Easter March 31, 2013 "Unlimited Resurrection"

Isaiah 65: 17-25 John 20: 1-18 The message this morning is THE most important point of all Christianity. There is a current commercial, where the interviewer asks, which is better Faster or Slower, being as fast as a cheetah or as slow as your grandmother? Which is better Bigger or Smaller? And the voice over says, “It's not complicated.” Easter is a new creation, a new reality, where Bigger and Smaller, Faster and Slower are meaningless. The Resurrection is Not about Jesus coming back from the dead. Jesus demonstrated that with Lazarus. The Resurrection is not that the tomb was empty. Jesus' Resurrection is that God creates new realities, the very God who created the world, created the world anew with Redemption in Jesus. When contexts change, when realities are different, all relationships, everything we imagine is different and new. Old fears have no power. Death has no power. Rather than an acceptance of our own mortality and limitations, that we are born and die, that we are bound to what we have known... Resurrection is unlimited. How the Resurrection of Jesus happened we do not have a clue. But what we do know, is that the resurrection began in darkness. According to the Gospel of John, the Gospel does not begin with Jesus Baptism, or with his Birth in Bethlehem, or even with a genealogy going back to Abraham or Adam. Creation according to Genesis began in darkness, a time before time and space, when everything that was, was a waste and void of chaos. According to John the Gospel began at Creation, so the Resurrection also begins in darkness, waste and chaos. Jesus the Savior sent by God was betrayed by everyone he loved. Jesus who had Called the disciples and been followed by crowds was abandoned by everyone. Jesus who healed the sick and resuscitated Lazarus, was judged and whipped and scourged, and crucified to death, and after he was dead, they quickly wrapped his naked body and buried him in a borrowed grave. Convinced his followers might steal the corpse, Pilate had had the remains sealed in a rock tomb. As miraculous as the Gospel of John is, although this telling includes more angels and mysteries and unexplainable miracles than any other Gospel, the resurrection begins in stark, cold realism. This week, a couple received a phone call from their son, that plans had been changed and they wold not be coming to share Easter. The call ended with their son saying “Oh and the kids say Hi” after which the couple could not look at one another. A man was summoned into his supervisor's office where she told him of cut-backs and lay-offs and there was nothing they could do. He cleaned out his desk and walked to his car trying to not cry, all the while wondering what he would tell his children. A patient learned from tests that that cough, that odd mole, the piercing headaches were incurable. Someone else heard after 20 years of marriage that their partner did not love them anymore. There is a reason why the Gospel names Jesus dying. Death is the most difficult reality. Anything else we can talk about, there can be different sides, there can be hope, but when you are dead you are dead. As much as we try to understand logically, when the one who dies is someone you love, one who has fed you and guided you, turned you around in life, saved you, or when it is your death, there is a point of hopelessness and disorientation that means nothing will ever by the same again. Mary went to the tomb when it was still dark, filled with anxiety and loss and chaotic feelings. Suddenly she realized the tomb was open, the grave had been desecrated, the body gone. The last many years I have been doing genealogy, which has prompted several scouting adventures to different cemeteries. There is something about a graveyard that feels eternal. For a thousand years that stone marker will identify the place. Life may be in chaos, all our normals and realities ripped away, but the dead are going to be there. With Jesus' body the question was even more central, in that Jesus bore our sins on his body. If there was no body, how do we know our sin was atoned for, how do we know our sin was forgiven. The existence and location of that body is more than a forensics television show, that Jesus lived and died is central to Christian Faith. Mary ran to find Peter who was with the other disciple. The twelve had scattered. There were rumors Judas was dead. But Peter and the other one, they had been witnessed throughout the night of his arrest, and at the foot of the cross, she knew where to find them. She told them that the tomb was open and they ran. When you are in crisis, you run. It is something basic to us as creatures. They needed to know. They needed to see for themselves. They ran and while the one got there first, he let Peter go in first. And Peter saw the emptiness but this was not reasonable. Peter's mind was reeling, he had been so sure of his convictions, certain of his own commitments, yet when confronted he had denied Jesus, when challenged he had evaded, when accused he outright claimed to not ever have known the man. Then he was crucified, dead and buried, and now he was gone. Dead bodies do not get up and walk away. The other disciple also came in, and he saw and he believed but he had no understanding. Grave robbers could not have been the ones to take him because they would not have bothered undressing the body and folding the clothes. Remember when Lazarus came out of the tomb, he was wrapped in burial shrouds, swaddled like a baby. What did it all mean? Surely that Grave-robbers had not been involved, for grave-robbers would not stop to unwrap and undress the body they were stealing. While grave-cloths and shrouds are intended for making death covered in something clean and fresh and beautiful, these also serve as a binding, limitations and restrictions of the past. Nothing in the world, in Heaven or on earth, nothing we could ever imagine, no Power, no Prince or Dictator or Government or Military, nothing high above us, nor beneath us, not even death could separate us from the love of God. To know that you are not and can never be alone, is pretty good. Chaos had turned their lives upside down and inside out, all any of them wanted to do was cry. Mary looked in and saw a pair of angels. In the Western World we have this Enlightenment reality, that reality is tangible and can be proven. The others walked away, but Mary stayed and stood weeping. It has always struck me as odd that the angels ask why she is weeping.Why weep, because Jesus whom she loved, the Savior, was dead and she was mourning in loss and chaos. Why weep? If he were not dead, THEN and only then, there would be no reason for weeping. Here John narrates something glorious, something holy and complete. Jesus came to her, and she imagined he was the Gardener. In the beginning Genesis tells us, God created a Garden at Eden with Adam who was created as Covenant Companion for God and to serve as Gardener. But they broke covenant with God, they chose not to act in love and devotion to God. For which Creation knew death and mortality, binding to sin and all the limitations of this life. She mistakenly called him the Gardener, when really Jesus was the new Adam, the model for us that we could live a different reality. When I was a young boy, we spent summers up at Fulton, NY and often took walks in the woods. On these walks I remember finding a Cicada. These are a wonderfully odd bug, that look sort of like a giant Horsefly, except that their wings come together to form an edge that looks like the blade of a knife. During the summer you often hear their buzz like the sound of locusts. But during the winter, the Cicada burrow into the ground. When they emerge from their burial place in the Spring, the Cicada split open at their back and the new creature emerges from the old shell. Where the husk is black and hard and lifeless, the new creature that emerges is bright green with beautiful translucent wings. That is what resurrection is like, the lifeless shell of sin and death is left and the living, limitless new creation emerges. SO somewhere out there, is a naked Savior, who knows each of our names and who we really are.

"Savior, Have Mercy On Me" March 24, 2013

Isaiah 50:4-9 Luke 18: 35-43 & 19:28-40 Our words and actions, postures and relationships, as well as the things which go unsaid, define what we truly believe. Throughout the last Century, the Church has said very little about Salvation. Following the War Between the States, the War to End All Wars, the Great Depression, and the simultaneous Wars against Hitler and in the Pacific, the Conflicts in the Korean Peninsula, Viet Nam, Central America, Croatia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq, people came together thankful to have survived, thankful to God to be alive. We shifted to become a people focused on What we could accomplish, Industrial expansion, Growth, Each person having the right to what they might become. Increasingly, we have embraced competition, dominance, control, as ways of life. Even our entertainment is focused on “Survival,” “Deception,” “Revenge,” “Scandal”. The concepts of “Mercy” and “Salvation” rarely are spoken of, and never would attain public ratings. Salvation is belief in more than the here and now, faith in a greater battle, Spiritual values other than survival. Salvation is not about keeping up with our neighbors, our responsibilities, Facebook, power or reputation. Salvation is war between good and evil, where the ends never justify the means. Ultimately, salvation requires recognition that this world, life itself can never be conquered by us, because this reality is not all that there is. Salvation requires faith in God. ALSO, because Salvation is foreign to us, Salvation embodies other goals than wealth, power, dominance and control, that we would need A Champion who could extend Mercy to us, could give us what we could acquire no where else. Mercy is not an intellectual ideal, the only way to learn mercy is to experience mercy from another when we are in hopeless need. Palm Sunday is about Salvation. Thousands of years ago, long before Jesus of Nazareth, the Old Testament Prophet Zechariah prophesied that “One Day, there would come a Savior, a Champion, who would also embody humility and righteousness with God. He would ride into Zion, Jerusalem, the City of King David, and the people, all creation would cry out to him: Hosanna... Have Mercy, Son of David.” What I have always thought ironic, was that before Jesus entered Jerusalem, before the children began singing and the people shouting Hosanna, the last scene as Jesus was exiting Jericho, Jericho the city where the People of God entered into The Promised land with Joshua, as Jesus was exiting Jericho a blind beggar cried out to him: “Have Mercy, Son of David” and everyone told this one to be quiet. But in the midst of the crowd, with all the noise and all the people, the rush to enter into Jerusalem, Jesus heard the man and had mercy and restored his sight. And where over and over, Jesus had told those whom he healed “Tell No One” this one he does not, and from there on, through the ride into Jerusalem and through Easter morning, there is the recurrent theme: “Have Mercy on me, Son of David.” Life is consumed in details. The score of the Game. A Storm. The Power goes out. Computers crash. Getting homework done. Being prepared for the test. Making lunch for the kids. Being worried about a sick family member while trying to be creative and responsible. Fixing dinner and washing dishes. Trying to put away a little each month, each year so one day, one day maybe we can have our mortgage paid off and retire. Salvation, Spirituality, Faith are consumed with details as well. We often make the assumption, that faith is about a lack of details and responsibilities, about not worrying. The truth is that Spirituality requires discipline, Faith requires practice. The point of Salvation is not a lack of details, but rather attention to other details than we have been looking at. This is why we pray, why we sing, why we share the Psalms. The word: “Liturgy,” listening and reading the Bible and praying, singing psalms and hymns, literally means “the work of the people”. Creation is God's Work. The sermon is the regular routine of the preacher. The work of the people is paying attention to different routines, retraining our selves, from the details of our realities, to look for and listen for Salvation. When Jesus was summoned to the home of Jairus the leader of the Temple, because Jairus' daughter was dying, Jesus was not concerned about the details of time. Along the way, a woman was afflicted with a chronic disease she had suffered a dozen years already, and he stopped to respond to her. Jesus was not concerned with details about wealth or having enough, even about survival. In the Sermon on the Mount, he described that by worry you cannot control the color of a single hair upon your head, so be like the lilies of the field, the sparrows of the air. Jesus was not concerned with reputation or being liked. The Pharisees and leaders of the Synagogue routinely told him how he was supposed to behave, what was culturally appropriate, but he and his disciples had other priorities. Jesus concern was for the details of fulfilling the prophecy, fulfilling the Covenant with God, that not even death would separate Creation from God. Jesus could have walked with the disciples into Jerusalem but instead he told them exactly where to go, and which colt to get, even giving to them the words to say if and when the owners challenged what they were doing. Jesus was focused on the details of entering Jerusalem, the City of David. Jesus was focused on the details of where and how they would celebrate the Passover. Jesus was focused on the details of how he would take up the cross bar of his execution and carrying his cross through the same city. Jesus was focused on completing the details of this life. Actually, there were two Triumphal Entries of Champions into the City of Jerusalem that day. From the West, from Rome, came Pontius Pilate, the military representative of the Emperor. Before him, had come come Legion of battle ready soldiers, foot soldiers and officers on horseback. Every soldier equipped with sword and shield and spear, dressed from head to toe in armor. And finally, as the supreme power came Pilate riding an immaculately trained stallion. Pilate did not even need to hold the reins, a shift of his weight a squeeze of his thighs and the horse responded, so he could hold up his arms to receive the Empire's glory. Everything done in demonstration of power and dominance, everything done to strike fear into this crowd. The Roman Empire knew the prophesies of the people. The Roman Empire knew that Jerusalem being an outlying territory of Judah often had political disturbances. Pilate had paid attention to every detail of power as his parade entered Jerusalem from the West. At the same time, from the East, came Jesus riding upon a foal that had never before been ridden. Instead of being strapped and bound in armor, people were taking off their coats and robes to lay on the ground for Jesus to walk on like a carpet. Instead of fear and battle cries, children were singing and people were shouting “Hosanna, Have Mercy on me, Son of David.” When Jesus' procession entered the city, the leaders told Jesus to quiet his people, that they were making a scene. Jesus reply that “If these were quiet, even the rocks would cry out!” is description that for hundreds of years, the blood of people who could not defend themselves, could not help themselves, had been poured out on these rocks. One was a parade of Dominance and Power, enforcing the Imposed Peace of Rome. The other was a procession in humility and righteousness, where the children and the masses and all Creation received the entry of one who invited them to live in peace. Attention to detail, when Jesus entered the City of David which is Jerusalem, the songs which were sung “Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace” are the same words which were sung by the angels to the Shepherds announcing the coming of the Savior. The question of Palm Sunday, the question of Salvation, ius nto whether we have a palm, or whether we can fold it into a cross, even whether we know what Hosanna means... but whether we know to ask for God to save us.

"An Incredible Gift of Excess" March 17, 2013

Isaiah 43: 16-21 John 12: 1-8 Syracuse University lost last night to Louisville... The President and Congress are no closer to compromise than they have been in five years... For the first time in 600 years The Pope resigned, and two weeks later we have another Pope... Fighting in Afghanistan continues, as do fears of nuclear war between North and South Korea, between Israel and Iran... We live in a very pragmatic world, nothing really changes, people do not change, we may be momentarily surprised but what seemed newsworthy quickly fades into routine, with technology we can explain away miracles. Far and away the majority of us may not believe God Grew Tired of Us, but that God forgot us all together. We had given up on there being a God, we took life for granted, and like Tinkerbell disappearing if we do not believe, with our having given up on God, it seemed as though God gave up believing in us. What would you say if I told you that late last week, the Church received a letter from an attorney, stating that the church was given an incredible gift. An anonymous donor wanted to make an offering of $50,000,000. I thought that might get your attention. Some are wondering who. Some are wondering if this is a dream. Several are waiting to hear what strings are attached, how is this offering earmarked. If invested, with a return of as little as 2% /year the interest alone would be equal to three times our total Operating Budget. Does it need to be used for mission, or charity, or maintenance? Some are already thinking what will we do with the interest, let alone the gift. Others have begun calculating whether we still need to make our offerings, whether the church needs our gifts and contributions when there is promise of such an embarrassing excess. But the promise is not ours to control, to spend. The promise is of an offering to God. In the language we are most accustomed to, this is a statement, quite an emphatic, excessive, even embarrassing statement of devotion to God. But as your Preacher, as your Pastor, the question I need to ask is “Whether it makes any difference?” The Nation of Israel had grown to be the most affluent and powerful Monarchy in the world. Under King Solomon, the Nation that had been set free from slavery in Egypt and had become a Superpower. But in an equal number of generations, the people of faith came to trust only in themselves. For decades, there had been drought, famine disease, the Assyrians had attacked, then the Babylonians. Most no longer believed in the Monarchy, in the government, an even the King had forgotten God. It seemed there were two classes of people, the widows and orphans and poor and disabled, and those with means with education with opportunity. But at the end of the War, those with education and opportunity were the first taken away to Babylon. The greatest most affluent and powerful nation in the world were handed over as Prisoners of war, marched 900 miles across the desert, where they had been enslaved and oppressed for generations. The story was still told, that a thousand years before, Moses brought plagues upon Pharaoh. Moses had parted the Red Sea, but Moses was dead, and more hopeless than being blocked by the sea, the barrier to freedom was 900 miles of scorching desert. To this people comes promise of a great gift an incredible gift of excess. There is a God. The same God who parted the Seas and made a walkway between the waters, could also provide a highway through the desert, where instead of parched wasteland there would be rivers for irrigation and even the poor and lame, the disabled and aged would not be forgotten. There is a powerful prophetic phrase here: REMEMBER NOT the Former Things. The People of God had forgotten God, had come to believe that God forgot the people; but as God had not forgotten, God would provide vision of a future. $5,000,000 imagine the value of purchasing the freedom of an entire nation, an enslaved oppressed people, not only set free, but brought home, brought to the home of their ancestors, their Promised Land, not only for those who could afford it but for everyone, the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the children, the widowed and the dead, all would be redeemed. Would such a gift allow us to forget what had been and to believe, to dream of a different reality, would such an excessive gift make a difference? We have heard the stories of Mary and Martha, the sisters who welcomed Jesus and his disciples into their home. How Mary had been accepted and included like one of his own twelve disciples. How Martha had served the Messiah at her table in her home. Just before this morning's events, we learned that Mary and Martha also had a brother Lazarus, the male head of the household, he was loved by Jesus, closer even than Jesus' own brothers. Jesus, Lazarus, Martha and Mary had been like family. And when Jesus had been gone, Lazarus became sick and died. Lazarus' sisters who had cared for him when he was ill, after he had died washed his body, anointed him with perfumed oils and wrapped him in burial clothes, almost as if swaddling cloths for a babe. They buried him in a tomb and mourned he was dead. Days afterward, Jesus had finally come home to them, that Mary and Martha could share the news, share their mourning with Jesus who had loved Lazarus as they did. But instead, the Messiah had restored Lazarus from death to life. In so doing, Jesus had restored to Martha and Mary their family, had gifted them with what they had lost. Jesus had taken their grief and mourning for one they most intimately loved, who had died, and Jesus gave them opportunity to again share with their brother. I have been privileged to have had two friendships with peers who have been closer to me than my own brothers. How many times we have shared a meal together. How many times we sat on the porch and solved all the problems of the world. How many times our families have sat with us. I can only imagine, were one of us to die, how much we would want, how much our families would want to hear us share one more afternoon on the porch, to have one more meal together. In thanksgiving for this gift, Mary offers her own gift of excess to Jesus. Remember not only the feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving for having their family back together, for a return to normalcy, for one more meal with your loved ones; but also remember the stench throughout the house as your brother, your only brother, the head of the household, had been sick for days and had died. Afterward, you washed the body and buried the dead in the tomb, but the stench of death had stayed with you, the smell had permeated the whole house. In preparation for this feast of homecoming, this gift of having life redeemed and restored, Mary spent an amount equal to a Median Family's Annual Income, which for us in the world today would be in excess of $50,000 and bought perfume with it. After a wonderful dinner in their home, with Lazarus and Jesus and his disciples all together reclining around the table, Mary took the perfume and washed Jesus' feet with it! Imagine spending $50,000 on perfume, then using it to wash someone's feet! But where previously her lungs and nasal passages and everything about their home had reeked with the stench of death, suddenly her gift made the whole house, their company, her nasal passages and lungs, even Jesus' feet smell of the most incredible perfume. But still, that was only money, and what she desired was the most intimate devotion she could provide, of just what this gift meant to her. In that time and place, the question was not ever “If Michelle Obama had cut her bangs?” No woman ever unveiled her head, or let down her hair, except for intimacy with her lover. In a world of cultural taboos, veiling her bound hair was one of the most private and intimate. After washing his feet with $50,000 of perfume, Mary took off her veil, exposing her head, she let down her hair and used her own locks to dry his feet, her hair taking on the smells of the perfume and the scent of his feet. Her act of devotion. Her incredible gift of excess and intimacy, and more than anything else of acting as servant to another, this became Jesus act of devotion at the Last Supper. Knowing what was to come on the cross and tomb, knowing that they would all abandon and betray him, before they sat at Table, Jesus stripped off his clothes and knelt before the disciples washing their feet. Was there a promise of $50,000,000 not yet, but imagine what unrestrained incredible gifts of excess we each could give, if we acted in response to the love of God who redeems and restores us.

"Learning Learned Lessons" March 10, 2013

Joshua 5:8 -15 Luke 15:1-3 & 11-32 The problem with appropriation of each of our texts this morning is that we are too familiar, we know the conclusion before we begin. The people of Israel had been promised the Land of Israel for hundreds of years, eventually the Jews would be ripped from Judah; here with Joshua they prepare to take possession of the Land. The Prodigal is not a Prodigal until he comes home, the Elder son is no longer an Elder, until the Prodigal returns... However, the point of each story is the telling, let the story seep in, allow yourself not only to know but to feel the change you already know takes place. Adam and Eve had been created to serve as Companions to God, Companions for each other, Companions with all Creation. But instead of seeking that relationship, each person broke communion. The history of the Old Testament, the history of all peoples of faith, the history of humanity, has been that we turned on one another, we abandoned responsibility for the world taking of her resources without creating, we defiantly professed: I AM the Ruler of my life, and have no need of God or anyone! Hundreds of years before this passage, Abram and Sarai had been Called to remembrance by God. They had wandered the land as Nomads, in search of a Promise, a Promise of Land, an Heir, a Name. After leaving everything and wandering after God, doing every thing that they were commanded to do, Abram and all the men of his company were Called to be set apart, to be made holy, commanded to be Circumcised. In their most intimate parts to be cut, to be set apart. Abraham and Sarah and their descendants after them, lived among other peoples. Calling upon Eve and Adam's original lesson of Free Will, that we were to choose to be companions with God, other people were intended to see Israel, to observe their blessings and their life with God and freely choose to change, choose to live in companionship with Israel with one another, with God. But under Pharaoh in Egypt, Pharaoh proclaimed himself God, not only this he denied Israel the ability for them to worship God. All the Ten Plagues occurred to break Pharaoh's self-will, but his heart was hardened. Moses listened to God and instituted the Passover meal. With Lambs sacrificed and their doorposts marred in blood, the first born of everyone else died. For the next generations, forty years in the wilderness, Israel itself was purified. The people had to be called to remembrance that everything, daily life, daily bread, water, all came from God. In these few verses, Joshua calls the people of faith to remember: Moses is dead, Abram is dead, but God is Alive and Real and God is still God, the people are still Holy, set apart and therefore circumcised, to live and act that through Israel all would be Called to God. Like Abraham before him, Joshua has all the men of the Nation circumcised. Like Moses before him, Joshua has the entire Nation prepare the Passover meal. The following day they ate of the produce of the land. This was the last time, the very last, that people ate manna from the wilderness. Faith is an all or nothing proposition, you cannot sort of believe, or choose to accept this part about God and not all the rest. But even so, with all Joshua and the people had gone through, still they had not learned the lessons learned. Joshua has had to follow through on everything God commanded. Joshua has had to circumcise the penis of every male. Joshua has had to sacrifice all of the lambs for the passover. Joshua is the new Abraham and the new Moses to the people. Yet Joshua rose early and saw a stranger. And as a human being, as a son of Adam his first thought was not who is this companion but is this stranger my enemy? Joshua, whose name means GOD IS MY LORD AND SAVIOR, questioned the stranger do I fight you to the death, or will you follow me? And the stranger says “NO, you will follow God!” Joshua had been at Moses' side all along. Joshua had fulfilled everything Moses had been commanded to do. Joshua had called the people to remember the Covenant of Circumcision; Joshua had called the People to remember the Passover and all they had learned in forty years of dependence in the wilderness; but still Joshua needed to learn: he was not alone. There is a God who is Savior and Lord. What the Prodigal Son did was not choosing to make his fortune, choosing to leave home. Selfishly, what the child demanded was his share of his inheritance. The problem was not simply that he had not yet come of age; his father was still alive. What this child was demanding, was: “I wish you were dead.” Then half of everything you have made in life, and half of the lands of our heritage would be my possession. He has insulted his father, his family, his community, and their ancestry, cutting himself off. Later, when all the money was gone and famine had made life hard for everyone, the Prodigal who has been reduced to living with and feeding pigs and even the pigs will not share with him, realizes his father's paid servants had it better than he does. Often times preachers will insert something here that is not in the Bible, about the boy repenting. We want everything neat and tidy, sinners suffer and say they are sorry before being granted forgiveness. But what the Bible does say, is that realizing he could have a better deal, the young man turns toward home, as he walked day after day, mile upon mile he rehearsed the words he would have to say. Words of contrition. He could never presume to return to the relationship, the companionship, he had taken for granted. He himself had declared their relationship dead. The best he could hope for, would be to throw himself upon his father's mercy, and ask to be treated as an employee. Everything measured in being paid for what he does. Custom dictated that when the sinner returned, the whole community should turn out to spit upon him, to curse him for daring to come back, they should make him suffer. When he had made it through this gauntlet of ridicule, he should bow down outside the door to what once had been his family's home, and he should have to knock. When the knock came at the door, the Father with arms crossed and jaw set, eyes shut, his back to the door was to ignore the plea. A servant was to answer the door and describe to the Master that his son had come home, to which the father would respond “I have no son. My son is dead to me.” That is what culture said should happen. The Elder brother was right to be offended. When the father divided the inheritance giving half to the younger brother, everything that was left would belong to the Elder. Killing the Fatted Calf, the rings and slippers and robes, all belonged to the Elder, but only if he too claimed the Father was Dead. If the elder child deferred to the father, if he accepted what the father was doing, it would be recognition that the father still had authority. More than anything about the younger, it was whether the father was still alive. But remember, Jesus told this parable in response to the Pharisees, about God's forgiveness of sinners, of prostitutes and tax collectors. Remember that the parable was not the story of two brothers, but of a Father with two sons. When God is the Father, and we as Prodigals each start for home, whatever the reason, God comes running to fall upon us, thankful we are alive. Forgiveness, celebration of resurrection (a return from death to life) is not about atonement or apology, or what words to say, but all about belief in the power of God to love. Over and over again, we have learned lessons already learned. Faith is not about mastering the basics, so as to go higher and have greater power or authority. Faith is being called to remembrance of lessons learned and going ever deeper. Learning that what we had been taught is true, is real in our lives, and relearning all over again the depths of love, the limitless nature of what it means to be companions with one another, companions with the world around us, to live life as companions with God, choosing God in free will.

March 3, 2013 "Red Heifer & Fig Tree"

Isaiah 55 Luke 13: 1-9 The question before us this morning is not: How are you? Not: What will it take to satisfy? But rather: Can we, is it possible given our never ending desires, our insatiable appetite to be satisfied? Given the competitive nature of the Marketplace, our constant desire to possess the latest, to have what we perceive others have, the answer is NO. We can never be satisfied, but of course it is not our fault. There is always someone or something driving us. Our expectations. Our parents, our coaches, our kids, keeping up with the neighbors, competitors, mortgage payments, insurance, the Market. When we graduated from High School and College, we thought we were ready to take on the world. All we needed was someone to give us a chance, to trust and believe in us, and we could solve every problem. There was the nagging reminder, that life had been easier, when living in our childhood bedroom. Without our awareness, bills were paid, meals were prepared. The biggest problems in the world were getting her home before curfew and passing the Exam next Friday. We got married and went to Grad school. Parents wanted grandchildren. We started our professional careers. We had a car, a dog, then children. Suddenly there was the realization that all our goals had already been met. Everything we hoped to be, to accomplish was fulfilled, but there were new desires, new goals, new expectations, a career path. Satisfaction could not be met. Then, at age fifty, our metabolisms changed. We could no longer eat whatever we desired. We could no longer get by on a few hours of sleep. The face in the mirror increasingly looked like our parent's and grandparent's, and knowing their histories with weight, with anxiety, blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, the future no longer looked bright, we would have to work at what we ate and what we do in order to keep pace with losing. Instead of life being eternal, we came to the realization that we are mortal and while under the most common circumstances we do not want to live forever, we do not want to be with God too soon. Life is a struggle, just to survive. Part of our changing circumstance, is shifting priorities and expectations for what we need and what we desire and what will satisfy. Over a period of 3000 years, the story of Israel had gone from Abram and Sarai leaving home and family in Ur of the Chaldeans, to living as a minority people in Egypt, to being great in number, being enslaved and oppressed, and set free only to wander in the wilderness, hunting and gathering, coming into the Promised Land and competing for survival, to times of prosperity and expansion, and cultural decay, to being carried off as exiles, dispersed in the world. This word of Prophecy through Isaiah, came to the people in exile, a people who in retrospect had had it all and lost it. The word of the Prophet Isaiah is not “I told You so!” and not only “Comfort, Comfort My People says your God.” This is a transformational text. A text of empowerment, to realize that quite possibly our lives are not for our benefit, but as an example calling others to believe. But A Life of Faith is not about our being satisfied, or safe or secure. What if, Moses and the 10 Commandments, the Monarchies of King David and King Solomon, were not only for the benefit of the people and cultures of their times, but also for the rest of the Gentile world to witness, to hear and take to heart, and be changed. There are two ways to approach the resources of life, that everything is limited and being exhausted, or that creation is interdependent and adaptive, everything with the seeds of renewal within it, and therefore unlimited. What if we were no longer concerned with having enough food and water? If survival and debt, and the concerns of this life were satisfied, what would you do? Every three of four generations, there was to have been a year of Jubilee, cancellation of all debt, restitution of all that is owed, a time of starting over. Having experienced all we have experienced, if you were to begin with a clean slate today, knowing this may be the last year of your life, what would you do? Even more, if a year from now, others were to examine your life, how would they describe this year where you were not concerned with being satisfied, from all that came before? Would it make a difference to not be concerned with satisfaction, with survival, security, with being satisfied, or would we still live as if life were limited and exhausted? According to Luke, people came to Jesus naming those who had put their trust in differing securities. Some Galileans, just like us, had been hiding beneath a guard's tower. There could be no place of greater security or safety. Guards are posted in the towers to watch the horizon, to announce of anything on the horizon to cause fear. Guards were also high up in the tower to kill and destroy what approaches before danger ever got close. Standing beneath this security, beneath their armaments and fortifications, and walls to keep others out, who would have imagined that that very tower would fall upon them! Like the city prior to hurricane Sandy, which had intentionally created a sanddune as a barrier to protect them from storm, who afterward had sand in their streets and yards and houses, as the very thing created as a security had come down on their own heads. Others came to Jesus describing an atrocity. Believers, even more than worshipping God, were in the midst of offering their sacrifices to God, when Pilate's soldiers not only desecrated the Temple, not only murdered these believers, but of all sacrilege the Roman Legion made certain to mix the blood of those killed with the blood of their lambs, profaned their offerings with the believer's own blood. Jesus' response is that there is not a Cause and Effect to Life. There is not Karma, that Bad things are kept from Good People, and Good things will be secured from the Bad. This is not about acts of God, or having greater security by having bigger weapons. Life happens. Life knocks you down. There are no securities, no safeguards, being satisfied or satiated is irrelevant. That life is short and fragile should be a motivator, that everything in life is rebalanced and re-prioritized as eternal, inexhaustible and belonging to God is enough to change us, and if not us, then those who witness our lives. What will we do? Jesus then tells the Parable of the Fig Tree. A withered scarred tree, that has never put for even a single fig. The Fig Tree has eaten the resources of the soil, and drunk the water of the rain, but has never given back, never produced what the Fig Tree was intended to produce. Shall it be dug up? Or shall the Fig Tree be given one more year, with every opportunity? Yesterday, before the Game, we took the Confirmation Class to Jewish Synagogue. The Rabbi described this as The Day of Red Heifer as described in the Book of Numbers. This is an obscure Commandment. My family were farmers, and had a beautiful tawny, doe eyed Jersey Cow. They had Holsteins. My brother is the dean of an Agricultural School, so we have gone to a lot of State Fairs and farms. Until going to Sudan, I had never seen a Red Heifer. But according to this Commandment, the community is to take an Unblemished Red Heifer, and bring it to the Priest. The Priest is to sacrifice the Unblemished Red Heifer, and everything, the blood and the meat and bones and dung are all to be burnt to ash. Then the ash is to be taken by another in the community to anyone among them who is unclean, who is impure. The ill, the unclean, the impure are to marked with the ashes. Now, the one who gave the Heifer to be an offering, and the Priest, and the one who washes the priest's robes, and the one who gathers the ashes, and the one who takes them to the unclean, all are named as impure and unclean for 7 days for having helped to heal others. Would you do it? There is nothing about this, that is satisfaction of our needs or desires, our hungers or thirsts, or benefit. Doing this will make you impure and unclean, isolated and shunned for doing an act of God... Will you? This Sacrament is not enough food to fill your belly, not enough moisture to wet your whistle. But what truly satisfies, what makes a difference for us and all with whom we share, is naming the brokenness, revealing where we are unclean and impure, and together hoping that by sharing we will forgive and be forgiven.