January 30, 2011 "Blessed Are You"

Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12
Only a month after Christmas, knowing that in CNY we can receive cold and snow through Easter and Mother's Day, to have had an accumulation of ten feet thus far this month, surely makes the downhill skiers shush and the ice fishermen dance a jig, but many at this time of year see an unending winter. Blessed are you, because of the warmth of your hearts, the compassion and caring of our fellowship.

From the time of Abraham, people have tried to know what they must do to succeed, to win, to enjoy life. Is it a matter of whoever has the most toys at death wins? What must we then do to satisfy God? If Kings want taxes and tribute, how much more must we give to appease God Almighty? This afternoon at Drummonds, the estate of Bernie Madoff is being auctioned off. Rolex watches, paintings by Picasso and Renoit, Ferraris and Furs, here was all the stuff one of the richest scoundrels in the world tried to collect, to make himself happy and full, but as one who had built his life on bilking others he could never be satisfied, and could not take it with him.

Some have used the passages this morning as a kind of treasure map, a secret plan to success, for what we must do. The problem is that the Beatitudes are not a check list that one can accomplish or possess. Despite the Reality Shows, it is not living for a month hungering, or in poverty, or meekness, that are themselves salvation. Others have psychoanalyzed these words to be a kind of Divine Consolation Prize. We know who the winners were, the ones with gold statuettes, for all the rest may you be blessed. NO.

No, there is a link between these passages, in perceiving what pleases God and blesses us in life. Of late, there have been several of those among us, who advanced in years have already given to God their spouses, and sometimes their children and peers, their hearing, and their eyesight, for whom getting out of bed is a major effort each day, not because of depression, that is different, but because of the effort of living. These are among the ones, for whom these passages were spoken.

To understand, we need to know what it means to be “blessed.” Throughout the Old Testament and Wisdom literature, even the Book of Revelation there are Beatitudes, pronouncing blessing. Typically, the word MAKAR is translated “Happy, At Peace, Salvation, Victorious, Okay, Good and Fine.” Can we agree to eliminate from common usage words without meaning? Four letter words, “Like, Just, Good, Fine, Okay” are filler telling us nothing of what a person feels, what they believe, who they are. Makar/ Blessed means a great deal more than Good, Fine and Okay, but as beatitudes, these refer not only to the persons being described, but are also indicative of God. “Makar/ Blessed” is to Be SEEN and KNOWN for what you have done, for who you are BY GOD.
Blessed are you who are Poor in Spirit, For your spirit has been paired with The Spirit of God.
Blessed are those who mourn the loss of others, For God will reunite you giving you comfort.
Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For you shall see God who has seen you.

To be blessed, is not only a statement of fact, that we have been seen by God, that lives matter and are known, but also to be blessed is to demonstrate to all the world that the existence of God, the presence of God in our lives matters to us. This is not a conscious choice but an implicit commitment.

This week as the Bible Study met reading Isaiah, we encountered the Biblical idea of “The Remnant.” What is it to be The Faithful Remnant, those who never gave up, the few who survived when all the rest were lost. Being The Remnant cannot be a matter of Self-Righteousness, like Elijah claiming before God, “I and I alone am left,” but rather being the remnant, the survivor, changes us, we have to make sense out of why God has used us. Being a Remnant, being Blessed, are not statements of Self-Righteousness not Arrogant claims of knowing better than others, but rather acknowledgement that we have been instruments of God, used by God without our knowing.
I would share with you one of my growing edges this morning. This is a hard issue especially for me and for this congregation, because we have many who are entrepreneurs, who see a problem and set out to fix it. My realization has been that whenever I have tried to figure things out all on my own, to understand why my brothers acted as they have done, or what are the needs of an individual or the community, when I have tried to discern right things on my own, I have invariably been wrong. Time and again, I have seen others come into a Bible Study or a Committee Meeting having figured out the answers to a circumstance from their perspective, which only fit in the abstract of their private thinking. Yet, when the body meet together, when we share as a physical communion, when we question and listen and converse from the heart, we come up with communal answers we never could have found on our own.

Part of Jesus Sermon on the Mount, is that he went up and sat down with the crowd, and named as Blessed, not only the poor, not just the meek, not the pure set apart or the righteous all by themselves, but that the crowd, the body, the church is blessed by having among its communion those who are poor in spirit, and those who are meek, and those who are peacemakers, all together.

What does the Lord Require? It is not having the right answer. Not winning, or avoiding wrong. Ironically, as the Covenant Community, what the Lord requires is not even obeying the Covenant. Not riches, or accomplishments. What does the Lord Require of us: To Do Justice, to love Kindness, to walk humbly through life as a human being with God.

We live in an amazing place and time. Not only for the technological advances, which are many. Not only for the beauty and majesty of this place, which we regularly forget and neglect to notice. Not only for the privileges which we often do not know we have compared to others in this world. We live in an amazing place and time, because of the people who are part of this community. Recently, the clergy from all the churches met together, to learn from one another about Baptism and Communion and Ministry, the nuances of difference in our traditions, as well as the communal understandings. No one was perceived as having all the right answers, but Protestant and Catholic, Congregationalist and Ordained, we could in humility and honesty share and learn from one another. The most amazing experiences of faith I have witnessed in this community have been when we shared together. Years ago there was a death in the community, and the priest had been on retreat, so the other clergy joined together for the visitation, to console and comfort. There was boating accident, and as a pastor, I was called forward by the priest at the funeral to kneel and pray at the table.

One of the realizations from our conversation, was that in other traditions, Catholic and Protestant, it is possible to receive only the bread, or only the cup, as the elements are seen to be complete and representative of the Sacrament; whereas in the Presbyterian Church the Bread is a claiming of our brokenness and need for forgiveness, while the cup is a foretaste of that hope of being in communion with God and one another. To receive the cup without the bread would be a cheap Grace. To receive the broken bread and not want to receive the cup, would be a claim of desire to reman broken and isolated.

Another realization was that as Presbyterians today, we are the only church, which elects, ordains and installs our leadership from among our membership. There are churches which elect their leaders. There are churches which have ordained leaders. There are churches which have elected, ordained leaders. But the idea of being chosen from within the congregation, as minister, elder or deacon, and given responsibility not simply as business leaders but as spiritual leaders, who then step out of that responsibility when we are done in order to trust and support others, this is unique to us as Presbyterians. Tragically, I have known Presbyterian Churches where the leadership did not step aside when their term was done, others whether these leaders vanished after their installation had expired.

January 16, 2010 "Losing Our Competitive Edge"

Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1: 29-42
Six years ago, we shifted from the Church hosting Refugees from South Sudan in our homes, to traveling to Sudan to develop relationships and build trust, to promise the return of their sons and daughters who had been named The Lost Boys. I met John Dau's Uncles, one of which was a Military Veteran named Thor, a General of the Liberation Army, a guerilla soldier. Everything about this man screamed that he had been conditioned for war, as described by Isaiah: “a polished arrow, a sharpened sword hidden for battle,” the man stood over 7 feet tall in full battle fatigues, every muscle and sinew ready to react. One evening, he had held me at knife point and drawn a line from my jugular to my groin, stating that he would like to cut open my body in which to hide his children for them to get to America to start over; but that he hoped I might carry their cause and concern for them instead. In a word, he scared me. The next night, as we stared out at the stars, Thor asked “For as long as any can remember, we have been the people of this place, and we knew who were were. Now because of War, because of Deportation and Exile, because some have been refugees in America/ in Australia we are a diverse people. When “they” return from all these places, who and what will we be?” In the words of Isaiah: It is too light a thing that you should be a servant, to restore the remnant, you shall be a light to the Nations, that the salvation of God may reach to the end of the earth.”
I recall I responded to him, that rather than being diluted by having been dispersed throughout the world, their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, had been learning, and these would bring back knowledge and ideas his people had never before considered, creating belief in a new Nation; but that also these would have left their image upon the rest of the world, so we who had never before known of this people, never before cared, would now be concerned. AND that when we refer to people as “we” and “they” we accept the “we” as an extension of ourselves, and we distance ourselves from what is “other.”

Andy Warholl once described that everyone seeks 15 Minutes of Fame. Whether the Congresswoman, the Federal Judge, the 9 year old Student Council member, the gunman, or the President, each of these have in the last week had a moment in the spotlight. But the point of being a Light to the Nations is not to be seen, to be noticed, to be brilliant, but instead the purpose of light is to illumine what had been in shadow, to bring salvation to places of darkness. The task of the living is to use circumstance to reshape our future, to reconsider what might have been and might be in that light, otherwise we are condemned to continue what has been.

We are surrounded by messages in our culture which name “Carpe Diem, Seize the Day, Go for the Gusto, Reach for all you can Get, The world is in your hand, all you have to do is to stay on the Green line, to follow the yellow brick road to success.” We are a Capitalist society, where profit drives success. Governments are designed to provide what the culture values as infrastructure but which in the immediate may not be profitable to provide. Christian Faith is Counter-Cultural. Faith involves care for the widowed, the poor, the lost. Faith is not involved in winning and losing and profit and loss, but in resolving conflict, in providing human compassion and care.

Fifty years ago, in 1960, those studying Conflict, determined that there are different kinds of conflicts, and the question is not whether conflict is good or bad, but how we respond, to raise or lower anxiety. These identified Five Levels to Conflict.
The first is simple disagreement, I choose to sit on the couch when you want to go out and visit with others. I choose meatloaf and you prefer vegetables. Nothing is right or wrong about these, but by compromise, by sharing our differences and similarities, life is more full.
Level Two is that of a Parent to Child, or Teacher to Student, where there is belief in Authority and an intrinsic right and wrong, logic and reason, a willingness to use power to persuade the other, the child, the student, to consider what otherwise would not have been chosen, slapping the hand that would be burned by fire; an enforced timeout to stop a fight.
Level Three Conflict is a Competition determining who has the greater resources, the greater power, the more desire to win, recognizing that there can only be one winner and the rest, all the rest, lose. Level Four is about amassing power for security, so as to never be challenged again. Level Four is not about the right or wrong, profit or loss, or acceptance of one another, but recognition that competitors challenge the authority of the winner, challenge power. How many of our commercials today, are not about whether their product is good or better than another and why, but undermining and destroying the credibility of the other. We live in a world so accustomed to profit and loss that we assume competition, as we pull up to the stoplight everyone is our competitor, as we approach the Grocery check-out we desire to be first.
Level Five, at that time fifty years ago was believed to be theoretical, that our morals would never allow us to consider. Level Five is acceptance of killing.

At every level, the only requirement to escalate conflict is competition, a matching, a desire to not lose. When those who simply disagree are unwilling or unable to compromise, when one wants to teach the other a lesson, conflict is changed from Disagreement to Authority. When the child rebels against the parent, the student attempts to teach the teacher, there becomes a competition to win. At any level, all that is required to escalate Conflict is an unwillingness to compromise, a matching one to one of power. All that is required to lower Conflict, at any level, is a lack of willingness to compete, to seek something other than winning.

If there is a competition between The Bears and The Lions, whether in the Roman Coliseum or the Superbowl, the Christians are always going to lose. What we need to be about, is how to change the game, from faith competing with the world, to faith being valued, compassion and a desire to listen being prized. Despite what the Commercials emphasize Human culture is not about The Blackberry. Humanity is about relationships. How do empathize, how do we forgive?

The question of marriage is not about “whether you love honor and obey,” but that when you are overwhelmed and out of control, when you are lost, can you trust this other to care? Not to compete, but to care so much, that although they will be wounded and hurt because we are overwhelmed and out of control, that they will stay committed and caring. Even more, that afterward, and there is always an afterward, that they will reclaim and redeem as if a brand new relationship.

Part of the reason why we have so many conflicts today, more than in generations prior, is because of role confusion, we do not know who we are to one another. Are our parents our teachers, challenging us to succeed, or as servants providing for us what they never had? We live in a changing world, with changing roles and relationships. What the Gospel of John provides, is that after being Baptized, John continued to claim a relationship with Jesus. John plainly affirmed, and trusted, “This he of whom I said After me comes he who ranks before me.” The Gospel has numerous names for Jesus, recognizing he fulfills many roles simultaneously, but that these are not identities of power, rather these ore identities of relationship. Son of God, Lamb of God, He who takes the sins of the world.

And it is in following, in seeking, in accompanying on the journey that we learn not only Who Jesus is in our midst, but who we are in relationship and what is required to be a Disciple.

How do we change from matching one another, to giving up our competitive edge, without condescending or giving up? To instead remain engaged, but change the game, and not play? I once counseled a couple about whether to accept annulment of their marriage in the Catholic Church. While initial responses seemed to be a choice between whether to reject their relationship by claiming they were never spiritually united, or whether to name the other as a drunk and philanderer, the possibility arose whether to accept that the other had not at that time been ready for the commitment of marriage. This undercut the game, suggesting a possibility that had not been considered. It left the door open, that they could grow in maturity and relationship, without accepting responsibility or casting blame.

How can we, in this competitive culture, where we strive to be first in line, to be the first to finish dinner, to get life over, change and choose to give up our competitive edge in order to act in faith?

January 23, 2011 "What Do You Want To Be?"

Isaiah 9:1-7
Matthew 4:12-23
In conversation with a twelve year old, they were frustrated by not knowing what they wanted to be when they grew up. It seemed to them, their friends had known since Nursery school that they would be a Doctor, a Lawyer, an Engineer, a Musician, a Homemaker. Poignant for me, because at 52 there are many days when I am uncertain what I want to be whenever I grow up. But pressing for why this had to be resolved, the child described “How could they possibly know what College or University they needed to apply to go to, if they did not know what they wanted to be, and if they did not know what college, then how could they know what classes they needed to take in Junior High and High School.” Our anxiety and stress have pushed us to the point of believing we have to have the answers and can only be one thing. God forbid we choose wrong at age 12 and ruin the rest of our lives!

Yet all of our world is caught up in how to fix the presenting circumstances. What one right choice do we need to make to get us back on track, to return us to prosperity, to a time before oil spills and excess snows, to bring our troops home safely and take us back to a time without war? How long will it take for the world's economic circumstance to recover and life to return to what we remember? According to our leading economists, it will take a minimum of five years for our economy to fully rebound. According to ecologists, the oceans are diluting both the oil and the chemicals used to contain the oil, and within 20 years the Gulf may be as plentiful as it once was. But all this assumes the circumstances of today remain exactly as they are, without change, without anything else taking place. Rather than five years for our economy to return to what it was, others claim that it will take fifteen years for a new World Economy to have developed. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah confronts the problem of a “Loss of Nostalgia.” We want to return to what we remember life was like, but not that it ever actually was.

Isaiah had been of the Tribe of Levi, of the order of High Priests, like all his family had been before him. In Chapter 6, we have this grand vision of the Kingdom of God and the Commissioning of the Prophet sent by God for Salvation to preach; from which our opening hymn “Here, I AM” is derived. But as grand and glorious and spiritual and majestic as the Court of God is, Isaiah is commissioned to the problem of people having faith. Their Ears will be too heavy to listen, their Eyes are already so shut by familiar experience to ever see what is around them. They will look without seeing, they will hear but not listen. It is as if, 10,000 times a day, for each of us, every day, there are opportunities for faith. There are visions for each of us, as spiritual, as awesome, as being in the presence of God surrounded by Seraphim (6 winged serpentine angels) flying overhead singing Holy Holy Holy, Lord God of Hosts! but we never see them. Miracles, Saving acts, the Spiritual reality is there all around each of us, every day, and yet living with our circumstance, we never see.

When I was in Seminary, I worked weekends serving two churches in Middletown, NY. One Saturday the pastor took ill, and Sunday morning a colleague filled in for him preaching. In contrast to all the sermons, week after week from the installed pastor, I remember the words of the visitor. He said “How easy it is to be a visitor, to stride in and offer a word that is fresh and new with possibilities. But the real work of faith happens day in and day out, year after year, as people try to make a difference in daily life.

The Prophet Isaiah envisions a future time, when there will never again be gloom, let alone anguish. This people who have lived with fear and death, literally walking in darkness, will see a great light. What if, the times in which we NOW live, are not only the culmination of all the advancement of all that has gone before, the greatest, most innovative time in history; BUT also, represent a Dark Ages, for what is to come? As much as we are intrigued by the latest 3D, the fastest and smallest, the newest solution, that in a time to come, here in this frozen and frigid place all people will live knowing God!

The teachers among us are welcome to offer challenge, but I am told that as periodically there are new ways of teaching, a New Math, Whole Language, Suzuki Music, that the current shift in methodology is to realize that if we can stimulate the minds of children with a fluency in Music, that the rhythm and harmonics, the repetitions and contrasts will aid their learning math and engineering, spelling and history. What if, the secrets to Joy, to Life, to Salvation and a new way of living without war, without oppression, require a shift of mindset from contrasting as opposites Faith and Knowledge, to perceiving all our realities as opportunities to witness the presence of God with us?

The first time, many of us heard the words of the poem by Barbara Kingsolver, which served as our Call to Illumination this Day, we were offended at the idea of Engineering, Math and Science being taught exclusively at the expulsion of Music and the Arts. But that was precisely the poet's point, that at times Legislatures are too concerned with making laws to affect Test Scores, rather than understanding the education and nurture of the whole person.

The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus Call to the Disciples as a Call to Repent. But REPENTANCE is not described as Shame or Guilt, but The Contrast of a new and different way from everything we have ever known. Simon, Andrew, James and John did not abandon their businesses and way of of life, as if that was wrong and this is right. Instead, they listened to the Call to Follow and used everything they had known, now in new ways.

How do people become believers? Some describe a slow maturation over a lifetime. Others, a cathartic event in which their lives are forever changed. What I have seen are personal circumstances over and over again through life, where we are drawn deeper and deeper, where everything we thought we knew is contrasted to the possibility of what God may yet be doing.

For decades, this community had a food pantry in each of the churches. When suddenly someone had the inspiration that all the churches share together in one pantry. By so doing, not only would serve more people more effectively, but Catholics and Presbyterians, Evangelicals and Episcopalians might come to know each other as people who live their faith.

For thirty years Presbyterian Manor was in this community, providing an affordable residence for healthy seniors. We hired a new Housekeeper, who wanted to be able to go to Church on Sunday, which gave the opportunity for people from this church to each volunteer to share lunch with the residents, that this not simply be a thing we own and provide, but that we individually and personally become involved by sharing a meal on Sunday afternoon.

There was a teacher, a mother of teenagers, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, which then became Uterine, then became Bone Cancer. Knowing she was going to be in isolation for several weeks surrounding Bone Marrow transplant, she created a list for her friends and family. Everyone always wants to help but never know how. Her list were a 150 things that I would appreciate you do. Bake cookies for my kids, then eat them with them. When you find a great story or poem that touches you, would write it down and send it to me. So also, when you see and hear birds at your feeder, or smell flowers of spring, because I need you to do that for me right now. That you would tell my husband you are going to do the dishes on Tuesdays. That you would honestly and sincerely pray, because I am very much afraid, but have come to know that all things are possible with God. She got through her treatments and had a good summer. On the first day of a new school her Cancer returned, and she asked that friends and family would come sit with her as she crossed over. What a gift. Not making death scary, but encouraging others to share this most sacred part of life.

We have been very blessed as a community as a Church, to celebrate weddings and anniversaries and baptisms. Would that instead of simply offering what we possess as a resource to others, we could perceive these as opportunities for faith, each is a moment, as is each day, to see God. One of the things we have done over recent years has been to bring poetry into worship. Some have liked this, others have not. But a delightful part is that each of the poems shared come from a collection of poems that world leaders, teachers, philanthropists like you and I, have pinned to their bulletin board, taped to their door, written on their email messages to never forget.

Faith does not suddenly come when we most fear death, and may never come though we study for a lifetime. Faith is made real, when we choose to go from being fishermen to fishers of women and men. Faith will be a reality, when we see the present and future, not as a return to former glory days, but as a Renaissance a reclaiming of what is beautiful and important for a new time. The awesome joy of Isaiah is that this comes in the gift of a child, who is God with us. Years ago, there was a season finale of a long running show. As the characters lives interacted, they did not resolve everything, but instead the camera backed away, seeing the whole of the room, then out the window seeing how the events of this room were similar and different from those in all the rest of the hospital, and how that hospital setting was part of a neighborhood, part of a City, part of whole world. When the BOCES classes ended here, they created for the church a banner that hangs in Dobson Hall: When you Change your Thinking, You Change Your World.

January 9, 2011 "One Thing Matters"

Isaiah 42
Matthew 3:13-17
Recently I was meeting with a young couple about to marry. He was in the military, and after the wedding they would be leaving family and the community they both had grown up in, leaving the State, to be based in Florida or Texas, starting life fresh. They had reserved the Chapel in Auburn, they had their flowers and rings, and cake and invitation, photographer and musicians, they had gone ahead and gotten the marriage license, and now after everything else they were meeting with a minister. In the course of the conversation, they affirmed that one had grown up Lutheran and the other Catholic, so they wanted a “Church Wedding,” but not a “Religious Wedding.” I inquired about the difference and they were clear that they wanted to be married in a Church, that it was important to their families to be married before God rather than by a Justice of the Peace, but Communion and Prayers and all the rest did not matter. I swallowed hard. They described that each of their parents were divorced, and that they could not stand the dogmatic authority of the Church. I risked asking, so after you are married, how are you going to practice your faith They looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language, and I asked “Will you go together to a Catholic Church or Lutheran, or separately, or what?” Without hesitation they boldly stated, “we won't worry about that until we are old and fearing death.”
Suddenly, I realized this was one of the few moments in life when seeds of faith could be planted, and suggested, “So after you get married, you are going to encounter things you never imagined, you will be half a continent away from home and parents and everything you have ever known. Maybe at that time, you will want to have a community, to be surrounded by people with a similar history and values who can support you, because if you wait to try to find faith until you are dying, it may be too late.”

I have a confession to make.
At New Years, I described hoping and praying that this year would be better than the year ended.
In the last year, my Father died, then my Mom, the last several years of family illnesses have been hard on our marriage, hard on family, hard on our faith.
We live in a community that was spared most of the economic lay-offs and unemployment the rest of the nation knew. So what do we pray for... that our 401Ks and IRAs would rebound? How much like praying to idols, is praying for the investment of our money on Wall Street?
We have known many of our sons and daughters who have demonstrated nobility and honor in enlisting to serve our Country, and despite our fears and worries as parents, thank God these have returned home to us safely.
The recent past has been a spiritually dry season, we all go through those times. Times when we are so distracted by all the things going on, that we lose sight of what matters. My confession is that during such a time, I know that in preaching, I have turned to Bible Study and descriptions about The Church, because it was easier and safer.

The last many months, I have had a recurrent dream, after having been led through the basement of the Church I grew up in, I was led up the stairs to the Narthex at the back of the Sanctuary and escorted to a seat in one of the back rows. I recall wondering as a leader why we had not been shown the front pews or the Chancel, and realized first you have to believe and you can always be invited to go higher. Among the most powerful texts to me has been “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
There are times when as a human being, I can be very naïve, we are often blinded by our projections.
I thought that recounting the experience of this church would be occasions for affirmation with the constant realization we can go higher. I thought that every circumstance had been an occasion of faith, but I have come to know that many have turned off at those times, perceiving these were just a listing of accomplishments of the institution, bolstering up the facade of this idyllic community.

About a year ago, someone in great pain made a comment, that has come back over and over again. He described that “Faith is so much easier, when all you have to do is sit back and listen. When you get involved, when you know the behind the scenes of reality, faith is so much harder and more messy.”

While I have known Churches which have read the Velveteen Rabbit, or Watership Down as a sermon; while there are Churches which have political action motivation as the sermon, in this Church, preaching has always been based on Scripture, not because it is religious but as being The Word of God and also based in current events circumstances in our community and world.

We are a 21st Century Post-Modern people, who through literature, through education, are already familiar with the basics of the Biblical stories. We take as fact that Jesus and John the Baptist were contemporaries, and as John called all the people to repent and be baptized, so Jesus was Baptized. Also if we know nothing else about Isaiah, that this Priest/Prophet/Pastor describes this image of a Suffering Servant. The Suffering servant is so familiar, this passage is even quoted by the Gospels as Jesus comes to the Temple to read: that the Blind will see, and the deaf hear and the lame walk.

What as the Preacher I hear in these two texts this morning are first,
that when Jesus was Baptized, the heavens opened up and the Spirit descended on him like a dove. All of the television special effects and computer graphic creations have made the alighting of a dove to be the most graceful and illuminating of events. A Dove is not like an Eagle or Hawk with powerful legs and talons which grasp and land; not like the wren, nuthatch or chickadee who are as comfortable on their legs as in flight; the dove is a pretty cousin to the Pigeon, whose legs can hardly hold up the body's weight let alone the velocity of flight. As a dove comes in to land, it often takes a few extra steps seeking balance, “the heaven descended spirit” crashes in and disturbs. Rather than the Spirit/ Faith floating down and surrounding the Savior with a warm glow; when he was Baptized, all time and space and relationships were changed, heaven was ripped open, and the Spirit of God knocked into Jesus, causing him to question and re-evaluate everything about life as we have known it. So also with us, when circumstances knock us off our balance, we need to question our faith and find a new normal, life is full of faith stories creating a new reality.

Some of us have said, “Pastor I need you to connect the dots. Make faith explicit, help me understand.” When you worked hard putting yourself through to be the first in your family to go to College and to provide for your family, and you discover that your grandchild is failing school, and does not care. What matters is not the Tuition. What matters is not what other people think. What matters, the only thing that matters, is your grandchild finding meaning and purpose in life.
When you are new to a community, and do not have friends, do not yet have routines of knowing where everything is. When you feel very much alone, isolated, intimidated, this is when faith is a companion. When you discover your spouse has been addicted to porn, to going on all those websites; or when they develop an anonymous emotional relationship over the internet, it is a violation, it is a betrayal of self.
When you care for others, and your caring becomes work. When you dress and feed people, who are living out their days, and you come home to feed your own children and undress them for bed...
When suddenly you realize that you cannot do what seemed the simplest things because your spouse needs you, and this is not going to get better but is a chronic condition that will get worse. All these are occasions of the spirit bumping into your reality, and asking about your faith in God.

I said first, because there is a second surprise in the texts this morning. Isaiah's description of the Suffering servant of God who sets free the Captives, and restores sight to the blind, does not lift up their voice, does not cry, will not fail or be discouraged. What I hear in this is not O SUCK IT UP, Suffer in silence, Not at all! But rather, that we need the Silence, as uncomfortable, and prolonged and painful as it often is, in order to recognize what is not from us, what is not distraction, but what is right and what is righteous before God. The Servant Leader recognizes in their own suffering the needs and vulnerability of others. The Servant Leader is not a leader who suddenly dons an apron and serves those who work for them. The Servant Leader identifies with the needs and concerns of others, and lifts these up trying to make a difference in the world. This is not a Savior on a White Horse, but rather a Wounded Healer, who is less concerned with winning, than for making certain the needs of the most fragile are attended to, being certain that the drowning wick is not extinguished, the bent and broken branch is not cut off or lost. Ordinarily, this congregation has a great number of weddings and a great number of baptisms and very very few funerals, but this last week, we have had far more deaths than our norm. What has surprised me in these, is that people who have known great suffering, circumstances that would bring a strong person to their knees, and their families have described “Never did I ever hear them complain.”

How easy it is to become overwhelmed by all the distractions of this life. The news cycle has a fresh tragedy every day. One thing matters, having faith in God.

Jeremiah 31:1-14
John 1: 1-18
Would that on the stroke of Midnight, instead of gathering in crowds of strangers in Time Square, to kiss and shout “Happy New Year,” if at the stroke of Midnight we greeted life as REDEEMED, REDEEMED BY GOD! We have developed this whole celebration based on the ticking of time and turning of the calendar, recording that another year is past and over, sealed, now we begin the next. What if instead, we began this year knowing what has gone on before, and claiming there was present an idea which now is a new and different reality for the present and future. More than the making of rash Resolutions, the New Year would mark a fresh celebration of life!

The Evangelist of John described something similar.
Matthew, Mark and Luke emphasize the suffering of the Christ on the cross, as the means of Humanity's redemption. As if, the more he suffered, the more complete our salvation. For those Gospels it is as if Jesus goes from being a man, into becoming the Messiah, by the quality and quantity of his suffering and death, to be reborn at the Resurrection. According to John, while the cross is vitally important, the INCARNATION is a new reality that comes with the arrival of the Savior marking a new year, a new time.

Think of it this way. At the dawn of the Universe, the Beginning of time and space, the Origins of Life, what was there? Regardless of whether we follow Genesis, or Scientific Reason, we postulate that there had to have been a Prime Source, according to Darwin: A Big Bang, a cataclysm of gases; according to Genesis: God. And according to the Evangelist of John, with God in the beginning was THE LOGOS. What is a Logos?
We know that the Evangelist's point is that “what Christ represents” was with God, so try if you will to supplant other words, for “what Christ represents”.
In the beginning with God was “Love,” in the beginning with God was “Compassion,” in the beginning with God was “Empathy, Faith, Hope, Peace” in the beginning with God was “Community,” in the Beginning with God was a “New Idea,” in the Beginning with God was “Imagination.” Throughout the first era of time: Love, Compassion, Empathy, Faith Hope, Peace, Community, Newness, Imagination, all that Christ represents, was with God. In that former time, all things were Created out of the Waste and Void of Darkness: Light, Substance, Land, a differentiation of earth and the universe. In that first time, the Logos, all that represents Christ was with God, and was present in all creation. The Logos is part of all that exists in Created Order.

Different from the Roman God Janus, from which we get the name of the month of “January” was a God with with two heads, or perhaps two faces, pointed forward and back, Anger and Love, Past and Future. Instead the Evangelist's description of The LOGOS and God are that they are One, completely integrated and involved in all that occurs. At the INCARNATION, that is at Christmas, The LOGOS = Love Compassion, Empathy, Faith, Hope, Peace, New Ideas, Imagination became one with Humanity, having a birth, and feelings, emotions, thought, aging, suffering, death, AND YET Death was not the end, because the LOGOS is able to be resurrected to Eternity. This event, the LOGOS which was with God and now is One with Humanity, changed time, created a New Year, a New Era. While God can continue to Create out of the Waste and Void of Darkness, because far be it from us to dictate what God can or cannot do. The LOGOS with Humanity is now able to ReCreate, to Redeem, what has been into something different.

The Words of John Milton, from Paradise Lost in our Call to Illumination describe this as a shift in focus, altering from esoteric and theoretical, to what is practical and essential for life. It is tempting for us, to try to live at the Polarities of Life, as if all were Suffering, or all were about Hope. The year now ended, was this a year of Devastation as Haiti experienced the Worst Earthquake in Modern times, as the BP Oil Rig cracked and crude seeped up out of the depths, as the electorate attempted to vote out Incumbents who had made a career of government; or was this a year of Hope as a new Economy was born, as Scientists discovered the possibility of life on Mars, as Billionaires began to discover that if you do not share your wealth with those in need, you are a Jerk?

The shift from Modernity, to Post-Modern Culture is a shift to BOTH/AND. A recognition that life is not contained in absolutes, but can be observed and understood in multiple realities simultaneously. So what Christianity brought to humanity was recognition that God is both Creator and Redeemer. As described by Jeremiah, the very one who Judges us and found us guilty, sending us into exile, is also the one who aches for us and redeems us, bringing home not only the victorious, but also the suffering and those in need.

Next Sunday, the 9th of January, the people of Southern Sudan will vote whether to create a new Nation. This is not simply about the refugees of war whom we sponsored as a Church, or about the future of the Clinic we have constructed there. The Largest Nation in Africa, is voting whether to split into two nations, whether to continue a practice of treating one people as oppressed and non-existent for the benefit of others, or whether to recognize and defend a Nation with rights and freedoms? Greater than an absolute, this is also a decision that arises out of the ancient tribal history of these peoples, and laden with the possibilities of war.

When I came to serve as your Pastor, I sat down and reread the history of this congregation in the Minutes of the Session, which for the first 140 years were written in quill pen.
At the time, there had been interest in turning the Sanctuary 180 degrees, cognizant that we are entering off the Parking Lot.
There had been interest in claiming the Mission of this Church is Presbyterian Manor.
There had been interest in claiming the Mission of this Church was the Early Childhood Center.
There were those who believed in Music, and the purpose of the Church was in demonstrating the best musical offerings possible.
And there were those who believed the Church was present in order to support Christian Education.
What we came to recognize, by rereading from whence we had come, was that throughout our heritage the Faith Community has meant differing things to differing generations, and we have differing priorities. There was a time in which we chose to not be identified as A Church, but instead as A Chapel, and other times in which our purpose fit within the needs of the community, so as to call ourselves the Religious Society.
Throughout the last year, our Session have examined who we are and what is our Mission, cognizant that the last Mission Statement we had was that “We Welcome all like us, who desire to know Christ;” and that there have been efforts for us to consider “Playing with what Google Cannot answer,” understanding that faith needs to be more fun and playful than fact, and deals with a differing reality from reasoned Questions and Absolute Answers. After examining the recent accomplishments and activities of the Church, the giving and membership, and core principles, what we have returned to for the time being is what is said at every celebration of the Sacraments, that “We reach out to all, trying to make the resources of faith available and useful to all wishing to receive.”
In this way, when there are couples waning to marry, or present a child for the sacraments, we can serve them, but also recognize that as the Sacraments do not require residency, perhaps these are invitations for these persons to become part of the church.
WE do not know what the future holds, but rather than making people adapt to our program, our Church is reaching out to serve as people desire to receive, while holding to the truth being the truth, revealed differently in different circumstance. What has been created is continually being redeemed and recreated for new years.