"Hard Sayings" August 26, 2018

I Kings 8: 1-6, 22-30, 44-43 John 6: 56-69 This week Pope Francis had the courage to admit to the Abuse of Children by priests, and their church having sheltered those priests. A monumental challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church, yet still not quite the profession by Jesus’ “If any should mislead one of these little ones it would be better if a millstone were hung round their neck.” Before any rush to judgment, recall that we had our own experience with abuse, yet at that time, and 30 years later when he was prosecuted and removed from the ministry, our Session Minutes never acknowledge anything ever happened. It is as if it was not there. What is the purpose of the Church, Justice, Truth, Faith? Are Sanctuaries like this, Sacred, a Refuge from the pressures of the World, or a museum of art, music, architecture, a community resource, a financial albatross, Sanctuary from the Law? Is a Sanctuary of the Woods, a Mountaintop, the Lake, just as holy and sacred to us? My own sons have begun describing their father as a Community Leader and Organizer, Caring for People, rather than as a Pastor or Minister, because their friends have no experience of the Church, at least none positive. 95% of the weddings I have officiated this year have not been in a Sanctuary, but in the Gazebo, at a State Park, at a Winery, at their Home, at a Casino. Recalling the Temptations of Jesus in his 40 Days in the wilderness, 5,000 people were given bread from him to eat; as far as the eye could see were people healed of incurable diseases simply by his touch or even his words; crowds tried to throw him down a high cliff and he walked away; the parables of Jesus are better known than Aesop’s or Plato’s. When the world then came looking for him to continue doing more, to be their miracle whenever we wanted; instead he described the need to embrace and own and correct the sins and addictions of our lives. Most everyone turned aside, naming these are “Hard Sayings”, and they are! Christian faith in God is not a thing you can be taught or master or understand, or own, not the answer to prayers or magic words. While the Grace of God and Love of God appear so simple, Grace and Love and Sacrifice, Communion, Humility, are neither cheap nor easy. To which Simon Peter responded: Where else can we go, You alone have the words of eternal life? Do we still believe in Eternal Life, in Heaven & Hell, or reincarnation, or Nirvana, do we know what “Salvation” or “Justice before God” are? Let alone do we really want these, or do most of us just want our problems and pains to go away and continue with life, never to die? While many have struggled at other passages, about the only way to the Father is through Jesus, or the need to be Born Again from above, I believe this is the critical statement that sets Christianity apart from all the rest. Christ alone has the words of Eternal Life. Judaism possesses The Law, Islam Koran, there are ways to Wisdom, HOWEVER Resurrection/Forgiveness/The Covenant of Grace Love from God for Eternal Life is only available through Christ by sacrificial relationships, like Jesus demonstrated. Do we desire “Justice or only Judgment? I serve as a Justice on our Church’s Appellate Court. A congregation in Iowa had a member who was a pain in the neck, a bully and everyone knew it. Finally one night, she had pushed so far that the Choir Director left rehearsal, walked out, questioning if life was worth this or whether to die; but after several minutes he returned to finish the rehearsal. The next morning, the pastor questioned if the problem was the Choir Director or this member. After interviewing everyone involved, it was recommended that perhaps voluntarily the member could take a break for a while to let things cool down. She accepted, but changed her mind when this voluntary absence turned out to be 18 months. She brought this to Session, and was over-ruled. She appealed to the Presbytery, and was over-ruled. She appealed to the Synod and was over-ruled, all with no explanation. More than twice the 18 months requested had passed, the Choir Director was gone, but still she appealed to our court. Initially, it appeared quite simple, she was a bully, controlling, demanding, and hard headed. Had the church colluded against her, No. had the church gone on a witch-hunt against her, No. But suddenly someone questioned whether the courts making a decision, without explanation "why", was not fair or just. While we ruled against her being granted what she wanted, the court also sought her redemption as not clearly understanding why she was wrong. Do the courts simply need to find who is guilty, whom to blame, or do we need to consider what comes next after and how to again be the church? Current circumstance is relevant to what we consider Justice, but a community’s earliest identities establish the DNA of the church and what are among our core issues. In our earliest, before we were a Church, before there was a Village or community, before we had a Pastor or Building or regular Sunday morning worship, we were Called to be A Religious Society, a City of God which was not about Baptism or Confession as Christians but the way we relate to one another. Our ancestors heard complaints between people. Their purpose was not to judge or blame or correct, but in how to forgive and find a new relationship of communion, trust. Over and over again, I find circumstance of our knee-jerk reactions, without ever considering how will we get along afterward? How can we continue to be, after trust is broken? Admission of our own wrongs, our brokenness there are Hard Sayings. Our reading from I Kings includes Solomon’s prayer dedicating the Temple at Jerusalem. I recall reciting this the Sunday in 1998 when we completed our first two building campaigns and rededicated this Sanctuary. The difficulty is Solomon’s father David had been told not to build a House for God, instead God would build a lasting commitment out of their family, the word for Lasting commitment is HESED. But Solomon built the Temple, one of the greatest Temples ever constructed, which stood over 800 years. Yet even today, after being destroyed for almost 2000 years, it is remembered as “Solomon’s Temple”, not as the House of God. A Sanctuary, is like a transmitter, a microphone to God; and a meeting place for us to gather to prepare ourselves to reach out to God, and for us to heal what we have done to one another apart from the world. This prayer begins with that “lasting covenant” (HESED), promised by God to Abram, to Moses, to David and by Solomon to God, which is more than treaty or contract. Hesed refers to Relationship, Commitment, Grace, Hospitality and Trust. We have a way of compartmentalizing, that God is in God’s House, Work is at an Office, Family at Home, Learning at School. But barriers are coming down. Many of us work from home, we take on-line classes. So also, we come to recognize that God is loose in the world calling into question our reality of Justice, and our commitment of faith. This morning, this first day of this new week, I beg of you, in the midst of plans, in the midst of arguments and pains, to stop to consider What comes next, after? And also, the Hard things, like where we might be wrong.

"Being the Elect" August 12, 2018

2 Samuel 18: 5-9 John 6: 35, 41-51 What does it mean to be Elect, to be a Chosen People? There are responsibilities that come with being in leadership. For some, this means seeing yourself as being Special, privileged, able to do what you want, that rules for other people/ordinary people, do not apply to you. This is what Frederick Nietzsche described as “Men and Supermen”, not the kind from Krypton with an S on their chest, but that some understand others to be animals and themselves, by race, by power, by education, to be Better, to be elect, to chosen. Judaism, Christianity had a different revelation from this, of Election, being Chosen. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevya says “I know there is no shame being chosen to be poor, but it’s no great honor either”! Throughout human history, God has demonstrated to the world: Being in Relationship with God, through individuals, a tiny remnant of all humanity, who are an example for all the world. God’s identification of a King, a Son of a King, A Messiah, was never an identity of power or privilege. God’s election in Jesus, Job, Daniel, the Judges, Isaac, Simon Peter, James, John and Paul, was A Life as an Offering, one who bears the responsibility of a relationship of faith with such humility they die not for believing they are right, but for offering everything including their lives to God. When in the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself as being sent from Heaven, the crowds hear him claiming scandalous authority as being Superhuman, being Chosen by God, when they knew his father the Carpenter and his mother. One of the cultural lessons we learned from Africa, is that there is The Tall Poppy Syndrome. In a field there are always individual plants that grow up higher and faster than all the rest, which causes the others to choke that one for standing out. One of the early fears about Christianity, was that we practiced Cannibalism by eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. All of the Christian denominations have described what happens in Communion is a Mystery, “The Visible Sign of Invisible Things”, yet each has also tried to explain that Mystery. The Roman Catholic Church described “Transubstantiation” that the Ordained Priest changed the substance of the bread into Jesus’ Flesh, and the Wine becomes Blood. Martin Luther in the 1500s described that, as Magic; reciting an incantation in Latin, to change a Rabbit into Flowers, or Bread into Flesh. Luther instead described “Consubstantiation”, that “The Real Presence” of Christ was invited to come down out of heaven to be present in relationship with the Church. The Swiss theologian Ulrich Zwingli, who wrote the specifics of the Reformed Church, emphasized the importance of “Remembrance” that believers remember what Jesus did for us once and will do for us again. John Calvin at age 27 wrote the theology adopted by the Presbyterian Church, that Communion is more than Remembrance or Magic, and that we cannot command Christ do anything. He emphasized that what Jesus meant by saying that we need to eat his flesh and taste his blood, is that every believer in Communion needs to name and own: the sins of their own broken relationships and lives, for we are human. Only in naming these addictions, human wounds, sins, can we then have a foretaste of the new Covenant, where we are in full communion and sharing with God and with one another without sin. This morning’s passage from Samuel is among the most scandalous soap operas in all Literature. I am forever shocked by Sunday School teachers who complain about the stories of Wars and killing of thousands in the Book of Judges, because this story of a family, the love of a father, I believe is far more troubling than any in other in the Bible, Shakespeare, or Stephen King. Two weeks ago, we read of the Love of God for David, God choosing election that no matter the sin David committed God would chastise and forgive rather than destroy. Last week, we heard of David’s sin, coveting the wife of Uriah, committing adultery, lying, and murder, and that the sins of the King would be born by his loved ones. The baby conceived by Uriah’s wife and David, died. Afterward, they conceive again, and this one is Solomon. But David had other children, as well. David’s son Amnon lusted after his sister Tamar. In order to take advantage, Amnon pretended to be too ill to feed himself. David sent Tamar to Amnon with food, and Amnon scamming that he did not want to be seen so weak, demanded that everyone leave the room while Tamar fed him. Alone with her, Amnon raped his sister. Afterward, Tamar’s brother Absalom avenged her, by having Amnon come out to the field, and like Cain killing Abel generations before, Absalom killed Amnon. One chosen-son killing another, inciting a Civil War between those following Absalom, and those loyal to David. But David provided an odd request of his Generals. Do not kill the boy Absalom, for he is a Son of the King. This morning’s Scripture, is that Absalom riding a donkey, gets his head caught in a tree, where the Son of the King is suspended high up between heaven and earth by crossed wood. The New Testament uses this as foreshadowing for what happened to Jesus, lynched on a tree, lifted up for all to see, not in heaven/not on earth, as he died. Although David had instructed them not to do so, his Generals pierced his sides with spears until he was dead. This week one of the Bishops of Pennsylvania testified before the Attorney General the names of over 300 Priests who had committed sexual abuses. In our own community, I was never trained for this in Seminary, but we have had a number of marriages destroyed by pornography on the internet. The issue in each of these is that ones you trusted have betrayed that trust. We cannot simply remove the offender (the Tall Poppy) and imagine everything is better, we are broken, we are wounded, there is sin, that we need to own and discuss until it is dry as dust. The issue of election, of being chosen, as described by our Scriptures and the sung Prelude this morning is not that “Love” is good or evil, but what Love bids us do. Love for their King and Nation, bid the Generals to kill Absalom. Love for his own Son, bid David sacrifice the Nation. Love for his sister Tamar, bid Absalom to kill Amnon, as Cain killed Abel. Love for her brother and Father, bid Tamar make herself vulnerable and alone. Lust, masquerading as love, bid Amnon rape his sister Tamar. Love, bid God, offer God’s own son to save the world. Love bid Jesus sacrifice life, for the sins of the world. What would we not do for love? While those seeking power and control, as the world does, read Nietzsche and wonder whether their desires are more important, than everyone else’s, whether they know better than others do, and that the rules established do not apply to them; believers have always loved the Lord and loved people so much as to sacrifice all that they have, to offer their lives rather than cause greater conflict and suffering.