"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.