Isaiah 63:7-9
Matthew 2: 13-23
After the last person had left following the Midnight Service Christmas Eve, so on Christmas morning, I walked the Village quiet. All through each house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. What caught my eye was not some miniature sleigh and reindeer, but the tree, the end of the pier, on the lake. The waters were calm as glass, and the tree which shown as a blaze of light, the light on the top shining brightest, as if a star, was reflected beneath with brilliant trees of light each extending five times as big. Suddenly it occurred to me that while we had each been hustling and bustling to create Christmas, that singular event was over in a moment, while the reflection “After-Christmas” stretched many times as large in every direction. We, none of us, create Christmas, not even Jesus has that control, Christmas is God's gift. But what we do with “After-Christmas,” how we reflect, extends that event through all our lives in every direction.
Funny, we have amalgamated all the traditions and stories of Christmas as if one. The only description of there having been No Room in any Inn, of the baby being born in a Stable, laid in a manger, visited by poor shepherds, angels, of Dedication at the Temple with two turtle doves, is in the Gospel of Luke. John retold Genesis' creation. Mark began at the Adult Baptism and beginning of Jesus' ministry. Matthew seems to suggest that Joseph and Mary were residents in Bethlehem, and in days “After- Christmas” were visited by Kings before whom they would bow down.
Threatened by announcement of a new king, Herod killed all the babies about the age of Jesus. There is an ethical dilemma for us in this story... That Christ came to save the world, to suffer for all humanity, why then, in his birth, were all the others killed? We can make the Suffering Servant Argument, which the Sanhedrin would discuss regarding the killing of Jesus, that one person suffer for the salvation of all the rest, but Why should only one be saved by God when hundreds were put to death? Worse, we could make the argument that the others were not even at risk from Herod, until the coming of the Savior, the birth of Jesus, so did his birth cause suffering for the world? Everything would be so much simpler, if we remain with the pieces of the story we want, rather than reflecting and extending the events of life in differing directions from each of our perspectives.
How different the world might seem IF ONLY.
I have shared previously, that my mother died in an odd circumstance of my birth. So, much like Jimmy Stewart in “A Wonderful Life” had I not been born, what might her life have been?
When the Sudanese first arrived, Jacob was filled with questions: You have given us gifts we did not even know existed, but what we want is a Bible, where is the Bible? There were over 6000 Refugees at Kakuma, out of the 26000 who began, why were the three of us Chosen? And why, when the Civil War had gone on for decades, had it taken so long for America to get involved?
Recently someone gave me a family letter, translated from German, written after World War I. The Letter describes the devastation of the economy, repressions that led to the rise of Naziism. To suddenly go from a comfortable life to having only one cow to provide milk for your family, and she is stolen and slaughtered by those who were starving. The letter names “How different the war would have gone, if only the Americans had not entered in.”
The Afterward of Christmas is what gives meaning to all that occurred.
History is written by the circumstance of what comes after.
The point of marriage, is not how beautiful the wedding day, but the commitment of the couple.
The point of the birth of a child, is not how many hours of labor; though we take pride in announcing the weight and length of the baby, this has no effect on our height or weight as adults. The point of the birth of a baby is that this new life has entered the world, entered and changed our lives, forever.
A Century ago at the World's Fair in Paris, The Eiffel Tower was unveiled as the world's tallest free standing steel structure, after which in America we created the Empire State Building, as an even taller steel structure, but one that could be occupied with offices for business and apartments for residence. When the Soviets were first to launch a dog into space, we pledged to have a man orbit the earth, and within a decade to set foot on the moon.
I would dare to say, that there is not one gift given by any of us this Christmas, that we could not have lived without. And yet, there are gifts and relationships and circumstances, that do change the world, change our lives.
Because of the Anger of Herod, Joseph took Jesus to Egypt both that the child was saved and, that like Moses of Old, the Savior would come Out of Egypt to set free a new people of God. The point here is not what Jesus experienced in Egypt. There is no record of this upon the family. But that those who came after, reflected upon the events.
We are in the midst of cultural change, as the postal service becomes more expensive, and electronic communication becomes a norm. One of the things I hope is not lost, is the communication that comes from people in reflection upon the year. More than a ubiquitous Christmas Letter bragging of all the accomplishments of our children, the opportunity at least once a year, to connect with people who touched our lives and changed us. To hear, at least once: what happened AFTER?
How different the framing of reality, if instead of focusing upon “IF ONLY” we perceive life through how our lives are touching the life of others, the difference we make. Time and again this last year, we have encountered difficult times. And persons have come up afterward, not having rescued, but having said “We were watching to see what you would do, and to learn from you.”
One of the circumstances of this year, I hope to remember, is having tried to assist a church using two Open-ended Questions:
What do you reflect on as being the best thing this Church has ever done?
Sponsoring the Sudanese? Making a difference, and challenging perceptions about race.
Rebuilding and reinvesting to make a resource for this community?
Creating a Pipe Organ, and place for Skaneateles Festival and for Masterworks to rehearse?
Supporting Alternative Education and Nursery Schools, the Early Childhood Center?
Several times in recent days, I have heard comment about the Church Cookbooks?
Maybe it was the group that used to remake misfit toys from Larabee's Train Co for the Mission-field?
What does this community need, that isn't being done?
Monday, December 27, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
December 24 Midnight Las Posadas
Luke 2:1-20
We rush through Christmas. We rush through life, trying to get it over with. Since before Halloween, we have been anxiously trying to get everything done, so as to have time to celebrate, and we continue rushing right through to New Year's. We even rush through the story, for the Christ to be born, so that the Kings can come bearing presents, missing the point of the gift that has come for us all.
LAS POSADOS is a Mexican tradition of the Church. Remembrance that the world Christ was born into was overcrowded, busy, just as our world is an overcrowded place, with people having other priorities and their own commitments. Historically, this was during the time of Emperor Caesar Augustus, that is after the time of Julius Caesar, when Quirinius was the Governor of all Syria. The Government mandated not only a new set of taxes, but that to determine how much tax was owed, every person needed to leave their home, their business and property, to go to their ancestral hometown, to be counted in a Census. This was not only the story of Joseph and his pregnant bride Mary. The roads and countryside were mobbed with crowds of thousands and thousands of people, all on the move, all making their way, to Villages and Cities where their grandfather's grandfathers had been born. Cities and Villages their families had left, perhaps for better opportunities, possibly because family and town had been divided over some problem. They returned to the Towns and Cities of their ancestors, because they were required to do so. Where at one time, a family of 12 had lived in an apartment, now those 10 children had grown up, married and had children of their own, who had married and had children of their own, all returning, all seeking refuge.
The point of Las Posados is that this circumstance was not only Mary and Joseph's, but for thousands of people that night, and millions of people throughout human history.
The story of Mary and Joseph is a story repeated by refugees, immigrants and exiles in many different times and places throughout the world. The story of Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve is the story of the pilgrim and the sojourner, hoping for a new land and a new home, and a new way of life. It is our story as well. Our ancestors, and we, have all been sojourners, at some point in life. We have all sought refuge and safety, security and sustenance.
Tonight, we do not rush to the arrival of the Magi 12 days later, we rejoin the journey of the refugee, the immigrant, the forced traveler, and in the spirit of this season, we welcome one another by the grace of God into LA POSADA: The Inn: God's House of refuge, sanctuary, hospitality: sharing the gifts of faith with all who desire to receive.
Could we join in the first verse of: O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
This night in Sudan, there are thousands of people walking, searching for a place of rest, for a home. The Referendum is two weeks away, on 9 January. Deng and his young bride Anon, each lived in Khartoum in Northern Sudan for ten years. In 1980, Deng had been the eldest of 12 brothers and sisters. It had been Deng's turn to keep watch over the cattle in the Cattle Camp, when soldiers came in the night. Finding the Village asleep, they lit the on fire the thatched roofs of the tukul huts and when families ran out, they were shot. Such a choice: to be burned alive or shot to death. Deng had seen the fires, had smelt the smoke. That night, he and the other boys at the Cattle camp began walking, seeking help, seeking family, refuge. 26,000 children walked hundreds of miles across Sudan to Ethiopia. You could follow the path of their migration by the bodies of those who did not survive. Swimming across the river to Ethiopia, they were safe for a time. But then war came to Ethiopia. Again Deng had a choice to make, swim back across the river filled with crocodiles, back across to the other side, to war in Sudan, or remain to be shot. Deng and the others walked hundreds of miles south in 120 degree heat, avoiding soldiers and other predators, to Kenya, to the Camp at Kakuma, where they lived in refuge again. Word finally came that over 3500 of the refugees would be going to America, but Deng was not one of those chosen, so Deng had left Kakuma to go home, when he was arrested, he was beaten and taken to be sold as a slave in Khartoum. Now, a decade later, he had been set free by his master, told to return to his village, return to the place where his family had been killed. He had met Anon, they had fallen in love and engaged to marry. There, in their ancestral Village, he would Register and cast his vote for freedom, that there would be two Sudans, two nations under God. In two weeks the Referendum will take place, there is great expectation for Peace, and there is great fear of the renewal of war.
Could we join in singing IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
John and Mary had come to America, searching for religious freedom.
England, Holland, France, each had known persecutions of those who practiced faith differently.
The journey on the sailing ship had lasted for months, without enough food, many becoming sick and dying before they ever reached land.
This new country was a hard place. The soil was different, and crops that were planted withered and died. The Iroquois and the Sioux taught them to bury a fish with the seed to act as fertilizer.
These strangers kept the Pilgrims alive through the first long winter.
In generations to follow, how many different peoples have been treated as foreigners, as strangers, as aliens, and when have we welcomed them as we were cared for?
There were among our ancestors Exiles sent as a Penile colony to America.
Those who came from Ireland during the Potato Famine.
Those from back woods farms, seeking work in cities at the Industrial Revolution.
There have been Refugees of war.
Those escaping Russia.
Armenians escaping the Turks of the Ottoman Empire.
Those fleeing The Netherlands, Germany, Poland.
Those who came to America, rather than Concentration Camps, leaving behind everyone, everything, changing name and identity.
Those who escaped Cuba under Castro,
Those who escaped Viet Nam after Saigon fell.
Those who came from St. Bernard Parish, New Orleans, who endured Hurricane Katrina, then floods as the levies gave way and were rescued off the submerged rooftop of what was their home.
Those from Zambia, who watched both their parents die of AIDS, and as orphans came together to create families.
What is it to be alien, in America?
Where is home, when you cannot go back home?
Could we join in the first verse of IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR
Some are searching, not for a geographic home, but desperate for a safe and healthy spiritual home. There are those who seek simply to be welcomed, for who we are, as we are. Is there such an Inn?
Jeffrey was always a little different.
During High School he struggled with depression, that led to escaping his feelings, first with liquor, then with drugs.
Jeffrey became hurt and angry at the world, and the world was disappointed and angry with him for failure.
Jeffrey left home, certain his parents hated him, if they cared at all.
Jeffrey attempted suicide, doubting that anyone cared.
Helen is Jeffrey's grandmother.
Helen always believed in God's love and in forgiveness.
But now her home stands empty and hollow.
Helen cannot welcome her grandson without alienating her daughter and daughter's husband.
Who makes the first move?
When do we stand up to one another, and when do we help?
Who creates a place for the other?
Who welcomes whom?
Could we join in singing AWAY IN A MANGER
Love Came Down At Christmas recited
HYMN 41 O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
We rush through Christmas. We rush through life, trying to get it over with. Since before Halloween, we have been anxiously trying to get everything done, so as to have time to celebrate, and we continue rushing right through to New Year's. We even rush through the story, for the Christ to be born, so that the Kings can come bearing presents, missing the point of the gift that has come for us all.
LAS POSADOS is a Mexican tradition of the Church. Remembrance that the world Christ was born into was overcrowded, busy, just as our world is an overcrowded place, with people having other priorities and their own commitments. Historically, this was during the time of Emperor Caesar Augustus, that is after the time of Julius Caesar, when Quirinius was the Governor of all Syria. The Government mandated not only a new set of taxes, but that to determine how much tax was owed, every person needed to leave their home, their business and property, to go to their ancestral hometown, to be counted in a Census. This was not only the story of Joseph and his pregnant bride Mary. The roads and countryside were mobbed with crowds of thousands and thousands of people, all on the move, all making their way, to Villages and Cities where their grandfather's grandfathers had been born. Cities and Villages their families had left, perhaps for better opportunities, possibly because family and town had been divided over some problem. They returned to the Towns and Cities of their ancestors, because they were required to do so. Where at one time, a family of 12 had lived in an apartment, now those 10 children had grown up, married and had children of their own, who had married and had children of their own, all returning, all seeking refuge.
The point of Las Posados is that this circumstance was not only Mary and Joseph's, but for thousands of people that night, and millions of people throughout human history.
The story of Mary and Joseph is a story repeated by refugees, immigrants and exiles in many different times and places throughout the world. The story of Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve is the story of the pilgrim and the sojourner, hoping for a new land and a new home, and a new way of life. It is our story as well. Our ancestors, and we, have all been sojourners, at some point in life. We have all sought refuge and safety, security and sustenance.
Tonight, we do not rush to the arrival of the Magi 12 days later, we rejoin the journey of the refugee, the immigrant, the forced traveler, and in the spirit of this season, we welcome one another by the grace of God into LA POSADA: The Inn: God's House of refuge, sanctuary, hospitality: sharing the gifts of faith with all who desire to receive.
Could we join in the first verse of: O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
This night in Sudan, there are thousands of people walking, searching for a place of rest, for a home. The Referendum is two weeks away, on 9 January. Deng and his young bride Anon, each lived in Khartoum in Northern Sudan for ten years. In 1980, Deng had been the eldest of 12 brothers and sisters. It had been Deng's turn to keep watch over the cattle in the Cattle Camp, when soldiers came in the night. Finding the Village asleep, they lit the on fire the thatched roofs of the tukul huts and when families ran out, they were shot. Such a choice: to be burned alive or shot to death. Deng had seen the fires, had smelt the smoke. That night, he and the other boys at the Cattle camp began walking, seeking help, seeking family, refuge. 26,000 children walked hundreds of miles across Sudan to Ethiopia. You could follow the path of their migration by the bodies of those who did not survive. Swimming across the river to Ethiopia, they were safe for a time. But then war came to Ethiopia. Again Deng had a choice to make, swim back across the river filled with crocodiles, back across to the other side, to war in Sudan, or remain to be shot. Deng and the others walked hundreds of miles south in 120 degree heat, avoiding soldiers and other predators, to Kenya, to the Camp at Kakuma, where they lived in refuge again. Word finally came that over 3500 of the refugees would be going to America, but Deng was not one of those chosen, so Deng had left Kakuma to go home, when he was arrested, he was beaten and taken to be sold as a slave in Khartoum. Now, a decade later, he had been set free by his master, told to return to his village, return to the place where his family had been killed. He had met Anon, they had fallen in love and engaged to marry. There, in their ancestral Village, he would Register and cast his vote for freedom, that there would be two Sudans, two nations under God. In two weeks the Referendum will take place, there is great expectation for Peace, and there is great fear of the renewal of war.
Could we join in singing IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
John and Mary had come to America, searching for religious freedom.
England, Holland, France, each had known persecutions of those who practiced faith differently.
The journey on the sailing ship had lasted for months, without enough food, many becoming sick and dying before they ever reached land.
This new country was a hard place. The soil was different, and crops that were planted withered and died. The Iroquois and the Sioux taught them to bury a fish with the seed to act as fertilizer.
These strangers kept the Pilgrims alive through the first long winter.
In generations to follow, how many different peoples have been treated as foreigners, as strangers, as aliens, and when have we welcomed them as we were cared for?
There were among our ancestors Exiles sent as a Penile colony to America.
Those who came from Ireland during the Potato Famine.
Those from back woods farms, seeking work in cities at the Industrial Revolution.
There have been Refugees of war.
Those escaping Russia.
Armenians escaping the Turks of the Ottoman Empire.
Those fleeing The Netherlands, Germany, Poland.
Those who came to America, rather than Concentration Camps, leaving behind everyone, everything, changing name and identity.
Those who escaped Cuba under Castro,
Those who escaped Viet Nam after Saigon fell.
Those who came from St. Bernard Parish, New Orleans, who endured Hurricane Katrina, then floods as the levies gave way and were rescued off the submerged rooftop of what was their home.
Those from Zambia, who watched both their parents die of AIDS, and as orphans came together to create families.
What is it to be alien, in America?
Where is home, when you cannot go back home?
Could we join in the first verse of IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR
Some are searching, not for a geographic home, but desperate for a safe and healthy spiritual home. There are those who seek simply to be welcomed, for who we are, as we are. Is there such an Inn?
Jeffrey was always a little different.
During High School he struggled with depression, that led to escaping his feelings, first with liquor, then with drugs.
Jeffrey became hurt and angry at the world, and the world was disappointed and angry with him for failure.
Jeffrey left home, certain his parents hated him, if they cared at all.
Jeffrey attempted suicide, doubting that anyone cared.
Helen is Jeffrey's grandmother.
Helen always believed in God's love and in forgiveness.
But now her home stands empty and hollow.
Helen cannot welcome her grandson without alienating her daughter and daughter's husband.
Who makes the first move?
When do we stand up to one another, and when do we help?
Who creates a place for the other?
Who welcomes whom?
Could we join in singing AWAY IN A MANGER
Love Came Down At Christmas recited
HYMN 41 O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
Monday, December 20, 2010
December 19, 2010 "THE SIGN OF THE ORDINARY BEING SET APART"
Isaiah 7:10-25
Matthew 1: 18- 25
One of my favorite amusements on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, is to listen to the Radio on NPR, to a Broadcast called “What Do You Know?” Amid all the trivia of the past week's news, they play a game, of offering some obscure word no one has ever heard, and asking not only for definitions, but then to choose among these for what is right. “Poplollies” & “Bellibones”, Barlafumbles” and “Lubber-wort”.
What a marvelous word for our time!
Because the word is not what we thought it meant, the Word of God is Sign of the Ordinary Set Apart!
For like King Ahaz, we have sought to create the best and brightest of human culture, to create miracles, to surpass anything and everything anyone has ever known. We look to our military, to technology, to science, to human will, and to our Government to resolve all the world's dilemma. It is as if we believed, that if we worked harder and applied ourselves more, we could fix ourselves, having no need for troubling God with the ordinary.
Like Joseph, we try to do what is right, integrating faith and life. We follow the law, we obey the commandments, we attend Church on Sunday and go about our lives, when suddenly there are insurmountable circumstances which we cannot fix.
Perhaps our circumstance is as huge as replacing Social Security and Health Care, resolving the International Debt Crisis, preparing for a Referendum of Secession and creation of a New Nation, with the shadow of impending war; or it is as intimate and personal, as the serious illness of a child, the closing of a business you have worked at a lifetime, being unable to pay for your children to go to college, confronting family about old issues, confronting depression, coping with an unplanned pregnancy, the death of a loved one. Each of which, are enormous and insurmountable, in our reality.
The answer is not in ignoring the reality of God, taking everything upon ourselves, as if kings;
nor in making so many concessions, in our faith and reality, so many accommodations to what we know to be true that we create belief in half truths. But instead, the SIGN that comes from the Prophet Isaiah, taken up and fulfilled in the time of Joseph the Carpenter, is that the Ordinary can be Set Apart as miraculous.
We have to be careful in appropriating the Word of God. For the Old Testament had an independent and full heritage as the Scriptures of the Community of Faith before the first Christians were baptized. When the Prophet Isaiah confronted King Ahaz in the 8th Century BC, some 720 years before the Census of Quirinius of Syria, Isaiah was not saying:
“Behold, Centuries from now, none of this will matter because a young girl will give birth to a Savior!” NO, Isaiah was speaking of their time, pointing to a young girl already pregnant and stating that within the intervening years of this child being born, nursing and growing to eat solid foods (curds and honey), God will intervene changing the circumstance of the world.
The point of this prophecy from Isaiah was not about the Virginity of Mary.
The point Isaiah was making was that the girl they both could see was already pregnant, was already showing, soon to deliver. How long, between the time a child is born and eating solid foods, a year, 3? We have neatly excised these words from long ago, removing them from their context, ignoring as Ahaz did the Prophecy of Isaiah. “On that Day, The Lord God will whistle for flies and bees to come up from Egypt, for the Promised land to become a wilderness of thorns and briars and brambles again.” King Ahaz was so distracted by the affairs of State, by wars and rumors of wars, he could not see what was going on eroding the culture from within.
We live in a world of 30 Seconds of Fame. Fifty years ago, in December 1960, two commercial airplanes collided over New York City. It was the worst disaster since the Hindenburg, similar to the circumstance of 9-11. And Yet, the day after, the news cycle had already moved on, there was another local fire, new events in the world. What Isaiah tried to say was that all the political maneuvering, all the Government had spent lifetimes creating would be forgot within 3 years.
As much as any of us have lost in the recent Recession, we look for signs of the return of The Boom. Headlines this week read: Airlines coping with excess baggage! A clear indication that the National Economy is soaring anew, because people flying home for the holidays had purchased presents and were willing to pay the airlines' charge for excess baggage. What is it going to take for us to realize we are already part of a new economy? The former times are not going to return. There are already new times upon us. How long does it take to acclimate to a new normal?
But that was Joseph's dilemma, caught between being Righteous and being in Love, what was he to do? To have have fallen in love (there is no evidence here that this was an arranged marriage of their parents), to have publicly celebrated the union of these families, exchanged the Dowry, in essence answered the “I Do” questions of Intent without yet having stated the vows and exchanged rings, what was he to do with a Woman who was already pregnant? The issue for Joseph was not that his Property had been violated. Not that Mary had been with someone else, or had loved another. What is described here, is that Joseph so believed in Marriage, that finding her to be with child would profane God. Joseph resolved to divorce her quietly, to forsake his dowry, because he was caught between shaming God, or shaming the woman he loved?
The Bible is different from the culture in which the Gospels and Epistles were written. The Greeks and Romans believed in merging the Divine and the Human, as if to say that the Gods are a little profane, and humanity as sinful as we are is also divine. Matthew's Gospel is choosing to make a different point, that Jesus as Son of God, is not HALF-HUMAN and HALF-GOD, not God masquerading as a man, but rather Fully Human and Fully Divine. So rather than choose, between Righteousness and Love, or making an accommodation between the two, God reveals to Joseph in a dream another interpretation. Ironically, according to matthew, it is only because Joseph claimed the child that Jesus is descended from David.
Throughout the Scriptures, the Birth of Isaac, the birth of Moses, the birth of Samuel, the birth of John the Baptist, all were also considered Miraculous Births, Interventions by God visiting a woman. The point in each, is not about promiscuity, but that the Birth of a Child, the Ordinary being Set Apart as Miraculous is somehow a sign of a new possibility.
Years ago, in another parish, there was a family with an only child. They had come to the Church after the child was already a few years of age, so when Confirmation took place, we were looking forward to her baptism as a Believer, rather than affirmation of her parents' faith commitment. During that year, of preparation and study, the fourteen year old was found to be with child. SO, what was the Church to do? Without question, the Church claimed her, baptizing her and her baby and the Church claimed responsibility of standing beside this family in all that was to come.
How often, we make accommodations, we acquiesce, we acclimate to a middle ground, or we stand principles. What if there were another option, of understanding that possibly God is using this circumstance as a sign for others. I am continually amazed how often, after a child graduates, or marries, or a family goes through a crisis, people come forward declaring “We were watching what you would do, not to judge, but as a sign for what we might do when faced with the same circumstance, trying to make the Ordinary, set apart.”
Matthew 1: 18- 25
One of my favorite amusements on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, is to listen to the Radio on NPR, to a Broadcast called “What Do You Know?” Amid all the trivia of the past week's news, they play a game, of offering some obscure word no one has ever heard, and asking not only for definitions, but then to choose among these for what is right. “Poplollies” & “Bellibones”, Barlafumbles” and “Lubber-wort”.
What a marvelous word for our time!
Because the word is not what we thought it meant, the Word of God is Sign of the Ordinary Set Apart!
For like King Ahaz, we have sought to create the best and brightest of human culture, to create miracles, to surpass anything and everything anyone has ever known. We look to our military, to technology, to science, to human will, and to our Government to resolve all the world's dilemma. It is as if we believed, that if we worked harder and applied ourselves more, we could fix ourselves, having no need for troubling God with the ordinary.
Like Joseph, we try to do what is right, integrating faith and life. We follow the law, we obey the commandments, we attend Church on Sunday and go about our lives, when suddenly there are insurmountable circumstances which we cannot fix.
Perhaps our circumstance is as huge as replacing Social Security and Health Care, resolving the International Debt Crisis, preparing for a Referendum of Secession and creation of a New Nation, with the shadow of impending war; or it is as intimate and personal, as the serious illness of a child, the closing of a business you have worked at a lifetime, being unable to pay for your children to go to college, confronting family about old issues, confronting depression, coping with an unplanned pregnancy, the death of a loved one. Each of which, are enormous and insurmountable, in our reality.
The answer is not in ignoring the reality of God, taking everything upon ourselves, as if kings;
nor in making so many concessions, in our faith and reality, so many accommodations to what we know to be true that we create belief in half truths. But instead, the SIGN that comes from the Prophet Isaiah, taken up and fulfilled in the time of Joseph the Carpenter, is that the Ordinary can be Set Apart as miraculous.
We have to be careful in appropriating the Word of God. For the Old Testament had an independent and full heritage as the Scriptures of the Community of Faith before the first Christians were baptized. When the Prophet Isaiah confronted King Ahaz in the 8th Century BC, some 720 years before the Census of Quirinius of Syria, Isaiah was not saying:
“Behold, Centuries from now, none of this will matter because a young girl will give birth to a Savior!” NO, Isaiah was speaking of their time, pointing to a young girl already pregnant and stating that within the intervening years of this child being born, nursing and growing to eat solid foods (curds and honey), God will intervene changing the circumstance of the world.
The point of this prophecy from Isaiah was not about the Virginity of Mary.
The point Isaiah was making was that the girl they both could see was already pregnant, was already showing, soon to deliver. How long, between the time a child is born and eating solid foods, a year, 3? We have neatly excised these words from long ago, removing them from their context, ignoring as Ahaz did the Prophecy of Isaiah. “On that Day, The Lord God will whistle for flies and bees to come up from Egypt, for the Promised land to become a wilderness of thorns and briars and brambles again.” King Ahaz was so distracted by the affairs of State, by wars and rumors of wars, he could not see what was going on eroding the culture from within.
We live in a world of 30 Seconds of Fame. Fifty years ago, in December 1960, two commercial airplanes collided over New York City. It was the worst disaster since the Hindenburg, similar to the circumstance of 9-11. And Yet, the day after, the news cycle had already moved on, there was another local fire, new events in the world. What Isaiah tried to say was that all the political maneuvering, all the Government had spent lifetimes creating would be forgot within 3 years.
As much as any of us have lost in the recent Recession, we look for signs of the return of The Boom. Headlines this week read: Airlines coping with excess baggage! A clear indication that the National Economy is soaring anew, because people flying home for the holidays had purchased presents and were willing to pay the airlines' charge for excess baggage. What is it going to take for us to realize we are already part of a new economy? The former times are not going to return. There are already new times upon us. How long does it take to acclimate to a new normal?
But that was Joseph's dilemma, caught between being Righteous and being in Love, what was he to do? To have have fallen in love (there is no evidence here that this was an arranged marriage of their parents), to have publicly celebrated the union of these families, exchanged the Dowry, in essence answered the “I Do” questions of Intent without yet having stated the vows and exchanged rings, what was he to do with a Woman who was already pregnant? The issue for Joseph was not that his Property had been violated. Not that Mary had been with someone else, or had loved another. What is described here, is that Joseph so believed in Marriage, that finding her to be with child would profane God. Joseph resolved to divorce her quietly, to forsake his dowry, because he was caught between shaming God, or shaming the woman he loved?
The Bible is different from the culture in which the Gospels and Epistles were written. The Greeks and Romans believed in merging the Divine and the Human, as if to say that the Gods are a little profane, and humanity as sinful as we are is also divine. Matthew's Gospel is choosing to make a different point, that Jesus as Son of God, is not HALF-HUMAN and HALF-GOD, not God masquerading as a man, but rather Fully Human and Fully Divine. So rather than choose, between Righteousness and Love, or making an accommodation between the two, God reveals to Joseph in a dream another interpretation. Ironically, according to matthew, it is only because Joseph claimed the child that Jesus is descended from David.
Throughout the Scriptures, the Birth of Isaac, the birth of Moses, the birth of Samuel, the birth of John the Baptist, all were also considered Miraculous Births, Interventions by God visiting a woman. The point in each, is not about promiscuity, but that the Birth of a Child, the Ordinary being Set Apart as Miraculous is somehow a sign of a new possibility.
Years ago, in another parish, there was a family with an only child. They had come to the Church after the child was already a few years of age, so when Confirmation took place, we were looking forward to her baptism as a Believer, rather than affirmation of her parents' faith commitment. During that year, of preparation and study, the fourteen year old was found to be with child. SO, what was the Church to do? Without question, the Church claimed her, baptizing her and her baby and the Church claimed responsibility of standing beside this family in all that was to come.
How often, we make accommodations, we acquiesce, we acclimate to a middle ground, or we stand principles. What if there were another option, of understanding that possibly God is using this circumstance as a sign for others. I am continually amazed how often, after a child graduates, or marries, or a family goes through a crisis, people come forward declaring “We were watching what you would do, not to judge, but as a sign for what we might do when faced with the same circumstance, trying to make the Ordinary, set apart.”
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Nurturing Blossoms
Isaiah 35
Matthew 1: 2-11
“The Ransomed of the Lord shall be returned and come to Zion with singing! Everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, and Sorrow and sighing shall flee away!”
Would you do me a favor? Take a deep deep breath, and sigh out your last sigh. Come on, sigh out your breath, as if expelling all the pent up sorrow and frustration and helplessness hidden in your being.
For this morning is about a new way of life, a fresh beginning. Sorrow and Sighing are filled with regret about circumstances past and present, we feel hopeless to change. The GOOD NEWS of this season, is the focus of life has shifted, away from the past and present, to believe in a future of Love.
This week, Elizabeth Smart who at age 14 had been kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, and made a slave for 9 months, testified against the man who had enslaved her and he was imprisoned. In 2002 and 2003, her Kidnapping was one of the top stories, second only to the Olympics. This week in Sudan, 306 people were set free from Slavery, that number brings the total this year of Sudanese who had been held as slaves and now are free to 2000, 2000 people freed this year. And yet the estimate is that there are another 35,000 people still enslaved. It's hard for us to imagine that Slavery still exists. People treating other people as if inhuman, punishing one another for the past, for hate.
These are not words that can be recited monotone, they are words of passion, alive with possibility of what has not ever before been! Words and ideas that are foreign to us in the 21st Century in Upstate New York. “Ransomed,” “Healed,” “Redeemed,” “Restored,” “Salvation” these are ideas that require us to have a different perspective on life. We have been taught to believe that we are all Middle Class, some more so, some less, but all Middle, all Equal, all Free. We may be on the Right or the Left politically, yet as much as we may fight with our opposition, we know there is room for compromise. We believe in education, that every person has the ability to make a difference in their own life. We live in a land of freedoms and opportunities, we too often take for granted. “Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven, Salvation” these are realities we cannot do for ourselves, you cannot succeed at making yourself “Ransomed,” yet here they are named as not only possible, but promised to those who believe.
The question of John the Baptist from Prison to Jesus, is of One who believed at one time, but now struggles to have hope. Are you the One, or must we continue seeking? What is life about? Is there only what we have known, or can there be something more to life? And the word of hope sent from Jesus to John is that the enslaved are set free, the blind given sight, the deaf made to hear. Not simply that the crippled can stand up, but that those who were once lame will leap and dance like a deer. Christian Faith does not suggest that Jesus was a good man, a holy man, a great teacher, but that people can only take themselves so far and Jesus is Savior. Routinely, at Baptism, Confirmation, Membership, Ordination, we affirm Jesus as “Lord and Savior”, LORD meaning that God is the greatest Authority, the supreme goal of our lives. But claiming Jesus to be the Christ, the Savior, redefines life, redefines reality, not on the basis of power, or authority, but to imagine possibilities never before thought possible, that we could be saved.
Years ago, when I interviewed to become your pastor, I knew this to be a good church, rock solid, with caring and love, if you had not been, I would never have been interested. When I came for the initial face to face interview we made a list of all the things that needed to be done. And upon arrival, we began clicking them off together. Success built upon success. Then one evening, leaders of the Church came together describing that in business the common vernacular for what we had done was “to pluck the low hanging fruit,” not that these had been wrong each needed to be done, not that any were easy, they had been costly and required dedicated hard work to bring to fruition. But in addition to picking the low hanging fruit, accomplishing what was ripe and ready, we needed to see the world with fresh perspective imagining where are there branches that have not yet ever borne a blossom and to question what is needed?
Everywhere we look in the world today, this is the question. We have evolved and reasoned, building strength upon strength, success upon success, but still we can only go so far. We need to imagine new paradigms, new realities and possibilities of what has never been and could be with faith.
This week, results were published of the State of Education for America in the World. Where historically, America had been a leader, we ranked 19th and 29th in the world, in Language and Mathematics. I am told that The Empire State Building was built because just prior at the World's Fair the Eiffel Tower had been unveiled as the world's tallest structure, and our Architects and Engineers and Builders determined that we could not only build a taller steel structure, we could create a building that scraped the sky. Our determination for the Apollo Moon Landings was driven because the Russians had launched Sputnik, and being second to orbit the Earth, we resolved to be the first to the moon. What will it take for us to Nurture Blossoms in Education? How can we nurture blossoms of human dignity and human rights, that slavery will be no more?
I am not suggesting that we make ourselves to be God, trying to change the world to fit our expectations, but that at times there are limitations based on where we have gone before, and we need to believe in God anew. None of this is easy, acting in faith in a world with instantaneous communication, with a lack of privacy, with ever changing expectations is intimidating. But this is the only way that slaves can be liberated. It will not happen slowly and gradually by reasonable folk, but by those who believe demonstrating different possibilities.
In the Wednesday evening Bible Study, we have dared to name the question of what does it mean to be “Saved” to believe in “Salvation”? Is this about life after death, or being able to claim a day and hour when suddenly you were convinced, and began living life differently? I have to believe that the Coming of the Savior, is about more than claymation movies of a red-nosed reindeer and a cartoon Grinch, even if with computer animation we can make it look real. Salvation is about living with life after marital problems, after extended job loss and the end of a career, is about life lived after having been very afraid. In another Church, we had a man, who had been a Prisoner of War during the Korean Conflict. He described having lived in a cage four feet square, suspended between heaven and earth. He described often hoping he would die, as the end of suffering and fear. Yet one Christmas Eve having been liberated and set free. He described, “Joy to the World” does not begin to name what I feel.
Two of my favorites stories come from World War I, what at the time was described as The War to end Wars. The first is reported to have occurred on Christmas Eve. The fighting had been quite brutal, with many casualties and deaths on both sides. As night fell, it began to snow, and in the darkness the fighting stopped. After a few hours, the soldiers began singing Christmas Carols. Which side began, I have no clue, but many that were in English were also known in Europe. And those in Deutsche had been translated into English. After a few more hours sitting in the darkness, the men began crawling out of their trenches and crossing over to meet in the middle with scraps of fruitcake and cookies to share as presents.
The other was of four friends in France. One was killed, and the other three carried him to the nearest Church. They knocked on the door, asking if they could bury their friend in the Church Cemetery. The priest asked if the man were Catholic, and they said no, and sadly the priest said I'm sorry. They turned and walked away, but just outside the grounds of the Church Cemetery they dug a grave and prayed and buried their friend. Years later, after the war, the three friends returned to honor the grave of their fallen comrade, but now everything looked different. What had been bombed and scarred, was growing with new life, and with the trees in bud, and flowers in the fields, all the landmarks seemed different. Reluctantly, they knocked at the door of the Church and the priest answered. They described that they had gone ahead and buried their friend just outside the gates of the Cemetery, but now everything seemed different. The priest smiled and confessed, that he had seen what they done as an act of faith in honor of their friend. So while the man could not be buried on Catholic Church soil, the priest had moved the fence to encompass the place where their friend was buried. Maybe what we need to do, is to make our fences wider, or even to take down the fences, declaring all ground to be holy unto God.
Matthew 1: 2-11
“The Ransomed of the Lord shall be returned and come to Zion with singing! Everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, and Sorrow and sighing shall flee away!”
Would you do me a favor? Take a deep deep breath, and sigh out your last sigh. Come on, sigh out your breath, as if expelling all the pent up sorrow and frustration and helplessness hidden in your being.
For this morning is about a new way of life, a fresh beginning. Sorrow and Sighing are filled with regret about circumstances past and present, we feel hopeless to change. The GOOD NEWS of this season, is the focus of life has shifted, away from the past and present, to believe in a future of Love.
This week, Elizabeth Smart who at age 14 had been kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, and made a slave for 9 months, testified against the man who had enslaved her and he was imprisoned. In 2002 and 2003, her Kidnapping was one of the top stories, second only to the Olympics. This week in Sudan, 306 people were set free from Slavery, that number brings the total this year of Sudanese who had been held as slaves and now are free to 2000, 2000 people freed this year. And yet the estimate is that there are another 35,000 people still enslaved. It's hard for us to imagine that Slavery still exists. People treating other people as if inhuman, punishing one another for the past, for hate.
These are not words that can be recited monotone, they are words of passion, alive with possibility of what has not ever before been! Words and ideas that are foreign to us in the 21st Century in Upstate New York. “Ransomed,” “Healed,” “Redeemed,” “Restored,” “Salvation” these are ideas that require us to have a different perspective on life. We have been taught to believe that we are all Middle Class, some more so, some less, but all Middle, all Equal, all Free. We may be on the Right or the Left politically, yet as much as we may fight with our opposition, we know there is room for compromise. We believe in education, that every person has the ability to make a difference in their own life. We live in a land of freedoms and opportunities, we too often take for granted. “Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven, Salvation” these are realities we cannot do for ourselves, you cannot succeed at making yourself “Ransomed,” yet here they are named as not only possible, but promised to those who believe.
The question of John the Baptist from Prison to Jesus, is of One who believed at one time, but now struggles to have hope. Are you the One, or must we continue seeking? What is life about? Is there only what we have known, or can there be something more to life? And the word of hope sent from Jesus to John is that the enslaved are set free, the blind given sight, the deaf made to hear. Not simply that the crippled can stand up, but that those who were once lame will leap and dance like a deer. Christian Faith does not suggest that Jesus was a good man, a holy man, a great teacher, but that people can only take themselves so far and Jesus is Savior. Routinely, at Baptism, Confirmation, Membership, Ordination, we affirm Jesus as “Lord and Savior”, LORD meaning that God is the greatest Authority, the supreme goal of our lives. But claiming Jesus to be the Christ, the Savior, redefines life, redefines reality, not on the basis of power, or authority, but to imagine possibilities never before thought possible, that we could be saved.
Years ago, when I interviewed to become your pastor, I knew this to be a good church, rock solid, with caring and love, if you had not been, I would never have been interested. When I came for the initial face to face interview we made a list of all the things that needed to be done. And upon arrival, we began clicking them off together. Success built upon success. Then one evening, leaders of the Church came together describing that in business the common vernacular for what we had done was “to pluck the low hanging fruit,” not that these had been wrong each needed to be done, not that any were easy, they had been costly and required dedicated hard work to bring to fruition. But in addition to picking the low hanging fruit, accomplishing what was ripe and ready, we needed to see the world with fresh perspective imagining where are there branches that have not yet ever borne a blossom and to question what is needed?
Everywhere we look in the world today, this is the question. We have evolved and reasoned, building strength upon strength, success upon success, but still we can only go so far. We need to imagine new paradigms, new realities and possibilities of what has never been and could be with faith.
This week, results were published of the State of Education for America in the World. Where historically, America had been a leader, we ranked 19th and 29th in the world, in Language and Mathematics. I am told that The Empire State Building was built because just prior at the World's Fair the Eiffel Tower had been unveiled as the world's tallest structure, and our Architects and Engineers and Builders determined that we could not only build a taller steel structure, we could create a building that scraped the sky. Our determination for the Apollo Moon Landings was driven because the Russians had launched Sputnik, and being second to orbit the Earth, we resolved to be the first to the moon. What will it take for us to Nurture Blossoms in Education? How can we nurture blossoms of human dignity and human rights, that slavery will be no more?
I am not suggesting that we make ourselves to be God, trying to change the world to fit our expectations, but that at times there are limitations based on where we have gone before, and we need to believe in God anew. None of this is easy, acting in faith in a world with instantaneous communication, with a lack of privacy, with ever changing expectations is intimidating. But this is the only way that slaves can be liberated. It will not happen slowly and gradually by reasonable folk, but by those who believe demonstrating different possibilities.
In the Wednesday evening Bible Study, we have dared to name the question of what does it mean to be “Saved” to believe in “Salvation”? Is this about life after death, or being able to claim a day and hour when suddenly you were convinced, and began living life differently? I have to believe that the Coming of the Savior, is about more than claymation movies of a red-nosed reindeer and a cartoon Grinch, even if with computer animation we can make it look real. Salvation is about living with life after marital problems, after extended job loss and the end of a career, is about life lived after having been very afraid. In another Church, we had a man, who had been a Prisoner of War during the Korean Conflict. He described having lived in a cage four feet square, suspended between heaven and earth. He described often hoping he would die, as the end of suffering and fear. Yet one Christmas Eve having been liberated and set free. He described, “Joy to the World” does not begin to name what I feel.
Two of my favorites stories come from World War I, what at the time was described as The War to end Wars. The first is reported to have occurred on Christmas Eve. The fighting had been quite brutal, with many casualties and deaths on both sides. As night fell, it began to snow, and in the darkness the fighting stopped. After a few hours, the soldiers began singing Christmas Carols. Which side began, I have no clue, but many that were in English were also known in Europe. And those in Deutsche had been translated into English. After a few more hours sitting in the darkness, the men began crawling out of their trenches and crossing over to meet in the middle with scraps of fruitcake and cookies to share as presents.
The other was of four friends in France. One was killed, and the other three carried him to the nearest Church. They knocked on the door, asking if they could bury their friend in the Church Cemetery. The priest asked if the man were Catholic, and they said no, and sadly the priest said I'm sorry. They turned and walked away, but just outside the grounds of the Church Cemetery they dug a grave and prayed and buried their friend. Years later, after the war, the three friends returned to honor the grave of their fallen comrade, but now everything looked different. What had been bombed and scarred, was growing with new life, and with the trees in bud, and flowers in the fields, all the landmarks seemed different. Reluctantly, they knocked at the door of the Church and the priest answered. They described that they had gone ahead and buried their friend just outside the gates of the Cemetery, but now everything seemed different. The priest smiled and confessed, that he had seen what they done as an act of faith in honor of their friend. So while the man could not be buried on Catholic Church soil, the priest had moved the fence to encompass the place where their friend was buried. Maybe what we need to do, is to make our fences wider, or even to take down the fences, declaring all ground to be holy unto God.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
December 5, 2010 "Future Shock/Future Hope"
Isaiah 11:1-13
Matthew 3:1-10
One can hardly read these words from Isaiah without conjuring up the image of the painting “The Peaceable” Kingdom by the Quaker painter Edward Hicks. In this immense mural a lion and ox eat straw together, a bear and cow are feeding on grain, the wolf and the lamb lay together, as also the leopard and baby goat. Even more surreal, down in the lower right corner is depiction of William Penn the founder of the State of Pennsylvania bartering and trading together with Native American Indians. According to Hicks this New World/this great continent/this Enlightenment experiment was to embody that Peaceable Kingdom; where because we act with justice and righteousness in peace, all Creation would live together in tranquil harmony. The Peaceable Kingdom has been humanity's future hope of starting a new world order where violence and fear and isolation are not possible. Rather than a Berlin Wall, or a Cold War, rather than an Arms Race, or Oil Embargoes, to Peaceable Kingdom has been humanity's vision of what could be. It was a grand vision of reality beyond profit, beyond greed, beyond concern for winning and losing, recognizing that the balance of all creation, the future hope of the world depends upon humanity acting to trust one another.
This passage from Isaiah and Psalm 72, we sung as a prayer, each describe a common future hope, when a King Solomon, or a future descendent of David, would execute justice and righteous faith. Much like ending the baseball season declaring “Just wait till next year”, or the hope during an election the future always seems bright, filled with unrealized potential. The ancient world was created with balance and dependency between the rulers and leaders of faith. Not necessarily religious leaders, but the faithful, the meek, those seeking for the poor to be fed and wars to cease. It is as if this prophecy of Isaiah has two parts in perfect balance, description of the Messiah to come and a new Order to Creation. The balance of the world is not set by Wall Street, any more than on ecology and recycling, on whether hydro-fracking is permitted or not, not on moral issues of embryonic stem-cell research or abortion, but as basic as whether we hope for a future of peace among peoples and cultures.
In 1970 a book was published by the Sociologist Alvin Toffler, titled “Future Shock.” Toffler's treatise was that while Europe took a Century to shift from a Rural Agriculture based society to an Industrial one, and parts of the world had never changed from Nomadic and Tribal, in the 1800s America had shifted to Industrialization within 3 decades, and now approaching the next Century change was about to come converting culture from an Industrialized Society to a Super-Industrialized Highly Technological Machine. According to the supposition of Future Shock humanity would experience an Information Overload, causing people to be stressed-out, burned-out, disoriented and alienated from all life. Forty years ago, Toffler hit the nail on the head, describing what we have come to take for granted, that humanity would not be able to cope with so much change.
This has been a hard year. What was accredited as The Greatest Generation who survived the Depression and World War are dying. What was to have been a swift and decisive action in retaliation for the terrorism of 911, has become the longest war is American History, and on the other side the longest war on Afghan soil in their heritage. What we imagined was the blip of the Dot Com Bubble bursting, was followed by the Housing Market Bubble, and has involved the economies of the world. We have hidden unemployment and compounding debt with shame. This has been a hard year. Do we imagine all that is going to go away, simply because a new year comes on the Roman Calendar? Are the singing of a few Carols going to put us in a different mood? Perhaps. Belief in the coming of a baby is sentimental and nostalgic...
What if, instead of Future Shock, instead of Information Overload, we believed in Future Hope? If the answer to all life's problems was not how to get more, or how to accept what happened a lifetime ago, or even how to make it all go away with another drink. What if the answer to life was as simple as change from what we have known, to living in trust and hope?
This is radical change, from the violence that the Leopard does to the goat, and the lion to the ox, or the bear to the cow, this is changing the future of the world! But this radical change happens because of the simple shift from a future based on fear, on shock of being unable to cope with excess, being disoriented, alienated and disappointed; to instead hoping and believing in possibility.
We read the Gospel of Matthew of the wild haired, locust eating John the Baptist; we recall John came as precursor for the coming of the Savior. But according to Matthew, both John and Jesus came preaching REPENTANCE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND. How different worship would be, how different our faith, if instead of beginning the Sabbath by saying “Good Morning!” Rather than a Call to Worship that invites us to use our imagination, instead we began with a Call to Live life differently, as different as the Lion and Lamb trusting one another.
I am continually amazed by Hope. Hope is unlimited and inexhaustible. Every generation hopes anew. Much of the housing stock in this Village was not built in the last five years, but a hundred and two hundred years ago. More than being quaint, and an invitation for tourism, each homeowner has mortgaged their future on this home. Each have invested themselves in it, not only with new colors and carpets, but moving walls, adding porches and barns, removing them, building new porches and garages. Each believes that they have done everything possible to make this house their home, to realize their dreams. Than a new generation comes, with new hopes and dreams of the future.
This Sacrament is about HOPE. Hope not simply in a baby, not simply in one greater than a prophet of the wilderness, but hope that inspires awe! Hope in a world created in peace.
Matthew 3:1-10
One can hardly read these words from Isaiah without conjuring up the image of the painting “The Peaceable” Kingdom by the Quaker painter Edward Hicks. In this immense mural a lion and ox eat straw together, a bear and cow are feeding on grain, the wolf and the lamb lay together, as also the leopard and baby goat. Even more surreal, down in the lower right corner is depiction of William Penn the founder of the State of Pennsylvania bartering and trading together with Native American Indians. According to Hicks this New World/this great continent/this Enlightenment experiment was to embody that Peaceable Kingdom; where because we act with justice and righteousness in peace, all Creation would live together in tranquil harmony. The Peaceable Kingdom has been humanity's future hope of starting a new world order where violence and fear and isolation are not possible. Rather than a Berlin Wall, or a Cold War, rather than an Arms Race, or Oil Embargoes, to Peaceable Kingdom has been humanity's vision of what could be. It was a grand vision of reality beyond profit, beyond greed, beyond concern for winning and losing, recognizing that the balance of all creation, the future hope of the world depends upon humanity acting to trust one another.
This passage from Isaiah and Psalm 72, we sung as a prayer, each describe a common future hope, when a King Solomon, or a future descendent of David, would execute justice and righteous faith. Much like ending the baseball season declaring “Just wait till next year”, or the hope during an election the future always seems bright, filled with unrealized potential. The ancient world was created with balance and dependency between the rulers and leaders of faith. Not necessarily religious leaders, but the faithful, the meek, those seeking for the poor to be fed and wars to cease. It is as if this prophecy of Isaiah has two parts in perfect balance, description of the Messiah to come and a new Order to Creation. The balance of the world is not set by Wall Street, any more than on ecology and recycling, on whether hydro-fracking is permitted or not, not on moral issues of embryonic stem-cell research or abortion, but as basic as whether we hope for a future of peace among peoples and cultures.
In 1970 a book was published by the Sociologist Alvin Toffler, titled “Future Shock.” Toffler's treatise was that while Europe took a Century to shift from a Rural Agriculture based society to an Industrial one, and parts of the world had never changed from Nomadic and Tribal, in the 1800s America had shifted to Industrialization within 3 decades, and now approaching the next Century change was about to come converting culture from an Industrialized Society to a Super-Industrialized Highly Technological Machine. According to the supposition of Future Shock humanity would experience an Information Overload, causing people to be stressed-out, burned-out, disoriented and alienated from all life. Forty years ago, Toffler hit the nail on the head, describing what we have come to take for granted, that humanity would not be able to cope with so much change.
This has been a hard year. What was accredited as The Greatest Generation who survived the Depression and World War are dying. What was to have been a swift and decisive action in retaliation for the terrorism of 911, has become the longest war is American History, and on the other side the longest war on Afghan soil in their heritage. What we imagined was the blip of the Dot Com Bubble bursting, was followed by the Housing Market Bubble, and has involved the economies of the world. We have hidden unemployment and compounding debt with shame. This has been a hard year. Do we imagine all that is going to go away, simply because a new year comes on the Roman Calendar? Are the singing of a few Carols going to put us in a different mood? Perhaps. Belief in the coming of a baby is sentimental and nostalgic...
What if, instead of Future Shock, instead of Information Overload, we believed in Future Hope? If the answer to all life's problems was not how to get more, or how to accept what happened a lifetime ago, or even how to make it all go away with another drink. What if the answer to life was as simple as change from what we have known, to living in trust and hope?
This is radical change, from the violence that the Leopard does to the goat, and the lion to the ox, or the bear to the cow, this is changing the future of the world! But this radical change happens because of the simple shift from a future based on fear, on shock of being unable to cope with excess, being disoriented, alienated and disappointed; to instead hoping and believing in possibility.
We read the Gospel of Matthew of the wild haired, locust eating John the Baptist; we recall John came as precursor for the coming of the Savior. But according to Matthew, both John and Jesus came preaching REPENTANCE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND. How different worship would be, how different our faith, if instead of beginning the Sabbath by saying “Good Morning!” Rather than a Call to Worship that invites us to use our imagination, instead we began with a Call to Live life differently, as different as the Lion and Lamb trusting one another.
I am continually amazed by Hope. Hope is unlimited and inexhaustible. Every generation hopes anew. Much of the housing stock in this Village was not built in the last five years, but a hundred and two hundred years ago. More than being quaint, and an invitation for tourism, each homeowner has mortgaged their future on this home. Each have invested themselves in it, not only with new colors and carpets, but moving walls, adding porches and barns, removing them, building new porches and garages. Each believes that they have done everything possible to make this house their home, to realize their dreams. Than a new generation comes, with new hopes and dreams of the future.
This Sacrament is about HOPE. Hope not simply in a baby, not simply in one greater than a prophet of the wilderness, but hope that inspires awe! Hope in a world created in peace.
Monday, November 29, 2010
November 28, 2010, "What is Our Vision"
Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 24:33-46
What is the vision we wait for, work for, long to make real?
As temperatures become colder, as we sort through the decorations and ornaments of our family's past, as we have gathered and anticipate holiday occasions at the table, we reflect on where we have come from and where we are going. Not simply turning off the alarm, dressing for work, and going through the motions of the day; but wondering what vision could be witnessed, what difference made in life?
There was a time, when our vision was to fix everything that had been broken for so long, both in our building and relationships. The pipe organ was tied together with baling wire and duct tape. Our hope was to have hot water in the bathrooms and cold water in the kitchen. There was a time when our dream was that Nurseries would be bright and attractive and near the Sanctuary. We longed to celebrate weddings and marriage, to hear the voices of children glorifying God. Our vision was to be done with asbestos and waste. The answer to our nightmares, was that we could undertake all these things and not leave a debt for our children's children.
There was a time, not so long ago, when our hopes and dreams were for the Church, this Church, to be a Center of Community Activity, where every portion of every day throughout the week, something would be taking place at the Presbyterian Church. In that vision, that the Church would be a patron of Art and Music, we would host Quilt Shows and Art Exhibits, Concerts and Forums.
We dreamed we would create musical instruments to inspire, like the Great Cathedrals of Europe.
There was a time, when our vision was to provide a home for those who had had theirs taken away. We dared to dream that the Church could through prayer and caring relationship redeem those, whom others saw as lost. We believed in a vision of providing a home and common dinner table for our elders.
There was a time time, when our vision was to build the endowments and reserves from being The Manse Fund, to having over a Million dollars, which could compound and grow for future ministries. We saw that fulfilled, and given the volatility of the market, half disappeared, yet through vigilance and vision the nest-egg again attained the first million, now invested in over 700 diverse stocks and bonds.
There was a time, we dared to dream that we could host those strange to us, seekers of faith in non-traditional ways. We began anew with singing the Psalms and Taize pieces like “Spirit of the Living God”; we created a permanent Labyrinth in the floor for Spiritual journeys, and a place for Tai Chi and Raike and alternative forms of faith for seeking balance.
Throughout each of these visions, we wondered about salvation, about Christian faith. We questioned and pondered. As we rebuilt the Church center and lifted the timbers supporting the place of worship, we asked: what are the foundations of our faith? As we opened walls, we named all the weddings and baptisms, and funerals that had taken place in this place. As we cared for refugees from Africa, we placed babies in the arms of our sons and daughters going off to war and to places of redemption, vowing to pray these children. We studied Scripture both through curriculum guided learning and having on-going conversation with the texts and our teachers.
What is the vision we now wait for, work for, long to make real?
This has been a long and difficult year. There have divorces and deaths, economic fears and tragedies. Throughout this year, our Session have been engaged in a mission study, asking what are our Core Values? We are in our 210th year as a congregation, what are the significant events of recent memory, of these which were transitions and which were cultural changes, shifts to a new normal, and also which were spiritual and why? What do our statistics tell us about ourselves? Can we develop Long-Range plans for routine matters like maintenance and investing? What is unique about this community from the rest of the region, from the rest of the world; and within this community, what is unique about the Presbyterian Church? What we came to realize is that our fellowship is in a unique circumstance. We are more than double the size of any Presbyterian Church in N.New York, Utica, Albany, the Southern Tier, and Cayuga-Syracuse. The vast majority of these churches today have 50 to 100 members, many struggling with 13 to 25 in worship. This is not a time for complacency! Where Vision Fails the People Perish!
In the time of Isaiah, the Priest and Prophet, the Nation was at War on every front. Weapons were their most costly investment. Today, with modern manufacturing of steel, we can mass produce, our most costly investment is in new technology, but in that time, the mining and manufacture of bronze and silver for shields and swords created a National Debt. In a time of war, when there is little hope of winning, of making a difference in the lives of others, when fighting is a mater of National Defense against being taken over, the Prophet saw a vision of the future.
A time in Days to Come, when people would not learn war anymore. When God would be so revered and trusted, that it seemed the mountain of God, the place of God in our universe would be elevated above everything else. All people would be seeking to know and understand and live according to God's precepts, God's Covenant. While God would have won the battle for people's hearts and minds, God would not act as Conquerer and Champion, but instead as Teacher, instructing everyone, including us, what it is to be faithful. In this time to come, those weapons that were so costly to manufacture, in the first place, would be reformed by common blacksmiths into farming implements and tools of cultivation.
This represents a cultural shift in human development. There was a time when people were hunters and gatherers; and those who brought reserves home shared with others in need. All were considered part of the community, one, as family. When people became land owners and developed civilizations, we developed a monetary system, and land value, profit and loss, mortgage, retirement and a class system, as well as desire for power. Isaiah's Vision is of a future Day to come. A new normal, a different reality, where the values we have had, desire to possess more and more, faster and newer, where searching for a new fossil fuel or gas to allow us to continue as we have been, becomes an old idea; abandoned for values of self-worth, integrity, appreciating and enjoying time with one another.
The pulp fiction industry has seized on the Middle Ages idea of “Dispensationalism”. In those Dark Ages, there were created visions that every thing you do equates to gold star or an evil demerit. Eventually there would be a time, when we needed to atone for every demerit, and there were varying levels of Heaven and varying levels of Hell, as well as Purgatory and Limbo. All the dark romance literature about Devils and Vampires and those Left Behind after the Quickening, are based on this vision.
But the vision of Jesus in Matthew is different. There are only two options here, and we cannot know whether our neighbor and co-worker, or even ourselves, are one or the other, so be diligent, try harder. What is intriguing is how Jesus inverts the parable. In the story of Noah, all the people, all the corrupt world were washed away in an instant. What Jesus describes, is that on the day the Son of Man comes, some will be taken and some left. In Matthew's Gospel there are not levels of Heaven or gradations of Hell, or a dispensationalism that you made a grade of C-, but simply that God knows the difference between those who will not receive grace, those so full of themselves and their own desires.
Years ago, our home was broken into. That is an odd thing to say, when you had not bothered to lock the front door. During the night the dog had begun barking, but as we had appeared repeatedly at Village Court for barking, we simply quieted her down and went back to sleep. The back door was broken, an ironing board and iron had been smashed. Nothing that could not be replaced. Actually, in the morning, I had come downstairs, and was surprised to find the robber passed out on our couch, very well dressed, but looking horribly disheveled. At first I thought he was a roofer, as we were having this work done, but realizing it would be presumptuous even for a contractor to come into the house they were working on to sleep on their couch. So I woke the man and gave him a cup of coffee. He asked where he was and I asked what he remembered. He described being at a Rehearsal Dinner the night before and drinking Uzo with the Groomsmen. We sent him on his way and I began calling the other clergy to make certain he got to the wedding that afternoon. We thought nothing more about it for about 18 months, when one of the College kids in Church described being at a Holiday party where word was passed, If you pass out, make certain you go to the Lindsey's they will give you a cup of coffee, make certain you get where you need to go and won't call the police. Which we decided was a pretty good vision to put forward.
Matthew 24:33-46
What is the vision we wait for, work for, long to make real?
As temperatures become colder, as we sort through the decorations and ornaments of our family's past, as we have gathered and anticipate holiday occasions at the table, we reflect on where we have come from and where we are going. Not simply turning off the alarm, dressing for work, and going through the motions of the day; but wondering what vision could be witnessed, what difference made in life?
There was a time, when our vision was to fix everything that had been broken for so long, both in our building and relationships. The pipe organ was tied together with baling wire and duct tape. Our hope was to have hot water in the bathrooms and cold water in the kitchen. There was a time when our dream was that Nurseries would be bright and attractive and near the Sanctuary. We longed to celebrate weddings and marriage, to hear the voices of children glorifying God. Our vision was to be done with asbestos and waste. The answer to our nightmares, was that we could undertake all these things and not leave a debt for our children's children.
There was a time, not so long ago, when our hopes and dreams were for the Church, this Church, to be a Center of Community Activity, where every portion of every day throughout the week, something would be taking place at the Presbyterian Church. In that vision, that the Church would be a patron of Art and Music, we would host Quilt Shows and Art Exhibits, Concerts and Forums.
We dreamed we would create musical instruments to inspire, like the Great Cathedrals of Europe.
There was a time, when our vision was to provide a home for those who had had theirs taken away. We dared to dream that the Church could through prayer and caring relationship redeem those, whom others saw as lost. We believed in a vision of providing a home and common dinner table for our elders.
There was a time time, when our vision was to build the endowments and reserves from being The Manse Fund, to having over a Million dollars, which could compound and grow for future ministries. We saw that fulfilled, and given the volatility of the market, half disappeared, yet through vigilance and vision the nest-egg again attained the first million, now invested in over 700 diverse stocks and bonds.
There was a time, we dared to dream that we could host those strange to us, seekers of faith in non-traditional ways. We began anew with singing the Psalms and Taize pieces like “Spirit of the Living God”; we created a permanent Labyrinth in the floor for Spiritual journeys, and a place for Tai Chi and Raike and alternative forms of faith for seeking balance.
Throughout each of these visions, we wondered about salvation, about Christian faith. We questioned and pondered. As we rebuilt the Church center and lifted the timbers supporting the place of worship, we asked: what are the foundations of our faith? As we opened walls, we named all the weddings and baptisms, and funerals that had taken place in this place. As we cared for refugees from Africa, we placed babies in the arms of our sons and daughters going off to war and to places of redemption, vowing to pray these children. We studied Scripture both through curriculum guided learning and having on-going conversation with the texts and our teachers.
What is the vision we now wait for, work for, long to make real?
This has been a long and difficult year. There have divorces and deaths, economic fears and tragedies. Throughout this year, our Session have been engaged in a mission study, asking what are our Core Values? We are in our 210th year as a congregation, what are the significant events of recent memory, of these which were transitions and which were cultural changes, shifts to a new normal, and also which were spiritual and why? What do our statistics tell us about ourselves? Can we develop Long-Range plans for routine matters like maintenance and investing? What is unique about this community from the rest of the region, from the rest of the world; and within this community, what is unique about the Presbyterian Church? What we came to realize is that our fellowship is in a unique circumstance. We are more than double the size of any Presbyterian Church in N.New York, Utica, Albany, the Southern Tier, and Cayuga-Syracuse. The vast majority of these churches today have 50 to 100 members, many struggling with 13 to 25 in worship. This is not a time for complacency! Where Vision Fails the People Perish!
In the time of Isaiah, the Priest and Prophet, the Nation was at War on every front. Weapons were their most costly investment. Today, with modern manufacturing of steel, we can mass produce, our most costly investment is in new technology, but in that time, the mining and manufacture of bronze and silver for shields and swords created a National Debt. In a time of war, when there is little hope of winning, of making a difference in the lives of others, when fighting is a mater of National Defense against being taken over, the Prophet saw a vision of the future.
A time in Days to Come, when people would not learn war anymore. When God would be so revered and trusted, that it seemed the mountain of God, the place of God in our universe would be elevated above everything else. All people would be seeking to know and understand and live according to God's precepts, God's Covenant. While God would have won the battle for people's hearts and minds, God would not act as Conquerer and Champion, but instead as Teacher, instructing everyone, including us, what it is to be faithful. In this time to come, those weapons that were so costly to manufacture, in the first place, would be reformed by common blacksmiths into farming implements and tools of cultivation.
This represents a cultural shift in human development. There was a time when people were hunters and gatherers; and those who brought reserves home shared with others in need. All were considered part of the community, one, as family. When people became land owners and developed civilizations, we developed a monetary system, and land value, profit and loss, mortgage, retirement and a class system, as well as desire for power. Isaiah's Vision is of a future Day to come. A new normal, a different reality, where the values we have had, desire to possess more and more, faster and newer, where searching for a new fossil fuel or gas to allow us to continue as we have been, becomes an old idea; abandoned for values of self-worth, integrity, appreciating and enjoying time with one another.
The pulp fiction industry has seized on the Middle Ages idea of “Dispensationalism”. In those Dark Ages, there were created visions that every thing you do equates to gold star or an evil demerit. Eventually there would be a time, when we needed to atone for every demerit, and there were varying levels of Heaven and varying levels of Hell, as well as Purgatory and Limbo. All the dark romance literature about Devils and Vampires and those Left Behind after the Quickening, are based on this vision.
But the vision of Jesus in Matthew is different. There are only two options here, and we cannot know whether our neighbor and co-worker, or even ourselves, are one or the other, so be diligent, try harder. What is intriguing is how Jesus inverts the parable. In the story of Noah, all the people, all the corrupt world were washed away in an instant. What Jesus describes, is that on the day the Son of Man comes, some will be taken and some left. In Matthew's Gospel there are not levels of Heaven or gradations of Hell, or a dispensationalism that you made a grade of C-, but simply that God knows the difference between those who will not receive grace, those so full of themselves and their own desires.
Years ago, our home was broken into. That is an odd thing to say, when you had not bothered to lock the front door. During the night the dog had begun barking, but as we had appeared repeatedly at Village Court for barking, we simply quieted her down and went back to sleep. The back door was broken, an ironing board and iron had been smashed. Nothing that could not be replaced. Actually, in the morning, I had come downstairs, and was surprised to find the robber passed out on our couch, very well dressed, but looking horribly disheveled. At first I thought he was a roofer, as we were having this work done, but realizing it would be presumptuous even for a contractor to come into the house they were working on to sleep on their couch. So I woke the man and gave him a cup of coffee. He asked where he was and I asked what he remembered. He described being at a Rehearsal Dinner the night before and drinking Uzo with the Groomsmen. We sent him on his way and I began calling the other clergy to make certain he got to the wedding that afternoon. We thought nothing more about it for about 18 months, when one of the College kids in Church described being at a Holiday party where word was passed, If you pass out, make certain you go to the Lindsey's they will give you a cup of coffee, make certain you get where you need to go and won't call the police. Which we decided was a pretty good vision to put forward.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
"Forgive Them, They Know Not" November 21, 2010
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Luke 23: 33-43
The other day I was visiting with a young couple, whom we had had the pleasure of marrying, about the Baptism of their newborn child. Cradling the child close to my breast, as I looked deeply into her eyes, her father asked “Rev. Lindsey, does the Presbyterian Church believe our child is damned to Hell?” Much like having cold water splashed in your face, as one representing the love of God, representing the Church, I instinctively replied: “Not This Child!”
But then inquired, What do you mean? And he said, “You know, in that stuff about Original Sin?”
I think there is a correlation here, that just as there is decreasing belief in the institution of marriage, because so many couples experienced the wedding, then realize that marriage is about a life together;
And there is decreasing belief in being a Family, because so many couples had sex, then realized that being pregnant they would spend a lifetime raising the child, who often return home after college;
So also there is decreasing understanding of what We Believe taking theological ideas out of context.
Original Sin is not the belief that Babies are Evil, or That Innocence is Condemned, not by any means. But Rather, that all of us, as Human Creatures, do exactly what Adam and Eve had done; when given the choice between acting in righteousness, a committed relationship with God, or satisfying our desires, we choose Candy, Fluff, Satisfaction of our Lusts and Desires in the Moment.
Original Sin is the Claim that we are Human, Creaturely, Driven by Desires, Sinful and thus Mortal. Are there any among us who doubt that this is so?
But the Context is not that we were created in Sin, not that God formed evil, horrible children, who would grow up to be evil horrible people; but rather that God formed humanity, all creation as naïve, therefore “Not Knowing”.
A basic flaw in beliefs today is that we have believed as SUPER-SESSIONISTS!
How is that for a $100,000 term from Seminary?
Almost as obscure as Supercalafragilisticexpialadocious!
Super-Sessionism is believing that everything that came before us was wrong and we possess all the answers. What a flawed way of thinking! Much like blaming someone who is blind, that they sinned. Or blaming those who are divorced for having been without love, it is simply not true.
There are times when human circumstance are insurmountable for human beings to control or conquer.
Rather than Humanity having Original Sin, or being destined to be profane, Christian Faith begins that humanity has been naïve, not knowing, awaiting a Savior who would lead us to God, bringing justice, transforming us from naïve creatures as hard-headed as a rock, as stubborn as a mule, to being divine. There is nothing wrong with being a Rock or a Mule, they are Creaturely, the reality is Not that we were evil, not that we were born into Original Sin, but according to Genesis, God Blessed Creation including Humanity as “Good, Very Good” for a Starting Point in Paradise.
But that at that point in human history, repeated over and over throughout time, we chose to satiate ourselves, gorging on Stuffing, entertained with parades, rather than giving thanks to God for our blessings.
The point of Christianity is not that Jesus is the answer to Judaism, to the Old Testament; but rather that Christ is the response to all in our lives that is not divine, not right with God.
The prophecy of Jeremiah was indictment that JUSTICE and AUTHORITY were to have been aligned! Instead of Kings acting as Shepherds, who risk their lives caring for the sheep; Leaders have lined their pockets and sacrificed the weak to make themselves more powerful. Jeremiah's promise is that there will eventually come one, who will lead, by caring for the least and lost. Rather than Kings and Priests serving as intermediaries, bearing our prayers to God and meeting out justice between people; that all would have direct access to God as their Shepherd, who knew and cared for each one as a lamb of God.
Life is not fair!
My parents had four sons. My father would repeatedly describe to each of us, that they would not treat us equally. Not that they did not love each of us, but that the needs of each in their time were different. The morning before I candidated here, a 9th Grader approached me and said “Rev. Lindsey, I want you to know that there are 412 tiles in that ceiling. I have counted every one repeatedly during sermons.”
Five years later, in 2001, four children came to us, as refugees from Civil War. One did not like the cold and wanted a family. One wanted a career in the Military and perhaps in Medicine. One wanted a career in Banking. One wanted to have a Clinic in their home village. Today, there is a Clinic in their village providing quality Health Care. The one wanting a Career in Banking entered the job market as the world economy went through chaos. He found a job and was laid off, and found a job and was laid, and found a job. One graduated Cum Laude from College in Biology, and is now the Executive Officer of the Army base in Utica. And one, this day, stands with a family of his own, presenting his second child for the Sacrament of Baptism. Each of us is unique, each is loved by God and by the community of Faith.
In this Sacrament, when celebrated for an Infant, we ask the parents to extend their faith to their child. Asking who is your Lord and Savior is demanding what is the greatest authority in your life as a parent. Is your aspiration that your child will be rich, that they will be healthy, that they be educated or Free? Or is it that God demonstrated to us in the Love of Jesus Christ would be their child's goal?
This Sacrament has in earlier times been described as washing away Original Sin, but even more is a claiming by God and by this community, that you will be loved. What ever your needs in life, to be challenged to use your gifts at math or computers and technology for the church, to be a leader sacrificing for others, to be warmed by love, if your son or daughter is far from home at war, if your daughter or son has done something horribly wrong, still they will be loved. No matter what.
I think the failing of the 20th Century was that people came out of the Great Depression, and back from War, THANKFUL to be alive, and we made them Members, assigning each to roles of administration. For a time, the Churches burst at their seams with thankful people. But Administration cannot hold people's faith! Instead the purpose of the Church is to teach people Discipleship and Compassion. If humanity cold learn those two lessons, what a different world this would be.
DISCIPLESHIP, continually learning, seeing the parables of life and interpreting faith in the world! COMPASSION, caring for others without reserve, giving of ourselves as others have need.
In recent years this congregation has radically changed. Someone described that as much as they loved and revered and feared Dr. Dobson, in his day, Children were not tolerated in the worship of God. Last Sunday, someone else described that what they love about the Church is that we are Child-Friendly.
Years ago, there was a story that Grandparents wanted their grandchildren baptized but were rejected; today we have come to recognize that residency is not requirement of the sacraments. That those wanting to receive the resources of the Church, wanting to celebrate their faith or struggle with their circumstance should be given everything we have to make a difference. We have positioned ourselves and challenged ourselves to continually be more compassionate and trusting. We have worked to be of service and mission. What I believe the Church could and needs to strive for, is to make disciples. The responsibility of the Church is not to have all the answers, but to probe the faith questions beneath the surface. When asked questions like “Is my child Damned to Hell” to ask “Why?”
When an infant or new believer is baptized, that we would not simply perform the ritual that day, but accept responsibility to pray for them, to hear their questions and look for their needs, that all of us might come to be Thankful for All God has given.
Luke 23: 33-43
The other day I was visiting with a young couple, whom we had had the pleasure of marrying, about the Baptism of their newborn child. Cradling the child close to my breast, as I looked deeply into her eyes, her father asked “Rev. Lindsey, does the Presbyterian Church believe our child is damned to Hell?” Much like having cold water splashed in your face, as one representing the love of God, representing the Church, I instinctively replied: “Not This Child!”
But then inquired, What do you mean? And he said, “You know, in that stuff about Original Sin?”
I think there is a correlation here, that just as there is decreasing belief in the institution of marriage, because so many couples experienced the wedding, then realize that marriage is about a life together;
And there is decreasing belief in being a Family, because so many couples had sex, then realized that being pregnant they would spend a lifetime raising the child, who often return home after college;
So also there is decreasing understanding of what We Believe taking theological ideas out of context.
Original Sin is not the belief that Babies are Evil, or That Innocence is Condemned, not by any means. But Rather, that all of us, as Human Creatures, do exactly what Adam and Eve had done; when given the choice between acting in righteousness, a committed relationship with God, or satisfying our desires, we choose Candy, Fluff, Satisfaction of our Lusts and Desires in the Moment.
Original Sin is the Claim that we are Human, Creaturely, Driven by Desires, Sinful and thus Mortal. Are there any among us who doubt that this is so?
But the Context is not that we were created in Sin, not that God formed evil, horrible children, who would grow up to be evil horrible people; but rather that God formed humanity, all creation as naïve, therefore “Not Knowing”.
A basic flaw in beliefs today is that we have believed as SUPER-SESSIONISTS!
How is that for a $100,000 term from Seminary?
Almost as obscure as Supercalafragilisticexpialadocious!
Super-Sessionism is believing that everything that came before us was wrong and we possess all the answers. What a flawed way of thinking! Much like blaming someone who is blind, that they sinned. Or blaming those who are divorced for having been without love, it is simply not true.
There are times when human circumstance are insurmountable for human beings to control or conquer.
Rather than Humanity having Original Sin, or being destined to be profane, Christian Faith begins that humanity has been naïve, not knowing, awaiting a Savior who would lead us to God, bringing justice, transforming us from naïve creatures as hard-headed as a rock, as stubborn as a mule, to being divine. There is nothing wrong with being a Rock or a Mule, they are Creaturely, the reality is Not that we were evil, not that we were born into Original Sin, but according to Genesis, God Blessed Creation including Humanity as “Good, Very Good” for a Starting Point in Paradise.
But that at that point in human history, repeated over and over throughout time, we chose to satiate ourselves, gorging on Stuffing, entertained with parades, rather than giving thanks to God for our blessings.
The point of Christianity is not that Jesus is the answer to Judaism, to the Old Testament; but rather that Christ is the response to all in our lives that is not divine, not right with God.
The prophecy of Jeremiah was indictment that JUSTICE and AUTHORITY were to have been aligned! Instead of Kings acting as Shepherds, who risk their lives caring for the sheep; Leaders have lined their pockets and sacrificed the weak to make themselves more powerful. Jeremiah's promise is that there will eventually come one, who will lead, by caring for the least and lost. Rather than Kings and Priests serving as intermediaries, bearing our prayers to God and meeting out justice between people; that all would have direct access to God as their Shepherd, who knew and cared for each one as a lamb of God.
Life is not fair!
My parents had four sons. My father would repeatedly describe to each of us, that they would not treat us equally. Not that they did not love each of us, but that the needs of each in their time were different. The morning before I candidated here, a 9th Grader approached me and said “Rev. Lindsey, I want you to know that there are 412 tiles in that ceiling. I have counted every one repeatedly during sermons.”
Five years later, in 2001, four children came to us, as refugees from Civil War. One did not like the cold and wanted a family. One wanted a career in the Military and perhaps in Medicine. One wanted a career in Banking. One wanted to have a Clinic in their home village. Today, there is a Clinic in their village providing quality Health Care. The one wanting a Career in Banking entered the job market as the world economy went through chaos. He found a job and was laid off, and found a job and was laid, and found a job. One graduated Cum Laude from College in Biology, and is now the Executive Officer of the Army base in Utica. And one, this day, stands with a family of his own, presenting his second child for the Sacrament of Baptism. Each of us is unique, each is loved by God and by the community of Faith.
In this Sacrament, when celebrated for an Infant, we ask the parents to extend their faith to their child. Asking who is your Lord and Savior is demanding what is the greatest authority in your life as a parent. Is your aspiration that your child will be rich, that they will be healthy, that they be educated or Free? Or is it that God demonstrated to us in the Love of Jesus Christ would be their child's goal?
This Sacrament has in earlier times been described as washing away Original Sin, but even more is a claiming by God and by this community, that you will be loved. What ever your needs in life, to be challenged to use your gifts at math or computers and technology for the church, to be a leader sacrificing for others, to be warmed by love, if your son or daughter is far from home at war, if your daughter or son has done something horribly wrong, still they will be loved. No matter what.
I think the failing of the 20th Century was that people came out of the Great Depression, and back from War, THANKFUL to be alive, and we made them Members, assigning each to roles of administration. For a time, the Churches burst at their seams with thankful people. But Administration cannot hold people's faith! Instead the purpose of the Church is to teach people Discipleship and Compassion. If humanity cold learn those two lessons, what a different world this would be.
DISCIPLESHIP, continually learning, seeing the parables of life and interpreting faith in the world! COMPASSION, caring for others without reserve, giving of ourselves as others have need.
In recent years this congregation has radically changed. Someone described that as much as they loved and revered and feared Dr. Dobson, in his day, Children were not tolerated in the worship of God. Last Sunday, someone else described that what they love about the Church is that we are Child-Friendly.
Years ago, there was a story that Grandparents wanted their grandchildren baptized but were rejected; today we have come to recognize that residency is not requirement of the sacraments. That those wanting to receive the resources of the Church, wanting to celebrate their faith or struggle with their circumstance should be given everything we have to make a difference. We have positioned ourselves and challenged ourselves to continually be more compassionate and trusting. We have worked to be of service and mission. What I believe the Church could and needs to strive for, is to make disciples. The responsibility of the Church is not to have all the answers, but to probe the faith questions beneath the surface. When asked questions like “Is my child Damned to Hell” to ask “Why?”
When an infant or new believer is baptized, that we would not simply perform the ritual that day, but accept responsibility to pray for them, to hear their questions and look for their needs, that all of us might come to be Thankful for All God has given.
Monday, November 15, 2010
"There, There...No More", November 14, 2010
Isaiah 65:17-25
Luke 21:1-19
This morning's readings do not assume a Prosperity Gospel, some rosey belief that if I simply believe enough everything will turn out all right, or that following the Covenant is a roadmap to riches. Instead, that we live in a culture of loss, hoping for redemption from Almighty God. In September of 2001, the 21st Century Changed. Never before, had our mainland been attacked. On a bright blue Autumn morning, suddenly we realized how fragile life is, or the reality of hate. From that moment on, our economy has faced loss after loss, as our personal IRA's 401Ks and Pension plans were raided. Haiti suffered an Earthquake, then Cholera, now Hurricanes. Dormant volcanoes have erupted. Where earlier generations knew of the successes and failures of wars, we have had cameras imbedded with the troops reporting with images first hand. During the first Gulf-War, I recall families describing their three year olds standing in front of the television screaming “No More News, No More.”
20th Century Americans knew about developing technologies, expanding potential, reaching to touch the moon, knew about everything from the Jitter-bug to the Twist to Rock & Roll to Disco; but LOSS was not part of our vocabulary. As a technological people, we need to continually remind ourselves that this technology is so new, we have not learned the safeguards. After 90 years with automobiles we have mandated airbags and seat-belts, speed-limits, and laws against the stupidity of drunk-driving. But we do not yet know how to seat-belt our lap-top, or where the airbag is on an iPod. We have created a culture dependent upon consumerism, always needing the latest, fastest, newest product. No where is this more visible than in the News Cycle. Every hour of every day, we are supposed to be connected with the World, to have something new and news worthy, in competition with all the other investigative news reporters. Not simply to attain a pulitzer for the ground-breaking story, but assuming a 2 minute sound-byte, having a new earth-shattering revelation every 58 minutes.
Steve and Julie, as the one who married you, I have been in awe, watching as you have chosen, instead of going into international land-development to choose product engineering; instead of choosing to report the news, to be a stay-at-home parent, together raising four children. How tempting it would be to go there and there and there, wherever the latest most exciting development is breaking, but instead to intentionally choose to spend time with your children in years that cannot ever be recaptured.
The Bible speaks directly to our time, with insights and wisdom from long ago. We are a loss avoid-ant world. When devastation happens, we try to imagine that it does not affect us. Mom was 89 years old and with Dad passing, her life did not seem as vital. They always fought, seeming to have different values and priorities, is it any wonder they divorced. We justify, we avoid, we placate, we drink and anesthetize ourselves from feeling, we find ways to not GRIEVE. The first 39 Chapters of the Book of Isaiah are about LOSS. This is the Centuries long-struggle of the Greatest, Most-powerful, most-affluent Nation on the face of the Earth, greater in wealth and power than the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, losing all of that to become prisoners of war, aliens in a foreign land. Even more frightening, some of the latest archeological evidence is that perhaps the people of Israel never physically left their promised Land, but that like ourselves the culture changed so much around them they became out of touch, becoming aliens in a foreign land when geographically the Nation of Israel became a State of Babylon and the Capital of Jerusalem lay in ruins.
We are so frightened of LOSS, that the Lectionary selections from Isaiah typically are: The Call of Isaiah in Chapter 6 saying “Woe is me, I am a Man of Unclean lips dwelling among a people with unclean lips, when suddenly the sins are burned from our lips, and we respond to God, Here Am I Send Me!” Then, Isaiah 40's “Comfort, comfort my people says Your God.” And finally this word in the 65th Chapter describing “a new Heaven and new Earth, God creating a new Jerusalem.” While it would seem EASIER in the midst of world-wide devastation to witness a vision where our sins are taken away, and suddenly we are comforted, when we rush too quickly to offer comfort, we bury our feelings, we bury ourselves.
In the Bible Study this week, someone described “How come God is So Unfair? Why must our hearts be hardened, why must there be suffering for the world to change?”
To read Isaiah faithfully, is to read an account of Loss longer than most other books of the Bible. 39 Chapters of their banks and storehouses being raided, 39 Chapters about their homes being devalued, their closets opened as others rush to take their jewelry and shoes, much like yesterday's auction at Krebs of bidding on plates and silver and linens, tables and chairs as odd lots.
After 10 years of War in Afghanistan and Iraq, what more can we say. After the Dot-Coms and the Housing Market Bubbles burst, two decades of warnings that the Social Security safety net no longer fits our time, and while we as a church have been able to raise funds to create a clinic in East Africa there are hundreds of thousands in our nation without health care. Suddenly, after 39 Chapters of Loss, the Word of the Prophet Isaiah changes. According to the time references there is 150 years between the end of Chapter 39 and beginning of Chapter 40. Some have proposed that the idea of GRIEF changed, from historically describing loss in detail, to instead creating a New Normal by LAMENT. The Book of Lamentations is a series of 5 poems, the first two and last two being of 22 verses, the middle Chapter being 66 verses or 3 sets of 22, and in Hebrew instead of the 26 letters in our alphabet there were 22. Lamentations is a means of identifying who we are as different from what we once were. Similar in the 1930s there were Love Songs that developed alphabetically
A is for the AFFECTION of your Heart.
B is for the BOUNTY of your Love.
C is for COMPASSION strengthening me for every day.
D for the DESIRE to make a difference.
And finally, after 150 years of LAMENTATIONS, a new word is heard in Israel: “COMFORT, COMFORT, My People, says your God. There, there, I am with you. I hear you and I care.”
I have been doing a Scientific Study the last many years. When an infant cries, what it wants is for someone to pay attention, to be soothing. It really does not matter who that someone is, even a stranger in grey robe, provided we hear the words “THERE, THERE” and you are not alone, “I AM with you!”
After we have had ample opportunity to unpack our grief, to come to grips with a NEW NORMAL, then we can be comforted and truly cared for, rather than blanketing our loss.
But there is only so long, we can be comforted, in Chapter 65 The Lord God offers a New Reality, a Peaceable Kingdom. Envisioning a new Society, not built on human greed or the latest human technology, or with human hands, but a NEW HEAVEN and NEW EARTH and NEW JERUSALEM. A reality where we do not need to be comforted and consoled, where there is no need to weep, where there is no longer LOSS. But instead when a person reaches the age of a Hundred they will be seen as still a child!
There is a vision here that has inspired humanity for thousands of years. The Wolf and Lamb laying down together, the Lion and calf eating straw rather than fearing one another. Still, while all the rest of creation will be redeemed, the snake shall never again be tempted by the Apple, dust shall be the serpent's food. No longer will there be need for a Baby to cry, for before people Call, God will answer.
Just imagine, if instead of all those forwarded emails asking you to send this to 100 people, before we could close our eyes, we knew God knew our needs. I believe in that future. A short time ago, I was speaking with a colleague, describing there are so many labels we put on one another, so many different camps within Christianity, let alone different religions, so how do you see me? Without hesitation she responded: “You, You are an Evangelical?” Imagining Jerry Falwell and Tammy Baker, I was a bit surprised, and she said “NO, but you believe God is real! Your believe miracles happen! You actually believe all the things that are prophesied, like the coming of a new heaven and new earth, where there will be no suffering, is not only possible but a reality!” And I said to her, I have seen miracles!
Luke 21:1-19
This morning's readings do not assume a Prosperity Gospel, some rosey belief that if I simply believe enough everything will turn out all right, or that following the Covenant is a roadmap to riches. Instead, that we live in a culture of loss, hoping for redemption from Almighty God. In September of 2001, the 21st Century Changed. Never before, had our mainland been attacked. On a bright blue Autumn morning, suddenly we realized how fragile life is, or the reality of hate. From that moment on, our economy has faced loss after loss, as our personal IRA's 401Ks and Pension plans were raided. Haiti suffered an Earthquake, then Cholera, now Hurricanes. Dormant volcanoes have erupted. Where earlier generations knew of the successes and failures of wars, we have had cameras imbedded with the troops reporting with images first hand. During the first Gulf-War, I recall families describing their three year olds standing in front of the television screaming “No More News, No More.”
20th Century Americans knew about developing technologies, expanding potential, reaching to touch the moon, knew about everything from the Jitter-bug to the Twist to Rock & Roll to Disco; but LOSS was not part of our vocabulary. As a technological people, we need to continually remind ourselves that this technology is so new, we have not learned the safeguards. After 90 years with automobiles we have mandated airbags and seat-belts, speed-limits, and laws against the stupidity of drunk-driving. But we do not yet know how to seat-belt our lap-top, or where the airbag is on an iPod. We have created a culture dependent upon consumerism, always needing the latest, fastest, newest product. No where is this more visible than in the News Cycle. Every hour of every day, we are supposed to be connected with the World, to have something new and news worthy, in competition with all the other investigative news reporters. Not simply to attain a pulitzer for the ground-breaking story, but assuming a 2 minute sound-byte, having a new earth-shattering revelation every 58 minutes.
Steve and Julie, as the one who married you, I have been in awe, watching as you have chosen, instead of going into international land-development to choose product engineering; instead of choosing to report the news, to be a stay-at-home parent, together raising four children. How tempting it would be to go there and there and there, wherever the latest most exciting development is breaking, but instead to intentionally choose to spend time with your children in years that cannot ever be recaptured.
The Bible speaks directly to our time, with insights and wisdom from long ago. We are a loss avoid-ant world. When devastation happens, we try to imagine that it does not affect us. Mom was 89 years old and with Dad passing, her life did not seem as vital. They always fought, seeming to have different values and priorities, is it any wonder they divorced. We justify, we avoid, we placate, we drink and anesthetize ourselves from feeling, we find ways to not GRIEVE. The first 39 Chapters of the Book of Isaiah are about LOSS. This is the Centuries long-struggle of the Greatest, Most-powerful, most-affluent Nation on the face of the Earth, greater in wealth and power than the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, losing all of that to become prisoners of war, aliens in a foreign land. Even more frightening, some of the latest archeological evidence is that perhaps the people of Israel never physically left their promised Land, but that like ourselves the culture changed so much around them they became out of touch, becoming aliens in a foreign land when geographically the Nation of Israel became a State of Babylon and the Capital of Jerusalem lay in ruins.
We are so frightened of LOSS, that the Lectionary selections from Isaiah typically are: The Call of Isaiah in Chapter 6 saying “Woe is me, I am a Man of Unclean lips dwelling among a people with unclean lips, when suddenly the sins are burned from our lips, and we respond to God, Here Am I Send Me!” Then, Isaiah 40's “Comfort, comfort my people says Your God.” And finally this word in the 65th Chapter describing “a new Heaven and new Earth, God creating a new Jerusalem.” While it would seem EASIER in the midst of world-wide devastation to witness a vision where our sins are taken away, and suddenly we are comforted, when we rush too quickly to offer comfort, we bury our feelings, we bury ourselves.
In the Bible Study this week, someone described “How come God is So Unfair? Why must our hearts be hardened, why must there be suffering for the world to change?”
To read Isaiah faithfully, is to read an account of Loss longer than most other books of the Bible. 39 Chapters of their banks and storehouses being raided, 39 Chapters about their homes being devalued, their closets opened as others rush to take their jewelry and shoes, much like yesterday's auction at Krebs of bidding on plates and silver and linens, tables and chairs as odd lots.
After 10 years of War in Afghanistan and Iraq, what more can we say. After the Dot-Coms and the Housing Market Bubbles burst, two decades of warnings that the Social Security safety net no longer fits our time, and while we as a church have been able to raise funds to create a clinic in East Africa there are hundreds of thousands in our nation without health care. Suddenly, after 39 Chapters of Loss, the Word of the Prophet Isaiah changes. According to the time references there is 150 years between the end of Chapter 39 and beginning of Chapter 40. Some have proposed that the idea of GRIEF changed, from historically describing loss in detail, to instead creating a New Normal by LAMENT. The Book of Lamentations is a series of 5 poems, the first two and last two being of 22 verses, the middle Chapter being 66 verses or 3 sets of 22, and in Hebrew instead of the 26 letters in our alphabet there were 22. Lamentations is a means of identifying who we are as different from what we once were. Similar in the 1930s there were Love Songs that developed alphabetically
A is for the AFFECTION of your Heart.
B is for the BOUNTY of your Love.
C is for COMPASSION strengthening me for every day.
D for the DESIRE to make a difference.
And finally, after 150 years of LAMENTATIONS, a new word is heard in Israel: “COMFORT, COMFORT, My People, says your God. There, there, I am with you. I hear you and I care.”
I have been doing a Scientific Study the last many years. When an infant cries, what it wants is for someone to pay attention, to be soothing. It really does not matter who that someone is, even a stranger in grey robe, provided we hear the words “THERE, THERE” and you are not alone, “I AM with you!”
After we have had ample opportunity to unpack our grief, to come to grips with a NEW NORMAL, then we can be comforted and truly cared for, rather than blanketing our loss.
But there is only so long, we can be comforted, in Chapter 65 The Lord God offers a New Reality, a Peaceable Kingdom. Envisioning a new Society, not built on human greed or the latest human technology, or with human hands, but a NEW HEAVEN and NEW EARTH and NEW JERUSALEM. A reality where we do not need to be comforted and consoled, where there is no need to weep, where there is no longer LOSS. But instead when a person reaches the age of a Hundred they will be seen as still a child!
There is a vision here that has inspired humanity for thousands of years. The Wolf and Lamb laying down together, the Lion and calf eating straw rather than fearing one another. Still, while all the rest of creation will be redeemed, the snake shall never again be tempted by the Apple, dust shall be the serpent's food. No longer will there be need for a Baby to cry, for before people Call, God will answer.
Just imagine, if instead of all those forwarded emails asking you to send this to 100 people, before we could close our eyes, we knew God knew our needs. I believe in that future. A short time ago, I was speaking with a colleague, describing there are so many labels we put on one another, so many different camps within Christianity, let alone different religions, so how do you see me? Without hesitation she responded: “You, You are an Evangelical?” Imagining Jerry Falwell and Tammy Baker, I was a bit surprised, and she said “NO, but you believe God is real! Your believe miracles happen! You actually believe all the things that are prophesied, like the coming of a new heaven and new earth, where there will be no suffering, is not only possible but a reality!” And I said to her, I have seen miracles!
Monday, November 1, 2010
"To Infinity and Beyond" October 31, 2010
Habakkuk 1:1-4 & 2:1-5
Luke 19: 1-10
Is there FAITH beyond all that we know? When we know devastation, can we still believe?
When there is suffering, to the point of hopelessness, do we give up hoping? Is there still a God?
In January the people of Haiti experienced the worst earthquake in 200 years, now there is Cholera.
Sudan, where we have worked to overcome Decades of War and Poverty, is waist deep in flood waters, praying for a January Referendum with the promise of peace and fear of renewed fighting.
Closer to home, are those with Cancer in the 3rd and 4th recurrence.
Those who have buried the person they loved more than life itself trying to teach their children to live.
Those who have cut back, and laid off, and sold everything, declaring bankruptcy, yet still must go on.
Those whose sons and daughters are in War, who know the corruption of those they are trying to teach, knowing they are leaving soon and the future seems bleak, it would be easy to hope simply to get out, but still they try to eliminate the terrorist, to teach a different way.
Every generation has their way of expressing, “what is there to hope for beyond all we know?”
According to Habakkuk, STILL THE VISION AWAITS ITS TIME, IF IT SEEMS SLOW – WAIT!
In the words of Jesus, WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH HUMANITY, IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD!
In the 1960s charge of Captain Kirk: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE!
In the words of Buzz Lightyear, TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND!
To Hope, to Believe, to know that still There is a God.
It is not hard for us to imagine the character of Zaccheus. A man pre-occupied with money. In our own time a Bernie Madoff, or Michael Douglas character in the Movie WALL STREET. His career has not been making anything, or selling anything, or providing a service. The Government demanded taxes in order to fund the Roman Legion, to enforce peace, and Zaccheus was Chief Tax-Collector. In addition to forcing people to pay by extortion and fear, Zaccheus added his own embezzlement on top. We have made this a palatable story by singing a little tune Zaccheus was a Wee Little Man, a Wee Little Man was he. But if all we remember of Zaccheus was his stature and Sycamore tree, we miss the point. Zaccheus was a small man in people's lack of respect for his humanity. Zaccheus was preoccupied with money. He had no compassion for others, no family, no friends, no love, he lived for his work and his work was making money by taxing others. We have heard the story of the Prodigal who wasted all he had until he found himself in debt; we have just heard the story of the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus and went away sorrowful. What hope could there be for one like Zaccheus?
What happened that day was not being affected by the Star-power of Jesus. What happened was not like the Samaritan woman at the Well, where asking for water or for Zaccheus to share food changed him; but rather because Zaccheus knew people thought him to be a sinner, because he knew he was feared and hated and had no hope of anyone ever befriending him or listening to him, when Jesus did Zaccheus responded.
It is one thing for us to confess, “I am human, I have made mistakes” we all do, and the words seem to trip easily off our tongues...I am sorry. What Zaccheus did that day is his own day of reckoning, to be the richest, most powerful, most feared man, who confesses “I have sinned. I am a Sinner.”
Zaccheus without being convinced, or pushed, sees Jesus risk to be vulnerable, to be identified with and stand in solidarity in the home of Zaccheus, and Zaccheus responds with Giving half of everything he has to the poor, and a willingness to repay his debts four times over... The Camel went through the eye of the needle, the man whose whole life was about Getting Money found reason to give away what he thought he possessed.
Many of us think we have Hope. Hope that Doctors can determine what is wrong, can prescribe a pill to make us feel better, or with surgery the specialist can cut away what is corrupt, what is Cancerous. We know surgery or medication or exercise will be costly, will be hard, will be a matter of sheer endurance; but that is not HOPE. Hope comes afterward. When the specialists describe they have done all they can, there is nothing more that can possibly be done. Cancer has gone into remission four times and returned yet again. To still believe, we can have comfort. To know we are loved. To witness the meaning of our lives, this overcomes all cancers, undercuts anything that could seem to destroy us.
We are such a foolish people!
How often a person dies feeling so very alone, possibly surrounded by family, but their spouse and peers and siblings all have died. Then afterward, at a funeral we all turn out! Would that we could witness the lives our life touched before we die! Not to be present at our Funeral, but to know that life was not in vain. To be able to look deeply into the eyes of those we have hurt, and who have hurt us, and confess the wrongs we have done, and be redeemed.
Historians provide a marvelous timeline of human history, which is difficult for our minds to keep in perspective. We know that first the Egyptian Pharaohs ruled, then after a time in the wilderness the Nation of Israel became an independent Monarchy, only to fall to the Babylonians, then to the Persians, to the Greeks then to the Caesars in the Empire of Rome. Habakkuk is a prophet from those Centuries of occupation by foreign powers. To wonder “How long O Lord, How Long until we can be Free?”
The Prophecy of Habakkuk is challenging for us, for the role of the Prophet was not to salve and comfort, but to challenge. HOW LONG UNTIL WE SHALL BE FREE? Will the Vision of Freedom ever be real? And the prophecy that comes to him is, so long as within your own culture there is a desire to put down others, to blame those who are poor for their need, there will continue to be only a vision of freedom. But STILL WRITE THE VISION, write it large so others can see it, and WAIT knowing that the Vision of freedom will be made real.
Reformation Sunday is a marker, that at one time, the Church became so stuck, that a priest posted on the doors of the Church 95 Theses papers inviting public discussion of the problems of the Church and society. This led to creation of the Commercial economy from the Feudal State! This led to putting the Bible in the hands of the people. It led to worship services being led in a language the common person could understand. If this act were done today, what would be the issues we would lift up for public debate?
Luke 19: 1-10
Is there FAITH beyond all that we know? When we know devastation, can we still believe?
When there is suffering, to the point of hopelessness, do we give up hoping? Is there still a God?
In January the people of Haiti experienced the worst earthquake in 200 years, now there is Cholera.
Sudan, where we have worked to overcome Decades of War and Poverty, is waist deep in flood waters, praying for a January Referendum with the promise of peace and fear of renewed fighting.
Closer to home, are those with Cancer in the 3rd and 4th recurrence.
Those who have buried the person they loved more than life itself trying to teach their children to live.
Those who have cut back, and laid off, and sold everything, declaring bankruptcy, yet still must go on.
Those whose sons and daughters are in War, who know the corruption of those they are trying to teach, knowing they are leaving soon and the future seems bleak, it would be easy to hope simply to get out, but still they try to eliminate the terrorist, to teach a different way.
Every generation has their way of expressing, “what is there to hope for beyond all we know?”
According to Habakkuk, STILL THE VISION AWAITS ITS TIME, IF IT SEEMS SLOW – WAIT!
In the words of Jesus, WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH HUMANITY, IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD!
In the 1960s charge of Captain Kirk: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE!
In the words of Buzz Lightyear, TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND!
To Hope, to Believe, to know that still There is a God.
It is not hard for us to imagine the character of Zaccheus. A man pre-occupied with money. In our own time a Bernie Madoff, or Michael Douglas character in the Movie WALL STREET. His career has not been making anything, or selling anything, or providing a service. The Government demanded taxes in order to fund the Roman Legion, to enforce peace, and Zaccheus was Chief Tax-Collector. In addition to forcing people to pay by extortion and fear, Zaccheus added his own embezzlement on top. We have made this a palatable story by singing a little tune Zaccheus was a Wee Little Man, a Wee Little Man was he. But if all we remember of Zaccheus was his stature and Sycamore tree, we miss the point. Zaccheus was a small man in people's lack of respect for his humanity. Zaccheus was preoccupied with money. He had no compassion for others, no family, no friends, no love, he lived for his work and his work was making money by taxing others. We have heard the story of the Prodigal who wasted all he had until he found himself in debt; we have just heard the story of the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus and went away sorrowful. What hope could there be for one like Zaccheus?
What happened that day was not being affected by the Star-power of Jesus. What happened was not like the Samaritan woman at the Well, where asking for water or for Zaccheus to share food changed him; but rather because Zaccheus knew people thought him to be a sinner, because he knew he was feared and hated and had no hope of anyone ever befriending him or listening to him, when Jesus did Zaccheus responded.
It is one thing for us to confess, “I am human, I have made mistakes” we all do, and the words seem to trip easily off our tongues...I am sorry. What Zaccheus did that day is his own day of reckoning, to be the richest, most powerful, most feared man, who confesses “I have sinned. I am a Sinner.”
Zaccheus without being convinced, or pushed, sees Jesus risk to be vulnerable, to be identified with and stand in solidarity in the home of Zaccheus, and Zaccheus responds with Giving half of everything he has to the poor, and a willingness to repay his debts four times over... The Camel went through the eye of the needle, the man whose whole life was about Getting Money found reason to give away what he thought he possessed.
Many of us think we have Hope. Hope that Doctors can determine what is wrong, can prescribe a pill to make us feel better, or with surgery the specialist can cut away what is corrupt, what is Cancerous. We know surgery or medication or exercise will be costly, will be hard, will be a matter of sheer endurance; but that is not HOPE. Hope comes afterward. When the specialists describe they have done all they can, there is nothing more that can possibly be done. Cancer has gone into remission four times and returned yet again. To still believe, we can have comfort. To know we are loved. To witness the meaning of our lives, this overcomes all cancers, undercuts anything that could seem to destroy us.
We are such a foolish people!
How often a person dies feeling so very alone, possibly surrounded by family, but their spouse and peers and siblings all have died. Then afterward, at a funeral we all turn out! Would that we could witness the lives our life touched before we die! Not to be present at our Funeral, but to know that life was not in vain. To be able to look deeply into the eyes of those we have hurt, and who have hurt us, and confess the wrongs we have done, and be redeemed.
Historians provide a marvelous timeline of human history, which is difficult for our minds to keep in perspective. We know that first the Egyptian Pharaohs ruled, then after a time in the wilderness the Nation of Israel became an independent Monarchy, only to fall to the Babylonians, then to the Persians, to the Greeks then to the Caesars in the Empire of Rome. Habakkuk is a prophet from those Centuries of occupation by foreign powers. To wonder “How long O Lord, How Long until we can be Free?”
The Prophecy of Habakkuk is challenging for us, for the role of the Prophet was not to salve and comfort, but to challenge. HOW LONG UNTIL WE SHALL BE FREE? Will the Vision of Freedom ever be real? And the prophecy that comes to him is, so long as within your own culture there is a desire to put down others, to blame those who are poor for their need, there will continue to be only a vision of freedom. But STILL WRITE THE VISION, write it large so others can see it, and WAIT knowing that the Vision of freedom will be made real.
Reformation Sunday is a marker, that at one time, the Church became so stuck, that a priest posted on the doors of the Church 95 Theses papers inviting public discussion of the problems of the Church and society. This led to creation of the Commercial economy from the Feudal State! This led to putting the Bible in the hands of the people. It led to worship services being led in a language the common person could understand. If this act were done today, what would be the issues we would lift up for public debate?
Monday, October 25, 2010
October 24, 2010 "PREDESTINATION"
Joel 2:23-32
Luke 18: 9-14
Last Sunday, in the midst of the Sermon, one of our number passed out. I wish I could say it had something to do with the Preaching, but it seems it was simply a symptom of their Parkinson's disease, and in the midst of a sermon on having faith/caring/never giving up but praying constantly, we prayed.
Following worship, a visitor sought me out to say, “In the sermon you mentioned Predestination! When I was a child, it seemed that was the basis of every sermon in Presbyterian Churches, and yet, I cannot remember the last time I heard a preacher use the word?” There are topics that are in vogue, and times when ideas seem to go out of fashion. There have been times when the focus of preaching was on: The Survival of Churches, on Healing Conflicts, on Power and Abuse, on Rebuilding the Foundations, on Mission and sharing our blessings with those in need. Years ago, when asked by a Seminary Intern, I recall describing that every sermon is about Forgiveness and rebuilding Trust. There is a basic truth to this, in that the Biblical Witness is about RESTORING COVENANT COMMUNION, as described by The Prophet Joel: That the soil and animals and all humanity would be restored to Creation. But the question of discussing PEDESTINATION, of SALVATION, of What does it mean to be Saved, even the response to “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” is not WHO is saved or HOW, or WHEN, but whether you care? Whether anyone cares? As stated at the end of the parable about the UnRighteous Judge and the Unrelenting Widow: When the Son of Man comes, Will God find faith on earth?
PreDestination for those who made not have heard it last Sunday, is an Acceptance that as Human Beings we are Sinners, when given half a Chance we will choose what is in our self-interest and not in the interest of God, Creation, the needs of others. Like Adam and Eve we will always seek what is forbidden fruit. But, like rain from heaven, grace falls upon us all, and some will take in faith, will listen to the conviction of Christ and choose to live differently. The difficulty of Predestination is that everyone will not absorb grace, to many faith does not seem profitable. It is not that some are damned and some are saved, but rather that all of us are, and some will allow compassion, truth, faith, hope to work upon them. What a world it would be, if with Grace falling upon the earth like early and middle and later rains and the ground becomes saturated, all the world would be so saturated with Grace, that our Elders would Dream Dreams and our Children would conceive of Visions we never before imagined. Predestination leaves open the possibility that all Creation could be restored, could turn to have faith.
The whole middle of the Gospel of Luke strikes me as not being a collection of Jesus' Parables, not a vindication of the poor and condemnation of the rich, but the Healing of 10 Lepers and 1Turned to Jesus, the Prodigal Son coming to himself and returning home, Forgiving our brothers 7 times a day and if they repent yet again forgiving them anew, Servants doing our duty and always being asked to do more, the Unrighteous Judge, the Pharisee and Tax Collector at Prayer, the Parents bringing infants to Jesus, and the Rich Young Ruler, All are stories of people recognizing their need to have faith, our need to repent, and turn from our needs and desires, to caring, to CALLING ON THE NAME OF GOD and acting in faith.
The Pharisee is described as a SELF-MADE Man, who trusted in himself, believing he knew better than anyone else. He went up to the Temple to pray, and stood the entire time, never kneeling, never bowing down, he stood isolated from others. The Gospel goes so far as to say “He prayed with himself.” The danger of being Self-Made, of being Self-Righteous, of being proud, is that this man has made himself into his own God, leaving no room for Salvation, no room for forgiveness. He is religious, even pious, but he does not have faith.
On the weekend of the 11th of September, one of our elders recalled that on that Day, and for months afterward the Nation had been more together than he had recalled in decades, and yet increasingly we have become so polarized, so isolated by our divisions. In the current political campaign even more so, as each blame the other, in order to win by saying “God, I thank thee that I am not like others, political insiders, career politicians, those who voted for this, that and the other. I stand alone.” Just once, I wish we had a leader, who would humbly stand before the Nation, before the world, saying “I have done what I have done, giving of myself in every way I could.” Who then did not campaign, but gave all the funds for campaigning to make a difference in the world. In this age of TWITTERS and TWEETS, these actions would spread good news, without robo-calls, without mailers, without commercials.
But this is not what we imagine our rulers to do.
Our rulers may honor their Fathers and Mothers, live moral lives without stealing or murdering or lying, but when it comes to giving away all you have, being humble and vulnerable, we have not made these a virtue any aspire to. The more I have read and reflected upon this passage over the years, I have come to believe that it is a gem for reflection, not a sign or phrase that we immediately recognize.
One does not immediately divest themselves of all the things of this life. Such a decision takes reflection, even repentance to say I DO NOT NEED TO POSSESS ALL THIS, and even more HERE IS ANOTHER WHO DOES NEED MORE THAN I.
Like getting a Camel through the eye of a Needle, faith is not a matter of opening the needle bigger, or shrinking the camel smaller, but of backing up, gaining perspective. When trying to thread a needle, the point is not to push harder, or twist the thread tighter, but looking through the other side, and gaining perspective, your eye can allow a whole camel even the whole world to be seen passing through the eye of the needle.
I have come to believe that the Gospel answers its own question. While Ruler went away, FOUR verses later, there is description of a blind man who recognized Jesus and called out to him Son of David have Mercy! Filling in the time frame of those four verses, I believe the rich ruler did give away all he possessed, but doing so, he now only saw himself as poor, he knew himself to still be blind to the truth. So when Jesus came by, he begged for mercy, and Jesus said “Receive Your Sight, Your Faith Has Made You Well!”
Luke 18: 9-14
Last Sunday, in the midst of the Sermon, one of our number passed out. I wish I could say it had something to do with the Preaching, but it seems it was simply a symptom of their Parkinson's disease, and in the midst of a sermon on having faith/caring/never giving up but praying constantly, we prayed.
Following worship, a visitor sought me out to say, “In the sermon you mentioned Predestination! When I was a child, it seemed that was the basis of every sermon in Presbyterian Churches, and yet, I cannot remember the last time I heard a preacher use the word?” There are topics that are in vogue, and times when ideas seem to go out of fashion. There have been times when the focus of preaching was on: The Survival of Churches, on Healing Conflicts, on Power and Abuse, on Rebuilding the Foundations, on Mission and sharing our blessings with those in need. Years ago, when asked by a Seminary Intern, I recall describing that every sermon is about Forgiveness and rebuilding Trust. There is a basic truth to this, in that the Biblical Witness is about RESTORING COVENANT COMMUNION, as described by The Prophet Joel: That the soil and animals and all humanity would be restored to Creation. But the question of discussing PEDESTINATION, of SALVATION, of What does it mean to be Saved, even the response to “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” is not WHO is saved or HOW, or WHEN, but whether you care? Whether anyone cares? As stated at the end of the parable about the UnRighteous Judge and the Unrelenting Widow: When the Son of Man comes, Will God find faith on earth?
PreDestination for those who made not have heard it last Sunday, is an Acceptance that as Human Beings we are Sinners, when given half a Chance we will choose what is in our self-interest and not in the interest of God, Creation, the needs of others. Like Adam and Eve we will always seek what is forbidden fruit. But, like rain from heaven, grace falls upon us all, and some will take in faith, will listen to the conviction of Christ and choose to live differently. The difficulty of Predestination is that everyone will not absorb grace, to many faith does not seem profitable. It is not that some are damned and some are saved, but rather that all of us are, and some will allow compassion, truth, faith, hope to work upon them. What a world it would be, if with Grace falling upon the earth like early and middle and later rains and the ground becomes saturated, all the world would be so saturated with Grace, that our Elders would Dream Dreams and our Children would conceive of Visions we never before imagined. Predestination leaves open the possibility that all Creation could be restored, could turn to have faith.
The whole middle of the Gospel of Luke strikes me as not being a collection of Jesus' Parables, not a vindication of the poor and condemnation of the rich, but the Healing of 10 Lepers and 1Turned to Jesus, the Prodigal Son coming to himself and returning home, Forgiving our brothers 7 times a day and if they repent yet again forgiving them anew, Servants doing our duty and always being asked to do more, the Unrighteous Judge, the Pharisee and Tax Collector at Prayer, the Parents bringing infants to Jesus, and the Rich Young Ruler, All are stories of people recognizing their need to have faith, our need to repent, and turn from our needs and desires, to caring, to CALLING ON THE NAME OF GOD and acting in faith.
The Pharisee is described as a SELF-MADE Man, who trusted in himself, believing he knew better than anyone else. He went up to the Temple to pray, and stood the entire time, never kneeling, never bowing down, he stood isolated from others. The Gospel goes so far as to say “He prayed with himself.” The danger of being Self-Made, of being Self-Righteous, of being proud, is that this man has made himself into his own God, leaving no room for Salvation, no room for forgiveness. He is religious, even pious, but he does not have faith.
On the weekend of the 11th of September, one of our elders recalled that on that Day, and for months afterward the Nation had been more together than he had recalled in decades, and yet increasingly we have become so polarized, so isolated by our divisions. In the current political campaign even more so, as each blame the other, in order to win by saying “God, I thank thee that I am not like others, political insiders, career politicians, those who voted for this, that and the other. I stand alone.” Just once, I wish we had a leader, who would humbly stand before the Nation, before the world, saying “I have done what I have done, giving of myself in every way I could.” Who then did not campaign, but gave all the funds for campaigning to make a difference in the world. In this age of TWITTERS and TWEETS, these actions would spread good news, without robo-calls, without mailers, without commercials.
But this is not what we imagine our rulers to do.
Our rulers may honor their Fathers and Mothers, live moral lives without stealing or murdering or lying, but when it comes to giving away all you have, being humble and vulnerable, we have not made these a virtue any aspire to. The more I have read and reflected upon this passage over the years, I have come to believe that it is a gem for reflection, not a sign or phrase that we immediately recognize.
One does not immediately divest themselves of all the things of this life. Such a decision takes reflection, even repentance to say I DO NOT NEED TO POSSESS ALL THIS, and even more HERE IS ANOTHER WHO DOES NEED MORE THAN I.
Like getting a Camel through the eye of a Needle, faith is not a matter of opening the needle bigger, or shrinking the camel smaller, but of backing up, gaining perspective. When trying to thread a needle, the point is not to push harder, or twist the thread tighter, but looking through the other side, and gaining perspective, your eye can allow a whole camel even the whole world to be seen passing through the eye of the needle.
I have come to believe that the Gospel answers its own question. While Ruler went away, FOUR verses later, there is description of a blind man who recognized Jesus and called out to him Son of David have Mercy! Filling in the time frame of those four verses, I believe the rich ruler did give away all he possessed, but doing so, he now only saw himself as poor, he knew himself to still be blind to the truth. So when Jesus came by, he begged for mercy, and Jesus said “Receive Your Sight, Your Faith Has Made You Well!”
October 17, 2010, "DO NOT LOSE HEART"
Jeremiah 31: 27-34
Luke 18:1-8
We are surrounded by so much negativism, pessimism and fear. Each candidate no longer campaigning on what they can and will do, but casting aspersions on their opponents. Commercials selling us products, which are not designed to last, but only to be faster, smaller, more colorful, with more memorable commercials than their competitor. Projections of the economy are not for a robust recovery, but a slow and jerky series of starts, heaping greater and greater debt on our children's children's future. The Yankees, who raised hopes and expectations with the American Series Opener, suffered a miserable loss in game two. Syracuse was crushed by Pittsburgh 45-14. HOWEVER: The Word of The Lord which comes to us is FEAR NOT, DO NOT LOSE HEART, BELIEVE ANEW!
Western Culture has been heavily influenced by the Greeks and Romans, we have named our cities Syracuse, Marcellus, Utica, Albany and Rome, BUT we are a Biblical People, a People of Faith. The Greeks had an understanding of Comedy and Tragedy, in which FATE is an inescapable Personal Destiny assigned before birth by the whim of those with power. In Grimm's Fairytale Sleeping Beauty, the Witch is not invited to the Marriage of the King and Queen, and she vows that when they have a child and the child comes of age, she will prick her finger and the whole kingdom shall sleep for a thousand years. The Greek Hero stood out, because while everyone else complacently accepted “What is the use of trying, our ancestors have done wrong and we pay the price for their arrogance” the Hero challenged their Gods, challenged Systems and Norms and expectations, believing they could.
The Old Testament does not have the same precept, but rather that there is an inalienable human right to Freedom of Will, assured through the open relationship of humanity to God, making repentance a genuine possibility, redemption a reality, and the future a dynamic part of God's creative purpose.
The power of this oracle from Jeremiah, is that the Creator of the Universe, the author of life, pledges to create a new covenant. The last several books of the Old Testament (Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Isaiah) have assumed everyone knew what the covenant was, the relationship between God and Israel:
cut into the heavens as a Rainbow that God would not destroy all life;
cut into the foreskin of Abram, Isaac and Jacob that this would be a chosen people who in their most intimate ways, in their food, in their marriages and conception, in the patterns of life, would live dependent upon God;
cut into stone in the time of Moses, that we would follow God's 10 commandments as Law,
cut into the genealogy of David, that there would always be a King in Israel.
But what if, in the time of exile, when the people had been beaten down and lost hope, if the Creator began to create anew? Can God still do something new today?
So much of Biblical Study, of the Church's resources let alone human resources, are devoted to figuring why certain things happened, who is at fault, who is responsible, which came first, how an idea evolved. What if instead of trying to go backwards through history and thought, if we changed our perspective to imagine everything in life, in human history, were motivation for what is to come?
The prophecy of Jeremiah seems to suggest that people had come to believe the Law was static, you do Right and God blesses you, do Wrong and we will be punished, exiled, even for three and four generations. Humanity had nullified the Covenant, making the relationship as lifeless/hopeless as stone. But Covenant is not about following the Law, not about memorizing and adhering to fundamental principles... The Covenant is about our attitude toward everything about God. Toward God and God's Laws and Creation and other Human Beings, our attitude toward life itself. I had a Professor of the Old Testament who regarding this passage would remind us, and if you thought circumcision was intimate and brutal, God putting God's Covenant into our hearts is like the M&M Candy worrying about how they will put a Pretzel inside him.
In Jesus' Parable, the Judge believes in nothing and no one. He is a man without hope, who no longer believes in justice or righteousness, human kindness. In the parable, the Judge is cast as the Antithesis of God. God believes in people, God embodies justice and righteousness and kindness and grace. So if this Judge could be worn down by the Widow's Persistence, what do you imagine will be the reaction of God, the antithesis of the Judge, to our prayers. The Unfeeling, Immovable Judge is finally moved, by her legal argument, her contract and brief, but most of all by her unwillingness to ever give up! Surely a loving compassionate God will move heaven and earth for our prayers.
The irony of the Parable, comes as a question. All Jesus' listeners, then and now, seem to believe in and recognize that there are Judges like this. There are people who do not believe in anything, who are filled with doubt and negativity about God and humanity and life itself. BUT, when the Son of Man comes, will he find any with the commitment and perseverance of the Widow, any who have faith?
Do Not LOSE HEART, believe!
I find it intriguing, that both in this parable and the Jeremiah passage, the focus is upon the heart for faith. Faith is not located in our minds, not in our foreskin, not in stone buildings or stone tablets, but in our hearts. Years ago there was a couple who were successful, popular, had everything their hearts desired, but something happened and for her to survive he needed to wait on her and care for her, living his life in response to her needs. Friends and family shook their heads of what a loveless marriage, that everything was about her needs and she could not even perceive all he was doing for her. But one night he paused to explain that in marrying he had vowed “For better and worse and sickness and health”. Caring for her, embodied that commitment, this was not a burden, but a demonstration of his devotion. We see a soldier back from war, missing a limb. We shake our heads at the costs of war, at the devastation and senseless tragedy; yet the soldier sees only their devotion. Who among us, if our child were suddenly ill, would not do everything possible, take out mortgages, sit by their bedside, seek every opportunity possible to give them life, to make them well. What will it take for us to change our hearts, to believe that life is dynamic, that God cares, what will it take for us to have faith and believe?
IRONICALLY, during this worship service a gentleman in the second row of the congregation passed out. Three doctors in the congregation cared for him and could not find a pulse. At which point, the Preacher acknowledged what was going on in the Sanctuary and called the congregation to act in faith by praying for he and his wife, for their comfort and God's will. An hour later, at the hospital, with an IV and Oxygen, he was alert and stronger than he had been in weeks. Do Not Lose Heart but Believe?
Luke 18:1-8
We are surrounded by so much negativism, pessimism and fear. Each candidate no longer campaigning on what they can and will do, but casting aspersions on their opponents. Commercials selling us products, which are not designed to last, but only to be faster, smaller, more colorful, with more memorable commercials than their competitor. Projections of the economy are not for a robust recovery, but a slow and jerky series of starts, heaping greater and greater debt on our children's children's future. The Yankees, who raised hopes and expectations with the American Series Opener, suffered a miserable loss in game two. Syracuse was crushed by Pittsburgh 45-14. HOWEVER: The Word of The Lord which comes to us is FEAR NOT, DO NOT LOSE HEART, BELIEVE ANEW!
Western Culture has been heavily influenced by the Greeks and Romans, we have named our cities Syracuse, Marcellus, Utica, Albany and Rome, BUT we are a Biblical People, a People of Faith. The Greeks had an understanding of Comedy and Tragedy, in which FATE is an inescapable Personal Destiny assigned before birth by the whim of those with power. In Grimm's Fairytale Sleeping Beauty, the Witch is not invited to the Marriage of the King and Queen, and she vows that when they have a child and the child comes of age, she will prick her finger and the whole kingdom shall sleep for a thousand years. The Greek Hero stood out, because while everyone else complacently accepted “What is the use of trying, our ancestors have done wrong and we pay the price for their arrogance” the Hero challenged their Gods, challenged Systems and Norms and expectations, believing they could.
The Old Testament does not have the same precept, but rather that there is an inalienable human right to Freedom of Will, assured through the open relationship of humanity to God, making repentance a genuine possibility, redemption a reality, and the future a dynamic part of God's creative purpose.
The power of this oracle from Jeremiah, is that the Creator of the Universe, the author of life, pledges to create a new covenant. The last several books of the Old Testament (Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Isaiah) have assumed everyone knew what the covenant was, the relationship between God and Israel:
cut into the heavens as a Rainbow that God would not destroy all life;
cut into the foreskin of Abram, Isaac and Jacob that this would be a chosen people who in their most intimate ways, in their food, in their marriages and conception, in the patterns of life, would live dependent upon God;
cut into stone in the time of Moses, that we would follow God's 10 commandments as Law,
cut into the genealogy of David, that there would always be a King in Israel.
But what if, in the time of exile, when the people had been beaten down and lost hope, if the Creator began to create anew? Can God still do something new today?
So much of Biblical Study, of the Church's resources let alone human resources, are devoted to figuring why certain things happened, who is at fault, who is responsible, which came first, how an idea evolved. What if instead of trying to go backwards through history and thought, if we changed our perspective to imagine everything in life, in human history, were motivation for what is to come?
The prophecy of Jeremiah seems to suggest that people had come to believe the Law was static, you do Right and God blesses you, do Wrong and we will be punished, exiled, even for three and four generations. Humanity had nullified the Covenant, making the relationship as lifeless/hopeless as stone. But Covenant is not about following the Law, not about memorizing and adhering to fundamental principles... The Covenant is about our attitude toward everything about God. Toward God and God's Laws and Creation and other Human Beings, our attitude toward life itself. I had a Professor of the Old Testament who regarding this passage would remind us, and if you thought circumcision was intimate and brutal, God putting God's Covenant into our hearts is like the M&M Candy worrying about how they will put a Pretzel inside him.
In Jesus' Parable, the Judge believes in nothing and no one. He is a man without hope, who no longer believes in justice or righteousness, human kindness. In the parable, the Judge is cast as the Antithesis of God. God believes in people, God embodies justice and righteousness and kindness and grace. So if this Judge could be worn down by the Widow's Persistence, what do you imagine will be the reaction of God, the antithesis of the Judge, to our prayers. The Unfeeling, Immovable Judge is finally moved, by her legal argument, her contract and brief, but most of all by her unwillingness to ever give up! Surely a loving compassionate God will move heaven and earth for our prayers.
The irony of the Parable, comes as a question. All Jesus' listeners, then and now, seem to believe in and recognize that there are Judges like this. There are people who do not believe in anything, who are filled with doubt and negativity about God and humanity and life itself. BUT, when the Son of Man comes, will he find any with the commitment and perseverance of the Widow, any who have faith?
Do Not LOSE HEART, believe!
I find it intriguing, that both in this parable and the Jeremiah passage, the focus is upon the heart for faith. Faith is not located in our minds, not in our foreskin, not in stone buildings or stone tablets, but in our hearts. Years ago there was a couple who were successful, popular, had everything their hearts desired, but something happened and for her to survive he needed to wait on her and care for her, living his life in response to her needs. Friends and family shook their heads of what a loveless marriage, that everything was about her needs and she could not even perceive all he was doing for her. But one night he paused to explain that in marrying he had vowed “For better and worse and sickness and health”. Caring for her, embodied that commitment, this was not a burden, but a demonstration of his devotion. We see a soldier back from war, missing a limb. We shake our heads at the costs of war, at the devastation and senseless tragedy; yet the soldier sees only their devotion. Who among us, if our child were suddenly ill, would not do everything possible, take out mortgages, sit by their bedside, seek every opportunity possible to give them life, to make them well. What will it take for us to change our hearts, to believe that life is dynamic, that God cares, what will it take for us to have faith and believe?
IRONICALLY, during this worship service a gentleman in the second row of the congregation passed out. Three doctors in the congregation cared for him and could not find a pulse. At which point, the Preacher acknowledged what was going on in the Sanctuary and called the congregation to act in faith by praying for he and his wife, for their comfort and God's will. An hour later, at the hospital, with an IV and Oxygen, he was alert and stronger than he had been in weeks. Do Not Lose Heart but Believe?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
SEEKING VALIDATION, October 10, 2010
Jeremiah 29: 1-10
Luke 17: 11-21
Our readings this morning are about SEEing, LOOKing and WITNESSing what else may be occurring. For our lives are so busy, our routines so established, we rarely take time to ponder, to be grateful to validate that we have been blessed, and to Seek Validation for what God may be doing.
Years ago, there were commuter trains that connected every small town and village with major cities. So it was that a minister from the City was supposed to preach here in the village, and found on the rail schedule that he could take the train from Syracuse to Buffalo, stopping at Skaneateles arriving just in time for the leading of worship. But to his shock and horror, once he was on the Sunday morning train and had bought his ticket, he learned that on weekends the train did not stop at every station. The Conductor told him not to panic, that he would inform the Engineer that after cresting Marcellus hill they needed to slow down, though they could not stop. However, the Conductor cautioned, the last person to jump from this moving train had broken both ankles from the sudden impact of going from a moving train to a stationary landing. To compensate, the Conductor had him go to the end of the train car and run as fast as he could, being certain that as he leapt from the open door, he would pirouette onto the landing running in the same direction as the train. The train began to slow only slightly as the Conductor gave the preacher the signal and he began to run through the open car toward the waiting door, at the critical moment he leapt in a beautiful pirouette midair, landing in a run to slow his speed as the train pulled away, when suddenly, a hand reached out and pulled him back on board the train. Aghast and bewildered, he asked what happened, when a voice described “I saw you running after the train and knew you were going to miss it, so I reached out and gave you a hand. You're welcome!”
WITNESSing only from our own perspective, without Validating what we See, we can miss what God may be doing all around us. Do we read the paper and Internet as World News and Local News and Stories of Interest, or do we see through the circumstances looking for what God may be doing in our midst? Can we have the humility of the Prophet Jeremiah to see the possibility of God using circumstances for our benefit that seem against us?
No one would wish intentional harm upon another, and yet only in those times in which we are truly vulnerable, broken, do our shells crack enough for the spirit of God to enter in. Can we see one another? Not the facade that there are people down the pew, or so many cars in our way for when we want to get out. To see beyond the shell and husk of another to realize that the exchange student so bold and full of life to share their culture with us and experience our culture all around them, may be extremely homesick and alone.
Faith and gratitude are inextricably interwoven. When we see ourselves as Self-Sufficient, with no need to be thankful to anyone else, we have no room for God, let alone other people. We imagine ourselves as being self-made, having worked for everything we have received. But what if, we opened our perspective like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickins' Christmas Carol, witnessing that all through life there have been others who cared for us, that in fact our lives have been utterly dependent upon the goodwill and compassion of others. We went to class each day, but our mothers had made certain we had a good breakfast and cookies when we came home. A teacher, a coach, a neighbor, an employer, showed interest in us, perhaps it was a part of their job, but the right word at the right time validated and changed us, they were there when we needed.
After years of war, following the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the whole City of Jerusalem, the leaders, the strong and the educated, were taken into captivity by their enemy as Exiles in Babylon. The Nationalism and Patriotism of Ancient Israel was not far different from what we feel here in America. Can we imagine 20 years of war on our own soil, at the end of which everything building, roads, farms our culture is in ruins and shackled together as prisoners we have been taken away from our Nation to live out our days in a foreign land. When word comes from the Prophet Jeremiah, that God has appointed our enemies to care for us, to provide for us. How different the New Testament words of “Praying for One's Enemies” and “Having Compassion on those who persecute You” sound, if our survival depended upon their survival.
The Bible has identifications of people that we too often take for granted, without really seeing to understand. There are still cases of leprosy in the world today, 14 Million cured in the last 20 years, there are some 250,000 with this disease today, although mostly in tropical climates it does occur in America with an incubation period of 5 to 20 years it is often misdiagnosed as skin lesions. Leprosy is a Bacterial Infection that has been recorded since the year 600 BC as a Chronic Social disease, requiring people being ostracized. How many other Chronic Social Diseases are there? Diseases that are not like the flu, mumps or measles, but will remain with us all of life. Social Diseases that cause us as polite society to withdraw, to look past them and not see the person as a person, but only as a Leper.
According to cultural laws, Lepers were to live outside to community in leper colonies, covering themselves with a white sheet because the abrasion of clothing might gnaw at the skin, wearing a bell round their neck and forced to identify themselves by crying out Leper, so none would come into contact with them, none would see them and none would ever have to touch them. When Jesus encountered these ten along the road between Samaria and Galilee, they cried out for him to take notice of them and to have mercy. And he saw them, and he had compassion, and he healed them, instructing them to go to show themselves to the Priest who was the community authority on whether a person was clean or filthy, whether they were able to live in community or not. The priest was charged with protecting the culture from physical and spiritual illness.
It was not required that the person with leprosy return to be grateful to Jesus, but the Samaritan, and Jesus takes note that it was only the Samaritan, the outcast, the broken one. For which Jesus, as our Priest, describes “Go your way, your faith has made you well.”
Mother Theresa has become such a cultural icon, many have forgot that she ministered to a Leper Colony. When visited by an envoy of Religious Leaders, they were awed by all that she and the Sisters of Charity were doing and had done. The envoy offered to give them a gift of whatever they needed, perhaps washing machines and dryers to clean bed linens, mops and buckets, vacuums, and electric floor polishers to buff the floors, refrigerators or electric generators, and the sisters said “No, we can wash the floors and wash the clothes, but you can do for us what only you can. You can share Communion with the colony, offering forgiveness.”
This time of year we see the colors of trees all around us, and we respond “How beautiful the colors in Autumn!” When actually these are the true colors of the leaves from Creation, but during the year, the leaves are so filled with life, their true colors are hidden by green. Only at this time, as the trees prepare for winter does life get pulled away to reveal the true beauty of the leaves as God intended.
Seeing one another, we provide validation of the other as being a gift of God. Seeing one another we validate one another as being worthy. Seeing one another, we take the role of the priests for the cleansed extending forgiveness and welcome into our lives.
Occasionally when things seem to be going well preachers will ad lib about something from the morning's worship. This day, I am struck that thus far this summer we have celebrated 25 couples getting married, and we have two of those couples married this summer with us in worship, one of which married just yesterday. But the question is what happened to the other 23 couples? Do we stop in our marriages, in life, to recognize how blessed we are? Or are we among the other 23?
Some things are easy to see, miracles and cures, amazing world developments. Jesus described to the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God is not coming as an apocalypse, not with signs and wonders, but the Kingdom of God is already in our midst. Can we see it? Can we validate the reality that this world is not of our making, but this creation, Life is a gift from God.
Luke 17: 11-21
Our readings this morning are about SEEing, LOOKing and WITNESSing what else may be occurring. For our lives are so busy, our routines so established, we rarely take time to ponder, to be grateful to validate that we have been blessed, and to Seek Validation for what God may be doing.
Years ago, there were commuter trains that connected every small town and village with major cities. So it was that a minister from the City was supposed to preach here in the village, and found on the rail schedule that he could take the train from Syracuse to Buffalo, stopping at Skaneateles arriving just in time for the leading of worship. But to his shock and horror, once he was on the Sunday morning train and had bought his ticket, he learned that on weekends the train did not stop at every station. The Conductor told him not to panic, that he would inform the Engineer that after cresting Marcellus hill they needed to slow down, though they could not stop. However, the Conductor cautioned, the last person to jump from this moving train had broken both ankles from the sudden impact of going from a moving train to a stationary landing. To compensate, the Conductor had him go to the end of the train car and run as fast as he could, being certain that as he leapt from the open door, he would pirouette onto the landing running in the same direction as the train. The train began to slow only slightly as the Conductor gave the preacher the signal and he began to run through the open car toward the waiting door, at the critical moment he leapt in a beautiful pirouette midair, landing in a run to slow his speed as the train pulled away, when suddenly, a hand reached out and pulled him back on board the train. Aghast and bewildered, he asked what happened, when a voice described “I saw you running after the train and knew you were going to miss it, so I reached out and gave you a hand. You're welcome!”
WITNESSing only from our own perspective, without Validating what we See, we can miss what God may be doing all around us. Do we read the paper and Internet as World News and Local News and Stories of Interest, or do we see through the circumstances looking for what God may be doing in our midst? Can we have the humility of the Prophet Jeremiah to see the possibility of God using circumstances for our benefit that seem against us?
No one would wish intentional harm upon another, and yet only in those times in which we are truly vulnerable, broken, do our shells crack enough for the spirit of God to enter in. Can we see one another? Not the facade that there are people down the pew, or so many cars in our way for when we want to get out. To see beyond the shell and husk of another to realize that the exchange student so bold and full of life to share their culture with us and experience our culture all around them, may be extremely homesick and alone.
Faith and gratitude are inextricably interwoven. When we see ourselves as Self-Sufficient, with no need to be thankful to anyone else, we have no room for God, let alone other people. We imagine ourselves as being self-made, having worked for everything we have received. But what if, we opened our perspective like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickins' Christmas Carol, witnessing that all through life there have been others who cared for us, that in fact our lives have been utterly dependent upon the goodwill and compassion of others. We went to class each day, but our mothers had made certain we had a good breakfast and cookies when we came home. A teacher, a coach, a neighbor, an employer, showed interest in us, perhaps it was a part of their job, but the right word at the right time validated and changed us, they were there when we needed.
After years of war, following the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the whole City of Jerusalem, the leaders, the strong and the educated, were taken into captivity by their enemy as Exiles in Babylon. The Nationalism and Patriotism of Ancient Israel was not far different from what we feel here in America. Can we imagine 20 years of war on our own soil, at the end of which everything building, roads, farms our culture is in ruins and shackled together as prisoners we have been taken away from our Nation to live out our days in a foreign land. When word comes from the Prophet Jeremiah, that God has appointed our enemies to care for us, to provide for us. How different the New Testament words of “Praying for One's Enemies” and “Having Compassion on those who persecute You” sound, if our survival depended upon their survival.
The Bible has identifications of people that we too often take for granted, without really seeing to understand. There are still cases of leprosy in the world today, 14 Million cured in the last 20 years, there are some 250,000 with this disease today, although mostly in tropical climates it does occur in America with an incubation period of 5 to 20 years it is often misdiagnosed as skin lesions. Leprosy is a Bacterial Infection that has been recorded since the year 600 BC as a Chronic Social disease, requiring people being ostracized. How many other Chronic Social Diseases are there? Diseases that are not like the flu, mumps or measles, but will remain with us all of life. Social Diseases that cause us as polite society to withdraw, to look past them and not see the person as a person, but only as a Leper.
According to cultural laws, Lepers were to live outside to community in leper colonies, covering themselves with a white sheet because the abrasion of clothing might gnaw at the skin, wearing a bell round their neck and forced to identify themselves by crying out Leper, so none would come into contact with them, none would see them and none would ever have to touch them. When Jesus encountered these ten along the road between Samaria and Galilee, they cried out for him to take notice of them and to have mercy. And he saw them, and he had compassion, and he healed them, instructing them to go to show themselves to the Priest who was the community authority on whether a person was clean or filthy, whether they were able to live in community or not. The priest was charged with protecting the culture from physical and spiritual illness.
It was not required that the person with leprosy return to be grateful to Jesus, but the Samaritan, and Jesus takes note that it was only the Samaritan, the outcast, the broken one. For which Jesus, as our Priest, describes “Go your way, your faith has made you well.”
Mother Theresa has become such a cultural icon, many have forgot that she ministered to a Leper Colony. When visited by an envoy of Religious Leaders, they were awed by all that she and the Sisters of Charity were doing and had done. The envoy offered to give them a gift of whatever they needed, perhaps washing machines and dryers to clean bed linens, mops and buckets, vacuums, and electric floor polishers to buff the floors, refrigerators or electric generators, and the sisters said “No, we can wash the floors and wash the clothes, but you can do for us what only you can. You can share Communion with the colony, offering forgiveness.”
This time of year we see the colors of trees all around us, and we respond “How beautiful the colors in Autumn!” When actually these are the true colors of the leaves from Creation, but during the year, the leaves are so filled with life, their true colors are hidden by green. Only at this time, as the trees prepare for winter does life get pulled away to reveal the true beauty of the leaves as God intended.
Seeing one another, we provide validation of the other as being a gift of God. Seeing one another we validate one another as being worthy. Seeing one another, we take the role of the priests for the cleansed extending forgiveness and welcome into our lives.
Occasionally when things seem to be going well preachers will ad lib about something from the morning's worship. This day, I am struck that thus far this summer we have celebrated 25 couples getting married, and we have two of those couples married this summer with us in worship, one of which married just yesterday. But the question is what happened to the other 23 couples? Do we stop in our marriages, in life, to recognize how blessed we are? Or are we among the other 23?
Some things are easy to see, miracles and cures, amazing world developments. Jesus described to the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God is not coming as an apocalypse, not with signs and wonders, but the Kingdom of God is already in our midst. Can we see it? Can we validate the reality that this world is not of our making, but this creation, Life is a gift from God.
Monday, October 4, 2010
"Increase Our Faith" October 3, 2010
Lamentations 3: 1-42
Luke 17:1-10
This morning we open our eyes to see, that the world is impacted by all we do, and we, by the world. Congregations in Asia, Africa, Alaska, Australia, Central America, Canada, Connecticut to California, Nova Scotia to New Orleans, ALL this day gather as One Church; East Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Reformed, Pentecostal, Conservative and New Age, as one Table; One Communion with our parents and grandparents, and great grandchildren yet to be, a living Communion of Saints.
We long to hear a message that resounds “Well done Good and Faithful Servants, Come into the Joy of your Master, For you have been faithful over a little and I will set you over much. Well done!”
We look forward to times of retirement, after the kids graduate, once they are married, when we can live happily ever after.
Instead we are reminded that Almighty God is God, and we are servants. Life is hard. We slave all day long, in school, at Work, then cooking and cleaning, caring for others, we follow the rules and put away for the future, and when done, no one is going to serve us, there are no merits for having lived life.
However there is grace, by which we come to believe there is more to life than going through motions.
There needs to come a point in each of our lives in which we measure whether we have been an aid or a hindrance to others. When we question more than what we know, and what we believe:
“Do I, by my attitude, my faith, my character and conduct, make it easier for others who know me, to believe in God, or am I a stumbling block in the way of their redemption?”
From our earliest moments, we are conditioned to compete. As newborns, tested,
How highly did we score on our Apgar test, Activity, Pulse, Grimace, Appearance and Respiration? How early did we learn to smile, to roll over, to stand, to speak? Did we catch the ball? Did we score the Goal? What was our GPA? What records did we set? What Accomplishments did we make? How did we, by our presence in life change the world? Have we won?
Along the way in life, we discern that what matters is not our accomplishments! Not only if we won.
Not how many cars, how large a salary, how beautiful our home (these are only what we are taxed on!) but what matters is that our lives are limited by our ability to forgive.
More than any generation before us, all things are possible to us. It is possible that we could climb Mt. Everest, visit the Space Station, Travel the World, win Nobel prizes, write books, invent new means of communication and social networking; but if in the end, we wronged someone along the way in order to do so, life is lesser. The Ends do NOT justify the Means. It is not up to us to show one another the error of their ways, forcing them to change. All that matters is that when one repents, we forgive.
On mornings like the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the destruction of the Twin Towers, weeks where we must follow through on hard decisions, laying off people we worry about, giving diagnoses we know are horrible, we desperately want to cry out in lament: “WHY GOD?” When there is a car accident and our child is taken from us, when our businesses are eroded to bankruptcy, when Cancers are discovered, when we have followed all the rules and done all that was expected, and life is not happily ever after, instead the economy has not improved, our children are unemployed, like the voice of Lamentation, we want to blame God. After all, we did not choose our birth. We did not choose this circumstance, we did not want to live in darkness.
At times it seems God is testing us, tempting and entrapping. If God is ALL KNOWING, ALL POWERFUL, If God is God, then Why? It seems that either God is a sadistic beast waiting to pounce upon us and rip us apart, or a puppet master who has orchestrated this stage of life with choices of good and bad to see what we will do.
But the point of the voice in Lamentation is that neither of these logical conclusions works.
Faith as small as a mustard seed can change the world. Believing in forgiveness, trusting God does make a difference.
One truth is that circumstances can rip us apart and devastate us; and there is Good and Bad in life. Another truth, is that God is All Powerful, and God's love is ever lasting.
Oddly, God loves us so much, God will not violate our free will, God will not take away our suffering. Humanity is free to choose all manner of things, and in this life we have many choices. At times our circumstances, do have results. At other times the circumstances of life are just awful.
But God is God, not a superhero who rescues us from ourselves, nor changes circumstance so we can ride off into the sunset. God who called life into being, who ordered the stars and planets, loves us so much as to be vulnerable to our creating out of creation. And God occasionally enters into life “to redeem,” to turn life on its head and make us wonder at what is possible.
Faith is Not a matter of how much. We do harm to one another, beating up victims by believing if they had just believed more, or as we do... NO, each one of us, every human creature is a gift of God. How hard it is for us to give up control? We have a natural predisposition of being self-centered. We make choices in life, our parents made us the center of their worlds, we imagine all things through our mind's eye. Out of love and devotion, we choose to live our lives around another's needs, first a partner, then our children's, but still as extensions of our self-centeredness. Faith is the realization that we are only neighbors in this life. As we each live life, occasionally, sometimes as many as seven times in a single day, we offend one another; when we do, in faith we are to forgive. We do our part in life, like every other creature, we teach, we feed, we care for others. What we are called to do in faith is three things
1.To love God
2.To forgive our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, and even selves, so as to begin again
3.To live our lives in ways that make it easier for others to choose what is right
Luke 17:1-10
This morning we open our eyes to see, that the world is impacted by all we do, and we, by the world. Congregations in Asia, Africa, Alaska, Australia, Central America, Canada, Connecticut to California, Nova Scotia to New Orleans, ALL this day gather as One Church; East Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Reformed, Pentecostal, Conservative and New Age, as one Table; One Communion with our parents and grandparents, and great grandchildren yet to be, a living Communion of Saints.
We long to hear a message that resounds “Well done Good and Faithful Servants, Come into the Joy of your Master, For you have been faithful over a little and I will set you over much. Well done!”
We look forward to times of retirement, after the kids graduate, once they are married, when we can live happily ever after.
Instead we are reminded that Almighty God is God, and we are servants. Life is hard. We slave all day long, in school, at Work, then cooking and cleaning, caring for others, we follow the rules and put away for the future, and when done, no one is going to serve us, there are no merits for having lived life.
However there is grace, by which we come to believe there is more to life than going through motions.
There needs to come a point in each of our lives in which we measure whether we have been an aid or a hindrance to others. When we question more than what we know, and what we believe:
“Do I, by my attitude, my faith, my character and conduct, make it easier for others who know me, to believe in God, or am I a stumbling block in the way of their redemption?”
From our earliest moments, we are conditioned to compete. As newborns, tested,
How highly did we score on our Apgar test, Activity, Pulse, Grimace, Appearance and Respiration? How early did we learn to smile, to roll over, to stand, to speak? Did we catch the ball? Did we score the Goal? What was our GPA? What records did we set? What Accomplishments did we make? How did we, by our presence in life change the world? Have we won?
Along the way in life, we discern that what matters is not our accomplishments! Not only if we won.
Not how many cars, how large a salary, how beautiful our home (these are only what we are taxed on!) but what matters is that our lives are limited by our ability to forgive.
More than any generation before us, all things are possible to us. It is possible that we could climb Mt. Everest, visit the Space Station, Travel the World, win Nobel prizes, write books, invent new means of communication and social networking; but if in the end, we wronged someone along the way in order to do so, life is lesser. The Ends do NOT justify the Means. It is not up to us to show one another the error of their ways, forcing them to change. All that matters is that when one repents, we forgive.
On mornings like the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the destruction of the Twin Towers, weeks where we must follow through on hard decisions, laying off people we worry about, giving diagnoses we know are horrible, we desperately want to cry out in lament: “WHY GOD?” When there is a car accident and our child is taken from us, when our businesses are eroded to bankruptcy, when Cancers are discovered, when we have followed all the rules and done all that was expected, and life is not happily ever after, instead the economy has not improved, our children are unemployed, like the voice of Lamentation, we want to blame God. After all, we did not choose our birth. We did not choose this circumstance, we did not want to live in darkness.
At times it seems God is testing us, tempting and entrapping. If God is ALL KNOWING, ALL POWERFUL, If God is God, then Why? It seems that either God is a sadistic beast waiting to pounce upon us and rip us apart, or a puppet master who has orchestrated this stage of life with choices of good and bad to see what we will do.
But the point of the voice in Lamentation is that neither of these logical conclusions works.
Faith as small as a mustard seed can change the world. Believing in forgiveness, trusting God does make a difference.
One truth is that circumstances can rip us apart and devastate us; and there is Good and Bad in life. Another truth, is that God is All Powerful, and God's love is ever lasting.
Oddly, God loves us so much, God will not violate our free will, God will not take away our suffering. Humanity is free to choose all manner of things, and in this life we have many choices. At times our circumstances, do have results. At other times the circumstances of life are just awful.
But God is God, not a superhero who rescues us from ourselves, nor changes circumstance so we can ride off into the sunset. God who called life into being, who ordered the stars and planets, loves us so much as to be vulnerable to our creating out of creation. And God occasionally enters into life “to redeem,” to turn life on its head and make us wonder at what is possible.
Faith is Not a matter of how much. We do harm to one another, beating up victims by believing if they had just believed more, or as we do... NO, each one of us, every human creature is a gift of God. How hard it is for us to give up control? We have a natural predisposition of being self-centered. We make choices in life, our parents made us the center of their worlds, we imagine all things through our mind's eye. Out of love and devotion, we choose to live our lives around another's needs, first a partner, then our children's, but still as extensions of our self-centeredness. Faith is the realization that we are only neighbors in this life. As we each live life, occasionally, sometimes as many as seven times in a single day, we offend one another; when we do, in faith we are to forgive. We do our part in life, like every other creature, we teach, we feed, we care for others. What we are called to do in faith is three things
1.To love God
2.To forgive our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, and even selves, so as to begin again
3.To live our lives in ways that make it easier for others to choose what is right
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