Genesis 22:1-15
Mathew 10:35-42
Who are you? Who are you?
We spend day after day greeting ourselves in the mirror.
Thousands of dollars in therapy, hundreds of thousands more at college and university.
We google search for ancestral links.
Al in quest of our identity, of trying to find and own who we are.
As infants and young believers, we presented you to God and the Community of Faith describing that you would be a believer, trusted, part of the Body of Christ, you might grow to be a husband, a wife, a parent and grandparent, a truck driver, a banker, a teacher, or engineer, doctor, lawyer, perhaps a minister.
For the first many years, you were the child of your parents, and little brother or sister, or elder brother or sister of someone else.
Today, as they move their tassel from one side to the other, we ascribe to each the identity of High School Graduate. For several this will immediately transfer into being a freshman at this college and that university, studying this, becoming that. We are perpetually searching for our identity, as if what we do, what we have accomplished, where we are, defines and determines who we are.
To which Jesus dictated “Whosoever finds their life will lose it. Who ever loses their life for my sake, and for the gospel, will find it.” The Savior's point is that our quest not be about finding and possessing who we are apart from the world, apart from God, but that we find Christ in ourselves which will define who we are.
Abraham knew who he was.
He had been CALLED, he had been PROMISED by God,
Abraham had been husband to Sarah, he had been Circumcised and set apart. Abraham had trusted God and been trusted, for decades together.
Suddenly, he wakes up one day to the realization that everything he has ever wanted in life, all he was promised, has been fulfilled.
Had the story ended there, the narrative of Abraham would be a story of Origins, of Beginnings, There had been Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and Seth, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. But far more than a story of how Israel came to be, when the Covenant was established, this the story of commitment and sacrifice.
For long generations, this has been referred to as the Sacrifice of Isaac, and many were troubled to learn that the Koran of Islam tells the same story of their Ancestor Abraham who took his firstborn son Ishmael to sacrifice upon the Mountain. SO I would tell you, this is not the story of the SACRIFICE of ISAAC or of ISHMAEL, for they are not the ones who make the sacrifice, this is not about their faith in God at all. If this were the Sacrifice of Isaac or Ishmael, we would be left with a faith that by being bystanders we are going to be put to death, we are simply worthless pawns in God's little game, and maybe maybe God will provide a Goat or Ram to take our place. For some, perhaps that is what faith represents. But INSTEAD, this is the story of a different set of sacrifices.
Abraham banished Ishmael with the boy's mother Hagar. Then, after they were gone, God spoke to Abraham, saying take your son, your only son and do as I tell you.
Many have seen this as a story of child abuse, treating his child not as a human being but as an object, the “fulfilled promise” like taking possession of The Land. Isaac does represent the fulfillment of the Promise and so much more. If you had to choose between the future of all humanity and your own child, what would you choose? If you had to choose between your faith in God and your own child... Ultimately this is the Sacrifice Question of God, to offer God's own son for the future of all humanity.
We think of SACRIFICE as not using the Car because of Gas prices.
We think of SACRIFICE as Cleaning Supplies donated to the Food Pantry, or a Memorial in honor of a parent or grandparent.
SACRIFICE is freely and willingly giving what is most precious to you, out of love.
SACRIFICE is giving your very identity.
Last January in Sudan, a woman came to the Clinic, telling an amazing story,
While still a child of five, six or seven, she had been kidnapped by a neighboring tribe called the Merle. They had branded the skin of her face, her arms and legs, taught her to speak a different language and denied her speaking her language. She was bought and sold as a slave among the Merle, ultimately taken as a wife, repeatedly she was raped and beaten, made to conceive and give birth to children. As clearly as we could determine, she was a woman of 22 who had spent 16 years in this other world constantly dreaming of escape, escape and return to her family, though in her life among the Merle she had a husband and three children. One day, she saw her opportunity, she left behind everything and ran. She got back to her own tribe, her own people, her family. The first struggle she now had was to prove who she was. Her features were changed, her skin branded, her clothing different. She had not spoken her own language for 16 years, all she could remember from when she was 6 was a nursery rhyme. In the stories of King David there is a similar tale, and the refugees are asked to pronounce the word SHIBBOLETH to prove who they are, because their enemy could not pronounce SH or B consonants. How treasured that nursery rhyme sung to her by her mother. The people accepted her, she was home, she was free, but the cost of her freedom had been that she left her children behind. Forever.
Her children, being a mother...Her husband and his family... the people she had known for more than 2/3rd her life, all were sacrificed for her freedom, her return.
As Abraham takes up the knife to do as God has directed, this is his child, his only son that is left, and through him the future of generations and land and a name. These are extremely hard passages for us in a safe and secure world to try to imagine.
Twenty years ago, at the time of Glasnost, I travelled through what was then the Soviet Union, witnessing a people who had practiced their faith in secret, worshipping against the Law for over 70 years. When faith as described in the Bible, or in other parts of our world seems so different to us, that it is difficult to imagine having to choose between our FREEDOM and Our Child; when worshipping God would mean going to Jail; does SACRIFICE have any meaning to us? If these are the case, what has this done to our faith in God? WHO ARE YOU? Whoever receives you, receives God who sent you. Imagine, what if you are God's only instrument of peace, of faith, of making a difference in the world.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Anxiety & Acceptance, June 22, 2008
Genesis 21:1-15
Matthew 10:24-39
"If all a physicist knows about The Truth be true, then, for all our common world's futility and grime, we have a better time than the Great Nebulae or the atoms in our brains. Marriage is rarely bliss, but surely it would be worse, if particles were to pelt at thousands of miles per sec about a universe, in which a lover's kiss would either not be felt or break the lover's neck. Though the face at which I stare while shaving, be crude, for year after year it repels an aging suitor, it has thank God, sufficient mass to be altogether there, not an indeterminable gruel which is partly somewhere else. Our eyes prefer to suppose, that a habitable place has a geocentric view, that architects enclose a quiet euclidian space: exploded myths – but who would feel at home astraddle an ever expanding saddle? The passion of our kind, for the process of finding out, is a fact that one can hardly doubt. But I would rejoice more, if I knew clearly what we wanted the knowledge for; if I felt certain still, that the mind is free to know or not. God has chosen once it seems, and whether our concern for magnitude's extremes really become a creature, who comes in a median size, or politicizing Nature be altogether wise, is something we shall learn. Amen." (WH Auden)
In the poem we used for this morning's prayer of confession, WH Auden asks whether the purpose of all our desire for the truth, is only a quest to know? The Enlightenment was conceived as a great experiment, to quantify ALL the Laws of nature, so as to know, knowing to better accept life. But along the way, our anxieties got the best of us. There was always knowledge we could not know, Circumstances we desired to be different, or on our timetable. Humanity's great desire to fix, to change, to correct what we believed was askew, inspired us to control our destiny, but doing so without full knowledge of what might yet be.
Abraham had received a Promise from God, yet years went by anxiously waiting. So Sarah, Abraham's wife, tried to correct their ANXIETY, tried to control “The Promise”. The Great story of Abraham, Father of Nations was controlled by Sarah who took her slave Hagar, and abused her, used her to conceive a child. The story of Hagar is a reminder of all the marginalized persons in our society, the ones who are used and abused, and cast aside. Through her planning, control, manipulation, Sarah and Abraham were able to have a child according to The Law, Ishmael; but then The Promise of “what might be” was fulfilled, Sarah conceived.
As they lived into this reality, suddenly a new ANXIETY was manifest, Ishmael was a child of Abraham. While Hagar was a slave, considered property of Sarah, Hagar's son was the first born of Abraham, of equal and greater stature than Isaac. Sarah tried to correct her ANXIETY by having Hagar and Ishmael banished to wander in the wilderness.
There is a poetic irony to this, that ISHMAEL the firstborn son of Abraham by a Slave of Egypt would be EXILED to wander in the Wilderness, and their cries would be heard by God; and generations later with Moses, the enslaved descendents of Isaac would be EXILED from Egypt, because of the firstborn, to wander in the Wilderness, their cries being heard by God.
Genesis establishes for us the tension, between trying to live according to the LAW, we have MT. SINAI, the TEN COMMANDMENTS, ISHMAEL; and God's PROMISE, MT. ZION, CIRCUMCISION, ISAAC. Both are Sons of Abraham. Both are ways of following God, attendance to the LAW/ and living in COVENANT.
But one has to wonder, what would have happened to human history, if SARAH had not been so filled with ANXIETY that she used Hagar to create a Child, ... that she disposed of the Child to favor her own. Genesis establishes the tension that would become Islam and Judaism, Ishmael and Isaac, both descended from Abraham.
We also need to pay attention to the SPIN and EMPHASES we place on the telling of the Story. Historians and Politicians have been quick to recall that this is the origin of the conflict of the Middle East, that Sarah used Hagar, and Sarah had them sent away. But two factors also need to be remembered, first the response of Abraham...while this is the Hebrew Scriptures and Isaac is the SON of ELECTION, OF PROMISE; he TREASURES ISHMAEL also. Second, that decades later, after Sarah died and was buried, after Rebekkah was found for Isaac, ABRAHAM DIED and both ISHMAEL and ISAAC joined together in burial of their father. Neither one without the other.
ANXIETY and ACCEPTANCE are both responses to KNOWING.
I grew up in a Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the beloved leaders of that church was a retired Professor of English named AK STEVENS. AK and his wife were nearly a hundred years old, filled with the wisdom of a Lifetime, spiced with knowledge of Literature. AK and his bride never had children, instead they taught and took in college students as borders, whom they loved as if their own. When they had first been married, AK and Helen had a Graduate student, working on his PhD who turned out to be WH Auden. So it was that when WH Auden completed his thesis and had it published as his first book, he dedicated it to ABRAHAM and Helen Stevens. However, AK's first name was not ABRAHAM but ALVIN. He could have been ANXIOUS, to have his one great opportunity at fame, to be listed in the first publication of WH Auden foiled. But instead AK, accepted the circumstance and loved to tell the story.
Years ago we had a neighbor who had a baby. One day, the doorbell rang and here was the neighbor looking quite frantic. She described that for the first time she had tried to bottle feed, and the baby had eaten and eaten everything she had, then the baby became lethargic, and the mother was anxious she had given the baby too much. She demanded to know what to do, how to fix it. And we described that eventually, it was going to come out one end or the other, so all we could do, was make certain the baby had burped, to watch and wait and pray.
There are times of ANXIETY in all our lives. One response is to CUT OUT others, to eliminate all options outside our control. We can even do so, while obeying the LAW; but we can also accept and live into what comes, recognizing God may have a Promise here we had not yet known.
Matthew 10:24-39
"If all a physicist knows about The Truth be true, then, for all our common world's futility and grime, we have a better time than the Great Nebulae or the atoms in our brains. Marriage is rarely bliss, but surely it would be worse, if particles were to pelt at thousands of miles per sec about a universe, in which a lover's kiss would either not be felt or break the lover's neck. Though the face at which I stare while shaving, be crude, for year after year it repels an aging suitor, it has thank God, sufficient mass to be altogether there, not an indeterminable gruel which is partly somewhere else. Our eyes prefer to suppose, that a habitable place has a geocentric view, that architects enclose a quiet euclidian space: exploded myths – but who would feel at home astraddle an ever expanding saddle? The passion of our kind, for the process of finding out, is a fact that one can hardly doubt. But I would rejoice more, if I knew clearly what we wanted the knowledge for; if I felt certain still, that the mind is free to know or not. God has chosen once it seems, and whether our concern for magnitude's extremes really become a creature, who comes in a median size, or politicizing Nature be altogether wise, is something we shall learn. Amen." (WH Auden)
In the poem we used for this morning's prayer of confession, WH Auden asks whether the purpose of all our desire for the truth, is only a quest to know? The Enlightenment was conceived as a great experiment, to quantify ALL the Laws of nature, so as to know, knowing to better accept life. But along the way, our anxieties got the best of us. There was always knowledge we could not know, Circumstances we desired to be different, or on our timetable. Humanity's great desire to fix, to change, to correct what we believed was askew, inspired us to control our destiny, but doing so without full knowledge of what might yet be.
Abraham had received a Promise from God, yet years went by anxiously waiting. So Sarah, Abraham's wife, tried to correct their ANXIETY, tried to control “The Promise”. The Great story of Abraham, Father of Nations was controlled by Sarah who took her slave Hagar, and abused her, used her to conceive a child. The story of Hagar is a reminder of all the marginalized persons in our society, the ones who are used and abused, and cast aside. Through her planning, control, manipulation, Sarah and Abraham were able to have a child according to The Law, Ishmael; but then The Promise of “what might be” was fulfilled, Sarah conceived.
As they lived into this reality, suddenly a new ANXIETY was manifest, Ishmael was a child of Abraham. While Hagar was a slave, considered property of Sarah, Hagar's son was the first born of Abraham, of equal and greater stature than Isaac. Sarah tried to correct her ANXIETY by having Hagar and Ishmael banished to wander in the wilderness.
There is a poetic irony to this, that ISHMAEL the firstborn son of Abraham by a Slave of Egypt would be EXILED to wander in the Wilderness, and their cries would be heard by God; and generations later with Moses, the enslaved descendents of Isaac would be EXILED from Egypt, because of the firstborn, to wander in the Wilderness, their cries being heard by God.
Genesis establishes for us the tension, between trying to live according to the LAW, we have MT. SINAI, the TEN COMMANDMENTS, ISHMAEL; and God's PROMISE, MT. ZION, CIRCUMCISION, ISAAC. Both are Sons of Abraham. Both are ways of following God, attendance to the LAW/ and living in COVENANT.
But one has to wonder, what would have happened to human history, if SARAH had not been so filled with ANXIETY that she used Hagar to create a Child, ... that she disposed of the Child to favor her own. Genesis establishes the tension that would become Islam and Judaism, Ishmael and Isaac, both descended from Abraham.
We also need to pay attention to the SPIN and EMPHASES we place on the telling of the Story. Historians and Politicians have been quick to recall that this is the origin of the conflict of the Middle East, that Sarah used Hagar, and Sarah had them sent away. But two factors also need to be remembered, first the response of Abraham...while this is the Hebrew Scriptures and Isaac is the SON of ELECTION, OF PROMISE; he TREASURES ISHMAEL also. Second, that decades later, after Sarah died and was buried, after Rebekkah was found for Isaac, ABRAHAM DIED and both ISHMAEL and ISAAC joined together in burial of their father. Neither one without the other.
ANXIETY and ACCEPTANCE are both responses to KNOWING.
I grew up in a Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the beloved leaders of that church was a retired Professor of English named AK STEVENS. AK and his wife were nearly a hundred years old, filled with the wisdom of a Lifetime, spiced with knowledge of Literature. AK and his bride never had children, instead they taught and took in college students as borders, whom they loved as if their own. When they had first been married, AK and Helen had a Graduate student, working on his PhD who turned out to be WH Auden. So it was that when WH Auden completed his thesis and had it published as his first book, he dedicated it to ABRAHAM and Helen Stevens. However, AK's first name was not ABRAHAM but ALVIN. He could have been ANXIOUS, to have his one great opportunity at fame, to be listed in the first publication of WH Auden foiled. But instead AK, accepted the circumstance and loved to tell the story.
Years ago we had a neighbor who had a baby. One day, the doorbell rang and here was the neighbor looking quite frantic. She described that for the first time she had tried to bottle feed, and the baby had eaten and eaten everything she had, then the baby became lethargic, and the mother was anxious she had given the baby too much. She demanded to know what to do, how to fix it. And we described that eventually, it was going to come out one end or the other, so all we could do, was make certain the baby had burped, to watch and wait and pray.
There are times of ANXIETY in all our lives. One response is to CUT OUT others, to eliminate all options outside our control. We can even do so, while obeying the LAW; but we can also accept and live into what comes, recognizing God may have a Promise here we had not yet known.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
HOSPITALITY, June 15 2008
Genesis 18:1-15
Matthew 9:35-10:23
The topic before us this morning is “HOSPITALITY”.
Abraham and Sarah thought they knew how to create space for guests.
They were given a year, to prepare a sacred space for the promise of God.
The disciples were sent out, as apostles, as guests in the House of Israel.
Take nothing, expect nothing, if you are received GOOD, if not move on.
We have come to believe that HOSPITALITY is the Martha Stewart:
“Art of decorating, cooking and entertaining”; that is NOT the point.
HOSPITALITY comes from the root word TO HOST, and the Latin word “HOST” is God.
If we recognize that All Creation belongs to God, this life is a gift, and every home a House of God. Our identity, as those in Covenant with God, those living in the Promise, is as standing in for the Host to welcome and honor guests until the true Host arrives.
In a Jewish Wedding, the couple stand beneath a Chuppa, a temporary dwelling place, as a symbol of their home, open on all sides, to greet and welcome all guests. One of my Seminary Professors was the Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who loved this passage, as means of suggesting that Everyone you meet must be greeted as if possibly an Angel in our midst.
Abraham saw three strangers/angels/The LORD, and entreated them, Abraham then began almost comically running about, trying to make ready to Host. He runs with a basin of water for them to sit and wash their feet; he runs to Sarah to have her grind grain and bake bread with no time for the leaven to rise; he runs to the herd, to sacrifice, cook, serve a meal. Abraham rushed about doing everything possible, everything HUMANLY POSSIBLE to HOST. Then the Strangers looked passed Abraham, HOSTING an offering of what was IMPOSSIBLE, as what was GOING TO BE.
How frequently we FORCE AMONG POSSIBLES, rather than awaiting WHAT MIGHT BE THAT SEEMS IMPOSSIBILITY. To recognize and know that we do not have to control, we do not have to make happen, we can trust God. Our responsibility as HOSTS is to create a sacred space for the SOUL to be WELCOMED.
We have Created Intentional Spaces for THE INTELLECT, we call them SCHOOLS, COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES.
We have Intentional Spaces for EMOTIONS we call it COUNSELING and THERAPY, and thankfully we are coming to understand that these are for preserving what is normal, rather than trying to cure abnormality. We have created Intentional Places for the WILL, we call these COMMITTEES, TASK FORCES and NEW VENTURES.
To Create a Sacred Space for the SOUL we must know that the soul is FREE, as Wild as Nature, SHY and Elusive. We so fill every moment of life, we distort reality allowing no space for the Impossible, no space for the Soul.
HOSPITALITY is the sacred balance between COMMUNITY and SOLITUDE. Solitude does NOT necessarily mean living apart from others, for often when we are alone, we bring others with us, in memories and conversations with whom we argue. SOLITUDE MEANS NOT BEING ALONE, WITH YOURSELF, being fully present and accepting with who we are.
COMMUNITY is not necessarily living side by side with neighbors we rarely speak to, but rather recognizing and taking responsibility for RELATIONSHIPS with everything around us. The Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned: “Let the person who cannot be alone, beware community. Let the person avoiding community beware of being alone.”
The responsibilities of HOSPITALITY belong as much to us as GUESTS as to the HOST, for as we said, all of us are GUESTS in the House of God. Jesus sent out the Twelve, as APOSTLES locally. Here he did not send them to TEACH, but rather to HEAL and to PREACH, Teaching requires Knowing and Understanding; HEALING & PREACHING are Experiences of allowing God to use you. So often we imagine MISSION as a far away journey, Evangelizing a Heathen People. The more difficult task is healing those inside our lives, our loved ones and ourselves.
Throughout the last Century Mainline Christians, like us, have had a hard time with the idea of EVANGELISM. The Word has had identification with Televangelists, and Mormons knocking on doors, bursting in our our guilts. “Evangel” is simply the word for WITNESS, to SALUTE and RECORD for others that there is more here than what we thought possible.
As APOSTLES and EVANGELISTS we are to be sent, NOT to CONVERT others to be like us, but rather to be those WHO HELP YOU GROW TOWARD YOUR TRUE SELF. When I think of the ones who have helped me most grow toward my true self, I think of those like my Father and our Children. They never pressed me toward Goals of their making, but SAW IN ME POSSIBILITY I had NEVER IMAGINED. There is a very fine line here, which separate the AMATEUR PSYCHOTHERAPY groups, from the RELATIONSHIPS that allow us to claim and affirm what we might be. What we are describing as HOSPITALITY deals with RESPECT, HONOR and INTEGRITY.
There was a man named HANK, who was a WOODSHOP TEACHER. Hank was old school, still wearing a brushcut and smelling of AquaVelva, he never came to school without wearing a white shirt, dress slacks and leather shoes. For years, Hank and the Principal had argued about his going for Continuing Education to learn the latest tools and techniques. Hank would say, I've been teaching all my life, I was teaching when those instructors went to school. I have forgotten more than they will ever learn.
THEN a new Principal began, rather than telling Hank to go, putting brochures under his nose, this Principal sought out Hank to ask guidance about care of their school building. FINALLY, Hank described, “I was always afraid of going to those conferences, because I figured they would tell me I was wrong. They would tell me that everything I had been doing wasn't good enough, and I wouldn't be able to learn a new way.” The two sat together looking at the floor for quite a while. Then the Principal said, “HANK, I am scared too. Let's go together.”
Matthew 9:35-10:23
The topic before us this morning is “HOSPITALITY”.
Abraham and Sarah thought they knew how to create space for guests.
They were given a year, to prepare a sacred space for the promise of God.
The disciples were sent out, as apostles, as guests in the House of Israel.
Take nothing, expect nothing, if you are received GOOD, if not move on.
We have come to believe that HOSPITALITY is the Martha Stewart:
“Art of decorating, cooking and entertaining”; that is NOT the point.
HOSPITALITY comes from the root word TO HOST, and the Latin word “HOST” is God.
If we recognize that All Creation belongs to God, this life is a gift, and every home a House of God. Our identity, as those in Covenant with God, those living in the Promise, is as standing in for the Host to welcome and honor guests until the true Host arrives.
In a Jewish Wedding, the couple stand beneath a Chuppa, a temporary dwelling place, as a symbol of their home, open on all sides, to greet and welcome all guests. One of my Seminary Professors was the Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who loved this passage, as means of suggesting that Everyone you meet must be greeted as if possibly an Angel in our midst.
Abraham saw three strangers/angels/The LORD, and entreated them, Abraham then began almost comically running about, trying to make ready to Host. He runs with a basin of water for them to sit and wash their feet; he runs to Sarah to have her grind grain and bake bread with no time for the leaven to rise; he runs to the herd, to sacrifice, cook, serve a meal. Abraham rushed about doing everything possible, everything HUMANLY POSSIBLE to HOST. Then the Strangers looked passed Abraham, HOSTING an offering of what was IMPOSSIBLE, as what was GOING TO BE.
How frequently we FORCE AMONG POSSIBLES, rather than awaiting WHAT MIGHT BE THAT SEEMS IMPOSSIBILITY. To recognize and know that we do not have to control, we do not have to make happen, we can trust God. Our responsibility as HOSTS is to create a sacred space for the SOUL to be WELCOMED.
We have Created Intentional Spaces for THE INTELLECT, we call them SCHOOLS, COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES.
We have Intentional Spaces for EMOTIONS we call it COUNSELING and THERAPY, and thankfully we are coming to understand that these are for preserving what is normal, rather than trying to cure abnormality. We have created Intentional Places for the WILL, we call these COMMITTEES, TASK FORCES and NEW VENTURES.
To Create a Sacred Space for the SOUL we must know that the soul is FREE, as Wild as Nature, SHY and Elusive. We so fill every moment of life, we distort reality allowing no space for the Impossible, no space for the Soul.
HOSPITALITY is the sacred balance between COMMUNITY and SOLITUDE. Solitude does NOT necessarily mean living apart from others, for often when we are alone, we bring others with us, in memories and conversations with whom we argue. SOLITUDE MEANS NOT BEING ALONE, WITH YOURSELF, being fully present and accepting with who we are.
COMMUNITY is not necessarily living side by side with neighbors we rarely speak to, but rather recognizing and taking responsibility for RELATIONSHIPS with everything around us. The Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned: “Let the person who cannot be alone, beware community. Let the person avoiding community beware of being alone.”
The responsibilities of HOSPITALITY belong as much to us as GUESTS as to the HOST, for as we said, all of us are GUESTS in the House of God. Jesus sent out the Twelve, as APOSTLES locally. Here he did not send them to TEACH, but rather to HEAL and to PREACH, Teaching requires Knowing and Understanding; HEALING & PREACHING are Experiences of allowing God to use you. So often we imagine MISSION as a far away journey, Evangelizing a Heathen People. The more difficult task is healing those inside our lives, our loved ones and ourselves.
Throughout the last Century Mainline Christians, like us, have had a hard time with the idea of EVANGELISM. The Word has had identification with Televangelists, and Mormons knocking on doors, bursting in our our guilts. “Evangel” is simply the word for WITNESS, to SALUTE and RECORD for others that there is more here than what we thought possible.
As APOSTLES and EVANGELISTS we are to be sent, NOT to CONVERT others to be like us, but rather to be those WHO HELP YOU GROW TOWARD YOUR TRUE SELF. When I think of the ones who have helped me most grow toward my true self, I think of those like my Father and our Children. They never pressed me toward Goals of their making, but SAW IN ME POSSIBILITY I had NEVER IMAGINED. There is a very fine line here, which separate the AMATEUR PSYCHOTHERAPY groups, from the RELATIONSHIPS that allow us to claim and affirm what we might be. What we are describing as HOSPITALITY deals with RESPECT, HONOR and INTEGRITY.
There was a man named HANK, who was a WOODSHOP TEACHER. Hank was old school, still wearing a brushcut and smelling of AquaVelva, he never came to school without wearing a white shirt, dress slacks and leather shoes. For years, Hank and the Principal had argued about his going for Continuing Education to learn the latest tools and techniques. Hank would say, I've been teaching all my life, I was teaching when those instructors went to school. I have forgotten more than they will ever learn.
THEN a new Principal began, rather than telling Hank to go, putting brochures under his nose, this Principal sought out Hank to ask guidance about care of their school building. FINALLY, Hank described, “I was always afraid of going to those conferences, because I figured they would tell me I was wrong. They would tell me that everything I had been doing wasn't good enough, and I wouldn't be able to learn a new way.” The two sat together looking at the floor for quite a while. Then the Principal said, “HANK, I am scared too. Let's go together.”
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Outlandish Faith in Merciful God, June 8, 2008
Genesis 12:1-9
Matthew 9:9-33
The Anthem sang from Matthew, “You are the Salt of the Earth, BUT When salt has lost it's saltness, how can it's savor be restored.”
Do we believe in miracles? With the ability to send a rocket to Mars and provide photographic evidence of ice...with the ability to diagnose who has a probability of heart disease, cancer, infertility,...with the knowledge of how to magnetically scan a person's body without surgery and know the position and size of every organ...
Do we still believe in the possibility of MIRACLES?
Matthew states something very powerful by alternating stories back and forth between, “Jesus was controversial” and “Jesus provided miracles”, as if to state MIRACLES Have Always Been CONTROVERSIAL & CONFLICT Requires FAITH. How much easier life wold seem to be, if we only had New WINESKINS, or if all material were PRE-SHRUNK, so you could put any patch on any fabric confident they would age the same. Things which ferment and grow and change cold be kept in limitations that changed with them. But MATTHEW does not record Jesus demanding there be only New wineskins, or only old tired and true pre-shrunk fabrics. Jesus named the need for both, the Traditional, Stable and Confident, AND the New, Changeable and Changing. Because life requires paradox.
Is what we believe only MAGIC, a trick to cause the blind to see and deaf to hear?
Do we believe in WISH FULFILLMENT? Surely a grieving father would wish his dead child back. A woman cramping and bleeding for 12 years would wish it to stop.
In a culture of DISILLUSIONMENT, when our hopes have been broken so many times, when we fear being asked to TRUST, we witness the story of ABRAM & SARAI who at 75 and 80 are CALLED to HOPE and BELIEVE in a PROMISE THAT CANNOT BE FULFILLED Cannot possibly be fulfilled IN THEIR LIFETIME, and they are barren.
Faith calls us to believe OUTLANDISH.
Not simply muttering a standard response when asked “Jss Cris is Lord Savior” or reading out of the book in unison when asked “I believe in God the Father Almighty”. But struggling to believe when fact can provide no reason, when logic has no answer
We are children of the Enlightenment, taught beginning in 1st Grade: Newton's Laws of Gravity, Force, Motion, Cause and Effect. We believe in REASON, LOGIC, FACT. The harder you work the more you succeed. 99% of Success is Showing Up.
But MIRACLES defy all Laws and Reason and Fact.
There is no equation that the more you believe, the more miracles there will be. FAITH in GOD is not Peter Pan and Tinker-bell, asking that if you believe you clap.
Instead, we come to understand and accept the PARADOXES of LIFE
The deeper our FAITH, the more doubt we endure.
The deeper our HOPE, the more prone we are to despair.
The deeper our LOVE, the greater pain love's loss may bring.
The more we HAVE, the more we are CALLED to Share.
We cannot avoid DOUBT, DESPAIR, LOSS, Other's NEEDS, without also avoiding Faith, Hope, Love and One Another.
In the midst of these PARADOXES OF LIFE, we are Called to have an OUTLANDISH FAITH, to trust and believe in the MERCY of GOD.
There is an Old Native American Legend, that when God completed creation of the heavens and the earth, Almighty God leaned down and placed God's hand upon the earth. God is so LARGE and WONDERFUL, that this lake we know to be miles long, hundreds of feet deep, and pure enough to feed the thirst of the entire City of Syracuse, is but the print of God's Little finger. And this ETERNAL God would act in MERCY for us. OUTLANDISH!
We have SEDUCED ourselves, that every day is going to be miraculous. In WEDDING VOWS and Baptisms we have pledged to be faithful day in day out, till death do us part. While It may be that each new day, you hear the birds sing, you smell the flowers, you see the brilliance of the sun's setting and are AWED. But the message of these passages is for the long dark night of the soul, when we feel so very small and all alone.
DO we believe in miracles?
Three years ago, Father's Day our community was broken, three lives we crushed by by alcohol abuse and drunk driving. Yet God did not give up on those whose lives were broke. Fact and logic would have said, Give up, Move on, Dispose of the Loss and Walk away. But you prayed and wrote letters and believed in redemption.
TRANSFORMATION is NOT following a script that we do this, then this, then that and everything always works out right. We live in a time in Human History where we are challenging and changing existing norms and patterns, which is never easy. HOW do you teach a people dependent upon a Welfare State to be self-Sufficient? How do you teach a people who have been at WAR, who have so many stories of aggression and prejudice and hate, to lay down their weapons, and overcome their fears? How do you empower a people so stayed and stalwart as to build their Church of Mortar and Brick, to change? This week, the clergy of the Presbytery met with a Psychiatrist talking about boundaries and change... There are those who will wonder why it took so long and others why we did so at all? But afterwards I sought him to relate our story, sharing that we had take on one campaign after another, we had chosen to be vulnerable with each other, and mission investing ourselves in outlandish dreams to change the world for others had given us new hope and future. Asking is this what you have encountered elsewhere, is this the secret to the ANXIETY Mainline Churches are suffering. And he shook his head and said “NO”. “No, from what you have described, there is not reason why this church should still be alive let alone thriving. All I can suspect, is that you never gave up on one another.”
TRANSFORMATION be it in an individual's life, within a family system, the Transformation of a Church, or Community, or Nation, especially in times of ANXIETY and CHANGE requires we never give up on one another. Transformation requires we believe in MIRACLES, that a PERSON's Life can be restored. That deaf to all voices but our own, we can learn listen. That blind to others, locked up within ourselves, we can be given the gift of seeing. That even when our child has been dead to us, even dead a long time, they can be restored. That those who have suffered long and intimately, can be healed and whole.
A long time ago, we began sharing a story from my friend Tom, who had a neighbor whose son was named Billy. For those who may not be familiar, Billy worked the 3 to Midnight shift, so slept during the day. About a decade ago, Billy's neighbor got a dog, and when they went to work in the morning, the dog would bark. SO to try to let them know the dog was disturbing his sleep, in the middle of the night Billy Barked. Arf Arf, Arf. When this had gone on for several nights, we asked Billy, why he did not just tell the neighbor his problem with their dog. Billy had said “Oh I couldn't. That would be too Confrontational. I'll just bark and they will get the message.” Bark Bark. Seven years ago, when the Village passed a Barking and Leash Ordinance, Billy would go out into his night and pace the property line, waiting. He was not going to be the first to bark, but if that Dog even yipped, he was going to bark for everyone to know. Last week, the neighbor's dog got out and ran away. There were signs staples to all the phone poles, the family missed their dog terribly. Billy had been resolute and stoic. But the other night about 2am I heard a noise and leaned out the window to see Billy standing in the yard alone, howling for what he missed. Owwwww.
Matthew 9:9-33
The Anthem sang from Matthew, “You are the Salt of the Earth, BUT When salt has lost it's saltness, how can it's savor be restored.”
Do we believe in miracles? With the ability to send a rocket to Mars and provide photographic evidence of ice...with the ability to diagnose who has a probability of heart disease, cancer, infertility,...with the knowledge of how to magnetically scan a person's body without surgery and know the position and size of every organ...
Do we still believe in the possibility of MIRACLES?
Matthew states something very powerful by alternating stories back and forth between, “Jesus was controversial” and “Jesus provided miracles”, as if to state MIRACLES Have Always Been CONTROVERSIAL & CONFLICT Requires FAITH. How much easier life wold seem to be, if we only had New WINESKINS, or if all material were PRE-SHRUNK, so you could put any patch on any fabric confident they would age the same. Things which ferment and grow and change cold be kept in limitations that changed with them. But MATTHEW does not record Jesus demanding there be only New wineskins, or only old tired and true pre-shrunk fabrics. Jesus named the need for both, the Traditional, Stable and Confident, AND the New, Changeable and Changing. Because life requires paradox.
Is what we believe only MAGIC, a trick to cause the blind to see and deaf to hear?
Do we believe in WISH FULFILLMENT? Surely a grieving father would wish his dead child back. A woman cramping and bleeding for 12 years would wish it to stop.
In a culture of DISILLUSIONMENT, when our hopes have been broken so many times, when we fear being asked to TRUST, we witness the story of ABRAM & SARAI who at 75 and 80 are CALLED to HOPE and BELIEVE in a PROMISE THAT CANNOT BE FULFILLED Cannot possibly be fulfilled IN THEIR LIFETIME, and they are barren.
Faith calls us to believe OUTLANDISH.
Not simply muttering a standard response when asked “Jss Cris is Lord Savior” or reading out of the book in unison when asked “I believe in God the Father Almighty”. But struggling to believe when fact can provide no reason, when logic has no answer
We are children of the Enlightenment, taught beginning in 1st Grade: Newton's Laws of Gravity, Force, Motion, Cause and Effect. We believe in REASON, LOGIC, FACT. The harder you work the more you succeed. 99% of Success is Showing Up.
But MIRACLES defy all Laws and Reason and Fact.
There is no equation that the more you believe, the more miracles there will be. FAITH in GOD is not Peter Pan and Tinker-bell, asking that if you believe you clap.
Instead, we come to understand and accept the PARADOXES of LIFE
The deeper our FAITH, the more doubt we endure.
The deeper our HOPE, the more prone we are to despair.
The deeper our LOVE, the greater pain love's loss may bring.
The more we HAVE, the more we are CALLED to Share.
We cannot avoid DOUBT, DESPAIR, LOSS, Other's NEEDS, without also avoiding Faith, Hope, Love and One Another.
In the midst of these PARADOXES OF LIFE, we are Called to have an OUTLANDISH FAITH, to trust and believe in the MERCY of GOD.
There is an Old Native American Legend, that when God completed creation of the heavens and the earth, Almighty God leaned down and placed God's hand upon the earth. God is so LARGE and WONDERFUL, that this lake we know to be miles long, hundreds of feet deep, and pure enough to feed the thirst of the entire City of Syracuse, is but the print of God's Little finger. And this ETERNAL God would act in MERCY for us. OUTLANDISH!
We have SEDUCED ourselves, that every day is going to be miraculous. In WEDDING VOWS and Baptisms we have pledged to be faithful day in day out, till death do us part. While It may be that each new day, you hear the birds sing, you smell the flowers, you see the brilliance of the sun's setting and are AWED. But the message of these passages is for the long dark night of the soul, when we feel so very small and all alone.
DO we believe in miracles?
Three years ago, Father's Day our community was broken, three lives we crushed by by alcohol abuse and drunk driving. Yet God did not give up on those whose lives were broke. Fact and logic would have said, Give up, Move on, Dispose of the Loss and Walk away. But you prayed and wrote letters and believed in redemption.
TRANSFORMATION is NOT following a script that we do this, then this, then that and everything always works out right. We live in a time in Human History where we are challenging and changing existing norms and patterns, which is never easy. HOW do you teach a people dependent upon a Welfare State to be self-Sufficient? How do you teach a people who have been at WAR, who have so many stories of aggression and prejudice and hate, to lay down their weapons, and overcome their fears? How do you empower a people so stayed and stalwart as to build their Church of Mortar and Brick, to change? This week, the clergy of the Presbytery met with a Psychiatrist talking about boundaries and change... There are those who will wonder why it took so long and others why we did so at all? But afterwards I sought him to relate our story, sharing that we had take on one campaign after another, we had chosen to be vulnerable with each other, and mission investing ourselves in outlandish dreams to change the world for others had given us new hope and future. Asking is this what you have encountered elsewhere, is this the secret to the ANXIETY Mainline Churches are suffering. And he shook his head and said “NO”. “No, from what you have described, there is not reason why this church should still be alive let alone thriving. All I can suspect, is that you never gave up on one another.”
TRANSFORMATION be it in an individual's life, within a family system, the Transformation of a Church, or Community, or Nation, especially in times of ANXIETY and CHANGE requires we never give up on one another. Transformation requires we believe in MIRACLES, that a PERSON's Life can be restored. That deaf to all voices but our own, we can learn listen. That blind to others, locked up within ourselves, we can be given the gift of seeing. That even when our child has been dead to us, even dead a long time, they can be restored. That those who have suffered long and intimately, can be healed and whole.
A long time ago, we began sharing a story from my friend Tom, who had a neighbor whose son was named Billy. For those who may not be familiar, Billy worked the 3 to Midnight shift, so slept during the day. About a decade ago, Billy's neighbor got a dog, and when they went to work in the morning, the dog would bark. SO to try to let them know the dog was disturbing his sleep, in the middle of the night Billy Barked. Arf Arf, Arf. When this had gone on for several nights, we asked Billy, why he did not just tell the neighbor his problem with their dog. Billy had said “Oh I couldn't. That would be too Confrontational. I'll just bark and they will get the message.” Bark Bark. Seven years ago, when the Village passed a Barking and Leash Ordinance, Billy would go out into his night and pace the property line, waiting. He was not going to be the first to bark, but if that Dog even yipped, he was going to bark for everyone to know. Last week, the neighbor's dog got out and ran away. There were signs staples to all the phone poles, the family missed their dog terribly. Billy had been resolute and stoic. But the other night about 2am I heard a noise and leaned out the window to see Billy standing in the yard alone, howling for what he missed. Owwwww.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Confirmation in 20 years
Genesis 6:9-10;
8:14-19
Matthew 7:21-29
What do we believe happened on the Ark? Noah was a righteous man and the world was corrupt. Noah and his wife their sons and sons' wives and all the pairs of animals went aboard the Ark. For 40 Days and 40 Nights it flooded, then for another month they waited as the waters recessed, and they could disemb-ark on dry land. The world was washed clean of all evidence of what they had known. God was changed, declaring destruction by rain would never be again. Had those in the Sanctuary of the Ark been unchanged, simply enduring the experience? RIGHTEOUSNESS is about Integrity, allowing the experiences of your life, what you believe and represent to permeate who you are.
20 years ago we assumed that because it was Sunday people came to Church.
20 years before, our expectation was that women wore white gloves and hats, men brush cuts. The question of any experience, is what effect it has upon our lives, not only in the immediate, but also over a lifetime.
Did September 11th 2001 teach us to FEAR, to DISTRUST persons who are Arab to be afraid of airplanes, a desire for WAR; OR when we experienced being ATTACKED and Made VULNERABLE, did what we experienced allow us to come to believe in HEROES who rush into collapsing buildings rather than Paris and Madonna, Martha and The Donald; the POWER OF A FEW individuals to stand up against evil, giving their lives to help others; our own DESIRE to be close to family, and the ability to reprioritize determining what really was important?
The current recession and gas prices, have they made us angry at the stations selling gas, angry at the airlines, angry at the banks for lending practices, OR have the price of gas and the cost of everything going up, challenged us to see what matters, how disposable our lives have been, and the ability to make changes?
Somehow in American culture, we have come to believe that education is a science, like magic. We take a substance, isolate it from everything else, speak the right incantations, recite the lessons, and the product will always graduate the same. The only modification seems to be whether we begin with a child at age 4, or 5 or 6; whether they learn life's lessons from hockey or lacrosse, running, OM or ballet. Faith is not knowledge to be learned. There are basic stories, persons, ideas and principles, but the real act of faith is believing each person is RIGHTEOUS, giving them the experience and relationships of faith, and allowing them to take their faith into their life. The last several years we have tried to make a change from Christian education to NURTURE.
The foundation is different, so the structure and the outcomes are different. Not that there was anything wrong with what we were taught 20 years ago, or 40, or 60, for that time. But our expectations of life have changed, our assumptions about people's time and priorities. IS Sunday School Child Care while their parents are in the sermon; Is the sermon Adult Care, while the Children are taught? One of the finest experiences we offer is the Young Children in Worship, in which the children are nurtured to each tell the stories, living with integrity the age old Song “I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY”. The lessons and classes establish a FOUNDATION, rather than focusing upon the house being one story or ten, being red or white or blue, we focus on building the FOUNDATIONS.
This morning, we asked those who were baptized with their parents' faith 15 years ago, to try to imagine where they will be in 20 years, what the world will be in 2028, and what difference the experience of Confirmation will have made to who they are and how they live.
8:14-19
Matthew 7:21-29
What do we believe happened on the Ark? Noah was a righteous man and the world was corrupt. Noah and his wife their sons and sons' wives and all the pairs of animals went aboard the Ark. For 40 Days and 40 Nights it flooded, then for another month they waited as the waters recessed, and they could disemb-ark on dry land. The world was washed clean of all evidence of what they had known. God was changed, declaring destruction by rain would never be again. Had those in the Sanctuary of the Ark been unchanged, simply enduring the experience? RIGHTEOUSNESS is about Integrity, allowing the experiences of your life, what you believe and represent to permeate who you are.
20 years ago we assumed that because it was Sunday people came to Church.
20 years before, our expectation was that women wore white gloves and hats, men brush cuts. The question of any experience, is what effect it has upon our lives, not only in the immediate, but also over a lifetime.
Did September 11th 2001 teach us to FEAR, to DISTRUST persons who are Arab to be afraid of airplanes, a desire for WAR; OR when we experienced being ATTACKED and Made VULNERABLE, did what we experienced allow us to come to believe in HEROES who rush into collapsing buildings rather than Paris and Madonna, Martha and The Donald; the POWER OF A FEW individuals to stand up against evil, giving their lives to help others; our own DESIRE to be close to family, and the ability to reprioritize determining what really was important?
The current recession and gas prices, have they made us angry at the stations selling gas, angry at the airlines, angry at the banks for lending practices, OR have the price of gas and the cost of everything going up, challenged us to see what matters, how disposable our lives have been, and the ability to make changes?
Somehow in American culture, we have come to believe that education is a science, like magic. We take a substance, isolate it from everything else, speak the right incantations, recite the lessons, and the product will always graduate the same. The only modification seems to be whether we begin with a child at age 4, or 5 or 6; whether they learn life's lessons from hockey or lacrosse, running, OM or ballet. Faith is not knowledge to be learned. There are basic stories, persons, ideas and principles, but the real act of faith is believing each person is RIGHTEOUS, giving them the experience and relationships of faith, and allowing them to take their faith into their life. The last several years we have tried to make a change from Christian education to NURTURE.
The foundation is different, so the structure and the outcomes are different. Not that there was anything wrong with what we were taught 20 years ago, or 40, or 60, for that time. But our expectations of life have changed, our assumptions about people's time and priorities. IS Sunday School Child Care while their parents are in the sermon; Is the sermon Adult Care, while the Children are taught? One of the finest experiences we offer is the Young Children in Worship, in which the children are nurtured to each tell the stories, living with integrity the age old Song “I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY”. The lessons and classes establish a FOUNDATION, rather than focusing upon the house being one story or ten, being red or white or blue, we focus on building the FOUNDATIONS.
This morning, we asked those who were baptized with their parents' faith 15 years ago, to try to imagine where they will be in 20 years, what the world will be in 2028, and what difference the experience of Confirmation will have made to who they are and how they live.
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