December 18, 2016, "A Father's Anxiety"

Isaiah 7:10-15 Matthew 1:18-25 When I was at Seminary, there was a Theologian in Residence named J.M.Lochman, who lived in the Czech Republic until the Communists invaded, and he escaped to New York. Lochman described that Communism and Capitalism each foster one-dimensional views of reality. Truth is reduced to facts, fit together to support the power structure, with corresponding ways of measuring and controlling realities. Christian faith requires a multi-dimensional grasp of truth with imperfections and anxieties that do not fit. The Gospel of Mark describes Jesus was baptized by John, and Baptism caused him to go to the Wilderness to begin the journey toward becoming Messiah. Mark’s Gospel touches on what it means for a human being to be the Messiah. The Gospel of Luke contains the images of Christmas we are most familiar: Mary’s Magnificat, traveling to Bethlehem for the Roman Census when Quirinius was Governor of Syria, the Stable, the Manger, shepherds in the field. Matthew’s Gospel is told from another perspective, from Joseph, rather than Mary. When the Gospel of Matthew was written, questions had been raised whether Jesus was a human being, or if the Christ was God masquerading as a man? The distinction is important, because a god cannot die, so then there was no incarnation, no resurrection, no atonement for our sins. How do you display the truth, to prove that someone has been a regular, ordinary human being? That our sins are forgiven? That God truly became incarnate as a human being, and is One with us? Matthew begins with a Genealogy, assuming that our ancestors gave personality traits. On my Christmas list this year, is not simply to research my Family’s heritage but a DNA test to identify the markers of my grandfather and great great great great grandfather. What was vital to any Jew was a lineage traced back to the greatest and worst events defining Judaism. We allow the words to slip off our tongue that “Israel is Elect, the Chosen Nation of God” but the multiple dimensions of what that means is having endured and been present with God at all the vital moments God was present with Israel. Was your family at Babylon? Do you have the blood of David the King? Were you descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? But also, a genealogy would not only claim lineage from kings, but very human characters along the way. Part of the fun for Judy and I living in Onondaga County has been learning my ancestor and his brothers discovered the largest and purest Gypsum deposit in the Colonial States, in what is now Camillus, NY, and my great great grandfather created the first tavern in Camillus. Directly tied to the heritage of Israel, also among Jesus’ ancestors, were: an illegal alien, a woman caught in adultery, a prostitute, a victim of incest! And yet this genealogy ends with Joseph, strangely identified as “the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus.” After such a buildup, there is a void needing to be filled. With as long as people have been having babies, you might think it routine, but all of us have stories of when we were born, or our children. When our firstborn was ready to be delivered, I performed the delivery with Beatles tunes and fireworks. Part of being a father is experiencing anxiety. While I have forgotten most the rest, what I recall from our LaMasse classes was one couple were building a house; another had just lost employment; a third had tried everything to get pregnant and another had had their parents move in with them. At the event we most plan for, when everything is thought to be stress-free and smelling of baby powder, life happens, and while Fathers no longer pace the Waiting Room, there is anxiety. In 32 years in ministry, 20 here, I have officiated at about 500 weddings, and every one has a story, something which sets it apart, that brought anxiety. One, in which the father of the bride died immediately after the wedding was over. Several where the family asked the State police to be present. A couple of weddings, with dogs as ring bearers. Two where they were unable to get the Marriage license in advance. A few where we decided they were not ready. One, where I told the mothers of the bride and of the groom to back off and allow the couple to live their own lives. We have done a terrible thing to the beauty of marriage; we have taken three unique celebrations of commitment before God, and we have merged them into one, fifteen minute to half-hour service. In earliest memory, all the single men of the community were seated on one side of the Sanctuary, and single women on the opposite, with those married and with children separating them. When a man was smitten, along with his benefactor or best friend, he came before the Session of the Church, as did the woman’s family, and they publicly negotiated the dowry as an act of Betrothal. What is the worth of your daughter: $20,000-100,000? Later, when a chaperone declared they were prepared for marriage, the whole Village and Township came to hear their sacred Vows before God, and to share in the marriage feast. Years later, when they could afford to purchase gold and had children, they returned for the blessing of the bands and baptism of children. Now imagine, that after payment of a dowry, after public declaration of your love, but before confessing your vows to God, before sharing the feast, living together, if the woman was found to be pregnant? According to the Law, because of the shame on the community, Joseph had responsibility to have Mary stoned to death. But stating that “he resolved to divorce her quietly” Matthew has Joseph resolve to allow Mary to keep the dowry, that he alone would bear the shame of the community, that he had been cuckolded, and he would call off the marriage as his fault. The most wonderful part of this passage comes at the very end. For the name given to Joseph for the baby in Greek was “Jesus”, in Hebrew would have been “Joshua,” meaning “Savior” and this one whose name means Savior shall be called Emmanu-el “God with us”. And for Joseph, this resolved all his anxiety and fears. Now as anxiety-producing as Marriage and child-birth, try to imagine that the Father is God, sending your child into a hostile world. Not only a world with Nuclear weapons, famine, disease, perpetual war, gangs and drugs, with an infrastructure that may kill you, drunk drivers, racial prejudice, fear of people because they wear a uniform, or are male, but where your child, this child is God’s Savior of the world!

"Wilderness Harold" December 4, 2016

Isaiah 11:1-10 Matthew 3: 1-12 Years ago we had on the wall in Dobson Hall an enormous map of the World to recognize where Jerusalem and South Sudan and Puerto Rico and Scotland and Barranquilla, Colombia were located. In the Village of Skaneateles, NY, we can become insular, assuming all the world is like us, the same as what we know. When we ask those graduating High school, where they desire to go, the answer is always the same. Sorry Jack, it is not always Dartmouth, or Syracuse or Onondaga Community College, not to go into the Military, or to spend a year with Rotary Exchange. The desire is always to find diversity, something new, different, where everyone you know did not go to Nursery school together. That map came with Blank Titles, recognizing that nations of the world are changing, and the places we have known, the names, are changing, as new Nations are born and boundaries, barriers ended, walls come down. Perhaps you recall as I do, the World Map on the Wall in Elementary School. At that time, there were whole sections, identified as “Wilderness, Deepest Darkest Africa, Uncharted, Unknown”. Despite what our associate pastor would have you believe I was not born in the 1800s, but the last 50 years have changed the map of the world more than all the Exploration of Columbus, Magellan, Ponce de Leon, and Colonialism combined. “Wilderness” means more than a location without a name. The wilderness is wild and dangerous and unpredictable. In the moors of Yorkshire and Scotland, even in our own mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as the savannah of South Sudan, and in sailing, the constant warning is to not wander off alone. Storms come up quickly. It is far too easy to become disoriented, to give up, to be Lost. Such a simple term, we recognize from childhood that to “Be Lost” is to be out of sight of those who know and love you. To be lost is to be in danger. To be lost is to be at risk for being gone forever. The lost coin. The Lost Sheep. The Lost Boy/Son/Brother. There are wildernesses in deserts, mountains, forests, and out to sea. There are wilderness places in all our lives. The irony is that as dangerous as the wilderness is, the wilderness is also the place where we most often are heralded by God. Most of us imagine, that when the Israelites finished the Passover, and crossed the Red Sea to escape Egypt on the other side was the Promised Land, but not so. For two full generations, forty years, they were in wilderness. The difference is that Moses and the children of Israel were Never Lost. All throughout that time, just as Abraham and Sarah before him, Moses followed God. Forty years in the wilderness was, to teach the Hebrews and inspire us, to believe that God could and would provide all their needs. Manna and Quail is realization that God would produce a super-abundance and they were to collect enough for their needs, but if they took too much it would spoil. God took the people from being Slaves to being Hunter Gatherers, as opposed to being Traders in Business. Slaves do what they are told. As a slave, you are not permitted to think for yourself, to choose for yourself. As Hunter/Gatherers your life is dependent upon Creation, upon God. There is a freedom and willingness to provide for others needs, because you too are in need. As Traders and those n Business, our motivation and relationships are different, we have a concept of debt and value that support our trade. By being civilized, urbanized, living in a developed society, we master our world, we give names to things and places and people. Having names for nouns, we believe we have control over that thing. Wilderness is a place we do not control, a place where we meet God. God did not take slaves directly into the Promised Land, but from being slaves of Egypt, to being Hunter/Gatherers in the Wilderness, dependent upon God, dependent on the world, and caring for strangers. A thousand years later, there was another wilderness: Babylon, different from the wilderness Moses led them through, different from seeking the Promised Land. In the intervening centuries, societies developed, and Ancient Israel wanted to have a growing economy like every other nation, with a government and palaces and towers and a King. The best loved king of Israel, the shepherd boy who became the Shepherd of the people of God was David. David we remember was the 7th son of his father Jesse, the Bethlehemite, meaning he was from Bethlehem. So generations later, when the Nation of Israel was destroyed and carried off without hope of a future, when the temple lay in ruins, when Israel was only a dead stump of what had been, rather than a mighty Tabyrinth or Oak tree; the Prophet Isaiah recalled the Promise to King David of a Family Tree, a Monarchy reaching from Jesse through David to Solomon for ever, and that even though now a dead stump, cut off without root, without trunk or branches, still a fresh shoot could come forth. The difference being that a dead tree is brittle and decaying. A single shoot, although tender and weak, is supple, able to yield and bend. This is such a gorgeous passage, yet as a pastor one that brings tears to my eyes. Because there are those among us, who feel like a cut-off dead stump. Once, we were growing active and vital, then a stroke left us unable to drive a car, to be trusted to make coffee or turn off the stove. Once, we were our Nation’s Warriors, now we feel broken. Once we were Captains of Industry/Masters of the Universe now unemployed and unemployable. Isaiah is Hope for the Hopeless! We have named many different people, Jesus and Simon Peter, Saul baptized Paul, Mary, Martha, Timothy, Titus, Abraham, Isaac, Melchizedek, as well as symbolic characters like my neighbor Barking Billy. This morning I would introduce you to “Wilderness Harold”. Harold was odd, in part because he was a Preacher’s kid, and like so many of us, Preachers’ kids are different. Harold’s parents were from a different generation, long long ago. There are Priests referred to as PreVatican II, Old School, Harold’s Father Zachariah and was so old school, he was not only PreVatican he was Pre-Jesus! And after the time all Zacharaih’s peers had become great-grandparents, suddenly they gave birth to Harold. They died when Harold was still a toddler, suddenly an orphan. The community had taken Harold’s parents into the wilderness to bury them, but instead of returning Harold had remained in the wilderness. Growing up there, isolated, cut-off from the world, dependent upon God for his survival, Harold was what we might call anti-social or awkward. He had played with Lizards and Scorpions, instead of puppies and kittens. Rather than a balanced diet, Harold learned to eat Grasshoppers, Locusts and Wild Honey Comb. Instead of soft clothes made of fine linen or silk, Harold wore the skin of camels to cover his nakedness. When Harold re-emerged from the wilderness, he was a charismatic preacher whom everyone wanted to hear. Harold did not promise people what they wanted, Harold did not use soft platitudes or praise. Harold preached repentance. Harold judged people as being a Brood of Vipers, an incestuous nest of poisonous slimy reptiles. Judgment and shame have their place, in preventing us from doing wrong, but often our Judgment of others becomes taking pride in hurting others. As a preacher, I have tried to avoid shame and judgment, believing these can be over done, shaming people for the sake of shame, trying to gain power over others by putting people down or trying to teach a moral lesson we ourselves do not follow. Several years ago, we were in Bible Study discussing Jesus’ Parable of the Last Judgment, with all the sheep on his right and the Goats on his left, the Goats defensively demanding “But when did we see you hungry and not feed you, naked and not clothe You”. And I tried to explain that for me, the emphasis had never been on fear of judgment and punishment, but I saw the Sheep being told “Well done, good and faithful servants, you have been faithful over a little, now I will put you over much” and to me that goal was inspiration enough. IJohn the Baptist is not Wilderness Harold. There are similarities, but the distinction is that John perceived himself to be the Herald, the Baptizer, pointing the way to Repent and follow God, not to Judgment and Shame. John the Baptist had not known who the Messiah would be, only that he himself was not God, and the Messiah, the incarnation of God is coming, so prepare, God will provide all your needs. In Hebrew, the word Repentance is “Teshuvah” and the interesting part is that while Teshuvah has Five parts, you can begin at any one of these and take them in any order, but True repentance only comes when you experience all five. There is Action, Analysis, Remorse, Restitution and Confession. There is an importance to John the Baptist at Christmas, because all of us have feelings of dis-satisfaction, that “IF ONLY” we could get the right gift we could make up for all the pain of the last year, if only we could make the perfect Christmas we could atone for lifetimes of guilt and hurt. But no matter how many presents under the tree, what matters is the Present, forgiving, trying, trusting even knowing we have been wounded, still trusting one another. Because God did not lead us from our oppression into being Traders consumed with concern about DEBT and Loss. God called us from being Lost to being Found, from Baptized to being Loved. There are wildernesses in all our lives. The point is to enter uncharted, unknown wildernesses, aware that God is with us, God will provide. We do not have to be God, but we can share, we can help meet others’ needs.

"Seeing Advent" November 27, 2016

Exodus 33 Isaiah 2: 1-5 Matthew 24:36-44 What was your favorite part of Thanksgiving? Thirty some years ago, I offered to clean and stuff the turkey for my wife’s grandmother, and somehow that became my job. When children came along, we taught them to make pie crusts, and one prefers Apple, another Cherry, a third Pumpkin, and another Mincemeat. One person prefers homemade Cranberry sauce, while another has childhood memories that Cranberry sauce needs to have the rings from the inside of a can. But far and away, my favorite part of Thanksgiving is the opportunity with family and friends to stop and give thanks to God for just how blessed we are. I recognize that my ailments of the last few years all trace back to a bad fall from a ladder, and there have been many times when I feared, I might have to retire at age 58 no longer able to carry a baby around the Sanctuary, no longer able to endure standing to preach, no longer able to marry couples, in the last two years enduring 4 knee surgeries and recovery to be able to hope there could be life after. Looking round the table to my bride and our children, to places that had been occupied by grandparents and now were filled with new friends. We dare not take this life for granted, but pause in Sabbath before the coming Advent to give Thanks to God. It seems as though we have been on a spiraling treadmill, accelerating in speed. There was one Convention, then the Olympics, then another Convention, then Labor Day and the Start of School, Halloween, the Election, Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving and we are off on the marathon to Christmas, New Years… Life is coming at us like headlights in the dark, and all we have known to do is to keep going onward. But Advent is about envisioning something different. Christian Faith is about Seeing the Advent of things around us. Seeing differently. That where others might simply see Water, we envision the Grace of God and Spirit of God washing over all of us in Forgiveness. Where others might see a simple meal of Bread and Wine, we envision a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, where there are no divisions, no hate, but we are gifted to see through the broken-ness to witness the Glory of God. The Book of Isaiah begins with an indictment of the way things are, the corruptions, the wars, the way people like sheep each try to get their own not concerned about anyone else, trodding down the grass and muddying the waters for others. When suddenly in Chapter Two The Prophet Isaiah, son of the High Priest Amoz, records “Seeing the Word of God.” That is not the way in which we talk is it? Ordinarily, we hear the Word. But the Word which came to Isaiah came as a Vision much as Martin Luther King Jr described having a Dream of world beyond Racism, and John F. Kennedy envisioned Americans landing on the Moon. Isaiah’s Vision was of a future where there would be no war no more. Growing up, my family had a sailboat, and my father loved to take us sailing. He taught each of us, to turn your head, until you could feel the wind equally in both ears, in this way knowing which way the wind blew and came from. When we got a little older, he would have us trade places with him at the tiller to steer. While the temptation was to jerk the tiller back and forth, or to allow the wind to blow where it would, the instruction we received was to pick a point on the far horizon and keep the bow headed in that direction. Most often that point was a barn atop a high hill, or some other beacon in the distance. Isaiah’s prophecy was of Seeing the Mountain of God as that landmark that everyone chose to head for. Instead of each going off in their own direction, or competing as in a race, everyone was drawn to the glory of God. The point is not that all the world would come to be Jewish, or Christian, but that instead of simply going wherever the wind blew, or going off in our own directions, we would each seek God. I love the image, that when the Hebrew people realized they had done wrong by fashioning a golden calf as an idol for themselves, Moses used to set the Tent of Meeting outside their encampment, and when he went in to meet with God, every person stood at the door of their tent to watch. Yet still Moses sought something greater, to be able to witness the Glory of God, and God made accommodation that Moses could be hid in a crag in the rock by the hand of God, until God passed, then Moses could witness where God had been, and evidence of God’s presence but not where God was going. The English Translations of the Bible describe Isaiah’s Vision being “It shall come to pass in the Latter Days” but that is not exactly what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew is more like “In the back of the days” or better “In the midst of the present.” What Isaiah is describing is that the Present is Pregnant with God’s Presence. There is a subtlety to life, that God is about to do a new thing, and we need to be atuned to Witness God’s Doing a New Thing. In Matthew, Jesus described that this is like the time of Noah, when God took away all that was ordinary and God preserved a tiny remnant, only a couple of each kind. Over the Centuries this passage has been taken by the Left Behind Movement, to emphasize that you better get yourself in order, because the Cloud is coming and you do not want to get left out. But ironically, what Jesus said was just the opposite. That those who were unworthy would be the ones taken, and the ones left behind were the ones chosen by God to inherit the earth. Suddenly our seasons changed. A week ago yesterday it was 65 degrees in Central New York. People were outside in t-shirts and shorts. Now the snow lays all about, the skies are overcast and gray, and sunlight itself seems different. Advent requires that we see life differently. Instead of the rat-race we have been about, to stop, rather than escalating fear and distrust we need to be about making our technology into something new. When I was very young, we had a wooden train-set, made by the Larabee family here in Skaneateles New York, perhaps you had one too. At the time, I did not know of Skaneateles, but those train tracks had with them blocks for houses, and a red block with two adjoining rectangles like the towers of our church. I am told that there used to be an actual train that ran from Syracuse to Skaneateles, the Station and Wheel House being where the Banks and Tops Grocery is on Fennel Street. But that when the train stopped running, an there were a pair of steel tracks reaching all the way from here to Syracuse, that someone took up the steel and had it sliced into razor blades! That is a story about recycling and making Smooth-faced men out of the railroad pioneers who settled this territory! The added emphasis of the Scriptures is that the steel of Swords and Weapons would be folded over, heated and hammered growing in strength to be made into plows to cut the earth and rock. It seems I can no longer read this passage from Matthew, about the thief breaking in at night, without recalling our first year here. That we were having a new roof put on our home, and the College-aged roofers arrived each morning, often before our sons came down to watch television, or my wife and I to make coffee. Late Friday night, our Dog began making a ruckus, and having already been to Town Court because of her barking, we quieted her down and went back to sleep. On Saturday morning, I came downstairs and found a young man with torn slacks, looking very disheveled, asleep on our couch. I walked passed to make coffee, resolving that it must be one of the roofers who was not feeling well and had come in to rest. But the more I thought that, the more presumptuous it seemed. SO, I took a cup of coffee and roused the man from sleep. He inquired where he was, and said he had been at a Wedding Rehearsal the night before where the other Groomsmen had urged him to drink too much. He had known the family who lived in this house before us, and knew how to break in quite quietly, so as to find rest. After we were certain he was safe and had finished his coffee we sent him on his way. BUT you need to know there are many connections in this Village, and if you name to a pastor that you were at a Wedding Rehearsal the night before, it does not take 3 minutes for the clergy to know at which church and who is responsible. Twenty minutes later the Priest, the young man and his father, were back at our home apologizing for breaking our back door and disturbing our sleep. We thought nothing more of it, and said nothing to anyone. Until one of the College students from the Church came home for Christmas, and described that there were instructions being given at parties, that if you have had too much to drink, Go to the Pastor’s house, the Back door is open, they will make certain you are safe and give you coffee in the morning before sending you on your way. And I decided that was not a bad reputation for the Pastor to have.

"And we Feared the Election" November 13, 2016

Exodus 12 Haggai 1: 14 – 2:9 Luke 20: 27 – 21:19 Perhaps I am wrong. I need you to tell me and I need to listen to understand better. It seems as though the whole world, particularly our Nation, are angry and afraid. A majority of our nation, both Republican and Democrat and Libertarian sincerely believe our system is broken and corrupt. Fear and anger is present across our lives. Perhaps it was more covert before, but the election brought this to a boiling point. I believe it would have taken place whomever won, but before the election, I feared that our Nation was so divided in our realities, we might not heal. Ever since the election, there have been riots in the streets in New York City, LA, Chicago, San Francisco. A retired minister wrote to me “I am thankful I do not have to preach this week. I need to listen. We need to listen. I need to be challenged to hear and to pay attention to what I had not heard. What I had not known to listen to” The Word I have for you is: 101 verses in the Bible say “Fear Not, I Am with you!” It is the basis of God’s Call to Abram, and what the Angel says to women at the tomb. On Monday, I came upon our sermon title, before the Election occurred. When Bible passages appointed for this day include death of 7 husbands, not trusting leaders, destruction, Signs of the End of the World, there is worse than who wins an election! The First Word I hope you will hear this morning, is ABOUT BEING AFRAID… There is a distinction between Acute Fear and Chronic Fear. Acute Fear is normal, immediate fear that protects your child from danger / that causes you to scream. Chronic Fear is a perpetual state of oppression, where you know not why you are afraid, only that going on is intolerable. In Chronic Fear, people have been known to project our fears on to others, to cause others to suffer so we do not feel so bad. Tuesday morning, the Clergy of our community met together as we do monthly. The School Superintendent shared that over the last 24 months, a group of students have been visiting an Internet chat-room, where they posted screenshots of themselves and guns, descriptions: “Going hunting for… (derogatory names ethnic groups).” This racism and aggression crossed a line. Out of pastoral concern, that our Village and Town not become another Columbine or Sandy Hook, I was prepared and impassioned to speak. That racism and intolerance, persecuting others because of our fears, particularly minorities and marginalized groups were among the evils of Nazism and Fascism and cannot be tolerated by us as Christians. As a Pastor in this community, I feel embarrassment at being a first-responder rather than a prophet. At witnessing the signs and not speaking out. Our son in 3rd grade had a classmate whose father not only committed domestic violence, he took a baseball bat to the hospital and killed his wife. I remember the Sunday morning, with helicopters flying over the lake and village, when an off-duty Police Officer and his fiancé were run over by another boat, and those who committed the crime went home to be hidden their family. As a pastor in this community, I knelt before the altar at the Catholic Church during his funeral mass and wept. I remember the feeling of helplessness as a pastor knowing that field-parties were going on and we knew not what to do. So I am speaking out to say “No! Fear not! Trust that God is with you.” Wednesday morning, we awoke to news of the election of our 45th President. During the election, there were references to our current President, just as there are now to our President Elect, that this is “Not My President.” When a person is elected to Office, and swears an oath before God to fulfill the responsibilities of that office, they are our Leaders. Regardless of whether you like them, we the people have responsibility to listen and pray for the Office. The second is to TRUST GOD IS WITH US… Imagine you were among the Hebrew slaves. Suddenly, Moses and Aaron came describing that every household needs to take a lamb into their home to bond with, as a pet of their family. Then, after the lamb has lived under your roof, been cared for/loved by your children and grandchildren, after you have nursed it from a bottle, and have the smell of the lamb upon you and you on him, you are to sacrifice the lamb for your sacrifices. Sacrificing your lamb, you are to anoint the doorways of your house with the blood. The blood of your sacrifice will be a sign upon you and for God that you already were sacrificed for. Haggai is from a time 1000 years after the Exodus. Haggai wrote one of the shortest books of the Bible, a total of 37 verses. However, Haggai is a pivotal text for the Bible. Returning from Babylon to the land of Moses and King David, they barely scratched out survival. Haggai challenged that things would never get better until they first built the Temple as a House of God. Refugees of 70 years of captivity, with little in the way of funding, the stones they laid upon stones could not compare to what the Temple had once been. Haggai’s sermon described it is not the stones they laid up for themselves, but “what God will Make Out of the House of Israel.” Haggai promises “From the poverty, despair and factionalism of this people, the Lord promises deliverance.” Rather than a stewardship sermon, about all of your gold and silver belong to God, the word translated here as “prosperity” is actually “shalom” which we know to be about peace, justice and righteousness. THIRD is Jesus called us to SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE WITH GOD, not in FEAR… Turning to the Gospel, the Saducees attempted to trap Jesus in a philosophical argument about the resurrection. At that time, the purpose of marriage was procreation, to leave behind a legacy in this life, so if a couple were unable to conceive and the man died, his nearest relative had responsibility to take her as wife, with the caveat that any children they had, were children of the first husband. So if 7 brothers each inherited a wife, and none had children, in heaven whose wife was she? To which Jesus points at their making a farce of tragic events. First, Resurrection is not about inheritance, but in this life she had such tragedy. Second, God is God of the living, and God named to Moses, being: God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so these live. Third, the Son of Man is Lord even over King David. Fourth, leaders are human beings who love power / influence and are not trusted. Then Jesus made a wordplay using Haggai’s phrase “one stone stacked on another” to describe how we build generation atop generation, when in fact all pass away and are resurrected. But the end of our lives, even the destruction of our establishments is not The End of the World, so fear not. Personally, I have been emboldened and proud of both President Elect Trump and President Obama, who after the election attempted to put people’s fears to rest. Both described that we need to work together as the United States. Both mentioned the fear and brokenness of our Nation as never before. I heard from each the need to go back and listen, to hear what had been ignored, to re-assess and go on together. What I did not hear from either, what is difficult for politicians ever to admit, but is the basis of our Confession as Christians is “We have done wrong, we will change.”

"A Story In A Story In A Story" November 6, 2016

Exodus 1-2 Luke 19: 1-10 There are preachers whose entire sermons are on words like “Salvation!” There are churches, which preach only political issues. My Calling has always been to preach the Bible, and whether Hebrew Testament or New as Our Story of Faith. Particularly, that instead of focusing on a word, or a character, or a story, I am especially intrigued when stories are like ripples in water, or nesting dolls, with one story helping to interpret another, helping to interpret another, which is what I believe we have in both this morning. Because life events do not come out of thin air, the circumstances of today have been building and will have ramifications for our future. Life is a parable, inside a riddle, inside an enigma, within a mystery of faith. Most of us know and love the image of Moses, being found as an infant by Pharaoh’s daughter. But the story within a story has so much more for us to think about and ponder in faith. For the last month we have been retelling the Ancient Genesis story that God is The Creator, yet God created Humanity with a Freedom of Will, and we sought our own desires, not God. The flood waters came, and afterward God began anew with one individual Abram, and a promise that: a nomad, called to leave everything he knew to trust and follow God, Abram, would father Great Nations and Generations, who would have a Great Name and a Great Land. Pushing beyond what we think possible, Abraham and Sarah gave birth to a miracle, when they are 100 and 80 years of age, a child Isaac, whose name means laughter. After Abram, through Isaac and Rebekkah, God provided the birth of the nations of Israel and Edom. Israel had 12 sons and a daughter, who although they sinned against one another, God used circumstance for their survival and reconciliation. At this point in the story of God’s promise with Abraham, inside the story of Isaac, within the Jacob and Esau story, all the world endured a Famine. Just as today, famine comes from war with one nation poisoning the ground of another; or by climate change of drought, heat, flooding, cold. With Joseph as Governor of Egypt for Pharaoh, all Israel went down to Egypt as foreigners in a foreign land. Generations passed, for Israel and for Egypt. The new Pharaoh neither knew nor honored Joseph or his fathers, or God. The new Pharaoh did not believe, made himself as a god, and the people as slaves. The 1st genocide was loss of faith. Then loss of the economy. Then loss of tools and equipment. The loss of freedoms. Then harder and harder bondage, as slaves building the Temples for the burial of Pharaohs for eternity. Still Pharaoh feared and hated the people, so he ordered the Midwives to kill all the Hebrew baby boys, allowing the girls to live. Think on the foolishness of Pharaoh here! The role of Midwives when a baby is healthy is to stay out of the way. When a baby or mother will not survive, then the Midwife’s purpose is to aid life! But Pharaoh has commanded these two to kill. What Pharaoh did not know or understand is that Shiphrah and Puah feared and loved God, more than Pharaoh. Pharaoh then bypassed the Middle-wives and goes directly to what Pharaoh thinks is the source of Israelites, their mothers. Pharaoh orders them to put their baby boys into the river to drown. Except, again Pharaoh misses that these circumstance are part of the faith story. The river in Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile in faith, is the source of life! So he as a self-proclaimed god has ordered mothers to drown their babies in the source of life! And a couple, descended from the tribe of Priests, give birth to a child whom they love and protect. When they can no longer, they place the child in a basket of bulrushes made water-tight with pitch and bitumen, in order to keep this remnant safe and alive on chaotic waters. Did we ever have another story like this? Noah and the Ark, this basket is the ark. And the end of that story, was God’s creation of a Covenant, a rainbow. Here, with Moses, God is creating a new Covenant to protect and save Israel inside a basket an ark, foreshadowing that later God will provide an Ark of the Covenant between Israel and God on tablets of stone. Every relationship and circumstance of life affects us and is part of other events and relationships in our lives. None of us act in the abstract, we act because our story is part of other people’s stories, part of the Biblical story, part of the story of God. More than all the Gospels, Luke tells the story of Jesus healing people. Mark deals with Jesus being The Messiah. Matthew, Jesus fulfills all the Prophecy and Scripture of the Hebrew Bible. John, that Jesus whole life was miraculous. Luke tells stories in parable and story-form of people meeting, being healed and redeemed, by Jesus. Two weeks ago, we told the parable in Chapter 18, of Pharisee and Tax Collector. In Chapter 19, on his way to the cross at Jerusalem, Jesus was on the road to Jericho. Do you recall the story of another man on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem… That is the Good Samaritan, where the road out in the world is a dangerous place. And Jesus met a stranger, described only as a rich young ruler, who asks “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus instructs him to follow the 10 Commandments, which he says he has done all his life. Then Jesus says, “Go, sell all you have to feed the poor, and come follow me.” And the man went away sorrowful. I have to believe that that rich, young ruler, was of the class of Phariees. Scribes were literalists, taught to copy exactly letter for letter the Law and Commandments. Pharisees, were the sons of the wealthy, highly educated in the Law and Philosophy, taught to interpret and apply the Law. He was young and powerful and rich. In Chapter 20 this morning, still in Jericho, through Jesus we meet The Chief Tax Collector, Zaccheus we know from the children’s rhyme was a Wee Little Man. That may be indication he was not tall, it may also be that he was hated by people, making him small in character. We have this caricature of a Danny Devito-like figure running in robes to try to climb up a tree, because witnessing Jesus is important to him. In the ancient world, a Sycamore tree is often mentioned because they were common, they look a great deal like Fig Trees, except they produce no figs! And they are sometimes equated with being the Garden of Eden Tree of Everlasting Life. When Jesus reached the place in the road beneath the tree, Jesus stopped and invited Zaccheus to come down to be with Jesus in Zaccheus’ house for a meal. Sharing a meal, was more than eating a sandwich, this was a statement of trust and fellowship communion. Inside Zaccheus’ house we have this vow. Strangely, in all the Bibles they have translated this vow as being in “a past-present-future tense,” where he promises on the basis of Jesus’ visit, Zaccheus reflected on his past, and will ever after give 4 times as much as he has stolen from others. However, in all ancient literature, this is the only occasion of anyone ever using a present-future tense. A different possibility, is that Zaccheus was confessing to Jesus, like the rich young ruler had done regarding the 10 Commandments, what no one knew Zaccheus had done throughout his life. While the Law required making an offering of 10% to the poor, and for stolen goods returning what was stolen plus 20%; Zaccheus had always given half of what he received to the poor, and for ill-gotten gains he paid 400% restitution. For this story, this confession, Jesus describes this day, Salvation has come to this a Child of Israel. When Jesus left the house of Zaccheus, on his way out of Jericho, on the road to the Cross at Jerusalem, he met a blind beggar on the curb, named Bartimaeus, who seeks out Jesus. Reading one story as holding and interpreting another, I wonder if Bartimaeus could well be that same Rich, Young Ruler, whom we earlier identified as the Pharisee, who went away unsatisfied. That wandering away, he reflected on Jesus and what he had said, and although he struggled with the cost, he went ahead and sold all he had, giving to the poor. At which point, the formerly rich, young, powerful, Pharisee: Bartimaeus, now was poor and realizes he has been blind all his life. This person on the roadside cries out with a Hebrew phrase, meaning “Son of David, Have Mercy on Me” that phrase which then gets picked up and repeated by the crowd waving Palm branches, in Hebrew was “Hosanna, Hosanna.”

"Consecration" October 30, 2016

Genesis 32 Luke 6:12-38 Someone came to me a few weeks ago saying, we feel so overwhelmed! There are those times in each of our lives, where there are no clear choices, and all you know is that you cannot remain where you have been. It has been said that the only human beings who ever look forward to change are babies in a filthy diaper. There are times when we are sitting in it, yet we wait, paralyzed by fear of change. Death, Conflict, the Election, envisioning life afterward, is terrifying, and as much as we do not want to go ahead into those futures, we know there is no alternative. That point of crisis was what Jesus was speaking to in this sermon, and it is the circumstance of Jacob. Jacob and Esau were twins. Esau we learned last week was named Esau for his body being covered in hair, his name literally meant Harry. Jacob, although being born second had his hand clasped tightly about his brother’s foot. Jacob means to usurp, meaning to trip up, to cheat and deceive in order to get ahead. Jacob had usurped his brother Esau’s birthright; Jacob usurped their father’s blessing and all that was left to Esau from his father was to be cursed; in being tricked by his uncle Jacob had betrayed the woman he loved to marry her sister, then marry her as well; in trying to give his wives children, he conceived children with their servants for his wives to raise; he usurped Laban’s herds by a trick of breeding. Jacob could no longer stay with Laban, and while he possessed the authority and blessing to be head of his father’s household, Jacob feared going home to Esau, to accept responsibility for being the eldest brother. I love the nuance of the Gospel of Luke, for subtly distinct from the rest of the Bible, the evangelist of Luke emphasized that faith involves accepting reversal. Luke begins this section naming that Jesus had gone up the mountain to pray, in the morning he came down. Recall Genesis “There was evening and there was morning” the day begins with the night before. Seeing the crowds, Jesus appointed twelve. There is a ying and yang, a balance in our lives. There are times of sorrow and times great joy, there are fortunes and losses, and following from the faith convictions of Ecclesiastes, Luke believes the difference between prosperity and devastation, between happiness and misery, is quite minor and insignificant. WHAT IS AT STAKE is what we do in faith, how we chose to change. Different from Matthew who spiritualized the words of Jesus to say “Blessed are the poor in Spirit” Luke bluntly states “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” You who are poor are not distracted by riches, by delicacies, by imperfections of man. You poor, see the world around you in ways others cannot. Have you ever encountered the pungent smell of a farm? Not turning up your nose at the odor of beasts or bacteria decomposing, but relishing the earthiness, the raw smell of dirt. You poor, who are not surrounded by Degas, Renoir and Botacelli, but who stare at the ground, following your footsteps so as to avoid falling, one day lift your eyes to see the colors of autumn. You poor who serve others and slave for a few scraps on which to live, hold a newborn, and marvel at the delicacy of fingernails and eyelashes, at the beauty of God’s creation in you. I was fortunate in Seminary to have Walter Wink as a Professor. Walter explained this passage by helping us to know that there were cultural taboos in the Ancient world, we have forgotten. Starting with the crude reality that in the Ancient world, they did not possess Charmin or Cottonelle Toilet tissue, but instead used their left hand. Consequently, from the earliest age, you were barred from ever using the left hand for anything except cleaning yourself, otherwise you kept it covered in your robes. When a person of authority struck someone of a lower class, they did so with the back of their hand, because it was coarser, bonier, and with rings might cause greater damage. The inside palm, was used for a caress. If ever a highborn person slapped someone with their palm, it would a display of passionate affection as between lovers, making the other person at the least your equal or intimate. So Jesus guidance that when struck with the back of a person’s right hand, turn and offer the other cheek, would leave the aggressor struggling with whether to display their dirty hand in public, or to slap you making you their beloved and equal, and that the strike was not to do you harm but revealing their passion. Similarly, there was a code of decency that while you could steal from or sue another even for the clothes on their back, you would never leave a debtor naked at sundown, because they would be exposed to rape or other offense. So if an aggressor demands your coat, offer them your shirt and pants as well. An important role of faith is believing in a holy transition from where we have been to living life differently, or in the case of death, coping with the resurrection. While the Catholic Church created an identity for “saints” as being intercessors for God, persons to whom demonstrated miracles had been proven, in the Protestant Churches we believe that Christ is our only intercessor, so any believer, anyone who has wrestled with their faith and come through to a new belief, as well as All those who have died and been resurrected to eternal life are Consecrated as Saints. The Golden Rule was known from Homer, Philo and Seneca of Greek Philosophy long before Jesus, so Luke’s point in verses 27 and following is not simply that it is a good thing to treat others as you wish to be treated, but to effect change, to transform the world into the kingdom of God, we need to love one another, especially your enemies. On his way home, Jacob wrestled with what to do, how to resolve the anxiety and reconcile with his brother. Here I want to suggest a revolutionary concept. In our culture, we practice capitalism, in paying for goods and services. As a church, we have often described that if you want to get married there is a cost. To repair and restore each Stained Glass Window cost the Church $3,000-6,000. If you want wonderful music, or heat or air conditioning, … paying the utility bill is not sexy but has to be done. At the same time, I am more than salaried, as a pastor I am installed that whether there are 52 Sundays in a year, or 150 Worship services, whether you want me to visit in the hospital and make use of me in a family crisis, or not, the church has provided for my needs. It is not about payment for work. Jacob demonstrates this different paradigm, of making an offering, whether it is owed or not. The balance of the universe is out of synch by the animosity between he and Esau, which is part of why we all feel overwhelmed. And there is a gift you can offer, an offering you can make to demonstrate to God and to one another, your desire to reconcile the world? Five years ago, our church was in the midst of anxiety. Some were complaining about the installation of a bathroom, some about our need for a Parish Associate, some about whether there was enough Bible in our worship, because of Wall Street some were concerned whether we invest in the stock market and with whom; and at the same time we had the highest caliber music we had ever had, but extreme tensions between the choir, director and organist. As your pastor it was tearing me apart, so I spent 48 hours here is prayer and reflection. At the end of which making a gift of $500 to a Mission we had never before supported, using Bicycle tires and white plastic Patio chairs as wheel chairs. Jacob takes everything he owns, and divides them up by species, by herds, by family, including his own family, sending each one ahead to his brother Esau, declaring that these are an offering for his brother and also Jacob is coming. What happened in that night I cannot fully explain. Was it his Uncle Laban, or one of his men who attacked Jacob? Was it Esau? Was it God? Was it wrestling with himself? In the end, Jacob emerged alive, but changed. Where he had grabbed the heel of others to get ahead, his hip was permanently out of joint so he limped. But more than this, Jacob had a new name and new identity, as “Israel,” one who has wrestled with God and with others and have prevailed. Does that mean he won, I do not think so, but to have done so and lived is a great accomplishment.

"Bad Examples" October 23, 2016

Genesis 25 Luke 18:9-14 The most powerful statement of our present time came after the final Debate was over and a pre-ordained group of undecided voters were asked if the debate changed their minds. A significant group said they were still undecided, and the interviewer described: “You have had 22 months of Primaries and Campaign, three debates and daily polls, what more do you need or want to know?” One respondent said “But I do not like either one, and am praying to God for something to change.” When we read the Bible, whenever we discuss faith issues, ethics or morality, we anticipate clear choices between right and wrong, between good and evil. The difficulty of this morning, both in the story of Isaac and Rebekkah’s children and Jesus’ Parable about righteousness and treating others with Contempt, is that each of the examples is very human and not what we would want to emulate as Good. The book of Genesis provides foundational stories of where our faith originates. This is long ago, before the Romans and Greeks, before the Babylonian Exile of Israel, before King David, before Joshua, Judges, the Temple, before the 10 Commandments, long long before Moses and Pharaoh, before the Exodus, even before Israel went down to Egypt and were enslaved. What we know from the beginning, is that God is Creator, any and all acts of creation can be traced back to God. After the flood, God began anew with one person and one family and a covenant promise. God is Creator. Abraham and Sarah received the Covenant Promise from God, they were nomads, refugees from a distant country wandering the land, while unable to conceive for 20 years, yet they trusted and believed God that their own child would be the father of nations, and would have a name and a land to inherit. Finally, when Sarah was 80 years of age and Abraham as good as dead, they gave birth to a child; then God commanded Abraham to sacrifice that child as a test of whether he would continue to trust God, or only trusted in fulfillment of the promise. When God saved Abraham’s child Isaac, they came down the mountain. Over time, Sarah died and was buried; then Abraham sought a partner for Isaac, not among the Canaanites, but sending his servant back to their own people, to Sarah’s brother Laban, and bringing Laban’s daughter Rebekkah to marry Isaac. When they were secure, Abraham died and was buried by Isaac and his brother Ishmael. Rebekkah and Isaac, like Sarah and Abraham, possessed the Promise but were unable to conceive. What physiological or psychological reasons were for this we do not know; I believe that this is a statement of how on our own, we are unable, yet with God all things, even the most miraculous, are possible. However, instead of giving birth to one child, they were to have twins, who even before birth wrestled with one another, threatening to tear their mother apart. I had brothers growing up, which led our father to have many sermons on the text “Blessed is the house, where brothers dwell together in peace and harmony.” Several years ago, when two of the refugees we had sponsored, had repeated fights, John’s mother Agot took me aside, to explain “Pastor, boys like young bulls fight, that is what they do.” The difficulty of this text becomes the parents playing favorites. Marriage can be difficult for all of us, instead of reacting and doing whatever appears to be good at the moment, you need to consider the needs and wants of this other who is the center of your life and your reason for living. Now, add into that relationship, a child. In a triangle, two always work against one. It may be the parents share in feeding and changing the infant, so that each can get rest. It may be that the child uses one parent to convince the other what they want to do. Imagine, not only that there were two parents and twin children, but that the mother is fused with her desires for the one child, and the father is fused with his desires for the other. There can be no honest relationships in the family, because the brothers are not free to be siblings, the parents are not free to be a couple in love. Each one is acting in multiple identities, trying to please others, with no room for their relationship with God. Before the 10 Commandments, the children of Abraham had 5 basic laws of identity: The Lord our God is one and God only shall you serve. Circumcision, that you are set apart as God’s people. To demonstrate our relationship with God, there are sacrifices to God of your best, your most precious. Because our ancestors were wanderers, who on occasion hosted angels unaware of who they were, you have a responsibility of hospitality to provide shelter for the homeless and food for the hungry. There is the rule of progenitor, that the firstborn inherits everything and they are to decide whether and how to care for the others. By the third generation these begin to be questioned and challenged. While Isaac prays to God, and Rebekkah receives word from God before the birth of their sons; there is no mention of God following the birth of these sons during their growing up. There is no circumcision. There is no sacrifice offered to thank God. Without these relationships with God, when Esau comes home from hunting and is famished, Jacob is unwilling to give him basic hospitality, until he trades his birthright. Realize in that culture, a birthright was just as tangible as a pot of stew and loaf of bread. Birthright ensured a future, life and health and prosperity and land for yourself and family. Not only do they trade the birthright for a bowl of stew, afterward, they resent their birth order, they resent each other and they resent their own lives. The story then follows Jacob describing Esau as the father of the Nation of Edomites, but Jacob is far from a hero or role model of Good and ethical behavior at this point. Jesus was thoroughly educated in Judaism. His sermons, his parables, his teachings all underscore and interpret the Hebrew Bible of our First Testament. When Jesus told the parables of the Prodigal Son and Elder Son, at some level this was an interpretation of the story of Jacob and Esau and their father Isaac. Here also, Jesus is telling a parable about two brothers; his point was to explain that whether a sinner or the most religious, both were examples of wrong doing. The Pharisees held a liberal interpretation of Scripture and attempted to make the Law available and applicable to all. However, the Pharisee in this parable never gives any allegiance to God, his claim of righteousness is a resume of his own accomplishment and a lack of compassion or humility in reference to the Tax Collector. The Tax Collector, while kneeling humbled before God and asking for mercy, never vows to change the actions which brought him here, makes no offering to atone for his sin. On the surface this is a simple parable about avoiding Pride and living in humility, the trap of this parable is that when making a vow of humility, we often fall into Spiritual Pride boasting of our humility. My frustration is that Preaching has become a Gospel of Guilt, humiliating us to our knees and keeping people there. The point of the Reformation was a shift to Redemption. Rather than Guilt or Conceit or Hate of ourselves or others, may we all seek redemption, asking for mercy from God, knowing we all have fallen short of the glory of God. May our Yes be yes, our No be no, and may we attempt to live our lives in trust with our Savior and Lord.

October 16, 2016 "Do Not Lose Heart"

Genesis 22 Jeremiah 31:23-40 Luke 18:1-8 The Abraham and Isaac story presents a faith question: Whether life is only about our fulfillment of our desires, or whether we can live in a relationship of faith and commitment without a reward at the end? I recall turning 30 with the realization that all my personal goals had been met, I had graduated from Seminary, been called to a Solo church, owned my own home, had a wife, 2 children, 2 cars and a dog. After 25 years of trusting God’s Promise, trusting God’s Covenant, God fulfilled Expectations with the birth of this child. Now God challenges Abraham whether possessing all he ever wanted, whether he can still believe? God Calls Abraham, and Abraham’s immediate response is “Here I AM!” Only a few verses later as they trudge up the mountain, Isaac recognizes all the elements necessary for making a sacrifice, except the sacrifice, and Isaac asks Abraham: “Father” and Abraham responds to his son “Here I AM!” This not a response to our teacher of :“Present,” but to both God and Isaac, Abraham responds with UnConditional, UnQualified Commitment. And 3rd, when Abraham was about to sacrifice his firstborn, the Voice of God called and Abraham responded “Here I AM.” No matter what God’s Command, no matter what Isaac’s Question, Abraham is resolved to act. The questions we asked a few moments ago of new members, the questions we ask of the church in the Sacrament, are also intentionally open ended and vague Commitments without Qualifiers or Conditions. Regardless of what comes, without certainty of the future, even fearing what the future may bring, we are asked for a statement of faith, a covenant of commitment, and the response is an unconditional unqualified response both to God and to one another: “Here I AM!” Last Sunday, I flew home to Skaneateles from Louisville, Kentucky, and as a life-long Leaf Peeper, I was shocked to witness the change, not simply from Green to Orange, Crimson and Gold, but because of this year’s drought simply a weary lifeless Brown. The Book of Jeremiah is often described as the First Book of LAMENTATION, and this section as “The Little Book of Consolation” because after 30 Chapters of God WATCHING & SEEING, as Israel Tore itself Down, Uprooted, Broken Apart and Laid Waste, God promises something new. Answering the question we each ask at differing times, it is Not that God causes suffering, but God watches and sees, and does not intervene against our free will. There is a wonderful wordplay here in Hebrew, because in Hebrew every word has no more than a three consonant root. Jeremiah described for 30 Chapters that “God Watched and God Saw” As the Nation was torn down, broken, uprooted and destroyed, in Hebrew the verb for “Seeing” is the word SHaQeD. Now, after the verb SHaQeD has been said over and over, God uses a new verb SHoQeD meaning God will Plant and Grow, except that in Hebrew there were no vowels. Change, here is that throughout Israel’s History, their focus had been upon conquering the Empire, controlling the universe. God’s declaration is that if you control the whole world, dissecting and knowing everything without trust or faith, you cannot find God. The people had been a people of Law. From our earliest covenants, there had been expectations of rules to live by and what laws we would follow in order to keep faith. But humanity has always had an innate form of dementia, we forget. We function at life, we go about our routines of keeping house and family and work, but we regularly forget: God and God’s laws. In response, Judaism had established extensive payment systems to atone for the debt of our sins. Sacrificing two turtledoves to redeem the birth of a firstborn male. Sacrificing a lamb for the Passover. Sacrificing a Red Heifer and bathing in the ashes. Now after decades of destruction, of Tearing Down, Uprooting, Breaking Apart and Laying Waste, God affirms to Jeremiah “Here I AM” and not only has God resolved ALL past debt, God changed the relationship, no longer to be about Laws but instead about Love and Commitment. Hebrew had a generic reference to God as Lord and Master, the Hebrew word for this being baal, the difficulty being that when the Israelites rejected God and made idols of their own creation to worship, they also called these Baals with a capital B. Here, God provides that instead of Lord and Master, God can refer to Spouse/Love/ Husband/ Wife/ Partner. The great problem of Love and Marriage is that you cannot track the debts of your partner: She did not phone. He came home late. She spent too much on shoes. He forgot the milk. He went to porn websites. Looking for affection she flirted with another. The difficulty of an UnQualified, UnConditional Commitment is that all of those wrongs, all the many sins of a lifetime, are forgiven; and all that matters is not losing heart. Many of you will recall that we had a member, a Widow, named Marie Knox, who every week not only came to Bible Study, she would take Barclay’s Commentary to prepare questions about the passage. In the 1950s William Barclay published a wonderful very useable commentary on every book of the Bible often with little stories to help explain the passage. Barclay’s analogy about Jesus’ Parable of The Widow, described a Scullery Maid in the time of Indentured Servants and Great Manor Houses like Downton Abbey. This woman had no rights and no freedom, she was for a part of her life owned by another because of her family’s debts. The one personal thing she did, was that each night after everyone else had read the Newspaper, she would take the section on Family Announcements, and before going to sleep she would pray for each one. She began praying for each Baby born, naming them by name, before God. Then she would pray for each couple getting Engaged or Married, that they would be loving to each other and have a blessed life. Finally she would pray for the Dead, naming each soul committed that day to Almighty God not to be forsaken. Barclay claimed she prayed ceaselessly, petitioning God for others without reserve. Who knows how many lives were blessed by this one, praying for those she never knew? Throughout history, this has been the standard interpretation of this text, that God is far more generous and compassionate than this Judge and whether the Judge cared and would be influenced or not, we like the Widow we should pray always. I have several difficulties with interpreting the parable in this way. 1. First, it emphasizes that the only obstacle to faith is How Much we pray, so if we pray more, if we were better people and less sinners, we might get what we want. That is not faith. 2. Second, interpreting the Parable this way, we approach Prayer as being like our Christmas list, or the 3 wishes of a Genie. “Lord, I want Jim to be healed; I want peace in Syria; I want a new blue bicycle…” When I married into Judy’s family, her mother had a Honey-Do List under a magnet on the Refrigerator door. Trying to make a good impression, I set about accomplishing everything on that list of projects, all the while Judy’s brother and father laughed knowing that list, like our wishes, has no end. Approaching this parable differently, I came up with a fresh interpretation this week. While God is often described as Judge, and God is often depicted in parables; for this parable, start with the Judge being a human being. What do we know about the judge? The Judge does not care about people or God or what others think, he cares about nothing except himself… That sounds a lot like people, like us, caring only about winning, not about others or about God. While the Widow is compassionate and caring and unrelenting for justice. She sounds a great deal like God. So what if the parable is about God trying day after day to have us hear God’s case of compassion for others, and although we do not care about God or others, we know that eventually God will wear us out, the Hebrew phrase is literally to cause us a black eye. And the question comes, when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?

"Believing in Rainbows" September 25, 2016

Genesis 6-8 Jeremiah 32: 6-15 Luke 16: 19-31 This morning, in addition to new members, we welcome Amour Aleer from South Sudan to America. In 2001, this church became sponsors to Andrew Chol. In recent years, we grieved with Andrew as the last of his birth family were killed in civil war, and he declared "You, this church, are my family." But also, Andrew found and married Mary Nankiir, and together they have five children. Both work full-time. So Amour, Mary Nankin's mother, has come to be Grandmother. A few months ago, Andrew came to me saying that Immigration and Naturalization Services needed an American to sponsor Amour, which meant my sending my taxes and all financial information to Nairobi... not for millions of dollars, but for the treasure of a grandmother! As we open the Scriptures and attempt to be a people faithful unto God, we have an impediment to address. Everything about our culture and relationships today is immediate, transitory and disposable. We tend to think in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, commitments a week from now, or on next Month’s calendar, the longest commitment we can imagine is marriage or children or a mortgage. While mortgages tend to be written for 20 or 30 years, even this is a changing definition, because many pay off their mortgages, where the word Mortgage was used because “mort” in Latin refers to “until death.” Generations ago, we described our “Word as our Bond,” and bonds defined our identity in relationship, as: Parent to Child and Husband and Wife, Slave and Master, Lender and Indentured Servant, between Nations, between a people and King, between God and Creation. A Bond not only defined what was owed to whom, for what and how long, but more, created our identity in relationship. We named this as an impediment, because the Biblical Bond of Commitment is not in days or weeks or years, but “Covenants” which last forever. Covenant literally means: cut into, as stone in the case of the 10 Commandments, or our intimate flesh in the Circumcision of Abraham, into our hearts with Jeremiah, or Written in the Blood of Jesus in Communion. Covenants are binding relationships, generation after generation, between humanity and God. But at times, both God and we as humans, suffer from Senior-itis, knowing there was something to remember but we cannot call it up until reCalled. At those later times, there appears to be a great reversal, as the enslaved are set free, the lost are found, the suffering are nourished. But do we foolishly stumble through life, or do we live intentionally trusting the Covenant, believing that the last will be first and first will be last? One of the earliest stories we learned as children is of Noah and the Animals, but this story is not about Noah. This is not the Arky Arky Song of children. Remember as we read in Creation, that God did not destroy chaos and darkness, but balanced these with order, light and land. Instead of 1¾ inches earlier this week, or the half-meter of rain that falls each day in South Sudan for the rainy season, imagine God unleashing chaos! God removing the firmament …the waters of the heavens above, and the waters of the Oceans, lakes and streams, all merge until everything is washed away. This is chaos and darkness. Did it happen? At one time, this region of Skaneateles was a great Salt Sea with choral beds and reefs, and that choral was fossilized as Ram’s Horn Corral; similarly where I came from in N. Michigan we had Petoskey Stones that also were Salt Water Corral fossilized over time. This is the Biblical story of God having created us with a Will of our own, and that Will choosing selfishness, hate, hurt, destruction in order to try to win / dominate; rather than choosing relationship with God and one another. If you make a bad bargain, if you purchase something corrupt, spoiled, cheating you, we try to return it, or we throw it out. This is the Biblical story of God destroying Creation, but over time, 40 Nights and 40 Days, God’s Anger is tempered by God’s Love. And God as Warrior elects to hang up God’s weapons of mass destruction, God hangs up God’s Bow, God makes a cut in the heavens, as Covenant to never again destroy all life. I Believe in Rainbows, not simply as refracted light, not as pretty colors, with pots of gold at the end, but as God’s Covenant to Love, forgive, hope, instead of destruction . In all of human history, there never seemed so foolish a bargain, as Jeremiah made. The Nation of Israel that came to the Promised Land with Moses and Joshua, settled in the land, but instead of replacing the Canaanites, the People of God adopted some of their practices. Under Kings David and Solomon the Nation grew in prosperity, until the Nation was so large as to divide into Israel in the North, Judah in the South. 150 years before Jeremiah, the Northern Nation of Israel was destroyed by Assyria. The Prophet Jeremiah preached that if Judah did not learn the lessons of faith, if Judah did not take to heart what had happened to Israel, Judah would be destroyed. This was not received as Good News, but as Treason against the Nation and King, and blasphemy against God, because in Judah was the City of Jerusalem with the Temple of Solomon, the House of God. Jeremiah was thrown into the dungeon, when the attacks from Babylon began. The armies of Judah were destroyed. The walls of Judah were crushed; when this vision came to Jeremiah, that he was to purchase his family’s ancestral land from his cousin. Imagine your buying land in Syria today, after years of constant bombing and killing. Now it is not God destroying Creation with the Chaos of Water, but people destroying each other with the Chaos of war. I say Chaos of war, because if you remember the earliest ancestors of Israel, Abraham and Sarah, were from the City of Ur in the Country of Chaldea. Their Chaldean people over time had risen as new Nations of Assyria and Babylon, today Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. In this time, Assyria had invaded Israel and Babylon was attacking Judah, so this was the people of Chaldea attacking descendants of Chaldea. And in the midst of War, while imprisoned in a jail cell, Jeremiah bargains to redeem his right to purchase this land. Jeremiah has a scribe who accompanied him writing down what the Prophet said. Jeremiah instructs Baruch, his Scribe to write down this covenant of redemption of the land, and to put one copy into an earthen vessel to be buried in the ground in this place, another copy for Jeremiah to carry. That not just a week or months, or years from now, but generations in the future, the world would know there were those who believed this was the Land of Israel, and even in the Chaos of War, there were those like Jeremiah who trusted and believed God would remember and honor God’s Covenants and redeem the land and people. In Hebrew every name has meaning, Baruch literally means “Blessed” which is why every prayer in Hebrew begins Baruch Adonai elehenu: “Blessed is the Lord God!” In Luke, Jesus tells the story of the chaos of poverty and wealth. Dives is a man so affluent he is covered from head to foot in purple silk, he eats the finest of delicacies from the most expansive of tables. Where gates of a dungeon imprisoned Jeremiah, the gates of the wall of Dives’ keep out Lazarus, who instead of being thrown into the dungeon has been thrown outside the wall to be ignored and forgotten. What powerful word pictures, that Lazarus would have gladly licked up the crumbs from the floor beneath Dives’ Table, but instead the dogs licked at Lazarus wounds. Both die, and in his suffering, Dives’ witnesses Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham. The irony of this Biblical story is that the poor man who suffers and dies is named Lazarus, just as Martha and Mary’s brother, Jesus’ friend who was brought back from death to life. Lazarus’ returning one from death to life made no impact on the Pharisees and Scribes and the brothers of Dives, but Jesus’ own death was not only the return of one from death to life, but the new covenant sealed in Christ’s blood.

"Deceiving God by Hiding From Ourselves," September 18, 2016

Genesis 2 Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 Luke 16:1-13 As we begin this morning, I confess to being struck by how we seem to live from crisis to crisis, yet when crises happen, we avoid responsibility, and like ostriches hide from ourselves. Instead of questioning what did I do, where were my priorities, we blame others and ask “Where is God?” “Why did God not do something?” “Is there a God?” In the time when Jeremiah was very young, King Josiah had all of the little chapels and churches and altars across the countryside, that people went to every day to pray, torn down, so there was only one, and it was The Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. Annually every person could come to Jerusalem to worship, making sacrifices to God and Taxes to the King, the King and the Temple were at Jerusalem, so the Nation would be assured of prosperity. The people of Israel made the assumption that no matter what, God would protect them. Like the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz, they believed God had all the answers; they may have to endure invasion or embarrassment, but because Jerusalem was the City of God, where God chose to have God’s Temple was built, they believed God would protect them, all the while doing whatever fulfilled their desires. The problem was not only that they sinned, not that they fell short of the glory of God; but that they did so self-righteously pursuing their own desires, hiding from themselves, without regret. Throughout human history we have based our development and actions on the rules and assumptions given us, but our world is radically changing, not only in careers, technology, cars that start with a button, parallel park themselves, drones able to deliver pizzas, but such radical change people have questioned what is real and true, and our assumptions of identity are being challenged. In my short experience in Central New York, 35-40 Century-old companies have closed. So what is Camillus without Camillus Cutlery and Camillus Casket Co., what is Mottvile without the Mottville Chair Co? We went swimming the other day, Skaneateles Lake is down at least a foot in depth, what is Skaneateles without Skaneateles Lake? The Wills and estates given to the church over our first 130 years came with donor instruction “to be invested as the most prudent person would do.” After the Great Depression, for the next 70 years, that was changed to “invested as a reasonable investor would” because they recognized that without taking some risk you would lose major opportunities. Today, the economy and markets are so different, our most basic assumptions of “whether to trust” are challenged. So we must ask, What is important, what is vital? If you were going to lose everything, what would you do? As a pastor, I get very excited when there is direct application of the Bible to our lives. I love the stories of Moses parting the Sea, a voice coming from a burning bush, or the prophet Balaam about to curse Israel when his donkey tells him he is being an Ass, Jesus walking on water, or kings and wisemen kneeling before the Savior of the world, but it seems “The Word of God is rare,” because Biblical events are rare. For 50 years our Presbytery owned and operated Vanderkamp, up in Cleveland, NY. “Owned and operated” translated as “incurred debt” and was a constant source of controversy. Cost of the camp and interest on debt were built into the Operating Budget of the Presbytery; but there was also a mortgage from the purchase of the land; and a 2nd mortgage for the building of the Lodge; and annually costs exceeded expectations; as well as being a rustic camp where kids often got broken arms or bee stings and the Camp/Presbytery were sued. But those who first met at the camp fell in love and married there, were blind to the costs; while those who were paying the bills could see nothing except increasing debt. To be completely transparent, I had a reputation of closing and selling Church camps: when serving one church I turned the camp into a Conference Center and the grounds into a Medieval Festival like at Sterling and Fairhaven; in another church, I sold the camp to the Nature Conservancy to protect the endangered Glass-bellied Lizard. So when a Balloon Payment on the mortgage was coming due for refinancing, I asked that we research the total that is owed. The Camp had new Managers who came to the meeting where the Presbytery would debate the costs and deficits of the camp, fearing that they would lose their jobs before they ever got to start. Hearing the total costs and recognizing that regardless of what we did, the Camp was part of the identity of the Presbytery, I followed the example of this parable and made a motion; that by keeping the Camp in debt, we had limited what they could do, so let us forgive the amount owed by the Camp to the Presbytery and also pay off the mortgage. If the Camp then succeeds, well and good; if not, the camp would be without debt when sold and those who did use it would have received the best possible experience. In our culture, everything seems to have a price tag, a cost or value. Years ago, a woman died, her Will specifying that she wanted to have given to the Church $100,000 and that she wanted to give her children $100,000 each. When she did die, her costs for care and final expenses used up everything she had. And you know, that does not matter, because we know, and her children know, that although she had no money, we were so important to her she wanted to give us this. Of all the stories of the Bible, one of the best known is the Genesis Story of the Garden of Eden. There is a basic human acceptance that in the Garden, as originally created, we were sinless and righteous, we were in right relationship with God. But when they ate the apple, they hid their nakedness from God, and when asked who told you you were naked, Adam’s reply was “The Woman, whom you gave me, she did this.” There is no sense of responsibility that: I am sorry, we did, or I knew better and I chose to… the first response to accusation and loss, has been to hide, seeking cover by shifting blame to others and to God. Reading this afresh, I have tried to get away from all our preconceived notions about what this story is about, and hear it afresh. Why, when Genesis 1 described Creation with humanity as the final accomplishment, and God rested… why is there the story of humanity being the first of God’s creations with responsibility for naming other things? Reading the two chapters back to back, I have come to believe that the first faith statement is about God, “In the beginning there was God” nothing else. God creates every element of creation gifting responsibility to humanity; that is the meaning of “God rested,” not that God was tired, or gave up, but that the story shifts attention from God to being about humanity. Which then raises the second question about God: Why, if God is all knowing, did God put the tree of knowledge in the Garden? Why not in another Garden, why not with a fence or river around it? Did God want us to fail, want us to be tempted to sin? How do we imagine God the Creator, as Judge and Punisher, or as a Teacher? Do we still believe as the Choir sang: Teach me O Lord the way of Thy Statutes and I will Follow!”? When God came looking for humanity, walking in the garden in the afternoon, was God hunting them, accusing “Who told you You were naked?” or teaching them to recognize that they had made a choice separate from God, separate from being part of creation, in fact opposed to God and creation even opposed to each other. The basic understanding of Sin is not that there are Sins and Blessings, Good and Bad, but that anything, anything and everything, which we choose to hide from ourselves, from one another and from God, that which we cannot admit to ourselves is Sin. The word which leaps out at me, in this passage is “subtle” the serpent was more subtle than any other creature. The issue of faith is not black and white, not about always right and always wrong, but discerning what is vital, what is true, what destroys relationships and what builds. When they chose to eat of the tree the humans did not die, but something in them did die “their relationship of trust with God.” When trust is broken, it takes lifetimes to rebuild and if not attended to the broken trust is passed on from generation to generation. The point of Jeremiah’s question “Is there no balm in Gilead?” is that at that time, Gilead was the medicinal center of the Ancient world, Gilead had an herbal balm for every malady. Just as the Temple of God was at the Center of the City of God, but when the balm does not take away pain, when the Temple ceases to be a place of God, do you blame the balm, do you blame the Temple, do you blame God, or do we seek deeper answers questioning the value of relationships, questioning what we have been doing, and maintaining integrity: try differently?

"We Love To Tell The Story" September 11, 2016

Genesis 1 Jeremiah 4: 18-27 Luke 15:1-11 We love to tell the story of Unseen things above, of Jesus and God’s glory, of Jesus and God’s love, We love to tell the story, because we know ‘tis true; it satisfies our longings as nothing else could do. We love to tell the story, twill be our theme in glory, to tell the old old story, of Jesus and God’s love. Through out the last several years I have driven many of crazy by intentionally using rhyming poetry and iambic pentameter for the Call to worship and Assurance of Pardon, the Hebrew Psalms for our Prayer of Confession. I have done so to emphasize that our Worship of God is different from everything else in the norm of our daily existence; and in the same way, poetry has a different cadence than the speech of mortals, poetry calls attention to images of nature and life and emotions, just as we do in prayer and worship. Beginning with Rally Day this morning, instead I hope to have us begin each Sunday worship with retelling of a story of our faith in God. This week, I met with a couple planning their wedding, and the groom grew up Roman Catholic from Europe. At one point he stopped to say, “I went to Parochial School where we memorized verses, we memorized what Page Number, Chapter and Book, we could find those words upon. But you are asking us, to think about the words, to apply our story to the Bible stories.” That is my hope this year, this will be our theme, to tell the old old story of Jesus and God’s love. We love to tell the story, more wonderful it seems, than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams. A century ago, we did not have all the information and technology, we have today. We each are bombarded with noise and stuff, commercials and sound-bytes, news and spin, scripted reality, movies and television characters, and changes to real life. In an earlier time, you could read a Proverb in the morning and all day long reflect upon those words. Now, we have not only ideas, but new and different information changing our responsibilities every 90 seconds. Making our theme “We love to tell the story” my intent is that each week, we might have one story from the Bible, one thought to reflect upon throughout our lives until we meet again. Second, an important reason we tell stories, is to be reminded of our place in the world. In the Beginning, there was a great void in time and space, an absence of order, control, life and light. The image is like a nightmare, where you are in absolute darkness and have no knowledge, no understanding where anything is. And in this waste and void, God called for light: in balance with the darkness. Have you recently watched an old movie, not in High Definition, not in Panavision or Kodachrome Living Color, but in Black & White. Suddenly it hits you that you recognize greater texture, shadows and shades of grey seem to take on new meaning. So it is in the story, with light balancing dark, chaos not eliminated but balanced by order. Phrase by phrase, verse by verse, element by element God builds Creation. every part interconnected and interdependent upon all the rest, such that if any one part of God’s Creation suffered or died, all creation suffered the void. And we as human beings were formed out of the humus of the ground, earthlings out of the earth, dust from dust, HOWEVER created in the image of God. That does not mean, we each had to have chin whiskers or the same eyes, or shape. Created in the image of God, is that as God loves Creation, so also do we. This weekend, we celebrated the wedding of Abby, whose father is an Elder and Deacon of this Church, he is also the President of the Manor Board and Stage Manager of the Skaneateles Festival, Conductor of the Auburn Symphony Orchestra, a Retired Music Teacher, and he is the son of Arthur Frackenpohl who was Head of the Music Department at Crane Music School and a renowned composer. I share this, because when the music began, every member of their family instinctively had rhythm and knew how to dance. Arthur’s love of music, was passed to his son who married a Piano teacher, and their son and daughter. “Created in the image of God with dominion over the earth,” is not an invitation for us to Play God or to Control or Use up Creation’s resources, or to Create whatever we imagine we could do without ethical, moral concern for the world. Created in the Image of God, is affirmation of our relationship to dance with every element of the world. We love to tell the story ‘tis pleasant to repeat; what seems each time we tell it, more wonderfully sweet, for some have never heard it as the message of salvation, from God’s own holy Word. A Third Reason we love to tell the story, is that telling stories, and retelling them in differing times and circumstance, with differing listeners, we interpret the story differently, with greater and greater number of meanings, lest history relegate the event to a simple Date and Place and Time. Some of us were, but I was not born or, aware on December 7th, 1941, a day we recall as “a Date of Infamy.” Having been born afterward, Pearl Harbor to me is simply the Memorial in Hawaii where America was forced into WWII. Pearl like Antietam, or Boston Square, or Gettysburg, or Salem, seemed to be towns built around tragic events in History. Fifteen years ago in 2001 a Ben Affleck/Cuba Gooding film was made about that attack; and for the first time, I imagined Pearl Harbor as the Pristine Tranquil Waterfront Marina of 20 of America’s Naval Fleet, including 8 enormous Battleships anchored asleep, a Sunday morning with people going about life in the Garden of Eden, believing they were a million miles away from war. I do recall The First Gulf War, when hour after hour the television showed missiles flying and bombs exploding. I recall our eldest child age 2 standing in-front of the television saying “no more, no more war, no more bombs.” I recall sitting on the Chancel step with the Children of the Church, explaining to them that we had hoped and prayed that they would be a generation that would never know war. Each war of the 20th Century had been a war to end wars, yet there is evil in the world, there are people trying to enslave and to kill others because the others want to be free, because they think differently, or look differently, or because they are in the way. I recall, that week, fifteen years ago, but tell the story differently now, wanting to tell the story out of love. The Sunday prior, we read these very same stories from the Bible. We read Jeremiah, as a Prophet 600 years before Jesus describing the destruction of Jerusalem, Israel being carried off by Assyria and Babylon. On Tuesday evening, we sat in shock and horror, as Jeremiah’s description was all too literal, and we learned the Biblical practice of Lament. Fifteen years have gone by. Fifteen years of unending war. Refighting in the same places. I was struck this week, by interviews with 15 year old High School Students, those who would be in Confirmation this year, who have no recollection of what was lost, of what life was like before. In these years, we once celebrated a wedding on the 11th of September and the couple questioned whether it was irreverent, or a sacrilege to marry that day, which had also been her parents’ anniversary and his grandmother’s birthday. Retelling the story, it comes to me, that Jeremiah also said, “But God will not make a full end…” There comes a time for laying down the anger, and the retaliations of unending war, and to remember the Police and Firefighters and First Responders who ran into the area and into the crumbling burning buildings, to seek the lost. I have a good friend who for 20 years was pastor over in East Syracuse, the Church Deb Thomas now serves, who went to Battery Park as a Pastor and First Responder that week, to volunteer helping the women and men who survived and those who were trying to seek the lost, to process their faith and feelings. After he came home, he developed a lung infection from having, even with a mask, breathed in the vapors of burning jet fuel and the ash of building materials, and he died. But before he died, he was asked whether knowing this would be the cause of his lost life, would he still have gone? He responded, “There is nothing heroic in this. Our faith story is to seek the lost to be found and redeemed.” What Jesus’ own listeners would have heard and recognized, was that as a hired Shepherd you were personally responsible for every sheep and lamb. If one was stolen by a wolf, bear or lion, the Shepherd needed to bring back to the owner a leg or something, to prove the Shepherd had not stolen the sheep. His life, his family’s reputation, his identity as a professional Shepherd was dependent upon proving he had done everything to rescue the lost sheep. In that culture and time, women did not work professionally outside the home. The Silver Coins a Woman had, that were hers and hers alone would have been her Dowry. These coins represented the only thing she had that was hers, and what she could give to her daughters. Losing one, would have been like losing her own child. I know I ask a great deal, in adding one more thing to your lives each week. In asking that you attend and bring others to hear the Biblical story, in addition to the Lectionary, but this is what gives context to everything else in life. This old old story of God’s love and our love, is what provides meaning to life. We love to tell the story for those who want it most, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. And when in scenes in glory, we sing the new new song, twill be the old old story that each have made their own. We love to tell the story, twill be our theme in glory, to tell the old old story of Jesus and God’s love.

"We become What We Believe" August 28, 2016

Jeremiah 2: 4-13 Luke 14: 1-14 Where did you learn your faith, ethics, beliefs and manners? As a Preacher’s kid, I had an abnormal upbringing, with perfect attendance at Sunday School and Vacation Church School and Choir, but I also grew up in a family with four sons, and Dinners particularly Sunday Dinners were a full-family occasion where everyone had their place, we took turns setting the table, clearing the table, saying Grace, and were expected to be part of the conversation. When we first came to Skaneateles, I made the point that we had two sons who at the time were 3rd and 5th Grade, and that I treasured the time driving them to school and having them stop by on their way home. I recall when I candidated here in 1996, being asked if family time is so important, just how many hours per week I intended to work? I hope you have felt you got your monies worth. But talking together before and after school, and family discussions at the table, were where we learned our faith, ethics, values and manners. How to say “Please” and “Thank you” even to your brother. How to not spill a glass of milk, which side of the plate the fork goes on, how to refrain from belching, and what was appropriate conversation at Table. But even more, at the Table, was where we discussed what was going on in our lives, our questions and concerns and hopes and dreams. While in a classroom or meeting you were expected to listen and recite, on sports teams or in theater plays you acted out your part, at the Dinner table there was an expectation of being candid and honest and real as you struggle with life. One of the things I already miss about the coming Autumn, is that this year there will be no Downton Abbey, and particularly no dinner table discussions at Downton Abbey! In spite of the formality and splendor depicted, there was a repartee at the Table, where family members were especially candid as their stories and personalities intersected. Somehow in dinner table discussion, one idea prompts another, and just as with conversation we reveal connections we did not realize we believed. When Jeremiah begins “Hear the Word of the Lord, O House of Jacob and all Israel…” People would have remembered the most basic teaching of faith in Deuteronomy 6; “Hear the Word of the Lord, O House of Israel, the Lord our God is One, and God only shall you serve with all you heart, mind and strength.” With this introduction, believers were reminded, there is one true God, but Jeremiah accuses them of idolatry, of seeking after everything that is not God. And there is here a subtle and powerful image of faith, that what you seek becomes what you believe. If you seek worthlessness you become worthless. If you seek to hide in darkness, you become lost in the dark. If you seek to control and to dominate, you yourself will be controlled and dominated. If you seek to comfort others, you in turn are comforted. The merciful obtain mercy. I struggle whenever preaching this passage, because decades ago, there was a couple in another Church who were great leaders, she was an Elder and Clerk of Session, he was Moderator of the Deacons, both sang in the choir, and she had begun the Nursery School and taught for 20 years. Suddenly on Monday she described, “My husband and I took your sermon to heart. We realized that we had made an idol of our mortgage! When either of us got a raise, it was always for the house. One year, we gave each other a new Kitchen, another year a new roof. Everything we did was in service to the house, and even more the word “Mortgage” we discover is Latin for Death. So we are retiring early, selling our house and traveling the world! Preachers have to be careful, not only what they say, but who is listening, because believers may take the Word to heart. When a people of God neglect to recite their story, their heritage and foundation, the people become lost and easily believe in other things, like he who dies with the most toys wins, or might makes right, or prejudice is acceptable. Israel’s earliest memory, recited often was that their ancestors were nomads, wandering Arameans who possessed nothing, no land, no name, no offspring, BUT God provided for them. Part of our ancient history is that all the world sinned, enough so that God could rightly destroy the world. And God unleashed Chaos on the Earth, but still God preserved a remnant of Israel. More recently, our ancestors had been slaves, persecuted and beaten even to death. Yet these slaves, without name, without possessions, without heritage or power, cried out to God and Almighty God heard their prayer and entered in. Who and what are the People of Faith, a people who believe in the Power of God to listen and care and enter in. We are a people who are generous, because God has been gracious and generous to us. For Jesus, the focus of his life became the Cross, the means of atoning for the world. In the Creed, there is no mention of Jesus’ teachings, Jesus’ parables, of all the people that he healed, but that he was born of the Spirit and suffered and died and rose again. For the Early Church, their identity was not in the Cross, but in Baptism and fellowship at the Table. At Sunday dinner in our parents’ home there were a few basic rules. There was to be no fighting at the table, no kicking under the table, and when you sat down you stayed seated until the end of the meal. In like manner, in the first Century there were rules about the Sabbath. Because there were six days to work, on the Sabbath you did not… but seeing a man suffering, Jesus had compassion and healed him. Was this a monumental infraction, No, except that the Gospel describes “They were watching him.” And testing their reaction to his compassion, Jesus then challenges his fellow guests and his host. Realize that this was a time of great division. The Greeks did not associate with the Romans, and the Jews did not associate with either Romans or Greeks as Gentiles. But when a celebration occurred, you invited everyone and could not, would not discriminate against the most powerful and the lowest within your culture. However, while all were invited, the more powerful were catered to in different ways, and the least, had it emphasized that they were the least. Jesus Christ is the Son of God! Jesus is the Savior, the perfect atonement for all that separates us from God, for all the Sin of the World. But Jesus would have made a terrible Presbyterian Pastor! Imagine if as we came walking up during the Prelude, the Pastor stopped and told you to move to the back of the Sanctuary, and those in the back to move to the front? There would be chaos and disorder and a violation of your human expectations. Then again, I recall the Sunday, we celebrated our first ten years together. There were several Baptisms and many children in worship, and emphasizing that we have claimed one another and love each other, I took the children and gave them to other people. That when you come to worship, you do not have to be distracted or worried by your children, as there are others present who would love to sit with and teach the faith to a child. And that morning, despite having taken 50 children from their birth parents and placed them in the company of others, there was not a tear, not a scream, but the people of God celebrated our faith together. What you believe, what you affirm, is what you become.

"God's Word in Our Mouths" August 21, 2016

Jeremiah 1:1-14 Luke 13: 1-17 This morning I would pose to you a series of basic questions about Life, and the nature of Good and Evil: Is life basically good and wonderful, with moments of unhappiness, or is Reality hard with glimpses of joy? Do you believe there are sinners and there are saints, some people better than others predestined as evil & good? Before WWI, President Wilson believed America could be isolationist, because of our location with Oceans we were safe and secure. There have been occasions, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center, where evil was revealed as something unimaginable having occurred and we were attacked. At those moments in time, we reacted with fear, that we were more vulnerable, human and mortal than we wished to believe. Throughout our Nation’s history, generation upon generation have had a better standard of living, greater technology and freedoms than ever before. I am a self-proclaimed optimist, so always assumed Life is Good, but as described by Job to his wife, “If we expect blessings and wonders from God, should we also not expect some days are not?” For the last many weeks, miles and square miles of California are burning out of control, not in the desert, not in wilderness, but neighborhoods, people’s homes and businesses. For the second time in 11 years, New Orleans is flooded to rooftops, parts of the State of Texas as well. The Superpowers of Russia and the United States each have been bombing Syria, under the guise of destroying ISIS, but the United States has been supporting those trying to remove President Asad, while Russia is blowing up neighborhoods of those fighting against those we support. My mother-in-law has survived cancer three times over the last 20 years, and now has an infection in her blood stream and heart and spine. I was a fortunate to not know chronic pain until after I was 55… Chronic pain that you will never escape, pain that you will live with the remainder of your life, occasionally celebrating an Anniversary, or Birthday, but always with that life sentence of being bent over in pain, changes your outlook. C.S. Lewis most of us know from The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe: Narnia series, or as Christian Theologian his Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters, a contemporary and friend of J.R. Tolkien, but Lewis also wrote his own trilogy of Science Fiction. In this series, all the Universe is populated, and every planet with a different world view, but Earth is a Failed State, a desolate place of corruption. When an astronaut from Earth attempts to describe the circumstance of our reality to alien worlds, he struggles because the Judges have no word for SIN, trying to explain the concept of Sin, of Good and Evil, he finally arrives at the word BENT. Life functions, everything works, but everything in life is harder than it needs to be because life is Bent, we do not see face to face, not through a microscope or telescope, but through a dim dark reflection of what life was supposed to be. One Sabbath day Jesus went to Temple, and while he was there he saw a woman who had been Bent for 18 years, he called her over and said “Be Healed” and she was set free from pain, from being stooped, she was able to stand upright. Presbyterian Ministers have different requirements for Ordination than do other denominations. We do not have a Book of Prayers, or manufactured and approved sermons, instead throughout the history of the Church, we have required Ministers to graduate from Seminary, and while there to be educated in Hebrew and in Greek, because these were the original languages of the Old Testament and the New. I grew up in Michigan, in an era where the schools spent on Music and the Arts and Languages, we learned French in Elementary school, we were required to have 3 years of a language other than English to graduate High School, and another 3 years of a language at University level to graduate College. Having traveled extensively, I was able to pick up enough of languages to travel independently in Serbia and Croatia, and the Netherlands, and the Soviet Union. But not until Seminary Greek, did I understand about the words in our mouths, the reason for conjugation of verbs, differing tenses, because Greek had no punctuation so all the words within a sentence agreed in masculine or feminine, and past, present or future tense based on the verb. The first concept we learned was that you need to pay attention to the Verbs, because verbs communicate a complete thought, and verbs communicate action. The first word we learned in Greek was the verb for Set Free, to un-Bind, to Heal, to allow to stand up-right. This was the difference between peoples, between classes, the Free, the Citizens of Greece could stand tall, upright and look one another in the eye, where a slave was never to look a person in the eye, a servant was always bent. The point of the Gospel, the simplicity of Jesus’ healing in this story, is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News from God sets people free to stand un-bent. I am struck by the reality, that when a child is born/when a believer comes to faith, we hold them up before God. When a couple are married, we stand them up before the congregation (that we stand with them in their vows and commitment,) and we re-affirm our love for our partner in witnessing theirs. Whenever an individual is in need, bowed down by grief, by sin, by pain or illness, even death, we raise them up, lifting their name to God. Tragically, throughout history, people have had their convictions and agenda when reading Scripture and have attempted to prove their point by making the Word of God fit what they believe. This passage from Jeremiah is a difficult word, for we want God to be about Love and Mercy and Peace and Righteousness, and what this passage means is that just as is referenced in the Lord’s Prayer, God could lead us into Temptation. The role of Jeremiah’s life is to challenge institutions, to break down and uproot, and destroy all that people have built, because everything was built on sand, everything was bent and out of plumb. The tragedy of Jeremiah, is that in order for God to set free the people, to build and to plant, FIRST the Nation needed to understand it was Bent. Jeremiah’s Call was to help the world to see what they had been blinded to see. As 21st Century Americans, everything in our world is instantaneous. For the right price, we can have whatever we want when we want, or we can wait a few years, and because a newer version will come out, prices on what we want will be cheaper. But what if, you were to be prophet of God for generations of leadership, 70 years, and your role for all the nations, was to pronounce judgment and destruction for our sins? To realize no one is innocent, all are sinners? Jesus was asked, if those who were persecuted by Pontius Pilate, those who in the midst of their confession and prayer were killed and their blood mixed with the blood of their own sacrifices, if these were being punished for their sins? Jesus said “No!” “No more than the people who were crushed by the accidental collapse of a water tower, no more than those who have lost their homes and businesses in Louisiana or Texas or California. Throughout the last year and a half, the chant “Black Lives Matter” has been lifted up. And in response has come, “Blue Lives Matter” referencing the risk and value of life of our Police Officers. And both, do matter! But the difficulty is that we live in a bent world where life is not equal and not fair. As a Straight, White, Educated, Male, American, I do not even have to think about the circumstance others live with every night of their lives. I do not have to fear bullets being shot in our streets, or possibly through the windows of my house. I do not have to reconcile that when I get on an elevator, no one grips their purse more tightly, no one turns away. I believe that when I go into the bank or a store, I will be treated with respect and honor at least as someone who belongs. The reality is that a person born in Skaneateles, or on the Southside of Detroit or Chicago, or in Louisiana, or South Sudan, or Central America, or Korea, or Russia, or Ukraine, or Syria, or China, is equally precious to God. What has struck me in the last two weeks, have been stories from these Olympic games, not of who won what medal, not of how athletes and nations cheated to win, not of how prized medalists could get drunk and cause vandalism then lie about it to the Police and to the Fans. No, what has struck me, have been the stories of those who embraced the real spirit of the Games. The two women runners who bumped each other falling down, and helped each other get back up to finish with a torn hamstring and ripped knee meniscus, or the hurdler who crashed into the very first hurdle and picked himself and finished the race. Or Manny Rivera, the Yankees Pitcher, recognized as One of the Greatest Pitchers of all time, who declared “It was not me! But God working through me to Call others to believe.” Not simply about being the best in the world at what you do, because to make it to the Olympics, to pitch for the Yankees, is like being accepted to Harvard, or being the Pastor at the Skaneateles Presbyterian Church, being there you are among the best in the world, but also to recognize we are not here alone, others’ lives matter, and when they have had greater hardship we need to recognize this. Is there evil in the world? I believe there is, our reality is bent. There are times in our lives, when we search for any moments of joy in the midst of a world of un-ending pain; there are also times of sadness that come to those who have lived lives of good fortune. But how different our lives would be, if we recognized that the thoughts of our minds, the words in our mouths, our actions were all be prompted by God.