"EXPLAINING MIRACLES" February 24, 2013

Genesis 15: 1-18 Luke 13: 31-35 This evening is the Academy Awards, when we are told the best performances of films of the last year. On Thursday of this week, Pope Benedict will resign. On Friday, unless something miraculous occurs, the Across the Board Mandatory Budget Cuts to force our Government to work together or else, will come. And before we meet again next Sunday, we will lose an hour, as clocks are set forward. It occurs to me, that before we rush to “And it was reckoned to Abram as Righteousness,” before we rush to Jesus' Resurrection Easter Morning, there is a recurrent theme in all of this: You have to get up every morning, where you are, and do the best you can with what you have. In the grand scheme of things, in the Big picture there may be miracles, and night by night there are laments, as we realize the cost of discipleship, the cost of what we have to become in order to achieve what we desire. In the film Zero Dark Thirty, it is an evaluation for the Navy Seal Team who killed Bin Laden, and for the Nation, what must we accept, what must we embrace, what must we become to bring a fugitive to justice? In Le Miserables the question is whether Jean Valjean can fulfill his promise, fulfill the dream of the Prostitute Fantine, to create a different life for her daughter before he submits to justice for stealing a loaf of bread. In Argo, in revolutionary Iran, when plunged into a world where everyone wants to kill you, and the best bad idea you can think of is to make a fake movie, then it better be the best fake movie ever. In The Life of Pi, when you are cast adrift in a lifeboat for half a year, with a beast wanting to eat you, you must create a reality where you co-exist. In Silver-lining Playbook, when the woman you loved has a restraining order against you, and your reality is different than everyone else's, get over your delusions, see the wonderful people right in front of you and work together to make sense of this crazy world. According to the movie Lincoln, in one dark night of the soul, the President asked “whether we are born into our time,” whether the Washingtons, Jeffersons and Lincolns are given by God as heroes to lead humanity, or whether our reality is just fate? Ultimately after all the political compromises he had to accept for the passage of the 13th Amendment, he concludes “we have to act with what we have, using what is right in front of us, doing the right thing so far as we can see the Right.” According to Genesis, when Abram and Sarai began this journey he was already 75 years old. For 20 years Abram wandered the Earth, arguing with his nephew Lot, fighting with neighboring Kings, putting one foot in front of the other, yet there was no promised heir and there was no promised land. Clearly, what Abram was trying to say to God was HURRY UP. At 95 living is a lot to do. The idea of conceiving a child, raising that child, making them an heir to all that will be, seems too much. Finally, Abram has concluded that what God had promised was not natural, is not possible, so Abram will have to make compromises and excuses to allow God to make it appear as though the Promise was fulfilled. Maybe what God had meant was that the child of a slave Abram owns, would be adopted as his child, who could inherit from him? To which, God says: NO! Later his wife Sarai will try to fulfill the promise with her slave Hagar, in which the child will be Abram's but different from God's Promise. Staring up at the stars, God reveals to Abram, that this is not about whether a Promise is fulfilled and how, this is a Covenant between God and a believer, Abram. Like the heavens a Covenant is a Mystery, a Miracle. A Covenant is not Natural. Based on the reality we know, a Covenant is not Possible. In order for a Covenant to be fulfilled, the answer is not what allowances, compromises and accommodations have to be made, but rather in the midst of every day, coming to grips with who we are and where we are, and what we have, lamenting that our past reality will not suffice, and the price we pay is becoming something we were not before. We are Children of the Enlightenment. No matter what we do, we must struggle with what we know, the reality we have been, before becoming something else. Our problem is not believing in Miracles. Our problem is letting go the reality we know, lamenting our control of what has been, in order to believe we could ever become something else. This is holy mystery, as Abram makes a Sacrifice, an offering of all he has. He cuts everything in two, representing God and humanity, the Past and the Future, laid bare. And when natural predators came, he chased them away. And a deep sleep came upon Abram. In the Book of Genesis, the last time a deep sleep came upon someone, it was Adam, to whom God had promised a companion to share life. God caused a deep sleep to come upon Adam, and God cleft them apart, separated them like two sides of beef. That they, Adam and Eve would continue to be the creature God formed to be in relationship with God, but they also would be individuals. As Abram was in a deep sleep, God explained the miracle, that a Covenant is not time bound to be fulfilled within 30 days or 30 years, or 30 lifetimes. Abram's descendants, like Abram would be nomads, as God dealt with the circumstances of other Nations. Abram's nomadic descendants would become slaves, and for 400 years would be oppressed and enslaved. Then when God had done everything possible with the nation they serve, God would lead Abram's descendants out of slavery into the Promised Land. Faith, Covenant is not time bound but will be fulfilled. When Christmas happened, it should have been enough. Almighty God, Creator of the Cosmos and everything therein, who had been the God of Adam and Eve, God of Abram and Sarai, Issac and Jacob and Moses and David and Solomon, the very same God chose to become human. The Messiah, the Savior sent from God was born into a world not yet ready. The Stable at Bethlehem, the Virgin Birth, is less about Mary and Joseph, and is declaration that after a thousand years of being prophesied, the Savior came into a world unprepared to receive him. Getting up every morning, doing the best he could with what he had, Jesus became the 30 year old adult who was Baptized. Jesus became one who healed and taught, who called disciples to leave what they had known and they followed not knowing what they would become. When the Pharisees describe reality, naming that Herod is trying to have you arrested and put to death, Jesus explains the miracle, but they do not understand. The Messiah will die. The Savior has to die to atone for the sins of the world. This is how the New Covenant comes to be. HOWEVER, the ones the Savior has come to die for are in no mood, Jerusalem which was to be the City of David, the City of God, instead enjoys killing its prophets. Have you ever taken your spouse out for an evening, and neither of you really care where you are going? As you drive, you become more and more frustrated by your mood, by accommodating this other person who does not care, that you are spending the evening with them, that you are trying to please them. At those moments, instead of continuing the drive, instead of turning around to go home, we need to pull off the road, and explain to one another how important they are to us, that everything we do in life is because we love them, and to listen as they have time to speak. At the conclusion of the film Lincoln, the Director could have closed with the Train carrying the corpse of the martyred President. Instead, he went back to the scene where the President and his Cabinet are arguing and angry over the compromises they have had to accept to pass the Amendment. And Lincoln declares: “Now, now, NOW! ...See what is before you! See the here and Now! That is the hardest thing, the only thing that counts!” Not what was. Not what I wanted, or You wanted or they wanted. Not what could have been, but NOW Seeing what is before us! After enduring all the trials and long nights of the soul, believing in the Miracles, the Covenant God has fulfilled, in what we have become. Tomorrow will take care of itself, do the very best you can with Today, knowing God makes miracles.

"What Do We Believe" Feb 17, 2013

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4: 1-13 Our Scripture readings this morning are foundational pieces, theological statements of what we believe, Who do you think you are? Who is God to you? What do you believe? How much do you believe, Why and So what? I am not trying to be argumentative, or confrontational. Therein is our first difficulty in discussing Theology (what we believe about God) most often, we have used theology to distance ourselves from others... The Catholics believe in Transubstantiation of the Elements, the Pope's In-Fallibility, and Absolute authority of the Priest. The Episcopalians believe the Head of the Church is the Queen of England. The Baptists believe you have to know the time and date of your conversion. What we have really described by these distancing statements are issues of polity and power, not theologically What We Believe. It's like the person who was rescued off of a deserted island where they had spent ten years. As they were leaving, they showed their rescuers the home they had built on the island and the Sanctuary they had built as a place to worship God. The stranger said, “Yes and what is that other building?” The survivor said “That's where I used to go to Church, before where I go now.” Theology is not about where we go to worship, or what we left to find this, or even what we claim to not be. Theology is as basic as questioning Who are you? Who is God? What do you believe? Our ancestors in this congregation, in the early 1800s, knew what they believed. They believed themselves to be in need of God. They believed in the absolute authority of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. They believed in Scripture. Two circumstances occurred between then and now, which called everything into question. But they are not what we usually identify as the social circumstance splitting the church. It is not War, not Sexuality, or the Sexes, not Politics, even Money, or a Generation Gap in understanding. The first was the opening of King Tut's Tomb and others like it. With the study of Archeology, we took a fresh look at the Bible. Up until this time, you either believed in the Bible or you did not. The Bible was considered as the IN-ERRANT WORD of GOD. The problem of Archeology was discovery that there were several different names for God: Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, El Ahenu, El Shaddai. It appeared as though the Bible may have been written by a variety of authors over time and edited. Can we believe in the authority of Scripture, if the words (how ever inspired) were written down by human hands like ours? It seems such a simple thing, we know there are publishers of the Bible, we know there have been translations, but questioning the Authority of Scripture, whether we take literally the Bible as without error, or whether this is the INSPIRED WORDs OF PEOPLE like us, enabled people to question the absolute authority and inerrancy of whether the WORD of God is true. When the Inerrancy of the Scriptures was questioned, the First Vatican Council was convened in 1868 declaring instead in the Infallibility of the Pope. The Protestants then began just over the Bridge from New York State, at Niagara on the Lake in Canada to hold Bible Conferences, just after the turn of the 19th Century to the 20th, at which there were identified 5 Foundational Statements, declared as Fundamental to all theology. Biblical Inerrancy The Virginity of Mary That all of the Miracles of the Bible were Verifiable and True Salvation is by The Blood Atonement of Jesus on the Cross and The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus In answer to which, in the early 1920s the alumni of Auburn Seminary, located in Auburn NY, declared we accept and believe in these principles, however in a world at War, in the face of Poverty and Starvation, Slavery and Abuse, we believe God to be concerned about a great deal more than these five. Throughout the last Century the Church in all our denominations have been fighting over what is really important, what do we stand for, what is foundational and fundamental? Is it Slavery or Abolition? Is it Prohibition? Is it Public Education? Is it Universal availability of Health Care? Is it Child Labor? The Rights of Women? Tolerance and Acceptance of Divorce? What is FUNDAMENTAL? The Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy identifies a circumstance in people's lives like we are celebrating this morning with Dick and Fine, being American Citizens for 50 years. This could just as easily be, the circumstance of a couple's Engagement, or Marriage, the Birth of a Child, or their Graduation. On this occasion, when you realize how blessed you are, what a new life you have, create for yourself a special offering and bring it to the Priest. The point is not what the offering should be, or who the minister, but that we recognize how blessed we are, and by whom we are blessed. Make a declaration of WHO YOU ARE this day. “I declare to the LORD GOD, my Dreams are fulfilled! Why declare this to the Lord God? We know and believe from experience, that before anything else we were loved. Some think the world came into being by accident, by a cataclysm of gases, by fate. Whether or not there was a Garden of Eden, an Ark with two of each animal and the Captain's name was Noah, whether an unfinished Tower was built to heaven, we can never prove.When we describe the origin of reality, before there was time or space, anything of what we know, there was God. We believe God blessed Creation, witnessing all that is as Good, and encouraging that the world is not complete. We also believe that God so loved the world, that the Author of Life stepped into and became part of reality, because of love. So where did you come from? My ancestor was a Wandering Aramean. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all were wanderers, homeless, unknown, purposeless vagabonds, nomads wandering the face of the earth. One might also add to this, as the High Priest Isaiah declared I am a sinner, dwelling among sinners. I was alone and life was without meaning. And God, Almighty God of the Universe cared, loved us, and has transformed us. Then celebrate with the people of faith, and with those who are strangers as you once were, having compassion on those in need. The Gospel according to Luke is less about Temptation as described in Matthew and Mark, than about TESTING. Immediately after Jesus Baptism by John in the River Jordan, where the clouds part and a voice from heaven declared “THOU ART MY BELOVED SON, WITH THEE I AM WELL PLEASED” there is a genealogy of how this had happened when Jesus who was thirty years of age and Jesus was directly descended from Adam. The testing in the wilderness is SINCE YOU A DESCENDENT OF ADAM ARE THE CHILD OF GOD, what are you going to do? I have a good friend who is a retired Judge, who claims the difficulty is not between choosing Right from Wrong, the difficulty is when there are two social Rights at odds, and discerning which was right in this circumstance. In the wilderness, Moses had asked for bread to cover the earth, and there was Manna. Later Jesus would feed 5000 with bread and fish. But SINCE YOU ARE THE CHILD OF GOD, test your authority and power by changing a sone into bread. In the era of Roman Domination, when the people were looking for something to believe in, a different way of life, recognize that all power and authority comes from the Devil, will you sell yourself to power? Eventually, Jesus would be lived up, on the cross, and at the Ascension, but testing God by risking your life for the sake of risk, is foolish. What the TESTING of Jesus in Luke describes as a Starting point for what we believe, is that Jesus is the Son of Adam just as we are, and also the Child of God, which is not for his own pleasure or power or to test the love of God, but as demonstration that we can live committed to the Love of God. As a Presbyterian Christian, what I believe is that nothing separates us from the love of God, we each have direct access to God. SO what happens in the Sacrament is that by the love and forgiveness of God, we are changed. By experience of Faith IN Life, what some what called Missions, I have seen that whenever there are obstacles, dead ends denying possibility, all that is really needed is for believers to commit themselves to work together, and any dead end can be surpassed.

"How Do We Cleanse Our Hearts?" Ash Wednesday 2013

Psalm 51 2nd Corinthians 5:20-6: 10 Remember you are dust of the earth, and to dust we shall return. On Palm Sunday, we join together to sing The Palms, and the fronds are fresh, green and supple, as we join the everlasting chorus in shouting Hosanna at the coming of the Savior into Jerusalem. Within the week, the shouts changed from Hosanna to “Crucify Him”. Now a year later, the Palms fronds are dry, brittle, and tinder for a fire. Earlier this day, we burned Palms from last year to create the Ash. Burning the leftovers from throughout the year, becomes like a Burnt Offering of our lives finally being let go, turned over to God not as a sacrifice of our first fruits, but as something we no longer can bear. We let go the words and actions and relationships that have wounded and betrayed, the things we have endured, the afflictions, hardships, calamities, sleepless nights, the ways we too shouted at one another “Crucify Him.” All that is left is Ash and Soot and Smoke hanging in the air. On Monday, the abandoned Cutlery Factory in Camillus caught fire and for hours throughout the day & night, old chemicals and building structure burned; last night, though the fire was put out, the smoke restarted the fire again. Sometimes where there's smoke there's fire, but at other times, smoke can create chaos, and heat and damage and fear. I recall almost 30 years ago, awaking to the morning news that a parishioner's home had burned, a space heater catching fire. They were thankful, truly humbled and thankful everyone was alive and unharmed. But everything they had, everything they owned, Children's report cards and drawings, wedding photos and clothes, everything was damp and dirty and smelled of smoke. How do we clean, the smoke and ash and soot from our hearts, from our memories, from what we have done to one another and what we have become? A friend serves a church on an intersection in Kansas City. On one corner is a Car Wash, opposite this is a Dry Cleaner, on the third corner is a Drug Addiction Rehab Center, and on the fourth corner stands St. Mark's Church. My friend describes this is the place in the inner-city where people come to get clean. You can get your car cleaned, your clothes cleaned, your body clean of poisons, and a cleaning of your heart. Psalm 51 which we sang and read this evening was written by someone who knew there are different ways and different abilities at “cleaning.” The verbs here are: WIPE, WASH, CLEANSE, PURGE, BLOT OUT, REPLACE, RESTORE, TEACH and DELIVER, taking us from a spill to soiling to spoiling from clothing to the whole of a person and community and world. We are part of a disposable society, where everything is planned to grow obsolete, to wear-out and break-down, and if it does not fit, has a chip or crack, we purge it from our lives. If a relationship is hard we blot it out. HOWEVER, the Bible names that our relationship with God, recognizes REDEMPTION, RESTORATION, TEACHING, And DELIVERING as New Again. The difficulty is that we often look at SINS as external, cursing at another driver, having one drink too many, the eating of chocolate. When according to Scripture, SIN is more internal than external. The description that I think resonates is SIN is ADULTERY OF OUR OWN HEART. More than bad habits, white lies or little spills, we have utterly betrayed and broken the most intimate of vows, that we would be true and transparent to God, to ourselves and one another. Faith is more than words. More than paying a debt, saying I am sorry, and going on unchanged. I think there is great power in the circumstance of this year. NOT that yesterday was FAT TUESDAY and Mardi Gras in which we Indulge and Consume, assured that the following day is Ash Wednesday when we will feel guilty. BUT RATHER, that this is Ash Wednesday, when we name and Own the brokenness in our lives, we are marked with ashes as the most base of creatures, and we share communion, that we not the Elements but we are the Body of Christ, and we hope and pray for Christ's Reconciliation for one day possibly being made new as ambassadors for Christ, and Tomorrow and all the tomorrows are Valentine's Day. Which is not about Chocolate or Cards, or flowers, but sincere statements of love.

"From Glory into Glory" February 10, 2013

At the start of worship the Baptismal Font was covered with a lace table cloth, inside which was filled with Dry Ice. When pouring Water from the pitcher at the start of worship, the font began to spoke and steam, and clouds of mist enveloped the Baptismal Font. Exodus 34: 29-35 Luke 9:28-43 On Tuesday of this week, February 5, 2013 the Reformed Churches, that is the Presbyterian, the Lutheran and the Reformed Church in America, met with representatives of the Vatican, and agreed to accept one another's Baptism. We are in a vastly different time than the church has known before. Where in earlier generations, we believed in the Enlightenment, that through knowledge, through logic and understanding we could know the Truth and derive The Right Answer; in the 21st Century we have come to realize that each of us, everyone, has their own glimpse of the truth, a slightly different reality and perspective. The question is whether we are headed into a new Dark Ages, where faith and the Church seem to disappear from reality, or whether we can listen and build on all we believe and know, mystic, archaeological, scientific, virtual and experiential, to go from glory into glory. So it is that in Bible Study, as one who has been to Seminary, I can explain what the scholars have concluded and know, as one who is ordained I can explain the orthodox understanding of the Church, but your interpretation, your experience as a believer, your story is perhaps just as valid as the most learned archaeologist, and in the juxtaposition of our relationships, we glimpse the degrees of glory. In a recent Bible Study, one person described that knowledge of God as the Great Creator and Judge, the Alpha and Omega, makes us as believers want to do right, challenges us to be on the side of the sheep rather than the goats. As quoted in the Proverbs: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. Fear of being wrong, fear of being judged and spending eternity in a place of weeping and the gnashing of teeth was for that individual's supreme motivator. Yet listening to their description, it occurred to me that throughout the first 20 years of my life and more, and the foundation of all I believe, I had not heard the judgement and wrath side, but only the love, the glory, the forgiveness and holiness of God. In imitation and response to that love, caring and empathy, compassion for others, had been an automatic way of life. Neither was wrong, for these two represent the duality of faith, the incarnation of one who is both fully divine and fully human. But perhaps throughout the Enlightenment we have tried so hard to demystify, to explain and interpret and make real, that the Church has emphasized the humanity of Christ, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, at the expense of the mystery, the holiness, the glory of God. Reading these passages this morning, what strikes me is about the passage from the Exodus, is how the experience of God changed Moses. The story describes Moses had come down from 40 days and 40 nights on Mt. Sinai bearing the 10 Commandments our Covenant with God cast in stone for all time. And as he came down the Mountain, he encountered the people worshipping the Golden Calf of their own making. Moses smashed the idol along with the Stone Tablets, because they/we had violated the first several, that the Lord our God is One, against making an idol, having any other Gods, respecting and honoring the Name of God. Moses went back up the Mountain to plead for God's people, and when Moses comes down the mountain the second time bearing the stone tablets of the Covenant, emphasis is not on the Commandments. There is hardly any mention of what Moses was bringing to the people, but that the experience had changed him, had made his face shine. This one who had been the Liberator, Moses who had stood toe to toe with Pharaoh, Moses who had brought the 10 Plagues upon Egypt, Moses who had parted the Red Sea, Moses who had spoken with God at the Burning Bush, and Moses who received the 10 Commandments, serving both as Messenger of God and Giver of The Law to the People of Israel, had been changed by pleading the case of the people to God, by living in relationship with God. Description of “Moses' face shone, so he covered his face with a veil from the people”, is a spiritual experience, a moment of faith, of holiness and glory. On the Day of Graduation, I recall my father saying that if my mother had lived she would be so proud. I remember not another word from Graduation, for that was all I needed to receive. On our wedding day, we passed a long stem rose through the door, with the words “I love you.” I am exceedingly thankful that the days following the births of our children there were not a series of tragedies, because I could not cease smiling, at the wonder of the birth of a child. Over and over again throughout life, there are these moments out of time, in which your face shines, in which the glory of God is experienced beyond our ability to describe. A few weeks ago, a two year old was in worship beside their family. Standing on the pew as the church sang the opening hymn, the child saw people al around them. Once everyone had been seated, the two year old began peaking over the pew behind them to smile, then disappear behind the pew. Like an infection of joy, that toddler's smile spread across the people of God in worship, changing us from glory into glory. Luke is the only one of the Gospels to try to explain to us that what Moses and Elijah were discussing with Jesus was The EXODUS. Far more than his death, his departure, a get away, the Exodus had been the defining moment for the People of Israel. Before they were the Kingdom of David, before they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, the people of God had been known by The EXODUS. Who are we? We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, we cried out to God, and Almighty God heard our prayers and rescued us with an outstretched arm, parting the Red Sea, then crushing Pharaoh and his Chariots. What will define Jesus, is not the incarnation of his birth, not the several different miracles and parables that he taught, but the EXODUS, of opening a way of SALVATION for those who follow. It is natural, it is human, to want to share with others experiences which change our lives. The most basic purpose of religion, is the Routinization of Charisma, trying to capture an experience and make it available for others to experience in the same way, especially for the next generation. Simon Peter witnesses this glorious holy moment, and his first thought is how to preserve this, for others to know. But the point of faith, the essential difference between religion and experiences of faith is that religion is about preservation of the experience, routinization so coming back we can find this place again; where faith changes us. The beauty and power of what Luke reveals, is that rather than building booths atop the mountain to be able to come to recapture this experience, they came down the mountain and found a parent grieving over the circumstance of their child. The words of the parent, are like the words from heaven upon the mountain: “This is My Child. Pay attention to their needs.” What the disciples had seen was a child who was ill. A Child who was convulsed and the convulsions threw the child into fires. They had prayed for the circumstance, to no avail. Jesus prayed that the evil spirit would come out of him. How often, especially here in the church, we are elected to serve as Deacons or Elders, we go through Confirmation, we sing in the choir, we prepare the sacraments, we go through life, and all we do is pay attention to the circumstances. Instead of recognizing, none of us, no one has ever been immersed and emerged as fully developed in faith. We are changed by Degree, from Glory into Glory, from what we have known to what God is revealing. It is intriguing, that when Moses came down the mountain he had not needed to hide himself from God. But each time he had been in relationship with God, he then covered his face with veil, because his being in relationship with God frightened other people. They did not fully understand, and so were afraid. I think the greatest lost of the Reformation, was that we so separated from our Catholic Sisters and Brothers, that they claimed the Mystery of God, and we the understanding of God. The Catholic Church emphasized the Sacrament even at the exclusion of the Sermon; while the Protestant Churches emphasized the Sermon and our understanding, even at the exclusion of experiencing the Sacraments.

"What We Already Possess", February 3, 2013

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Luke 4: 21-30 One of my favorite photos was taken several years ago, hiking with a group of Boy Scouts, in New Hampshire. At the time I was in my mid40s and did not imagine myself out of shape though keeping up with a group of 16-18 year olds as they ran up the side of mountains took my breath away. In order to join them, I had officiated at a wedding, then driven through the night to sleep an hour in the car, before beginning to climb. Within the first hour, I recognized how hard it was to breathe, how heavy my feet, and making it through the morning was all I could imagine, not hiking the entire Presidential Range of the White Mountains in a week. My heart was pounding, my lungs felt as though they could not get enough air, feet were plodding one in front of another like an old plow mule. I began imagining, that we would stop for lunch. If I could only keep up until then, over lunch I would describe how delighted I was to have joined them in starting off, and I could slip back down the mountain without causing my son excess embarrassment. When finally, we reached the first plateau, it dawned on me, there was no way back down that face of the mountain. Stretched out before us, was the expanse of one mountain rising and falling into the next, as literally we stood with our feet on the mountains and heads in the clouds. And our kids and their friends were no longer children calling out “Carry Me, Carry me!” but instead a company in the prime of their lives, expectant with what lay ahead. There is an odd tension in our readings this morning. Where many of the prophets were called to preach to other people, Jonah going to Ninevah, those from Israel prophesying to Judah, and Judah to Israel, Jeremiah was called to prophesy and preach to his own people. It is a difficult thing to be part of a community, and yet naming hidden truths, standing over against what we have become. Jesus came to his own Village in Nazareth, to his own family and friends, to the Synagogue where he had grown up. He read a famous passage from the scroll of Isaiah, and suddenly the people rush Jesus out of town trying to throw him off the top of a hill. The tensions of faith are continually recognizing that as much as 1) we strive for comforts, for safety and security, 2) there are realities we do not know, do not want to know, much as Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men screaming at Tom Cruise from the witness stand of a Courtroom “You Can't Handle The TRUTH!” and 3) we recognize living life is for more than ourselves, our experience shapes our world, our children and history; and also, 4) that as unworthy and unable as we feel we are to accomplish even daily living, God has already provided all we need. The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah was called to a difficult time in Israel's history. To preach and prophesy that The Chosen People of God, were going to be broken; the Children of God uprooted and cast aside, in order that God can do a new thing; that God could teach the people of faith: humility and woundedness; as well as to plant seeds offering hope and a foundation of the Blessings of God to all the world. Part of the difficulty for Jeremiah, was that the Hebrew word for “Other Nations,” for anything and everything “Non-Jewish,” to whom he was to offer promise, was GOYIM which is the same word as Enemy. Whenever Nations adopt a world view that everyone else is our enemy, whenever we believe everyone else is to be feared and conquered, we are in trouble. But Jeremiah was promised that he was not alone, the words he would be given were not his words but were from God. Throughout the Scriptures there are descriptions of prophets receiving “A Calling”, Moses at the burning bush, Amos to leave the herds and sycamores to plead for the poor, Isaiah with Vision of the Kingdom of God with seraphim that touch his lips. For me, it was in High School and College being taken aside by adults I respected who affirmed different gifts and the challenge of using these through the church to care for people in need. And again over and over throughout the experience of ministry. For Jeremiah, it was assurance that before he was born God had given him all he needed to possess, in order to preach and prophesy. This is not an arrogant thing, of wanting to get one's own way so claiming “God told me” or “My words are God's words” but rather realization that you can do nothing else but respond. One of everyone's favorite stories has become The Wizard of Oz, whether Frank Baum's story for children, or Judy Garland's Movie, this has become part of American culture of the 20th and 21st Centuries. SO much a part of who we are, that there are now pre-quills Wicked telling the story of how the Witches came to be, and The Great & Powerful Oz telling of how the Wizard came to be. Throughout the original, the Scarecrow searches for Proof of a Brain, the Tinman for the sound of a Beating Heart, the Lion for Courage, and Dorothy for a Home. In the end, the Wizard gives the Scarecrow a Diploma in assurance of the wisdom he possesses; the Tinman is assured of having a heart with a ticking watch that different from a human heart can never be broken; the Lion is assured of his courage under fire with a Medal for his Bravery; and if only the child wishes and opens their eyes they will see, we will see, we are already HOME. Paying attention to what is said in the Gospel of Luke, it is not that the people suddenly were rude and challenging to Jesus; but that this one of their company, Mary and Joseph's little boy, chastises and challenges his community. “Doubtless you will ask me to do for you, miracles done elsewhere. Recall that when a 7 year drought happened to all Israel, the only place God provided rain was to one who was not like us. When so many had leprosy, Naaman a Military Officer from the Syrians was healed by the Prophet.” Speaking as an insider, Jesus revealed to his own community that the point of miracles was not power for the Elect, but a witness for all the World. The greatest challenge for the Church today is not our own survival, but rather demonstrating to the world what we believe as why they should believe. We have in our possession stories of those who were described as LOST receiving a HOME; stories of those with CANCERS going on to live full and vital lives; those who in other times and other communities might have been ABANDONED instead being REDEEMED. Are our examples of faith like a diploma mounted on the wall, like a watch in our pocket, like a medal in a box? Or can we be challenged to reflect on our experience, to grow in faith and witness to others. Recognize when doing so, that these are not stories of accomplishment and self-congratulating, but rather that the reason why churches have had abuses happen was that we could not believe our leaders could do wrong. And that when there was crisis and conflict, we had difficulty trusting.