I Corinthians 1:1-25
Mark 13: 24-37
Do we really need reminder at the beginning of Advent, to “Keep Awake!”?
Three months ago, Labor Day happened, and we began the rush of Back to School programs/activities, followed by Halloween, and this last week driving 6-10 hours, so we could defrost the butter to bake the pie crusts and chop the celery and onions for stuffing, to put in the defrosted bird, during the Macy's Parade, all perfectly timed so everything came out of the oven just as Green Bay beat the Lions, in order that we could begin shopping before Black Friday.
We are a hyper-vigilant people, always waiting for the shoe to drop.
Keep awake?
If anything, we want the Church as alternative to culture, to pass out Sleep-Ease, to pacify and calm.
We have over 17,000 Starbucks Coffeeshops in 55 different countries, 11,000 here in the United States.
Keep awake?
For a decade, we have lived with war, fearful of attack, fearful of what has happened to sons/ daughters far away, fearful of the economy. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi all dead, each of the nations of the Middle East and North Africa changed, the axis of evil shifted, yet the genie is not back in the bottle, the dead have not been returned, prestige and honor feel tarnished. War and economics have not brought us a clear and decisive WIN.
Keep awake, not out of fear of the number of shopping days until Christmas, not because it is our turn to host the family and we have home repair projects to finish, not because we feel obligated to have the latest Zelda X Box game of Elmo Rockstar...
Keep awake, because as Christians, we know God loves the world, we know Christ has come and suffered and died and rose, to come again. We live expectantly waiting in HOPE for the redemption of the world. Keep awake, because Christ has come and will come again. Keep awake, spiritually, because there is so much around us to pacify our desires, to fill us with tryptophan, to comfort us with momentary wins and so much anxiety about loss.
Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel lived in fear, first of Egypt, then of the Canaanites, then the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Persians and Medes and Greeks, by the writing of the Gospels the Romans, the Pelipenicians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Europeans, … One empire after another, one invading army, one economy each built upon the failure of another.
The apocalyptic vision of Mark is not a specific warning about a specific end of the world on 11-11-11 or 12-12-12, but rather that basing our values and ethics on invading armies, the dominance of cultures, the power of economies, ultimately will bring loss.
Jesus begins with a different starting point, a different goal in mind.
Rather than our being focused on winning and losing and control, open your eyes to the broader vision, You witness stars falling from the sky and the sun and moon going black, open your mind to God's Cosmos.
One of my favorite moments as a pastor comes on Ash Wednesday. In the presence of all gathered, we burn the past, the palms of a year ago, our words of praise, our vain attempts to conquer, and one by one the people of God come forward to be marked with the ash and soot in the sign of the cross, and to be called by name as we hear the words: YOU ARE FORGIVEN.
At Advent, we each are blessed and given Hope.
YOU ARE LOVED. You are God's Little lambs, you are BLESSED;
and everything, all the world, everything of time and space and imagination, has been created for you. What will it take to open our eyes to see, there is no need to fight with one another?
No need for dominance. There is need for only one thing, to be responsible for what we are given.
The whole point of the coming Christmas is that we each and every one of us have the power to BLESS others. God loved the world so much, God entered in, God gave to us God's only begotten child, as Children of God can we not also enter in, into our own lives and relationships to bless one another?
This is an amazing community! Not because of Dickens. Not because of our schools. Not because of our businesses. Not even because of the wonderful churches and people. Truth be told, this is a community with great scandal and avoidance and suffering, with alcoholism and abuse. BUT this is also a community in which as a man, I have witnessed what I can only describe as miracles.
In a culture which demands, “WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME” one person after another has stepped up to say I do not want to be presumptuous but could I do this to help?
A few weeks ago, as the adults passed around a clipboard asking people to lead as Liturgist and Manor server, Chris said to his father: “I could do that, I would like to, can you help me do that.”
I have seen the pain of chronic illness, that we try to manage, that we chemically control, disease that escalates and symptoms become more frequent, knowing that this is what we will live with the rest of life and you have lived from crisis to crisis with fear of what is next, when suddenly there is HOPE, hope beyond anything you have ever experienced or believed was reasonable to expect.
At the start of Stewardship, we heard description of an ancient curse turned into a blessing and reality: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES! For an oppressed people centuries ago, this named that we would go from one situation to another, from one conquerer to another. For a people who had experienced stability and consistency, INTERESTING TIMES is naming of Change all around us. The BLESSING that is here, is when we open our eyes and minds to possibilities.
I am hopeful that the housing market will pick up again soon. Not because of economic worry & fears.
I love the old historic homes of this community, but after living in a house for a generation we often begin to see the house only as it has been, with limited future possibilities. When the house turns over and someone new moves into the community, walls begin to move, windows and porches appear.
Corinth was city of transplants, educated, upper-middle class immigrants, brought to populate a place. Each began to identify their loyalties, their identities out of personal relationships and possessions. The Church was structured differently in those days. The Church described itself as a community of faith, a religious society, without a church building, without a Session or Pastor or Presbytery. When problems arose, they appealed to their founding pastor, the Apostle Paul. As a Pastor, he BLESSED them, simply for being the Church in this place and time. Then called them to live into being what the Church could be, as more than so many individuals.
This Church in Skaneateles, in our earliest days identified ourselves as a Religious Society, a Community of Faith. Two of the chief functions of the Church in those days were to act as the Courts before their were local judges and lawyers, and to acts as the Church. What I mean by this, is that rather than being focused on judgement, crime and punishment and fines and imprisonment, the focus of the Religious Society as Court was to bring about ATONEMENT, REDEMPTION and FORGIVENESS between people who had wounded one another. In an era when in other parts of our nation the Hatfields and McCoys began feuds, when our leaders were deciding whether our new nation would have its Capital in Philadelphia, Washington DC or New York City, Skaneateles sought to be a community of faith. But also, we have as a society, as a church neglected what it once meant to be the Church. The focus of the Church was upon the Sacraments, and the preparation of believers to receive. We did not simply consume communion because it was the first Sunday of a given month, but we each considered how we have lived our lives, what is beneath our pains and squabbles, and whether spiritually in the presence of God we were ready to be forgiven, blessed, in communion with God. KEEP AWAKE and AWAKE anew!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
November, 13, 2011 "The Rule of 72"
Judges 11: 29-32
Matthew 25:14-30
The parable of the Talents is not about Stewardship! Just as the story of Jephthah's Vow is not that it would have been better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Both are descriptions of HUMAN FEAR, our desire through Knowledge, by the power of Knowing, to Control our Fears, to create Security and Safety, Protectionism.
In ancient Palestine, just as today, burying one's assets in the ground seemed better than leaving our livelihood exposed on the open market. Who among us, would not possess more today, if five years ago, before the Housing Bubble burst, before the Dot Com crash, we had taken out all we had and buried the value in the ground? This is not Biblical guidance about investing, or stewardship of assets, it is about a faithful response to Human FEAR.
If you asked an Investment Banker, one of those engaged on Wall-street in Wealth Management, how to double your investment, they would describe The Rule of 72. Assuming a guaranteed Interest rate of 5%, you divide that rate of interest by the number 72, and you have the number of years it will take to double it, 14-15 years. If you want that to be faster, you take on greater risk, with greater possibility of failure. In the world of Venture Capitalism, the norm used to be that 1 out of 5, some claimed only 1 out of 10 would make it, all the rest would lose everything. The reason why Preachers can describe this from the pulpit, is that today, no one can guarantee an Interest Rate of 5%.
Faith, we have been taught, is not about Venture Capitalism. For most of us, our Personal Faith is just the opposite of Risk. Our belief in God is a description of creating our Personal Comfort Zone in this life and the life to come. Faith is like theoretical acceptance of ideas about God and Jesus, a list of intellectual precepts and morals we accept as foundational. Faith becomes getting our personal theology right, then living a good life by avoiding what we know to be bad. Religion, is a pretty timid non-risky venture, if anything the salve and antithesis of our fears. That is NOT Biblical Faith.
Remember that according to Matthew, Jesus told this Parable in the midst of a string of parables about the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Fig Tree, Noah and the Ark, Daniel and signs of the End of Time. All of which are about the END coming, Christ and Judgement being delayed, and how believers are to act. We are to follow through on RESPONSIBILITY, especially when we do not know, when we are afraid.
A man was going a long journey so divided up what he had among three servants, giving each an enormous sum. To one, he gave 1 Talent = 15 years wages, to another 2 Talents 30 years wages, to a third 5 Talents the equivalent of 75 years of his wages. The one with the least, was the most afraid, claiming “to know” that the Lord was harsh, he hid what he had been given responsibility, so as to be able to give back exactly what he had been given. Does it change the story at all, to put dollar values to what was given? Imagine, the least was given $1,000,000. The second $2,000,000, the third $5,000,000. No longer is this about one being trusted with 5 times as much as the one with only 1, because that one is $1,000,000. Time goes by. When the LORD returns, the one with $5,000,000 risked everything and made $5,000,000 more, the one with $2,000,000 also doubled what she was responsible for, the rule of 72 is not about the dollar value but the risk of doubling. So following this rule, the one who actually risked the most was the one who risked nothing, and had nothing more. You have to wonder, it is not the way Jesus told the parable, but what would have happened if the one with $5,000,000 had lost everything? Given the telling of the parable, I have to believe, the LORD still would have greeted him saying “You risked everything you were responsible for, you tried, well done.”
Fear is a very present reality in our lives, we each know ourselves to be trustworthy, yet we live in a time of fear where everyone doubts the other. The first several days of the Occupy Wall-Street protests, no one seemed able to describe what they were protesting. For some it was a lack of jobs. For others, that they had lost everything. For others, that education had already put them over $100,000 in debt before ever starting out. We live perpetually on Orange Alert, waiting for the next terrorist attack, accepting as norm that we must remove out shoes and belts and be searched before flying. There has arisen a mood of helplessness and anomie. Nothing we do seems to effect our lot in life. There is unending war, that few are able to describe what we are fighting for. Our leaders seem detached concerned only with re-election and blaming the other. We are pre-occupied with entertainment and trivia. Because of all of this, we have become a polarized society of fear, each side blaming the other.
Jephthah is an odd hero. Rarely does the Lectionary have us read from the Book of Judges, yet in many ways this is an apt description of the times in which we live. There is a recurrent phrase throughout the Book of Judges, “The word of God was rare in those days, each person did what they judged to be right, what they knew to be right, in their own heart...” Jephthah was the son of Gilead, but whose mother had been a prostitute. Gilead had taken responsibility for Jephthah, but Jephthah's brothers feared and rejected him. Jephthah went to live with the most worthless kind and became a mercenary. His mother had sold her favors for money, so he sold his ability to kill for a price. And the people of Israel were afraid of the Canaanites, especially among them the tribe of the Amonites. They contracted with Jephthah to kill the Amonites. He went through Town after Village, killing everyone in his path, eleven cities were laid waste. But after all this, on the night before his final battle, Jephthah was afraid. Desperation and fear, do terrible things to us, and Jephthah made a solemn vow. Some of us might make a promise to turn over a new leaf and live life differently. Some before going into battle might make a sacrifice. Some this morning might instead of purchasing more stuff for Christmas, use our gifts for Alternative contributions, providing in a loved one's name a gift to the Food Pantry, or Health care, or Cancer research, or for care of our elders, or for purchase of a heifer to a village without milk. Jephthah makes a vow, that IF he could KNOW he would be victorious he would sacrifice anything, so if he wins, then he will make a sacrifice of the first thing he sees coming from his property... a lamb, a goat, a heifer, a field of grain, even a servant. Jephthah goes into battle and does win, he utterly and completely destroys his enemy, and knowing this, knows he must make a sacrifice, but when he come home his daughter, his only child comes running out to greet him. Fear does terrible things to us, more than anything else, fear makes us want to BIND our fear to something, to blame, to take our fear away.
Today, there is no guarantee of a 5% rate of interest. There is no guarantee of a rule of 72. We live in an eschatological time, an end time, where the world we knew, everything we assumed is changing. There is a great deal of fear all around us, fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, fear of a lack of control. This is not reason to sacrifice our what we believe in. Fear is not answered by protectionism, or a faith of abstract moral ideas. Faith is about risking everything for what you are responsible. When meeting with those presenting a child for Baptism, we tell them that you are claiming an identity for this individual, that they belong to God, they are known by God. When preparing couples for marriage, that in the same way, they are claiming a new identity of being responsible for one another, their identity is as wife or husband to the other for richer and poorer, better and worse, in sickness and in health.
I think there is a very creative commercial on television, that shows handing to someone a briefcase filled with $100,000 and describing that each of the persons who were asked to hold this, did not open it, did not take even a single dollar; though in our economy the banks, the investors, the government all take their share. Few of us are going to have someone hand us a $100,000, or $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 but simultaneously, the Social Media has created Facebook and Linked-in, and Tweeting, such that any of could between the people we know and those they know, could have 5,000,000 contacts, people we are responsible for. You possess a treasure, a pearl of great value that nations have gone to war for, a gift which people have given their lives for. Faith is taking responsibility for what has been given us. Will you use the faith given you? Will you pass your compassion, your charity, your ability to make a difference on to others? Or will you protect what yo have, live in fear, and bury your faith in the dirt?
Matthew 25:14-30
The parable of the Talents is not about Stewardship! Just as the story of Jephthah's Vow is not that it would have been better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Both are descriptions of HUMAN FEAR, our desire through Knowledge, by the power of Knowing, to Control our Fears, to create Security and Safety, Protectionism.
In ancient Palestine, just as today, burying one's assets in the ground seemed better than leaving our livelihood exposed on the open market. Who among us, would not possess more today, if five years ago, before the Housing Bubble burst, before the Dot Com crash, we had taken out all we had and buried the value in the ground? This is not Biblical guidance about investing, or stewardship of assets, it is about a faithful response to Human FEAR.
If you asked an Investment Banker, one of those engaged on Wall-street in Wealth Management, how to double your investment, they would describe The Rule of 72. Assuming a guaranteed Interest rate of 5%, you divide that rate of interest by the number 72, and you have the number of years it will take to double it, 14-15 years. If you want that to be faster, you take on greater risk, with greater possibility of failure. In the world of Venture Capitalism, the norm used to be that 1 out of 5, some claimed only 1 out of 10 would make it, all the rest would lose everything. The reason why Preachers can describe this from the pulpit, is that today, no one can guarantee an Interest Rate of 5%.
Faith, we have been taught, is not about Venture Capitalism. For most of us, our Personal Faith is just the opposite of Risk. Our belief in God is a description of creating our Personal Comfort Zone in this life and the life to come. Faith is like theoretical acceptance of ideas about God and Jesus, a list of intellectual precepts and morals we accept as foundational. Faith becomes getting our personal theology right, then living a good life by avoiding what we know to be bad. Religion, is a pretty timid non-risky venture, if anything the salve and antithesis of our fears. That is NOT Biblical Faith.
Remember that according to Matthew, Jesus told this Parable in the midst of a string of parables about the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Fig Tree, Noah and the Ark, Daniel and signs of the End of Time. All of which are about the END coming, Christ and Judgement being delayed, and how believers are to act. We are to follow through on RESPONSIBILITY, especially when we do not know, when we are afraid.
A man was going a long journey so divided up what he had among three servants, giving each an enormous sum. To one, he gave 1 Talent = 15 years wages, to another 2 Talents 30 years wages, to a third 5 Talents the equivalent of 75 years of his wages. The one with the least, was the most afraid, claiming “to know” that the Lord was harsh, he hid what he had been given responsibility, so as to be able to give back exactly what he had been given. Does it change the story at all, to put dollar values to what was given? Imagine, the least was given $1,000,000. The second $2,000,000, the third $5,000,000. No longer is this about one being trusted with 5 times as much as the one with only 1, because that one is $1,000,000. Time goes by. When the LORD returns, the one with $5,000,000 risked everything and made $5,000,000 more, the one with $2,000,000 also doubled what she was responsible for, the rule of 72 is not about the dollar value but the risk of doubling. So following this rule, the one who actually risked the most was the one who risked nothing, and had nothing more. You have to wonder, it is not the way Jesus told the parable, but what would have happened if the one with $5,000,000 had lost everything? Given the telling of the parable, I have to believe, the LORD still would have greeted him saying “You risked everything you were responsible for, you tried, well done.”
Fear is a very present reality in our lives, we each know ourselves to be trustworthy, yet we live in a time of fear where everyone doubts the other. The first several days of the Occupy Wall-Street protests, no one seemed able to describe what they were protesting. For some it was a lack of jobs. For others, that they had lost everything. For others, that education had already put them over $100,000 in debt before ever starting out. We live perpetually on Orange Alert, waiting for the next terrorist attack, accepting as norm that we must remove out shoes and belts and be searched before flying. There has arisen a mood of helplessness and anomie. Nothing we do seems to effect our lot in life. There is unending war, that few are able to describe what we are fighting for. Our leaders seem detached concerned only with re-election and blaming the other. We are pre-occupied with entertainment and trivia. Because of all of this, we have become a polarized society of fear, each side blaming the other.
Jephthah is an odd hero. Rarely does the Lectionary have us read from the Book of Judges, yet in many ways this is an apt description of the times in which we live. There is a recurrent phrase throughout the Book of Judges, “The word of God was rare in those days, each person did what they judged to be right, what they knew to be right, in their own heart...” Jephthah was the son of Gilead, but whose mother had been a prostitute. Gilead had taken responsibility for Jephthah, but Jephthah's brothers feared and rejected him. Jephthah went to live with the most worthless kind and became a mercenary. His mother had sold her favors for money, so he sold his ability to kill for a price. And the people of Israel were afraid of the Canaanites, especially among them the tribe of the Amonites. They contracted with Jephthah to kill the Amonites. He went through Town after Village, killing everyone in his path, eleven cities were laid waste. But after all this, on the night before his final battle, Jephthah was afraid. Desperation and fear, do terrible things to us, and Jephthah made a solemn vow. Some of us might make a promise to turn over a new leaf and live life differently. Some before going into battle might make a sacrifice. Some this morning might instead of purchasing more stuff for Christmas, use our gifts for Alternative contributions, providing in a loved one's name a gift to the Food Pantry, or Health care, or Cancer research, or for care of our elders, or for purchase of a heifer to a village without milk. Jephthah makes a vow, that IF he could KNOW he would be victorious he would sacrifice anything, so if he wins, then he will make a sacrifice of the first thing he sees coming from his property... a lamb, a goat, a heifer, a field of grain, even a servant. Jephthah goes into battle and does win, he utterly and completely destroys his enemy, and knowing this, knows he must make a sacrifice, but when he come home his daughter, his only child comes running out to greet him. Fear does terrible things to us, more than anything else, fear makes us want to BIND our fear to something, to blame, to take our fear away.
Today, there is no guarantee of a 5% rate of interest. There is no guarantee of a rule of 72. We live in an eschatological time, an end time, where the world we knew, everything we assumed is changing. There is a great deal of fear all around us, fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, fear of a lack of control. This is not reason to sacrifice our what we believe in. Fear is not answered by protectionism, or a faith of abstract moral ideas. Faith is about risking everything for what you are responsible. When meeting with those presenting a child for Baptism, we tell them that you are claiming an identity for this individual, that they belong to God, they are known by God. When preparing couples for marriage, that in the same way, they are claiming a new identity of being responsible for one another, their identity is as wife or husband to the other for richer and poorer, better and worse, in sickness and in health.
I think there is a very creative commercial on television, that shows handing to someone a briefcase filled with $100,000 and describing that each of the persons who were asked to hold this, did not open it, did not take even a single dollar; though in our economy the banks, the investors, the government all take their share. Few of us are going to have someone hand us a $100,000, or $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 but simultaneously, the Social Media has created Facebook and Linked-in, and Tweeting, such that any of could between the people we know and those they know, could have 5,000,000 contacts, people we are responsible for. You possess a treasure, a pearl of great value that nations have gone to war for, a gift which people have given their lives for. Faith is taking responsibility for what has been given us. Will you use the faith given you? Will you pass your compassion, your charity, your ability to make a difference on to others? Or will you protect what yo have, live in fear, and bury your faith in the dirt?
Sunday, November 6, 2011
November 6, 2011 "Choose of Chosen"
Joshua 24:1-4 & 14-25
Matthew 25: 1-13
A scientist in Idaho recently put forwad the following undisputed facts: The chemical compound "dihydrogenated-monoxide has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, mainly through accidental ingestion. In gaseous form, it can cause severe burns. The chemical is so caustic that it accelerates the corrosion of many metals... is a major component of acid rain, ... has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients. Symptoms of ingestion include excessive sweating and urination, and humanity has become so dependent upon this chemical that complete withdrawal means certain death. The presence of dihydrogenated-monoxide has been confirmed in every river, stream, lake, and reservoir in America. " Judging from these facts, do you think dihydrogenated-monoxide should be banned?" 86% of those surveyed agreed it should be banned. Follow-up surveys at the University of Notre Dame, Glasgow, Scotland, Stockton, California, yielded similar results. However, dihydrogenated-monoxide is commonly called water (H2O)! The scientist, fourteen-year-old Nathan Zohner won the Idaho State Science Fair by proving his project's thesis: "How Gullible Are We?"
This morning I would like you to reflect with me, not only on answering questions right, but the levels of our commitment... the depths of our faith, whether we have thought through that the answers we give are what we believe... and whether our words, whether what we believe matters?
With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God had freed the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh, by miracles God had brought them out of oppression through the Red Sea into the wilderness, through Moses God had given the people the 10 Commandments and Ark of the Covenant, God gave them Manna from Heaven and water out of solid rock, day in day out for forty years God had led and provided for the Chosen people. Moses died before entering the Promised land and Joshua had been appointed to lead after Moses. Israel had crossed the Jordan and conquered the city of Ai, then the great city of Jericho without a single weapon being fired. Now, after all of that, possessing the Law, possessing the Covenant, possessing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before Joshua dies without leaving a successor, he asks the people, the Chosen people of God “Choose again, whom will you serve?”
A simple comparison would be to ask the couple married for over forty years, after all that has happened, after worrying about the paying of bills, after putting one another through school, after the birth and raising of children, after building your home and paying down the mortgage, knowing that for many of us our life and death choices change in the last year of life, we spend 90% of the world's cost for Health care in the last 10% of our lives, will you choose to share your days with this partner?
Perhaps the more relevant question to the times we live in, after working a lifetime for a company, day in day out, in good economies and bad recessions, through world-wars, when you prepare for retirement, will the company still honor your pension?
This is an archaic story from a Biblical time far removed from our own. Our cultural values are not only of a manifest destiny, that every person can succeed and hard work results in profits, but that we so believe in democracy and individual rights we will go to war for other nations other people to have these rights. What Joshua was affirming this day, was not human rights, but loyalty to a Divine Power. Can we make the division, that economically, socially, politically people have the Human Right to vote, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, changing our minds as we often do; while at the same time committing to a loyalty to God, that not only on the day we join a congregation, not only when we are baptized or on the day of confirmation but deeper and deeper every day we affirm “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I trust and love the Lord”?
Many of us cannot. And if not, we need to be honest with ourselves, honest with our faith, that there is one God, and God only will we serve. Everything else will take care of itself. We do not need to be concerned with the latest electronic car, DROID or popular possession. Because to choose the LORD and not be faithful may be worse than never to have known God at all. We become a prostituted people who claim fidelity to God, while lusting after all the other idols.
To be a Believer AND to be in the world today requires a balancing, that as a citizen, as a human being, we have rights and responsibilities of freedom, to work hard and do our best; HOWEVER, always to remember that as much as the commercials are selling us on CHOOSING to possess the latest, hottest, sexiest thing, as much as we desire to choose to keep up with our neighbors, even that we would choose to lay down our lives defending the basic human rights of others, we are also a CHOSEN people of God, and all our lives are lived in response to God loving us. The most difficult part of which is that being a Chosen people may mean our being used by God to demonstrate that loyalty, that fidelity, that love.
The problem of the bridesmaids was not that they did not know they were bridesmaids, not that they had not brought the right wedding garment, or that they had forgotten their role as bearers of the light, but that they were distracted by worry their lamps would go out. A different wedding tradition than we are accustomed to, where the groom does not see the bride before the wedding and everyone tries to get the Groom's expression as the Sanctuary doors open and he says “Whoa!” At this time, all the bridesmaids and guests gathered at the Bride's parents home and when everything was ready at the Groom's home, when the dowry had been paid, when all was prepared, then the Bridegroom came to escort his bride to their wedding together. The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, is that the bridegroom is delayed in returning. Christ died over 2000 years ago, yet we are still here... Some came prepared with extra flasks of oil for 2000 years of waiting. Some panic at the last moment that they will not have enough to light their way and the way for the guests. They abandon their identity as bridesmaids at a wedding, to go buy more at midnight. While some are prepared and some are not, the question not asked is what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids had not run off to CVS to get more oil? The Scriptures are filled with stories of there being only a dram of oil for the feeding of the Widow and her son, yet it was enough to feed them and Elijah for 40 days and nights, the story of Chanukah is about the oil not running out.Surely as Bridesmaids on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven the oil would have lasted, or if not, they could have joined the other guests but they were pre-occupied by having their own supply, by buying the stuff that would satisfy their fears.
As a Chosen people, Choose this day whom you will serve, Choose Again.
Matthew 25: 1-13
A scientist in Idaho recently put forwad the following undisputed facts: The chemical compound "dihydrogenated-monoxide has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, mainly through accidental ingestion. In gaseous form, it can cause severe burns. The chemical is so caustic that it accelerates the corrosion of many metals... is a major component of acid rain, ... has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients. Symptoms of ingestion include excessive sweating and urination, and humanity has become so dependent upon this chemical that complete withdrawal means certain death. The presence of dihydrogenated-monoxide has been confirmed in every river, stream, lake, and reservoir in America. " Judging from these facts, do you think dihydrogenated-monoxide should be banned?" 86% of those surveyed agreed it should be banned. Follow-up surveys at the University of Notre Dame, Glasgow, Scotland, Stockton, California, yielded similar results. However, dihydrogenated-monoxide is commonly called water (H2O)! The scientist, fourteen-year-old Nathan Zohner won the Idaho State Science Fair by proving his project's thesis: "How Gullible Are We?"
This morning I would like you to reflect with me, not only on answering questions right, but the levels of our commitment... the depths of our faith, whether we have thought through that the answers we give are what we believe... and whether our words, whether what we believe matters?
With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God had freed the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh, by miracles God had brought them out of oppression through the Red Sea into the wilderness, through Moses God had given the people the 10 Commandments and Ark of the Covenant, God gave them Manna from Heaven and water out of solid rock, day in day out for forty years God had led and provided for the Chosen people. Moses died before entering the Promised land and Joshua had been appointed to lead after Moses. Israel had crossed the Jordan and conquered the city of Ai, then the great city of Jericho without a single weapon being fired. Now, after all of that, possessing the Law, possessing the Covenant, possessing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before Joshua dies without leaving a successor, he asks the people, the Chosen people of God “Choose again, whom will you serve?”
A simple comparison would be to ask the couple married for over forty years, after all that has happened, after worrying about the paying of bills, after putting one another through school, after the birth and raising of children, after building your home and paying down the mortgage, knowing that for many of us our life and death choices change in the last year of life, we spend 90% of the world's cost for Health care in the last 10% of our lives, will you choose to share your days with this partner?
Perhaps the more relevant question to the times we live in, after working a lifetime for a company, day in day out, in good economies and bad recessions, through world-wars, when you prepare for retirement, will the company still honor your pension?
This is an archaic story from a Biblical time far removed from our own. Our cultural values are not only of a manifest destiny, that every person can succeed and hard work results in profits, but that we so believe in democracy and individual rights we will go to war for other nations other people to have these rights. What Joshua was affirming this day, was not human rights, but loyalty to a Divine Power. Can we make the division, that economically, socially, politically people have the Human Right to vote, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, changing our minds as we often do; while at the same time committing to a loyalty to God, that not only on the day we join a congregation, not only when we are baptized or on the day of confirmation but deeper and deeper every day we affirm “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I trust and love the Lord”?
Many of us cannot. And if not, we need to be honest with ourselves, honest with our faith, that there is one God, and God only will we serve. Everything else will take care of itself. We do not need to be concerned with the latest electronic car, DROID or popular possession. Because to choose the LORD and not be faithful may be worse than never to have known God at all. We become a prostituted people who claim fidelity to God, while lusting after all the other idols.
To be a Believer AND to be in the world today requires a balancing, that as a citizen, as a human being, we have rights and responsibilities of freedom, to work hard and do our best; HOWEVER, always to remember that as much as the commercials are selling us on CHOOSING to possess the latest, hottest, sexiest thing, as much as we desire to choose to keep up with our neighbors, even that we would choose to lay down our lives defending the basic human rights of others, we are also a CHOSEN people of God, and all our lives are lived in response to God loving us. The most difficult part of which is that being a Chosen people may mean our being used by God to demonstrate that loyalty, that fidelity, that love.
The problem of the bridesmaids was not that they did not know they were bridesmaids, not that they had not brought the right wedding garment, or that they had forgotten their role as bearers of the light, but that they were distracted by worry their lamps would go out. A different wedding tradition than we are accustomed to, where the groom does not see the bride before the wedding and everyone tries to get the Groom's expression as the Sanctuary doors open and he says “Whoa!” At this time, all the bridesmaids and guests gathered at the Bride's parents home and when everything was ready at the Groom's home, when the dowry had been paid, when all was prepared, then the Bridegroom came to escort his bride to their wedding together. The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, is that the bridegroom is delayed in returning. Christ died over 2000 years ago, yet we are still here... Some came prepared with extra flasks of oil for 2000 years of waiting. Some panic at the last moment that they will not have enough to light their way and the way for the guests. They abandon their identity as bridesmaids at a wedding, to go buy more at midnight. While some are prepared and some are not, the question not asked is what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids had not run off to CVS to get more oil? The Scriptures are filled with stories of there being only a dram of oil for the feeding of the Widow and her son, yet it was enough to feed them and Elijah for 40 days and nights, the story of Chanukah is about the oil not running out.Surely as Bridesmaids on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven the oil would have lasted, or if not, they could have joined the other guests but they were pre-occupied by having their own supply, by buying the stuff that would satisfy their fears.
As a Chosen people, Choose this day whom you will serve, Choose Again.
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