Matthew 28:16-20
Acts 1: 1-11
Show of hands this morning:
How many of us believe there is a God?
How many believe Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior?
Regardless of how, do you believe in the miracles, that he fed 5000 with loaves & fishes?
That people believed and were healed of leprosy, of being deaf, or lame?
We have evidence he suffered and died on the Cross and being dead was buried.
How many believe the tomb was empty on Easter morning?
So having acknowledged all that, how many believe Jesus stepped onto a cloud and ascended?
The Gospel affirms that among the 12 Disciples, some doubted.
They stood looking into heaven, wondering: What just happened?
And among the disciples, not even Peter asked Should we build a marker that will identify this mountain? For the point was not which mountaintop. The point was not the empty tomb. The point was not death or flying on a cloud. Faith is not a Memorial Society to a Dead Savior.
Quite simply, the point of ASCENSION is that he lives. The God who loved the world so much God gave God's only begotten child, the God who raised Jesus from Death to Life, demonstrated
that there is no longer a gulf between heaven and earth.
NOTHING Has ever, Could ever separate us from the Love of God, that is Christ, not even death... so even with our doubts we can never give up on one another.
As human creatures we seem to have limitless ideas and imagination, but a limited capacity to store information. Some of us have what we affectionately call “SENIOR MOMENTS” when we simply cannot seem to retrieve that name we know. At other times, we merge ideas and distill the basics we want to remember making sense by letting go what does not seem to serve. We know Jesus was born and lived and died and rose again, sitting at the right hand of God. SO facts like the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days following Easter, often are lost on us. Ascension Day is the claim and assurance that although 2000 years and more have transpired, we know he cares and is close.
Karl Barth, the great theologian of the early half of the last Century described this time, the time between Easter's Resurrection and the day of Pentecost, as A SIGNIFICANT PAUSE, when we are commanded to WAIT and to PRAY. To a computerized, fiber-optic, push-button people, waiting is ONEROUS. Faith is not a Philosophy you can learn, or an accomplishment to be mastered. The commandment to WAIT & PRAY is a realization there are things outside our control. There is a spirit, a power, a maturity that cannot immediately be grasped, we need to wait, to pray, to reflect, to reconsider.
The wonderful part of Matthew's Commissioning is that the Disciples were commanded to GO, to Baptize and to Teach; not that Baptism was only for those who fully understood, not a graduation, but rather the starting point, for those that want to believe, and struggle with our unbeliefs and doubts. Ironically, Matthew does not Command that the disciples PREACH, not that we proselytize, but rather that we live our faith, as a community of caring.
Years ago, we had been teaching the 3rd Graders how to use the Bible, that there are two Parts Old and New, that there are 66 Books, and Chapters and verses so as to find your way. We gave to each of the children a Bible of their own, and that morning their teacher asked them to turn to the Book of Acts, to read. A moment later, one of the children spoke up saying, “I don't have the Book of Acts”. Imagining the child had not found the book, the Teacher listed off the books in order, and the child said, “But I do not have the Book of Acts”. Trying to get through this, the teacher called out the Page number, an d still the child protested, so the Teacher stopped teaching and went to see. Sure enough, in the binding, the publisher had all of the Old Testament, all the Gospels and Epistles, but somehow had missed including the Acts of the Apostles. Which makes one wonder: If we had the whole of the Old Testament, and the whole of the Gospels, the instruction and teaching of the Letters, but we were missing this narrative description transitioning from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to explain how the Church came to be, how the Word of God was taken from a small group of twelve to all the world, would it matter? I think so, because what happens in the Acts of the Apostles, is that we shift from a small group who have first hand experience, to people sharing with one another their interpretations of life and their relationships of faith.
We have made a tragic mistake in this time of waiting. In our society we have become so jaded and offended by those who force their faith on others, that we imagine there is only one kind of EVANGELISM, knocking on doors to proselytize. We acquiesce that this church stands for this cause, and that church for that movement, rather than being a community of caring for each when in need.
Yet this week, we witnessed one example of faith, one circumstance of God's love, after another. Different from a Viewing or Visitation, we had an opportunity for all those family & friends who knew a young woman and her family to come to the Fellowship Hall for an Open House. In 3 hours over 600 adults and over 300 kids came, to share, to support, to be the Church community. Some brought cookies, some played basketball, others brought cookies, some drew pictures for her children, some reflected on the artwork she had created over a lifetime, others brought more cookies, some described her battles with Cancer, and how her prayers and her friends got her through the worst, and gave them hope. Others brought more cookies.
On Friday we celebrated a wedding. One of the joyful parts of this was that other than the couple, not a single wedding guest was familiar to us. Neither of their parents were still married to each other, but we listened and worked with them, so that the Groom could be escorted by his mother and his father, she could be escorted by her mother and grandmother. They needed the Church, they wanted a place for a wedding, and we were here for them. In the midst babies started crying and parents got up to leave in the midst of the wedding, and you all know what happened.
Saturday, we gathered at the home of the one who had died. And there were tears for our losses, but there were also laughter and remembrances, and interpretations of a lifetime that gave others hope. The husband who remembered their wedding in this same yard, and the adoption of their children. The nephew who remembered 79 bonfires. The friend who recalled going to treatment together, then allowing her to sit in the midst of a Lilac bush.
It would have seemed possible for the Disciples to have stayed a Memorial Society, who gathered to grieve the death and Empty Tomb, but their faith was raised up, they were called to something higher. They interpreted the events of their life, his teachings, their calling to give others faith.
SO when is the last time, you shared with someone from your faith?
This is also Memorial Day Weekend, a time when we have perhaps forgotten why we remember. We confuse this holiday at the beginning of summer, like a bookend with Labor Day as being a National Day off. A day to wait to picnic. We know that Memorial Day has something to do with death, so many of us make trips to the Cemetery. We know Memorial Day has something to do with Veterans, but we also have a Veterans' Day in November. I think the remembrance of this day was best summed up by President Lincoln in the Address at Gettysburg, we all remember the quote “Four Score and Seven Years ago”. The great irony is that what that speech described was “We have not come here to Dedicate, to consecrate, we cannot hallow the ground, because the brave men and women who struggled here consecrated the ground far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to their unfinished work, that they shall not have died in vain – that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A Sandwiched Faith, April 26, 2009
Luke 24: 36-48
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Always Being Reformed, May 10, 2009
John 15:1-8
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Community of Faith, April 19, 2009
John 20:19-31
Acts 4:32-35
There is a radical polarity between the circumstance of Early the Morning of the First Day of the Week, and those of that Same Evening and a week later.
Mary had witnessed the empty tomb, she had the testimony of angels, but she stood weeping until he called her by name, in the same way Peter and John raced to the tomb and finding the grave empty - believed for they did not yet understand. A week ago, early in the morning prior to worship, each of the Deacons and several of the Elders asked, “Shall we gather folding chairs?” despite my own doubts and hesitation, they did, and every pew and seat in the aisle ways were filled. There is a power to the hymn “Jesus Christ is Risen Today!”
Today, one week later, we share different stories of Easter's Resurrection... and we share different music like “I Come to the Garden in Prayer when the dew is still on the roses”.
No longer, individuals witnessing the void - and wondering, but of the whole company gathered together - in fear, with the door closed, of Thomas and all the others demanding a tangible sign to believe, and a forecasting of the Acts of the Apostles of the COMMUNITY OF FAITH to come.
Martin Luther declared that SECURITY is Humanity's Greatest Idol. In the name of National Security wars have been fought, walls of defense bulwarked, fortunes and lives wasted, all because when gathered together in fear of those outside – our comfort is the door being closed. We desire wealth and fame, possessions and accomplishments, children and satisfaction, but psychologically, we are mortal creatures isolated and divided by our fears. Our doubts and anxieties limit us, weaken us into so many helpless individuals.
One of the most inspiring occasions of our lifetime, was that when we were most vulnerable, on the evening of September 11th, 2001 when that very morning our Nation had been attacked, when people had greater reason for fear than we had known in a generation, possibly greater reason to fear than any people ever because the attacks came without warning when we were not at war, THIS COMMUNITY gathered, Catholic and Protestant, Jewish and Muslim, those uncertain what they believe, all united as one community of faith to pray and sing. As a pastor, that was a unique moment in history, when it did not matter what church you were a member of, when for weeks after, the Dentist prior to examining your teeth would sit and talk with you... when people would stop at the Transfer Station not to comment about the weather, or how many bottles you were throwing away, but SHARING honestly, sharing concerns and doubts. Would that as a Nation, as a culture we could have maintained and built upon that COMMUNITY OF FAITH. Looking at the statistics of churches, someone asked why it was that the numbers attending swelled in 2000 and 2001, then markedly fell off in 2002 and 3? The difficulty was how to maintain that COMMUNITY OF FAITH when the news cycles moved on, when people wanted to put their loss behind them, when people demanded tangible security.
The recollections of Easter evening and a week later ARE different from those of early in the morning of the first day of the week. The dawn of the first day, allows us to consider life created NEW as if the resurrection were a new day of Genesis and as God breathed life into the first Adam, Jesus breathed upon the disciples saying PEACE. In the morning, every individual comes to faith in their own circumstance. The void that is left when someone you loved has died. The fears that we have when disease is diagnosed. The searching for meaning and understanding when we have lost our job or our investments for our security. The tales of that evening and a week hence cannot focus on Thomas as doubting, because all the disciples were disbelieving, each felt his side where the spear had pierced. NO, the point of the description of later that day, later that week, is JESUS, that rather than a VOID, rather than leaving them weeping, each is able to examine his wounds, his suffering and resurrection for us.
I have a good friend, whose father was a POW in WWII. He describes that for their entire interment they were kept separated, isolated, to try to breed their fears. Once each week they were allowed out of their confinement to gather together, so as to share their fears. In those few brief moments each week, they decided that rather than discussing the weather, or sharing their fears, they would sing a hymn, and the song they sang was “I Come to The Garden In Prayer”. That is a COMMUNITY OF FAITH, with power that carried them through.
What concerns me, about our time and place, about the culture that effects us, is that different from that POW COMMUNITY, different from THIS COMMUNITY 9/11, is that in the current crisis we have not chosen to gather together in faith. Instead, individually, we have each opened letters personally addressed to us every three months, we have sat in silent pain listening to forecasts of losses, helpless to do anything except turn off the television and hope recovery will eventually come. Recovery will come, like Spring budding around us, there are sure and certain indications, but in the interim, What Cost? What happens to our faith, to our community, when we sit alone at the dining room table with our fears?
Ernest Becker was a Pulitzer Prize Winner from Syracuse University, who wrote extensively about Western Culture. Becker's essay “DENIAL OF DEATH” critiques that as humanity relies less and less upon faith in an Eternal God, we develop greater and greater dependency on MONEY. We make of wealth an Immortal Idol. We cannot take our wealth with us, but we can create ways we will be remembered, by including and excluding family in our Wills, by endowing a Faculty Chair, or a gift to our own Cause.
What is striking is the description of the Early COMMUNITY OF FAITH in the Book of ACTS. The Community were of ONE Heart, One Soul, One Mind and openly shared with one another as any had need. This was not COMMUNISM, no one was required to sell to give to the community, but rather they provided for those in need. Years ago, in the Midwest, I witnessed a Community of Faith comprised of DAKOTA INDIANS, the roof of the Church building had been destroyed by a Tornado, instead of Bake sales or a Capital Campaign, someone stepped forward and gave a piece of land that would be sold to pay for the community's need. I find it intriguing, that this is the first occasion in the entire collection of LUKE and ACTS, where the Evangelist uses the description that this COMMUNITY OF FAITH were The CHURCH.
Among their company was a certain believer named BARNABAS, which means SON OF ENCOURAGEMENT, what a marvelous identity! Barnabas inherited a piece of land, and when it sold, laid the price at the disciples' feet that they should feed the poor. In our Church's history, there is a similar example. There was a woman, who realized given her age and her health she was not going to recover from this recurrence of cancer. Both of her granddaughters had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and she realized that while the Sanctuary was now fully accessible, her own granddaughters would be unable to join together at the reception following her death because of the stairs to the Fellowship Hall. She decided to write a Pledge into her Will, that as a woman of very modest means her only real asset was her home. Upon her death, her house was to be sold and from among the proceeds first would be repayment for the cost of installing the elevator.
In contrast, there was also a man named ANNANIAS and his Spouse SAPHIRA, they inherited a small fortune, and behind closed doors they conspired that when asked they would instead claim the value far less, lying to themselves, lying to the community, lying to God, about what they had received and what they had shared with the body. When confronting ANANIAS about this, the disciples asked what he had received and what he had shared, and lying, he was struck down dead. The men of that place carried off the body, and when his partner was brought forward, she too was asked what they had received and what they had chosen to share. Ironically, the fortune was theirs, they could have told the truth that they were not sharing, or not sharing as much as others might have expected. Instead, she too lied to herself, lied to the community, lied to God about what they had and what they shared, and she fell dead.
There are some passages that simply need to be read, without elaboration.
Acts 4:32-35
There is a radical polarity between the circumstance of Early the Morning of the First Day of the Week, and those of that Same Evening and a week later.
Mary had witnessed the empty tomb, she had the testimony of angels, but she stood weeping until he called her by name, in the same way Peter and John raced to the tomb and finding the grave empty - believed for they did not yet understand. A week ago, early in the morning prior to worship, each of the Deacons and several of the Elders asked, “Shall we gather folding chairs?” despite my own doubts and hesitation, they did, and every pew and seat in the aisle ways were filled. There is a power to the hymn “Jesus Christ is Risen Today!”
Today, one week later, we share different stories of Easter's Resurrection... and we share different music like “I Come to the Garden in Prayer when the dew is still on the roses”.
No longer, individuals witnessing the void - and wondering, but of the whole company gathered together - in fear, with the door closed, of Thomas and all the others demanding a tangible sign to believe, and a forecasting of the Acts of the Apostles of the COMMUNITY OF FAITH to come.
Martin Luther declared that SECURITY is Humanity's Greatest Idol. In the name of National Security wars have been fought, walls of defense bulwarked, fortunes and lives wasted, all because when gathered together in fear of those outside – our comfort is the door being closed. We desire wealth and fame, possessions and accomplishments, children and satisfaction, but psychologically, we are mortal creatures isolated and divided by our fears. Our doubts and anxieties limit us, weaken us into so many helpless individuals.
One of the most inspiring occasions of our lifetime, was that when we were most vulnerable, on the evening of September 11th, 2001 when that very morning our Nation had been attacked, when people had greater reason for fear than we had known in a generation, possibly greater reason to fear than any people ever because the attacks came without warning when we were not at war, THIS COMMUNITY gathered, Catholic and Protestant, Jewish and Muslim, those uncertain what they believe, all united as one community of faith to pray and sing. As a pastor, that was a unique moment in history, when it did not matter what church you were a member of, when for weeks after, the Dentist prior to examining your teeth would sit and talk with you... when people would stop at the Transfer Station not to comment about the weather, or how many bottles you were throwing away, but SHARING honestly, sharing concerns and doubts. Would that as a Nation, as a culture we could have maintained and built upon that COMMUNITY OF FAITH. Looking at the statistics of churches, someone asked why it was that the numbers attending swelled in 2000 and 2001, then markedly fell off in 2002 and 3? The difficulty was how to maintain that COMMUNITY OF FAITH when the news cycles moved on, when people wanted to put their loss behind them, when people demanded tangible security.
The recollections of Easter evening and a week later ARE different from those of early in the morning of the first day of the week. The dawn of the first day, allows us to consider life created NEW as if the resurrection were a new day of Genesis and as God breathed life into the first Adam, Jesus breathed upon the disciples saying PEACE. In the morning, every individual comes to faith in their own circumstance. The void that is left when someone you loved has died. The fears that we have when disease is diagnosed. The searching for meaning and understanding when we have lost our job or our investments for our security. The tales of that evening and a week hence cannot focus on Thomas as doubting, because all the disciples were disbelieving, each felt his side where the spear had pierced. NO, the point of the description of later that day, later that week, is JESUS, that rather than a VOID, rather than leaving them weeping, each is able to examine his wounds, his suffering and resurrection for us.
I have a good friend, whose father was a POW in WWII. He describes that for their entire interment they were kept separated, isolated, to try to breed their fears. Once each week they were allowed out of their confinement to gather together, so as to share their fears. In those few brief moments each week, they decided that rather than discussing the weather, or sharing their fears, they would sing a hymn, and the song they sang was “I Come to The Garden In Prayer”. That is a COMMUNITY OF FAITH, with power that carried them through.
What concerns me, about our time and place, about the culture that effects us, is that different from that POW COMMUNITY, different from THIS COMMUNITY 9/11, is that in the current crisis we have not chosen to gather together in faith. Instead, individually, we have each opened letters personally addressed to us every three months, we have sat in silent pain listening to forecasts of losses, helpless to do anything except turn off the television and hope recovery will eventually come. Recovery will come, like Spring budding around us, there are sure and certain indications, but in the interim, What Cost? What happens to our faith, to our community, when we sit alone at the dining room table with our fears?
Ernest Becker was a Pulitzer Prize Winner from Syracuse University, who wrote extensively about Western Culture. Becker's essay “DENIAL OF DEATH” critiques that as humanity relies less and less upon faith in an Eternal God, we develop greater and greater dependency on MONEY. We make of wealth an Immortal Idol. We cannot take our wealth with us, but we can create ways we will be remembered, by including and excluding family in our Wills, by endowing a Faculty Chair, or a gift to our own Cause.
What is striking is the description of the Early COMMUNITY OF FAITH in the Book of ACTS. The Community were of ONE Heart, One Soul, One Mind and openly shared with one another as any had need. This was not COMMUNISM, no one was required to sell to give to the community, but rather they provided for those in need. Years ago, in the Midwest, I witnessed a Community of Faith comprised of DAKOTA INDIANS, the roof of the Church building had been destroyed by a Tornado, instead of Bake sales or a Capital Campaign, someone stepped forward and gave a piece of land that would be sold to pay for the community's need. I find it intriguing, that this is the first occasion in the entire collection of LUKE and ACTS, where the Evangelist uses the description that this COMMUNITY OF FAITH were The CHURCH.
Among their company was a certain believer named BARNABAS, which means SON OF ENCOURAGEMENT, what a marvelous identity! Barnabas inherited a piece of land, and when it sold, laid the price at the disciples' feet that they should feed the poor. In our Church's history, there is a similar example. There was a woman, who realized given her age and her health she was not going to recover from this recurrence of cancer. Both of her granddaughters had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and she realized that while the Sanctuary was now fully accessible, her own granddaughters would be unable to join together at the reception following her death because of the stairs to the Fellowship Hall. She decided to write a Pledge into her Will, that as a woman of very modest means her only real asset was her home. Upon her death, her house was to be sold and from among the proceeds first would be repayment for the cost of installing the elevator.
In contrast, there was also a man named ANNANIAS and his Spouse SAPHIRA, they inherited a small fortune, and behind closed doors they conspired that when asked they would instead claim the value far less, lying to themselves, lying to the community, lying to God, about what they had received and what they had shared with the body. When confronting ANANIAS about this, the disciples asked what he had received and what he had shared, and lying, he was struck down dead. The men of that place carried off the body, and when his partner was brought forward, she too was asked what they had received and what they had chosen to share. Ironically, the fortune was theirs, they could have told the truth that they were not sharing, or not sharing as much as others might have expected. Instead, she too lied to herself, lied to the community, lied to God about what they had and what they shared, and she fell dead.
There are some passages that simply need to be read, without elaboration.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Last of All As One's Untimely Born, April 12, 2009
Mark 16:1-8
I Corinthian 15: 1-11
LAST OF ALL, AS TO ONE UNTIMELY BORN, that's us isn't it?
We know the characters of the Gospel so well, Mary and Joseph and their baby. King Herod, the Wisemen and Shepherds, John the Baptist, Simon Peter, and his brother Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Phillip, Nathaniel and Matthew, Judas, another Mary, another King Herod, Pontius Pilate, BUT the Apostle known as Paul was not one of those. He is at least a generation different. He like us, never knew Jesus of Nazareth but had a life changed by the resurrected Lord
The Gospels are written differently than other stories, different from history, different from myth. The Gospels are told in a series of PARABLES, making us question if the real parable is the RESURRECTION?
The Gospels are told in a way that includes us, the Gospel is incomplete without you and I as receivers who pass on the faith. We have a role to play in faith, even though this part of the story was begun over 2000 years ago in a different time and place. We did not see the 10 Lepers cured, or the 5000 people fed, we did not sit at his feet as he told parables, or sit in the boat during the storm when Jesus said PEACE BE STILL and even the waves and sky obeyed, we were not even there when he broke bread or when he died on the cross. No, like Paul, we are from a different place and time, who must work harder to try to see ourselves there. AND yet, this has been passed down as our Spiritual Inheritance, making the GOSPEL our own as much as had we been kneeling there.
In many ways, the responsibility of faith is more difficult for us than for Jesus' first disciples. They were able to look him in the eye, they were able to witness what he had done. We hear the story and we question is this historically the way it happened, or is this another parable, like the PRODIGAL SON who comes home and is loved by God; like the PEARL of great value for which you would sell everything else, like the planting of seed that grows WEEDS AND GRAIN. This PARABLE, this simple story is as drawn on our Bulletin covers: God came down to us, to be one with us. We harm one another and ourselves, we caused Christ to die on the Cross. The Body of Christ was Buried. Easter morning God raised him to heaven. He will come again! What I love about EASTER'S RESURRECTION is who did what. We so often believe we have to be in control, we have to do everything and make life perfect. Instead: GOD came down to us. JESUS, like we are, was faithful, suffered and died and was buried. GOD raised Jesus, and he will come back for us. Our role, is not perfection, we like Jesus: are to be FAITHFUL, sometimes to SUFFER, all of us to DIE and Bury one another. But this is PROOF of the reality of God, that as a man Jesus could not have RESURRECTED HIMSELF, Resurrection required that God Raise him up, that God who created life, granted new life.
We are not worthy to be called APOSTLES, because we did not live in that time, and because we have done wrong in our lives... AND YET, as Paul and Popeye describe, I AM What I AM that's all that I am, though God makes us Apostles. The title APOSTLE means sent out into the world to be ourselves sharing faith with others. SO more than a Parable, hearing this story, being moved by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we know there is nothing more to fear in life or in death. Life is to be lived, to make the most out of, not for our possessions, not for what our stock portfolio says we are worth. Our lives, like Jesus' life, like the lives of each of the Apostles, are that we are sent by God for others.
The phrase that fits here, is that we are CALLED TO CONVERT THE CONVERTED. Is there a man or woman among us, who has never heard the story, that Jesus suffered and died and was buried, and on Easter morning the tomb was empty? YET we go through our lives, still harming one another, and by so doing wounding God. FAITH is more than knowing the story, more than making a contribution, or volunteering in this way or that. FAITH is the struggle to live our lives for others. To live our lives as if RESURRECTED.
There is a translation problem, from GREEK to English. In Greek, “Faith” is both a noun and a verb, where as in English we have the Noun FAITH as a thing but translate the verb as BELIEVE. Paul perceives FAITH is the relationship we have with God. This is not DOGMA, a set of ideas, but a dynamic relationship, a struggle for acceptance by God, a calling to serve others.
FAITH is this unfinished story, that requires our involvement.
In the original ancient copies of the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the Gospels, this was the Easter Story. The Women went to the Tomb to complete his burial, they were afraid because they had not been able to do for him what the Law required, had not been able to finish due to the Sabbath, afraid because three days had passed, afraid because they knew there were soldiers who had put him to death, afraid because there was a stone blocking their access to him. YET in answer to their fears, the tomb was open and he was not there. An ANGEL explained it all to them, and told them what they must do, how they must go, find the disciples, go to Galilee of the Gentiles because Jesus would be waiting for them there. INSTEAD the women were frightened and ran away, telling no one.
HOW WOULD YOU FINISH THE STORY?
And I one of the women, have written this for you to be able to tell the story!
AFTER THEM, Peter and James and John happened upon the tomb, and seeing he was not there suddenly everything Jesus had said made sense to them, so they went out into the world and ministering in his name to others, they experienced his presence with them over and over again in every generation.
Simon Peter was despondent, filled with sadness at not having been able to claim Jesus when tested. Peter decided he would return to his earlier live and go fishing. The others thought it not a good idea for Peter to be out in a boat by himself, so went with him.
I Corinthian 15: 1-11
LAST OF ALL, AS TO ONE UNTIMELY BORN, that's us isn't it?
We know the characters of the Gospel so well, Mary and Joseph and their baby. King Herod, the Wisemen and Shepherds, John the Baptist, Simon Peter, and his brother Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Phillip, Nathaniel and Matthew, Judas, another Mary, another King Herod, Pontius Pilate, BUT the Apostle known as Paul was not one of those. He is at least a generation different. He like us, never knew Jesus of Nazareth but had a life changed by the resurrected Lord
The Gospels are written differently than other stories, different from history, different from myth. The Gospels are told in a series of PARABLES, making us question if the real parable is the RESURRECTION?
The Gospels are told in a way that includes us, the Gospel is incomplete without you and I as receivers who pass on the faith. We have a role to play in faith, even though this part of the story was begun over 2000 years ago in a different time and place. We did not see the 10 Lepers cured, or the 5000 people fed, we did not sit at his feet as he told parables, or sit in the boat during the storm when Jesus said PEACE BE STILL and even the waves and sky obeyed, we were not even there when he broke bread or when he died on the cross. No, like Paul, we are from a different place and time, who must work harder to try to see ourselves there. AND yet, this has been passed down as our Spiritual Inheritance, making the GOSPEL our own as much as had we been kneeling there.
In many ways, the responsibility of faith is more difficult for us than for Jesus' first disciples. They were able to look him in the eye, they were able to witness what he had done. We hear the story and we question is this historically the way it happened, or is this another parable, like the PRODIGAL SON who comes home and is loved by God; like the PEARL of great value for which you would sell everything else, like the planting of seed that grows WEEDS AND GRAIN. This PARABLE, this simple story is as drawn on our Bulletin covers: God came down to us, to be one with us. We harm one another and ourselves, we caused Christ to die on the Cross. The Body of Christ was Buried. Easter morning God raised him to heaven. He will come again! What I love about EASTER'S RESURRECTION is who did what. We so often believe we have to be in control, we have to do everything and make life perfect. Instead: GOD came down to us. JESUS, like we are, was faithful, suffered and died and was buried. GOD raised Jesus, and he will come back for us. Our role, is not perfection, we like Jesus: are to be FAITHFUL, sometimes to SUFFER, all of us to DIE and Bury one another. But this is PROOF of the reality of God, that as a man Jesus could not have RESURRECTED HIMSELF, Resurrection required that God Raise him up, that God who created life, granted new life.
We are not worthy to be called APOSTLES, because we did not live in that time, and because we have done wrong in our lives... AND YET, as Paul and Popeye describe, I AM What I AM that's all that I am, though God makes us Apostles. The title APOSTLE means sent out into the world to be ourselves sharing faith with others. SO more than a Parable, hearing this story, being moved by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we know there is nothing more to fear in life or in death. Life is to be lived, to make the most out of, not for our possessions, not for what our stock portfolio says we are worth. Our lives, like Jesus' life, like the lives of each of the Apostles, are that we are sent by God for others.
The phrase that fits here, is that we are CALLED TO CONVERT THE CONVERTED. Is there a man or woman among us, who has never heard the story, that Jesus suffered and died and was buried, and on Easter morning the tomb was empty? YET we go through our lives, still harming one another, and by so doing wounding God. FAITH is more than knowing the story, more than making a contribution, or volunteering in this way or that. FAITH is the struggle to live our lives for others. To live our lives as if RESURRECTED.
There is a translation problem, from GREEK to English. In Greek, “Faith” is both a noun and a verb, where as in English we have the Noun FAITH as a thing but translate the verb as BELIEVE. Paul perceives FAITH is the relationship we have with God. This is not DOGMA, a set of ideas, but a dynamic relationship, a struggle for acceptance by God, a calling to serve others.
FAITH is this unfinished story, that requires our involvement.
In the original ancient copies of the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the Gospels, this was the Easter Story. The Women went to the Tomb to complete his burial, they were afraid because they had not been able to do for him what the Law required, had not been able to finish due to the Sabbath, afraid because three days had passed, afraid because they knew there were soldiers who had put him to death, afraid because there was a stone blocking their access to him. YET in answer to their fears, the tomb was open and he was not there. An ANGEL explained it all to them, and told them what they must do, how they must go, find the disciples, go to Galilee of the Gentiles because Jesus would be waiting for them there. INSTEAD the women were frightened and ran away, telling no one.
HOW WOULD YOU FINISH THE STORY?
And I one of the women, have written this for you to be able to tell the story!
AFTER THEM, Peter and James and John happened upon the tomb, and seeing he was not there suddenly everything Jesus had said made sense to them, so they went out into the world and ministering in his name to others, they experienced his presence with them over and over again in every generation.
Simon Peter was despondent, filled with sadness at not having been able to claim Jesus when tested. Peter decided he would return to his earlier live and go fishing. The others thought it not a good idea for Peter to be out in a boat by himself, so went with him.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
"Not Our Passover", Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009
I Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13: 1-17, 31-35
One of my greatest joys is in making Connections, both resolving differences between people, and making connections between Biblical and Theological ideas, preserving the integrity of the Old Testament while seeing new dimensions in the Gospel: realizing Adam was formed by God, and Jesus is the Begotten Son of God, Adam sinned for humanity and Jesus redeemed the world,
Moses gave the people the Law and Jesus gave a new Covenant of Grace and Love
Elijah and Elisha each raised a child from death to life, and Jesus raises Jairus' daughter;
there is great controversy when King David's son Absalom is found guilty of dividing the nation, he becomes caught by his hair hanging above the people halfway between heaven and earth as the King's soldiers cast lots for who had Authority to kill the son of the King of Israel, and Jesus hangs on the cross above the soldiers as they cast lots for his clothes with a sign King of the Jews.
But this evening's Scriptures, both from the New Testament challenge us, that what we live is not what we have known and expect, Worship is not Tradition and Ritual with one right way. What the Post-Modern French Philosopher Jacques Derrida came to, is that there are no Absolutes, except UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
Years ago, trying to better understand this Church, I sat down and read both the Minutes of the Church from their very beginning, as well as the collection of Wills and Estates, realizing that this church is now almost 208 years of history. One of the intriguing elements was that in early Wills and Estates there was specificity that gifts would be used for a purchase, there was no sense of investment or savings, the only thing worth putting money into were things that were needed. Later, surrounding the 1920s and 30s there became a recurrent phrase “Invested as The Most Prudent Man would do”. Obviously coming from a less politically correct era of representing both men and women, but there was an assumption of an IDEAL Individual who was the Most Prudent and Cautious. During the 1980s and 90s this shifted again, recognizing that if one avoided risk and invested only according to the ideal of the MOST PRUDENT, nearly 50% of the time you would miss out on gain and growth on investments. Today, the only thing all investors can seem to agree upon is no one knows what to do except wait and hope. Old Paradigms no longer seem to apply, yet what has remained constant is the intent of believers to provide for future generations.
The disciples had accompanied Jesus for three years, listening as the Rabbi taught, eating the foods he gave them, doing everything he instructed. The twelve revered him, as being more than their teacher, they had seen him heal the blind and the deaf, curing leprosy and crippling diseases. They questioned in their minds, if it were possible, could this man, Jesus the Carpenter's son, the Rabbi they had accompanied for so long, could he be The Prophesied Son of David, the Messiah sent from God? Imagine our greatest celebrity, our most revered and respected leaders... Billy Graham? The Dali Lama? The Pope? President Obama? Perhaps even more earlier generations of Presidents: Lincoln or Washington, welcoming you as our host, then stripping before you, bowing down in humility so as to wash your feet. In ancient culture, only the lowest servant or slave would be called upon to care for the washing of another person, particularly their dirty feet. Yet, Jesus embodied that service. When my father was on Hospice care, he was itchy and uncomfortable from lying in bed. I helped him to roll over, and rubbed his back, remembering as a child learning how to rub his shoulders, and it gave him comfort.
Earlier this week, I met with a group of clergy discussing leadership in the church in these times, and we named that there are four things which never are spoken of in the Church: Money, Death, Sex and Politics.
They are spoken of everywhere else in our culture, but here at the institution of the Lord's Supper hours before the betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus risks an act of intimacy, of service and commitment, which claim all their expectations about Jesus as Son of God, as Son of King David, as Messiah, must all be challenged and understood differently.
Jesus presence in the institution of Communion, is that he is absolutely one with us, as we are to be one with one another, as he is also one with God. What I take from this is also that while the Church must be Open and Inclusive, extending the Sheep gate wider, the Church also need to be a place unafraid to listen and discuss the intimacy of Money and Death and Sex and Politics.
We know from historical analysis that the Gospel of John is far more involved and developed than Matthew, Mark and Luke, so probably that John was written later. An intriguing nuance is that John's Gospel treats the Last Supper differently. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, on Palm Sunday the Disciples had gone to prepare for where Jesus would celebrate the Passover, and quite clearly the elements of Communion are taken from the Passover. But in John's Gospel, as Jesus hangs on the cross to die we hear the bleating of the sacrificial lambs in the background, indicating that this could not be the Passover, if anything hanging on the cross he is the Passover Sacrificial Lamb. Historically the Passover spared the believers, and brought suffering upon all the rest, the Egyptians. But according to Christianity, we are not spared suffering, we are not Passed Over, Jesus does not avoid the Cross. Neither are we like the suicide bombers who seek death as if a glorious means to end this life. Instead, in Jesus Christ we find that DEATH cannot prevent God's Unconditional Love, death is not something to be feared, because Jesus in service to God and to us, in perfect communion, provided for Resurrection.
Tragically, Paul's words in First Corinthians have been taken out of context, to become the Words of Institution said at every Communion. “Taken out of Context”, because the whole of the Letter is addressed to a community of faith, much like the world today, fragmented into differing groups who each believe they are right, and each has to receive more than anyone else, ignoring that many are poor receiving nothing.
It was about this point in finishing the sermon this afternoon that someone called saying, “I have a friend who is Catholic, who has been attending a Lutheran Church, and my friend says there is a difference in what we believe, as whether the Bread and Wine “Are” Jesus Body and Blood, or whether they “Represent” His Body and Blood.” The Community of Faith fragmented into differing groups, Chloe's People, Cephas', and Apolos', Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian. All these many Churches describe the Sacrament as a “Mystery of God”, yet in trying to explain, we have separated ourselves. From John Calvin, what we believe as Presbyterians is that in offering this Sacrament, in giving his life for the world, God forgave us all/yet in participating communion we each forgive one another. Forgiving and being forgiven, in the same ways as Jesus serving and calling us to serve one another, we are brought closer to God.
In creating the Community of Faith at Corinth, Paul had not created a Sanctuary and separate worship services as we have today. Instead, in people's homes there would be spread elaborate banquets for the whole community. In the midst of these feasts, the elements of Bread and Wine were lifted up, that in the midst of the feast of life Communion with jesus would be a part. “Tragically”, both because in context Paul is railing at the Corinthians for many have come early to these Christian feasts to gorge themselves and become drunk, consuming the communion on their terms not as The Lord's Table. And Tragically because if we could have preserved Paul's full treatment, this would not be a separate worship, but this evening in our homes we would serve one another, we would break bread together and forgive one another, we would share a glass of wine and confess the hope of a future where we could trust and believe and serve one another without reservation.
John 13: 1-17, 31-35
One of my greatest joys is in making Connections, both resolving differences between people, and making connections between Biblical and Theological ideas, preserving the integrity of the Old Testament while seeing new dimensions in the Gospel: realizing Adam was formed by God, and Jesus is the Begotten Son of God, Adam sinned for humanity and Jesus redeemed the world,
Moses gave the people the Law and Jesus gave a new Covenant of Grace and Love
Elijah and Elisha each raised a child from death to life, and Jesus raises Jairus' daughter;
there is great controversy when King David's son Absalom is found guilty of dividing the nation, he becomes caught by his hair hanging above the people halfway between heaven and earth as the King's soldiers cast lots for who had Authority to kill the son of the King of Israel, and Jesus hangs on the cross above the soldiers as they cast lots for his clothes with a sign King of the Jews.
But this evening's Scriptures, both from the New Testament challenge us, that what we live is not what we have known and expect, Worship is not Tradition and Ritual with one right way. What the Post-Modern French Philosopher Jacques Derrida came to, is that there are no Absolutes, except UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
Years ago, trying to better understand this Church, I sat down and read both the Minutes of the Church from their very beginning, as well as the collection of Wills and Estates, realizing that this church is now almost 208 years of history. One of the intriguing elements was that in early Wills and Estates there was specificity that gifts would be used for a purchase, there was no sense of investment or savings, the only thing worth putting money into were things that were needed. Later, surrounding the 1920s and 30s there became a recurrent phrase “Invested as The Most Prudent Man would do”. Obviously coming from a less politically correct era of representing both men and women, but there was an assumption of an IDEAL Individual who was the Most Prudent and Cautious. During the 1980s and 90s this shifted again, recognizing that if one avoided risk and invested only according to the ideal of the MOST PRUDENT, nearly 50% of the time you would miss out on gain and growth on investments. Today, the only thing all investors can seem to agree upon is no one knows what to do except wait and hope. Old Paradigms no longer seem to apply, yet what has remained constant is the intent of believers to provide for future generations.
The disciples had accompanied Jesus for three years, listening as the Rabbi taught, eating the foods he gave them, doing everything he instructed. The twelve revered him, as being more than their teacher, they had seen him heal the blind and the deaf, curing leprosy and crippling diseases. They questioned in their minds, if it were possible, could this man, Jesus the Carpenter's son, the Rabbi they had accompanied for so long, could he be The Prophesied Son of David, the Messiah sent from God? Imagine our greatest celebrity, our most revered and respected leaders... Billy Graham? The Dali Lama? The Pope? President Obama? Perhaps even more earlier generations of Presidents: Lincoln or Washington, welcoming you as our host, then stripping before you, bowing down in humility so as to wash your feet. In ancient culture, only the lowest servant or slave would be called upon to care for the washing of another person, particularly their dirty feet. Yet, Jesus embodied that service. When my father was on Hospice care, he was itchy and uncomfortable from lying in bed. I helped him to roll over, and rubbed his back, remembering as a child learning how to rub his shoulders, and it gave him comfort.
Earlier this week, I met with a group of clergy discussing leadership in the church in these times, and we named that there are four things which never are spoken of in the Church: Money, Death, Sex and Politics.
They are spoken of everywhere else in our culture, but here at the institution of the Lord's Supper hours before the betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus risks an act of intimacy, of service and commitment, which claim all their expectations about Jesus as Son of God, as Son of King David, as Messiah, must all be challenged and understood differently.
Jesus presence in the institution of Communion, is that he is absolutely one with us, as we are to be one with one another, as he is also one with God. What I take from this is also that while the Church must be Open and Inclusive, extending the Sheep gate wider, the Church also need to be a place unafraid to listen and discuss the intimacy of Money and Death and Sex and Politics.
We know from historical analysis that the Gospel of John is far more involved and developed than Matthew, Mark and Luke, so probably that John was written later. An intriguing nuance is that John's Gospel treats the Last Supper differently. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, on Palm Sunday the Disciples had gone to prepare for where Jesus would celebrate the Passover, and quite clearly the elements of Communion are taken from the Passover. But in John's Gospel, as Jesus hangs on the cross to die we hear the bleating of the sacrificial lambs in the background, indicating that this could not be the Passover, if anything hanging on the cross he is the Passover Sacrificial Lamb. Historically the Passover spared the believers, and brought suffering upon all the rest, the Egyptians. But according to Christianity, we are not spared suffering, we are not Passed Over, Jesus does not avoid the Cross. Neither are we like the suicide bombers who seek death as if a glorious means to end this life. Instead, in Jesus Christ we find that DEATH cannot prevent God's Unconditional Love, death is not something to be feared, because Jesus in service to God and to us, in perfect communion, provided for Resurrection.
Tragically, Paul's words in First Corinthians have been taken out of context, to become the Words of Institution said at every Communion. “Taken out of Context”, because the whole of the Letter is addressed to a community of faith, much like the world today, fragmented into differing groups who each believe they are right, and each has to receive more than anyone else, ignoring that many are poor receiving nothing.
It was about this point in finishing the sermon this afternoon that someone called saying, “I have a friend who is Catholic, who has been attending a Lutheran Church, and my friend says there is a difference in what we believe, as whether the Bread and Wine “Are” Jesus Body and Blood, or whether they “Represent” His Body and Blood.” The Community of Faith fragmented into differing groups, Chloe's People, Cephas', and Apolos', Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian. All these many Churches describe the Sacrament as a “Mystery of God”, yet in trying to explain, we have separated ourselves. From John Calvin, what we believe as Presbyterians is that in offering this Sacrament, in giving his life for the world, God forgave us all/yet in participating communion we each forgive one another. Forgiving and being forgiven, in the same ways as Jesus serving and calling us to serve one another, we are brought closer to God.
In creating the Community of Faith at Corinth, Paul had not created a Sanctuary and separate worship services as we have today. Instead, in people's homes there would be spread elaborate banquets for the whole community. In the midst of these feasts, the elements of Bread and Wine were lifted up, that in the midst of the feast of life Communion with jesus would be a part. “Tragically”, both because in context Paul is railing at the Corinthians for many have come early to these Christian feasts to gorge themselves and become drunk, consuming the communion on their terms not as The Lord's Table. And Tragically because if we could have preserved Paul's full treatment, this would not be a separate worship, but this evening in our homes we would serve one another, we would break bread together and forgive one another, we would share a glass of wine and confess the hope of a future where we could trust and believe and serve one another without reservation.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Penultimate Crescendo, April 5, 2009
Isaiah 50
Mark 11:1-25
Of all the celebrations, of all the year, Palm Sunday is for humanity perhaps the strangest.
Oh, this is the celebration we love the best, the waving of the branches, the hope of Spring, the singing of “The Palms”, little children shouting “Hosanna”, but like the people in the time of Isaiah, and the people in the Temple that day, we no longer know what we are doing or why, save that this is ritual. From our earliest childhood, we have tickled one another's ears with the palms, and chanted every single syllable of the song. But it is hollow Religious Ritual that Isaiah & Jesus were each decrying. Our own SELF-DECEIT, that we are without sin, we are the Holy People, a Great Nation under God, we have it all together, and we can make our lives perfect - if everyone else would just get out of our way, this is the PENULTIMATE CRESCENDO of Palm Sunday. A DEAFENING CACOPHONY of Human Voices each defending themselves, each justifying their reason, seeking attention, seeking someone else to listen, all the while ignoring everyone else.
One of the forgotten practices of faith is A Pilgrimage.
We know to worship on Sunday mornings, to give to support mission and out of compassion to those in need, we know to bow our heads and fold our hands, we cherish the Sacraments as well as Weddings and Funerals as holy moments out of time. But as a people of faith part of our identity is also as having once been in a Promised Land and now dispersed throughout the world. Once in a lifetime, the Muslim people go to Mecca,
the Jewish to Jerusalem,
as Christians there were SEVEN Pilgrimages we were to take:
To Jerusalem,
to Rome,
to Lourdes in France,
to Compostela in Spain,
to Canterbury England,
to Loreto Italy,
to Fatima in Portugal.
And entering the Holy City, Religious Pilgrims were to pray out loud and sing GOD SAVE US in the ancient tongue: HOSANNA. Not only have we forgotten what Hosanna means, most of us are so self-deceived as to be uncertain what we need to be saved from. Do we still believe in SALVATION?
Imagine, if one voice began repeating over and over “Hosanna”, then a second and a third. The sound of a Religious People would build to a Crescendo greater than any symphony, and yet, because what the pilgrims were saying was “GOD SAVE US...”, there is an awaited reply.
As loud and tumultuous as the Crescendo that builds, the sound is only PEN-ULTIMATE without an ASSURANCE from God that we are Redeemed, Saved.
The people of Israel in the time of Isaiah, had each gone about their separate lives, imagining they were doing no harm to anyone else. The ECONOMY was out of control. The Nation attempted to pay for what had been deferred in earlier years, as they paid for wars and military, and government spending. Each individual claimed no accountability, they had done nothing to cause this, they only wanted more dividends from their portfolio, a greater return for their retirement. The HOUSING STOCK was falling apart, as every individual claimed My property was reassessed for three times what I had paid, so I put it on the market to sell it and claim what is mine. Their children and grandchildren witnessed the alcoholism and sexuality of their parents, and pushed the limits that much further.
As their nation and culture collapsed, the people claimed GOD had broken Covenant. They recalled similarity of the COVENANT to MARRIAGE and claimed God had DIVORCED their Mother and put her away. They recalled COVENANT being like ADOPTION, and claimed GOD had sold God's Children into SLAVERY. To which the Prophet challenges their complaint and self-deceit demanding “Where is the Bill of Divorce?” “Where is the Sales Receipt for You?” Instead of deceiving ourselves that God has done this, God Grew Tired of Us and has Failed us, the Prophet describes the Suffering of God for us.
How odd, that as a people of Faith, we believe God to be able to CREATE, to JUDGE and to PUNISH, but doubt whether GOD could REDEEM. The pain of REDEMPTION is not in reclaiming, but whether we are reclaimed as broken, damaged goods, or whether at that Pen-Ultimate Crescendo there is a demonstration of response from God that makes us whole, that ultimate truth that truly forgives and redeems, as precious and new? Isaiah describes that the reply from God is not louder, but after the Volcano erupts an ASH that covers all Creation. After the day, there is the blackness of the sky at night, that stretches on beyond our vision and understanding.
According to the Prophet ZEPHANIAH, the MESSIAH, the SAVIOR who would bring Salvation to God's People would enter the City of Jerusalem from The Mount of OLIVES. Jesus' ENTRY into Jerusalem was anticipated and expected. When he told his disciples to go into the Village and tell the owners of the COLT that “The Lord has need of it” this was not some magic premonition of planting the idea in their minds, but simply that if you name you are doing something for God, something Holy, and that it would be returned, who could resist? Jesus came into the City, with the crowd becoming louder and louder, singing and shouting in hope and expectation. YET, as Jesus came to the Temple, “HE REALIZED IT WAS ALREADY LATE” and said and did nothing.
The following day, hungry he found the tree full of leaves, showy and ornamental, but having no fruit at all, for which he cursed it. Going to the Temple, he found it showy and ornamental, with no fruit, and cursed it. This is not an invitation to ANTI-SEMITISM, but a challenge to anything that is about pretense and facade rather than doing work.
The disciples were amazed and appalled that the tree had withered and died, to which Jesus describes the power of PRAYER. Too often, people have taken this as invitation that if you only PRAYED HARDER, were MORE FAITHFUL you could have changed the world, moved mountains, healed cancer, kept it from SNOWING THIS WEEK, or stopped the man in Binghamton from killing a dozen who had taught him English.
What Jesus was saying is PRAYER WORKS MIRACLES, but the tragedy was that what this man had been taught was ENGLISH and not the development of supports. Our frustration that it snowed would not have been so great, if we had not a week ago seen the last of the ice disappear and crocuses begin to bloom. To we Begrudge bringing the Crocuses? Should we not have had those few days in the 50s with blue sky?
PALM SUNDAY is only the PEN-ULTIMATE, because the Ultimate has not yet been heard. What is dramatic, what is memorable, is not that the Savior offered a CRESCENDO Louder and More than our Pen-Ultimate Hosanna, but that as our crescendo escalated and reached its zenith, God responded with HUMILITY, with OBEDIENCE, with FORGIVENESS. But can we hear it? Are we so busy shouting HOSANNA, demanding God on our terms, demanding our dreams and deceiving ourselves that we fail to listen for God in all humility redeeming the world?
Mark 11:1-25
Of all the celebrations, of all the year, Palm Sunday is for humanity perhaps the strangest.
Oh, this is the celebration we love the best, the waving of the branches, the hope of Spring, the singing of “The Palms”, little children shouting “Hosanna”, but like the people in the time of Isaiah, and the people in the Temple that day, we no longer know what we are doing or why, save that this is ritual. From our earliest childhood, we have tickled one another's ears with the palms, and chanted every single syllable of the song. But it is hollow Religious Ritual that Isaiah & Jesus were each decrying. Our own SELF-DECEIT, that we are without sin, we are the Holy People, a Great Nation under God, we have it all together, and we can make our lives perfect - if everyone else would just get out of our way, this is the PENULTIMATE CRESCENDO of Palm Sunday. A DEAFENING CACOPHONY of Human Voices each defending themselves, each justifying their reason, seeking attention, seeking someone else to listen, all the while ignoring everyone else.
One of the forgotten practices of faith is A Pilgrimage.
We know to worship on Sunday mornings, to give to support mission and out of compassion to those in need, we know to bow our heads and fold our hands, we cherish the Sacraments as well as Weddings and Funerals as holy moments out of time. But as a people of faith part of our identity is also as having once been in a Promised Land and now dispersed throughout the world. Once in a lifetime, the Muslim people go to Mecca,
the Jewish to Jerusalem,
as Christians there were SEVEN Pilgrimages we were to take:
To Jerusalem,
to Rome,
to Lourdes in France,
to Compostela in Spain,
to Canterbury England,
to Loreto Italy,
to Fatima in Portugal.
And entering the Holy City, Religious Pilgrims were to pray out loud and sing GOD SAVE US in the ancient tongue: HOSANNA. Not only have we forgotten what Hosanna means, most of us are so self-deceived as to be uncertain what we need to be saved from. Do we still believe in SALVATION?
Imagine, if one voice began repeating over and over “Hosanna”, then a second and a third. The sound of a Religious People would build to a Crescendo greater than any symphony, and yet, because what the pilgrims were saying was “GOD SAVE US...”, there is an awaited reply.
As loud and tumultuous as the Crescendo that builds, the sound is only PEN-ULTIMATE without an ASSURANCE from God that we are Redeemed, Saved.
The people of Israel in the time of Isaiah, had each gone about their separate lives, imagining they were doing no harm to anyone else. The ECONOMY was out of control. The Nation attempted to pay for what had been deferred in earlier years, as they paid for wars and military, and government spending. Each individual claimed no accountability, they had done nothing to cause this, they only wanted more dividends from their portfolio, a greater return for their retirement. The HOUSING STOCK was falling apart, as every individual claimed My property was reassessed for three times what I had paid, so I put it on the market to sell it and claim what is mine. Their children and grandchildren witnessed the alcoholism and sexuality of their parents, and pushed the limits that much further.
As their nation and culture collapsed, the people claimed GOD had broken Covenant. They recalled similarity of the COVENANT to MARRIAGE and claimed God had DIVORCED their Mother and put her away. They recalled COVENANT being like ADOPTION, and claimed GOD had sold God's Children into SLAVERY. To which the Prophet challenges their complaint and self-deceit demanding “Where is the Bill of Divorce?” “Where is the Sales Receipt for You?” Instead of deceiving ourselves that God has done this, God Grew Tired of Us and has Failed us, the Prophet describes the Suffering of God for us.
How odd, that as a people of Faith, we believe God to be able to CREATE, to JUDGE and to PUNISH, but doubt whether GOD could REDEEM. The pain of REDEMPTION is not in reclaiming, but whether we are reclaimed as broken, damaged goods, or whether at that Pen-Ultimate Crescendo there is a demonstration of response from God that makes us whole, that ultimate truth that truly forgives and redeems, as precious and new? Isaiah describes that the reply from God is not louder, but after the Volcano erupts an ASH that covers all Creation. After the day, there is the blackness of the sky at night, that stretches on beyond our vision and understanding.
According to the Prophet ZEPHANIAH, the MESSIAH, the SAVIOR who would bring Salvation to God's People would enter the City of Jerusalem from The Mount of OLIVES. Jesus' ENTRY into Jerusalem was anticipated and expected. When he told his disciples to go into the Village and tell the owners of the COLT that “The Lord has need of it” this was not some magic premonition of planting the idea in their minds, but simply that if you name you are doing something for God, something Holy, and that it would be returned, who could resist? Jesus came into the City, with the crowd becoming louder and louder, singing and shouting in hope and expectation. YET, as Jesus came to the Temple, “HE REALIZED IT WAS ALREADY LATE” and said and did nothing.
The following day, hungry he found the tree full of leaves, showy and ornamental, but having no fruit at all, for which he cursed it. Going to the Temple, he found it showy and ornamental, with no fruit, and cursed it. This is not an invitation to ANTI-SEMITISM, but a challenge to anything that is about pretense and facade rather than doing work.
The disciples were amazed and appalled that the tree had withered and died, to which Jesus describes the power of PRAYER. Too often, people have taken this as invitation that if you only PRAYED HARDER, were MORE FAITHFUL you could have changed the world, moved mountains, healed cancer, kept it from SNOWING THIS WEEK, or stopped the man in Binghamton from killing a dozen who had taught him English.
What Jesus was saying is PRAYER WORKS MIRACLES, but the tragedy was that what this man had been taught was ENGLISH and not the development of supports. Our frustration that it snowed would not have been so great, if we had not a week ago seen the last of the ice disappear and crocuses begin to bloom. To we Begrudge bringing the Crocuses? Should we not have had those few days in the 50s with blue sky?
PALM SUNDAY is only the PEN-ULTIMATE, because the Ultimate has not yet been heard. What is dramatic, what is memorable, is not that the Savior offered a CRESCENDO Louder and More than our Pen-Ultimate Hosanna, but that as our crescendo escalated and reached its zenith, God responded with HUMILITY, with OBEDIENCE, with FORGIVENESS. But can we hear it? Are we so busy shouting HOSANNA, demanding God on our terms, demanding our dreams and deceiving ourselves that we fail to listen for God in all humility redeeming the world?
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