Matthew 28:16-20
Acts 1: 1-11
Show of hands this morning:
How many of us believe there is a God?
How many believe Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior?
Regardless of how, do you believe in the miracles, that he fed 5000 with loaves & fishes?
That people believed and were healed of leprosy, of being deaf, or lame?
We have evidence he suffered and died on the Cross and being dead was buried.
How many believe the tomb was empty on Easter morning?
So having acknowledged all that, how many believe Jesus stepped onto a cloud and ascended?
The Gospel affirms that among the 12 Disciples, some doubted.
They stood looking into heaven, wondering: What just happened?
And among the disciples, not even Peter asked Should we build a marker that will identify this mountain? For the point was not which mountaintop. The point was not the empty tomb. The point was not death or flying on a cloud. Faith is not a Memorial Society to a Dead Savior.
Quite simply, the point of ASCENSION is that he lives. The God who loved the world so much God gave God's only begotten child, the God who raised Jesus from Death to Life, demonstrated
that there is no longer a gulf between heaven and earth.
NOTHING Has ever, Could ever separate us from the Love of God, that is Christ, not even death... so even with our doubts we can never give up on one another.
As human creatures we seem to have limitless ideas and imagination, but a limited capacity to store information. Some of us have what we affectionately call “SENIOR MOMENTS” when we simply cannot seem to retrieve that name we know. At other times, we merge ideas and distill the basics we want to remember making sense by letting go what does not seem to serve. We know Jesus was born and lived and died and rose again, sitting at the right hand of God. SO facts like the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days following Easter, often are lost on us. Ascension Day is the claim and assurance that although 2000 years and more have transpired, we know he cares and is close.
Karl Barth, the great theologian of the early half of the last Century described this time, the time between Easter's Resurrection and the day of Pentecost, as A SIGNIFICANT PAUSE, when we are commanded to WAIT and to PRAY. To a computerized, fiber-optic, push-button people, waiting is ONEROUS. Faith is not a Philosophy you can learn, or an accomplishment to be mastered. The commandment to WAIT & PRAY is a realization there are things outside our control. There is a spirit, a power, a maturity that cannot immediately be grasped, we need to wait, to pray, to reflect, to reconsider.
The wonderful part of Matthew's Commissioning is that the Disciples were commanded to GO, to Baptize and to Teach; not that Baptism was only for those who fully understood, not a graduation, but rather the starting point, for those that want to believe, and struggle with our unbeliefs and doubts. Ironically, Matthew does not Command that the disciples PREACH, not that we proselytize, but rather that we live our faith, as a community of caring.
Years ago, we had been teaching the 3rd Graders how to use the Bible, that there are two Parts Old and New, that there are 66 Books, and Chapters and verses so as to find your way. We gave to each of the children a Bible of their own, and that morning their teacher asked them to turn to the Book of Acts, to read. A moment later, one of the children spoke up saying, “I don't have the Book of Acts”. Imagining the child had not found the book, the Teacher listed off the books in order, and the child said, “But I do not have the Book of Acts”. Trying to get through this, the teacher called out the Page number, an d still the child protested, so the Teacher stopped teaching and went to see. Sure enough, in the binding, the publisher had all of the Old Testament, all the Gospels and Epistles, but somehow had missed including the Acts of the Apostles. Which makes one wonder: If we had the whole of the Old Testament, and the whole of the Gospels, the instruction and teaching of the Letters, but we were missing this narrative description transitioning from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to explain how the Church came to be, how the Word of God was taken from a small group of twelve to all the world, would it matter? I think so, because what happens in the Acts of the Apostles, is that we shift from a small group who have first hand experience, to people sharing with one another their interpretations of life and their relationships of faith.
We have made a tragic mistake in this time of waiting. In our society we have become so jaded and offended by those who force their faith on others, that we imagine there is only one kind of EVANGELISM, knocking on doors to proselytize. We acquiesce that this church stands for this cause, and that church for that movement, rather than being a community of caring for each when in need.
Yet this week, we witnessed one example of faith, one circumstance of God's love, after another. Different from a Viewing or Visitation, we had an opportunity for all those family & friends who knew a young woman and her family to come to the Fellowship Hall for an Open House. In 3 hours over 600 adults and over 300 kids came, to share, to support, to be the Church community. Some brought cookies, some played basketball, others brought cookies, some drew pictures for her children, some reflected on the artwork she had created over a lifetime, others brought more cookies, some described her battles with Cancer, and how her prayers and her friends got her through the worst, and gave them hope. Others brought more cookies.
On Friday we celebrated a wedding. One of the joyful parts of this was that other than the couple, not a single wedding guest was familiar to us. Neither of their parents were still married to each other, but we listened and worked with them, so that the Groom could be escorted by his mother and his father, she could be escorted by her mother and grandmother. They needed the Church, they wanted a place for a wedding, and we were here for them. In the midst babies started crying and parents got up to leave in the midst of the wedding, and you all know what happened.
Saturday, we gathered at the home of the one who had died. And there were tears for our losses, but there were also laughter and remembrances, and interpretations of a lifetime that gave others hope. The husband who remembered their wedding in this same yard, and the adoption of their children. The nephew who remembered 79 bonfires. The friend who recalled going to treatment together, then allowing her to sit in the midst of a Lilac bush.
It would have seemed possible for the Disciples to have stayed a Memorial Society, who gathered to grieve the death and Empty Tomb, but their faith was raised up, they were called to something higher. They interpreted the events of their life, his teachings, their calling to give others faith.
SO when is the last time, you shared with someone from your faith?
This is also Memorial Day Weekend, a time when we have perhaps forgotten why we remember. We confuse this holiday at the beginning of summer, like a bookend with Labor Day as being a National Day off. A day to wait to picnic. We know that Memorial Day has something to do with death, so many of us make trips to the Cemetery. We know Memorial Day has something to do with Veterans, but we also have a Veterans' Day in November. I think the remembrance of this day was best summed up by President Lincoln in the Address at Gettysburg, we all remember the quote “Four Score and Seven Years ago”. The great irony is that what that speech described was “We have not come here to Dedicate, to consecrate, we cannot hallow the ground, because the brave men and women who struggled here consecrated the ground far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to their unfinished work, that they shall not have died in vain – that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A Sandwiched Faith, April 26, 2009
Luke 24: 36-48
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Always Being Reformed, May 10, 2009
John 15:1-8
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
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