I Samuel 2:18-20 & 26
Luke 2:41-52
One fine morning, a young boy got out of bed determined to have an adventure, to see the world.
He put on his boots and coat, and recognizing the world is a pretty big place, he made himself a peanut butter sandwich, and packed this with a can of Root Beer and Christmas cookies in his back pack.
He walked up East Lake Road to Genesee, came passed the churches, came passed the park with the little house with a point on top that has no walls, and passed the fire house. As he started up the hill, he was getting tired, so seeing someone sitting on a bench in the cemetery, he went and sat beside her. The old woman did not say very much, so he filled in, telling her all about his adventure, how he had seen geese, not the geese that are regularly here, but others that are here on vacation. He told her about how green the grass was underneath the snow. He told her about snow melting and refreezing to make ice and how you could go ice skating on the sidewalk. He told her about baby Jesus and the Shepherds and all that is Christmas.

He became hungry while talking, so tore his sandwich in half and gave some to her. Opening the Root beer for the lady, he graciously allowed her to have the first sip. Then they were able to enjoy their cookies, describing which looked like a snowflake and which was a camel. After eating, he was rather tired, so snuggled up against her side, with her arm around him, and went to sleep. With a full tummy and sleeping child beside her, the woman drifted off to sleep as well. When they awoke a short time later, they recognized how late it had gotten and each went their own direction.

When the boy came in the house, his parents were frantic where he had been. He nonchalantly said “I been talking with God! You know, she is a lot older than anybody thinks.” Then he went to his room.

Meanwhile the woman returned to her home, where her son was equally as frantic, as Mom had been very forgetful of late. “Mother, where have you been? Were up at the cemetery talking to Dad's headstone again?” The woman said, “I set out to, but I was talking with God instead. My, he does talk a lot. God is a great deal shorter than anyone realizes. And all these years I thought he liked bread and wine, but it turns out he likes peanut butter and root beer and Christmas cookies!”

Would that we could each greet one another, as if speaking with God, or treat them as a gift from God. Would that we saw life as a grand adventure, where everything is exciting. Would that as adult children caring for our loved ones, and as parents caring for our children, we could feel the depth of concern and love for one another that we feel when we are anxious and worried about them. According to Scripture, Hannah and Mary and Joseph each came to the Temple regularly, to honor tradition and give thanks to God. But that for Jesus, this was more than a house fro worship, this is a Sanctuary where people can ask questions and share ideas, where no one is ever lost or alone, where each can come as they are able and find their needs addressed.

I was very fortunate to have had wonderful teachers, one of which was Jim Forbes for preaching. Jim described that as creative and innovative as you might be, you cannot come up with an idea that has not been thought and preached before! The church has been in existence for 2000 years, and humanity and faith in God, for thousands of years before that. BUT what you can do, is create ideas and apply practices that are innovative and new for you and for your community.

Someone once described that PRAYER, TALKING WITH GOD, BEING IN OUR FATHER'S HOUSE is hearing a single pure note, and trying to tune ourselves to it. Hearing a pure note or idea, or image of beauty and trying to tune ourselves to that note.

The culture around us is radically changing. This does not mean we abandon everything we know and believe, but that in addition, we find ways to reach out to others. For over twelve years, we have talked about creating a Labyrinth, to provide a space for those who are searching to pray differently. Just as we have made the church available as a place for Scouting Fellowships, for Music and Education, for Tai Chi and Yoga and Reiki, we can also make the church available for those wandering and searching, to talk to God, and find their way. This year, we will create other ways to pray and search for faith.

Repeatedly over the years, I have been told a terrible story. The story of those with a child, who wanted to share their faith with them, to have them baptized, but because they were not part of the church they were turned away.

In recent years our Session has come to a far different understanding. There have been those whom we married, who work and reside in communities far from here, but who return home regularly like Mary and Joseph and like Hannah, to give thanks to God and celebrate their faith with their child. As we have been here when they wanted to be married before God, so also we can be their church home and share the Sacrament, affirming the love of God and our prayers for their child. Bob and Laura were married here, a year and a half ago. Bob and Laura now reside throughout the year in Florida. They have given birth to a child Braden and want to share their faith and commitment for him. Bob and Laura have family in Auburn, whom they visit, and they want this to be their church. Their joining the church while living in Florida seems especially appropriate this morning, as we read of Hannah going to worship each year, and Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to Temple at 6 Days and again at 12 years.

PRESENTS & THE GIFT OF CHRISTMAS, Dec 20, 2009

Luke 1:5-23 & 39-45
Hebrews 10: 1-7

It is 5am, Sunday morning, so cold you can see your breath, your toes went numb long ago, and nostrils are stuck together. In the midst of the dark of night there is a brilliant florescent light, the swishing sound of skates on ice, then the crash of bodies against a plastic wall, the slap of wood against a puck and the droning sound of a buzzer.

It is the first day of Spring, still cool but warm sunshine warms the marrow of your bones, bright blue sky and grass that never has seemed so green, there is the smell of hotdogs, peanuts and stale popcorn, the singing of the Star Spangled Banner, the Call: “Play Ball”, the crack of a bat and cheers as a wave goes up through the people.

There is the sound of a calliope like organ, the smell of animals, we sit on wooden bleachers, as strangely decorated people with elongated smiles and rubber noses invade our space to make animals out of balloons, amid the sounds of people collectively gasping and cheering, a voice cries out “Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages”.

In each of these settings, we know where are.
There is ritual of time and space, smells and sounds: to a Hockey Game, or Baseball, or the Circus. YET, in the midst of the ritual, we expect to witness and be part of something unique that day.
How much different, if after waking at 4, driving to a match, feeling our toes and cheeks grow numb, that one who slapped the puck and scored the goal, was your child!
How many of us have hoped and dreamed that not only would our team hit a Home Run, but the ball would drop out of the sky, right into our hands?

So why at Christmas, do we see the red leaves of poinsettias, smell cookies and taste eggnog, see the sparkle of ornaments and lights on a tree, hear the carols singing “Silent Night, Holy Night” amid the glow of candles, and imagine that all there is is our giving of presents and sharing of tradition?
We are asked what we want, and we mumble something about “PEACE ON EARTH & GOOD WILL” knowing full well we will get a book or tie, or some new electronic gadget.

How different Christmas is for those in Afghanistan this year? How precious and vital thoughts of GOOD WILL among All Humanity, when you are “Peacekeepers in Iraq” or fighting terrorism in Pakistan, fearing weapons testing in Korea and Iran. How different, HOPE for the NEW YEAR feels, when you know you are beginning to lose your memories, worried you will lose your mind and never come back, or when you have Cancer or Leukemia, or you are more than the Care Giver, you are also the spouse or child of those who do. What if, in the midst of all the piles of presents, we believed in the GIFT of Christmas?

The Gospel of Luke does not begin with the Genealogy of who BEGAT WHOM, or rush to the Baptism as Mark does, Luke does not go back to Beginning of Creation to assure us Christ was there. Luke begins with Rituals and traditions that have been followed for Centuries. Luke immerses us in the culture that everyone knew, the singing of songs, the reciting of poetry, that allow us to slow down to transcend, to know this is mystery, this is to be awed.

MOSES who led the people from Captivity in Egypt through the Wilderness to the Promised Land, MOSES who gave the people the LAW of the 10 Commandments and the TORAH, this same Moses had a brother Aaron. While many of us remember Aaron for the Golden Calf, Aaron was the first Priest of Israel, Aaron was the father of 24 sons, who each represented an order of the Priesthood. Throughout the years of taking possession of the land from the Canaanites, the priests had heard peoples prayers and offered sacrifices. Throughout the building of the Monarchy during David, and the building of the Temple of Solomon, throughout all the wars with Assyria and Babylon, the priests had heard the Joys and Concerns of the People and Offered Sacrifices. Throughout the invasion by Alexander the Great and the Greeks, throughout the invasion by the Roman Legion and their Caesar, people lifted up their hopes and dreams, and fears in prayer and sacrifice at the Temple. According to ritual and practice, each of the 24 Orders took turns being the Priests at the Temple, listening to people's confessions and prayers, and offering the people's sacrifices. With 24 Orders of Priests, it came to each, twice a year, that they could choose among their all priests, who had never before offered the sacrifices. For a Priest of Israel, regardless of which Order, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Zechariah was advanced in age, and never before in all his life had he offered the prayers and sacrifice. For all these Centuries, from the invasion of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans, the People of Israel had PRAYED that their sins would be forgiven, that God would hear their cry as God had done with Moses, and God would send a Savior. For all their married life, Zechariah and Elizabeth had wanted a child, but it had not been for them, and they were advanced in years, beyond the age of conception.

Zechariah listens to the people, as a pastor hearing each of their concerns, their hopes and prayers and wishes, he takes their sacrifices to offer for the people then enters the Holy of Holies and prostrates himself before the altar in prayer as priests have done for as long as there have been priests. When what to his wondering eyes did appear, was not a Miniature sleigh and reindeer but an ANGEL, Gabriel one of the Four Great Angels of the Old Testament. And the first words of the Angel, the first words spoken by anyone in the Gospel of Luke, were “PEACE, BE NOT AFRAID.”

The angel reveals God's Plan of GREAT JOY, that Elizabeth is to give birth to a child who will be a Prophet and Priest, who will live his life as an Old Testament Priest of Levite, like Samson or Samuel. AND Zechariah says “No”. As the Son and Son in Law of Presbyterian Pastors, who has been a Pastor now for over 25 years, your pastor for 13, I know there is no vocation like this. And yet, for my own children, like Zechariah, I would wish for them a different life, that instead of preaching and praying week after week, that they would change the world. In response to which God through the ANGEL says to Zechariah, you shall not speak until the child is real. Unable to speak, the priest cannot exit the Temple to offer the people ASSURANCE OF PARDON, the priest cannot bless the people.

The same angel appears to MARY, a young child, and again the first words of the Angel are “PEACE, BE NOT AFRAID” and “I bring you GREAT JOY”. The irony is that what the Angel is saying is “You will have a child out of wedlock, and the child born to you will be arrested as a criminal against the State, he will suffer and die as a Sacrifice for Humanity.” And instead of saying “NO” Mary says “Blessed am I to be an Instrument of the Lord.”

For NINE MONTHS, Zechariah cannot speak, until the child is born. 8 days later, when the community of faith gathers for the Circumcision, the people would have named the child Zechariah like his Father, but Elizabeth and Zecharian both speak as the Angel had instructed, “His NAME IS JOHN”. In the Bible, Names have meaning, Jesus like Joshua means SAVIOR, John means “THE GRACE OF GOD FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD”.

"What Child Is This?" December 13, 2009

Zachariah 3
Luke 3
There is a message being whispered and sung through all the children of all the houses of this Village...
“You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why:”
When I was very young, my parents had these elves, whom they described as being sent from the North pole to watch us and report back who had been naughty and nice.
But the message of John the Baptist and Zephaniah Ben Cushi is exactly the opposite!

NOT that you should CRY and POUT and not be careful, but rather that instead of trying to hold it in and stuff your feelings until Christmas is over, because Santa is watching, Santa is coming and in 12 short days it will be over...
Instead, that we would listen, listen to our hearts, listen for a different voice, for God among us, that we need to be true to who we are as human beings loved by God. Instead of trying to act as adults filled with fears and responsibilities. Instead of suppressing what we feel for 12 more shopping days, 'til Christmas is over for another year, that we follow a different direction the rest of our lives, that we recognize a child is going to be among us, for ever more, so how shall we live?

For thousands of years, children and adults have acted out this story. As portrayed this day, it needs no words. The reason we portray the events in a play each year, are not simply to make grandma and grandpa proud that I was a SEEP, but for each of us to go to Bethlehem, and feel what they each felt.

What would it be to be MARY? Still a child, living with your Mom and Dad, when an Angel appears. Would we say, “Yeah Right, an Angel, and I am supposed save the world?” Would we be imagining “What will my father think, I am 14 and Pregnant?” Would we be like Mary, innocent and trusting, and greet this as an awesome event and how marvelous to be chosen by God to give a gift to the world?

What would it be to be JOSEPH? You are a Middle aged man, successful, set in your ways. All your life, you have lived alone, working hard, making a career. Finally, the time has come, when you can settle down, and have someone to share life with, someone who will care for you. The whole community has celebrated your engagement, when suddenly Mary is found to be with child, and you know the child is not yours! Would you stay beside her and share this? Would you believe her story, that this is a gift from God, even if you had a dream, would you accept the child and his mother as your own?

What would it be to be KING HEROD? You were born to be King, and yet yours is an occupied territory of the Roman Empire. The Nation of David is a long distant piece of history. The wealth of Solomon has been carried off. The Babylonians besieged your nation for 70 years of war. Then the Persians; then Alexander the Great and the Army of the Greeks, imposed their culture, their language, their Gods. Then The Roman Legion terrorizes your people. The taxes you raise, are taken by Caesar. All you really have left as King is the title and authority of being King. When it is reported to you that a child is to be born, who is a challenge to you as King.

What would it be to be the INN KEEPER? Your quaint village suddenly filled with hundreds of thousands of tourists! Every room has three families sharing. The demands of so many people, you cannot offer the hospitality you desire, because there are so many who want so much. When suddenly there is a knock at the door and you know you have no room. But the woman is about to give birth anytime. Would you turn them away, or would you try to find them a place, and witnessing the birth of the Savior, how would it change you?

What would it be to be an ANGEL given responsibility to share with all the world that GOD has a GIFT, A CHILD who will change the world!

What would it be to be a SHEPHERD that night. Every day has been pretty much like every other. We graze our sheep. We protect them from wolves. We bed them down by lakes and streams and good pasture. You lay on your back marveling at the stars, when suddenly, there appear in the sky a Choir of Angels, singing of the glory of God! Would you be afraid to move? Would you want to go and see this thing that has taken place, to go and tell everyone what has been told to you? And expecting a miracle, expecting to see the Son of God, what would you feel entering a dark cave or barn and seeing a poor couple with a newborn babe?

Over the years, we have had Several Wiseguys, a few Wisewomen, even a couple of camels,... What would it be to be a Wiseman, a learned teacher, selling off everything you have to travel the world in order to see the birth of the Savior.

Now, having witnessed these events, feeling the thoughts and emotions of Mary, of Joseph, of the Angels, Shepherds, Wisemen, and Inn Keepers, what will you do, how will you “Go Tell It On The Mountain” that Jesus Christ is born?

THE PROPHET ZEPHANIAH ben Cushi declared that we need to REPENT. NOT a momentary change of heart, a singular charitable give away, but going from being a people afraid, who argue and squabble and fight, who can find no good in the world and suck the joy from the marrow of life; to become a people of God, a people of compassion, a people who hope and believe, and act differently because of what they believe.

APARTHEID in South Africa was the domination of one people by another, the outgrowth of centuries of persecution and slavery, for over 30 years in the last half of the last Century, APARTHEID involved entering people's homes in the middle of the night, taking your husband and sons to be forced into the army, taking your daughters for worse. When all the fighting was done, ArchBishop Desmond Tutu was asked to serve as the judge over the REPARATION TRIALS, to find justice for those who had been so abused. One of the stories, is of a woman 80 years of age, who stood in court and identified the men who had taken her husband from their bed, had carried him off and murdered him. She identified the men who had taken sons and forced these children to be soldiers. She identified the men, who had taken daughters to be sold as slaves. Desmond Tutu then asked her “Mother, what would you have us do with these men?” And she, asked that every year on her husband and sons' and daughters' birthdays and Christmas, these men would come to share the day with her, identifying with the sons and daughters and husband they had taken.

JOHN THE BAPTIST responded to the people, with the world's first great stimulus package: Go through your closets at home, and if you have two coats, give one to someone in need. If you have toys you no longer play with, share them with those who have none. Why should we have things taking up space, when we could give them to bring joy to others?

We know what Child this is! This is Emmanuel, GOD WITH US! But the question that comes to every believer, young or older, in the time of Zephaniah 600 years before Jesus, or the time of John the Baptizer, 30 years after his birth, or in 2009, is what shall we do, how shall we respond to God in the living of our lives? Acting with compassion and caring toward other persons, being humble and humane, reveals our humanity.

Repent: BHAV, December 6, 2009

Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 3:1-6
The Scriptures for this morning are not what we are accustomed to. For many of us this calls attention to the most radical and frightening concept of faith. For, we are a people who “make do”, we know how to cope and get along, no matter the circumstance, and the Word that comes from Malachi and from John the Baptist is not Make Do, but rather REPENT. Do we still believe in REPENTANCE? Literally, turning around to go in a different direction. Little by little, through so many fears, our hope and our humanity have been compromised.

We hear of Wars and Rumors of Wars. Terrorist attacks and Economic crisis. We listen to the NEWS and hear reports of a Veteran returning home, who then stabs and kills his friends; we hear reports of a young man murdering his Grandmother over money for drugs; we have become so accustomed to stories of a Postal worker going on a rampage, we have created the term “Going Postal”; and we affirm, there may be hard days but we are not yet that bad.
I sit on the Ethics Committee for a local hospital, and the Psychiatrists tell me that they no longer use the classification “Sanity versus Insanity”, in part because there are so many different Dementia and Depressions, in part because of the stigma of Mental Illnesses, but more because all of us in our coping, in our making do, have accepted realities that are a little insane.

Of necessity we have created a PROGRAMMED CULTURE. On one extreme is Chaos and disorder, on the other are the looming multitude of increasing responsibilities. A few generations ago, we spent our entire life in a single community, knowing the people our parents and grandparents had known. Today, we are connected around the world, we have the opportunity to travel, to learn, but our contacts and contracts and things we have to do, have grown exponentially, to where the only way we could function was to make do, make accommodations and program a controlled routine. The fallacy of a Programmed Culture is that as rational and reasoned as we are, we are also human. Humans need to BELIEVE, we need MYSTERY and MIRACLE. Without Mystery, a programmed culture is flat, ordered and routine, a stagnant image of what once was. Without Miracle, there is only what is, and not what could be. Recall and remember how a friend with Cancer, had that Cancer go into remission. Recall and remember stories of shipping the tools and materials for the Clinic Sudan around the world, with reports of their being hijacked, and lost, when suddenly they drove up to exactly where and when they needed to be. Recall and remember that when the contractors needed water to make concrete, and the only well had run dry, they went to a wedding in the community and a well-driller came as a guest. Throughout the last five years, we have supplied medicines and staff, but in order to change mortality we needed to change birthing practices and mothers who had lost pregnancies were those delivering others. This week the first class of Birth Attendants were trained, and where the goal was to be 20, 25 completed the course.

Rather than Making Do, making accommodations, programming ourselves, we need Repentance, to believe in a Vision beyond ourselves and beyond our ability to program and control. We are in a season of preparation, but not the preparations we have listed. We have lists, of home repairs and honey-dos, of Christmas cards and letters, shopping, decorating, making certain everyone has what they want, even if not what they need. But the Gift of God that is Christmas, is not automatic, not programmed, not for us to buy or make. The gift of God that is Christmas is the Only HOPE of the Hopeless, Faith to those who have Lost Believing in anything, Love to those who Cannot Feel.

To Repent, is not to focus on Our Hopes: for a Flat Screen or a Wii, a Puppy or Coat, a Diamond or a Car. To repent is to name the wounds and hurts and hopelessness of our lives, to name it and claim it as our own, and to believe beyond that reality, beyond what we know, that Only God can provide Hope. Speaking with a group of friends recently, each described having a Grandson or daughter returning home from a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, with possibility of having to return. A friend whose wife has a number of tumors in the brain. Church leadership divided over this issue and that. Couples married for decades considering divorce. Children away at College wrestling with depression and loneliness. In our humanity, we can make allowances, we can make do with all these circumstances, a little of us dying with each one. Or, we can Hope against Hopelessness, trusting that God can and will change reality.

Our PREPARATIONS are to name the Hopelessness, to own our responsibility for these, and also to name our intent to change, to stand with one another, because alone is hopeless, but wherever two or three are gathered there is the assurance of God's Spirit, and the possibility of fellowship, encouragement, trust.

In previous years we have named that Jim Collins is a Business Management expert, who coined the phrase BHAG to represent Big Hairy Audacious Goals, like American Architects creating the Empire State Building in response to construction of the Eiffel Tower, Kennedy's pledge in response to the Russians putting a Dog in Space that within a decade we would land on the Moon. For the Church, for this Advent, I would challenge that instead of setting Goals we believe in Big Hairy Audacious Visions. A Vision is beyond ourselves, a Vision is from God.

John the Baptsist's Vision was that Mountains and Hills would be brought low, and valleys would be lifted up. The reality is that all of life cannot be a HIGH, we cannot go from Mountaintop to mountaintop experience, in part because our stride is human, smaller, but also because we need to come down to dwell among other people to share the vision, to work together to repent, to change the world. Mountains and Hills being brought lower, is a metaphor that we can use our gifts, our abilities and opportunities to fill in the rough places, to raise expectations. In addition, what I love about BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS VISIONS is that rather than being a BHAG that means nothing to us, this acronym is BHAV, that our Vision creates in us new Behaviors, repentance to live life differently.

Bearing Witness to Truth, November 22, 2009

This holiday, this year, is different. In past Novembers we gathered to watch floats in a parade, this year we have difficulty knowing where to look as those without jobs, those in debt, those in trouble, those without food are with us. Thanksgiving's past, we gorged ourselves on turkey and pie, tables and chairs groaning under our weight. This week, there will be empty places, for those far from home, those at war, and those who's chairs will remain empty who are with God. Holidays gone by were filled with football games, yet with the Stock Market, Cash for Clunkers, Ponzy Schemes, and TARP monies we find ourselves tired of the games people play. We walk passed stores that put merchandise on sale before it has arrived. This holiday, we find ourselves feeling something we have not allowed ourselves to feel, appreciation for our lives, for blessings from God, simple thanksgiving to the one who has blessed us.

As much as some have interpreted the Book of Revelation as apocalyptic prophecy of the End of the World yet to come, the Revelation was written down in a time of persecution, at the Fall of the Empire of Rome. Difficult for us to imagine a time of persecution for what you believe! We know of genocides between warring nations, between races and tribes, these are in the News every morning and night. But persecution for what you believe, seems hard to fathom. We have believed in candidates only to be disillusioned. We have believed in a product and had it recalled. We have believed in tests and practices, that the next morning we were told we no longer need. When cultures shift and change, as they do, how do we know what to bear witness to as true?

The Enlightenment of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, the Age of Reason, was a grand Scientific Experiment. For four hundred years we thought, we could prove, by objective scientific method the reality of basic truths, of natural order, thereby ruling out chaos. The Scientific Method we were taught followed from Geometry. That we can imagine Theories, and these can be tested by various Hypotheses. We operationalize the hypothesis, following rules of analysis, to gain results, which are to prove or disprove our hypothesis.

But in 1985, a group of researchers postulated a new Truth; no matter the experiment, when dealing with people, there always were a few spurious cases that do not fit the mold. We could prove 99.99% of the time, but still there was a margin for error. The researchers in 1985 stated that we thought we had been looking through a telescope only to discover it was a Kaleidoscope instead. Rather than being able to prove ABSOLUTE TRUTH by Scientific Method, all we could do was describe from our experience what we know to be true, then it is for the reader and listener to decide for themselves what fits with their circumstance, what we know from our sense of normal, our reality of life, to be TRUE.

Marriage is different for each of us. Home-ownership. Child-rearing. Family. Being a Citizen. We may go through exactly the same experience, but we will each respond differently, based on what we know from our life experience to be true. I was speaking with a specialist in Alzheimer's and Dementia recently, who described, when a person has a different reality you cannot convince them yours is right. If it is a practice that is dangerous, if they are using a knife backwards and upside down, if they wish to drive a car, these are places to intervene. But does it really cause harm for the ones we love to believe something different? So the question of Thanksgiving Dinner, do we need to correct our sister-in-law, if Grandma likes to set a spoon at the top of every place setting or place the glasses on the left instead of the right, does it matter?

Early this Spring, my Father died. I thought we had resolved everything that could be done. We sat by the bedside, we laughed and cried, and revisited old family stories. Family and friends from around the Nation gathered to honor his life and memory. Then about six weeks after he had died, a man contacted us claiming to be an illegitimate brother. He desired nothing, except to be acknowledged as TRUE. He wanted to know the family genealogy and to know our father. Personally, the pain of this, is that to acknowledge his claim, was to deny everything of integrity and relationship we had known to be true about the one we loved for a lifetime. In addition, while we could share the information of a genealogy, we could share stories about the one we loved, he could never experience that relationship.

Each of the Gospels have this poignant, powerful scene, in which Jesus is on trial before Pilate, the Roman Military Authority over all Judea; John's is especially meaningful for us because of the Trial's conversation and the reasoning that is recorded. The crowds have arrested and accused Jesus for crimes against the Empire, claiming to be a king. Pilate asks, and “Are you King of the Jews”, and Jesus responds “You have said so.” To which Pilate inquires, “So I am a Citizen of Rome, a Military Conquerer, representative of the Caesar, are you saying I am a Jew?” Reality however, it seems is defined by Language! Putting Jesus on Trial, Pilate, who is responsible for all Judea, must choose whether to identify himself with the people he governs or with the Empire of Rome. Would that instead of washing his hands of the matter, Pontius Pilate had claimed relationship with the people, and with this people of Faith! Is not that the question we all face, whether we identify ourselves with ideals, or the circumstances and problems around us, or whether we identify with a separate reality? Are we defined by what we have known to be TRUE, or can we help to reveal new relationships, new commitments by our being Faithful and True?

The beauty of The Revelation to John, is that God is identified as “the One who was, and is , and is to be”. God is not an absolute, but is known to each of us in our particular experience. While in Science, there is always the possibility of finding the exception to the rule; in over 2000 years God in Christ has met us in our need, responding to who we are, and been compassionate.

This Holiday is different. There will be new relatives and others missing. There will be new traditions along with the familiar. But my hope and prayer is that this will be an occasion for appreciation of what and who we are thankful for.

Misunderstanding the Ordinary, Nov.15, 2009

If you look to the top of the bulletin, you will note that not only is this the Middle of November, but the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. That is not a reflection of boredom, but rather that the Christian year is marked by the seasons of Advent and Lent, the Days of Christmas and Easter, Epiphany and Pentecost, and the balance of the year is described as ORDINARY, not in the sense of common place, but ORDINAL, measured, equal, anticipated, like the hours of a clock.

Yet, to carry this theme, the point is not that the ORDINARY is BORING, but that all life is a blessing, a gift from God and we need to be intentional about how we live. Where is our integrity? Who are we in the ordinary times? There are churches and communities known for having FINE MUSIC programs, for Awesome MISSIONS, for beautiful stone buildings and Stained Glass windows, and the leadership of this church have worked tirelessly for these, but also we are privileged to be part of a lot of weddings and baptisms, which have become normal to our identity, but are not routine for other churches. What we each must keep in mind, is that despite the $30,000 that goes into the Bride's gown, the thousands of dollars for Engagement rings, and photographers and receptions, this is one day, and MARRIAGE is more than the groom having once gotten down on one knee. Marriage is the blessing of holding hands after 20 years together.

This morning, I watched the sun come up over the lake, at first the sky was clear and bright filled with stars and planets, gradually everything seemed in silhouette, then the sky pinked as the dawn brightened, a blanket of fog 12 feet tall lay upon the water at the south end. The old sailors' adage came to mind: Red sky at night, a Sailor's delight, red Sky at morning Sailor's take warning! Suddenly we were enveloped, as the sky disappeared, all markers and familiar signs were lost in fog.

We look for signs, indications of the change of seasons, change in our lives, we are accustomed to calendars and budgets, contracts and reports, to let us know how to plan for every event, we listen to News reports and Traffic Monitoring, Weather Forecasts, and Sports Broadcasts to try to know what is going to happen, even the end of the world. I recall on September 11th eight years ago, as some were interpreting that there had been pilot error, and others that this was indeed an act of terrorism, someone read the events far differently than I had ever experienced, asking if this was The End of The World. I am certain that for those who lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor, for those who have first-hand witness of any trauma, be it a hurricane, fire, rape, or vehicle crash, it can feel like The End.

I am also guided by memory of the words of the missionary, when we as a church said we wanted to help with the building of the Clinic in Sudan. He laughed and said, you are Westerners, Americans, you plan with calendars and budgets and contracts for who is going to do what, when. THIS IS AFRICA, as old as time itself, someone has to go, to share life, to look this people in the eye, as you worship God, as you share a meal; THEN and only then will you have established trust, only then can you begin, but once you have trust then everything is possible. The challenge is not interpreting cataclysmic events, not predicting the future, prophetically planning, but instead developing trust, relationship in the ordinary times, such that when the familiar is lost, when suddenly the fog rolls in, you are not alone and can work together.

Jesus' words to the disciples WERE a word of warning, to be prepared, to resolve your differences, knowing that as established and comfortable as ever you may become, prejudice and fears and change, time itself, can topple everything. I am told that what the disciples were commenting upon in awe were the stone foundations of what we call the Wailing Wall at Jerusalem, and that these massive blocks make the base of the Pyramids seem small. Immediately our minds wonder how they could have been moved, how these ancient masons could have engineered something so immense. Then we come to realize, that what we know to be the Wailing Wall, 12 feet thick and a dozen feet tall, is only the rubble of what once stood as one wall of the Chancel. Nothing is permanent. The question is how we respond, in fear, in desperation, or confident that when the time comes, God can be trusted to remember us. The Presbyterian Church does not have a Book of SINS defining what things are and which are not. Or how to explain culturally, that at one time, the eating of shellfish and Divorce were considered sins and today they are to a greater and lesser degree accepted. Instead of a monumental work, we have a very basic understanding, that ANYTHING which causes you guilt, which causes you shame, which you would hide from God, is a sin. Again, the point is not whether the foundations have been toppled, whether institutions and establishments fall, they do! But what is our integrity, who are we in faith? Do we remember, does God?

That was Hannah's Prayer, that God remember her. We are part of a culture in which if you cannot become pregnant, there are hormonal drugs, there is invitro-fertilization, there are surrogates who can supply the egg, or carry the egg, and for those who cannot give birth there are ten thousand other ways to live a full and productive life. But Hannah lived in a polygamous culture, where the whole point of marriage was producing children, and not only could she not conceive, her rival would taunt her with it. Hannah felt as though she were forgotten by God. Others were blessed, others had children, why not Hannah?

Hannah does what most of us forget. She has planned, she has prepared, she decorated the baby's room, then she goes to Pray for GRACE and Praying she offers what in Hebrew is described as “SAAL”, that a Gift of GRACE is not a possession, but as this is lent to us, so it is then lent to others. Hannah vows that if she could be given the Ordinary gift of pregnancy, once the child is weaned and strong, she would then the gift to God. This day, this life is not a possession but a gift of grace lent to us. To be "ordinary" is to be a gift of Grace lent from God.

Two Widows, November 8, 2009

Ruth 1
Mark 12:38-44

Meeting with a group of church leaders recently, we asked “WHY WORSHIP?” They described being spiritually fed, passing tradition and wisdom from one generation to the next, a few moments of solace and comfort in busy lives, learning and giving in thanksgiving, connecting with others, assured we are not alone.

From this morning's passages, I would suggest that FAITH IN GOD is the antidote to life, not valuing as the world esteems success, but seeking redemption, seeking the lost. The story of Ruth comes from the time of the Book of Judges “When each man did as he thought right according to his conscience.” There is little mention of God, except perhaps implicit within the story. The story reads like a parable of extended hyperbole. Ironically, as the time of the Judges allowed that each man did as he thought right, this is a story of women.

There once was a Levite (a descendant of the Priests) of Bethlehem (the Breadbasket of the Ancient World) named Elimeleck whose name means “Faith in God”. Elimelech had a wife named Naomi, meaning “Sweetness” and two sons Mahlon meaning “sickly” and Chilion whose name is “short-lived.” There was a famine in Israel, a famine in the breadbasket of the world, which drove Elimelech and his family to go to Moab, a foreign land, where Elimelech “Faith in God” died. Seeking comfort for her sons, Naomi took wives for them among the Moabites, the name of the one was Orpah meaning “back of the neck”, the name of the other was Ruth best understood as “hesed the opposite of ruthless”. After living a decade in Moab that foreign land, Mahlon (Sickly) and Chilion (Short-lived) both became ill and died.

So Naomi, whose name means “Sweetness” sets out to leave Moab, that foreign place, to return to breadbasket which had driven them away in famine, Bethlehem. Naomi (Sweetness) daughters-in-law try to follow, but she sends them to their home And Orpah (back of the neck) embraces her and weeps on the back of her neck; but Ruth (hesed the opposite of ruthless) refuses to leave. So they set out and walk all the long way home. They arrive at the Marketplace, the PNC Grocery or Hilltop Restaurant after worship, where everyone goes. Everyone rushes to welcome Naomi, who says “Do not ever call me Naomi again. God sent me away full with a spouse and children and a bright future. Now I have returned from that foreign place empty and alone, with nothing, prepared to die. Call me Mara “Bitter-herb”.

Overly melodramatic, perhaps, but have we not each seen ourselves like that at times? We nostalgically recall we once had everything, with a bright future (even if there was a famine, and we so knew our children were sickly and going to die that we gave them those as names); and now we are burned out and tired, depleted, depressed and empty, with nothing (ignoring even the existence of those who share life with us). Throughout history, the People of Israel have been described as the Chosen and Elect, those of The Promised Land, but in truth the story of Ruth points to this being a Place of Redemption and a people ReClaimed.

Ruth, whom Naomi overlooked and thought worthless, provides for them by going to the fields and gleaning, gathering the remnant that is leftover. More than finding enough for them both to eat, Ruth gains the attention of Boaz the owner of the field where she has been gleaning. Suddenly the story shifts from Boaz providing charity to widows and orphans by leaving leftovers in the field, to his falling in love with Ruth and choosing to Redeem her as his bride.

The Bible is filled with tradition, with customs and mores that may seem strange to us; but in a day without Social Security, a time prior to Health Care and Pensions, provided for those in need with cultural traditions, laws of redemption and responsibility.
The Law stated that if a husband died, his next of kin could claim all his brother's belongings including the man's wife, in fact the next of kin had responsibility to do so. BUT as means of continuing the legacy, if this couple had children, all that belonged to the first husband and half the estate of the second went to the child. So it was that none of Chilion's next of kin, except Boaz were willing to claim Ruth. Boaz redeemed her as no longer one receiving charity, but as his wife, and the child conceived of Boaz and Ruth was Obed, who was the father of Jesse, Jesse was the father of David the King and ancestor of Jesus of Bethlehem.

There is a difference between Charity, which is culturally appropriate, a means of providing for those who have nothing, and Risk-Taking, Life-Changing Mission. Charity is giving an offering out of all we have. Mission is not focused on the giving, on the offering, on the amount, but only on doing what needs to be done, risking to change lives.

This church, this people of God continually amaze me. There is a marvelous story in this church, that we are known for mission, for a Senior Citizen's Residence, for the Ecumenical Food Pantry, for sponsoring Sudanese Refugees and building a Clinic in their homeland. But there are so many other stories that have gone untold, just simply done.

That children had warts that covered their hands and made them ostracized. Their parents could not take time off from work to take them to the doctor, and could never have afforded treatment. So quietly, without recognition members of the church took turns driving them to the doctors and sitting the girls as they received treatment, then taking them back to school, without any attention.

That a woman knit hats and gloves for children, that inspired others to give winter coats to children in Auburn who had none, and this inspired more, that we could create a trust fund, so when there are children who need glasses or dental care or to see a doctor and cannot, that this church would make certain they could. No longer a tithe or a charity, but seeking to make a difference in others' lives.

We have spoken many times of the miracles and Biblical stories demonstrated by risking to be part of the clinic at Sudan. A story that has not been shared, is that at the Dedication of the Clinic, all the chiefs and government officials, all the dignitaries came to be seen and to make speeches. But after all the words were spoken, before the feast of thanksgiving began, a young woman stood up, she had a child balanced on her hip as she walked to the front. In the hush as people watched, someone described she was a young widow, who had barely enough for she and her child, but she had reserved a tiny amount of what she had from every meal, week after week, until she could give this offering, and pouring from the can the grain seemed to flow endlessly.

Laughing at Funerals and Weeping at Baptisms, November 1, 2009

Isaiah 25
John 11:32-44
A good friend and community leader said, “You know, it's been a really hard year. Your father died, Dr. Eastman died, Kim and June, so many, who had survived cancers, then the economy died.” We no longer know how to cope with this time in our lives, how to talk about death. A prognosis of death is pronounced and we begin to whisper, so as to not disturb the person. They die and as neighbors and friends we come to the family gushing our emotions for them to console us. We find ourselves lost and afraid what we are to do. A wise woman once told me, we need to Laugh at Funerals and Weep at Baptisms. Not as an opportunity to roast the departed,laughing at their lives, but rather recognizing that their life brought us joy, and we should lift that joy up before God. In the same way, Baptism is not cute Baptism is not protection against life, but rather a washing away of all that is not God, and a new birth with Christ in faith.

We avoid death, as if a monster we could hide from, an enemy we could beat simply by outlasting.
There is an easy barometer for the things American society is most afraid of and fascinated by: What is it that our television shows are about? In the 1960s, with the Cold War and espionage, we had I Spy and Get Smart and Man From UNCLE and Mission Impossible. Today, our entertainment revolves around TRAUMA and FORENSICS. Yet, as much as we want to know, as much as we are entertained by differing diseases and disasters, we do not speak of death. There are four new shows about Hospitals and Ambulances, 3 CSIs, 2 NCISs, repeats of HOUSE every hour of every night

We dress up our children in costumes, we cover this season of our lives with candy, we focus on the falling leaves and changing seasons. Prior to all the holidays, Veterans Day, Flag day and Memorial Day and Labor Day, we came to this season and realized anther year has past. We know that the changing leaves and molds and coming snow, are not a death, but preparation for a new Spring to come. And we struggle with whether death were Punishment for life. The End to living. Genesis affirms it is NOT! In the beginning, this world was “lifeless”, “formless”, “Dark” and God created Light and Life to balance what was. God did not eliminate Chaos by the creation of order, but God balanced the dark with light, the tumultuous waters with a promised land, God balanced death with life.

There has been a recurrent visitor to worship, whom we have not named in over a year: Our Neighbor Billy. For those who may be newer to the Church and may not know, Billy is a character who acts out exactly what he feels. His neighbor had a new puppy that barked in the afternoons, when Billy wanted to sleep, ALL throughout every afternoon, so Billy Barked at the Neighbors when they were sleeping, both to let them know how irritating he found the dog's barking, and because what he felt was desire to Bark At the Neighbors. Until one day, we confronted Billy, saying “Don't you feel silly standing out in the driveway at night Barking? Would it not be better to walk over to the neighbor's to ring their doorbell and tell them the dog is annoying you?” To which Billy said, “I couldn't do that that would be to confrontational, I just bark at them.”

There are times in our lives, when we do not recognize how silly we are. When we bark at neighbors. When we really want to do is howl at the moon, or have the person who died listen to our concerns and be here with us.

A couple have built their home, and surrounded themselves with a lifetime of memories and mementos. They know, and we all know, we are pack-rats who accumulate stuff, but take the couple out of that house, away from all the mementos and memories and they lose touch with reality. Downsizing is not simply elimination of all that is in the way, but sifting through a lifetime, our lifetimes, to determine what has value, what has meaning, and what can we let go of.

Mary and Martha and the Mourners were prepared for Lazarus' Death.
When Jesus came, Mary said what most of us have thought at different times, “You could have prevented this!” “God, why do you not kill death?” “If you are God, why do you not fix my pain, save the one I love?”
Martha responds, “I know that on the last day, at Revelation, all things are going to be brought together, but I want to understand now, today.”
The mourners weep. The mourners were paid to come to cry, because surely the greatest evidence that you were loved is how many people weep at your passing.

Ironically, the translators have struggled with expressing Jesus' emotions. The RSV in the pews says Jesus was “Deeply moved in spirit and troubled”, other Translators have expressed Jesus was VEXED or FRUSTRATED. The actual translation as occurs elsewhere in Scripture is Jesus was ANGRY.
Even Mary and Martha did not understand! Mary wants Jesus to take Death away, Martha wants to believe intellectually that someday there will be a day without death, and Jesus affirms that the resurrection is here and now!

You have the power to forgive, the power to make death meaningless and life worthwhile! But too often, we become preoccupied with the manner of death, with the suffering, with chaos, rather than with what this life was all about.

The Theological Stimulus Program, October 25, 2009

Job 42: 1-10
Mark 10:46-52

This is REFORMATION SUNDAY, and this the 500th birthday of John Calvin, from whom the theology of the Presbyterian Church was articulated. I debated what we could do. I am told Calvin wore a wide brimmed hat while preaching, but chiefly this was because they had broken all the stained glass windows as icons, and the pigeons would bomb him while preaching. I had thought of nailing 95 Thesis papers to the doors as Martin Luther had done in 1517, but the problems of the church today are not the same as in the era of Luther and Calvin. Luther's 95 Theses dealt with whether the Bible should be available to common people, and today we all have Bibles that few have ever read or used. The 95 Theses dealt with whether the worship service should be in the common language or only in Latin. The 95 These dealt with the Sale of Indulgences, lucky Charms and trinkets that you could purchase to take away your sins and make you feel better...and we still use shopping this way, don't we?

I am convinced we need a fresh Reformation Day, where we are called to examine and recommit to our faith in God, but not based on the old principles, so much as to use as a Theological Stimulus Package! If I understand the idea of the Federal Stimulus Package it is that by giving $3000 to a person for a car, or $8000 to new Home Buyers, not only would this spur consumer spending, but putting more money in the economy the car dealers would pay their employees who would buy DVD players or Computers. The New Home Buyers would use that $8000 to purchase furniture or appliances. So like the idea of a Tax Rebate that actually was an advance of Taxable Income, the point was not where it was taken from or how we got into this mess, but to be present and future thinking to use this experience to foster something new.

Throughout the last month we have been reflecting upon the Book of Job. Most often when we think of Job it is the Contest between Satan and God and the Issue of Human Suffering, or the Complaint of Job for a hearing, or the response of God from the whirlwind.
Regarding Human Suffering: Years ago, I took part in a panel discussion at University Hospital, that starts off like a bad joke, but was a true circumstance. The Medical College gathered A Jewish Rabbi, a Catholic Priest, a Muslim Emmam and a Presbyterian Pastor to debate human Suffering. The Medical Students understood that today we could virtually eliminate and control suffering, but should we? The Rabbi described that suffering of one could never compare to the suffering of 6 million in the Holocaust. The Priest named the Suffering of Jesus for all humanity and that in reciting the Rosary we atone for the guilt of our sins. The Emmam described the importance of the individual suffering, in order to work through their wrongs to be purified. The Pastor stated belief in a loving God, who would never punish individuals with circumstances for their sins, but that we can reflect and use our suffering to forgive and change.
Regarding the Complaint of Job, wanting a date and time to plead for Righteousness before God, as we reflected that week, Pleading Righteousness is more our speaking to ourselves than to God, proving to ourselves, convincing ourselves we were right.
The Response of God, I am convinced is not a rebuke of who do you think you are questioning God, so much as a reassessment that if Humanity is Co-Creator with God, if the Creature formed from Dust of the Earth and gifted with the Spirit of God had been there at Creation with God, then in the response from the whirlwind God is Calling Job to step up to a new and fresh responsibility. God is calling Job to understand the balance of Chaos and Grace, that God did not make chaos and suffering as a balance to grace and prosperity, but the reverse, that God created Grace and Order and Prosperity to balance the Chaos, Darkness and Nothingness that existed before God began to create.
But the point of the Book of Job, is not only Suffering, or Guilt, or Complaint, or Righteousness, or Redemption, but SO WHAT? After the contest was over, after all the Suffering, did Job go back to life as normal? I think not. But that the Wisdom of Job was that he reflected the remainder of his days upon this experience and what it taught him about life and value.
Previously, Job was a wealthy man, who would offer sacrifices after his children partied to make up for what they may have done. Now he has three daughters who he prizes above al else, and in whom he sees great joy. The story ends too quickly and neatly. I wonder what the Sequel to Job would be? When something happens to the Daughters of Job, what wisdom does he offer? How would a father respond?

This passage from Mark's Gospel too seems too nice and neat, entering into the City of Jericho a blind beggar, the Son of Timaeus cries out to Jesus “Son of David, have mercy on me” and Jesus heals the man, who then follows him.. What if this story were the conclusion to the earlier story of this chapter? The Rich Young Man had greeted Jesus on the Road by falling to his knees and declaring “Good Teacher what must I do to inherit Eternal Life?” And Jesus instructs him to follow the Commandments which he has done, and to go sell all he has and follow Jesus, to which the man went away sorrowful for he had many possessions. What if, this rich young man reflected on what was asked and did give away all that he had. He might then be a beggar on the street, as Jesus entered Jericho, and as one who likes to use titles for Jesus “Good Teacher” he has come to the new awareness that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah, LORD and Savior. Though he had given away all he had, he would have recognized his spiritual blindness and need for Jesus' mercy. After which he truly could follow Jesus.

The Theological Stimulus Package is to ask of ourselves in every circumstance, SO WHAT SHALL I DO? Do I approach life as a Victim of Cancer? As one is is Divorced? As one grieving loss? Do we focus on the Chaos and Loss and Suffering, or can we see ourselves as using these experiences to attain the wisdom of Job to see life differently because of what we has happened?

Who Are You, Are You Able? October 18, 2009

Job 38
Mark 10:35-41
The questions of God to Job from the Whirlwind are the most basic questions we ask ourselves:
Who Are You? Were You There When? Are You Able? These are the questions we struggle with when filling our College Applications, and Job Applications, When Getting Married and Having Children, and Looking at our Reflection in the Mirror, Determining whether we can trust another with our greatest stories of suffering and of pain, and When we Retire and When we reach the end of Days.
Who are you? Were you there? Are you able? These are questions of identity, but even more of Honor, of Vocation and Call, not just of Career and Paycheck but of whether life has meaning and purpose, and what do we do about, what can we say about: Chaos.

We have become acculturated that if you show up at the right time, in the right place, and do what is expected, everything will work out. Follow the rules, meet and surpass the expectations. 90% of life is just showing up. We live in a disposable world, where everything is a facade, nothing in life is supposed to have meaning. I wish that all the world could have four days, on the first day to sit on a cliff at the shore watching the waves roll in and the tide go out, or to sail feeling the wind and the waves and charting a course to tack back and forth. The second day, to sit in the depths of a forest or stand in the center of a wheat field, watching and listening as the wind furrows and that which we thought was all the same is distinguished by a bird or a chipmunk or a deer. The third day, to sit on a mountain and look over the range of mountains, to witness how insignificant we are, but also that we could be part of any and all of those places. The fourth to stand in the midst of a cemetery, Arlington or Gettysburg, or even Lakeview, to read the inscriptions and families of so many who have gone before.

I recall a few years ago, climbing a mountain with my son and his friends. I thought it would be following a path, but this journey was straight up. Within the first hour, I determined that if I could keep pace for the day, we would get to the first night's rest, and I would not have embarrassed him, so I could climb down while they went on ahead. But about mid-morning we stopped to rest, and I looked over the range of mountains, and realized two things, first that there was no way down you had to follow the path and continue, and second that we were on this journey together dependent on one another's abilities. Who are You? Were you there when? Are you able?

God provides a wonderful response to Job in the midst of his chaos. Job has witnessed the loss of his career, his honor, his sons and daughters, his fortune, his body is covered sores and illness, and Job reaches back to the most basic understanding of the Old Testament: The Exodus. Job demands that according to Moses you were going to hear our prayers and respond. According to your giving Israel your name at the Burning Bush, we would call upon you especially in times of suffering and you would care, you would redeem, you would be God. It appears as though God has created chaos to balance God's blessings. Where is God? Where are you? Are you there? Are you able?

God undercuts, Job's identification of Who God is in the Exodus, with a more basic foundational identity, Were you there at Creation? God is the Redeemer who heard the people and led the nation out to a Promised Land, but God is also The Creator, Who are you? Were you there at Creation? Are you able to Create? Do you realize all Creation was chaos, and order and balance were made out of chaos.

James and John make the same assumption of Jesus, enabling them to make a juvenile request. As parents, we have each been trapped in the request they make... “We want you to do whatever we ask.” To which Jesus responds “What would you like?” Even more childish they reply, “We want to share your Glory, we want to sit one at your right and one at your left in heaven.” Time after time throughout the Gospels Jesus had described the suffering and disgrace and death he would have to endure, yet they had not listened. James and John and Simon Peter were among the inner circle of the twelve disciples, who were the core of the crowd of followers listening to Jesus. They imagined that by relationship, they could receive his glory, his honor.
In reply to James and John, Jesus did not rebuke them. The other disciples and the crowd become indignant, that James and John asked for favors they would have wanted, but Jesus takes these two seriously and questions them: Who are you? Will you be there? Are you able to drink the cup I drink? These are not rhetorical questions, but assessment, reflection, and asking more of the petitioner than showing up. The point of Jesus' assessment is that James and John will follow Jesus not only as Disciples and as Apostles, but as Martyrs as well. And yet the point of Jesus incarnation is not simply that he gave us Baptism as a Sacrament for the Remission of Sins, and Communion as a Sacrament for Forgiven Eternal Relationship with God, for us to follow by example, but that he did so in his own life. He was/is the pioneer and perfecter for us. In the only occurrence in all the New Testament, Mark uses the word “Ransom” to describe Jesus paying to redeem our lives. Yet in this conversation what Mark reveals is that James and John, like all of us are Very Human, wanting Honor, Glory and Respect, and also this moment's hesitation as Jesus assesses Who they are? Whether they can be there when he needs and Are they able? The persistent question of Christian faith today is not whether we understand, not whether we want to be baptized and to drink from his cup, but what difference it makes for us?

Reading these passages over and over this week, something occurred to me that I had never seen before, something which is not recorded in any commentary, but reading these two passages together seems to make sense. Jesus' reply to James and John, and God's reply to Job from the Whirlwind are not rebukes. God was not saying “Who do you think you are? You were not there at Creation! You are not able!” Not an indignant condemnation: “Silly Rabbit, Tricks are for Kids!” But rather, an appraisal that Job could be able to do more, to believe differently.

The Response of God to Job from the Whirlwind is reference not to Exodus but to Creation; However, rather than Genesis 1 where the last Creation formed after light and dark, and dry land from Water; Rather than Genesis 3's Adam & Eve and questions of Good/Evil and Perfection; the Creation God is recalling from the Whirlwind, assessing Job, is Genesis 2. “When in the day God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant in the field was yet in the earth, no herb had yet sprung up, a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground – then the Lord God formed Humanity from the Humus, dead decaying dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” The answer to God's question of Were you there at Creation? is Yes!

The question that is left is “Are you able?” Having faced the struggles of life, can you face chaos? Before God can restore Job, Job has to witness God's most terrifying creatures “Behemoth” and “Leviathan”. At which point we understand that God is God and we are Human, but we are in the image of the creator, we were there at Creation, and we are able to be far more than those who show up and those who consume.

The last several months our Session has wrestled around the question of “Who are We?” The Episcopal and Lutheran Churches have chosen identities as Social Witness Churches. The Pentecostal and Baptist Churches have claimed identity as Conservative Churches, with only male leadership. The Methodist and Episcopal and Pentecostal Churches have become Praise Churches. So “Who are We?” The identity we have discerned is that we will live and die as an INCLUSIVE CHURCH, where all are welcome, Conservative and Liberal, and we will go out of our way to HOST and Welcome. We are a PERMISSION GIVING CHURCH where all things are possible. We are a MISSIONAL CHURCH who serve both locally and around the world, who give of ourselves, our time and talents and money and relationships because we are able. We are a CHURCH which both has RESOURCES TO SERVE and USES them. We are a TRADITIONAL CHURCH in that we follow a liturgy which is Transformative, Confessional and Redemptive, we like hymns that tell a story and are not simply popular they are good music. We are the Church, which has been and is Reformed, and We are Able.

"Combinations and Passwords" October 11, 2009

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Mark 10:17-31

A friend described coming to a new church, and on the desk in the pastor's office was an envelope inside were instructions that said “The church has a safe where all important papers and documents are kept. The combination is five numbers 50-30-20-40-10. The safe is quite ancient, so after you roll the combination, you need to jiggle the handle, then push in and lift on the door for it to open.” This to me seemed rather archaic, but as someone new, if it had worked all these years, he could get along, so he dutifully memorized the combination 50-30-20-40-10 and taped it to the bottom of his desk drawer. Years went by, only once or twice a year did he ever have to open the safe, sometimes the Treasurer or the Secretary went in there because they also had the combination. But invariably it required an extra three jiggles of the handle, pushing in and lifting to open. Finally, one day it no longer seemed to work, so we called a Locksmith. The locksmith worked for about 20 minutes, when he came out of the office and said “You've been using the wrong combination!” Sure enough, each digit was off by one or two, and when turning the tumblers to the correct combination, not only did you not need to jiggle the handle, you could actually hear the tumblers drop into position and the door pop open as if brand new. Upon further checking, it appeared the Treasurer and the Church Secretary also each had incorrect combinations that were different from one another and had been passed down from one person to another.

That is what the Book of Job and Jesus conversation with the young man and the disciples are all about. Our basic presuppositions worked for generations, being passed down from one to another to another, but they are off by just a digit or two, making it harder and harder for the combination to work.

Throughout the last few weeks, I have met with a number of folk who have said, “I don't get it. You speak of forgiveness, love and acceptance, but when do you speak of judgement? When do you say: “You should do this” or “If you do that you will be punished?”” That is the imprecise combination we have inherited. We have been the Church in this community for 208 years, and yet this is not our church, the church is the body of Christ, it belongs to God, and we are charged with being hosts.

In the first chapters of the Book of Job, Satan is described as having this contest with God, of whether suffering will make a person give up their faith. When I was a young boy, my brothers and I would spend summers at our grandfather's farm in Fulton. One of the mischievous things boys would do was to find frogs, then put them on top of fence-posts out in the field. Frogs are wonderful jumpers, but their skin is accustomed to being cool and moist, so sitting atop that fence-post the frog would begin to dry out. The question was always how long it would take for the frog to overcome their fear of leaping into the unknown, in order to escape the heat of the sun and the mischievous young boys?

But in the intervening chapters a shift has taken place. Rather than taking on Satan for his suffering, Job comes to realize that God is in charge, God is all knowing and all powerful. According to Moses and the promise at the Burning Bush in the sacred story of the Exodus, God listens to the voice of the oppressed, God pays special attention to their cries. So why, why did God allow this suffering? Job's questioning in this chapter exactly retraces Moses' Words at the Burning Bush, “If I go forward, will Thou be there? If I go backward? What then?” Job is questioning the most basic premise of the promise, God if we do all you expect, why do we suffer?

I have a good friend who spent his career as a management consultant. In his work he had routinely used a computer software for comparing statistics and demographic projections. When he retired the software company recognized what he had done, and gave him a special authorization to use their product. For life, he would have free access. But periodically, the software company made upgrades, every six months they changed their passwords, every three or four years the company was bought and sold. At each of these, they changed the password. He had been given AUTHORIZATION for life, but the PASSWORDS kept changing.

The rich young ruler comes to Jesus describing, “All my life, I have followed the commandments,” And Jesus loved him, and said one thing more must you do, Sell all you possess to give to others. When reading passages like this, we like to emphasize “It was a Man” “He was Rich” “He was Young” “He was a Ruler” and we discount and distance ourselves from being like him, who embodies all our ideals.

Are we to act as Hosts, welcoming others?
Are we not to Worship God?
To educate and develop Faith,
to do Mission and Service,
and Give?
We are, but just as having the combination off by one or two digits, the GIVING we are to practice, is to be without reserve, without possession, what we imagine to be extravagant! Francis of Assisi did not simply live a life of poverty, he was born and raised as the eldest son of a wealthy Fabric Merchant who renouncing his possessions literally stood in the Marketplace and stripped off all his father's fabric. The MISSION and service we are to do, is not simply writing a check, but walking 5 miles because in other parts of the world people walk 5 miles to get a jug full of water, then walk another 5 miles home. When John Dau receives the Caring Award this week, standing beside the Dalai Lama and Colin Powell, he also stands with you beside him, because you made it possible. Volunteers going to Sudan to offer Health Care to fight infectious disease for a people who never learned the technology of the Wheel. Not just education about faith, but developing intentional FAITH. Worshiping God, not as a routine, that you have to go to Worship. But PASSIONATE WORSHIP. Being Hosts in the House of God, is not simply worshipping beside someone attempting to not sit too close or sing to loud, but rather recognizing others as someone you do not know, so offering to guide them through the Worship. When photographers come for a Wedding, I take them aside to offer here are our recommendations and what we know work. This is what is unique and personal in this worship.

As such we recognize life differently.
This is not OUR TABLE, but to determine who belongs and who does not. THIS IS GOD'S TABLE. The loved one with Alzheimer's does not need us to correct them, they need to know they are loved.
It is possible for all of us to have been a digit or two wrong in life, and still loved by God, still used by God for God's Purposes, not necessarily as we choose, but continually learning new passwords to the everlasting life we are promised.

Limitations, October 4, 2009

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Mark 10:2-16
The great distinction between God and Humanity is limitation, defined boundaries to life itself.
Almighty God is all knowing, all powerful, boundless grace. The Alpha and Omega symbols in the stained glass point to God being the ultimate beginning before all else, and the absolute conclusion after all has been done. While there are those who believe the Apple in the Garden of Eden was knowledge of good and evil, others that this was knowledge of sex or war, or shame, others that this was knowledge of science and human learning, I believe the forbidden fruit was knowledge of our humanity, our mortality, our human limitations. Before that time, there is no discussion of death, only possibility. Tempted that limitations would not kill us, and were desired to make one wise, we bit, and following that first taste, we have been testing our limits ever since.

There are a wide variety of tests, from expansion of vocabulary and spelling, to mastery of concepts, physical exertion, and musical ranges we did not know we could reach, from standardized testing to essays that enable us to use concepts and theories to reach beyond what we thought we knew. The dual edge to testing is that we discern that despite all we know and are certain of, how little we actually understand; as well as being able to reach for immortality, for answers to what has always eluded us.

The book of Job is about testing a person. In Genesis, Abraham had been tested, with the sacrifice of Isaac, the difference in these stories being that when God saw that Abraham would not withhold his hand but would actually sacrifice his son at God's command, God spared both Isaac and Abraham. Here the test is not whether you love God, or how great is your love of God, but why do you love God, and is that love motivated by an implicit contract, or by honor, or piety or what? Because the question of faith is different, the test does not end when the child is about to be sacrificed, but rather this test begins with the death of all 10 of his children, and his land and crops and animals, and suffering in his own body and life. His wife and friends, all questioning why Job believes.

Many of us have been rereading the story of Joshua for the Women's Circles, trying to understand the importance for that people of there being a Nation of Israel, a Promised Land to inherit, while testing ideas of leadership and commitment and the persistent Old Testament ideal, that if you do right God will bless you, and whenever you do wrong, when you sin God will find a way to curse as well. The book of Job tests that ideal. Not an historic record like Chronicles or Kings. Not a book of Prophecy like Habakkuk, Isaiah or Ezekiel. The book of Job is didactic like the Parable of Nathan to King David. The result of telling the parable is to convince the listener there is only one answer for justice and righteousness in the world.

While many perceive Job to be a story of SUFFERING, Job is the story of God's Uncompromising HONOR, and the story of Job's unwavering TRUST. The last few weeks I have done a great deal of driving to host an event for retirees in Oneida, then a wedding rehearsal south of Canandaigua, Presbytery at Chittenango, and the wedding south of Canandaigua, a dinner to honor our departing EP's leadership in Fayetteville, and visiting our shut-ins and those in assisted care, as such I have listened to a variety of stations on the radio. Many of what are called Christian networks make great promises, that if we turn away from all temptation, if we abandon all the things of this world, we will be rewarded with far greater possessions... if we will send contributions to support their programs they will return to us seven-fold...my favorite is that you choose your top ten wishes from their list of forty: to win the lottery, to find true love, to live in a beautiful home, to be surrounded by the opposite sex, write these down on a slip of paper sending them to this address and within four to six weeks one will come true, and then and only then are you required to pay for your good fortune. It was as answer to this kind of faith, that the story of Job was told. JOB'S point is that if we believe we receive blessings from God, should we not then also expect that curses come from God as well? Far from a question of if there is a God, or if we have faith, or if there is suffering in the world, Job asks, Knowing that there is a God, having faith, experiencing suffering, “What are we to do, what are we to believe?”

Job's spouse is the sympathetic and supportive type who declares “Curse God already! Curse God and die!” But Job's faith cannot. Job's faith is based on unwavering TRUST, that even when, especially when what we believe in, the trusts we have known seem broken and betrayed, this is when we must believe.

Believing in wish fulfillment is a kind of implicit contract, that if we do the right things, belong to the right clubs, eat all our vegetables and say a prayer, our lives will be eternal blessing. The awful reality is that people do die, there was both a tsunami and an earthquake in the world this week. SU lost to Southern Florida. Chicago did not get the Olympics. Iraq continues to work at creating a nuclear bomb. The response of Job is sit upon the pile of debris that was his business, scraping the blisters of his flesh with a broken piece of pottery, trusting and believing that even if no one else understands, God cares.

Fool hardy, naïve? Perhaps. But Job is not questioning if there is a God, Job is confident that there is! Job's test is a different set of questions, questions of WHY, for what purpose, what am I to do?

I remember taking a test many years ago, perhaps you took the same one.
All the test booklets were passed out, each with 243 impossibly complicated questions, and the very last one on the last page, said that IF BEFORE TRYING TO ANSWER, YOU HAD LOOKED OVER ALL THE QUESTIONS TO SE WHERE THIS WAS GOING AND WHY, THEN YOU HAD PASSED THE TEST, SIGN THE TEST AND TURN IT IN.

So often we ask the wrong questions, looking for the wrong answers. Knowing that the Pharisees were putting Jesus to the Test, trying to trap him, many have taken Jesus' teaching out of context. In a question about “Divorce” the Pharisees ask Jesus about the LAW. He responds by asking “Do you know the Law as Moses gave it?” They respond “we do.” Then he goes on to describe not divorce, not adultery, but marriage, what marriage is truly all about, trust and commitment between two.

This week the media has had a field day, testing our culture's values, whether Roman Polanski who has so many influential friends and has gone on to make such award winning films, should be held accountable for having raped a 13 year old 40 years ago when he was 36. David Letterman has made a joke of his being blackmailed for having abused his power to have sex in the workplace with those who had depended upon him for their job and the feeding of their families. These are not questions of celebrity. These are not tests of a statute of limitations. Not questions of changing cultural mores. These are abuses of power, power over a child, power over those dependent upon you. These are violations of trust and we have been asking the wrong questions. The questions we need to consider are whether we have abused our relationships? What do our actions say to those who trust us? Can we be as vulnerable and transparent and open, as having parents of children bringing their children, or not?

Who knows but that... September 27, 2009

Esther 4
Mark 9: 38-50
How often we go through the motion of days, one upon another, responding to presenting circumstance as if the routine of having lived, having once been, were all that was left to us of a once nobler time? We hear shocking reports, sensationalized news written to command our attention, and we respond as if this were only so much more data. Breaking news of military attacks are received as if Weather reports. Cancers are named as if friends and family were coping with the Flu. It seems as if LIFE has lost life!

What Tom Brokaw described as “The Greatest Generation” is passing. Decades ago, their parents and grandparents described doing without, just trying to survive, in order that future generations would have a different world. This generation went off to World War, then to Conflict on the Korean Peninsula, in order that their children would be free, that evil might be destroyed once and for all. The creation of the bomb, was that evil would be ended, war would be no more, all humanity could be one. The League of Nations was a glorious ideal, that the world's leaders would stop playing political games for world domination and would instead sit down and talk together as reasonable women and men. The G8 was to be an Economic Summit of the leaders of the most powerful and prosperous nations, sharing discussion, sharing leadership for the World Economy. This year, this week, this summit was expanded to be the G20 recognizing the economic power and influence of developing nations, that old Monarchies and Colonizers must share power, must listen to those countries coming to the world stage. Yet in the midst of that Economic Summit, news broke from our leadership of evidence of a new evil, new threats, the potential of destabilization by yet another government developing secret capabilities for nuclear weapons. While all the nations of the world have agreed, that those countries without weapons of mass destruction would avoid development, and those possessing knowledge of the bomb would intentionally work to eliminate arsenals, there is a constant game of testing for power, for who can win at world domination. Our economy has become based on war and the weapons of war, the world economy based on fear and annihilation of one another. Where the Book of Esther named the planned genocide of the Jews by the Persians, as a horrible atrocity never before imagined by humanity, we have witnessed attempts at genocide in one nation upon another, civil war in every country on each of the developed continents.

Who knows? Who knows, but that, All the circumstances of life, ALL of human history, had been planned and orchestrated for this moment, that you, each one of us, could be motivated to act in faith? What if, those of us who have studied and researched our genealogies, knew we had a legacy, a vital inheritance won in the Crusades, protected by being brought to a new nation as those of our blood escaped plagues and famine, a treasure tempered by the pressures and heat of centuries, given to you. What would you do with that diamond? That treasure, that legacy, is faith. But if we have become so numb to life, so scarred and insular, and afraid, how can we risk sharing what we believe?

This week, members of the Women's Association in Bible Study asked a question. They said, “Grace seems to be a New Testament idea, is there Grace in the Old Testament?” There is, but we need to re-orient ourselves to see it. The Bible is not a reference book like a Thesaurus, for us to look up “grace”, and have examples of what we expect. Grace in the Old Testament is reflected in God's response to Adam and Eve when they sinned in the Old Testament, and were not condemned to death or to hell, but were given a new chance at life outside the garden. Esther is an example of God's grace in the Old Testament, a woman appointed for God's purposes.

The Book of Esther is a unique reference for our time. Unique, in that the Book of Esther never actually names God. A Reference for our Time, in that the story of Esther deals with risking to speak out, risking to reveal who you are and what you believe, by risking being vulnerable to the most powerful people in your world, even if that world seems far distant from faith in God.

The Story of Esther describes a time after King David, after Solomon, after the Deportation to Babylon, that Babylon was conquered in war by the Persians, and the People of Faith become a free people living within a culture that does not believe. The culture values beauty and power, values power and beauty so much that the first Queen is exiled for challenging the King's power, by her being unwilling to appear nude before the King's drunken friends. She is replaced as Queen by a Beauty Pageant. And Esther, an Orphaned child is chosen, solely for her beauty, to be Queen. Meanwhile, Haman the most powerful authority in the Country after the King, plots to have all the Jews exterminated, not knowing that Esther is a Jew. Esther is forced to play a deadly game, using her vulnerability and her faith in a world that values power and beauty. Like placing our arm around the Queen of England, there is ONE RULE everyone in the Palace knows, no one is allowed to address the King, no one is allowed to come into the presence of the King without being invited by the King. So, how does Esther, get an audience with the King to speak to him of Truth, when she has not been invited by him for over a month? Rather than assuming power, rather than using her sex and her beauty, Esther appeals to the King on the basis of her Vulnerability, that she has one wish: To share a dinner with him. The King and Haman the King's most powerful advisor come to the dinner, at which she is asked what she desires, and she becomes more vulnerable by asking they come to dinner again. Then finally, when asked what the king can do for her, Queen Esther reveals that she and her people are to be exterminated by Haman's plot. The story of Esther has truth for us, in that in a world dominated by Beauty and Power, the word of faith that cuts through is Vulnerability, not trying to play the game, not seeking after even greater power or dominating one's enemies, but stepping out of the game to be human, to be sincere.

The Gospel of Mark seems strange to us. We are offended by Jesus' words, suggesting that we should cut off a hand or foot or pluck out an eye, yet all this passage is stated to challenge and salt us. The disciples had been sent out by Jesus to baptize and heal and teach in his name. And they surprised themselves that they had authority, their commanding demons, and praying for people worked. All this worked so well, they began to argue among themselves which was more powerful, who could do the greatest things? They boast of having put down those who were not following their authority. But Jesus rebukes them, stating what is the opposite of human power; instead of assuming a War on Terror that “Those who are not For us most be agin us”, Jesus states: “those who are not Against us, Are for us!” The challenge to cut-off and pluck out, is not encouragement for Cutting and maiming one's self, but taking seriously, so seriously you are willing to cut out what is a cancer in our relationships.

We hear passage s about Jesus setting a baby in their midst, and we envision how cute and distracting the Middle aged man holding a baby. When what Jesus was suggesting was that in the midst of a Stockholder's meeting with all the politics and games of power, in the midst of High school's cliques about who are the prettiest, a baby has no power, can play no games, and yet their vulnerability, their need attracts us all.

We in the Syracuse area live a place once called SALT CITY, the Erie Canal was dredged to transport salt cured in this place to far distant locations. Today, we see salt as something to be avoided from our diets, a necessary evil for ice and cold. But in ages gone by they knew Salt used in moderation as a fertilizer, used in excess as able to destroy land for growing anything for generations. Our bodies are made up of salt water, and an imbalance causes our brains to operate in strange realities. Salt can be used in the curing of meats, in preservation. The difficulty, Jesus is naming is that if Salt has been used to absorb and is saturated, how can it be used? Our faith, our humanity, our compassion are super-saturated. Like the pitcher we use each week, we need to recognize and claim we are full of our worries, our concerns, our fears. We cannot take more in. So we pause in Sabbath, and pour out, trusting that God can take all we have. Then, emptying ourselves of our problems and fears and doubts, we are refilled and replenished for the week to come.

WDYDWYD? September 20, 2009

James 3:13 - 4:10
Mark 9: 30-37
The other day, this message appeared on my email: WDYDWYD?
A short time later the same title appeared again, WDYDWYD?
This time with a message, I am a College Freshman and have been given an assignment to ask people “Why Do You Do What You Do?”
Are you motivated by PROFIT, or ENVY or FEAR, or by RESPONSIBILITY, and if responsibility, is that to your business, to your stock holders, to employees, to the Nation, to your parents, to your spouse, to your kids, to God? WDYDWYD?
Part of me wanted to reply “YES to all the above.” Another part wanted to ignore the solicitation.
Then these passages were appointed for this day and this week.

American society is based on ENVY. A hundred times a day, in television talk shows and commercials, billboards, radio broadcasts and on the internet we are encouraged to want what others want. Everyone needs to have a Flat-screen TV, everyone including the seven year old needs a cell phone, we must have the latest computer, the newest car, designer clothes and shoes, and Labor day is over so we have to replace all the summer items with Fall and Winter. The point is no longer to WIN by having more than anyone else, but simply to keep up and not be left out. Why Do You Do What You Do? We try to DO everything, so as to not be left out, to be accepted like everyone else.

We have run into trouble economically, not because we did not listen, but precisely because we did.
We were given dozens of credit cards, free checks, enticement rates, rebates on future taxes, $4500 for cars (clunkers) we knew were not worth $500 without questioning why or who would pay the difference, we were told to buy now and pay nothing for two years, all so we could have everything everyone else would have, until we were drowning in debt in an economy based on credit. An odd development happened when humanity changed from hunter/gatherers to being a people of the land. Hunter gatherers can always share, what is gathered for three can include a fourth. But when we buy and sell and own land, we perceive resources to be limited, there is only so much lakefront, which requires that we become lenders and debtors. Then we wonder why our credit ratings are not better. WDYDWYD? As a Clan because all are in need, as individuals because others want what we have.
We expect somebody to do something about our debt, about all our problems or else we will vote others into office in their place. Yet, in the pit of our stomachs we do know there is a probability that nothing can be done. WDYDWYD?

Even in our prayers, we confess, “Dear God, I am helpless. My child is ill. There is Cancer. They are so far away. Nothing can be done, it is hopeless and every possibility has already been explored. So now we have come to you. If you can do nothing, I guess that will be okay, but I thought, I hoped, maybe, faith was worth a chance, if not then maybe there is no God anyway.” That is not faith, that is fate.

Like the father bringing his child to Jesus' Disciples, after a lifetime of everyone else being tried, everyone else failing as his son flails, throwing himself into fire drowning in water. Jesus was up the mountain with Peter and James and John, and you can hear the father saying, “Don't bother the Rabbi, who am I to ask anything of God, but maybe you could do something.” After even trying the disciples, the father brings his son to Jesus. This is such a classic scene, as the father asks Jesus “IF he can do anything?” and you can hear the indignation convulsing Jesus as he says “IF?” The point of faith, is not to bend our circumstance to accept whatever happens. Faith cannot be proven by an IF/ THEN proposition. Faith is opening ourselves to what God is doing in this circumstance, to accepting this as a question of our conviction, of our commitment of our faith, and standing toe to toe with the Almighty, committing ourselves, believing only God can make a difference. WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO? Because you can do nothing else!

Sometimes, I think the Evangelist of Mark recorded this story with an inaccurate emphasis. Mark makes us to see Jesus accomplishing miracles no one else, not even his disciples could do. That is good and valid, HOWEVER from the dialogue, I think what may have happened that day, is that when Jesus responded to the father “IF?” the father cried out “I DO BELIEVE, HELP MY UNBELIEF” and this is what was cured, and through the healing of the father's faith, suddenly the son could be helped. Throughout this section, the father has treated the boy as his possession, as his burden, that he wants someone else to fix for him. But continually the boy is still a burden, until the father is challenged and healed. WHY DID THE BOY DO WHAT THE BOY DID. throwing himself in fire and drowning in water? It got attention, for him and for the father. The father was needed because he could take his son to someone else.

Reading this over this day, we have to wonder. God, the FATHER is all powerful, able to create worlds and peoples, to form order and life. Why was it necessary Jesus enter life? On the one hand, we have a freedom of will and we were and are able to choose whether or not to believe. But also, God had come to have this relationship with humanity as being sinners with a far distant God, and change is hard. Change requires we let go our assumptions and fully believe, commit ourselves to a different reality. SO, Jesus coming into life, was also about the healing of God.

This story also helps us better understand about the Disciples. Jesus had called them, instructed and commissioned them, and sent them out two by two to call people to faith, to cast out demons, and preach and baptize. After doing so, they return, and this father comes with his son. The disciples listen, they exhort, they preach, they work beside the father, but nothing happens. When they ask Jesus WHY his response is that this kind of demon are hard to shake, they require prayer. The disciples had not been praying? There is no indication yet he had shown them how to pray. As an act of faith, prayer is where we often begin. But the disciples recognized something even more basic. Their first task was to get to know the people, to listen to them and build and establish trust. Not a little thing. But prayer comes after establishing trust. Trusting one another, that we are not isolated, not alone and not in competition, we then trust God.

There have been far too many examples of Faith Healers, who fix the lame and blind, and miraculously change the world. Just as there have been far too many examples of a praise faith that says Praise God and I will receive everything I want. FAITH is wrestling with God, wrestling with ourselves and our circumstance. Trusting God to have a plan to use us, even us.

Recently, I heard the story of a photographer, who taught a class in photography to blind students. She gave cameras to the students and encouraged them to take photos of their world. Shortly thereafter, the School Board received a photo of a broken sidewalk and uneven pavement. The accompanying note read, “You have eyes to see, and responsibility for your students. I cannot see, and these cracks cause me to stumble. They catch my cane and trip me up from trying. There are cracks that those with eyes do not see, I am showing them to you, you have to have responsibility to help those of us who are blind. The letter was signed WDYDWYD?

IM, September 13, 2009

WE ARE a self-fulfilled, self-actualized, prosperous people. Whereas the readings for this morning call us to see what is HOLY. CALL us, to know that God knows us better than we know ourselves. As much as we are accustomed to believe that if you make THE Right decision, the right purchase of the right product, if we find our soul-partner for life; if we could go to the right pre-school so as to go to the right elementary starting at the age when we were ready, and went on to the right preparatory school so as to go to the best colleges and Universities and have all knowledge so as to be learned; STILL we will not understand, because faith is not a single one-time linear decision, faith is a life-time pursuit of relearning what we thought we already knew, learning what is too familiar.

We are a Christian people, named for Jesus Christ. But as much as we think we know what being Christian is, as much as we believe we understand who Christ is, this is only the beginning. We have come to use “Christ” as if Jesus' last name, as if we could assume we know what it means to be The Messiah, the Son of God! Do not misunderstand, to know Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, Son of God is a powerful claim and realization, for that is what Simon Peter came to affirm, that is the point of Baptism. They were walking along the road, having been Called by Jesus, having been together to see many miracles, having heard his teachings, when Jesus asks them to consider “What is my reputation? Who do people say I AM?” King Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead! Some knew the Old Testament Scriptures that prior to the end of the world, Elijah the Prophet who had not died but had been carried up by God in a whirlwind was to return. Still others thought he was a Good Man, a Rabbi, a Prophet. So Jesus gets personal and asks: “Yes, but who do you say that I AM?”

How many remember that moment in 9th Grade Geometry, when you had learned that 2+2 = 4, and 4 X 4= 16, you had learned square roots and basic Algebra; when one morning you were given formula for calculating the distance around the perimeter of a circle, and using that, you suddenly understood the quantity that could be held by a cylinder? There is that moment, when you believe a Lightbulb actually appeared above your head, when suddenly you know! That is Simon Peter: Jesus Called us, Jesus fed 5000 people with one child's lunch, Jesus walked on Water and calmed the sea, Jesus heals the sick and teaches us what never before was revealed, Ding, Ding “Jesus IS the Messiah!” And Jesus says YES BUT, you do not yet know what that means. Because the Messiah, the Son of God, the Christ, MUST suffer, must die for all the world to be saved, in order for Resurrection to occur there must be a Crucifixion and for that there must be betrayal, and for betrayal to be real, there must be trust and love, not only as we each have known, but to TRUST and to LOVE and to be BETRAYED for all Humanity. For the Resurrection of Easter to be a reality, the Son of God must be the representative of all the world the SON of MAN, who suffers for all Creation, who atones for the Whole Cosmos, Once and For All.

Christendom made everyone believe we knew what it is to be Christian, you go to church, you are Baptized, you sing the hymns, you go to Sunday School, you serve on a committee, you pay an offering you receive Communion, and WHAM BAM: YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN. Suddenly, for Simon Peter and for Us, it is as if that “lightbulb of realization” overheated and explodes. FAITH IN GOD is not a matter of going through the motions, of showing up for life, of doing what others always did, but challenges us to live out our Calling, to live our faith, to choose to make things happen, because you care, because you must, not for your sake, but to make a difference for others.

The Great Patriarch, MOSES, Moses who led the people to the Promised Land, Moses who brought to the people the 10 COMMANDMENTS of God, Moses who parted the Red Sea, was not always known as such. Moses had witnessed a great injustice, and got involved, for which an Egyptian was dead, and Moses was known to have taken a life. In reaction to which, Moses went away, got married and took up a new life. Not as part of Pharaoh's Court, not as a leader, not as a Savior, but blending in as a common SHEPHERD, not even as a Prominent Son, but the Son-in-law of Jethro a Levite, the Priest of Midian. We each naively believe that we define who we are. Our parents begin this by giving us a name, yet as soon as we can we change from being called Matthew to our wanting to be Matt, from being given the name Gustavus to being Gus. We choose whether we want to play sports and with whom we want to be known. We choose what schools we attend. We choose our career. We choose where we want to live and who we marry. We choose what we want to put on a resume, how we want to be called, and who we want to know us on Facebook. We choose who we give our email address to, and who has access to us for Instant Messaging. Moses was herding sheep for his Father-in-Law, when GOD CALLED his name.

Faith is not a matter of choice, but a matter of conviction. God knew Moses, before Moses knew God. God had a plan for Moses to do. In the midst of what was routine and common, God called Moses to see what was Holy. Moses tried to turn God down. FIVE TIMES God told Moses what he must do and each time, Moses tried to claim something else, some one else. “Get my brother Aaron, he is a better public speaker.” God allows that Aaron can share in this, but Moses is still CALLED BY GOD.

In desperation, Moses says, “So IF, and I am not saying I will, but IF I Go to the People and say God Called, and the people ask Whose God, the God of the Perrizites, the Amonites, the God of the Trees, the God of Lightning and Thunder, the God who makes Snow, the God of Love or the God of War?” And God responded “I AM”. Our kids know IM as Instant Messaging, staying connected with your every thought of what you are doing, when. While familiar to us, the Name God gave to Moses comes from the Verb “TO BE”. I Have Been what I Have Been; I Will Be What I Will BE; I AM What I am. As much as to say, that as Creator, everything that exists, everything we can imagine, everything that has ever been and all that will ever be, GOD is Part of.

The struggle of reason that explodes that lightbulb over our heads, is that if all that IS is because of God, then What do we do with the Holocaust? How do we understand the Cancer? Why did 9/11 happen? If God is all Knowing and al powerful... “Was God impotent to make a difference?” “Did God allow these human devastations to happen?” “Did God cause them?” Is God worse than Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein and Ossama Bin Laden and Bernie Maddoff all rolled into one? There is something to Moses argument, of saying “No Thank You” to Faith.
Personally, I believe that there are be it by fate or design, or the presence of evil in the world Horrible Tragedies that will happen. The question of faith is what we will do, who among us is called and to do what.

That day, eight years ago, there were at least four planes. Two of which were flown into the Trade Centers. One was flown into the Pentagon. One, the people on board IM-ed friends and family to give them their love, then the passengers, the shepherds going about their business took control.
I remember that day, at the local factory, As people asked if this were the end of the world? If this were the presence of Evil in the world? I recall that afternoon, sharing with strangers, that I have two sons who would be draft age, and the fears of parents, the fears of us all at the war that would come. I recall that evening, as this Sanctuary was filled beyond capacity, as we described that nothing is as it was yesterday. I recall people over the next many weeks asking: Why would people hate so much? Strangely, this year, on September 11th one couple chose to marry and another to have their rehearsal for their wedding, not that this had become just another day, they were intentional it was not, BUT that this day could be redeemed, reclaimed as not being a day of tragedy.

Of all the healing stories, this one in Mark is unique, because Jesus touches the man and asks if he can see, and he is healed but not completely, only half-way, so people look like trees walking. And Jesus touches the man a second time, and encourages him to look intently, in essence to look Deeper. We can approach life, as ordinary or we can look deeper. We can be healed from blindness, from paralysis, from cancer, from hate; but there is also a deeper healing, spiritual healing of redeeming life, resurrection knowing what was is dead and we are called to live anew.