Isaiah 64
Mark 13:24-37
At Advent we gather to be FAITHFUL, to WATCH, to Prepare for the Coming of Christ.
What sound do you imagine to see and hear for: “Heaven Ripping” as Christ enters in?
Would God entering our reality come in Silence, or Earthquakes,Thunder and Lightning, the Rush of a Mighty Wind, would the opening of the Firmament in the Heavens that separates Waters from waters be like Breaking Glass, or as Isaiah and Mark each elude to ripping would God Ripping Heaven to Come Down be like Paper being torn open?
This morning, just before dawn, I heard it. There was this sound of wind and rhythmic beating, then getting louder as it came closer the tumult of honking. I thought at first it was the sound of the returning Truckers Convoy with air breaks and horns, but then realized the sound was from the south and we all know there are no longer trucks on 41 and 41A. No, this was the sound of the Geese after resting for the night on their migration from Canada to points South. A sound like Heaven Ripping, that reminds us we are part of a larger Created Order, God does not come just for the faithful few but for all Creation.
A week ago as we read the Parable of the Last Judgment, Jesus is recorded as having separated sheep from goats, not Catholics from Protestants, not Christians from Muslims, not Church members from Those who only come on Christmas Eve, not even those who believe from those who do not. While the separation is between those who have acted with mercy and kindness, from those who have not, Christ enters in for all.
This week, we went to sit at table with family, to take a few days of vacation and rest, and there to realize just how blessed we are. Advent begins in that spirit of THANKSGIVING, not for what we have, or what we accomplished, but for what God has shown us. Thankful to God for all those who are part of our lives, who in their need have challenged us to step forward to act in faith, to pray for one another, who have blessed us by helping us serve and witness life differently.
While I thought I would have been glad to have been out of town, to miss the goings on this week, truly I am sorry to have missed THE PARABLE that what was reported took place, for it seems to have been HEAVEN RIPPING as Christ entered in.
Those who live and work on the main streets of our community have been fearful of the hundreds of trucks that drive through every night and day. The smell of garbage, the waste, the noise, the rattling and weight of these big rigs coming through intersections which led to the Governor banning all non-essential trucking to the Expressways. Caught up in this were farmers and local haulers, who also use the roads, and seemingly were being denied access. It was prophesied to be a day of irreconcilable confrontation and conflict, when in the midst of economic hardship, on Black Friday when stores try to turn things around from a balance sheet in the Red to Black, at the start of Holiday shopping, as tourists come to town for the Dickens Characters, the truckers would convoy all the way from the City of Auburn to where the road divides for Marcellus, Syracuse and Cortland. There were the sounds of traffic on the road. There were the honking of horns like geese, but rather than scaring people away, hundreds more came to witness, to show support of both sides, and to act with tolerance, seeking another way through our conflict. Not fighting, not harsh words, not anger, not rioting in the streets as happens after a basketball game or pennant series, but tolerance and support and great numbers turning out to try to find another way through conflict, that is the sound of Heaven Ripping open.
It is at a time like this that the Prophet Priest Isaiah called the people to CONFESSION. Different people have had differing emphases in worship, some emphasize RECEIVING, others OFFERING, others LISTENING to the Word, still others INTERPRETTING the Word, and others still SPEAKING in Tongues. But our origin as PRESBYTERIANS is as a people in CONFESSION. Our culture does not appear to value Confession. We learn to take responsibility, and to blame. Part of the Broken nature of our time is that our culture, our values, our principles are all based on Our WORD being our bond, our word being sacred to us. We have witnessed one person after another, swear to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, while being caught up in lies, half-truths and innuendo. Confession is not going into a closet, penitently whispering “Forgive Me Father For I have Sinned”, as Presbyterians we try to be more open and transparent, we can have one on one counseling, but we also emphasize our shared responsibility as part of one another's lives. Confession is a verb of naming what we represent to one another, who we are in relation to one another, in relationship to God, what we are thankful for, what we repent of and what we most need. Isaiah's confession is that throughout history there has been no other God! That we are a people who have sinned and suffered for it. And Isaiah asks the question of ADVENT: “O LORD, HOW LONG WILL YOU KEEP SILENT, WHILE WE SUFFER?”
The Evangelist of Mark records this differently. According to the Evangelist, Jesus Never named himself as God, or as the Son of God. In fact in the whole of Mark, the only time Jesus is ever referred to as the Son of God is at the CRUCIFIXION, because for the evangelist everything needs to be understood through Jesus Suffering For Us and remaining true to the Covenant with God. The name Jesus uses instead of Son of God, is to identify himself as THE SON OF MAN. An Apocalyptic Title which names that one could suffer for the sake of all, that just as the President could represent the Nation, as a King could be one with their nation, so also the Son of Man could be one who suffers for all, the Savior of the Nations.
The question we must ask ourselves is who we believe we are?
Do we imagine ourselves to be God in our own universe? Are we Protestors roaring through the lives of others? Are we Citizens who want everyone to go away and allow us to live without others? Do we want to be Christians?
Recognize that Christ identified himself as one who suffers for others, who did whatever was necessary to bring dissonant voices together in harmony. We do not need to be Messiahs, God already sent one of those for us all, for all the world. BUT according to the Gospel of John, Jesus final command was to Peter (that is to the Church) to Feed and Care for Christ's lambs. According to Matthew and Luke, the Great Commission, to Go into all the world spreading the Good News. According to Mark, the Commission Jesus left, his final words before he was Anointed and Betrayed and Tried and Killed for the world, was WATCH! For you do not know when the Master of this house will come, in the evening, in the morning, or when, lest God come and find you asleep in faith. WATCH!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
When Did We Se You, November 23, 2008
Ezekiel 34:11-31
Matthew 25: 31-46
The sermon that I had written for this morning, we will use at another time, for yesterday events transpired that cause us to hear this word with burning ears and eyes that see differently, as if cross-eyed.
A week ago, as we sat in worship, praying and singing, lifting up the story of Jephthah from the Book of Judges (That Book, where every man did what he ever he thought without consideration for others) and Matthew's Parable of the Talents, someone snuck into the Church and began rifling through cabinets. When confronted they left. On Friday night in the dark before Saturday's dawn, someone broke in to rob the Church with a pry-bar and hammer, a thief in the night they went through every drawer of every office, the pastor's desks, the Christian Educator's, the Music Directors, the Church Office, even the Music Festival's, the Collective Youth and BOCES'. Files, computers, checks, they had no desire for, they were looking to take money from this House of God. Your offerings and donations, they broke in and stole.
How easy it would be to feel violated, to feel righteous indignation, to seek vengeance and vindication. And yet, we must consider, “How desperate must someone have been to break into a Church as a thief in the night to steal from the charitable donation of others?” A few weeks ago, the first Sunday in October, another Church in our area, had set out the bread for World Communion and when they came in of Sunday morning someone had come in and eaten every crumb. While many in that church were indignant that someone had dared consume their Sacrament, others named that the person must have been truly in need to have broken and eaten that bread.
The Village Police and County Sheriff, as well as Our staff were marvelous, coming in on a Saturday, spending countless hours, putting things back to right, filling our reports.
A frustrating compromise was that because the Church was now a Crime Scene and evidence had to be gathered, those who had come for the Fellowship of Scrap-booking, volunteers for Dickens, those coming for Yoga and meditation, all had to be sent away, rescheduled for another day, or another location. An immediate fear was that people would complain about the church turning them away, yet the most telling response was from a young woman who stared incredulous as if wounded to her heart saying “But who could do this to the Church, you are the Church whose doors are open to all, who make everything you have available for others. How could someone use a hammer and crowbar to break-in to steal from the Church?”
In the midst of all the disarray and violation, A member stopped in to express concern and to share that his father had been helping someone, when he was rushed to the hospital and was now in ICU. Another of the young couples who had been married here, emailed to say that the bride's grandfather had died. Yesterday afternoon, we had a wedding at The Lodge, and also worked to help a church find a new pastor. Our life and ministries go on, but how must it affect a person's soul to have violated a church?
Would that we could separate good and evil, right and wrong, as easy as black and white, in the parable of the Last Judgement, Jesus easily separates the sheep from the goats, not only because a shepherd can recognize their own, but literally because Syrian Goats are black and Syrian Sheep are white. According to the vision of Plato's Republic, a person's soul bears all the marks of what transpired throughout their life, scars of battles, wounds from wrongs, but while we may ignore these in ourselves, only God can see them in others.
The Post-Modern World we populate is a confluence of Modern Rationalism, knowing cause and effect, possibly knowing secrets of the world, humanity was never supposed to learn; and an Ethical Mysticism, believing there are absolutes of right and wrong, and if we could block out all the distractions we could orient ourselves to the Feng Sui of what is good; as well as a Narcissistic Psycho-social Subjectivity that makes excuses for our own life and decisions, where we know what is right and wrong but we suspend judgement because this is our child and our desires; one of the elements that it is difficult for us to have room for is an image of God as Judge, of Jesus sitting upon a throne as we kneel.
How odd that we come to faith demanding MIRACLES. We want to pray at the end of November for blue skies to appear, flowers to burst from the ground and within our next fifteen minutes for trees to come to full leaf. Yet, that will begin in about four or five months, witnessing the trees coming to bud and leafing over fifteen days instead of fifteen minutes we become too comfortable, too familiar, we take for granted MIRACLES beside us.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' HUMILITY, born in a stable, a world that had no room for God, for love, for compassion.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' TEACHINGS, the Good Shepherd calling willing disciples, teaching in parable, naming the power of the Widow's mite.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' SUFFERING on the Cross, and being uncomfortable with death we quickly jump to Easter Morning's RESURRECTION. But the historic understanding throughout ALL of Scripture is that Jesus took off the DIVINITY of being God, so as to be human for us, and after death took that Divinity up Again, so that the very one who lay in the manger, who healed the lame and the blind and had compassion for the poor, is the one who sits in judgment.
The amazing odd nature of Jesus' own description of the Last Judgment is that no where does he suggest that ALL THOSE WHO HAVE CONFESSED the NAME OF JESUS, or ALL THOSE BAPTIZED, not A MATTER OF COLOR, or RACE or CREED, not even of RELIGION, not of AFFLUENCE or POVERTY or SEXUALITY, not even of ever having SINNED, But only whether we have done kindness acted with mercy to another.
We are headed into a season not only of cold and snow that has already come. We are entering into a season of holidays. We pray that this season, rather than being consumed by shopping and outdoing our mothers in baking, we could recognize those all around us. If in this week of Thanksgiving, we could take our brother aside and instead of pinching them, or putting them down, we could find a word of forgiveness of kindness. Instead of worrying about whether Grandma will take out her teeth at the Thanksgiving Table, we could in the midst of this life be thankful to be have another year with them.
Matthew 25: 31-46
The sermon that I had written for this morning, we will use at another time, for yesterday events transpired that cause us to hear this word with burning ears and eyes that see differently, as if cross-eyed.
A week ago, as we sat in worship, praying and singing, lifting up the story of Jephthah from the Book of Judges (That Book, where every man did what he ever he thought without consideration for others) and Matthew's Parable of the Talents, someone snuck into the Church and began rifling through cabinets. When confronted they left. On Friday night in the dark before Saturday's dawn, someone broke in to rob the Church with a pry-bar and hammer, a thief in the night they went through every drawer of every office, the pastor's desks, the Christian Educator's, the Music Directors, the Church Office, even the Music Festival's, the Collective Youth and BOCES'. Files, computers, checks, they had no desire for, they were looking to take money from this House of God. Your offerings and donations, they broke in and stole.
How easy it would be to feel violated, to feel righteous indignation, to seek vengeance and vindication. And yet, we must consider, “How desperate must someone have been to break into a Church as a thief in the night to steal from the charitable donation of others?” A few weeks ago, the first Sunday in October, another Church in our area, had set out the bread for World Communion and when they came in of Sunday morning someone had come in and eaten every crumb. While many in that church were indignant that someone had dared consume their Sacrament, others named that the person must have been truly in need to have broken and eaten that bread.
The Village Police and County Sheriff, as well as Our staff were marvelous, coming in on a Saturday, spending countless hours, putting things back to right, filling our reports.
A frustrating compromise was that because the Church was now a Crime Scene and evidence had to be gathered, those who had come for the Fellowship of Scrap-booking, volunteers for Dickens, those coming for Yoga and meditation, all had to be sent away, rescheduled for another day, or another location. An immediate fear was that people would complain about the church turning them away, yet the most telling response was from a young woman who stared incredulous as if wounded to her heart saying “But who could do this to the Church, you are the Church whose doors are open to all, who make everything you have available for others. How could someone use a hammer and crowbar to break-in to steal from the Church?”
In the midst of all the disarray and violation, A member stopped in to express concern and to share that his father had been helping someone, when he was rushed to the hospital and was now in ICU. Another of the young couples who had been married here, emailed to say that the bride's grandfather had died. Yesterday afternoon, we had a wedding at The Lodge, and also worked to help a church find a new pastor. Our life and ministries go on, but how must it affect a person's soul to have violated a church?
Would that we could separate good and evil, right and wrong, as easy as black and white, in the parable of the Last Judgement, Jesus easily separates the sheep from the goats, not only because a shepherd can recognize their own, but literally because Syrian Goats are black and Syrian Sheep are white. According to the vision of Plato's Republic, a person's soul bears all the marks of what transpired throughout their life, scars of battles, wounds from wrongs, but while we may ignore these in ourselves, only God can see them in others.
The Post-Modern World we populate is a confluence of Modern Rationalism, knowing cause and effect, possibly knowing secrets of the world, humanity was never supposed to learn; and an Ethical Mysticism, believing there are absolutes of right and wrong, and if we could block out all the distractions we could orient ourselves to the Feng Sui of what is good; as well as a Narcissistic Psycho-social Subjectivity that makes excuses for our own life and decisions, where we know what is right and wrong but we suspend judgement because this is our child and our desires; one of the elements that it is difficult for us to have room for is an image of God as Judge, of Jesus sitting upon a throne as we kneel.
How odd that we come to faith demanding MIRACLES. We want to pray at the end of November for blue skies to appear, flowers to burst from the ground and within our next fifteen minutes for trees to come to full leaf. Yet, that will begin in about four or five months, witnessing the trees coming to bud and leafing over fifteen days instead of fifteen minutes we become too comfortable, too familiar, we take for granted MIRACLES beside us.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' HUMILITY, born in a stable, a world that had no room for God, for love, for compassion.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' TEACHINGS, the Good Shepherd calling willing disciples, teaching in parable, naming the power of the Widow's mite.
We have grown comfortable, familiar with Jesus' SUFFERING on the Cross, and being uncomfortable with death we quickly jump to Easter Morning's RESURRECTION. But the historic understanding throughout ALL of Scripture is that Jesus took off the DIVINITY of being God, so as to be human for us, and after death took that Divinity up Again, so that the very one who lay in the manger, who healed the lame and the blind and had compassion for the poor, is the one who sits in judgment.
The amazing odd nature of Jesus' own description of the Last Judgment is that no where does he suggest that ALL THOSE WHO HAVE CONFESSED the NAME OF JESUS, or ALL THOSE BAPTIZED, not A MATTER OF COLOR, or RACE or CREED, not even of RELIGION, not of AFFLUENCE or POVERTY or SEXUALITY, not even of ever having SINNED, But only whether we have done kindness acted with mercy to another.
We are headed into a season not only of cold and snow that has already come. We are entering into a season of holidays. We pray that this season, rather than being consumed by shopping and outdoing our mothers in baking, we could recognize those all around us. If in this week of Thanksgiving, we could take our brother aside and instead of pinching them, or putting them down, we could find a word of forgiveness of kindness. Instead of worrying about whether Grandma will take out her teeth at the Thanksgiving Table, we could in the midst of this life be thankful to be have another year with them.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Undercut by Fear November 16, 2008
Judges 11:29-40
Matthew 25: 14-30
A few years ago, a minister colleague asked me to sum up what CHRISTIAN FAITH is all about as briefly as possible, in Layman's Terms, without all the Theological Language. Would you describe faith as MORALITY? How could you describe the INCARNATION OF CREATOR as Messiah, explain GRACE, SIN, RESURRECTION, REDEMPTION, COVENANT, SACRIFICE? Instead, for me, my response is REBUILDING TRUST.
In this life, our expectations are rarely fulfilled.
Broken dreams make it hard to RISK to trust, to hope, to believe.
Despite the hype of this community, parents do not give us everything, when we desire. The job we thought we had, becomes something far different.
The President flew to an AirCraft Carrier off shore in the Middle-East and declared Victory! after 6 weeks, in a war that has gone on now for six more years.
Regardless of how attractive and virile we were when we first fell in love, in spite of all the promises, we did not shower our love with riches and praises, and make their lives a fairy-tale every single day of their lives.
God did not give us everything we imagined, there have been times we have been angry.
We have failed to live up to our own promises and dreams, to ourselves and to the world.
ACKNOWLEDGING the reality of Promises broken, of dreams unfulfilled, TRUSTing anew appears extra-ordinary. REBUILDING TRUST becomes an act of Faith.
Over the last eighty years, our trust has been shifted from beliefs, promises, affections, to what we could earn, purchase, what we could own, master and control on our terms. After repeated disappointments, we put our trust in ourselves and our abilities, building up for ourselves private worlds, measured by belongings, property, accomplishments, our money. HOWEVER, the current crises, whether named the Housing Crisis, Borrowing, Lending or Credit Crisis, are again failures of our ability to TRUST. Fear makes it seem impossible to trust the Banks, to trust the Government, to trust the Market.
Our FEARS UNDERCUT, scars and wounds make it difficult to risk and to believe.
It was to such a world as this, that Jesus gave the PARABLE of the TALENTS. Luke's Gospel tells a similar account, but the TALENTS is memorable for the Parable's extravagance, as well as the Pun, that A TALENT Refers to our ABILITIES as well as having been a unit of money.
At other times, we have described the payment of a Laborer for a full day's work was a coin called a DENARIUS, and another unit of Currency was a TALENT the equivalent of 6,000 Denarii. We often become stuck in this story, by the unfair starting point that one received 5 another 2 and the focus of the parable is the one who received only one talent. The fact of the matter is that we do not all have the same talents, or the same number of talents, some through birth, through education, by what ever means have received more than others. STILL, the parable invites us to recognize that, while we are amazed by the talents of the Stone Masons and Artisans of the great Cathedrals, the faith and culture of the Great Reformers and Great Masters, there were ditch-diggers who broke the soil and cleared the way, who laid foundations deep down beneath that no one will ever see, whose humble singular talent holds up the talents of these others.
Furthermore, at 6,000 times a day's wage, that single TALENT was trusting a slave with the equivalent of a Quarter of a Million Dollars. Yet, this one could not see the TRUST given. His life was so UNDERCUT by FEAR that he acted in fear.
With finance there have always been THREE POSSIBILITIES, you can Spend, you can Invest, or you can Save. As a people, the current generation have excelled at Spending, believing in Middle Class Affluence that we could all have the dream of fulfilling all our desires, we also Invested; what we have not done well is to SAVE and to teach saving. The Master names that Saving would have been the simplest return on an investment, the means of holding and preserving value. What the Slave was afraid of, was losing what had been trusted to him. BUT that is the point of TRUST. If we are afraid, our FEARS so undercut our abilities, we bury our trust, we bury our abilities, our Talents, and our faith is dead to us.
If we were to have that Coin, that represented a TALENT today, we would need to inscribe upon one side ABILITY, for that is what a Talent is. And on the other-side RESPONSE, for that is what a Talent does. So that taken together as one, we would see that our abilities empower us to respond, and RESPONDING WITH our ABILITIES builds greater and greater RESPONSIBILITY. To those to whom much has been given, much will be required. Our Talents are not possessions. Our Talents cannot be returned for a refund unused. A Talent Buried by fear is not SAVED, but Lost, where all we can do is grind our teeth over opportunities lost outside the limelight, living in the shadows.
But the MIRACLE of FAITH is that even when we believe we are lost, still God Trusts us and gives us possibilities for REBUILDING TRUST.
Describing the Book of Judges to the Confirmation Class, I usually name this as the STEVEN KING Portion of the Bible. These are among the most gruesome horrific of tales ever written, of rape and assassination, of power and corruption. While gruesome and horrific, the tales in the Book of Judges are not far different from our Newspaper Headlines. Each one beginning and ending with the phrase “For every man did what he thought was right in his own heart, and when they were convinced of their sins they repented asking God's forgiveness.”
Jephthah is the story of a man who like us has a personal life and professional life, intertwined. As every name has a meaning, “Jephthah” refers to “OPENING THE MOUTH” and it is upon the words spoken, rather than the thoughts of his heart, or the actions of his life, that this story hangs. Jephthah was a throw away of society. He was an orphan, not of war or AIDS, Jephthah's mother appears to have been a prostitute, his father was unknown among all the men she had been with. After having survived to adolescence, Jephthah was rejected by everyone, and developed a talent for killing. Then came a time of war, when his TALENT was desired. The people came to him and offered whatever he desired, if Jephthah would lead the people. In one battle after another, Jephthah was the winner. But as he approaches the final battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah's faith in his own ability is undercut by fear. JEPHTHAH's VOW is not like ELIJAH's who after destroying all the priests of BAAL WORSHIP, runs to the Cave of Moses and asks God whether He, Elijah had done these things or whether God had done them through him, and God in a still small voice says “What are you doing here Elijah.” NO, Jephthah is so filled with Fear and desire to kill his enemy, Jephthah makes a foolish FAITHLESS VOW to make a sacrifice of whatever first greets him representing home. He imagines sacrificing a Pheasant, or a Lamb, even a Heifer, or a Slave. He goes into battle, and wins, without knowing that TO WIN IS TO LOSE. As he goes home, his only child, the one that represents love and home and life to him, rushes to greet him. The height of irony is that what he had been fighting, what the Ammonites represented, was a society that believed in child sacrifice, and having opened his mouth to swear he would kill something of home if he could kill this people, he was faced with his own daughter.
This is a cautionary tale of concern for those returning from war, who cannot leave the killing on the battlefield. This is a Cautionary Tale for us all, that our work, our PROFESSIONAL LIVES ooze out into our personal. But even more, this is a story of whether our faith is in God, or only in our fears.
Having placed such great TRUST in OUR INVESTMENTS, our Faith in our Money and our ability to WIN, we now live in a world very much afraid, UNDERCUT by FEAR. As much as we show up for work, and for meetings, to sing in the choir, to be part of our families, our FEARS ooze out.
Would that Jephthah had made a different vow. Would that we could stop in the midst of all our fears, the bills and news all around us, and confess “LORD, I am afraid. The world is too much with us. But you have trusted us with these abilities, trusted us with Talents, empower us to RESPOND, to use the Talents gifted us for your service.”
Because of the killing of his daughter, before she ever came of age, Jephthah is not remembered in the great lineages. Jephthah's un-named daughter, we can never forget.
Jephthah is remembered for the story that follows. Each of the Tribes of Israel were named after one of the sons of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel. Among these sons of Jacob was Joseph, Governor of Egypt for the Pharaohs. When Israel left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, the descendants of Joseph were identified by the names of his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. Throughout the history of settling in the land the tribe of Ephraimites were forever in tension with the rest of the nation of Israel, sometimes allies, sometimes adversaries, dependent upon the faith and trust and leadership of the Judges. After killing his own, Jephthah wages war against the Ephraimites. The difficulty is how do you tell the difference between one people and another who both are descended from Israel? Jephthah makes up a word, a foreign word, the Ephraimites will not be able to pronounce, SHOBOLETH. When the Ephraimites attempted to pronounce SHIBBOLETH they instead lisp and opening their mouths differently pronounce SIBOLETH, for which Jephthah put to death 42,000 of the Ephraimite tribe of the nation of Israel. Generations later, the descendants of Ephraimites were conquered and intermarried with another people and this new people are called Samaritans. To this day, to PRONOUNCE SHIBBOLETH is to Risk speaking truth, to risk being misunderstood by those who fear.
Matthew 25: 14-30
A few years ago, a minister colleague asked me to sum up what CHRISTIAN FAITH is all about as briefly as possible, in Layman's Terms, without all the Theological Language. Would you describe faith as MORALITY? How could you describe the INCARNATION OF CREATOR as Messiah, explain GRACE, SIN, RESURRECTION, REDEMPTION, COVENANT, SACRIFICE? Instead, for me, my response is REBUILDING TRUST.
In this life, our expectations are rarely fulfilled.
Broken dreams make it hard to RISK to trust, to hope, to believe.
Despite the hype of this community, parents do not give us everything, when we desire. The job we thought we had, becomes something far different.
The President flew to an AirCraft Carrier off shore in the Middle-East and declared Victory! after 6 weeks, in a war that has gone on now for six more years.
Regardless of how attractive and virile we were when we first fell in love, in spite of all the promises, we did not shower our love with riches and praises, and make their lives a fairy-tale every single day of their lives.
God did not give us everything we imagined, there have been times we have been angry.
We have failed to live up to our own promises and dreams, to ourselves and to the world.
ACKNOWLEDGING the reality of Promises broken, of dreams unfulfilled, TRUSTing anew appears extra-ordinary. REBUILDING TRUST becomes an act of Faith.
Over the last eighty years, our trust has been shifted from beliefs, promises, affections, to what we could earn, purchase, what we could own, master and control on our terms. After repeated disappointments, we put our trust in ourselves and our abilities, building up for ourselves private worlds, measured by belongings, property, accomplishments, our money. HOWEVER, the current crises, whether named the Housing Crisis, Borrowing, Lending or Credit Crisis, are again failures of our ability to TRUST. Fear makes it seem impossible to trust the Banks, to trust the Government, to trust the Market.
Our FEARS UNDERCUT, scars and wounds make it difficult to risk and to believe.
It was to such a world as this, that Jesus gave the PARABLE of the TALENTS. Luke's Gospel tells a similar account, but the TALENTS is memorable for the Parable's extravagance, as well as the Pun, that A TALENT Refers to our ABILITIES as well as having been a unit of money.
At other times, we have described the payment of a Laborer for a full day's work was a coin called a DENARIUS, and another unit of Currency was a TALENT the equivalent of 6,000 Denarii. We often become stuck in this story, by the unfair starting point that one received 5 another 2 and the focus of the parable is the one who received only one talent. The fact of the matter is that we do not all have the same talents, or the same number of talents, some through birth, through education, by what ever means have received more than others. STILL, the parable invites us to recognize that, while we are amazed by the talents of the Stone Masons and Artisans of the great Cathedrals, the faith and culture of the Great Reformers and Great Masters, there were ditch-diggers who broke the soil and cleared the way, who laid foundations deep down beneath that no one will ever see, whose humble singular talent holds up the talents of these others.
Furthermore, at 6,000 times a day's wage, that single TALENT was trusting a slave with the equivalent of a Quarter of a Million Dollars. Yet, this one could not see the TRUST given. His life was so UNDERCUT by FEAR that he acted in fear.
With finance there have always been THREE POSSIBILITIES, you can Spend, you can Invest, or you can Save. As a people, the current generation have excelled at Spending, believing in Middle Class Affluence that we could all have the dream of fulfilling all our desires, we also Invested; what we have not done well is to SAVE and to teach saving. The Master names that Saving would have been the simplest return on an investment, the means of holding and preserving value. What the Slave was afraid of, was losing what had been trusted to him. BUT that is the point of TRUST. If we are afraid, our FEARS so undercut our abilities, we bury our trust, we bury our abilities, our Talents, and our faith is dead to us.
If we were to have that Coin, that represented a TALENT today, we would need to inscribe upon one side ABILITY, for that is what a Talent is. And on the other-side RESPONSE, for that is what a Talent does. So that taken together as one, we would see that our abilities empower us to respond, and RESPONDING WITH our ABILITIES builds greater and greater RESPONSIBILITY. To those to whom much has been given, much will be required. Our Talents are not possessions. Our Talents cannot be returned for a refund unused. A Talent Buried by fear is not SAVED, but Lost, where all we can do is grind our teeth over opportunities lost outside the limelight, living in the shadows.
But the MIRACLE of FAITH is that even when we believe we are lost, still God Trusts us and gives us possibilities for REBUILDING TRUST.
Describing the Book of Judges to the Confirmation Class, I usually name this as the STEVEN KING Portion of the Bible. These are among the most gruesome horrific of tales ever written, of rape and assassination, of power and corruption. While gruesome and horrific, the tales in the Book of Judges are not far different from our Newspaper Headlines. Each one beginning and ending with the phrase “For every man did what he thought was right in his own heart, and when they were convinced of their sins they repented asking God's forgiveness.”
Jephthah is the story of a man who like us has a personal life and professional life, intertwined. As every name has a meaning, “Jephthah” refers to “OPENING THE MOUTH” and it is upon the words spoken, rather than the thoughts of his heart, or the actions of his life, that this story hangs. Jephthah was a throw away of society. He was an orphan, not of war or AIDS, Jephthah's mother appears to have been a prostitute, his father was unknown among all the men she had been with. After having survived to adolescence, Jephthah was rejected by everyone, and developed a talent for killing. Then came a time of war, when his TALENT was desired. The people came to him and offered whatever he desired, if Jephthah would lead the people. In one battle after another, Jephthah was the winner. But as he approaches the final battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah's faith in his own ability is undercut by fear. JEPHTHAH's VOW is not like ELIJAH's who after destroying all the priests of BAAL WORSHIP, runs to the Cave of Moses and asks God whether He, Elijah had done these things or whether God had done them through him, and God in a still small voice says “What are you doing here Elijah.” NO, Jephthah is so filled with Fear and desire to kill his enemy, Jephthah makes a foolish FAITHLESS VOW to make a sacrifice of whatever first greets him representing home. He imagines sacrificing a Pheasant, or a Lamb, even a Heifer, or a Slave. He goes into battle, and wins, without knowing that TO WIN IS TO LOSE. As he goes home, his only child, the one that represents love and home and life to him, rushes to greet him. The height of irony is that what he had been fighting, what the Ammonites represented, was a society that believed in child sacrifice, and having opened his mouth to swear he would kill something of home if he could kill this people, he was faced with his own daughter.
This is a cautionary tale of concern for those returning from war, who cannot leave the killing on the battlefield. This is a Cautionary Tale for us all, that our work, our PROFESSIONAL LIVES ooze out into our personal. But even more, this is a story of whether our faith is in God, or only in our fears.
Having placed such great TRUST in OUR INVESTMENTS, our Faith in our Money and our ability to WIN, we now live in a world very much afraid, UNDERCUT by FEAR. As much as we show up for work, and for meetings, to sing in the choir, to be part of our families, our FEARS ooze out.
Would that Jephthah had made a different vow. Would that we could stop in the midst of all our fears, the bills and news all around us, and confess “LORD, I am afraid. The world is too much with us. But you have trusted us with these abilities, trusted us with Talents, empower us to RESPOND, to use the Talents gifted us for your service.”
Because of the killing of his daughter, before she ever came of age, Jephthah is not remembered in the great lineages. Jephthah's un-named daughter, we can never forget.
Jephthah is remembered for the story that follows. Each of the Tribes of Israel were named after one of the sons of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel. Among these sons of Jacob was Joseph, Governor of Egypt for the Pharaohs. When Israel left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, the descendants of Joseph were identified by the names of his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. Throughout the history of settling in the land the tribe of Ephraimites were forever in tension with the rest of the nation of Israel, sometimes allies, sometimes adversaries, dependent upon the faith and trust and leadership of the Judges. After killing his own, Jephthah wages war against the Ephraimites. The difficulty is how do you tell the difference between one people and another who both are descended from Israel? Jephthah makes up a word, a foreign word, the Ephraimites will not be able to pronounce, SHOBOLETH. When the Ephraimites attempted to pronounce SHIBBOLETH they instead lisp and opening their mouths differently pronounce SIBOLETH, for which Jephthah put to death 42,000 of the Ephraimite tribe of the nation of Israel. Generations later, the descendants of Ephraimites were conquered and intermarried with another people and this new people are called Samaritans. To this day, to PRONOUNCE SHIBBOLETH is to Risk speaking truth, to risk being misunderstood by those who fear.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The End of Apathy November 9, 2008
Joshua 24:1-4, 14-25
Matthew 25:1-13
On Election Day, Veteran Commentator Tom Brokaw, used this phrase to describe the mood of the Nation, the mood of the World...THE END OF APATHY.
As much as we harken to images of Pilgrims and Washington at Valley Forge, within our memories, We are a People that out of the embers of Depression forged new industry in Agriculture and Steel. This is a people that in time of War and Oppression took up arms and sacrificed, not only of rubber and luxuries, but of our own sons and daughters. Out of that time, we became a Nation of new Ideals, Hopes and Dreams, which on a day in Dallas in November were killed. And if the assassination of our President were not enough, this was followed with the killing of Martin Luther King and another Candidate for the Presidency. The killing of idealism, hopes and dreams, in VietNam and Watergate and one scandal upon another. Like Joshua, we claim identity as a people who have wandered in the wilderness for forty years. There have been great accomplishments, the landing and return of men on the moon, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, the End of Apartheid. But the history making event of this week, was not only the electing of the first President from Hawaiian descent, but a record number of our Countrymen going to the Polls to exercise their responsibility for an end to Apathy.
Forty-Four Million Americans cast their ballots even before Election day. And another Hundred Million People made their decision in the next sixteen hours. The point is not whether you voted for this candidate or that, whether your party won this time or not, but that after a long season of apathy and complaint, people exercised their right to choose. Flipping a little lever, pulling a handle made not be as dramatic as standing before the Nation to declare “CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE, AS FOR ME and MY HOUSE WE CHOOSE THE LORD!” But Joshua's point, and that of Jesus in this Parable, are that THE END OF APATHY does not come in singular acts of commitment, but throughout a life.
Jesus compares The Kingdom of God to a Wedding. With the Bernazzani's second child's first birthday this morning, we remember her parents wedding and the beginning of the Act of Giving Your Hands in Marriage; and the giving of a Rose for times of stating our Commitment, that I Love You, I Forgive You; but also in A Wedding we declare to one and all, that while this day, this act of Commitment is the fulfillment of all your plans and ideas, hopes and dreams, the end of separate lives and the beginning of marriage, A WEDDING is the first day of a life of commitment, a life of sharing, no matter what.
In telling the parable, Jesus names some as Wise and some as Fools. All the Bridesmaids know it is a Wedding, they all come out with their lamps to greet the ones coming. All the Bridesmaids fall asleep, because the return is much later than any expected, and in the darkest part of our night. BUT some were prepared for a long night of waiting with deep reservoirs to draw from no matter how long it takes, and others were not.
This is a PARABLE and not AN ALLEGORY, for an Allegory has every element represent something else, and a Parable only needs to emphasize a conviction, a single point. The oil represents commitment, a depth of resolve that permits making a SACRIFICE of ALL one has. We want to read into this, shouting “But as Christians should the ones with oil not share with those who ran out?” But the point of this as a PARABLE is that if you and your neighbor each were asked to sacrifice what is most dear to you, how could your neighbor loan you what you would sacrifice? First you have to go and find what what you care about and are committed to.
Our culture no longer understands the word “SACRIFICE”, let alone the idea. We imagine giving a single canned good, cleaning out the spoilage from our pantry, or the loose coins from our pocket for the Salvation Army, as SACRIFICE. A Sacrifice is not something you can buy, not something you can earn, not a thing for a shelf, not made by simply showing up for life, or by putting in your time even in so noble a cause as the military, or a political campaign, or earning a living by inventing a cure for baldness. A SACRIFICE is not measured in value, or size. SACRIFICE come to us, from the simple pure understanding that God loved the World so Much, God Gave us God's Only Begotten Son. God traded being God for being one with us, having the miracle we take for granted, LIFE: breathing, witnessing the world around us as part of Creation, sharing and loving others, and as precious as that life, God gave God's own life for us.
Joshua makes the point, the people misunderstood in the Ten Commandments... GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD. Do not make this Commitment, if you are not prepared to follow through. Like us, the people declare, WE BELIEVE. To hold the people accountable, Joshua asks if they will be witnesses for one another, and the people say “We DO!” Then Joshua takes up a Rock, saying MAY THIS ROCK BE A WITNESS! And like us, some scoff, “How can a rock be a witness?” But as someone had inscribed on a rock for me at a birthday this summer, “FIFTY YEARS IS NOT A LONG TIME IF YOU ARE A ROCK!”
I love old movies, not just the ones from the 1970s or the 50s, but the Classic old Black and Whites. The other day, I came across a Gary Cooper Film: “MEET JOHN DOE”, not John Dau, but John Doe. While a Romance, and Political Intrigue, the film centers upon a man, a common ordinary outofwork John Doe. The story is that this man is so sick of AMERICA'S APATHY, our INHUMANITY, at Midnight on Christmas Eve, he would throw himself off a building as a protest. We live in a small town, why is it we hardly know our neighbors, walking passed them, resenting their being in our way? John Doe describes what a powerful force the John Does of this world would be, if they all decided to not be APATHETIC any longer, to take an interest in one another, to care about each other. You could not pick a John Doe out of the Crowd, that is the whole point, a John Doe is every common person, the shop keeper, the one who reads our electric meter, the lady in the cafeteria lunch line, each one doing their part in this world. What if, instead of ignoring each other, passing by one another as common, we reached out to one another, took an interest in them as precious.
As a congregation, we are blessed, blessed not only to be free of debt, to have a marvelous music program, to have this church as a center for community life, to have witnessed miracles throughout this year, but blessed to have the opportunity to baptize so many each year. AND Occasionally, to stop as we do so to recognize and remember what we have committed to do. For a Baptism is not simply the parents and the Pastor, but the whole congregation, every one of us committing to pray for this child of God.
On this Veteran's Weekend, I recall a time a few years ago, where we handed a baptized baby to a Special Forces Green Beret and asked him to carry the child as we vowed to pray for this child of God, and another who was going to prison who also carried the child as we vowed to pray for them. This child this day, could have been born in a war zone, like his parents before him. He could have been born in a world without any of the infrastructure we take for granted. It is ironic, that what we have been trying to do at the Clinic this year, what all the foundations around us in this community are working towards is establishing and building “SUSTAINABILITY”. To transition from a brilliant idea, to an on-going commitment that will self-generate for generations to come. We live in a time in human history, where the old infrastructure needs to be replaced, where old institutions no longer match our needs. Like Edison and Henry Ford, we are challenged to create new ideas, to forge new commitments, not simply for today, but to change the world for all time to come.
Usually around our house, I check with my spouse and kids before making a monumental decision, but in this case, like Joshua before me: “As for me and my household, we will choose the Lord!”
Matthew 25:1-13
On Election Day, Veteran Commentator Tom Brokaw, used this phrase to describe the mood of the Nation, the mood of the World...THE END OF APATHY.
As much as we harken to images of Pilgrims and Washington at Valley Forge, within our memories, We are a People that out of the embers of Depression forged new industry in Agriculture and Steel. This is a people that in time of War and Oppression took up arms and sacrificed, not only of rubber and luxuries, but of our own sons and daughters. Out of that time, we became a Nation of new Ideals, Hopes and Dreams, which on a day in Dallas in November were killed. And if the assassination of our President were not enough, this was followed with the killing of Martin Luther King and another Candidate for the Presidency. The killing of idealism, hopes and dreams, in VietNam and Watergate and one scandal upon another. Like Joshua, we claim identity as a people who have wandered in the wilderness for forty years. There have been great accomplishments, the landing and return of men on the moon, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, the End of Apartheid. But the history making event of this week, was not only the electing of the first President from Hawaiian descent, but a record number of our Countrymen going to the Polls to exercise their responsibility for an end to Apathy.
Forty-Four Million Americans cast their ballots even before Election day. And another Hundred Million People made their decision in the next sixteen hours. The point is not whether you voted for this candidate or that, whether your party won this time or not, but that after a long season of apathy and complaint, people exercised their right to choose. Flipping a little lever, pulling a handle made not be as dramatic as standing before the Nation to declare “CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE, AS FOR ME and MY HOUSE WE CHOOSE THE LORD!” But Joshua's point, and that of Jesus in this Parable, are that THE END OF APATHY does not come in singular acts of commitment, but throughout a life.
Jesus compares The Kingdom of God to a Wedding. With the Bernazzani's second child's first birthday this morning, we remember her parents wedding and the beginning of the Act of Giving Your Hands in Marriage; and the giving of a Rose for times of stating our Commitment, that I Love You, I Forgive You; but also in A Wedding we declare to one and all, that while this day, this act of Commitment is the fulfillment of all your plans and ideas, hopes and dreams, the end of separate lives and the beginning of marriage, A WEDDING is the first day of a life of commitment, a life of sharing, no matter what.
In telling the parable, Jesus names some as Wise and some as Fools. All the Bridesmaids know it is a Wedding, they all come out with their lamps to greet the ones coming. All the Bridesmaids fall asleep, because the return is much later than any expected, and in the darkest part of our night. BUT some were prepared for a long night of waiting with deep reservoirs to draw from no matter how long it takes, and others were not.
This is a PARABLE and not AN ALLEGORY, for an Allegory has every element represent something else, and a Parable only needs to emphasize a conviction, a single point. The oil represents commitment, a depth of resolve that permits making a SACRIFICE of ALL one has. We want to read into this, shouting “But as Christians should the ones with oil not share with those who ran out?” But the point of this as a PARABLE is that if you and your neighbor each were asked to sacrifice what is most dear to you, how could your neighbor loan you what you would sacrifice? First you have to go and find what what you care about and are committed to.
Our culture no longer understands the word “SACRIFICE”, let alone the idea. We imagine giving a single canned good, cleaning out the spoilage from our pantry, or the loose coins from our pocket for the Salvation Army, as SACRIFICE. A Sacrifice is not something you can buy, not something you can earn, not a thing for a shelf, not made by simply showing up for life, or by putting in your time even in so noble a cause as the military, or a political campaign, or earning a living by inventing a cure for baldness. A SACRIFICE is not measured in value, or size. SACRIFICE come to us, from the simple pure understanding that God loved the World so Much, God Gave us God's Only Begotten Son. God traded being God for being one with us, having the miracle we take for granted, LIFE: breathing, witnessing the world around us as part of Creation, sharing and loving others, and as precious as that life, God gave God's own life for us.
Joshua makes the point, the people misunderstood in the Ten Commandments... GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD. Do not make this Commitment, if you are not prepared to follow through. Like us, the people declare, WE BELIEVE. To hold the people accountable, Joshua asks if they will be witnesses for one another, and the people say “We DO!” Then Joshua takes up a Rock, saying MAY THIS ROCK BE A WITNESS! And like us, some scoff, “How can a rock be a witness?” But as someone had inscribed on a rock for me at a birthday this summer, “FIFTY YEARS IS NOT A LONG TIME IF YOU ARE A ROCK!”
I love old movies, not just the ones from the 1970s or the 50s, but the Classic old Black and Whites. The other day, I came across a Gary Cooper Film: “MEET JOHN DOE”, not John Dau, but John Doe. While a Romance, and Political Intrigue, the film centers upon a man, a common ordinary outofwork John Doe. The story is that this man is so sick of AMERICA'S APATHY, our INHUMANITY, at Midnight on Christmas Eve, he would throw himself off a building as a protest. We live in a small town, why is it we hardly know our neighbors, walking passed them, resenting their being in our way? John Doe describes what a powerful force the John Does of this world would be, if they all decided to not be APATHETIC any longer, to take an interest in one another, to care about each other. You could not pick a John Doe out of the Crowd, that is the whole point, a John Doe is every common person, the shop keeper, the one who reads our electric meter, the lady in the cafeteria lunch line, each one doing their part in this world. What if, instead of ignoring each other, passing by one another as common, we reached out to one another, took an interest in them as precious.
As a congregation, we are blessed, blessed not only to be free of debt, to have a marvelous music program, to have this church as a center for community life, to have witnessed miracles throughout this year, but blessed to have the opportunity to baptize so many each year. AND Occasionally, to stop as we do so to recognize and remember what we have committed to do. For a Baptism is not simply the parents and the Pastor, but the whole congregation, every one of us committing to pray for this child of God.
On this Veteran's Weekend, I recall a time a few years ago, where we handed a baptized baby to a Special Forces Green Beret and asked him to carry the child as we vowed to pray for this child of God, and another who was going to prison who also carried the child as we vowed to pray for them. This child this day, could have been born in a war zone, like his parents before him. He could have been born in a world without any of the infrastructure we take for granted. It is ironic, that what we have been trying to do at the Clinic this year, what all the foundations around us in this community are working towards is establishing and building “SUSTAINABILITY”. To transition from a brilliant idea, to an on-going commitment that will self-generate for generations to come. We live in a time in human history, where the old infrastructure needs to be replaced, where old institutions no longer match our needs. Like Edison and Henry Ford, we are challenged to create new ideas, to forge new commitments, not simply for today, but to change the world for all time to come.
Usually around our house, I check with my spouse and kids before making a monumental decision, but in this case, like Joshua before me: “As for me and my household, we will choose the Lord!”
Sunday, November 2, 2008
DETLAXE Backwards, November 2, 2008
Joshua 3:7-17
Matthew 23:1-12
A month ago, the last time we celebrated The Sacrament of Communion we read the account of the people receiving MANNA from God in the wilderness. The people were starving and afraid in a far off foreign wilderness, they cried out to God and had over abundance. That morning, a month ago, we celebrated as we have each year at World Communion passing multiple loaves, and afterward many described that they were offended by the excess of our having so much, too much for what we need to receive. BUT in fact that was the point, the point of that overextended hyperbole... that we do have SO MUCH, too much for what we actually need to receive and rarely do we see it.
I am told that now 60 years after WWII, some 3,000 Veterans are being buried every day, yet each one's life, the stories their lives tell, are unique. As a people of God in this place and time, we are blessed to celebrate a great number of weddings, and a great number of baptisms, and blessed to have to celebrate a relatively few number of funerals, yet each of these, every memorial, every baptism, every wedding, every communion, is unique, even when the couple say exactly the same vows and have the same music, even if they wore the very same dresses, each would be different. This day, as we break bread and hold the cup praying for redemption, the sacrament is the same and different from even a month ago. That was an occasion of GOD's GIFTS OF ABUNDANCE, this day we remember members of our body, of Christ's body, who are part of the spiritual communion no longer physically present with us in life. How MORBID we are, that we envision death as loss, that we grieve and rail against God for taking those dear to us, when part of the wonder of this sacrament is that God gave them to us and shaped our lives through these who loved us, who now are with God in peace.
Like Joshua and the Elders, whom we read this morning crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, in that act and this Sacrament, we recall the crossing of the Red Sea from slavery and oppression begun in economic desperation, to freedom and dependence upon God alone. We have a very human tendency to want to end every story of human life with AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. But the Bible, our life of faith is different, instead of each story ending, each life experience seems to bring us back to appreciate and exalt what God has done, ANEW. In the Ten Commandments, the nation of Israel was given one LAW to NEVER BREAK, “trust God”, and even before Moses had come down the mountain they had made an idol; reminiscent of the Garden and choosing to eat what was forbidden so that we might be in the place of God; we too have tried to imagine our lives apart from God, as if we were God, as if God did not matter. Crossing Jordan, Joshua and the Elders stood with the Covenant as the people passed by on safe dry ground with the raging water standing over against them, and they and we recall how in the Beginning God brooded over the face of Chaos, and called dry land to form from the midst of the waters, how humanity corrupted ourselves and after the flood God began anew, how God did not lead the nation from Oppression and slavery into the Promised Land, but into a wilderness apart, a season of spiritual searching, so as to be able to enter into the Promised Land giving thanks.
We are an ANXIOUS PEOPLE, a people who like to cut to the chase, to turn to the conclusion knowing how the story will end before determining if it is worth our investing time in reading. Like every generation before us, we want to be EXALTED, remembered. To some that means great wealth, to others great property, great number of children and grandchildren, even great grandchildren, yet others to have a great Name, having accomplished powerful deeds, to have our lives honored by being remembered. The media so often sensationalizes how we died, and how rarely how we lived. For the title of this morning's sermon, we spelt the word EXALTED backwards to emphasize the point that seeking to be exalted gets you no where.
Seeking to be Exalted reminds us of the SEVEN DEADLY SINS... Do you recall what these sins were? LUST, ENVY, WRATH, GLUTTONY, SLOTH, GREED and PRIDE. How ironic, that in our culture today, these are such common traits. Oh, we would not claim to aspire to them, but the very definition of
SLOTH is to live a life of ease, without worry or responsibility.
GREED is what we claim brought down Wall Street.
GLUTTONY seems a description of an obese society who satiate our pain by eating food.
From Sex & The City to Desperate Housewives and the Internet, LUST is part of us.
ENVY is all around us.
WRATH seems an apt description of a world at TERRORIST WAR.
Which leaves PRIDE, EXALTING Our Accomplishments, our Name. The subtlety here is that God Exalted Joshua and Israel by holding back Jordan, Joshua did not do this.
How easy it would be to take PRIDE, to be exalted in our accomplishments as a church, as a community, but the truth is, that time and again of our efforts we have run into walls. The very Session Meeting where we were to celebrate the completion of the Middle Building, we discovered the floor joists of the Sanctuary were collapsing.
We shipped all the pieces and every tool we could imagine needing for our building a Clinic in Africa, and the containers were hijacked, lost for weeks. But when the volunteers arrived, suddenly they drove up.
They needed to make concrete and the well ran dry, when God provided a Well Driller.
We did not do these things, we were EXALTED by God to have been able to serve.
This week, we finally go to the POLLS to elect our Nation's and Community's leaders. Too many in this season have given their allegiance to one candidate or another, for a Church to do so would put in jeopardy our tax exempt status, but we would abandon our sacred responsibility of challenging and teaching, and lifting up the voice of Scripture if we did not say:
God has told you, O mortals, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
To be thoughtful voters, we pray to be free from the cacophony of voices that speak to fear, hate and self-interest rather than faith and commonwealth.
To be informed voters, protect us from partisan opinions, half-truths and easy answers.
And when we seat our leaders upon the Judgement Seat, may we follow as they instruct us, for we have placed our trust in their leadership and they in God; yet as has been revealed to us so many times, may we have the wisdom and responsibility to do as they say and not necessarily as they as humans do.
Matthew 23:1-12
A month ago, the last time we celebrated The Sacrament of Communion we read the account of the people receiving MANNA from God in the wilderness. The people were starving and afraid in a far off foreign wilderness, they cried out to God and had over abundance. That morning, a month ago, we celebrated as we have each year at World Communion passing multiple loaves, and afterward many described that they were offended by the excess of our having so much, too much for what we need to receive. BUT in fact that was the point, the point of that overextended hyperbole... that we do have SO MUCH, too much for what we actually need to receive and rarely do we see it.
I am told that now 60 years after WWII, some 3,000 Veterans are being buried every day, yet each one's life, the stories their lives tell, are unique. As a people of God in this place and time, we are blessed to celebrate a great number of weddings, and a great number of baptisms, and blessed to have to celebrate a relatively few number of funerals, yet each of these, every memorial, every baptism, every wedding, every communion, is unique, even when the couple say exactly the same vows and have the same music, even if they wore the very same dresses, each would be different. This day, as we break bread and hold the cup praying for redemption, the sacrament is the same and different from even a month ago. That was an occasion of GOD's GIFTS OF ABUNDANCE, this day we remember members of our body, of Christ's body, who are part of the spiritual communion no longer physically present with us in life. How MORBID we are, that we envision death as loss, that we grieve and rail against God for taking those dear to us, when part of the wonder of this sacrament is that God gave them to us and shaped our lives through these who loved us, who now are with God in peace.
Like Joshua and the Elders, whom we read this morning crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, in that act and this Sacrament, we recall the crossing of the Red Sea from slavery and oppression begun in economic desperation, to freedom and dependence upon God alone. We have a very human tendency to want to end every story of human life with AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. But the Bible, our life of faith is different, instead of each story ending, each life experience seems to bring us back to appreciate and exalt what God has done, ANEW. In the Ten Commandments, the nation of Israel was given one LAW to NEVER BREAK, “trust God”, and even before Moses had come down the mountain they had made an idol; reminiscent of the Garden and choosing to eat what was forbidden so that we might be in the place of God; we too have tried to imagine our lives apart from God, as if we were God, as if God did not matter. Crossing Jordan, Joshua and the Elders stood with the Covenant as the people passed by on safe dry ground with the raging water standing over against them, and they and we recall how in the Beginning God brooded over the face of Chaos, and called dry land to form from the midst of the waters, how humanity corrupted ourselves and after the flood God began anew, how God did not lead the nation from Oppression and slavery into the Promised Land, but into a wilderness apart, a season of spiritual searching, so as to be able to enter into the Promised Land giving thanks.
We are an ANXIOUS PEOPLE, a people who like to cut to the chase, to turn to the conclusion knowing how the story will end before determining if it is worth our investing time in reading. Like every generation before us, we want to be EXALTED, remembered. To some that means great wealth, to others great property, great number of children and grandchildren, even great grandchildren, yet others to have a great Name, having accomplished powerful deeds, to have our lives honored by being remembered. The media so often sensationalizes how we died, and how rarely how we lived. For the title of this morning's sermon, we spelt the word EXALTED backwards to emphasize the point that seeking to be exalted gets you no where.
Seeking to be Exalted reminds us of the SEVEN DEADLY SINS... Do you recall what these sins were? LUST, ENVY, WRATH, GLUTTONY, SLOTH, GREED and PRIDE. How ironic, that in our culture today, these are such common traits. Oh, we would not claim to aspire to them, but the very definition of
SLOTH is to live a life of ease, without worry or responsibility.
GREED is what we claim brought down Wall Street.
GLUTTONY seems a description of an obese society who satiate our pain by eating food.
From Sex & The City to Desperate Housewives and the Internet, LUST is part of us.
ENVY is all around us.
WRATH seems an apt description of a world at TERRORIST WAR.
Which leaves PRIDE, EXALTING Our Accomplishments, our Name. The subtlety here is that God Exalted Joshua and Israel by holding back Jordan, Joshua did not do this.
How easy it would be to take PRIDE, to be exalted in our accomplishments as a church, as a community, but the truth is, that time and again of our efforts we have run into walls. The very Session Meeting where we were to celebrate the completion of the Middle Building, we discovered the floor joists of the Sanctuary were collapsing.
We shipped all the pieces and every tool we could imagine needing for our building a Clinic in Africa, and the containers were hijacked, lost for weeks. But when the volunteers arrived, suddenly they drove up.
They needed to make concrete and the well ran dry, when God provided a Well Driller.
We did not do these things, we were EXALTED by God to have been able to serve.
This week, we finally go to the POLLS to elect our Nation's and Community's leaders. Too many in this season have given their allegiance to one candidate or another, for a Church to do so would put in jeopardy our tax exempt status, but we would abandon our sacred responsibility of challenging and teaching, and lifting up the voice of Scripture if we did not say:
God has told you, O mortals, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
To be thoughtful voters, we pray to be free from the cacophony of voices that speak to fear, hate and self-interest rather than faith and commonwealth.
To be informed voters, protect us from partisan opinions, half-truths and easy answers.
And when we seat our leaders upon the Judgement Seat, may we follow as they instruct us, for we have placed our trust in their leadership and they in God; yet as has been revealed to us so many times, may we have the wisdom and responsibility to do as they say and not necessarily as they as humans do.
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