Open and Angels of God Ascending and Descending upon the Son of Man.
What do we seek? To make a difference in the world? To feed the hungry? To clothe those without? To provide for a people who have been oppressed, the families of those we care about? Shall we sit beneath a tree, or sleep in comfortable beds ignoring the challenges around us? What would happen, if we acted like the child Samuel? The next time we heard a challenge, the need for affordable housing, the need for healthcare for people in their homes, the need to provide for others, instead of blaming the government, or wishing someone would do something, we were to respond “I am LISTENING LORD!”
Instead of hearing a ringing in our ears, or all the distractions of this life, we might actually be CALLED to respond like Nathanael: RABBI! SON OF GOD! KING OF ISRAEL!
Poor Richard's Almanac Sermon
In the year of our Lord 1733, more than 40 years prior to the American Revolution, almost 275 years ago, Benjamin Franklin published a pamphlet of PROVERBS titled “Poor Richard’s Almanac”. In contrast to The LAW and Taxation Decrees of the King, these were simple rules for the common family to live by. The source of wisdom like “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” “A Stitch in Time, saves Nine.” Or “The early bird catches the worm.” Franklin’s point being that Monarch’s and Governments create Laws, but these have far less to do with being human or the conduct of living life, than Proverbs do. From APPEARANCE sake, Laws are created to establish social behavior and rules of living, but CONVICTIONS are what we live by.
The same point was made by Jesus, when confronted by the Pharisees demanding to know why the Disciples failed to follow the LAW, when cooking in separate pans for meat and dairy, designating food clean and unclean, of ritual washing and ritual prayer. The 10 COMMANDMENTS were established as THE LAW for the right relationship of people to God and people to people. But over time, laws had been added to protect and preserve the Law, to split hairs and define under what circumstance could the LAW be neglected. By logical deduction and common sense, Jesus demonstrated that food goes into a person, to our stomachs and on to the sewer. So if television shows want to gross people out with eating maggots or slugs; or if children’s movies want to describe the epicurean delight of Fried Worms, there is nothing Morally repugnant in this. HOWEVER, the words and our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, the actions conceived in our minds, these are what come out of a person’s very Being, out of our Soul, therefore our words and actions and convictions these demonstrate what we really are and overtime what we become.
How often it occurs, and how odd life is, that after saying something, after reading an idea, we suddenly find ourselves in a circumstance that catches us in our own words. Jesus leaves the Pharisees and goes to a foreign place, among the non-Jews, in the Syrian province of Phoenicia. In the LAWS of the class system of that time and place a Jew and Gentile would co-exist for generations, living and working side by side, never talking, as if the other did not exist. In like manner an Educated Leader, an authority, a Rabbi, would never converse directly with ordinary folk, especially in a market place. And of coarse a woman and man would never speak, unless formally introduced and chaperoned. YET, this Greek Woman’s Child was ill, convulsing in her bed, and the Mother ran to Jesus to beg his help for her child. While Jesus had only verses before rebuked the Pharisees and his Disciples, that while they hide behind LAWS and justify their actions, people were in need; when this Foreigner, this Uneducated Gentile Greek, this Woman comes to him. When she makes her point and proves him wrong, Jesus does what we so often fail to do. Rather than becoming haughty, justifying himself even when wrong, or scoffing and storming away, he accepts her point. There is no explanation, no description of Jesus going to the child, or the words that could be said, the actions and treatments; instead Jesus announces that she has made her case and the child is well.
Again, in like manner, the point is not only for us within this House of God, or in far off foreign places, but also with the community all around us, and perhaps that is the hardest of all. Jesus went out into the Decalpolis, the market place of his own community, and they brought him a man who could not hear, who spoke with an impediment. According to the LAW, someone, either he or his parents had sinned to cause this. They would need to confess what they had done, make a sacrifice to repent and pay for the wrong committed, and only then, and only maybe, could the person be healed. Instead, Jesus took the man in private and Jesus touched him, Jesus himself spat his own bodily fluids on his own hands and touched the man’s tongue, and looked toward heaven and sighed. Sighed as if to speak volumes about the need of this man to communicate, to be able to hear and to listen and to speak.
According to Time, Newsweek, Dateline, the Today Show and Good Morning America, five years have passed, since September 11th, 2001. These entertainment news programs have researched and theorized and questioned how and why those events took place. Amid the questions …THERE IS A SIMPLE TRUTH. One people judged the world, according to a strict interpretation of THE LAW, and finding others acting as if eating with DEFILED HANDS that people were filled with hate.
What had been awesome and holy, in the midst of that horrible atrocity, was that in the moment of crisis, and for the next several days, all of us persisted constantly to provide compassion and caring, to help one another in our fears. The APPEARANCE had been of Judgment for defiling the LAW, the CONVICTION had been of standing together.
Like the day John Kennedy was shot, we all remember where we were when the planes fell from the sky. It was a bright clear blue-skied morning. School had just begun the week before, routines and schedules of behavior resumed as normal. The clergy and Christian Educators were meeting together as we do each month. When we received the witness, we prayed together as Apostles being sent, then each followed our assignments of going out into the community to listen, to offer comfort and healing.
I recall being at the factory on Jordan Road, trying to report accurately what we had been told on the news, “2 planes had hit the World Trade Center, a 3rd had hit the Pentagon, there appeared to be others headed for the Capital building.” Someone tearfully asked “if this were the end of the world?” I recall listening to peoples’ fears, praying to God in petition for comfort and for hope. There was a heaviness in the air, as we all seemed to be breathing as one. I got back to the church about 1:30 and the phone rang, as leaders asked if we could come to the State Street Offices to listen and to pray with telephone personnel and engineers. Like the Gospel of Mark, I do not recall the words of the Prayers. I recall identifying how unreal this all seemed, my fears that my own sons would be of an age to fight in war if that should come.
The very night before, the Session had met for a special meeting. For years, someone had been losing their temper, screaming and spitting and throwing things at people. And the Session had chosen to do an awesome act of CONVICTION, rather than judging this one and disciplining, which could have occurred, the Session recognized if anyone needed the church, needed the love of God it was this person. So the Session named the circumstance and the church’s standing beside him to help him seek healing, even offering to pay for counseling, but at the same time limiting his opportunity to abuse others.
The night of the attack, the Sanctuary was filled beyond capacity, as people, Presbyterian and Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal came together to pray. For the whole next week, the doors of the sanctuary stood open as police and firefighters and people off the street came in to pray and to ask God for healing.
Even three months later, we were still searching as we described that that Christmas was different from passed ones. That we were hanging wreaths on graves instead of on doors. That instead of worrying about pressure at the Office, we were thankful to have offices. That rather than considering what it meant to be affluent, we gave thanks to be alive. Rather than seeing angels on tree tops and in heaven, we had seen angels in our lives.
Yet, five years after, all the focus APPEARS to be on whether there were ever weapons of mass destruction, whether anyone could have prevented this, whether it will ever happen again, instead of keeping alive that feeling of PERSISTENCE FOR HOPE, SEARCHING FOR UNDERSTANDING.
Five years ago, in the summer of 2001, three refugees came to live among us. There needs were enormous, far beyond our ability to comprehend. On the evening of 911, they worshipped as part of this community, this body, and described this is the kind of terrorism we have lived with for 20 years. Though we did not have the answers, or know where life would lead, we PERSISTED WITH CONVICTION. Not quite 2 years ago, John began forming a Committee to give back to his home Village, from all that he had received, that we knew we could partner to provide. Along the way there have been insurmountable obstacles that through conviction were addressed and overcome. YESTERDAY, a 40 foot Sea Container, weighing 20tons, filled with PUMPS for fresh wells, and a GENERATOR to create ELECTRICITY, STEEL and TOOLS all left Greenbrier Arkansas, to go over the oceans and across the seas, past the Cape of Good Hope and up the coast of Africa to MOMBASA KENYA. We do not know yet, how this resource will be trucked to a Village 200 kilometers north of where any trucks have ever gone, but we PERSEVERE WITH OUR CONVICTIONS OF HOPE.
The same point was made by Jesus, when confronted by the Pharisees demanding to know why the Disciples failed to follow the LAW, when cooking in separate pans for meat and dairy, designating food clean and unclean, of ritual washing and ritual prayer. The 10 COMMANDMENTS were established as THE LAW for the right relationship of people to God and people to people. But over time, laws had been added to protect and preserve the Law, to split hairs and define under what circumstance could the LAW be neglected. By logical deduction and common sense, Jesus demonstrated that food goes into a person, to our stomachs and on to the sewer. So if television shows want to gross people out with eating maggots or slugs; or if children’s movies want to describe the epicurean delight of Fried Worms, there is nothing Morally repugnant in this. HOWEVER, the words and our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, the actions conceived in our minds, these are what come out of a person’s very Being, out of our Soul, therefore our words and actions and convictions these demonstrate what we really are and overtime what we become.
How often it occurs, and how odd life is, that after saying something, after reading an idea, we suddenly find ourselves in a circumstance that catches us in our own words. Jesus leaves the Pharisees and goes to a foreign place, among the non-Jews, in the Syrian province of Phoenicia. In the LAWS of the class system of that time and place a Jew and Gentile would co-exist for generations, living and working side by side, never talking, as if the other did not exist. In like manner an Educated Leader, an authority, a Rabbi, would never converse directly with ordinary folk, especially in a market place. And of coarse a woman and man would never speak, unless formally introduced and chaperoned. YET, this Greek Woman’s Child was ill, convulsing in her bed, and the Mother ran to Jesus to beg his help for her child. While Jesus had only verses before rebuked the Pharisees and his Disciples, that while they hide behind LAWS and justify their actions, people were in need; when this Foreigner, this Uneducated Gentile Greek, this Woman comes to him. When she makes her point and proves him wrong, Jesus does what we so often fail to do. Rather than becoming haughty, justifying himself even when wrong, or scoffing and storming away, he accepts her point. There is no explanation, no description of Jesus going to the child, or the words that could be said, the actions and treatments; instead Jesus announces that she has made her case and the child is well.
Again, in like manner, the point is not only for us within this House of God, or in far off foreign places, but also with the community all around us, and perhaps that is the hardest of all. Jesus went out into the Decalpolis, the market place of his own community, and they brought him a man who could not hear, who spoke with an impediment. According to the LAW, someone, either he or his parents had sinned to cause this. They would need to confess what they had done, make a sacrifice to repent and pay for the wrong committed, and only then, and only maybe, could the person be healed. Instead, Jesus took the man in private and Jesus touched him, Jesus himself spat his own bodily fluids on his own hands and touched the man’s tongue, and looked toward heaven and sighed. Sighed as if to speak volumes about the need of this man to communicate, to be able to hear and to listen and to speak.
According to Time, Newsweek, Dateline, the Today Show and Good Morning America, five years have passed, since September 11th, 2001. These entertainment news programs have researched and theorized and questioned how and why those events took place. Amid the questions …THERE IS A SIMPLE TRUTH. One people judged the world, according to a strict interpretation of THE LAW, and finding others acting as if eating with DEFILED HANDS that people were filled with hate.
What had been awesome and holy, in the midst of that horrible atrocity, was that in the moment of crisis, and for the next several days, all of us persisted constantly to provide compassion and caring, to help one another in our fears. The APPEARANCE had been of Judgment for defiling the LAW, the CONVICTION had been of standing together.
Like the day John Kennedy was shot, we all remember where we were when the planes fell from the sky. It was a bright clear blue-skied morning. School had just begun the week before, routines and schedules of behavior resumed as normal. The clergy and Christian Educators were meeting together as we do each month. When we received the witness, we prayed together as Apostles being sent, then each followed our assignments of going out into the community to listen, to offer comfort and healing.
I recall being at the factory on Jordan Road, trying to report accurately what we had been told on the news, “2 planes had hit the World Trade Center, a 3rd had hit the Pentagon, there appeared to be others headed for the Capital building.” Someone tearfully asked “if this were the end of the world?” I recall listening to peoples’ fears, praying to God in petition for comfort and for hope. There was a heaviness in the air, as we all seemed to be breathing as one. I got back to the church about 1:30 and the phone rang, as leaders asked if we could come to the State Street Offices to listen and to pray with telephone personnel and engineers. Like the Gospel of Mark, I do not recall the words of the Prayers. I recall identifying how unreal this all seemed, my fears that my own sons would be of an age to fight in war if that should come.
The very night before, the Session had met for a special meeting. For years, someone had been losing their temper, screaming and spitting and throwing things at people. And the Session had chosen to do an awesome act of CONVICTION, rather than judging this one and disciplining, which could have occurred, the Session recognized if anyone needed the church, needed the love of God it was this person. So the Session named the circumstance and the church’s standing beside him to help him seek healing, even offering to pay for counseling, but at the same time limiting his opportunity to abuse others.
The night of the attack, the Sanctuary was filled beyond capacity, as people, Presbyterian and Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal came together to pray. For the whole next week, the doors of the sanctuary stood open as police and firefighters and people off the street came in to pray and to ask God for healing.
Even three months later, we were still searching as we described that that Christmas was different from passed ones. That we were hanging wreaths on graves instead of on doors. That instead of worrying about pressure at the Office, we were thankful to have offices. That rather than considering what it meant to be affluent, we gave thanks to be alive. Rather than seeing angels on tree tops and in heaven, we had seen angels in our lives.
Yet, five years after, all the focus APPEARS to be on whether there were ever weapons of mass destruction, whether anyone could have prevented this, whether it will ever happen again, instead of keeping alive that feeling of PERSISTENCE FOR HOPE, SEARCHING FOR UNDERSTANDING.
Five years ago, in the summer of 2001, three refugees came to live among us. There needs were enormous, far beyond our ability to comprehend. On the evening of 911, they worshipped as part of this community, this body, and described this is the kind of terrorism we have lived with for 20 years. Though we did not have the answers, or know where life would lead, we PERSISTED WITH CONVICTION. Not quite 2 years ago, John began forming a Committee to give back to his home Village, from all that he had received, that we knew we could partner to provide. Along the way there have been insurmountable obstacles that through conviction were addressed and overcome. YESTERDAY, a 40 foot Sea Container, weighing 20tons, filled with PUMPS for fresh wells, and a GENERATOR to create ELECTRICITY, STEEL and TOOLS all left Greenbrier Arkansas, to go over the oceans and across the seas, past the Cape of Good Hope and up the coast of Africa to MOMBASA KENYA. We do not know yet, how this resource will be trucked to a Village 200 kilometers north of where any trucks have ever gone, but we PERSEVERE WITH OUR CONVICTIONS OF HOPE.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)