I Peter 3:13-22
Acts 17:16-33
Like the people of Athens at the Areopogate, we are a people fascinated by what is new. In my lifetime, the cost of a stamp for mailing a letter has risen from 4 cents to over 41, but I think the decrease in letter writing has more to do with the instantaneous nature of email and instant messaging, and the fad of reducing everything to a code, we no longer “Instant Message” we IM, we no longer Laugh Out Loud, we LOL. We try to out do one another by being the most current, having the newest, smallest, fastest, and we exchange meaning for being NEW.
There is a very proper lady in our community who as the weather shifted from snow to sun, began planning an upcoming vacation. She found a little known resort, isolated and away, yet claiming to have all the newest and most popular current emanates. Wanting to be certain what ALL THE CURRENT EMENITIES might be she wrote them an email and asked for a reply. Did they for instance have Wireless Internet and Personal Computers or should she bring her own? Did they have a pool or lakefront? Would there be horseback riding? Should she bring her own towels and linens or would these be provided? Unclear just how rustic this isolated camp might be, she wanted to ask whether there were indoor toilets or outhouses, but this seemed a vulgar thing to discuss. This lady began trying out euphemisms, even consulting her Thesaurus, she quickly rejected Water-closet and Bathroom, Latrine and Privy, settling upon the phrase POTTY COMMODE. However, being a very refined lady, reading the printed words POTTY COMMODE still seemed too graphic, so she abbreviated POTTY COMMODE as PC. The Resort Manager was accustomed to answering such questions and quickly began naming that yes they had wireless internet and she could bring her laptop or blackberry, or they had a dedicated computer station in the main building. He continued through her questions, until arriving at PLEASE DESCRIBE THE PC? What was a PC? She had already asked about Personal Computers, and Political Correctness did not seem to apply. PC, PC, at a loss for what she was describing, he typed the initials into GOOGLE and back came 3,846 listings for PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. SO he wrote back.
Madame, YES of course we have a PC, and I am delighted to tell you that it is only seven miles away!
We can give you directions, or perhaps when you go to the PC the first time, you would like my wife and I to go along with you, so you will not have to sit alone. I am told they are quite friendly at the PC, many going for solitude, others to listen, some to enjoy the music. They have even installed Air Conditioning in the PC and have cushioned seats. I am told that every six weeks the men of the PC put on a fine brunch, invite a speaker and people stay all morning. Children are welcome at the PC and sit beside their parents, or together up front. My wife and I used to go to the PC quite often, but you know how it goes, as we have gotten older, it seems harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning, to go to the PC as often as we should. It's actually been several years since I have gone to the PC, but I believe it will meet your needs.
Shifting from the ridiculous to the sublime,
The Rev. Dr. William Stidger was a respected Professor of Preaching at Yale University's School of Theology. One morning, he took a walk in the woods. As he walked he became aware, not only with his eyes seeing birds and squirrels amid the trees, but hearing all the movements, the world around him seemed vibrantly alive, there were scents and smells of life and decay he had all but forgotten. Though a distinguished Professor, in Midlife, he found himself to be running through the woods like a schoolboy. He stopped beside the lake, and became mesmerized at the question of which is reality, the Village with its spires and towers and lawns, or the reflection upon the water, that seemed a mirror of everything above. Skipping rocks across the face of the water, he reflected upon his life, and came to think about his favorite teacher in 5th Grade English Miss. Dorthea Rothermel. When he returned to his study, he called the school where she had taught and they informed him she still lived in he same little house she always had. He wrote her a letter, careful to use his best penmanship, describing how much she had meant to him. Naming that her interest in him, had inspired him to continue his education more than any particular lesson he had learned. A few days later, he received a reply.
MY DEAR WILLY, (No one had dared call him that in decades)
Of course I remember you, a teacher remembers her every student. How dear of you to write to me. I am retired, having taught public education for over 50 years, and served as a substitute teacher for twenty more. Every morning and afternoon, I listen for the voice of the children as they walk passed my home, recalling the voices of children in the classroom. Quite honestly, I do not know what possessed you to write, as in all these years, yours is the only letter of this kind I have ever received. Thank you. I shall treasure your words always.
Stidger felt the tears dripping from his chin, and recognizing there were others he should remember, he wrote to his first employer after college, really more of a mentor than an employer. This man had given a chance and believed in him, he had helped him to make application of ideas and theory into reality for how to work with people. In the letter, Stidger recalled having Sunday dinner each week at his mentor's home loving prepared by the mentor's wife. Stidger briefly described how he had put the lessons he had been taught into practice, and the learnings of a lifetime that he attributed to his master's teachings.
The reply came back almost immediately.
DEAR WILL,
Oh how your words took me back through time! Our conversations always made me late for supper. I laughed out loud recalling how my love would scold me for her meal being overcooked, and how I would try to explain that you were wrestling with some great problem of life. Reminiscing, I called out to her to come read your letter with me, then as no voice responded, I recalled that of course she died six weeks ago. But your letter, and the memories you shared of Sunday dinners together brought her back to me. Thank you my good friend.
How does the image of a beloved mentor laughing at the memory of being scolded by his wife, get communicated in an abbreviated text message LOL?
The Apostle Paul, preaching at the Areopogus recognized that the people of Athens were perpetually searching for what was NEW what was unknown and might satisfy or at least be intriguing for the moment. Paul named that that which they were searching for and trying to create, already was and is. They even knew God as the UNKNOWN and UNKNOWABLE. Like trying to explain the THEORY OF Intelligent Design, Paul recounted NATURAL THEOLOGY, the stars and planets, the atmosphere and interdependence of all creation is too great to be an accident of fate. Paul described that they had seen with their own eyes and experienced all around them PROOF of the existence of the UNKNOWN, the GOD not made with human hands, not worshipped as an idol in a temple made by women and men, the TRUE GOD who was before all and will be after we are gone.
But this is only the foundation of faith. How does one describe a lifetime commitment to NON-VIOLENCE that insists on ACTIVE RESISTANCE, ACTS OF FAITH and LOVE that have changed the world?
Peter attempts in his Letter, to name that a NATURAL THEOLOGY as Noah Trusted was not enough. That God had entered into human life in Jesus of Nazareth and changed the world forever, and now we must choose to take for granted what we know to be and choose to NOT Know, or do we risk believing in the UNKNOWN GOD, risking a letter to a teacher who started you on a lifetime of learning, a mentor who challenged and supported you taking you into their family as their own.
Paul describes the Resurrection from death to life and Life Eternal.
In some small way, isn't that what Stidger did in giving to a teacher who had never received a Letter of Thanks, that word of kindness and gratitude?... to his mentor, that inspired him to move from grieving his loss to living with her memory?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Declaring What Others Rejected April 20, 2008
I Peter 2:1-10
Acts of the Apostles 7:1-8 & 7:51- 8:1
As a Christian people, we are CALLED to be SELF-CRITICAL.
Not to be critical, there are already too many Pessimists, Nay Sayers and Doubters looking to tell you how many wrongs there are in everything you try to do that is right. Niether to be a Pollyanna who blythely goes through life ignoring the wrongs and abuses, as if they do not matter. But to be SELF-AWARE, to become SELF-CRITICAL so as to become more and more intentional and committed, knowing we cannot attain perfection that is not our goal, but living one's life so that we could die for something other than old age, and if dieing for what we believe, then Living Committed Lives, as if what we say and what we do actually matters.
Christian faith is not a PASSIVE VOICE. Christian faith calls us to perceive the world CROSS-EYED, looking at everything through the perspective and witness of the Cross and Resurrection, as if we had different eyes seeing life POST-EASTER, different because of the RESURRECTION, different because we are now SELF-AWARE and SELF-CRITICAL which allow us the POWER to choose differently.
What a POWERFUL IMAGE, being SELF-AWARE, SELF-CRITICAL, living in a POST RESURRECTION Reality we have the POWER to choose differently, we have the Power to choose what and who we want to be. This week, I was filling out one of those Anonymous surveys we always have to fill out, and the first question was RACE. Thinking about this passage from I Peter, I recognized we are no longer JEW or GENTILE, MALE or FEMALE, we are A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, a NEW CREATION, able to have a whole new and different identity and relationship, so instead of Caucasian, WHITE, Western European, NORTH AMERICAN, under the category OTHER: I wrote in “CHRISTIAN”.
Suddenly, this became liberating. We no longer have to live according to what has been. We are no longer GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED, no longer does it matter that parents were abusive, or you never fit in as a child, or you were raped, or you had cancer... ALL THOSE THINGS HAPPENED, but we choose to not allow them to DEFINE and limit who we are. INSTEAD we choose to live life DIFFERENTY, to DECLARE who we are and what we want to be.
This year's PESIDENTIAL Primaries have done more to call attention to issues of RACE and EQUALITY AMONG SEXES than any in history. Never before have we had a Woman Candidate, or a Candidate of Color, and a Traditional Candidate with long and distinguished career. In recent weeks, REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT became a catalyst for controversy, because as a Black preacher in a Black Church he was critical of our Nation. But if we are to be SELF-CRITICAL, if we are no longer to be PASSIVE then we need to question why we allow a world where a child who is Afro-American stands a higher probability of dieing than graduating 6th grade. That an Afro-American Man stands a better chance 8 times over of going to Jail than going to College. It sounds different doesn't it, coming from a Black Preacher in Chicago, than a Western European One from Skaneateles, New York. The one we anticipate to be Critical of our Society, the other I hope makes us SELF-CRITICAL, makes us wonder what might we do?
In addition to serving as the Church in this community, addressing this community's needs, we have created a clinic in the Sudan of Africa, proividing medicines and trained health care professionals to a village living in mud huts without technology, without electricity. But I would tell you, as difficult and expensive as this mission has been, being SELF-CRITICAL and TRYNG to DECLARE a new vision about Race in America will be more difficult and threatening.
After years of having the KODAK INSTAMATIC Cameras we grew up with, we have changed to DIGITAL and Single-Lens Reflex, part of the fun of photography is experimenting with the ZOOM LENS, because with the ZOOM you no longer POINT & SHOOT taking what comes, but focus on one thing rejecting everything else that is too close, or depending where we focus, rejecting what is too far away. Part of the fun of photography, the fun of life itself, is that no two of us are going to focus on the same things in the same way at the same time. Our perspectives alow each of us to choose to DECLAE and EMPHASIZE as important FROM WHAT OTHERS HAVE REJECTED.
In the story in ACTS, we shift from focus on Jesus to focus on the Disciples, who without Jesus to teach them have been commissioned as APOSTLES to call others, baptizing and preaching and teaching, healing and praying for others as he did. Like them, we are CALLED to be APOSTLES, praying for others, teaching, healing the wounded and broken, making a difference in the lives of others, as Jesus Did. AND they recognized there was too much, far too much for them to do. The APOSTLES appointed and ordained others, a larger circle, who could extend the ministry, and do whatever is necessary for the Apostles to be able to do their work. This is the role of DEACONS. If we take Peter at his word, as Baptized Believers we are all CALLED to be ministers, a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A Priesthood of Believers, so the role of Deacons is to do whatever is necessary for others to be able to minister.
The camera lens zooms is on the ACTIVE PASSIONATE VOICE of Stephen, the SELF-CRITICAL voice who recognizes and names what others had rejected that the COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS has NOT been FAITHFUL. God gave to Abraham and Sarah The PROMISE, the Hope and dream of a future, not in your lifetime, not for your children or their children. They had been BARREN, unable to succeed, unable to leave their mark on the world, unable even to biologically conceive. The PROMISE was of 400 years of Abuse for their descendancts, but after that, 400 years from now, your descendants will have a future. To Abraham and Sarah this was a PROMISE OF HAVING DESCENDANTS, HAVING A FUTURE. But 1000 years went by. 400 years after Abraham, the people had come into the Land and taken possession of it, living in prosperity, and they rejected everything that was critical of what they had, so the PROMISE shifted and was taken away. The ELECT, God's Chosen People became EXILES in a foreign land. And the people took up stones and killed Stephen for what he had said. PANNING the Camera away, the focus of the NARRATOR falls on Saul of Tarsus, Saul who stood PASSIVE as everyone laid their cloaks and baggage at his feet in order to take take up stones to kill. The Passive Voice is not a presence of Faith, and Saul gathered up all the hate and prejudice that was laid at his feet by those who had taken up stones to kill STEPHEN because he had DECLARED what they had Rejected. And Saul began PERSECUTING the Believers.
Last evening, I had the joy of being part of he QUATRO-SESQUI-CENTENNIAL, the 175th Anniversary of our Village and the Volunteer Fire Department. Hearing the history of our Village, this Church has played a powerful and dramatic role in the community's heritage. Powerful and dramatic, because as you enter this brick edifice with towers reaching into the heavens, pipes and arches that seem to go on forever, there are grand subtleties, DECLARATIONS OUT OF WHAT OTHERS REJECTED. For many generations we along with St.James stood as a stallwart gate at the eastern end of the Village.
I am told that in 1890 the former Church on this site was structurally unsound, and was collapsed into its foundations. And a Banker from Manhattan, Thomas Wells Hall, who was not a member of the Church, not even a resident of this community stepped forward. He described that as a boy he had come to Skaneateles every summer to visit his grandmother. She had now died, and out of love for her, he wanted to give a gift to build the new Sanctuary. How easily we could have become the Wells Hall Presbyterian Church, or HALL HALL, but this man of faith said NO. The only indication of the Donor's name is on the back of one of the pews, the only pew in this church that is named, which describes this as “THE PEW FOR STRANGERS in OUR MIDST.” Witnessing his example, the congregation did not put their own names in the windows, but instead the names in these Memorial windows are the names of the first pioneers in this community. Some were Catholic, some were Anglican, some Baptist, some Unitarian Universalist, several Quakers, Lutherans, Methodists. And in the midst of these, one that Larry Weiss helped us to understand. That in the 1890s the hot political issue was not Sexuality, or Abortion, or Euthenasia, or the War, but the FREEDOM OF HUMAN WILL. On the one side were the Universalists who championed what was called Arminianism, belief in FREE WILL. At the other extent was Presbyterian Calvinism, and the historic belief in PREDESTINATION. And his window declares that YES here is a Divine Order, a Set Plan for human history based on what we have done to one another, the rise and fal of cultures and societies. But that also, there is Freedom of Will, and BELIEVERS ACTIVELY RISE UP TO DECLARE a new vision, new hope and possibilities which change the Plan of Human History. SO instead of choosing to go this way or that, to recognize in faith that we have the POWER TO CHOOSE, the RESPONSIBILITY to DECLARE what WE BELIEVE.
Acts of the Apostles 7:1-8 & 7:51- 8:1
As a Christian people, we are CALLED to be SELF-CRITICAL.
Not to be critical, there are already too many Pessimists, Nay Sayers and Doubters looking to tell you how many wrongs there are in everything you try to do that is right. Niether to be a Pollyanna who blythely goes through life ignoring the wrongs and abuses, as if they do not matter. But to be SELF-AWARE, to become SELF-CRITICAL so as to become more and more intentional and committed, knowing we cannot attain perfection that is not our goal, but living one's life so that we could die for something other than old age, and if dieing for what we believe, then Living Committed Lives, as if what we say and what we do actually matters.
Christian faith is not a PASSIVE VOICE. Christian faith calls us to perceive the world CROSS-EYED, looking at everything through the perspective and witness of the Cross and Resurrection, as if we had different eyes seeing life POST-EASTER, different because of the RESURRECTION, different because we are now SELF-AWARE and SELF-CRITICAL which allow us the POWER to choose differently.
What a POWERFUL IMAGE, being SELF-AWARE, SELF-CRITICAL, living in a POST RESURRECTION Reality we have the POWER to choose differently, we have the Power to choose what and who we want to be. This week, I was filling out one of those Anonymous surveys we always have to fill out, and the first question was RACE. Thinking about this passage from I Peter, I recognized we are no longer JEW or GENTILE, MALE or FEMALE, we are A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, a NEW CREATION, able to have a whole new and different identity and relationship, so instead of Caucasian, WHITE, Western European, NORTH AMERICAN, under the category OTHER: I wrote in “CHRISTIAN”.
Suddenly, this became liberating. We no longer have to live according to what has been. We are no longer GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED, no longer does it matter that parents were abusive, or you never fit in as a child, or you were raped, or you had cancer... ALL THOSE THINGS HAPPENED, but we choose to not allow them to DEFINE and limit who we are. INSTEAD we choose to live life DIFFERENTY, to DECLARE who we are and what we want to be.
This year's PESIDENTIAL Primaries have done more to call attention to issues of RACE and EQUALITY AMONG SEXES than any in history. Never before have we had a Woman Candidate, or a Candidate of Color, and a Traditional Candidate with long and distinguished career. In recent weeks, REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT became a catalyst for controversy, because as a Black preacher in a Black Church he was critical of our Nation. But if we are to be SELF-CRITICAL, if we are no longer to be PASSIVE then we need to question why we allow a world where a child who is Afro-American stands a higher probability of dieing than graduating 6th grade. That an Afro-American Man stands a better chance 8 times over of going to Jail than going to College. It sounds different doesn't it, coming from a Black Preacher in Chicago, than a Western European One from Skaneateles, New York. The one we anticipate to be Critical of our Society, the other I hope makes us SELF-CRITICAL, makes us wonder what might we do?
In addition to serving as the Church in this community, addressing this community's needs, we have created a clinic in the Sudan of Africa, proividing medicines and trained health care professionals to a village living in mud huts without technology, without electricity. But I would tell you, as difficult and expensive as this mission has been, being SELF-CRITICAL and TRYNG to DECLARE a new vision about Race in America will be more difficult and threatening.
After years of having the KODAK INSTAMATIC Cameras we grew up with, we have changed to DIGITAL and Single-Lens Reflex, part of the fun of photography is experimenting with the ZOOM LENS, because with the ZOOM you no longer POINT & SHOOT taking what comes, but focus on one thing rejecting everything else that is too close, or depending where we focus, rejecting what is too far away. Part of the fun of photography, the fun of life itself, is that no two of us are going to focus on the same things in the same way at the same time. Our perspectives alow each of us to choose to DECLAE and EMPHASIZE as important FROM WHAT OTHERS HAVE REJECTED.
In the story in ACTS, we shift from focus on Jesus to focus on the Disciples, who without Jesus to teach them have been commissioned as APOSTLES to call others, baptizing and preaching and teaching, healing and praying for others as he did. Like them, we are CALLED to be APOSTLES, praying for others, teaching, healing the wounded and broken, making a difference in the lives of others, as Jesus Did. AND they recognized there was too much, far too much for them to do. The APOSTLES appointed and ordained others, a larger circle, who could extend the ministry, and do whatever is necessary for the Apostles to be able to do their work. This is the role of DEACONS. If we take Peter at his word, as Baptized Believers we are all CALLED to be ministers, a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A Priesthood of Believers, so the role of Deacons is to do whatever is necessary for others to be able to minister.
The camera lens zooms is on the ACTIVE PASSIONATE VOICE of Stephen, the SELF-CRITICAL voice who recognizes and names what others had rejected that the COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS has NOT been FAITHFUL. God gave to Abraham and Sarah The PROMISE, the Hope and dream of a future, not in your lifetime, not for your children or their children. They had been BARREN, unable to succeed, unable to leave their mark on the world, unable even to biologically conceive. The PROMISE was of 400 years of Abuse for their descendancts, but after that, 400 years from now, your descendants will have a future. To Abraham and Sarah this was a PROMISE OF HAVING DESCENDANTS, HAVING A FUTURE. But 1000 years went by. 400 years after Abraham, the people had come into the Land and taken possession of it, living in prosperity, and they rejected everything that was critical of what they had, so the PROMISE shifted and was taken away. The ELECT, God's Chosen People became EXILES in a foreign land. And the people took up stones and killed Stephen for what he had said. PANNING the Camera away, the focus of the NARRATOR falls on Saul of Tarsus, Saul who stood PASSIVE as everyone laid their cloaks and baggage at his feet in order to take take up stones to kill. The Passive Voice is not a presence of Faith, and Saul gathered up all the hate and prejudice that was laid at his feet by those who had taken up stones to kill STEPHEN because he had DECLARED what they had Rejected. And Saul began PERSECUTING the Believers.
Last evening, I had the joy of being part of he QUATRO-SESQUI-CENTENNIAL, the 175th Anniversary of our Village and the Volunteer Fire Department. Hearing the history of our Village, this Church has played a powerful and dramatic role in the community's heritage. Powerful and dramatic, because as you enter this brick edifice with towers reaching into the heavens, pipes and arches that seem to go on forever, there are grand subtleties, DECLARATIONS OUT OF WHAT OTHERS REJECTED. For many generations we along with St.James stood as a stallwart gate at the eastern end of the Village.
I am told that in 1890 the former Church on this site was structurally unsound, and was collapsed into its foundations. And a Banker from Manhattan, Thomas Wells Hall, who was not a member of the Church, not even a resident of this community stepped forward. He described that as a boy he had come to Skaneateles every summer to visit his grandmother. She had now died, and out of love for her, he wanted to give a gift to build the new Sanctuary. How easily we could have become the Wells Hall Presbyterian Church, or HALL HALL, but this man of faith said NO. The only indication of the Donor's name is on the back of one of the pews, the only pew in this church that is named, which describes this as “THE PEW FOR STRANGERS in OUR MIDST.” Witnessing his example, the congregation did not put their own names in the windows, but instead the names in these Memorial windows are the names of the first pioneers in this community. Some were Catholic, some were Anglican, some Baptist, some Unitarian Universalist, several Quakers, Lutherans, Methodists. And in the midst of these, one that Larry Weiss helped us to understand. That in the 1890s the hot political issue was not Sexuality, or Abortion, or Euthenasia, or the War, but the FREEDOM OF HUMAN WILL. On the one side were the Universalists who championed what was called Arminianism, belief in FREE WILL. At the other extent was Presbyterian Calvinism, and the historic belief in PREDESTINATION. And his window declares that YES here is a Divine Order, a Set Plan for human history based on what we have done to one another, the rise and fal of cultures and societies. But that also, there is Freedom of Will, and BELIEVERS ACTIVELY RISE UP TO DECLARE a new vision, new hope and possibilities which change the Plan of Human History. SO instead of choosing to go this way or that, to recognize in faith that we have the POWER TO CHOOSE, the RESPONSIBILITY to DECLARE what WE BELIEVE.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
One With One Another, April 13, 2008
John 10:1-11
Acts 4:32-5:11
The passages we read this morning are not what immediately come to mind when the Church imagines Easter and the Resurrection. These are blunt, crass, direct, intimate descriptions of relationship between members of the early Christian community, and relationship of Christ to the flock and the world.
There may seem a radical gear shift here, that we have gone from the glory and exuberance of the Resurrection, preaching on the Empty Tomb and Christ who returned from death to life for all humanity; of Thomas among the Disciples who locked themselves away with their fears unable to believe unless they could touch his wounds; of the Wedding at Cana in Galilee mystically, miraculously changing water into wine; then we are given a terse, newsy description about money and possessions, of wealth, the sale of real estate and how to get things done in life. Yet, when you think about it, the “REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION” is not our most elaborately orchestrated pageant of the Empty Tomb, not the most eloquent description of the Resurrection of he who died for the sins of the world, BUT RATHER whether the reality of that drama changed the world, especially in tangible daily activities like how we relate to one another? Resurrection is not so much about the HISTORICAL and SCIENTIFIC of HOW COULD THIS BE? as the CHRISTOLOGICAL and COMMUNAL of whether we BELIEVE and ACT DIFFERENT?
Recently, I was reflecting with friends about the Church when one described that it seemed all we ever talk about is MONEY. In recent years, we have focused on CAPITAL FUND I, overlapping with CAPITAL FUND II, and after less than a year's hyatis THE ORGAN FUND, then the paying down and off of DEBT, and the raising of money for building a CLINIC IN SUDAN. She wondered when we were ever going to focus on the Spiritual Things.
Another described that the Church they came from in another part of the country had been fighting for and about SOCIAL ACTION, they were fiercely divided and questioned WHY THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN SKANEATELES IS NOT MORE OUTSPOKEN ON THINGS THAT MATTER LIKE RACE, SEX and SEXUALITY and the WAR.
We discussed that while SPIRITUALITY, New and DIFFERENT MEANS OF PRACTICING FAITH, RACE and SEX and SEXUALITY and WAR and PEACE had all been active parts of discussions, education forums and meetings, NOTHING in life is as divisive and volatile as our discussions and family arguments about money and possessions. Without being partisan, I would share the hope and dream that perhaps finally in this unending series of campaign primaries our CANDIDATES who personify our Nation's divisiveness over RACE and SEX and SEXUALITY and WAR and PEACE, would address those issues in ways that can challenge and change how we relate to one another. The starting point for politics involves defending a position on an issue that leads to defining who we are one versus another; The starting point for faith involves claiming we are ONE with ONE ANOTHER that leads us to helping one another confront the issues of our lives.
In the Mid1970s Ernest Becker was a Pulitzer Prize winning Anthropologist from Seattle who proposed that as Western Cultures move further and further away from personal relationships with God, and Cultural faith in the Divine, that A DENIAL OF DEATH takes over, and Money, Wealth, Possessions, Power take on a God-like IDOL identity. Our QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY leads to attempts to preserve or even redeem our name through our possessions. The sin of ANANIAS & SAPPIRRA was not that they gave only a portion of all they had to share with the community, or that they did not give enough, but that they CONSPIRED to LIE about it saying to the communion, saying to God, this is All and Everything, when it was only a portion of all they had. Their SIN is what we all do at differing times, of justifying our materialism. I need to have this, that and the other, rather than being satisfied.
What Peter says, what causes them to drop dead, is that this is not simply a justification, not a lie to the community but a betrayal of our COMMUNION, and Betrayal of GOD. This passage from ACTS as well as Jesus' words in John are personal, intimate, real. The issue at stake is not whether we get caught on our TAXES, whether we will have to pay a fine, whether we go to COURT to Settle Disputes, but that when SIBLINGS fight over the dispersal of family possessions, what is broken is not the value of the Tea Set or the hand of the Grandfather Clock, but the Relationship of FAMILY.
This is a WONDERFULLY FREEING and HORRIBLY DEMANDING DESCRIPTION. How much easier we could deny this, if the passage named as LAW that EVERYONE SOLD ALL THEY HAD FOR A COMMON TREASURY. Or if the passage NAMED A TYTHE of GIVING 10%. I have long believed, that if each of us would write out our WILLS and give 10% of our ESTATE to the CHURCH before dividing among Family we would lower the family's Inheritance Tax, and benefit the Family by teaching Giving. BUT this passage actually demands yet a THIRD OPTION, that we would RESPOND TO EACH AS ANY HAD NEED. We have been privileged to witness this giving in our midst. When it came to establishing relationships for trust, as your PASTOR I went to Sudan. When it came to Construction, others went who have contracting experience. Then Doctors and Nurses. While others have given their time and expertise at the Food Pantry, and others Sharing a Meal at the Manor, others Serving on Committees and Teaching. I hate to imagine, and cannot envision what this community would be like, if the flock did not share their gifts as you do, serving on the Symphony Board and the Festival, Substitute Teaching and Tutoring, maintaining the woods and Nature Trails and Scouting programs. FROM EACH AS THEY HAVE RESOURCES TO EACH AS THEY HAVE NEEDS.
John's style is different than the other Gospels, who introduce “Jesus told a Parable:The Kingdom of God is a Like a Mustard Seed, Like a Woman Kneading Leaven into the Loaf”. John skips over verbage like “TOLD A PARABLE” and corollaries of “LIKE”, and John states that Jesus Said “I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD, I AM THE SHEEP GATE”, which is evolving one analogy upon another. IF, we only focused on Jesus being the GOOD SHEPHERD, we focus so much on the humanity of the man, we miss the point. Like a Shepherd Jesus cares for and watches over the flock, but even more, that shepherd becomes the gate for the sheep to be included. TOO OFTEN, we envision a GATE as being to keep others out, or to keep some in, WHAT IF the GATE is the means of access and the Shepherd's role is to extend the gate as a bigger opening? Every Sunday morning, there are the doors of the Church for strangers and members to enter in, and we make it a point to go outside, in all kinds of weather to go out on the sidewalk, greeting those passing by, welcoming out on the street, to come to the door to come inside.
Strangely, we tend to make “THE FLOCK” more exclusive than Jesus did. For Jesus does not identify this as MY FLOCK, as if to say there are other flocks that do not belong, but rather NAMES his IDENTITY as the SHEPHERD OF the WHOLE FLOCK. The stumbling block has been the 16th verse, that describes “I HAVE OTHER SHEEP, THAT ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. SO THERE SHALL BE ONE FLOCK ONE SHEPHERD.” Some have interpreted that this was Jesus reference to the Gentiles as well the Jews, long before his crucifixion or the binding of Saul on the Road to Damascus. The Latter Day Saints have used this passage to mean that Jesus later appeared to the North American Indians and diverse later cultures in time that were not descended from the Old Testament Covenant. Personally, I believe that this describes that as human beings we have a tendency toward exclusion, claiming this is our flock, our members, and those people are different. BUT God, particularly as we know God through Jesus is about INCLUSION, and that the purpose of the Christ has been for God to send him into the world to Call people to claim relationship as ONE WITH ONE ANOTHER, as a visible COMMUNION in the world.
Acts 4:32-5:11
The passages we read this morning are not what immediately come to mind when the Church imagines Easter and the Resurrection. These are blunt, crass, direct, intimate descriptions of relationship between members of the early Christian community, and relationship of Christ to the flock and the world.
There may seem a radical gear shift here, that we have gone from the glory and exuberance of the Resurrection, preaching on the Empty Tomb and Christ who returned from death to life for all humanity; of Thomas among the Disciples who locked themselves away with their fears unable to believe unless they could touch his wounds; of the Wedding at Cana in Galilee mystically, miraculously changing water into wine; then we are given a terse, newsy description about money and possessions, of wealth, the sale of real estate and how to get things done in life. Yet, when you think about it, the “REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION” is not our most elaborately orchestrated pageant of the Empty Tomb, not the most eloquent description of the Resurrection of he who died for the sins of the world, BUT RATHER whether the reality of that drama changed the world, especially in tangible daily activities like how we relate to one another? Resurrection is not so much about the HISTORICAL and SCIENTIFIC of HOW COULD THIS BE? as the CHRISTOLOGICAL and COMMUNAL of whether we BELIEVE and ACT DIFFERENT?
Recently, I was reflecting with friends about the Church when one described that it seemed all we ever talk about is MONEY. In recent years, we have focused on CAPITAL FUND I, overlapping with CAPITAL FUND II, and after less than a year's hyatis THE ORGAN FUND, then the paying down and off of DEBT, and the raising of money for building a CLINIC IN SUDAN. She wondered when we were ever going to focus on the Spiritual Things.
Another described that the Church they came from in another part of the country had been fighting for and about SOCIAL ACTION, they were fiercely divided and questioned WHY THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN SKANEATELES IS NOT MORE OUTSPOKEN ON THINGS THAT MATTER LIKE RACE, SEX and SEXUALITY and the WAR.
We discussed that while SPIRITUALITY, New and DIFFERENT MEANS OF PRACTICING FAITH, RACE and SEX and SEXUALITY and WAR and PEACE had all been active parts of discussions, education forums and meetings, NOTHING in life is as divisive and volatile as our discussions and family arguments about money and possessions. Without being partisan, I would share the hope and dream that perhaps finally in this unending series of campaign primaries our CANDIDATES who personify our Nation's divisiveness over RACE and SEX and SEXUALITY and WAR and PEACE, would address those issues in ways that can challenge and change how we relate to one another. The starting point for politics involves defending a position on an issue that leads to defining who we are one versus another; The starting point for faith involves claiming we are ONE with ONE ANOTHER that leads us to helping one another confront the issues of our lives.
In the Mid1970s Ernest Becker was a Pulitzer Prize winning Anthropologist from Seattle who proposed that as Western Cultures move further and further away from personal relationships with God, and Cultural faith in the Divine, that A DENIAL OF DEATH takes over, and Money, Wealth, Possessions, Power take on a God-like IDOL identity. Our QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY leads to attempts to preserve or even redeem our name through our possessions. The sin of ANANIAS & SAPPIRRA was not that they gave only a portion of all they had to share with the community, or that they did not give enough, but that they CONSPIRED to LIE about it saying to the communion, saying to God, this is All and Everything, when it was only a portion of all they had. Their SIN is what we all do at differing times, of justifying our materialism. I need to have this, that and the other, rather than being satisfied.
What Peter says, what causes them to drop dead, is that this is not simply a justification, not a lie to the community but a betrayal of our COMMUNION, and Betrayal of GOD. This passage from ACTS as well as Jesus' words in John are personal, intimate, real. The issue at stake is not whether we get caught on our TAXES, whether we will have to pay a fine, whether we go to COURT to Settle Disputes, but that when SIBLINGS fight over the dispersal of family possessions, what is broken is not the value of the Tea Set or the hand of the Grandfather Clock, but the Relationship of FAMILY.
This is a WONDERFULLY FREEING and HORRIBLY DEMANDING DESCRIPTION. How much easier we could deny this, if the passage named as LAW that EVERYONE SOLD ALL THEY HAD FOR A COMMON TREASURY. Or if the passage NAMED A TYTHE of GIVING 10%. I have long believed, that if each of us would write out our WILLS and give 10% of our ESTATE to the CHURCH before dividing among Family we would lower the family's Inheritance Tax, and benefit the Family by teaching Giving. BUT this passage actually demands yet a THIRD OPTION, that we would RESPOND TO EACH AS ANY HAD NEED. We have been privileged to witness this giving in our midst. When it came to establishing relationships for trust, as your PASTOR I went to Sudan. When it came to Construction, others went who have contracting experience. Then Doctors and Nurses. While others have given their time and expertise at the Food Pantry, and others Sharing a Meal at the Manor, others Serving on Committees and Teaching. I hate to imagine, and cannot envision what this community would be like, if the flock did not share their gifts as you do, serving on the Symphony Board and the Festival, Substitute Teaching and Tutoring, maintaining the woods and Nature Trails and Scouting programs. FROM EACH AS THEY HAVE RESOURCES TO EACH AS THEY HAVE NEEDS.
John's style is different than the other Gospels, who introduce “Jesus told a Parable:The Kingdom of God is a Like a Mustard Seed, Like a Woman Kneading Leaven into the Loaf”. John skips over verbage like “TOLD A PARABLE” and corollaries of “LIKE”, and John states that Jesus Said “I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD, I AM THE SHEEP GATE”, which is evolving one analogy upon another. IF, we only focused on Jesus being the GOOD SHEPHERD, we focus so much on the humanity of the man, we miss the point. Like a Shepherd Jesus cares for and watches over the flock, but even more, that shepherd becomes the gate for the sheep to be included. TOO OFTEN, we envision a GATE as being to keep others out, or to keep some in, WHAT IF the GATE is the means of access and the Shepherd's role is to extend the gate as a bigger opening? Every Sunday morning, there are the doors of the Church for strangers and members to enter in, and we make it a point to go outside, in all kinds of weather to go out on the sidewalk, greeting those passing by, welcoming out on the street, to come to the door to come inside.
Strangely, we tend to make “THE FLOCK” more exclusive than Jesus did. For Jesus does not identify this as MY FLOCK, as if to say there are other flocks that do not belong, but rather NAMES his IDENTITY as the SHEPHERD OF the WHOLE FLOCK. The stumbling block has been the 16th verse, that describes “I HAVE OTHER SHEEP, THAT ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. SO THERE SHALL BE ONE FLOCK ONE SHEPHERD.” Some have interpreted that this was Jesus reference to the Gentiles as well the Jews, long before his crucifixion or the binding of Saul on the Road to Damascus. The Latter Day Saints have used this passage to mean that Jesus later appeared to the North American Indians and diverse later cultures in time that were not descended from the Old Testament Covenant. Personally, I believe that this describes that as human beings we have a tendency toward exclusion, claiming this is our flock, our members, and those people are different. BUT God, particularly as we know God through Jesus is about INCLUSION, and that the purpose of the Christ has been for God to send him into the world to Call people to claim relationship as ONE WITH ONE ANOTHER, as a visible COMMUNION in the world.
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