Exodus 17:1-7
John 4: 5-42
Recently, a note arrived, describing that the author had attended a beautiful Memorial, and it seemed there had been a lot more Memorials lately than usual, so could I cut that out. They were thankful that we seemed to understand they only attended worship sporadically. They closed by stating that in these gray leftover winter days of Lent, with so many more deaths than usual, the pastor's eyes seemed to have been sad, and they hoped the sparkle might return.
Last evening someone phoned with announcement of the birth of a child, that they hoped would be Good news for a change.
A certain man had been going to church all his life, his parents sang in the choir and were Sunday School teachers. He never went through rebellion as a teen, and was not expecting a mid-life crisis. There were no problems with drugs, no arrests, or real problems. By the community standards, his life seemed perfect, so why did he feel like such a phony.
A woman started coming to church when everything else in her life began falling apart. She would slip in during the first hymn, and leave during the last, in hope no one would notice her. She sat ¾ the way to the back, on the outside aisle. She had been having trouble with depression, with work, with relationships. She had come to believe she had more problems than anyone else ever could.
On the third week, having not identified herself on the friendship pads, the pastor asked if she might like to claim this as her church home. She smiled, with her eyes on the floor, and replied that she wouldn't be in town that long. The next several months she rarely missed a Sunday, but there was an odd routine. Week by week she would appear a little stronger, a little brighter, then she would be gone for a week and when she came back she looked pale, drawn and frail. She got thinner and thinner. Then she stopped coming all together. No one seemed to no where she lived, or anything much about her.
This morning's Gospel requires an acquaintance with overt Racism and Segregation. I remember as a child, growing up in St. Louis in the early 1960s, seeing signs on Restrooms larger than the ones that said Mens and Womens, which read “Whites Only”, and above a filthy, dirty drinking fountain that read “Coloreds.” Being white, and from the suburbs, I didn't really understand what it meant, except that my mother seemed to squeeze my hand tighter and say NO when I wanted to drink from it.
Like everyone else she needed to go to the well for fresh water daily. But, where others rose early, and went to the well while it was still dark and cool, visiting with one another as they pumped water for one another, She intentionally waited until noon, in the scorching heat of the day, when no one else would be at the well. She had devised a wooden yoke for her shoulders, so she could carry two buckets at the same time, rather than risking two trips. While allowing her to carry more, the wooden bar had worn a sore on her neck and shoulders. Carrying the empty buckets that day, she dreaded the long drudge back, carrying her burden.
As she turned the corner, she saw something worse than the burden home, there was a man sitting beside the well. As she approached, he lifted his head, and from the brown eyes and olive skin, she knew his race and class. What was he, a person of affluence and education, doing sitting at the well in a Samaritan Village? Did he not know he was on the wrong side of the tracks? At least, his being a man, he would not dare risk lowering himself to speak to her in public. But then he asked of her a favor! Could she draw water for him from the well, and offer him a drink from her cup? Imagine! A Rabbi of Israel, drinking out of the cup of a Samaritan Woman! Once, when she had gone to Jerusalem, Jewish people had crossed to the other side of the street to avoid having contact with her. And here he, a Man, a Jewish man, wanted her to draw him water, and from her Samaritan hand, he wanted to drink from her cup.
The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in any of the Gospels. It is an odd conversation, but clearly he demonstrates having something she wants. If he actually has this living water, that could mean she would not need to expose herself to public scrutiny every day, she wants what he has!
Then Jesus asks about her husband. She could have responded that this was getting too personal. She did not have to respond. She could have made up a story but instead she says “I do not have a husband” As if he had X Ray vision, Jesus tells her the rest of the truth about herself. Now she truly feels exposed and attempts to change the subject, repeating what she knows to be a conversation stopper: “Where should we worship God, on the Mountain at the Samaritan altar built by the Greeks, or in Jerusalem at the Temple of Solomon?” But this does not put Jesus off, he pursues the conversation with her, this outcast, mixed race, woman. Not knowing what else to say, she replies “Won't it be great when the Messiah comes?” And Jesus responds, “That day has come!”
All this has happened out in public, at Noontime, at the Well. It would be like having the most important, most revelatory conversation of your life, in the middle of the Supermarket.
Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the Well reveals that God knows exactly who we are. Despite our best efforts to cover up, to hide behind race, behind education, behind class, behind what is easy, Jesus seeks us out where we are, revealing to ourselves the secrets we have kept.
Alice Walker, in her Novel The Color Purple relates a long conversation about God, between the women Celie and Shug. Celie has tried to be a good Christian Woman, doing whatever people told her. But she has been abused all her life, finally deciding God must be Dead, because the only gifts she ever received were her Daddy being lynched and her Ma running off, and a low-down dog of a Step-Father. By comparison, Shug seems to Celie to be the worst kind of sinner, but Shug challenges Celie about what the God she no longer believes in, looks like. Celie describes a picture she saw once in Sunday school, that God is very Tall, and very old, with a long white beard and bright blue eyes. Celie responds that she gave up waiting for a God like that. Like the Samaritan woman she found God where she least expected, that God loved everything she loved and a mess of stuff besides. People always think God only cares about people trying to please God. But any fool can see that God always tries to please us and care for us, and once we feel loved by God, than it seems all we can do is love God back.
A few days ago, the phone rang, and a man asked “Did you know Sharon and he gave a last name?” I thought a moment and said “No...” Then he described her, and I realized Sharon was the woman who used to come and sit in the Sanctuary, who claimed she would not be in town long enough to claim this as her Church. He described being Sharon's brother and that she had died. He was going through her belongings and found a pile of bulletins from the church, covered in notes, words and phrases, and names of people to pray for. The whole bundle was carefully tied up with a ribbon and bow. The man described that their family had never had much use for religion, they had never been baptized. He and his sister had had a falling out when she had gotten divorced. He could not believe her stories about being abused by her husband, could not believe her claim that her husband had given her AIDs, what had seemed to kill her was Cancer. But now, going through her apartment, there seemed to be a lot about his sister he had never known, and it was comforting to know she had found a home where she could feel accepted and which fed her spirit. Then he read one note off the back of a bulletin: They welcomed me. They invited me to receive. With everyone else, I walked up to the Table. As I took a piece of bread, they said “You are forgiven” as I dipped it in the cup everyone else had dipped in they said “This is the seal of the New Covenant of God's love”. After I sat down, some one said “Peace be with you” and they offered me a hug, not a bone crushing hug, my bones feel so fragile, but they opened their arms allowing me to hug them. I finally have found a home.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Blind Faith into The Future, March 20, 2011
Genesis 12:1-4
John 3:1-17
Recently we celebrated a life, with so many dimensions and involvements. It occurs to me, how many of us have a singular and flat purpose in our lives. The world around us “seems to have knowledge” that life is limited, that resources particularly time and availability, are to be saved and not to be squandered. But for all our time saving, all our hours banked and possessions accumulated, we have not been able to do anything more. Our readings this morning from the lives of Abram and Nicodemus are awareness that life is not flat, that the world is round and with faith, with promise and blessing from God life is a many faceted jewel, a treasure not only of three dimensions, but with meaning and relationships we knew lost can be redeemed.
After the beautiful poem of Creation that provides setting for all that is to come, the next 10 Chapters of Genesis describe humanity continually pulling away from God, seeking after our own desires, following what KNOWLEDGE teaches: Self-Determination, I can get what I want, I can fulfill my own desires, so what if it is at the expense of everyone and everything else.
I am continually perplexed by the assumption that Faith, particularly here in the Presbyterian Church is about Pre-Determination, God having all of life, all humanity figured out; that is not what we believe, but rather human history bears witness to the assumption of Pre-Destination that left to our own devices, following FREE WILL to it's natural conclusion all humanity will seek its own desires. What we BELIEVE IS in THE PROMISE and THE BLESSING and REDEMPTION of life.
The PROMISE is identified in Abram choosing to accept from God a new and different relationship. GOD continues to be the God of Creation, Humanity continues to have Free Will, but in Chapter 12 God offers a new JOB DESCRIPTION and Abram accepts! The God who created the Cosmos, who created all imagination and possibility CAN ALSO care about us, love each one of us, and WE CAN CHOOSE to live in relationship with God. ReConsidering life as something more than “What's in it for me?”. The Promise is that God will not be distant and removed, but will be in relationship. Instead of living life as a flat list of accomplishments, believing that who our parents were determined where we lived and went to school, determined what College and University we could attend, determined what we would do with life, and every event and accomplishment determining the next, INSTEAD life now had a depth of possibilities. INSTEAD believing in GOD as an IDOL, a distant, unconcerned third party to life, we live believe in relationship with a LIVING GOD. While we can be angry with God, and be humbled before God, we can never again live life assuming that there is not God.
The CHOICE of GOD OFFERING and Abram ACCEPTING THE PROMISE, just as much as the choice of Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree, effects Humanity and God and all whom Abram will encounter throughout life. The PROMISE of a multi-dimensional life in relationship with God creates the possibility of BLESSING.
Imagine that all life was Black and White and two dimensional, with length and height but without depth. When suddenly a figure enters the screen in full technicolor. And everything they touch, everyone they speak to takes on their own coloring and depth and dimensions.
I am part of the Baby Boom Generation, an era in human history where I remember the Landing on the Moon and the beginning of Space Exploration. I remember the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the hope of Freedom. I remember the beginnings of Glasnost and Perestroika and the end to The Cold War. As I look backward and reflect on those earlier years, earlier memories appear as if in Black and White, while the present is in full color, and in my mind's eye, I can envision a surreal future greater than my experience can portray.
An Implicit Part of the BLESSING is that our existence, our lives, are connected. We are not unique unto ourselves with every person being an island, or the center of their own universe; but rather all Creation effects one another.
If I understand Dvorak's Stabbat Mater, the passion is not The Passion of Christ's Suffering alone for all humanity, but the feeling of Jesus' Mother Mary witnessing his suffering on the Cross.
If I were a filmmaker, I would love to create a film, all in black and white, in which as each person feels, as each individual is touched by relationship with the love of God, be that Jesus' birth, or his miracles, or his teachings, or his suffering, that each would be colorized.
This is what Jesus attempted to explain to Nicodemus at night. But Nicodemus, like so many of us does not understand. He thinks as a Rational Human Being, that I ought to be able to reason and think and know what is possible. But LIFE is not THEORETICAL. FAITH is not a PHILOSOPHICAL CONSTRUCT. I shared with a few of you, that after a recent death, some one who loved them asked, “RATIONALIZE this for me” and without thinking I replied “You did not rationalize falling in love, there is no rationalization for getting married, there was no rationalization for your having shared the birth of children. ALL these are experiences of life, gifts of the promise of God, of the blessing that is relationship. So also is death, trusting that they are with God.”
Rationally, we make mistakes, if we live only in the light of the Past, we are hopeless. The Call of Abram and the Call of Nicodemus, are calls of REDEMPTION, from the barrenness of our past and present, from all the wrongs we KNOW, Following Blindly into an unknown future, to hope.
REDEMPTION is not simply showing up and having perfect attendance, but giving of ourselves, allowing our hearts and souls to be changed, to feel.
John 3:1-17
Recently we celebrated a life, with so many dimensions and involvements. It occurs to me, how many of us have a singular and flat purpose in our lives. The world around us “seems to have knowledge” that life is limited, that resources particularly time and availability, are to be saved and not to be squandered. But for all our time saving, all our hours banked and possessions accumulated, we have not been able to do anything more. Our readings this morning from the lives of Abram and Nicodemus are awareness that life is not flat, that the world is round and with faith, with promise and blessing from God life is a many faceted jewel, a treasure not only of three dimensions, but with meaning and relationships we knew lost can be redeemed.
After the beautiful poem of Creation that provides setting for all that is to come, the next 10 Chapters of Genesis describe humanity continually pulling away from God, seeking after our own desires, following what KNOWLEDGE teaches: Self-Determination, I can get what I want, I can fulfill my own desires, so what if it is at the expense of everyone and everything else.
I am continually perplexed by the assumption that Faith, particularly here in the Presbyterian Church is about Pre-Determination, God having all of life, all humanity figured out; that is not what we believe, but rather human history bears witness to the assumption of Pre-Destination that left to our own devices, following FREE WILL to it's natural conclusion all humanity will seek its own desires. What we BELIEVE IS in THE PROMISE and THE BLESSING and REDEMPTION of life.
The PROMISE is identified in Abram choosing to accept from God a new and different relationship. GOD continues to be the God of Creation, Humanity continues to have Free Will, but in Chapter 12 God offers a new JOB DESCRIPTION and Abram accepts! The God who created the Cosmos, who created all imagination and possibility CAN ALSO care about us, love each one of us, and WE CAN CHOOSE to live in relationship with God. ReConsidering life as something more than “What's in it for me?”. The Promise is that God will not be distant and removed, but will be in relationship. Instead of living life as a flat list of accomplishments, believing that who our parents were determined where we lived and went to school, determined what College and University we could attend, determined what we would do with life, and every event and accomplishment determining the next, INSTEAD life now had a depth of possibilities. INSTEAD believing in GOD as an IDOL, a distant, unconcerned third party to life, we live believe in relationship with a LIVING GOD. While we can be angry with God, and be humbled before God, we can never again live life assuming that there is not God.
The CHOICE of GOD OFFERING and Abram ACCEPTING THE PROMISE, just as much as the choice of Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree, effects Humanity and God and all whom Abram will encounter throughout life. The PROMISE of a multi-dimensional life in relationship with God creates the possibility of BLESSING.
Imagine that all life was Black and White and two dimensional, with length and height but without depth. When suddenly a figure enters the screen in full technicolor. And everything they touch, everyone they speak to takes on their own coloring and depth and dimensions.
I am part of the Baby Boom Generation, an era in human history where I remember the Landing on the Moon and the beginning of Space Exploration. I remember the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the hope of Freedom. I remember the beginnings of Glasnost and Perestroika and the end to The Cold War. As I look backward and reflect on those earlier years, earlier memories appear as if in Black and White, while the present is in full color, and in my mind's eye, I can envision a surreal future greater than my experience can portray.
An Implicit Part of the BLESSING is that our existence, our lives, are connected. We are not unique unto ourselves with every person being an island, or the center of their own universe; but rather all Creation effects one another.
If I understand Dvorak's Stabbat Mater, the passion is not The Passion of Christ's Suffering alone for all humanity, but the feeling of Jesus' Mother Mary witnessing his suffering on the Cross.
If I were a filmmaker, I would love to create a film, all in black and white, in which as each person feels, as each individual is touched by relationship with the love of God, be that Jesus' birth, or his miracles, or his teachings, or his suffering, that each would be colorized.
This is what Jesus attempted to explain to Nicodemus at night. But Nicodemus, like so many of us does not understand. He thinks as a Rational Human Being, that I ought to be able to reason and think and know what is possible. But LIFE is not THEORETICAL. FAITH is not a PHILOSOPHICAL CONSTRUCT. I shared with a few of you, that after a recent death, some one who loved them asked, “RATIONALIZE this for me” and without thinking I replied “You did not rationalize falling in love, there is no rationalization for getting married, there was no rationalization for your having shared the birth of children. ALL these are experiences of life, gifts of the promise of God, of the blessing that is relationship. So also is death, trusting that they are with God.”
Rationally, we make mistakes, if we live only in the light of the Past, we are hopeless. The Call of Abram and the Call of Nicodemus, are calls of REDEMPTION, from the barrenness of our past and present, from all the wrongs we KNOW, Following Blindly into an unknown future, to hope.
REDEMPTION is not simply showing up and having perfect attendance, but giving of ourselves, allowing our hearts and souls to be changed, to feel.
Monday, March 14, 2011
"ReFraming" March 13, 2011
Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-8
Matthew 4:1-11
Among my father-in-law's treasures were a series of very fine artwork that he bought at art dealers in the 1960s. One in particular was a beautiful poster. But having acquired these in the 1960s, it had a polished aluminum frame, and a chartreuse mat. Having been around for some time, the glass also had a small crack. So I decided to reframe the piece. As I turned it over and began to unscrew the highly polished metal pieces, everything was under tension, and the frame sort of exploded. Surprisingly, underneath that chartreuse mat, what I thought was a poster had a fraction written in the bottom left corner, and a signature in the bottom right. It was only in reframing that we discovered it was not a poster but an original print. However, in order to show the print number and signature, the reframing had to be much larger and more ornate.
The passages for this morning are each works of art. Beautifully crafted stories, their prominence in the Church affirmed by each being among the first stories in the Old Testament and New Testament. While this could identify that these took place historically, during the time Adam and Eve were in the Garden, and when Jesus was in the Wilderness following his Baptism, in so far as we know of no scribe who accompanied each, there is probably another reason why these two stories have such prominence.
For purposes of reframing, to witness a greater sense of truth than we may have previously known, our reading of Genesis this morning is that this is not about historic Creation. This is not about the origins of Sin, or the origin of Death, or the origin of Sex, or even about how humanity came to be of two sexes, or definition of the Fall. And the selection from Matthew, is not about Miracles, not about Jesus ability to change stones into bread, or to take a leap of faith, or his willingness to accept the role of being Messiah. All of those images have been shown previously.
Instead, looking at the larger picture, In Genesis 1 God formed all of Creation in a completeness. In Chapters 2 and 3, the question is about what Thornton Wilder described as The 8th Day of Creation, the Destiny of Humanity IN the Creation of God. This is not a world of our making, not a Doxology of all things belong to God, but rather a reflection on who we choose to be, how we choose to live since this is God's creation.
There are explicit descriptions about Context, where the Garden is located, what is in the garden, how the garden functions. Humanity is given three defining purposes by God, as such these define who we are and also our relationship with God. Humanity is given VOCATION, not a VACATION trip to Florida in March, but VOCATION an Identity based on our responsibility, we are to be Gardeners caring for Creation. We are given PERMISSION, “you can do anything, eat anything, anything at all in the garden.” We are also given PROHIBITION, there is one tree, at the center of the Garden, the tree of knowledge, that according to God we cannot eat from. VOCATION, PERMISSION and PROHIBITION. There is probably something telling about humanity, that what we have traditionally lifted up out of Genesis is PROHIBITION only. Together, these three identify that the Garden, our role in life, our abilities are all defined by our relationship to God, our trust. God is the Creator of the Garden, we are in the image of God, so we too are Gardeners; God has given us absolute freedom, Permission to do anything and go anywhere; Out of trust and Authority, relationship with God we are asked to not do one thing. This is a story of living in COVENANT. Whether we choose to TRUST what we do not know to God, or whether we believe we must KNOW trusting Knowledge is power.
The “Temptation of Jesus” confronts every circumstance of Israel in the wilderness. They were hungry and thirsty and complained against God at Massah and Meribah. They wanted miracles at their command. And generations later in the time of Jesus when Israel was taken over by the Greeks and Romans, in order to be elected to office, in order to be an officer in the military, for any role of leadership, you had to swear an oath to the Greek and Roman Gods, to Idol Worship. All three of these temptations Jesus stands against. Rather than TEMPTATION, this passage is the Good News that the Messiah remained faithful when confronted with each. There will probably never come an occasion where we will be so starving as to want to change stones to bread. Or when we will be tempted to leap off the pinnacle of a Temple. The underlying theme of this is that every temptation that could be there for us, especially the temptation of whether to Trust God above all else, Jesus already met.
This morning as we each entered the sanctuary, we were greeted with the shocking news that Jean, a vibrant woman involved in every different part of the life of this community, had suddenly, without warning taken ill and died. Our immediate creaturely, mortal reaction, is grief and loss; but we need to reframe this in faith. Jean lived her life caring for others, doing for others, living in faith. We can be consumed by our sorrow, or like Jean we can trust where our knowledge and understanding fail, that she is with God. At every death, there seems a temptation to find out why. All that science can tell us is knowledge of the how, which does not address that after 49 years of marriage a wife is gone; after drying the tears of third graders and Nursery school parents, she is gone. There is a phrase from a prayer, I choose to use at every memorial: As God never lost her by her living her life among us, so we have not lost her by her return to be with God.
Matthew 4:1-11
Among my father-in-law's treasures were a series of very fine artwork that he bought at art dealers in the 1960s. One in particular was a beautiful poster. But having acquired these in the 1960s, it had a polished aluminum frame, and a chartreuse mat. Having been around for some time, the glass also had a small crack. So I decided to reframe the piece. As I turned it over and began to unscrew the highly polished metal pieces, everything was under tension, and the frame sort of exploded. Surprisingly, underneath that chartreuse mat, what I thought was a poster had a fraction written in the bottom left corner, and a signature in the bottom right. It was only in reframing that we discovered it was not a poster but an original print. However, in order to show the print number and signature, the reframing had to be much larger and more ornate.
The passages for this morning are each works of art. Beautifully crafted stories, their prominence in the Church affirmed by each being among the first stories in the Old Testament and New Testament. While this could identify that these took place historically, during the time Adam and Eve were in the Garden, and when Jesus was in the Wilderness following his Baptism, in so far as we know of no scribe who accompanied each, there is probably another reason why these two stories have such prominence.
For purposes of reframing, to witness a greater sense of truth than we may have previously known, our reading of Genesis this morning is that this is not about historic Creation. This is not about the origins of Sin, or the origin of Death, or the origin of Sex, or even about how humanity came to be of two sexes, or definition of the Fall. And the selection from Matthew, is not about Miracles, not about Jesus ability to change stones into bread, or to take a leap of faith, or his willingness to accept the role of being Messiah. All of those images have been shown previously.
Instead, looking at the larger picture, In Genesis 1 God formed all of Creation in a completeness. In Chapters 2 and 3, the question is about what Thornton Wilder described as The 8th Day of Creation, the Destiny of Humanity IN the Creation of God. This is not a world of our making, not a Doxology of all things belong to God, but rather a reflection on who we choose to be, how we choose to live since this is God's creation.
There are explicit descriptions about Context, where the Garden is located, what is in the garden, how the garden functions. Humanity is given three defining purposes by God, as such these define who we are and also our relationship with God. Humanity is given VOCATION, not a VACATION trip to Florida in March, but VOCATION an Identity based on our responsibility, we are to be Gardeners caring for Creation. We are given PERMISSION, “you can do anything, eat anything, anything at all in the garden.” We are also given PROHIBITION, there is one tree, at the center of the Garden, the tree of knowledge, that according to God we cannot eat from. VOCATION, PERMISSION and PROHIBITION. There is probably something telling about humanity, that what we have traditionally lifted up out of Genesis is PROHIBITION only. Together, these three identify that the Garden, our role in life, our abilities are all defined by our relationship to God, our trust. God is the Creator of the Garden, we are in the image of God, so we too are Gardeners; God has given us absolute freedom, Permission to do anything and go anywhere; Out of trust and Authority, relationship with God we are asked to not do one thing. This is a story of living in COVENANT. Whether we choose to TRUST what we do not know to God, or whether we believe we must KNOW trusting Knowledge is power.
The “Temptation of Jesus” confronts every circumstance of Israel in the wilderness. They were hungry and thirsty and complained against God at Massah and Meribah. They wanted miracles at their command. And generations later in the time of Jesus when Israel was taken over by the Greeks and Romans, in order to be elected to office, in order to be an officer in the military, for any role of leadership, you had to swear an oath to the Greek and Roman Gods, to Idol Worship. All three of these temptations Jesus stands against. Rather than TEMPTATION, this passage is the Good News that the Messiah remained faithful when confronted with each. There will probably never come an occasion where we will be so starving as to want to change stones to bread. Or when we will be tempted to leap off the pinnacle of a Temple. The underlying theme of this is that every temptation that could be there for us, especially the temptation of whether to Trust God above all else, Jesus already met.
This morning as we each entered the sanctuary, we were greeted with the shocking news that Jean, a vibrant woman involved in every different part of the life of this community, had suddenly, without warning taken ill and died. Our immediate creaturely, mortal reaction, is grief and loss; but we need to reframe this in faith. Jean lived her life caring for others, doing for others, living in faith. We can be consumed by our sorrow, or like Jean we can trust where our knowledge and understanding fail, that she is with God. At every death, there seems a temptation to find out why. All that science can tell us is knowledge of the how, which does not address that after 49 years of marriage a wife is gone; after drying the tears of third graders and Nursery school parents, she is gone. There is a phrase from a prayer, I choose to use at every memorial: As God never lost her by her living her life among us, so we have not lost her by her return to be with God.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
"Where Our Treasure Is" Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 6:1-21
Day in day out, month in month out, the years seem to go faster and faster. We routinely lose track of what is important, what is meaningful and awe-inspiring. I am thankful for the marking of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season to set aside days for prayer and for faith. Until the 1980s in Protestant Churches we did not celebrate evening services during Lent, we had potluck suppers with a movie or speakers, but somehow we went from the season of Epiphany to Lent and Palm Sunday to Easter without acknowledging a distinction.
One church, every Lent, had the Middle School and High School students create a large wooden cross. We are talking about a 6 x 6, 12 feet tall, with a 6 foot cross piece, and on Ash Wednesday, we would carry the cross out to the roadside in front of the church, where we would dig a hole and set the cross, for the Lenten Season. On Good Friday, it would be draped in Black, and Easter Morning, helium Balloons would be tied to it.
One year, a college freshman, was on Spring-break mountain climbing with friends when he slipped and fell and died. Stephan had loved the outdoors, so his classmates had created an outdoor Sanctuary beneath the cross. It was an especially meaningful memorial, with many of his friends offering music, or poetry, or memories. But at the end of the Memorial, the Pall bearers carried the casket to the hearse, and as we all watched we heard the door slam and the car drive away, while we remained at the church. The reality of his leaving us, of this 19 year old dying was unintentionally too real.
The calendar sometimes plays tricks with us. I am told that in 2013 CareGivers day and Mother's day fall on the same day. The Presbyterian Women's Annual Yard Sale always fell on the last week of April, which because Easter moves, one year was the week after Easter. Advertising the Event, their husbands had made a large billboard like sign, that read “Trash and Treasure Rummage Sale” and carried it out to the roadside. It took about 15 minutes for my phone to ring, with a neighbor complaining that at the foot of the cross was a sign reading Trash & Treasure. I tried to explain that this was Biblical, as Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I tried quoting that “One persons' trash is another's treasure” but getting into more trouble the longer I talked, I hung up the phone and moved the sign.
The Call to Illumination from the words of Wendell Berry describe exactly what Ash Wednesday is all about. Stop for a moment and collect all the emails of the last year, all the media concern about Charlie Sheen, all the anxiety over Haiti and Egypt, and Libya, Jordan and Kuwait, all the efforts related to interpreting Midterm Elections, and purge it. Would we be any the worse? Possibly we bury it on the earth, possibly we burn it to ash, but we mark an end to what was and a beginning to what will be, and we turn it all over to God.
Walking throughout the Village today, I ran into several individuals with the cross on their foreheads, they smiled at me as much as to say “See Reverend, I did something holy today.” There is this tension to Biblical faith that does not allow us to get away with anything, for while we are to pray, while we are to be active in our faith, we are not to desire recognition for our piety. The struggle of Isaiah 58 is that the people have been praying, have observed fasting, have made their offerings, but they did not get anything for it. Faith in God does not follow the market economy. There is no quid pro quo, I paid money, I said my prayers SO give me a good life, or solve my problems for me. That is the equation of the Sale of Indulgences. You paid money to buy a sliver of Jesus' cross, or a hair from the head of John the Baptist, or to drink from the Cup that is the Grail, and possessing this charm, you could be satisfied.
The last several days, the Morning shows have been marketing the idea that The American Dream has changed, our Treasure has been moved. For decades, ever since WWII, possibly even The Great Depression, the American Dream had been to send your kids to college, to pay off your Mortgage and own your own home, to have two cars, to be able to retire from work. According to the new economists, the new dream is not measured in possessions and accomplishments, but in savings. Knowing that Pensions are being invaded, knowing that Social Security is in trouble of becoming an unfunded mandate, rather than being concerned with College Loans or Mortgages for which you can get a loan, the question is how much we are saving for our future, because there is no Retirement Loan.
In much the same way, faith is not about whether we were a Church member, or for how many years. On the ends of each of the pews are brass plaques with numbers which correspond to a chart, and originally in this church it was prestigious to be in the front row, to be seen in church. Today, in any church, the seats which fill up first are always the ones in back, which makes me wonder if we want to not be seen. But the point of prayer is not how many times we prayed, or the words we used, or how sincere we made ourselves sound.
A small group of us have been in Bible Study together the last many Wednesday evenings. Reading and sharing together, we have come to understand the Presbyterian belief in PRE-DESTINATION, that with Adam, all Humanity will always choose selfishly, but that what matters is that God does offer grace that we can turn our lives around to live differently.
AND that this is different from PRE-DETERMINATION that we do not hold to, that all of life is pre-ordained and we are simply going through the motions.
That God is both Eternal, and All Powerful, and All Knowing, which make God God, but God does not use all these abilities simultaneously, God allows us Freedom of Will. God may well know what we are going to do, but choose to not act; or God may be able and willing to act but be uncertain what we will do.
AND the wonderful element of faith that we as believers routinely overlook is that humanity has had the ability to Change the Mind of God. The experience of The Flood, changed God to never again destroy the earth by chaos. The experience of Ninevah demonstrated to God that they were repentant.
Rather than being a purchase of divine services, PRAYER is a kind of conversation between us and God, which re-orients us to who God is, and what we can expect.
We begin with three statements affirming God in our lives:
God is our Loving Parent and Creator,
God's very NAME is holy.
Eventually the Kingdom of God will be worked out on earth as it is in heaven.
All we as Creatures can ask of God, is three things:
that our Daily needs will be met,
that a forgiving righteous God will forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors,
that God not lead us into temptation.
The Ancient Jewish story of Abraham and Isaac, the Muslim story of Abraham and Ishmael, both describe God testing Abraham's trust of God.
So we enter into this season of Lent, in which we re-orient our lives different from our routine.
We intentionally create and carry the cross out to the roadside.
We evaluate where our Treasure truly is, and what we Treasure.
We recognize that as Ken Blanchard described OUR CHEESE IS CONTINUALLY BEING MOVED
And we hope that through prayer, through starting again and acting with integrity, with compassion We can affect God, or bring our own lives in line, either way becoming one with the Almighty.
Matthew 6:1-21
Day in day out, month in month out, the years seem to go faster and faster. We routinely lose track of what is important, what is meaningful and awe-inspiring. I am thankful for the marking of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season to set aside days for prayer and for faith. Until the 1980s in Protestant Churches we did not celebrate evening services during Lent, we had potluck suppers with a movie or speakers, but somehow we went from the season of Epiphany to Lent and Palm Sunday to Easter without acknowledging a distinction.
One church, every Lent, had the Middle School and High School students create a large wooden cross. We are talking about a 6 x 6, 12 feet tall, with a 6 foot cross piece, and on Ash Wednesday, we would carry the cross out to the roadside in front of the church, where we would dig a hole and set the cross, for the Lenten Season. On Good Friday, it would be draped in Black, and Easter Morning, helium Balloons would be tied to it.
One year, a college freshman, was on Spring-break mountain climbing with friends when he slipped and fell and died. Stephan had loved the outdoors, so his classmates had created an outdoor Sanctuary beneath the cross. It was an especially meaningful memorial, with many of his friends offering music, or poetry, or memories. But at the end of the Memorial, the Pall bearers carried the casket to the hearse, and as we all watched we heard the door slam and the car drive away, while we remained at the church. The reality of his leaving us, of this 19 year old dying was unintentionally too real.
The calendar sometimes plays tricks with us. I am told that in 2013 CareGivers day and Mother's day fall on the same day. The Presbyterian Women's Annual Yard Sale always fell on the last week of April, which because Easter moves, one year was the week after Easter. Advertising the Event, their husbands had made a large billboard like sign, that read “Trash and Treasure Rummage Sale” and carried it out to the roadside. It took about 15 minutes for my phone to ring, with a neighbor complaining that at the foot of the cross was a sign reading Trash & Treasure. I tried to explain that this was Biblical, as Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I tried quoting that “One persons' trash is another's treasure” but getting into more trouble the longer I talked, I hung up the phone and moved the sign.
The Call to Illumination from the words of Wendell Berry describe exactly what Ash Wednesday is all about. Stop for a moment and collect all the emails of the last year, all the media concern about Charlie Sheen, all the anxiety over Haiti and Egypt, and Libya, Jordan and Kuwait, all the efforts related to interpreting Midterm Elections, and purge it. Would we be any the worse? Possibly we bury it on the earth, possibly we burn it to ash, but we mark an end to what was and a beginning to what will be, and we turn it all over to God.
Walking throughout the Village today, I ran into several individuals with the cross on their foreheads, they smiled at me as much as to say “See Reverend, I did something holy today.” There is this tension to Biblical faith that does not allow us to get away with anything, for while we are to pray, while we are to be active in our faith, we are not to desire recognition for our piety. The struggle of Isaiah 58 is that the people have been praying, have observed fasting, have made their offerings, but they did not get anything for it. Faith in God does not follow the market economy. There is no quid pro quo, I paid money, I said my prayers SO give me a good life, or solve my problems for me. That is the equation of the Sale of Indulgences. You paid money to buy a sliver of Jesus' cross, or a hair from the head of John the Baptist, or to drink from the Cup that is the Grail, and possessing this charm, you could be satisfied.
The last several days, the Morning shows have been marketing the idea that The American Dream has changed, our Treasure has been moved. For decades, ever since WWII, possibly even The Great Depression, the American Dream had been to send your kids to college, to pay off your Mortgage and own your own home, to have two cars, to be able to retire from work. According to the new economists, the new dream is not measured in possessions and accomplishments, but in savings. Knowing that Pensions are being invaded, knowing that Social Security is in trouble of becoming an unfunded mandate, rather than being concerned with College Loans or Mortgages for which you can get a loan, the question is how much we are saving for our future, because there is no Retirement Loan.
In much the same way, faith is not about whether we were a Church member, or for how many years. On the ends of each of the pews are brass plaques with numbers which correspond to a chart, and originally in this church it was prestigious to be in the front row, to be seen in church. Today, in any church, the seats which fill up first are always the ones in back, which makes me wonder if we want to not be seen. But the point of prayer is not how many times we prayed, or the words we used, or how sincere we made ourselves sound.
A small group of us have been in Bible Study together the last many Wednesday evenings. Reading and sharing together, we have come to understand the Presbyterian belief in PRE-DESTINATION, that with Adam, all Humanity will always choose selfishly, but that what matters is that God does offer grace that we can turn our lives around to live differently.
AND that this is different from PRE-DETERMINATION that we do not hold to, that all of life is pre-ordained and we are simply going through the motions.
That God is both Eternal, and All Powerful, and All Knowing, which make God God, but God does not use all these abilities simultaneously, God allows us Freedom of Will. God may well know what we are going to do, but choose to not act; or God may be able and willing to act but be uncertain what we will do.
AND the wonderful element of faith that we as believers routinely overlook is that humanity has had the ability to Change the Mind of God. The experience of The Flood, changed God to never again destroy the earth by chaos. The experience of Ninevah demonstrated to God that they were repentant.
Rather than being a purchase of divine services, PRAYER is a kind of conversation between us and God, which re-orients us to who God is, and what we can expect.
We begin with three statements affirming God in our lives:
God is our Loving Parent and Creator,
God's very NAME is holy.
Eventually the Kingdom of God will be worked out on earth as it is in heaven.
All we as Creatures can ask of God, is three things:
that our Daily needs will be met,
that a forgiving righteous God will forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors,
that God not lead us into temptation.
The Ancient Jewish story of Abraham and Isaac, the Muslim story of Abraham and Ishmael, both describe God testing Abraham's trust of God.
So we enter into this season of Lent, in which we re-orient our lives different from our routine.
We intentionally create and carry the cross out to the roadside.
We evaluate where our Treasure truly is, and what we Treasure.
We recognize that as Ken Blanchard described OUR CHEESE IS CONTINUALLY BEING MOVED
And we hope that through prayer, through starting again and acting with integrity, with compassion We can affect God, or bring our own lives in line, either way becoming one with the Almighty.
Monday, March 7, 2011
"The The Cloud" March 6, 2011
Exodus 24: 12-18
Matthew 17:1-9
For the last four months heavy gray snow clouds have hung over us. As tired as we all have been of the snow, I think what eats away at us making us depressed is the seemingly never ending Gray. This week on the first of March, the clouds parted and skies were blue. Regardless of temperatures, regardless of snow and ice, suddenly it felt more like Spring. Yesterday a new cloud over shadowed us, different from the others, the steady gentle rains melted the ice and snow and soot, bathing everything clean. Underneath was revealed green grass, open water, the smell of worms. This is not to say that there will be no more snow, but better than consulting the shadows of a hibernating rodent, the gray clouds of endless winter will give way to Lent and the coming of Easter's Resurrection.
Clouds have meaning for us. There once was a Peanuts Cartoon, with Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown lying on their backs on a hillside staring up at the heavens. Lucy asked what they saw in the clouds, and Linus described the clouds looking like Moses and the Israelites on one side, and Pharaoh and his armies, horses and chariots, coming down upon them, when behind Moses the way suddenly cleared, and a cloud of fire and pillar of smoke separated and protected them from Pharaoh. Lucy and Linus walked away, as Charlie Brown said: “I was gonna say a Ducky and a Horsey but it sounded kind of lame.”
In a recent series of commercials, the Family are dressed up and sitting on a couch for a portrait, but as the Mom looks at the picture, one looks board, another is texting, a third is shoving an Action Figure into the ear of the fourth. And Superhero Mom declares “To the Cloud” and with the advanced technology of Windows 7 Bill Gates is able to help Mom fix the photo to save the Day. In another the couple are bored, sitting at the airport as their flight is delayed yet again. The husband declares “To the Cloud” and the computer is able to provide television shows until they are able to leave.
“To the Cloud” has become an analogy to seeking technology to solve our problems, much as “To the Batcave, Robin” 40 years ago meant consulting data bases and a super-computer to solve riddles or understand clues. When Moses went up the mountain, and on the 7th day entered into the cloud, “To the Cloud” was not about technology, but about mystery, mysticism, holiness. The Cloud, was where Moses received the Law and 10 Commandments from God. The Law and Commandments represent our relationship with God and with one another as ordained by our Creator, Savior and Protector. “To the Cloud” meant seeking what is holy, seeking what is mysterious and mystical, seeking to know from God what does not make sense in this world of our control. Before the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, “To the Clouds” meant going where no human had gone before.
Hiking in the mountains, there comes an altitude, when you are above the tree-line, above where things grow, everything is rock, and you cannot make out what is below, obscured beneath trees and shrubs. The Clouds settle upon the mountains and it feels as though you are closer to God than to the world from which we come. In the cloud, the air feels heavy and moist, our eyelashes hang with dew and rocks, light, all reality seems to glisten and shimmer before us.Within the cloud, chronological time seems irrelevant, instead of measuring by seconds, or minutes, hours or days, you come to recognize that others who have gone before us erected stone markers, cairns, and often in the ethereal mysts of the Cloud all we can see is from one stone cairn to the next, one of life's milestones to another point on the journey.
The Transfiguration is one of the moments in the Gospels of Holiness, a moment of mysticism, a milestone that this time, this relationship with Jesus is unique, sacred. Jesus had been traveling with the disciples for a long time. He had been preaching and teaching, he had fed the 4000 with 7 loaves and a few fish. Jesus had asked who the disciples considered he was to them, and Simon Peter had confessed Jesus as being the Messiah, Son of the Living God! Not simply as teacher, or leader, pastor or priest or prophet, but Son of God. To which Jesus confesses, “YES, and as Son of God and also the Son of Man, this Son must be sacrificed for the sins of the world.” Six days later, on the Sabbath Day, he took with him Simon Peter, and the brothers James and John, to the Cloud on the Mountain.
This passage is directly related to what went before, because while Simon Peter makes the leap of faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the other disciples had identified Jesus as being like Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist. The Gospels have never narrated what Jesus said to Moses and Elijah, only that he prayed and Elijah and Moses came to him, as much as to say that Jesus was greater than Moses and Elijah, his ministry was to provide yet a new and deeper relationship with God than the Law or the Prophets had been able. There are people in this life, who serve a purpose for us, some who are our Moses and Elijah, some who are our Peter, James and John. Not that their lives do not serve a purpose for themselves and for God, but some also serve as mentors, some as spiritual guides, some as law givers and truth tellers, some providing wisdom and others demonstrating true humility.
Simon Peter jumps the gun, offering that he and the others could create booths here. It is unclear whether his intent was resting places to house Jesus and Moses and Elijah, that this experience could go on forever, never having to return to reality. OR whether, by creating booths, his offer was that people would pay money to see this, we should bring others here to see this. Either way, Peter's offer profanes what they are experiencing, and a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice confirms and commands “This is my Son, The Beloved, Listen to Him.” To which, Jesus says what he said more than any other words, “Be not afraid.”
Personally, I have always been moved by what comes after, in this passage. Jesus instructed the three to “Tell No One, Until the Son of Man is Raised From the Dead.” They came down the mountain, and immediately there was a crowd surrounding a Man and his Son. And presumably, the Son lay on the ground in convulsions, because that was what the father wanted Jesus to save him from living. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is quoted as describing how little faith the people have that they could not pray to God themselves. In Mark's Gospel, this elicits the Father confessing to Jesus “I believe, but Help My Unbelief.” I think that is exactly where humanity is! We do believe, in the Baptism of our children we confess our deepest desire, that our children would grow up to know and love Jesus. But we also, each of us, have unbelief, disbelief, fears and doubts and angers. We take a pill, we seek a counselor, we look for a new computer application to solve our boredom and our family issues.
If anything, what I hear in these passages of Moses and Jesus going up the Mountain to the Cloud, is that where our generation of humanity, our culture today seeks quick fixes, The Answers to solve our problems, instead the mysterious pilgrimage, the holy experience of Moses and Jesus was about redemption, an experience which changed them so severely that they did not come down the mountain the same. Going to the Cloud is not about a new Application, or how to fix photos so we can be proud of the picture, but seeking to be redeemed, to be changed by God.
Matthew 17:1-9
For the last four months heavy gray snow clouds have hung over us. As tired as we all have been of the snow, I think what eats away at us making us depressed is the seemingly never ending Gray. This week on the first of March, the clouds parted and skies were blue. Regardless of temperatures, regardless of snow and ice, suddenly it felt more like Spring. Yesterday a new cloud over shadowed us, different from the others, the steady gentle rains melted the ice and snow and soot, bathing everything clean. Underneath was revealed green grass, open water, the smell of worms. This is not to say that there will be no more snow, but better than consulting the shadows of a hibernating rodent, the gray clouds of endless winter will give way to Lent and the coming of Easter's Resurrection.
Clouds have meaning for us. There once was a Peanuts Cartoon, with Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown lying on their backs on a hillside staring up at the heavens. Lucy asked what they saw in the clouds, and Linus described the clouds looking like Moses and the Israelites on one side, and Pharaoh and his armies, horses and chariots, coming down upon them, when behind Moses the way suddenly cleared, and a cloud of fire and pillar of smoke separated and protected them from Pharaoh. Lucy and Linus walked away, as Charlie Brown said: “I was gonna say a Ducky and a Horsey but it sounded kind of lame.”
In a recent series of commercials, the Family are dressed up and sitting on a couch for a portrait, but as the Mom looks at the picture, one looks board, another is texting, a third is shoving an Action Figure into the ear of the fourth. And Superhero Mom declares “To the Cloud” and with the advanced technology of Windows 7 Bill Gates is able to help Mom fix the photo to save the Day. In another the couple are bored, sitting at the airport as their flight is delayed yet again. The husband declares “To the Cloud” and the computer is able to provide television shows until they are able to leave.
“To the Cloud” has become an analogy to seeking technology to solve our problems, much as “To the Batcave, Robin” 40 years ago meant consulting data bases and a super-computer to solve riddles or understand clues. When Moses went up the mountain, and on the 7th day entered into the cloud, “To the Cloud” was not about technology, but about mystery, mysticism, holiness. The Cloud, was where Moses received the Law and 10 Commandments from God. The Law and Commandments represent our relationship with God and with one another as ordained by our Creator, Savior and Protector. “To the Cloud” meant seeking what is holy, seeking what is mysterious and mystical, seeking to know from God what does not make sense in this world of our control. Before the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, “To the Clouds” meant going where no human had gone before.
Hiking in the mountains, there comes an altitude, when you are above the tree-line, above where things grow, everything is rock, and you cannot make out what is below, obscured beneath trees and shrubs. The Clouds settle upon the mountains and it feels as though you are closer to God than to the world from which we come. In the cloud, the air feels heavy and moist, our eyelashes hang with dew and rocks, light, all reality seems to glisten and shimmer before us.Within the cloud, chronological time seems irrelevant, instead of measuring by seconds, or minutes, hours or days, you come to recognize that others who have gone before us erected stone markers, cairns, and often in the ethereal mysts of the Cloud all we can see is from one stone cairn to the next, one of life's milestones to another point on the journey.
The Transfiguration is one of the moments in the Gospels of Holiness, a moment of mysticism, a milestone that this time, this relationship with Jesus is unique, sacred. Jesus had been traveling with the disciples for a long time. He had been preaching and teaching, he had fed the 4000 with 7 loaves and a few fish. Jesus had asked who the disciples considered he was to them, and Simon Peter had confessed Jesus as being the Messiah, Son of the Living God! Not simply as teacher, or leader, pastor or priest or prophet, but Son of God. To which Jesus confesses, “YES, and as Son of God and also the Son of Man, this Son must be sacrificed for the sins of the world.” Six days later, on the Sabbath Day, he took with him Simon Peter, and the brothers James and John, to the Cloud on the Mountain.
This passage is directly related to what went before, because while Simon Peter makes the leap of faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the other disciples had identified Jesus as being like Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist. The Gospels have never narrated what Jesus said to Moses and Elijah, only that he prayed and Elijah and Moses came to him, as much as to say that Jesus was greater than Moses and Elijah, his ministry was to provide yet a new and deeper relationship with God than the Law or the Prophets had been able. There are people in this life, who serve a purpose for us, some who are our Moses and Elijah, some who are our Peter, James and John. Not that their lives do not serve a purpose for themselves and for God, but some also serve as mentors, some as spiritual guides, some as law givers and truth tellers, some providing wisdom and others demonstrating true humility.
Simon Peter jumps the gun, offering that he and the others could create booths here. It is unclear whether his intent was resting places to house Jesus and Moses and Elijah, that this experience could go on forever, never having to return to reality. OR whether, by creating booths, his offer was that people would pay money to see this, we should bring others here to see this. Either way, Peter's offer profanes what they are experiencing, and a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice confirms and commands “This is my Son, The Beloved, Listen to Him.” To which, Jesus says what he said more than any other words, “Be not afraid.”
Personally, I have always been moved by what comes after, in this passage. Jesus instructed the three to “Tell No One, Until the Son of Man is Raised From the Dead.” They came down the mountain, and immediately there was a crowd surrounding a Man and his Son. And presumably, the Son lay on the ground in convulsions, because that was what the father wanted Jesus to save him from living. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is quoted as describing how little faith the people have that they could not pray to God themselves. In Mark's Gospel, this elicits the Father confessing to Jesus “I believe, but Help My Unbelief.” I think that is exactly where humanity is! We do believe, in the Baptism of our children we confess our deepest desire, that our children would grow up to know and love Jesus. But we also, each of us, have unbelief, disbelief, fears and doubts and angers. We take a pill, we seek a counselor, we look for a new computer application to solve our boredom and our family issues.
If anything, what I hear in these passages of Moses and Jesus going up the Mountain to the Cloud, is that where our generation of humanity, our culture today seeks quick fixes, The Answers to solve our problems, instead the mysterious pilgrimage, the holy experience of Moses and Jesus was about redemption, an experience which changed them so severely that they did not come down the mountain the same. Going to the Cloud is not about a new Application, or how to fix photos so we can be proud of the picture, but seeking to be redeemed, to be changed by God.
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