Isaiah 62:6-12
Luke 2:1-20
The school was having their annual Winter Concert, so called because the public schools could no longer have a Christmas Concert, and the regular program included songs about snowmen, reindeer and Santa. One class at a time, from eldest to youngest, the classes stood up from their cross-legged position and marched to the stage. Finally, it was the Kindergarden class' turn, and daring to risk protocol the teacher had them singing a song “Christmas Love.” Each child held a large placard with a letter which they held up at the appropriate time. “C” is for Children, “H” is for Home, “R” for Ribbon, and so on. But a young girl about halfway down kept turning her card round and round uncertain at age 5 if the letter was supposed to be an M or a W, as it could have gone either way. When she held up the “W” everyone began to snicker, the older kids pointing... until the song was done, and suddenly everyone stopped laughing and each began pointing out for another, because by her flipping the M to a W, instead of spelling Christmas Love, the message spelled “Christ Was Love.”
Skaneateles is an idyllic place, every season of the year, perhaps every home town is. But of all the moments of all the year, this is one of my favorites. After the Candle Glow, just before Midnight.
From January until September every year, we hear the High School Seniors anxious to get out of this tiny town, where there is nothing to do and no where to go, and whether we want to or not, we know every family's scandal, be it football, or divorce, saying the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing.
Yet, something happened in the last four months, or 16, or 4 years or however long it has been, by being gone, home has been missed. Even more, traveling the world with Rotary, going to college and discovering new ideas, falling in love, marrying, having children of our own, we have come home to question whether everything we knew and experienced growing up, is still true... or whether like leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for reindeer, our perspective of what is real changes as adults. Once you've been exposed to Bowen's Law of Thermodynamics; once you understand Pascal and Fortran; Plato and Aristotle, and Freud, Niebuhr and Tillich; can Silent Night still warm our hearts? Can we still believe?
The same is described in Isaiah, the Old Testament people had taken faith in God for granted. We had David and Solomon as our kings, we had the largest economy, the grandest palaces, the mightiest army, the world had ever known! Then, everything seemed to fall apart and everyone was dispersed, they called it the DIASPORA. The best and brightest, were sent to Babylon to be immersed in a new and different world, with different foods, languages, ideas and customs, as if being thrown into the deep end to see if you can swim. Others, for survival – escaped, to far distant places, seeing the world. Still others were made slaves, bought and sold by the very economy they once cherished.
Generations later, the word of prophecy, the call of faith is to return to God's Holy Mountain.
Come from the four corners of the earth! Go through the gates! Prepare the way for others! Say to one another: “Behold, Salvation Comes!” and you shall be called holy, redeemed, sought out, a city not forsaken!
Everything is different. That is the point of redemption, of being Holy and being sought out.
We have now been taught to know about micro-biology and plate-tectonics, and virtual worlds. Must there be an either or choice? Rather than leaving behind all we knew, we are now adults with minds that can think and debate. Dictators have been overthrown. Terrorists put to death. Can we recognize there is more to life than the stuff of survival?
Redemption is more than putting in your time, serving your sentence, working 40 years and retiring. Redemption requires reflection upon who we are and what we are doing and why.
The fact of the matter, is that as much as we thought, adolescents grinding on the dance floor, or divorces, or pregnancies, or our daughters and sons and peers being arrested, CHRISTMAS is redemption of the greatest scandal that could ever be. Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, the Force behind all that is, the Ancient God of Ishmael, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who gave the LAW to Moses, that God created humanity with Free Will, so as to be able to choose to love God; but instead because of our own vanity, our own desires, our own blindness to everything except our reflection, we turned away from God, seeking what shimmers and sparkles, but can never satisfy. For thousands of years, Almighty God watched helplessly, as we destroyed ourselves, as we built up for ourselves what rusts and rots in decay. Could there be any greater tragic lovestory? Could there be any greater scandal?
But God has done what seemed impossible. The Divine stripped off divinity. Could anything be more naked? The ruler of Heaven and Earth, left Heaven to be one with us. The Creator stepped into creation but rather than coming as a God, as all knowing, all powerful, invincible and immortal, God came to us in the most humble most vulnerable way of all, as a newborn baby.
Each of us is unique, individual. Imagine what you have wanted more than life itself... I am not talking about the red bike, or the third Lexus, or the house in St. Croix... Imagine the Father of the Prodigal Son, willing to accept the indignation of his child wishing he were dead, willing to face the embarrassment of the world by longing for his child to come home... Imagine you trained for a career and now have been without employment since 2007... Imagine, you want to be reconciled with your family, to be validated and respected... Recognize you have wanted this so long and so painfully that giving up the dream seems the only way out. When suddenly, there is hope, there is a way forward. Redemption, Being “Sought Out,” cannot be taught. There is no mathematic equation, no chemical formula, no technique or training of the voice, this is not linear thinking... But belief that life is HOLY.
In the time of Ancient Rome, not of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, but when the Empire was falling into ruin and decay; when the Legion the Army of Rome had attacked her own people; when taxation for the sake of taxation was the norm, and humanity was powerless to stop, one individual, one person came forward to make a difference in the world, one person can change the world and all human existence. Not the most powerful, not the most influential, not the wealthiest, or smartest, truly one possessing nothing out of the ordinary, who never gave in, never compromised being faithful.
SO which is the great scandal? That God formed humanity to love God, and humanity did not? Or that God so wanted to redeem the world, that God would cheat? God became human in order to redeem us, to love us. More than having a title, having an identity, a career, “You/we are Sought Out,” we have a Calling, to lead as Christ leads, to serve as Christ serves, to trust as God trusts, to love.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
"Believing in Christmas" Pajama Christmas Eve 2011
Luke 2:1-20
Grown ups do not "get" Christmas!
When you have seen Christmas 100 times, well okay 30 or 40 or 50 times, you begin to think this is all ordinary, that Christmas is Ordinary, as if Christmas is going to come every year.
If you ask me, the grown ups have seen Dr. Seuss' Grinch too many times, and they actually think that without all the Who-Presents and and Who-Carols and Who-Turkey and Who-Beast, that without Suzie-loo Who, still Christmas would be just the same.
The whole point of Believing in Christmas, is in believing in the Ordinary as Not Ordinary!
And believing that when we are uncomfortable, where we are disappointed, to see that life is not over, God is with us.
The school was having their annual Winter Concert, so called because the public schools could no longer have a Christmas Concert, and the regular program included songs about snowmen, reindeer and Santa. One class at a time, from eldest to youngest, the classes stood up from their cross-legged position and marched to the stage. Finally, it was the Kindergarden class' turn, and daring to risk protocol the teacher had them singing a song “Christmas Love.” Each child held a large placard with a letter which they held up at the appropriate time. “C” is for Children, “H” is for Home, “R” for Ribbon, and so on. But a young girl about halfway down kept turning her card round and round uncertain at age 5 if the letter was supposed to be an M or a W, as it could have gone either way. When she held up the “W” everyone began to snicker, the older kids pointing... until the song was done, and suddenly everyone stopped laughing and each began pointing out for another, because by her flipping the M to a W, instead of spelling Christmas Love, the message spelled “Christ Was Love.”
Christmas is believing that God, the God we pray to at night, the God who made the whole Universe, the God who was with Adam and Eve and Abraham and Moses, the God in Heaven who commands Angels, the God who does miracles, WOULD BECOME human!
That God, with all the divinity and holiness and power of being God could become a baby!
AND, that that event, that Baby, that ONE PERSON in all the world, in all the history of all the Nations, could make a difference!
What would happen, if suddenly one ordinary thing changed? If suddenly there was no gravity? What would happen if a second sun appeared in the sky? What would happen if flowers suddenly appeared in winter? What would happen if your greatest wish came true?
So what do you believe would happen, if God was born as a baby?
All the world would change, stars suddenly stop in the sky, we would be able to hear angels singing, wise-men would cross the world to see what had happened and bow down before what is truly great!
Joseph and Mary had had a comfortable life. He was a talented carpenter who worked hard and had a nice business, she lived with her parents, they were planning to get married, everything was comfortable. Then everything changed. A miracle happened and Mary was going to have a baby. Have you ever seen somebody when things do not go their way? They get kind of red in the face and their ears especially, and sometimes they scream and are angry at other stuff because what they planned and what they thought was going to happen in ordinary times, does not. But Mary does not cry. Mary does not get embarrassed, she says, OKAY, this is what I have to do.
Joseph could have made a terrible scene, he could have ruined Mary and her family. He had every right to walked away, in fact it probably would have been right for him to do so, not to stay with her when she was going to have a Baby and he was not the father. But Joseph loved Mary, for better and worse.
Then the Government, the Government announced new TAXES, and even more, everyone was told you had to move! You had to leave your business, your family and friends, and everything you have ever known to get to a different place, all so you could be counted, COUNTED as if you were sheep.
How many of us tonight, have travelled a long way from our homes and routine, what is ordinary, to be here? And we have to sleep in a strange bed, maybe on a couch, our routines have been changed.
Maybe we lost our job this year. Maybe someone we love died and Christmas is different. When things are not ordinary, we sometimes get afraid.
Mary and Joseph finally got to where they were told to go, and there was no room for them.
Having been treated like sheep, they were offered a place in the Stable and were thankful to have that.
When suddenly, it was time, and the baby was born. Could there be anything more common, more ordinary, a Stable, dark and dank, with the smell of animals and sweat, and diapers and a baby?
There are moments, when it seems time and space are full and ripe.
At the start of the worship, when the room was full of the warm glow of candlelight and all the voices sang “Silent Night,” Christmas morning when you wake up and realize what day it is and the tree glimmers and everyone is happy.
That was the mood of the Stable after the Baby was born.
Ordinary and yet for Mary the mother of Jesus, everything was suddenly different.
For Joseph, as ordinary as this was, as much expected, all of life was now different.
At that moment, you do not need anything, especially not visitors. But suddenly, there are people poking their heads in the door, and sheep, whole flocks of sheep. Do you know how smelly and loud a whole flock of sheep can be. Yet, these uncouth shepherds tell of having witnessed the most amazing thing. The whole sky lit up, and angels appeared, there was singing, and a voice from heaven telling them that the world had changed. Telling them that they needed to go see what seemed to be the most ordinary of things, a poor couple in a stable who had a baby, and the baby wrapped up as you would wrap a baby... but that this would not be ordinary, this would not be common, this would be Christmas!
Grown ups do not "get" Christmas!
When you have seen Christmas 100 times, well okay 30 or 40 or 50 times, you begin to think this is all ordinary, that Christmas is Ordinary, as if Christmas is going to come every year.
If you ask me, the grown ups have seen Dr. Seuss' Grinch too many times, and they actually think that without all the Who-Presents and and Who-Carols and Who-Turkey and Who-Beast, that without Suzie-loo Who, still Christmas would be just the same.
The whole point of Believing in Christmas, is in believing in the Ordinary as Not Ordinary!
And believing that when we are uncomfortable, where we are disappointed, to see that life is not over, God is with us.
The school was having their annual Winter Concert, so called because the public schools could no longer have a Christmas Concert, and the regular program included songs about snowmen, reindeer and Santa. One class at a time, from eldest to youngest, the classes stood up from their cross-legged position and marched to the stage. Finally, it was the Kindergarden class' turn, and daring to risk protocol the teacher had them singing a song “Christmas Love.” Each child held a large placard with a letter which they held up at the appropriate time. “C” is for Children, “H” is for Home, “R” for Ribbon, and so on. But a young girl about halfway down kept turning her card round and round uncertain at age 5 if the letter was supposed to be an M or a W, as it could have gone either way. When she held up the “W” everyone began to snicker, the older kids pointing... until the song was done, and suddenly everyone stopped laughing and each began pointing out for another, because by her flipping the M to a W, instead of spelling Christmas Love, the message spelled “Christ Was Love.”
Christmas is believing that God, the God we pray to at night, the God who made the whole Universe, the God who was with Adam and Eve and Abraham and Moses, the God in Heaven who commands Angels, the God who does miracles, WOULD BECOME human!
That God, with all the divinity and holiness and power of being God could become a baby!
AND, that that event, that Baby, that ONE PERSON in all the world, in all the history of all the Nations, could make a difference!
What would happen, if suddenly one ordinary thing changed? If suddenly there was no gravity? What would happen if a second sun appeared in the sky? What would happen if flowers suddenly appeared in winter? What would happen if your greatest wish came true?
So what do you believe would happen, if God was born as a baby?
All the world would change, stars suddenly stop in the sky, we would be able to hear angels singing, wise-men would cross the world to see what had happened and bow down before what is truly great!
Joseph and Mary had had a comfortable life. He was a talented carpenter who worked hard and had a nice business, she lived with her parents, they were planning to get married, everything was comfortable. Then everything changed. A miracle happened and Mary was going to have a baby. Have you ever seen somebody when things do not go their way? They get kind of red in the face and their ears especially, and sometimes they scream and are angry at other stuff because what they planned and what they thought was going to happen in ordinary times, does not. But Mary does not cry. Mary does not get embarrassed, she says, OKAY, this is what I have to do.
Joseph could have made a terrible scene, he could have ruined Mary and her family. He had every right to walked away, in fact it probably would have been right for him to do so, not to stay with her when she was going to have a Baby and he was not the father. But Joseph loved Mary, for better and worse.
Then the Government, the Government announced new TAXES, and even more, everyone was told you had to move! You had to leave your business, your family and friends, and everything you have ever known to get to a different place, all so you could be counted, COUNTED as if you were sheep.
How many of us tonight, have travelled a long way from our homes and routine, what is ordinary, to be here? And we have to sleep in a strange bed, maybe on a couch, our routines have been changed.
Maybe we lost our job this year. Maybe someone we love died and Christmas is different. When things are not ordinary, we sometimes get afraid.
Mary and Joseph finally got to where they were told to go, and there was no room for them.
Having been treated like sheep, they were offered a place in the Stable and were thankful to have that.
When suddenly, it was time, and the baby was born. Could there be anything more common, more ordinary, a Stable, dark and dank, with the smell of animals and sweat, and diapers and a baby?
There are moments, when it seems time and space are full and ripe.
At the start of the worship, when the room was full of the warm glow of candlelight and all the voices sang “Silent Night,” Christmas morning when you wake up and realize what day it is and the tree glimmers and everyone is happy.
That was the mood of the Stable after the Baby was born.
Ordinary and yet for Mary the mother of Jesus, everything was suddenly different.
For Joseph, as ordinary as this was, as much expected, all of life was now different.
At that moment, you do not need anything, especially not visitors. But suddenly, there are people poking their heads in the door, and sheep, whole flocks of sheep. Do you know how smelly and loud a whole flock of sheep can be. Yet, these uncouth shepherds tell of having witnessed the most amazing thing. The whole sky lit up, and angels appeared, there was singing, and a voice from heaven telling them that the world had changed. Telling them that they needed to go see what seemed to be the most ordinary of things, a poor couple in a stable who had a baby, and the baby wrapped up as you would wrap a baby... but that this would not be ordinary, this would not be common, this would be Christmas!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
December 18, 2011 "Nothing is Impossible (For God with Us)"
2nd Samuel 7:1-11
Luke 1:26-38
Earlier this week, someone stopped me to say, “You better be planning something really spectacular for Christmas! We usually have a big family dinner with all the relatives, we sing carols, and tell stories as we eat Christmas cookies staying up late, then we go to bed and get up before dawn to open our presents to one another, before we have a huge breakfast. And you want us to change our tradition, by coming to Church both Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning! All I can say is, you better be planning on doing something really different.”
The Word of God becoming Flesh and blood, the birth of God, the coming of the Savior of the World, somehow just does not stack up against our snicker-doodles and rum-balls.
This passage from 2 Samuel 7 is a wonderful word for us at this beginning of the 4th week of Advent. For this Word brings together all the dangling threads of promise that went before, and establishes everything that will come after. Since Genesis 12, we have followed stories of God's promise to a family, that Abraham's children would be a great Nation, would live in comfort and peace in a land flowing with milk and honey. Since the Exodus presentation of the Law and Commandments to Moses, we have followed the movements of the Ark leading in battle, resting only momentarily within the Tent of Meeting. And not since Cain and his brother Abel, have we had a Man who wanted to DO FOR God. In the case of Adam's sons, to each make offerings for God which led to Cain killing Abel; in this case, King David dwelling in peace, given rest from all his enemies, living in the luxury of palaces, wanting to build a house of cedar and gold for God, that will lead to his killing Bathsheba's husband. As Handel's Messiah described “The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, because the Mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Not, we are a people who have dwelt in peace and prosperity, wanting to experience greater and greater spectacles, so show us the glory of the Lord!
How curious that King David, ruler over the greatest most powerful nation on Earth, would seek advice from the prophet Nathan. In our Nation's Capital, there is a role for Chaplain of the Senate, who prays in the beginning of the meetings, but when it comes to decision making and policy, the Cabinet are composed of Political, Financial and Military advisors. I wonder what would have happened if in the course of these long years of wars in Muslim nations, our leadership had sought the advice and counsel of American Muslim Clerics, Jewish Rabbis, Priests and Pastors.
We have to question, what Nathan did not that day. Why does the Great King desire to build a palace for God? Is it purely out of faith, or is it to be seen as being devoted, that David would be remembered as having built The Palace for God? What God reminds Nathan in the night, is that God is the prime actor, and being created in the image of God, we respond and react to God. When we try to be the prime movers, when we define who God is and where God is allowed to be in our lives, we try to make ourselves God. Perhaps, part of the message of this passage is why we need to give the gifts we do this Christmas? Is it as response to the other being in our lives; or is it to be seen as being generous, as ignoring the reality of the economy?
I remember one Christmas long ago... after years of having a Lionel train circle round the tree and presents, neighbors with lights making their houses glow, my brothers and I thought it would be exciting and different if we created a tree-stand that would rotate. More even than the tree, we fashioned a plywood base on which the tree and presents could be placed. In this way, we could stay still and Christmas would spin round and round, showing all the beauty of all the ornaments, and bringing the presents to us. We wired the lights to the stand, and the stand was connected to a rheostat dimmer. When the tree was decorated, we flipped the switch and those large egg shaped colored electric lights began to glow, then we turned the dial and the tree and platform began to move. After three revolutions, we turned the dimmer down, confident all was prepared. Christmas morning, we returned from church, with snow on the ground and the smell of coffee in the air, we came into the living room as the sparkling tree and stacks of presents slowly spun in the middle of the room, but as the dimmer warmed up, the tree began spinning faster and faster and faster, ornaments began flying off the branches as Christmas was out of control. Quietly, calmly, Mother went to the wall outlet and unplugged the tree, which slowed and stopped, bringing Christmas to quiet.
Mothers have a way of quieting things, centering. Mary is described in Latin as THEO-TOKIS the one who bears God. Overtime, this became one of the great schisms between the Protestant Churches and the Roman Catholic. Whether Mary was a simple common woman, as the God-Bearer,Theo-tokis or whether Mary was to be revered as being like-God? The point of the Magnificat, is not to venerate the Virgin, but to realize that Nothing is Impossible for God, not even that a common, simple girl could be the mother of the savior of the world, or that we like her could also present God to the world.
Mary gets what the Prophet Nathan, and David the Great King of Israel, both had forgotten. Mary did not volunteer, saying: “Hey God, I am financially secure and ready in my career to have a Baby!” or “I am going to have a baby, and I want him to be the Messiah!” No, but when God acted, when God sought out Mary, saying you have found favor, God has appointed that you bear God's son, who in this way will be fully Human and fully Divine, Mary responded “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me, according to The Word of God.”
The wonder of these passages, is that no matter what, Nothing is Impossible for God...
not that God could make a Father, and lineage out of a man like David;
not that a virgin could give birth, nor even that God could become human through a common person, nor that any of us could be servants of God, Theo-tokis, bearers of God to the world!
The words of affirmation have become a colloquialism, so common to us that we forget the meaning: “You shall call his name Emmanuel,” this is the greatest impossibility of all, that God would be One with us! Rather than Pygmalian's myth of an Artist making a statue so lifelike that it comes to life and becomes real... that The Creator, the author of Life, the Almighty, the Artist of Reality, should choose to enter into Creation and become vulnerable, become human, even forgive the world for all our sins. But that is the real power of forgiveness... Forgiveness is not forgetting what took place, letting the other go. Forgiveness is the realization that the division between us is causing great pain and suffering. Hearing this word tis morning, that not of our own volition, not because we are so comfortable or powerful that we choose to, BUT instead, in response to God, we see ourselves in the role of bringing God to others by our forgiveness.
Luke 1:26-38
Earlier this week, someone stopped me to say, “You better be planning something really spectacular for Christmas! We usually have a big family dinner with all the relatives, we sing carols, and tell stories as we eat Christmas cookies staying up late, then we go to bed and get up before dawn to open our presents to one another, before we have a huge breakfast. And you want us to change our tradition, by coming to Church both Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning! All I can say is, you better be planning on doing something really different.”
The Word of God becoming Flesh and blood, the birth of God, the coming of the Savior of the World, somehow just does not stack up against our snicker-doodles and rum-balls.
This passage from 2 Samuel 7 is a wonderful word for us at this beginning of the 4th week of Advent. For this Word brings together all the dangling threads of promise that went before, and establishes everything that will come after. Since Genesis 12, we have followed stories of God's promise to a family, that Abraham's children would be a great Nation, would live in comfort and peace in a land flowing with milk and honey. Since the Exodus presentation of the Law and Commandments to Moses, we have followed the movements of the Ark leading in battle, resting only momentarily within the Tent of Meeting. And not since Cain and his brother Abel, have we had a Man who wanted to DO FOR God. In the case of Adam's sons, to each make offerings for God which led to Cain killing Abel; in this case, King David dwelling in peace, given rest from all his enemies, living in the luxury of palaces, wanting to build a house of cedar and gold for God, that will lead to his killing Bathsheba's husband. As Handel's Messiah described “The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, because the Mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Not, we are a people who have dwelt in peace and prosperity, wanting to experience greater and greater spectacles, so show us the glory of the Lord!
How curious that King David, ruler over the greatest most powerful nation on Earth, would seek advice from the prophet Nathan. In our Nation's Capital, there is a role for Chaplain of the Senate, who prays in the beginning of the meetings, but when it comes to decision making and policy, the Cabinet are composed of Political, Financial and Military advisors. I wonder what would have happened if in the course of these long years of wars in Muslim nations, our leadership had sought the advice and counsel of American Muslim Clerics, Jewish Rabbis, Priests and Pastors.
We have to question, what Nathan did not that day. Why does the Great King desire to build a palace for God? Is it purely out of faith, or is it to be seen as being devoted, that David would be remembered as having built The Palace for God? What God reminds Nathan in the night, is that God is the prime actor, and being created in the image of God, we respond and react to God. When we try to be the prime movers, when we define who God is and where God is allowed to be in our lives, we try to make ourselves God. Perhaps, part of the message of this passage is why we need to give the gifts we do this Christmas? Is it as response to the other being in our lives; or is it to be seen as being generous, as ignoring the reality of the economy?
I remember one Christmas long ago... after years of having a Lionel train circle round the tree and presents, neighbors with lights making their houses glow, my brothers and I thought it would be exciting and different if we created a tree-stand that would rotate. More even than the tree, we fashioned a plywood base on which the tree and presents could be placed. In this way, we could stay still and Christmas would spin round and round, showing all the beauty of all the ornaments, and bringing the presents to us. We wired the lights to the stand, and the stand was connected to a rheostat dimmer. When the tree was decorated, we flipped the switch and those large egg shaped colored electric lights began to glow, then we turned the dial and the tree and platform began to move. After three revolutions, we turned the dimmer down, confident all was prepared. Christmas morning, we returned from church, with snow on the ground and the smell of coffee in the air, we came into the living room as the sparkling tree and stacks of presents slowly spun in the middle of the room, but as the dimmer warmed up, the tree began spinning faster and faster and faster, ornaments began flying off the branches as Christmas was out of control. Quietly, calmly, Mother went to the wall outlet and unplugged the tree, which slowed and stopped, bringing Christmas to quiet.
Mothers have a way of quieting things, centering. Mary is described in Latin as THEO-TOKIS the one who bears God. Overtime, this became one of the great schisms between the Protestant Churches and the Roman Catholic. Whether Mary was a simple common woman, as the God-Bearer,Theo-tokis or whether Mary was to be revered as being like-God? The point of the Magnificat, is not to venerate the Virgin, but to realize that Nothing is Impossible for God, not even that a common, simple girl could be the mother of the savior of the world, or that we like her could also present God to the world.
Mary gets what the Prophet Nathan, and David the Great King of Israel, both had forgotten. Mary did not volunteer, saying: “Hey God, I am financially secure and ready in my career to have a Baby!” or “I am going to have a baby, and I want him to be the Messiah!” No, but when God acted, when God sought out Mary, saying you have found favor, God has appointed that you bear God's son, who in this way will be fully Human and fully Divine, Mary responded “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me, according to The Word of God.”
The wonder of these passages, is that no matter what, Nothing is Impossible for God...
not that God could make a Father, and lineage out of a man like David;
not that a virgin could give birth, nor even that God could become human through a common person, nor that any of us could be servants of God, Theo-tokis, bearers of God to the world!
The words of affirmation have become a colloquialism, so common to us that we forget the meaning: “You shall call his name Emmanuel,” this is the greatest impossibility of all, that God would be One with us! Rather than Pygmalian's myth of an Artist making a statue so lifelike that it comes to life and becomes real... that The Creator, the author of Life, the Almighty, the Artist of Reality, should choose to enter into Creation and become vulnerable, become human, even forgive the world for all our sins. But that is the real power of forgiveness... Forgiveness is not forgetting what took place, letting the other go. Forgiveness is the realization that the division between us is causing great pain and suffering. Hearing this word tis morning, that not of our own volition, not because we are so comfortable or powerful that we choose to, BUT instead, in response to God, we see ourselves in the role of bringing God to others by our forgiveness.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
December 4, 2011, "Future Faith"
Isaiah 40:1-15
Mark: 1:1-8
When we cast ourselves in the Christmas story, we readily accept that few among us are kings let alone wise. Few in history have possessed the purity, innocence and humility of Mary. No, the role many of us quickly accept is of the sheep and shepherds, going about our regular routine, waiting for God to do something, waiting for a heavenly host of angels to appear and with Gloria In Excelsis Deo to tell us the miracle of God is ready. Following our routine, doing what we have done for generations, waiting for God to tell us God is ready.
Over and over, throughout the Bible, there is the recurrent phrase “THE WORD OF GOD WAS RARE in those days.” What if the role we have been assigned by God, is not as Shepherds or as sheep, and Lord knows we are no angels. What if we are to be the John the Baptists, of this time and place? John is an unforgettable figure, with an ill-temper, saying whatever occurs to him, a belly full of locusts, his beard, face and hands smeared with honey, clothed in camel skins. He is not the sort your mother wanted you to bring home. Yet, John the Baptizer does what no one else in history has done.
The people have been searching for a Messiah, a leader, a Savior sent from God to change the world, and John responds “Not Me. There is one coming, whom I am not worthy to kneel before, whose shoes I am not worthy to untie.” When is the last time we heard a leader, someone running for office, describe that anyone before or after them is better than they are? What if Steve Jobs last speech, instead of announcing the latest technological advancement, had proclaimed “Together we are creating the means for great ideas yet to come!” or if the College students who invented Social media had said “Thank you Ben Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, because without having had electricity, the telephone, the personal computer, we never would have had the experience or desire to create this!” We look for Saviors, to ordain as Kings. We search for individuals with the ego and the charisma, the self-assurance to say “I am It!” John's word, in all sincerity and humility is “The world is not yet ready! We are not yet prepared to greet such a one. We are so many separate individuals in competition with ourselves/ let alone one another. I can only prepare the way for the coming Savior.”
The Gospel of Mark begins differently than the other Gospels. Not only in the absence of stories about the Virgin Birth and Manger, The Good News of Jesus Christ according to Mark begins with two monumental shifts in reality. In response to John, all the people across the countryside, from farmers, to soldiers, from prostitutes to parents, professors to lawyers, everyone who heard his word reflected upon their own lives, repented of something that had happened, repented of something they were doing, and confessed their desire to live their life differently. Everyone it seems has some story of repentance, everyone is searching for what we have not been. Without that realization, without the recognition that we are imperfect, incomplete, without naming to ourselves that we are in need, we are not ready to hear and receive the Good News. The Great Swiss Theologian Karl Barth, described that the Gospel reaches out and grabs you, the Words engage you not merely as history of people long ago, but as our story.
About a year ago, we asked this congregation repeatedly, if you were to describe this Church, this people of God, what we believe and represent, described either to someone who does not know what Church is, or as unique compared to other Churches, what would you say? Among the adjectives used, was Believing in REDEMPTION, no one is ever thrown away or abandoned. The Good News of Jesus Christ, according to John the Baptist, is that all of us have a past, all humanity are searching for God, searching for redemption. Confessing this need, bending our knee, to be baptized, bending down to serve, kneeling to untie the sandal and wash the feet of another, that confession is the only way to be prepared for the coming of the Savior.
We described that the Good News of Jesus Christ begins with two shifts in reality, according to Mark. First is that all humanity need to, want to, be redeemed to live life differently. BUT ALSO, reading on in the 9th and 10th verses of the Revised Standard Version of Mark, when Jesus did come to be Baptized Heaven opened. The Greek is more explicit: the perimeter between Heaven and Earth, the gulf between the divine and the mortal, the limitations of reality, were irreparably ripped open by God. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that all Humanity want to and can be redeemed, every person is worthwhile, no one is lost; BUT ALSO that God wants to redeem us, God does not want to see us damned, God's desire is to forgive, to see us whole, to love.
This same truth was declared Centuries before in the time of the Prophets Isaiah. There is this monumental shift at the end of the 39th Chapter, before the beginning of the 40th. The first 39 Chapters have dealt with the Fall of the nation of Israel. The Prophets preached and preached , and people's ears were thick and their vision cataracted. The people of God were conquered and destroyed, the Great Temple of Solomon was desecrated before their being carried off as slaves to Babylon, where they would labor for 150 years. George Steiner the great Literary critic and author of descriptions of the Holocaust at Cambridge University describes that a powerful thing happens when language and circumstance coincide, when our hopes of what is beyond reality and our belief in God agree. Steiner describes that in our minds, the PRESENT and the PAST are as One. Not only do we continue to live out the continuing effects of what has gone before, we also replay both in our minds, and in our experiences the events and relationships of the past, again and again. The power of language, that occurs in Chapter 40 of Isaiah, is that instead of continuing to describe the past, instead of present circumstances being a continuation of what is fact, what is dead and no longer living, God speaks of a future faith. God uses a Grammar of Creation, of WHAT SHALL BE, WHAT WILL COME, and IF. These are the passwords to a different reality. Instead of living according to what is and has been, what is fact but no longer alive, faith calls us into a different living future of what could be. Rather than a people who HAD needed to be punished, who HAD deserved retribution, who were Conquered and Abandoned and Enslaved, in Chapter 40 God commands Heavens Angels “Comfort, Comfort, My People says your God! Her Warfare will be ended, She will be Pardoned for the past. Every Valley shall be lifted up, every mountain hill shall be made low. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed as we prepare the way of the LORD.
Isaiah proclaims this double edged prophecy, that humbles the powerful, and provides hope to the oppressed. Quite simply, the Prophets asks: What should I Cry? And God 's Word is “All flesh is Grass, beauty is like the flower that fades and grass that withers, though the word of God stands for ever.” As we began this day, we search for what was before. Who created God? Who taught God? Who provided counsel and wisdom to set God up? And part of the nature of God is that God is older than time itself, and God shall always be.
In this season as we seek the latest, biggest, tiniest, fastest, the leaders of the next generation, we need to listen to the power of words. Whether we are stuck in the past, hiding only to relive our sins; or whether we can own our failures, name our brokenness and confessing faith live a future reality of being redeemed by God. There is a marvelous movie, just released, titled HUGO. While the critics will have many different story-lines, I think that what the film is about is a child who sees the world as a great machine. Machines are designed to work, perpetually to be wound up and run. Machines do not come with extra pieces, every part, every person has a purpose. The boy comes to realize that his function in life is to repair what is broken, to mend human lives, to comfort and to redeem. May we be like this, like John the Baptist, calling one another to claim our pasts as very real to our present and to claim faith as a means for embracing the future with God.
Mark: 1:1-8
When we cast ourselves in the Christmas story, we readily accept that few among us are kings let alone wise. Few in history have possessed the purity, innocence and humility of Mary. No, the role many of us quickly accept is of the sheep and shepherds, going about our regular routine, waiting for God to do something, waiting for a heavenly host of angels to appear and with Gloria In Excelsis Deo to tell us the miracle of God is ready. Following our routine, doing what we have done for generations, waiting for God to tell us God is ready.
Over and over, throughout the Bible, there is the recurrent phrase “THE WORD OF GOD WAS RARE in those days.” What if the role we have been assigned by God, is not as Shepherds or as sheep, and Lord knows we are no angels. What if we are to be the John the Baptists, of this time and place? John is an unforgettable figure, with an ill-temper, saying whatever occurs to him, a belly full of locusts, his beard, face and hands smeared with honey, clothed in camel skins. He is not the sort your mother wanted you to bring home. Yet, John the Baptizer does what no one else in history has done.
The people have been searching for a Messiah, a leader, a Savior sent from God to change the world, and John responds “Not Me. There is one coming, whom I am not worthy to kneel before, whose shoes I am not worthy to untie.” When is the last time we heard a leader, someone running for office, describe that anyone before or after them is better than they are? What if Steve Jobs last speech, instead of announcing the latest technological advancement, had proclaimed “Together we are creating the means for great ideas yet to come!” or if the College students who invented Social media had said “Thank you Ben Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, because without having had electricity, the telephone, the personal computer, we never would have had the experience or desire to create this!” We look for Saviors, to ordain as Kings. We search for individuals with the ego and the charisma, the self-assurance to say “I am It!” John's word, in all sincerity and humility is “The world is not yet ready! We are not yet prepared to greet such a one. We are so many separate individuals in competition with ourselves/ let alone one another. I can only prepare the way for the coming Savior.”
The Gospel of Mark begins differently than the other Gospels. Not only in the absence of stories about the Virgin Birth and Manger, The Good News of Jesus Christ according to Mark begins with two monumental shifts in reality. In response to John, all the people across the countryside, from farmers, to soldiers, from prostitutes to parents, professors to lawyers, everyone who heard his word reflected upon their own lives, repented of something that had happened, repented of something they were doing, and confessed their desire to live their life differently. Everyone it seems has some story of repentance, everyone is searching for what we have not been. Without that realization, without the recognition that we are imperfect, incomplete, without naming to ourselves that we are in need, we are not ready to hear and receive the Good News. The Great Swiss Theologian Karl Barth, described that the Gospel reaches out and grabs you, the Words engage you not merely as history of people long ago, but as our story.
About a year ago, we asked this congregation repeatedly, if you were to describe this Church, this people of God, what we believe and represent, described either to someone who does not know what Church is, or as unique compared to other Churches, what would you say? Among the adjectives used, was Believing in REDEMPTION, no one is ever thrown away or abandoned. The Good News of Jesus Christ, according to John the Baptist, is that all of us have a past, all humanity are searching for God, searching for redemption. Confessing this need, bending our knee, to be baptized, bending down to serve, kneeling to untie the sandal and wash the feet of another, that confession is the only way to be prepared for the coming of the Savior.
We described that the Good News of Jesus Christ begins with two shifts in reality, according to Mark. First is that all humanity need to, want to, be redeemed to live life differently. BUT ALSO, reading on in the 9th and 10th verses of the Revised Standard Version of Mark, when Jesus did come to be Baptized Heaven opened. The Greek is more explicit: the perimeter between Heaven and Earth, the gulf between the divine and the mortal, the limitations of reality, were irreparably ripped open by God. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that all Humanity want to and can be redeemed, every person is worthwhile, no one is lost; BUT ALSO that God wants to redeem us, God does not want to see us damned, God's desire is to forgive, to see us whole, to love.
This same truth was declared Centuries before in the time of the Prophets Isaiah. There is this monumental shift at the end of the 39th Chapter, before the beginning of the 40th. The first 39 Chapters have dealt with the Fall of the nation of Israel. The Prophets preached and preached , and people's ears were thick and their vision cataracted. The people of God were conquered and destroyed, the Great Temple of Solomon was desecrated before their being carried off as slaves to Babylon, where they would labor for 150 years. George Steiner the great Literary critic and author of descriptions of the Holocaust at Cambridge University describes that a powerful thing happens when language and circumstance coincide, when our hopes of what is beyond reality and our belief in God agree. Steiner describes that in our minds, the PRESENT and the PAST are as One. Not only do we continue to live out the continuing effects of what has gone before, we also replay both in our minds, and in our experiences the events and relationships of the past, again and again. The power of language, that occurs in Chapter 40 of Isaiah, is that instead of continuing to describe the past, instead of present circumstances being a continuation of what is fact, what is dead and no longer living, God speaks of a future faith. God uses a Grammar of Creation, of WHAT SHALL BE, WHAT WILL COME, and IF. These are the passwords to a different reality. Instead of living according to what is and has been, what is fact but no longer alive, faith calls us into a different living future of what could be. Rather than a people who HAD needed to be punished, who HAD deserved retribution, who were Conquered and Abandoned and Enslaved, in Chapter 40 God commands Heavens Angels “Comfort, Comfort, My People says your God! Her Warfare will be ended, She will be Pardoned for the past. Every Valley shall be lifted up, every mountain hill shall be made low. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed as we prepare the way of the LORD.
Isaiah proclaims this double edged prophecy, that humbles the powerful, and provides hope to the oppressed. Quite simply, the Prophets asks: What should I Cry? And God 's Word is “All flesh is Grass, beauty is like the flower that fades and grass that withers, though the word of God stands for ever.” As we began this day, we search for what was before. Who created God? Who taught God? Who provided counsel and wisdom to set God up? And part of the nature of God is that God is older than time itself, and God shall always be.
In this season as we seek the latest, biggest, tiniest, fastest, the leaders of the next generation, we need to listen to the power of words. Whether we are stuck in the past, hiding only to relive our sins; or whether we can own our failures, name our brokenness and confessing faith live a future reality of being redeemed by God. There is a marvelous movie, just released, titled HUGO. While the critics will have many different story-lines, I think that what the film is about is a child who sees the world as a great machine. Machines are designed to work, perpetually to be wound up and run. Machines do not come with extra pieces, every part, every person has a purpose. The boy comes to realize that his function in life is to repair what is broken, to mend human lives, to comfort and to redeem. May we be like this, like John the Baptist, calling one another to claim our pasts as very real to our present and to claim faith as a means for embracing the future with God.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
November 27, 2011 "Awakening Hope"
I Corinthians 1:1-25
Mark 13: 24-37
Do we really need reminder at the beginning of Advent, to “Keep Awake!”?
Three months ago, Labor Day happened, and we began the rush of Back to School programs/activities, followed by Halloween, and this last week driving 6-10 hours, so we could defrost the butter to bake the pie crusts and chop the celery and onions for stuffing, to put in the defrosted bird, during the Macy's Parade, all perfectly timed so everything came out of the oven just as Green Bay beat the Lions, in order that we could begin shopping before Black Friday.
We are a hyper-vigilant people, always waiting for the shoe to drop.
Keep awake?
If anything, we want the Church as alternative to culture, to pass out Sleep-Ease, to pacify and calm.
We have over 17,000 Starbucks Coffeeshops in 55 different countries, 11,000 here in the United States.
Keep awake?
For a decade, we have lived with war, fearful of attack, fearful of what has happened to sons/ daughters far away, fearful of the economy. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi all dead, each of the nations of the Middle East and North Africa changed, the axis of evil shifted, yet the genie is not back in the bottle, the dead have not been returned, prestige and honor feel tarnished. War and economics have not brought us a clear and decisive WIN.
Keep awake, not out of fear of the number of shopping days until Christmas, not because it is our turn to host the family and we have home repair projects to finish, not because we feel obligated to have the latest Zelda X Box game of Elmo Rockstar...
Keep awake, because as Christians, we know God loves the world, we know Christ has come and suffered and died and rose, to come again. We live expectantly waiting in HOPE for the redemption of the world. Keep awake, because Christ has come and will come again. Keep awake, spiritually, because there is so much around us to pacify our desires, to fill us with tryptophan, to comfort us with momentary wins and so much anxiety about loss.
Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel lived in fear, first of Egypt, then of the Canaanites, then the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Persians and Medes and Greeks, by the writing of the Gospels the Romans, the Pelipenicians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Europeans, … One empire after another, one invading army, one economy each built upon the failure of another.
The apocalyptic vision of Mark is not a specific warning about a specific end of the world on 11-11-11 or 12-12-12, but rather that basing our values and ethics on invading armies, the dominance of cultures, the power of economies, ultimately will bring loss.
Jesus begins with a different starting point, a different goal in mind.
Rather than our being focused on winning and losing and control, open your eyes to the broader vision, You witness stars falling from the sky and the sun and moon going black, open your mind to God's Cosmos.
One of my favorite moments as a pastor comes on Ash Wednesday. In the presence of all gathered, we burn the past, the palms of a year ago, our words of praise, our vain attempts to conquer, and one by one the people of God come forward to be marked with the ash and soot in the sign of the cross, and to be called by name as we hear the words: YOU ARE FORGIVEN.
At Advent, we each are blessed and given Hope.
YOU ARE LOVED. You are God's Little lambs, you are BLESSED;
and everything, all the world, everything of time and space and imagination, has been created for you. What will it take to open our eyes to see, there is no need to fight with one another?
No need for dominance. There is need for only one thing, to be responsible for what we are given.
The whole point of the coming Christmas is that we each and every one of us have the power to BLESS others. God loved the world so much, God entered in, God gave to us God's only begotten child, as Children of God can we not also enter in, into our own lives and relationships to bless one another?
This is an amazing community! Not because of Dickens. Not because of our schools. Not because of our businesses. Not even because of the wonderful churches and people. Truth be told, this is a community with great scandal and avoidance and suffering, with alcoholism and abuse. BUT this is also a community in which as a man, I have witnessed what I can only describe as miracles.
In a culture which demands, “WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME” one person after another has stepped up to say I do not want to be presumptuous but could I do this to help?
A few weeks ago, as the adults passed around a clipboard asking people to lead as Liturgist and Manor server, Chris said to his father: “I could do that, I would like to, can you help me do that.”
I have seen the pain of chronic illness, that we try to manage, that we chemically control, disease that escalates and symptoms become more frequent, knowing that this is what we will live with the rest of life and you have lived from crisis to crisis with fear of what is next, when suddenly there is HOPE, hope beyond anything you have ever experienced or believed was reasonable to expect.
At the start of Stewardship, we heard description of an ancient curse turned into a blessing and reality: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES! For an oppressed people centuries ago, this named that we would go from one situation to another, from one conquerer to another. For a people who had experienced stability and consistency, INTERESTING TIMES is naming of Change all around us. The BLESSING that is here, is when we open our eyes and minds to possibilities.
I am hopeful that the housing market will pick up again soon. Not because of economic worry & fears.
I love the old historic homes of this community, but after living in a house for a generation we often begin to see the house only as it has been, with limited future possibilities. When the house turns over and someone new moves into the community, walls begin to move, windows and porches appear.
Corinth was city of transplants, educated, upper-middle class immigrants, brought to populate a place. Each began to identify their loyalties, their identities out of personal relationships and possessions. The Church was structured differently in those days. The Church described itself as a community of faith, a religious society, without a church building, without a Session or Pastor or Presbytery. When problems arose, they appealed to their founding pastor, the Apostle Paul. As a Pastor, he BLESSED them, simply for being the Church in this place and time. Then called them to live into being what the Church could be, as more than so many individuals.
This Church in Skaneateles, in our earliest days identified ourselves as a Religious Society, a Community of Faith. Two of the chief functions of the Church in those days were to act as the Courts before their were local judges and lawyers, and to acts as the Church. What I mean by this, is that rather than being focused on judgement, crime and punishment and fines and imprisonment, the focus of the Religious Society as Court was to bring about ATONEMENT, REDEMPTION and FORGIVENESS between people who had wounded one another. In an era when in other parts of our nation the Hatfields and McCoys began feuds, when our leaders were deciding whether our new nation would have its Capital in Philadelphia, Washington DC or New York City, Skaneateles sought to be a community of faith. But also, we have as a society, as a church neglected what it once meant to be the Church. The focus of the Church was upon the Sacraments, and the preparation of believers to receive. We did not simply consume communion because it was the first Sunday of a given month, but we each considered how we have lived our lives, what is beneath our pains and squabbles, and whether spiritually in the presence of God we were ready to be forgiven, blessed, in communion with God. KEEP AWAKE and AWAKE anew!
Mark 13: 24-37
Do we really need reminder at the beginning of Advent, to “Keep Awake!”?
Three months ago, Labor Day happened, and we began the rush of Back to School programs/activities, followed by Halloween, and this last week driving 6-10 hours, so we could defrost the butter to bake the pie crusts and chop the celery and onions for stuffing, to put in the defrosted bird, during the Macy's Parade, all perfectly timed so everything came out of the oven just as Green Bay beat the Lions, in order that we could begin shopping before Black Friday.
We are a hyper-vigilant people, always waiting for the shoe to drop.
Keep awake?
If anything, we want the Church as alternative to culture, to pass out Sleep-Ease, to pacify and calm.
We have over 17,000 Starbucks Coffeeshops in 55 different countries, 11,000 here in the United States.
Keep awake?
For a decade, we have lived with war, fearful of attack, fearful of what has happened to sons/ daughters far away, fearful of the economy. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi all dead, each of the nations of the Middle East and North Africa changed, the axis of evil shifted, yet the genie is not back in the bottle, the dead have not been returned, prestige and honor feel tarnished. War and economics have not brought us a clear and decisive WIN.
Keep awake, not out of fear of the number of shopping days until Christmas, not because it is our turn to host the family and we have home repair projects to finish, not because we feel obligated to have the latest Zelda X Box game of Elmo Rockstar...
Keep awake, because as Christians, we know God loves the world, we know Christ has come and suffered and died and rose, to come again. We live expectantly waiting in HOPE for the redemption of the world. Keep awake, because Christ has come and will come again. Keep awake, spiritually, because there is so much around us to pacify our desires, to fill us with tryptophan, to comfort us with momentary wins and so much anxiety about loss.
Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel lived in fear, first of Egypt, then of the Canaanites, then the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Persians and Medes and Greeks, by the writing of the Gospels the Romans, the Pelipenicians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Europeans, … One empire after another, one invading army, one economy each built upon the failure of another.
The apocalyptic vision of Mark is not a specific warning about a specific end of the world on 11-11-11 or 12-12-12, but rather that basing our values and ethics on invading armies, the dominance of cultures, the power of economies, ultimately will bring loss.
Jesus begins with a different starting point, a different goal in mind.
Rather than our being focused on winning and losing and control, open your eyes to the broader vision, You witness stars falling from the sky and the sun and moon going black, open your mind to God's Cosmos.
One of my favorite moments as a pastor comes on Ash Wednesday. In the presence of all gathered, we burn the past, the palms of a year ago, our words of praise, our vain attempts to conquer, and one by one the people of God come forward to be marked with the ash and soot in the sign of the cross, and to be called by name as we hear the words: YOU ARE FORGIVEN.
At Advent, we each are blessed and given Hope.
YOU ARE LOVED. You are God's Little lambs, you are BLESSED;
and everything, all the world, everything of time and space and imagination, has been created for you. What will it take to open our eyes to see, there is no need to fight with one another?
No need for dominance. There is need for only one thing, to be responsible for what we are given.
The whole point of the coming Christmas is that we each and every one of us have the power to BLESS others. God loved the world so much, God entered in, God gave to us God's only begotten child, as Children of God can we not also enter in, into our own lives and relationships to bless one another?
This is an amazing community! Not because of Dickens. Not because of our schools. Not because of our businesses. Not even because of the wonderful churches and people. Truth be told, this is a community with great scandal and avoidance and suffering, with alcoholism and abuse. BUT this is also a community in which as a man, I have witnessed what I can only describe as miracles.
In a culture which demands, “WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME” one person after another has stepped up to say I do not want to be presumptuous but could I do this to help?
A few weeks ago, as the adults passed around a clipboard asking people to lead as Liturgist and Manor server, Chris said to his father: “I could do that, I would like to, can you help me do that.”
I have seen the pain of chronic illness, that we try to manage, that we chemically control, disease that escalates and symptoms become more frequent, knowing that this is what we will live with the rest of life and you have lived from crisis to crisis with fear of what is next, when suddenly there is HOPE, hope beyond anything you have ever experienced or believed was reasonable to expect.
At the start of Stewardship, we heard description of an ancient curse turned into a blessing and reality: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES! For an oppressed people centuries ago, this named that we would go from one situation to another, from one conquerer to another. For a people who had experienced stability and consistency, INTERESTING TIMES is naming of Change all around us. The BLESSING that is here, is when we open our eyes and minds to possibilities.
I am hopeful that the housing market will pick up again soon. Not because of economic worry & fears.
I love the old historic homes of this community, but after living in a house for a generation we often begin to see the house only as it has been, with limited future possibilities. When the house turns over and someone new moves into the community, walls begin to move, windows and porches appear.
Corinth was city of transplants, educated, upper-middle class immigrants, brought to populate a place. Each began to identify their loyalties, their identities out of personal relationships and possessions. The Church was structured differently in those days. The Church described itself as a community of faith, a religious society, without a church building, without a Session or Pastor or Presbytery. When problems arose, they appealed to their founding pastor, the Apostle Paul. As a Pastor, he BLESSED them, simply for being the Church in this place and time. Then called them to live into being what the Church could be, as more than so many individuals.
This Church in Skaneateles, in our earliest days identified ourselves as a Religious Society, a Community of Faith. Two of the chief functions of the Church in those days were to act as the Courts before their were local judges and lawyers, and to acts as the Church. What I mean by this, is that rather than being focused on judgement, crime and punishment and fines and imprisonment, the focus of the Religious Society as Court was to bring about ATONEMENT, REDEMPTION and FORGIVENESS between people who had wounded one another. In an era when in other parts of our nation the Hatfields and McCoys began feuds, when our leaders were deciding whether our new nation would have its Capital in Philadelphia, Washington DC or New York City, Skaneateles sought to be a community of faith. But also, we have as a society, as a church neglected what it once meant to be the Church. The focus of the Church was upon the Sacraments, and the preparation of believers to receive. We did not simply consume communion because it was the first Sunday of a given month, but we each considered how we have lived our lives, what is beneath our pains and squabbles, and whether spiritually in the presence of God we were ready to be forgiven, blessed, in communion with God. KEEP AWAKE and AWAKE anew!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
November, 13, 2011 "The Rule of 72"
Judges 11: 29-32
Matthew 25:14-30
The parable of the Talents is not about Stewardship! Just as the story of Jephthah's Vow is not that it would have been better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Both are descriptions of HUMAN FEAR, our desire through Knowledge, by the power of Knowing, to Control our Fears, to create Security and Safety, Protectionism.
In ancient Palestine, just as today, burying one's assets in the ground seemed better than leaving our livelihood exposed on the open market. Who among us, would not possess more today, if five years ago, before the Housing Bubble burst, before the Dot Com crash, we had taken out all we had and buried the value in the ground? This is not Biblical guidance about investing, or stewardship of assets, it is about a faithful response to Human FEAR.
If you asked an Investment Banker, one of those engaged on Wall-street in Wealth Management, how to double your investment, they would describe The Rule of 72. Assuming a guaranteed Interest rate of 5%, you divide that rate of interest by the number 72, and you have the number of years it will take to double it, 14-15 years. If you want that to be faster, you take on greater risk, with greater possibility of failure. In the world of Venture Capitalism, the norm used to be that 1 out of 5, some claimed only 1 out of 10 would make it, all the rest would lose everything. The reason why Preachers can describe this from the pulpit, is that today, no one can guarantee an Interest Rate of 5%.
Faith, we have been taught, is not about Venture Capitalism. For most of us, our Personal Faith is just the opposite of Risk. Our belief in God is a description of creating our Personal Comfort Zone in this life and the life to come. Faith is like theoretical acceptance of ideas about God and Jesus, a list of intellectual precepts and morals we accept as foundational. Faith becomes getting our personal theology right, then living a good life by avoiding what we know to be bad. Religion, is a pretty timid non-risky venture, if anything the salve and antithesis of our fears. That is NOT Biblical Faith.
Remember that according to Matthew, Jesus told this Parable in the midst of a string of parables about the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Fig Tree, Noah and the Ark, Daniel and signs of the End of Time. All of which are about the END coming, Christ and Judgement being delayed, and how believers are to act. We are to follow through on RESPONSIBILITY, especially when we do not know, when we are afraid.
A man was going a long journey so divided up what he had among three servants, giving each an enormous sum. To one, he gave 1 Talent = 15 years wages, to another 2 Talents 30 years wages, to a third 5 Talents the equivalent of 75 years of his wages. The one with the least, was the most afraid, claiming “to know” that the Lord was harsh, he hid what he had been given responsibility, so as to be able to give back exactly what he had been given. Does it change the story at all, to put dollar values to what was given? Imagine, the least was given $1,000,000. The second $2,000,000, the third $5,000,000. No longer is this about one being trusted with 5 times as much as the one with only 1, because that one is $1,000,000. Time goes by. When the LORD returns, the one with $5,000,000 risked everything and made $5,000,000 more, the one with $2,000,000 also doubled what she was responsible for, the rule of 72 is not about the dollar value but the risk of doubling. So following this rule, the one who actually risked the most was the one who risked nothing, and had nothing more. You have to wonder, it is not the way Jesus told the parable, but what would have happened if the one with $5,000,000 had lost everything? Given the telling of the parable, I have to believe, the LORD still would have greeted him saying “You risked everything you were responsible for, you tried, well done.”
Fear is a very present reality in our lives, we each know ourselves to be trustworthy, yet we live in a time of fear where everyone doubts the other. The first several days of the Occupy Wall-Street protests, no one seemed able to describe what they were protesting. For some it was a lack of jobs. For others, that they had lost everything. For others, that education had already put them over $100,000 in debt before ever starting out. We live perpetually on Orange Alert, waiting for the next terrorist attack, accepting as norm that we must remove out shoes and belts and be searched before flying. There has arisen a mood of helplessness and anomie. Nothing we do seems to effect our lot in life. There is unending war, that few are able to describe what we are fighting for. Our leaders seem detached concerned only with re-election and blaming the other. We are pre-occupied with entertainment and trivia. Because of all of this, we have become a polarized society of fear, each side blaming the other.
Jephthah is an odd hero. Rarely does the Lectionary have us read from the Book of Judges, yet in many ways this is an apt description of the times in which we live. There is a recurrent phrase throughout the Book of Judges, “The word of God was rare in those days, each person did what they judged to be right, what they knew to be right, in their own heart...” Jephthah was the son of Gilead, but whose mother had been a prostitute. Gilead had taken responsibility for Jephthah, but Jephthah's brothers feared and rejected him. Jephthah went to live with the most worthless kind and became a mercenary. His mother had sold her favors for money, so he sold his ability to kill for a price. And the people of Israel were afraid of the Canaanites, especially among them the tribe of the Amonites. They contracted with Jephthah to kill the Amonites. He went through Town after Village, killing everyone in his path, eleven cities were laid waste. But after all this, on the night before his final battle, Jephthah was afraid. Desperation and fear, do terrible things to us, and Jephthah made a solemn vow. Some of us might make a promise to turn over a new leaf and live life differently. Some before going into battle might make a sacrifice. Some this morning might instead of purchasing more stuff for Christmas, use our gifts for Alternative contributions, providing in a loved one's name a gift to the Food Pantry, or Health care, or Cancer research, or for care of our elders, or for purchase of a heifer to a village without milk. Jephthah makes a vow, that IF he could KNOW he would be victorious he would sacrifice anything, so if he wins, then he will make a sacrifice of the first thing he sees coming from his property... a lamb, a goat, a heifer, a field of grain, even a servant. Jephthah goes into battle and does win, he utterly and completely destroys his enemy, and knowing this, knows he must make a sacrifice, but when he come home his daughter, his only child comes running out to greet him. Fear does terrible things to us, more than anything else, fear makes us want to BIND our fear to something, to blame, to take our fear away.
Today, there is no guarantee of a 5% rate of interest. There is no guarantee of a rule of 72. We live in an eschatological time, an end time, where the world we knew, everything we assumed is changing. There is a great deal of fear all around us, fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, fear of a lack of control. This is not reason to sacrifice our what we believe in. Fear is not answered by protectionism, or a faith of abstract moral ideas. Faith is about risking everything for what you are responsible. When meeting with those presenting a child for Baptism, we tell them that you are claiming an identity for this individual, that they belong to God, they are known by God. When preparing couples for marriage, that in the same way, they are claiming a new identity of being responsible for one another, their identity is as wife or husband to the other for richer and poorer, better and worse, in sickness and in health.
I think there is a very creative commercial on television, that shows handing to someone a briefcase filled with $100,000 and describing that each of the persons who were asked to hold this, did not open it, did not take even a single dollar; though in our economy the banks, the investors, the government all take their share. Few of us are going to have someone hand us a $100,000, or $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 but simultaneously, the Social Media has created Facebook and Linked-in, and Tweeting, such that any of could between the people we know and those they know, could have 5,000,000 contacts, people we are responsible for. You possess a treasure, a pearl of great value that nations have gone to war for, a gift which people have given their lives for. Faith is taking responsibility for what has been given us. Will you use the faith given you? Will you pass your compassion, your charity, your ability to make a difference on to others? Or will you protect what yo have, live in fear, and bury your faith in the dirt?
Matthew 25:14-30
The parable of the Talents is not about Stewardship! Just as the story of Jephthah's Vow is not that it would have been better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Both are descriptions of HUMAN FEAR, our desire through Knowledge, by the power of Knowing, to Control our Fears, to create Security and Safety, Protectionism.
In ancient Palestine, just as today, burying one's assets in the ground seemed better than leaving our livelihood exposed on the open market. Who among us, would not possess more today, if five years ago, before the Housing Bubble burst, before the Dot Com crash, we had taken out all we had and buried the value in the ground? This is not Biblical guidance about investing, or stewardship of assets, it is about a faithful response to Human FEAR.
If you asked an Investment Banker, one of those engaged on Wall-street in Wealth Management, how to double your investment, they would describe The Rule of 72. Assuming a guaranteed Interest rate of 5%, you divide that rate of interest by the number 72, and you have the number of years it will take to double it, 14-15 years. If you want that to be faster, you take on greater risk, with greater possibility of failure. In the world of Venture Capitalism, the norm used to be that 1 out of 5, some claimed only 1 out of 10 would make it, all the rest would lose everything. The reason why Preachers can describe this from the pulpit, is that today, no one can guarantee an Interest Rate of 5%.
Faith, we have been taught, is not about Venture Capitalism. For most of us, our Personal Faith is just the opposite of Risk. Our belief in God is a description of creating our Personal Comfort Zone in this life and the life to come. Faith is like theoretical acceptance of ideas about God and Jesus, a list of intellectual precepts and morals we accept as foundational. Faith becomes getting our personal theology right, then living a good life by avoiding what we know to be bad. Religion, is a pretty timid non-risky venture, if anything the salve and antithesis of our fears. That is NOT Biblical Faith.
Remember that according to Matthew, Jesus told this Parable in the midst of a string of parables about the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Fig Tree, Noah and the Ark, Daniel and signs of the End of Time. All of which are about the END coming, Christ and Judgement being delayed, and how believers are to act. We are to follow through on RESPONSIBILITY, especially when we do not know, when we are afraid.
A man was going a long journey so divided up what he had among three servants, giving each an enormous sum. To one, he gave 1 Talent = 15 years wages, to another 2 Talents 30 years wages, to a third 5 Talents the equivalent of 75 years of his wages. The one with the least, was the most afraid, claiming “to know” that the Lord was harsh, he hid what he had been given responsibility, so as to be able to give back exactly what he had been given. Does it change the story at all, to put dollar values to what was given? Imagine, the least was given $1,000,000. The second $2,000,000, the third $5,000,000. No longer is this about one being trusted with 5 times as much as the one with only 1, because that one is $1,000,000. Time goes by. When the LORD returns, the one with $5,000,000 risked everything and made $5,000,000 more, the one with $2,000,000 also doubled what she was responsible for, the rule of 72 is not about the dollar value but the risk of doubling. So following this rule, the one who actually risked the most was the one who risked nothing, and had nothing more. You have to wonder, it is not the way Jesus told the parable, but what would have happened if the one with $5,000,000 had lost everything? Given the telling of the parable, I have to believe, the LORD still would have greeted him saying “You risked everything you were responsible for, you tried, well done.”
Fear is a very present reality in our lives, we each know ourselves to be trustworthy, yet we live in a time of fear where everyone doubts the other. The first several days of the Occupy Wall-Street protests, no one seemed able to describe what they were protesting. For some it was a lack of jobs. For others, that they had lost everything. For others, that education had already put them over $100,000 in debt before ever starting out. We live perpetually on Orange Alert, waiting for the next terrorist attack, accepting as norm that we must remove out shoes and belts and be searched before flying. There has arisen a mood of helplessness and anomie. Nothing we do seems to effect our lot in life. There is unending war, that few are able to describe what we are fighting for. Our leaders seem detached concerned only with re-election and blaming the other. We are pre-occupied with entertainment and trivia. Because of all of this, we have become a polarized society of fear, each side blaming the other.
Jephthah is an odd hero. Rarely does the Lectionary have us read from the Book of Judges, yet in many ways this is an apt description of the times in which we live. There is a recurrent phrase throughout the Book of Judges, “The word of God was rare in those days, each person did what they judged to be right, what they knew to be right, in their own heart...” Jephthah was the son of Gilead, but whose mother had been a prostitute. Gilead had taken responsibility for Jephthah, but Jephthah's brothers feared and rejected him. Jephthah went to live with the most worthless kind and became a mercenary. His mother had sold her favors for money, so he sold his ability to kill for a price. And the people of Israel were afraid of the Canaanites, especially among them the tribe of the Amonites. They contracted with Jephthah to kill the Amonites. He went through Town after Village, killing everyone in his path, eleven cities were laid waste. But after all this, on the night before his final battle, Jephthah was afraid. Desperation and fear, do terrible things to us, and Jephthah made a solemn vow. Some of us might make a promise to turn over a new leaf and live life differently. Some before going into battle might make a sacrifice. Some this morning might instead of purchasing more stuff for Christmas, use our gifts for Alternative contributions, providing in a loved one's name a gift to the Food Pantry, or Health care, or Cancer research, or for care of our elders, or for purchase of a heifer to a village without milk. Jephthah makes a vow, that IF he could KNOW he would be victorious he would sacrifice anything, so if he wins, then he will make a sacrifice of the first thing he sees coming from his property... a lamb, a goat, a heifer, a field of grain, even a servant. Jephthah goes into battle and does win, he utterly and completely destroys his enemy, and knowing this, knows he must make a sacrifice, but when he come home his daughter, his only child comes running out to greet him. Fear does terrible things to us, more than anything else, fear makes us want to BIND our fear to something, to blame, to take our fear away.
Today, there is no guarantee of a 5% rate of interest. There is no guarantee of a rule of 72. We live in an eschatological time, an end time, where the world we knew, everything we assumed is changing. There is a great deal of fear all around us, fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, fear of a lack of control. This is not reason to sacrifice our what we believe in. Fear is not answered by protectionism, or a faith of abstract moral ideas. Faith is about risking everything for what you are responsible. When meeting with those presenting a child for Baptism, we tell them that you are claiming an identity for this individual, that they belong to God, they are known by God. When preparing couples for marriage, that in the same way, they are claiming a new identity of being responsible for one another, their identity is as wife or husband to the other for richer and poorer, better and worse, in sickness and in health.
I think there is a very creative commercial on television, that shows handing to someone a briefcase filled with $100,000 and describing that each of the persons who were asked to hold this, did not open it, did not take even a single dollar; though in our economy the banks, the investors, the government all take their share. Few of us are going to have someone hand us a $100,000, or $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 but simultaneously, the Social Media has created Facebook and Linked-in, and Tweeting, such that any of could between the people we know and those they know, could have 5,000,000 contacts, people we are responsible for. You possess a treasure, a pearl of great value that nations have gone to war for, a gift which people have given their lives for. Faith is taking responsibility for what has been given us. Will you use the faith given you? Will you pass your compassion, your charity, your ability to make a difference on to others? Or will you protect what yo have, live in fear, and bury your faith in the dirt?
Sunday, November 6, 2011
November 6, 2011 "Choose of Chosen"
Joshua 24:1-4 & 14-25
Matthew 25: 1-13
A scientist in Idaho recently put forwad the following undisputed facts: The chemical compound "dihydrogenated-monoxide has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, mainly through accidental ingestion. In gaseous form, it can cause severe burns. The chemical is so caustic that it accelerates the corrosion of many metals... is a major component of acid rain, ... has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients. Symptoms of ingestion include excessive sweating and urination, and humanity has become so dependent upon this chemical that complete withdrawal means certain death. The presence of dihydrogenated-monoxide has been confirmed in every river, stream, lake, and reservoir in America. " Judging from these facts, do you think dihydrogenated-monoxide should be banned?" 86% of those surveyed agreed it should be banned. Follow-up surveys at the University of Notre Dame, Glasgow, Scotland, Stockton, California, yielded similar results. However, dihydrogenated-monoxide is commonly called water (H2O)! The scientist, fourteen-year-old Nathan Zohner won the Idaho State Science Fair by proving his project's thesis: "How Gullible Are We?"
This morning I would like you to reflect with me, not only on answering questions right, but the levels of our commitment... the depths of our faith, whether we have thought through that the answers we give are what we believe... and whether our words, whether what we believe matters?
With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God had freed the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh, by miracles God had brought them out of oppression through the Red Sea into the wilderness, through Moses God had given the people the 10 Commandments and Ark of the Covenant, God gave them Manna from Heaven and water out of solid rock, day in day out for forty years God had led and provided for the Chosen people. Moses died before entering the Promised land and Joshua had been appointed to lead after Moses. Israel had crossed the Jordan and conquered the city of Ai, then the great city of Jericho without a single weapon being fired. Now, after all of that, possessing the Law, possessing the Covenant, possessing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before Joshua dies without leaving a successor, he asks the people, the Chosen people of God “Choose again, whom will you serve?”
A simple comparison would be to ask the couple married for over forty years, after all that has happened, after worrying about the paying of bills, after putting one another through school, after the birth and raising of children, after building your home and paying down the mortgage, knowing that for many of us our life and death choices change in the last year of life, we spend 90% of the world's cost for Health care in the last 10% of our lives, will you choose to share your days with this partner?
Perhaps the more relevant question to the times we live in, after working a lifetime for a company, day in day out, in good economies and bad recessions, through world-wars, when you prepare for retirement, will the company still honor your pension?
This is an archaic story from a Biblical time far removed from our own. Our cultural values are not only of a manifest destiny, that every person can succeed and hard work results in profits, but that we so believe in democracy and individual rights we will go to war for other nations other people to have these rights. What Joshua was affirming this day, was not human rights, but loyalty to a Divine Power. Can we make the division, that economically, socially, politically people have the Human Right to vote, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, changing our minds as we often do; while at the same time committing to a loyalty to God, that not only on the day we join a congregation, not only when we are baptized or on the day of confirmation but deeper and deeper every day we affirm “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I trust and love the Lord”?
Many of us cannot. And if not, we need to be honest with ourselves, honest with our faith, that there is one God, and God only will we serve. Everything else will take care of itself. We do not need to be concerned with the latest electronic car, DROID or popular possession. Because to choose the LORD and not be faithful may be worse than never to have known God at all. We become a prostituted people who claim fidelity to God, while lusting after all the other idols.
To be a Believer AND to be in the world today requires a balancing, that as a citizen, as a human being, we have rights and responsibilities of freedom, to work hard and do our best; HOWEVER, always to remember that as much as the commercials are selling us on CHOOSING to possess the latest, hottest, sexiest thing, as much as we desire to choose to keep up with our neighbors, even that we would choose to lay down our lives defending the basic human rights of others, we are also a CHOSEN people of God, and all our lives are lived in response to God loving us. The most difficult part of which is that being a Chosen people may mean our being used by God to demonstrate that loyalty, that fidelity, that love.
The problem of the bridesmaids was not that they did not know they were bridesmaids, not that they had not brought the right wedding garment, or that they had forgotten their role as bearers of the light, but that they were distracted by worry their lamps would go out. A different wedding tradition than we are accustomed to, where the groom does not see the bride before the wedding and everyone tries to get the Groom's expression as the Sanctuary doors open and he says “Whoa!” At this time, all the bridesmaids and guests gathered at the Bride's parents home and when everything was ready at the Groom's home, when the dowry had been paid, when all was prepared, then the Bridegroom came to escort his bride to their wedding together. The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, is that the bridegroom is delayed in returning. Christ died over 2000 years ago, yet we are still here... Some came prepared with extra flasks of oil for 2000 years of waiting. Some panic at the last moment that they will not have enough to light their way and the way for the guests. They abandon their identity as bridesmaids at a wedding, to go buy more at midnight. While some are prepared and some are not, the question not asked is what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids had not run off to CVS to get more oil? The Scriptures are filled with stories of there being only a dram of oil for the feeding of the Widow and her son, yet it was enough to feed them and Elijah for 40 days and nights, the story of Chanukah is about the oil not running out.Surely as Bridesmaids on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven the oil would have lasted, or if not, they could have joined the other guests but they were pre-occupied by having their own supply, by buying the stuff that would satisfy their fears.
As a Chosen people, Choose this day whom you will serve, Choose Again.
Matthew 25: 1-13
A scientist in Idaho recently put forwad the following undisputed facts: The chemical compound "dihydrogenated-monoxide has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, mainly through accidental ingestion. In gaseous form, it can cause severe burns. The chemical is so caustic that it accelerates the corrosion of many metals... is a major component of acid rain, ... has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients. Symptoms of ingestion include excessive sweating and urination, and humanity has become so dependent upon this chemical that complete withdrawal means certain death. The presence of dihydrogenated-monoxide has been confirmed in every river, stream, lake, and reservoir in America. " Judging from these facts, do you think dihydrogenated-monoxide should be banned?" 86% of those surveyed agreed it should be banned. Follow-up surveys at the University of Notre Dame, Glasgow, Scotland, Stockton, California, yielded similar results. However, dihydrogenated-monoxide is commonly called water (H2O)! The scientist, fourteen-year-old Nathan Zohner won the Idaho State Science Fair by proving his project's thesis: "How Gullible Are We?"
This morning I would like you to reflect with me, not only on answering questions right, but the levels of our commitment... the depths of our faith, whether we have thought through that the answers we give are what we believe... and whether our words, whether what we believe matters?
With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God had freed the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh, by miracles God had brought them out of oppression through the Red Sea into the wilderness, through Moses God had given the people the 10 Commandments and Ark of the Covenant, God gave them Manna from Heaven and water out of solid rock, day in day out for forty years God had led and provided for the Chosen people. Moses died before entering the Promised land and Joshua had been appointed to lead after Moses. Israel had crossed the Jordan and conquered the city of Ai, then the great city of Jericho without a single weapon being fired. Now, after all of that, possessing the Law, possessing the Covenant, possessing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before Joshua dies without leaving a successor, he asks the people, the Chosen people of God “Choose again, whom will you serve?”
A simple comparison would be to ask the couple married for over forty years, after all that has happened, after worrying about the paying of bills, after putting one another through school, after the birth and raising of children, after building your home and paying down the mortgage, knowing that for many of us our life and death choices change in the last year of life, we spend 90% of the world's cost for Health care in the last 10% of our lives, will you choose to share your days with this partner?
Perhaps the more relevant question to the times we live in, after working a lifetime for a company, day in day out, in good economies and bad recessions, through world-wars, when you prepare for retirement, will the company still honor your pension?
This is an archaic story from a Biblical time far removed from our own. Our cultural values are not only of a manifest destiny, that every person can succeed and hard work results in profits, but that we so believe in democracy and individual rights we will go to war for other nations other people to have these rights. What Joshua was affirming this day, was not human rights, but loyalty to a Divine Power. Can we make the division, that economically, socially, politically people have the Human Right to vote, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, changing our minds as we often do; while at the same time committing to a loyalty to God, that not only on the day we join a congregation, not only when we are baptized or on the day of confirmation but deeper and deeper every day we affirm “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I trust and love the Lord”?
Many of us cannot. And if not, we need to be honest with ourselves, honest with our faith, that there is one God, and God only will we serve. Everything else will take care of itself. We do not need to be concerned with the latest electronic car, DROID or popular possession. Because to choose the LORD and not be faithful may be worse than never to have known God at all. We become a prostituted people who claim fidelity to God, while lusting after all the other idols.
To be a Believer AND to be in the world today requires a balancing, that as a citizen, as a human being, we have rights and responsibilities of freedom, to work hard and do our best; HOWEVER, always to remember that as much as the commercials are selling us on CHOOSING to possess the latest, hottest, sexiest thing, as much as we desire to choose to keep up with our neighbors, even that we would choose to lay down our lives defending the basic human rights of others, we are also a CHOSEN people of God, and all our lives are lived in response to God loving us. The most difficult part of which is that being a Chosen people may mean our being used by God to demonstrate that loyalty, that fidelity, that love.
The problem of the bridesmaids was not that they did not know they were bridesmaids, not that they had not brought the right wedding garment, or that they had forgotten their role as bearers of the light, but that they were distracted by worry their lamps would go out. A different wedding tradition than we are accustomed to, where the groom does not see the bride before the wedding and everyone tries to get the Groom's expression as the Sanctuary doors open and he says “Whoa!” At this time, all the bridesmaids and guests gathered at the Bride's parents home and when everything was ready at the Groom's home, when the dowry had been paid, when all was prepared, then the Bridegroom came to escort his bride to their wedding together. The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, is that the bridegroom is delayed in returning. Christ died over 2000 years ago, yet we are still here... Some came prepared with extra flasks of oil for 2000 years of waiting. Some panic at the last moment that they will not have enough to light their way and the way for the guests. They abandon their identity as bridesmaids at a wedding, to go buy more at midnight. While some are prepared and some are not, the question not asked is what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids had not run off to CVS to get more oil? The Scriptures are filled with stories of there being only a dram of oil for the feeding of the Widow and her son, yet it was enough to feed them and Elijah for 40 days and nights, the story of Chanukah is about the oil not running out.Surely as Bridesmaids on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven the oil would have lasted, or if not, they could have joined the other guests but they were pre-occupied by having their own supply, by buying the stuff that would satisfy their fears.
As a Chosen people, Choose this day whom you will serve, Choose Again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)