Isaiah 49:8-33
Matthew 6:24-34
There are some passages that preachers read, which strike a little close to home, because they are passages the preacher knows the preacher more than anyone needs. BE NOT ANXIOUS! Easier said than done! ... When Gas is $4/gallon, on Memorial Day in a time of war, when the Market is skittish and home prices feel like Monopoly money.
As parents, you watch over your children, like a brood of puppies, recognizing this is the sensitive one, the flirt, this one is the courageous. I was the WORRIER. But if I don't get the intro classes I want, How can I take the upper level when I need, so as to get into college, and grad school. BE NOT ANXIOUS! THE LORD LOVES YOU.
The latter part of that is the vital. Not simply a dangling participle but a statement of faith. BE NOT ANXIOUS, FOR THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY LOVES YOU.
We have to shift emphasis, from guilt and responsibilities of our control, from our possession of our life, to believing God cares. Not simply that we GLORIFY GOD, not philosophy, theory, ancient history, but that God might actually care about you and me.
I recall our first years together, as your new pastor walking into an existing series of Building Projects and Capital Funding Campaigns. And meeting after meeting, you could see people's anxiety level rise, as first the PROJECT MANAGER spent hours creating a spread sheet and timetable; the next week it was the FINANCE CHAIR, then STEWARDSHIP, as each in turn came to worry about escalating debt, my favorite was a projection that based on INFLATION and COMPOUNDED INTEREST we would pay for this work for fifty years and still not be out of debt. While in the Church Office we hoped and believed, and simultaneously five years after the first campaign and three years after the second everything including INTEREST and a MISSION GIFT were fully repaid. My own anxiety came later.
As the Congregation anticipated the Session going from 24 members to 12, my shoulders began to rise with tension as if pulled by a marionettes strings. Creating Personnel Policies and Unnamed Anxieties, we edged toward a future, different than we as a Church had ever known.
How impossible it seemed at the time, that there would come a future, where the Session would gather early to visit together, and stay afterward, not for PARKING LOT debriefing, but for the sheer joy and wonder of talking together about the Church and Community and one another's lives. How impossible it seemed we would ever again find a time where Session was actually fun.
This is a day, we have dreamed of and anticipated for so many different reasons, a day many worried would never come, or would be far different. We need to hear the mantra recited by the SUFFERING SERVANT of 2nd ISAIAH to Israel: BE NOT ANXIOUS GOD LOVES YOU, GOD CARES. And from the lips of the Savior, in Matthew's sermon about possessions, whether to Love God, or serve MAMMON, “Remember the birds of the air, the lilies of the field”, Be Not Afraid, God Loves You, God Cares.
NOT Four Score and Seven Years, but ALL of 7 years ago, three refugees came to live among us, we thought like so many before. There was to have been a fourth from Sudan but he had problems with paperwork and could not arrive with the first. Late in the summer, we learned that Santino was going to be coming and we were given a date of the 11th of September. I doubt any of the rest of us, can imagine what it was to have survived the war and refugee camps, to learn you were coming to America, then on September 11th 2001 having all the planes in the world turned back and grounded indefinitely. But in December, SANTINO ATAK arrived. And now, to have graduated with a degree in Business and experience in banking. BE NOT ANXIOUS GOD LOVES US, GOD CARES.
Naming that this is a day, we dreamed would come, a day we worried over and were not certain what to expect... Almost a year ago, last Memorial day, I received a call from a couple, whom we had married, and baptized their first born child. Pregnancies and child birth can be risky, had been for this couple, so trying to be optimistic and hopeful, they planned the date for the baby yet to be born's baptism, a year in the future. They were not certain if this one would be a girl or boy, but they had names for each, so I wrote on my calendar “Andrew and Caroline's Special Day”. Weeks and Months went by, suddenly I looked at my calendar and worried ANDREW and CAROLINE, Who are ANDREW and CAROLINE, do we have a wedding? An Anniversary? How could we forget? We worry about the silliest things, as if we could control our lives, possess and make life different, as if we were God.
BE NOT ANXIOUS, GOD ALMIGHTY LOVES US, GOD CARES.
We live in a time of miracles of medicine and modern science. Before a fetus is the size of your heart, we can diagnose circumstances in the baby's own heart. When used as a tool for planning and preparation, that knowledge can be a powerful thing, making certain hospital and surgeons are prepared, work and insurance and family all know to be supportive and to pray. But nothing can prepare you as parents for all that is to come. Knowledge of ALL we do KNOW, and that might BE, can also be a source of worry.
All the platitudes of “God never gives you more than you can bear”, “If you had faith, if you really believed...” should be removed from Human language. The fact of the matter is, that circumstances like these, CALL US TO LET GO EVERYTHING WE HAVE EVER KNOWN or BELIEVED. It is as if our old self, our knowledge of life and the world around us ALL must be let go, as if those were DEAD. We must bury and grieve what we used to be, in order to BE NOT ANXIOUS, in order to TRUST AND BELIEVE in Resurrected Life, a different Reality, where we are not as we were or used to be, but where we can come to be “BELOVED”.
Henri Nouwen used this description to explain the most basic truth of what it is to be truly HUMAN. Not simply to be biologically alive, a flower is that, a raccoon or fish. But to be truly HUMAN is to let go anxieties, to let go the past, to let go all we used to know, and to believe that we are BELOVED OF GOD.
So much in life, beats us down and forces to compete just to survive. Old tapes that say “You are no good, not the same as your brother, not pretty, not strong, not able.” Words like those fester in us like infection. FILLED WITH FEARS WE BECOME LIMITED, WE LET OUR ANXIETIES RULE US, and feeling hollow, empty, afraid, we try to fill the void with stuff. Buying possessions, comfort foods filled with starch and sugar, that dull us but cannot truly satisfy.
What is required is a Conscious Choice, we cannot remain in one world reaching, searching for another. We have taken other arguments out of context, as if to say “RENDER UNTO MONEY the things to be bought with money, to possess, to own, AND
RENDER UNTO GOD the things that belong to God, an hour on Sunday mornings when the weather is not great and we don't have thirty other things to do”.
There is a difference between MANAGERS who look at all they possess in life, and debate what is the least I have to commit, what is the best deal; VERSUS BEING BELOVED where we see a circumstance and give ourselves, without restraint, without regret, giving ourselves to love.
Choosing to be BELOVED, is a choice TO BE NOT ANXIOUS, BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU ARE LOVED, GOD DOES CARE. GOD CAN/WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.
Current circumstance may be overwhelming. Mothers do die in childbirth, as do infants. War is a horrible human reality, that does not make heroes, only survivors and refugees. Getting behind a wheel when you have been drinking is playing Russian Roulette, a fools game of probabilities with a lethal weapon. WE MUST CHOOSE to try to manage what we can control, living safely in an insecure reality; or to know we are BELOVED.
The POINT of AFFIRMING YOUR FAITH in this way is as ABRAHAM GIFTING THE PROMISE to GOD. Be NOT ANXIOUS. Trust that this child of God is BELOVED. So we give to God, what God has given, we claim as “beloved” that which God has loved. This day, we celebrate this SACRAMENT with a slight difference. Instead of asking whether you will love these Children of God, we already know them, they have been known since long before they were born, yet in their mother's wombs. SO AS THE CHURCH when asked if we will pray for them and for their families in all the circumstances of life, the honest answer is “WE HAVE AND WE WILL.”
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Witnessing Spiritually May 18,2008
Genesis 1:1 – 2:4
Matthew 28:16-20
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Increasingly there has been a demand for things to be MORE SPIRITUAL.
We have witnessed a LITURGICAL REFORMATION of Mystic practices, Gregorian chant, Labyrinths, and affectations to try to be more “Churchy”, more Spiritual, more Orthodox, and simultaneously more Contemporary, as if to market ourselves as more faithful and religious. As if, following the Modernist ideal, we could find the right theory, the correct explanation, and be able to replicate even the experience of God and an understanding of faith across the Cosmos. With the right idea, we could understand life and death, and have the answers to peace and war, Cyclones and Earthquakes, Draught and Flood, and the Economy, or be able to dismiss all this as irrelevant because the SPIRIT is other worldly, Spiritual.
To WITNESS the WORLD SPIRITUALLY, is not a matter of reading a book, adopting a new program, following a different teaching, but rather our going back to our most basic understanding of the BEGINNINGS, of WHO God IS, WHO We ARE, and WHAT WE ARE TO BE.
There are NO MORE FAMILIAR, and yet more MISUNDERSTOOD passages than these from Genesis and Matthew.
GENESIS is not about the FORMATION of NATURE, not an explanation of HOW or WHEN THE COSMOS was MADE. This whole Chapter can be reduced down to three words: CREATOR CREATES CREATION... Subject, Verb, Object, CREATOR CREATES CREATION. Those who reference this passage as Refutation of Science miss the point, because SCIENCE operates within a CLOSED UNIVERSE explaining HOW, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY. Scientific Theory can only determine in a MATERIALISTIC way, that the Cosmos exists, and that somehow, Ancient Israel CENTURIES before Galileo let alone Darwin, got the order right. However, where Scientific Theory traces CAUSATION arriving at the Accidental Cataclysmic Combustion of Gases, a BIG BANG; the ANCIENT THEOLOGIANS claimed PROOF OF GOD
At the Opposite Extreme are those who believe in and hold this story up as MYTH. GOD Called out of the other worldly mystic realm, light and life and land, as if everything were Divine Myth and therefore everything is SACRED, yet nothing is real, and nothing is as it appears.
GENESIS is not Scientific Proof, or Transcendental Myth, Genesis is a Theological Affirmation. GOD is the CREATOR, who both Created the Heavens and the Earth out of Nothingness, and Created out of this shapeless, formless, void of reality: CREATION.
Distinct from MAKING, or FORMING, or MANUFACTURING which results in a THING, a Product, a known quantity, the CREATOR CREATES with all the transitions that VERB represents. GOD AGONIZES OVER... GOD WILLS and INTENDS, THE CREATOR uses every facet both the perfect and the imperfections. CREATOR CREATES CREATION is a Declaration of GOD'S RELATIONSHIP with CREATION.
Before Moses, before Abraham, before Noah, before Adam was a conscious being, GOD CREATES A COVENANT with ALL CREATION, that God will be Creator, who creates, who agonizes over, who wills and intends and recreates, who Calls for a purpose.
Throughout the Millennia, scholars have fought over the harmonization of Genesis. Why do we have one story in Genesis 1 of the CREATOR CREATING CREATION the last creation created being humanity; then in Genesis 2 there is another story of Creation, where Humanity is the first Creation Created with power and dominion over all Creation? Then a third explanation of the Origin of SIN and Sins. Are these three separate stories of Creation, and if so how long is a day, which came first the Earth or the Earthling, what is the relationship of GOD'S COVENANT to HUMAN SIN?
We can attempt to understand each story separately, telling us individual elements about the Nature of God, which never will address how many lifetimes are in a single day; but the point of having laid these side by side by side, emphasizes that THE CREATOR CREATES, CALLS and ENTREATS, INVITES and ENCOURAGES, REMAINING FAITHFUL to the COVENANT. While CREATION has a Freedom of Will. Like a two year old rejecting everything, saying NO to every question, Human Creation identifies what we do want to be by having rejected everything we are given. We do not seem to know or understand our need or desire for a thing, for a person, until we have rejected, then we have given ourselves permission to decide what we do want. GENESIS affirms GOD CALLS to Be; HUMANITY questions and DOUBTS before being ready to LISTEN.
The most overlooked "spiritual discipline" is what God does on the seventh day. There is a mistranslation in many of our recollections of this story. GOD DOES NOT REST on the seventh day, sleeping after all the creation. GOD DOES NOT STOP, as if stopping were a holy thing. On the Seventh Day, GOD REFLECTS UPON ALL GOD HAS DONE. In addition, to singing, and prayer and sharing together, reflection is a critical spiritual task for witnessing.
Spirituality is not knowing what an angel looks like or how to pronounce glossallalia, not knowing how many generations passed in one day of Creation, BUT being affirmed and encouraged to feel confident GOD CREATES. To TRUST, that Created in the image of God, with God pausing on the seventh day to reflect upon all that is, we are encouraged to act as CO-CREATORS with GOD.
THIRTY YEARS ago, a member of this faith community had a dream. His dream was that just because a person aged did not mean we should abandon them. Simply because they no longer had the strength and resources to care for an entire house did not mean they had to die or move away. The SPIRITUAL Journey he began in us, has twisted and turned, no longer is the Manor a 10 room Boarding house. No longer do we envision Seniors as those over 65. Part of our CALLING has become encouraging these who had lived alone for the last many decades, to make the transition to sharing with others. Part of our SPIRITUAL CALLING has been to share the gifts we possess, and to inspire those who never thought they had talent to give something of value to the world.
It seems like only yesterday, we were dreaming if it would be possible to provide health care to a people half-way round the world. Containers were hijacked and trucks lost in the wilderness, but miraculously these resources appeared when we needed and were ready. The well ran dry, and at a wedding in the middle of the African Savannah a well driller came as a guest. We worried about WAR and the presence of oil making this Clinic a target for bombing. Who would have imagined we could have developed the infrastructure that OIL Companies would want to see for development outside of governments, for the building of a new future.
We discovered a lump in a breast or prostate, and rather than dying of Cancer, each began a journey of claiming and reclaiming what truly is important to share with others. Through prayer and Reflection, several have witnessed tumors go into remission, others have been able to die at peace at home, others still have provided care to those they love learning they are not doing so alone.
Harmonizing Genesis' stories, we tend to harmonize the resurrection in the Gospels as well. But we need to hear that according to Matthew, what was important was NOT THE EMPTY TOMB, NOT that a dead body had come to life, NOT the Road to Emmaus, NOT going back to Fishing, NOT Gathering in the Upper Room. According to Matthew, the RESURRECTION was GOD CREATING ANEW. The RESURRECTION is the CREATOR CREATING CREATION no longer apart from God, but having an example of what it is to live in RELATIONSHIP with God.
Disciples were given new authority, to baptize, to teach, to make disciples. We have heard this passage so many times at BAPTISMS and Reception of New Members, we forget that this was the reason for the CRUSADES.
Part of SPIRITUAL SEARCHING is questioning whether “Making Disciples of all NATIONS, baptizing them in the Name of the FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT, Teaching them All that Christ Commands” requires that everyone become like us? There was a time, when this Sanctuary was built in the 1890s, when Christianity believed in CHRISTENDOM, the Cross & Crown at the Center of the Chancel was declaration that there could be a CHRISTIAN EMPIRE with all the world made like us. A more recent twist on the Cross & Crown is that in every Nation, every Government and Family, we would search for FAITH, for ETHICS and COMPASSION as Christ taught. That is praying for one another. Forgiving. Having Compassion especially upon those who hate you.
As your pastor, I have the privilege of observing the congregation differently that anyone else. NOT who is sleeping and who is awake, NOT knowing who cheated on their taxes, NOT wanting to know gossip about others, BUT RATHER at the end of every worship, this congregation has many who exchange a kiss.. Like a remnant from their wedding, the minister pronounces the Benediction and you pucker up. A HOLY KISS as described by Paul to the Corinthians, is not romantic, or erotic. A Holy Kiss is a SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP, of claiming one another as intimate, like a parent kissing you on the forehead and each cheek before bed. A HOLY KISS is an affirmation that we watch over you and miss you until we meet again. A HOLY KISS is the PASSING OF THE PEACE. I once went to series of churches in a single day, at Ebenezer Baptist Church, they had all the visitors stand, while the Church members went around as fast as they could to greet everyone. Not looking you in the eye, not listening to you, but being greeted and received by as many as possible as quickly as possible. The second was one of the largest and most prestigious of Presbyterian Churches, where visitors were asked to rise, then be seated, while the members greeted one another, ignoring the visitors all together. Often it is difficult with a long sermon, a loud postlude, plans for after Sunday's Worship, but the FINAL WORD of Paul is that we would mend the brokeness, search for ways to agree, greet one another with CARING. In addition to asking the person how their spouse is medically, asking how they are coping as a care giver. In addition to delivering a meal, stopping in to visit over a glass of water. A Holy Kiss is not so much a smooch, as truly caring and seeking one another out for a time and place apart. We are to carry to one another all the greetings of those who have brought you to one another, and be BLESSED, living life as a SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP of WITNESSING THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY.
Matthew 28:16-20
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Increasingly there has been a demand for things to be MORE SPIRITUAL.
We have witnessed a LITURGICAL REFORMATION of Mystic practices, Gregorian chant, Labyrinths, and affectations to try to be more “Churchy”, more Spiritual, more Orthodox, and simultaneously more Contemporary, as if to market ourselves as more faithful and religious. As if, following the Modernist ideal, we could find the right theory, the correct explanation, and be able to replicate even the experience of God and an understanding of faith across the Cosmos. With the right idea, we could understand life and death, and have the answers to peace and war, Cyclones and Earthquakes, Draught and Flood, and the Economy, or be able to dismiss all this as irrelevant because the SPIRIT is other worldly, Spiritual.
To WITNESS the WORLD SPIRITUALLY, is not a matter of reading a book, adopting a new program, following a different teaching, but rather our going back to our most basic understanding of the BEGINNINGS, of WHO God IS, WHO We ARE, and WHAT WE ARE TO BE.
There are NO MORE FAMILIAR, and yet more MISUNDERSTOOD passages than these from Genesis and Matthew.
GENESIS is not about the FORMATION of NATURE, not an explanation of HOW or WHEN THE COSMOS was MADE. This whole Chapter can be reduced down to three words: CREATOR CREATES CREATION... Subject, Verb, Object, CREATOR CREATES CREATION. Those who reference this passage as Refutation of Science miss the point, because SCIENCE operates within a CLOSED UNIVERSE explaining HOW, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY. Scientific Theory can only determine in a MATERIALISTIC way, that the Cosmos exists, and that somehow, Ancient Israel CENTURIES before Galileo let alone Darwin, got the order right. However, where Scientific Theory traces CAUSATION arriving at the Accidental Cataclysmic Combustion of Gases, a BIG BANG; the ANCIENT THEOLOGIANS claimed PROOF OF GOD
At the Opposite Extreme are those who believe in and hold this story up as MYTH. GOD Called out of the other worldly mystic realm, light and life and land, as if everything were Divine Myth and therefore everything is SACRED, yet nothing is real, and nothing is as it appears.
GENESIS is not Scientific Proof, or Transcendental Myth, Genesis is a Theological Affirmation. GOD is the CREATOR, who both Created the Heavens and the Earth out of Nothingness, and Created out of this shapeless, formless, void of reality: CREATION.
Distinct from MAKING, or FORMING, or MANUFACTURING which results in a THING, a Product, a known quantity, the CREATOR CREATES with all the transitions that VERB represents. GOD AGONIZES OVER... GOD WILLS and INTENDS, THE CREATOR uses every facet both the perfect and the imperfections. CREATOR CREATES CREATION is a Declaration of GOD'S RELATIONSHIP with CREATION.
Before Moses, before Abraham, before Noah, before Adam was a conscious being, GOD CREATES A COVENANT with ALL CREATION, that God will be Creator, who creates, who agonizes over, who wills and intends and recreates, who Calls for a purpose.
Throughout the Millennia, scholars have fought over the harmonization of Genesis. Why do we have one story in Genesis 1 of the CREATOR CREATING CREATION the last creation created being humanity; then in Genesis 2 there is another story of Creation, where Humanity is the first Creation Created with power and dominion over all Creation? Then a third explanation of the Origin of SIN and Sins. Are these three separate stories of Creation, and if so how long is a day, which came first the Earth or the Earthling, what is the relationship of GOD'S COVENANT to HUMAN SIN?
We can attempt to understand each story separately, telling us individual elements about the Nature of God, which never will address how many lifetimes are in a single day; but the point of having laid these side by side by side, emphasizes that THE CREATOR CREATES, CALLS and ENTREATS, INVITES and ENCOURAGES, REMAINING FAITHFUL to the COVENANT. While CREATION has a Freedom of Will. Like a two year old rejecting everything, saying NO to every question, Human Creation identifies what we do want to be by having rejected everything we are given. We do not seem to know or understand our need or desire for a thing, for a person, until we have rejected, then we have given ourselves permission to decide what we do want. GENESIS affirms GOD CALLS to Be; HUMANITY questions and DOUBTS before being ready to LISTEN.
The most overlooked "spiritual discipline" is what God does on the seventh day. There is a mistranslation in many of our recollections of this story. GOD DOES NOT REST on the seventh day, sleeping after all the creation. GOD DOES NOT STOP, as if stopping were a holy thing. On the Seventh Day, GOD REFLECTS UPON ALL GOD HAS DONE. In addition, to singing, and prayer and sharing together, reflection is a critical spiritual task for witnessing.
Spirituality is not knowing what an angel looks like or how to pronounce glossallalia, not knowing how many generations passed in one day of Creation, BUT being affirmed and encouraged to feel confident GOD CREATES. To TRUST, that Created in the image of God, with God pausing on the seventh day to reflect upon all that is, we are encouraged to act as CO-CREATORS with GOD.
THIRTY YEARS ago, a member of this faith community had a dream. His dream was that just because a person aged did not mean we should abandon them. Simply because they no longer had the strength and resources to care for an entire house did not mean they had to die or move away. The SPIRITUAL Journey he began in us, has twisted and turned, no longer is the Manor a 10 room Boarding house. No longer do we envision Seniors as those over 65. Part of our CALLING has become encouraging these who had lived alone for the last many decades, to make the transition to sharing with others. Part of our SPIRITUAL CALLING has been to share the gifts we possess, and to inspire those who never thought they had talent to give something of value to the world.
It seems like only yesterday, we were dreaming if it would be possible to provide health care to a people half-way round the world. Containers were hijacked and trucks lost in the wilderness, but miraculously these resources appeared when we needed and were ready. The well ran dry, and at a wedding in the middle of the African Savannah a well driller came as a guest. We worried about WAR and the presence of oil making this Clinic a target for bombing. Who would have imagined we could have developed the infrastructure that OIL Companies would want to see for development outside of governments, for the building of a new future.
We discovered a lump in a breast or prostate, and rather than dying of Cancer, each began a journey of claiming and reclaiming what truly is important to share with others. Through prayer and Reflection, several have witnessed tumors go into remission, others have been able to die at peace at home, others still have provided care to those they love learning they are not doing so alone.
Harmonizing Genesis' stories, we tend to harmonize the resurrection in the Gospels as well. But we need to hear that according to Matthew, what was important was NOT THE EMPTY TOMB, NOT that a dead body had come to life, NOT the Road to Emmaus, NOT going back to Fishing, NOT Gathering in the Upper Room. According to Matthew, the RESURRECTION was GOD CREATING ANEW. The RESURRECTION is the CREATOR CREATING CREATION no longer apart from God, but having an example of what it is to live in RELATIONSHIP with God.
Disciples were given new authority, to baptize, to teach, to make disciples. We have heard this passage so many times at BAPTISMS and Reception of New Members, we forget that this was the reason for the CRUSADES.
Part of SPIRITUAL SEARCHING is questioning whether “Making Disciples of all NATIONS, baptizing them in the Name of the FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT, Teaching them All that Christ Commands” requires that everyone become like us? There was a time, when this Sanctuary was built in the 1890s, when Christianity believed in CHRISTENDOM, the Cross & Crown at the Center of the Chancel was declaration that there could be a CHRISTIAN EMPIRE with all the world made like us. A more recent twist on the Cross & Crown is that in every Nation, every Government and Family, we would search for FAITH, for ETHICS and COMPASSION as Christ taught. That is praying for one another. Forgiving. Having Compassion especially upon those who hate you.
As your pastor, I have the privilege of observing the congregation differently that anyone else. NOT who is sleeping and who is awake, NOT knowing who cheated on their taxes, NOT wanting to know gossip about others, BUT RATHER at the end of every worship, this congregation has many who exchange a kiss.. Like a remnant from their wedding, the minister pronounces the Benediction and you pucker up. A HOLY KISS as described by Paul to the Corinthians, is not romantic, or erotic. A Holy Kiss is a SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP, of claiming one another as intimate, like a parent kissing you on the forehead and each cheek before bed. A HOLY KISS is an affirmation that we watch over you and miss you until we meet again. A HOLY KISS is the PASSING OF THE PEACE. I once went to series of churches in a single day, at Ebenezer Baptist Church, they had all the visitors stand, while the Church members went around as fast as they could to greet everyone. Not looking you in the eye, not listening to you, but being greeted and received by as many as possible as quickly as possible. The second was one of the largest and most prestigious of Presbyterian Churches, where visitors were asked to rise, then be seated, while the members greeted one another, ignoring the visitors all together. Often it is difficult with a long sermon, a loud postlude, plans for after Sunday's Worship, but the FINAL WORD of Paul is that we would mend the brokeness, search for ways to agree, greet one another with CARING. In addition to asking the person how their spouse is medically, asking how they are coping as a care giver. In addition to delivering a meal, stopping in to visit over a glass of water. A Holy Kiss is not so much a smooch, as truly caring and seeking one another out for a time and place apart. We are to carry to one another all the greetings of those who have brought you to one another, and be BLESSED, living life as a SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP of WITNESSING THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Building Greatness in Each Person May 11, 2008
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts of the Apostles 2:1-21
This morning is Mother's day as well as the Day of Pentecost.
On such a morning, I am reminded how often Mother's seem invisible.
Knowing that explains everything. Why when family walk into the kitchen, we cannot see you are talking on the phone. Being invisible, we do not see the refrigerator gets cleaned out, the laundry gets done, or even if you are standing on your head in a corner. At times, Mom's are only a pair of hands: Open this. Take this. Fix this. At other times you are transportation: I need to be picked up at 5:30! At others a satellite: What time is it? What channel is Disney?
A woman friend received the gift of a book on the Great Cathedrals of Europe. She thought it a lovely table decoration, until she opened the cover and read the inscription from the donor: "For one who is creating greatness no one but God sees." Beneath this was the Author's dedication, "No one knows the names of the builders of the Great Cathedrals. Their lives, their sacrifices, were dedicated to creating greatness, one labor at a time." Then there was a photo, of the inside corner of a roof beam, where there a a beautiful intricate carving of a bird with the most fragile delicate looking flower. The caption read, "The craftsman carved what no one but God would ever see." Suddenly it occurred to her that his invisibility as a mother was not a disease, the fact that her smelled vaguely of peanut butter was not an affliction. These were the cures to our self-consciousness and isolation. Every sequin sewn on a costume at midnight, every cookie and cupcake had been a gift that God had seen.
Pentecost is a transformation of us, a transformation of the Church, from hiding in an upper room doing what we have always done for our own satisfaction and needs, to having a passion that drives us out into the world, into interaction with others. At times, what we do is so small and insignificant no one will seem to see, at times we do what no one else would imagine doing... but where no one else sees, God sees us building greatness in each other.
There was a time, when you could go into a bookstore and there were two sections: Fiction and NonFiction. Today, there are sections on LEADERSHIP, SPIRITUALITY, COMMUNITY BUILDING, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, etc. In truth, the Old Books, this old book, offered great wisdom on Leadership, Faith, Spirituality, Community Building and Personal Development, with two differences. The current books are written by “Personalities” building their power and authority: Steven Covey on Leadership, William Bennett on Virtues, HWGeorge Bush and Bill Clinton on Giving, The Dali Lama & Bill Cosby on Spirituality, Oprah on Community Building, each with the kernel of an idea seeded for the consumption of mass culture. Where the Bible spreads many different seeds for building up greatness, in each individual.
We don't have the opportunity to preach on he Book of Numbers very often, which is a loss, because like that people we Wander in a wilderness searching for faith, for meaning, for fulfillment and promise. The People complained they were tired of eating Manna, they wanted Meat. They possessed Cattle, Sheep, Goats, the Nation could Change with different economic times, could learn to do without and save and SHARE with one another from among what they had, but the people demanded GIVE US MORE, give us an economic stimulus a taste of what we want in excess.
Moses recognized this as a question of leadership.
GOD knew this people had only recently been born anew from hard labor in Egypt, being brought up out of the waters of the Red Sea, if they were to be a new creation they must begin by nursing on Spiritual food, on Manna, every meal every day for forty years. The people longed for something else, for Dinosaur barbeque sauce or garlic powder, something more, they looked to Moses for Change, as the One filled with the Spirit, with Charisma, literally with Gifts (for the word Charisma means Gifts) of Leadership. Moses went to GOD with the Complaints and Needs of the people.
But where the people wanted Change,
where what GOD Heard "Where's the Beef! Demanding Meat, rather than being fed with Spirit, A Desire to kill and consume,
Moses perceived the need to BUILD GREATNESS in EACH person, to lead, to share responsibility.
Moses entreated God NOT to give more Spirit, or different spiritual gifts, but to redistribute to the Elders.
Rather than being at the center of the village, the TENT OF MEETING where Moses brought the needs and complaints of the people to God, and the blessings and curses of God to the people was just outside their encampment, apart from the people. MOSES went into the Tent, while the 70 Elders stood in a circle around the perimeter. AND the Charisma, the Gifts of Leadership and Faith, the SPIRIT OF GOD that had rested upon Moses, was now shared briefly with all the Elders. Not that they would become any challenge to Moses, but that each might have the seeds of GREATNESS in them BUILT UP.
The Biblical Historian went to great lengths to describe that there were 70 ELDERS, and ALL 70 were Gathered together, and the SPIRIT of God that had rested upon Moses was given to each. As much as to say, they took great pains to be ORGANIZED, to PLAN and CONTROL, what took place. The SPIRIT of GOD given to MOSES was shared with the 70 Elders, were they then a threat to Moses' Leadership? Was there a Challenge for POWER? And the Historian wants to say NO Because it was organized and Controlled and all 70 kept each other accountable, and the GIFT of the Spirit given to each did not last. BUT, ELDAD and MEDAD, were counted among the 70, but were not outside the Village, they were with the People when the spirit was given to them.
The Church has always had this fear of the Spirit.
There is God, who creates ORDER, ALPHA and OMEGA, who was COVENANT PROMISE to Abraham and Sarah, who gave the LAW to Moses, and PROPHECY to PROPHETS is scary enough.
Jesus who CALLS and HEALS, TEACHES, SUFFERS and DIES and is RESURRECTED, is enough.
For the last Century human society has been divided over whether we are willing to believe that everything that is, everything we can imagine, all that has been and can ever be is only attributable to the evolutionary development of the accidental combustion of gases, or whether there is a GOD. For the last 2000 years and more, human cultures have gone to war over the reality of the incarnation of God, the Christ, the Messiah, who suffered and died to forgive human sin.
We rarely consider the SPIRIT.
Like the Historian of the Old Testament, we want all those touched with Spirit to be together, BUT over there, out of the center of things. AND YET the SPIRIT cannot remain locked away in an upper room.
Preachers often combine the passage from ACTS about the day of Pentecost with the Tower of Babel. That long generations ago, people settled in the land and God frustrated them by giving them different languages and now humanity was ready, the Apostles came out and taught the people what their ancestors had not been ready to hear. But there is a hollowness to that, a moral superiority that says we know better than those people did, so God has rusted us with the Spirit.
The Old Testament Corollary to Pentecost is not Babel, but the destruction of Israel, the Diaspora, where the Nation was scattered because they had not had faith. They had trusted their own power and authority, their strength and faith in idols of their own hands, rather than faith in God. Now that culture and trade has brought diverse peoples together, from every corner of the world, NOW that God through Christ has redeemed humanity. AND the Apostles were filled with fear but God drove the Apostles out into the world.
We have got to find new ways to trust.
We are a PEOPLE who have been in Diaspora. Each of us broken by some experience, by a wound or brokeness that leaves us feeling less than whole, unwilling and unable to trust. To trust the one who hurt us, to trust anyone, to trust God.
There is a double edged sword within this congregation. Every time we celebrate an ORDINATION, I am overwhelmed and a little giddy to see not just 70, but far and away the majority of the church who have been ordained leaders at one time or another. AND YET, we struggle to have Committees, struggle to have volunteers. I pray, ordained service as Elders as Deacons is not an endurance to survive, but the planting of greatness, the planting of the SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
What we must surpass is our own fears, our own desire for what we get out of the experience, to instead perceive: that was SPIRITUAL NURTURE, that was being in the wilderness fed with Mother's Milk, and NOW afterward, in life, we struggle to feed one another, to care for the community.
WE are retiscent to allow the Spirit Freedom,... a place in our lives,... to trust the Holy Spirit.
In the early 1990s the Presbyterian Church published a new hymnal, the most striking change of which was that we dropped off singing the “Amens”. The Church Historians discovered that saying Amen was an affirmation of acceptance. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, Choirs and Ministers sang the hymns, but because the masses did not read especially not Latin, the congregation did not sing, except when the piece concluded and the congregation sang Amen. From the 1200s until the 1990s, Protestant Churches tacked an Amen onto every hymn, and in Pentecostal churches throughout the sermon. Realizing that this was redundant, the publishers dropped the Amens, and instead Church leaders (fearful of the Spirit getting out of hand) encouraged people “Please be seated”.
The difficulty of the times we live in, is that what we need is not simply CHANGE, but LEADERSHIP. The people in the wilderness cried out for CHANGE, they cried out for Meat, and reading the remainder of the story, GOD CAUSED A GREAT WIND to blow that brought immense quantity of QUAIL to drop from the sky, outside the place God had appointed for the people, and away from the Tent of Meeting. A Great Quantity, they were piled up 32 inches deep. There was a temptation, you can be fed by God in the place God appointed for you, or you can feed your desires, satisfy your self. The quail fell from the sky and lay 32 inches deep, outside where the were supposed to go. People went out to collect them and every one who did gathered 85 BUSHEL BASKETS of MEAT. But having gone out of where God appointed for them, having gone to feed their desires not as SIMON SAYS but seeking CHANGE for the sake of CHANGE, those who ate the meat died.
Moses did not hoard the Spirit of leadership, but at the appropriate time gave it, wishing all the People could pray and preach and prophesy. So allow me to leave you with a question this morning.
Having served the Church as Elders, as Deacons, as the Presbyterian Women, as the Renovation Steering Group, as Choir members, as Committee members, what would you risk to share? DO we sit back in the pew believing “I did my part, now I can sit back and watch,” or do we realize SEEDS were PLANTED in EACH OF US, SEEDS OF GREATNESS for building up the faith and community far beyond what we have ever known. For several years, on the Sunday we celebrated the leadership of Presbyterian Women, differing women of the Church each preached a sermon. Not the kind of preaching done to kids when they stay out late, or break the washing machine, but the preaching of a sermon by leaders of the Church. These have been memorable, probably more so than those of the reacher we hear every week. But the real excitement, the real challenge is not in having one sermon stored up, but n the preaching of your second sermon and your third. I look forward and would encourage these leaders to preach again, and again, developing their faith and building greatness in each of us.
Fifty Days after Passover (the Day of Pentecost, the Apostles were gathered in the Upper Room, caring for themselves, taking no risk, doing nothing to build up the kingdom, and the wind blew, providing for them a new Spirit, new opportunities to build up the greatness of God in each person. The Apostles risked leaving their desire for safety and security, to do a small thing, to share with others the gift that had been given them, a gift of faith in the love of God.
Will we hope for change? Will we go out looking to satisfy our desires where ever we can, or can we nurture our leadership, can we risk to trust in ways we never thought possible?
Acts of the Apostles 2:1-21
This morning is Mother's day as well as the Day of Pentecost.
On such a morning, I am reminded how often Mother's seem invisible.
Knowing that explains everything. Why when family walk into the kitchen, we cannot see you are talking on the phone. Being invisible, we do not see the refrigerator gets cleaned out, the laundry gets done, or even if you are standing on your head in a corner. At times, Mom's are only a pair of hands: Open this. Take this. Fix this. At other times you are transportation: I need to be picked up at 5:30! At others a satellite: What time is it? What channel is Disney?
A woman friend received the gift of a book on the Great Cathedrals of Europe. She thought it a lovely table decoration, until she opened the cover and read the inscription from the donor: "For one who is creating greatness no one but God sees." Beneath this was the Author's dedication, "No one knows the names of the builders of the Great Cathedrals. Their lives, their sacrifices, were dedicated to creating greatness, one labor at a time." Then there was a photo, of the inside corner of a roof beam, where there a a beautiful intricate carving of a bird with the most fragile delicate looking flower. The caption read, "The craftsman carved what no one but God would ever see." Suddenly it occurred to her that his invisibility as a mother was not a disease, the fact that her smelled vaguely of peanut butter was not an affliction. These were the cures to our self-consciousness and isolation. Every sequin sewn on a costume at midnight, every cookie and cupcake had been a gift that God had seen.
Pentecost is a transformation of us, a transformation of the Church, from hiding in an upper room doing what we have always done for our own satisfaction and needs, to having a passion that drives us out into the world, into interaction with others. At times, what we do is so small and insignificant no one will seem to see, at times we do what no one else would imagine doing... but where no one else sees, God sees us building greatness in each other.
There was a time, when you could go into a bookstore and there were two sections: Fiction and NonFiction. Today, there are sections on LEADERSHIP, SPIRITUALITY, COMMUNITY BUILDING, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, etc. In truth, the Old Books, this old book, offered great wisdom on Leadership, Faith, Spirituality, Community Building and Personal Development, with two differences. The current books are written by “Personalities” building their power and authority: Steven Covey on Leadership, William Bennett on Virtues, HWGeorge Bush and Bill Clinton on Giving, The Dali Lama & Bill Cosby on Spirituality, Oprah on Community Building, each with the kernel of an idea seeded for the consumption of mass culture. Where the Bible spreads many different seeds for building up greatness, in each individual.
We don't have the opportunity to preach on he Book of Numbers very often, which is a loss, because like that people we Wander in a wilderness searching for faith, for meaning, for fulfillment and promise. The People complained they were tired of eating Manna, they wanted Meat. They possessed Cattle, Sheep, Goats, the Nation could Change with different economic times, could learn to do without and save and SHARE with one another from among what they had, but the people demanded GIVE US MORE, give us an economic stimulus a taste of what we want in excess.
Moses recognized this as a question of leadership.
GOD knew this people had only recently been born anew from hard labor in Egypt, being brought up out of the waters of the Red Sea, if they were to be a new creation they must begin by nursing on Spiritual food, on Manna, every meal every day for forty years. The people longed for something else, for Dinosaur barbeque sauce or garlic powder, something more, they looked to Moses for Change, as the One filled with the Spirit, with Charisma, literally with Gifts (for the word Charisma means Gifts) of Leadership. Moses went to GOD with the Complaints and Needs of the people.
But where the people wanted Change,
where what GOD Heard "Where's the Beef! Demanding Meat, rather than being fed with Spirit, A Desire to kill and consume,
Moses perceived the need to BUILD GREATNESS in EACH person, to lead, to share responsibility.
Moses entreated God NOT to give more Spirit, or different spiritual gifts, but to redistribute to the Elders.
Rather than being at the center of the village, the TENT OF MEETING where Moses brought the needs and complaints of the people to God, and the blessings and curses of God to the people was just outside their encampment, apart from the people. MOSES went into the Tent, while the 70 Elders stood in a circle around the perimeter. AND the Charisma, the Gifts of Leadership and Faith, the SPIRIT OF GOD that had rested upon Moses, was now shared briefly with all the Elders. Not that they would become any challenge to Moses, but that each might have the seeds of GREATNESS in them BUILT UP.
The Biblical Historian went to great lengths to describe that there were 70 ELDERS, and ALL 70 were Gathered together, and the SPIRIT of God that had rested upon Moses was given to each. As much as to say, they took great pains to be ORGANIZED, to PLAN and CONTROL, what took place. The SPIRIT of GOD given to MOSES was shared with the 70 Elders, were they then a threat to Moses' Leadership? Was there a Challenge for POWER? And the Historian wants to say NO Because it was organized and Controlled and all 70 kept each other accountable, and the GIFT of the Spirit given to each did not last. BUT, ELDAD and MEDAD, were counted among the 70, but were not outside the Village, they were with the People when the spirit was given to them.
The Church has always had this fear of the Spirit.
There is God, who creates ORDER, ALPHA and OMEGA, who was COVENANT PROMISE to Abraham and Sarah, who gave the LAW to Moses, and PROPHECY to PROPHETS is scary enough.
Jesus who CALLS and HEALS, TEACHES, SUFFERS and DIES and is RESURRECTED, is enough.
For the last Century human society has been divided over whether we are willing to believe that everything that is, everything we can imagine, all that has been and can ever be is only attributable to the evolutionary development of the accidental combustion of gases, or whether there is a GOD. For the last 2000 years and more, human cultures have gone to war over the reality of the incarnation of God, the Christ, the Messiah, who suffered and died to forgive human sin.
We rarely consider the SPIRIT.
Like the Historian of the Old Testament, we want all those touched with Spirit to be together, BUT over there, out of the center of things. AND YET the SPIRIT cannot remain locked away in an upper room.
Preachers often combine the passage from ACTS about the day of Pentecost with the Tower of Babel. That long generations ago, people settled in the land and God frustrated them by giving them different languages and now humanity was ready, the Apostles came out and taught the people what their ancestors had not been ready to hear. But there is a hollowness to that, a moral superiority that says we know better than those people did, so God has rusted us with the Spirit.
The Old Testament Corollary to Pentecost is not Babel, but the destruction of Israel, the Diaspora, where the Nation was scattered because they had not had faith. They had trusted their own power and authority, their strength and faith in idols of their own hands, rather than faith in God. Now that culture and trade has brought diverse peoples together, from every corner of the world, NOW that God through Christ has redeemed humanity. AND the Apostles were filled with fear but God drove the Apostles out into the world.
We have got to find new ways to trust.
We are a PEOPLE who have been in Diaspora. Each of us broken by some experience, by a wound or brokeness that leaves us feeling less than whole, unwilling and unable to trust. To trust the one who hurt us, to trust anyone, to trust God.
There is a double edged sword within this congregation. Every time we celebrate an ORDINATION, I am overwhelmed and a little giddy to see not just 70, but far and away the majority of the church who have been ordained leaders at one time or another. AND YET, we struggle to have Committees, struggle to have volunteers. I pray, ordained service as Elders as Deacons is not an endurance to survive, but the planting of greatness, the planting of the SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
What we must surpass is our own fears, our own desire for what we get out of the experience, to instead perceive: that was SPIRITUAL NURTURE, that was being in the wilderness fed with Mother's Milk, and NOW afterward, in life, we struggle to feed one another, to care for the community.
WE are retiscent to allow the Spirit Freedom,... a place in our lives,... to trust the Holy Spirit.
In the early 1990s the Presbyterian Church published a new hymnal, the most striking change of which was that we dropped off singing the “Amens”. The Church Historians discovered that saying Amen was an affirmation of acceptance. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, Choirs and Ministers sang the hymns, but because the masses did not read especially not Latin, the congregation did not sing, except when the piece concluded and the congregation sang Amen. From the 1200s until the 1990s, Protestant Churches tacked an Amen onto every hymn, and in Pentecostal churches throughout the sermon. Realizing that this was redundant, the publishers dropped the Amens, and instead Church leaders (fearful of the Spirit getting out of hand) encouraged people “Please be seated”.
The difficulty of the times we live in, is that what we need is not simply CHANGE, but LEADERSHIP. The people in the wilderness cried out for CHANGE, they cried out for Meat, and reading the remainder of the story, GOD CAUSED A GREAT WIND to blow that brought immense quantity of QUAIL to drop from the sky, outside the place God had appointed for the people, and away from the Tent of Meeting. A Great Quantity, they were piled up 32 inches deep. There was a temptation, you can be fed by God in the place God appointed for you, or you can feed your desires, satisfy your self. The quail fell from the sky and lay 32 inches deep, outside where the were supposed to go. People went out to collect them and every one who did gathered 85 BUSHEL BASKETS of MEAT. But having gone out of where God appointed for them, having gone to feed their desires not as SIMON SAYS but seeking CHANGE for the sake of CHANGE, those who ate the meat died.
Moses did not hoard the Spirit of leadership, but at the appropriate time gave it, wishing all the People could pray and preach and prophesy. So allow me to leave you with a question this morning.
Having served the Church as Elders, as Deacons, as the Presbyterian Women, as the Renovation Steering Group, as Choir members, as Committee members, what would you risk to share? DO we sit back in the pew believing “I did my part, now I can sit back and watch,” or do we realize SEEDS were PLANTED in EACH OF US, SEEDS OF GREATNESS for building up the faith and community far beyond what we have ever known. For several years, on the Sunday we celebrated the leadership of Presbyterian Women, differing women of the Church each preached a sermon. Not the kind of preaching done to kids when they stay out late, or break the washing machine, but the preaching of a sermon by leaders of the Church. These have been memorable, probably more so than those of the reacher we hear every week. But the real excitement, the real challenge is not in having one sermon stored up, but n the preaching of your second sermon and your third. I look forward and would encourage these leaders to preach again, and again, developing their faith and building greatness in each of us.
Fifty Days after Passover (the Day of Pentecost, the Apostles were gathered in the Upper Room, caring for themselves, taking no risk, doing nothing to build up the kingdom, and the wind blew, providing for them a new Spirit, new opportunities to build up the greatness of God in each person. The Apostles risked leaving their desire for safety and security, to do a small thing, to share with others the gift that had been given them, a gift of faith in the love of God.
Will we hope for change? Will we go out looking to satisfy our desires where ever we can, or can we nurture our leadership, can we risk to trust in ways we never thought possible?
Monday, May 5, 2008
What Did you Expect, May 4, 2008
Acts 1: 1-14
Ephesians 1:15-23
According to the Apostles' Creed,... we believe in “the bodily Ascension”.
Of all the Creeds and Confessions, and teachings of the Church, this is one of the hardest for us. That Jesus forgave those who betrayed him, who abandoned him to suffer and die is one thing, to believe he stepped on a cloud and sits at the right hand of God, is another. Part of our difficulty is our human avoidance of death, particularly of thinking about what happens to the dead body, part is the incredulity of this according to logic and reason.
The Church has done mental gymnastics to try to explain Papal Infallibility, the Virgin Birth, to try to equate Astrology to the dating of a star leading Wisemen in order to prove the Scriptures, we have searched to carbon date fossilized wood from Mount Ararat believed to be Noah's Ark, searched for the Lost Tribes of Israel, made blockbuster movies of the archaeological hunt for the Ark of the Covenant and 10 Commandments, we waged Crusades in search of the Holy Grail, all to prove what we believe. But the Ascension of Jesus is a story that leaves us staring at the sky, wondering how, why, so what, and what next.
We arrive at the climactic end of the Gospels, where the Powers and Principalities, people's fears and Pontius Pilate put Jesus to death; after being executed they take down his lifeless corpse, laying the cold dead body in the stone tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and we hear and see the Stone rolled in front of the opening to seal him away forever; then three days later miraculously we hear and believe the stories of the Resurrection. Even Death could not withhold the love of God. All the power of the Roman Empire, all the fears of the Sanhedrim, the gruesome suffering and death, and The Gospels end with the glimmer of faith in Jesus' Resurrection.
As a society, we have carefully orchestrated professionals to bury the dead, because we do not want to be too close, to have death become too real for us, as if death itself were profane. This reality was brought home a few years ago, when the church suffered the death of a college freshman. On a beautiful spring morning like this we gathered outdoors for the memorial, all his friends returned from college, the high school students raked the winter debry from the circle of evergreens. The celebration was beautiful and sincere, but at the conclusion of the memorial, rather than the congregation walking away from the casket in a cemetary, the pallbearers carried the casket to the hearse that was doing to the crematorium. The sound of the door closing and watching as the car drove away from us, was all a little too surreal, and too real in these post-modern times.
Like the disciples who heard Jesus mention again and again “The Son of Man must suffer and die,” we too have disbelieved and not wanted to hear. Consequently, for the last 2000 years and more, Christianity has focused on the first two persons of God. We have the Old Testament that names God as the CREATOR, the God of the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the COVENANT who created the LAW and spoke through PROPHETS as a Nation grew and fell.
Along with Andrew, Simon, James, John and Bartholomew, we were Called by Jesus, we were Baptized by John, we heard Jesus teachings and witnessed the Blind given sight, the deaf allowed to hear. We came to know and believe in this RABBI as being the REDEEMER, the MESSIAH, the CHRIST, who enters into life to SAVE US from what we have done. SO like waiting for the shoe to drop, AFTER the RESURRECTION, we hear that Jesus rose and ascended into heaven and we find ourselves staring into the sky, wondering.
It is an over-generalization, but true, that the 20th Century was about reconciliation of the powers of Faith and Reason, Science and the Church. We developed and held in human hands the power to End the World, we split the atom and followed the DNA Chain, discerning more and more about the end and beginnings of life. The Challenge of the 21st Century is to live into a world beyond the fear of Apocalypse, where the origins of life and the end of all we know, are no longer spatial and chronological. The recorded question of the Disciples, as Jesus led them out was, “So, When will you restore the Kingdom to Israel?” From that time until this, we have been waiting for the end.
Belief in the Ascension is a broadening of our perspective, to question and wonder, what if the purpose of faith is not RELIGION? What do we expect to believe and do?
The Letter to Ephesus is written to a people like us. All those who were part of the first generation died, yet the Apocalypse did not come, the world did not end, so what are we to do and to believe.
Twenty years ago, in the early 1980s my spouse was working with the Junior League and coordinated a conference with Elisabeth Kubler Ross on AIDS, WOMEN & CHILDREN. Kubler Ross was well known for her work as a Psychologist on Death and Dying, on the six stages of grief and loss and the end of life. She described that at age 60 she began a new life's work, caring for orphaned children with AIDS. To this group of 3000 people she asked “How many of you would be willing to adopt a child, to give a motherless newborn the love and affection of a parent?” Then, of that group, “How many of you would be willing to adopt a child who is ill, a child born with HIV, having to live with the constant precautions of caring for one who is so helpless, whose immunities are compromised, a child that neighbors fear and fear having their children play with, adopting a child who is going to die?” NOW IMAGINE, that you adopt this child, you walk the floors with them at night when they cannot sleep, you take them to every doctor's visit, you worry about them knowing they are going to die, and someone finds a cure. What would it be like to have a child be normal, whom you adopted believing they would die? How do we live together, when imminent death, when the end of the world is no longer a concern?
We have lived in a time of War, for what now almost seven years. Imagine those who have gone off to war, constantly surrounded by the reality that the children playing in the road up ahead may be planting a bomb. That you may not come home, at least not whole, when so many have died and been wounded. What would it be like to live in peace after imagining you were going to die?
We have a tendency to take life for granted when we are healthy, when we are whole. Is it possible for us to do more than survive, to BELIEVE and HOPE, and PRAY for what God May Do, THANKFUL EVERY DAY?
What happened to the body of Jesus is an important theological question, one of the bases of all the separations of Christian churches. In the Catholic Church, there is description of the mystery of Communion as being Transubstantiation. Historically, a curtain would close between priest and congregation, while the liturgy was pronounced in Latin “Hacus, Pacus” meaning change from Bread into the very body of our Lord, from wine into his blood of the Covenant. For an unschooled population who did not understand Latin, they perceived this as magic, literally pronouncing “Hocus Pocus” to make the bread disappear or change. The great Reformer Martin Luther, lived and died believing he was a Catholic priest and was calling for a reformation of practices within the church. Luther taught that this is NOT magic, but bringing the Real Presence of Jesus into our midst. Another of the Reformers, Ulrich Zwingli, taught that faith is not magic, or a philosophy of Real Presence, but the very tangible experience of memory, we remember what Jesus did for us by dying for us, and we are changed by getting in touch with our memories. John Calvin, who penned the basics of our theology as Presbyterians, said No, faith is not a matter of simple remembrance, or of magic. We need to question why the church has tried to bring Jesus down out of heaven to be present with us again at the table? Instead, we believe in the practice of forgiveness, confessiona dn forgiveness of one another and by God, in order that we can fully share ourselves “communing” without inflicting sin, without holding back from one anoter or God. In the act ofd forgiveness, we literally are brought closer together, and as the body of Christ, we are brought closer to God. SO it is not bringing the body of Jesus out of heaven to serve us, by magic or memory, but our being changed and transformed, brought closer together, closer to God, our BEING CHANGED INTO the Body of Christ.
Faith in the ASCENSION is not a belief in people flying on clouds. The ASCENSION is affirmation that the one who explored all human life had to offer, who experienced all humanity could suffer, sits at the right hand of God. The ASCENSION is belief that Jesus was raised by God, and given a place by God. In faith, none of us earn reward, Jesus does not sit at the right hand of God because e was better than everyone else, but God has raised him and elevated him who did suffer for us and knows us.
Faith in RESURRECTION is not belief in the REANIMATION of DEAD CORPSES like some Frankenstein movie. Resurrection is living life differently because we no longer fear life or death, because we believe we are living beyond what we most feared.
Ephesians 1:15-23
According to the Apostles' Creed,... we believe in “the bodily Ascension”.
Of all the Creeds and Confessions, and teachings of the Church, this is one of the hardest for us. That Jesus forgave those who betrayed him, who abandoned him to suffer and die is one thing, to believe he stepped on a cloud and sits at the right hand of God, is another. Part of our difficulty is our human avoidance of death, particularly of thinking about what happens to the dead body, part is the incredulity of this according to logic and reason.
The Church has done mental gymnastics to try to explain Papal Infallibility, the Virgin Birth, to try to equate Astrology to the dating of a star leading Wisemen in order to prove the Scriptures, we have searched to carbon date fossilized wood from Mount Ararat believed to be Noah's Ark, searched for the Lost Tribes of Israel, made blockbuster movies of the archaeological hunt for the Ark of the Covenant and 10 Commandments, we waged Crusades in search of the Holy Grail, all to prove what we believe. But the Ascension of Jesus is a story that leaves us staring at the sky, wondering how, why, so what, and what next.
We arrive at the climactic end of the Gospels, where the Powers and Principalities, people's fears and Pontius Pilate put Jesus to death; after being executed they take down his lifeless corpse, laying the cold dead body in the stone tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and we hear and see the Stone rolled in front of the opening to seal him away forever; then three days later miraculously we hear and believe the stories of the Resurrection. Even Death could not withhold the love of God. All the power of the Roman Empire, all the fears of the Sanhedrim, the gruesome suffering and death, and The Gospels end with the glimmer of faith in Jesus' Resurrection.
As a society, we have carefully orchestrated professionals to bury the dead, because we do not want to be too close, to have death become too real for us, as if death itself were profane. This reality was brought home a few years ago, when the church suffered the death of a college freshman. On a beautiful spring morning like this we gathered outdoors for the memorial, all his friends returned from college, the high school students raked the winter debry from the circle of evergreens. The celebration was beautiful and sincere, but at the conclusion of the memorial, rather than the congregation walking away from the casket in a cemetary, the pallbearers carried the casket to the hearse that was doing to the crematorium. The sound of the door closing and watching as the car drove away from us, was all a little too surreal, and too real in these post-modern times.
Like the disciples who heard Jesus mention again and again “The Son of Man must suffer and die,” we too have disbelieved and not wanted to hear. Consequently, for the last 2000 years and more, Christianity has focused on the first two persons of God. We have the Old Testament that names God as the CREATOR, the God of the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the COVENANT who created the LAW and spoke through PROPHETS as a Nation grew and fell.
Along with Andrew, Simon, James, John and Bartholomew, we were Called by Jesus, we were Baptized by John, we heard Jesus teachings and witnessed the Blind given sight, the deaf allowed to hear. We came to know and believe in this RABBI as being the REDEEMER, the MESSIAH, the CHRIST, who enters into life to SAVE US from what we have done. SO like waiting for the shoe to drop, AFTER the RESURRECTION, we hear that Jesus rose and ascended into heaven and we find ourselves staring into the sky, wondering.
It is an over-generalization, but true, that the 20th Century was about reconciliation of the powers of Faith and Reason, Science and the Church. We developed and held in human hands the power to End the World, we split the atom and followed the DNA Chain, discerning more and more about the end and beginnings of life. The Challenge of the 21st Century is to live into a world beyond the fear of Apocalypse, where the origins of life and the end of all we know, are no longer spatial and chronological. The recorded question of the Disciples, as Jesus led them out was, “So, When will you restore the Kingdom to Israel?” From that time until this, we have been waiting for the end.
Belief in the Ascension is a broadening of our perspective, to question and wonder, what if the purpose of faith is not RELIGION? What do we expect to believe and do?
The Letter to Ephesus is written to a people like us. All those who were part of the first generation died, yet the Apocalypse did not come, the world did not end, so what are we to do and to believe.
Twenty years ago, in the early 1980s my spouse was working with the Junior League and coordinated a conference with Elisabeth Kubler Ross on AIDS, WOMEN & CHILDREN. Kubler Ross was well known for her work as a Psychologist on Death and Dying, on the six stages of grief and loss and the end of life. She described that at age 60 she began a new life's work, caring for orphaned children with AIDS. To this group of 3000 people she asked “How many of you would be willing to adopt a child, to give a motherless newborn the love and affection of a parent?” Then, of that group, “How many of you would be willing to adopt a child who is ill, a child born with HIV, having to live with the constant precautions of caring for one who is so helpless, whose immunities are compromised, a child that neighbors fear and fear having their children play with, adopting a child who is going to die?” NOW IMAGINE, that you adopt this child, you walk the floors with them at night when they cannot sleep, you take them to every doctor's visit, you worry about them knowing they are going to die, and someone finds a cure. What would it be like to have a child be normal, whom you adopted believing they would die? How do we live together, when imminent death, when the end of the world is no longer a concern?
We have lived in a time of War, for what now almost seven years. Imagine those who have gone off to war, constantly surrounded by the reality that the children playing in the road up ahead may be planting a bomb. That you may not come home, at least not whole, when so many have died and been wounded. What would it be like to live in peace after imagining you were going to die?
We have a tendency to take life for granted when we are healthy, when we are whole. Is it possible for us to do more than survive, to BELIEVE and HOPE, and PRAY for what God May Do, THANKFUL EVERY DAY?
What happened to the body of Jesus is an important theological question, one of the bases of all the separations of Christian churches. In the Catholic Church, there is description of the mystery of Communion as being Transubstantiation. Historically, a curtain would close between priest and congregation, while the liturgy was pronounced in Latin “Hacus, Pacus” meaning change from Bread into the very body of our Lord, from wine into his blood of the Covenant. For an unschooled population who did not understand Latin, they perceived this as magic, literally pronouncing “Hocus Pocus” to make the bread disappear or change. The great Reformer Martin Luther, lived and died believing he was a Catholic priest and was calling for a reformation of practices within the church. Luther taught that this is NOT magic, but bringing the Real Presence of Jesus into our midst. Another of the Reformers, Ulrich Zwingli, taught that faith is not magic, or a philosophy of Real Presence, but the very tangible experience of memory, we remember what Jesus did for us by dying for us, and we are changed by getting in touch with our memories. John Calvin, who penned the basics of our theology as Presbyterians, said No, faith is not a matter of simple remembrance, or of magic. We need to question why the church has tried to bring Jesus down out of heaven to be present with us again at the table? Instead, we believe in the practice of forgiveness, confessiona dn forgiveness of one another and by God, in order that we can fully share ourselves “communing” without inflicting sin, without holding back from one anoter or God. In the act ofd forgiveness, we literally are brought closer together, and as the body of Christ, we are brought closer to God. SO it is not bringing the body of Jesus out of heaven to serve us, by magic or memory, but our being changed and transformed, brought closer together, closer to God, our BEING CHANGED INTO the Body of Christ.
Faith in the ASCENSION is not a belief in people flying on clouds. The ASCENSION is affirmation that the one who explored all human life had to offer, who experienced all humanity could suffer, sits at the right hand of God. The ASCENSION is belief that Jesus was raised by God, and given a place by God. In faith, none of us earn reward, Jesus does not sit at the right hand of God because e was better than everyone else, but God has raised him and elevated him who did suffer for us and knows us.
Faith in RESURRECTION is not belief in the REANIMATION of DEAD CORPSES like some Frankenstein movie. Resurrection is living life differently because we no longer fear life or death, because we believe we are living beyond what we most feared.
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