"Final Words" November 25, 2012

2nd Samuel 23:1-7 John 18: 33-37 This is a unique day in a unique year. Most frequently, the Sunday after Thanksgiving signals the beginning of Advent, and we progress full speed from Labor day to Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year's. But there were 5 Thursdays in November this year, so we are able to pause, to reflect, to claim this as The Final Sunday in the Church year, Christ the King Sunday. In addition to seasons of waiting, the birth of innocence, the temptations and journey of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection, the season of Pentecost when we acknowledge the Holy Spirit with us, at Christ the King we name: Jesus Christ is Our Lord and Savior, our identity is as children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ, we are the Church. On this day, we pay attention to the Final Words of King David, the final examination and indictment of Jesus by Pilate. Final words have special meaning for us, as if all our lives were cumulative, building to this final conversation in which truth can be revealed. The Final Episode of a favorite show, the final words of a story, the last words charged and spoken. But life is not cumulative, often we do not know that these are going to be our last words, our final declaration. There are instead numerous events each year of our lives, in which we are able to reflect on all we know, to claim relationships and identities we desire. There are moments throughout life, in which we reveal to ourselves and to all the world who we are and what is important. We have so many different stories about David. The youngest son of Jesse, whom the last of the Judges Samuel, anointed to be King. Little David who slew Goliath with a slingshot. David the shepherd boy who played the harp to soothe the rage of King Saul. David who led an army against Israel. David who brought the Ark of the Covenant home dancing. David who wanted to build a house for God, and instead God created a new covenant that the House of David would rule Israel as a dynasty. David who committed adultery with Bathsheba, then murdered her husband Urriah. David whose own son Absalom waged war against him. Yet here, in what are named as The Final Words of the King, there is no mention of these truths, these real human failures, only the revelation of glory in having been used as the instrument of God. All our sins, all the individual events of our lives can be forgiven. What matters is the revelation of who we are before God and the community. When we recite the lineage of our ancestors, we do not name our great great great grandparents as having been found guilty and exiled to live in America; instead we describe the bravery of those ancestors who risked three month long ocean crossings to come to this new world with hope, establishing roots for who we have become. Decades ago, in the 1950s, The Baby Doctor prescribed that it was natural for children when they came of age, realizing they were not in control, to want to run away from home. Dr. Spock encouraged trying to talk rationally as friends/equals, to explore if they had thought through where they would go, what they would do, if they were running away to join the circus or to live in a cave, whether they had enough food and clean socks.The idea being to make the ideas become so real before setting foot out the door, they would choose instead to stay; or if not, that you had a clue where they might be going. Current wisdom is different, instead of trying to understand, to rationalize and reason with a 3 year old, family need to emphasize that “We are part of one another. We belong together. We cannot run away because we are running away from ourselves.” This morning's sacrament, everything about this day, is revelation that we belong, we are integral to who one another truly are. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, the Representative of Rome for the Occupied territory of Palestine whose capital was Jerusalem. Throughout the Gospel, those who have questioned Jesus' authority to teach, to heal, to preach, have been the Pharisees and Saducees; but here Pilate instead represents all the power of the Roman Empire. While the leaders of the Religious community had charged Jesus with Blasphemy of usurping the power of God to heal and to forgive, Rome had a different power base and different concern: Treason. When we seek decisions, what is our concern? Is it power? Is it vindication of our rights? The origin of this congregation in this community, had as our primary concern: FORGIVENESS. What will it take when you are wronged, to forgive? Rome's concern was to conquer the world. Through the Roman Legion to dominate and control the entire known world as the Empire under the rule of Caesar. Pilate perceived Jesus to be a man, only a man, not even a Citizen of Roman but a Jewish man; therefore if he must lower himself to deal with this, Pilate will make an example of Jesus. This is not a typical trial, not a standard indictment of one who is accused of a crime. Pilate is attempting to make a political statement about power. Pilate deals only in fact, in what can be proven. Jesus here is describing a different reality. Pilate questions whether Jesus is King of a Kingdom that can challenge The Empire of Rome. Jesus' implies that instead the Empire of Rome is part of the Kingdom of God. Where Pilate attacks Jesus for what he represents, Pilate represents Roman Authority, Jesus King of the Jews; Jesus asks Pilate to consider what he himself believes. What Jesus challenges Pilate to consider is not what is factual, what is truth, what are your rights and powers, but what is being revealed by the ways we live? This child baptized this day, needs more than to be fed and cleaned and allowed to sleep. A child, each of us need to belong, need identity as being part of something greater than ourselves, and understanding our role and responsibilities within that.

November 25, 2012, "Thanks Giving"

II Samuel 9 Mark:13:1-8 There are two vastly different starting points for a life of faith. One searching for what is spiritual in innocence, experiencing the world around us as new and grand, awesome and beyond reason. Exploring for ourselves what God's Plan might be for us. The other spiritual in thanksgiving after innocence was lost. When you are newly weds, it seems as though you are the discoverers of “love.” When you give birth to a baby, you witness a newborn's cuticles and eyelashes. When you have gone away to college and experienced life on your own, being presented with ideas and thoughts you never knew... Everything is new, all life is different, as you and loved ones journey to meet family, as together you prepare a holiday meal, as together you buy a tree creating memories for the first time. All of life, seems to have been created for you this day. And life is far bigger, more wonderful than ever you imagined life could be. This has been the theme of spirituality throughout recent years. After the turn of the Century, as we came to recognize the search to master and know, did not provide all of life's answers. Through a fresh examination of the Sacred Texts, trying ancient Spiritual Disciplines, acts of hospitality and discerning what is meant in Hospitality, The Church (and believers) have found new faith in mission and missiology. But there is another starting point, which has served believers for hundreds of years. We go to the shore, certain that while there are high tides and low, the waves only come so far. Building bricks, steel and concrete blocks are cemented together for all time. The World's Economies support one another in growth and expansion. We have seen hurricanes (not tornadoes) but hurricanes in Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Tsunamis have come ashore with a force that wipes away cities. We have seen steel twisted and concrete become rubble. The roller coaster of Atlantic City that turns our stomachs over was not the one made of steel and wood, but the wind and waves and fire and snow that have changed the coastline. “Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines, this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.” To have done without during economic depression, to have lost your job, your career and to survive... to have lived through the devastations of war, bombardment and killing... to have had Cancer or Mental Illness, any chronic disorder and come through to the other side, creates a feeling of thanksgiving, that inspires belief, that perhaps God has a plan for us more grand than that we would die and be buried. How do we live, when we have survived surviving? When our deepest fears and greatest accomplishments have been resolved, what then? The Puritans had fled generations of religious extermination. As at the decree of a Catholic Queen protestants were put to death; following which when a Protestant Monarch sat upon the throne, the Catholics were expelled. In hope of a new and different life, they spent everything they had to charter ships for the new world. But the voyage had been delayed and they arrived too late for planting. The Pilgrims endured the first harsh winter in this new world, with disease and starvation and cold, knowing only that they could not go back. The indigenous peoples showed them how to plant and hunt in this wilderness, and the first Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to God for hope beyond everything they had ever known. After the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and WWI and WWII there was an attitude of thanksgiving, simply for being alive. Our Scriptures this week are about the practice of faith after everything we have lived through is done. Jesus' disciples asked “Tell us when this will be, what will be the sign when all things have been accomplished?” Our Old Testament Lesson names a time when The Promise has been fulfilled. The children of Abraham, those who crossed the Red Sea into the wilderness with Moses, those who crossed the Jordan to fight against the Canaanites, are settled in the land. After the time of the Judges when each one did what was right in his own mind, they came together as a nation under a king, who has now been replaced by a dynasty. David the Shepherd boy, anointed by Samuel, who slew Goliath, who fought against Saul's army to be the Beloved Shepherd King of Israel sits on the Throne in peace. After everything has been done, David asks so is there anyone of the House of Saul who is not dead? One of the servants of King Saul is found, who tells a story from the earliest days of this civil war. That decades ago when David's guerrilla warriors first attacked the capital city, King Saul and his son Jonathan were fighting on the battlefields. Surprised by an attack on the Palace in the night, the nursemaid took up the toddler child of Jonathan, grandchild to Saul, in his blankets. As she rushed to get out of the King's Palace she tripped, and the full weight of the woman landed upon the infant child crushing his tender legs. All these years, the last surviving member of the House of Saul has been in hiding. King David sends his troops to find this lame child of Jonathan, the grandchild of Saul called Mephibosheth. Imagine that you are the last surviving member of the family of the former King. All your life, there has been war and killing, while you have been in hiding. Your legs, both, were broken by those trying to hide you away. Your life, your whole identity has not been about the pride of being royalty, the power of being a grandson to the King, but instead your identity has been about “shame.” For all the decades of your life, you have lived in the shadows, hiding, broken, knowing that as the surviving member, there was a reward for killing you, your secret cannot be found out. Then one day, as you are hiding in a hovel, in a forgotten little town, there is panic in the streets. At the horizon, you can see the flags and standards of the Soldiers of the King. You have been found out. Your secret has been revealed. The battalion of soldiers has come for you. They pound upon the door, crying out your name, and you are overcome by the shame of your family, the shame of everything that has happened in your life. Unable to walk, you balance on your crutch, as the door bursts open, and the soldiers of your family's enemy grasp you by the shoulders and legs and carry you out into the sunshine. The troops carry you, not as a redeemed hero, but as the child of the vanquished. They carry you where you most do not want to go. They carry you to the Capital City, to the Palace where your legs had been broken, to the thrones where your father and his father had ruled, and now instead King David sits. But instead of an order of execution, the King of Israel pronounces a blessing upon you. Your image, as the broken child of the hated king, is broken. Your shame is destroyed, as King David describes that for ever more you and your descendants will have a place at the King's Table. The King will not eat, until you are there. What happens when all the accomplishments are over, when the battle is finally done? Then Shame is redeemed. Images of hatred and loss are destroyed. Peace is not about the absence of war, but about the redemption of the lost. What do we do when we have survived the Cancer we believed would kill us? We live life in giving thanks to God, taking on challenges we never believed possible, because we have survived survival, and life itself has become a blessing. This Thanksgiving, may we do more than cook a bird, than watch a parade and a game and gorge ourselves to sleep. Instead, at this time of giving thanks to God, may we redeem the shamed. May we search for the lost of our lives, destroying the images which divided and separated us. This Thanksgiving, may we give thanks to God that we have survived surviving and are able to give thanks.

"Irony's Reversal", November 4, 2012 All Saints

Ruth 1: 1-18 Mark 12:28-34 This last week, rather than a Tornado in Kansas taking one house, Dorothy and her dog Toto to Oz, a Hurricane swept 19 States and the Emerald City of New York felt the force of Fire, Flood and Wind. In the wake of destruction, we know that God was not in the Fire, Flood or Wind, and in the still small silence we have been asking ourselves “What are we doing here?” “What meaning is there?” The last many weeks we have read the Book of Job, and in the midst of suffering had wondered WHY, Why do bad things happen, not only to Good people, not only Terrorism, but disasters that destroy so much? Our passages this morning address faith from a different perspective. Rather than the bold question WHY God? these passages are stated in IRONY, recognizing that there is devastation, there are horrible things that happen in life. The question of IRONY is WHETHER ANYTHING IS SACRED! When your home and neighborhood and everything you have ever known is destroyed what Meaning is there, what Purpose? If life is not a Prosperity Gospel where you pay by doing all the right things and receive God's Blessings, then what? If life is not as simple as Do Good and receive blessings, do evil and bear the curses, can we be faithful to God? Is it possible for us as a Human Creatures to practice the fidelity of Scripture, being faithful to God No Matter What? When a Hurricane destroys everything we have ever known? When flooding holds fire fighters from fighting fires, and whole neighborhoods: 110 houses in one place are reduced to ash? When our loved ones have catastrophic illnesses? When we lose our lobs? When we go through divorce? When there is no food to put on the Table? When we are diagnosed with chronic illness? When circumstance is hopeless, will we be faithful with the kind of loyalty God shows us, or will we give up on God? According to The Book of Leviticus (the LAWS of what it is to be a Holy People), when our ancestors were in the wilderness, when they had been rescued from Pharaoh and from the Red Sea, Moses stated the core of all belief: HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE, GOD ONLY SHALL WE SERVE, GIVING TO GOD OUR FULL HEART & SOUL & STRENGTH. According to Moses this was more than the First Commandment, this was the foundation for Living. The Holiness Code has many other restrictions, regarding what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath, Divorce, Race and intermarriage, regarding the eating of Shell fish, how long a period of mourning should be observed. All of which may have a place in a utopian society, in the wilderness apart from the rest of the world. But when there is crisis, when economic hardship and war and human struggle threaten life itself, do we adhere to all the moral restrictions, or to any, or what? To understand Ruth we need to read beneath the surface. We need to pay attention to the meaning of Names, the meaning of Actions, the meaning of Relationships. Are we animals grazing, breeding, sleeping and dying, or as Creatures in the image of God, Beings who have tasted of the Fruit of Knowledge, shall we use the minds we were given to look for meaning in life? There once was a Man of the House of Levi, whose name was Elimelech. The Nation of Israel understood itself not simply as ONE NATION UNDER GOD, but as a Holy Nation, a Chosen People. This man of the Nation of Israel, had a name meaning THE LORD IS MY GOD. He was of Bethlehem, which in addition to being the City of David and the Birthplace of Jesus, the meaning of the name BETHLEHEM was THE BREADBASKET. This was a place where food was in abundance, where crops were grown to feed the Nation. And in Bethlehem there was FAMINE. When there is famine in the Breadbasket of the Promised Land, what shall a man of Israel whose names means The Lord is My God, do? Elimelech took his family and fled, went away to a different nation, he abandoned everything, he banished himself. And when they had settled in Moab, he died. Living in the land of Moab, apart from Israel, the sons took foreign wives, wives of Moab, and after a decade, the sons whose names mean SICKLY and GONNA DIE, both become ill and died. Following all the jots and tiddles of the Morality Laws, this family broke the rules and suffered for it. HOWEVER, all of that is only the preamble to the book of Ruth, the question that must be answered is Now What? Naomi decides that even if it means death, she must return to Israel. Out of loyalty to family the widowed daughters pledge they will go with her. Naomi appeals to logic and reason, that she cannot provide for them. Over and over they demonstrate loyalty to her, but in the end Orpah weeps upon Naomi's shoulder and goes home.The distinction between Orpah and Ruth has nothing to do with one being good and another evil, one being of one family and one of another. The difference between Orpah and Ruth is that Orpah's loyalty is to Naomi and to family, where Ruth's loyalty is to the One True God. English does not do justice to the tone of Ruth's words, for as Naomi entreats her to go back, Ruth responds that what she asks is an attack on her faith/an attack on her loyalty to God/a shaming of Ruth whose very name means LOYALTY & COMPASSION. In the Book of Ruth, Morality Laws are identified as being secondary to the basic integrity of faith and loyalty to God. Simply because we are logical, or because we followed all the right things, does not guarantee a faithful relationship with God. However, even if we were not of the Chosen People, if we have absolute trust in God, everything else will naturally follow. Orpah is remembered as one who showed loyalty to Israel. Ruth is remembered thousands of years afterward as one who showed absolute loyalty to God, and was an ancestor to David and Solomon and eventually Jesus. Putting this conviction, of what is really at stake, what is important in faith, to the test, the Gospel of Mark described Jesus having entered the City of Jerusalem where he threw over the tables of money changers in the Temple. Priests, Pharisees and Saducees all challenged and tested Jesus about meaning. Having listened to this, a scribe (whose identity was encapsulated in making certain to copy down literally every dot and cross every T in all the Laws), asks Jesus a question: What is the First Commandment? Jesus repeats the Law of Moses, Hear O Israel, The Lord our God is One, there is no other. And you shall worship the Lord with all your Heart and Soul and Strength, but Jesus also includes with all your mind. It is not enough to have conviction and the heat of passion about being a believer, faith also requires having the light of reason and understanding. To this, Jesus also responds, that equal to and related to this, is to love neighbor as we love our own lives. It is not enough to believe in God, to follow a philosophy, we also need to practice what we believe caring for others. Because of circumstance, Death had always been a had issue for me. As such, I have had to struggle with the meaning of death and through that the meaning of life. What I have come to has been two inter-related thoughts. First, that as much as our lives are measured by degrees & accomplishments, by some in terms of wealth and possessions, or influence and power... when we die our lives are reduced to an Obituary, which overtime becomes fewer and fewer words, dropping all the degrees, all the accomplishments, and truly we cannot take possessions with us, until what we are known for, and remembered by is our relationships. A Neighbor who was like an Aunt to us. ALSO, that while it was once easy to glorify those who had died, and to provide a beautiful memorial, now those who have died are more than Names, more than Members of the Church, or Community, they are also Loyal Friends.