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.