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.