Genesis 22:1-14
Matthew 10:40-42
“Whoever welcome you, welcome's me” is a statement about identity, as our personalities are constantly in flux. One moment you are the children of your parents, and by moving a tassel from one side of your cap to the other you go from being a High School student to a Graduate. You place a ring upon one another's finger and you are married. You bring a baby home from the hospital lay them on the bed and suddenly you are expected to be a mother or father.
Tom, I have heard describe, that you had no formal training in Choral Conducting, yet after 28 years, you have become our Conductor.
Mary has not chosen to join the Church, yet brought her sons for Confirmation, and has cared for and nurtured our gardens, replanting our roses. Knowing the blood, membership can cost and the thorns of those roses, you are claimed.
The PRAXIS of our lives defines who and what we are and what we truly believe.
I have a classmate on faculty at Yale Divinity School who has been researching a book on how Peace actually develops regardless of Governmental Peace Processes. She travelled through Northern Ireland, and entering a Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning was greeted by two women greeters. They began conversation with her, and every guest who entered, which while it came across as welcoming, quickly differentiated between whether the guests appeared by their name and the people they knew, to be Catholic or Protestant. The Protestants were welcomed and seated, the Catholics were encouraged to go to another Church down the lane. I contented myself that this was a story from decades ago, but she said no, it is the practice today. By fear, by experience of conflict, people find ways to test and to risk.
It is ironic that the Prayer which Jesus Taught, that Prayer we all recite whether Catholic or Protestant emphasizes the phrase “LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION”, when part of the nature of God is that God's Commands Test the Conditions of our Faith. Calvin and Luther agreed that what this well known story of Abraham and Isaac describes is that GOD's PROMISE & GOD's COMMAND contradict!
Further, Luther described that this is where Faith is superior to Human Reason and Philosophy, because logic and reason can only prove one thing or another, and faith wrestles with the contradictions. The only faithful response to God's Command could be “YES LORD”, yet sacrificing Isaac in addition to being abhorrent is a sacrifice of the realization of the promise, making it a only a promise.
Decades before, God had called Abram and his partner to leave home and everything they had known, to follow God's Command, with the promise that being faithful, they would be given a Great Name, a Great Land, and become the parents of new tribes of peoples. But for decades this older couple had been nomads, wanderers, they lived with only the UnFulfilled Promise. Eventually, by using others, Sarah is able to get a child for Abraham, by having her slave impregnated, who as a slave belonging to her as property, made the child Sarah's. Then Sarah conceived and bore Isaac, and being jealous that the other son was born first, had Ishmael and his mother Hagar banished.The test of this Passage is: now that Abraham possesses fulfillment of the promise, now that he has everything he ever wanted, will he follow God's Command even to sacrifice the fulfillment of the promise?
We said earlier that it was ironic the Lord's Prayer emphasizes “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” because part of the nature of God is to Test the conditions of our faith... But as much as God is Tempter and Tester, the Judge, the Commander; God is also the Provider, the Answer to our prayers, the Promise. Following God's Command, Abraham takes Isaac up the Mountain, and treats him as Sacrifice. It is important to realize that from this point forward, Abraham having taken their son, Sarah and Abraham never again speak. Having treated his son, not as a human being, not as Promise and gift of God, but as a thing, a Sacrifice to be slaughtered, Isaac and Abraham never again speak face to face. But up on the Mountain when Abraham follows God's command, when Abraham demonstrates that he so believes in God's Command that he is willing to give back the fulfillment as only a Promise again, suddenly it is revealed to them that there is a Ram caught in the thicket, a ram provided by God to be the Sacrifice.
The translation here, that God “provided” is unusual, as the literal word “ra-ah” means “to See”, but Karl Barth the great Theologian of the 1920s and our own Karlene Miller's Uncle, made the connection from Hebrew to Latin of “pro-video” meaning “TO SEE TO”, and thus from pro-video, we get the word provide. Barth uses this text as basis for his whole doctrine of “PROVIDENCE”, the Radical Affirmation that God knows all things good for us, and while there is fate, while there is evil, there is no other source of good in the world other than God.
We struggle, that God tests us, could lead us into temptations we do not want to face, but we take for granted that God does provide. This morning's Scriptures are not so much about the Testing of Abraham or even about our identity, as “Realization of Who God is”, and who God is in each of our lives. Because before we are ready to say the words, God is already part of our existence.
There is a tension in our lives, that as much as we try to consciously choose who we will be, where we go to school, what we will believe, as much control as we exercise over our lives, periodically God does does test us, with circumstance and with opportunities to choose the Good. The question is not only how we respond, but whether we acknowledge that God may be acting through us to one another? I was visiting with one of our members the other day, who said something to the effect of “I am not certain I am a Christian. I know Jesus to have been a real man, the best that ever lived, who as Lord and Savior brought me to God. But in my heart I worship God and him only.”
To which I can only affirm:
Jesus said “Whoever welcomes You, welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward.
One who receives another, who is right with God because they are, shall receive righteousness.
And who ever is compassionate and charitable and caring in their lives, even giving a cup of cold water to one who is a child of God, truly I say, they shall not lose their reward.”
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
"Ever New Beginnings" June 19, 2011 Trinity Sunday
Genesis 1:1 - 2:3
Matthew 28: 16-20
Every story growing up seemed to begin differently, “Once upon a time,” “In the Beginning,” “Long, long ago, in a far distant land, in a different galaxy,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Yet, at the end of the story, all the plots were reconciled, all the characters cared for, “And they lived happily ever after,” or as in a Shakespearean drama, everyone save the narrator lay dead, and there was the postscript “The End.” But in every way, the Bible is a curiosity, just a little bit different. Every ending seems to be an Ever New Beginning. “And there was evening and there was morning.” Jesus, the Savior, the Rabbi and Teacher, was arrested and put to death, his body buried, on the third day he rose from the dead, led the Disciples to Galilee of the Gentiles and Commissioned that they baptize and teach in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We are a people, whose imaginations are locked in a fixed reality. For the last few hundred years, we have known the dimensions of everything that exists in length and height and width, by breadth and depth, even in order from beginning to end. Our greatest desire seemed to be to quantify, to qualify, to order and control life itself. But we now live in a New Beginning, where in addition to what is tangible IS what is Virtual. Where in addition to speaking words and writing language, we blog and text, where we can share all our thoughts. Our histories are written of persons like Paul Revere, who rode through Village and Town calling “To Arms to Arms, the British are Coming.” Of underground groups working together, communicating by code. In the last several months we have been witness to Revolutions across the Middle east, orchestrated and a critical mass accomplished by Facebook and Twitter. A generation ago, we were taught The Scientific Method as absolute, that the goal of education, the whole purpose of knowledge was to prove, to know, to have certainty. In the early 1980s two students working on their degrees in Education came to the realization that nothing could ever be proven. There was always exception to the rule, bits of evidence that began new theories. All we can know is our experience, and how that reality creates new beginnings for others.
In Confirmation Class, the minister attempted to explain the Trinity that God was the Creator. Jesus was the Redeemer, the Savior, who was born and lived and died and rose again 2000 years ago. Which meant that the Holy Spirit is God with us today. As if these were three separate historically bound Gods or God at different ages. But what if Creation is not fixed and static and controlled? What if God is continuing to Create ever new ideas, ever new dimensions to reality, today? What if Jesus were not only that one man born in Bethlehem in the time of the Caesars, but present in redemption, offering hope throughout human history? What if Genesis is not so much about HOW Creation Began, or WHY, but instead an affirmation of WHO Created?
There are so many delightful elements to this passage of Genesis! First, the Ordering, both that beginnings arise out of what has been before, not destroying so much as providing balance. Light does not destroy the darkness, Dry land does not replace the water, what is created creates a new beginning with a new balance. But also, that everything, all of creation from light and darkness, to microscopic organisms and sea monsters, God and humanity, ALL are inter-related in this creation. No one element can be removed without effecting everything else. The first half of Creation is about creating a HABITAT, a place of being. The Second half involves filling that Habitat with INHABITANTS and how they shall procreate and replicate and continue throughout time.
What is Fascinating about this narrative, is that thousands and thousands of years before Darwin, before Sir Isaac Newton, before Plato and Aristotle, the Ancient Believers got the Order of Evolutionary Creation! Prior to there being human beings, there had to have been other mammals, and before these birds and fish and organisms in the waters. Before Vertebrates and Invertebrates there had to have been plants and for plants there needed to be soil in balance with water, there needed to be an atmosphere, for lack of a better word a firmament (foundations that hold up what is out there) and that light was created out of the dark and void. SO before anything else, do we believe that life as complicated and complex as this creation, do we believe that life began as an accidental cataclysm of combustible gases? Or, do we believe that greater than anything we can know, before anything we can imagine, that there is God wanting us to exist?
Language, be it that “God Said Let There Be,” or the finest compilation of words and idioms, grammar and poetry, or the texting of letters and numerics to instantly express our thoughts inspiring revolutions, language continually opens up new beginnings. In the Beginning, the Spirit is described as BROODING OVER THE FACE OF THE DEEP. Do we understand this to mean that God was introspective, moody, searching the Depths of Chaos, Expectantly Waiting, all of which are words describing closure, focus, going more and more intense? But the same phrase which is translated as BROODING can also mean SWEPT as like a broom that pushes and moves, gathering together, while also scattering beyond.
A more basic and volatile argument than between Creationists and Evolutionists, has been over translation of the very first word of Creation. In Hebrew the phrase can be translated either “IN THE BEGINNING” or “WHEN GOD BEGAN TO CREATE”, which suggests that before time and space, God may have done something else. Which then also establishes that everything we know and have experienced is simply foundation for what is to come in Ever New Beginnings.
The end of the Gospel of Matthew is delightful. Earlier, Jesus had already SENT OUT the Disciples with power to Preach, to Heal, to Pray, to Accomplish Miracles. What happens in Matthew after the resurrection, is that The Teacher Commissions the Disciples to go and Teach. Rather than possessing some new power or understanding, rather than having mastered knowledge and being graduated to be experts, Jesus sends the disciples out as INTERNS. Interns have a wealth of knowledge and need to experience, need to ask questions, need to make applications of what they know, the miracles they have seen and heard done to their lives.
How different would our faith and understanding of life be, if the Canon of Scripture were not arranged from Genesis to Exodus to Kings to Prophets to Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles to Revelation, but Instead Began with The Parables of WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR and REDEEMING THE LOST, Commissioning the INTERNS to Go and Teach and Learn and Baptize, that eventually led to EVER NEW BEGINNINGS?
The World, even our membership seem to have discounted what we believe/ who we are as believers, as if the Church were a static institution, a known quantity, with established answers as opposed to fresh experience and questions. I am about as thoroughly learned as a pastor can be having gone on for seven years of education after College Graduation, my father and mother were also were Seminary trained Presbyterians, and their fathers and mothers were Presbyterians. Yet, a few years ago, we experienced something I had never seen before. There was a woman who was an active leader in the Church, an ordained Elder, Chair of our Missions. Her husband was a man who had retired from Professional life, who had grown up in Edinburgh and though he now wanted to be had never been Baptized. We met together over several weeks, the morning we were to share the Sacrament, he walked up this aisle, and having recited the phrases we did this morning “We Baptize in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”, we asked “Who is Your Lord and Savior?” And rather than giving the established Answer, he stopped and you could see from his expression he was weighing the possibilities, thinking through what do I believe, who is the greatest authority in my life, do I have a Lord and Savior, and having thought about the answer, he replied “GOD!” I am not certain I can describe what witnessing that has meant as it created ever new beginnings of others being baptized.
Matthew 28: 16-20
Every story growing up seemed to begin differently, “Once upon a time,” “In the Beginning,” “Long, long ago, in a far distant land, in a different galaxy,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Yet, at the end of the story, all the plots were reconciled, all the characters cared for, “And they lived happily ever after,” or as in a Shakespearean drama, everyone save the narrator lay dead, and there was the postscript “The End.” But in every way, the Bible is a curiosity, just a little bit different. Every ending seems to be an Ever New Beginning. “And there was evening and there was morning.” Jesus, the Savior, the Rabbi and Teacher, was arrested and put to death, his body buried, on the third day he rose from the dead, led the Disciples to Galilee of the Gentiles and Commissioned that they baptize and teach in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We are a people, whose imaginations are locked in a fixed reality. For the last few hundred years, we have known the dimensions of everything that exists in length and height and width, by breadth and depth, even in order from beginning to end. Our greatest desire seemed to be to quantify, to qualify, to order and control life itself. But we now live in a New Beginning, where in addition to what is tangible IS what is Virtual. Where in addition to speaking words and writing language, we blog and text, where we can share all our thoughts. Our histories are written of persons like Paul Revere, who rode through Village and Town calling “To Arms to Arms, the British are Coming.” Of underground groups working together, communicating by code. In the last several months we have been witness to Revolutions across the Middle east, orchestrated and a critical mass accomplished by Facebook and Twitter. A generation ago, we were taught The Scientific Method as absolute, that the goal of education, the whole purpose of knowledge was to prove, to know, to have certainty. In the early 1980s two students working on their degrees in Education came to the realization that nothing could ever be proven. There was always exception to the rule, bits of evidence that began new theories. All we can know is our experience, and how that reality creates new beginnings for others.
In Confirmation Class, the minister attempted to explain the Trinity that God was the Creator. Jesus was the Redeemer, the Savior, who was born and lived and died and rose again 2000 years ago. Which meant that the Holy Spirit is God with us today. As if these were three separate historically bound Gods or God at different ages. But what if Creation is not fixed and static and controlled? What if God is continuing to Create ever new ideas, ever new dimensions to reality, today? What if Jesus were not only that one man born in Bethlehem in the time of the Caesars, but present in redemption, offering hope throughout human history? What if Genesis is not so much about HOW Creation Began, or WHY, but instead an affirmation of WHO Created?
There are so many delightful elements to this passage of Genesis! First, the Ordering, both that beginnings arise out of what has been before, not destroying so much as providing balance. Light does not destroy the darkness, Dry land does not replace the water, what is created creates a new beginning with a new balance. But also, that everything, all of creation from light and darkness, to microscopic organisms and sea monsters, God and humanity, ALL are inter-related in this creation. No one element can be removed without effecting everything else. The first half of Creation is about creating a HABITAT, a place of being. The Second half involves filling that Habitat with INHABITANTS and how they shall procreate and replicate and continue throughout time.
What is Fascinating about this narrative, is that thousands and thousands of years before Darwin, before Sir Isaac Newton, before Plato and Aristotle, the Ancient Believers got the Order of Evolutionary Creation! Prior to there being human beings, there had to have been other mammals, and before these birds and fish and organisms in the waters. Before Vertebrates and Invertebrates there had to have been plants and for plants there needed to be soil in balance with water, there needed to be an atmosphere, for lack of a better word a firmament (foundations that hold up what is out there) and that light was created out of the dark and void. SO before anything else, do we believe that life as complicated and complex as this creation, do we believe that life began as an accidental cataclysm of combustible gases? Or, do we believe that greater than anything we can know, before anything we can imagine, that there is God wanting us to exist?
Language, be it that “God Said Let There Be,” or the finest compilation of words and idioms, grammar and poetry, or the texting of letters and numerics to instantly express our thoughts inspiring revolutions, language continually opens up new beginnings. In the Beginning, the Spirit is described as BROODING OVER THE FACE OF THE DEEP. Do we understand this to mean that God was introspective, moody, searching the Depths of Chaos, Expectantly Waiting, all of which are words describing closure, focus, going more and more intense? But the same phrase which is translated as BROODING can also mean SWEPT as like a broom that pushes and moves, gathering together, while also scattering beyond.
A more basic and volatile argument than between Creationists and Evolutionists, has been over translation of the very first word of Creation. In Hebrew the phrase can be translated either “IN THE BEGINNING” or “WHEN GOD BEGAN TO CREATE”, which suggests that before time and space, God may have done something else. Which then also establishes that everything we know and have experienced is simply foundation for what is to come in Ever New Beginnings.
The end of the Gospel of Matthew is delightful. Earlier, Jesus had already SENT OUT the Disciples with power to Preach, to Heal, to Pray, to Accomplish Miracles. What happens in Matthew after the resurrection, is that The Teacher Commissions the Disciples to go and Teach. Rather than possessing some new power or understanding, rather than having mastered knowledge and being graduated to be experts, Jesus sends the disciples out as INTERNS. Interns have a wealth of knowledge and need to experience, need to ask questions, need to make applications of what they know, the miracles they have seen and heard done to their lives.
How different would our faith and understanding of life be, if the Canon of Scripture were not arranged from Genesis to Exodus to Kings to Prophets to Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles to Revelation, but Instead Began with The Parables of WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR and REDEEMING THE LOST, Commissioning the INTERNS to Go and Teach and Learn and Baptize, that eventually led to EVER NEW BEGINNINGS?
The World, even our membership seem to have discounted what we believe/ who we are as believers, as if the Church were a static institution, a known quantity, with established answers as opposed to fresh experience and questions. I am about as thoroughly learned as a pastor can be having gone on for seven years of education after College Graduation, my father and mother were also were Seminary trained Presbyterians, and their fathers and mothers were Presbyterians. Yet, a few years ago, we experienced something I had never seen before. There was a woman who was an active leader in the Church, an ordained Elder, Chair of our Missions. Her husband was a man who had retired from Professional life, who had grown up in Edinburgh and though he now wanted to be had never been Baptized. We met together over several weeks, the morning we were to share the Sacrament, he walked up this aisle, and having recited the phrases we did this morning “We Baptize in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”, we asked “Who is Your Lord and Savior?” And rather than giving the established Answer, he stopped and you could see from his expression he was weighing the possibilities, thinking through what do I believe, who is the greatest authority in my life, do I have a Lord and Savior, and having thought about the answer, he replied “GOD!” I am not certain I can describe what witnessing that has meant as it created ever new beginnings of others being baptized.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
"Would that the Lord Would", June 12, 2011
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts 2:1-21
REMEMBER this day. Not because of some terrorist attack, or cataclysm of the Stock Market. Remember this day. Not because of some great birth, or some tragic loss. Remember this day! Because in about seven to nine months, we will be whining and complaining about the cold and snow, and many will have forgot that we had a week last June when the temperatures in CNY were at 100 and we cried out that it be cooler. The great difficulty is that God has No Modulation. Faith in God cannot be controlled. There is evidence God heard the people's cry and responded. There is evidence of God setting the people free. God dispersed the people of God to the ends of the earth. God became human, demonstrating what it is to be neighbor to one another, using neighbor as a verb-form of how to live/act and the human response was “But which neighbors? Who is my neighbor?” God is an All or Nothing. We cannot be devoted to God and also have other equal priorities. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary could not be a little bit pregnant, there was only barrenness, or being filled with the holy spirit.
There are those who read the Bible, self-assured that every passage has a particular answer, and all we need do is to be taught to have the proper questions when reading, to have the right answers given to us. But the beauty of Scripture, like a painting of one of the Great Masters, is that beholding the story, we glimpse minor stories in the crowd as well. The Book of Numbers describes the Wilderness Wanderings, as the escaped Slaves from Egypt are multiplied to become a great Nation. Numbers is the personal revelation of Moses, being changed from the Shepherd of his Father-in-law's flocks into the Archetype of Leader, who was Prophet and spokesperson for God, recipient of the Commandments, the leader of the Nation of Israel, who guided the people of God for 40 years, guided them from Slavery and Oppression to the Promised land. Here in the 11th Chapter, there is description of the miracle food of the Wilderness: MANNA. Manna was gritty and seed like, the size of coriander seed, and the consistency of gum resin, but dried it could be ground like flour, Manna was naturally filled with protein and nutrients. What Manna truly was, know one knows, for it was the food of the wilderness.
Like flour, manna could be made into pancakes and tortillas, doughnuts, and bread, cakes and pie crusts. Manna was the ubiquitous food that could become anything, and used to hold or compliment any meal... but therein was the difficulty, because there were no other foods. Manna was like eating Hotdog buns, without the hotdog. Like a multi-layer cake without icing, a piecrust without filling, a tortilla with nothing inside. So it was that the people were not satisfied and complained of wanting more, wanting meat, where's the beef. Moses heard their complaints and whining, and Moses did some complaining of his own. Being alone as Leader was no fun. The responsibilities were more than any one person could do. In addition to the expectations of the Job, there were people's other expectations, and his expectations of himself. Certainly there was with him Moses' brother Aaron, the first priest, but the last time Aaron was left alone to lead, there was that incident with the golden calf and idol worship. There was Moses' and Aaron's sister Miriam, but she had a rather vicious side, watching from the riverbank without saying a word as Baby Moses floated down the river Nile, dancing and singing over the dead bodies of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and their horses, the morning after the Red Sea. Pentecost emphasizes that as a people of faith none of us can be that community alone. No one of us can have faith for a lifetime, can change the world, can cope with the loneliness of life, alone.
The great difficulty is that God has no modulation, faith is an all or nothing proposition, where if we choose to believe in God, then God must be allowed to be God and we cannot try to be God ourselves. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary found they could not be a little bit pregnant. We had over 200 inches of snow, an accumulation approaching 20 feet and many of us complained wanting warmth, wanting sun light, wanting an end to snow. Whereupon in May and June here in the northern-most climates the heat rested in the 90s and approached 100. The people of Israel complained of the lack of anything but Manna, when suddenly they found quail, not just a few birds for 20 miles in every direction, three feet deep, there was quail. Like one of the Plagues of Pharaoh suddenly they had quail until it was coming out their noses! Moses had whined about the lack of leadership, the need to have others to share responsibility with; and at God's command he appointed 70 elders who went out to the Tent of Meeting to receive the Holy Spirit, but Eldad and Medad who had not gone out to the Tent but remained in the Village received the Spirit as well. Like quail 3 feet deep, like 100 degrees in the Spring, Moses recognizes God's gift of leadership cannot be controlled, and this is not an attack on his authority, but rather “WOULD THAT GOD WOULD APPOINT THE WHOLE COMMUNITY TO BE PROPHETS TOGETHER.”
We are very blessed as the Church in this place this day. We have one of the most gifted Sessions and Board of Deacons, any Church has ever known. This Church has continually had strong leadership, the distinction of this moment is that Session and Deacons each seem to recognize the gifts each possess and the enormous responsibilities of faith. In many ways, the tasks before the Church today are as monumental as any we have faced. No longer do we need to raise millions of dollars. No longer do we need to be displaced, with offices in the narthex and dust everywhere, because of renovations. But as a Church, we have invited and welcomed and broadened the Church, now needing to deepen commitment, to challenge involvement to accept the all or nothing of God.
Acts 2:1-21
REMEMBER this day. Not because of some terrorist attack, or cataclysm of the Stock Market. Remember this day. Not because of some great birth, or some tragic loss. Remember this day! Because in about seven to nine months, we will be whining and complaining about the cold and snow, and many will have forgot that we had a week last June when the temperatures in CNY were at 100 and we cried out that it be cooler. The great difficulty is that God has No Modulation. Faith in God cannot be controlled. There is evidence God heard the people's cry and responded. There is evidence of God setting the people free. God dispersed the people of God to the ends of the earth. God became human, demonstrating what it is to be neighbor to one another, using neighbor as a verb-form of how to live/act and the human response was “But which neighbors? Who is my neighbor?” God is an All or Nothing. We cannot be devoted to God and also have other equal priorities. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary could not be a little bit pregnant, there was only barrenness, or being filled with the holy spirit.
There are those who read the Bible, self-assured that every passage has a particular answer, and all we need do is to be taught to have the proper questions when reading, to have the right answers given to us. But the beauty of Scripture, like a painting of one of the Great Masters, is that beholding the story, we glimpse minor stories in the crowd as well. The Book of Numbers describes the Wilderness Wanderings, as the escaped Slaves from Egypt are multiplied to become a great Nation. Numbers is the personal revelation of Moses, being changed from the Shepherd of his Father-in-law's flocks into the Archetype of Leader, who was Prophet and spokesperson for God, recipient of the Commandments, the leader of the Nation of Israel, who guided the people of God for 40 years, guided them from Slavery and Oppression to the Promised land. Here in the 11th Chapter, there is description of the miracle food of the Wilderness: MANNA. Manna was gritty and seed like, the size of coriander seed, and the consistency of gum resin, but dried it could be ground like flour, Manna was naturally filled with protein and nutrients. What Manna truly was, know one knows, for it was the food of the wilderness.
Like flour, manna could be made into pancakes and tortillas, doughnuts, and bread, cakes and pie crusts. Manna was the ubiquitous food that could become anything, and used to hold or compliment any meal... but therein was the difficulty, because there were no other foods. Manna was like eating Hotdog buns, without the hotdog. Like a multi-layer cake without icing, a piecrust without filling, a tortilla with nothing inside. So it was that the people were not satisfied and complained of wanting more, wanting meat, where's the beef. Moses heard their complaints and whining, and Moses did some complaining of his own. Being alone as Leader was no fun. The responsibilities were more than any one person could do. In addition to the expectations of the Job, there were people's other expectations, and his expectations of himself. Certainly there was with him Moses' brother Aaron, the first priest, but the last time Aaron was left alone to lead, there was that incident with the golden calf and idol worship. There was Moses' and Aaron's sister Miriam, but she had a rather vicious side, watching from the riverbank without saying a word as Baby Moses floated down the river Nile, dancing and singing over the dead bodies of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and their horses, the morning after the Red Sea. Pentecost emphasizes that as a people of faith none of us can be that community alone. No one of us can have faith for a lifetime, can change the world, can cope with the loneliness of life, alone.
The great difficulty is that God has no modulation, faith is an all or nothing proposition, where if we choose to believe in God, then God must be allowed to be God and we cannot try to be God ourselves. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary found they could not be a little bit pregnant. We had over 200 inches of snow, an accumulation approaching 20 feet and many of us complained wanting warmth, wanting sun light, wanting an end to snow. Whereupon in May and June here in the northern-most climates the heat rested in the 90s and approached 100. The people of Israel complained of the lack of anything but Manna, when suddenly they found quail, not just a few birds for 20 miles in every direction, three feet deep, there was quail. Like one of the Plagues of Pharaoh suddenly they had quail until it was coming out their noses! Moses had whined about the lack of leadership, the need to have others to share responsibility with; and at God's command he appointed 70 elders who went out to the Tent of Meeting to receive the Holy Spirit, but Eldad and Medad who had not gone out to the Tent but remained in the Village received the Spirit as well. Like quail 3 feet deep, like 100 degrees in the Spring, Moses recognizes God's gift of leadership cannot be controlled, and this is not an attack on his authority, but rather “WOULD THAT GOD WOULD APPOINT THE WHOLE COMMUNITY TO BE PROPHETS TOGETHER.”
We are very blessed as the Church in this place this day. We have one of the most gifted Sessions and Board of Deacons, any Church has ever known. This Church has continually had strong leadership, the distinction of this moment is that Session and Deacons each seem to recognize the gifts each possess and the enormous responsibilities of faith. In many ways, the tasks before the Church today are as monumental as any we have faced. No longer do we need to raise millions of dollars. No longer do we need to be displaced, with offices in the narthex and dust everywhere, because of renovations. But as a Church, we have invited and welcomed and broadened the Church, now needing to deepen commitment, to challenge involvement to accept the all or nothing of God.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
"Returning to Return", June 5, 2011
Acts 1: 1-14
Ephesians 1: 15-23
What do we believe? Of all the elements of faith, this is the one that gives rational people fits. We can explain away, how God created all Creation in seven days, speculating that as time was not yet created, there were more than 24 hours/ day, and as we have wished more than 60 minutes in an hour. We can conceive how Moses and the Israelites escaped through the Red Sea and survived for 40 years on Manna in the wilderness; how the blowing trumpets and prayer could bring down a City's walls.
We can even imagine that because God So Loved the world, that Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Ubiquitous God could take off divinity to be INCARNATE in Jesus Christ. We can listen to all the miracle stories, including the resurrection from death upon the Cross to life ever-lasting. For the last 40 days, we have read of his appearance and teaching the disciples after the resurrection of Easter morn, with proof of the resurrection in that he broke bread, cooked and ate fish with them, and they physically had touched his wounds and suffering. But that Jesus' body then stepped upon a cloud and flew into heaven, takes a suspension of reality most of us have difficulty understanding.
Faith is not about understanding HOW, unpacking those realities is a matter of science and physics. Faith gets at THE WHY of what else goes on in life. When a good friend develops dementia, we can hear explanations about the quantity of Seratonin and Neoponephran in the brain. When a loved one dies, we can have an autopsy done to determine causes of death, and how often we abuse ourselves questioning what we could have done to prevent this. But these do not address the hole and void we feel, at their being gone. Just as when a couple fall in love, we can interpret how differing experiences and stimuli were right to bring these two together at precisely this moment in their lives, but that does not explain love. All these do not address the WHY of the meaning of life.
To every person, there come points of realization, that as much as we try to control our lives, as often as we inadvertently attempt to make every circumstance about ourselves, there are limits to our control and influence, and we know there must be, has got to be, something greater than we ourselves. Whether the intricate complexity of the universe' intelligent design; the humility of another's compassion; or awe at the mystery of birth, with the beauty of cuticles and eyelashes; or simply the need for companionship in the dark nights of our souls, we need God. Not physical idols created by our hands, not gods of war, gods of love and gods of mountaintops, but need of God who is above all and in all, the source and judge of all life, who cares about each of us. Even more, that nothing in life, not Angels, Governments, or Armies, not Economies or Quarantines, not even death, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which was demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ! But as proof of his humanity, Jesus' body died and rose again.
The Ascension settles three things for us.
First, foremost, that all that Jesus experienced, knew in life and death and resurrection is not lost, gone. Generations afterward, we have the words of Lincoln; we possess the thought of our Nation's Founding Fathers, and the purpose of the Supreme Court is to interpret and apply their expressed intent in the Constitution to differing circumstance today; we possess the words of Shakespeare and every actor and director find ways to make the words come alive differently. However, the Ascension is faith that Jesus Christ is alive, able to feel, to suffer, to know. Not interpreted and applied, but that the same Jesus lives. Second, that the Messiah sits at the right hand of God. God may be able to be at all places at all times, the Holy Spirit is able to be felt and change the lives of people everywhere, but Jesus had a physical body, which atoned for our sin, which is right in front of God. Is there anything, in all of life, that God cannot forgive, seeing the witness of Christ continually before God's face?
He stepped upon a cloud and floated, we cannot explain, except that as Christ came from God, he returned to God, that he can return at any point in our lives, in our suffering or in our love, there will always be forgiveness.
What the Ascension does for us, is to allow us to believe spiritually, theologically, to think not only with our rational minds, but our relational selves as well. The Enlightenment is less than 500 years old, described as an experiment, to attempt to describe and to know the rules governing the natural world. But humanity knew of life long before the Enlightenment, before Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon, before Ben Franklin, before Isaac Newton. Somehow, we have come to believe that life was an either/or proposition; either we can believe in Natural Law and Natural Order, or we can believe in things spiritual. But as much as we have proven, as much as we can know, there are always exceptions to every rule.
The Letter to the Ephesians is delightful for so many reasons, chief among them, that it begins: “I have heard of your faith in the Lord and your love toward all the saints.” There is a difference between publicity and reputation. Publicity are those things we put forth about ourselves, for others to know. I have even had those, who so desired to control how people thought of them, that they left word for what was to be said at their funeral after they were dead. Part of the joy of celebrating weddings is working with couples listening to what they want their marriages to be. Reputation is how others describe us, what happens outside of our ability to control.
Yesterday, it poured rain, and the bride fretted about how to control the heavens. There was also a wedding across the street, and how to orchestrate parking. Yet, at the appointed hour, everyone came together, and as the bride stood with her groom, the two year old flower girl cheered “YEA!” And in that their day was also the anniversary of their parents' wedding, we had the parents stand and renew their vows as well. One of my favorite memories of any wedding, was the one where at the end of the wedding, I raised my hand for the Blessing of the Couple and the bride seeing my arm in the air, High Fived the minister. There is a spontaneity to life itself, far beyond our ability to explain, to document, to plan or to control. Far more important than what publicity we tell others about ourselves, are how we are known.
It would be easy for us as a congregation to publicize that in addition to our annual budget which designates 15% for Mission, we have created and partnered with others to create non-profit corporations funding a Clinic in Sudan, an affordable Seniors' Residence and Food Pantry, and so many other causes locally that together generate 4 times as much being given to Charitable Causes as we spend upon ourselves. But giving up CONTROL and trusting the Spirit, it is far better to hear others describe, “When my mother died, the church were there for her and for our family.” “When my daughter married, and her sister wanted her children baptized, the church found ways to make their dreams come true.” When the clinic was built, “Miracles took place” the day we discovered the well had run dry, a well driller came to a wedding in the village. In the past 8 out of 10 babies died, 50% of mothers in labor and delivery, and today infant and maternal death is seen as rare and preventable. Presbyterians in Central New York, particularly people from Skaneateles, are not usually known for our faith in miracles; but such experiences have changed us... empowering us to look at life and at one another differently, that this Reality is God's creation. That there is Forgiveness. That in addition to Forgiveness and making amends, there can be true Redemption. That in addition to our individual relationships with God, we also have a communion among ourselves, that as we are forgiven we are changed and brought closer to God, we also are brought closer to one another in Christ's love.
Each of the Four Gospels tell the events of Jesus' Life, Teachings and Ministry in slightly different order. I have always thought that the conclusion of the Road to Emmaus actually belongs with the Ascension. That he took bread and giving thanks to God, broke it, and their eyes were open but now they saw him in many other places in life.
Ephesians 1: 15-23
What do we believe? Of all the elements of faith, this is the one that gives rational people fits. We can explain away, how God created all Creation in seven days, speculating that as time was not yet created, there were more than 24 hours/ day, and as we have wished more than 60 minutes in an hour. We can conceive how Moses and the Israelites escaped through the Red Sea and survived for 40 years on Manna in the wilderness; how the blowing trumpets and prayer could bring down a City's walls.
We can even imagine that because God So Loved the world, that Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Ubiquitous God could take off divinity to be INCARNATE in Jesus Christ. We can listen to all the miracle stories, including the resurrection from death upon the Cross to life ever-lasting. For the last 40 days, we have read of his appearance and teaching the disciples after the resurrection of Easter morn, with proof of the resurrection in that he broke bread, cooked and ate fish with them, and they physically had touched his wounds and suffering. But that Jesus' body then stepped upon a cloud and flew into heaven, takes a suspension of reality most of us have difficulty understanding.
Faith is not about understanding HOW, unpacking those realities is a matter of science and physics. Faith gets at THE WHY of what else goes on in life. When a good friend develops dementia, we can hear explanations about the quantity of Seratonin and Neoponephran in the brain. When a loved one dies, we can have an autopsy done to determine causes of death, and how often we abuse ourselves questioning what we could have done to prevent this. But these do not address the hole and void we feel, at their being gone. Just as when a couple fall in love, we can interpret how differing experiences and stimuli were right to bring these two together at precisely this moment in their lives, but that does not explain love. All these do not address the WHY of the meaning of life.
To every person, there come points of realization, that as much as we try to control our lives, as often as we inadvertently attempt to make every circumstance about ourselves, there are limits to our control and influence, and we know there must be, has got to be, something greater than we ourselves. Whether the intricate complexity of the universe' intelligent design; the humility of another's compassion; or awe at the mystery of birth, with the beauty of cuticles and eyelashes; or simply the need for companionship in the dark nights of our souls, we need God. Not physical idols created by our hands, not gods of war, gods of love and gods of mountaintops, but need of God who is above all and in all, the source and judge of all life, who cares about each of us. Even more, that nothing in life, not Angels, Governments, or Armies, not Economies or Quarantines, not even death, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which was demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ! But as proof of his humanity, Jesus' body died and rose again.
The Ascension settles three things for us.
First, foremost, that all that Jesus experienced, knew in life and death and resurrection is not lost, gone. Generations afterward, we have the words of Lincoln; we possess the thought of our Nation's Founding Fathers, and the purpose of the Supreme Court is to interpret and apply their expressed intent in the Constitution to differing circumstance today; we possess the words of Shakespeare and every actor and director find ways to make the words come alive differently. However, the Ascension is faith that Jesus Christ is alive, able to feel, to suffer, to know. Not interpreted and applied, but that the same Jesus lives. Second, that the Messiah sits at the right hand of God. God may be able to be at all places at all times, the Holy Spirit is able to be felt and change the lives of people everywhere, but Jesus had a physical body, which atoned for our sin, which is right in front of God. Is there anything, in all of life, that God cannot forgive, seeing the witness of Christ continually before God's face?
He stepped upon a cloud and floated, we cannot explain, except that as Christ came from God, he returned to God, that he can return at any point in our lives, in our suffering or in our love, there will always be forgiveness.
What the Ascension does for us, is to allow us to believe spiritually, theologically, to think not only with our rational minds, but our relational selves as well. The Enlightenment is less than 500 years old, described as an experiment, to attempt to describe and to know the rules governing the natural world. But humanity knew of life long before the Enlightenment, before Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon, before Ben Franklin, before Isaac Newton. Somehow, we have come to believe that life was an either/or proposition; either we can believe in Natural Law and Natural Order, or we can believe in things spiritual. But as much as we have proven, as much as we can know, there are always exceptions to every rule.
The Letter to the Ephesians is delightful for so many reasons, chief among them, that it begins: “I have heard of your faith in the Lord and your love toward all the saints.” There is a difference between publicity and reputation. Publicity are those things we put forth about ourselves, for others to know. I have even had those, who so desired to control how people thought of them, that they left word for what was to be said at their funeral after they were dead. Part of the joy of celebrating weddings is working with couples listening to what they want their marriages to be. Reputation is how others describe us, what happens outside of our ability to control.
Yesterday, it poured rain, and the bride fretted about how to control the heavens. There was also a wedding across the street, and how to orchestrate parking. Yet, at the appointed hour, everyone came together, and as the bride stood with her groom, the two year old flower girl cheered “YEA!” And in that their day was also the anniversary of their parents' wedding, we had the parents stand and renew their vows as well. One of my favorite memories of any wedding, was the one where at the end of the wedding, I raised my hand for the Blessing of the Couple and the bride seeing my arm in the air, High Fived the minister. There is a spontaneity to life itself, far beyond our ability to explain, to document, to plan or to control. Far more important than what publicity we tell others about ourselves, are how we are known.
It would be easy for us as a congregation to publicize that in addition to our annual budget which designates 15% for Mission, we have created and partnered with others to create non-profit corporations funding a Clinic in Sudan, an affordable Seniors' Residence and Food Pantry, and so many other causes locally that together generate 4 times as much being given to Charitable Causes as we spend upon ourselves. But giving up CONTROL and trusting the Spirit, it is far better to hear others describe, “When my mother died, the church were there for her and for our family.” “When my daughter married, and her sister wanted her children baptized, the church found ways to make their dreams come true.” When the clinic was built, “Miracles took place” the day we discovered the well had run dry, a well driller came to a wedding in the village. In the past 8 out of 10 babies died, 50% of mothers in labor and delivery, and today infant and maternal death is seen as rare and preventable. Presbyterians in Central New York, particularly people from Skaneateles, are not usually known for our faith in miracles; but such experiences have changed us... empowering us to look at life and at one another differently, that this Reality is God's creation. That there is Forgiveness. That in addition to Forgiveness and making amends, there can be true Redemption. That in addition to our individual relationships with God, we also have a communion among ourselves, that as we are forgiven we are changed and brought closer to God, we also are brought closer to one another in Christ's love.
Each of the Four Gospels tell the events of Jesus' Life, Teachings and Ministry in slightly different order. I have always thought that the conclusion of the Road to Emmaus actually belongs with the Ascension. That he took bread and giving thanks to God, broke it, and their eyes were open but now they saw him in many other places in life.
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