"ReMuddling" February 23, 2014

Leviticus 19: 1-2 & 9-18 Matthew 5:38-48 In the 1960s, my parents were able to buy a car, different from ever before or since. They were able to custom order a new car, the first time they ever had a new car, direct from the factory. They were able to choose the make, model and color, though we always had Ford station wagons; as well as the color interior, which was either black, brown or white; and design features, though at the time the choices were: whether to have an AM Radio or AM/FM, and whether to have power windows or manual. There are those among us who have been able to build the house of their dreams with everything exactly as intended, in the location they desired, and who had the forethought and imagination to design every element 50 years ahead of its time. The majority however, bought houses that belonged to others before us. While I am certain that in the 1940s having a utilitarian avocado green bathroom indoors was everyone's desire; while someone in the 1970s intentionally changed bathtub to lilac purple against the avocado green commode and Formica walls, we have remodeled their re-modelings. A year after we moved in, someone commented upon what they named as Vietnam flashback wallpaper in the kitchen, we painted over this a neutral yellow. We have been told, one of the previous owners had expanded the house, by building a kitchen on the back, without having secured a building permit in advance. For which the family were required to connect the addition to the barn behind the house, which they did, on the second floor, but then the barn needed to be demolished, meaning that these second story bedrooms were cantilevered in space. When we correct the corrections of others, those renovations are described as “re-muddling.” When describing this church, I would confess to having “pride” that we tried to correct the problems that had been created while maintaining the aura of this holy place. Years ago, the main entry to the Church looked like an outhouse attached to the building. Immediately as you entered was the choir room. When we went to take out the walls, we discovered that inside the plaster wall, was pass-through window and kitchen sink, still plumbed, so if a squirrel had managed to turn the knob water would have been running inside the wall. At one point, what had become the choir room, had been the church kitchen. What today is the kitchenette had been an exit to the Stables where you left your horse and carriage and took off your boots before entering the Sanctuary of God. In this renovation, the architect's design had been to have an immense open stair, much like Tivia in Fiddler In The Roof, with one long staircase just going up and one even longer going down. However, during construction, we learned that there was a major support beam and load-bearing wall, which required that this center-piece of the design be hidden inside a stairwell enclosure. Re-muddling. As a Preacher, addressing many different individuals in differing circumstances, we often paint images with large brushstrokes, allowing each to fill in the details of their lives and relationship. In this way to name “Thou shalt not steal” as opposed to saying “You should not have been crawling through the window into that room at the Sherwood Inn.” But often, when speaking in generalities, there have been those who make knee-jerk corrections based on what they believed to be specifics. The difficulty then being when we have to correct corrections, which were not as intended, conversation and understanding truly are muddled, and re-muddling becomes confused. Such is the case with this morning's Biblical passages. Regardless of what was meant by the world being created in six days... regardless of whether humanity was God's final creation, or first among creations with power to name and have dominion over each... we were created by God to love God, to be in need of community and love of one another, and to have responsibility for this garden of Eden, this Promised Land. That is our purpose, our prime directive. However, when Israel left Egypt having only known life as slaves of Pharaoh and needing to have laws to direct our relationships in the wilderness, God gave to Moses the 10 Commandments. Instead of worshiping Pharaoh, or pyramids or statues, our covenant was to love and worship God. Instead of being bought and sold by masters, with personal identity as slaves and property, we were to love and respect our parents. We were commanded to not lie, cheat, steal, murder, commit adultery or covet. For forty years, the people struggled against their nature and experience, sinning and abandoning God, while in the wilderness, where there was only God and the nation. Then Moses who had been the only one to speak face to face with God for us died; and the Nation entered into the land of the Canaanites. The challenge became what it means to be a holy people, set apart as precious and sacred to God, when living amid other cultures, other peoples. The Laws of Leviticus defined what it means to be a holy people in the world; and for the tribe of Levi, the Priests, what it means to be leaders, to be holy among a holy people, in the world. Then to become a Monarchy, and Empire. Eventually to be carried off in bondage to Babylon, forced to live as a marginalized oppressed people in a foreign empire and still cling to who were are in faith, who we are to God. Then as a Nation subject to the Greeks, eventually to the Romans. Today in a computerized world of universal education with representative government, technology and accepted laws of commerce, how do we live in relationship to God, to family, neighbors, strangers, enemies and the world? At some point, oral laws were surrounded by culture and custom and tradition, and also this Word of God was changed from oral tradition to written and translated in differing language and cultures over thousands of years. Preaching becomes re-muddling. Jesus began this section of the Sermon on the Mount with “You have heard it said an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth.” Except what the Laws of Leviticus meant in an Eye for an Eye and Tooth for a Tooth, did not guarantee retribution and a justice of recompense. The Law of God did not prescribe that if someone causes you to loose a tooth or to be blinded in one eye that you were required to take their life, or destroy their family. Instead, this was a law of limited retribution. That if someone caused you to be blinded in one eye, or to lose a tooth, and if you could not forgive them without equalization, the maximum retribution you could exact was the same loss you had received. Many of us have avoided reading the Book of Leviticus. We know that Leviticus contains Laws and we would rather trust the Grace of the New Testament... Except Jesus claimed he had not come to change the Law, but to reveal and fulfill the Law. For the first people of faith what comes through following the Law is forgiveness and Blessing from God. So avoiding the Law of Leviticus, means that we have avoided forgiveness and blessing. This particular section of Leviticus deals with money and love of neighbor. Oddly, throughout Scripture where there are reference to money, there are also references to love of others, as if the two go together. For many of us, money has become an extension of our ego. We buy a car or a coat or suit to project who we are, who we want others to see us as. We become slaves to mortgages, worshiping our houses and educations and degrees, as if our debts defined us! When the Leviticus Law regarding money was that our identity includes how we treat our neighbor. There is an interpretation behind this juxtaposition, that had come between the Old Testament and the New, that because Israel was not to marry the Canaanites, and had routinely adopted cultural practices and idol worship from other cultures for which Israel was punished, they were to hate their enemies. There was no Law to Love your Neighbor and Hate your Enemy. But also, this is more than teaching The Golden Rule to treat others as you desire to be treated. In order to hate, we must create a straw-man image of our enemy. Not who they are as part of their family. Not who we both are in God's world. In order to hate, we create a universe where I am at the center and everything revolves around me. My enemy is therefore everything I reject, everything I want to be angry at. My enemy is a mirror of part of myself. The only way in which I can actually forgive and love myself, is to forgive and accept and love the enemy by reorienting my universe to have God at the center and to choose to accept my enemy and myself as being in relationship. When we hate, we cause destruction to ourselves more than simply projecting an action or behavior. Choosing to hate does not cause harm to the other. In order to hate, you have to take into yourself bitterness and anger and resentment. These fester and ulcerate in bile until the hate cannot be suppressed and are spewed out upon the one we name as enemy. Hate is not something we do to another person. Hate causes a change in us, hate must be internalized and swallowed until it can be externalized from within. Instead, Jesus instructs his disciples/us that to be Christian means more than coping with what comes. Being Christian means intentionally acting to love, to have compassion and understanding for the other, trying to change the circumstance rather than swallowing the bitterness. Because our purpose as we were created was to love. Our purpose was to be part of the lives of one another. Our purpose was to care and to provide for Creation. The real issue is not what it means to hate, but rather what it means to love, to devote yourself without restraint, without measuring the cost. If oppression is about forcing another to do what you want, then to respond in love is about what I have to do to re-frame and undercut that force. So if the other demands I carry their burden a mile, I do so gladly and walk along beside them a second mile. We have been seduced by a culture of competition to believe that God's Creation has limited resources. In a Culture of Competition, there can only be one winner, everyone else loses. The last two weeks, throughout the Olympics, something amazing has taken place. Tragically our culture has dictated that what is fed to us in coverage is who wins, and when competitors have minor failures to cause them not to be THE WINNER. But the wonder of the Olympics, is all the Nations who send competitors whose only goal is tio be part of the race. They are Olympians, NOT because they received the Gold; they are among the Olympians because they worked and lived and sacrificed to be part of the competition, knowing they would not be first but they would be Olympians.

"A Statement of Intentions" February 16, 2014

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 5: 21-37 This is the Day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad as we enter it! We all know that it has been snowing since Halloween, that the skies have been gray and dreary, and according to Puxtehude Phil there is at least a month more of winter. This is the Day of Resurrection! This is the Lord's Day! Choose this day: Life and Good or Death which is decay. According to Tradition, Centuries ago, getting married was not a one day event, but instead three! The focus was not upon the Reception, the Cake, the Video, the Flowers, Gown or Bridesmaids. What we think of as the Wedding, was actually the couple making their vow to each other before God. Marriage was a sacred religious occasion, totally focused on the blessing of their vows. Years later, when they could afford a gold band for the bride, the couple returned to the church for a “Blessing of the Bands” and if they had children for baptism of these. Men did not wear Wedding Bands as a custom until WWI, because in farming and pre-20th Century factory work a ring would be dangerous. But going over seas, brides wanted to brand their husband with a ring on their finger. The commitment of vows, the blessing of bands, but before all of this came the Statement of Intentions. While in the Eastern Orthodox Churches there were no pews, and all the men stood on the floor throughout the worship of God, while women were in a balcony or behind a sheet from the men; in Protestant Houses of worship in Colonial Days in America, all the eligible single men sat on one side of the Sanctuary, while all the single women sat on the opposite side, so as to not distract each other in worship. Between the two sat all the families and married or widowed individuals. Prior to people always sitting in the same pew, prior to the era of “renting” your pew, there were differing seating sections. Dating was a serious, public and monogamous matter. Dating was a matter of the Church. When a man wanted to court a woman, he came before the Session of the Church and her father or family representative came to present dowries and discuss what bringing these families together might mean for the community. Marriage was not a matter of love or desire, but of the union of families for the benefit of the community and the church. The idea of small towns being concerned with what other people do has long and deep roots. If both families agreed, a chaperone would be assigned, to guide the couple through their courtship, until she determined they were prepared to commit to their sacred vows. That decision in the hypothetical abstract, the commitment of dowry, the commitment regardless of the individuals themselves, not knowing what the future holds... fits with our Scripture readings this morning. According to Deuteronomy, after 40 years of Israel wandering the wilderness, sinning, complaining, falling away from God, only to be brought back again, Moses was about to die. Moses' passing was one of the last vestiges of the Exodus, before a new era in the Promised Land. The people of faith knew nothing of what the Promised Land would be except promise. Behind them lay generations of regrets in the desert, ahead, across the river lay the future. Crossing over Jordan was not only crossing from one geography to another, from one context to another, crossing over was theologically laden with who we want to be and whether we are ready to become that identity. After forty years of struggle and failure, do any of us believe that the People, Moses or God, imagined they would suddenly be perfect? Changes in faith, changes in identity, changes in relationships take time. Even more, the beauty of this passage is that there is a permanent link between the past and the future. We do not suddenly graduate from High School, we do not give birth ex-nihilo, neither do we fall in love or commit to a future without having our own past. But still there is the choice, filled with hope and promise and imagination, “What is your intent?” Choose this day, whether you will be a people of faith, a people of God, or not. In part, this is also a question of values. Will you be pessimistic, convinced you cannot do better, or will you commit to hope, to believe? The core of the Book of Deuteronomy is whether the people will be governed by their past, or live into a new present and future, “dependent” upon God and God's promise. The difficulty we always have with the Bible, is that Scripture is not abstract historic events written down by a reporter at the time, but the text points both backward to memory and ahead to similar events. These may well have been the words and circumstance of Moses, as he prepared to die and the people prepared to enter the Promised Land... In that this represents God fulfilling the Promise, this commitment echoes the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Now that you have what you have wanted for generations, do you still want what you have and will you commit to being faithful? And, we know that the words of Scripture were not written down in this way until the return from Babylon. So what would it mean, to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land a second time, to choose to commit to God knowing that previously we failed? In many ways this makes the choice even more difficult... Choose this day: not only Promised Land or Wilderness, but Home or Exile, Life or Death, recognizing that Home and Life require following the Commandments, loving the Lord and obeying. Increasingly, I am convinced, the content of what we teach at Confirmation, or Graduation from HS, or Graduation from College, or in Engagement, or in a first Job, or when children are born, or when they are weaned and potty-trained, or when we Retire does not matter, SO MUCH as that we stop in Sabbath at those times in our lives. STOP and ask what do we intend? If all we are doing in marriage is wearing jewelry, then we have missed the point. If, as phenomenal as music has been, but if it is only a concert, we have missed the point. What Jesus describes in this part of the Sermon on the Mount, addresses what lies underneath all the words. What are our intentions? If you hate someone, if you are so angry as to wish them harm; then in our mind, in our hearts, in spirit, we have committed murder already. Before you dismiss this as the painkillers rattling the preacher's brain realize that in the last few weeks, Grandfathers, people like us, have shot and killed another for texting in a movie theater! Another, for playing their car radio too loud at the Gas Pump! Adultery is not about love. Adultery is a desire for personal gratification devoid of caring, devoid the commitment of making love. The point of all of this is not legalism, not in any way to establish different commandments, but bluntly and directly to realize our motivation and the brokenness in our relationships. As human creatures, we perpetuate our problems from one relationship to the next for ever, until we stop and change. I wish I could tie all this up with a pretty bow and assure each that everything is going to be all right... The fact of the matter is that all of us have been traumatized by crisis after crisis, indiscriminate cancers, accidents, bitter cold, unending conflict, to where the separation between feeling and action is a very gray line. Because we live with so much stress normally, because we have accumulated so many wounds, it does not take a great deal to move us from thought to action, to flip us from imagination to reality. SO think through your intentions, and choose this day.

"A Mystery" February9, 2014

Isaiah 58: 1-12 Matthew 5: 13-20 Finley Peter Dunne was a humorist in the late 1800s who critiquing Society wrote: “Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It polices th' polis foorce an' takes interest in th' banks, commands th' militry, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward.” From which every “would be pastor/preacher” is charged to Comfort the Afflicted and To Afflict the Comfortable. Most weeks we err on the side of “Comforting” because of the Biblical passages, our focus is to recognize A Challenge to our Comforts. The New York Times Magazine recently ran an article about the difference between the Locker Rooms of the Football and Basketball Leagues versus the Baseball Association. The reporter was commenting on the attitude of the players to having Reporters in their Locker Rooms. The gist of the article was that Reporters seemed treated better by the Basketball and Football players than by the Baseball players. Unpacking this, it became apparent that while few among us can throw a pitch at 90 mph, physically we are indistinguishable from the stature of Baseball players. Whereas the tree-trunk calves of a Football player, and the stature of Basketball players, made non-athlete Reporters easily identified. His point being that provided class-distinctions were maintained, everything was in harmony. Okay, true confession time, how many of us have become addicted to the PBS series Downton Abbey? Like the old Upstairs/Downstairs, there is a hierarchy among the characters in each society. While the Earl of Grantham and his dowager Mama may be leftovers from the 1800s, they must be treated with respect and due reverence. Perhaps even more so, downstairs in the Pantry, the proud peacock Mr. Carson rules and there is an extreme pecking order of Butler to Valet to 1st, 2nd and 3rd Footman, to Gardener, with Daisy at the bottom, able to question, provided she defer and never challenge. This caste system is what the Apostle Paul was railing against in our Call to Worship from the 2nd Chapter of 1st Corinthians. The Roman Culture, just as the Greeks, followed a hierarchy. Soldiers of the Roman Legion took what they wanted by brute force. Senators and Freemen were treated as being a different species from tradespeople, or servants or slaves. Even in Judiasm, there had come to be an order of Pharisees and Priests, over Saducees, over Scribes and Rabbis, over disciples and worshippers. Paul's intent for development of the Church was that here everyone and everything is equal. There was not need to put on airs or speak in poetry or philosophical ideas, because the mystery of faith is a reality few understood. Christian faith is intentionally illogical! There are Churches where Class and Caste, giving of presents and repayment of favors is common. Where gathering as the Community of Faith encourages greater “networking” than the Country club. There are Churches with paid soloists. Protestantism is routinely challenged for a Works-righteousness of feeling good because of success and good works. There can be a Feel-Good religion which goes on from the Beatitudes to bless those with Power and Influence and Pride. But this is not Righteous according to the Bible. The Book of Isaiah is a difficult one for people to grasp. Isaiah is a mystery, not for the masses to understand, but for those who see by faith. While written as if from one prophet, Isaiah covers a period of history of at least 200 years, during the Assyrian attacks, and the Babylonian Exile, and the return of a people who believed they would return with more than they left but instead find disillusion. The Book of Isaiah includes a cynicism from God about humanity, few of us are prepared to listen for. We hear the Vision of Isaiah's Call, paying attention to Serphim and Valentine's Cherubim crying “Holy, Holy, Holy!” with burning Coals, and we recognize the faithful response “Here Am I Send Me!” But what God says to the Prophet, is that you will preach and people will listen NOT. Their ears are stopped, their hearts hardened, people are so accustomed to their being right they are not ready to be convinced. They were faithful, 500 years before the birth of Jesus, Religion had become a cultural reinforcement, comforting people with acceptance of circumstance. Few of us in the 21st Century have ever experienced “fasting”. We hear of hunger fasts to gain attention. We recall Ghandi fasting to Call attention to a cause of Justice. In the earliest forms of Judaism, Fasting was a ritual of devotion, cleansing and humility. As an act of confession and contrition, you purged yourself of everything, not only excess, but you intentionally chose in an act of mourning and repentance to have your body consume its fat, to empty yourself until all that was left was dependence upon God for survival. However, over time, practices and traditions are maintained adapting the purpose to fit what is culturally acceptable. The Canaanite Religion included whipping and beating yourself, so as to suffer, because God responds to suffering. So perhaps by starving one's self, by doing without what we want, by complaining, God would take notice? There is a radical change between newborns and Terrible twos not only in size, but Infants cry because they are hungry, because they are dirty or uncomfortable. By age Two, a signal trips in our minds that when ever we cried we got attention, so the louder we cry, the more attention will come. I am looking for a Bumper-sticker that quotes God saying “Do you really think I like the sound of whining and complaint?” The great mystery of Isaiah, and here is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, is that the masses of people came knowing they were oppressed, knowing life is hard and we do not get what we want, when instead of being comforted they/we are challenged to quit oppressing others. We complain about our taxes instead of seeing what they accomplish. There are a current set of commercials that praise Lincoln for the Transcontinental Railroad, and Eisenhower for the Interstate Highways, when at the time people complained about their cost benefiting few in the world. No matter how many times you have registered for the Do Not Call Registry, you receive calls at dinner asking your opinion. What if, instead of hanging up, or acquiescing, we actually gave our opinion, not to the questions they ask but to what you believe? Jesus calls us to realize your power. Throughout the Scriptures, the great sin of humanity is that we created a reality without God, we lived as if we were God and there were no other. What if, instead, we chose to act as God does? Realize being God is not having whatever you want whenever you desire. Being God is not controlling life. Being God is responding to every circumstance with acts of Grace. To a people enslaved, God gives freedom. To a people who were starving God gave Manna from heaven. To a people a thousand years after receiving the Law and Commandments, Jesus describes I have not come to change the Law, but instead to fulfill the Covenant relationship between God and Humanity. To an Empire that sought to kill Jesus, he died and gave hope in Resurrection beyond the control of the Empire. What if Valentines' were not about purchasing Cards, Chocolate and Roses? Most of us are not Poets, we are not as clever as Hallmark. But if we try, we can tell those we care about how we really feel. One day this week, I went to Moe's for Lunch. Ahead of me was a Mother with two young daughters. The younger was dragging her coat, wearing a tutu, with a feather boa, dark glasses, and a sparkling tiara. When they got up to the check-out, the cashier did not look up but announced the charge, the Mom went to hand the cashier her card only to realize it had the strip across and had not yet been activated, she reached for a second card that also had the sticky strip. You could see the dilemma going through her mind... How can I pay for this? What scene are the children going to make? How insulting is the cashier going to become? When someone handed the cashier $20. It all happened so fast, neither the Mom nor the cashier knew where the $20 had come from. The drawer closed and the cashier began ringing up the next person. A simple act of Grace, that is what God gives each of us, what if we gave Grace to one another?

"Cultural Christians" February 2, 2014

Micah 6:1-8 Matthew 5:1-12 There is an old Russian proverb about a factory where anything and everything was being stolen to sell on the Black Market. They could not keep track of what was being stolen by whom, because it seemed everything was being taken by everyone. So they posted Guards at all the Exits. First thing, a man comes through with a long coat and galoshes pushing a wheelbarrow heaped high with sawdust and wood shavings. The guard requires the man to take off his coat and boots and dump the sawdust, but finds nothing. Next day same thing, and the next and the next, this goes no for a year! Finally the guard stops the man and says listen, “I know you are stealing. You know you are stealing. I promise I will not turn you in, but tell me wearing your long coat and galoshes, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with sawdust and wood shavings, what are you stealing?” And the man says LONG COATS, GALOSHES and WHEELBARROWS. We live in a culture that has forgotten our purpose. The church too has been hijacked by accommodation to the values and priorities of the culture. We are surrounded by commercials to buy and sell everything, to trade and be constantly connected. There used to be a sight gag, in movies and television, of the person being so extremely wealthy as to have a television and telephone in the commode. Yet today, who among us does not have a cell phone? Last evening during the SU game with Duke, tonight with the Superbowl and Superbowl commercials, how do you take a break? Our own Niebuhr family had grandparents who were re-knowned theologians. While Rheinhold has the name everyone remembers, Gustav's Grasndfather, Chris and Jonathan's Great Grandfather, H.Richard Niebuhr published a monumental piece titled Christ and Culture. Niebuhr's treatise was about Historical Relativism, that is a $3 Graduate School Word meaning God does not change, But our understanding of God, our revelation, our ethics, the questions we ask about God, all are determined by our historic culture, our social issues. The point is not simply that the church today struggles with the values of today, but that everyone's values and priorities can be justified by their sense of God and their being righteous. H.Richard Niebuhr's theology is often used as the basis for what became Liberal Protestant Theology tolerating Religious Pluralism. Yet his own critique, was that the Liberal Social Gospel represented a God WITHOUT WRATH, who brought a PEOPLE WITHOUT SIN into a KINGDOM WITHOUT JUDGMENT through a CHRIST WITHOUT THE CROSS. Historical Relativism corresponded to Five Understandings of History and God: Christ AGAINST Culture, History is the story of the Faithful rising against a Pagan sinful world. Christ OF Culture History is the story of the Holy Spirit's development of humanity with Values. Christ ABOVE Culture History is lived under the Law, Reason, Gospel, for an afterlife with God. Christ & Culture in PARADOX where history is the struggle of Faith and Sin, we live in the Vortex between the Promise of God / and the Fulfillment of Salvation. Christ TRANSFORMING Culture where God ACTS and Humanity responds. Not about the future or past, but God here and now Calling Us to Respond. The point being, no matter how we understand ourselves in relation to God, there is GOD. Our Old Testament Lesson today from Micah is of a Prophet defending the rights of the Poor against the excesses of the Rich, in a time in which both Rich and Poor doubted the Existence of God, but who complained about the fairness of the world. Micah describes a Courtroom Scene, where Humanity is SUING GOD for not being Fair. All Creation, All the Universe sits as Jury, Listening to our Complaint. God sits at the Table of the Accused. Why is it that Good People Suffer? Why are the Poor Not Rewarded? If There is a God, If You Are GOD, Why is there WAR? Why do the Rich get Rich, the Poor Poorer? Why is there Sin? Why are the Chosen not Given a better Life? And God responds: What have I done to You? Answer Me! How have I wearied You? Answer Me! When you were slaves, when you were no more than property bought and sold by the Egyptians, did God not rescue you, not send you Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2? Do you not remember when you were about to leave the Wilderness and enter the Promised Land, when King Balak sent Balaam to Curse you? Do you not remember that God caused Balaam's Ass to speak? Mr. Ed was a Television show, do you not recall that Balaam's Donkey forced him to Bless you instead of Cursing you? Do you not remember your own history and how God has entered in? And the people respond: “Oooops!” So, If God did these things for us, what is our freedom worth? How do we repay God for our Blessings, when we had accused God of cursing us? It is a farce, that we have made God's Command to Do Justice, Love Kindness Walk Humbly with God into a Bumpersticker! The Bible is not a Mystery Novel we can turn to the last sentence on the last page, and be assured how it all works out. Instead, when Israel recognized, When Humanity, When we stop and turn from accusing God for not being Fair, we are so caught up in our culture's values we ask: So what do we owe? A Burnt Offering? A Calf? 1,000 Rams? 10,000 Rivers of Oil? Our First Born? A few years ago, a couple came wanting their children baptized, and recognizing they were the same questions, they inquired about joining the Church. I met with them and described “We believe in God. We are called to share the resources of the Church with all wanting to receive. This is not our Table, the Table belongs to God. The Gifts of God for the People of God.” They responded “yes, but, what are your expectations for our pledge? How often do we have to come?” I replied, “We want you to want to come. We want you to feel generous, and whole, and respond.” They phoned a few days later to say, “they were not able, this cost too much. If we had said $10,000 they could have done that some how. But to have an open ended pledge of responding as you are able that was too much.” Doing Justice is personal. Not simply intellectual understanding, but having to act as we believe. Rather than blaming God, or our parents, or the Govt, or someone, Challenging the way things are. Loving Mercy does not come easily in our world. To love tenderly requires that we know confidently that we are loved, that we can be vulnerable, that we can risk seeing another person's suffering as ours. The Good Samaritan did not simply stop, he went out of his way to clean and bind the wounds, putting the victim on his own horse and paying for his care, no matter what it would cost. The father of the Prodigal and Elder children, realizing both had insulted and blamed the father, but his arms were big enough to welcome both inside. Mary and the other women standing at the foot of the cross as Jesus died, knowing that to be associated with him meant your arrest, and still 3 days later coming back. The woman with the Alabaster jar of oil, who did not simply pour out the least she had to, but broke it open to offer her anointing with everything she had, even drying his feet with her own hair. Walking Humbly with God is taking life as it comes, not as a Consumer, but living differently. There is a famous story of Footsteps in the Sand, in fact the story has become even more famous than anything in the Bible (?) But Answer Me, what if we realized not only that where there were usually two sets of prints ours and God, and in crisis there was only God carrying us... what if Walking Humbly With God we realized God was always there and only for our lifetime were we able to choose to walk with God? The Beatitudes, Jesus Sermon on the Mount is so complete, so personal and true, Jesus does not need a preacher to preach a sermon interpreting and applying his sermon. Except for us to know, that spoken in Aramaic, written in Greek, this was not in the Imperative of what we have to make out of the circumstance we are given. The Meek have to choose to inherit the Earth. But rather, where is English we have the Past, Present and Future Tense, in Greek there is the INDICATIVE, which is used when a statement or clause describes what is indicated, what is true that otherwise might have been hidden. That the Meek Will inherit the Earth, that is reality.

"Spiritually Unbalanced in Zone Unknown" January 26, 2014

Isaiah 9:1-4 Matthew 4:12-23 Several years ago, the Film The Matrix began with Keanu Reeves character suddenly waking up, bursting through the surface of a watery womblike pod to realize his entire life has been a dream, and life is lived out in the world with people. In the Lord of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Wizard explains to Frodoo Baggins that they are about to undertake a great quest, leaving behind the Village and Shire you have known, recognizing that if you return, you will never be the same, you will see life differently. Captain Phillips begins with one more journey, one more trip across the sea, when the crew see modern-day Pirates, approaching fast, and one who comes aboard declares that now instead of the leadership they had known this new man is the Captain, and Captain Phillips is Captain no longer. Joseph Campbell spent his entire academic career and life researching the origin of Archetypes, twenty years ago he published a series of books and VHS Tapes on The POWER OF MYTH. According to Joseph Campbell, every great story begins with the Hero recognizing their reality has been changed, destiny has transported them to a place where their Spiritual Center of Gravity is Off, they are in an Unknown Zone. In Zone Unknown, the past is a dim memory, you know you can never truly return to. You may return to the same table, the same office, the same company, but because you have been Called to Live differently, you can never truly return to where you were. The difficulty is that the future is unfolding more quickly than we can take in, all we can do is trust our relationships, trust ourselves, trust we are not alone, that there is God, and see where the journey takes us in Zone Unknown. As 21st Century Christians, there are phrases and stories out of context, we think are safe, we think we know, about Fishermen being Called to become Fishers of Men; we only just read parts of Isaiah 9 on Christmas Eve recognizing Christ as the light piercing the dark world. Part of the wonder of The Bible, is that verses, the words, seem ever new and fresh and different, each times we listen. We remember the Old Testament as being about King Solomon, David, Moses and Abraham. This new day, both of our readings come from the same geographic location, but in different times and cultures. Galilee is the region in Northern Israel in and around Lake Galilee, sometimes called Gennesaret, or Sea of Tiberias, near the Golan Heights. It is the fresh water lake at the lowest elevation of sea level. Being in the Rift Valley between Africa and Asia, it is known for earthquakes and tremors. The Scriptures could have said that, could have given us longitude and latitude, but how much more romantic, fable-like, mythic, to identify this by the names of the ancient tribes of Israel: The Lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, Galilee among the Gentiles. Our Old Testament reading is from a time after Abraham, Moses and David, after the time of King Solomon, but still over 700 years before the birth of the savior. There have been constant wars in this area, first with the Canaanites, more recently from the Assyrian invaders. As an outlying region, we know what it is to identify ourselves to strangers as our being from Syracuse or Buffalo, although we are neither of those. As a settled people, those of Northern Israel hid in their homes when attacked. Anything of value was hidden or sold. They lived in darkness, waiting to be invaded. They lived in fear and doubt. Waiting to be taken over by the armies of Tigleth-Piser the General of Assyria. Knowing that if we should survive the onslaught, should we survive the battle, we would then be exiles, taken out of our culture, away from home and family and all we had known, to be foreigners in a foreign land. I was in awe, hearing those from South Sudan, describe the recent conflict, confident that come what may their Nation, their culture, their people would survive. There would be and have been thousands of people killed, tens of thousands displaced, but they would survive. This passage from Isaiah names that though you live in doubt and darkness, a land of deep darkness surrounded by those who are depressed and fearful, a new time will come, a savior, hope to lead us out into a different way of being. I have known a difference between people living with dying, versus those living with fear, with loss of job, loss of a child, imprisonment, those with a loved one in danger. Each of these, fear something more, something greater than death. Where those who are dying may or may not fear death, but wonder what lies beyond, what is next. For generations, I have heard preachers use this text from Matthew on the Call of the Disciples, to preach on the Call to a great Vocation. That choosing to Fish for People instead of Fishermen, was a Calling to a Vocation a purpose in life, rather than to a job. Yet, while many preachers can describe our sense of vocation in a Career, what I have heard from people is working for this business or that, working in a field or in management. I think the difference between the two is that preachers have as a career, as a job that we train for, working with people. We have no product, in our reality there are only souls and spirits and people who know joy and sorrow. There is importance in Jesus having called Fishermen. When we imagine fishing, it involves leaving behind all that we regularly know, rising in the morning when it is dark, to go out on the water, where our center of gravity is different, where reality is different. I know that it is simply a difference in temperature, but I am continually awed witnessing the clouds of steam that rise up from the lake and dance upon the waters. When we imagine fishing, we are not working, we leave all those pressures and stresses and responsibilities behind. I recall learning to fish, as piercing the worm and dropping a line. Only later to learn to cast, first for distance, then for accuracy, of dropping the line where you wanted. And later still taking up fly fishing, to whip the line in motion and set the fly upon the water where you desired. But that reality, that escape, is not what James and John the sons of Zebedee had known, not the experience of Andrew and Simon as Fishermen. Day in day out fishing had been their work, not with a bamboo pole, or waders, or specially tied flies. Their nets were skeins, that one team would let out and the other would walk or use their boats to drag into the current, until the whole net was let out in a great circle, then drawn in capturing everything inside. If there was a hole, even one, all the fish, all the labor would be lost. But this was not only work, day in day out in all kinds of weather, but in the time of the Roman Empire, where fishermen were taxed for their bait, taxed what they caught, taxed for their boat, taxed for how many fishermen you had, paying toll upon toll, until you did not enough to feed your village, you might barely have made enough to keep your family alive one more day. Jesus Calling, was a call from existence, from day to day survival to live in the Unknown Zone following where he led. Jesus Called them to leave the daily existence they had known to live in relationship with others and with God. Instead of this being a Calling into a Vocation, what I hear is a Call to Relationship. We do not know what the future holds, we do know what will happen today or tomorrow. What we do know is we can face tomorrow together, not having to be alone. This day is our Annual Meeting. For generations, Annual Meetings whether in the Church or Social Engagements, on a Sports Team or in Business have been done in much the same manor. We Call the Body to Order, we elect officers, approve salaries, review the events and circumstance of the past year as if a Shareholders Statement of Profit and Loss. What if, we could this differently? We as a congregation are entering into a new Journey. We know where we have been. We know there are churches around the world that have been doing the same thing for year after year after year. We know there are churches that are provocative and avantgarde. My Doctoral Thesis looked at a wide variety of congregations of differing sizes, all of which were stuck and what it would take to get them unstuck. What we found essential were 4 things: First, An identity of being the Church. We are not a club, not nice people, not a business. We are Church, The Church in this place and time. Our Session wrestled long and hard with what our Mission is today. What we agreed upon seems so simple and yet revolutionary. We exist, we are called to be here, to share the resources of the Church with those wanting to receive. That means we do weddings and funerals and faith celebrations, sharing our resources as gifts of God that we can host. Second, that we have the Resources to address the problems before us and a willingness to use them. Third, that the level of trust, and level of conflict are inter-connected. The greater our level of trust, the greater the relationships the more can be done. The greater the conflict competition with one another, intent on harming others, the less. And Fourth, that we embrace that there is a future Unknown. Those organizations, especially churches which envision how long before they close, are set to close, to die. Those church who share together, living in Zone Unknown where our Spiritual Center of Gravity will be off-center and we will all feel like exiles in a foreign land, but we will not be alone, and we believe in the possibilities of our working together to change the world will change the world working together.

"Double Secret Predestination", January 19, 2014

Isaiah 49:1-7 John 1:29-42 Seven days ago, I was able to do something, preachers never do! Larry preached, and I sat in the pew to listen. We are extremely blessed as a Church. With all that this community has to offer, as healthy and vital as this congregation is, in addition to ordained and installed leaders, the Holy Spirit has gifted Lay Preachers like Larry Weiss, and Gustav Niebuhr and Mary Margaret Biss, our former Secretary Gail has gone on to become a Lay Pastor at the Church at Amboy Belle Isle. These are transitions, Calls, that have come not only to these individual, but through the nurture and faith of this Church. Listening, I heard a transition occur, that the scholars simply assumed we all accepted, without explanation. For a Century the Church has followed 2 cycles Christmas/Easter. Each having a season of preparation: Advent and Lent; a season of celebration: Christmas and Easter; and a season of reflection: the time of Epiphany and the season of Pentecost. However, about 20 years ago, a priest realized that while Christmas and Easter are actually seasons, Epiphany for 1900 years was celebrated as A Day, Shakespeare's 12th Night, and Baptism of the Lord is a Day, and Ascension a Day 40 days after Easter, and Pentecost a single day literally Pentecost = 50 Days after Passover, after the Resurrection. All the remainder, from January 7th until Ash Wednesday, and from Pentecost in early June until Thanksgiving, when we again prepare for Advent, were and again now are described as Ordinary time. Ordinary does not make these Secular or Profane days, or Tax days, but the Latin “Ordinal” identified days for the ringing of bells and prayer 7 times a day. That transition, from seasons of Epiphany and Pentecost, to only a Day for each does not make them cease to exist, but identifies anew what each represents and the importance of our lives. In 2008, Scientists reclassified our Solar System, and Pluto which was the furthest from our sun, ceased to be a planet. Not that it was destroyed, or its moons spun off in space, just simply that the Dog Planet was now too small to have the purpose of being a planet. It is this same re-purposing, Calling anew, that is described in Isaiah 49. In American culture one of our most dearly held beliefs is in Destiny. The American Dream, that every person has within their being the ability to advance beyond their station in life, to become far more. We have come to believe American Exceptionalism is easy. How many Reality Shows do we now have, where all it takes is applying, in order to be discovered, to be Famous, or Infamous? To be America's Idol, America's Got Talent, The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, Who wants to be A Millionaire? All are based on the belief that within us is a superstar, a hero nobody knew. In 3 weeks, each of us will transcend to miraculously know more about sticking a landing, speed skating, curling and snowboarding than any of the Olympic judges. Our dreams are a coping mechanism, that like Walter Middy, inside each one of us is a polished arrow, a secret weapon waiting to be called. Malcom Gladwell the author of books like the Tipping Point, Blink, The Story of Success, and also David & Goliath, claims that to master anything takes one simple thing, 10,000 hours of doing nothing else. Unfortunately, few if any of us have that devotion, that is what sets some apart. But the point of Isaiah 49 is that for the Exiles of Israel wanting, praying, wishing, hoping to be claimed by God, to be that polished arrow in God's quiver, suddenly to realize that the point, the whole point of your life, the purpose of our Nation as Elect, is not for our own power, prestige or authority. The people of God are here for Salvation of the rest of the World! The common misunderstanding about us as Presbyterians is that from Calvin, we believe in Predestination, or even Double Predestination. Let me disillusion you to say "No, What we believe in is Double Secret Predestination." Predestination, at the time of Calvin was belief in the Moral Depravity of humankind. Left to our devices we are selfish and sin. Double Predestination, is that God does not leave us alone, God offers Grace to All the World that you can turn your life around and find Salvation. The Secret part of Double Secret Predestination is not that some are elect to receive and some are not, but the secret is that in caring about others we are redeemed. The Gospel of John is different from all the others. Not because he tells parables the others do not, although he does. Not because he has more miracles, though he does. John's Gospel was written long after the others. Because of this The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus silencing Satan until Jesus can figure out what it means to be Christ; the Gospel of Matthew begins Jesus' Ministry offering the Sermon on the Mount; Luke begins with Jesus preaching a passage from Isaiah that today this prophecy is fulfilled. John begins with John The Baptist proclaiming Jesus is the Lamb, and Jesus asking the disciples, asking each of us as readers: What do you seek? What are you looking for in life? It is a question worth wrestling with for us as individuals, as professionals, in our marriages, as parents, as a community, as the Church? What will make us happy? What do you seek? Here the Gospel of John gives us two answers. The disciples responded to Jesus “Where are you staying?” When I was learning to read Greek, we psychoanalyzed this, that two of John's disciples heard John on two occasions heard him identify Jesus as The Lamb of God, so they hid behind walls and corners and barrels, watching him, and when they got caught following Jesus, he asked What do you seek? And they responded “Where are you staying?” But the point is more complicated than where is the best hotel in town. In Greek, the phrase is “mevnw” which has a sense of permanence, like David wanting to build a permanent Temple to worship God... Where can we find you when we need, where do you endure forever? Like the identity “Emmanuel” prophesied in Advent, Jesus says “Come See”. But also, the Gospel describes Andrew went and found his brother and called him. One of the ways we find faith, is in sharing faith with others. Christian faith is not private or exclusive. One of the core beliefs of Christian faith from the very beginning is Hospitality. But the Romans practiced Hospitality, they invited influential people to their homes, in hope of being invited to their homes in reciprocity. The Greeks practiced Hospitality, believing that you needed to welcome strangers, and offer them a hearty meal and place to rest before asking their name, because in this way you may entertain Angels or Gods. Christians instead practiced a Promiscuous Hospitality. Christians intentionally cared for and served those who were excluded, the poor, the prostitutes, the sinners, and here we are not spiritual-izing this to say “Those who have prostituted themselves after things” or “those who have stumbled and sinned without knowing.” And these were not invited because they needed faith more than anyone else. Salvation is for all the world if we will accept it. Jesus intentionally called and invited those who were marginalized and exiled by society, the Lepers, the Blind, the Lame, and welcomed them as being the ones we are called to serve. How often we are invited to events, to groups. At least once a day, I receive a Facebook invite to join a Group, to Like what someone said. In the mail, we receive keys to a car, we receive invitations to come to an opening. I am told the Kiwanis give out awards for who invite the most new visitors. Would that not be a great assignment for us as a Church? To live extending Promiscuous Hospitality.

"Connecting Particles and Systems" January 5, 2014

Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12 How many times have we seen the Creche in front of the Library, or witnessed a Christmas Pageant? Before opening the bulletin for this morning's worship, many of us knew tomorrow is the 6th of January, this is 12th Night, the arrival of the 3 Kings, completion of the Christmas story with the star and wise-men. There are some images so ingrained into us, we imagine we know what they are all about without listening to the Scriptures, without hearing the sermon, without considering our faith. Isaiah proclaimed “Arise, Shine, For your light has come, the glory of the Lord is upon Thee! For behold Darkness shall cover the earth, Gross darkness shall cover the people, but the Lord shall arise, and God's glory shall be seen upon You!” There is a subtlety to this passage, often lost to us. As Central New Yorkers we know what is to swell in darkness! Yesterday, there was a great orange ball in the sky, several of us were so unaccustomed to seeing the sun, we imagined it had to do with SU Basketball. There is a wonderful irony to our circumstance, we have come to know that living with so many cloudy days, so little sunshine, we are naturally deficient in Vitamin D, so what does it mean when we are deficient in seeing the Son? When we have lived our lives focused upon what we can do what we accomplish, what we can control? All Addiction programs are based on the 12 Step Model, the first step of which is admission that we are powerless over our addictions, we are not in control. A frightening mood has been undermining our nation, our world. For the first time in hundreds of years many have come to realize that our children will not have the opportunities we had. We implicitly believed the world would always get better! Where Grandparents had survived the Great Depression, their children had fought for Freedom, fought against tyranny and oppression to create a world without war. The next generation in many cases were the first in their family to go to college. But economically, and in terms of pollution, politically, and socially the world we pass to our children may not be as bright and hopeful. However, there is another side to that. I am very proud of our children, but to be honest, I really do not know what they do. One is in the field of “magnetellurics”hypothesizing possibilities based on Plate Tectonics, theoretically using the heat of earth's core as an energy source. Through him, I have come to learn that light, is not only a brightness, but can be measured as a point, particles, a spot, a line, a ray, or a wave. Light can be bent and both reflected and refracted. And depending upon our unique position in relation to the light, we may see differing colors. Truthfully, I do not understand. While my grandfather was Professor of Engineering and our son has advanced degrees in Optical Engineering, I was one of those who in Geometry Class, understood that there were Givens, so to arrive at the answer made up Rules. Perhaps that is the clue! Not that we make up phony rules, not that we can control the world and give to our children gold and frankincense and myrrh. But that we have given the world our children! The world has a future because it did not stop with you and me. I recall growing up, my parents discussing a Generation Gap, and they could not understand or agree with our music, our ideas, our hairstyles. But we do not need to agree, or to adopt as our own, or to prevent, but to trust. Isaiah's point is not that "God has shined upon you," but THROUGH you to the world. Our role, our purpose in life, is not to be the star, not to be the ones who control everything that is to come. Instead, God shines through each one of us, to bring the world to know God cares. The Gospel of Matthew's archaic Story of the Wise-men is incredibly appropriate for today. Because the point is that the Savior comes to the world through Judaism. Prophesied by Angels, in the lineage of David, born in Bethlehem. However, those who are not Jewish, recognize the signs from Nature, from Science, from Wisdom, all of which point them to seek the Savior. We live in a time of Alternative Spiritualities. Prior to this, throughout history, there was very little interaction across religions. Marrying outside your faith, might mean marrying an Episcopalian, or a Methodist, or a Baptist. Couples who did not marry someone from their own congregation had to choose which religious system to raise their children. Today, if our children marry, they are as likely to find someone who is B'hai or Hindu, or Atheist. Many of us find Meditation and Tai Chi important to our overall balance. The story of the Kings, is that those who come from systems outside Judaism, all recognize the need for a Messiah sent from God, and leave everything to come. This passage emphasizes that those who come from other traditions, other parts of the world may be willing and able to risk trusting, where King Herod, who was put in place by the Roman Empire saw only a threat to his power and identity. They left home and family, and traveled across the world, seeking a Savior. King Herod, when he heard of this, tried to murder the one who threatened his power, and when he was thwarted, he killed anyone and everyone who might be a potential threat. Are we willing to trust the future to be in the hands of another generation, those from another culture whom we may never understand? OR, do we guard and protect and fear that others will not recognize our power system, will act differently? There is another, implicit issue in this story. For the Star led the Wise-men to King Herod. Had Mary and Joseph not had the baby; had the wise-men not come to Herod, he would not have killed all the male children under two years of age. Herod learned from the Wise-men that a King was being born. But Herod, even with his authority and power, did not know where. He consulted his advisors, they did not immediately know and needed to look up the answers. Finding a passage from Micah 5 that said he was to be born in Bethlehem, the Scribes reported this to King Herod, who told where to the Kings. They went and paid him homage. The point of faith IS NOT that a Savior comes to protect the world from all evil. But rather that in the midst of the evil of this world, God does provide a Savior. Because God does, there are perhaps worse things that happen, but also the possibility for all Creation to be brought to God. Finally, there is a curiosity about this story. Over time, there has been speculation who these three were and what they represent, as well as where they went afterward. Like Shakespeare's three ages of humanity, we have given them identities one very young, one in mid-life, one aged. One from East Africa, one from Babylon, one from Persia. We have even given them names of Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar. While there have been creative stories of the impact upon each for having seen the child in the Manger, no one knows what happened to them. The point being, that it was not about what they got out of their quest, out of witnessing the Savior. They gave everything they had and laid it before him. In fact, according to the Bible, we do not actually know how many wise-men there were, only that there were three gifts: Gold representing the Gift for a King, Frankincense the Gift for a High Priest, Myrrh the oil for Anointing the Dead. Perhaps there were four Wise-men, or Five, or Twenty, we do not know. What the Bible does say, is that entering, before presenting their gifts they each did something, they GAVE HIM HOMAGE. If they had dropped their gifts at the door, it would have seemed like their Admission Fee for seeing the Savior and you have to have something to see him. If they had presented their gifts upon seeing him, it could have appeared like visiting Presidents and Kings appearing before an Equal presenting gifts to demonstrate their power. Instead, before anything else, the Wise-men knelt in homage and prayed.