2 Samuel 1:17-27
Mark 5:1-21
There is a double-edged sword in the circumstances of our lives.
This day, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole community will turn out to celebrate in the park at Graduation. We celebrate and cheer accomplishments. Yet, more even than the fulfillment of their basic public education, this is a turning point. As names are called out, as the tassels are moved from one side to the other, as they leap from the break-wall into the lake, as they add up scholarships so as to afford college, as they pack the family car to be oriented to the next stage of their lives, a part of each of us grieve that they are no longer our babies. Childhood has ended, as they soar from the nests they have known.
As much today as we celebrate and give thanks to God for the births and lives among us of Allen and Evelyn; for Will and for Katheryn, there is a loss of their being the only child of their parents. There is a change for Tracy and Jim, for Kristen and Mark that their lives will never be the same. The human mind has this amazing gift of amnesia, that they probably cannot recall life before Ace and Evelyn, let alone, before the birth of children, when it was just the two of them.
Life is double-edged, there is joy and celebration and claiming of what is new that come at a cost. We are a culture that denies GRIEF, that avoids mourning. How ironic, that Memorials which represent TRADITION would be so Counter-Cultural! Because of our avoidance for what is real, and personal, when there are occasions for public affirmation of the death of celebrities, we are caught up and cannot look away, from mourning for Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcet and Ed McMahon, we have endured over a year of daily coverage of the murder of Kayleigh Anthony and her mother though arrested will not come to trial for at least another year. These are not heroes, they are celebrities from whom we cannot look away. Because if we should look out of our periphery, if we do not remain focused on what is safe, we might recognize ourselves.
This week nearly 150 years after the War of Northern Aggression, the War of Southern Cessation, the Civil between the States, among all the Legislation that is approved, there was finally a Bill that we as a Nation acknowledge and apologize for Slavery. A Century and a half, a Civil war that costs more American lives than any other war, and finally we can name that the buying and selling of human lives was wrong. Our legislators were careful to include, that nothing is owed because of this, but Slavery in the Home of the Free was wrong.
Among all the monuments in our Nations Capital, actually among all the monuments in all the world, the most visited is the Viet Nam War Memorial. Between all the pristine Marble columned temples, a twisting jagged scar cuts through the lush green grass. Upon its polished surfaces are row upon row of all the names of all those who died. The beauty of the stone polished to a mirrored finish, is that looking at the names, reading them one after another, we witness ourselves reflected, their names written across our faces. This is a part of our Nation's history from which we have not yet healed. We covered the wounds and moved on. We refused to look at that time, or to dwell on the circumstances. But the problem of a wound untreated, covered up, where air and light cannot get in, is that the wound festers and becomes infected. This is true, not only of cuts and burns to the skin, but emotional wounds as well, we need light and air and claiming the reality in order to heal, in order to finally move on.
We tend to remember the Old Testament David as the Shepherd boy, who played the harp, who killed Goliath, who married the wife of Uriah, and who was the best loved King of Israel. But what we ignore, that David would not allow the nation to forget, was that he became King through the deaths of King Saul and the King's son/David's closest friend Jonathan. David had killed Goliath of the Philistines and went to live in the palace of King Saul as a trusted intimate part of their family. After a series of outbursts, in a rage King Saul through a spear at David, who recognizing his life was in danger fled, fled to live as leader of the Philistines. And David and the Philistine Army went into battle against the Warrior King Saul and Jonathan and the army of Israel. And David WON, which is to say that Israel lost and was conquered. The Second Scroll of Samuel does not begin with Triumphal Consecration and anointing of the new King; but rather, the beginning of the Second Scroll of Samuel, last among the Leaders known as Judges, begins with a remembrance of battle. There is acknowledgement by the victor, that the Sword of King Saul never retreated. The arrows of the bow of Jonathan perpetually struck flesh. And the King who sits on the throne of Israel and the Philistines, does so fully aware of the double-edged nature of circumstance.
The story of the Healing of the Geresene Demoniac is almost more like a PARABLE than a healing. In the Gospel of Mark there are code phrases. On the one side of the sea were the Jewish villages, on the other side of the sea were the Roman and Greek Gentile Cities, so when ever we read phrases like Jesus went in a boat to the other side, it is reference to a switch from Judaism to Gentiles. For a Jewish audience, listening to this story, pigs were non-Kosher, vile beasts, so for the evil spirits to come out of the man, to go into the swine, seemed too appropriate. And once the evil spirits go into the swine, the pigs are so tormented as to run off a cliff into the sea, which we remember from Genesis represented Chaos. But also, when Jesus asked a name for the man, what did he say? Our Name is LEGION. The LEGION was the Roman Mercenary Army, who fought among themselves, who raped and murdered and stole, because they were powerful. A Legion numbered 2000 to 6000 soldiers. This is a man rejected by society. The tombs were not a prison or hospital, these were desolate caves, sink holes in the ground, where the corpses of the dead had been buried. He was chained up there, so as to set apart from decent people. Yet he routinely broke the chains and shackles, the torment within him was so strong.
But the point of this as a PARABLE is the reaction of the people. Imagine there is this one, you have known about and tolerated all his life. No one claims him, no one wants him, he is a tormented soul who screams, tears his clothing to shreds, he is filthy and disgusting and dangerous. They have repeatedly chained him up and left him to die with the corpses of those already dead. Jesus comes and heals him. GOOD NEWS, but the other side of the sword, now how do we relate to him? We knew how to fear him. We knew how to chain him up, to ignore him as if dead. But to relate to him as healed, requires something from the community, not just from the man or Jesus. He wanted to go with Jesus and the disciples, but instead he is sent to go to the very people who rejected and mistreated him.
Fifteen years ago, in another community, the former pastor's widow called up one day. She described that their son had served in the Viet Nam War, and had been Missing in Action. For the remainder of her husband's life this had been an unresolved wound. Recently, through Government channels, they had learned that their son had died in battle. For over twenty years, the Army had collected a salary for him, in the event that MIA, he might come home. Now they had given her this money, along with the knowledge her son was dead. She asked if a Memorial could be established for $5,000 to remember her son who had grown up in the church? A month later, a family was going to Washington and volunteered to do a grave-rubbing of his name off the Memorial. We listened to stories of their family. That prior to marriage the mother had wanted to be a Missionary, but she had married a minister and raised a son instead. We also contacted the International Missions Offices of the Church, and recommended that the $5000 be used to create a Missionary position in Viet Nam. The mother was so delighted, she increased this to $50,000.
This week, as we prepared for Dr. Eastman's memorial, his brother called up from Texas. He described having visited our website, that his church wanted to create a mission memorial.
So this day, as we cheer the Graduates, we also weep a tear. As we Baptize and affirm life, we know we each are baptized into his death and resurrection!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Fear and Assurances A Different Response June 21, 2009
I Samuel 17
Mark 4:35-41
PEACE.
BE STILL
KNOW THERE IS A GOD WHO LOVES YOU.
On September 11th 2001, on a surreal bright blue day, terrorists struck fear into the world.
Had it been storms and fog, we might not have been in such shock as the Today Show and Good Morning America televised as Airline planes rammed into buildings, Skyscrapers designed to defy gravity crashed to the earth, Offices filled with people trading in economies were crushed.
On Father's Day 5 years ago, we awoke to news that there had been a Drunk Driving Death, and the parties we all had whispered about and knew not how to stop, suddenly were very present.
We had each been taught to invest in the stock market and the real estate market as a hedge against inflation. Suddenly everything of economic value dissolved, and fear created fear and CASH BECAME KING.
It is hard for us to remember the time before.
We have lived with one Gulf War after another.
Companies so afraid of their stockholders' dividends they raid their retirees' pensions and lay-off those who are the means of earning. The word BAILOUT has been added to our vernacular.
Like the family of one with a chronic illness, we long for them to become healthy and quit being ill so we can return to our routine.
Whether, terrorism, or war, stock market bubbles or housing assessments, cancer, responsibility for our children and for our parents, we know FEAR too well.
The question is how to win? How to stop being intimidated and overcome by our fears?
In order to do so, we must quit trying, quit trying to be like everyone else, and choose to act for a greater hope.
The story of David and Goliath is so much a part of our culture, we know it to be the story of an underdog, Rocky Balboa against Apollo Creed the Heavy Weight Champion of the World; a dozen years ago the American Women's Gymnastic Team against the Gymnasts of the USSR; anyone who challenged the Reagan, Clinton or Bush Families in the last several elections. But we need to take the Bible out of cultural adaptation. This is not simply, “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth”, “Slow and Steady wins the race”, the “LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS”.
The context here, is that the People of Israel, the Holy Nation of God, desired to be like everybody else, they wanted a great army others would fear, they wanted strength and force and power, they wanted to wage wars and win, they wanted a king because other nations had kings. The people put their faith in Saul who was the biggest and most powerful among them, most like the bullies, kings and heroes of other nations. Then the Nation of Israel went into battle against the Cannaanite Nation of the Philistines, the weapons and army of Israel fighting against the weapons and armies of the world, Saul who was the biggest and most powerful in Israel, a man like the heroes of other nations, went into battle against the Giant Goliath of Gath.
The story of David and Goliath is told on four different levels,
David challenges Goliath; doing so,
David also challenges King Saul who is like Goliath in size, power, weapons and priorities;
David challenges his Family, his older brothers, his whole Nation, rebuking them for being afraid, for allowing this uncircumcised Philistine to insult the Living God;
and YHWH, the God of Israel, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who SAVED the people from Egypt's Pharaoh to the Promised Land, went into battle against all the gods and idols of Goliath. Goliath's gods represented FEAR and INTIMIDATION, Gods of War, Gods of Power, Stability hiding Behind what everyone fears.
Painstakingly, the story illustrates that everyone wants David to put on the ARMOR of WAR, to be protected in DEFENSES of BRONZE, Helmet, Chain-male, Breastplate, Boots, Shield Sword. But the child David cannot even walk hidden under all these defenses.
SO instead he goes to the stream, the WADI, and takes 5 Smooth Stones and his Sling.
Attempting to use fear, Goliath intimidates and bullies, calling out insults, planting images of what will happen when David is helpless. But, without defenses, David charges Goliath and strikes first, killing him with one blow, without even having a sword in his hand.
I don't know, personally, I never identified with stories of Ancient Bronze Warriors, of shepherd boys with a slingshot, but the story from Mark of Jesus by the Sea of Galilee is much like Skaneateles Lake. Nearly all of us have known days of relaxing on a boat. Feeling the waves rock and comfort you to sleep. We also know too well, that the Water and Weather can change very quickly, becoming frightening, causing us to fear our death.
Demonstrating the POWER OF FEAR, Mark narrates that the Disciples were Fishermen, not Shepherds and Carpenters, but professionals acquainted with the sea.
They had their skills, which they tried, becoming more and more lost.
They had seen Jesus accomplish Miracles, they had each been called and heard him teach/preach.
They claimed him to be A Messiah, the Son of God. The problem with Messiahs is that rarely can they measure up to what we want of them. We have a way of killing our Messiahs and our Wounded. Faith in Messiahs cannot match our intimidation and fears.
They awaken Jesus, demanding to know “DO YOU NOT CARE?”
But rather than our having made him a Messiah, Jesus is God in our midst, God with us, who does care.
He commands the Wind, he calms the Sea.
Once there is PEACE, he does not go back to sleep, he does not ask where they are going and what's next, he challenges each disciple to question: THINGS WE TAKEN FOR GRANTED, OUR NORMAL.
DO YOU BELIEVE, WILL YOU TRUST ? or
Will we be buffeted by fears, ignoring what is going on all around us, until intimidated then seeking defenses?
We each of us have our patterns that are routine to us.
For some, we take for granted that there will be screaming, others would die a thousand deaths rather than let someone know what was really going on with them.
We cannot live in fear. We cannot live believing enemies are out to get us, that airplanes will fall and buildings collapse. But neither can we ignore circumstances, we cannot ignore our children. There are stories that Date-Rape Drugs have been used in our community.
The question is not whether such things could happen, or who is responsible, but what we will do in faith, how we react.
Mark 4:35-41
PEACE.
BE STILL
KNOW THERE IS A GOD WHO LOVES YOU.
On September 11th 2001, on a surreal bright blue day, terrorists struck fear into the world.
Had it been storms and fog, we might not have been in such shock as the Today Show and Good Morning America televised as Airline planes rammed into buildings, Skyscrapers designed to defy gravity crashed to the earth, Offices filled with people trading in economies were crushed.
On Father's Day 5 years ago, we awoke to news that there had been a Drunk Driving Death, and the parties we all had whispered about and knew not how to stop, suddenly were very present.
We had each been taught to invest in the stock market and the real estate market as a hedge against inflation. Suddenly everything of economic value dissolved, and fear created fear and CASH BECAME KING.
It is hard for us to remember the time before.
We have lived with one Gulf War after another.
Companies so afraid of their stockholders' dividends they raid their retirees' pensions and lay-off those who are the means of earning. The word BAILOUT has been added to our vernacular.
Like the family of one with a chronic illness, we long for them to become healthy and quit being ill so we can return to our routine.
Whether, terrorism, or war, stock market bubbles or housing assessments, cancer, responsibility for our children and for our parents, we know FEAR too well.
The question is how to win? How to stop being intimidated and overcome by our fears?
In order to do so, we must quit trying, quit trying to be like everyone else, and choose to act for a greater hope.
The story of David and Goliath is so much a part of our culture, we know it to be the story of an underdog, Rocky Balboa against Apollo Creed the Heavy Weight Champion of the World; a dozen years ago the American Women's Gymnastic Team against the Gymnasts of the USSR; anyone who challenged the Reagan, Clinton or Bush Families in the last several elections. But we need to take the Bible out of cultural adaptation. This is not simply, “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth”, “Slow and Steady wins the race”, the “LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS”.
The context here, is that the People of Israel, the Holy Nation of God, desired to be like everybody else, they wanted a great army others would fear, they wanted strength and force and power, they wanted to wage wars and win, they wanted a king because other nations had kings. The people put their faith in Saul who was the biggest and most powerful among them, most like the bullies, kings and heroes of other nations. Then the Nation of Israel went into battle against the Cannaanite Nation of the Philistines, the weapons and army of Israel fighting against the weapons and armies of the world, Saul who was the biggest and most powerful in Israel, a man like the heroes of other nations, went into battle against the Giant Goliath of Gath.
The story of David and Goliath is told on four different levels,
David challenges Goliath; doing so,
David also challenges King Saul who is like Goliath in size, power, weapons and priorities;
David challenges his Family, his older brothers, his whole Nation, rebuking them for being afraid, for allowing this uncircumcised Philistine to insult the Living God;
and YHWH, the God of Israel, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who SAVED the people from Egypt's Pharaoh to the Promised Land, went into battle against all the gods and idols of Goliath. Goliath's gods represented FEAR and INTIMIDATION, Gods of War, Gods of Power, Stability hiding Behind what everyone fears.
Painstakingly, the story illustrates that everyone wants David to put on the ARMOR of WAR, to be protected in DEFENSES of BRONZE, Helmet, Chain-male, Breastplate, Boots, Shield Sword. But the child David cannot even walk hidden under all these defenses.
SO instead he goes to the stream, the WADI, and takes 5 Smooth Stones and his Sling.
Attempting to use fear, Goliath intimidates and bullies, calling out insults, planting images of what will happen when David is helpless. But, without defenses, David charges Goliath and strikes first, killing him with one blow, without even having a sword in his hand.
I don't know, personally, I never identified with stories of Ancient Bronze Warriors, of shepherd boys with a slingshot, but the story from Mark of Jesus by the Sea of Galilee is much like Skaneateles Lake. Nearly all of us have known days of relaxing on a boat. Feeling the waves rock and comfort you to sleep. We also know too well, that the Water and Weather can change very quickly, becoming frightening, causing us to fear our death.
Demonstrating the POWER OF FEAR, Mark narrates that the Disciples were Fishermen, not Shepherds and Carpenters, but professionals acquainted with the sea.
They had their skills, which they tried, becoming more and more lost.
They had seen Jesus accomplish Miracles, they had each been called and heard him teach/preach.
They claimed him to be A Messiah, the Son of God. The problem with Messiahs is that rarely can they measure up to what we want of them. We have a way of killing our Messiahs and our Wounded. Faith in Messiahs cannot match our intimidation and fears.
They awaken Jesus, demanding to know “DO YOU NOT CARE?”
But rather than our having made him a Messiah, Jesus is God in our midst, God with us, who does care.
He commands the Wind, he calms the Sea.
Once there is PEACE, he does not go back to sleep, he does not ask where they are going and what's next, he challenges each disciple to question: THINGS WE TAKEN FOR GRANTED, OUR NORMAL.
DO YOU BELIEVE, WILL YOU TRUST ? or
Will we be buffeted by fears, ignoring what is going on all around us, until intimidated then seeking defenses?
We each of us have our patterns that are routine to us.
For some, we take for granted that there will be screaming, others would die a thousand deaths rather than let someone know what was really going on with them.
We cannot live in fear. We cannot live believing enemies are out to get us, that airplanes will fall and buildings collapse. But neither can we ignore circumstances, we cannot ignore our children. There are stories that Date-Rape Drugs have been used in our community.
The question is not whether such things could happen, or who is responsible, but what we will do in faith, how we react.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Verb: "Church", June 7, 2009
Isaiah 6:1-8
John 3:1-17
Imagine, that everything you thought you knew... everything you were certain of, suddenly was revealed as only a window through which to perceive, what is real! Not a mater of right or wrong, our perspective was simply far too small.
Isaiah was the Great High Priest of the Nation of Israel, who presided over the funeral of King Uzziah at Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Imagine the opulence, the wealth and majesty, the power of all the heads of all the nations come together, at the fulfillment of a King's life,... And yet, at that moment, Isaiah opens his eyes to see that all the wealth and power of Nations and Empires is as nothing compared with the glory of God.
Too often we take phrases from Scripture out of context and miss their importance. We recall Isaiah standing in the Temple of God, and saying “HERE I AM, SEND ME”. What the story describes, is that when Isaiah saw himself in the Temple of God, he was filled with humility and remorse, saying “Woe is me! For I am a Sinner, a Mortal Man of Unclean Lips; who lives among a people who are profane.”
As if going through a metal detector, Isaiah's sinfulness triggers one of the HOLY Creatures of God, a 6 Winged Seraphim, to take up a burning coal from the altar of burnt offerings and touch it to my lips, burning away, cauterizing the flesh of my sin. Cleansed, my flesh burned raw and new, Isaiah responds saying “Here am I Send Me” and God does, but not with a Priestly Blessing and Benediction. Instead like some macabre nightmare to know that you are sent by Almighty God, to a world so much in need, and to learn that the world is deaf, unable to hear, unable even to listen.
Nicodemus was a learned Pharisee, a respected Leader in the community, who knew Jesus to be sent from God. Yet, as smart as he is, as intellectual and wise, he sees only one dimension to what Jesus describes and misses the point. The phrase Jesus uses is that a person must be born “anothen”, a Greek word that can mean “Born From Above” or “ Born Anew” or “Born Again”. Nicodemus takes this to mean Physical Birth a Second time, and both practically and in a Freudian analysis, he questions how a man could enter his own mother's womb a second time? The phrase ANOTHEN is intentionally so ambiguous, that we cannot translate one way or another, without biasing and flattening the understanding. Some have tried to say this is about being “BORN AGAIN” as an individual spiritual conversion; while others have stated that when Christ died on the Cross this was GENESIS' CREATION ANEW, like Isaiah professing I am a Sinner among sinners, Jesus died on the cross for us all and God reformed the world; and still others interpret that “BORN FROM ABOVE” has to do with God and the mystic, holy, divine descending to be present among us. There was a time, when we tried objectively to reduce everything to single absolute meanings, but Jesus face to face conversation with Nicodemus is intended to be heard in all these different dimensions simultaneously, as well as the reality that Jesus spoke face to face with one of those who later would put him to death, who later still would plead on behalf of Jesus' disciples.
In each of these passages what the believer thought they knew, what we thought we understood, suddenly becomes something far larger. From the late 1600s until the 1980s, in both the Natural and Social Sciences we were taught The Scientific Method, that there are known Laws. There is an objective Reality, from which we can postulate THEORIES, and in order to test a Theory we create a HYPOTHESIS, we operationalize the hypothesis with METHODOLOGY and observe the results, which then prove or disprove the hypothesis, creating new understandings of what is real. But in the early 1980s a new Theory was advanced, that always, in every experiment there are circumstances which do not fit, and while in earlier times we discarded those which did not fit as spurious, in truth we really could not prove anything and everything becomes subjective. All we can do is to describe that in our experience, at this time, this seems to be the reality. For those of us trained in Scientific Method this was as bizarre as Isaiah being told to Preach and Prophesy because the people will not listen, for Nicodemus to be told that he must be born Anothen, everything is possible and therefore nothing is absolute.
A decade ago, my parents began downsizing. After amassing a lifetime of stuff, they began sorting and determining what things might be given to whom. I recall being led to my father's study, where he gestured to all the books on the shelves and asked “IS ANY OF THIS OF VALUE?” On the shelves were Keats and Shelley, Browning, Shakespeare, he had had Tillich and the Niebuhrs as professors so had their first editions with notes. But what he was asking was not only whether the books had value, but whether his life had, and at the same time whether this had any personal value for us. In recent months we have sorted through all the left behind belongings, the collections of a lifetime. In the process we have come to realize there are two ways to live: one is to collect and gather and save all the treasures of a lifetime. The other is that during that lifetime, when we see something another might enjoy, we gift it to them. A civic group in our community has been collecting children's books, that they will pay the shipping charges to send around the world to children wanting to read. Imagine your Harry Potters, which gave you joy the first two times your read them, being sent to a child somewhere else in the world so that they might use them to learn to read.
For hundreds of years, we have built Churches, as a noun, a thing to be created, to be used, having place, tangible, with beginning and ending, CHURCH. What if CHURCH is not a Noun, not a thing to be created, but is instead a VERB, that we together as a community: Church. We Baptize, we Pray, we Celebrate, we Memorialize, we Remember, we Sing, in all these active verbs, we believe, we CHURCH. Faith is not a static thing, not an absolute, to be created, to be valued, to be used, to be discarded. Church/ Faith/ the Community of Believers who serve one another LIVE.
This day, we celebrate and share Communion. NOT as a thing of Bread and Wine, but as a sharing of ourselves. A realization like Isaiah, that I am an unclean sinner, with unwashed hands and profane lips who dwells among a people of profane lips and unwashed hands. Who upon realizing this, know that our sins are forgiven and gone as if cauterized pure. We share Communion as a conversation like Nicodemus and Jesus, recognizing we can never fully understand, but part of communion is in sharing with God through Jesus Christ. We celebrate and share Communion not only as a sacred ritual of the past, but as a meal that replenishes and makes us new.
John 3:1-17
Imagine, that everything you thought you knew... everything you were certain of, suddenly was revealed as only a window through which to perceive, what is real! Not a mater of right or wrong, our perspective was simply far too small.
Isaiah was the Great High Priest of the Nation of Israel, who presided over the funeral of King Uzziah at Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Imagine the opulence, the wealth and majesty, the power of all the heads of all the nations come together, at the fulfillment of a King's life,... And yet, at that moment, Isaiah opens his eyes to see that all the wealth and power of Nations and Empires is as nothing compared with the glory of God.
Too often we take phrases from Scripture out of context and miss their importance. We recall Isaiah standing in the Temple of God, and saying “HERE I AM, SEND ME”. What the story describes, is that when Isaiah saw himself in the Temple of God, he was filled with humility and remorse, saying “Woe is me! For I am a Sinner, a Mortal Man of Unclean Lips; who lives among a people who are profane.”
As if going through a metal detector, Isaiah's sinfulness triggers one of the HOLY Creatures of God, a 6 Winged Seraphim, to take up a burning coal from the altar of burnt offerings and touch it to my lips, burning away, cauterizing the flesh of my sin. Cleansed, my flesh burned raw and new, Isaiah responds saying “Here am I Send Me” and God does, but not with a Priestly Blessing and Benediction. Instead like some macabre nightmare to know that you are sent by Almighty God, to a world so much in need, and to learn that the world is deaf, unable to hear, unable even to listen.
Nicodemus was a learned Pharisee, a respected Leader in the community, who knew Jesus to be sent from God. Yet, as smart as he is, as intellectual and wise, he sees only one dimension to what Jesus describes and misses the point. The phrase Jesus uses is that a person must be born “anothen”, a Greek word that can mean “Born From Above” or “ Born Anew” or “Born Again”. Nicodemus takes this to mean Physical Birth a Second time, and both practically and in a Freudian analysis, he questions how a man could enter his own mother's womb a second time? The phrase ANOTHEN is intentionally so ambiguous, that we cannot translate one way or another, without biasing and flattening the understanding. Some have tried to say this is about being “BORN AGAIN” as an individual spiritual conversion; while others have stated that when Christ died on the Cross this was GENESIS' CREATION ANEW, like Isaiah professing I am a Sinner among sinners, Jesus died on the cross for us all and God reformed the world; and still others interpret that “BORN FROM ABOVE” has to do with God and the mystic, holy, divine descending to be present among us. There was a time, when we tried objectively to reduce everything to single absolute meanings, but Jesus face to face conversation with Nicodemus is intended to be heard in all these different dimensions simultaneously, as well as the reality that Jesus spoke face to face with one of those who later would put him to death, who later still would plead on behalf of Jesus' disciples.
In each of these passages what the believer thought they knew, what we thought we understood, suddenly becomes something far larger. From the late 1600s until the 1980s, in both the Natural and Social Sciences we were taught The Scientific Method, that there are known Laws. There is an objective Reality, from which we can postulate THEORIES, and in order to test a Theory we create a HYPOTHESIS, we operationalize the hypothesis with METHODOLOGY and observe the results, which then prove or disprove the hypothesis, creating new understandings of what is real. But in the early 1980s a new Theory was advanced, that always, in every experiment there are circumstances which do not fit, and while in earlier times we discarded those which did not fit as spurious, in truth we really could not prove anything and everything becomes subjective. All we can do is to describe that in our experience, at this time, this seems to be the reality. For those of us trained in Scientific Method this was as bizarre as Isaiah being told to Preach and Prophesy because the people will not listen, for Nicodemus to be told that he must be born Anothen, everything is possible and therefore nothing is absolute.
A decade ago, my parents began downsizing. After amassing a lifetime of stuff, they began sorting and determining what things might be given to whom. I recall being led to my father's study, where he gestured to all the books on the shelves and asked “IS ANY OF THIS OF VALUE?” On the shelves were Keats and Shelley, Browning, Shakespeare, he had had Tillich and the Niebuhrs as professors so had their first editions with notes. But what he was asking was not only whether the books had value, but whether his life had, and at the same time whether this had any personal value for us. In recent months we have sorted through all the left behind belongings, the collections of a lifetime. In the process we have come to realize there are two ways to live: one is to collect and gather and save all the treasures of a lifetime. The other is that during that lifetime, when we see something another might enjoy, we gift it to them. A civic group in our community has been collecting children's books, that they will pay the shipping charges to send around the world to children wanting to read. Imagine your Harry Potters, which gave you joy the first two times your read them, being sent to a child somewhere else in the world so that they might use them to learn to read.
For hundreds of years, we have built Churches, as a noun, a thing to be created, to be used, having place, tangible, with beginning and ending, CHURCH. What if CHURCH is not a Noun, not a thing to be created, but is instead a VERB, that we together as a community: Church. We Baptize, we Pray, we Celebrate, we Memorialize, we Remember, we Sing, in all these active verbs, we believe, we CHURCH. Faith is not a static thing, not an absolute, to be created, to be valued, to be used, to be discarded. Church/ Faith/ the Community of Believers who serve one another LIVE.
This day, we celebrate and share Communion. NOT as a thing of Bread and Wine, but as a sharing of ourselves. A realization like Isaiah, that I am an unclean sinner, with unwashed hands and profane lips who dwells among a people of profane lips and unwashed hands. Who upon realizing this, know that our sins are forgiven and gone as if cauterized pure. We share Communion as a conversation like Nicodemus and Jesus, recognizing we can never fully understand, but part of communion is in sharing with God through Jesus Christ. We celebrate and share Communion not only as a sacred ritual of the past, but as a meal that replenishes and makes us new.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Prophesy to the Breath, May, 31, 2009
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Acts 2: 1-21
Across our Nation, around the world, believers have been searching for a time to compare this to in earlier history. Surely the world, humanity, the Church has had another time like this in all the thousands of years of history? Some have claimed this is a time like the Revelation, when the Empire is confronting those who believe, and congregations are like so many separate voices, each with their own problems. Others have claimed this is a period like the Old Testament time of Judges, when every person did what they believed right in their own heart, and afterward, after doing great harm by acting on what they wanted, the people of faith would return to the Lord. But of any day, I believe this is the Day of Pentecost! Like the Vision given Ezekiel, like the Disciples fifty days after the Resurrection, the world is without hope, dead the very marrow dried up and gone, leaders locked away in upper rooms for fear.
Like so many times in Christian History, we have been a Bi-Tarian people, as opposed to Mono-theistic or Trinitarian; in addition to God made known to us by Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, we have been brought closer to God, we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. But we often throw the Holy Spirit in with faith in the Bodily Resurrection, Virgin Birth, Communion of saints and holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as if a hodgepodge of believing in other stuff we don't fully understand. Yet, this morning, on Pentecost, that is the fiftieth Day after the Passover, the fiftieth day after Easter morning, we are called to proclaim and to prophesy The Holy Spirit.
We live in a secular world, a world without faith, without hope. All around us are reports of death and dying, North Korea has launched 6 missiles in the last ten days in an effort to become a Nuclear power. The Stock market rallies, then panics. General Motors is restructured so as to go into bankruptcy. Real Estate is beginning to move, but we are cautioned that most of what are selling are low priced homes. We have come to entertain ourselves with forensic shows, Law & Order, NCIS, Bones, House, which begin with scenes of Death, violent crimes, dismembered parts of bodies. The first forty minutes of each episode is the Medical examiner piecing together evidence from piles of bones and corpses. Forensic science identifies this big toe and that left ear, until all the dead dry parts are assembled, only then to determine how the body died, then the cause of death, in order to determine who this once was. Like a soliloquy from Hamlet, we are familiar with handling death, we lift up a skull crying “Alas, Poor Yorik, I knew him!”
But all these Forensic police dramas, are about assembling the dead parts, making the identification, finding out when, how and why death occurred; what Ezekiel and Acts describe is what happens AFTER THE NEXT 20 minutes of the Episode. Like House and Bones and Ducky, we have mastered abilities at figuring out when and why death occurred, we have brought the bones together into skeletons, even through computer imaging theorizing what sinews, flesh and skin would look like on the person. But, still the dead are dead. In MEMORIALS, we sift through our grieving for good memories, for moments when we once shared joy. BUT what God commands of Ezekiel is something a great deal more and different, to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH, to Command and Name to God what we need for Life. The word for Spirit can mean Spirit, Breath, or Wind. Different from Commandments of Law, or Parables or Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit is about LIFE, life beyond death, to HOPE and TRUST and BELIEVE.
Thousands of years ago, the Nation of Israel, that great Nation built up by Kings David and Solomon into the greatest and most powerful Nation on the face of the Earth, was beaten down and destroyed. Their strongest were put to death, their best and brightest were deported, like some great battlefield Ezekiel was led amongst the piles of separated bones that had been bleached and radiated by years of decay and sun, and he was asked “Can these bones live?” There is no marrow left, there is not one bone left connected to another, Can there still be a body? And he prophesies to the Bones to come together, he prophesies to the sinews and flesh to come upon the bones, he prophesies to the skin to regrow and cover the corpse, but still like the scene at Genesis where God formed humanity out of dust, there is no life. And Ezekiel is commanded to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH, let your desires be made known, stand for what you most desperately need to believe, do not be limited by what seems real and what seems impossible. And out of all the piles of all the bones, out of all the dust, members are re-united, and there is life! The point being if these dry hopeless bones can live, why can we not hope?
Tragically, humanity has come to believe in RELIGION, in institutions, hierarchies and systems, rather than PROPHESYING TO THE BREATH. What happened on Pentecost was not SPEAKING IN TONGUES, not an unintelligible glossallalia, but people from every part of the world each hearing a call to faith in their own language and context, “as the Spirit gave them utterance”. This is the REDEMPTION OF BABEL, when the people sought to do what they wanted, to settle without God, and instead God sent them out with differing languages. On Pentecost, the disciples were locked away for fear, when the Spirit called them out to speak, and every person was able to understand from their own experience what God was doing.
Over the years, there have been many times when we took on what many believed to be impossible:
After 20 years of Civil war, can a stone aged people who never had the technology of the Wheel, can they possibly have Health Care to vaccinate against and fight preventable disease?
After 20 years of the Pipe organ not working, and music being conflicted, could our voices and purposes harmonize to provide arts and music in this community?
Or after years of people from the Northeast leaving to go South and the internal problems that are natural to people, that we would pledge multiple campaigns and repay them all before the economy shifted.
But the point has not been, creating a clinic in Sudan, or commissioning a Pipe Organ, but rebuilding hope and trust and faith.
If EASTER were only about Christ rising from the dead, it would suffice, to know that we are not separate from God, that God has forgiven us all our sins.
BUT EVEN MORE, what Pentecost is about, is not simply the birth of the Church, the birth of religion, but rather PROPHESYING to so many different parts to come together and to go out filled with HOPE, with TRUST and LOVE! All the many weddings and births and memorials, ordinations and confirmations and celebrations of years of leadership, have been CELEBRATIONS of FAITH, our Attempt to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH OF GOD: Holy Spirit fill these believers, take them up in the hand of God and use us.
When I was in Seminary, I recall a student who stood up to preach, and afterward the professor asked: How do you write your sermons? And the young man said, I research and write the first half, then I leave the second half for God to fill in. To which the Professor said “Congratulations, it is quite clear you have far surpassed Almighty God!” Too often, we try to fill every heartbeat, every scheduled moment of our lives, then exhausted and overwhelmed by difficulties, we expect God to enter in and provide faith, to rescue and give us spirit. The message of Pentecost, is that we need to speak plainly and regularly to God, naming what we need, what we hope to be part of. What are your Noble Goals? What would you want to be remembered for being used by God to do? Prophesy to the Breath, Speak into the Wind, trusting that God can use even you and I.
Acts 2: 1-21
Across our Nation, around the world, believers have been searching for a time to compare this to in earlier history. Surely the world, humanity, the Church has had another time like this in all the thousands of years of history? Some have claimed this is a time like the Revelation, when the Empire is confronting those who believe, and congregations are like so many separate voices, each with their own problems. Others have claimed this is a period like the Old Testament time of Judges, when every person did what they believed right in their own heart, and afterward, after doing great harm by acting on what they wanted, the people of faith would return to the Lord. But of any day, I believe this is the Day of Pentecost! Like the Vision given Ezekiel, like the Disciples fifty days after the Resurrection, the world is without hope, dead the very marrow dried up and gone, leaders locked away in upper rooms for fear.
Like so many times in Christian History, we have been a Bi-Tarian people, as opposed to Mono-theistic or Trinitarian; in addition to God made known to us by Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, we have been brought closer to God, we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. But we often throw the Holy Spirit in with faith in the Bodily Resurrection, Virgin Birth, Communion of saints and holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as if a hodgepodge of believing in other stuff we don't fully understand. Yet, this morning, on Pentecost, that is the fiftieth Day after the Passover, the fiftieth day after Easter morning, we are called to proclaim and to prophesy The Holy Spirit.
We live in a secular world, a world without faith, without hope. All around us are reports of death and dying, North Korea has launched 6 missiles in the last ten days in an effort to become a Nuclear power. The Stock market rallies, then panics. General Motors is restructured so as to go into bankruptcy. Real Estate is beginning to move, but we are cautioned that most of what are selling are low priced homes. We have come to entertain ourselves with forensic shows, Law & Order, NCIS, Bones, House, which begin with scenes of Death, violent crimes, dismembered parts of bodies. The first forty minutes of each episode is the Medical examiner piecing together evidence from piles of bones and corpses. Forensic science identifies this big toe and that left ear, until all the dead dry parts are assembled, only then to determine how the body died, then the cause of death, in order to determine who this once was. Like a soliloquy from Hamlet, we are familiar with handling death, we lift up a skull crying “Alas, Poor Yorik, I knew him!”
But all these Forensic police dramas, are about assembling the dead parts, making the identification, finding out when, how and why death occurred; what Ezekiel and Acts describe is what happens AFTER THE NEXT 20 minutes of the Episode. Like House and Bones and Ducky, we have mastered abilities at figuring out when and why death occurred, we have brought the bones together into skeletons, even through computer imaging theorizing what sinews, flesh and skin would look like on the person. But, still the dead are dead. In MEMORIALS, we sift through our grieving for good memories, for moments when we once shared joy. BUT what God commands of Ezekiel is something a great deal more and different, to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH, to Command and Name to God what we need for Life. The word for Spirit can mean Spirit, Breath, or Wind. Different from Commandments of Law, or Parables or Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit is about LIFE, life beyond death, to HOPE and TRUST and BELIEVE.
Thousands of years ago, the Nation of Israel, that great Nation built up by Kings David and Solomon into the greatest and most powerful Nation on the face of the Earth, was beaten down and destroyed. Their strongest were put to death, their best and brightest were deported, like some great battlefield Ezekiel was led amongst the piles of separated bones that had been bleached and radiated by years of decay and sun, and he was asked “Can these bones live?” There is no marrow left, there is not one bone left connected to another, Can there still be a body? And he prophesies to the Bones to come together, he prophesies to the sinews and flesh to come upon the bones, he prophesies to the skin to regrow and cover the corpse, but still like the scene at Genesis where God formed humanity out of dust, there is no life. And Ezekiel is commanded to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH, let your desires be made known, stand for what you most desperately need to believe, do not be limited by what seems real and what seems impossible. And out of all the piles of all the bones, out of all the dust, members are re-united, and there is life! The point being if these dry hopeless bones can live, why can we not hope?
Tragically, humanity has come to believe in RELIGION, in institutions, hierarchies and systems, rather than PROPHESYING TO THE BREATH. What happened on Pentecost was not SPEAKING IN TONGUES, not an unintelligible glossallalia, but people from every part of the world each hearing a call to faith in their own language and context, “as the Spirit gave them utterance”. This is the REDEMPTION OF BABEL, when the people sought to do what they wanted, to settle without God, and instead God sent them out with differing languages. On Pentecost, the disciples were locked away for fear, when the Spirit called them out to speak, and every person was able to understand from their own experience what God was doing.
Over the years, there have been many times when we took on what many believed to be impossible:
After 20 years of Civil war, can a stone aged people who never had the technology of the Wheel, can they possibly have Health Care to vaccinate against and fight preventable disease?
After 20 years of the Pipe organ not working, and music being conflicted, could our voices and purposes harmonize to provide arts and music in this community?
Or after years of people from the Northeast leaving to go South and the internal problems that are natural to people, that we would pledge multiple campaigns and repay them all before the economy shifted.
But the point has not been, creating a clinic in Sudan, or commissioning a Pipe Organ, but rebuilding hope and trust and faith.
If EASTER were only about Christ rising from the dead, it would suffice, to know that we are not separate from God, that God has forgiven us all our sins.
BUT EVEN MORE, what Pentecost is about, is not simply the birth of the Church, the birth of religion, but rather PROPHESYING to so many different parts to come together and to go out filled with HOPE, with TRUST and LOVE! All the many weddings and births and memorials, ordinations and confirmations and celebrations of years of leadership, have been CELEBRATIONS of FAITH, our Attempt to PROPHESY TO THE BREATH OF GOD: Holy Spirit fill these believers, take them up in the hand of God and use us.
When I was in Seminary, I recall a student who stood up to preach, and afterward the professor asked: How do you write your sermons? And the young man said, I research and write the first half, then I leave the second half for God to fill in. To which the Professor said “Congratulations, it is quite clear you have far surpassed Almighty God!” Too often, we try to fill every heartbeat, every scheduled moment of our lives, then exhausted and overwhelmed by difficulties, we expect God to enter in and provide faith, to rescue and give us spirit. The message of Pentecost, is that we need to speak plainly and regularly to God, naming what we need, what we hope to be part of. What are your Noble Goals? What would you want to be remembered for being used by God to do? Prophesy to the Breath, Speak into the Wind, trusting that God can use even you and I.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Ascension or Memorial, May 24, 2009
Matthew 28:16-20
Acts 1: 1-11
Show of hands this morning:
How many of us believe there is a God?
How many believe Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior?
Regardless of how, do you believe in the miracles, that he fed 5000 with loaves & fishes?
That people believed and were healed of leprosy, of being deaf, or lame?
We have evidence he suffered and died on the Cross and being dead was buried.
How many believe the tomb was empty on Easter morning?
So having acknowledged all that, how many believe Jesus stepped onto a cloud and ascended?
The Gospel affirms that among the 12 Disciples, some doubted.
They stood looking into heaven, wondering: What just happened?
And among the disciples, not even Peter asked Should we build a marker that will identify this mountain? For the point was not which mountaintop. The point was not the empty tomb. The point was not death or flying on a cloud. Faith is not a Memorial Society to a Dead Savior.
Quite simply, the point of ASCENSION is that he lives. The God who loved the world so much God gave God's only begotten child, the God who raised Jesus from Death to Life, demonstrated
that there is no longer a gulf between heaven and earth.
NOTHING Has ever, Could ever separate us from the Love of God, that is Christ, not even death... so even with our doubts we can never give up on one another.
As human creatures we seem to have limitless ideas and imagination, but a limited capacity to store information. Some of us have what we affectionately call “SENIOR MOMENTS” when we simply cannot seem to retrieve that name we know. At other times, we merge ideas and distill the basics we want to remember making sense by letting go what does not seem to serve. We know Jesus was born and lived and died and rose again, sitting at the right hand of God. SO facts like the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days following Easter, often are lost on us. Ascension Day is the claim and assurance that although 2000 years and more have transpired, we know he cares and is close.
Karl Barth, the great theologian of the early half of the last Century described this time, the time between Easter's Resurrection and the day of Pentecost, as A SIGNIFICANT PAUSE, when we are commanded to WAIT and to PRAY. To a computerized, fiber-optic, push-button people, waiting is ONEROUS. Faith is not a Philosophy you can learn, or an accomplishment to be mastered. The commandment to WAIT & PRAY is a realization there are things outside our control. There is a spirit, a power, a maturity that cannot immediately be grasped, we need to wait, to pray, to reflect, to reconsider.
The wonderful part of Matthew's Commissioning is that the Disciples were commanded to GO, to Baptize and to Teach; not that Baptism was only for those who fully understood, not a graduation, but rather the starting point, for those that want to believe, and struggle with our unbeliefs and doubts. Ironically, Matthew does not Command that the disciples PREACH, not that we proselytize, but rather that we live our faith, as a community of caring.
Years ago, we had been teaching the 3rd Graders how to use the Bible, that there are two Parts Old and New, that there are 66 Books, and Chapters and verses so as to find your way. We gave to each of the children a Bible of their own, and that morning their teacher asked them to turn to the Book of Acts, to read. A moment later, one of the children spoke up saying, “I don't have the Book of Acts”. Imagining the child had not found the book, the Teacher listed off the books in order, and the child said, “But I do not have the Book of Acts”. Trying to get through this, the teacher called out the Page number, an d still the child protested, so the Teacher stopped teaching and went to see. Sure enough, in the binding, the publisher had all of the Old Testament, all the Gospels and Epistles, but somehow had missed including the Acts of the Apostles. Which makes one wonder: If we had the whole of the Old Testament, and the whole of the Gospels, the instruction and teaching of the Letters, but we were missing this narrative description transitioning from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to explain how the Church came to be, how the Word of God was taken from a small group of twelve to all the world, would it matter? I think so, because what happens in the Acts of the Apostles, is that we shift from a small group who have first hand experience, to people sharing with one another their interpretations of life and their relationships of faith.
We have made a tragic mistake in this time of waiting. In our society we have become so jaded and offended by those who force their faith on others, that we imagine there is only one kind of EVANGELISM, knocking on doors to proselytize. We acquiesce that this church stands for this cause, and that church for that movement, rather than being a community of caring for each when in need.
Yet this week, we witnessed one example of faith, one circumstance of God's love, after another. Different from a Viewing or Visitation, we had an opportunity for all those family & friends who knew a young woman and her family to come to the Fellowship Hall for an Open House. In 3 hours over 600 adults and over 300 kids came, to share, to support, to be the Church community. Some brought cookies, some played basketball, others brought cookies, some drew pictures for her children, some reflected on the artwork she had created over a lifetime, others brought more cookies, some described her battles with Cancer, and how her prayers and her friends got her through the worst, and gave them hope. Others brought more cookies.
On Friday we celebrated a wedding. One of the joyful parts of this was that other than the couple, not a single wedding guest was familiar to us. Neither of their parents were still married to each other, but we listened and worked with them, so that the Groom could be escorted by his mother and his father, she could be escorted by her mother and grandmother. They needed the Church, they wanted a place for a wedding, and we were here for them. In the midst babies started crying and parents got up to leave in the midst of the wedding, and you all know what happened.
Saturday, we gathered at the home of the one who had died. And there were tears for our losses, but there were also laughter and remembrances, and interpretations of a lifetime that gave others hope. The husband who remembered their wedding in this same yard, and the adoption of their children. The nephew who remembered 79 bonfires. The friend who recalled going to treatment together, then allowing her to sit in the midst of a Lilac bush.
It would have seemed possible for the Disciples to have stayed a Memorial Society, who gathered to grieve the death and Empty Tomb, but their faith was raised up, they were called to something higher. They interpreted the events of their life, his teachings, their calling to give others faith.
SO when is the last time, you shared with someone from your faith?
This is also Memorial Day Weekend, a time when we have perhaps forgotten why we remember. We confuse this holiday at the beginning of summer, like a bookend with Labor Day as being a National Day off. A day to wait to picnic. We know that Memorial Day has something to do with death, so many of us make trips to the Cemetery. We know Memorial Day has something to do with Veterans, but we also have a Veterans' Day in November. I think the remembrance of this day was best summed up by President Lincoln in the Address at Gettysburg, we all remember the quote “Four Score and Seven Years ago”. The great irony is that what that speech described was “We have not come here to Dedicate, to consecrate, we cannot hallow the ground, because the brave men and women who struggled here consecrated the ground far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to their unfinished work, that they shall not have died in vain – that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.
Acts 1: 1-11
Show of hands this morning:
How many of us believe there is a God?
How many believe Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior?
Regardless of how, do you believe in the miracles, that he fed 5000 with loaves & fishes?
That people believed and were healed of leprosy, of being deaf, or lame?
We have evidence he suffered and died on the Cross and being dead was buried.
How many believe the tomb was empty on Easter morning?
So having acknowledged all that, how many believe Jesus stepped onto a cloud and ascended?
The Gospel affirms that among the 12 Disciples, some doubted.
They stood looking into heaven, wondering: What just happened?
And among the disciples, not even Peter asked Should we build a marker that will identify this mountain? For the point was not which mountaintop. The point was not the empty tomb. The point was not death or flying on a cloud. Faith is not a Memorial Society to a Dead Savior.
Quite simply, the point of ASCENSION is that he lives. The God who loved the world so much God gave God's only begotten child, the God who raised Jesus from Death to Life, demonstrated
that there is no longer a gulf between heaven and earth.
NOTHING Has ever, Could ever separate us from the Love of God, that is Christ, not even death... so even with our doubts we can never give up on one another.
As human creatures we seem to have limitless ideas and imagination, but a limited capacity to store information. Some of us have what we affectionately call “SENIOR MOMENTS” when we simply cannot seem to retrieve that name we know. At other times, we merge ideas and distill the basics we want to remember making sense by letting go what does not seem to serve. We know Jesus was born and lived and died and rose again, sitting at the right hand of God. SO facts like the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days following Easter, often are lost on us. Ascension Day is the claim and assurance that although 2000 years and more have transpired, we know he cares and is close.
Karl Barth, the great theologian of the early half of the last Century described this time, the time between Easter's Resurrection and the day of Pentecost, as A SIGNIFICANT PAUSE, when we are commanded to WAIT and to PRAY. To a computerized, fiber-optic, push-button people, waiting is ONEROUS. Faith is not a Philosophy you can learn, or an accomplishment to be mastered. The commandment to WAIT & PRAY is a realization there are things outside our control. There is a spirit, a power, a maturity that cannot immediately be grasped, we need to wait, to pray, to reflect, to reconsider.
The wonderful part of Matthew's Commissioning is that the Disciples were commanded to GO, to Baptize and to Teach; not that Baptism was only for those who fully understood, not a graduation, but rather the starting point, for those that want to believe, and struggle with our unbeliefs and doubts. Ironically, Matthew does not Command that the disciples PREACH, not that we proselytize, but rather that we live our faith, as a community of caring.
Years ago, we had been teaching the 3rd Graders how to use the Bible, that there are two Parts Old and New, that there are 66 Books, and Chapters and verses so as to find your way. We gave to each of the children a Bible of their own, and that morning their teacher asked them to turn to the Book of Acts, to read. A moment later, one of the children spoke up saying, “I don't have the Book of Acts”. Imagining the child had not found the book, the Teacher listed off the books in order, and the child said, “But I do not have the Book of Acts”. Trying to get through this, the teacher called out the Page number, an d still the child protested, so the Teacher stopped teaching and went to see. Sure enough, in the binding, the publisher had all of the Old Testament, all the Gospels and Epistles, but somehow had missed including the Acts of the Apostles. Which makes one wonder: If we had the whole of the Old Testament, and the whole of the Gospels, the instruction and teaching of the Letters, but we were missing this narrative description transitioning from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to explain how the Church came to be, how the Word of God was taken from a small group of twelve to all the world, would it matter? I think so, because what happens in the Acts of the Apostles, is that we shift from a small group who have first hand experience, to people sharing with one another their interpretations of life and their relationships of faith.
We have made a tragic mistake in this time of waiting. In our society we have become so jaded and offended by those who force their faith on others, that we imagine there is only one kind of EVANGELISM, knocking on doors to proselytize. We acquiesce that this church stands for this cause, and that church for that movement, rather than being a community of caring for each when in need.
Yet this week, we witnessed one example of faith, one circumstance of God's love, after another. Different from a Viewing or Visitation, we had an opportunity for all those family & friends who knew a young woman and her family to come to the Fellowship Hall for an Open House. In 3 hours over 600 adults and over 300 kids came, to share, to support, to be the Church community. Some brought cookies, some played basketball, others brought cookies, some drew pictures for her children, some reflected on the artwork she had created over a lifetime, others brought more cookies, some described her battles with Cancer, and how her prayers and her friends got her through the worst, and gave them hope. Others brought more cookies.
On Friday we celebrated a wedding. One of the joyful parts of this was that other than the couple, not a single wedding guest was familiar to us. Neither of their parents were still married to each other, but we listened and worked with them, so that the Groom could be escorted by his mother and his father, she could be escorted by her mother and grandmother. They needed the Church, they wanted a place for a wedding, and we were here for them. In the midst babies started crying and parents got up to leave in the midst of the wedding, and you all know what happened.
Saturday, we gathered at the home of the one who had died. And there were tears for our losses, but there were also laughter and remembrances, and interpretations of a lifetime that gave others hope. The husband who remembered their wedding in this same yard, and the adoption of their children. The nephew who remembered 79 bonfires. The friend who recalled going to treatment together, then allowing her to sit in the midst of a Lilac bush.
It would have seemed possible for the Disciples to have stayed a Memorial Society, who gathered to grieve the death and Empty Tomb, but their faith was raised up, they were called to something higher. They interpreted the events of their life, his teachings, their calling to give others faith.
SO when is the last time, you shared with someone from your faith?
This is also Memorial Day Weekend, a time when we have perhaps forgotten why we remember. We confuse this holiday at the beginning of summer, like a bookend with Labor Day as being a National Day off. A day to wait to picnic. We know that Memorial Day has something to do with death, so many of us make trips to the Cemetery. We know Memorial Day has something to do with Veterans, but we also have a Veterans' Day in November. I think the remembrance of this day was best summed up by President Lincoln in the Address at Gettysburg, we all remember the quote “Four Score and Seven Years ago”. The great irony is that what that speech described was “We have not come here to Dedicate, to consecrate, we cannot hallow the ground, because the brave men and women who struggled here consecrated the ground far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to their unfinished work, that they shall not have died in vain – that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A Sandwiched Faith, April 26, 2009
Luke 24: 36-48
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Acts 3:12-19
Mark Twain was once asked whether he “BELIEVED in Infant Baptism?” To which he retorted, “BELIEVE in INFANT BAPTISM, Good God, I have seen it happen at the Presbyterian Church!”
One of the problems for our having faith, is that religion has become so routine, so much a part of secular culture, that before a child is born, we know the circumstances of her life. She will be Baptized at which she will be given a name; when she is 15 she will be Confirmed; at age 18 she will graduate High School and go off to College, at some point she will marry and have children, all of life seems mapped out as Given. But it is not. Baptism was never intended as a RITUAL of announcing a Birth. The Water of Baptism was reminder that as Mortals we are born out of Water Breaking, and as in drowning, we all die, but in Baptism we claim the drowning of SELF and birth of ETERNAL, EVERLASTING SPIRIT. In Baptism, we give this child to God, knowing that she is a gift from God, her life will be filled with surprises and opportunities we cannot imagine, yet she will never be alone, she is a child of God and loved by the community of faith.
The English Majors among us, will recall that in Literature there are what have been named the PRIMACY EFFECT and the RECENCY EFFECT. Primacy, dictating that what happens at the beginning of a story, determines where the story ends. The Holy Spirit appearing to Mary, identified that this would be a child of God, who would change the world, John's Baptism for REPENTANCE determined that The Christ and give the world a new spirit, renewed faith, surpassing and changing al that had ever been. Different from the other Gospels, LUKE does not see the Cross as Victory, for Luke: Jesus was God's Gift of Grace and Love to the World, and HUMANITY said NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! But the Resurrection was God's redemption of the World, claiming YES INDEED! Infant Baptism places a sign and seal on this child that they are loved, and will be prayed for, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS in her life. Recency, concludes that the author knows the ending, so everything in the story is understood and interpreted through what will happen. For Luke, that ending has yet to come, and our lives, the purpose of the Church is working out the REDEMPTION of the WORLD.
We live sandwiched in between: our faith grounded in the Hebrew Bible and the Historic Man Jesus of Nazareth, and ultimately we will all be reconciled to God, we believe resurrection and redemption are possible for all the world. The question of this life, is “Sandwiched between what has been established over thousands of years, and what will be thousands of years in the future, what do we believe and what shall we do?”
We live as a sandwiched population, cognizant that the parameters of human life expectancy have changed. In the 1970s, we believed a full life was 70 years. Retirement had been established at age 65 because given our lifestyle and diet, our bodies wore out. Today, if a person only lives to 84 or 86 and does not live to 90 or 100 we think it a shame. There are those among us who fought World Wars and survived Great Economic Depression. As spouses and children, we are now needing to step up, to take responsibility for balancing their checkbook, driving them where they need to go, making home repairs for our parents, and friends.
Meanwhile, our children are combining classes and creating whole new fields of study, questioning “Why be limited to studying Economics, or History, Medicine or Literature, or Engineering or Philosophy, why not study the impact of Literature about Economics and Politics throughout History on the future of Aero-Dynamics and Neuro-Linguistics?”
We live between the two, caring for and providing for our parents and grand-parents, while hoping and working for the future of our grand-children's children yet to be imagined. There is a “quality of respecting what has been”, while knowing the world is changing, we are changing. We have endured in a time of planned obsolescence, where we built things, homes, appliances, cars to wear out. The challenge of a SANDWICHED FAITH, is choosing instead to respond in faith, to stand up for what we believe.
As the Pastor in this community, this is my favorite time of year. NOT simply because the temperatures are warming, or things are coming to bloom, though this has been a long winter of discontent. NOT because things we have worked at all year, Sunday school classes and Confirmation are coming to fulfillment, though the students and the teachers have worked very hard. BUT because at this time of year, the whole church is gathered together. Those who have been in this community for a lifetime and have retired to live elsewhere return home. Those who live here, and work here and have their children in school, have not yet put their boats in. And we are able to listen to one another, and challenge one another, and be the church.
We cannot live a disposable world. Regardless of whether you believe in Global Warming, there is not space for all the rubbish we create. There are not enough new resources to fill our ever expanding hunger to possess. The point is NOT MAKING ACCOMMODATION, doing without, but rather, being Intentional ACTING IN FAITH, taking seriously who we are and rather than serving ourselves, listening to a faith that calls us to serve others and to care.
Peter and John went to Solomon's Portico, and encountered a man begging for help. Instead of giving him CHARITY, treating him with PITY, as less than human, as everyone in life always had done, they responded with faith, they prayed in the name of the Jesus Christ they knew who had died and risen from the grave, that this man would be whole. Peter was the first to claim, MIRACLES ARE NOT BY OUR DOING, not because we are more pious or powerful, or good, but because of the love of God, so that all the rest of us would witness and act differently.
A couple who had endured Cancers and had tried to adopt and had been disappointed several times, have been given the gift of a baby. Could there be a greater miracle?
We live in an exciting time. For the last many decades, the Church in North America has made accommodations. Parents have gotten a divorce, so their child will go one week to this church and another week to another and the third and fourth weeks, we will sleep in. What if we could turn this on its head, and celebrate a faith that the children lead their parents to faith!
What if the building of the first Clinic in South Sudan, was not a cement structure for all time, but instead gave people hope that they could do a great deal more.
What if, instead of being a generation that finds a way to make things work out and does without, we acted boldly, with confidence even greater than we can prove...that's faith right? Possibly, we would convince ourselves.
What if the creating of an Ecumenical Food Pantry was not an end in itself, but the beginning of Churches working together to make a difference in people's lives. When I was very young, there was a new Ice Cream Shop being built, and the owners invited the Jewish Rabbi, the Catholic Priest and the Presbyterian Minister for an Ice Cream, as they introduced that they wanted to name the shop The HOLY COW. In the 1960s that was ECUMENISM. Today, we make compromises, so as to allow others to act in faith. We question the similarities of faith between Buddhists and Muslims and Judaism and Christianity. What is unique about Christianity in this, is that Christianity and all the rest believe in ONE GOD and in Sacred teachings from a Messiah, but Christianity believes the world said NO, no to compassion, No to possibilities, no to faith, and God said YES INDEED!
Always Being Reformed, May 10, 2009
John 15:1-8
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
Acts 18:26-40
Different from several Mothers' Days past, when we have contended with SNOW,
this has been a week of Pruning, Weeding and Cutting Back Gardens.
Three weeks ago, I took my mower in, to prepare for Spring, changing the plugs and oil, sharpen the blade, and the Shopkeeper looked at me and said “You don't want this back for 6 or 8 weeks do you?” The temperatures have toyed with 80 and the grass and weeds have grown as I tried to wait, until going in this weekend, where the Serviceman said “It cannot be fixed, the gas tank leaks, the carburetor sputters and coughs, it's not worth putting money into.” Then I interpreted, “Is there anything different from last summer. The gas tank has leaked for a long time. The carburetor sputters, but with cleaning, it still works.” And an hour later, I was cutting my lawn.
The text from John describes that PRUNING is different from mowing and other forms of gardening. Throughout the Old Testament there are references to VINES and VINEYARDS and GARDENS, but always naming DECAY, that the Vineyard becomes overgrown, weeds grow up, the WinePress or Mower is broken.
Jesus words explain that the TRUE VINE is different from other plants in the Garden.
DENDRONS, that is the Greek Classification for Trees and Vines, are the only other VERTICALLY ORIENTED Creature in the garden of Creation. There are snakes and birds and fish, but only trees and vines and Humans are living beings standing upright.
Vines do not have a straight stem, and clear clean “dendrects” that is branched nerve endings.
Vines, like human lives are all twisted and jumbled and intertwined, but underneath all the branches, all the past growth and experience, there is ONE TRUE VINE.
Different from MOWING where we cut everything down to the stubble, and WEEDING where we pull everything out by the roots, or as in the parable separate at harvest to burn,
We need to understand that as the Vine Grows, there is OLD DEAD WOOD, there are CREEPY Vines and FRUIT-BEARING Vines, AND there is a GARDENER, who is God. If left untended, the old dead wood will rot and decay and become infested with parasites, so it must be continually cut back. If left untended all the vine's resources would be used by the Creeper Vine, that forever reaches out without direction and can without intent strangle the Fruit-Bearing Vines. So as a form of Cleansing the Garden, the Gardener prunes away the Old Dead Wood and the Creeper Vines, to allow the Fruit-Bearing branches to grow. Without Pruning, there would be no fruit. Painfully, there are times when what we see looks like bleeding stumps and weeping cut off vines, as the Gardener can and must cut deep. Branches, whether Fruit-Bearing, or Creepy, cannot grow cut-off from the TRUE VINE. There needs must be old wood from past years, to provide stability and strength; there must be creeping vines, lest the vine would never branch, reach out or grow. But when the gangly reachers and the dead wood get in the way, God cuts them back to encourage and motivate bearing FRUIT.
Often times, the CHURCH has been compared to a Family, particularly as MOTHER CHURCH. But the truth is that being a Mother is not only about carrying biology in your womb for 9 months. I would be the first to say that as a man, I do not know all that that is about, yet for me a Mother is about comforting and caring, as one who taught her children boys or girls to cook and to sew, to embroider and knit and garden, because these are BASIC SKILLS of life. If the Church is a family, we can be a pretty dysfunctional family! More, I think, Mother Church is walking along beside, waiting and willing to help interpret.
Faith is not simply DOING GOOD WORKS, as important as the Fruits we create are; the Means and the Foundations, the Vine and the Root, and the Gardener, are what determine the ENDS.
But the first point of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is that READING the SCRIPTURES this Seeker (as educated as he was) was left with more questions than understanding. The Bible is not a text book of theory and philosophy, that reading one can know, grasp and understand as an EXPERT. Faith requires AMATEURS. AMATEURS are not EXPERTS, Amateur comes from the Latin Prefix AMA meaning to LOVE, and the Suffix TEUR meaning to WORK, so those who are motivated by a love of their work. As opposed to an EXPERT, EX being the Prefix for FORMER and SPURT being a term used in PLUMBING for a DRIP, and therefore an Old Drip. Two or Three gather together, sharing understanding and questions and experience. What pointless work it would have been, for Philip to have lectured to the Ethiopian were he not wanting to listen! And how helpless the Seeker was to find answers all on his own, he may as well have gone back to Ethiopia to read the Scriptures and search for understanding, as riding on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, except that someone saw him on the Road and took interest in him and regardless of their differences began walking along side.
Is that not what we are Called to do, to walk alongside? We can read this, as a story from long long ago, in a place half-way round the world. And we are left believing the Prophecy of Isaiah, or the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Jesus are moving stories, but how different, if like Philip we interpret for one another and help one another to see, that faith is not simply about words, life is not a private matter but is to occur as work that we love doing.
We often read history, recognizing that our Nation was born out of struggle for independence over 230 years ago! That this Church was planted and nurtured by Missionaries visiting in the homes of 15 believers almost 208 yeas ago. But 800 years ago, when the Christian Faith was already 1200 years old, the Protestant Reformers in Europe questioned and risked working at what they loved. For us today, it is hard to imagine a time and place where the understandings of TRADITION of ORTHODOXY were so strong that the Church dared not risk celebrating worship in the language of the common culture, but only prayed, preached and sang in LATIN, though the people could not understand a word that was said. Hard for us to imagine a time when The Church questioned whether it would profane the Holy Scriptures to place the Bible in the Hands of Common People. Yet, how many ideas have been challenged and nurtured by those simple acts... Public Education for the Masses, the Printing Press, the spread of the Gospel to the Whole World. One of the great insights of those Reformers became the Watchwords of the Reformation, ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA. ORTHODOXY is straight forward to preserve, like the Shredded Wheat Commercial we stand against progress, against any and all change, clinging to the way things were hundreds if not thousands of years ago, never questioning in humility if we were ever wrong. But ECCLESIA REFORMATA, the Church which rather than calling itself ORTHODOX claims to be Reformed, SEMPER REFORMANDA is always being reformed. Too often, we have interpreted this as “The Church is Always Changing, or Always Open to Change” which as the High School latin scholars will tell us is wrong. ECCLESIA REFORMATA SEMPER REFORMANDA has an assumed pronoun, “The Church that calls itself Reformed IS FOREVER BEING REFORMED (by God).”
In all of this, there is a reality of God, whom we often forget. The Gardener, the Reformer, the One who suffers for us and died for us to live. We live in an exceptional time. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and until Seminary had truly never heard of Adult baptism. Yet, in the last dozen years, we have baptized at least one if not several each year, who were not infants, who chose of their own desire to accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories, came when serving another church. We had a woman join the church, who three years later came with an odd story. When she had been a young woman she had been great with child, and a few days before term was not feeling well. She went to the doctor and they could get no fetal pulse, so the priest was called, who anointed the Mother's belly with the blessing of the sick. Three days later the baby was born alive and healthy. Her daughter was now 40 and had never been baptized. Her family were catholic, but she could not be baptized by a priest because of this. Determining that there is one true church and that she had not previously been baptized, but was wanting to be, we recognized we had water and celebrated her baptism.
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