"Importunity" July 24, 2016

Amos 8: 1-12 Luke 11L 1-13 Over our years together, You have taught me a great many things, the most important is also the most subtle, the best example of which comes from our Wednesday evening Bible study. After years of “Trying to Teach” we abandoned the curriculum and the role of Teacher. Instead, we read the Word of God together, then like Amos we hear the question “What did you see in the text?” While as preachers, Mario and I could tell you all that scholars have thought and written from Augustine to the Present, which is what occurred for Centuries, that is not as important as what touches your heart and imagination, and how we as the body of Christ in this place and time, hear the Word of God choosing to act. The Word of God solicits and helps us to name the Important Opportunities we need to stop to recognize. That is the importance of Prophecy and Revelation, not to scare you, not as fortune telling, but as Biblical Witness to what will happen and the importance if you do or do not act; this is wisdom, to avoid being led astray into the company of fools and sluggards, as those who have no God. As often as I have read the Bible, every time we read the Word of God I see something fresh and different than ever before, because we are different, our current events, our shared experiences, our membership, now with Everett, Savanah and Billy as Baptized, with Phoebe Dominic, Hope and Mia home from ElSalvador, Seth and Mario having experienced Triennium, Gary and Doris having passed into the resurrection, John and Martha who came to us as refugees now commissioned as Apostles to Virginia. This is also the reason read the Bible together, to listen to one another, to hear each other and consider what otherwise we would have completely missed. We need to wrestle with is what is called “Presbyopia” or “Old Eyes” it is the reason for BiFocal Glasses, that our vision becomes fixed in one perspective, Near-sighted or Far Sighted, and we need help to flip back and forth to see another perspective. So is this passage for us personally / individually, or is this speaking to world circumstances? In Amos, God provides 5 Visions. In the first two, God was planning to punish humanity and the Prophet changed God's Mind, not to do so. But humanity did not change, so “God is described as being present in the midst of the City holding up a Plumb line to demonstrate just how far out line and unjust, unrighteous the world has become.” With the Vision of the Plumb line, there is nothing to argue about, no way to convince God to change, because the world is off-center and out of balance. In the silence, God sighs at the tragedy, anger and human fears. The piece I hear in that this morning, which I have not paid attention to previously, is that “God is in our midst”, God in Christ is not distant, not apart in Heaven, God is in the midst of Life, attentive both to how corrupt and decayed are our morals and relationships, AND God is attentive to our fears, our anxiety and anger, and human tragedy. In the Fourth Vision, once again there is nothing to argue about, GOD IS REVEALING something that was not seen or understood before. The Prophet looks and the Prophet sees A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT, except the emphasis is on the Fruit being RIPE TO OVER-RIPE, the fruit is about to Spoil and Rot and Decay. As a people of God, do you see that God has sent you A Fruit-basket, an Edible Arrangement, One of the Sensory Pleasures of the Languishing Days of Summer; or do you have a VISCERAL RESPONSE to DECAY & ROT from being SPOILED? For some in our world, This is the Best of Times, there are more Billionaires than ever before in history, many of us have multiple Homes, with Electronic equipment in every room, and two or more Cars, and all of our desires are satisfied, and the only worry is if we can keep life as it is, or as we remember it used to be. For others, these are the worst of times, the Middle Class has evaporated, leaving a larger class in poverty and fixed income, balancing creditors, and living one crisis away from total calamity. The Fourth Vision is encapsulated in a word: LAMENT. When we have lived with 15 years of unending WAR, yet war has never officially been declared. When everything has lost value, yet few described DEPRESSION or RECESSION, as if to name it fatalistically made it more real. LAMENT is living with Anxiety and Anger and Fear, without any resolution... One of the questions the Bible addresses this morning is whether ANXIETY and INJUSTICE ever WARRANTS VIOLENCE? During the War between the States, this congregation was divided over whether Freedom was an ideal, or whether Abolition was to be fought and died for. Other than a “Sigh” and dedicated hard work to change the world, what response is there to Lament to unresolved injustice? The Fifth and Final Vision of Amos is of an ABSENCE OF GOD. That is something the world has never before considered. There have been efforts to become Like God, to Replace God, to imagine God as Obsolete, there have been efforts to Kill God, followed over the last many decades by an increasing world population that when asked what Religion are You and what do you believe in? Respond: NONE and NOTHING. But in truth, we have never considered a world without God, because without God there is no Time or Space or Order, and the interconnects and interdependence of the balanced universe, all are taken away; where there is No Meaning to Life, to Love, to Peace, and Chaos is reality. Where the Sky turns black and the Earth rumbles and shakes; where hymns, harmonies, children singing and people humming, are turned into peoples screams and wailings. There are several books in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jeremiah, Joel, Judges, that each describe THE WORD OF THE LORD WAS RARE IN THOSE DAYS. My own imagination is the sound of THE WORD OF GOD being shut, is to be CUT OFF. CUT OFF is there, both with the Basket of Summer Fruit CUT OFF never again to grow, and CUT OFF is the absence of the Word of God. Cut-Offs do not feel good. We want to go on happily ever after. We want to celebrate Anniversaries more than 200 years... Cut Off describes no longer being willing or able to try, to believe. I take that back, there was once a time, where humanity was so filled with Anger, Fear and Hate, attempting to blame GOD, inflicting our emotional suffering in making an individual suffer, that we killed God, the sky turned black in the middle of the day, the ground shook, and hymns were turned to wailing. But the hope of Christian Faith, the Assurance of what we believe, is that even that, did not keep God from loving the world, God still saw life as an “important opportunity.” That is the phrase which catches me in this passage from Luke... IMPORTUNITY. Regardless of your age or condition in life, what could feel more safe and secure than to be snuggled in your bed at night, with your children and loved ones all in bed with you? Suddenly there is a knock at the door, and your neighbor has wants. You wish for anything rather than to be disturbed, to risk disturbing your safe world, BUT for IMPORTUNITY, you will. What is IMPORTUNITY? What I think it means is recognition that this is an Important Opportunity. This was important enough to our neighbor to disturb us, to share their need with us; this is an important opportunity for us to risk our safety and security and our loved ones, because there is need. On this 215th Anniversary Sunday, what I have come to realize is that in College and Seminary, we learned Theory, we learned Christology, Ontology, Theology, we read Martin Luther, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich and the Niebuhr brothers, we studied Peace and Justice, and Righteousness... but for 215 years what this church has actually dealt with week after week, season after season, for decade upon decade, are “importunities!” And when we ignored them, like debt, maintenance, or listening to each other, they grew. Not grand theoretical constructs or systemic theologies, not understanding Creeds or Confessions, but responding to human need for Bread, for Health care, because a parent, spouse or child died, because of a family CUT OFF, a Fight, a split, a war. I was blessed with coming to this church in late 1996, after the Co-Pastorate had ended, after Steve Panko had been prosecuted and removed from ministry, after Committees had been formed to rebuild and to replace the Organ. And the questions were How do we respond to what you see? How far will this Building Renovation go? Will it ever end? How much will it cost and who will pay for the debt? How big an Organ, whether electric, Antique or New? Whether to turn the Sanctuary 180 degrees? Whether to allow children in the Church? Whether to write a check to Presbytery calling that Mission or to get involved locally and around the world? Whether our community could tolerate Race, could our congregation heal the divisions we had, could we ever, ever have more than one pastor again? Before we had completed 5 years, it was our 200th Anniversary. Trying to get a handle on all of that, I read all of the Minutes of the Church from Quill Pen to the present, then wrote a History. Five years later, a member of the church who now has joined the Church Eternal, came to me with this lovely wooden box with dovetail joints. She described that during the height of conflict between the co-pastors, one had brought this to her. He described not trusting the other pastor, so asked her to keep all of the historic records of the Church at her home. She felt that my having been here 10 years, maybe she could begin to trust me and return this, because she was afraid she might die or have a fire or flood in her home and it would be lost. Reviewing these historic records, reveals whole other importunities. In Church history there were two Protestant Reformations, the first beginning with Martin Luther who lived and died believing in his ordination as a Catholic Priest, calling us to look at the church. All our beliefs about God and the Church, came in acceptance and challenge from Luther as the Evangelical Lutheran Church, then Dutch Reformed, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists and Presbyterian Churches. Together these were a Reformation based on substance, as we differed about what we believe, A totally separate Protestant Reformation occurred for Non-Theological reasons, reasons that were not substantive but about who is in power, because Britain wanted to Exit the Catholic Union, which created the Anglican or Episcopal Church, the Methodist and Baptist Churches. 200 years after the Reformation, among the first community gatherings in Central New York once Abraham Cuddeback arrived here in 1794 were the creation of Religious Societies by New Hampshire Missionaries. At the time, there were not clear boundaries between villages, and all of this region was legally referred to as Marcellus, and culturally as Skaneateles. There were several Itinerant Missionaries who each came to Marcellus, Sennett, Skaneateles Falls, Elbridge, and Skaneateles creating what they named the Schaneatles Religious Societies. On July 20, 1801 Rev. Aaron Bascom meeting with 15 believers in Skaneateles created the Skaneateles Religious Society. On October 13, 1801 Rev. Caleb Alexander met with 18 believers in Marcellus to create a different Skaneateles Religious Society. In Skaneateles, on December 25, 1805 there was a vote to no longer be a Religious Society but to become The Skaneateles Chapel, with a Sanctuary and a Pastor. By 1809 we had built that Chapel, which today is the Baptist Church on State Street. But in 1816 there was an importunity within the body, because some wanted to follow the Anglican Prayer Book, while others wanted no mention of praying for Bishops and the King of England (realize this was only 30 years after the American Revolutionary War). Again those wishing to follow the British exited to form the Episcopal Church, which was not for the Theological Reasons of leaving the Catholic Church, but from being one Communion here in Skaneateles. Those who remained voted in 1818 to be Presbyterian, while Protestant coming from a totally separate theology and polity. In 1822 St.James had built their first Sanctuary across the street, while in 1831 we built our 2nd Sanctuary, and ever since we have attempted to outdo one another in mission and ministry, humility and faith. The most telling story about this Church, is that from 1838 until 1841 there was a split amongst the membership so severe as to create two “First Presbyterian Churches” in the same building, served by the same pastor, with two separately elected and ordained Sessions, and two sets of financial records. Why they split, how they functioned, what brought about their reconciliation, we cannot know. What we do know, is inscribed on the first page of the Session Minutes following a series of pages torn out of the binding, which describes: “We have done harm to God, we attempted to crucify our Lord by dividing the Body of Christ. We repent of our sin. The Word of God has been rare in these days, and we seek to begin anew.” The final item which I see in our passages this day, is that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus describes there are going to be these conflicts and disruptions in families and in the life of the Church, which are Important Opportunities, but squarely with these, hand in hand, is Jesus teaching the Disciples how to pray. That while there are a great number of INPORTUNITIES which seem important at the time, creating a great deal that separates and divides us, as families, as races, as a nation and as a world, what unites us is One Baptism and One Communion in One God, and God's willingness to give us our daily bread, to forgive us our sins as we forgive others their indebtedness, and while Almighty God could, to lead us not into temptation.