The Debts We Carry

Exodus 15 Matthew:18:21-35 Recently, someone told me the story of two Monks who were on a pilgrimage, when they happened upon a prostitute unable to get across a river. The one moved by compassion offered for the woman to sit upon his shoulders as he carried her across, and did so. But for the next six days, the other derided him for having sinned, for having touched a woman, especially a prostitute, for having her sit atop him, having her thighs on either side of his ears. Finally, the first monk stopped and said, “I confess, I helped a woman, I carried her across the river, but you have been carrying my debt and burdening me with it for six days!” Do we allow our past to define us, does our past weigh us down? Does forgiveness only cancel the debt, or does forgiveness change us and free us for the future, to no longer live as slaves, as debtors, but instead to live life as forgiven by God? Coming to know each of these texts, I have heard one scholar after another question that if God is unconditional forgiveness, why was Pharaoh's heart hardened ten times? Why when the first slave does not forgive another, is the King so cruel as to throw him and his family into a place of weeping and the gnashing of teeth? If this were truly about MERCY, why does the King act so harshly? Would we not prefer a “churchy” version of this parable, where the King forgives the servant an enormous debt, and as the servant leaves he sees someone who owes him a debt, and in turn following the Golden Rule, he forgives as he was forgiven? But the Bible, like our own lives, is not happy, or easy to understand. More often than not, the Gospel of Matthew is played in a Minor Key, where those who beat the prophets are not forgiven, but are themselves killed. This parable only occurs in Matthew. In a section on Forgiveness, immediately after Jesus instructs the disciples that in Heaven, what someone else has, what they got away with matters Not, but instead the angels focus on God, and whenever there is any who are lost, God seeks them like Lost sheep. When the question is first asked, the offense Peter names is my brother has Sinned against me, SINS are not only about the debt, but the broken nature of our relationship, and also of that person with God. In the Gospel of Matthew, there is always a begging of the question, and usually the first to ask any question is Simon Peter. “SO, we are supposed to forgive one another, and you have shown us how to forgive, but how much, how many times?” After awhile, forgiveness no longer feels like forgiveness, it feels like you are being taken advantage of, like you are enabling the other to continue to make mistakes. That is the real nature of these offenses. In Greek the word used here is HARMONEN, meaning “MISSES.” Not Murder, not atrocities, not lies, but mistakes. And implicit in what Peter is saying, is that the offending party is not just a stranger, but my brother. Among the disciples there were pairs of brothers, James and John, Simon Peter and Andrew, who had been a follower of John the Baptist, one of the two sent to follow Jesus, who long before Peter declared Jesus the Messiah Andrew went to find Simon saying “We have found The Lord.” Andrew, who is standing right there among the disciples, Peter asks, “Lord, how many times do I have to forgive him?” Several years ago, I came into Confirmation Class, and one of the students was hitting another. When separated, the one who was hitting, described “But he hit me first.” As if he were owed the right to hit back until life was fair or equal. The orthodox answer to Peter's question was 3 times. If offended against three times, you could end the relationship. So risking an outlandish number Simon Peter more than doubles the orthodox answer, “Is Seven times, enough?” But Jesus replies, “Not seven, but seventy times seven.” Forgiveness is not about a ledger book. I have forgiven my brother 488 mistakes, so when he makes two more, I get to pounce on him. NO. If we are keeping track, if we are counting mistakes, then we are not actually forgiving at all. The only point of the numbers in Jesus' Parable is to identify the magnitude of the debts forgiven. In the first servant, he owes the King 10,000 Talents, and One Talent was the equivalent of 15 years wages. This is not a debt he can ever repay. The servant has made himself and his family indentured servants for generations to come, a debt of over $3,681,600,000. And when he asks for a lifetime to work at restitution, the King grants complete forgiveness. Yet, the second servant, owes the first something like $10,000. Still a significant amount, but a debt which could actually be repaid in a lifetime. Yet, the unforgiving servant is unwilling to forgive. The point is not simply to forgive as forgiven, to follow the Golden Rule, but rather that being forgiven by God is intended to change us. Not simply restoring the debtor to start over, equal, bankruptcy canceling out all creditors, but rather making us into new creations, as those with a spiritual debt for forgiveness. IF we cannot live life differently, then we have canceled our own forgiveness, and thrown ourselves and all future generations into that place of nursing hostility. In recent years Medical study after another has been published by Psychiatrist, Richard Fitzgibbons, by Psychologist Paul Coleman, by Professor of Educational Psychology Robert Enright, that nursing anger and resentment and revenge is detrimental to our health, causes sleeplessness, eats at our stomach linings, can be correlated to heart attacks and shortening our life-expectancy. While forgiving gives a sense of euphoria and lightness, lowers blood pressure, lowers cholesterol and anxiety. The statistic that amazed me was that 1 in 5 victims of a fatal Car Accident had been in a quarrel within 6 hours before the accident. The fatality from Texting while Driving is 1 in 10, so we are twice as likely to be killed when driving angry, than we are when distracted from driving by Texting. The description I like the best, comes from Rabbi Harold Kushner, counseling with a parishioner described: “I am not saying that you should forgive your husband because what your husband did was not terrible, it was horrible. But, am suggesting you forgive, because he does not deserve to have the power to turn you into a bitter resentful person!” When your hate of someone causes power over your sleep, power over your nerves, power over your peace of mind, you give that enemy greater power, the only way to undermine this, is to forgive, which is your taking charge of what effects you. The Story of Exodus, the Crossing of the Red Sea, is not about mistakes. This is foundational. This is the defining event for who the people of God were to be. Set aside all the stories of Genesis, for 400 years, the Hebrews had become deeper and deeper in debt to the Egyptians. The question of Exodus is not only who is God, but what will it take for the people to change from being Slaves of Pharaoh to being Free, and does Freedom simply mean you are no longer in debt, no longer property or that you live as those who appreciate life as a gift? To do so, requires a change for Pharaoh as well. This was no little thing, what is being described is the change of economy, political structure, social standing, that instead of having a population who were owners and those who were slaves, all the Slaves would be free. Time after time, through the 10 plagues, Pharaoh feels tricked, dominated, but unwilling to let go. Finally, with the Passover the people have sacrificed to God, and God has taken the first born of every Egyptian family, until the whole population of Egypt want the Hebrews to go. As the people flee, realize this is no small number. 10 abreast for 150 miles, this is a parade from here to Niagara Falls! 100 Hebrews abreast, for 15 miles from Skaneateles to LaFayette. Before them, is the Pillar of Fire, behind a Cloud. For thousands of years, people have questioned how this was possible, how the Red Sea opened up. I have to believe this is a retelling of Genesis Creation; just as in Genesis 1 the Spirit of God is brooding over and blowing upon the water of chaos. And God caused the waters to recede and Dry Land to appear. But the real question, is not did this happen, or how did this happen, but could the people change from being Slaves to being Free?

God's Losses

Exodus 12:1-14 Matthew18:15-20 Years ago in a sermon, I described what have been identified as the Stages of Conflict. The point being that Conflict is neither Good nor Bad, and the Level of Conflict is determined by the way we regard and treat one another. The first Stage is simple disagreement between friends, I like Meatloaf and you are a Vegan, so we disagree but we care enough about the other as friend to let them know we disagree. Level Two is what our Sunday School Volunteers and Children are learning about this morning, as one takes the role of Teacher and others the role of Students, and because we believe our information is important and the student is not going to learn without being challenged and encouraged, one takes a more dominant role and everyone else relinquishes their control to trust that Leader, Teacher, Pastor. Level Three is Competition, where the goal becomes winning, anyone can win, but winning means everyone else loses. The twist of culture, is that we now live in a world of competition, trying to win. Level Four is wanting to win so badly, that you will do whatever it takes to cause others to lose. Level Five is a willingness to to shame and destroy anyone who agrees with or is related to our opposition, so we will never be challenged again. This is very close to Genocide. What I have come to recognize more recently, is that our Need for Control is directly related to the level of Conflict, the greater the conflict, the greater our need for control, and in direct opposition to our level of trust. That as we relinquish Control, we demonstrate greater levels of Trust, and as we establish greater Trust Conflict dissipates. Our passage from Matthew has often been identified as a Blueprint for Conflict Resolution; but while a helpful methodology for resolving Conflict, that is not what this passage is about. We always need to pay attention to the Context of teaching. A Disciple comes to Jesus asking “How many times can my brother sin and I must forgive?” And Jesus replies that “in Heaven, all the angels look to the face of God,” their focus is God not right and wrong or winning or losing, or anybody else. Jesus goes on to name the story of the Lost Sheep, and when pressed for how to forgive, describes the stages of our reading today. Even more than about Conflict or Forgiveness, the point of this passage is about forgiveness of sin. When one person has wronged another, what is at stake is not simply who did what to whom, or who was right and who was in the wrong, but how to forgive, recognizing that the wrongs we commit are taken as wounds inflicted against the other and against God. Remember that the Bible was not written in English, we have received from others and translated for ourselves; the First Testament was originally written in Hebrew and the Gospels written in Greek, and the word here translated as “Sins Against You” is “Harmonton” which has the connotation of “Missing,” missing the mark, missing the point, misunderstanding. A miss causes problems in a community. Imagine every miss as a one degree turn, with every miss, we turn away a little further, we miss by a little more. Jesus linking of my brother sinned against me, and the Parable of the Lost Sheep makes me wonder, what if, every time my brother wronged me, every sin, every broken promise or disappointed dream were recast as being a Lost Sheep? Instead of being our wounds, our offenses, sins against us, these conflicts would be opportunities for redemption, for bringing home the lost and rescuing the wayward. There are 5 R's in addressing Harmonton: Repentance, Resolution, Redemption, Reconciliation, Restoration. These cannot be rushed or forced, every stage is monumental. Often we push for Reconciliation or Restoration, when Resolution has not been accomplished, when Repentance has not been felt or owned. Repentance, Resolution, Redemption, Reconciliation, Restoration all have to occur and in that order, for the community to be fully whole. Repentance is not simply serving your time, or paying what is owed, Repentance is turning around to look at life and circumstance differently. Resolution is then full and complete acceptance of this new orientation. Often times, most often, that new orientation, acceptance of repentance requires Redemption that we have to atone for our wrongs, seek what was lost, earn trust all over again. That is expensive, and relational, which hopefully, though not guaranteed, leads to Reconciliation, simple acceptance of your place in the community, but still trust and community is not present until full Restoration occurs. The Five Fingers of Forgiveness said differently, are simply: “Say it;” “Say You are Sorry;” “Stop it;” “Sort it out;” “Start over.” I mentioned in the beginning, when naming the Stages of Conflict, that a shift has occurred because of our Culture. We do not live in a world of trust and simple disagreement among equals in community. We do not even enjoy the world of exploration and discovery, where we share new ideas and educate one another on truth, We live in a time and place of Competition, outraged when someone cuts us off in driving, when pedestrians step out in a crosswalk without looking; when our ancestors, or our culture, or our passions are impugned. The difficulty, as these are Stages of development, is that it takes very little to escalate from Competition to being willing to shame and inflict pain on others that we never be challenged or questioned again. Related to this is that increasingly we live in an anonymous culture, where we do not see each other face to face. We do not share meals, we do not have conversations looking the other in the eye, we do not even write letters. Instead we post messages on Facebook. We poke one another. We watch, we listen, we consume and we expect everyone else to get us, or get out of the way. The Parable of the Lost Sheep is affirmation, that nothing is so important as the redemption of the lost. What is at stake is not who did what, or what was done, but harboring the sin, the brokenness eats away at you. The irony of this passage is that after trying everything else, treat the other as a Pagan or Pharisee, who rather than being rejected are the ones Jesus tried the hardest to include. Seeking the Lost is risky and costly. To leave the 99, is to give up trying to win. To leave the 99 is to trust that they do not need our control. To go in search is to admit a level of humility and desperate need for the other. God's instruction to Moses of the Passover is not simply institution of ritual, or passing down recipes. The Passover, was not the people choosing to pass-over the Red Sea, but an act of Repentance, Resolution, Redemption, Reconciliation and Restoration. Every household and person chose to be part of this community. Choose your sacrifice, not the least, or the most sickly, or easiest, but the best. Treat this as the first day of the rest of your life, as if there was nothing before. Imagine your wedding day, or child's birthday, or graduation... this is now the first day, with a new counting of months and days. Start over. Tear up your Calendars. Delete your saved up memories. We are not to worship, sitting back in the pew, but standing up, with your shoes on, with car keys in hand, ready to go. Our posture and position matters. There are churches where the reading of the Gospel is done with the congregation standing. When I came to this congregation there was a raging conflict, over which way we should face because for years we had faced North, but the Architect's designing a new Parking lot entrance wanted us to face South. In “good Presbyterian fashion” we formed a Committee to study and make recommendations, who came back suggesting that we come to God from many different directions and experiences, so lots of doors, but by re-arranging the pews we could face the direction we always had, with greater central focus, and even more the need to serve one another.

Family Systems

Genesis 21: 8-21 Matthew 10:24-40 There is a family of birth and there is a family of faith. One is family by the grace of God, and one is the family of God because of grace. One is our family by birth giving us genetics, identity in color of hair, skin, eyes, through osmosis giving us language and our most basic system of family. One is family of belonging who choose us, claim us, give us identity in communion, in faith, in values. We do not simply claim to believe in theory, myth, ideas or in faith, we do not baptize into absentia, we are Family. Family is a heavily loaded term. Family is our most basic identity. Family is who we identify being part of, as well as of what is right and what is wrong. The Genesis story reminds us that we are born with an umbilicus to our mother's womb, even when cut, for the first many years at least until we are weaned we are dependent upon her and fearful of life and death. Once weaned, we have a longer chord of connection, not only dependent on mother but on all of our family, and fear shifts from death, to fear of things in life. In the 1980s Edwin Friedman was a Rabbi and a Clinical Therapist, who came to realize that Family Systems give us identity. Family Systems lay claim to who we are. And our Family Systems overlap. There are certain “hot-button passages” in the Bible, passages which everyone knows and question, but often are too polite to ask publicly. Why did God harden the heart of Pharaoh, not giving Pharaoh a chance? Why did Jesus address the Syrophenecian Woman at the well as being a Dog? Why did Jesus say you will be hated by your Mother and Father and Sister and Brother? The point is not that you have to reject family, but rather that sometimes our commitments even / especially as The Church Family, our choices and decisions, put us at odds with our family of origin and are not supported by family. The irony is that 21st Century American Culture has turned Jesus' teaching on its head, such that the question for most is never will my family reject me for what I believe in, but rather: I can choose what I believe and what I do, and if anything becomes too hard or too threatening to me/ my family, I can just find and join a different church who will agree with whatever I believe. We have made Jesus' words into something cryptic as if a Mystery of wisdom needing a key to explain. WE each have burdens in life, responsibilities we have chosen to accept. What does it mean that Jesus said Take up your cross? The Cross is not and has never been our Burden. You choose to take up what gives you pleasure, worth, prestige, honor. Your Cross is not your Children, or Your Marriage, or Divorce, not your Vocation. The Cross is always about self-sacrifice. The Cross is about our Covenant Relationship with God, and with one another. Jesus died for our salvation not his, what do you choose to do for others? In the same breath as Jesus saying “Take up your cross,” he says “He who has possession of his life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” This morning's Scriptures require all of us to Grow up, to wrestle with a Mature faith. As much as we desire and try, none of us can make everyone happy, I know because I have spent all my life trying, but we cannot have it all or take it with us. Instead, we have to choose what is truly worthy, and what are you willing to sacrifice everything for, especially when you do not understand the benefit? These are questions without easy answers. I recall in College, being extremely frustrated when I came to realize that sometimes all you had to do was memorize what the text said, and regurgitate the text. On Page 34 the Geology textbook described the composition of Ignatius rock and on the test, the question was What is Ignatius composed of A) B) or C) But taking up Your Cross Daily, requires that we make decisions about what we choose in our lives, what have we found, what will we sacrifice, and do we sacrifice our faith in Jesus Christ, the love of God, our relationships in the Church, in order to be right, to not have to change or accept others? When is it required to not be politically correct? What Edwin Friedman described is that all of us are the heroes of our own epochs, we each operate on what we convince ourselves is Right. All of which is fine and good, until we are in relationship with other people, with a loved one, with a family, with a community. Suddenly what we want conflicts with what others believe to be right. Abraham and Sarah were getting along fine, until they wanted a child. Underlying both of our Biblical Passages today, and underlying most of life, is Fear. We fear being found out. We fear not winning. We fear people's expectations of us. Will my child think I am a failure? Will the one I love still love me? Can we still be accepted and loved, for who we are? Genesis is an incredible story about Fear. Out of all Creation, in all the world, in all humanity God chose Abraham and Sarah. The irony being that God chose Abraham to be the Father of Nations and Sarah to be Our Mother, when the couple were already far beyond the age where it was physically possible to conceive. They wandered like lost sheep for a generation in the wilderness, juxtaposing their Fears over against God's Promise. But in all those decades, still Our Mother could not conceive, so acting in fear she concocted the idea that her slave was her property, and therefore if the slave had a baby by Sarah's husband, then the baby's mother would be Sarah. Except after that baby was conceived, Sarah's fear turned to jealousy and resentment of this other woman who had been with her husband and given what she could not. Suddenly, God's Promise undercut all their fears and conspiring, and Sarah who was 90 years of age became pregnant! More than fulfillment of Promise, this was demonstration that Fear is Wrong, Our Mother was Wrong. Now is created the problem, because the child born of Sarah's fears plays with the Child of God's Promise. Sarah fears, because she did not trust the promise, what was born of her fears by this slave now according to the Law could inherit everything, leaving her child without anything. In this morning's passage, suddenly Hagar is transformed from The Egyptian property, to being The Other Woman. Suddenly Sarah's child through her slave, becomes competition for Sarah's son, Isaac. Suddenly Sarah wants Hagar and Ishmael dead. Fear is powerful, even overwhelming to us. Fear can be blinding. Fear is the opposite of Promise. What Jesus named, is for us to chose what we will be afraid of. Will you fear the stuff of this life, failure and success and other people and their expectations, or will you fear the one who actually has power over life and death, who loves you and cares about every hair on your head? Fear and Trust are inter-related. No longer is this regurgitation of the Text, Choose: Do we Trust God, or do we Fear Life? The problem is that life is not a one time decision. I was Baptized. I Confirmed my faith. I joined the Church. I got Married. I had a Child. All of these are life changing, monumental cathartic events, However, none of these are one time decisions, they are in fact beginnings for us to choose over and over again. Several years ago, there was an Elder on Session who named that he loved the Church. He loved the image of the church in the community, listening to the music, surrounded by the stained glass, the sermons fed, challenged and comforted him, the prayers expressed what he believed. But then he came to realize that behind the scenes there are bills to pay, decisions to make not only Yes or No but between alternatives, and our politics and our family systems sometimes disagree. In the Church we have adopted a Family System, that has become basic to our DNA: There are No Secrets. Things done in secret, develop their own power by conspiring with our fears to keep secret, so everything needs to be in the light where secrets are powerless. As members of the body, we each have responsibility to participate, to contribute and to vote for who will lead us, and if we disagree we do not act as Mother and Father rejecting you, but as followers of the teacher who each step up to be elected to take responsibility for making decisions. We take up the Cross to act not out of fear, not for what benefits, but with self-sacrifice for God.

Revelation

Whenever I read this story, I am reminded of when our children were very very small, and visiting Grandma and Grandpa, they took us to eat at a very fine restaurant. The waiters and guests all smiled at the children, until the meal was over, and our 3 year old leaned over to look at the floor, and in a loud voice declared “This place needs a dog, can we go get our dog to eat the crumbs off the floor?” Being at the shore this summer, children thought it was really exciting to feed their cheetos and bread to the gulls. Who cares about signs that say, Do not feed the birds. How rarely do you have the opportunity to feed birds especially wild birds from your hand? And yet, within a minute it was like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds as there were fifty gulls swarming, biting the children, biting each other. One woman described a gull diving from the sky, to land upon her shoulder, and take the whole piece of pizza out of her mouth and hand as it flew off. You do not give the children's bread to the dogs or gulls? While a very real scene, most of us have a hard time with this passage from Matthew, because like a scene from High School, Jesus snubs and ignores a woman of a different race, then refers to her as a female dog. This morning we confront several very real and practical questions. This is not a morning where all the threads are neatly woven in, and a happily ever after ending concludes the stories. First, Do we believe the world is finite, known and knowable? How do we imagine and conceive life? Is God some great all-knowing, all-powerful, watchmaker god who designed this complex cosmos, this wonderful world and everything therein, only to sit back and watch the performance, knowing everything that comes next; or can God learn? Is God a player in this world, as surprised and intrigued by life as we? What is at stake is the nature of Forgiveness and Redemption and Revelation? Whether God, the world and life can change. Whether Jesus was rude to this woman and her troubled daughter, or whether the established boundaries, the ethics and morals of God should be and can be challenged? Two years ago, we played a significant role in the creation of a new nation in South Sudan, which does not yet have a shared sense of the Rule of Law, or common acceptance of power and human rights and responsibility. Without a sense of shared boundaries we would be in constant conflict over our wants and desires; but then again customs and boundaries have been in flux in America at least since the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, if not the contesting of world powers in the Great Wars, and since the Progressive Era of the 1920s. All of our current events in Ferguson, Mo, and over same sex marriages, over oil/ national/ and religious boundaries all reference those challenges to boundaries, to what is known and accepted, which in itself is definition of power. Our Scriptures this morning are snippets from much larger stories. Abraham and Sarah gave birth to the promised child: Isaac; and Isaac and Rebecca gave birth to twins Jacob and Essau. Jacob struggled with everyone in life, until finally after conceiving children by his wife Leah, her maid Zilpah, and Rachel's maid Bilhah, Jacob and Rachel (the woman he truly loves) conceive their first born Joseph, then giving birth to Benjamin the baby of the family, Rachel died. Being the first-born of the most loved wife, Joseph is spoiled and arrogant to his family, lording over them his dreams of their bowing down to him. Finally one day, his brothers want to kill him, but deciding not to go quite that far, they lower him into a pit, and after leaving him there in the darkness they sell him into slavery, that he would be gone. I recall, being the third of four sons, perhaps you know as well what it was to be the tag along who was enough younger that the older siblings did not want you around. I remember being at our grandparents' farm in Fulton, when they would hang me by my ankles from the loft through the hay chute. I recall being dropped down the laundry chute inside the wall. I remember imagining it was wonderful to be included as the test-pilot for their tire-swing, only to discover the knots had not been well tied, or the rope was worn and frayed and the tire and pilot would go tumbling to the earth. But often, family members are ignored. It becomes easier to cope with people if they were put away, sold into slavery, dead, forgotten, as if you never did exist. Joseph's brothers live for years with the guilt of having sold their brother into slavery, believing they were the cause of the death of this beloved son. For us as Christians, when the Bible names the death of a beloved begotten son, it connects not only to the crucifixion, but our role in causing the death of Jesus. The point here is not simply how to move on, or even how do we forgive, but is it possible to have a redemption, a claiming of one another so thoroughly that the wound is healed? Redemption is related to the idea of Revelation, that something happens to change our perspective, to reveal to make un0hidden something which changes priorities. Their lives have gone on, with their concerns being only for their survival and that of their father. The issue for the brothers is not “I wonder how Joseph is doing?” Joseph was put out of their finite reality, he ceased to exist. Until one day, this day, when the family come to Egypt because of a great famine in the promised land. Out of need, the brothers stand before the Grand Vizer of The Pharaoh of Egypt. They do not see the man who sits upon the throne, they cannot imagine the humanity of the person in the office, they bow their heads before the power of a foreign government, one with power of life and death over them. But suddenly, the man behind the office reveals he is their brother. The one they thought was dead is resurrected, is alive. There is a marvelous description here, that God used the things we did for God's purposes. It is not that God caused these things to be or God knew what we would do, but that as we enter in, as we act, our relationships reveal something new. The words “Apocalypse” and “Revelation” are not literally about a cosmic battle of good and evil, the end of the world, or a great Armageddon, but literally mean an unveiling of what was hidden from our reality. The Gospel has been retold until the story is complex and rich. Like the Pharisees and Scribes, the Church, Culture, Religion, have often taken phrases out of context to support what we want them to say, to support our morals and values and ethics. The point was not that the Disciples never washed, but that between courses of a meal, for ceremony and to be noticed as doing something religious, the Pharisees and Scribes would wash. Jesus replies to them, that they twist the words of the Bible out of context, to justify when they do not want to take care of their parents, or make an offering to God. But when, instead of reading a verse here and another there, we read the whole Gospel together and allow the parts to inform each other we discover things we never saw before. Two weeks ago, after a series of parables, we read of Jesus feeding 5000 men plus their women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fish, with 12 baskets overflowing left over. 5000 and 12 are sacred numbers in Judaism occurring in the First Testament. Then we had the story of Peter and the Disciples being in a boat during a great wind upon the water, and Jesus came by walking on the water. Do you recall what Peter said: “IF you are the LORD, give me the power to walk on water to you.” “IF you are the Lord?” Peter always has these conditional requirements, for which you want Jesus to smack him upside the head, but instead Jesus says “Come” and everything is fine, Peter is able to defy reality, until he doubts. Here in this morning's passage, a Canaanite Woman seeks Jesus out to kneel before him. Since the time of Abraham the Canaanites have been non-Jewish, she represents the Gentile world outside, even more because she is a woman. But she does not say “IF You are the Lord...” She greets Jesus saying “Have Mercy on me, LORD, Son of David, for my daughter is possessed by a demon.” Literally, her greeting was “Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest, Son of David!” To which Jesus dismisses her as not part of his reality, yet she brings about a revelation, she broadens Jesus' perspective. At which point, the Gospel provides another telling of the feeding of crowds, but here 4,000 instead of 5,000, with 7 baskets full. Why the same story twice with different numbers, especially lesser not expanding? 4 and 7 are Gentile Numbers referring to the 4 Corners of the World, the 4 Winds, or here 4,000 people, and 7 days of Creation. SO the Gospel describes that Jesus did the miracle of feeding the people again, but his point of reference has changed, a revelation has occurred, and now he offers to feed the whole world.

Wrestling Anxiety

There is something about human nature, that loves to watch as a scoundrel is trapped and gets away! Do you remember the Brer Rabbit Uncle Remus stories, of this rabbit being stuck to a tarbaby, but Brer Rabbit was able to evade the trap by also sticking Brer Fox and Brer Bear in their own trap? Recall the Bugs Bunny cartoons, where that whiley wabbit was able to escape Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck, even to stop gravity, so as to evade falling? Captain Jack Sparrow, who was able to turn reality upside down to get from death to life? While fun and entertaining, what mesmerize us, are two overlapping realities: 1)The hero (like us) is a bit of a scoundrel, a heel grabber, who plays practical jokes and believes that no one can get the better of them. 2)Faced with anxiety, they change reality, the goal is: the hero will prevail, despite the tree being cut from the limb, the airplane crashing toward the earth, the noose being around their neck/ judgment pronounced, they can prevail, by surviving until Porky Pig pronounces “ttttThat's All Folks.” Somehow, watching a waskle of a wabbit evade reality; witnessing a pirate sail to the end of the world then turn his ship around on a dime; a Road Runner, who no matter how much the coyote spends at Acme or what technology the wiley coyote purchases, can always get away, gives the rest of us hope, allowing us at least vicariously through them to manage anxiety and insecurity in changes to reality. All of us function at our best when everything is secure and safe when we are building accomplishment upon accomplishment, but you can tell more about people when we are wrestling with our insecurity. There was a point when our greatest fear was the vocabulary words of a spelling test, or the new math, or did we bring lunch money. But when threatened, when our sense of reality shifts, do we maintain our commitments? Do we function as if nothing has changed, when the ground around us falls out and circumstance change. Do we chuck all of our morals and ethics and values and faith, in order to survive and compete? We can complain about it, we can attempt to avoid it, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a culture of our creation, driven by virtual reality, digital projection, and stock profits. The last several years, as we have celebrated the passing of what was described as “The Greatest Generation.” We have listened as family have described “My mother could cook anything! She could knit and sew and we took for granted that everyone could.” “My father was of that generation who could fix anything, who could build, wire and plumb a house, and manage a business.” But what I perceive as the actual reality shift, is that our grandparents worked on subsistence farms, where all they hoped for: was to put food on the table. Our children have inherited a world driven by creation of apps and virtual realities. Are we really any better off, by having an app on our phones that you can call strangers to use their cars as if a Taxi, when they are not licensed or monitored? All of this tied to stocks and profit margins, which are not directly about any product being created, but about the acquisition of immediate fortunes, when the stock market once was about investing for the future. We have all the many stories of Jacob's life, far more than anyone prior, yet in the midst of all these stories, are two life-changing events: Jacob Running Away, had a vision of the Stairway to Heaven; and here having gotten the better of his Father, Brother, Uncle Laban, in the dark Jacob wrestles with insecurity. In both occasions, Jacob was in trouble. Life-altering decisions do not come when choosing between two successes, but in times of trouble. In running away from Home, from his father and brother, Jacob recognizes in a dream, he cannot run away from God, for God is in this place. Like Skakespeare's Hamlet in the To Be or Not to Be soliloquy, the hero realizes he can control his actions, suffer people's perceptions, but we cannot control our dreams. Dreams are where Carl Jung described we shovel all the refuse of our lives, until that shadow, that dark-side overwhelms us. I think it is important to not name this a Ladder, because many of us try to climb and master one rung after another, but faith and reality are not about success or accomplishment but instead about the relationship, the connection between us and God. What strikes me as odd about “the Stairway to Heaven,” is something that I find is not described in any commentary. There are only three visions of a tower or ladder or stairway in literature between heaven and earth. The first in Led Zepplin's song “Stairway to Heaven” there is description of Rebecca, Jacob's Mother “There's a Woman whose sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven! Then twice in the book of Genesis: at the Tower of Babel and here. At Babel the people were “settling,” trying to make themselves in control, here Jacob recognizes he cannot settle because there is a God in this world. In this second occurrence we do not know whom Jacob wrestles, Laban? Esau? Himself or God? What we do know is that Jacob cannot win and cannot get away. Jacob had come up with elaborate ways of trying to seduce himself back into good graces. He sent his herds of camels as a gift, then his herds of sheep; then his herds of goats, then his slaves, etc. Next he divided his family in half, hoping that if one half were destroyed, at least he had the other. So for the second time in his life, Jacob sacrificed his family, in order to escape. But here, once Jacob has sent ahead everyone and everything, there in the dark, is when he actually wrestles for his life. In the dark of night, recognizing he cannot win, and he is going to be wounded, permanently changed, he makes a choice to cling to God, to pursue the truth, whatever the cost. The first thing that happens, when in an encounter with God is that you wrestle with yourself and the one who made you. In the dark, in a strangle hold, Jacob hears God's question of Who are you? And responds, I am Jacob, up until this Jacob had been an ankle grabber, a deceiver, thief, con man, a manipulator. God answers, No More, You are now Israel who wrestles with God, and with whom God prevails. Prevail is a strange word, I checked and every English translation comes back to Prevail. In Hebrew the word is “Gabar” it means to win together, or along side of, but also carries the meaning: to persuade, induce, coax, convince, to get, urge, pressure or coerce, which actually is only a subtle difference from who Jacob thought he was as Jacob. What changes in Jacob's Wrestling, is that instead of anticipating his brother Esau is coming with 400 men to get even, Jacob comes to recognize his brother is coming to welcome the prodigal home. Reading the Bible, we need to interpret Scripture with Scripture. When you hear a story of a father with Two Sons, and on the father's deathbed the younger runs away, you need to hear as Jesus' listeners would have that this is about Isaac, Esau and Jacob. The attitude of the Scripture was that the prodigal coming home should have been greeted by the brother. Wrestling with insecurity, we have this powerful reading from Matthew. The feeding of 5000 comes in all four Gospels, it is in fact the only miracle which does! To understand the insecurity, unique to this passage, we need to know that King Herod had given himself a Birthday party. Herod had abandoned his wife, because he had fallen in love with his brother's wife Herodias. John the Baptist had criticized them for this relationship, for which Herod had thrown him in prison. At this lavish party, Herod's new love has her daughter dance for him, and so taken with lust for a younger version of her and himself, like a fairytale, Herod offers the girl what ever she desires... which becomes John the Baptist's head on a platter. In grief and loss, Jesus tries to go to a lonely place but is pursued. After teaching and healing, Jesus invites the disciples to feed the crowds, which the Disciples are insecure about because who could feed 5000 men plus their women and children? But the point of the Miracle is not how to feed 5000. The repeated identity throughout the Gospel of Matthew is Jesus is GOD with Us. The point of the miracle is: Even in the midst of grief and loss at death, Jesus has compassion on the people. Further, Jesus convinces the disciples to Give all you have and it will be enough. There is NO explanation for how. How does not matter. Changing the orientation of the disciples from following their own thinking, to responding to Jesus and acting in compassion, is all there is.

The Way Things Are

Genesis 25: 19-34 Matthew 13:1-17 A Sower went out to sow... What else would one expect a sower of seed to do? This is not about Plumbing or Carpentry, the sower's purpose was not to even to plant or to bring about a harvest, but only to sow with abundance. The choir make music... Missionaries from the church go to do mission, in the village and town, in Manhattan and Brooklyn, in Korea, Haiti, Africa and to the ends of the earth! Is there any description here of what kind of seed the sower sowed? Is there description of who the sower is? Is there description of where this sowing of seed took place in Galilee of the Gentiles, or Jerusalem? No, a parable is not specific. A parable is not for use in judging and condemning others. This morning, I would like for us to hear the parable, not as the words may have been applied a hundred times before, that your neighbors are Weeds, and brothers dumb as Rocks, or some are down-trodden and others picked over by the birds, so what does it take to be Good soil? NO, but instead, that all of us, ALL of us have the capability of being all these different conditions. There are times when we are hard and trodden, like a packed road that has been walked over for a thousand years. There are times when we are as receptive and perceptive as rock. There are times, when we are so busy and pre-occupied nothing has a chance to grow up with depth or free of choking competition. The wonder of this parable, the wonder of our lives, is that the seed stands any chance at all. Too often, the Scriptures, faith in God, religion, class, race and nation, have been used as tools in demonstration of ELECTION as if one person or group of people were morally superior over any other. We have heard these stories so frequently, that when we hear of Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and Saducees, the hairs on the back of our necks stand up believing we know who they were and they were trouble. We read the book of Genesis, knowing that Cain is going to kill Abel, that out of all the world's sinful population Noah will be chosen, and his son Seth, whose descendent will be Terah, whose son is Abraham will be the one chosen. That even though they were childless for 30 years, eventually although as good for childbearing as if they were dead, Abraham and Sarah conceive, and Isaac is this miracle child. What if this morning, instead of claiming the conclusion that we are like Jacob, wise and refined, vulnerable and cultured, who will displace Esau who is more brutish and hulking; what if we identified ourselves with each and every character, seeing each in ourselves, then and only then questioning the meaning of Election and Faith. First, knowing that like Isaac, we each are long awaited miracles. You are children of the Promise. Everything this church has been about for 2013 years has been done for you! Everything faith has been about for all these thousands of years, has become a blessing for you. You know that as difficult as life may become, our ancestors struggled with similar circumstance, often much harder. Yet the promise was given through them, so you are going to live through the struggle, you are going to be the means of God providing faith to all peoples. When Isaac and his beloved partner were unable to conceive, even for 20 years, Isaac prayed and God listened. Like unto this, Rebecca, who desperately wanted a child, even for 20 years, instead was given twins. Whose pregnancy was difficult, tearing her apart, yet in the midst of her struggle, in the midst of doubt and pain and suffering, Rebecca was able to hear God where she never had before, and where God spoke to her different than to any other had heard, explaining and revealing that the twins in her womb were two nations from one family. Would that in any war, particularly civil wars within nations, we were able to see the enemy as being our own sister and brother and what this is doing to parents and children beside us. Would that we could recognize how like Isaac and Rebecca, we as parents have in subtle and not so subtle ways played favorites among our children, teaching them to manipulate and to lie, even to themselves. We are like Esau, accepting and claiming what we describe as the natural order of things, especially when they benefit us. Believing the world is a place of kill or be killed, where instead of forgiveness, justice, love, we seek retribution and to win so as to fill our bellies regardless where goods came from. Rocky Soil filled with choking weeds, we are like Jacob, plotting and scheming to trip others up. All throughout the early part of this story, Jacob is not described as being like Abraham or Isaac, having faith in Almighty God. Jacob was out for whatever would give him success, would allow him to win. Only after he runs away from home, only when he is alone, tired and afraid, was Jacob able to witness God's Ladder between heaven and earth, to recognize God as being a reality in this life. Oddly enough, in other parables, Jesus describes “the Kingdom of God is like” or “God is father of two sons,” here he simply tosses the parable out there as much as to say “This is the way it is.” God the Creator and Redeemer of life, God the Savior and Judge, does not simply plant individual acts as seed, God blankets the earth with grace, sowing seed everywhere, grace is abundant and sufficient. Sometimes, we are able and willing to hear, to listen, to respond and take in. Sometimes, we make ourselves too busy. What Jesus described to the disciples, is an exact quote from Isaiah in the First Testament who had a revelation of the kingdom of God sending out prophets like the indiscriminate scattering of seed, and God naming that this generation of humanity would witness without perceiving, would hear without the capability of being able to understand. I was reflecting with close friends the other day, that in all our years together, with all that has been done, there have been crises every year, this little community has known great tragedy and loss. As a pastor, my role has rarely been prophetic, managerial or leadership, but simply controlling ANXIETY; allowing people to know we would be with them. What I have witnessed more often than not, is that in the midst of those very crises, accidents, bankruptcies, violence, divorce, when we have been so humbled we could no longer be in control as we wanted, those have been the times when we were able to see God, to hear God in our midst. As frustrating as Life can be, there are times when we have to get out of our own way in order to listen. I am increasingly convinced that ELECTION is not about God ordaining this is what is going to happen and who is going to do what. But rather, that all of us are capable of doing terrible, horrible, very bad things, as well as receiving and acting as conduits of God's grace. All of us are Rocky soil, Hard Trodden, Weed Infested, Bird Pecked, as well as having everything essential to receive God's grace. 30, 50 and 100 fold were not quantities like an Ephah or Omer, but rather described abundance. If we can allow ourselves to receive, to take in and grow, we will produce, in some cases enough to benefit the whole village, in other cases enough to benefit the world, in still other cases enough to benefit the world for generations to come. Election and Faith are not about some being better than others, or judging one another as sinners. Faith and Election are realization that possibly we could act and our actions could be of benefit to others. Faith involves the struggle with Why God, but also is God in the midst of this and where?

The Pre Arrangement

How do you know that what you do is right, God's will, a sacred act, and not simply expedient? According to The Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist came preaching Hell-Fire and Brimstone, Repent, Abstain, live Pure and Chaste lives, turning aside from all Evil, as an Elect, Righteous people; Jesus came and not only ministered to the most common people, Jew and Gentile, he associated and ate with the most disreputable, diseased, sinners. We live in a time of radical cultural change, do we simply bless whatever the culture dictates, or stand apart as ritualistically out of touch? When for several generations now, marriages have more likely ended than continued, how do you know this one will succeed? When asked about this Ann Landers replied, that “A marriage license is not a guarantee of a happy marriage, any more than a fishing license guarantees catching fish, it simply gives you the legal chance to try.” Every minister discerns that their particular Calling is unique, they possess gifts called upon in the place and time of a particular people. In the 1950s and 1960s, my Father developed churches in suburbs where there had been no community. My own Calling has been to re-visit circumstances that did not go well and attempt to experience differently with trust as an act of faith. When we rebuilt the Church, it was not as an act of architecture or engineering, but going back to the foundations of what we believe and are called to be. When we replaced the Organ, it was not to have the biggest, or best, but what would be necessary to support the faith and arts of this community. When we recreated the Manor it was not to make the facility new, but to respond to what each person wanted as their home. When we went to S.Sudan, it was not build a Clinic or a new nation, but to re-unite families lost because of war. This morning, we Baptize a new generation in this church, the 3rd and 4th generation of each family. But standing in the same place as generations before you, sacred words incanted by one ordained, does not guarantee: health, blessings, wisdom, faith. This day, we begin a new relationship, and we have tried having multiple pastoral leaders before, how do we ensure that this will work, when we have failed and condoned problems in our past? Throughout the last 40 years in American culture, we have had Pre-Nuptual Agreements, even Palimony Contracts, determining up-front, whose is what, in the event that the relationship does end. What I would suggest to you, is that the issue in any pre-agreement is not explicit in the fine print of the contract, but instead, in the naming of trust between the parties, that each person be honest with themselves and each other and God, and whether this agreement is only for dividing assets and worth, or whether we trust one another, and what do we trust them for? Once upon a time a pious holy man was wandering through Eastern Europe, when he came upon a village whose “Shochet” had died. The Shochet is a kind of Rabbi, who recites the prayers of atonement necessary for the killing of animals to be as offerings and sacrifices to God. The town butcher ran into this stranger, and recognizing him to be a holy man, asked if he happened to be a shochet? Miraculously, the stranger said he was! Delighted, the Butcher, took the rabbi to the slaughterhouse, that they might begin work as partners. As they settled in, the Shochet asked the Butcher if he might be advanced some money, that he might be able to purchase things necessary for him to live in the community and do his work. The butcher responded, “But you are a complete stranger, I only just met, how can I trust to lend you money?” The Rabbi responded, “You were going to trust me with the spiritual-well-being of this whole community, the restitution of your sins in relationship to Almighty God, even though you never before laid eyes on me, but when I ask you for a few coins, with my Word of repayment, you act as if you do not know me?” This morning's scripture from Genesis is the longest chapter in the book. The issue at hand, is in order for God's promise of future generations to be as many as there are stars in the heavens or sand upon the shore, there has to be a partner for Isaac. Ironically, in one single verse, the couple see each other, are married, go into the tent together and fall in love. The 66 verses before are about how this relationship is established as a sacred pre-agreement. After the death of Sarah, Abraham takes his most trusted servant, and gives him two commands: My Son Isaac who was born in this land and has never been in our ancestral homeland is NOT to go back there; and the wife that you find for him, is NOT to come from this Canaanite people. So you are this trusted servant, who makes an oath with your master to find a wife for his son and heir. How would you do it, what would you set out to do? Something tells me, that hosting an “American Idol” competition would not be successful. Nor would going on line to the dating Website for cheating spouses, or even Christian Singles. Instead, this servant takes his caravan to the marketplace, sitting beside the local well. He offers a prayer to God for revelation, that he would be cleared of all distraction, and the one of whom he asks a cup of cold water, who replies “Certainly and allow me to water your camels as well,” shall be the one. Realize that watering all the workers and camels in a caravan is no simple task and would be a sign of hard work, devotion to strangers, compassion to animals. Before the words have escaped the servants lips to God, a woman comes forward, of whom he asks a cup of cold water, and she offers to water his camels as well. To her, to her mother, to her brother, this series of events is retold again and again. A Faith Story, a Sacred act is not about logic or reason, or signs, it is a sacred story. Remember your story, of how you you met and fell in love? Remember the story of your wedding day? Remember your story of the Birth of your child and of their Baptism? Through the telling of stories, we claim each other, we fall in love. Years ago, I knew a couple who had an arranged marriage like this, wearing a veil, they did not actually see each other until after the wedding was done. I recall asking them about love, and they both blushed, and described that over 40 years together, they learned to love each other for who they were. In answer to the question of the New Testament, what do we do with these polar opposites? John the Baptist represented a faith of ancient purity and exclusivity, while Jesus demonstrated inclusion; and both were rejected by the people and culture! Neither one is right, nor is splitting the difference and trying to find a happy medium. Instead a sacred relationship requires that we be tolerant and inclusive, while also representing repentance from what any of us desire or want to instead doing what is right before God. As much as this was a sacred holy relationship of Rebecca being chosen by God, coming from a family that would be acceptable, a beautiful and intelligent woman, who is decisive and respectable, the fact of the matter for Genesis and all the remainder of Scripture, is that Rebecca is the one who causes a cultural shift. Where Law and custom dictated that the first born inherit everything, Rebecca would be the one who tricked her husband into blessing the younger instead. There can be no Pre-Agreement to cover every contingency. Instead, what we need is to know ourselves, and to be honest with one another about who we are and what we want. Then to act in the presence of God, that this is not just routine, but a sacred holy devotion of trust and commitment. However, there is also a unity, that Baptism is not an event unto itself. Marriage is not a one day celebration. There is also a Gathering at the Table, where we humbly confess we are all sinners. We need God and we need each other, and we are broken, wounded by our words and actions, the events of our lives, which cannot be restored without forgiveness and reconciliation.

So What?

Genesis 1:1-2:4 Matthew 28:16-20 I do not recall having ever said, “My father is better than your father”, “My Dad can beat your Dad.” But I do recall being in awe, because he loved us. My father was of the great generation who could build a house, or fix a car, invest in stocks, and play bridge. Dad had been an Electrical Engineer, so could design the most incredible Science Fair Projects! Dad had created for us an elaborate world for HO trains, with mountains and tunnels, lakes and bridges. Mom had her Sewing Room, but Dad had his Shop in the basement where he could fix anything from carpentry to plumbing, to problems at school or in life. Dad was a pastor, so a leader in the community. He spoke and people listened. He fixed marriages, he fixed circumstance when people were in trouble, he was there to baptize babies and to bury grandparents. My father used to say to me, that he was glad he had served as a pastor when he had, in the years following WWII, when communities and churches were growing exponentially; when people knew they were thankful to God for being alive, having survived the Great depression, having survived War, having survived the rapid surge to marry and give birth to children. The world today is different. The Church today is different. Because of which, we ask different questions than ever before. Not that earlier times, circumstance or conclusions were wrong, only that today there are different questions. For the last Century, across Western Europe and North America, culture has been fighting over Science versus Religion, Evolution versus Creation, Answers versus Faith. But the point of this morning is that beneath this are more basic questions. Who, When, Where, How are Objective questions, which seem to give us control over chaos. But ultimately, Who What When Where cannot answer the questions of meaning and purpose, questions of Why and So What Now? The other day, I was with a family who were grieving the loss of a matriarch, a great grandmother. The family were anxiously waiting to hear why she died, how did this happen, was it a stroke, an aneurism, cancer, did somebody do something? Suddenly it hit me, I have never seen a headstone in any cemetery that read: Cancer. Heart Disease. Drunk Driving. How and Why, really do not address the questions we need answered. Grandma had been over 100 years of age, as long as anyone in the family could remember, she had been there, she made them clothes, she knit sweaters, she instinctively knew the recipes for baking cookies when we came. Would our world be overtaken by chaos, without Grandma to tell stories? When hearts were broken, when jobs were lost, when a child had died, she had always been there. How could we live without her? The meaning of our identity, the roles we play for others, the questions of So What and Why, are Subjective, they do not provide absolute Control over life and death, but they do provide meaning, and context and relationship, all of which help to create order and understanding and faith in something beyond what we can control. Not only do we have different questions, we have different means of communication. And the Church Today must embrace the reality that our Teens, Twenties and Thirty year olds do not communicate by writing letters, by going to someone's house to speak with them, they do not pick up the land-line telephone, they do email. The culture Texts and Tweets and I.M.s. For the last twenty years, ushers and preachers and parents, have been reprimanding people to turn off your Communication Devices. What a foolish thing for us to say especially in church! Instead, I want to say that I need your help. I would like it if every worship service, every occasion in life, if you would text me with your questions, and I will try to find the way to respond. Possibly, sermons from week to week will be better connected, ever probing deeper. Perhaps, if I get even better at multi-tasking, we can select the top three questions to respond to during that morning's sermon. The top three questions every time we gather, probably are going to come back to “Why?” “So What?” and “How are we to live our lives with this change?” Faith does not begin with Abstract Objective Questions and Answers, because life itself is subjective and relational, a story, and every story has a beginning. The story of Faith begins with an affirmation: “In the Beginning God.” Before there was anything else, before time, space, power, good and evil, right and wrong, there was God. That is a powerful Theological claim. Life is not an accident or mistake. All of life has to be explained and understood as being in relationship to God. In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth, rather than being the story of Christianity, or Israel, or America, even the story of Abraham, or Adam, Faith begins that God created all things in heaven and earth to be inter-dependent in relationship. Against the context of heaven and earth being Chaos, a Frightening Black-hole, where nothing is as it seems, everything is hostile and destructive, by the power of a word God creates balance and order, in the first three days God creates an environment for creation and in the next three days God creates creation to fill and care for that environment, and because this is our story of humanity in relationship to God, we affirm that God's greatest creation is us. Two of the wonderful parts implicit in this story are First, that thousands of years and hundreds of Cultures and Empires before Darwin, the ancient Hebrew people got the order of Creation the same as in Evolution. But where rational thought goes backward of what had to be in order for life to exist, and when there was nothing extrapolates a Big Bang, Faith claims that as the Word of God. The Word of God not in war with Chaos, not breeding or destroying, but by a word calling for peace and order and balance and inclusion of both what was and what will be. Second, that the story of Creation is not told in the past tense, but rather in the Future Perfect, as much as to emphasize that the Creative Act of God, is still being Created now and in the future. Oddly enough, the Theological Doctrine of the Trinity, our most basic identity of God, was not created by theologians in an ivory tower in a place apart. Instead, by the fourth Century of the Common Era, there was a raging debate of whether God was and is Singular throughout all time, therefore invulnerable, unchangeable, eternal; OR whether from the Beginning there were three Gods, Creator, Savior and Spirit, Father/Son/ and Holy Ghost, which allowed for and even assumed that the Almighty could change and be changed, which might mean that truth and right and wrong might change as well? The resolution to this, came from the churches meeting together, talking together, and resolving that God is one, but God is also known in differing ways. What is eternal and universal to God is that God is Love. God created the world out of love, with the desire that Creation would love God. We all, like God, desire and need to be affirmed, to be loved. When people were Oppressed and enslaved God loved them so much as to enter into God's own creation to set the people free. God loved the world so much, God gave us God's only begotten child, who himself loved us so much as to die for us in order to bring us into full relationship with God. The last three weeks, I have experienced something different. In three weeks we have had five deaths and had officiate at four funerals. What I came to realize during these is that deaths, like births and confirmations and graduations and marriages, all are times of re-evaluation of our story of our identity. Does that fight ten years ago really matter? What did it mean that Grandma left home at 16 to go to NYC? Who are we, now that that loved one is a memory, an eternal part of who we are. But also, that is Churches across the country officiating at at least one funeral per week is their norm. Half the churches in America across all denominations did not receive a single new member last year. Over the next two weeks we will celebrate four marriages, 16 over the next three months, and between last Sunday and the next three we will celebrate the Baptism of 8 new Believers. Consequently, we recite the marriage vows quite often, and we these words of Jesus. Hearing these so often, is affirming to who we are and what we will be. There are incredible ironies in these words. First that Jesus did not say this before Pilate of the Roman Empire or in Jerusalem or when on a hillside with 5000 followers, but in Galilee of the Gentiles, when they had lost and were disillusioned. Hear, that ALL Authority, power dominion are given to Him, and the Call is not to people just like us, not to a closed group, but to strangers, to those different, by nations not Kingdoms but diverse peoples. Within the last year, the Clinic in S.Sudan has gone from unending accomplishment and success to being temporarily evacuated and abandoned due to war; Presbyterian Manor has been in the process of turning over all of their residents; these are difficult times because we live with insecurity and must minister in a world with an unknown future, but that is reality! Also, according to Matthew, the disciples had already been charged to do all of this, to pray, to preach, to heal, to cast out demons and work miracles, to baptize, all of this except to teach others, that is new. The difficulty is that for so long all we believed we could do was to baptize and teach what we knew, when as the church in this time and place we are called to pray for one another, as we heard the last two weeks that our children and youth can teach us about preaching the word of God, that there are miracles in our midst and demons that need to be named for what they are. The questions we need to be asking are not Accusatory: Who did what to whom, How and When? But rather Questions of meaning and Transformation instead of exegeting with certainty what was said, to listen and respond to the questions of the Gentile world around us. Why did this occur? What could Context tell us? So What are we going to do?

Great Expectations

Genesis 22:1-14 Psalm 44 Matthew 10:40-11:19 It is expected that every Graduate of Skaneateles High School has read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Not only is this one of the great pieces of literature, each of the characters have a twist, such that their expectations, and our expectations of them, must change. This is a weekend of Great Expectations and Change. We know that at the end of the Ceremonies all the Graduates will go jump in the lake in Cap & Gown, but this morning they were our children, who went to Nursery School and Waterman, State Street at the Central Schools; this afternoon they are Graduates beginning the next chapter. They go off on Rotary Exchange, to the Military, or to College and University, we expect to study and to learn, but in the experience each will also be changed and mature. I am increasingly convinced that it does not matter one iota what we choose to do the first two years out of High School. In part because our expectations of ourselves and of life, change. We have to be responsible for making ends meet, doing our own laundry and feeding ourselves. We are exposed to other people and expectations and opportunities than we had in this town. Just as in the first two years of life our minds took in and began processing differently so also in the next two years, whether going to Dartmouth or Afghanistan, whether going to China or Cayuga Community, our expectations and hopes and dreams will mature. Yesterday, we celebrated two weddings, and just as they had planned for that event over the last many months and years, so also the next several months and years will take their expectations and allow each to live more and differently. The obstacle this morning is that life does not happen according to our expectations. We do not simply follow instructions and life will work out, sometimes we face circumstance that test and change us. There are few stories as well known, as horrific, or as misunderstood as our reading from Genesis. Realize that this passage of Scripture is in the Christian Bible and the Jewish Bible and Muslim Koran. The expectation for Christians is that this is the Testing of Abraham. But Judaism and Islam, each tell the same story with differing expectations. The traditional expectation is that the great Patriarch Abraham had wandered the wilderness with God for 30 years, hoping against reality for the fulfillment of Promise, the fulfillment of the Covenant. God had promised Abraham would be the Father of a Child, the Father of Nations, whose name would be known and respected, whose descendents would possess a land of their own flowing with milk and honey. Now the Miracle Child is born, to a couple far beyond the age of having children, and 40 years after the Call, when Abraham is 110 years of age, God commands to test whether now that Abraham has the child, will he still be faithful. Abraham had followed with expectation of a great reward, a payoff in the end, that the barren could conceive. So for Christians, the Sacrifice of Isaac, similar to Baptism, is returning to God what God has given us. Recall that Christianity was given to us who were not previously Jews, as an historic reality. While we were still sinners, before we ever knew God, the Word of God became incarnate, was born and called disciples, taught and healed, working miracles, and suffered and died and rose, ALL before we ever knew. As Christian Believers, we have received the promise, with no greater goal than to live with God in whatever circumstance will come; living with the resurrection, can we continue to be faithful? According to Islam, it was not Isaac Abraham took up the mountain, but instead Ishmael. The story is exactly the same, with a different first born son. The expectations are different, because in the Muslim faith this is a passage about Obedience to God. Abraham knows that he is now too old to have another child, the promise has been fulfilled, the miracle has been given to the couple. Now that you have everything you desire, will you obey God? Will you take the child up the mountain to sacrifice? Reality, and morality, laws against murder and child-abuse are not as important as Obedience to God. Judaism, tells the same story, but with differing expectations. The emphasis is not upon Ishmael but upon Isaac, not upon the Sacrifice of Abraham, or the testing of Abraham, this passage of Genesis is identified at Akedah, this described as The Binding of Isaac. Last week as we read together, Abraham and Sarah had had a good and full life together with God, but the lack of resolution about a child had given Sarah terrible fear. So she bound her fears to her slave, and had the slave Hagar given to Abraham, Ishmael was conceived out of Sarah's fears, then the miracle took place and Isaac was born. Sarah bound all her fears and anxiety and hate to this other woman and her child, such that Sarah wanted them dead and they were sent away, cut off from the family because of being bound to Sarah's fears. Now, Abraham takes Isaac, his son by Sarah, his only son, and Abraham recognizes his life is changing. Never again will life be like it was 40 years ago. So they go up the mountain. Abraham puts a load of wood on the child to carry, then binds Isaac as representing all his hopes and dreams and fears of a lifetime, that are never going to be the same again. But Judaism has two different interpretations from Islam or Christianity, believing in the same God, we can learn from these. First, as Abraham builds the Altar and the fire and binds his child, we replay the whole story of Genesis, that for the first 11 Chapters was about all the world, and for these last 11 chapters has all been about Abraham. How often our lives seem to be all about us! The binding of Isaac, is realization by Abraham that his life has been all about himself, and this is the future, this is the child of God who will also have a covenant relationship with God although different from Abraham. Also, there is something curious in this passage, that at the beginning the Word of God came to Abraham telling him to obey, and atop the mountain as he prepared to kill his child, an angel spoke. Do angels have the authority to overrule God? There is a subtle shift in expectations with binding Isaac. Abraham obeyed God up to the point of taking the life of a child, when ethics, and morals and right and wrong entered in, and Abraham took a ram instead. There is obedience to faith in God, but there can also be ethics, and personal responsibility of saying No. From which, the laws of sacrifice provide a substitution. There is a sacrifice of the first-fruits, the birth lamb born, the first heifer, but when it is a beast of burden, or a child, a substitute can be made saying God life is precious, so I offer this sacrifice hoping my devotion is enough. There is a change that comes through the Binding of Isaac. From this point forward, the story does not follow Abraham, but instead Isaac, and from this point forward God does not speak to Abraham again. Be it in a Charles Dickens' novel, or in the story of Abraham, Ishmael or Isaac, or in the Gospels, our expectations of God and the world tell us less about reality, and more about ourselves, what we perceive, what we are ready to understand and do. Many saw John as the fulfillment of their expectations of what an Old Testament Prophet would be. They followed the instructions of his prophecy and were baptized by John. Many saw John the Baptist as a Radical. He was trouble, he named abuses for what they were and called people to repent and believe. Imagine yourself as John the Baptist in prison, or even as a follower of John, one of those who was Baptized. And you hear of another, described as being like John, he preaches repentance, but he also offers something new, redemption, forgiveness. Do you imagine, John cared about the people he baptized? In all the years we have baptized children of God, new believers, adults and infants, what have been your expectations about these vulnerable ones? Jesus says to tell John, that among these, the Blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and by implication for Genesis the Bound up receive freedom and new covenant with God. Repentance is in there, but it is also about Redemption. When we read the Psalms it is usually the 23rd about The Lord is my Shepherd, or Psalm 121 about Whence does my help come, my help comes from the Lord, Psalm 100 about Making Joyful noise to the Lord! But sometimes, as we read, we come upon upon passages like Psalm 44 and we can hear the voices of those who had unrealized expectations. They imagined God providing for their needs, and instead they experienced Exile, Holocaust, Neglect and Abuse. The difficulty with believing in an All Powerful God, is questioning WHY LORD, did the Holocaust happen? Why are lives and things built to help destroyed? We have great expectations of our children and our children's children, and they may become far greater and different.