Cheap Grace, January 27th 2021 Sermon
1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, one of the most influential modern theologians. He was one of the key figures of the ecumenical movement, he studied at Union in New York, worked at a baptist church in Harlem and found himself back in Europe during the rise of Nazism in Germany.
Bonhoeffer at this time observed that there was increased acceptance of antisemitism and enthusiasm for Nazism in the German churches. Specifically, he observed that many leaders of the German Evangelical Church, the denomination he belonged to were welcoming the rise of the facist Nazi government. A group called the German Christians began to promote the nazification of German Protestantism, they even wanted to create a pro-Nazi “Reich Church.” The church wanted to implement the same kind of “Aryan” laws that the state introduced - calling for only people of good “Aryan” blood to be the only members of the church.
Many protestants at this time broke away from the German Christians, creating what came to be known as the “Confessing Church.” While the Confessing Church was set in opposition against the German Christians and their adoption of doctrine which members of a “separate race” could not become baptized into the “Aryan” church, the Confessing Church did not speak out much about the persecution of German Jews.
Bonhoeffer wrote what is maybe his most famous text in 1933 titled “The Church and the Jewish Question.” Bonhoeffer said that the Nazism taking over Germany was not a legitimate government and as such he opposed it on Christian grounds, calling for the church to question state injustice, saying the church had an obligation to help all victims of injustice - both Christian and non-Christian - and to become an obstacle to a government which tyrannizes it’s people, “to put a spoke in the wheel” he said. To bring the machinery of injustice to a halt.
Speaking so clearly and concisely against the Nazis isolated Bonhoeffer from members of his church but he persisted. Bonhoeffer began spreading information of the Nazi regime to ecumenical partners throughout the world. He trained young clergy in an illegal Confessing Church seminary - which was shut down by the Gestapo in 1937. After, he secretly traveled eastern Germany to help supervise small parishes and continued teaching the young pastors. He was banned from Berlin in 1938 and forbidden from public speaking. Resisting and teaching against the ideology of death and destruction which the Nazi regime presented, Bonhoeffer became increasingly entrenched in resistance to the Nazis. Bonhoeffer’s brother in law Hans von Dohnanyi started informing Bonhoeffer about the resistance plans and helped Bonhoeffer avoid military service, instead obtaining an assignment for him in the Office of Military Intelligence - the office which became the center for resistance groups. Bonhoeffer used his connections to inform ecumenical partners about the deportations of the jews, he became involved in a plan to get Jews out of Germany to safer places, he would inform friends in the Vatican and in Geneva about the plans the resistance were making, he risked his life every day to put a jam in the wheel of the machinery of hatred and violence.
In 1943 the Gestapo uncovered the funds that were being sent for emigrants as part of “Operation Seven,” an attempt to help Jews leave Germany by giving them papers as foreign agents. Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law were arrested. He was charged with conspiring to rescue Jews and misusing his intelligence position to help pastors evade military service.
In 1944 there was a failed coup attempt, and Bonhoeffer’s connections to the circles of resistance were uncovered by the Gestapo. He was moved to Buchenwald and then the Flossenburg concentration camp in 1945 where he was hanged.
Bonhoeffer wrote a book called “Costly Discipleship.” A fitting title for his life, I would say. We often ask “how could it have happened? Why didn’t the church do anything?” I believe Bonhoeffer answers succinctly how it happened in “Costly Discipleship:” He says that the church lost its demand to follow Jesus and took upon it the pressures and demands of society. He says that grace began to become cheap, that grace was sold like on a marketplace. These words may sound familiar as they informed the words on Costly Unity which I read in a prior sermon: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Jesus Christ extends grace to us, limitlessly and endlessly and there is nothing we do to earn it, no works we do to earn it, but there is a distinction to be made between the grace that Jesus Christ gives us and what we do with it. Attempts to have unity in ways that ignore the hurt done, attempts to unify victims with their abusers without any kind of justice meted out is cheap grace. Calls for healing without accountability is cheap grace. Calls for forgiveness without repentance, reconciliation without reparations, absolution from sin without the confession of the sinner is cheap grace. God gives us grace freely but in our discipleship we do not act in ways that cheapen the grace God has given us.
The texts I chose for today are not the lectionary texts, but I knew God put it on my heart to speak to the lectionary text when I heard Rev. Ayanna Watkins preach at the Disciples Divinity House chapel I attended on Monday. The lectionary text is from Samuel and it is the story of Samuel hearing his name called in the night. Samuel, son of Hannah, given over to the temple, was trained by the priest Eli. When Samuel heard his name called in the night he responded “Here am I” and he runs to Eli and says “Here I am; you called me” but Eli says, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” This happens again, the Lord calls Samuel and Samuel runs to Eli and Eli tells him “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
It happens a third time, but this time Eli realize that God was calling for Samuel and Eli told Samuel “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”
So Samuel did. Then the Lord says to him:
"See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.
At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family--from beginning to end.
For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, `The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.'"
Samuel then reports to Eli what was said to which Eli responds “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
What Rev. Watkins reminded us on Monday was that Eli’s sons were stealing the best portions of peoples offerings and sacrifices. They cut away the best portions of the sacrifices, they committed adultery with the women who served at the sanctuary entrance, they abused God’s people and the people began to distrust the temple. They would no longer bring sacrifices, or would bring them begrudgingly. They began to trust less in the temple and to trust less in God. The son’s abuse of their position was public, it was flagrant and it was flaunted how much the sons cheated the people out of what they had given. How could one sacrifice their offering when it was clear just how much it was misused and abused?
Eli’s sin was not that he was ignorant of the abuse. He knew. Everybody knew.
Eli’s sin was not that he failed to name the sin and rebuke it - it is said that he did so.
God says Eli’s sin is that his sons sinned “and he failed to restrain them.”
Eli saw what his sons did, rebuked them for it, and yet they continued on and most likely he ate the prime cuts of meat when it was offered to him. Rev. Watkins beautifully named that Eli did nothing to stop the sin from being done after rebuking it, he stayed complicit in allowing it to occur - and Eli knew. Eli knew and God’s judgment was already set to come.
Eli practiced cheap grace. To name and rebuke sin but to fail to restrain it is cheap grace.
After the events of the Capitol insurrection and what will likely be more armed protests that threaten a peaceful transition of power there will pleas and calls for cheap grace. There will be attempts to “move on” without restraining sin, there will be efforts to heal without holding those who cause harm accountable, there will be calls for unity without the presence of justice. Calls to forgive and forget without confession and reparation.
Bonhoeffer’s life of costly discipleship is testament that the church cannot deal in cheap grace, it must deal in grace that questions the abuses of power, that heals all those who have been injured, and it must be a “spoke in the wheel” of the machinery of hatred and violence - it must restrain the sin from ever being done again.
The church cannot give out cheap grace. 1st John says “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” If we claim to have healing without accountability, we do not live out the truth. If we claim to have unity without justice, we do not live out the truth. If the grace we extend is cheap, we do not live out the truth.
“ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.”
If we have costly discipleship, we can be purified from all sin - including the sin of, in our cheap grace, failing to restrain the sins that we have rebuked.
Amen.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, one of the most influential modern theologians. He was one of the key figures of the ecumenical movement, he studied at Union in New York, worked at a baptist church in Harlem and found himself back in Europe during the rise of Nazism in Germany.
Bonhoeffer at this time observed that there was increased acceptance of antisemitism and enthusiasm for Nazism in the German churches. Specifically, he observed that many leaders of the German Evangelical Church, the denomination he belonged to were welcoming the rise of the facist Nazi government. A group called the German Christians began to promote the nazification of German Protestantism, they even wanted to create a pro-Nazi “Reich Church.” The church wanted to implement the same kind of “Aryan” laws that the state introduced - calling for only people of good “Aryan” blood to be the only members of the church.
Many protestants at this time broke away from the German Christians, creating what came to be known as the “Confessing Church.” While the Confessing Church was set in opposition against the German Christians and their adoption of doctrine which members of a “separate race” could not become baptized into the “Aryan” church, the Confessing Church did not speak out much about the persecution of German Jews.
Bonhoeffer wrote what is maybe his most famous text in 1933 titled “The Church and the Jewish Question.” Bonhoeffer said that the Nazism taking over Germany was not a legitimate government and as such he opposed it on Christian grounds, calling for the church to question state injustice, saying the church had an obligation to help all victims of injustice - both Christian and non-Christian - and to become an obstacle to a government which tyrannizes it’s people, “to put a spoke in the wheel” he said. To bring the machinery of injustice to a halt.
Speaking so clearly and concisely against the Nazis isolated Bonhoeffer from members of his church but he persisted. Bonhoeffer began spreading information of the Nazi regime to ecumenical partners throughout the world. He trained young clergy in an illegal Confessing Church seminary - which was shut down by the Gestapo in 1937. After, he secretly traveled eastern Germany to help supervise small parishes and continued teaching the young pastors. He was banned from Berlin in 1938 and forbidden from public speaking. Resisting and teaching against the ideology of death and destruction which the Nazi regime presented, Bonhoeffer became increasingly entrenched in resistance to the Nazis. Bonhoeffer’s brother in law Hans von Dohnanyi started informing Bonhoeffer about the resistance plans and helped Bonhoeffer avoid military service, instead obtaining an assignment for him in the Office of Military Intelligence - the office which became the center for resistance groups. Bonhoeffer used his connections to inform ecumenical partners about the deportations of the jews, he became involved in a plan to get Jews out of Germany to safer places, he would inform friends in the Vatican and in Geneva about the plans the resistance were making, he risked his life every day to put a jam in the wheel of the machinery of hatred and violence.
In 1943 the Gestapo uncovered the funds that were being sent for emigrants as part of “Operation Seven,” an attempt to help Jews leave Germany by giving them papers as foreign agents. Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law were arrested. He was charged with conspiring to rescue Jews and misusing his intelligence position to help pastors evade military service.
In 1944 there was a failed coup attempt, and Bonhoeffer’s connections to the circles of resistance were uncovered by the Gestapo. He was moved to Buchenwald and then the Flossenburg concentration camp in 1945 where he was hanged.
Bonhoeffer wrote a book called “Costly Discipleship.” A fitting title for his life, I would say. We often ask “how could it have happened? Why didn’t the church do anything?” I believe Bonhoeffer answers succinctly how it happened in “Costly Discipleship:” He says that the church lost its demand to follow Jesus and took upon it the pressures and demands of society. He says that grace began to become cheap, that grace was sold like on a marketplace. These words may sound familiar as they informed the words on Costly Unity which I read in a prior sermon: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Jesus Christ extends grace to us, limitlessly and endlessly and there is nothing we do to earn it, no works we do to earn it, but there is a distinction to be made between the grace that Jesus Christ gives us and what we do with it. Attempts to have unity in ways that ignore the hurt done, attempts to unify victims with their abusers without any kind of justice meted out is cheap grace. Calls for healing without accountability is cheap grace. Calls for forgiveness without repentance, reconciliation without reparations, absolution from sin without the confession of the sinner is cheap grace. God gives us grace freely but in our discipleship we do not act in ways that cheapen the grace God has given us.
The texts I chose for today are not the lectionary texts, but I knew God put it on my heart to speak to the lectionary text when I heard Rev. Ayanna Watkins preach at the Disciples Divinity House chapel I attended on Monday. The lectionary text is from Samuel and it is the story of Samuel hearing his name called in the night. Samuel, son of Hannah, given over to the temple, was trained by the priest Eli. When Samuel heard his name called in the night he responded “Here am I” and he runs to Eli and says “Here I am; you called me” but Eli says, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” This happens again, the Lord calls Samuel and Samuel runs to Eli and Eli tells him “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
It happens a third time, but this time Eli realize that God was calling for Samuel and Eli told Samuel “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”
So Samuel did. Then the Lord says to him:
"See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.
At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family--from beginning to end.
For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, `The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.'"
Samuel then reports to Eli what was said to which Eli responds “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
What Rev. Watkins reminded us on Monday was that Eli’s sons were stealing the best portions of peoples offerings and sacrifices. They cut away the best portions of the sacrifices, they committed adultery with the women who served at the sanctuary entrance, they abused God’s people and the people began to distrust the temple. They would no longer bring sacrifices, or would bring them begrudgingly. They began to trust less in the temple and to trust less in God. The son’s abuse of their position was public, it was flagrant and it was flaunted how much the sons cheated the people out of what they had given. How could one sacrifice their offering when it was clear just how much it was misused and abused?
Eli’s sin was not that he was ignorant of the abuse. He knew. Everybody knew.
Eli’s sin was not that he failed to name the sin and rebuke it - it is said that he did so.
God says Eli’s sin is that his sons sinned “and he failed to restrain them.”
Eli saw what his sons did, rebuked them for it, and yet they continued on and most likely he ate the prime cuts of meat when it was offered to him. Rev. Watkins beautifully named that Eli did nothing to stop the sin from being done after rebuking it, he stayed complicit in allowing it to occur - and Eli knew. Eli knew and God’s judgment was already set to come.
Eli practiced cheap grace. To name and rebuke sin but to fail to restrain it is cheap grace.
After the events of the Capitol insurrection and what will likely be more armed protests that threaten a peaceful transition of power there will pleas and calls for cheap grace. There will be attempts to “move on” without restraining sin, there will be efforts to heal without holding those who cause harm accountable, there will be calls for unity without the presence of justice. Calls to forgive and forget without confession and reparation.
Bonhoeffer’s life of costly discipleship is testament that the church cannot deal in cheap grace, it must deal in grace that questions the abuses of power, that heals all those who have been injured, and it must be a “spoke in the wheel” of the machinery of hatred and violence - it must restrain the sin from ever being done again.
The church cannot give out cheap grace. 1st John says “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” If we claim to have healing without accountability, we do not live out the truth. If we claim to have unity without justice, we do not live out the truth. If the grace we extend is cheap, we do not live out the truth.
“ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.”
If we have costly discipleship, we can be purified from all sin - including the sin of, in our cheap grace, failing to restrain the sins that we have rebuked.
Amen.
Remember Your Baptism, January 10th, 2021
*Note that the text presented here and the sermon preached in the video may be different in parts. This is due to the sermon being retooled after the events on Wed. June 6th, 2021
Matthew 3: 13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Traditionally the Sunday after Epiphany is celebrated as a feast day for the baptism of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist went throughout the land baptizing people with water for repentance. He proclaims the coming of one greater than him that will baptize with fire and the holy spirit.
Then, that one greater than him, comes to him to be baptized. John the Baptist would not have dreamed of this, John the Baptist even says “I am not worthy to untie the throngs of his sandals” and yet Christ comes to John the Baptist to be baptized.
John resists - It’s an incredibly relatable urge. To have somebody you have looked up to, a person of respect and authority, humble themselves before you and ask you to do something of great honor and significance for them - and to feel unworthy to do so.
Jesus curbs John the Baptist’s hesitation. Jesus tells John “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
And John heeds Christ’s words, he consents. He knows that God has seen his worthiness.
This pretty well encapsulates an idea which Martin Luther wrote about in his work “The Freedom of a Christian.” The idea that our baptism makes us both a “perfectly free lord of all, subject to none” and a “perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all.”
By this, Martin Luther means that each Christian, by virtue of their baptism and the love of God, is forgiven of sin and has realized the fulfilment of the law through Jesus Christ. Salvation has been given through Jesus Christ and is our to accept.
But by receiving Christ’s love and salvation, we are compelled by obedience and love of God to do good works. Luther writes “[Christians] do works out of spontaneous love in obedience to God and considers nothing except the approval of God.”
In this way we are limitlessly free, liberated by God’s love and mercy, but our own love of God’s righteousness and mercy compels us to act in love and good works to others, to do good works in obedience to God. Luther said every Christin is made free by God’s love and every Christian lives their life for others because of God’s love.
For John the Baptist, this freedom and obedience compels him to baptize his savior. His freedom and obedience made him more than worthy to untie the throngs of Christ’s sandals, it has made him worthy prepare deity incarnated in flesh for the mission before him.
Think of your baptism. Here at Evergreen Christian Church, and the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, widely practices believer’s baptism meaning that baptism is an act performed when the person being baptized has done some kind of learning and training and made a confession of faith and commitment to their baptism. Many denominations do baptism of infants and we also recognize people baptized in such a way. I imagine it’s harder to think back to your baptism if you’re an infant, however.
If you can, think back to your baptism. How did you feel that day? Do you recall any nervousness beforehand? Do you remember the cold waters flushing against your skin? Do you recall how you felt after? Overjoyed, Excited, No Different at all?
I dare say, that the Spirit of God most likely did not descend like a dove and say to you “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” but I am willing to listen to all accounts of one’s baptism.
While you may not have had doves descending, you did receive God’s grace and mercy through your baptism and acceptance of Christ. While you may not have heard God’s voice from the heavens say “This is my child, whom I love; with this child I am well pleased” you are God’s beloved child with whom God is well pleased. By receiving grace and mercy in your baptism, you have received the freedom and the obedience of a Christian, you have been made more than worthy. You have been liberated, but you are compelled to a ministry of grace and mercy.
For Christ, baptism marked the beginning of his Earthly ministry. He received the spirit of God which enabled him to take on that ministry. A ministry that was tiring, a ministry that asked a lot of him, a ministry that brought joy and grief, a ministry which prophetically proclaimed peace in the face of violent empire, a ministry which preached reconciliation to all peoples - no matter how distanced they have been from their God, a ministry which abided with sinners and called power to question, a ministry where Christ died out of love for us. A ministry he was prepared for by a man who felt himself unworthy and unable.
Your baptism has both gifted you freedom and tasked you to obedience. Your baptism started your ministry here on Earth. You have been tasked to kindness, justice, love, and mercy for God’s beloveds and you are more than worthy and more than capable for that ministry.
It’s not an easy task. It will require sacrifice, it will mean abiding with sinners and calling power to question. It will mean forgiving those who are hard to forgive and loving those who are hard to love. It will mean putting ourselves at risk so that others may live good lives.
When in your ministry you find it difficult to live into that ministry of love, truth, and reconciliation - remember your baptism.
Remember that you have been given love and mercy that passes beyond all human understanding.
Remember that you have been empowered by the Divine - that God has looked upon you and said “I am well pleased.” You have been made ready for this.
And remember your baptism means that you are not in the ministry of love and mercy alone. You are baptized into the priesthood of all believers, you are baptized into a body that constitutes more than just yourself, you are not alone.
In God’s grace and mercy you have been baptized into a body which can hold you for your rest when you need it. In face this is what is means to be in the ministry of grace, mercy, and love - To trust in God’s boon and God’s people that you can rest when you need it, that you can soothe aching muscles and receive the waters of life which will quench your parched soul.
And news headlines remind us of how important that is. No justice for targets of state violence. Crumbs for people who have been suffering and asking for half a loaf for months. A refusal to name a white supremicist coup for what it is. Bad actors attempting to spoil vials of a vaccine that is already being rolled out at an underwhelming rate. Attacks on U.S Soil representative of decades and centuries of violence against the voices of God’s beloved which have been crying out.
When authority has failed us, time and time again, we need to promise to hold each other without fail. When the principalities of destruction and violence have been seeded by and have infiltrated into power, we need to remember our baptism - to remember that mercy and love is what we have been baptized into.
I encourage you in this ministry of mercy and love to remember your baptism. I pray that you know both the freedom and obedience of being a Christian. I pray that you have found the friends and family that can give you the rest, the encouragement, the companionship you need to carry out the gospel news, that in receiving the grace of Christ you are compelled to do likewise, you are baptised into a body that is not just you alone and because of that, mercy and grace can prevail.
If these words sound hollow, know that mercy and love means repentance before forgiveness, reparations before reconciliation. Know that we are more than worthy and more than capable - God has us, and if we’ve got each other then mercy and love has a chance.
When the ministry of mercy and love is tough, remember your baptism.
Matthew 3: 13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Traditionally the Sunday after Epiphany is celebrated as a feast day for the baptism of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist went throughout the land baptizing people with water for repentance. He proclaims the coming of one greater than him that will baptize with fire and the holy spirit.
Then, that one greater than him, comes to him to be baptized. John the Baptist would not have dreamed of this, John the Baptist even says “I am not worthy to untie the throngs of his sandals” and yet Christ comes to John the Baptist to be baptized.
John resists - It’s an incredibly relatable urge. To have somebody you have looked up to, a person of respect and authority, humble themselves before you and ask you to do something of great honor and significance for them - and to feel unworthy to do so.
Jesus curbs John the Baptist’s hesitation. Jesus tells John “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
And John heeds Christ’s words, he consents. He knows that God has seen his worthiness.
This pretty well encapsulates an idea which Martin Luther wrote about in his work “The Freedom of a Christian.” The idea that our baptism makes us both a “perfectly free lord of all, subject to none” and a “perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all.”
By this, Martin Luther means that each Christian, by virtue of their baptism and the love of God, is forgiven of sin and has realized the fulfilment of the law through Jesus Christ. Salvation has been given through Jesus Christ and is our to accept.
But by receiving Christ’s love and salvation, we are compelled by obedience and love of God to do good works. Luther writes “[Christians] do works out of spontaneous love in obedience to God and considers nothing except the approval of God.”
In this way we are limitlessly free, liberated by God’s love and mercy, but our own love of God’s righteousness and mercy compels us to act in love and good works to others, to do good works in obedience to God. Luther said every Christin is made free by God’s love and every Christian lives their life for others because of God’s love.
For John the Baptist, this freedom and obedience compels him to baptize his savior. His freedom and obedience made him more than worthy to untie the throngs of Christ’s sandals, it has made him worthy prepare deity incarnated in flesh for the mission before him.
Think of your baptism. Here at Evergreen Christian Church, and the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, widely practices believer’s baptism meaning that baptism is an act performed when the person being baptized has done some kind of learning and training and made a confession of faith and commitment to their baptism. Many denominations do baptism of infants and we also recognize people baptized in such a way. I imagine it’s harder to think back to your baptism if you’re an infant, however.
If you can, think back to your baptism. How did you feel that day? Do you recall any nervousness beforehand? Do you remember the cold waters flushing against your skin? Do you recall how you felt after? Overjoyed, Excited, No Different at all?
I dare say, that the Spirit of God most likely did not descend like a dove and say to you “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” but I am willing to listen to all accounts of one’s baptism.
While you may not have had doves descending, you did receive God’s grace and mercy through your baptism and acceptance of Christ. While you may not have heard God’s voice from the heavens say “This is my child, whom I love; with this child I am well pleased” you are God’s beloved child with whom God is well pleased. By receiving grace and mercy in your baptism, you have received the freedom and the obedience of a Christian, you have been made more than worthy. You have been liberated, but you are compelled to a ministry of grace and mercy.
For Christ, baptism marked the beginning of his Earthly ministry. He received the spirit of God which enabled him to take on that ministry. A ministry that was tiring, a ministry that asked a lot of him, a ministry that brought joy and grief, a ministry which prophetically proclaimed peace in the face of violent empire, a ministry which preached reconciliation to all peoples - no matter how distanced they have been from their God, a ministry which abided with sinners and called power to question, a ministry where Christ died out of love for us. A ministry he was prepared for by a man who felt himself unworthy and unable.
Your baptism has both gifted you freedom and tasked you to obedience. Your baptism started your ministry here on Earth. You have been tasked to kindness, justice, love, and mercy for God’s beloveds and you are more than worthy and more than capable for that ministry.
It’s not an easy task. It will require sacrifice, it will mean abiding with sinners and calling power to question. It will mean forgiving those who are hard to forgive and loving those who are hard to love. It will mean putting ourselves at risk so that others may live good lives.
When in your ministry you find it difficult to live into that ministry of love, truth, and reconciliation - remember your baptism.
Remember that you have been given love and mercy that passes beyond all human understanding.
Remember that you have been empowered by the Divine - that God has looked upon you and said “I am well pleased.” You have been made ready for this.
And remember your baptism means that you are not in the ministry of love and mercy alone. You are baptized into the priesthood of all believers, you are baptized into a body that constitutes more than just yourself, you are not alone.
In God’s grace and mercy you have been baptized into a body which can hold you for your rest when you need it. In face this is what is means to be in the ministry of grace, mercy, and love - To trust in God’s boon and God’s people that you can rest when you need it, that you can soothe aching muscles and receive the waters of life which will quench your parched soul.
And news headlines remind us of how important that is. No justice for targets of state violence. Crumbs for people who have been suffering and asking for half a loaf for months. A refusal to name a white supremicist coup for what it is. Bad actors attempting to spoil vials of a vaccine that is already being rolled out at an underwhelming rate. Attacks on U.S Soil representative of decades and centuries of violence against the voices of God’s beloved which have been crying out.
When authority has failed us, time and time again, we need to promise to hold each other without fail. When the principalities of destruction and violence have been seeded by and have infiltrated into power, we need to remember our baptism - to remember that mercy and love is what we have been baptized into.
I encourage you in this ministry of mercy and love to remember your baptism. I pray that you know both the freedom and obedience of being a Christian. I pray that you have found the friends and family that can give you the rest, the encouragement, the companionship you need to carry out the gospel news, that in receiving the grace of Christ you are compelled to do likewise, you are baptised into a body that is not just you alone and because of that, mercy and grace can prevail.
If these words sound hollow, know that mercy and love means repentance before forgiveness, reparations before reconciliation. Know that we are more than worthy and more than capable - God has us, and if we’ve got each other then mercy and love has a chance.
When the ministry of mercy and love is tough, remember your baptism.
Begin with God, January 3rd 2021
John 1: 1-4, 14
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The gospel of John begins very differently than the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Mark is very direct and action oriented. Within the first chapter of Mark, John the Baptist foretells the coming of Jesus, Jesus is baptized and tempted in the wilderness, Jesus announces the good news, calls his first disciples, drives out an impure spirit, heals many, prays in solitude, and then heals a man with leprosy. It’s quick, one after another, and doesn’t dwell long on why something happened, or the theological significance, but it says what Jesus did, and says it quickly.
The gospel of Matthew is concerned with situating Jesus within history and tradition. Most of the first chapter lists Christ’s lineage, ending with Joseph accepting Jesus as his son. Matthew wants you to know that Christ’s lineage runs from Abraham, to David - that Jesus was a real person with a real family.
Luke tells you the backstory. In chapter 1 Luke tells the prophecies concerning John the Baptist’s birth and Jesus’ birth. Luke gives the background on Mary and Elizabeth, a kind of story of how Jesus came to be.
John, however, dives immediately into theology, beginning with a kind of pre-history of the world, explaining exactly why it’s important that one believes and knows Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The gospel of John begins with something of deep theological significance, Jesus is the Word become flesh, incarnate deity, full of grace and truth. Jesus was God, was with God since the beginning, without him nothing was made, with Christ all things were made. It begins at the beginning, claims the source of all being, and makes a direct statement about Jesus’ nature and divinity.
As you can imagine, statements like this from the gospel of John both clarified and complicated early theologians’ understandings of the nature of God. The biggest, earliest ecumenical debates were on the nature of Christ. Now called heresies, there were many theories about Christ’s nature.
Some said that Christ was “adopted” into the Godhead. Jesus was a normal person that was tested by God and lived perfectly and therefore was “adopted” into the Godhead, meaning that Jesus did not pre-exist before his birth. The Gospel of John outright contradicts this, because it insists that in the beginning the Word, Jesus Christ, was there.
Later, a group believed that Jesus never really had a body. This particular group believed that all “matter” was inherently evil - and something as pure and good as God could not be contained within matter. Therefore Jesus only appeared to have a body. This, again, seemingly contradicts with the first chapter of John, the Word was made flesh, not the word appeared to be flesh.
While, I’m sure you want to hear me drone on about the early Christian heresies and debates and how they resolved and the impact, importance, and complicated nature of this first chapter of the gospel of John, the point I want to make is twofold.
First, what these Early Christian Debates signify is that the nature of Christ was, and is, important. The early church rejected that Christ was not fully human - and therefore did not know the full human experience. They rejected that Christ did not suffer bodily harm, did not know heartbreak and joy, did not feel tired and hungry nor full and content but they asserted that Christ was fully human and that the Divine knows the full range of human experience.
At the same time they rejected that Christ was not fully Divine. They asserted that God walked among humans, that God had human family and friends, they asserted the Divine entered fully into the human realm, without reservation.
Where the early church wound up, and where many, many modern Christians are today, is what we call hypostatic union. Christ has two natures - being both fully human and fully divine - and these two natures help us to know Christ more fully. We know Christ in the intimacy of humanity, and the reverence we have for God. We know Christ to be part of the Godhead - the holy trinity - and know God to be multifaceted and complex - and there’s a lot to discover and enjoy and love in that. Not only is the divine three in one, but Christ is also two nature in union.
It is not only important to know the multifaceted nature of God, to understand Christ as fully human and fully divine, but to know that we, made in God’s image, are also complex and multifaceted. We might not be two natures, fully human and fully divine, not like Christ in that way, but we do reflect divinity, we do participate in the body of Christ, and we hold multiple identities and conflicts and things within us. That is beautiful, that is important and valuable, and that is in itself a reflection of the diversity of the Divine.
But the diversity within us, the many aspects and natures we might have, can be confusing and can cause arguments within ourselves. We don’t have the luxury - or some would maybe say the constraint - of generations of debate, heresy, and canonical teaching to steer us to understanding ourselves in our fullness.
Which can be tough when we think about the new year and new beginnings. Not everything splits easily and smoothly, not everything ends at the end of the year and not everything new begins at the beginning of the new year. We know that some habits will end with the new year and yet many more will persist. We will take up new roles, and end old roles and some parts of our lives we will have no idea what to do with. Come this new year, and at the close of the old one, you might struggle with knowing what or is not who you are. You may be ready for a new thing, and it’s not happening. You may be ready for a thing to end that doesn’t, you might have that internal conflict of who you are in your nature, who you want to be, and where you are right now.
Who you are and where you want to be are important, and figuring it out and making your way there is important. Your nature is important, and valuable, and the complicated - maybe even messy - ways you form your identity are a mirror to divinity. It is a good thing to be complicated and messy, it is a beautiful and good thing.
Which leads me to the second point I want to make about this beginning portion of the Gospel of John. The nature of Jesus - and by extension knowing our own identities and natures in their full complicatedness - is important, and with all new things, and all new ways of understanding ourselves, we must begin with God.
The gospel of John tells us, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all.”
Our lives, our complicated messy identities, the things we want to be and the things we struggle to stop being, all we are and do is made through Christ and as such, it’s best we follow Christ’s example when it comes to endings, new beginnings, and wherever we find ourselves in the middle - we begin with God.
“In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God.”
You want to be a better partner in this new year? You want to quit a bad habit in this new year? Are you in the middle of a big transition? Begin with God. I pray that whatever this coming year brings, you begin with God.
Because in our complicated, messy, multifaceted lives we can do good, beautiful, holy things - we can be reflections of the multifaceted nature of God - if we are to begin with God.
In all we do, in the many different ways we do it, the many different things we do, especially the new things we embark on in this new year, let us begin with God.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The gospel of John begins very differently than the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Mark is very direct and action oriented. Within the first chapter of Mark, John the Baptist foretells the coming of Jesus, Jesus is baptized and tempted in the wilderness, Jesus announces the good news, calls his first disciples, drives out an impure spirit, heals many, prays in solitude, and then heals a man with leprosy. It’s quick, one after another, and doesn’t dwell long on why something happened, or the theological significance, but it says what Jesus did, and says it quickly.
The gospel of Matthew is concerned with situating Jesus within history and tradition. Most of the first chapter lists Christ’s lineage, ending with Joseph accepting Jesus as his son. Matthew wants you to know that Christ’s lineage runs from Abraham, to David - that Jesus was a real person with a real family.
Luke tells you the backstory. In chapter 1 Luke tells the prophecies concerning John the Baptist’s birth and Jesus’ birth. Luke gives the background on Mary and Elizabeth, a kind of story of how Jesus came to be.
John, however, dives immediately into theology, beginning with a kind of pre-history of the world, explaining exactly why it’s important that one believes and knows Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The gospel of John begins with something of deep theological significance, Jesus is the Word become flesh, incarnate deity, full of grace and truth. Jesus was God, was with God since the beginning, without him nothing was made, with Christ all things were made. It begins at the beginning, claims the source of all being, and makes a direct statement about Jesus’ nature and divinity.
As you can imagine, statements like this from the gospel of John both clarified and complicated early theologians’ understandings of the nature of God. The biggest, earliest ecumenical debates were on the nature of Christ. Now called heresies, there were many theories about Christ’s nature.
Some said that Christ was “adopted” into the Godhead. Jesus was a normal person that was tested by God and lived perfectly and therefore was “adopted” into the Godhead, meaning that Jesus did not pre-exist before his birth. The Gospel of John outright contradicts this, because it insists that in the beginning the Word, Jesus Christ, was there.
Later, a group believed that Jesus never really had a body. This particular group believed that all “matter” was inherently evil - and something as pure and good as God could not be contained within matter. Therefore Jesus only appeared to have a body. This, again, seemingly contradicts with the first chapter of John, the Word was made flesh, not the word appeared to be flesh.
While, I’m sure you want to hear me drone on about the early Christian heresies and debates and how they resolved and the impact, importance, and complicated nature of this first chapter of the gospel of John, the point I want to make is twofold.
First, what these Early Christian Debates signify is that the nature of Christ was, and is, important. The early church rejected that Christ was not fully human - and therefore did not know the full human experience. They rejected that Christ did not suffer bodily harm, did not know heartbreak and joy, did not feel tired and hungry nor full and content but they asserted that Christ was fully human and that the Divine knows the full range of human experience.
At the same time they rejected that Christ was not fully Divine. They asserted that God walked among humans, that God had human family and friends, they asserted the Divine entered fully into the human realm, without reservation.
Where the early church wound up, and where many, many modern Christians are today, is what we call hypostatic union. Christ has two natures - being both fully human and fully divine - and these two natures help us to know Christ more fully. We know Christ in the intimacy of humanity, and the reverence we have for God. We know Christ to be part of the Godhead - the holy trinity - and know God to be multifaceted and complex - and there’s a lot to discover and enjoy and love in that. Not only is the divine three in one, but Christ is also two nature in union.
It is not only important to know the multifaceted nature of God, to understand Christ as fully human and fully divine, but to know that we, made in God’s image, are also complex and multifaceted. We might not be two natures, fully human and fully divine, not like Christ in that way, but we do reflect divinity, we do participate in the body of Christ, and we hold multiple identities and conflicts and things within us. That is beautiful, that is important and valuable, and that is in itself a reflection of the diversity of the Divine.
But the diversity within us, the many aspects and natures we might have, can be confusing and can cause arguments within ourselves. We don’t have the luxury - or some would maybe say the constraint - of generations of debate, heresy, and canonical teaching to steer us to understanding ourselves in our fullness.
Which can be tough when we think about the new year and new beginnings. Not everything splits easily and smoothly, not everything ends at the end of the year and not everything new begins at the beginning of the new year. We know that some habits will end with the new year and yet many more will persist. We will take up new roles, and end old roles and some parts of our lives we will have no idea what to do with. Come this new year, and at the close of the old one, you might struggle with knowing what or is not who you are. You may be ready for a new thing, and it’s not happening. You may be ready for a thing to end that doesn’t, you might have that internal conflict of who you are in your nature, who you want to be, and where you are right now.
Who you are and where you want to be are important, and figuring it out and making your way there is important. Your nature is important, and valuable, and the complicated - maybe even messy - ways you form your identity are a mirror to divinity. It is a good thing to be complicated and messy, it is a beautiful and good thing.
Which leads me to the second point I want to make about this beginning portion of the Gospel of John. The nature of Jesus - and by extension knowing our own identities and natures in their full complicatedness - is important, and with all new things, and all new ways of understanding ourselves, we must begin with God.
The gospel of John tells us, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all.”
Our lives, our complicated messy identities, the things we want to be and the things we struggle to stop being, all we are and do is made through Christ and as such, it’s best we follow Christ’s example when it comes to endings, new beginnings, and wherever we find ourselves in the middle - we begin with God.
“In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God.”
You want to be a better partner in this new year? You want to quit a bad habit in this new year? Are you in the middle of a big transition? Begin with God. I pray that whatever this coming year brings, you begin with God.
Because in our complicated, messy, multifaceted lives we can do good, beautiful, holy things - we can be reflections of the multifaceted nature of God - if we are to begin with God.
In all we do, in the many different ways we do it, the many different things we do, especially the new things we embark on in this new year, let us begin with God.
Get Up and Go, Christmas Eve 2020
Weeks of waiting are drawing to a close.
A moment of relief is upon us.
We have prepared for this moment.
We have acted intentionally.
We are about to crest over the hill - to a new thing, to a world that is fundamentally different than the one we have known in this liminal time.
Today, these words pull double duty.
We are approaching a period of rapid change. A new presidential administration and a new session of congress are about to begin - and whether you put a lot of stock into these things, or even like these things - they surely will have some effect on our lives. We wait with bated breath to see how these changes affect us, whether promises will be kept, if our best hopes or our worst fears will be fulfilled.
We are on the cusp of a new year and while some may say new years are just arbitrary marks on a calendar - these arbitrary marks serve an important function in giving us structure by which to reevaluate our lives and dream new dreams and see new visions for the year ahead. It gives us a clean break in time to say “I no longer want to do or be these things because I am ready and wanting to do and be these things.”
And, special to our time, we are on the cusp of coming out of this pandemic. A lot of work will have to be done to restore people’s lives, but vaccines have been developed, they’re being administered to health care workers with the logistics and delivery systems being fleshed out and realized before our eyes. There is a hope that before the end of summer all American who want a vaccine will have received it.
And this holy day we await the birth of the Christ child. We await the incarnation of deity into flesh. We await the arrival of the Prince of Peace and the heralding of the year of the Lord’s favor. We await our reconciliation with God - and with each other.
While Christ is available to us, present around us, with us, all the time - this special time of advent and Christmas - we prepare ourselves, and the world, for Christ to enter into our lives. In this special time of Christmas we re-welcome and re-invite Christ to abide with us and in us. We take on again the rights and duties of our baptism - we re-immerse ourselves into the Body of Christ.
We are so close, but not yet there. We are still in this liminal state, this stage between. The advent of a totally vaccinated population, the advent of a new year, the advent of Christ’s birth. We are almost there, but not yet.
This Christmas Eve we sit at this time of “almost but not yet” and we are reminded that in all of our preparation, all of our waiting, we must also think about what we do when the moment comes.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus invites people to their liberation and healing. Jesus provides the means, the tools, the healing, the invitation - Jesus provides the call and it is upon the person to answer. “Pick up you mat and walk” “Rise and stand on your feet!” “Little girl, I say to you, get up and walk!” “Young man, I say to you, rise!” “Stand up and go, your faith has made you well.”
The refrain from Christ is that upon receiving his healing, upon receiving his grace and mercy, the recipient must get up and go. They must realize the healing and grace given to them - they have to act upon it.
We are almost out of this time of transition - out of our liminal state - and into something new. The “almost but not yet” will soon be “the right now.” But when the “almost but not yet” is here, what will we do? When Christ is born, when deity is incarnated into flesh, when the prince of peace arrives - how will we herald and welcome the arrival?
And remember - not everybody will leave this transitional time together. There will be folks who still need to receive their healing, need to be allowed the time to grieve and mourn, need to hear the good news. There will be folks who are stuck, not quite ready for what is next, need the help to cross over.
But, I hope when the time comes for you, you will answer Christ’s call of “get up and go” - and this Christmas season you will get up and tell the world that Hope, Peace, Joy and Love have arrived. That you will get up and go and be the body of Christ - the newborn Christ whose arrival we have prepared for - the newborn Christ whose arrival we welcome - the newborn Christ whose call is ours to answer.
Get up and Go.
Amen.
A moment of relief is upon us.
We have prepared for this moment.
We have acted intentionally.
We are about to crest over the hill - to a new thing, to a world that is fundamentally different than the one we have known in this liminal time.
Today, these words pull double duty.
We are approaching a period of rapid change. A new presidential administration and a new session of congress are about to begin - and whether you put a lot of stock into these things, or even like these things - they surely will have some effect on our lives. We wait with bated breath to see how these changes affect us, whether promises will be kept, if our best hopes or our worst fears will be fulfilled.
We are on the cusp of a new year and while some may say new years are just arbitrary marks on a calendar - these arbitrary marks serve an important function in giving us structure by which to reevaluate our lives and dream new dreams and see new visions for the year ahead. It gives us a clean break in time to say “I no longer want to do or be these things because I am ready and wanting to do and be these things.”
And, special to our time, we are on the cusp of coming out of this pandemic. A lot of work will have to be done to restore people’s lives, but vaccines have been developed, they’re being administered to health care workers with the logistics and delivery systems being fleshed out and realized before our eyes. There is a hope that before the end of summer all American who want a vaccine will have received it.
And this holy day we await the birth of the Christ child. We await the incarnation of deity into flesh. We await the arrival of the Prince of Peace and the heralding of the year of the Lord’s favor. We await our reconciliation with God - and with each other.
While Christ is available to us, present around us, with us, all the time - this special time of advent and Christmas - we prepare ourselves, and the world, for Christ to enter into our lives. In this special time of Christmas we re-welcome and re-invite Christ to abide with us and in us. We take on again the rights and duties of our baptism - we re-immerse ourselves into the Body of Christ.
We are so close, but not yet there. We are still in this liminal state, this stage between. The advent of a totally vaccinated population, the advent of a new year, the advent of Christ’s birth. We are almost there, but not yet.
This Christmas Eve we sit at this time of “almost but not yet” and we are reminded that in all of our preparation, all of our waiting, we must also think about what we do when the moment comes.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus invites people to their liberation and healing. Jesus provides the means, the tools, the healing, the invitation - Jesus provides the call and it is upon the person to answer. “Pick up you mat and walk” “Rise and stand on your feet!” “Little girl, I say to you, get up and walk!” “Young man, I say to you, rise!” “Stand up and go, your faith has made you well.”
The refrain from Christ is that upon receiving his healing, upon receiving his grace and mercy, the recipient must get up and go. They must realize the healing and grace given to them - they have to act upon it.
We are almost out of this time of transition - out of our liminal state - and into something new. The “almost but not yet” will soon be “the right now.” But when the “almost but not yet” is here, what will we do? When Christ is born, when deity is incarnated into flesh, when the prince of peace arrives - how will we herald and welcome the arrival?
And remember - not everybody will leave this transitional time together. There will be folks who still need to receive their healing, need to be allowed the time to grieve and mourn, need to hear the good news. There will be folks who are stuck, not quite ready for what is next, need the help to cross over.
But, I hope when the time comes for you, you will answer Christ’s call of “get up and go” - and this Christmas season you will get up and tell the world that Hope, Peace, Joy and Love have arrived. That you will get up and go and be the body of Christ - the newborn Christ whose arrival we have prepared for - the newborn Christ whose arrival we welcome - the newborn Christ whose call is ours to answer.
Get up and Go.
Amen.
Unexpected Love, December 20th, 2020
1st Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
In a way, Love is the culmination of our other Advent Weeks. Love is driven by hope. Hope for a future together, hope that love will prevail, hope that shared love is true, and in many ways Love bears us new Hope. Love is creative and energetic, it makes a new thing, new possibilities and often is what people will place their hope in as it gives us resilience.
Love creates peace, Love is what drives us to try to obtain true peace, it is out of love for our neighbor that we care for them. It is out of love for our fellows that we strive for a kind of justice that brings about peace.
Love is so often the source of our joy. We feel the warmth that comes into our hearts from hugging a grandchild, from holding the hand of our significant other, or spending time with our family. We know so much joy comes from the people we love, joy that is created because there is love in the world.
But the truth is that love is hard.
Love is hard.
Love requires a lot from us, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to know what love is, isn't it?
Sure, sometimes we just know, but how much of our teen years, our early twenties, maybe even longer, is spent falling in and out of love?
If we are to be cynical about it, Love opens us up to a lot of hurt.
Being in love with somebody opens us to new realms of hurt. The hurt of heartbreak. The sadness of losing a loved one. The anxiety of seeing somebody you love struggle. The despair when somebody you love loses their way and there’s almost nothing you can do to help them. That feeling of deep deep guilt when somebody you love is mad at you, or disappointed in you, or you have hurt them.
Love is hard.
It doesn’t only open us up to a lot of hurt, requiring us to be vulnerable, but it also asks a lot from us.
It asks us to trust the people we love. To know we cannot control them, or what they do with our love, but to trust and respect them enough that we can love them.
If you live with the people you love, well, that’s it’s own bag of worms. Merging two different people, from different families, lifestyles, sometimes cultures or languages, different preferences for how things are, different schedules and hobbies… well, it can be difficult.
Love means some sacrifice, to sometimes give up things that are in your interest or favor because the one you love needs you to do so. For instance I think of my friends with newborns who give up a lot of sleep, a lot of sanity, to care for their child. It means giving up full autonomy, if we ever truly had full autonomy, it means sacrifice and less self-interested world views.
Love is hard.
It can even be hard to receive love.
To accept that somebody else loves you, to let them love you fully. To open yourself up to their love.
But Paul reminds us why love is so important in this passage,
“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
I think one of the reasons love is so hard is because we don’t have proper language for talking about love.
The greeks had several words for love:
Eros: Erotic love, sexual passion.
Philia: A kind of deep abiding friendship. Love between comrades. There was also a form of Philia called Storge - a kind of love between a parent and their child.
Ludus: Playful love. The kind of love of friends bantering in the bar, or two people flirting with each other.
Pragma: Long Standing love. A mature and realistic love found often between couples that have been together a long time. Compromising and making things work. Although the Greeks themselves did not use this word, I think it appropriate to describe a kind of love I have seen, for instance, my own parents have.
Philautia: Self love. This can be a warped self love - like narcissism - or it can be a very healthy self love, like self confidence.
And
Agape: gift love - as C.S Lewis called it. A kind of universal, loving kindness. A kind of selfless love, a love you could potentially have for people you don't even know. Also called a kind of “love feast.”
I think all of these kinds of love are important to have in our life, and no one person or one thing will be the source of all these kinds of love. Different relationships will feed us in different ways and I wish we worked harder to recognize the ways we need to show these kinds of love to each other. I think, for men, it has been stigmatized to say “I love you” to our friends, and I think that is maybe starting to go away with my generation on, but men so often have trouble showing their friends that they support them, that there is a philia kind of love between them. Many people struggle with Philautia, with loving themselves. They do not love themselves because they have not been shown love by others, or they think self love is conceited, but the reality is that love for our selves enhances our ability to perform the other kinds of love. I think if we all had a little more Ludus we could lighten our lives and the lives of our friends. Knowing that Eros is a kind of love can help us to have healthy relationships with sex and passion and building our relationships upon Pragma makes it stronger.
Agape is maybe the love that is missing most in modern American society. Studies on empathy have shown that empathy has declined sharply over the past forty years and political divisiveness, increased tribalism, increased racial tension and a scarcity mindset have caused folks to look out for their own and see the gains of another as a threat to themselves. Love for the stranger is hard to achieve when “Screw you, I’ve got mine” is too often the prevailing throughline of many of our social interactions, our politics, our business deals, and many other ways we treat each other. This pandemic has been an exercise in seeing the ways people do, or do not, partake in agape love.
Agape is the word Paul uses in this passage. Paul writes to the church in Corinth which is deeply divided amongst themselves. They are fighting, and Paul reminds them what it means to have love for a stranger.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Paul, before this chapter, talks about the many disputes the church has. Disputes about women wearing head coverings, disputes about leadership, disputes about sacrificing and the eating of food, but Paul sums these disputes up in a reminder that their way of being in the world is cemented and focused on love. Agape love. To be Christian is to have agape. These things they are disputing about, the question is about how do they or do they not fall into this category of love.
Now, I think we can all agree that Paul’s aspiration for this church’s love is just that… aspirational. This is because Paul’s visions of love are aspirational to the kind of love that God has for us. Our imperfect ways and forms of love are modeled after God’s perfect love. We base Christian love off of the love God has shown us.
God’s love is patient, God’s love is kind, God’s love does not boast, it does not fail. This is what God does for us, God’s beloved. This is what God does for us, God’s children. God loves us, and there is nothing we can do to earn that love, there is nothing we can do to lose that love.
God in God’s grace and mercy, in God’s love, gave us Jesus Christ - divinity in flesh - which is in itself unexpected.
Jesus Christ, in his grace and mercy, in Christ’s love for us, emptied himself, died on the cross, out of love for us. Out of love for sinners and saints alike. There is nothing we can do to earn that love or to lose it, and that itself is unexpected.
1st Corinthians is also the letter in which Paul writes that we believers are part of one body, the body of Christ. That each part of the body is special and has its place and cannot say to any other part it is not needed. That there is no longer gentile or jew, woman or man, or servant or free but we are one in the body of Christ.
As we are the body of Christ, we must act like the body of Christ, and Christ’s body was beaten and abused, it was killed, he emptied himself out completely out of love for strangers. Christ’s body embodied Agape. So must ours. Our physical bodies, and the body of Christ that we make up. We are to be agape love. To model our imperfect love after God’s Agape love for us.
Paul writes, “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but not everything is constructive.” Paul acknowledges as Christian we have the right to do anything, but we have the spiritual duty to be agape love.
Church, we have received an unexpected love, but we are also to be unexpected love, unexpected agape. We are to be patient, kind, non-boastful, not envious, not proud, to have short memories of others’ wrongdoing, we are to do this for complete strangers - maybe even people are divided against.
As we, this last Sunday of advent, prepare ourselves to receive Christ’s love in our life, we do so knowing that we are to be Christ’s unexpected love in action.
Amen
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
In a way, Love is the culmination of our other Advent Weeks. Love is driven by hope. Hope for a future together, hope that love will prevail, hope that shared love is true, and in many ways Love bears us new Hope. Love is creative and energetic, it makes a new thing, new possibilities and often is what people will place their hope in as it gives us resilience.
Love creates peace, Love is what drives us to try to obtain true peace, it is out of love for our neighbor that we care for them. It is out of love for our fellows that we strive for a kind of justice that brings about peace.
Love is so often the source of our joy. We feel the warmth that comes into our hearts from hugging a grandchild, from holding the hand of our significant other, or spending time with our family. We know so much joy comes from the people we love, joy that is created because there is love in the world.
But the truth is that love is hard.
Love is hard.
Love requires a lot from us, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to know what love is, isn't it?
Sure, sometimes we just know, but how much of our teen years, our early twenties, maybe even longer, is spent falling in and out of love?
If we are to be cynical about it, Love opens us up to a lot of hurt.
Being in love with somebody opens us to new realms of hurt. The hurt of heartbreak. The sadness of losing a loved one. The anxiety of seeing somebody you love struggle. The despair when somebody you love loses their way and there’s almost nothing you can do to help them. That feeling of deep deep guilt when somebody you love is mad at you, or disappointed in you, or you have hurt them.
Love is hard.
It doesn’t only open us up to a lot of hurt, requiring us to be vulnerable, but it also asks a lot from us.
It asks us to trust the people we love. To know we cannot control them, or what they do with our love, but to trust and respect them enough that we can love them.
If you live with the people you love, well, that’s it’s own bag of worms. Merging two different people, from different families, lifestyles, sometimes cultures or languages, different preferences for how things are, different schedules and hobbies… well, it can be difficult.
Love means some sacrifice, to sometimes give up things that are in your interest or favor because the one you love needs you to do so. For instance I think of my friends with newborns who give up a lot of sleep, a lot of sanity, to care for their child. It means giving up full autonomy, if we ever truly had full autonomy, it means sacrifice and less self-interested world views.
Love is hard.
It can even be hard to receive love.
To accept that somebody else loves you, to let them love you fully. To open yourself up to their love.
But Paul reminds us why love is so important in this passage,
“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
I think one of the reasons love is so hard is because we don’t have proper language for talking about love.
The greeks had several words for love:
Eros: Erotic love, sexual passion.
Philia: A kind of deep abiding friendship. Love between comrades. There was also a form of Philia called Storge - a kind of love between a parent and their child.
Ludus: Playful love. The kind of love of friends bantering in the bar, or two people flirting with each other.
Pragma: Long Standing love. A mature and realistic love found often between couples that have been together a long time. Compromising and making things work. Although the Greeks themselves did not use this word, I think it appropriate to describe a kind of love I have seen, for instance, my own parents have.
Philautia: Self love. This can be a warped self love - like narcissism - or it can be a very healthy self love, like self confidence.
And
Agape: gift love - as C.S Lewis called it. A kind of universal, loving kindness. A kind of selfless love, a love you could potentially have for people you don't even know. Also called a kind of “love feast.”
I think all of these kinds of love are important to have in our life, and no one person or one thing will be the source of all these kinds of love. Different relationships will feed us in different ways and I wish we worked harder to recognize the ways we need to show these kinds of love to each other. I think, for men, it has been stigmatized to say “I love you” to our friends, and I think that is maybe starting to go away with my generation on, but men so often have trouble showing their friends that they support them, that there is a philia kind of love between them. Many people struggle with Philautia, with loving themselves. They do not love themselves because they have not been shown love by others, or they think self love is conceited, but the reality is that love for our selves enhances our ability to perform the other kinds of love. I think if we all had a little more Ludus we could lighten our lives and the lives of our friends. Knowing that Eros is a kind of love can help us to have healthy relationships with sex and passion and building our relationships upon Pragma makes it stronger.
Agape is maybe the love that is missing most in modern American society. Studies on empathy have shown that empathy has declined sharply over the past forty years and political divisiveness, increased tribalism, increased racial tension and a scarcity mindset have caused folks to look out for their own and see the gains of another as a threat to themselves. Love for the stranger is hard to achieve when “Screw you, I’ve got mine” is too often the prevailing throughline of many of our social interactions, our politics, our business deals, and many other ways we treat each other. This pandemic has been an exercise in seeing the ways people do, or do not, partake in agape love.
Agape is the word Paul uses in this passage. Paul writes to the church in Corinth which is deeply divided amongst themselves. They are fighting, and Paul reminds them what it means to have love for a stranger.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Paul, before this chapter, talks about the many disputes the church has. Disputes about women wearing head coverings, disputes about leadership, disputes about sacrificing and the eating of food, but Paul sums these disputes up in a reminder that their way of being in the world is cemented and focused on love. Agape love. To be Christian is to have agape. These things they are disputing about, the question is about how do they or do they not fall into this category of love.
Now, I think we can all agree that Paul’s aspiration for this church’s love is just that… aspirational. This is because Paul’s visions of love are aspirational to the kind of love that God has for us. Our imperfect ways and forms of love are modeled after God’s perfect love. We base Christian love off of the love God has shown us.
God’s love is patient, God’s love is kind, God’s love does not boast, it does not fail. This is what God does for us, God’s beloved. This is what God does for us, God’s children. God loves us, and there is nothing we can do to earn that love, there is nothing we can do to lose that love.
God in God’s grace and mercy, in God’s love, gave us Jesus Christ - divinity in flesh - which is in itself unexpected.
Jesus Christ, in his grace and mercy, in Christ’s love for us, emptied himself, died on the cross, out of love for us. Out of love for sinners and saints alike. There is nothing we can do to earn that love or to lose it, and that itself is unexpected.
1st Corinthians is also the letter in which Paul writes that we believers are part of one body, the body of Christ. That each part of the body is special and has its place and cannot say to any other part it is not needed. That there is no longer gentile or jew, woman or man, or servant or free but we are one in the body of Christ.
As we are the body of Christ, we must act like the body of Christ, and Christ’s body was beaten and abused, it was killed, he emptied himself out completely out of love for strangers. Christ’s body embodied Agape. So must ours. Our physical bodies, and the body of Christ that we make up. We are to be agape love. To model our imperfect love after God’s Agape love for us.
Paul writes, “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but not everything is constructive.” Paul acknowledges as Christian we have the right to do anything, but we have the spiritual duty to be agape love.
Church, we have received an unexpected love, but we are also to be unexpected love, unexpected agape. We are to be patient, kind, non-boastful, not envious, not proud, to have short memories of others’ wrongdoing, we are to do this for complete strangers - maybe even people are divided against.
As we, this last Sunday of advent, prepare ourselves to receive Christ’s love in our life, we do so knowing that we are to be Christ’s unexpected love in action.
Amen
Unexpected Joy, December 13th, 2020
James 5: 7-10
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 11: 2 - 11
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’[b]
11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
John the Baptist is one of my favorite Biblical figures. He is a little bit of a “wild man.” The prophet who will proclaim the coming of the Lord is not exactly the most credible looking figure. Even Jesus comments on it, asking the gathered people if the prophet who proclaimed Christ’s coming was a well dressed man. The answer of course, is “no.” Christ uses this to give credibility to John as a prophet. He remarks that clearly John the Baptist is not a man that is easily bought and swayed, like a reed the bends in the wind, and he is not in the pockets of the courts or the politicians, or royalty, he is not a man who wears nice robes and rubs elbows with the elites and says what they want him to say. He is a prophet, through and through.
But to look at John the Baptist, to hear John the Baptist, I don’t know how much I would trust him. He wore camel’s hair robes, he was, to put it nicely, “an itinerant” preacher. To be more frank, he lived in the wilderness, he ate locusts and wild honey, he presumably had messy and unkempt hair. I’ve seen myself in the morning - with my covid hairstyle and my bedhead - it’s not a sight that engenders trust, or makes me look very charismatic or dependable.
And yet, John the Baptist got something of a following. He wandered the wilderness, preaching and baptising, people called him a Messiah and yet he told them “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Many of Christ’s earliest followers were followers of John the Baptist.
But, again, if you were to see and hear this crazy man, honey dripping in his overgrown beard, eyes wild as he preaches of the coming of Christ, would you trust it? Could you reconcile it with the baby in Mary’s womb which inspires her to sing this prayer,
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.”
Maybe you would have been able to hear John the Baptist’s words and really “listen” to what he is proclaiming. Maybe you would have been excited by this baptism by fire, knowing God in human form comes soon. Maybe you could have taken the words of the honey and locust eating John the Baptist and read the sign posts which directed us to know the coming of Christ. John the Baptist, the one who prepares the way of the Lord, is a man wandering the wilderness, who eats locusts and wild honey and is eventually imprisoned for his proclamations.
Our other prophet and preparer of the way for Christ is young Mary. She was maybe 14, became pregnant, was by all accounts still a virgin, and claimed to carry divinity within her womb. Would you have been able to listen to the young, pregnant Mary, Mary who was maybe 14 years old, and realized that she bore the son of God? Know that her soul magnified the Lord because her body carried our savior? Know that as her soul jumps for joy, her womb carries joy for the world?
I’m not sure I could have seen John the Baptist and known the arrival of our source of Joy to be imminent. I’m not sure I would have known exactly what Mary was talking about.
Look at our two messengers for joy. Look at the two people who prepare the way for Christ. John the Baptist, wild looking man that he is, baptizes and preaches repentance preparing the people to receive the teachings and mercy of Christ. Mary, young woman that she is, forms Christ in her womb, preparing to literally birth Christ into the world.
For the baby yet a king, for the prince of peace, for the hope and salvation of the world, his arrival is heralded by outcasts and young women. The marginalized and the vulnerable.
C.S Lewis, in his autobiography Surprised by Joy wrote about this kind of longing he had. He would be hit by these pangs, a kind of longing for something higher, something so good he could not explain it in words. He called this longing “Joy.” He says Joy “is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” This longing in and of itself is different from happiness or pleasure, he says the simple act of this longing is more satisfying than actually satisfying our other longings. For C.S Lewis this longing, this “Joy” was for God.
C.S Lewis remarks that these pangs of Joy worked as signposts for his life. That these pangs of Joy were most important, and most salient, when wandering in the wilderness. When our lives feel like they are on the paved paths, the signposts of where to go and what to do feel frequent and common, we don’t appreciate the longing. When we are in the wilderness, the pangs of joy, this longing which in itself feels better than filling any kind of craving, are the signposts towards where we need to go, towards discovering what the purpose and meaning of our life is.
If you have felt, especially in quarantine - in a pandemic - in a season of grief, felt like you were wandering in the wilderness - or if you felt vulnerable and afraid, the Gospel News is that Joy is coming, that we expectantly wait for that joy.
The gospel news is Joy will guide you through the wilderness. The gospel news is that Joy is for the most vulnerable and afraid - a reminder their life is meaningful and purposeful - that our souls desire for more than our present circumstance.
The gospel news is that the wilderness is where the messengers of Joy preach the good news of the coming of Christ. The gospel news is that the vulnerable and the afraid sing songs of God’s glory, and it was a young woman who carried cause for Joy in her womb, and a wild man who prepared the world to receive its salvation.
The gospel news is that there is unexpected Joy - unexpected longing for something greater and more good - unexpected sign posts that lead us to Christ - and its messengers and carriers are unexpected people from unexpected places.
The good news is that if you are in the wilderness, you are exactly where the proclaimers of Joy and the preparers for Christ are. The good news is that Jesus says the most downtrodden, the most depressed and upset, the most lost and confused, the most disaffected and unsatisfied will feel those pangs of Joy, and even the least of the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than John the Baptist - the one who prepared the world for Christ through baptism.
I pray this advent season you are also surprised by joy. I pray that you prepare the world for Joy in your wilderness, in your vulnerability, in your wandering and “itinerant preaching.”
Amen
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 11: 2 - 11
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’[b]
11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
John the Baptist is one of my favorite Biblical figures. He is a little bit of a “wild man.” The prophet who will proclaim the coming of the Lord is not exactly the most credible looking figure. Even Jesus comments on it, asking the gathered people if the prophet who proclaimed Christ’s coming was a well dressed man. The answer of course, is “no.” Christ uses this to give credibility to John as a prophet. He remarks that clearly John the Baptist is not a man that is easily bought and swayed, like a reed the bends in the wind, and he is not in the pockets of the courts or the politicians, or royalty, he is not a man who wears nice robes and rubs elbows with the elites and says what they want him to say. He is a prophet, through and through.
But to look at John the Baptist, to hear John the Baptist, I don’t know how much I would trust him. He wore camel’s hair robes, he was, to put it nicely, “an itinerant” preacher. To be more frank, he lived in the wilderness, he ate locusts and wild honey, he presumably had messy and unkempt hair. I’ve seen myself in the morning - with my covid hairstyle and my bedhead - it’s not a sight that engenders trust, or makes me look very charismatic or dependable.
And yet, John the Baptist got something of a following. He wandered the wilderness, preaching and baptising, people called him a Messiah and yet he told them “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Many of Christ’s earliest followers were followers of John the Baptist.
But, again, if you were to see and hear this crazy man, honey dripping in his overgrown beard, eyes wild as he preaches of the coming of Christ, would you trust it? Could you reconcile it with the baby in Mary’s womb which inspires her to sing this prayer,
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.”
Maybe you would have been able to hear John the Baptist’s words and really “listen” to what he is proclaiming. Maybe you would have been excited by this baptism by fire, knowing God in human form comes soon. Maybe you could have taken the words of the honey and locust eating John the Baptist and read the sign posts which directed us to know the coming of Christ. John the Baptist, the one who prepares the way of the Lord, is a man wandering the wilderness, who eats locusts and wild honey and is eventually imprisoned for his proclamations.
Our other prophet and preparer of the way for Christ is young Mary. She was maybe 14, became pregnant, was by all accounts still a virgin, and claimed to carry divinity within her womb. Would you have been able to listen to the young, pregnant Mary, Mary who was maybe 14 years old, and realized that she bore the son of God? Know that her soul magnified the Lord because her body carried our savior? Know that as her soul jumps for joy, her womb carries joy for the world?
I’m not sure I could have seen John the Baptist and known the arrival of our source of Joy to be imminent. I’m not sure I would have known exactly what Mary was talking about.
Look at our two messengers for joy. Look at the two people who prepare the way for Christ. John the Baptist, wild looking man that he is, baptizes and preaches repentance preparing the people to receive the teachings and mercy of Christ. Mary, young woman that she is, forms Christ in her womb, preparing to literally birth Christ into the world.
For the baby yet a king, for the prince of peace, for the hope and salvation of the world, his arrival is heralded by outcasts and young women. The marginalized and the vulnerable.
C.S Lewis, in his autobiography Surprised by Joy wrote about this kind of longing he had. He would be hit by these pangs, a kind of longing for something higher, something so good he could not explain it in words. He called this longing “Joy.” He says Joy “is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” This longing in and of itself is different from happiness or pleasure, he says the simple act of this longing is more satisfying than actually satisfying our other longings. For C.S Lewis this longing, this “Joy” was for God.
C.S Lewis remarks that these pangs of Joy worked as signposts for his life. That these pangs of Joy were most important, and most salient, when wandering in the wilderness. When our lives feel like they are on the paved paths, the signposts of where to go and what to do feel frequent and common, we don’t appreciate the longing. When we are in the wilderness, the pangs of joy, this longing which in itself feels better than filling any kind of craving, are the signposts towards where we need to go, towards discovering what the purpose and meaning of our life is.
If you have felt, especially in quarantine - in a pandemic - in a season of grief, felt like you were wandering in the wilderness - or if you felt vulnerable and afraid, the Gospel News is that Joy is coming, that we expectantly wait for that joy.
The gospel news is Joy will guide you through the wilderness. The gospel news is that Joy is for the most vulnerable and afraid - a reminder their life is meaningful and purposeful - that our souls desire for more than our present circumstance.
The gospel news is that the wilderness is where the messengers of Joy preach the good news of the coming of Christ. The gospel news is that the vulnerable and the afraid sing songs of God’s glory, and it was a young woman who carried cause for Joy in her womb, and a wild man who prepared the world to receive its salvation.
The gospel news is that there is unexpected Joy - unexpected longing for something greater and more good - unexpected sign posts that lead us to Christ - and its messengers and carriers are unexpected people from unexpected places.
The good news is that if you are in the wilderness, you are exactly where the proclaimers of Joy and the preparers for Christ are. The good news is that Jesus says the most downtrodden, the most depressed and upset, the most lost and confused, the most disaffected and unsatisfied will feel those pangs of Joy, and even the least of the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than John the Baptist - the one who prepared the world for Christ through baptism.
I pray this advent season you are also surprised by joy. I pray that you prepare the world for Joy in your wilderness, in your vulnerability, in your wandering and “itinerant preaching.”
Amen
Unexpected Peace, December 6th, 2020
Luke 3:1-6
3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3:3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
3:4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
Luke 1: 68-79
1:68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
1:69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David,
1:70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
1:71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
1:72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,
1:73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us
1:74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
1:75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
1:76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
1:77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
1:78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
1:79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
This second week of advent is marked by the lighting of the peace candle.
Our scriptures for today both come from the gospel of Luke and both are proclamations and prophecies as to the coming of Christ. Also in Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke is the magnificat, in which Mary proclaims the ways in which Christ will turn the world upside down upon itself, will lift the lowly and humble the mighty.
It is funny as we are in this time of expectant waiting for Christ who will turn the world upside, many aspects of our world have been turned upside down. A time where we could very much use some peace.
I think most of us picture peace as something serene. Stop as second and just bring to mind a picture of peace.
For me, I picture snow drifting outside my window, I’m warmed by a fire - but it’s nott too warm so that I can still wear my favorite winter sweater. Hot cocoa in hand, Aneesah’s in the room and Duke is laying down and not hovering in my face trying to get a sip of the hot chocolate. Just a serene moment.
I’m sure plenty of you are on a beach somewhere. We often picture moments of quiet, moments of silence or introspection. Peace to us is calm, it often comes with a sense of having nothing pressing to do.
Our scriptures for this week remind us that Advent is a time of expectant waiting, yes, but also that Advent is a time for preparation. Expectant waiting means we prepare ourselves for that which we are waiting for, the arrival of Jesus Christ. Expectant waiting is a kind of active waiting. In John’s prophecy of Jesus Christ’s expectation shattering arrival, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;” he shouts for us to prepare the way of the Lord.
We are tasked with preparing for the arrival of Jesus Christ in this time of advent and this second week of advent reminds us that heralding the arrival of Jesus Christ also means heralding the arrival of peace, as the Gospel of Luke says Jesus Christ will “guide our feet into the way of peace” and so our preparation for Jesus is also preparation for peace.
But listen to the kinds of words which accompany these prophecies of Jesus’ arrival.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
The verbs are full of life and activity, they are not passive, they are not serene, Zeceriah says that John will “give knowledge” “give light” to prepare the way for a savior who will “guide our feet.”
The arrival of Jesus, the arrival of the Prince of Peace, is not passive and serene. It fills valleys, flattens the mountains and hills, it straightens the crooked, it smoothes the rough way.
Folks you don’t prepare for that kind of arrival with serene idyllic mountain side hot cocoa sipping. As much as I wish it was that way.
So maybe this is the unexpected thing about the arrival of God’s peace. It won’t feel like a cup of hot cocoa - it won’t feel like a cold beer while kicking back on a beach. It will be topsy-turvy
We must celebrate the fleeting moments of comfort and quiet. Our rest and relaxation is important, sacred even, but I have learned that comfort and quiet don’t sit too well for me - even though I do enjoy it occasionally - but I especially struggle with quiet. I partook in a silent retreat this spring and while I knew my ears were messed up from trying to dive to the bottom of the really deep UChicago swimming pool, repeatedly, I didn’t know to the extent in which sitting in silence isn’t really silence for me.
Now when I sit in silence I hear ringing. I think I have tinnitus. It's high-pitched and it doesn’t go away unless there’s something else to fill that “space” in my ears. Music, tv, I always have something on in the background and so in this day of silence, I struggled.
In fact, they say if you were in a perfectly soundproofed room, that had no outside noise to penetrate it, you would still hear your own blood, moving through your veins. There is no such thing as absolute silence.
I don’t believe we will prepare ourselves properly for Jesus Christ’s peace by pining - or even achieving - those perfect cozy moments by the fire or by the beach. Those moments of serene-perfect peace are not true either, we will always have the nagging reminder of imperfect justice which God desires for us to rectify.
We will prepare ourselves for Christ’s world upending peace by standing strong in the face of adversity. We will prepare ourselves by continuing to love our neighbor and support them even when our own future may seem uncertain. We will prepare ourselves by cultivating a resilient spirit in the presence of chaos. We will prepare through making paths straight, tendering mercy, sharing light and pushing for justice - even if it requires conflict.
Friends, I can’t think of a more salient time to prepare for Jesus Christ’s unexpected and upending peace than this current season of expectant waiting.
May you find the unexpected peace of Christ.
Amen
3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3:3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
3:4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
Luke 1: 68-79
1:68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
1:69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David,
1:70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
1:71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
1:72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,
1:73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us
1:74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
1:75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
1:76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
1:77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
1:78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
1:79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
This second week of advent is marked by the lighting of the peace candle.
Our scriptures for today both come from the gospel of Luke and both are proclamations and prophecies as to the coming of Christ. Also in Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke is the magnificat, in which Mary proclaims the ways in which Christ will turn the world upside down upon itself, will lift the lowly and humble the mighty.
It is funny as we are in this time of expectant waiting for Christ who will turn the world upside, many aspects of our world have been turned upside down. A time where we could very much use some peace.
I think most of us picture peace as something serene. Stop as second and just bring to mind a picture of peace.
For me, I picture snow drifting outside my window, I’m warmed by a fire - but it’s nott too warm so that I can still wear my favorite winter sweater. Hot cocoa in hand, Aneesah’s in the room and Duke is laying down and not hovering in my face trying to get a sip of the hot chocolate. Just a serene moment.
I’m sure plenty of you are on a beach somewhere. We often picture moments of quiet, moments of silence or introspection. Peace to us is calm, it often comes with a sense of having nothing pressing to do.
Our scriptures for this week remind us that Advent is a time of expectant waiting, yes, but also that Advent is a time for preparation. Expectant waiting means we prepare ourselves for that which we are waiting for, the arrival of Jesus Christ. Expectant waiting is a kind of active waiting. In John’s prophecy of Jesus Christ’s expectation shattering arrival, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;” he shouts for us to prepare the way of the Lord.
We are tasked with preparing for the arrival of Jesus Christ in this time of advent and this second week of advent reminds us that heralding the arrival of Jesus Christ also means heralding the arrival of peace, as the Gospel of Luke says Jesus Christ will “guide our feet into the way of peace” and so our preparation for Jesus is also preparation for peace.
But listen to the kinds of words which accompany these prophecies of Jesus’ arrival.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
The verbs are full of life and activity, they are not passive, they are not serene, Zeceriah says that John will “give knowledge” “give light” to prepare the way for a savior who will “guide our feet.”
The arrival of Jesus, the arrival of the Prince of Peace, is not passive and serene. It fills valleys, flattens the mountains and hills, it straightens the crooked, it smoothes the rough way.
Folks you don’t prepare for that kind of arrival with serene idyllic mountain side hot cocoa sipping. As much as I wish it was that way.
So maybe this is the unexpected thing about the arrival of God’s peace. It won’t feel like a cup of hot cocoa - it won’t feel like a cold beer while kicking back on a beach. It will be topsy-turvy
We must celebrate the fleeting moments of comfort and quiet. Our rest and relaxation is important, sacred even, but I have learned that comfort and quiet don’t sit too well for me - even though I do enjoy it occasionally - but I especially struggle with quiet. I partook in a silent retreat this spring and while I knew my ears were messed up from trying to dive to the bottom of the really deep UChicago swimming pool, repeatedly, I didn’t know to the extent in which sitting in silence isn’t really silence for me.
Now when I sit in silence I hear ringing. I think I have tinnitus. It's high-pitched and it doesn’t go away unless there’s something else to fill that “space” in my ears. Music, tv, I always have something on in the background and so in this day of silence, I struggled.
In fact, they say if you were in a perfectly soundproofed room, that had no outside noise to penetrate it, you would still hear your own blood, moving through your veins. There is no such thing as absolute silence.
I don’t believe we will prepare ourselves properly for Jesus Christ’s peace by pining - or even achieving - those perfect cozy moments by the fire or by the beach. Those moments of serene-perfect peace are not true either, we will always have the nagging reminder of imperfect justice which God desires for us to rectify.
We will prepare ourselves for Christ’s world upending peace by standing strong in the face of adversity. We will prepare ourselves by continuing to love our neighbor and support them even when our own future may seem uncertain. We will prepare ourselves by cultivating a resilient spirit in the presence of chaos. We will prepare through making paths straight, tendering mercy, sharing light and pushing for justice - even if it requires conflict.
Friends, I can’t think of a more salient time to prepare for Jesus Christ’s unexpected and upending peace than this current season of expectant waiting.
May you find the unexpected peace of Christ.
Amen
Unexpected Hope, November 29th, 2020 Sermon
Isaiah 64 1-9
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
2
As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
3
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
4
Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
5
You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
6
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to[b] our sins.
8
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.
This year of 2020 has had as its refrain a series of unexpected events. An unexpected virus has turned life upside down. A series of, unexpected for many people, protests reached a peak as a result of 100 plus years of shortened life expectations for black and brown people due to state violence. Unexpected wildfires, an kind of unexpected election process, we have had unexpected sorrow but also unexpected joy. My life has been surrounded both by the life cycle events of people going home to their creator, and people celebrating the birth of babies and announcements of pregnancies.
To keep up this refrain, we will celebrate the unexpected in our time of advent.
We celebrate the unexpected, however this refrain of unexpected events was not fully unexpected. Still is not fully unexpected.
Sometime in the mid 2000s President Bush put together a pandemic task force, sometime in the 2010s President Obama warned that an airborne contagious virus was a global health threat and threat to our economy. Back when the virus was just in China, we saw how quickly it moved, we saw how dangerous it was, and we knew about early cases in the United States and it was downplayed by many, many places.
After years and years of the death of black and brown people and the abuse of black and brown bodies at the hands of state of authority, after years and years of protests it should be no surprise to see tired and agitated people stand up for themselves.
We have been warned for years about the devastating effects of climate change, that natural disasters would occur more frequently and happen with greater destruction.
Perhaps these events are unexpected, but they were forewarned.
But even in our forewarning, we couldn’t have known what it would be like. I think there is maybe an adage, if not I am making it up, but I think there is an adage that goes something like, “You won’t know what it’s like til you try it.”
With all the forewarning in the world, we wouldn’t have known what social distancing and quarantining would be like til we actually went through it. We may have expected one thing, but even in our best formulated expectations, the unexpected still occurs. It is a year that has become expected unexpectedness.
The point being, even that which we could have expected has hit us in unexpected ways.
This might sound familiar to last week: this passage in Isaiah is written by and for a people in exile and disarray. The people believe that God is punishing them for their sin by withholding his face from them, by essentially abandoning them. Isaiah says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
And as a result of God’s abandonment, Isiah says
“No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to[b] our sins.”
But the prophet Isaiah remembers a day when God’s presence was with them. The prophet remembers a day in which they were shook by God, they were surprised by unexpected things:
“that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect.”
Isaiah yearns for the time in which God shook the earth - that the presence of the divine overwhelmed them. Isaiah yearns for the unexpected thing that God did.
This scripture from Isaiah ends in hope. It ends in Isaiah reminding both God and his own people, that their covenant is eternal. Isaiah proclaims
“Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.”
Isaiah’s hope is met, not in his lifetime, but it is met and met in quite an unexpected way.
God looks upon us, God dwells with us but when God comes it does not shake the mountains, the Earth is not shattered asunder. God comes as a child.
A child, weak, vulnerable, crying, he can’t feed himself, he can’t clean himself, he is a child.
God comes a child born in a lowly manger, amongst animals.
Isaiah’s hope for God to turn God’s face on God’s people again, Isaiah’s expectation of hope was met.. unexpectedly.
God did a new thing, God surprised the world again. God gave us hope in the most unexpected way.
Advent is a time for expectant waiting. To know what is to come, but to wait for it to be fulfilled. To know there is hope for the world, and to wait for Jesus who is our hope for the world.
I pray in this advent season you reflect back upon this year or expected unexpectedness and find what your sources of unexpected hope were.
I pray in this advent season, you find ways to be unexpected hope for others.
I pray for you, in your expectant waiting, that Jesus Christ disrupts your life and gives you hope in unexpected ways.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
2
As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
3
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
4
Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
5
You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
6
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to[b] our sins.
8
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.
This year of 2020 has had as its refrain a series of unexpected events. An unexpected virus has turned life upside down. A series of, unexpected for many people, protests reached a peak as a result of 100 plus years of shortened life expectations for black and brown people due to state violence. Unexpected wildfires, an kind of unexpected election process, we have had unexpected sorrow but also unexpected joy. My life has been surrounded both by the life cycle events of people going home to their creator, and people celebrating the birth of babies and announcements of pregnancies.
To keep up this refrain, we will celebrate the unexpected in our time of advent.
We celebrate the unexpected, however this refrain of unexpected events was not fully unexpected. Still is not fully unexpected.
Sometime in the mid 2000s President Bush put together a pandemic task force, sometime in the 2010s President Obama warned that an airborne contagious virus was a global health threat and threat to our economy. Back when the virus was just in China, we saw how quickly it moved, we saw how dangerous it was, and we knew about early cases in the United States and it was downplayed by many, many places.
After years and years of the death of black and brown people and the abuse of black and brown bodies at the hands of state of authority, after years and years of protests it should be no surprise to see tired and agitated people stand up for themselves.
We have been warned for years about the devastating effects of climate change, that natural disasters would occur more frequently and happen with greater destruction.
Perhaps these events are unexpected, but they were forewarned.
But even in our forewarning, we couldn’t have known what it would be like. I think there is maybe an adage, if not I am making it up, but I think there is an adage that goes something like, “You won’t know what it’s like til you try it.”
With all the forewarning in the world, we wouldn’t have known what social distancing and quarantining would be like til we actually went through it. We may have expected one thing, but even in our best formulated expectations, the unexpected still occurs. It is a year that has become expected unexpectedness.
The point being, even that which we could have expected has hit us in unexpected ways.
This might sound familiar to last week: this passage in Isaiah is written by and for a people in exile and disarray. The people believe that God is punishing them for their sin by withholding his face from them, by essentially abandoning them. Isaiah says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
And as a result of God’s abandonment, Isiah says
“No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to[b] our sins.”
But the prophet Isaiah remembers a day when God’s presence was with them. The prophet remembers a day in which they were shook by God, they were surprised by unexpected things:
“that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect.”
Isaiah yearns for the time in which God shook the earth - that the presence of the divine overwhelmed them. Isaiah yearns for the unexpected thing that God did.
This scripture from Isaiah ends in hope. It ends in Isaiah reminding both God and his own people, that their covenant is eternal. Isaiah proclaims
“Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.”
Isaiah’s hope is met, not in his lifetime, but it is met and met in quite an unexpected way.
God looks upon us, God dwells with us but when God comes it does not shake the mountains, the Earth is not shattered asunder. God comes as a child.
A child, weak, vulnerable, crying, he can’t feed himself, he can’t clean himself, he is a child.
God comes a child born in a lowly manger, amongst animals.
Isaiah’s hope for God to turn God’s face on God’s people again, Isaiah’s expectation of hope was met.. unexpectedly.
God did a new thing, God surprised the world again. God gave us hope in the most unexpected way.
Advent is a time for expectant waiting. To know what is to come, but to wait for it to be fulfilled. To know there is hope for the world, and to wait for Jesus who is our hope for the world.
I pray in this advent season you reflect back upon this year or expected unexpectedness and find what your sources of unexpected hope were.
I pray in this advent season, you find ways to be unexpected hope for others.
I pray for you, in your expectant waiting, that Jesus Christ disrupts your life and gives you hope in unexpected ways.
Be Sheep, November 22nd 2020 Sermon
Ezekiel 34 : 11-16
11 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.[a] I will feed them in justice.
Matthew 25: 31-46
The Final Judgment31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
The prophet Ezekiel spoke to a group of exiled peoples, he himself was actually an exile. Ezekiel proclaimed his prophecies probably during 6th century BCE in Babylonia, which is a time period when the Judeans were exiled from their homeland. Throughout the book, Ezekiel refers to the Babylonian subjugation of Judah. The Babylonians defeated the Assyrian empire between 614 and 609, and then defeated Egypt in 605 making them the leading power in the Syria-Palestine area, which included Judah and the Judeans. Judah was occupied by Babylon. The Judeans, like many of their neighbors, rebelled against the Babylonians and the Babylonians in response exiled the Judeans. In 597 the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem and when King Jehoiakim died in the siege, his son Jehoiachin surrendered and was exiled along with the Judean ruling class. This would have included Ezekiel. Around 586 the Babylonians installed a puppet king of Judah, Zedekiah, who also rebelled and so the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and exiled all but the poorest Judeans to Babylon.
When you read scriptural references to Babylon, Babylon often acts as a signifier of evil or corruption, such as references to the whore of Babylon in Revelations. We have to remember the historical trauma between Judah and Babylon when we read about the Babylonians.
The Babylonians destroyed and exiled the people of Judah twice within one lifetime. Exile and destruction of the temple was especially damaging for the Judeans because place and location hold special significance within their religious tradition and history. When Moses and the Israelites flee Egypt it is with a promise of delivery to a promised land. King David conquered Jerusalem and King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem became a signifier for the land of Israel and the Israelites. The temple took a special place in the Israelites’ religious practive. It was believed that God actually dwelled inside of the temple, that God needed a physical space to reside and that special space was established in the temple. This is one of the reasons why there are so many rituals for purity and cleanliness within the Jewish tradition, one must be pure and clean to enter into the same space in which God dwelled. The temple in Jerusalem took special significance as once you could perform your worship rituals, including your sacrifices, at any temple in Judah until Josiah declared that all sacrifice in the Kingdom of Judah must take place at the Temple in Jerusalem. Therefore the Temple in Jerusalem was extra special and significant to the Judeans.
The history of Israel, of Jerusalem is long and fraught, with the modern history of Israel and Palestine being complicated and traumatic. Surely the Jewish understanding of God and the temple have changed as a result of their exile, but for Ezekiel, in his time, to lose their land and their temple would have been to lose almost everything. Jerusalem, Judah, was a place promised to them, the temple is where God dwelled and both have been taken from them, even destroyed, by the Babylonians. There was an urge to theologically explain this, and even Ezekiel prophesied exile and ruin because the people had abandoned their covenant with God. The people may have seen this as God’s abandonment, they may have seen this as a kind of divine punishment, the people lost the land of their ancestors and they lost their temple which acted as residence for the heavenly host.
In very meaningful ways the people were separated from their promised ancestral lands and they were severed from their ways to connect with God, to worship God, to glorify God.
Ezekiel prophesies God’s intention for God’s scattered and exiled people and it is not an intention of separation and abandonment. It is a promise of care and restoration, it is a promise of God’s providence even in the utter loss of the temple, even in the wandering of exile. “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.” God’s people have not been abandoned but God’s people will be restored, taken care of, fed.
Today in the liturgical calendar is called Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday and we get a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God, what the Reign of Christ is like from this reading from Matthew about the Sheep and the Goats.
People rightly note the way in which Jesus radically identifies himself with “the least of these” and proclaims that the treatment of the suffering is treatment of Jesus Christ himself, and treatment of the suffering is grounds for judgement. These are radical and powerful lessons. Jesus would have been familiar with the prophecies of Ezekiel and would have been familiar with Ezekiel proclaiming God’s intention to round up the flock and care for them. Jesus here is expanding who are members of the flock. Anybody who has cared for the “least of these” is part of the flock, they are sheep of the Good Shepherd.
When Jesus speaks these words in Matthew he is quite explicitly saying to his disciples what they should do while they wait for his return. Become sheep. Care for God’s people, care for the least of these, care for me.
When you listen to Jesus’ words the response of the goats is summarily “If we would have known it was you, we would have cared for the least of these.”
We cannot fall into that same trap. We cannot fall into thinking that Jesus is not present in every person we interact with and we cannot pretend that the way we treat any other person does not have implications for how we are treating the wider body of Christ.
There are a couple of populations who have been alarmingly affected by Covid-19. Unfortunately, as is true for most public health crises, the homeless and people of color were significantly more impacted by Covid.
Additionally our elderly suffer significantly more from Covid-19, from outbreaks in nursing homes, to dying alone and the deterioration caused by loneliness and isolation our elderly and our loved ones in assisted living facilities suffer acutely from this disease.
And perhaps one of the groups that people are least compassionate to, people in jail and prison, are suffering.For people in jail, which is supposed to be confinement for people awaiting trial or sentencing - so in many cases they are people who have not been convicted of a crime but do not have the money for bail - and for people in prison being confined or incarcerated has become a death sentence, and it does not have to be.
I believe as a church we have some idea - not fully - but some idea of what it means to lose a sense of our sacred and holy space. We no longer gather in the sanctuary like we once did, we no longer gather with family and friends like we once did. The sacred touch of our hugs for one another, the sacred sharing of meals together, the sacred moments we once had we’ve had to adapt and change in what can feel like this time of exile.
Ezekiel prophesies God’s restoration of the exiled and broken people. God will seek the lost, and will bring back the strayed, and will bind up the injured, and will strengthen the weak, God will make them whole and restore to them what was once lost.
Jesus expands who are sheep in God’s flock.
So in our time of - I don’t want to call it exile as we are not exiled- but in this time of separation from many of the things, and places, and people we love, we can look forward to God’s restoration of the flock - and to God’s new thing but we have to ask ourselves will we find ourselves like Goats, saying “Jesus if we would have known it was you, we would have behaved differently”
Or will we be like the sheep, who while waiting for the return of Christ were serving Christ all along.
Amen
11 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.[a] I will feed them in justice.
Matthew 25: 31-46
The Final Judgment31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
The prophet Ezekiel spoke to a group of exiled peoples, he himself was actually an exile. Ezekiel proclaimed his prophecies probably during 6th century BCE in Babylonia, which is a time period when the Judeans were exiled from their homeland. Throughout the book, Ezekiel refers to the Babylonian subjugation of Judah. The Babylonians defeated the Assyrian empire between 614 and 609, and then defeated Egypt in 605 making them the leading power in the Syria-Palestine area, which included Judah and the Judeans. Judah was occupied by Babylon. The Judeans, like many of their neighbors, rebelled against the Babylonians and the Babylonians in response exiled the Judeans. In 597 the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem and when King Jehoiakim died in the siege, his son Jehoiachin surrendered and was exiled along with the Judean ruling class. This would have included Ezekiel. Around 586 the Babylonians installed a puppet king of Judah, Zedekiah, who also rebelled and so the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and exiled all but the poorest Judeans to Babylon.
When you read scriptural references to Babylon, Babylon often acts as a signifier of evil or corruption, such as references to the whore of Babylon in Revelations. We have to remember the historical trauma between Judah and Babylon when we read about the Babylonians.
The Babylonians destroyed and exiled the people of Judah twice within one lifetime. Exile and destruction of the temple was especially damaging for the Judeans because place and location hold special significance within their religious tradition and history. When Moses and the Israelites flee Egypt it is with a promise of delivery to a promised land. King David conquered Jerusalem and King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem became a signifier for the land of Israel and the Israelites. The temple took a special place in the Israelites’ religious practive. It was believed that God actually dwelled inside of the temple, that God needed a physical space to reside and that special space was established in the temple. This is one of the reasons why there are so many rituals for purity and cleanliness within the Jewish tradition, one must be pure and clean to enter into the same space in which God dwelled. The temple in Jerusalem took special significance as once you could perform your worship rituals, including your sacrifices, at any temple in Judah until Josiah declared that all sacrifice in the Kingdom of Judah must take place at the Temple in Jerusalem. Therefore the Temple in Jerusalem was extra special and significant to the Judeans.
The history of Israel, of Jerusalem is long and fraught, with the modern history of Israel and Palestine being complicated and traumatic. Surely the Jewish understanding of God and the temple have changed as a result of their exile, but for Ezekiel, in his time, to lose their land and their temple would have been to lose almost everything. Jerusalem, Judah, was a place promised to them, the temple is where God dwelled and both have been taken from them, even destroyed, by the Babylonians. There was an urge to theologically explain this, and even Ezekiel prophesied exile and ruin because the people had abandoned their covenant with God. The people may have seen this as God’s abandonment, they may have seen this as a kind of divine punishment, the people lost the land of their ancestors and they lost their temple which acted as residence for the heavenly host.
In very meaningful ways the people were separated from their promised ancestral lands and they were severed from their ways to connect with God, to worship God, to glorify God.
Ezekiel prophesies God’s intention for God’s scattered and exiled people and it is not an intention of separation and abandonment. It is a promise of care and restoration, it is a promise of God’s providence even in the utter loss of the temple, even in the wandering of exile. “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.” God’s people have not been abandoned but God’s people will be restored, taken care of, fed.
Today in the liturgical calendar is called Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday and we get a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God, what the Reign of Christ is like from this reading from Matthew about the Sheep and the Goats.
People rightly note the way in which Jesus radically identifies himself with “the least of these” and proclaims that the treatment of the suffering is treatment of Jesus Christ himself, and treatment of the suffering is grounds for judgement. These are radical and powerful lessons. Jesus would have been familiar with the prophecies of Ezekiel and would have been familiar with Ezekiel proclaiming God’s intention to round up the flock and care for them. Jesus here is expanding who are members of the flock. Anybody who has cared for the “least of these” is part of the flock, they are sheep of the Good Shepherd.
When Jesus speaks these words in Matthew he is quite explicitly saying to his disciples what they should do while they wait for his return. Become sheep. Care for God’s people, care for the least of these, care for me.
When you listen to Jesus’ words the response of the goats is summarily “If we would have known it was you, we would have cared for the least of these.”
We cannot fall into that same trap. We cannot fall into thinking that Jesus is not present in every person we interact with and we cannot pretend that the way we treat any other person does not have implications for how we are treating the wider body of Christ.
There are a couple of populations who have been alarmingly affected by Covid-19. Unfortunately, as is true for most public health crises, the homeless and people of color were significantly more impacted by Covid.
Additionally our elderly suffer significantly more from Covid-19, from outbreaks in nursing homes, to dying alone and the deterioration caused by loneliness and isolation our elderly and our loved ones in assisted living facilities suffer acutely from this disease.
And perhaps one of the groups that people are least compassionate to, people in jail and prison, are suffering.For people in jail, which is supposed to be confinement for people awaiting trial or sentencing - so in many cases they are people who have not been convicted of a crime but do not have the money for bail - and for people in prison being confined or incarcerated has become a death sentence, and it does not have to be.
I believe as a church we have some idea - not fully - but some idea of what it means to lose a sense of our sacred and holy space. We no longer gather in the sanctuary like we once did, we no longer gather with family and friends like we once did. The sacred touch of our hugs for one another, the sacred sharing of meals together, the sacred moments we once had we’ve had to adapt and change in what can feel like this time of exile.
Ezekiel prophesies God’s restoration of the exiled and broken people. God will seek the lost, and will bring back the strayed, and will bind up the injured, and will strengthen the weak, God will make them whole and restore to them what was once lost.
Jesus expands who are sheep in God’s flock.
So in our time of - I don’t want to call it exile as we are not exiled- but in this time of separation from many of the things, and places, and people we love, we can look forward to God’s restoration of the flock - and to God’s new thing but we have to ask ourselves will we find ourselves like Goats, saying “Jesus if we would have known it was you, we would have behaved differently”
Or will we be like the sheep, who while waiting for the return of Christ were serving Christ all along.
Amen
God's Love Everlasting, November 15, 2020
Romans 8:31-38
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I think this is a piece of scripture so powerful, it almost speaks for itself. It’s a piece of scripture that speaks for itself as a sermon. God’s love is so deep that no height nor depth can hide us from it. God’s love is powerful that it has conquered death and is effused through all of life. God’s love is all encompassing, where nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. God’s love covers us through trouble and hardship, protects us through persecution and famine and nakedness, God’s love makes dull the most dangerous swords.
When I sent out pictures of our new dog, Duke, Don emailed me back saying that our dogs give us an example of what unconditional love is.
I find that mostly to be true with Duke, but the condition is that Duke loves me a LOT more when I have a treat in my hand. He listens really well if he thinks I have a treat but if I don’t his big ol’ ears don’t seem to work so well.
I have had a couple of dogs, and I find the love between a dog and its person to so often be a doting kind of love. Even in your worst attitudes, on your worst days, you could have failed a test, you could have screwed up at work, your significant other could have left you, everyone can be mad at you but yet, but your dog loves you.
You could be a loser and your dog thinks you’re the coolest thing on the planet. You could be the coolest person on the planet, and your dog would think you’re the coolest person on the planet.
Duke is a little bit of a velcro dog. He’s now starting to lay in rooms on his own, especially liking to lay in the sunlight through the window, but if Aneesah and I are on the couch, he’s on the couch, in between us. If we’re in the office, he’s laying on the floor nearby. Every morning, around 6 am, I take him out and then we spend another hour or so laying on the couch and he has to be as close as physically possible to me, which is simultaneously extremely cute and uncomfortable.
I think there is an aspect of God’s love that is like the love between a dog and it’s person. On our worst days, in the worst times of our lives, having screwed up or having burned bridges, God in God’s love reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our creator dotes on us, our creator wants to be close to us and be present in all aspects and times of our life. Our creator enjoys our presence and rejoices in the time we spend with them.
Not to say God is a dog, or a dog owner, but we can learn of God’s love by loving each other, and loving beings other than ourselves. A glimpse of a kind of unconditional, doting love.
If we’re fortunate enough, one of the first and deepest lessons we’ll learn about love comes from our parents. An oft repeated chorus by my parents growing up, to all the children, was “You always have a home here.” Both of my parents were married and had children before they met each other and yet our home was a home for all the children - their house is still a home for all their children, their children’s spouses, their children’s children. Throughout my childhood kids moved in and out of the house. As their life circumstances changed they came and went but it imparted upon me, the youngest child, that my parent’s home was a place to reset, to heal, to find one’s footing if they needed to. The love of my parents was healing and restorative and no matter life circumstances or what might have caused one of the kids to come back home, they had a home.
So it is with God’s love. It offers us the space we need to reset, it offers us a place to rest, a place to heal. Like the father who embraces the prodigal son, God embraces us, welcomes us back, in an abundance of grace and love.
I am sure you can think of many ways love has been transformative to your life, to the lives of those around you. How the love of a friend has brought you through a tough time. How the love of a significant other has boosted your confidence. How the love shown by a stranger has given you new hope for life.
My friends, God’s love is all these things and more. It is a love that is present without condition, it is a love that chases us even when we try to run away, it is a love that cannot be overcome, it is a love that conquers any obstacle, it is a love that heals, a love the comforts, a love that challenges, a love that endures, a love that is still present even if we believe we are too broken, too sad, or too undeserving to receive it. Even in our lowest of lows, God’s love is for us.
For our church it has been a season of grief.
Anniversaries of the loss of loved ones have come by. The deaths of long time church members like Carol Livingston and Barbara Johnson have happened without the ability to fully mourn them together. This month Don’s daughter DeDe passed away, Bob’s father’s friend has passed away and Gloria’s niece’s husband, David, suddenly and unexpectedly passed as well. Covid is ever present and ever more salient. We’re at a tenuous time of high tensions and uncertainties as to the future of our country and the peaceful transition of power.
There are plenty of reminders around us of our grief and sorrow. Let us find reminders of God’s love all around us. Be reminded of God’s ever present, doting love when you pet your dog or cat. Be reminded of God’s healing love when you see your own parents or kids. Be reminded of God’s hope when a stranger acts in kindness towards you. Be reminded of God’s companionship the next time you see a friend. Be reminded that God’s love chases us to all corners of the Earth. Be reminded that there is nothing we can do to lose God’s love, just as there is nothing we did to earn it. God loves because God loves us, God’s love is extended in mercy and grace. God’s love is for us, whether or not we feel we deserve it.
As this is a scripture that largely speaks for itself, I will read it again - read it knowing we approach this text in a time of grief:
Romans 8:31-38
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I think this is a piece of scripture so powerful, it almost speaks for itself. It’s a piece of scripture that speaks for itself as a sermon. God’s love is so deep that no height nor depth can hide us from it. God’s love is powerful that it has conquered death and is effused through all of life. God’s love is all encompassing, where nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. God’s love covers us through trouble and hardship, protects us through persecution and famine and nakedness, God’s love makes dull the most dangerous swords.
When I sent out pictures of our new dog, Duke, Don emailed me back saying that our dogs give us an example of what unconditional love is.
I find that mostly to be true with Duke, but the condition is that Duke loves me a LOT more when I have a treat in my hand. He listens really well if he thinks I have a treat but if I don’t his big ol’ ears don’t seem to work so well.
I have had a couple of dogs, and I find the love between a dog and its person to so often be a doting kind of love. Even in your worst attitudes, on your worst days, you could have failed a test, you could have screwed up at work, your significant other could have left you, everyone can be mad at you but yet, but your dog loves you.
You could be a loser and your dog thinks you’re the coolest thing on the planet. You could be the coolest person on the planet, and your dog would think you’re the coolest person on the planet.
Duke is a little bit of a velcro dog. He’s now starting to lay in rooms on his own, especially liking to lay in the sunlight through the window, but if Aneesah and I are on the couch, he’s on the couch, in between us. If we’re in the office, he’s laying on the floor nearby. Every morning, around 6 am, I take him out and then we spend another hour or so laying on the couch and he has to be as close as physically possible to me, which is simultaneously extremely cute and uncomfortable.
I think there is an aspect of God’s love that is like the love between a dog and it’s person. On our worst days, in the worst times of our lives, having screwed up or having burned bridges, God in God’s love reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our creator dotes on us, our creator wants to be close to us and be present in all aspects and times of our life. Our creator enjoys our presence and rejoices in the time we spend with them.
Not to say God is a dog, or a dog owner, but we can learn of God’s love by loving each other, and loving beings other than ourselves. A glimpse of a kind of unconditional, doting love.
If we’re fortunate enough, one of the first and deepest lessons we’ll learn about love comes from our parents. An oft repeated chorus by my parents growing up, to all the children, was “You always have a home here.” Both of my parents were married and had children before they met each other and yet our home was a home for all the children - their house is still a home for all their children, their children’s spouses, their children’s children. Throughout my childhood kids moved in and out of the house. As their life circumstances changed they came and went but it imparted upon me, the youngest child, that my parent’s home was a place to reset, to heal, to find one’s footing if they needed to. The love of my parents was healing and restorative and no matter life circumstances or what might have caused one of the kids to come back home, they had a home.
So it is with God’s love. It offers us the space we need to reset, it offers us a place to rest, a place to heal. Like the father who embraces the prodigal son, God embraces us, welcomes us back, in an abundance of grace and love.
I am sure you can think of many ways love has been transformative to your life, to the lives of those around you. How the love of a friend has brought you through a tough time. How the love of a significant other has boosted your confidence. How the love shown by a stranger has given you new hope for life.
My friends, God’s love is all these things and more. It is a love that is present without condition, it is a love that chases us even when we try to run away, it is a love that cannot be overcome, it is a love that conquers any obstacle, it is a love that heals, a love the comforts, a love that challenges, a love that endures, a love that is still present even if we believe we are too broken, too sad, or too undeserving to receive it. Even in our lowest of lows, God’s love is for us.
For our church it has been a season of grief.
Anniversaries of the loss of loved ones have come by. The deaths of long time church members like Carol Livingston and Barbara Johnson have happened without the ability to fully mourn them together. This month Don’s daughter DeDe passed away, Bob’s father’s friend has passed away and Gloria’s niece’s husband, David, suddenly and unexpectedly passed as well. Covid is ever present and ever more salient. We’re at a tenuous time of high tensions and uncertainties as to the future of our country and the peaceful transition of power.
There are plenty of reminders around us of our grief and sorrow. Let us find reminders of God’s love all around us. Be reminded of God’s ever present, doting love when you pet your dog or cat. Be reminded of God’s healing love when you see your own parents or kids. Be reminded of God’s hope when a stranger acts in kindness towards you. Be reminded of God’s companionship the next time you see a friend. Be reminded that God’s love chases us to all corners of the Earth. Be reminded that there is nothing we can do to lose God’s love, just as there is nothing we did to earn it. God loves because God loves us, God’s love is extended in mercy and grace. God’s love is for us, whether or not we feel we deserve it.
As this is a scripture that largely speaks for itself, I will read it again - read it knowing we approach this text in a time of grief:
Romans 8:31-38
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
A More Costly Unity, November 8th, 2020
Acts 2: 42-47
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
I think this is the Sunday most pastors dread, the Sunday after the election.
What do you say to a church that is potentially divided over how they feel about the results of the election.
What do you say to a nation that is definitely divided over how they feel about the results of the election?
No doubt there will be calls for unity across our nation.
I am suspicious of hasty calls for unity. Too often calls for unity are empty words, too often calls for unity are actually calls for uniformity.
Unity requires much more than empty words.
Unity requires justice and equity. For our country to be united we must first have respect for and act in decency towards every single person in this country. How can we possibly make calls for unity when groups of people are still marginalized and disadvantaged in nearly every aspect of their lives? How do we call for unity when women are paid less than men and women of color even less than white women? There can be no unity if we do not ease the burden of marginalized people, there can be no unity if we merely silence dissenting opinions or voices crying for liberty and relief. We cannot ask people to be united if we are not even willing to grant the basic rights and privileges the majority of people enjoy to everybody. We cannot ask for unity and have many of the protections for LGBTQ+ people rest only in court cases that can be overturned. We cannot ask for people living their lives in fear to be united with the people they fear. We cannot ask for the down-trodden and put upon to ignore their suffering so we may have a sense of comfort that comes with being “united.”
We also cannot have unity without vision. What is unity if there is no goal or vision to be united in? What is the point of a united people when they cannot see what it is they are untied for? Unity without vision is a threat; it is a group willing to do whatever - as long they do it together - without a moral north star to keep the honest, it is a group acting together without the guidelines and parameters of a vision to keep themselves on track and accountable.
I am suspicious of hasty and easy calls to unity which do not fully accommodate for what must be done for us to be united, and I believe unity will be a goal we ever propel ourselves towards. Far into the future we will be working to undo the conditions and systems which marginalize and oppress God’s children. Far into the future we will be working to understand one another better, understanding why we choose whatever ideologies we may. Far into the future we will be working on a vision that truly includes all of us, brings all of us along, and makes all of our lives better. True unity is a costly unity, not a cheap unity.
The World Council of Churches is a body of many Christian denominations working to realize our unity in Christ. The World Council of Churches, even though they work to realize unity, struggles mightily with unity. The commission on Faith and Order wrote this about unity:
Moral issues and struggle often represent the line between "cheap" unity and "costly" unity. Cheap unity avoids morally contested issues because they would disturb the unity of the church. Costly unity is discovering the churches' unity as a gift of pursuing justice and peace. It is often acquired at a price. Consider the struggle for independence in Namibia or the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa. Forces tried to play off Roman Catholics against Lutherans, Anglicans against Methodists, and indigenous African churches against historic denominations. Genuine unity was discovered in joint struggle, often breaking new ecumenical ground. In other cases costly unity is precisely to transcend loyalty to blood and soil, nation and ethnic or class heritage in the name of the God who is one and whose creation is one. It is the unity of the church accomplished on the way of the cross, paid for by the life of Christ and the lives of the martyrs, whose witness inevitably included moral witness. This is unity which, by God's grace, breaks down dividing walls so that we might be reconciled to God and one another. Its enemy is cheap unity; forgiveness without repentance, baptism without discipleship, life without daily dying and rising in a household of faith (the oikos) that is to be the visible sign of God's desire for the whole inhabited earth (the oikoumene).
How it is with the various denominations of the World Council of Churches so it is with us in the church and in our country. I am weary of hasty calls to unity because we all may have specific grievances which need to be addressed before we can really be united, and addressing those grievances very well may be costly. This Sunday I am not asking for us to be united, but I am asking for us to be working towards a costly unity.
In this passage from Acts we see a community of believers who are by all accounts united and growing, this is one of the first mentions of what we call the “early church.” They met in each other's houses, they witnessed miracles and worshipped together. Their unity did not come from political victory or calls to be united, but their unity came from them meeting, sharing all they had, breaking bread together, and witnessing to the miracles around them. Their unity was not from winning and telling the losers to suck it up, nor did it come from entrenching in an oppositional place of doubt and hate, and they did not convert others and add to their numbers through force but it was in their sharing, their witnessing, and being in community together that they were able to enjoy each other's favor. Madeline let me borrow a book of quotes from Mr. Rogers and he once said “The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away” and what we observe from the believers in Acts is a group of Christians who may not have had many blessings and yet still chose to give what they have away, and they were uniting and growing for it. It was costly, but well worth it.
While these are not ordinary times, in the liturgical calendar of the Church we are in what is called Ordinary Time. We often mark this ordinary time through green liturgical vestments. The green cloth on the table, the green banner hanging from the lectern, during ordinary time we usually decorate our churches with green. It was tempting, maybe even would have been easy, to write a sermon about being united in the green of ordinary time, that when we come to church we don’t come as red or blue people but we come to the green of ordinary time.
But that didn’t feel right to me. First, there is a green party in the U.S.A and while it’s statistically unlikely anybody attending this service voted green party, it is still a possibility.
More importantly than that, it didn’t feel right because we ask, or at least I earnestly pray, that we come to church with our full selves. We come in our joy, with broken hearts, we come as retired persons, parents, grand parents, as sons and daughters, we come in ways that may not be apparent to the people in the congregation about us and we also come marked by our age, our skin color, our gender and appearance, we come with a multitude of belongings and identities and I believe we miss something if we pretend to leave it at the door. That means we come as republicans or democrats or independents, or maybe even people that voted for Kanye West.
I think when we come to church, bringing all those identities with us, we know we come to church because there is something else that lays claim over all those other identities. Because we are Christians we filter all other parts of our life through our understanding of God’s love and if we don’t - and maybe it’s easy for me to say this because I’m a pastor - we should. We should see all other aspects of our life through Christ’s grace and love, we should understand ourselves as rooted in the God who is the ground of being, we should understand ourselves as Christian - and coming to church is a reminder of that. We should understand ourselves as followers of Christ and we should understand ourselves as loved.
As Christians we are followers of the life, ministry and teachings of Jesus Christ and Jesus made it abundantly clear in the gospel of Luke what his ministry is: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
As recipients of God’s love it is clear what is required of us, from Micah 6:8 it is said that God doesn’t require sacrifice of firstborns or thousands of rams but “God has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.”
We all knew that the election might change a lot, but it would not change everything. There will still be hungry people looking to feed their families, there are still people in abusive relationships that need safety, there are still fires burning our country, there are still captives, still blind peoples, still oppressed persons, still need for the year of the Lord’s favor to be proclaimed.
I am not asking you to try to forget your politics, or pretend this election never happened, nor am I asking you to be suddenly and hastily united.
I am not asking you to leave your politics at the door but I am asking you to see your politics through the lens of Christ’s grace and an understanding of God’s love.
I am asking you to know that this election will change our lives and know also that we will change our lives by sharing all that we have with one another.
I am not asking us to be cheaply or hastily united, but I am asking us to work towards a more true unity, a more costly unity. A unity of the church accomplished on the way of the cross, paid for by the life of Christ and the lives of the martyrs, whose witness inevitably included moral witness. A unity based on justice, peace, kindness, humility, and liberation. A unity which reconciles us to God, and to each other.
Amen
Commemorate, Honor, Recommit - All Saints Day - Nov. 1st, 2020
1st John 3
3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Matthew 5: 1-12
5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The BeatitudesHe said:
3
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
On all saints day we are tasked with keeping alive the memories and legacies of the people of faith who came before us.
We remember those who became martyrs for their love of God and their love of their fellow human. People like Martin Luther King Jr, a champion of civil rights in our time who was murder largely for speaking out against the Vietnam war and the abuse of the poor. People like ArchBishop Oscar Romero who was killed for telling the soldiers of the Salvadoran army to put down their arms and stop killing their fellow countrymen during the civil war. The early Christian martyrs like St. Stephen, who in the book of Acts was killed for proclaiming the faith and yet at his stoning prayed his killers would be forgiven.
We remember those who came before that taught us the basic tenets of our faith. Moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, aunties, uncles, our “church family.” Those who taught us how to pray, how to sing the hymns, enforced in us the values of kindness, charity, solidarity, those who taught Sunday School, those who started committees, those who imparted upon us that God loves us.
We remember those who came before us that transformed the faith. People like Martin Luther who led the reformation, people like James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez, men who are credited with the genesis of liberation theology. Women like Katie G Cannon, Jackelin Grant and Delores Williams who helped found Womanist theology, or Elizabeth Cruciger who was one of the first female hymnists. We remember and celebrate the ways they have changed how we worship, opened up and made accessible new images and conceptions of God, how they have been so pivotal to our spiritual life and brought us into new dimensions of prayer and praise.
We remember those who have sacrificed and given their lives to mission and work. Folks who fight to make sure that all people have access to education, shelter, food on their table, clean water, and a quality life. Folks that tend to the sick and dying, folks who respond during a crisis. F People like our hospital chaplains who were maybe there to offer prayer in our loved one’s last moments, folks who have worked during this pandemic and lost their lives - comforting others being ravaged by the virus.
We recognize on All Saints Day the multitudes that have come before us that have made it possible for us to stand where we are today. On All Saints Day we have the powerful reminder that we are not ourselves alone but we owe a debt of gratitude to all those who came before us. We do not stand alone in our faith but we are under the cloud of witnesses that have blessed us in extraordinary ways.
When I lived in Ohio, I sometimes did some volunteer work with the Interreligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia --- IRTF for short. IRTF works in solidarity with the people of Central America, advocating for the fair treatment of these people both here in the United States, and in Central and South America, They advocate for the right to self-determination, for the protection of human rights advocates, the end of U.S imperialism and intervention in countries like Colombia and El Salvador, advocate for the rights of the poor and the restoration and protection of the environment, and they become witnesses to the realities of people in Central American countries and convey those realities to our policymakers here in the States. Often they are asking our policy makers to lend their voice to human rights advocates who have been threatened with violence.
Every year IRTF hosts a commemoration of the martyrs. I have unfortunately never been able to attend, but from what I have heard they keep the memories of the martyrs alive during their human rights banquet. It is a reminder of the memory of the martyrs, and a reminder of why they themselves are here.
IRTF was founded because of martyrs to the faith. In 1980 four U.S church women; Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel from Cleveland, and Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford were working with poor and displaced people in El Salvador and they were kidnapped and murdered. IRTF started as a group of activists wanting answers and an investigation into what happened to these women, a fate which happened to thousands of poor Salvadorans. They eventually learned that it was the Salvadoran army that committed the atrocities; the Salvadoran army which was trained and backed by the United States of America.
Advocates wanted change, wanted for the U.S no longer be involved in these atrocities and began seeing this troubling pattern of abuse and corruption spread throughout Central America and Colombia and committed to solidarity with the poor, displaced, and marginalized communities of Central America and Colombia.
I have a shirt given to me by IRTF which has the faces of these four women affixed upon the front with the word Presente! across the bottom.
I wear this nearly every All Saints Day, which is also I believe the day in which IRTF hosts their commemoration of the Martyrs. I believe at this commemoration there is a point in time in which the names of martyrs are read, the names of those human right advocates are read and those who have a connection to that name say “Presente!”
When the name of the martyr is read the people declare their presence and by doing so declare the presence of that martyr in their midst. It is a powerful statement, “because Sister Jean lived - I am here” “Because Dorothy Kazel worked with the poor and displaced, I will too.” It is a proclamation that I am here because they came fire, and they are here because I am present. By proclaiming their presence the people declare that those who have passed are still present - their spirits push us forward - their work continues in us - their love is still felt by those present today - they are part of the cloud of witnesses that watches over us.
At the Commemoration of the Martyrs the folks from IRTF commemorate the sacrifice of the martyrs, honor their legacy and recommit themselves to acts of solidarity with the people of Central America and Colombia.
I propose we take a page from IRTF
On this All Saints Day let us commemorate the sacrifice of those who have gone before us and honor their legacy.
The early Christian martyrs to today’s martyrs. We commemorate the sacrifice of those who have dedicated their life to mission and ministry.
Those who taught us the tenets of the faith.We commemorate all they have taught us and continue down the paths they have pathed.
Those who changed the faith. We commemorate those pioneers and honor their legacy by continuing to adapt and develop the ways we know and love God.
Those in our church whom we have lost in our own church like Barbara Johnson, Carol Livingston, Donna Killen, Ken Nakair, Daryl May. Those saints on whose shoulders the church came to be, the saints who formed committees, sang in choirs, prayed for us and with us, those saints who we would not be here today without their work and witness.
And then let us recommit ourselves to the work they left for us: Proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Caring for the poor and needful, being in solidarity with the marginalized, loving all God’s children, worshipping and glorifying the creator who loves us.
1st John 3 says that what we will be is not yet known. Now is the time to remember all that has brought us here, all the saints and martyrs, and now is the time to recommit to the work they have left us. We must recommit and do work, ministry, and mission they never would have dreamed of because what we will be is not yet known, and what the saints will witness to through us is not yet known.
This all saints day let us commemorate and honor our saints, recommit to their work, and journey into the unknown with the saints as our witness. That’s how we can keep the faith and memories alive of those who passed before us.
Amen
3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Matthew 5: 1-12
5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The BeatitudesHe said:
3
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
On all saints day we are tasked with keeping alive the memories and legacies of the people of faith who came before us.
We remember those who became martyrs for their love of God and their love of their fellow human. People like Martin Luther King Jr, a champion of civil rights in our time who was murder largely for speaking out against the Vietnam war and the abuse of the poor. People like ArchBishop Oscar Romero who was killed for telling the soldiers of the Salvadoran army to put down their arms and stop killing their fellow countrymen during the civil war. The early Christian martyrs like St. Stephen, who in the book of Acts was killed for proclaiming the faith and yet at his stoning prayed his killers would be forgiven.
We remember those who came before that taught us the basic tenets of our faith. Moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, aunties, uncles, our “church family.” Those who taught us how to pray, how to sing the hymns, enforced in us the values of kindness, charity, solidarity, those who taught Sunday School, those who started committees, those who imparted upon us that God loves us.
We remember those who came before us that transformed the faith. People like Martin Luther who led the reformation, people like James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez, men who are credited with the genesis of liberation theology. Women like Katie G Cannon, Jackelin Grant and Delores Williams who helped found Womanist theology, or Elizabeth Cruciger who was one of the first female hymnists. We remember and celebrate the ways they have changed how we worship, opened up and made accessible new images and conceptions of God, how they have been so pivotal to our spiritual life and brought us into new dimensions of prayer and praise.
We remember those who have sacrificed and given their lives to mission and work. Folks who fight to make sure that all people have access to education, shelter, food on their table, clean water, and a quality life. Folks that tend to the sick and dying, folks who respond during a crisis. F People like our hospital chaplains who were maybe there to offer prayer in our loved one’s last moments, folks who have worked during this pandemic and lost their lives - comforting others being ravaged by the virus.
We recognize on All Saints Day the multitudes that have come before us that have made it possible for us to stand where we are today. On All Saints Day we have the powerful reminder that we are not ourselves alone but we owe a debt of gratitude to all those who came before us. We do not stand alone in our faith but we are under the cloud of witnesses that have blessed us in extraordinary ways.
When I lived in Ohio, I sometimes did some volunteer work with the Interreligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia --- IRTF for short. IRTF works in solidarity with the people of Central America, advocating for the fair treatment of these people both here in the United States, and in Central and South America, They advocate for the right to self-determination, for the protection of human rights advocates, the end of U.S imperialism and intervention in countries like Colombia and El Salvador, advocate for the rights of the poor and the restoration and protection of the environment, and they become witnesses to the realities of people in Central American countries and convey those realities to our policymakers here in the States. Often they are asking our policy makers to lend their voice to human rights advocates who have been threatened with violence.
Every year IRTF hosts a commemoration of the martyrs. I have unfortunately never been able to attend, but from what I have heard they keep the memories of the martyrs alive during their human rights banquet. It is a reminder of the memory of the martyrs, and a reminder of why they themselves are here.
IRTF was founded because of martyrs to the faith. In 1980 four U.S church women; Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel from Cleveland, and Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford were working with poor and displaced people in El Salvador and they were kidnapped and murdered. IRTF started as a group of activists wanting answers and an investigation into what happened to these women, a fate which happened to thousands of poor Salvadorans. They eventually learned that it was the Salvadoran army that committed the atrocities; the Salvadoran army which was trained and backed by the United States of America.
Advocates wanted change, wanted for the U.S no longer be involved in these atrocities and began seeing this troubling pattern of abuse and corruption spread throughout Central America and Colombia and committed to solidarity with the poor, displaced, and marginalized communities of Central America and Colombia.
I have a shirt given to me by IRTF which has the faces of these four women affixed upon the front with the word Presente! across the bottom.
I wear this nearly every All Saints Day, which is also I believe the day in which IRTF hosts their commemoration of the Martyrs. I believe at this commemoration there is a point in time in which the names of martyrs are read, the names of those human right advocates are read and those who have a connection to that name say “Presente!”
When the name of the martyr is read the people declare their presence and by doing so declare the presence of that martyr in their midst. It is a powerful statement, “because Sister Jean lived - I am here” “Because Dorothy Kazel worked with the poor and displaced, I will too.” It is a proclamation that I am here because they came fire, and they are here because I am present. By proclaiming their presence the people declare that those who have passed are still present - their spirits push us forward - their work continues in us - their love is still felt by those present today - they are part of the cloud of witnesses that watches over us.
At the Commemoration of the Martyrs the folks from IRTF commemorate the sacrifice of the martyrs, honor their legacy and recommit themselves to acts of solidarity with the people of Central America and Colombia.
I propose we take a page from IRTF
On this All Saints Day let us commemorate the sacrifice of those who have gone before us and honor their legacy.
The early Christian martyrs to today’s martyrs. We commemorate the sacrifice of those who have dedicated their life to mission and ministry.
Those who taught us the tenets of the faith.We commemorate all they have taught us and continue down the paths they have pathed.
Those who changed the faith. We commemorate those pioneers and honor their legacy by continuing to adapt and develop the ways we know and love God.
Those in our church whom we have lost in our own church like Barbara Johnson, Carol Livingston, Donna Killen, Ken Nakair, Daryl May. Those saints on whose shoulders the church came to be, the saints who formed committees, sang in choirs, prayed for us and with us, those saints who we would not be here today without their work and witness.
And then let us recommit ourselves to the work they left for us: Proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Caring for the poor and needful, being in solidarity with the marginalized, loving all God’s children, worshipping and glorifying the creator who loves us.
1st John 3 says that what we will be is not yet known. Now is the time to remember all that has brought us here, all the saints and martyrs, and now is the time to recommit to the work they have left us. We must recommit and do work, ministry, and mission they never would have dreamed of because what we will be is not yet known, and what the saints will witness to through us is not yet known.
This all saints day let us commemorate and honor our saints, recommit to their work, and journey into the unknown with the saints as our witness. That’s how we can keep the faith and memories alive of those who passed before us.
Amen
Rooted in Goodness, October 25th, 2020
Psalm 1
1:1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
1:2 but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.
1:3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.
1:4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
1:6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Do you know somebody who seems, even under the worst pressure, even under the most scrutinizing and critical eye, to remain steady, grounded and calm?
Maybe an old boss, a good friend, possibly your parents; many first responders seem to have this trait. While chaos rages around them they are focused and steady.
I think there’s a form of this mode of being, calm under pressure, steady in uncertainty, consistent under scrutiny, that extends into a kind of peacefulness and goodness in an overwhelmingly cynical and negative environment. When they are in a room and they address a crowd they are like cool, refreshing waters.
I think of Mr. Rogers as such a figure. Beyond being the comforting, calming presence in his show Mr. Rogers neighborhood, there was a point in time in which public broadcast television did not yet exist and Mr. Rogers was asked to testify before congress, summarily to get the funds from congress that public broadcast television might need to be born.
He had to testify because the administration wanted to cut the proposed 20 million dollar budget by half, in order to fund the Vietnam war.
Mr. Rogers, within six minutes of testimony, elicited a response from Senator Pastore, “I’m supposed to be a pretty tough guy, but I have goosebumps for the first time in two days of testimony.”
Mr. Rogers didn’t launch a full throated defense of public television, he didn’t scramble to defend himself but in a way he just worked to show the vision and mission of his program, to help kids name their feelings, to understand their feels, to feel them, and to deal with them maturely. He shared the words of one of the songs he wrote, “What do we do with all of this mad “ a song he wrote based off a question a child asked him.
In six minutes, with his calming and reassuring voice, with his comforting and assured demeanor, he got Senator Pastore to quip “I guess you just got your twenty million dollars.”
Mr. Rogers was like a tree planted by the water, bearing fruit in a season when the world needed sustenance. In fact he continued to bear good fruit, continued to be a paragon of kindness and goodness for children decades and decades later.
It’s not a secret that Fred Rogers was a presbyterian minister. He was rooted in God and had a career of teaching children, on public broadcast television, that they are loved, they are seen, they are heard, they are precious and cared for. He was able to impart in generation an aspect of God’s love without ever mentioning God’s name, at least not on his television programs.
Maybe you can tell that I watched Mr. Roger’s neighborhood as a kid and despite loving Pokemon and Digimon and playing video games and running around in the backyard playing kickball and building forts; this man, with his soft and caring demeanor captured my attention, left an imprint on my consciousness and still today I think about the kindness and care I felt he had for me. He remains to me, despite having long passed, to be a tree planted by the waters, bearing good fruit season after season.
When I read Psalm 1 I not only think of people in my life who are rooted in good things - like Mr. Rogers - but I also think of people who are rooted in what I believe to be truly wicked things.
And this challenges me. I know of many examples in which people have profited off of and succeeded despite their firmly held, deeply ingrained racism. People who get rich off of exploiting people, off selling lies, off thievery and bribery. Even smaller instances in which unscrupulous bullies are promoted over and above genuine, sweet, caring, good people. Likewise there are very good people, clearly rooted in good things who do not seem to succeed in everything.
This leads me to believe that the Psalm’s assertion that “the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” to not be a kind of Divine intervention into the ways in which those rooted in goodness prosper and those rooted in wickedness perish but rather I see it as a kind of Divine ordination as how the way the world should work.
That is to say, being rooted in the good, being rooted in the word of God and the love of Jesus Christ will give us the roots which will allow us to bear any harsh wind, any scorching heat, any negative environment, any cynical set of circumstances. It will allow us to persevere, allow us to find the sustenance we need to bear good fruit.
Wickedness is fickle. Wickedness will betray you when given the chance, wickedness is like shifting sand and those rooted in wickedness are not rooted on substance but rooted in, actually, nothingness.
But something rooted in nothingness will stay prospering, choking out the plants around it until the wind comes to blow it away. The wicked will exist and flourish unless there's actual righteous judgment to come down upon the wicked - and even then - it might not be as easy as blowing wheat from chaff.
We must both be like the tree rooted by the waters and the wind that blows away the chaff from the wheat, the congregation which holds the sinner accountable.
We cannot see the wickedness and not blow against it. We must call to account the wickedness we see, in ourselves as well as others, but be so firmly rooted in goodness that we ourselves cannot be blown away by any toxicity or burned by cynicism. If we are rooted in goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control; if we are rooted in God's love and the mercy of Jesus Christ we will be able persevere in all things and work to blow out all wickedness.
I want to bring us back to Mr. Rogers, definitely rooted in God’s word and God’s love. He blew away wickedness, even though by all means he was not an aggressive person. He stood in judgement of wickedness with righteousness and he did so in a way that bore much fruit. He helped children learn how to trust, how to manage their emotions, how to feel cared for, he helped root out insecurity and blew away the wickedness of kids feeling unloved and unseen. Rooted in God’s goodness he produced good fruit and I believe that fruit helped many, many kids stop themselves from rooting into wickedness. They saw how much goodness and sustenance was available for them.
When we root ourselves in goodness we will have the ability to preserve and rooted in that goodness we are called to blow out any wickedness, to condemn it and do all we can to root it out. Rooted in our goodness we will produce good fruit, fruit which others will taste, fruit which will sustain and help others, fruit which may help others know that they can be rooted in goodness, in God’s love and God’s word, as well.
Eventually the wicked may perish. It may be that one day we will blow away wickedness and enough people will have tasted the fruits of righteousness and goodness and be convinced to root themselves in God’s love as well. That day will not come in our lifetimes, that I think I can guarantee, but if we root ourselves in Goodness, that day may just eventually come.
Remember those people who are calm under pressure, who through weathering any storm let you know they are rooted in goodness, and may you find yourself rooted in goodness as well.
1:1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
1:2 but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.
1:3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.
1:4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
1:6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Do you know somebody who seems, even under the worst pressure, even under the most scrutinizing and critical eye, to remain steady, grounded and calm?
Maybe an old boss, a good friend, possibly your parents; many first responders seem to have this trait. While chaos rages around them they are focused and steady.
I think there’s a form of this mode of being, calm under pressure, steady in uncertainty, consistent under scrutiny, that extends into a kind of peacefulness and goodness in an overwhelmingly cynical and negative environment. When they are in a room and they address a crowd they are like cool, refreshing waters.
I think of Mr. Rogers as such a figure. Beyond being the comforting, calming presence in his show Mr. Rogers neighborhood, there was a point in time in which public broadcast television did not yet exist and Mr. Rogers was asked to testify before congress, summarily to get the funds from congress that public broadcast television might need to be born.
He had to testify because the administration wanted to cut the proposed 20 million dollar budget by half, in order to fund the Vietnam war.
Mr. Rogers, within six minutes of testimony, elicited a response from Senator Pastore, “I’m supposed to be a pretty tough guy, but I have goosebumps for the first time in two days of testimony.”
Mr. Rogers didn’t launch a full throated defense of public television, he didn’t scramble to defend himself but in a way he just worked to show the vision and mission of his program, to help kids name their feelings, to understand their feels, to feel them, and to deal with them maturely. He shared the words of one of the songs he wrote, “What do we do with all of this mad “ a song he wrote based off a question a child asked him.
In six minutes, with his calming and reassuring voice, with his comforting and assured demeanor, he got Senator Pastore to quip “I guess you just got your twenty million dollars.”
Mr. Rogers was like a tree planted by the water, bearing fruit in a season when the world needed sustenance. In fact he continued to bear good fruit, continued to be a paragon of kindness and goodness for children decades and decades later.
It’s not a secret that Fred Rogers was a presbyterian minister. He was rooted in God and had a career of teaching children, on public broadcast television, that they are loved, they are seen, they are heard, they are precious and cared for. He was able to impart in generation an aspect of God’s love without ever mentioning God’s name, at least not on his television programs.
Maybe you can tell that I watched Mr. Roger’s neighborhood as a kid and despite loving Pokemon and Digimon and playing video games and running around in the backyard playing kickball and building forts; this man, with his soft and caring demeanor captured my attention, left an imprint on my consciousness and still today I think about the kindness and care I felt he had for me. He remains to me, despite having long passed, to be a tree planted by the waters, bearing good fruit season after season.
When I read Psalm 1 I not only think of people in my life who are rooted in good things - like Mr. Rogers - but I also think of people who are rooted in what I believe to be truly wicked things.
And this challenges me. I know of many examples in which people have profited off of and succeeded despite their firmly held, deeply ingrained racism. People who get rich off of exploiting people, off selling lies, off thievery and bribery. Even smaller instances in which unscrupulous bullies are promoted over and above genuine, sweet, caring, good people. Likewise there are very good people, clearly rooted in good things who do not seem to succeed in everything.
This leads me to believe that the Psalm’s assertion that “the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” to not be a kind of Divine intervention into the ways in which those rooted in goodness prosper and those rooted in wickedness perish but rather I see it as a kind of Divine ordination as how the way the world should work.
That is to say, being rooted in the good, being rooted in the word of God and the love of Jesus Christ will give us the roots which will allow us to bear any harsh wind, any scorching heat, any negative environment, any cynical set of circumstances. It will allow us to persevere, allow us to find the sustenance we need to bear good fruit.
Wickedness is fickle. Wickedness will betray you when given the chance, wickedness is like shifting sand and those rooted in wickedness are not rooted on substance but rooted in, actually, nothingness.
But something rooted in nothingness will stay prospering, choking out the plants around it until the wind comes to blow it away. The wicked will exist and flourish unless there's actual righteous judgment to come down upon the wicked - and even then - it might not be as easy as blowing wheat from chaff.
We must both be like the tree rooted by the waters and the wind that blows away the chaff from the wheat, the congregation which holds the sinner accountable.
We cannot see the wickedness and not blow against it. We must call to account the wickedness we see, in ourselves as well as others, but be so firmly rooted in goodness that we ourselves cannot be blown away by any toxicity or burned by cynicism. If we are rooted in goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control; if we are rooted in God's love and the mercy of Jesus Christ we will be able persevere in all things and work to blow out all wickedness.
I want to bring us back to Mr. Rogers, definitely rooted in God’s word and God’s love. He blew away wickedness, even though by all means he was not an aggressive person. He stood in judgement of wickedness with righteousness and he did so in a way that bore much fruit. He helped children learn how to trust, how to manage their emotions, how to feel cared for, he helped root out insecurity and blew away the wickedness of kids feeling unloved and unseen. Rooted in God’s goodness he produced good fruit and I believe that fruit helped many, many kids stop themselves from rooting into wickedness. They saw how much goodness and sustenance was available for them.
When we root ourselves in goodness we will have the ability to preserve and rooted in that goodness we are called to blow out any wickedness, to condemn it and do all we can to root it out. Rooted in our goodness we will produce good fruit, fruit which others will taste, fruit which will sustain and help others, fruit which may help others know that they can be rooted in goodness, in God’s love and God’s word, as well.
Eventually the wicked may perish. It may be that one day we will blow away wickedness and enough people will have tasted the fruits of righteousness and goodness and be convinced to root themselves in God’s love as well. That day will not come in our lifetimes, that I think I can guarantee, but if we root ourselves in Goodness, that day may just eventually come.
Remember those people who are calm under pressure, who through weathering any storm let you know they are rooted in goodness, and may you find yourself rooted in goodness as well.
What is due God, October 18th, 2020
Matthew 22
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
Exodus 33
Moses and the Glory of the Lord12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
Before I sat down to write the sermon for this morning, I took my ballot from our dinner table, opened the envelope, filled it, stuffed it into the return envelope, affixed a stamp to that envelope and put it in my backpack to drop off at a mailbox on my way to the church.
Last week, knowing I would be gone camping at the beginning of this week, I did some of my sermon prep early, which included reading the lectionary texts, thinking about them heavily, and choosing which I would preach on.
So of course, as I filled out my ballot, this text from Matthew I chose to preach from in which Jesus tells the people to “give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to give what is God’s” was in the back of my mind. Looking up who these judges are, reading opinions of various ballot measures, making sure my bubble was filled in neatly and precisely; I kept thinking about this text from Matthew that I have chosen to preach while people are voting.
May I just extol the virtues of being to double check and research my vote while I do it? What a brilliant thing to be able to make sure my vote is as informed as possible while casting it. I love it.
One of the reasons I thought about this passage so much is because it has been used and knocked around into a pithy statement about obedience to state authority. Obey the laws, “give Caesar what is due Caesar.”
And really, this scripture has been interpreted in any number of ways. One interpretation is that Caesar has minted the money, so give him his money, but God has minted the human soul and the soul is due to God.
Another is that Caesar, and by extension all political authority, is divinely ordained and as such must be respected.
Political philosophers will say that this is an argument from Jesus that if one enjoys the privileges of the law, they must keep and obey all aspects of the law. For the pathed roads one walks - or drives - on, one must pay the tax to have it and obey the laws that made it possible.
Some say this is about paying taxes for public good. We must live in some kind of order that upholds the public good through the collection of resources that are then used for the public good.
Others have said that this is explicitly a scripture about not paying taxes. Some Quakers, for instance, historically said that human life is not the entity of the state’s and therefore they will not pay their war taxes. Human life belongs to God, they will not fund wars which take human life.
Some say this is about the dichotomy between Earthly and Heavenly things. Others say this is an argument to keep church and state separate, which to me is a funny interpretation as Jesus was never afraid to critique the state and in fact was killed by the State.
Interestingly, Jesus knows this question to be a trap, he calls the questioners hypocrites. They butter him up and attempt to smooth him over before they lay the trick question before him. We need to understand that at this time there was an undercurrent of Jewish tax riots - the Jews under the oppressive thumb of Romans decided they did not want to fund their own oppression, their own enslavement and death - in many cases.
This is a “gotcha” question. If Jesus answers “no, we should not pay the tax” he threatens the wrath of the Roman state. If he answers “yes, we should pay the tax” he alienates his people in advising them to fund the cruel Roman Empire. Paying taxes wasn’t just about paying taxes - much like how the Boston Tea Party was not just about unfair taxes and imports on tea - there were deeper philosophical and theological stakes. Wrapped up in the debate and violence over paying tribute to Caesar was the question of supremacy. God, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt and liberated them, did not allow for the creation of graven images or the worship of false idols; however, the Roman Empire treated the Emperor as divinity. In fact, before Jesus’ ministry Pilate had erected effigies of Caesar in Jerusalem which nearly started an insurrection - until Pilate later took down the images of Ceasar. At the heart of this exchange is this question: what is supreme, God and God’s laws or Ceasar and the pagan laws?
Jesus doesn’t address what is seemingly a political question in a seemingly political way but answers in a very rabbinical way, that is still yet very political. He answers the questions, “should we pay tribute to Caesar” with a counter-question, “Show me the coin, whose face and inscription is upon it?” People in Jerusalem didn’t often deal in Denarii - only if you were a Roman Soldier or Roman politician, or a person who had many dealing with Roman officials did you carry Denarii on you. The fact that Jesus did not have the coin is revealing, as is the fact that the questioners did.
And when Jesus did see the coin, and could show it to any onlookers, he would see that the front of the denarius shows a profiled bust of Tiberius crowned with the laurels of victory and divinity. Circumscribed around Tiberius is an abbreviation, "TI CAESAR DIVI AUG F AUGUSTUS," which stands for "Tiberius Caesar Divi August Fili Augustus," which, in turn, translates, "Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus." On the other side sits the Roman goddess of peace, Pax, and circumscribed around her is the abbreviation, "Pontif Maxim," which stands for "Pontifex Maximus," which, in turn, means, "High Priest."
Here, the actual son of God, the High Priest, the Prince of Peace, holds a coin which is Roman propaganda claiming the identity of the son of God and the Goddess of peace - and remember, God has forbidden the creation of graven images and worship of false idols. Remember - God told Moses that his presence will be with the Israelites but they will not see her face and now the Romans have attempted to print the face of divinity onto every Roman coin.
In a way, Jesus is revealing the emperor has no clothes. The statement “render unto Caesar what is due Caesar and give God what is God’s” is already an assertion that God is God and Caesar and Caesar - the illusion of Roman Emperors and their divinity has been called into question by actual Divinity. You could be jailed for bringing a depiction of the Emperor’s face into a bathhouse or brothel as the Roman denarii was considered a sign of the Emperor’s power but now Jesus has questioned how much power and how much divinity that face on that coin actually has.
And when Jesus says “render unto Caesar what is due Caesar give God what is God’s” he is tapping into a Jewish religious understanding in which every single thing belongs to God.
Jesus; response may seem benign, to us today, to the Romans observing, but his answer was seditious and subversive, especially to his Jewish audience. Everything belongs to God, nothing belongs to Caesar. God is God, the Roman Emperor is not God.
He has asked the people to declare their allegiance, to the Empire or to God.
Look, it’s not always easy to know which policy or politician will be the “right” one, or will be “good.” Sometimes it’s clearer than others but we will make mistakes, we will have regrets.
I know God to be a God of love and grace, I know Jesus preached liberation for the captives, and told his followers that whatever you do for the hungry, the poor, the tired, the least of the least you do for Jesus himself.
Micah 6:8 says “what does the Lord require of you but to seek Justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God” And that’s what will guide me in giving God what is God’s, and as far as I am concerned everything is due to God. My vote, my love, my money, my time, my energy, my life.
Amen
God is not a Golden Calf, October 11th 2020
The Golden Calf32 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
A common theme in the Bible, both old testament and new, is figures who are close to God forgetting or not quite understanding who God is.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Disciples, after witnessing Christ multiply the bread and fish at the feeding of the multitude in chapter 14, question God’s ability to feed the multitude in chapter 15. Jesus throughout the gospels tells them multiple times that he is the Messiah. He has predicted the betrayal, the denial, his death, his resurrection and yet Thomas still doubts Jesus’ resurrection. Peter doesn’t understand fully who Jesus is. The Disciples see Christ and know Christ as God yet see him dimly, do not fully believe. They are closing to understanding, but they do not fully understand.
As I talked about in the sermon last week the Israelites have seen the chaos and cacophony of God and have told Moses to speak to God for them, and now Moses has gone to do just that - he has gone up the mountain to talk with God, to listen to God. He has been gone a while and Aaron and the Israelites worry, what has happened to him? They have seen the destructive power of God, in fact they were afraid to listen to God because listening to god may just kill them. Maybe Moses has died. Maybe the Great I Am is too much for Moses.
Leaderless, Aaron - the second in command - decides to make a new thing to follow. He asks the Israelites to melt down their most precious jewelery so that they can make an idol to follow.
There are some interesting allegories and interpretations people have made aligning Moses, Aaron and the Israelites to different leadership models but I think one of the most common interpretations of this text is that Aaron and the Israelites have built an alternative to God. They now worship the calf, which is a false idol, instead of God. They have forgotten God and instead turned, in their desperation, to a God of their own making.
This is a very compelling interpretation that speaks to us deeply. When we feel abandoned, when we feel distressed and discouraged do we not sometimes seek to make Gods of our own making? Do we not sometimes seek to put our faith into something other than God?
An interpretation I have read recently is that Aaron and the Israelites did not create a new God to worship, they did not abandon God to worship a Golden Calf, rather, Aaron and the Israelites built a golden calf that was supposed to be the image of God, the God who led them out of Egypt. The sin is not so much that they have replaced God but that they have tried to make an image for God in the form of the Golden Calf. They misunderstand God and have tried to make a form for the formless, they have tried to contain the almighty in a gilded statue. They have abandoned Moses who they have made both their listener and speaker and now try to stuff God into a statue. God has forbidden God’s depiction and because they have lost sight of their leader, Aaron and the Israelites seek a new thing to look to. They make a Golden Calf to try to depict the God who has lead them.
The Israelites misidentify God. They think they have discerned God’s image and have created the form of God which will enable them to see again the function of God acting in their life.
This angers God. God has brought them out of Egypt, God has been their liberator, God has provided manna from heaven, God has been present, and they think God looks like a gilded calf. In a way it is almost like they are worshipping a completely different God with how much they have misidentified God and imagined God as a calf. When the prophet see God they can only describe God in likeness, never with accurate or full details but when God does take form for the world to see God does so in human flesh. Aaron and the Israelites in their desire for security and safety have deeply misunderstood God and what God looks like. They think they had God figured out, and they don’t. They have falsely identified what their liberator looks like.
We are tempted, so often, into a combination of these two kinds of idolatry. Into finding things to place our faith within in place of God, and misidentifying something other than God as the source of our liberation. Too often, in The United States, we have placed false hope in and idolized capitalism and consumerism. There are these myths that if we work hard we will move out of poverty, we are always rewarded for our merit and the cure to our ails will always be available on the marketplace for a competitive price. We know it’s not true, plenty of people work hard but still have hard lives and plenty of people are born into wealth and luxury doing nothing to earn it. Plenty of brilliant people go unrecognized and mediocre people are raised to positions of merit they aren’t equipped to handle. If you’ve ever worked in a retail position I guarantee you’ve had a manager that fits that description. The cures we need to buy from the marketplace are priced beyond our pocketbooks and many of the cures we are sold are snake oil. We cannot trust capitalism or consumerism for our liberation.
It is likewise for our relationships. Hoping we found the right person we place all our hope in them thinking they will be a one shop stop to fix whatever it is we are struggling with. It can be likewise for any number of things we look toward as our liberators when we are lost and struggling: drugs, relationships, the market, medicine, science, etc, etc.
I would be remiss to say not say this, less than a month before the election, we so often do something to this effect. We falsely put our hope in one vote, in one political party or one politician, we have misidentified them as saviors and liberators and we will end up disappointed. Our liberation doesn’t lay there, it lays in God.
This is not to say these things cannot be helpful, that they cannot be tools and avenues towards liberation, towards joy, towards happiness, towards a restored and healed world. Medicine does heal, relationships can be restorative, political systems, parties and politicians can craft policies and systems to help us. This is not to say to stop consuming, or to stop voting, or stop falling in love because they offer no hope.
But this is to say to not mistake these things for the true source of our hope and liberation. This is to say none of these things can completely and totally liberate and uplift you and to put all hope and expectation in them will do nothing except disappoint and despair. This is to say we can’t see God working through these things and then mistake these things as God. We can’t bow down and worship any of these things as if they were God. To do so would be quickly turning away from a God who has delivered and liberated us. These things are not liberators, these things are not God, God is not a Golden Calf.
This is in itself a lesson for us -
But I will tease what perhaps take form in a future sermon
God is angry at Aaron and the Israelites and threatens to destroy this thick-necked people but Moses pleads with God.
And God changes God’s mind.
Moses - a prophet and the elected of the Israelites, yes, but Moses - a human - changes God’s mind.
And God decides to spare the Israelites. Even though Aaron and the Israelites have misidentified God and have lost faith in Moses, God remains faithful to them. God remembers God’s promise.
Even when we mistakenly misidentify God, even when we place our hopes and expectations for liberation in something other than the Great I Am. God will still be our liberation - even if we mistake our liberation as anything other than God.
Even when we are faithless, God is faithful.
Amen.
2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
A common theme in the Bible, both old testament and new, is figures who are close to God forgetting or not quite understanding who God is.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Disciples, after witnessing Christ multiply the bread and fish at the feeding of the multitude in chapter 14, question God’s ability to feed the multitude in chapter 15. Jesus throughout the gospels tells them multiple times that he is the Messiah. He has predicted the betrayal, the denial, his death, his resurrection and yet Thomas still doubts Jesus’ resurrection. Peter doesn’t understand fully who Jesus is. The Disciples see Christ and know Christ as God yet see him dimly, do not fully believe. They are closing to understanding, but they do not fully understand.
As I talked about in the sermon last week the Israelites have seen the chaos and cacophony of God and have told Moses to speak to God for them, and now Moses has gone to do just that - he has gone up the mountain to talk with God, to listen to God. He has been gone a while and Aaron and the Israelites worry, what has happened to him? They have seen the destructive power of God, in fact they were afraid to listen to God because listening to god may just kill them. Maybe Moses has died. Maybe the Great I Am is too much for Moses.
Leaderless, Aaron - the second in command - decides to make a new thing to follow. He asks the Israelites to melt down their most precious jewelery so that they can make an idol to follow.
There are some interesting allegories and interpretations people have made aligning Moses, Aaron and the Israelites to different leadership models but I think one of the most common interpretations of this text is that Aaron and the Israelites have built an alternative to God. They now worship the calf, which is a false idol, instead of God. They have forgotten God and instead turned, in their desperation, to a God of their own making.
This is a very compelling interpretation that speaks to us deeply. When we feel abandoned, when we feel distressed and discouraged do we not sometimes seek to make Gods of our own making? Do we not sometimes seek to put our faith into something other than God?
An interpretation I have read recently is that Aaron and the Israelites did not create a new God to worship, they did not abandon God to worship a Golden Calf, rather, Aaron and the Israelites built a golden calf that was supposed to be the image of God, the God who led them out of Egypt. The sin is not so much that they have replaced God but that they have tried to make an image for God in the form of the Golden Calf. They misunderstand God and have tried to make a form for the formless, they have tried to contain the almighty in a gilded statue. They have abandoned Moses who they have made both their listener and speaker and now try to stuff God into a statue. God has forbidden God’s depiction and because they have lost sight of their leader, Aaron and the Israelites seek a new thing to look to. They make a Golden Calf to try to depict the God who has lead them.
The Israelites misidentify God. They think they have discerned God’s image and have created the form of God which will enable them to see again the function of God acting in their life.
This angers God. God has brought them out of Egypt, God has been their liberator, God has provided manna from heaven, God has been present, and they think God looks like a gilded calf. In a way it is almost like they are worshipping a completely different God with how much they have misidentified God and imagined God as a calf. When the prophet see God they can only describe God in likeness, never with accurate or full details but when God does take form for the world to see God does so in human flesh. Aaron and the Israelites in their desire for security and safety have deeply misunderstood God and what God looks like. They think they had God figured out, and they don’t. They have falsely identified what their liberator looks like.
We are tempted, so often, into a combination of these two kinds of idolatry. Into finding things to place our faith within in place of God, and misidentifying something other than God as the source of our liberation. Too often, in The United States, we have placed false hope in and idolized capitalism and consumerism. There are these myths that if we work hard we will move out of poverty, we are always rewarded for our merit and the cure to our ails will always be available on the marketplace for a competitive price. We know it’s not true, plenty of people work hard but still have hard lives and plenty of people are born into wealth and luxury doing nothing to earn it. Plenty of brilliant people go unrecognized and mediocre people are raised to positions of merit they aren’t equipped to handle. If you’ve ever worked in a retail position I guarantee you’ve had a manager that fits that description. The cures we need to buy from the marketplace are priced beyond our pocketbooks and many of the cures we are sold are snake oil. We cannot trust capitalism or consumerism for our liberation.
It is likewise for our relationships. Hoping we found the right person we place all our hope in them thinking they will be a one shop stop to fix whatever it is we are struggling with. It can be likewise for any number of things we look toward as our liberators when we are lost and struggling: drugs, relationships, the market, medicine, science, etc, etc.
I would be remiss to say not say this, less than a month before the election, we so often do something to this effect. We falsely put our hope in one vote, in one political party or one politician, we have misidentified them as saviors and liberators and we will end up disappointed. Our liberation doesn’t lay there, it lays in God.
This is not to say these things cannot be helpful, that they cannot be tools and avenues towards liberation, towards joy, towards happiness, towards a restored and healed world. Medicine does heal, relationships can be restorative, political systems, parties and politicians can craft policies and systems to help us. This is not to say to stop consuming, or to stop voting, or stop falling in love because they offer no hope.
But this is to say to not mistake these things for the true source of our hope and liberation. This is to say none of these things can completely and totally liberate and uplift you and to put all hope and expectation in them will do nothing except disappoint and despair. This is to say we can’t see God working through these things and then mistake these things as God. We can’t bow down and worship any of these things as if they were God. To do so would be quickly turning away from a God who has delivered and liberated us. These things are not liberators, these things are not God, God is not a Golden Calf.
This is in itself a lesson for us -
But I will tease what perhaps take form in a future sermon
God is angry at Aaron and the Israelites and threatens to destroy this thick-necked people but Moses pleads with God.
And God changes God’s mind.
Moses - a prophet and the elected of the Israelites, yes, but Moses - a human - changes God’s mind.
And God decides to spare the Israelites. Even though Aaron and the Israelites have misidentified God and have lost faith in Moses, God remains faithful to them. God remembers God’s promise.
Even when we mistakenly misidentify God, even when we place our hopes and expectations for liberation in something other than the Great I Am. God will still be our liberation - even if we mistake our liberation as anything other than God.
Even when we are faithless, God is faithful.
Amen.
Cacophony and Silence, October 4th, 2020
The Ten Commandments20 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.[c]
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”
18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid[d] and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
What do you think is the most well known piece of scripture?
Maybe John 3:16 “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.”
But if it’s not John 3:16 then it is probably this scripture from Exodus, the 10 commandments. Jesus would later remark that all the laws come from these commandments, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” We can roughly split the commandments into these categories.
Out of a totalizing love for God we do not take God’s name in vain, we do not take any other Gods are make idols, we keep a sabbath to renew and refresh our relationship with God and it is out of a love for our neighbor as our self that we honor our parents, we do not commit adultery, we do not steal, nor covet our neighbors belongings or bear false witness.
They’re rules for communal living, and rules for holy living. For a group that is forming itself as a people set apart, the commandments give them a basis for their culture, religious practice and community living. These are far from the only laws and religious customs the Israelites will observe but these are ones that Moses transcribes on to the stone tablets from the mouth of God.
Perhaps the most overlooked part of this piece of scripture is the fact that the Israelites see the cacophony and chaos that lies before them, they see God before them and are not able to handle it. “You speak to us, and we will listen,” they say to Moses, “do not let God speak to us lest we die.” The image and noise before them is so incomprehensible, so unknowable and uncertain that the Israelites tell Moses to talk to God for them. They cannot bear to think about what may happen when they reach out and listen to the unknowable, they fear the power and the chaos of something beyond their control and their knowing may just kill them.
Maybe they are right to be so scared and anxious about the presence of God among them. Moses assures the people that these commandments are made for them so they might adhere to holy living, so they may not sin - they may not perform any act that separates them from God but as we read the wrath of God is often devastating and when the Israelites no longer fear God there are consequences - two weeks ago we heard of the Israelites in the book of Numbers railing against God and against Moses and they are set upon by venomous snakes.
Moses implores them to not fear, but their fear keeps them from interacting with God anymore. Moses becomes the mouthpiece for God and the people have been scared by the cacophony lose their ability to hear God’s voice.
Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on God’s silence in her book “When God is Silent” which is a challenging yet amazing book. She notes that throughout the history of the Bible when God speaks it is often costly. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham is fully convinced he will lose his child until the very last moment. After God spares his child, Abraham does not speak to God again. The prophets, Isaiah, Moses, Jonah, they all flee and make excuses as to why they cannot listen to God’s calling knowing that listening to God speak to them could cost them their life and in response - speaking for God is just as dangerous.
Even Jesus, God incarnated in flesh, speaks but speaks in parables and questions. Jesus’ parables, his counter-intuitive sayings, his troublesome questions cause pause and silence after their saying.
And Jesus, speaking for God, is killed. What he says causes political and religious resistance to him and his words threaten the existence of the empire and as such he is killed.
In his last moments Jesus cries out to God “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” and he is met with silence. The whole world is silent. The world, made in a word of “let there be” is unmade in this moment of silence. Jesus, the word made flesh, is unmade with silence.
But God’s answer comes, God’s answer and presence is in the silence - after the cacophony of God’s calling - Jesus’ death - is the answer in God’s silence - the resurrection.
The Israelites see the cacophony and destruction before them - they see God before them and they ask Moses to speak on their behalf. Afraid for their lives they say “we can no longer speak to God. Listen for us, we will listen to you.”
They, in this manner, ordained the role of the priests - the people chosen to risk their lives to listen to God. In Jesus Christ we all become priests and pastors. Each of us is made holy and blessed to listen to God.
It is easy, though, to look at the cacophony and disturbances inherent in God’s calling and to decide - much like the prophets, much like the Israelites - that it is too dangerous to listen to God because we may lose our lives.
So in many ways we abdicate from our conversations with God. Maybe we fill the world with noise - not willing to sit in the silence that reminds us we have turned away from the cacophony. Maybe we have found a person we trust to talk to God for us.
Whatever it is we abdicate ourselves away from our conversations with God - we are nervous that The Great I Am is too much for us to know, too fearsome and powerful to know, and we become both unable to speak and to listen. We mistake silence for absence and cacophony for death.
The truth is, we will lose our lives.
When we turn our faces to God and listen, when we brace ourselves to turn towards the cacophony and disruption and listen to God’s calling surely we will lose our lives… and gain new life in Christ.
The things that were once important to us will melt away.
Our convictions change.
Old life melts away as we cement our new life built on Christ as our cornerstone.
I pray we are able to find Christ in the cacophony, able to turn towards God even if it means we may lose our life. I pray that we can turn towards God even when our vast unknowable God fills us with fear.
I also pray that we can sit in God’s silence realizing that the silence of God is too deep for us to fully understand and yet is so deep that it is the only thing that allows us to speak life and love into existence. In God’s silence is the space for creation.
In our fear of the cacophony and noise - in our fear in the vast unknowability of God let us listen for God and lose our lives - finding new life in Christ.
In our fear of God’s silence let us sit still knowing that God’s silence as too deep to know yet deep enough to hold us - big enough for us to become co-creators with God.
Let us not mistake cacophony with death but rather see it as new life.
Let us not mistake silence for absence.
Amen.
Acts of Fools, September 27th, 2020
My first year of Divinity School I was blessed to have a German fellow named Stefan be one of my housemates at the Disciples Divinity House. Stefan went to the University of Heidelberg in Germany and lived in a divinity house there called the TSH. Stefan came to the University of Chicago for a year to strengthen the relationship between our two houses.
I knew that Stefan and I would be fast friends on the first day we met. A group of us from the divinity house went to go sing Karaoke. We were encouraging everyone to sing and Stefan, with another German who was returning to Germany in the next days, sang the only song on the karaoke list he knew, 99 Red Balloons. But he sang it in German. Stefan has a kind soul, a sharp mind and a great sense of humor. We shared moments like karaoke, we shared food, drinks, a house and we shared a great bond. Thankfully when I was in Europe I got to visit him and his wife in Heidelberg.
The summer after my first year of Divinity School I moved back to Ohio shortly before Stefan had to move back to Germany. When I came back to Chicago for the next year of school, I found a letter from Stefan in my mailbox. I want to read part of that letter to you. As we know, God’s word, God’s inspiration can sometimes come from surprising places.
His letter reads
“Hey Jack,
When I came to Chicago, I didn’t know what will happen. I was excited to meet the people at DDH and to start classes at school. Other than that, poor dumb Stefan had no idea how hard leaving the US would be in the end. In my stupidity, I thought I could enjoy my time here and then simply move on to Germany. I couldn’t know that my year would be so much more than I expected. That I would meet people that would grow dear to my heart as friends and family. That I would not only be hurt, when it’s over, but that I would also leave people behind. Poor dumb Stefan.”
I think this feeling Stefan is describing is a feeling that many of us have had. We think we can maybe enjoy a casual relationship for a little bit and then we find out we’ve really fallen in love. Maybe we move to a new city for school and when we move away from that city we find that the new city has actually become home. Maybe we thought we would find a nice church to go to on a Sunday morning and we find ourselves part of a new family. Maybe a hobby becomes a passion, becomes a career. We think we can do something without it affecting our souls and fundamentally changing us.
There are times we look back on our lives and think “I was a fool to think that I wouldn’t fall in love. I was a fool to think that I could just move away from my new home, I was a fool to think that the church would only mean an hour of worship on Sunday morning. I was a fool to think that this wouldn’t change me.”
We call ourselves foolish because we didn’t expect the actual outcomes of our actions. We call ourselves fools because this new thing we did, this new person we met, means much more to us than we expected. What we are saying when we call ourselves fools is that really it was foolish for us to care about somebody else, it was foolish to engage with our communities, it was foolish for us to really invest in something other than ourselves, and NOT expect to become transformed because of it. It is foolish for us to think we could be in a relationship with other people, and not have those relationships change us.
And if it is foolish to think that our relationship with other people, that our relationships with places and communities won’t change us, it is doubly foolish to think that relationship with God won’t change us.
When the prophet Ezekiel is commissioned to do the work of a prophet, he is given a scroll from an angel and told to eat the scroll. He eats the scroll and it fills his stomach and he says it tastes as sweet as honey. The holy word literally becomes part of Ezekiel’s body, he has imbibed the word and it changes him, it becomes part of him and just as he has changed, he gives a prophecy about transformation. Ezekiel proclaims that the Lord has told him “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean, I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel tells the people that if they stay in covenant with God, that God will transform them. The Israelites, who have been in exile, will be restored, they will be made whole again. Their hearts of stone will be made into hearts of flesh, they will be given new hearts and new spirits. Ezekiel’s prophecy is one of transformative relationship we have with God.
There is something terrifying about transformation, though. Transformation involves a great deal of risk. When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it spins a cocoon and can’t move. It is at the mercy of nature, at the mercy of the elements and its body literally liquifies itself in order to become a butterfly. When we fall in love, we risk that the one who we love may leave us. When we find a new home, we risk that no other place we live may feel like home again, we risk that any other place we live may just not feel right. We risk that the people in our new communities may not get along with us, may not give as much as we give, that they may not be around for as long as we would like. Stepping out like this, doing new things in new places, we make ourselves vulnerable to the hurts and heartbreaks of the world.
Stefan said in his letter “I couldn’t know that my year would be so much more than what I expected. That I would meet people that would grow dear to my heart as friends and family. That I would not only be hurt, when it’s over, but that I would leave people behind”.
Stefan is pointing out that being open to transformation also means being open to pain, to guilt, to harm, to grief, to anger, to loss. Opening ourselves to transformation means making ourselves vulnerable. Vulnerable to suffering and vulnerable to glory.
The change and transformation prophesied by Ezekiel is not easy. Hearts of stone are not so easy to break. Hearts of stone break the knives that stab at them. Hearts of stone don’t burn and ache, it is a lot less risky to have a heart of stone, but God is calling us to have hearts of flesh, even with all the risks that that entails. Hearts of flesh beat to the cadence of the holy spirit within us. Hearts of flesh ache because they can feel what someone else feels. Hearts of flesh expand and are filled with God’s presence in ways that hearts of stones cannot be.
There are two options when it comes to our vulnerability. We can embrace it and open ourselves up to the possibility of both glory and defeat, or we can close ourselves off from vulnerability, close ourselves off from having God work through us. I bet if you were to ask Stefan if he could go back in time, if he would do anything differently, he would say no. He would say that even though it hurt to be vulnerable, even though it was painful to leave, he would do it the exact same way again, because it was worth it. He would do it all over again because being vulnerable is what makes life worth living. Being vulnerable is how we let God enter into our lives. Being vulnerable means having a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone.
Letting God into our lives, doing the work of transformation, means we are going to be vulnerable. Christ was often persecuted and vulnerable. Whenever Christ said an uncomfortable truth, or changed a paradigm, when he healed on the sabbath and upset the authorities, it seems Jesus had to quietly slip away for fear of being killed. Our most triumphant moment, the moment of glory, the moment of reconciliation between us and God, the moment when God and humans come to understand one another, that moment required that Christ become fully vulnerable. Christ suffered, Christ bled and Christ died. The act we as Christian communities celebrate as being the crucial, defining act of our faith is wrapped up in the vulnerability of death. The power of the cross, the power of God being with us, is that Christ died in full human weakness upon that cross.
We are going to be vulnerable when we live and work according to the teachings of Christ. When we live in this radically vulnerable way, the world is going to call us foolish. When we say we are an open and affirming church up here in the mountains, some in this world may call us foolish. When we forgive our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers for the things they have done to wrong us, when we seek to reconcile our relationships because we know that we need one another and healing our relationships heals ourselves, when we celebrate life even when it is fleeting, people will say that we are foolish. When we return hate with love, when we take a lesser paying job because it makes us happy and we get to help people, when we keep helping out somebody by giving them some extra time and cash even though they can’t ever seem to get their life together, when we are compassionate without ulterior motive, when we advocate for criminal justice reform, when we encourage AA, and Al-Anon, and Gamblers Anonymous groups to meet in our church and in our community, when we say “problem” people aren’t problems - but they are people - people will call us fools.
Paul writes to the divided church in Corinth about their foolishness. The world has called them foolish, the people say that Christ dying on the cross was an act of pure foolishness, not an act of power. They struggle with this. Is there power in vulnerability? Paul writes to the church with some wisdom. He says that God makes the wisdom of this world foolishness. He says that those called by God, those who harness the subversive power of Christ, those who are transformed by the wisdom of God, those people will appear very foolish by conventional wisdom.
But Paul also writes “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” Our foolishness, our weakness, and our vulnerability come from a wisdom and a strength that is beyond human wisdom and human strength.
We are working at transforming our hearts of stone. We are working at the foolish act of loving without ceasing. We are working at the foolish act of giving to those in need without reservation. We are fools who love even though sometimes, love hurts. We are fools who believe that there is something better than the set of circumstances we live in, we are fools who believe that it is worth working so that Earth more closely resembles the kingdom of Heaven. We are fools who know that sometimes it is wise to be a little foolish.
The question I ask of you is, how will you be a fool?
A Symbol of God's Presence, September 20th 2020
Numbers 21: 4-9
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea,[a] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
The book of Numbers details Moses and the Israelites’ forty years in the desert after fleeing Egypt. Delivered from slavery by the hand of God, they wander through the desert led by Moses and encounter the trials of famine, hardship, death, disease, and listlisness. God has provided exactly what they needed to nourish their body by raining manna from above.
The Israelites have been wandering for years, and despite their constant deliverance they question the point of it all, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! We detest this miserable food.”
The Israelites have seen the wrath and destructive power of God, especially against those who besmirch God’s name. They lived through the plagues in Egypt, they saw the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh's army, and they have just seen the destruction of the Canaanite king Arad.
But the Israelites are in a rough time in an especially rough season of life. They have no place to call home, they have eaten the same tasteless meal for years, they have seen death and destruction and there is seemingly no end to their toiling and wandering in sight. They have been promised a land and for years, and yet right now they have no land of their own. All of the promises the Israelites have been promised have not yet been fulfilled.
This might be why the Israelites, knowing the wrath and the power of God, choose to speak against God and Moses. Perhaps the Israelites have become fatalistic, not caring if they live or die because to them life has become a miserable existence. There is seemingly no end and no relief in sight. They cannot find a hope or a purpose.
Moses prays for help and God instructs Moses to create a totem with a snake upon it, something for the people to look upon and look to to cure the poison in their system.
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness month and want to be careful in how I approach preaching and talking about this topic especially knowing that Colorado has a high rate of suicide and that it has affected our congregation.
To start, I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not believe that God sets disaster upon us in wrath, God does not unleash upon us poisonous snakes nor depression nor any other health problems. God does not send us trial and tribulation as a forms of testing and challenging our faith as we have the everlasting grace and love of Jesus Christ. We belong to God in life and in death and God has known the trials and travails of human life through Jesus Christ. God is ever reaching toward us, ever calling our names, ever offering grace and peace to us.
The Israelites, miserable in a season of misery, see no future and have no hope and in their season of misery they are poisoned by their own fatalistic mindset. They are set upon hopelessness and doom. They don’t see a point to tomorrow or the next day.
I’ve been told that a sign that somebody is having suicidal ideation is that they start to lose interest in their passions and hobbies - selling off or giving away belongings when there is no other reason to do so, or they lose interest in long term plans, the person expresses feeling trapped and hopeless in a situation. Much like how the Israelites are feeling hopeless and trapped in their time of wandering.
It is important that we know the signs of suicidal ideations, so I’ll list some: talking about suicide in statements about themselves, obtaining means to take one’s own life, having extreme apathy, withdrawing from social contact, being preoccupied with death, dying, and violence, feeling trapped or hopeless, erratic changes in normal behavior, doing risky or self-destructive things, saying goodbye as if they won’t be seen again.
If somebody you know is exhibiting these signs there are a number of things you can do:
- You can ask them, directly, “Are you thinking about killing yourself.” Research shows that acknowledging and talking about can be relieving and reduce suicidal ideation.
- Be there and listen without judgement. People report feeling less depressed, less suicidal, less overwhelmed, and more hopeful when they have the chance to speak to somebody who listens without judgement.
- Help the person stay safe. If the means to commit the act are not present a person is less like to harm themselves.
- Help them connect to a support system. Make sure they have a friend, a family member, a religious leader,a coach, a teacher, a co-worker or somebody else they feel they can talk to about their life. Help them find a support group or therapist, maybe suggest they call 800-273-8255 (800-273-TALK).
- Follow-up. Ongoing contact is key in helping people feel connected and cared for.
- Call for help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255.
- Seek counseling, find a trained professional who you can speak to about what you are going through.
- Create a hope kit. Make a container which is filled with hopeful messages, reminders of the joys of life, messages from loved ones, scripture that inspires you, pictures and memories of happy and joyous times, reasons for living and persisting.
- Make structure in your days, weeks, and months. Something to look forward to.
These kinds of personal, small interventions are an important part of suicide prevention, but they are not the only things we can do in the name of suicide prevention.
The Israelites are miserable in a season of misery and they have disregarded their own lives. As a result they are beset by snakes which course poison through their bodies and the cure for their poison is for them to look upon the staff which Moses carries.
The Israelites needed something to look forward to, something to ground their hope in, they needed a reminder of God’s presence and providence.
Suicide Prevention means we lift the conditions that put people into spirals of hopelessness. It means we provide structure so that people can easily and affordably - preferably for free - access physical, spiritual, and mental health care. Affordable housing, good quality jobs which pay well and give people purpose and meaning, access to education, eliminating poverty - improving the quality of life for all people is suicide prevention.
Like Israelites we all need something to look towards and to ground us. We need the promise of something to look forward to, something to look towards, something we know will work and help us in our healing.
We as Christians know that God is a God of deliverance and liberation. We know God as a healer and we know God Emmanuel - God with us but sometimes, like the Israelites, in moments of misery in a season of misery it can be easy to forget God’s presence.
The role of the church is to be like the staff with a snake upon it which the Israelites gaze upon to be healed. We are to be a constant reminder of God’s presence which heals and comforts. We can do that as individuals who look for the signs of suicidal ideation in our friends, families, and loved ones and intervening. We can do so as a church by offering ministries which heal, restore, and hold people in the most difficult times of their lives. We can do so as a society by alleviating peoples’ misery in a season of misery by taking care of them, providing housing - health care - and access to a good life. In all areas of our life we can de-stigmatize counseling and encourage the people in our lives to express their strength and their love for themselves and their loved ones by seeking therapy and asking medical professionals to explore medicinal ways to help with depression and anxiety.
The Gospel of John says that like the staff of Moses, Jesus was lifted up so that all may have eternal life - Jesus came not to condemn the world but through him it may be saved. The church is called to be like Jesus and to not condemn people, but to help save them - in all the facets that means.
The Church has a role in suicide prevention and in this month of raising awareness. We can be like the staff that Moses raises that the Israelites gaze upon for healing - a symbol and sign of God’s presence among us all.
On October 31st we will have the annual blood drive which we as a church host in memory of Luke Grider. On October 30th we’ll be setting up. Ask Sandy Sturgeon if there’s a way you can help, or come and give blood. Join our church as we - in this small way - help people’s lives and honor the memory of Luke Grider who regularly donated blood and wanted to become a bone marrow donor.
Differences of Faith, September 13th, 2020
Romans 14: 1-12
14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[b]
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Last week I spoke about conflict and Jesus’ instruction to the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew. To sum up the sermon, Jesus says when somebody sins against you, talk to them. If they do not listen, he says to bring one or two other people to talk to them, and if they still don’t listen to bring the whole church in, and if they still do not listen then the solution is to still give them what they are due, treat them in a civil manner, but do not let them be part of the community as they once were.
Jesus says to treat those who have sinned against you with interpersonal communication in order to resolve the issue and to escalate levels of community accountability. The sinner is held accountable, and the community works to find a solution together.
This approach is holistic and restorative and useful for not just sin, but for any kind of conflict that may occur between folks. It also prompts a difficult question: What if the person who is sinning or causing conflict sincerely and genuinely repents and atones, but keeps on sinning? Jesus says that the possibility for grace and forgiveness must be infinite, and I add, and I think Jesus would too he just does not in this particular passage, that the root cause of the conflict, the root cause of the sin needs to be addressed. Through interpersonal communication and community accountability we can hold not only the person accountable for the damage they have caused to others, but identify the reasons for conflict and sin and hold each other accountable to healing and restoring people, communities, and systems so that they sin no more.
Jesus, in giving this instruction, is speaking to the division and conflict in his time and is giving advice for the future church.
Which brings us to this passage from Romans. Paul is writing to a church in Rome which is in conflict with itself. Paul considered himself an evangelist to the gentiles, or non-Judean followers of Christ, and had difficulty integrating the gentiles and Jewish followers of Christ. These two communities had practices and lifestyles that were very different from one another. There were questions, and eventually debates, as to the proper observance of sabbath, how to worship and if the law should be followed. The gentile converts did not keep the same sabbath as the Jews, they did not keep the same laws as the Jews and as such there were tensions. It affected all facets of life, even down the diet. This is what causes Paul to make comments about those who eat meat and those who eat vegetables. The gentiles would eat anything, as they were not observing the law, and the Jews would maintain a diet in accordance to the laws. I believe the thinking of the Gentiles is, “We are free in Christ who has fulfilled the law we no longer need to follow it as we once did” and the Jews line of thought something like “the law is our covenant with God, how we have come to know God and how we have sustained holy living. We keep the laws because it is our connection with our creator.”
Here I must make a side note about what Paul says about “but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables” I laugh to myself because at the time when I first felt my call to ministry and through much of seminary I was vegetarian.
Jesus advised his disciples to solve sin and conflict through interpersonal communication and community accountability but Paul takes a different approach in this conflict between the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul’s approach in this particular conflict is to say to the divided church “this isn’t a conflict at all.” More accurately Paul asks them “Who are you to judge one another?” He says that each individual comes by faith and lives out their faith in their own way and as long as they do what they do to glorify God, then no person should judge another for how they express their faith. “If we live we live for God” and however we live, we do it for God.
I think it’s easy to read this passage from Paul and fall into the trap of saying “who am I to judge?”
There are many instances in which it is totally appropriate and right to say “who am I to judge?” That person abstains from certain foods? “Who am I to judge?” Somebody doesn’t use their cell phone and hasn’t upgraded to a smartphone? Who am I to judge? In those instances where somebody’s life choices and actions do not harm other people it’s often a fair and appropriate thing to respond “who am I to judge?” Why despise your brother or sister for something they do if it doesn’t harm other people?
The trap is allowing this approach of “who am I to judge” to keep us from leveling legitimate critique against abuses of power and lifestyles that harm people. The trap is becoming indifferent to injustice. It means we must have the ability to discern what might just be different and what is harmful. We have probably heard the sayings: Neutrality of issue of justice is siding with the oppressor, silence is complicity and Jesus often criticized people for the way they lived their lives. One that sticks with me is Jesus criticizing the pharisees for tithing extravagantly but not caring at all about issues of mercy and justice which is a direct critique of their religious practice.
Paul says to let people live well enough alone in these disputable matters.
In this period of time, the Jews were a minority group in Rome as the Jews were expelled from Rome by Emperor Caludius. While the edict to expel the Jews had been suspended and Jews began returning to Rome they probably lost their property and community ties during their exile. As a result, non-Judean believers most likely became the most predominant members of the house churches. The Roman aristocracy looked down upon the Jews, there was an anti-Jewish progrom in Alexandria and Egypt and there were recent market tax riots that had turned deadly in Puteoli, a city south of Rome. There was civil unrest, protests erupting into violence, and a minority group living in the city would be most subject to the brutality of the state in the event that civil unrest would erupt in earnest.
Paul, though seemingly admonishing the Jews as “weak of faith” for adhering to the law, is also protecting them. He is writing to a group of mostly gentile converts who have had tensions and conflicts with the Jews who believe in Christ. Paul could have said “the Gentiles are right, the Jews do not have to follow the law and should quit following the law” but he didn’t. While Paul had a theological agenda to push in calling the Jewish believers in Christ “weak in faith” he could have said “they are weak in faith and therefore they should change” but Paul instead says “do not judge each other, God is a universal judge and we will each account for ourselves in front of God.”
Biblical scholar Neil Elliot says that the theme of Romans is universal accountability before God, the letter is a sustained appeal for holy living directed at Gentiles tempted to look down upon their beleaguered Jewish colleagues. Paul is not only trying to ease the tensions between the Gentiles and Jews but he also is protecting the Jews from losing their cultural identity and having to completely assimilate into the life and lifestyle the Gentiles have.
I think this aspect of Paul’s letter to the Romans speaks deeply to us today. Neil Elliot writes that Paul’s letter to the Romans “is a call to realize in common life the justice of God” and Paul’s vision for the justice of God within common life is not a vision of assimilation and sameness but it is a vision of difference, diversity, and respect for one another. It doesn’t seek to control people who have different customs, culture and language but it seeks to find common life with them, as they are.
This is good advice for a people living in a culture that says “This is how a Christian, this is how a Roman Christian behaves” and good advice still today for a culture that says “This is what an American looks like, this is how an American behaves and this is the example of an American Christian” when we know there are so many ways to be American, to be Christian, to be an American Christian.
Romans is a letter about universal accountability to God and it should make us ask these questions: When I judge my brother or sister, do I judge them in terms of mercy, fairness, justice, and kindness or am I judging them because they do things differently than I do?
And
The things that I do, do I do them in service of God? Can I account for my life and say “all these things that I am and I do, they help me to know and love God in some way.”
I think you might be surprised at what small parts of your life, what habits and hobbies and parts of your identity do draw you closer to God.
I think asking ourselves those two questions can go a long way in helping us avoid unnecessary conflict and division, and will go a long way in helping us heal one another and have a common life in God’s justice. We are called to holy living, and that holy living is not rooted in sameness and assimilation but it is rooted in common life in God’s justice. Common life begins when we hold each other to healing and reconciliation while respecting one another in these “disputable” matters.
Amen
Confrontation, September 6th, 2020
Matthew 1: 15-20
15 “If your brother or sister[a] sins,[b] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[c] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
Living with other people is messy.
I mean this at almost every level of “living” with other people. Working with other people can be messy, going to school with other people can be messy, having to deal with other people in public spaces can be messy - like when some idiot cuts you off in traffic, or somebody blocks the whole aisle in the grocery store, so on and so forth.
But living, in the same house, with other people is messy.
Two different people might have different cleaning styles, different levels of need for solitude, different eating habits, different aesthetical and decorative preferences, different communication styles and these differences can cause conflicts.
And layered on this is the different kinds of relationships we might have when we live together. It could simply be a situation where you have a roommate found on craigslist, it could be you moved into your first college apartment with your best friend, could be you moved into a place with your partner, or your roommates could be family; mom and dad, brothers, sisters, and grandparents. You might be a little more gracious with your mom than with your roommate who hasn’t given you their portion of the rent. A sibling might have a much better idea of how to pester you and annoy you than a roommate does, and maybe more of a reason to do so.
The different relationships we have with those we live with bring their own complications. As a child, your parents have a lot of control over your life. A roommate has certain contractual obligations to fulfill. Moving in with a partner might strengthen or weaken your relationship, it might change everything for the both of you.
So it only makes sense that people will fight and have disagreements when they live together. People living together disagree about how to clean, who ate whose food, if it's appropriate to bring over significant others, who pays for what and how much they pay, sometimes they argue because they’re just irritable. Sometimes the TV is too loud, sometimes Jack exclaims too loudly when playing video games with his buddies and Aneesah is trying to relax and meditate.
When I lived in the Disciples Divinity House, every year, without fail, there was a semi-dramatic, often long, house meeting about the cleanliness of the Kitchen. Emotions are aired out, complaints filed, solutions offered, programs implemented and sometimes it gets better for a while, and then the next year the whole thing happens again. Sometimes the next quarter it happens all over again.
Like I said, living with other people is messy, sometimes literally.
That includes worshipping together, praying together, being church together.
How many churches are torn apart by conflict within the church? Conflict between two members who don’t like each other or conflict between a pastor and family, conflict between the way we used to do things and people wanting to do something new? These conflicts, even small ones over the color of a carpet, can cause serious rifts.
Jesus instructs his disciples on how to resolve the conflict that occurs when somebody sins. In many old testament texts sins, taboos, and transgressions have prescribed punishments. The penalty for x behavior is y punishment, often the punishment if rather extreme such as exile or death. Jesus’ instructions, however, are for the sinner and the one sinned against to, essentially, work it out. If someone has sinned against you, point out what they have done. If they have lied to you, or betrayed your trust, if they have hurt you tell them what they have done.
How often do we suffer in silence? Our brother keeps using our stuff and mistreating it or not putting it back. The roommate doesn’t clean their dishes and we end up cleaning them for them, every time. Our partner is too loud when we’re trying to sleep but we just kind of stay awake.
Nothing changes if we are silent about it. Our brother will keep taking stuff from our room and not putting it back if we don’t let them know it bothers us. Our partners will keep being loud when we’re trying to sleep, our roommate will keep their dirty dishes in the sink forever if we say nothing about it.
It may even be that they don’t know what they are doing is harming us. The roommate may think “I’ll wash that in a couple of hours” not realizing that having a messy kitchen is really difficult for you. Your brother might think that he’s putting that thing back exactly where it goes and your partner might not know you’re having trouble falling asleep because you’re so loud.
I would like to apologize to all the roommates I’ve ever had for that last one, I am very loud and stay up late.
People can’t fix something they don’t know is a problem and we have to become advocates for ourselves. Just saying what is happening may be enough for them to listen and to win them over to changing their ways.
If they don’t listen, Christ says bring a friend. Find somebody to help advocate for you, somebody respected or looked up to works well. Your brother keeps putting your stuff back in the wrong place? Time to call on Mom. Roommate makes a mess? Time for a house meeting. Bring in enough other people to help with the situation, but keep the amount of people small enough to preserve the intimacy and privacy of the situation. Small enough to not do any undue harm to the reputation of the sinner, but with enough people there that the point comes across. Bring people to advocate for you, not to embarrass the other person.
If that doesn’t work? Bring the whole church into it. Jesus is asking for the community to hold the sinner accountable. He’s asking the community to resolve its own issues, to hold each other accountable, but to do so in ways of escalating accountability. When the impulse is so often to either suffer in silence or to put a person on blast in front of the whole world for their slight against us, Jesus says to try to resolve things interpersonally, through escalating stages of accountability to the community.
If that doesn’t work Jesus’ advice is to longer allow them into the closest, most personal aspects of your life. Treat them like a tax collector, be civil and proper, give them what they are due and owed but no longer have them be part of the community.
This is Jesus’ advice to deal with those who have sinned. Interpersonal communication and community accountability. While I don’t think it is a sin for one person to want a blue carpet and the other person to want a green carpet or these other small disagreements that might cause conflict in the church, home, or workplace, I do think this advice from Jesus is helpful for all kinds of conflict, not just sin. Conflict in ways of cleaning, conflicts in decorating, conflicts that come from living, working, playing, and praying together need to be resolved and interpersonal communication and community accountability are holistic ways of going about conflict resolution.
But rarely is conflict actually about the thing being argued about. Yes it is annoying when there are constantly dirty dishes in the sink but the conflict is rooted in the person who doesn’t clean their mess not valuing the time of the person who is constantly cleaning the mess. Your brother borrowing your things and not putting them back right causes conflict because they are not showing respect for you or your belongings. This method of conflict resolution may address the issue but sometimes the root problem, the cause of the conflict, will just manifest in other ways. The roommate now cleans their dishes, but they’re now taking extra long showers when you have to get ready for work. Your brother puts your stuff back right, but doesn’t treat it with respect and breaks it.
So what do you do when the problem just manifests in a different form? What do you do when the sinner keeps on sinning?
Immediately after Jesus says this scripture from the Gospel of Matthew, one of the Disciples asks him how many times he must forgive. Up to seven times?
The number seven is significant, it is not just some randomly pulled up number. God completed creation in seven days, the rainbow which was a sign of God’s covenant is made of seven colors, Joshua circled Jericho seven times on the seventh day before it fell, according to Deuteronomy the seventh year is the year in which debts are forgiven, and the Hebrew word for seven is etymologically close to the word for completion. Seven is associated with perfection and completeness.
Jesus says “I tell you not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” That’s significant
It’s kind of like saying “I dare you” and somebody else saying “I double-dog dare you.”
Forgiveness is the topic of another set of sermons, and it is not as simple as saying “I’m sorry” and being forgiven, but the opportunity for forgiveness and grace should be infinite.
What do we do when conflict keeps occuring? Jesus says to continue offering mercy and grace.
And I will add that the root of the issue needs to be addressed. What interpersonal communication and community accountability should do is hold the sinner accountable, pointing out the harm they have done, and also account for the reasons why they might have done what they did.
Sometimes it’s as simple as ignorance. Sometimes the person just simply doesn’t know that what they’re doing is harming others.
Sometimes it’s deeper than that. A poor person who steals probably doesn’t steal because they want to. They probably steal because they are hungry, or they need new clothes. A person who lashes out and insults others may actually be deeply insecure and feel unloved. Their behavior may not be right but it’s hard for them to change their behavior until they are made whole.
Nothing about a conflict, nothing about sin, can be solved until the root issues are acknowledged and addressed.
Christ says where two or three are gathered in his name, he is present. I truly believe when a community gathers to hold each other accountable and address the root causes of our issues the healing presence of Christ is there. It is Christ-like to see conflict, to see sin, and understand the underlying causes which need to be remedied for healing and restoration to occur. When we have conflict over a blue carpet or a green carpet let us see that we agree that change and revitalization is the goal. When we see a poor person steal to feed themselves, let us see that as a sign of the sin of extreme wealth inequality. When two or three are gathered let us hold each other accountable, accountable for the damage we may do to one another and accountable to healing and restoration by addressing the root of our issues.
And in that work we will realize the healing presence of Christ.
Amen.
Unprecedented Ecumenism, Evergreen and Ellis Joint Worship, August 30th 2020
Ecclesiastes 4: 8 - 12
8
There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" This too is meaningless-- a miserable business!
9
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:
10
If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
11
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?
12
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Of all the twists and turns that 2020 has given us, all the surprises, this is one that I am actually thankful for.
How often can a church that meets in what was once a home, not a block away from the Obama’s house on the south side of Chicago worship, with a church up in the mountains of Colorado? Without leaving the comfort of our homes we are afforded the opportunity to praise with one another, and hopefully learn a little more about God, learn a little more about how we express and live our faith, from one another.
The word we often use for Christians from different churches and denominations worshipping, praying, thinking and studying together… and even fighting together, is eccumenical. The word eccumenical comes from the greek work Oikoumene. Oikoumene directly translated means “inhabited” or “the whole inhabited world.” Because I want to prove that I paid attention in my Greek classes, I’ll break down the word Oikoumene just a bit further. The root of the word Oikoumene is Oikos which means “house” “family” or “household.” The Oikoumene is the whole inhabited Earth, or as another way of thinking about it, it is all of the households, all of the families on Earth. The Oikoumene is all of the Oikos
So when we talk about eccumenism, we are talking about Christians from all over the world cooperating together. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Non-Denominational, Disciples of Christ and Alliance of Baptists, churches in Russia, Syria, China, the U.S, Cuba, Chicago and Colorado, church from all over the earth learning to pray, teach, worship, praise, and advocate with one another. That is what eccumenism is; Christian cooperation, Christian unity.
If we think about it, Oikoumene - the whole inhabited Earth, is God’s Oikos, God’s household. God’s house, God’s family is composed of all Christians, everywhere in the world.
Now, with the pandemic, I am thinking about eccumenism, about Oikoumene and Oikos differently.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time in your house during the pandemic. I think the situation is better out here in Colorado than it is in Chicago, our numbers are pretty low and we have a lot of outdoor recreation available to us so we’re not spending quite as much time in our houses as we were at the start of the pandemic, but I'm sure we’re spending a lot more time in our houses these days than we used to. We can’t go to a White Sox or Cubs or Rockies game. Concerts have been canceled, camps aren’t happening, back-to-school looks so different than it normally does and as a result, I bet a lot of us are spending much more time inside, watching netflix, reading books, making bread, working from home, going to school, whatever it is we’re doing to pass the time.
What has surprised me is how much the church has infiltrated into my house. I can listen to Gloria’s Music Monday selections while doing the morning dishes. I listen to Rev. Terri Horde Owens give prayers over Facebook Live while I make lunch on Wednesdays. I think every church in the world now has their services either streaming on Facebook or available to watch on Youtube and I will casually put the service of a friend’s church on in the background while I do chores and I listen to my home church’s service while I drive to Evergreen on Sunday mornings. Hymns are in my kitchen, sermons in my car, liturgy in my bedroom, prayers spoken so that the plants on my patio hear them as well.
I am surprised by how the church has effused itself throughout my whole house. It seems that before, church was an event that had a time and place. Say prayers before bed, go to church on Sunday morning, Bible study on Wednesdays but the church has become increasingly available, increasingly present, it has flowed into our homes, into our oikos.
The barriers of geography and denomination and ideology are becoming more permeable. I see friends from Romania and Ohio and Nigeria like Evergreen’s facebook live videos and now two churches that are in many ways very different from one another, that are located across the country from one another, are praying and praising together this morning and when we look into our “square pews” we look into each other’s houses and offices, we see each other’s dinner tables and families, we have been invited to be church in each other’s homes. The oikoumene, the whole inhabited Earth, has come into each other’s oikos to praise and worship and pray to God.
It is a time of unprecedented Eccumenism because our Christian Unity takes place not just in meetings and formalized services but the church has penetrated into our homes. When seemingly the entire world is afflicted by the Coronavirus we find new and novel ways to be united. The church has come into our home and we are being invited into each other’s homes. God is present in our kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms, offices, and cars. Every place we reside becomes a sanctuary, every moment in our lives is equipped for prayer and worship, every moment becomes an opportunity to walk closer with God; together.
This passage from the Ecclesiastes reminds us why eccumenism is so important. It reminds us why it is so important that we worship together, pray together, praise together. The person who toils all alone, who works themself to the bone and has nobody to share it with, the person who amassed fortunes and wealth but has no friends or family to partake in it with, they will not enjoy it. The good book says “This too is meaningless, it is miserable business!”
Ecclesiastes reminds us that joy comes from sharing what we have with others, it reminds us that our gifts and talents are not to be hoarded but are to be enjoyed with others. So it is with the church. Our understanding of God, our traditions and hymns and talents are not to be hoarded and controlled but are to be shared with others. By sharing our understanding of God, by sharing our worship of God with others our lives are enriched and filled. By sharing our worship with others we understand better why we worship the way we do. By sharing how God has blessed us, we become more thankful for our blessings. In giving we receive.
It’s more than that, though. Sharing with others does not only enrich our lives but it is also necessary for our survival. The theme of this passage is not only are we stronger together, but we need each other. Alone, we are cold, easily overpowered, alone it is hard to find joy and if we fall nobody there is nobody there to help us up but when we’re together we can keep each other warm, we can defend one another, we can find joy in sharing with each other and if we fall we can pick one another up.
This is a time when we need each other. We need each other. Right now for many of us money is tight, we’re worried about what to do about our kids going back to school, us going back to school, we don’t have the same sense of security we used to, we need each other.
We need somebody by our side to pick us when we’re down.
Somebody to keep us warm when we’re cold.
Somebody to share our pain and our joy.
As Christians we need each other because without sharing worship, without sharing our prayers and praise for God, our understanding of God is incomplete. We need each other because Christ said “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We need each other because our worship becomes richer and more beautiful when we worship together. When we share our faith with one another it becomes stronger, we walk more closely with God, we learn more about God, and perhaps we find a new way of praising and praying that resonates with our soul.
Out of all the twists and turns and surprises of 2020, this time of unprecedented ecumenism is my favorite. The way the church, from all over the oikoumene, the whole inhabited Earth, has started to penetrate the oikos, the home brings me joy. My prayer is that, whatever happens after this pandemic, we continue inviting Christians from all over the world into our homes. We continue listening to prayers in the kitchen and sermons in the living room. I pray we continue to worship with churches across the country, continue to learn about God from people who do not look like us, sound like us, live near us, nor pray and praise like we do. I pray that worship penetrates every aspect of our lives, and we continue to share our work, our joy, our understanding of God, that we continue sharing in worship together. If we worship together, learn from one another and praise together, we will not only survive in the midst of troubles, but will increase in joy and walk more closely with God. I pray that we not only have the churches from all over the inhabited Earth seep into our homes but also that we find homes in churches all over the world. Hopefully that can start here, in a worship between two very different churches across the country from one another, hopefully our congregations can find homes at Ellis and in Evergreen.
Amen.
In the Midst of Trouble, August 23rd, 2020
Psalm 138
138:1 I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;
138:2 I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.
138:3 On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.
138:4 All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth.
138:5 They shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.
138:6 For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.
138:7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.
138:8 The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
There’s a weekly call where the general minister and president, Terri Horde Owens, prays with clergy from the Disciples of Christ. I try to zoom in to these prayer calls as a Sabbath practice. One week she said something about churches especially being attracted to singing gospel music during this time. She reflected that gospel and the spirituals are so often about prevailing through struggle. So often they are about having faith despite the circumstances, they are so often about God making a way out of no way and helping the singer of the spiritual make it through the struggle.
No wonder why people want to sing spirituals and gospels right now. Unemployment is devastating and unemployment benefits are cut compared to where they were at the beginning of the pandemic and as a result, families are struggling. Our frontline workers are constantly putting themselves in harms way for little pay. There’s so much uncertainty and discontent with back-to-school plans. We’re entering into an election season that is sure to be hurtful and vitriolic. We have various natural disasters rocking different parts of our natio. Protests against police brutality elevate to our consciousness the fear people live with daily and just recently another unarmed black man was shot by police and is in critical care. I read that the number of murders of transgendered people has surpassed in the seven months of this year the total number for 2019. Our post office is being sabotaged - a service that many people use for vital functions like voting, conducting business, and receiving medicine. People have foregone medical procedures due to Covid and are suffering because of it. Thousands of people die every day because of this virus which has shut down many of the things we love to do, things we do to de-stress, and has no discernable end-date. Families can’t see each other, people have had to attend virtual funerals for their loved ones; like I said in a sermon a couple of weeks ago it could certainly feel like the world is ending.
No wonder why people want to sing the gospels and the spirituals.
Martin Luther highly regarded the Psalms, seeing them as a “mini-bible” within the Bible, seeing them as the most colorful depiction of the life of saints, a depiction of what the church and Christianity are. He wrote “The sum of all is that, if you wish to see the holy Christian church depicted in living colours, and given a living form, in a painting in miniature, then place the Book of Psalms in front of you; you will have a beautiful, bright, polished mirror which will show you what Christianity is. Nay, You will see your own self in it.”
So too it is with the spirituals and gospels, ways of naming and proclaiming into the world trials and tribulations and how God brings us through. They are glimpses into what the Church can do, they are experiences of Christianity made into song and upon listening and and reflecting upon the spirituals and gospels, one finds a mirror to themselves.
If you want to read a little more about the depth and the power of the spirituals I would recommend either “The Spirituals and the Blues” by James Cone or “Deep River and the Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death” by Howard Thurman.
Psalm 138 reminds me of our desire to sing the Spirituals as it is a testimony of survival through the struggle. It is a Psalm of deliverance, it is a Psalm of thanksgiving, a Psalm which praises God that the writer has not been defeated by their enemies, that the writer has not been destroyed and has been delivered through their struggle.
Martin Luther says that the Psalms are a painting of the church and a polished mirror into Christianity; is this not the church and the Christianity we need right now? Though we walk in the midst of trouble, assailed by the enemies of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, assailed by job losses and natural disasters, assailed by exhaustion and conflict don’t we need the church, need Christianity to preserve us? We need a church which will stretch out its hands to those who need help and we need a faith that will deliver us through the struggle.
We need the faith of the Psalms, the faith we sing about in the gospels and spirituals, a faith which delivers us through the struggle.
The Psalms, the gospels, and the spirituals also help us know our own selves.
When you hear Psalm 138 what is revealed to you about yourself? I’ll read the Psalm again.
Psalm 138
138:1 I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;
138:2 I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.
138:3 On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.
138:4 All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth.
138:5 They shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.
138:6 For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.
138:7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.
138:8 The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
You may hear a number of things when reading for the purpose of discovering about yourself.
Maybe you hear the thankfulness of the Psalmist and it resonates with you.
Maybe you’ll hear the Psalmist’s perseverance, hear the Psalmist acknowledge that hard times have been here but God has also been here.
Maybe you’ll hear the Psalmists struggle and know that you are not alone.
What stood out to me while reflecting on this scripture was the last line:
“Do not forsake the work of your hands.”
It’s a reminder of the promises that God has made, promises of deliverance, promises to keep and preserve, it is a reminder to God that God has made us and promised to be with us. Much like the Psalmist has remembered and given thanks for all God has done, God is asked to remember what God has made, and the promises God has made.
So, in that way, it’s a challenge to God.
The Psalmist tells God, “You have delivered us through trials, you regard the lowly, you have made and you love us, do not forsake us. Remember us, the people you made!”
We say prayer in a few ways; We say prayers as some kind of supplication, emptying ourselves to open ourselves to God, we say prayer as a form of thanksgiving, and we say prayer as a form of intercession, asking for God’s help.
Psalm 138 reminds us that in our time of trial we will pray with supplication, we will sing songs of thanksgiving to God, we will ask for God’s help, and the last line reminds us that it is not unfaithful to challenge God to show up and deliver us through this time.
And God will show up just as God has done in the past.
This is a time for the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Spirituals. A time to give thanks for all God has done and a time to challenge God to deliver us through. It is a time to have the faith that lets us sing our gospel out loud.
Maybe it’s time to challenge God
And God is more than ready to meet the challenge.
Amen.
Left Behind, August 16th, 2020
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
11:1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
11:2a God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
11:30 Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
11:31 so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.
11:32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
You might laugh at me when I say this, and I will forgive you for that, but, I am getting to an age where sometimes I feel things are starting to pass me by.
There are a lot of trends that pass me by now. There’s an app called Tik Tok where people make little 30 second videos, usually set to music. It might be familiar because Trump has said something about banning Tik Tok. A lot of younger people use Tik Tok and there are a lot of jokes and dances and “challenges” from Tik Tok and I feel oblivious to it all and whatsmore is when I do find out about these “challenges” or dances or whatever, I just don’t get it.
Part of it is that I just haven’t kept up. I don’t have the app on my phone, I don’t look at it, I don’t really try to learn about it, but another part is that technology and society and the generation under me is moving on without me. I’ve been watching NBA games and I can remember who was on the 2010-2011 Cleveland Cavaliers crystal clearly but I look at these rosters and think “Who is that?” and “When did so-and-so get so good?” or “He doesn’t play for them anymore?” or, perhaps the best sign of getting older, “He’s YOUNGER than me and he’s putting up 25 points per game?!” What was in my mind five years ago actually happened ten years ago.
I don’t mind getting left behind, not entirely. Sometimes feeling left behind feels like everybody at work or school talking about a tv show you don’t watch. They’re talking about the latest episode of Lost, or Game of Thrones, and you may be lost in the conversation but it’s alright because you’re really just not that interested in watching those shows. Sometimes it feels like the event of the royal wedding, or that time when there was a big news headline about “balloon boy,” the kid that was in a weather balloon that took off and went missing; it’s something everybody talks about for a moment and then once it’s done, it doesn’t really have a significant or long lasting impact. It’s really a “you had to be there in order to care” kind of thing.
Sometimes I don’t mind that feeling of being left behind because I am really encouraged and inspired by the intelligence and grit of a younger generation. I remember wishing I had more say, more respect, more responsibility when I was younger and I am ready and glad to give it to our younger leaders and there are genuinely times and places where we need people “in-the-know” to be leading us. Technology is advancing extremely rapidly and advancements like facial recognition software, genetic genealogy, the collection of our data by software companies which is then sold and traded, and cloud based computing are leading us into previously unexplored legal and ethical territory. Watching congressional hearings with large tech companies it is clear to me we need more young, or at least technically competent, leaders in congress who know what they are talking about in order to make laws and agreements that will help and protect people. People confused about how to operate their iPhone shouldn’t be the ones spearheading congressional hearings with corporations that could potentially sell facial recognition software with millions of faces in the database to the highest bidder. Their expertise is probably best elsewhere. They should let other representatives take the lead, they should rely heavily on aides to give them advice.
But there are times when I get that feeling of being passed by and I don’t meet it with a sense of “that’s alright, I don’t really care” or I don’t meet it with a sense of encouragement and inspiration, but I meet it and I feel empty, hollow, misplaced.
I’m only 27, but sometimes when I misclick something on my phone and don’t know what it’s doing as a result, I feel old and, sometimes, left behind.
The texts the lectionary presents to us today include this passage from Romans and the passage from Matthew in which the Canaanite woman asks for God’s mercy for her demon possessed daughter. Jesus tells the Canaanite woman no, he was sent only for the lost children of David, the Israelites, and compares her and her daughter to a dog saying that it is not right to give the children’s bread to a dog. The Canaanite woman pushes back and insists that even a dog will eat the master’s scrap and because of her faith, Jesus heals her daughter.
Ostensibly both of these pieces of scripture are, in part, about extending the ministry and gospel to not just the Israelites but to all people. In the passage from Romans, Paul is writing about the Israelites history of upholding, or not upholding, their covenant as God’s elected people. Paul is illustrating a point about receiving salvation by grace and not by works. Paul says that the Israelite’s disobedience has been met by mercy and grace, a kind of mercy and grace that is provided freely by God and is not earned by any person’s actions. The Israelites are an example to all people, their disobedience has been met with mercy and grace and the rest of the world will know God’s mercy and grace. The rest of the world will see the mercy and grace given to the Israelites and know that God will extend such mercy and grace to them. God’s mercy and grace touches all people.
I think Paul in this passage touches on what we all feel when we see the world changing around us. That feeling of seeing the world around us change and feeling like we are being left behind. Surely the Israelites saw the evangelization to the gentiles and felt the same. Even Christ did not want to extend the ministry beyond God’s elected until the faith of the Canaanite woman challenged him. Sometimes the world changes rapidly and we feel left behind, we feel like there is no place for us.
Has God rejected God’s people? Paul says “by no means.”
Does God leave us behind in an ever-changing world? “By no means.”
Paul writes that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
No amount of change in the world makes God’s grace any less accessible to you.
No shift in the culture, no advance in technology, no amount of Tik Tok dances will strip away that you have been given gifts by God.
Nothing will marr the fact that God calls us into relationship with each other, calls us to seek justice, calls us to love kindness, calls us to walk humbly, nothing will change that God calls us.
When Evergreen did its process of discernment this church both re-discovered and affirmed that it still has ministry and mission to do.
The church said the world has changed, we have changed but we still have gifts to give, we are still called by God.
And so it is with us. From generation to generation, from 27 year olds who don’t understand Tik Tok on up, the world may have changed but God does not forsake us. We still have gifts, we are still called.
How we use those gifts, the ways they are applied, how we live into our calling; those things may have to change with the world, but the fact that we are gifted and called does not.
Paul writes in Romans 12, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” which I think is good advice for us. The world will change around us and at times that may be isolating, scary, disturbing, but if we anchor ourselves on the gifts and calling that God has provided us we will find our place in the world. The world will change and if we renew our minds, anchored on the grace and mercy of God, we’ll adapt. We might not be up on cutting edge technology, or even old technology, we might not be part of the latest cultural trends but we will have a place and a purpose. We do not need to conform to the patterns of the world, we do need to be entirely plugged in all of the time in order for us to be present.
What we do need, however, is to be open to the possibilities that come from the renewal of our minds. We need to take the gifts and calling God has given us and realize how it is relevant to the world that has changed around us. God does not forsake us, God does not leave us behind but rather God anchors us on God’s gifts and calling which are both timely and timeless.
We are not being left behind by a changing world but rather we are being challenged to give our gifts to the world differently. Like the Israelites our example can be an inspiration to many others but we also have to have the courage to be open to renewal to make it happen. We are neither called to be stagnant and stale nor called to be a trend that is here today and gone tomorrow but we are called to renew and adapt how we use our irrevocable gifts and callings. To do so, we might have to call a nephew or niece, a kid or grandkid for help, but there is a place and purpose for us if we are ready to renew ourselves to it.
Moral Compromise, August 9th, 2020
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
37:1 Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan.
37:2 This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.
37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves.
37:4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.
37:12 Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem.
37:13 And Israel said to Joseph, "Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them." He answered, "Here I am."
37:14 So he said to him, "Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me."So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem,
37:15 and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, "What are you seeking?"
37:16 "I am seeking my brothers," he said; "tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock."
37:17 The man said, "They have gone away, for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan.
37:18 They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him.
37:19 They said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer.
37:20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams."
37:21 But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, "Let us not take his life."
37:22 Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him" --that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.
37:23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore;
37:24 and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
37:25 Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
37:26 Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?
37:27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed.
37:28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
The Bible is a book filled with tragedies.
Lamentations and many of the Psalms witness fully the grief of a people.
Job loses everything.
Jacob betrays his brother Esau.
Cain kills Abel.
Hagar is abandoned.
Jesus is betrayed, mocked, and crucified.
The story of Joseph is especially tragic as it is a story of family conflict, family betrayal, a family torn apart because of a father’s love for one child over and above the others. In fact, Jacob’s kids fall victim to the same sort of narratives and conflict that occurred between Jacob and Esau, that occurred between Cain and Abel. It has at this point become a pattern of family strife.
Stories, narratives and patterns can have a deep hold over us. Even patterns and narratives that are hidden and unknown to us have some power over us. We are not totally beholden to this power, not totally beholden to these narratives and patterns, we can break free, but they do hold power over us, especially if we do not understand the patterns or where they originated from.
Not all patterns and narratives are bad. An example of a family pattern may be that somebody’s great grandfather was a firefighter, their son was a firefighter, their son was an EMS, and their son works with firefighter crews to improve response times using technology. The pattern of the male members of the family is to be involved with emergency health and rescue services, the pattern is helpful and constructive.
But many patterns can be bad, many patterns can be self-feeding; patterns of alcoholism in families, patterns of neglect and abuse, narratives about a family that frames them as losers are frightening narratives and patterns. These narratives can haunt generations, haunt people, and what’s more is scientists have found that trauma literally leaves chemical markers on our genetic code which is inherited by future generations. What we have done, what has been done to us then affects our future generations.
I imagine that this is partially the case in the story of Joseph and his brothers. Painted by hidden narratives of family fighting, of fathers loving their youngest son best, patterns of betrayal, Joseph’s brothers cannot even speak to him peaceably because father loves Joseph best. Joseph is favored by his father to the point where his father makes him a beautiful robe with long sleeves, which has been dramatically re-imagined as an Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and worn by Donnie Osmond. What’s more, Joseph has given a bad report of his brothers shepherding skills to his father. Is this report warranted? We don’t know, it doesn’t explicitly say but I imagine that with the way they left Shechem for Dothan and the way they treat their brother his report may have been justified.
The hidden narratives and patterns are a generational backdrop; the brothers of Joseph plot to kill him. Unable to cope with his thriving, perhaps seeing him as a threat, they plot to kill him.
The eldest brother Reuben decides that because this is their brother they are dealing with, they should not kill him, they should not shed the blood of their own family. Reuben only says this because he wants to free his brother and earn his father’s favor. Rather, the brothers decide to sell their own kin into slavery. They kick the ball down the field and they supplant the atrocity of murder for the atrocity of selling their own brother into slavery as if that act of moral degredation was any degree better, as if selling your brother’s life isn’t a form of ending it.
The brothers comforted themselves, justified their depravity through a kind of moral compromise. The act that is slightly less morally bankrupt becomes a viable option because the brothers, fettered to hidden narratives, compromise to something not quite as bad as it could be. It is a moral compromise that is in all ways immoral. Instead of devaluing Joseph’s life to the point of his death, they value Joseph’s life to the tune of twenty silver.
We live in a country, in systems of exchange and governance, that has produced and reinforced narratives and patterns which have devastated lives and we continue to morally compromise instead of re-writing these narratives. To be sure groups fight against these narratives, for instance in the women’s suffrage movement women would wear buttons saying “I am a voter” re-writing the narrative of women not being involved in the civic process and Sojourner Truth proclaimed “Aint I a Woman?” at a women’s rights convention. Black Lives Matter is an attempt to rewrite the patterns of abuse and devaluation of black bodies.
But many of these patterns we repeat in forms of gradual moral compromise which only slightly minimize the wrongs we do to other people. We commodicize human lives in the name of profit, it is a pattern that repeats itself again and again and our change is so often just gradual moral compromise.
I think one of the ways we see change as gradual moral compromise is through the exploitation of human bodies for profit. From Slavery to Jim Crow, to Police Brutality and the For-Profit Prison Industrial Complex this nation has a history of abuse and violence of black and brown bodies to profit off of their backs. In a series of moral compromises are in the position where private companies own for-profit prisons and immigration detention centers. We have incentivized bodies to be in jail cells and people to be separated from their families which reinforced generations of narratives of crime and worthlessness cast upon black and brown people which drives patterns of incarceration and unjust interaction with the criminal justice system. Our moral compromise has taken the form of deeming slavery as morally brankrupt except if the person has committed a crime and now companies use prison labor to save pennies while prisons become places of gruelling work and break people in ways that cause recidivism. Prisons have become factories rather than being places where folks can get the help they need and restore themselves to being productive citizens. We have encouraged our justice system to jail people and made empires off of their labor, we have created a system of mass incarceration which inherited the patterns and narratives of slavery.
We see patterns and moral compromise in the way many voices approach school reopenings. It is by no means an easy question or a binary choice but we are offered choices of moral compromise instead of moral courage. In a country where child labor legal until the 1930s the way we frame the conversation of reopening schools hinges on the economic value of our children. Our choices either seem to be to reopen schools, putting our children in dangerous situations so that parents can go to work, or to keep schools online without any help to parents who may struggle to work as a result. National leaders tell us to “not let science get in the way of reopening schools” and offer not a single courageous alternative.
With a more robust moral imagination and with moral courage we can break from the cycles and narratives and patterns. We can reimagine a justice system which rehabilitates and restores people, fixing the barriers to reintegrating into society rather than breaking them down in the name of profit. We can imagine systems of schooling which keep children healthy and safe and provide parents with the benefits and resources they need to make that happen.
We have to stop selling our own brother into slavery in some pretense that it is the right choice because we did not outright kill them. It’s going to require that we have a moral imagination, and that we have each other. We’re going to have to get over ourselves, and get over our jealousy of one another and truly come to rely on one another and treat one another with a reciprocity of love. To break these patterns and narratives we are going to have to live into the change and love that Jesus modeled for us.
To finish the sermon, I’ll George sang that classic, “Lean on Me” which is an imagining of what life together can look like. An imagining of owning our vulnerability, asking for help, and answering the call to help each other. I suggest you listen to a version of the song by Bill Withers.
Unexpected Guests, August 2nd, 2020
13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
I was watching the documentary Somme with Aneesah this week, which is a documentary about four people taking the Master Sommelier test. When discussing wine, one of the people at the beginning of the documentary mentions that “the only miracle that Jesus’ mother tells him to do is to make more wine. The first miracle is about wine.”
This is true, in the gospel of John, while at a wedding, Mary, mother of Jesus, instructs Jesus to make more wine when the wedding runs out.
Where I might disagree with the commentator is what that miracle is “about.” The miracle is not “about” wine. I like wine, I even took a wine class in college, which counted as a geography credit, and I get the joke; wine is so important even Jesus was concerned about there being enough of it.
But to be clear, while making barrels of wine is pretty cool, the miracle is about hospitality. It is about being a good guest, it’s about custom, it’s about making sure that people have enough, making sure nobody is embarrassed by being unable to meet their guests needs. It is also one of the first public signs of Christ’s ministry, and I think it might be about the value of listening to your mama.
I bring all this up because the feeding of the 5,000, which isn’t an accurate title for this miracle, the last line of the story indicates that the 5,000 doesn’t include the women and children; but the feeding of the multitudes and the miracle of turning water into wine hold things in common.
Like turning water into wine, the miracle of feeding the multitudes isn’t exactly about the multiplication of a little into a lot. Don’t get me wrong, it is about that, but there is more to it. If Christ had multiplied his bread and ate it alone it probably wouldn’t have been written about in the gospels. If Jesus had multiplied the bread for himself alone, it would be miraculous, but it would not have the believing reception of a miracle.
The wedding and the feeding of the multitude have many similarities. In both the wedding at Cana and in the feeding of themultitude a situation emerges in which a gathering of people will have to disperse because there is a lack of food or drink to keep the gathering going. In both instances Jesus provides exactly what is needed for the gathering to continue. In both instances Jesus does not allow a lack of something to ruin a host’s hospitality. In these two miracles Jesus models how to be a bountiful host and a gracious guest. These two miracles reveal what gracious hospitality does; it multiplies what we have, it makes what little we have sufficient, it makes the product more than the sum of the parts.
At the wedding at Cana it would have been a terrible embarrassment for the hosts for them to run out of wine. Jesus models being a good guest by sparing the host of excessive demand and by helping the host provide for the guests. Jesus, by being a gracious guest, transforms what the host has provided into something more valuable.
At the feeding of the multitudes Jesus models what it means to be a gracious and abundant host. Jesus shows that with exceptional hospitality and care, what was a little becomes sufficient, what was little transforms into abundance.
Have you ever had either one of these miracles happen in your own life? You, the belabored host who is trying to get everything together, runs out of food. The guests are still hungry, people are starting to get cranky, children are crying, people are dissatisfied and about to leave, you are embarrassed and feel you have failed as a host and then, one of your guests saves the day. Maybe somebody orders some pizza, or a late arriving guest made a beer run before they came to your super bowl party and re-stocks your fridge. This one act has eased the burden of your shoulders, it’s helped you save face, everybody is happy and having a good time again, your guest stepped up and saved your ability to be hospitable. Their act transformed the situation. It’s small, but it is something.
When I was in Colombia, we went to a town called Mina Nueva, it was a small gold-mining town. To get to Mina Nueva we took a transport from Medellin to Segovia, that took about 4 hours. In Segovia we had to get into a jeep capable of going off-road to ride the dirt roads to Mina Nueva, about another four or five hours. While in Mina Nueva we met with several folks from around the area in a sort of “town hall.” We met with gold miners, farmers, and village leaders to understand better what life was like, to observe how the disarmament of the FARC and the peacekeeping zones were affecting peoples’ lives, to see if the Colombian government was living up to their promises, to build friendship. One village leader arrived late and missed the meeting because it had rained recently and the dirt roads were in conditions that made it difficult for her dirt bike to make it to Mina Nueva in a timely fashion. We spent some time huddled in a room with her, waiting for the road condition to get better, chatting. She left for a bit and came back with a bag of grapes.
I can’t imagine that it is easy for a bag of grapes to make its way down the dirt roads to a literally-being-built-before-our-eyes town centered around an illegal gold mining operation. Our approach from Segovia led us through zones of land in which former FARC occupied territories were undergoing disarmament with the presence of FARC, UN Peacekeeping Teams and the Colombian military. We saw more than one jeep, more than one escalera, which are these beautiful rustic busses used in rural Colombia, stalled or stuck in a rut on the side of the road.
I can’t imagine that it is easy for a bag of grapes to make its way to Mina Nueva and I can’t imagine that the bag of grapes is cheap.
We huddled around, sharing a bag of grapes, and the hospitality of this woman transformed that bag of grapes into something more than a bag of grapes, it made something small more than sufficient for us. She recreated for us the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes, the miracle of gracious and abundant hospitality.
We observe a significant difference between the wedding in Cana and the feeding of the multitude. Jesus is an invited guest at the wedding but when we read the text for the feeding of the multitude in Matthew, the multitude is not invited and Jesus did not become a host on his own volition.
At the start of the passage Jesus secludes himself, he seeks privacy and solitude. It’s one of the many passages in which Jesus does this and one of the scriptures people will point to when they say Jesus might have been an introvert.
Jesus wanted to be alone, but hearing of his departure the crowd, folks who wanted to be blessed, to be healed, folks who sought after a better life, gathered to him.
When Jesus saw the large, uninvited crowd he was compassionate towards them, he healed their sick, he took care of them. He became host to them. He fed them.
The Disciples suggest that Jesus should dismiss the crowd as there is not enough food to feed them all, it’s a remote area and they’ll need to travel back to town to buy food to eat. There is not enough here, they need to leave.
Jesus says no, there is plenty here. Jesus gives thanks for what they have and they are able to feed the multitude of uninvited guests, they are able to feed them and have more than enough to spare. The miracle of Jesus’ hospitality turns something scarce into something abundant. Jesus did not invite the crowd but he cares for them and feeds them, he hosts them as that is the hospitable thing to do.
We often become hosts to crowds not of our choosing. In our communities, in our state, in our country. You may not like that tons of Californians are moving to Colorado, and there’s certainly a lot to be said about the gentrification which pushes people out of their birth places, but we have become hosts to them.
I know Evergreen has an addiction recovery center. I’m not sure how long it has been around but some of the reviews for local hiking trails mourn the fact that we have an addiction recovery center. We might not have asked for it, but we have become host to this center, and the center probably serves people who have already been living and present in the community.
We are one of the richest countries in the world. The United States of America has become synonymous with opportunity and success for many, many people. Folks are being pushed out of their own countries; refugees of the climate crisis, refugees of war, refugees from gang violence and cartels, refugees of governments that threaten their safety because of their identity, refugees from the U.S’ own interventionist policies and many of them, especially from Latin American countries, come to the United States looking for healing, comfort, and safety. Like the crowd that gathered around Jesus they come looking for better life and we have become host to an uninvited guest.
The Disciples urged Jesus to send his uninvited guest home, they told Jesus that there simply isn’t enough here for them and they need to go back. Jesus says there is plenty. Jesus tells them to stay and Jesus in his hospitality reveals that the little they have is more than sufficient. Christ lets nothing come in his way of being hospitable to the unexpected guest.
The Christ-like response to unexpected guests is not to shoo them away. It is not to worry about ourselves and what we will eat. The Christ-like response to unexpected guests, uninvited guests, is to host them. It is to give thanks for what we do have and to share it. To care, to hea, to feed those who become our guests. The Christ-like response is to be hospitable, to trust that God will work miracles and our hospitality will make what little we might have sufficient, may make it abundant.
Hospitality is in and of itself, the miracle.
Amen
Belief in the Kingdom, July 26th, 2020
There are a lot of sayings about truth and believing:
“The proof is in the pudding.”
“Seeing is believing”
“If you believe it, it will happen.”
“The secret of having it all is believing that you already do.”
These sayings impart wisdom about truth and belief, and they also track along two kinds of belief systems.
“The proof is in the pudding” comes from the phrase “The proof is in the eating of the pudding,” meaning that to know if something was good, you had to actually experience it. For instance, if your pudding was good, you would know by eating it, especially because pudding was a savory meal, made of minced meat cased in an intestine. You would know your pudding was bad if it made you sick after eating it. The proof of something is in experiencing it.
“Seeing is believing” is pretty self explanatory. The implication is that when the evidence is truly before you, when you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you will believe it. Any skepticism is cast aside when a person actually sees the proof with their own eyes. In the age of photoshop and deep fakes, the saying doesn’t hold quite the weight that it used to.
I’d say these fit in with a kind of “scientific” or “skeptic” form of belief system. Belief in something comes after the evidence of it. Truth does not come from belief, but rather belief comes from evidence of the truth. The theory of gravity is true because we have evidence of it.
“If you believe it, it will happen” and “The secret of having it all is believing that you already do” represent a second kind of belief system. Believing in something is what makes it true. The belief in something will manifest it into the world, belief in something is what it makes it real.
The typical person will employ these two kinds of belief systems in different ways in different aspects of their life. We usually use some kind of mixture of the two. For instance we may believe that the wait time at a restaurant will be long because there’s a line out the door. We see the evidence which leads us to believe in the wait time. Self-confidence is a form of belief that makes something true. The belief of “I am worthy” or “I am capable” often makes it a reality, in order to be self-confident you have to believe in yourself. There is both room and need for both belief systems in our lives.
And both systems of belief have flaws. In the first system the evidence that leads to our belief may be wrong, or may be misinterpreted and wielded oppressively. Evidence of something may not be evidence at all but may merely be correlation without causation. Falsified evidence and misinterpreted evidence has been used to employ the mechanisms of racism, facism, sexism, transphobia and other forms of oppression for years. “You can’t argue with data,” but you can argue with the narratives constructed around the data. And sometimes you can argue with the data, sometimes the data isn’t gathered accurately or doesn’t represent the whole picture.
On the other hand, if believing in something makes it true then it is difficult to shake-up or question those beliefs. The belief system which constructs truth from belief has a hard time accepting evidence to the contrary. This comes in the form of confirmation bias, meaning that only evidence and data that affirms an already held position will be accepted, or maybe even just pure pig-headedness. Belief can be warped into an inability and unwillingness to accept that the truth might not be what one believes. One can’t accept the truth even if it walks up and smacks them in the face.
This is the kind of belief system which I believe Jesus is referring to in the parable of the rich man, which precedes the sermon text. The rich man lived his comfort in life and went to Hades. The poor man, Lazarus, received his comfort after life. The rich man begs that Lazarus be allowed to warn the rich man’s five brothers. The response from Abraham, the patriarchal figure in this parable is “If they did not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Another way of saying it is that they wouldn’t know the truth even if it came up and slapped them in the face. I think the way we politicize things, or the way we grasp on to certain things as being part of our identity tends to radicalize us in this way where the truth can slap us in the face and we refuse to believe because believing would make us wrong, and force us to build our identity around something else.
I’m sure we all know people like this, or maybe even have positions in our own lives like this. All the evidence in the world, the dead getting up and walking around, could not convince us away from our position. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time and no amount of facts, evidence, or statistics, no amount of people in Chicago saying it’s Jordan could convince me otherwise.
While critiquing this kind of belief, a belief which makes things true, a belief that believes without evidence, a belief in things unseen, Jesus also directs us to know that this is exactly the kind of belief needed to know the kingdom of God’s presence.
“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
The kingdom of God is in our midst, but we must believe in it to know the truth of it. It is no coincidence that Jesus instructs his followers to repent, to forgive one another, and to seek reconciliation because the kingdom of God is the fulfillment of justice and peace. To know the presence of the Kingdom of God is to believe in it and act in a way that fulfills justice and peace. To know the Kingdom of God one must act out the Kingdom of God, and to do that one must believe it is possible.
Our belief in the Kingdom of God will manifest the evidence of its presence in our midst. By believing and acting on that belief, the characteristics of the kingdom of God will be observable among us. By rebuking sin, we will show the evidence of a God who listens and hears those who have been wronged. Through our acts of repentance and forgiveness we become the evidence of the possibilities of healing and reconciliation. Our acts of mercy, justice, and peace become evidence of the Kingdom of Heaven, we, the beloved community, become evidence of the Kingdom of Heaven. The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be seen because it is already here, in our midst. Our belief in the Kingdom of God will make the evidence of it true. We set in motion the Kingdom of God by believing in it.
The fulfilment of the Kingdom of God on Earth starts with our belief in things unseen.
Amen
Faith in Things Unseen, July 19, 2020
The Elephant Butte Fire ravaged fifty acres of land in West Evergreen. Over a thousand homes were evacuated. Stiff winds, dry pine needles lining the floor, a heat wave; the conditions were perfect for a fire to ravage through the mountains.
I am on the Evergreen Friends and Neighbors Facebook page and if you’ve never been a part of a community on the website Nextdoor or one of these community Facebook pages, I can’t really recommend it. Something about online posting brings out the worst in people. But I’m on the Evergreen Friends and Neighbors Facebook page and around the 4th of July somebody posted a complaint about fireworks going off well into the night.
It became a debate, because of course it did. Some folks commented about the fire ban in JeffCo, specifically saying that these fire bans are made up and they have no idea what they’re doing and trying to scare us, etc. etc. The reasoning of these posters was that, if fireworks have been shot off and there have been no fires in JeffCo, surely these fire bans and alerts for high fire probability are wrongheaded.
From what I know, they haven’t been able to determine the origin and source of the fire because the fire is still smoldering and being watched. The response was amazing, they have multiple vehicles in the air dropping water on the fire, foresters and park rangers watching and clearing the woods, it was a massive amount of effort. We see, very clearly, very concretely, that the stage 2 fire ban was warranted. It was a very clear demonstration of the power of these factors that may have been invisible to us. Things we couldn’t see or perceive or interpret without the help of some experts, these hidden factors created a wildfire. Now, God’s creation is groaning, it is burning due to these unseen things.
Paul’s writing is heavily theological, heavily apocalyptic, heavily rooted in particular contexts and times, and honestly, just heavy. Luther loved Paul, especially loved the letter to the Romans and that should tell you how much theology and interpretation you can squeeze out of these passages. What is important to remember whenever you read Paul.
1.) Paul is writing to particular peoples and churches. We’re actually missing half of the conversation as we the only words we receive from the churches is what Paul decides to include. There are particular problems and questions the churches are dealing with and Paul is often addressing those problems and questions, or his own observations about the churches, when he writes these letters.
2.) Paul was very influenced by both Jewish and Greco-Roman philosophy. Our understanding of the world and our ethical framework are different than Paul’s. Trying to import Paul’s words and exhortations directly in our lives can be grating and alienating for this reason.
3.) Paul believed that the eschaton, the end of time, was coming very soon, possibly within his lifetime. This affected many of his thoughts about Earthly things and circumstances. If this world is going to end then one would be advised to keep whatever status you have in this life, but prepare for the next. If you were a slave, don’t worry about your liberation in this life as the world will end and you will be liberated in Heaven. Earthly institutions didn’t mean much because we were not supposed to be long for this world.
As we know today, the eschaton did not come in Paul’s lifetime, but I think we can empathize with Paul’s apocalyptic sensibility. I’ve seen and heard a lot of jokes about how 2020 is just a different disaster every month. Global pandemic, there were reports of killer bees in Washington, the deaths due to and protests of police violence, the moving company we hired was a disaster, and just this week there was a wildfire. One could certainly look at the world and feel like it is ending, circumstances are dire. We get his sense of urgency and doom, I think.
There is something disempowering to Paul’s theology, telling people to remain in their earthly circumstances because the end is near, to me, runs coarse against the liberative life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Paul has a bent towards care for one another, right conduct, even towards the liberation of one’s soul, but he was less interested - to my reading - in the changing and liberation of earthly systems. Those systems will pass away with the passing of the world and thus one should rather work on the soul and their relationship with God.
There is also something empowering and liberating about Paul’s theology. Maybe it is Howard Thurman that compels me in such a way of reading but there is mighty power in knowing that we are inheritors of the Spirit, heirs of God and we can place our hope, our confidence, in things unseen. Howard Thurman writes in Jesus and the Disinherited, “The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it again and again.”
We know the power of unseen things. A virus we cannot see, sometimes we cannot feel until it is too late, is changing the world around us. These unseen-to-many factors have caused a wildfire to roar in our town. Thurman and Paul speak to us about the unseen Spirit. The power of our rootedness in our God-createdness gives us dignity, courage, power. Things unseen give us a hope that cannot be abolished by powers or principalities. We trust in things unseen to lead us into life full and abundant.
I think Prof. Kuzipa Nalwamba, my social ethics professor in Bossey, would be upset with me if I did not draw special attention to Paul’s inclusion of creation in this passage.
19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
Creation has been subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it. The one given dominion over nature has subjected it to frustration...
Us.
We have subjected creation to our unbridled greed and destruction, to infinite growth squeezed out of finite resources. Often we do not personally see the causes of environmental degradation; overfishing and plastics in the waters, increased carbon emissions, strip mining; these are not things that are often present in our day to day lives, even if we read or know about them.
It might not be real for us, or might not be present in everyday life for us, but its present for so many people.
I don’t think I need to tell a bunch of folks who worship at a church in Evergreen, Colorado about how precious and fragile God’s creation can be, especially in light of this wildfire.
As Paul thought the world was ending and the eschaton was beginning, Paul believed that redemption of all creation, the restoration of our bodies, the restoration of nature, would happen in a New Creation. All creation groaned in the birth pangs of something new, our very souls groan for redemption. What we have come to realize is that we cannot simply wait for the end times. Paul thought that our heavenly liberation would come soon, so soon, that Earthly liberation wasn’t needed.
We know we need both. One cannot come without the other. We need to liberate our spirit while we liberate and restore all creation. We cannot wait to act on climate change much like we cannot wait to act on putting out a wildfire. We must stop subjugating the environment, subjugating other people, and subjugating our souls to the bondage of decay at the same time. Our hope demands that we do not just wait, but we act. Our hope becomes real when we act on it. We hope for what we do not have; a restored creation, freed peoples, full and joyous souls, and we live that hope by acting. Like first responders fly in the air to put out the Elephant Butte Fire we must be first responders to that hope for what we do not have
Unlike Paul we do not wait, but like Paul we do have hope. A hope in things unseen, hope grounded in something unseen. By this hope, we will be saved. Afterall, things unseen are sometimes the most powerful.
Amen.
Not a People Set Apart, July 12th 2020 Sermon
The story of Jacob and Esau is tragic and, honestly, confusing.
Rebekah’s pregnancy is fraught as her children are warring against one another in the womb. The children are born, Esau first, then Jacob, grasping at Esau’s heel. Isaac favored his first-born son, Esau, which is typical of this time, but Rebekkah favored Jacob, the second born. Like happens often in the Old Testament, it seems that God prefers, or destines the younger child for greater success.
You’ll see a theme present in the relationship between Jacob and Esau. Jacob, often at the urging of his mother, tricks Esau to disadvantage him.
In this passage, Jacob makes Esau sell to him his birth rights as the first born, Esau forsakes the inheritance of his father for some food, to quiet a rumbling stomach.
Later Jacob, at the urging of his mother, steals Esau’s blessings. The now blind Isaac, on his deathbed, urges his favorite son Esau to go on a hunt, and to bring him back delicious venison so that Isaac may give Esau his blessing in full strength. Jacob disguises himself as Esau, returning with venison before Esau does, and tricks his father into thinking that he, Jacob, is Esau. Apparently Esau is so hairy that Jacob is wears a goat’s skin and when Isaac touches the goat skin he believes it is the hair Esau. The scene is intensely dramatic; Issac uses all his senses but his sense of sight, he touches Jacob, smells him, hears him, kisses him and is fully convinced that Jacob is actually Esau. Isaac is tricked and gives Esau’s blessing to Jacob
For this, Esau swears revenge, swears to kill his brother Jacob. Jacob, at the urging of his mother, flees. Jacobs puts himself into a kind of self-imposed exile for over twenty years.
Jacob reaches out to Esau, sending him messengers and presents to appease him. Jacob hears that Esau will meet him, but with the strength of 400 men. Esau comes, not seeking vengeance and death, but forgiveness and reconciliation. Jacob, however, is skeptical, not able to trust Esau’s forgiveness and therefore deceives him again. “Let us be on our way, I’ll accompany you” says Esau, but Jacob tells him to go ahead and flees another way. Esau goes to Seir, Jacob to succoth.
Jacob and Esau somewhat reconciled; Jacob insists that Esau takes “his present” which can be translated as “take my blessing.” It is an acknowledgment by Jacob that he has stolen Esau’s blessing and in his insistence Jacob tells Esau “seeing your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably.” Jacob, by leaving for Succoth rather than joining his brother at Seir never fully lives into that forgiveness or the promises of reconciliation.
The story is confusing because Jacob, thorns, warts, and all is patriarch to and symbolic of Israel and the Israelites' understanding of themselves. God’s chosen people descend from Jacob. Jacob, the favored and the patriarch, lies, deceives, betrays his own brother to secure his success and blessing.
Esau, who has been swindled and deceived, is the patriarch of the Edomites; the Edomites in the exilic and post-exilic literature are enemies of Israel, they represent evil.
I suspect the modern reader feels bad for Esau. Upon reading I don’t think of Jacob as a hero but as a complicated protagonist. I feel bad for Esau, I feel he was cheated and manipulated. Yet in the Biblical narrative, Jacob is our main character, he is given the name Israel.
A couple of themes are recapitulated throughout the story of Jacob and Esau and the Old Testament’s telling of the foundation of Israel and its people; the younger son is preferred or destined for greater success than the eldest son; like Jacob constantly controls and dominates his brother Esau, King David will dominate the Edomites, and Jacob constantly works to distinguish himself and his family much like how the Israelites constantly struggle to distinguish themselves.
The story of Jacob and Esau speaks to us in our extremely divisive time and is relatable in so many ways. Isn’t there always the temptation to deceive your sibling to come ahead? As Jacob betrayed Esau to secure Esau’s birthright and blessing, do we not see co-workers throwing each other under the bus for some recognition from the boss? How often do we fight each other for crumbs when there is a whole hunk of bread being owned and hoarded? Would it not have been better for Jacob and Esau to recognize that they are family, so that when one has been blessed they both are going to come out ahead? If they stick together, would they not have both benefitted?
Often there is a response when a specific group calls out for justice, and that response is too often “what about?” It’s a response that is often violent and distracting.
When a black person is killed by police we often hear responses of “what about black on black crime?” or “what about white folks that get killed by police?” These responses ignore the fact that people are concerned about these things, and this “what aboutism” ignores the fact that liberation for some leads to liberation for all of us. A rising tide lifts all ships, justice and reforms in policing and the justice systems for black communities begets justice and reform for all communities. Specificity leads to universality in matters of liberation and justice.
But the impulse is to be like Jacob. To deceive, to shore up what we have, to make sure that we ourselves will be cared for. To think that the blessing of another is a threat to ourselves. In reality, it’s fighting for scraps when the whole loaf of bread is available.
This divisiveness isn’t found only in issues of race. Too often we are directed to fight for crumbs when the whole loaf is available. When women’s rights and pay get brought up, folks respond “what about men’s rights? What about suicide rates in men?” The increased rights and success of women takes pressure off of men, the elimination of an unnecessarily gendered society expands the opportunities and acceptance for men and women. While there are surely male-specific issues, tackling women’s issues helps men as well. Addressing sexism, or transphobia, or homophobia is taking away from anyone else. That is either/or thinking and either/or thinking is a false dichotomy. I don’t have to lose for others to gain.
Helping the poor helps the middle class yet we are encouraged to see safety nets for the poor as threats to middle class welfare. We are offered a limited imagination which, for some reason, helping the poor can only happen if it comes from the pockets of the middle-class. I think we can all think of examples of this zero-sum-gain thinking; in the workplace, in our own families, societally, in relationships. Jealousy and greed are cruel, and they are divisive. We fight over crumbs when there is a whole hunk of bread available. To secure our own blessing, we have the impulse to steal the blessing of our brother. We don’t realize their blessing blesses us as well.
If you remember the themes I outlined in the narrative of Jacob and Esau, one of them is that Jacob and by extension the Israelites, work to keep themselves distinguished from other peoples. Jacob does not join Esau and the Edomites in Seir but rather heads to Succoth, thus maintaining the distinguished status of the Israelites. Jacob’s skepticality of Esau’s forgiveness keeps the people, the brothers, divided.
Church we are not called to be a people distinguished by anything other than our love. We are not a nation set apart, we are not a people set above, but we are to show God’s love to the entirety of the world, heal and restore the entirety of Christ’s body. God’s favor lies upon the whole of the world, for God so loved the World Christ’s blood was shed for many. We are to learn from the story of Jacob and Esau to no longer see another’s blessing as a threat to our own.
We are to stop stealing the blessings of our neighbor, our sibling, but we are to celebrate those blessings, to realize that proximity to the blessing is a blessing in itself.
Where Jacob did right by confessing and atoning how all he had stolen from Esau, we would be wise to follow his example. Unlike Jacob, we are not called to be a people apart, our desire to distinguish ourselves and to secure all blessings as our own has led to division and destruction of everyone involved.
Unlike Jacob, we would be wise to accept forgiveness where it is offered. While in word Jacob accepted his brother’s forgiveness, in deed Jacob isolated himself and went away.
If we are to accept our sibling’s, our co-workers’, our neighbor’s forgiveness, we cannot isolate and go away but we must travel on the road together.
In a time of division, in a time where a mindset of scarcity has set us upon each other, we pray for unity of spirit. We pray for an end to our insecurity and jealousy, we pray for an end to the hoarding of resources and power, we pray for an end of deceiving and manipulating each other to steal one another’s blessing. We pray to no longer be people apart, but to journey together.
Maybe on the road we’ll stop fighting for the scraps but instead share together in all the blessings God gives. On the road we’ll figure out how to make it so everyone can share the loaf of bread so we never have to fight over scraps again. On the road, we learn that I’m going better because you’re going better.
Amen
Burning Coals, July 5th 2020 Sermon
Isaiah 6
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
9 He said, “Go and tell this people:
“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.[a]
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”
And he answered:
“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
12 until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
13 And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”
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Isaiah thought he was going to die.
Isaiah, one of the most quoted, most beloved prophets of the old testament, of the Jewish traditions, met God and thought he was going to die. He had a vision of God and believed because he was unworthy, unclean, and his people were unworthy and unclean, he will be “ruined,” he will die.
Where Isaiah expects death, God gives Isaiah a new purpose in life.
When Isaiah expects death due to being unworthy, God makes Isaiah worthy.
Often it is the reluctant, the ones who seem ill-equipped, who are picked by God to be prophets and leaders. Moses says he is slow of speech and slow of tongue, Jonah tried to flee his calling, Isaiah considers himself unworthy, yet God chases and empowers them to do God’s work.
When Isaiah believed himself unworthy, saw a future or ruin for himself and his people, an angel takes a burning coal and presses it to his lips. The burning coal purifies Isaiah’s lips, makes him worthy, he becomes one of the greatest prophets.
Purified, made worthy, called, sent, yet Isaiah’s message will fall on ears that are “ever hearing yet never understanding” eyes that are “ever seeing but never perceiving.”
My school board for the school district I grew up in, Stow-Munroe Falls, received letters because they had not acknowledged or made any comment about the Black Lives Matter movement so the school board held a special meeting to read out statements made by community members about race and experiences at the Stow-Munroe Falls city schools.
Most board members took the meeting seriously, read the printed statements, listened. One board member, throughout the whole meeting, is seen snacking, grinning at inappropriate times such as the mention of a student committing suicide and is seemingly distracted. She may be laughing at the statements, she may be laughing because she’s looking at her phone, she may be laughing because somebody else is in the room; the fact remains that she did not care enough to comport herself in a way that even pretended to be respectful and caring.
They will be “ever-hearing but never understanding.”
There is a striking picture of some black protesters, one holds a sign “Same shit, different year.” It was taken in the 1980’s.
They will “be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
Elijah McClain was killed by Aurora police in 2019, a story which has resurfaced in the american moral consciousness. Elijah McClain was known for dressing warmly because of his poor circulation, he often wore hoodies and ski masks in the cold Colorado winters. He was known for playing his violin to kittens, his mother comments that “he was a massage therapist who wanted to heal others.”
Police were called for an unarmed, “suspicious man in a ski mask.” What little footage we have, due to officers’ “body camera falling off,” indicates that Elijah says he was “introverted and wanted officers to respect his space” and was “trying to turn off his music to listen to the officers” before he is wrestled to the ground and put into a chokehold. Elijah loses consciousness, regains consciousness, vomits, apologizes for vomiting, eventually is given ketamine to sedate him, suffers a heart attack in transit to the hospital, and eventually becomes brain dead. His mother had to make the decision to pull the plug.
During a memorial for Elijah McClain this week, where protesters played violins in a vigil for Elijah, several officers took posed pictures of themselves putting each other in chokeholds near the site where Elijah was arrested, prompting investigation. Riot gear garbed police pepper sprayed the gathered protesters, interrupting the music for Elijah.
“Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."
God tells Isaiah "Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."
While it sounds as though Isaiah is not supposed to help his people, but rather condemn them to a divine retribution for their sinfulness, rabbinical commentary suggests that these verses imply a future-tense. The rabbinical commentary suggests that Isaiah will go and give speeches but the people will refuse to listen to the truth and thus will not achieve understanding. They will refuse to listen until they are actually ruined. Their towns will lie in waste without inhabitants, the few that remain will hold the seed to renewal and rebirth.
How long will we be “ever seeing but never perceiving, listening but never understanding.” Will it take the destruction of our villages, our people to the point so that only a tenth remain, before listening? When might we begin seeing with our eyes, hearing with our ears, understanding with our hearts and turning and being healed? When will it stop being, “same shit, different year?”
Isaiah thought he was going to die; feeling him and his people unworthy, he appeared before God expecting death.
He received purification.
He received a prophet’s commissioning.
He received life.
Isaiah proclaimed he had unworthy lips and God had an angel take a burning coal from the altar, placed it upon his lips and God declared his guilt assuaged, his sin atoned for.
Perhaps we need to have burning coals placed upon more than just our lips. Maybe we need burning coals placed upon our ears and eyes. Perhaps we need to burn away the that which inhibits us from seeing and hearing.
I’ve preached often, and will continue preaching, about what we need to burn away societally. What we need to burn away personally will differ for each one of us. Practices of reflection and introspection will help lead us to the point where we can know what it is we need to burn away. It may be an urge to get credit for the work we have done. We might need to burn away the urge to think of our own feelings and experiences as universal. I, personally, need to live a little into the hope of our faith and believe in the possibilities for change. To see and hear, I need to burn away my cynicism which can prevent living in the hope and perspective of other people.
Once we have confessed our own impurities, once we have acknowledged what keeps us from hearing and seeing, much like Isaiah confessed he was unable to speak, God will provide us the burning coal from the altar. Both holy and destructive, the coal from the altar of God burns away the iniquities of Isaiah’s lips.
When we accept the burning coal to our own eyes and ears and burn away our own iniquities, it’s gonna hurt. Grappling with privilege, taking a back seat, failing and learning from failure, unlearning and re-learning history from a different perspective, questioning our systems, contending with our families and friends ideologies, these things burn. Especially confronting our friends and families.
Opening yourself up to the hurt and grief of other people, attempting to be attentive and healing, that means opening yourself up to trial and heartbreak. It means being vulnerable and receiving another’s vulnerability.
But a little burn, a little hurt, that is what will give us hearts to understand and the opportunity to turn and heal.
Last week I preached about our church entering in a time of re-welcoming. To be a welcoming church we have to have eyes which see and perceive, ears which hear and understand. We have to have hearts which understand so that our peoples, our nation, can heal. Isaiah was called to restore an exiled people. On this independence day weekend, let us feel a call to restore a broken nation. That call begins with a confession that we have sinned, made ourselves unworthy. That call begins by asking God to place the burning coal to our eyes and ears so we can see and perceive, hear and understand. Then, we can turn and heal, as a peoples, as a nation.
Unfortunately it may not be us who turn and heal. We may have to do the work of placing that burning coal to our eyes and ears, our lips, our hearts so that the future generations can finally turn and heal. We may have to plant a tree whose shade we will never sit under, plant a harvest we will never reap. If we don’t start now, it’ll never be done.
After the burn of the coal which purifies, perhaps we will be able to echo these words from Isaiah 12 and 14
“I give thanks to You, O Lord! Although you were wroth with me, Your wrath has turned back and You comfort me, Behold the God who gives me triumph! I am confident, unafraid; For Yah the Lord is my strength and might. And God has been my deliverance… How is oppression ended! The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked… All the earth is calm, untroubled; Loudly it cheers.”
Amen
Re-Welcoming, June 28th, 2020
Perhaps, mercifully, the advice for in person worship is to not sing and to keep sermons short. Because we’re outside and can spread out quite comfortably I think singing is more reasonable. Especially if we keep our masks on while we sing. We’ve seen some really good data about how wearing masks avoids spread. But I’ll keep the advice of keeping the sermon short.
This scripture selection comes from a part of Matthew where Christ is sending the Disciples out and giving them instructions on how to evangelize, how to be guests, what to expect while out there. Christ ends with these verses, which a commentary suggests is emphatically passionate as indicated by the Greek’s lack of participles. Christ tells his followers that whoever welcomes them welcomes Christ, and welcomes God. He says, whoever gets a cold cup of water to one of these little ones, meaning the Disciples he sends out, will not lose the reward they are due for their welcome. Getting a cold cup of water would not be an easy task in this time, in vast swaths of land covered by heat and desert. Getting a cool drink of water didn’t mean drawing from the cistern one might have in their house, it meant going to the well. A well which could well be miles away.
It is beyond a mere human kindness, beyond a mere greeting for a stranger, it is going beyond what is required or expected. It is a small gift, perhaps the only gift the welcomer could have given, a gift given to those who come in Christ’s name. Much like Christ has told us, “whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me;” how you have received and welcomed folks who come in Christ’s name you have received Christ himself, have received God.
Haven’t we all been sent in the name of Christ? If we truly know the body of Christ to be made up of many members, if we take seriously the imago dei, the fact that all of us are made in the image of God, do we not carry the name of Christ with us wherever we go, and with whoever we receive?
Christ’s promises a reward for a welcome that is beyond mere human kindness. One who welcomes a Lord receives a Lord’s reward, those who welcome a prophet receive a prophet’s reward, so what kind of reward can one expect for welcoming one sent in the name of God? The reward for recognizing the god-image of each person, of caring for the poor, hungry, and sick, is the Kingdom of Heaven. Could we not expect that the reward for welcoming those who come in the name of Christ, with generosity beyond mere human kindness, is the Kingdom of Heaven, a welcome of our very own?
The imagery of cold water suggests to me that as we quench the thirst of those sent in the name of Christ, our own spiritual thirst will be quenched. By welcoming others we begin the long journey of quenching our spiritual thirst; welcoming others begins to answer questions like “what is my purpose in life,” “what does God want me to do,” “where can I do the most good.” Christ has told us that what we do for the hungry, lost, least of these, we do for Christ. The proverb “it takes a village” rings true for many aspects of life; to raise a child it takes a village, to live a full life it takes a village, to sell out the audubon society’s plant sale in 15 minutes it takes a village, and to begin the journey of quenching our spiritual thirsts, we must welcome that village, in extraordinary ways. But because our God is bountiful and gives bountifully, the rewards for welcoming those who come in that name of Christ are also bountiful. I say to you that welcoming those who come in the name of Christ is its own reward. Think of a time when you welcomed somebody with generosity beyond mere human kindness. When the welcome you offered them was intentional, it met what they needed, and it was even inconvenient. If you can’t think of such a time, the challenge is for your next welcome to be such a time.
Think of that time. Think of the kind of impact it makes on your own life to welcome someone that way. Even if the experience lasted a day, the feeling and memories last a lifetime. Welcoming somebody in this way bonds you with them, you learn so much more about somebody when you welcome them, fully. In that time of welcome, you also welcomed Jesus. The moment of human interaction is amplified into a moment of interaction with God. We welcome Christ himself. That is it’s own reward. Christ says “none of these will lose their reward.” Those who welcome others in generosity beyond human kindness welcome Christ. Welcoming Christ is its own reward, a reward we will never lose. That is the imperative of the church, to welcome all who come in the name of Christ with generosity beyond human kindness, and by doing so welcome Jesus.
As states re-open, business re-open, and surely some will shut back down, I don’t want us to think of this church in a stage of “re-opening.” I want to think of this church as in a stage of “re-welcoming,” and to be challenged to re-welcome in ways that go beyond just normal human kindness. As community groups re-find their footing, and re-find their space in our church, it will be frustrating. As we determine how it is we’re going to stay rooted in the community, things will change, things will be annoying. Our re-welcoming requires, though, generosity beyond mere human kindness.
Wearing a mask is inconvenient, especially when it comes to singing in a mask, but it is an inconvenience that meets the needs of this time. Extra precautions of sanitization, last minute changes in plans, these will be inconvenient. But we think of ourselves as a welcoming church, as a safe haven, and to be those things, we will have to welcome with generosity beyond mere human kindness, it will mean inconvenience, it will mean de-centering ourselves and centering the voices and actions of the marginalized folks we want to be a safe haven to.It will mean de-centering ourselves, and centering Jesus.
The states are opening, some might close again soon because these numbers are out of control, but our church isn’t re-opening…
We are re-welcoming, whatever that might have to look like,
And by extending, intimately and intentionally, our welcome, we are welcoming Christ.
Amen
- Rev. Jack Veatch
