"Righteousness," September 30, 2012

Esther 7:1-6 Mark 9:38-50 Mark Twain is said to have been asked Believing in A Believer Baptism whether he believed infants could be baptized? To which he retorted, “Believe in it? I have seen it happen!” Recently someone asked, as a learned and rational person, whether you believe in evil, in the presence of demonic forces all around us, in Satan and in Hell? The way I would want to answer the question is that there is evil in the world, there is great physical, emotional and spiritual harm we do to one another, and Yes when we turn a blind eye to suffering, when we allow fear, hate, prejudice and anger to rule, then the demonic is all around us. BUT, do I believe in Satan and Hell? As a man of God I must say NO and challenge you NOT TO BELIEVE IN HELL either. The point here is not the existence of Hell or Satan, but whether we give power to that which is wrong by BELIEVING in it. Mark's Gospel tells us that after Simon Peter confessed that he BELIEVED Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God; Peter and James and John went up the Mountain with Jesus where they experienced one of the most spiritual and mystical moments of human history as Moses and Elijah appeared before them, as Jesus was changed before their eyes, as they heard the Voice of God profess a blessing “This is my Beloved Son with whom I am Well Pleased, Listen to Him!” As they come down off the mountain the other disciples had been trying in vain to heal a child convulsed by something terrifying. Jesus prayed and the pain and suffering and fear and torment leave. Does the Bible encourage in belief in the spiritual and acknowledge that evil exists? Without question, ABSOLUTELY. However, there is a distinction between acknowledging the presence of something, fighting against it, versus in Believing in and lending credence, or turning a blind eye of tolerance to support what is evil. After all these spiritual mystical, faith-filled circumstance Jesus' disciples describe they saw a man who was trying to use the name of Jesus to heal someone. Having stood up for and defended Jesus, his disciples name that they rebuked the man. Instead, Jesus puts forward one of the most basic precepts of believing in God: “Anyone who is not against us, is for us!” In 2001, the world experienced a terrifying event, an act of hate and destruction, a circumstance of evil intended to change the world. Incredulously, commercial airplanes designed to fly above the heavens were made to crash into skyscrapers. What happened that day, was not simply that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were hit, not only that thousands of people died. What happened that day was that people across the world changed from believing in Innocence that “anyone who is not against us is for us,” to believing in the evil and suspicion and fear that “anyone that is not for us must be against us.” That is the power of terrorism. That is the power of believing in evil. The Biblical passages appointed for this day demonstrate the meaning of “Righteousness.” Not to be right! Not to be Moralistic, not what it is to Win, to dominate, to control, to believe in your own way at the cost of all others, that is Self-righteous, that is the way of Genocide and total annihilation of all others. Righteousness is a statement of solidarity, that we stand with God, we believe in God and the power of the Cross that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. That being right with the world, we believe in the power of hope, the power of compassion and empathy with those in need. We may have nothing in common with them, but the world is not our enemy, the stranger is not someone to be feared. Anyone who is not against us, is for us. Do we name what is evil, and root it out. Yes, because ignoring our problems does not make them go away. Lie a cancer ignored, hate and fear metastasize compromising more and more of the body. But we cannot allow ourselves to succumb to hate and fear and intolerance. The Book of Esther is an obscure tale, one which Christians rarely take time to read. We skim names like Ahasuerus and Mardecai and Haman, and we skip ahead to the suffering of The Book of Job. The Book of Esther comes from Iran, from the ancient kingdoms of Persia. After the Fall of the Nation of Israel, after the deportation to Babylon, the people from Jerusalem were carried off as Prisoners of War and Slaves. But generations later, the Babylonians were defeated in battle by the Persians, who in turn took the Babylonians as slaves. Esther is the story of a woman in world dominated by men, who was a Prisoner of War of a people who themselves were Prisoners of War. This is a story of being powerless. Esther is a comical farce, to the extent of mellow-drama, the basis of the Jewish Feast of Purim. Not just a soap-opera, whenever the name of the Villain Haman was mentioned, everyone hearing would BOO! Ironically for a Biblical narrative, throughout the story, God is never directly mentioned. Whenever the Jewish Hero, Mordecai, the old man who like a benevolent uncle acts quietly behind the scenes is mentioned, the crowds would CHEER! To show what a farce this tale represented, the King of Persia is described as so full of himself and the facade of appearances that he attempted to demonstrate how beautiful his wife the Queen was, and how jealous all the other men should be, by having her appear at a State Banquet, Nude. When she refused, the King decided to replace her as Queen by having a Beauty-pageant. Because of all of this, whenever the name of King Ahasuerus is mentioned, the response from the congregation was “Duh!” And when Esther, the Jewish girl who becomes Queen by winning the title of the most-beautiful woman in Persia, is mentioned everyone WOLF-WHISTLE. In the course of this narrative, evil Haman (BOO) plots to have Old Mordecai hung on a Gallows 75 feet tall in his front yard, and all the people of Mordecai, that is The Jews, killed in a Genocide. Haman practices the fear of believing in evil: Those who are not for us, must be against us and must be killed. But throughout the story, Queen esther has kept her being Jewish hidden. She followed all the cultural norms of the world around her, questioning if being a Child of God actually mattered at all. When she learns of the plot of Haman to kill all the Jews, Esther determines she must stand in solidarity with her people. HOWEVER, in addition to being a woman, Prisoner of War of a people who were Prisoners of War, Esther knows that the King is a ruler who will not tolerate being challenged. Even to enter the King's Chamber, or to bring up a topic the King does not want to consider, are crimes punishable by death. Esther determines to gain solidarity from the King. She asks the King if he would do her a favor. Of course he accepts the request, But her favor is that the Vizer Haman, and the King would do her the favor of accepting her invitation to dinner.They come and she provides a lavish banquet, and when again Haman and Ahasuerus ask what they might do for her, she entreats them to do her the favor of coming to dinner again tomorrow night. Having now gotten the King to offer to do her a favor, and twice providing lavish feasts, at which the King offers to do whatever she asks. Esther reveals that she stands in solidarity with her people who are being exterminated by evil Haman. While a satiric mellow-drama for the Feast of Purim, the hatred and fear between Iran and Israel is not a new thing. For us all, it is arduously difficult, when abused, when insulted and made fearful, not to react in fear. The difficulty, is best described in another passage. After the people of Israel had wandered the Wilderness for forty years, after Moses had died appointing Joshua as his successor, they cross over Jordan, and in the early morning Joshua got out of bed unable to sleep.When suddenly he saw a fierce warrior with a mighty sword. And Joshua asked: “Are you on our side, or the side of our enemy?” What we need to hear, is the reply of the Stranger: “Neither, but as Commander of the Army of God.” As a people of God, we have witnessed miracles. Those who believed they would die, have lived among us. A child, whose parents thought she might die in infancy, has lived among us, whom we have fallen in love with. When those who were refugees first came to live among us, they questioned why over a 20 year war America had done nothing. And we have now changed their circumstance from dying infancy and childbirth, to life and health. From blindness to renewed vision. Anyone who is not against us, must be for us.

Transparent Acceptance, September 23, 2012

Proverbs 31 Mark 9:30-37 The point of our Biblical passages this morning is to be aware of overwhelming expectations! For generations, in churches across N.America, Proverbs 31 was referred to as The Mother's Day Passage, that annually on Mother's Day we extolled the virtues of women. By doing so, we created this image of the Wonderwoman who spun her own yarn and thread from wool and flax, who tailored suits for her sons and sweaters for her daughters, who was wise in business, generous in charity, a connoisseur among chefs, with biceps stronger than her sons, who wore fine purple like a Model, birthed babies with ease, possessing internal dignity and character that allowed her to laugh at times to come.The great travesty, was that such a Biblical model demanded women become even greater over-achievers. In the Old Testament, this was not set up as The Expectations of a Good Wife, or as the NRSV describes a Capable Wife! A Good Wife is only a television show with Julianna Marguiles about a woman who struggles to cover up her partner's indiscretions. Instead, the Bible always personifies God as if a human person. Not as a force, not as electricity or power; often as Creator, or Warrior, Liberator, even Judge. One of the virtues of God has always been Wisdom. As humans we strive to master this virtue and actually master only knowledge because knowledge gives us control over our world. Wisdom is different from knowledge, wisdom requires that the believer try to understand motivations and outcomes, feelings and the web of interconnections that make up the other person. God's Virtue of Wisdom has always been personified as a woman. The Book of Proverbs began, that Wisdom this female personification of one of the virtues of God cries out in the street, in the marketplaces, atop the wall, at the City Gates, she agonizes over her children: “How long will you love being simple?” Here at the conclusion of this book of Wisdom, the mother describes to her child what Wisdom as a partner could provide. Rather than a passage about women as compared to men, this is a description of what we as women and men need to strive for together. The accusation of this passage of Scripture is that we are COGNITIVE MISERS, who practice an ECONOMY OF INTELLECT. We possess great fortunes and abilities of knowledge, insight, intuition, understanding, discerning, awareness and control; yet we hoard these gifts, accepting the expectations of others rather than spend the capital we have. We watch and listen as we are spoon-fed the interpretation of events and circumstance and their impact, as if entertainment, rather than using our minds to think. We are not an Overly-Reflective Society, who are able to draw together all the threads available to us. Would that as a people we sought as Partners for life: One who is more precious than jewels, whom we can truly trust with no thought of personal gain, but only seeking our good. Very recently, I learned something. Seven years ago, those whom we had claimed as refugees and redeemed as our friends, brothers and family were not yet American Citizens, not yet able to travel, of all places not able to go home to their families. So as their pastor, I gave my time and resources to go for them. When I arrived in South Sudan, it was to me an entirely foreign world. I was greeted by people who said “You claim to provide miracles. You return our children to us who were lost for 20 years. You redeem us to our children. You have offered to build for us a Clinic to address our needs.” And the Paramount Chief offered this Blessing and Curse that has now become infamous. What I had not thought through, what I never before had the wisdom to share, is that what he was saying was “We come from the most isolated and desolate of places on earth. The heat reaches 120 degrees, so hot the earth breaks open, then it rains so hard for so long you need a boat to get from hut to hut and place to place. A place of Polio and Tuberculosis, Malaria and Cholera, and AIDs. That would be harsh enough. But we are a people who have been kept impoverished and oppressed, there are no schools, no stores, no businesses, no roads come to this place, no one from the outside world knows we are lost. This would make adaptation, change and advancement impossible. We are also a people who have been at war, as long as any can remember. This is a culture where our children have been taken from us, trained as soldiers to come home to kill us. We know not who to trust or what to believe. The blessing we receive this afternoon, is a statement of thanksgiving that we have been partners responding to others. The agony of every preacher with this text from Mark, is that our culture is so different from Galilee, that the text has lost its edge. Our expectation is that Jesus loves babies even more than the pastor! If Jesus did not do this, we would be more in shock than the disciples as jesus described his crucifixion. But in that time and place, children were property. And Men would never deign to hold a child let alone a baby. Imagine the Board Room of an International Corporation, or the Congress of the United States, better yet the War Room of the White House, or a Meeting of the United Nations. In this august adult assembly, Jesus places a baby before them. Here once again, we have too much information in our heads...we jump to the conclusion that we are the baby. What Jesus said was that “whoever receives a chid like this receives me, and not me but actually God.” The important identification here is not in being innocent, or vulnerable, but in acceptance, absolute transparent acceptance like a man or woman with a child, like a child with a baby, suddenly we have a new identity of being in relationship. Leadership is not about GREATNESS. Leadership is not intellectual, a demonstration of power or prowess. Leadership is doing what people need and want. True Leadership is doing what people need even when it is not what they think they want. This morning I need to dis-illusion you of something. There is an expectation that Ministers as leaders have great learning and experience, so have complicated involved plans for what we will do, when. Like some Machiavellian Prince, or Rasputin, we could manipulate people to do what we desire, to give to support what they do not believe in. I have been in leadership in the Church all my life, and I do not recall ever doing anything in the local or larger church because it was what I wanted. With absolute Transparency, what a pastor does is listen to people and try to help them fulfill their desires. I did not become your pastor so as to build a church, or an organ, or create a health care system, or of all things to put in a soundproof bathroom. Members of the church expressed need. Members gave resources to the church to make a difference. So problem-solving, we found ways to make each thing happen. The problem is that as humans with experience of distrust we approach one another with expectations. As described by the Psalmist, how do we stand with the righteous rather than scoffers? How do we live as trees beside streams of water? Take life in, as it comes, trusting God and working to make God known. Three decades ago, Scott Peck wrote a book titled The Road less Travelled. He then wrote a less well-known book titled The Different Drummer. In the Drummer, he describes a church that has lost its way. No one comes to the church for anything, and the group of monks there, fear the future when they will die out. The Abbott goes to see the local rabbi, who tells him of a Dream, that in your midst is Christ. The Abbott comes back with this fabulous revelation, that none can believe. But over the next several days, they each begin to wonder. Could it be Brother Francis? Could it be Brother Skip? Brother Gustav? They begin treating one another differently, and treating one another differently, the world treats them differently.

September 9, 2012, "Intent or Something Greater"

Proverbs 22 Mark 7: 24-37 Throughout our 211 year heritage as the Church in this place, we have intentionally sought many different identities. The recipients of missionaries, the Religious Society, the First Presbyterian Church, the Chapel of Skaneateles, the two First Presbyterian Churches, the Christian Endeavor, the Harvest Home, the Early Childhood Center, the Masterworks Chorale, the Home for the Well Aged, the Sanctuary of fine Music, the America Cares for Sudan Foundation, and now both the House of Prayer and J.C.& Co. Each of which have reflected the needs and priorities of the world and our response... each describe a piece of who we are and what have been important to us as we seek to be the Church. Immediately after the Revolutionary War, with George Washington as our President and Napoleon waging War, Christian Missionaries from the great metropolises of New Hampshire came here finding settlers who had come to this place for rich land to work and a good place in which to live. These missionaries lived and spent time with each person and family, literally living in your home for 3 weeks to a month, listening, teaching to break bread and pray and read the Scriptures and sing to God. After several years of each of us being visited and ministered to as the recipients of mission in this place, individuals and families joined together to form what we hoped and intended to be a Religious Society. Recognize there were not yet any other means of gathering people together. There was no Grange, there were no stores or schools or banks or businesses. What would a “Religious Society” look like? What would it be, if we set out to intentionally work together to live spiritually, ethically, morally, faithfully according to the Scriptures? Our ancestors, forming the Skaneateles Religious Society created the first Courts and Schools and Place & Time for the offering of prayers, the confession of sins in order to offer the Sacraments to all wishing to receive. The purpose of the Church in this place was to serve the needs of others, that rich and poor, women and men, might all have access to learning, and to justice, and to God. Interesting, that the purpose of creating the courts was not as means of determining right/wrong/responsibility or extracting punishment or compensation for pain & suffering, but in order that the society have a vehicle for forgiveness and the restoration of balance for all to share communion with one another and with God. Yet, in practicality, this community has continually been titillated by scandal, and struggled after extracting discipline even excommunicating to redeem. There were times in which the First Presbyterian Church attempted to create an identity as The Church, and times in which we sought to distance ourselves from Institutionalism and all that goes with being part of “Organized Religion.” Times in which because of differences within the community, the church tried to serve each separately, meeting every person's individual needs, and times when we came to recognize the greater harm we had done to Christ by our separation and divisions. In 1881 The Christian Endeavor Society began as the original Youth Ministry and within 5 years had grown to over 4 Million members across this Nation. To be part of Christian Endeavor was to recite the Pledge: Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like me do; that I will make it the rule of my life to pray and to read the Bible every day, and to support the work and worship of my own church in every way possible; and that just so far as I know how, throughout my whole life, I will endeavor to lead a Christian life. As an active member I promise to be true to my duties, to be present and to take some part, aside from singing, in every Christian Endeavor meeting, unless hindered by some reason which I can conscientiously give to my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. If obliged to be absent from the monthly consecration meeting of the society, I will, if possible, send at least a verse of Scripture to be read in response to my name at the roll call. Which in turn gave rise in this Church to creation of many activities and corporations. Realize what this has done, for in many ways we have “a tail that wags our dog,” while we as a Church have an Operating Budget of about $330,000 and Budget 15% of that for Mission, we have created and enabled opportunities for giving roughly $3 million for these programs, supported by the church and outside our control. In many ways, adopting the name J.C.& Company owns the corporate nature of our being the church in the world today. That is our heritage, and part of our baggage as The Church in this place and time. However, one of the great blindnesses we humans possess is we arrogantly believe our intentions will create a better world. By virtue of Law and Reason, Philosophy, Technology and Scientific control we think that our Pledges, our Intentions, our choosing of a Good Name will determine our outcomes, as if despite all our excuses we could control reality. This theory is predicated on the understanding that we are Sensory beings, who through sight and hearing, smell, taste and touch can know our world. From Isaac Newton and Descartes we created a sense of reality as being sensory, knowable, obeying Laws of Nature. The problem is not that we did not yet pick the right name, or that our thinking was flawed. The problem is that our senses can only identify reality descriptively giving a name to things, and not prescriptively. Creation, and we as Human Creatures in that Creation is all part of something far larger, beyond our ability to control, beyond our ability to know, even more basic that our senses, a different reality. There is Good and Evil in the world. There is good and evil in our midst. Our understanding of reality based on Law as we know it, based on our Sensory perceptions of the world, cannot explain other dimensions to life, cannot explain the depth of being. There is a Human Will. There are Circumstances we describe as Fate. As named by PROVERBS, the balance of life is that there are Rich and Poor. The point is not what a blessing it is to be rich, or a curse to be poor, not even what blessings there are in being poor and what burdens and curses in riches! But that we cannot be foolish; for when we are foolish,every blessing we have experienced will be taken away. Our intentions do not control the world. We can choose to succeed, we can shape our world, but ultimately all our lives are in the Hand of God. After spending 18 hours in Prayer and Fasting in the Sanctuary this weekend, my bride asked “So what new insights did this give you?” First, I was surprised and delighted to not be alone, that through out the night 10 others, many from our Session, some from our congregation, some whom I do not know joined in this, saying “Thank you for the opportunity to take time to pray.” At times throughout, my mind had wondered so are you simply setting aside this time, being in this place, existing, does that make this Sabbath or how shall we pray, is this reflection, or being open to some other understanding? Second, that we need to reflect and tell our story over and over, both because as human beings we often do not hear things the first time, we cannot keep track of all the things in our own lives let alone the Church; and because in reflection we see what was not apparent in the present moment. Third, that as the church in this time and place, we have accomplished great things, we are richly blessed. In the moment, we can and have felt attacked, defeated even defensive, alone and hopeless, but we have been richly blessed, with fellowship, and a well maintained facility created for our current needs, a lack of debt, incredible instruments for making music, missions in this place and around the world that have changed peoples' lives, resources for the future of the church in this place. However, more than the accomplishments, recognizing good and evil in the world, we have witnessed Miracles, we have witnessed Redemption, and we have known the Evil among us which divides and breaks us. Among us are those, who more than a decade ago we expected to be dead, who more than survival have come through to new life! We have known marriages with infidelities and affairs, as well as those afflicted with serious mental illness who had no hope for the future, who have found one another and fallen in love and covenant commitment far different than ever before. While we are a Youth Obsessed culture, among us, cared for by us are those approaching and surpassing a hundred years of life! Among us are those who were diagnosed with Cancers and Chronic Illnesses they did not want to have or to acknowledge, or even treat, but who because of this illness found other events that could have destroyed them, and some of these among us have found that life is a chronic condition that can be lived with. Fourth, that at 2 in the morning on a Friday Night, there are a great many people out on the street with nothing to do! And, even when we have created the opportunity for strangers to join us, when the door opens at 2am, it is difficult to greet strangers as welcome guests. AND Fifth, as described in the Gospel this morning, that our faith, our fidelity to our needs can change God's mind, can reveal something new in God's plan that had not been intended for that moment in time. Last Sunday the sermon named the power of Love to change our hearts and circumstance, but the power of Love also changes God and reveals the covenant commitment and compassion of God in ways the world had never known. As THE COMPANY, the Christian Endeavor, the Religious Society, as those who received missionaries in our homes and who now act in mission, as the great Cloud of Witnesses, the Church in this Time and Place, we act intentionally. We choose a Good name for what we intend to do. AND we also recognize there is Good and there is Evil among us, for God is God and we are in God's hand.

Sept 2, 2012 ,"The Love Poems of God"

Song of Solomon 2 John 7: 1-31 On this Festival Weekend, we shift from summer to autumn, from vacation to school, for this is an all or nothing people who play hard and work hard; but before today's picnics, before the parade, before the fireworks, we would name:“These are the best years of our lives!” Over the last few weeks, parents have been taking their daughters and sons away to school, and walking the campus of their alma mater, parents have recalled this is where we first met, this is the rock where we had that long talk. Somehow in the midst of all the education, and experience of life, this is where they fell in love, and created the best years of their lives. Despite what the drought will do to farm prices, most of us would claim this having been one of the most glorious summers we can recall. As those who bask in the sun, we affirm the Spring came early, there were very few rainy days, and the long hot dog days of summer began in July and have carried us right through to September. We know in the backs of our minds that “after tomorrow” the pace will change and as days grow shorter, nights darker, so work will become more intense and winter comes. But that is not the Biblical revelation! The people of God are not a people standing in summer dreading the long dark night to come...we are a people who profess life a gift and these to be the best years of our lives! As if we had outgrown love and romance, we have become those who recount “That it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” and yet the point of Solomon's Song is not to stand at the end of summer grieving the coming winter with melancholy grey skies and bitter winds. NO, instead as God's people having known God's absence, having known that longing for what would complete us, we are to witness and claim the coming of a new and glorious spring to come! Our greatest problem is that we are a backward people, blind to where we are going, continually looking over our shoulder at what was, and what is gone, rather than living today and hoping for tomorrow. We long for housing values to return to just before the bubble... we long for the stock market to again have one day more bullish than another... we yearn for times we took for granted. Our world, our culture have changed so quickly, we have closed our mind's eye and closed our hearts and emotions to all that takes place around us. We have witnessed Tsunamis slapping down cities, women and children with bombs beneath their clothing intentionally walking into crowded market places, one college and high school after another where children have acted as terrorists, where coaches have not mentored but have abused, we have come to expect inhumanity and insincerity, surprised only by what is novel and new. Our fear, our greatest fear is that: no longer able to control our destiny, no longer able to control fate and whether we succeed or fail, we agonize that going through the motions perhaps our lives will make no difference and we never will have lived at all. Rationally, logically, we can conclude that when God formed every element out of the chaos, and God created humanity, there was not a scribe present blogging everything on Facebook or Twitter. When Moses saw the burning bush and heard the voice of God, there was no historian narrating what took place. When Mary heard the angel's pronouncement, when she gave birth to the Son of God, despite what the Pageants portray there were no recorders copying it down. When a Carpenter's Son was crucified and the Savior died on the cross of the Roman Empire, there was no witness to our loss. In all likelihood, after the Nation of Israel had become the greatest most powerful nation on the face of the earth, and the people had taken life for granted, had taken God for granted, they were beaten and carried off in bondage, THEN the people began to tell stories and to write down their need for God, their human need for a Messiah sent from God to save us. After the Day of Pentecost, in the centuries of persecution, the church found identity as a people searching for God, a people thankful for every day as a gift from God. The Song of Solomon is description of love and infatuation, flirtation and playfulness, both between a man and a woman, as well as between humanity and God. Increasingly, we take ourselves too serious, having too little room for playfulness! We anesthetize ourselves, we amuse and entertain ourselves, but we forget our joy at play! The Bible invites us to know the feelings and emotions of Adam and Eve. According to Genesis, in the beginning God formed one creature to be a companion for God. Yet we wanted something other than God, and loving us God formed every living thing, still we wanted other than God. Like a skilled-surgeon God anesthetized humanity into a deep sleep, and when they awoke where previously there had been one, now each was altered, irreparably changed; for completeness we now need one another to be whole. Tragically, we have convinced ourselves we have grown too old to love! Song of Solomon is invitation to claim our joy at love, at playfulness, at infatuation and desire. Even more, as this is description of both a human couple, and God with us, to affirm that love not only changes us, everyone of us, but love also changes God. For God so loved the world... We have grown accustomed when shopping to look for the expiration date, when milk is passed its prime, when meat is reduced for quick sale. Everything in our lives seems to have an expiration date for when it will wear out, or go bad. Do me a favor, and take the Bibles out of the pew in front of you. Show me where in all of Scripture, there is an expiration date? The Word of God is as fresh and new a gift today, as ever before. The Letter of James calls us, as those who are Baptized in the Trinity, to claim that all of life, every good gift is an act of Grace from God. How different our lives would be, if instead of acting like Clint Eastwood having a chip on our shoulder, defiantly claiming “Go Ahead Make My Day,” we chose to see everything in life as a gift! If the empty chair were not for an invisible opposition figure, but as in the Passover to set the door ajar and leave a Chair empty for the expected Visitor, for Elijah, for God in our midst. Would that instead of a plaque on one single pew in the whole of the Sanctuary being designated for a Stranger, we treated every pew as an open and inviting place for others in our midst worshipping God? The problem Jesus faced in the 7th chapter of the Gospel of John was that people seemed to know him too well. His own brothers and family took him for granted and did not believe in him. The people knew where Jesus had come from, they had seen him throughout all the years, so how could this be the Messiah sent from God. The Gospel of John is a strange and wonderful telling. Different from the other Gospels, this is not the narrative of Jesus' life. This is not told to convince us to believe, or what to believe. The Gospel of John is a love story. Before we read the first word, before we know what transpires, we need to know this very basic fact: “God loved the world so much as to give God's own child, that who so ever believes in him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.” Christ enters the world as a Gift of Grace from God. Continually, over and over again, Jesus demonstrates and explains the depth of God's love, that no matter what, we can never be separated from that love. When you have been in love, have you felt as if you were walking on air? Jesus walked on water! When you have been in love, have you felt as if life itself were your food, and you could not share enough of yourself with the other? Jesus described my flesh is food, my blood is drink. Would that this day, even for just a moment, we could stop to smile and to laugh, and to know that these, these are best years of our lives! For we have known what life was like when we felt distanced and separate from God, and we now know we are loved.