"The Church" July 19, 2015

2nd Samuel 7: 1-14 Mark 6:30-34 & 53-56 Could those who went to Boston this week as Apostles come and take these breads out to feed people? Our youth are returned Apostles, commissioned and sent out into the world together to minister. There is a temptation, that we want them this Sunday, having just returned, to share everything they experienced. We will have them do so next week, but before they do, there is a need to reconnect. There are those among us who travel for life... Personally, when I have experienced life differently, it has taken a while for me to acclimate, not only to the timezone, but to who we are in this place, to reflect, which is one place where prayer comes in. When I was in an intense learning experience, the professors described “You are going to need to let this steep, like a cup of tea, let it soak in! Mull over the experience against all you know.” At the time I thought this a strange comment, but there is need to absorb experiences, to step back from that moment in order to figure out what we choose to remember. This time of summer, my father would always say, “We need a few days at the lake, to rest, to reconnect, to sail and soak your head.” We regularly try to connect to other sources that do not feed us, to change experiences or connect to what we want when it is convenient, or when totally overloaded to “Go off the grid”. What the Gospel points out is that we never really get totally away, and the faith connection is not a lonely place but with feeding people. Increasingly we live in an Electronic, Virtual, Cordless World, where everything needs to be charged and recharged and few if any remember how to recharge, or that we need Spiritual recharging. We have computer chargers, telephone chargers, cordless phones, cordless toothbrushes, cordless lawnmowers, remote control garage door openers, and cameras, even remote controls for the Fireplace, everything with a separate cord and recharger which do not work on anything else. And miraculously the charge is only able to go one way, if you over charge, it is not like water that overflows, the charge does not flow backward, it goes from the source through the charger to the appliance. The response of God through Nathan to King David is, “To remember You are not God. At best all we can try to do is build a house of cedar and cypress and gold. God is God, and God can build a house, a lineage, a heritage for ever, out of our lives.” The other day I was talking with a family who had a baby recently, and the father described what a thrill it was for him to cut the umbilical chord. In that moment to transition from being a part of his wife, connected and completely dependent, to being a breathing, independent separate human life they shared. Suddenly, we become cordless. Throughout life, whether as infants, toddlers, children, teens, adults or older, we all are searching for Connection, for food and touch, for who and what is going to recharge us, to make us whole. At the APPLE Store, and the BATTERY Store and RADIOSHACK, they have cords and cables for everything, every different kind of appliance has a different kind of plug and charger, but have you ever seen one made to fit a human bellybutton? In the Garden of Eden, when Eve and Adam cut their connection to God, they suddenly were aware as never before, that they were alone and naked; and perversely they hid from the source of life. They no longer recognized the One who is the Source or their need for connection, for meaning, for faith. That is the way of it for us as well, we try every different possibility for what will satisfy: a new partner, a new job, a new home, a new car, new shoes, a different soda, carbs and candy, instead of seeking out that place where our needs are met, the source of life and faith and meaning. I am told that in the ancient catacombs beneath the Vatican there are drawings on the walls dating back to the Early Church. What is interesting is that in Rome, there are drawings of boats for the early Church and clearly being before the invention of motors there were no Wooden CrisCraft boats, but also the boats were not Roman Galleons with oars and slaves for propulsion, but sail boats. Sailboats are dependent on the wind, and as we have named before: the Word for Wind, is the word for Spirit, for Breath of God. But also, in sailing, you cannot make the boat go where you desire, you cannot go into the wind, and one of the least effective directions is to have the wind pushing you from behind. The most effective, is for the boat to maintain contact with the water and cut back and forth across the wind, changing even reversing your direction to keep connection with the force of the wind. Someone told me that sailing is like shooting watermelon seeds, with the pressure from beneath and pressure from above and behind. This is what King David (and on first impression, Nathan) forgot. Simply because he was King, because he had the time and resources to build a house for God, did not mean that David could do so. Never before had God been identified in A Place. The Tent of Meeting traveled with Moses through the Wilderness. God could be found on the Mountains, in the Valleys, at the Shore, not in a place with a lock on the door. When I researched my Doctoral Thesis I followed a number of different congregations dealing with many different problems, and discovered that in order to resolve their problems, in order to change they needed to have the resources and the authority to spend them, they needed to have resolved their levels of conflict to where they trusted each other, but more than anything, they needed to embrace being The Church, not a Building, not a set of Committees, not a nice group of people doing good work in the world, but Spiritually to be The Church which touches peoples lives, and people hug and hold hands, and kiss, and feed one another. In the same way, the Apostles tried to go with Jesus to a place apart. Yet, the people are continually seeking them out. The Lectionary which appoints the passages we read from, skips over that when they arrive on the other side, Jesus recognizes the need of 5000 and teaches and preaches, then provides the feeding of the 5000. Remember that just before this Herod held a Feast, inviting ONLY the most powerful people, where here Jesus feeds All the people. At Herod's Feast there is lust after his own daughter, there is murder of John the Baptist; while Jesus satisfies needs with bread and fish. Now recall the last several weeks. Jesus called and gathered the 12; taught them parables of patience and the growing of seed, of the abundant sower who scattered seed everywhere; then they crossed the sea when a storm came up and Jesus quieted the wind and hushed the chaos. Now when the 12 have been sent out and returned, with experiences: casting out demons, preaching the Word, they get into a boat cross to the other side and what does Jesus do “He preaches and teaches the people which is food for their souls.” And they return in a boat, and they see Jesus WALKING on Water, and are they filled with faith and assurance? NO they were filled with fear, failing to recognize Jesus. Will there come a future point in the Gospel where the disciples do not recognize Jesus? At the Resurrection, in the upper room, on the road, and on the shore. Are there times when we do not recognize God in our lives? These are not times for panic, but to trust and believe. The place of connection, where we recharge, is not when we are all alone in a lonely place apart from life. The Place where we meet God is with other people and most often over food, at least over that which nurtures and sustains. So Family meals, a Campfire during the summer, these are where we share stories and our connections and life-stories are re-enforced.

"The Plumb-line" July 12, 215

Amos 7: 7-15 Mark 6: 14-29 The problem with secrets is that by their very nature they make the persons involved complicit in taking what ever is visible and making it hidden. Secrets cause you to feel as if you and only you know what is really going on. In that way, secrets twist reality, making the public private, making two separate from the whole, twisting, bending and hiding the truth. Each of the Gospels tells the life, teachings, actions and relationships of Jesus through his death upon the cross, and that not even death could ever separate us from his love for us. But each of the Gospels also have a slightly different purpose. Matthew is linking everything Jesus said and did with the First Testament of Judaism. Luke is presenting the life of Jesus to a non-Jewish listener. John to a community that has given up on the world, and chosen to live life apart. But Mark's Gospel we read from this morning is continually wrestling with the Secret that Jesus is God incarnate, what does it mean for a Carpenter, the Son of Mary to accept being the Messiah sent from God. Internally and externally to struggle with our faith, which can be uncomfortable for others to accept, can include accommodations to people, but when and how do we make known the importance to us of what we believe and who we are. Every Memorial we do, there is something in me that wants to reveal the secret identity of the person, which no one, not their neighbors, nor life long friends, not their children or even their spouse new. That this person was an instrument of God, Baptized and set apart for a secret purpose in living life. You are a Child of God, you are a Believer. Some members of this church, some Baptized, some Ordained. As rational responsible believers in the 21st Century, you take notice and try to make sense of the world around us. Friends tormented by abuse, by domestic violence, by seeking out circumstance that can only lead to ruin, by war, by oppression, by terrorism, and you want to say something, to do something. When one day, you have a Vision, a Vision of the God of PASSOVER in Judgement of the World saying God will never PassOver again! God will Pass Through. The Creator is forming a plague of locusts, a pest that will consume all the crops and vegetation, that humanity will suffer for what we have done and allowed. And witnessing what this devastating insect will do, you respond “NO!” And God listens and God repents. But humanity does not change, a church is gunned down at a prayer meeting. People are herded up by ISIS and decapitated. The Ancient and continuing Nation of Greece are in debt without ability to rescue itself. And you have a Vision of God, sitting on a bump on a branch on a log at the bottom of the sea. And what is God doing, at the bottom of the oceans God is forming an unquenchable fire, to burn over the face of Creation, cauterizing the earth of sin by killing all living things. And your response to God is “NO!” And God listens and God repents. But humanity does not change. And God shows you a Vision of a Basket of Summer Fruit. Melons, Plums, Peaches, Cherries and Apples. But as you look, the whole basket of fruit rot. And God speaks to you saying “It is already too late.” And God shows you a new Vision, which you hear as God is taking you to the Crossroads of the City, the Center of Commerce and Faith and Cultural Life, in Jerusalem the Wailing Wall of the Temple of Solomon. And your Vision is of a Plumbline, a piece of tin hung at the bottom of a line, which by gravity causes the line to be taught and perfectly straight, up and down. How would you respond to what you see and believe and know? The problem with being a plumbline, is that you cannot choose what in life is crooked, or secret, and virtually everything about life is not perfect. Recently, I was at the Sherwood Inn and recognized that all the paintings appear to be crooked, because while the frames are level the building is not square. The same is true at the Masonic Lodge and all of the Churches. A plumbline witnesses how few things in life are perfect, how rare that anything is straight and true, and due to time and circumstances of life how many imperfections have been allowed. How many secrets have been tolerated and kept as acceptable. Does it matter that there are imperfections, that century old structures have settled? Are the imperfections and wrinkles and age spots and scars not part of the charm and character of what has experienced life? But when do those very imperfections become a blight of rotten fruit? John The Baptist saw himself as being a Plumbline. He came from a wilderness outside the society, and called people to repent and believe. And all the people, Jew and Gentile, everyone came to confess their sins and be baptized to be made new. But as a preacher he took on the powers of the day. Recall that in the Gospels, when Jesus was born there was a King named “Herod,” when Jesus is tried before Pilate, Jesus is recognized as a Galilean Jew and sent to another King Herod. There were Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa and Herod of Antipas, who were horribly corrupt having abandoned faith in God, adherence to God's Law for popularity and favor with the Greeks, later with the Roman culture. Because Herod lusted after his brother's wife, and he took his sister-in-law as his wife. Which John “the Plumbline” publicly described as not only as Lust, but as Adultery and Covetousness, and Herod making himself out to be God, to be above the Law. There is a problem with being a Plumbline... Those whose secrets you make known as imperfections want to cut your throat. But Herod was fascinated by John. Have you ever known those, who totally aggravate and frustrate you, but who also intrigue you? So when his wife Herodias demands John's death King Herod has John arrested. Oddly, this is all that the other Gospels reveal, but Mark which is the shortest and tightest in word choice includes an elaborate story of the cost to John of being a Plumbline, of revealing the secrets of the powerful. This is the only passage in all of the Gospels where Jesus is not the main character. He has called the twelve, taught them parables, shown them power in faith, shown them the cost of being rejected by family and home, and sent them out. Here the Gospel of Mark reveals the cost of secrets. King Herod is so corrupt, that he not only lusts after his brother's wife, and murders his brother to have her, Herod has a party for himself to show off to all those of power and influence his power, possessions and lusts. At this party for himself, Herod lusts after his brother's daughter, by marriage his own daughter. And the cost for this secret, is John the Baptist's Head on a Silver Platter. Our lusts, our abuses of others, our secrets which at times are even secret to ourselves, these do have terrible costs a rotting of our Creation, a violation of boundaries and twisting of the truth, of our authenticity and our Self. But rather than this being the end of the story, King Herod decapitating John: for being God's Plumbline in his midst, for revealing that Herod had violated God's laws, becomes the rallying call for Jesus' ministry of repentance. In a different twist on resurrection, King Herod interprets that Jesus must be John raised from the dead, because he continues John's purpose in the world. From this point forward, Mark's Gospel is not about teaching the Twelve, but about revealing God's presence in the World and the imperfections. God and God's purposes are not stopped because we cut the plumbline. The wall does not become perfect because you took away the level. However, there is yet another secret. The Bible was not originally written in English. The New Testament was written in What is described as Koine Greek, Common Greek as opposed to Classical, much like our Americanized English compared to the King James version. And the Old testament, the First Testament was shared orally and eventually written in Hebrew. In this Vision of Amos, what is shown to man is “Anah.” In the Middle Ages, when Chapters and Verses and Vowels were being added to the written text to make it more usable by English speaking believers, the translators knew the Syro-Phonecian word Anak to be a Plumb-line, and this made sense given the context, and that the Hebrew people and Syro-Phonecians had had interaction, so they translated it as Plumbline. The difference between ANAH and ANAK only being a tiny dot to convert the H to a CH or K sound. But in where the hard sound created the word Plumbline, Hebrew did actually have a word ANAH which means “A Sigh.” What does it mean if as the final vision to Amos, God held up to Humanity's imperfections at the Crossroads of culture, a Sigh from God? After fashioning one destruction for the world after another, and God continually repenting while humanity never did, like the Minnions in the Movie seeking the worst possible leaders to follow, if God's Vision for the Believer was God's Lament, God's Sigh at what we could be?

"Dirt Between Our Toes" July 5, 2015

2nd Samuel 5:1-10 Mark 6:1-12 In Wednesday evening Bible Study after reading the sermons of Peter and Paul in Acts, we named the difference between what has been described as preaching and “Really Good Preaching.” That Good Preaching is not just a Bible Study, or Motivational Speaking, but listening to the needs of the world and this community, and the Scriptures, and making apparent the threads running through. Tracing God's plan and interventions back throughout human history, that preaching is not disposable words spouted this day, but transformative, gut-wrenching, resurrection, from the hard places we have been. One of my favorite things about July and August is going barefoot, which has a decidedly different thrill in January. In the backyard, in the water, along the shore, to feel the world through the nerves in the bottom of your soles. And this summer, with all the rain we have had to feel the mud gush between your toes, is extremely human, sensual; as the connection between our being formed from the dirt of the earth into creatures of God, where the point of contact between us and creation is our soles/souls. In this morning's Scripture passages both King David and Jesus are recognized as “Anointed Of God.” In David's case, he was Anointed as King. Jesus “the Messiah” means that he is the Anointed One. Anointing is creation of a sacred covenant, that you are never alone, God is with you, and the needs of the Nation are with you. In the tradition of Scotland, when a King was chosen, each of the Lairds of the Clans brought a boot full of soil from their ancestral home, called a Scone. Each Laird dumped the contents of the dirt from their home, the dirt in their boot into a mound on which the King was to kneel for Anointing, as means of identifying the King's commitment to their Common Ground. The practice of anointing goes back even before there were kings, to a practice of Shepherds. Lice and Fleas would get into the wool of sheep and work their way down to the skin causing irritation and possible infection, and if they got into the ears, even death. The Shepherds poured oil over the heads and rubbed Olive Oil into the wool of their sheep, so that the Fleas and Lice could not get hold. With oil the wool was thicker and the mites could not put the bite on the sheep. In the same way, we baptize, covering the believer with an anointing of grace and love and forgiveness, that sin cannot put the bite upon the person, cannot cause this irritation, infection or death to your life. There is irony in both these passages, in that the ones being Anointed of God, David and Jesus, were rejected by people who knew them. Insult and shame are intended to demean the person, to undermine their abilities both by attack and a lack of trust. But while insulted, and limited by the reaction of people who know them, both King David and Jesus point to the opposite end from your head, getting your feet dirty, getting mud between your toes in work, as the means of overcoming their rejection. The importance of all of this, began back in the 8-12th Chapters of the First book of Samuel. Remember that Eli's sons were corrupt, so God gave the role of Priest and Judge to the boy Samuel instead of Eli's sons, God calling in the night “Samuel, Samuel.” Samuel became the last of the Judges following the tradition of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson. Samuel was the last, because the people wanted to choose a King for themselves. This was not only a rejection of Samuel as Judge, but of God as King; in response, a great storm came upon Creation and their wheat crop was threatened, in order that the people might repent of insulting God. In the past, when the people insulted God, they were called to pray for repentance and for a Deliverer, a warrior, a savior. In demanding a King, the people came to worship, but did not repent of their desire for a King. It is as if they want to be saved without cost, without repentance, a Champion to lead them into battle without ever considering change themselves. So God allows them to elect a king, Saul, who leads the people, but like the people is not following God. As Saul becomes more and more convinced of his own power, and the people become convinced of their following Saul instead of God, there is a breach of trust in God. And God finally chooses a King for the people, David, instead of the people choosing their King to rule and lead. Here in the 5th Chapter, David is put before the people as the Anointed of God, the King and Savior, which after 8 years of Civil War, the other tribes of Israel begrudgingly accept. The Israelites come to Hebron, The Tribe of Judah's former Capital, affirming: “We are your bone and flesh,” not “You are one of Us” but rather “We, are your people.” They affirm, “Even when Saul was King, David was the leader of Armies who brought Israel Victory.” But if David is to unite the 12 Tribes of Israel, he needs a new Capital, a place that is not ancestral to any one Tribe, Benjamin or Judah, Republican or Democrat, in essence Common Ground without the ground having allegiance. Identification of the Blind and Lame is not a curse upon these people, but rather that the least able to fight, the weakest of the Jebusites could protect their city because of its walls and defenses. In the Book of Judges, the tribe of Benjamin had settled in the place appointed for their tribe, but instead of destroying the Jebusites, the Canaanite people in their land, the Tribe of Benjamin chose to co-exist with the Jebusites. Now Saul had been a Benjaminite and David was of the tribe of Judah, with the Jebusite city on the border between. So, much like creating Washington DC as a separate District, not part of any one State, David chooses the city of the Jebusites to become his new Capital: Jerusalem. Jerusalem is atop a high hill, surrounded by lush valleys. The City had concentric walls like a bullseye, which more than layers of fortification, meant that if an opposer broke through one wall, they would then be trapped between Jebusites on both walls. So if you cannot go through the doors or windows, you cannot attack by breaking down a wall or barrier, how do you take a castle? “Up the Water Spouts” means that David and his supporters came up through the sewers. And Jerusalem became the City of David, the Capital City of Israel. That “dirt between our toes” we need not talk about. Except that it is not about the kneeling on common ground that makes one a king, but doing the work of leading. The Mark passage is more problematic in that Jesus is described as going to his boyhood home of Nazareth, to the Synagogue where people knew him as a child, and instead of crowds of followers, they greet him as “Where did he get this knowledge?” “Is this not Mary's boy, the Carpenter?” Not identifying him with the strength of his father, but as Mary's little boy. Which at the least would be identification that Jesus, as the eldest son had abandoned his widowed mother, and could be a shaming of whether his parents were married, whether he was illegitimate. And the narrator explains that he could accomplish nothing except cure a few people who were sick. Is that not the way of things? When we come home, among our sisters and brothers, identification is not on: what you have accomplished, what you have done with your life, but “Remember the time you got spanked?” “Is this not the one who broke Grandma's vase?” “Remember the time he painted the house in mud, getting dirt all over!” And no matter who you are and what you have done, we are reduced to being 3 years old again. In an Ancient Middle-eastern culture there was perception of “Honor” and “Prestige” as being limited quantities. So when Jesus returned, his power would be perceived as threatening the authority of another. What is odd about this is that in other places, Jesus was able to overcome people's unbelief, but here their shaming of Jesus, the lack of trust from those who knew him is described as effecting Jesus abilities. The twist on this according to Mark, is that Jesus had chosen the Twelve in Chapter 3 not to be his followers, but that they would go out into the world in service. In the 4th Chapter he taught them in parables and explained these to them; in the 5th Chapter he demonstrated the power of faith to accomplish the miraculous. And here just before sending them out, Jesus also demonstrates that some places you will not be accepted. Even before Jesus death and resurrection, the disciples were sent out as apostles, their specific purpose being “repentance” turning people around from doing their own thing, to trusting God. Even more, Mark is the only one of the Gospels who describes the twelve went out casting out demons and anointing the heads of those who were sick with oil to heal them. Is that not what we do in Baptism, to anoint the believer from the death of shame, to trust God?