"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?