"Spiritual Pacifier" October 19, 2013

Exodus 33: 12-23 Matthew 22:15-22 There is in each one of us an odd balancing of polar extremes. Each of us are sinful saints, sainted sinners. We have compartmentalized our lives, so that when we are with our parents – we are their children, when we are with our children – we are their parents; when we are at work we are devoted to that business, when we are with our spouse/ our loved ones/ our soulmate we are devoted unconditionally to them. We are SU fans during Basketball season, and Yankees fans during the summer. We are people who work hard and play hard. The difficulty is that each and everyone of those realities is only a compartmentalized self of who and what we are committed to. We are hypocrites! We are trying to be several selves all at once without a single self mastering life. In good Presbyterian fashion we tend to function as if a Committee of selves, with each being a rank individualist, uncooperative, shouting all the louder when voting time comes. We feel the pull of many interests and are left feeling distraught and disgruntled by trying to fulfill our many opposing obligations. What we seek is to be pacified, placated, assuaged, bought off until the next time. Life was created to be lived from the center outward, to be in balance, yet we live weighted by so many competing interests. All of which virtually guarantees the perpetual existence of the temporary reality of the church, as a place for confession, for atonement and absolution. There is nothing in the whole of the Old Testament or the Gospels which describes the need for Church. Among all of Creation, there were to be believers, who through their actions, their lives would inspire and call others to believe in God. Creation was formed incomplete, with creatures able to choose to believe, and our role, our purpose was to bring about the belief of others until all the world trusted God. More than questions of the existence of Heaven and Hell, or judgement as to which a person is going, the most frequently asked question of Clergy is whether we believe in Free Will or God's Plan. Either, we are accountable for our decisions, able to make choices of good and evil in life, OR God is all powerful and God has a divine plan. When a virus like Ebola is able to be transported from South Africa to West Africa, and through one individual kill thousands of others, we want and need to believe in an all powerful, ultimately good God. When Adolph Hitlers, Saddam Husseins, and Osama Ben Ladens strike, we want to believe in the ultimate good of God's plan that will not allow those horrors to succeed. But when given choice between alternatives, we want to believe we are in control, free and able to choose to win. When I was about five, my Grandmother taught me to play Solitaire with the hope and expectation that against the unknown shuffle of fate you could by skill, by intelligence, by experience, win! But she also taught me how to peak under the piles for what is hidden where, and how to reshuffle the deck during play, my Grandmother taught me to allow myself to cheat in order to win. We compromise, we compartmentalize, we pacify, that we will allow ourselves one piece of chocolate, if no one sees and we can dispose of the wrapper. We can have a cookie if no one hears the cookie jar. The speed limit does not apply to us because we are in a hurry, unless we get caught and then it was because it was a speed trap. Everything in the Biblical books of Genesis and Exodus, from the Creation of the Universe and everything therein, through Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Egypt's Pharaohs, the 10 Plagues and Crossing of the Red Sea, Manna from Heaven, and Water from solid rock have led to the climax of the story of God, that up on top of Mt. Sinai the mountaintop of God, hidden within a cloud, surrounded by fire, thunder and lightning, Moses received the 10 Commandments from God. Had God only given to Moses those 10 Commandments, he could have brought these to the people and they could have lived according to the Law, BUT at the same time God gave to Moses instruction for building the tabernacle as a place to worship God, with instruction for creation of the Altar, the tools for sacrifice, the robes of priests, when and how to worship. By the time Moses came down the mountain with Commandments from God, the people had created the golden calf to worship. The problem of the Golden Calf was not that they did not believe in God, but that the people wanted something tangible, they wanted to see for themselves the invisible God. The people sought Spiritual Pacifying, they did not want to respond to God, they wanted to have god in a particular place to worship when and how they wanted to worship God. Their sin was wanting to have God on their terms, to make ourselves God in order to have it all. The people were afraid to go up the mountain with Moses, afraid that they were unworthy to see the glory and purity of God, but still they wanted to peak, they wanted to see the invisible. Recall those moments in life, when you know you have to make amends, when you have to apologize to those who have been wronged. Imagine being Moses, having to hike back up Mount Sinai, Moses who led the people, who received the 10 Commandments, who now needs to apologize to God for the sin of the people. The immediate response of God is “Let's do another Noah!” Destroy this people and begin with Moses, as one person of faith. It was good enough for Abram, for Isaac, for Jacob, why not for Moses alone? If not, if this people are allowed to live, then they can go their way and God will go the way of God. Have you ever imagined saying “Enough!” I do not want to believe in God anymore. But does that mean God no longer exists? Moses recognizes the people of God are only escaped slaves in the wilderness, and the wilderness is a dangerous place, life is hard enough with God, who could survive without God. Listening to Moses, God yields, God repents from wanting to destroy. So you are Moses, you have been chosen by God! You have beaten Pharaoh! You have stood on the mountain top with God and held in your hands the 10 Commandments! You have apologized to God for the people and atoned for the wrongs of the world. You have stood toe to toe with God arguing the case of humanity! What do you do now? While Moses is all of this, Moses is also a man. Moses sought his own spiritual pacification. Moses asked for what the people had wanted. He asked to be able to see God. In Hebrew, looking someone in the face, looking them eye to eye, is about seeing the whole person, knowing and fully understanding who the other is. God responds, “But Moses, you are a Man.” So, you may stand in the presence of God and see where God has been, but not to see where God is going, not stare into the face of God. The irony of this is that God is a God of the Living, all that matters is where God is and where God is going. Consulting Ouija Boards and Seances, and Fortune Tellers, is communicating with the Walking Dead, the past, not knowing the meaning of the present or the outcome of the future. Ultimately, an autopsy tells you the scientific causes of death, the weight of organs, but not the meaning of why. Compartmentalizing. Pacifying. The Saducees did not believe in the resurrection. The Scribes believed in a literalistic interpretation of the Law. The Herodians were the political party supporting King Herod The Pharisees trying to entrap Jesus between these many different groups, posed a legal question about paying taxes to the Roman Emperor, recognize that this is being asked while standing in the Temple at Jerusalem, the holiest place in the City of David. But who created the Laws of the Roman Empire? Who minted the coins of Rome? Civilization costs, armies, boots on the ground, infrastructure of roads and bridges and clean water are paid for by taxes. The Roman Empire imposed Village, County, State and Federal Taxes, Property taxes, Business Taxes, Personal and Worship taxes. But Rome was also the occupying military power, so the coins and currency for taxes not only bore the likeness of the Emperor, they bore inscription. We have come to know people as having first and last names, so Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar, or Augustus Caesar, when identification of Caesar meant “Absolute Military Authority and Power of Domination.” August meant “Divine, Son of God.” The Roman coin called an eichon from which we in English get the word icon, was worth a laborer's wage for one day, and both made an image of God, and worshipped a false God. Having the coins in our pockets, particularly when in the Temple was perceived as being owned by the Empire. Recognizing the Trap, Jesus claimed to have no coins and asked for a coin from their pockets. The real irony would have been if the Pharisees had asked the question the other way. “Is it right to give to God what belongs to God?” Just as Laws and Taxes and Currency are the creation of Empires, Righteous belongs to God, righteousness is not about holiness or Good versus evil, righteousness means being in right relationship with God. So of course it is right to give God what belongs to God. Often, we look over our estates, our checkbooks and determine that after paying for housing and cars, entertainment and gifts, we have only so much left to give away. What if instead, our first priority was God. Not paying taxes. Not giving to Charity. But making an investment of ourselves and our priorities in God, because we are in God's image, trusting that everything else will work itself out.

Responding to Grace, October 12, 2014

Exodus 32 Matthew 22:1-14 There are passages of the Bible, that before your read the words, you know what you are to believe. “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, when Jesus said 'Woman why are you weeping?' Supposing him to be the gardener she said 'Sir if you have taken him show me where and I will care for the body' and he called her by name 'Mary' and she responded 'Rabbonni!'” And then there are other Scripture passages that make us wonder how to respond to the grace of God? The very nature of Grace is that Grace expects not response. If you pay for it, this is not Grace. If you expect it, if you demand, if you beg, it is not Grace. Grace is unmerited, unwarranted, and yet in response to Grace, we mirror, we act with grace ourselves. This morning I want to tell you Exodus 32 is about more than worship of Gold. Years ago, as a sermon illustration, the preacher at that time asked that everyone place their jewelry, their bracelets and rings in the offering plate, yet after the service, at least one of the rings was missing, raising people's anxiety lowering their level of trust. The first point of this passage, is the binding identification of our anxiety with things. We cannot cope with fear, with mystery, danger, so we link them, bind them to the stuff of life. Far more than a simple chip of carbon, that diamond represents the hopes and dreams we shared when first we imagined life together, different from our lives before. The people in the wilderness were not a highly educated people, they had been slaves, who hungered and thirsted, and were filled with fears. How can God transform this people into a people of faith, the people of God? A people thankful for Manna from heaven, or for the grace of freedom and enjoyment of life that come with God? The people cried out for FREEDOM and God set them free. They cried out for food and received bread. They cried out for water and received it from out of a rock. They cried out for security and God gave them faith, laws and commandments. The people were a stiff-necked people who whined and complained. How do you change a people to be thankful? The generation from 1945 until 1970 were described as the highest attending, the most practicing Church-goers in history. They were a generation born in the Depression, threatened by World War, who survived the first explosion of the Atom Bomb, and they were Thankful simply to be alive. But they could not imagine how to teach this to their children. We have become a people of Anti-institutionalism, tearing down and replacing everything that was established. Moses went atop the mountain where God provided the Commandments, and before Moses even came down, the people had already violated the first several. More than the content of the commandments, more than the worship of idols and graven images, this Chapter begins that Moses had been away and the people doubted if we would return. One of the first games we are taught as infants is peek-a-boo. We do a great deal of mirroring. Responding because we interpret what is the expected response. If the other is hidden, how do we know what we are to do, or to feel, are they even still there? Do they exist if we cannot see? I would propose that all of our fears of absence, whether we are still loved, our fears of death, the agony of Alzheimer's, all go back to this basic fear of mirroring when we cannot. So the people became impatient, that is what is beneath the surface of this wilderness: Impatience. The people wanted something, not an abstract idea, not law, but that which they could see and touch, a thing of substance, a sacrificial calf of gold. But possessing the calf as their god, the people no longer needed. Our created identity is as a people wanting, that is the spark that is to be created in the image of God. God formed us, in order that we would chose to want God. The Tower of Babel, was about a people who decided not to search any longer, not to wander, but instead to build walls and security, and towers to their own greatness. We are a people with hopes and dreams. What is there that you imagine when we have this, we have it all? When we have children? When they graduate College? When we pay off our Mortgage and own our home? When we Retire giving up what we have trained to do? When we have grandchildren? When we die? When do we possess what we most desire or fear? This morning's Biblical passages are gruesome, these are Stephen King Halloween passages of gore. Moses came down the mountain, ground up the golden calf that he makes the people swallow, then he and the Levites slaughter 3000 of the people, each man his brother, before going back to God. Jesus entered Jerusalem, went into the Temple at Jerusalem where he overturned the Moneychangers. To which the leaders asked By what Authority do you do this? Jesus asked them about John the Baptist, then told them the parable of the Vineyard workers who killed the servants of the master as well as killing the Landowner's Son and heir. Then he gave ANOTHER PARABLE. To say ANOTHER is not to describe something as being the same as what has been, but something different. There is a version of this parable in Luke and another in Thomas, which are striking because the guests invited, choose to have other things to do. One owns a farm, one a business, one has just gotten married, so cannot be bothered with the King's Son's Wedding. Instead, the King invites Prostitutes and Thieves. Often, we have interpreted the Guest without Robes as being in that Parable. This guest becomes one who even though he was common, still needed to put on the right attitude. I can recall when a neighboring pastor was consecrated as a Bishop, and I struggled with whether to participate and what I believed about a peer becoming a Bishop, but as it turned out on the day of his Consecration I was downtown at the Hospital, so decided to attend. Being a Saturday, visiting the hospital, I had not thought to bring a robe, or to wear a collar, so just walked in the door of the Cathedral, and because of my clothes instead of processing with the clergy to sit up front I was seated in the basement watching on closed circuit television. Still with that parable, we struggle, because how many of us identify ourselves as Prostitutes? How many of us are Thieves? How many of us own land? How many are married? And the landowners and married are rejected, but the thieves and prostitutes are welcomed at the Table. And actually the Guest without Clothes is not in that Parable, but this one. The Bible was not written as theoretical teaching of morals. This is not abstract philosophy. Faith, whether in the time of Moses, or Jesus, or Matthew, or Martin Luther, John Calvin, Karl Barth, or us today is dealing with real people and circumstance, and trying to find meaning and faith in life. We can all recall the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, of the Queen in Yellow, the men in Uniform, the Fascinators. One of the only occasions as filled with pomp and pageantry as a Wedding, is the Coronation of a King. During the Roman Empire, the Caesars and Mark Anthony, proposed putting puppet kings of the race of the people, who would subjugate their own people for Rome. Herod was of the House and Lineage of Royalty, but a cruel and evil man. He had come to power by assassinating members of his own family. He had the Roman Army at his command, but he wanted to be welcomed by the people, and the people of Jerusalem rejected him. As a King with an Army and a people who do not want him, Herod invaded the city and his army killed indiscriminately. Then conscripted whomever they found, that they had to worship Herod. So in this telling of the Parable, instead of the man who wore no robes being considered a sinner, this is Jesus' response to a questioning of his authority, he is quite possibly Jesus himself. Who represents not participating in what the crowd is doing. Not going along with Herod, or the Empire, but being true to himself and to God. Recognize that he is still bound hand and foot and exiled. But how different the parable becomes, when seen as a challenge to Authority, when the one who chooses to not participate acting out, is seen as Jesus. How do we respond to acts of generosity and grace? How do we mirror others? How do we chose to respond to what we know to be wrong, to go along, to challenge, or simply to not participate?

October 5 A LoveSong In Any Language

Isaiah 5: 1-7 Exodus 20: 1-20 Matthew 21: 33-46 Recently I saw the Video “Joyeaux Noel” the story of December 24 1914, when the troops on the front lines of WWI stopped fighting and began singing Silent Night, then exchanged gifts, took time and energy to honor and bury their dead together, and being Christmas Day to play football! Afterwards I wondered, this happened because the German, French and Scottish Troops, were all Christians. What would unite opposition soldiers today? Where is the commonality between Muslims and Christians? There is one God and we have killing each other, even between Christians we have perpetuated a kind of Cold War, with Episcopalians across the Street, Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans down the Block, and further out this way Catholics, further the opposite way Pentecosts. Perspective matters. We need a reframing of the Bible, particularly the 10 Commandments, because somehow, whether from Charleston Heston or Sunday School, we acquired the mistaken conclusion that these were Laws, that the Old Testament is all about Law and Judgment and Punishment, while the New Testament is about Grace. The fact of the matter is Torah means “Teaching” and as described by Isaiah, this morning's prophecy in fact all these passages are LoveSongs. Remember when you were three or four, and someone gave you a goldfish. One day each week, was reserved for changing the water and cleaning the bowl. Every morning and night you gave the fish, just the right amount of food, and she would swim back and forth to thank you, and you loved having something to care for. But one day, your little sister tried to feed your fish and dumped half the container on top of the water. There was a blanket so thick the gold fish could not breathe, and shortly thereafter burial services were held in the backyard, as the goldfish bowl was taken to the basement. When you were seven, you saved your allowance for a Hamster. Better than a goldfish, your Hamster would do tricks, running the treadmill, taking a sunflower seed from your fingers into their hands. But even though you could pet your hamster, and feed and care for them, they always seemed to have a desire to hide from you, or to escape your grip. And one day all too soon, their were additional funeral services in the backyard. When my bride and I were newly weds, I brought home to her a puppy. The unrealistic parts were that we happened to live in a Studio Apartment in Harlem, and while puppy's mother had been a beautiful Irish Setter, she had gotten pregnant by a huge Malamute. So as this brute grew, she had all of her father's strength and power and her mother's scatterbrained excitement. Whenever the doorbell rang, she greeted the guests with her six foot frame balancing her forepaws on your shoulders. One day, left alone, she ate the couch. But however unrealistic, you gave your love to this creature, wanting only to have that love returned. When we got our first house, and our second dog, we went to obedience training, which in hindsight was far more about teaching the owners than teaching the puppy. Each of the earlier Covenants in Genesis, were about the love of God, with nothing reciprocal required. God formed this wonderful Garden for them to live in, with every kind of tree and animal. God washed the earth clean and gave Noah responsibility to be fruitful and multiply. God chose Abram, that God would lead, Abram and Sarai would follow, and God would give to them as many generations as stars in the heavens, sands upon the shore, a land flowing with milk and honey, and a name that is known and remembered. Somehow I recall from Vacation Bible School being taught that one night they ate the Passover, and afterward crossed the Red Sea, to Mt. Sinai where God gave to Moses the two tablets of Law. But the last several weeks, we have painstakingly read, how after the Passover, after the crossing of the Red Sea, God provided for this people by changing the reality of brackish salt water being turned clear. Of Bread falling from heaven,.. of Water spewing forth from solid rock. The Covenant with Israel was different,God chose to make of them a Holy People, IF they would love God. The added nuance, being that being chosen as God's people, was not for themselves, but to bring others to God. Isaiah's Love-song of the Vineyard is about what happened when that which God created chose instead to be wild, to bare bitter tiny fruit instead of lush sweet grapes of harvest. A Covenant is a love-song, a voluntary choice of commitment, an emotional investment in this other. They probably will break your heart, but they are dependent and in need, which touches something emotional. Far more than skin color, or having two arms, two legs and a face, I think this is what was meant by being created in the image of God, is that God loves and desires love in return, just as we do. The Ten Commandments are not Laws and punishments, but are our earliest Constitution, written not as Civil Law but Constitutional. And where the American Constitution begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” the Ten Commandments begin “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage and set you free!” This is the lost Instruction Manual of Life. Reality is created in balance, when God is God, when we allow ourselves to be human, all is right with the world. When we lie, and steal, and covet, commitment adultery, murder, when we fail to keep life in balance by stopping to give thanks to God, we destroy the balance of life. Reality needs to be in balance, when God is God, when we allow ourselves to be human, all is right with the world. Years ago, we had new neighbors who were newly-weds building a house that would be their home. About three years later they gave birth to their first born daughter. Several weeks later, there was a frantic pounding on the door, and I opened it to find this young mother with the child in her arms. She described having for the first tried to give the baby a bottle, and she was sure she had given her too much because the infant was so bloated and lethargic. I recall telling that life was just a little out of balance, and in a moment what was out of balance would come out one way or the other. Sure enough, a few moments later the infant belched and filled her diaper, and once cleaned up, was her happy contented self. According to Matthew, Jesus retold Isaiah's love-song, in a different time, place and language. As we hear it, we need to be careful to listen to hear the story in the same way as told by Isaiah and Jesus. For in Isaiah's Love-song of preparing and planting the vineyard, the ones who destroy the harvest, the ones not yet ready to love, who need teaching and discipling and love, are the vines themselves. The balance when the Vineyard will not produce good grapes, is that gardener takes down the walls and hedges, allowing the Vineyard to know what it is to be wild. In Jesus' Parable, there are human characters, here we recognize the Landowner as God. The Servants sent by the Landowner, to bring home the harvest, are the Prophets, who were often rebuffed, rebuked, and killed. This is a crazy kind of story, because who in their right mind, when their representatives were attacked and killed, would not respond by sending Police, or Military, but instead risk sending their own Son? Who would imagine killing the Son of the Landowner, imagining that they could get away with both not paying for their harvest, killing the Heir, and somehow they would take the Land without punishment. A Crazy-kind of love, but God did send God's own Son. What we cannot do, is to take the teaching out of context, imagining we would be any different, judging the Pharisees and people of that time, rather than listening and judging our own lives. Because as horrible as this story is, Jesus' Parable, like Isaiah's is a Love-story. Like King David, with the Prophet Nathan's parable about the Wife of Uriah, the listeners judge themselves, declaring that those who Stole and killed the Son deserve to be punished. But Jesus responds with the proverb of the Stone which the Builders rejected becomes the Head and Cornerstone, so when order and balance are restored, God tries to love again. A Crazy Love-story, the Lost Instruction Manual of Life. But it makes greater sense than any other story ever told, because like God, we do have hope-filled/ hopeless loves, we are ruled by our emotions and we make commitments carved in our flesh for all time to come.

September 28, 2014 Into the Wilderness

Exodus 17:1-2 Matthew 21:23-32 In the Musical “Into the Wood” Stephen Sondheim helps us as adults to see that all the Nursery rhymes and stories we heard and blithely passed along to our children, include danger and threat. Exodus takes us not into the Wood, but into the Wilderness, an even more dangerous place to lose your way. Ironically, Exodus, which means to Go Out, to Leave, is less about leaving Egypt, and going away from Pharaoh, than about Whom to trust, where do we look to for leadership, for power for authority? The wilderness is a place where we are concerned with daily needs and how are we going to survive? Wilderness is a frightening place which we entered out of desperation, with some life-altering horrific experience, where we no longer know where we are going. Wilderness is where we have all been since September 11th 2001, where we are no longer certain what the future holds or what our goals are in life, except that daily we hear of international threats, economic threats to our survival and our children's, physical threats from Ebola or Triple E virus, and out of fear we doubt our leaders, doubt anything we cannot see and control. In the Book of Exodus a group of former slaves, ran headlong toward the sea certain they would drown but the waters parted. They were pursued by those wanting to destroy them, and yet the natural elements of chaos protected the vulnerable and eliminated the threat. The people found water, which was polluted, but when they cried out to God, the resource was made sweet and clear. They were hungry, starving and in need, complaining that they were better off when they had been slaves, and bread fell from heaven. Now they were thirsty, not just thirsty but dying for lack of life's most basic element. And the people cry out to Moses “Was life not hard enough when we were Slaves, did you need to bring us here to die?” God reassured Moses, both by reminding him that he still possesses the staff of authority with which he demonstrated his power to Pharaoh, and that God will stand before Moses on Mt. Horeb as he strikes the rock to make waters flow. Immediately after God provides water from a stone, the people were attacked by the Amalekites, and the only thing that separates the people winning or losing, is whether Moses lifts his hand or drops it. But the battle is long, and Moses is only human, there comes a point when he can no longer even lift his arms, so they set up a rock for him to lean against and they hold his arms up for him. The demand of the people is not only for water, for life, but whether they can trust Moses, whether they can trust God? Is the Lord among us or not? Wilderness is not simply about facing life's hardships, or how to survive; in the wilderness, we must embrace a different way of living, embrace our vulnerability and our dependence upon God, because everything seems to have multiple layers of meaning. Just at this moment, when Moses seems worn out from responding to crises, when the people seem worn out from doubting, Moses relatives show up. Remember back before the Exodus, when Moses had run away from Egypt, he had gone to the edge of the wilderness, where he had married a woman and become the shepherd of his Father-in-Law Jethro's sheep? Shepherding Jethro's sheep, was when Moses had first witnessed the Burning Bush and been assured of God's presence with him. Jethro looks at all that has been taking place and offers wisdom to Moses: If you continue trying to respond to every need of every person, you are going to wear out the people as they are going to wear you out! Instead, you need to delegate authority and responsibility to others who will be accountable. But therein is the problem with authority, can we trust others to be accountable? Will they be like the one who says “Yes” but does not follow through, or will they be like the one who says “No” but then acts as is needed? Reading the Gospels, we approach the text with bias and suspicion. We have previously come to know that in the Gospels, Prostitutes and Tax Collectors, Lepers, Sinners are not automatically condemned; Scribes, Pharisees and Saducees who were in authority, are to be treated with doubt and apprehension. We have a tendency of reading the Bible, like opening Email. Before we understand the context or content, we instantly reply: Junk! Delete! What does Judas want? But what we need to remember here, is that according to the Gospel, Jesus had entered Jerusalem, he had gone into the religious Temple, where he had overturned tables, taken up a whip and began chasing people out of worship. I have to believe that as healthy and vital as this congregation now is, if someone were to come into the middle of worship and begin overthrowing tables or whipping people, calling them heretics, we would at the least be dialing 911 on our cell phones, and probably having a visit from the Presbytery Committee on Ministry. Part of the irritation of politics in other parts of the Church, is that these concerns disrupt our peace. I can recall as a teenager, living in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the 1960s, and First Presbyterian Church was in the shadow of that great University. I recall one beautiful Sunday morning, where the day before the Wolverines had won the Homecoming Game, the Sanctuary was filled with Faculty and Alumni in business suits, when the Leader of the local Black Panthers marched up the aisle, took over the pulpit and began reading the Black Manifesto. In response to such an affront, would we not ask: “By what authority are you doing these things? And Who gave you this authority?” In the same way, enough time has now passed for us to be able to question... The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has now become immortalized in American culture, his "I have a Dream" taught to all our children. Like John the Baptist, we need to ponder, whether he was doing God's Work, or Human Civil Rights? The thing about Authority, is that it is given in TWO Ways. Not only is authority bestowed upon an individual from those with power, authority also needs to be accepted by those who listen. I remember being a child, when my father reprimanded me for having not followed through, and I challenged him for making me feel bad. He responded that no one can make you feel anything. You are in charge of your feelings. Now realistically, we try to make people feel things all the time. Advertizing is based on making people feel, and most often we are each motivated by feelings of guilt. But actually 99% of the time, those with authority over us, have it only because we have given the authority to them. We may have been victimized, we may have been bullied or abused, but by replaying the circumstance, by choosing to stay in that position, we allow ourselves to continue to be victims. We allow the past to have power over us, to influence our thinking and our futures. Rather than Jesus Parable only being “You are judged by your actions rather than your words” I think this parable is about choosing a different Open Future, rather than a Closed Past. The first child goes along with whatever is asked, but is then limited by what has happened in whether to follow through. The second child may have had all kinds of reasons for saying “No.” This child may have been overwhelmed by other responsibilities, may have been annoyed by the father always asking for something, may have been nursing a grudge. But this child chooses to change, to let go the past and trusts a different future. I remember years ago, when our children were quite small. We had been at the lake, I was working on the house, and being sweaty and tired had sat down on the grass with a tall glass of water. Just then one of the children came up asking if they could have a sip? As they put the glass to their mouth, you could see the wheels suddenly turning inside their head, as they remembered something from a Kindergarten teacher about sharing the germs and infection they had on their hands or in their mouth, then used the wrong word when they asked “Dad, am I going to catch your dreams?” I remember saying, as family we have all been exposed to each other's stuff, but as they ran to play, I thought “I hope and pray you do catch my dreams, and have dreams of your own with futures I never imagined.” We live in this wilderness, where none of us know exactly where we are going. We imagine a future generation making it to a Promised Land flowing with Milk and Honey. We struggle from day to day, especially with our fears and doubts of survival. In the midst of all this we question IS THE LORD AMONG US OR NOT? But part of what we are learning to do, is to imagine everything spiritually as well as physically. What if, our hunger and thirst is also about our need for someone and something to trust? What if, our drinking water were having everything we needed to satisfy our desires? What if, we could catch one another's dreams by drinking of the same stuff?

September 21, 2014 The Parabolic Problem

Exodus 16:1-15 Matthew 20: 1-16 This morning, the children found the Chancel covered in sparkling manna (Chocolate Kisses) to illustrate the gathering of manna. Another time, as a children's moment, I told the children we had a gift for them. I then gave each child a Kennedy Half-dollar; until the last two, and as I had $20 worth of half dollar pieces left, I gave these two, twenty half-dollars each. We then asked the children how they felt about getting the half-dollars, and they were thankful, but when we asked about those who received more, they said “It's not fair!” That is the problem of this morning's parable. It is not fair. Garrison Keilor described the problem with preaching this parable is that you get the idea that you only need show up for the last 5 minutes of the sermon to get the same value as coming early. We can each anticipate the problem with this parable is the following day or the following season, when the owner goes to the marketplace to hire laborers. Will they hire on for a full day, or only for the last hour, expecting to be paid for the full day? Titling this as “The Parabolic Problem,” I am reminded that years ago, I bought a stained glass window for a church, but the Church had round walls. A Carpenter in the congregation said “Not a problem.” and he proceeded to make a Parabola, a flat plane that intersects a curved wall as a shadow box frame. The wood touched at every point, so light did not escape around the edges, and the flat window matched as it intersected the curved wall. There are other problems too. A parable is intended to be a metaphor, a comparison as a figure of speech for shock value, to catch us off guard and make a point. “All the world's a Stage and all the men and women merely players, each with their entrances and exits and roles to play.” But this is not the first time any of us have heard this parable. We have heard the parables over and over enough that rather than metaphors they have become similes, where instead of making a point, we have been given the meaning of every player and every comment that is made. We know, or at least we think we know what is fair and what is not, what Manna is, and what this parable is about. Our sense of reality operates according to several different natural laws, We know that gravity causes things to fall...We know the Laws of Motion and that every action has an equal and opposite reaction... The Enlightenment was a Scientific Experiment to catalog and know all the Laws of of the Universe. The people of the Exodus had for 400 years been slaves of Egypt. They knew, that as hard as life was, as unfair, as much as they were slaves who could be beaten and whipped, bought and sold, raped and bred, who were of less value than a horse or cow, still they had a place to sleep and bread or stew to eat. It may be rancid, it may be hard, but you were given food and rest and security that tomorrow would be much like today. The plagues had come upon Egypt, the people had listened to Moses and Aaron, had sacrificed a lamb rubbing the blood on their doorposts, and despite the devastation of the Empire of Egypt, that the firstborn of every family died, their own children were spared. The people were allowed to leave, were chased by the Egyptian Chariots, yet as they waded out chest deep into the water, suddenly the wind blew and the water receded and they walked across on dry land. This was like some Bizzaro-world where the Natural Laws of Reality were suspended, like Alice through the Looking Glass, you were never certain whether something was what it appeared. They came upon a Salt-lake too polluted to drink and Moses threw a Tree into the water, and suddenly it became pure sweet refreshment. SEVEN days have gone by without food and there are hundreds of thousands of men, along with their wives and children. Rationally we have to wonder how are all these people going to be fed. In the good old days in Egypt, we had food every night, here we do not know from day to day what is going to happen. In the morning, as far as the eye could see, there was something sparkling on the ground. Moses called it Manna. Historians believe that there is a variety of lice, which in the wilderness eat the Tamarind seed and the lice secrete a sweet substance that dries to the consistency of flour. The point is not what Manna was, it probably was Sweet lice poop, but it was a new reality, a substance in great quantity, high in protein and basic nutrients. But the real point of Manna, was that it conditioned the people day after day after day, week after week for forty years to a different reality. Instead of having stew or bread handed to you by your owners, instead of having left-overs added to the pot day after day Every person had to trust that as little as there is, there would be enough supplied by God for tomorrow How much, an “omer” per person, about a mouth-full, but it was enough. If they gathered too much, it rotted and was infested with worms. If they did not gather enough, still it would be enough. And weekly, every six days, they were able to gather enough for today and tomorrow, so that for one day each week you did not have to worry, for one day every week you could trust there would be enough and think about other things. I am a simple man, while I enjoy cooking and have a younger brother who is a chef, one of our favorite foods growing up was meatloaf. I can recall the first time trying to share this delicacy with our children. They looked at the substance on the plate and said “What is it?” And when it was explained they refused to eat. So after a while, I took their plates to the kitchen, put the meatloaf on a hamburger bun covering it with catchup, and they devoured it as they best burger they had ever eaten! Manna, is not about what it was, but rather the parable of trusting God, and weekly taking time to trust and dream. The Parable of Paying the Laborers is about Grace, and the Generosity of God. Every laborer is paid enough to meet their daily needs. Those first hired were paid exactly what they had agreed to work for, but those last hired were not paid for the hours they worked, they received grace. AND here, the Parable takes on a twist because the real problem with this parable is that it is about “Coveting” wanting what others have, or not wanting them to have what we receive. The ending which states “Do you look envious because of my generosity?” literally translates “Are you giving me the Evil Eye?” In the Ancient World, they understood that the way others look at you, the way we treat each other, our giving each other the Evil Eye, can destroy another person. Many carried good luck charms so as to ward off evil. One of the simplest methods of protecting against the Evil Eye was to demonstrate an act of charity and act of generosity, which may or may not benefit the one who was going to give the Evil Eye, but would help others in the community to see the donor was going out of their way to do nothing wrong. We live in a world of change. Like the people of the Exodus, our good old days really were not that grand, none of us in those days could have imagined the freedoms and opportunities afforded to us all. The cartoons, The Flitstones and Jetsons, envisioned a future time, with dishwashers and microwave ovens, and vitamin pills, where we got carple tunnel from repetitive finger motion, and blurry eyes from computer screens. But we knew that if we worked hard and kept your nose clean, there would come a day of retirement, when you had the mortgage paid, grandchildren and friends. But then again most of us died before age 70 and many other parts of the world were Dictatorships. Over the last many years, we have struggled to open the bounds of community as wide as imaginable. When couples have come wanting to be married in the Sanctuary, one of whom was Jewish and one Christian, we have erected the Chuppa and broken the Glass shouting Mazoltoff! When couples have brought their children to affirm their faith and commitment to God, we have encouraged that one spouse could confess their faith in Jesus Christ, and another could name Adonai, or simply God. Last February, we learned that there were those in the world who wanted to be Anti-Semitic and to rewrite history regarding the creation of the State of Israel. As a Church we held open discussions about Israel and Palestine and our ecumenical role as Presbyterians. For a Church which historically has acted to not be political, every person who spoke out about this was in agreement, that this set of overtures was wrong. Our Session took Action against this. We contacted our representatives and educated them about the issues which they previously knew nothing about. Some from our leadership even went to the General Assembly, and used our Church's story to demonstrate mission and acting in grace and love. But, in that we have agreed to follow majority rule and to work together, while the BDS action was defeated, the General Assembly was told to sell its investments in Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett Packard for other stocks. There were no requirements upon the local church or upon our people. Three years ago in 2011, NYS legally allowed marriages between people of the same sex. Last summer our denomination allowed marriages in the Sanctuary between people of the same sex, and also that ministers would not be prosecuted for performing these. As your pastor, I have come to realize that our congregation is very diverse, so have recommended that while it would be legal in the State of NY to do so, while in some Churches it is allowed, and Ministers are permitted to perform weddings for people wanting to be married before God, because it would cause greater division among us, until something changes among us, the act of grace would be that I will not. I know and understand that these actions of the denomination infuriate many of you, but as Your Church we have tried to act in faith, with grace and commitment. SO the question becomes, will you act with an Evil Eye or with generosity? None of us know what the future holds, whether the world we have known will still exist, but we preach trust, and faith in God that although our sense of reality may be challenged we can still act as the Church.