Matthew 1:18-25
Our journey through Advent with Mary has almost come to an end. But not before we let Joseph enter the picture. This week, after 3 weeks of reading Luke’s lead up to the nativity story, Matthew comes in with his precise recounting of the events.
Not in Matthew are the stories of Mary meeting the angel Gabriel and rushing off to see her cousin and singing her song. No, Matthew is more concerned about giving credence to this whole birth story through Joseph.
Last week, you might remember that I went on some about Mary having little to say in the Bible. While Joseph has even less to say! In fact, I read this week about a church putting on a Christmas pageant. Just a day before the pageant, the boy who was supposed to play Joseph came down with a fever. The mother called the director of the pageant, who decided that it was too late to replace the boy with another and just wrote him out of the script. No Joseph in the Christmas pageant. The worst part is that no one noticed!
But Joseph is important to the story. We may not think so, but according to Matthew’s account, he is, because he brings legitimacy to the whole affair. In fact, it is through Joseph that Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage. The first verses of Matthew’s gospel are spent listing out the ancestors of Jesus through Matthew; back to David, back to Abraham. These are the “begats” using the language of the King James Bible that most of us grew up with. According to Matthew, Jesus legitimacy as a ruler of Israel goes back to the fact that Joseph is a descendent of David, the great ruler some 1,000 years earlier. And Matthew doesn’t really pull any punches in this genealogy. He includes the good with the bad: the adulterers, the cheats, the prostitutes and probably a horse thief or two. They’re all there.
Let’s recap the story from Matthew. Joseph and Mary are betrothed; which is an old way to say sort of that they were engaged to be married. Being betrothed then though, carried much more weight than does engagement these days. It’s a legal standing. The two people are bound to each other legally. Of course, it meant that the woman was the man’s property. It’s not a nice way to think about it, but there you have it.
Before they lived together though, Mary gets pregnant; by the Holy Spirit, Matthew is quick to tell us. Joseph is a righteous man; someone who follows the laws of his faith and keeps to Jewish rules. He can’t marry Mary, not in her, as we say, condition. But he’s also a good man who doesn’t want her unnecessarily disgraced. He plans “to dismiss her quietly” whatever that means. It doesn’t mean that he make a public disgrace of her and, at worst, have her stoned to death. Joseph, in his righteousness, is going to follow the rules but he’s not going to go the whole public route.
But just as he’s decided that, one of God’s angels, an unnamed one, but I like to think it was Gabriel again, comes to him; this angel comes to him in a dream and tells Joseph that he should indeed go ahead and take Mary as his wife. The angel explains the whole thing: how Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit and that this child will grow up to be a savior of the people. In fact, the angel tells Joseph what he should name the child: Jesus. Jesus which is the Greek version of Joshua which is an old Hebrew name meaning God saves.
Then Matthew does an interesting thing. He reaches back into Hebrew history again to quote Isaiah; the Hebrew Bible reading that we heard this morning in fact. Matthew uses this quote to bring legitimacy once again to the whole proceedings. Matthew’s book was written around the years 80-90. He has a Jewish audience; those early followers of the Way, as early Christians were called, who had come into the faith from Judaism, as opposed to those who were gentiles. The readers and hearers of Matthew’s gospel would know Isaiah and would get it.
But back to our story. Joseph, awaking from this incredible dream and being a faithful believer, does as he is told: he marries Mary. He takes her as his wife, pregnant as she is and even does name the child Jesus.
And that’s it. That’s the whole of the birth narrative from Matthew. Sure, the visit of the Wise Ones from the East, astrologers likely, not kings as we’ve come to call them, follows in Matthew’s story. But that could have been years later and is for Epiphany Sunday a few weeks from now.
But Matthew begins his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, this brief birth narrative and then the visit by the Wise Ones from the East. It’s terse and not filled with the emotions of the Luke version that we all know and love.
Matthew’s point is to give authenticity to a Jewish audience of Jesus’ place as a ruler; some 60 years after Jesus was crucified. By that point it was obvious that Jesus had not become the earthly ruler who would overthrow the Roman Empire that everyone had hoped for and expected. Instead, Jesus was born to be a different kind of ruler. And that’s the point that Matthew is making. Jesus rules a heavenly realm; one in which earthly matters aren’t a concern.
On this final Sunday of Advent, when all our candles save the Christ candle are aglow on our wreath, we are called to remember the couple who thousands of years ago were faithful & obedient to their God. We are called to remember Mary and Joseph, who met with angels and became the parents of the one who would grow to be our savior.
As we plunge headlong into Christmas, it is right that we should pause before that happens to remember those who allowed the birth stories to happen. Those who through their willingness to follow God into new and strange territories of their faith can teach us about being faithful.
Both Mary and Joseph were called to do things beyond their faith; they were called to do new things and they did so willingly and unquestioningly. Will we, now and throughout the year, be so willing and unquestioning? Will we, in our attempts to be God’s people, be open to new and different ways of being? With God’s help, I think each of us can.
16 December 2007
Luke 1:46-55
Growing up as I did in the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, I didn’t get much information about Mary. She showed up around this time of the year in the Christmas pageant and that was about all. She sat there, silently behind the manger, never a word crossing her lips.
In fact, throughout the New Testament, she doesn’t say much. In John she has some things to say. In Mark, though, where there is no nativity story, she’s barely mentioned, and she doesn’t utter a single word in Matthew. Paul refers to her as Jesus’ mother but never gives her name. But in Luke, ah in Luke, we have some remarkable words from Mary. Words that have gone done through millennia to provide prophetic hope to millions, by now billions, of believers. I’m talking about those words that were heard this morning known by most Christians as the Magnificat. The word “Magnificat” by the way is the Latin word that begins Mary’s song and has come to identify it.
Remember the sequence here now. First we have the angel Gabriel arriving to announce to Mary that she will carry God’s only child. Then we have the meeting between Mary and her relative Elizabeth who is carrying John the Baptist. Elizabeth’s words, if you remember from last week’s reading, upon seeing Mary were: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (NRSV)
Immediately, Mary goes into her song: her song of praise and thanksgiving to God. Now, Mary is not necessarily in what we would call “a good space” to be singing praises and thanksgiving. She’s dirt poor, even according to her own song, and here she is, unmarried and pregnant. She comes from nowhere…Nazareth, a Podunk if there ever was one. Nazareth isn’t mentioned in the Hebrew Bible at all; neither is it mentioned in the Jewish writings nor by the historian, Josephus. Mary is a nobody from nowheresville: a pregnant, unmarried nobody from nowheresville!
So why should such a person sing? What would possess this young woman, in one of the most frightening situations of her life, to come out in song? Well, she knows something that we’ve also been let in on: that God has favored her. God has lifted her up and given her a special status. Her song rings out as she’s standing there with her old cousin Elizabeth, the both of them with child and rejoicing in their state.
These words of Mary’s which come down to us thanks to the foresight of Luke, are indeed important. As Protestants, we’ve lost much of the feeling for Mary that our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters have. The Eastern Orthodox, in fact, have a special name for her: Theotokos which means “God-bearer.” But we have much to reclaim if we let Mary into our lives.
Luke reminds us, from the very start of his gospel, through Mary’s song, that God roots for the lesser-thans. First, God picked Mary as the bearer of God’s son. But secondly, the words of Mary’s song remind us of this fact. She sings that God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly,” among others.
Mary’s song goes from the personal to the political. She recognizes the extreme favor God has shown her at the beginning and moves to how, through this child whom she is carrying, the status quo will be upended. No more will the powerful reign and the rich control everything. The coming of this child marks the start of a new realm; an everlasting realm that raises up the lowly and sends the rich away hungry.
But wait, you might say, the powerful reign and the rich control everything now. What good is this 2,000-year old song if none of it happens? Why should we listen to Mary now?
Because we all need hope. Because we all need to believe that the status quo is upended in God’s commonwealth. Because we all need to be reminded that God does not operate the way we do.
Mary sings not only for herself but also for all the poor and lowly and meek of all the centuries, of all the places. Mary sings out a warning to rulers and potentates and rich people everywhere. Mary reminds all of us, rich and poor, mighty and lowly, powerful and powerless, that God selects whom God will for God’s work on this earth. And God’s selects in a way that humanity might not understand.
Is Mary’s song our song? Do we sing along with Mary these radical words of justice? Or do the words stick in our throats, maybe just a bit, as we choke out our faint echo of Mary’s soaring descant?
We want our Advent to be soft and easy; like the wrappings on the presents under the Christmas tree. But Mary doesn’t let us off. Mary’s acclamation of God and her praise to the one whose child she is bearing is not the easy carols we love to sing this time of year. Instead, we are dealing with tough issues that unsettle us. Advent is not necessarily all twinkly and bright. Advent can be just as challenging as Lent, that other time of preparation.
Mary sings out from a place of emptiness and, likely, fearfulness. She knows only one thing: that God has chosen her. And that is enough to make her sing; enough to make the song rise and soar from her lips to the heavens.
We are not in such places for the most part. Most of us are safe and secure and not considered among the lowliest of our society. That is why that song might cause us to stumble a bit as we try to sing along with Mary. We don’t know on which side of the dichotomy we fall as Mary sings. We’re not sure whether we’re rich or poor; powerful or powerless. But the important question is whether we are going to join in on God’s side; whether we’ll take up the cause of the poor and powerless, even if we aren’t necessarily counted among them.
Sing out, Mary, continue your song! Sing out across the miles and the centuries. Sing out for the poor and the lowly of every age and place. Sing out for God has chosen you for important work. Sing out your song of joy and hope. Sing out and lead us to the manger where you will bear a savior. Sing out and urge us to join in the song.
Growing up as I did in the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, I didn’t get much information about Mary. She showed up around this time of the year in the Christmas pageant and that was about all. She sat there, silently behind the manger, never a word crossing her lips.
In fact, throughout the New Testament, she doesn’t say much. In John she has some things to say. In Mark, though, where there is no nativity story, she’s barely mentioned, and she doesn’t utter a single word in Matthew. Paul refers to her as Jesus’ mother but never gives her name. But in Luke, ah in Luke, we have some remarkable words from Mary. Words that have gone done through millennia to provide prophetic hope to millions, by now billions, of believers. I’m talking about those words that were heard this morning known by most Christians as the Magnificat. The word “Magnificat” by the way is the Latin word that begins Mary’s song and has come to identify it.
Remember the sequence here now. First we have the angel Gabriel arriving to announce to Mary that she will carry God’s only child. Then we have the meeting between Mary and her relative Elizabeth who is carrying John the Baptist. Elizabeth’s words, if you remember from last week’s reading, upon seeing Mary were: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (NRSV)
Immediately, Mary goes into her song: her song of praise and thanksgiving to God. Now, Mary is not necessarily in what we would call “a good space” to be singing praises and thanksgiving. She’s dirt poor, even according to her own song, and here she is, unmarried and pregnant. She comes from nowhere…Nazareth, a Podunk if there ever was one. Nazareth isn’t mentioned in the Hebrew Bible at all; neither is it mentioned in the Jewish writings nor by the historian, Josephus. Mary is a nobody from nowheresville: a pregnant, unmarried nobody from nowheresville!
So why should such a person sing? What would possess this young woman, in one of the most frightening situations of her life, to come out in song? Well, she knows something that we’ve also been let in on: that God has favored her. God has lifted her up and given her a special status. Her song rings out as she’s standing there with her old cousin Elizabeth, the both of them with child and rejoicing in their state.
These words of Mary’s which come down to us thanks to the foresight of Luke, are indeed important. As Protestants, we’ve lost much of the feeling for Mary that our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters have. The Eastern Orthodox, in fact, have a special name for her: Theotokos which means “God-bearer.” But we have much to reclaim if we let Mary into our lives.
Luke reminds us, from the very start of his gospel, through Mary’s song, that God roots for the lesser-thans. First, God picked Mary as the bearer of God’s son. But secondly, the words of Mary’s song remind us of this fact. She sings that God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly,” among others.
Mary’s song goes from the personal to the political. She recognizes the extreme favor God has shown her at the beginning and moves to how, through this child whom she is carrying, the status quo will be upended. No more will the powerful reign and the rich control everything. The coming of this child marks the start of a new realm; an everlasting realm that raises up the lowly and sends the rich away hungry.
But wait, you might say, the powerful reign and the rich control everything now. What good is this 2,000-year old song if none of it happens? Why should we listen to Mary now?
Because we all need hope. Because we all need to believe that the status quo is upended in God’s commonwealth. Because we all need to be reminded that God does not operate the way we do.
Mary sings not only for herself but also for all the poor and lowly and meek of all the centuries, of all the places. Mary sings out a warning to rulers and potentates and rich people everywhere. Mary reminds all of us, rich and poor, mighty and lowly, powerful and powerless, that God selects whom God will for God’s work on this earth. And God’s selects in a way that humanity might not understand.
Is Mary’s song our song? Do we sing along with Mary these radical words of justice? Or do the words stick in our throats, maybe just a bit, as we choke out our faint echo of Mary’s soaring descant?
We want our Advent to be soft and easy; like the wrappings on the presents under the Christmas tree. But Mary doesn’t let us off. Mary’s acclamation of God and her praise to the one whose child she is bearing is not the easy carols we love to sing this time of year. Instead, we are dealing with tough issues that unsettle us. Advent is not necessarily all twinkly and bright. Advent can be just as challenging as Lent, that other time of preparation.
Mary sings out from a place of emptiness and, likely, fearfulness. She knows only one thing: that God has chosen her. And that is enough to make her sing; enough to make the song rise and soar from her lips to the heavens.
We are not in such places for the most part. Most of us are safe and secure and not considered among the lowliest of our society. That is why that song might cause us to stumble a bit as we try to sing along with Mary. We don’t know on which side of the dichotomy we fall as Mary sings. We’re not sure whether we’re rich or poor; powerful or powerless. But the important question is whether we are going to join in on God’s side; whether we’ll take up the cause of the poor and powerless, even if we aren’t necessarily counted among them.
Sing out, Mary, continue your song! Sing out across the miles and the centuries. Sing out for the poor and the lowly of every age and place. Sing out for God has chosen you for important work. Sing out your song of joy and hope. Sing out and lead us to the manger where you will bear a savior. Sing out and urge us to join in the song.
9 December 2007
Luke 1:39-45
We are spending Advent here at Chalice with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. There are few chances, in our male-dominated scriptures, for a female figure to shine as Mary does, especially during this season. Last week we heard, and saw, the Annunciation; the communication between Gabriel, the angel, & Mary informing her that she would become the mother of God’s child.
This week we get the next installment of Mary’s pregnancy; the visit that Mary makes to Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are kinswomen; relatives in some way. Mary has been sent by Gabriel, you might remember from last week’s reading, to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth has her own story to tell, which Luke does recount to us earlier in his gospel account, prior to the annunciation. Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are childless and beyond normal childbearing years, which makes this meeting all the more poignant.
Zechariah, Luke tells us, is a priest and while he was serving in the Temple had his own visit from the angel Gabriel. Gabriel came to tell him that he and Elizabeth would have a child whom they would name John. Zechariah at first doesn’t believe Gabriel and, in consequence, is made mute for the duration of the pregnancy. And indeed, Elizabeth and Zechariah did conceive. And it was in the midst of this pregnancy, six months into it in fact, that Mary came to visit.
So our actors today are these two women: one the young girl, just of marrying age, which was apparently pretty young in those days, and the elderly woman who should be past her child bearing years. Both are miraculously pregnant: Mary by God Godself and Elizabeth in her old age.
It’s interesting to note how this story is recounted. Both Elizabeth and her in-womb child react to Mary upon her arrival, without knowing yet Mary’s miraculous story. Elizabeth, we are told, in fact was filled with the Holy Spirit when Mary greets her.
Now, Elizabeth, we know is carrying John: John who would become known as John the Baptist. He, the one who would prepare the way for Jesus with his calls for repentance in the desert, is being carried by Elizabeth. He would have his own disciples and followers and make enough of a fuss to cause him to be jailed and executed by Herod. But that’s a story for another time in the year.
Right now we’re focused on Mary and Elizabeth, meeting in that small hill town in Judea. What can this meeting mean to us, some 2,000 years later? Why should we bother with these two women, both probably poor and insignificant in their own culture?
Well, because God has made them significant. God has come into their lives and raised them up. God doesn’t care about their cultural standing. God has special jobs just for them and cares not one whit about their social standing. God did not pick out a queen to bear either Jesus or John. God did not go to the wealthiest class to find women to be the mothers of these two important figures.
The General Minister and President of our denomination, Sharon Watkins, in the video we just watched, spoke of hope in the Middle East. Hope for a brighter future; hope for peace and an end to strife. In many ways, today’s story is similar. For what is a more hopeful time than pregnancy? During this time, one hopes for the future in a personal way: will my baby be a boy or a girl; will it be healthy; how will she or he grow up?
In much the same way, we are in the same situation. I know of a minister several years ago, who got in trouble by getting up in the pulpit during Advent and proclaiming, “People of God, we’re pregnant.” I doubt that I would get into the same trouble as she did for making such a proclamation here. But it’s true; we are pregnant as God’s people; pregnant with the hope of which Rev. Watkins spoke. Pregnant with anticipation of the way things will turn out in our world.
As someone said to Rev. Watkins during her trip to the Holy Land, we don’t have the luxury of losing hoping. It’s as true for us, as Christians awaiting the coming of our savior, as it is for those who deal daily with the violence of the Middle East. As we await, we do not have the luxury of losing hope. We must hold onto hope, as do those in Israel and Palestine, as do those who are pregnant carrying new life in their bodies.
People of God, we are indeed pregnant. And our pregnancy is one in which we shall wait, hopeful for the outcome and for God’s realm on our earth. Mary and Elizabeth knew of that hope. Both were graced by God and knew that they had hope not just for their family but for all of humanity.
As we remember Mary and Elizabeth meeting in that small hillside village all those years ago, let us live in the hope in which they did and watch for the Holy Spirit to come over us and lead us to leap with joy for the coming of the one who will save us.
We are spending Advent here at Chalice with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. There are few chances, in our male-dominated scriptures, for a female figure to shine as Mary does, especially during this season. Last week we heard, and saw, the Annunciation; the communication between Gabriel, the angel, & Mary informing her that she would become the mother of God’s child.
This week we get the next installment of Mary’s pregnancy; the visit that Mary makes to Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are kinswomen; relatives in some way. Mary has been sent by Gabriel, you might remember from last week’s reading, to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth has her own story to tell, which Luke does recount to us earlier in his gospel account, prior to the annunciation. Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are childless and beyond normal childbearing years, which makes this meeting all the more poignant.
Zechariah, Luke tells us, is a priest and while he was serving in the Temple had his own visit from the angel Gabriel. Gabriel came to tell him that he and Elizabeth would have a child whom they would name John. Zechariah at first doesn’t believe Gabriel and, in consequence, is made mute for the duration of the pregnancy. And indeed, Elizabeth and Zechariah did conceive. And it was in the midst of this pregnancy, six months into it in fact, that Mary came to visit.
So our actors today are these two women: one the young girl, just of marrying age, which was apparently pretty young in those days, and the elderly woman who should be past her child bearing years. Both are miraculously pregnant: Mary by God Godself and Elizabeth in her old age.
It’s interesting to note how this story is recounted. Both Elizabeth and her in-womb child react to Mary upon her arrival, without knowing yet Mary’s miraculous story. Elizabeth, we are told, in fact was filled with the Holy Spirit when Mary greets her.
Now, Elizabeth, we know is carrying John: John who would become known as John the Baptist. He, the one who would prepare the way for Jesus with his calls for repentance in the desert, is being carried by Elizabeth. He would have his own disciples and followers and make enough of a fuss to cause him to be jailed and executed by Herod. But that’s a story for another time in the year.
Right now we’re focused on Mary and Elizabeth, meeting in that small hill town in Judea. What can this meeting mean to us, some 2,000 years later? Why should we bother with these two women, both probably poor and insignificant in their own culture?
Well, because God has made them significant. God has come into their lives and raised them up. God doesn’t care about their cultural standing. God has special jobs just for them and cares not one whit about their social standing. God did not pick out a queen to bear either Jesus or John. God did not go to the wealthiest class to find women to be the mothers of these two important figures.
The General Minister and President of our denomination, Sharon Watkins, in the video we just watched, spoke of hope in the Middle East. Hope for a brighter future; hope for peace and an end to strife. In many ways, today’s story is similar. For what is a more hopeful time than pregnancy? During this time, one hopes for the future in a personal way: will my baby be a boy or a girl; will it be healthy; how will she or he grow up?
In much the same way, we are in the same situation. I know of a minister several years ago, who got in trouble by getting up in the pulpit during Advent and proclaiming, “People of God, we’re pregnant.” I doubt that I would get into the same trouble as she did for making such a proclamation here. But it’s true; we are pregnant as God’s people; pregnant with the hope of which Rev. Watkins spoke. Pregnant with anticipation of the way things will turn out in our world.
As someone said to Rev. Watkins during her trip to the Holy Land, we don’t have the luxury of losing hoping. It’s as true for us, as Christians awaiting the coming of our savior, as it is for those who deal daily with the violence of the Middle East. As we await, we do not have the luxury of losing hope. We must hold onto hope, as do those in Israel and Palestine, as do those who are pregnant carrying new life in their bodies.
People of God, we are indeed pregnant. And our pregnancy is one in which we shall wait, hopeful for the outcome and for God’s realm on our earth. Mary and Elizabeth knew of that hope. Both were graced by God and knew that they had hope not just for their family but for all of humanity.
As we remember Mary and Elizabeth meeting in that small hillside village all those years ago, let us live in the hope in which they did and watch for the Holy Spirit to come over us and lead us to leap with joy for the coming of the one who will save us.
11 November 2007
Haggai 1:15b-2:9
It was the year 520 that Haggai the prophet spoke to Judah. That’s 520 years before Jesus walked the earth. But more importantly, it’s about 50 plus years after the fall of Jerusalem. Haggai doesn’t take up much room in the Bible; it’s the 2nd shortest book in the Hebrew Bible. It doesn’t even fill 2 pages in my Bible. There are only five sections to the whole book. What we heard this morning is the bridge section between the first two and the last two.
Haggai was prophesying to the community of Jerusalem after they had started to return from their 50-year exile. In fact it was about 18 years after the exiles had started to return. So there had been some time for things to start to take shape and the road the exiles would be traveling would be evident.
We’re used to the prophets speaking out before the big exiles. Isaiah and Jeremiah, the prophets we probably would usually think of, were warning of the fall of the two kingdoms before they happened. They warned that the people had strayed from God and would be punished.
But Haggai was speaking after the exile. What’s the point, we might think? Why bother prophesying to the people after the time of exile? Well, there is something in noting that God speaks to the people at any time. There doesn’t have to be trouble ahead for God to have a message. God speaks in the midst of trouble and beyond it.
And God did have a message for Haggai to give. He gave it to Zerubbabel, who was the Governor of Judah under King Darius of Persia and to Judah, the high priest and to “the remnant of the people.”
God, Haggai said, had looked around Jerusalem and saw all the exiles paying attention to their own homes. They had returned and found things in ruins almost 2 decades earlier. Many of the former exiles probably wondered why they left the comfort and cosmopolitan atmosphere of Babylon in the first place. There they were, in the land promised to their ancestors centuries before, which lay in ruin from the overthrow of their kingdom some 60 years earlier.
They took care of themselves first, apparently. They built and rebuilt their homes of paneled wood, we’re told in an earlier section of the book of Haggai.
But wait, the Temple, the center of worship for the Jews, had been decimated. The Temple, which Solomon built almost 500 years earlier, lay wasted—its treasures looted and the building itself in ruins. God’s very house was a pile of rocks, as far from its former glory as it could be.
And it stayed like that: unrebuilt and unusable. And that was God’s message through Haggai those few months in 520 b.c.e. Why are your houses nice and cozy while mine is untouched? Why have you rebuilt your own homes over the past 2 decades and left mine in ruins? Is not the Temple worthy of your attention? Does not my home deserve to be rebuilt?
Yes, this new Temple couldn’t be as grand as the first Temple was. Resources just weren’t available to rebuild it to its former glory, it was clear. But God’s house is God’s house. Attention must be paid!
Now what can the struggles of a small band, a remnant as they are called, of God’s people some 2,500 years ago mean to us, a small band, a remnant one might say, of God’s people now? What do the prophesies of one man whose only claim to history is a page and a quarter in a holy book say to us, Chalice Christian Church, today?
I think there’s a lot of things to be said to us by Haggai. In fact, if he were with us today, he might be struck by the similarities between these two small remnants of people.
For one thing I think about our personal stances. Do we take care of everything else in our lives before we attend to our spirituality? Do we build our houses before we build God’s house in our own lives?
It’s very easy to neglect our spiritual natures. No bills come for it. No one is after us to clean up our spiritual selves. No one nags us regarding it. We only have God’s voice speaking softly to us that guides us towards caring for ourselves spiritually. And how often do we and how easy is it for us to ignore that still-small voice?
Not attending to our own spirituality while seeing to everything else in our lives is much like those Israelites who built their nice houses after the exile but ignored the temple. Both parties are forgetting the importance of God in their lives; our lives.
But I believe there is another way that Haggai relates to us today and that is corporately, as a congregation. Those ancient Israelites knew that the temple they could build would be nothing as grand as the previous one. They were living on past dreams and hoping that things would turn out better for them. But they knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t. They were realizing that things can’t be as they have been in the past.
In a few moments our board will consider a budget for next year in the midst of a realization that our finances are in a difficult state. How like the Israelites are we going to be, dreaming of past days of splendor and allowing that reverie to freeze us into inaction?
We have a choice when it comes to our actions today and everyday. We can accept what God gives us and do what we can. We must make sure though that we are not building beautiful grand houses while neglecting God’s house. We must ensure that we are building God’s house, bringing about God’s realm now and here with the resources that we have; faithfully following God’s call to us to be God’s people.
Haggai had plenty to say to his folks around him at the time. Would he have as much to say to us? I think his words are still worth listening to.
It was the year 520 that Haggai the prophet spoke to Judah. That’s 520 years before Jesus walked the earth. But more importantly, it’s about 50 plus years after the fall of Jerusalem. Haggai doesn’t take up much room in the Bible; it’s the 2nd shortest book in the Hebrew Bible. It doesn’t even fill 2 pages in my Bible. There are only five sections to the whole book. What we heard this morning is the bridge section between the first two and the last two.
Haggai was prophesying to the community of Jerusalem after they had started to return from their 50-year exile. In fact it was about 18 years after the exiles had started to return. So there had been some time for things to start to take shape and the road the exiles would be traveling would be evident.
We’re used to the prophets speaking out before the big exiles. Isaiah and Jeremiah, the prophets we probably would usually think of, were warning of the fall of the two kingdoms before they happened. They warned that the people had strayed from God and would be punished.
But Haggai was speaking after the exile. What’s the point, we might think? Why bother prophesying to the people after the time of exile? Well, there is something in noting that God speaks to the people at any time. There doesn’t have to be trouble ahead for God to have a message. God speaks in the midst of trouble and beyond it.
And God did have a message for Haggai to give. He gave it to Zerubbabel, who was the Governor of Judah under King Darius of Persia and to Judah, the high priest and to “the remnant of the people.”
God, Haggai said, had looked around Jerusalem and saw all the exiles paying attention to their own homes. They had returned and found things in ruins almost 2 decades earlier. Many of the former exiles probably wondered why they left the comfort and cosmopolitan atmosphere of Babylon in the first place. There they were, in the land promised to their ancestors centuries before, which lay in ruin from the overthrow of their kingdom some 60 years earlier.
They took care of themselves first, apparently. They built and rebuilt their homes of paneled wood, we’re told in an earlier section of the book of Haggai.
But wait, the Temple, the center of worship for the Jews, had been decimated. The Temple, which Solomon built almost 500 years earlier, lay wasted—its treasures looted and the building itself in ruins. God’s very house was a pile of rocks, as far from its former glory as it could be.
And it stayed like that: unrebuilt and unusable. And that was God’s message through Haggai those few months in 520 b.c.e. Why are your houses nice and cozy while mine is untouched? Why have you rebuilt your own homes over the past 2 decades and left mine in ruins? Is not the Temple worthy of your attention? Does not my home deserve to be rebuilt?
Yes, this new Temple couldn’t be as grand as the first Temple was. Resources just weren’t available to rebuild it to its former glory, it was clear. But God’s house is God’s house. Attention must be paid!
Now what can the struggles of a small band, a remnant as they are called, of God’s people some 2,500 years ago mean to us, a small band, a remnant one might say, of God’s people now? What do the prophesies of one man whose only claim to history is a page and a quarter in a holy book say to us, Chalice Christian Church, today?
I think there’s a lot of things to be said to us by Haggai. In fact, if he were with us today, he might be struck by the similarities between these two small remnants of people.
For one thing I think about our personal stances. Do we take care of everything else in our lives before we attend to our spirituality? Do we build our houses before we build God’s house in our own lives?
It’s very easy to neglect our spiritual natures. No bills come for it. No one is after us to clean up our spiritual selves. No one nags us regarding it. We only have God’s voice speaking softly to us that guides us towards caring for ourselves spiritually. And how often do we and how easy is it for us to ignore that still-small voice?
Not attending to our own spirituality while seeing to everything else in our lives is much like those Israelites who built their nice houses after the exile but ignored the temple. Both parties are forgetting the importance of God in their lives; our lives.
But I believe there is another way that Haggai relates to us today and that is corporately, as a congregation. Those ancient Israelites knew that the temple they could build would be nothing as grand as the previous one. They were living on past dreams and hoping that things would turn out better for them. But they knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t. They were realizing that things can’t be as they have been in the past.
In a few moments our board will consider a budget for next year in the midst of a realization that our finances are in a difficult state. How like the Israelites are we going to be, dreaming of past days of splendor and allowing that reverie to freeze us into inaction?
We have a choice when it comes to our actions today and everyday. We can accept what God gives us and do what we can. We must make sure though that we are not building beautiful grand houses while neglecting God’s house. We must ensure that we are building God’s house, bringing about God’s realm now and here with the resources that we have; faithfully following God’s call to us to be God’s people.
Haggai had plenty to say to his folks around him at the time. Would he have as much to say to us? I think his words are still worth listening to.
23 September 2007
Luke 16:1-13
When I first read today’s gospel lesson from Luke, I thought, “I’m going to have to wrestle this one to the floor.” Well, after spending time with it, I’m ready to say “uncle” and admit that it’s wrestled me to the floor. For this confusing parable from Jesus is one that I’d really rather not deal with. It begs too many questions. And I can’t hope to answer all those questions. But, as I think about it, it does seem particularly apt on a day when we begin to think about our stewardship and how each of us will support the church in the coming months.
Over one-third of Jesus’ parables and sayings deal with money and faithfulness. Think of the rich young ruler told to sell everything he had; think of the widow who put her last coins in the Temple treasury; think of the eye of a needle and a camel; think of any number of parables and you’ll probably bump up against money.
It’s not surprising. The bible shows that God does have a preference for the poor. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, there are laws upon laws about how your treat the widow, the orphan, the sojourner. And Jesus knew that the poor were all around him during his day and age. It sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jesus would feel quite at home in our day and age, wouldn’t he? He would probably have lots to say about our society and culture and world given the growing divide between rich and poor; between the haves and the have-nots, not only in our world, but right here in our country and state.
So what can this confusing parable say to us in our day and age? Let’s look at it again. Jesus tells this parable following last week’s reading about the lost sheep and the lost coin with the parable of the prodigal son in between. All this lostness. And then comes this parable; a parable in which the hero of the story seems to be dishonest. And he is. Perhaps it’s his way of being lost.
He’s a manager or steward (there’s that word again) of an estate, and a bad one at that. He sees the writing on the wall, as it were, and knows he’s going to get the sack at any point. He recognizes, wisely, that he’s too old to dig ditches (I can agree with him on that) and too proud to beg (which is fair enough). So he has a plan. He goes to the people who are in debt to his master and reduces what they owe from 20 to 50 percent. What a plan. Then, he’s thinking, I’ll be welcome into these homes at least.
Pretty shrewd, isn’t it? But, here’s the catch in this story: his master hears of it and what does he do? He commends him on his shrewdness. He’s just been cheated out of a good portion of his dealings. He has just had this dishonest manager take it away from him, seemingly all square.
The master commends the manager. It’s shocking to us. I wonder if it was as shocking to the disciples’ first-century ears. Did they find the incongruities in this story that we do?
But wait, Jesus tacks a moral onto the story: a moral about serving God and money; about not being able to serve both; about where your allegiances lie. That part I can grasp onto! That’s the part that makes perfect sense to me.
We are much more like the dishonest manager than we would like to think. We are shrewd in our dealings making sure that we are safe and secure before thinking about anything else; before even thinking about God perhaps. And that’s when we realize that we’re trying to serve two masters.
Because we try this impossible task of serving two different masters, we get ourselves into trouble. We flit from one to the other; promising one that we’ll be obedient but tied to the 2nd one like a dog tethered out in the backyard. We run the risk of worshiping wealth in our culture, because it is so prevalent. And that’s bound to get in the way of our worshiping of God.
We have come to the time in our church life in which we are considering stewardship. We face budget difficulties in our congregation and faithfully pray that God will help us out…somehow…someway. You just have to look at the back of your bulletin to see our current state of financial affairs. With faith, we draw up budgets and seek out the assistance we need to carry out those budgets.
It has been said that budgets are moral documents. They point out what people think is important, what is seen as essential. We as individuals who make up the congregation are parts of that moral document. And as such, we are the support to those things that we see as important, as essential.
We cannot serve two masters, it’s true. We cannot serve our own wealth while we try to serve God. If increasing our own wealth is the consideration we take into our minds as we decide about stewardship, we are not serving God. That is a truth we have to take into account.
We have many ways to respond to requests for stewardship. We have our talents, our time as well as our financial resources with which we can respond. We cannot survive without members giving of all three of these categories; especially in a small church such as ours. Most of us give whole-heartedly in many ways. We give what we can and prayerfully think about how we might even add to that.
Each of us is important when it comes to this question of stewardship. Each of us must consider what we have and what we can give out of all of God’s gifts to us. We must recognize that we might be trying to serve two masters at one time. One is going to win and one will lose out. Which will it be?
When I first read today’s gospel lesson from Luke, I thought, “I’m going to have to wrestle this one to the floor.” Well, after spending time with it, I’m ready to say “uncle” and admit that it’s wrestled me to the floor. For this confusing parable from Jesus is one that I’d really rather not deal with. It begs too many questions. And I can’t hope to answer all those questions. But, as I think about it, it does seem particularly apt on a day when we begin to think about our stewardship and how each of us will support the church in the coming months.
Over one-third of Jesus’ parables and sayings deal with money and faithfulness. Think of the rich young ruler told to sell everything he had; think of the widow who put her last coins in the Temple treasury; think of the eye of a needle and a camel; think of any number of parables and you’ll probably bump up against money.
It’s not surprising. The bible shows that God does have a preference for the poor. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, there are laws upon laws about how your treat the widow, the orphan, the sojourner. And Jesus knew that the poor were all around him during his day and age. It sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jesus would feel quite at home in our day and age, wouldn’t he? He would probably have lots to say about our society and culture and world given the growing divide between rich and poor; between the haves and the have-nots, not only in our world, but right here in our country and state.
So what can this confusing parable say to us in our day and age? Let’s look at it again. Jesus tells this parable following last week’s reading about the lost sheep and the lost coin with the parable of the prodigal son in between. All this lostness. And then comes this parable; a parable in which the hero of the story seems to be dishonest. And he is. Perhaps it’s his way of being lost.
He’s a manager or steward (there’s that word again) of an estate, and a bad one at that. He sees the writing on the wall, as it were, and knows he’s going to get the sack at any point. He recognizes, wisely, that he’s too old to dig ditches (I can agree with him on that) and too proud to beg (which is fair enough). So he has a plan. He goes to the people who are in debt to his master and reduces what they owe from 20 to 50 percent. What a plan. Then, he’s thinking, I’ll be welcome into these homes at least.
Pretty shrewd, isn’t it? But, here’s the catch in this story: his master hears of it and what does he do? He commends him on his shrewdness. He’s just been cheated out of a good portion of his dealings. He has just had this dishonest manager take it away from him, seemingly all square.
The master commends the manager. It’s shocking to us. I wonder if it was as shocking to the disciples’ first-century ears. Did they find the incongruities in this story that we do?
But wait, Jesus tacks a moral onto the story: a moral about serving God and money; about not being able to serve both; about where your allegiances lie. That part I can grasp onto! That’s the part that makes perfect sense to me.
We are much more like the dishonest manager than we would like to think. We are shrewd in our dealings making sure that we are safe and secure before thinking about anything else; before even thinking about God perhaps. And that’s when we realize that we’re trying to serve two masters.
Because we try this impossible task of serving two different masters, we get ourselves into trouble. We flit from one to the other; promising one that we’ll be obedient but tied to the 2nd one like a dog tethered out in the backyard. We run the risk of worshiping wealth in our culture, because it is so prevalent. And that’s bound to get in the way of our worshiping of God.
We have come to the time in our church life in which we are considering stewardship. We face budget difficulties in our congregation and faithfully pray that God will help us out…somehow…someway. You just have to look at the back of your bulletin to see our current state of financial affairs. With faith, we draw up budgets and seek out the assistance we need to carry out those budgets.
It has been said that budgets are moral documents. They point out what people think is important, what is seen as essential. We as individuals who make up the congregation are parts of that moral document. And as such, we are the support to those things that we see as important, as essential.
We cannot serve two masters, it’s true. We cannot serve our own wealth while we try to serve God. If increasing our own wealth is the consideration we take into our minds as we decide about stewardship, we are not serving God. That is a truth we have to take into account.
We have many ways to respond to requests for stewardship. We have our talents, our time as well as our financial resources with which we can respond. We cannot survive without members giving of all three of these categories; especially in a small church such as ours. Most of us give whole-heartedly in many ways. We give what we can and prayerfully think about how we might even add to that.
Each of us is important when it comes to this question of stewardship. Each of us must consider what we have and what we can give out of all of God’s gifts to us. We must recognize that we might be trying to serve two masters at one time. One is going to win and one will lose out. Which will it be?
16 September 2007
Luke 15:1-10
I hate to lose things. Of course, being who I am, I lose things…often. Too often. Way too often, I’m searching our apartment for that one important document that I know I put in a safe place which I just can’t remember. Or for a particular item that is the only one that will do what I need to do at the moment.
Of course, I don’t do this on purpose. I don’t hide things from myself deliberately; at least I think I don’t. Now my mother would say, “if you just put things where they belong…” But that’s the problem. Sometimes I forget where something belongs. Or I’ve put something in a logical spot and the spot changes. In short, I am no stranger to losing things.
So I suppose that today’s Gospel reading is made just for me. And those just like me. (And I’m sure there are a few of us around here.) It seems it, doesn’t it? A shepherd losing a sheep? A woman who misplaces one tenth of her wealth? What are these people thinking? Shepherd’s jobs are to keep track of sheep. That’s what they do. And a woman alone losing a coin is catastrophe. Who do these people think they are, losing valuable things like that?
Jesus is telling this parable, remember, to the Pharisees and scribes. They were complaining that Jesus is spending too much time with tax collectors and sinners. Of course, that’s what Jesus did. He spent time with the people on the fringes; those on the margins of their culture; the lost people as it were.
And he uses these same lost people, these marginalized folks of their society, in his parables. For here is a shepherd. Shepherds are the lowest of the low. They have a job that requires them to be out in all weather. They tend their group of sheep 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They smell and they’re dirty and they just aren’t the type of people you’re supposed to care about.
Or a single woman. A single woman, for crying out loud. Who knows why she’s single or how she became single? There’s a hint that she has some money, but who knows how she got it? Who would care about a single woman in that culture? Or her money, for that matter.
But Jesus uses these outsiders as an example to those who are in the religious power in their society, those Pharisees and scribes. They would prefer, it seems, to ignore those who are not in the midst of religious purity. They don’t want to associate with tax collectors and other sinners, no doubt including shepherds and single women.
But Jesus uses them as an example. And they aren’t even the focus of the story. It’s the lost items which hold our attention. Those items that have been misplaced; or wandered off. Even the lowest of the low care about the lost items; more than the Pharisees and scribes, by inference.
Jesus talks about these lost items as precious things. Something you leave 99 sheep alone in the fold for; something you turn your house upside down for. Things that make you forget about everything else and seek out.
It’s just grace at its purest. The sheep and the coin aren’t repentant. They don’t even know they’re lost, perhaps. But they’re precious to someone; precious to the point of an all-out search. This coin, that sheep, is longed for by a woman with only 9 other coins; by a shepherd who has a whole flock of other sheep.
Our God, Jesus is telling us, goes to all lengths to seek us out. When we are lost or we are wandering away, God’s grace brings us back and joyfully celebrates at our return.
But I don’t think we’re actually meant to think we’re the lost items in these parables. We may at times be lost and wandering, but when it comes to coins and sheep, we are probably more like the 9 coins or the 99 sheep back in the fold.
So where does that leave us? Remember that Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees and scribes in response to the charge that he hangs out with sinners too much. We’re more like the Pharisees and scribes of our day than we’d like to think. We’re the keepers of the faith; the ones who are working to preserve our religion as it is. And as such, we need to identify with the seeker of the lost items more than anything else.
We are called to go after the lost: those on the margins and the outcasts of our culture. We are called to be the shepherds and women of our own age, seeking after the lost so we can rejoice in their finding. We are called to be seekers; those who realize that there are those on the margins who need to hear about God’s grace and love.
We are God’s agents, just as those Pharisees and scribes were too; charged with keeping the faith, as it were. And as such, we must heed Jesus’ call to us to join him in being with the tax collectors and sinners of our age.
We have lots of outcasts in our society. Many are lost; too many are on the fringes. We have a predilection to draw boundaries around ourselves and those like us. But Jesus calls us to new ways of being; new ways of acting that include rather than exclude. Jesus calls us to seek out those who are out there and bring them in; including the lost.
Be the seekers our society needs. Be the shepherds who are looking for their sheep one sheep at a time; be the women who turn everything upside down in order to find one coin. And then rejoice. Don’t sit on your laurels, but celebrate. Celebrate with the God who also rejoices with you.
I hate to lose things. Of course, being who I am, I lose things…often. Too often. Way too often, I’m searching our apartment for that one important document that I know I put in a safe place which I just can’t remember. Or for a particular item that is the only one that will do what I need to do at the moment.
Of course, I don’t do this on purpose. I don’t hide things from myself deliberately; at least I think I don’t. Now my mother would say, “if you just put things where they belong…” But that’s the problem. Sometimes I forget where something belongs. Or I’ve put something in a logical spot and the spot changes. In short, I am no stranger to losing things.
So I suppose that today’s Gospel reading is made just for me. And those just like me. (And I’m sure there are a few of us around here.) It seems it, doesn’t it? A shepherd losing a sheep? A woman who misplaces one tenth of her wealth? What are these people thinking? Shepherd’s jobs are to keep track of sheep. That’s what they do. And a woman alone losing a coin is catastrophe. Who do these people think they are, losing valuable things like that?
Jesus is telling this parable, remember, to the Pharisees and scribes. They were complaining that Jesus is spending too much time with tax collectors and sinners. Of course, that’s what Jesus did. He spent time with the people on the fringes; those on the margins of their culture; the lost people as it were.
And he uses these same lost people, these marginalized folks of their society, in his parables. For here is a shepherd. Shepherds are the lowest of the low. They have a job that requires them to be out in all weather. They tend their group of sheep 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They smell and they’re dirty and they just aren’t the type of people you’re supposed to care about.
Or a single woman. A single woman, for crying out loud. Who knows why she’s single or how she became single? There’s a hint that she has some money, but who knows how she got it? Who would care about a single woman in that culture? Or her money, for that matter.
But Jesus uses these outsiders as an example to those who are in the religious power in their society, those Pharisees and scribes. They would prefer, it seems, to ignore those who are not in the midst of religious purity. They don’t want to associate with tax collectors and other sinners, no doubt including shepherds and single women.
But Jesus uses them as an example. And they aren’t even the focus of the story. It’s the lost items which hold our attention. Those items that have been misplaced; or wandered off. Even the lowest of the low care about the lost items; more than the Pharisees and scribes, by inference.
Jesus talks about these lost items as precious things. Something you leave 99 sheep alone in the fold for; something you turn your house upside down for. Things that make you forget about everything else and seek out.
It’s just grace at its purest. The sheep and the coin aren’t repentant. They don’t even know they’re lost, perhaps. But they’re precious to someone; precious to the point of an all-out search. This coin, that sheep, is longed for by a woman with only 9 other coins; by a shepherd who has a whole flock of other sheep.
Our God, Jesus is telling us, goes to all lengths to seek us out. When we are lost or we are wandering away, God’s grace brings us back and joyfully celebrates at our return.
But I don’t think we’re actually meant to think we’re the lost items in these parables. We may at times be lost and wandering, but when it comes to coins and sheep, we are probably more like the 9 coins or the 99 sheep back in the fold.
So where does that leave us? Remember that Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees and scribes in response to the charge that he hangs out with sinners too much. We’re more like the Pharisees and scribes of our day than we’d like to think. We’re the keepers of the faith; the ones who are working to preserve our religion as it is. And as such, we need to identify with the seeker of the lost items more than anything else.
We are called to go after the lost: those on the margins and the outcasts of our culture. We are called to be the shepherds and women of our own age, seeking after the lost so we can rejoice in their finding. We are called to be seekers; those who realize that there are those on the margins who need to hear about God’s grace and love.
We are God’s agents, just as those Pharisees and scribes were too; charged with keeping the faith, as it were. And as such, we must heed Jesus’ call to us to join him in being with the tax collectors and sinners of our age.
We have lots of outcasts in our society. Many are lost; too many are on the fringes. We have a predilection to draw boundaries around ourselves and those like us. But Jesus calls us to new ways of being; new ways of acting that include rather than exclude. Jesus calls us to seek out those who are out there and bring them in; including the lost.
Be the seekers our society needs. Be the shepherds who are looking for their sheep one sheep at a time; be the women who turn everything upside down in order to find one coin. And then rejoice. Don’t sit on your laurels, but celebrate. Celebrate with the God who also rejoices with you.
9 September 2007
Philemon 1-21
Don’t you love to get letters? I don’t mean junk mail and bills. I mean real mail: hand-addressed envelopes, a note inside from a loved one, words penned just to you. Of course, with email and the telephone so prominent these days, mail such as that has decreased. Now, I’m the last person who’s going to complain about email, so this sermon isn’t a complaint against modern communication methods. But I must say, there is something about going to the mailbox and finding a letter, a card, a note there that’s addressed to you.
Of course, for most of our human history, written letters were modern communication. For centuries, that’s how people at a distance communicated. Letters conveyed everything from negotiations between kingdoms to people expressing their love for each other. But even letter-writing was a luxury during certain periods of our history. Paper, ink and writing utensils were not as common as they are now. So letters, during these eras, were something extremely special.
And so it was during the first century, c.e. But spreading the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ was fortunately considered important enough. Thus we have a catalog of letters, mostly from Paul, to others about what it means to be Christian.
Today’s letter, which morphed into a book of the Bible, one of my favorite books, in fact, is no different. Corey read it pretty much in its entirety; there’s only a few closing verses missing. Paul wrote his letter to an important person, Philemon, about Onesimus. Onesimus is Philemon’s slave. Slavery was a common condition in the Greco-Roman world. In fact, it probably saved many people from starvation. But don’t get me wrong; for any positives of slavery, the negatives far outweighed them. Oddly, enough, this book, which deals with the slave Onesimus, was used by both sides of the slavery debate in our country’s history. Both pro- and anti-slavery proponents prior to and during the Civil War found it useful in their attempts to move good Christian folks to their side. But that’s getting ahead of my story.
Paul is in prison as he writes this letter. He has come in contact with Onesimus there. We don’t know how or why. Is Onesimus also a prisoner in jail with Paul? Or has he come to visit Paul in prison knowing Paul from Paul’s stopovers at Philemon’s house? Has Onesimus run away from Philemon’s household? We’ll never know the circumstances of their being together. But clearly Paul has a fond admiration of the slave, even going so far as to say Onesimus is his son.
Paul’s letter to Philemon is very personal. It’s a request that Philemon accept Onesimus back as a Christian brother. It’s that simple. There is disagreement among scholars and others though as to whether Paul is asking Philemon to free Onesimus. It’s a tricky thing, either way. But Paul is pointing out that Onesimus, as a fellow Christian, should have a special status with Philemon.
As I said, slavery was very common during this time. It was accepted as an economic fact of life. But there were roots of differences in the Jewish community, as Paul would have known. There were evidently rules that a Jew could not have another Jewish slave for life. There were conditions under which a Jewish slave would have to be released into freedom.
But in the Greco-Roman world, there were no such prohibitions. People, rich people, had slaves. It was a fact of life. Paul’s request, if indeed he was requesting that Philemon release Onesimus, was first of all rooted in Jewish law and secondly an odd request in the Roman world. But he made it nonetheless.
It may have been a bit of a surprise to Philemon when he read the letter. Is Paul meddling? Is he going where he shouldn’t go? Of course, Paul wouldn’t think so, because this is a matter of faith; of faith in Jesus Christ. Paul famously writes elsewhere that there is no more slave or free but all are equal under Jesus Christ. But to Philemon, a church leader, it created at the least undoubtedly some discomfort.
Because here was slavery, the status quo, on one hand,. And on the other hand was this new Christian way of being that may have been calling Philemon to a doing things a different way. Philemon was caught between two worlds; the old Roman way of being and the really new Christian behaviors, still a world that was being explored. Philemon probably never gave a thought about owning slaves until Paul’s letter arrived in his 1st century mailbox. Paul’s letter put a new perspective on everything in his world. The blinders came off and Philemon had to look anew at how things were done.
What in our culture might come under the same scrutiny if we stopped and looked at it through the lenses of our Christian faith? What might change if we actually took our faith completely seriously and applied it to our culture? What letter is going to arrive in our spiritual mailboxes that will change the way we look at things?
The place of women in the church and in our culture is one such example. Some of us believe that the Bible calls us to new understandings of the equality of the sexes. Now it’s not much of an issue for us in our congregation, perhaps. But there are plenty of congregations and entire denominations which still struggle with this issue. We’ve been called to pull off the blinders of sexism and recognize that women and men are equal under Jesus Christ. Just as Philemon was called to do with slavery in the person of Onesimus.
Perhaps we can count the struggle for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in this. Perhaps that’s something we have cultural blinders on and can’t see what we are called to do. It’s more difficult, for sure, but is it possible that Jesus Christ, through our Christian faith, is calling for a new way of being that explodes cultural understanding? Is it possible that the marriage issue, allowing people of the same gender who love each other to marry one another, is an issue for which our cultural blinders need to come off and we need to come to an new understanding of?
What other issues might we be blinded to? Of course, we can’t tell, because we are blinded by our culture. But what we have to be observant for are those letters—letters of and from our faith—that will guide us away from our culture and into a new faithful way of understanding. Once those letters arrive, in whatever form they might come, we must pay attention to them and heed them as if they were from Jesus himself.
Don’t you love to get mail—real letters that are for you—just for you? Watch for epistles of love that change the way you act, the way you behave. Watch for signs that the blinders need to come off and that the new is about to begin. Check your mailboxes.
Don’t you love to get letters? I don’t mean junk mail and bills. I mean real mail: hand-addressed envelopes, a note inside from a loved one, words penned just to you. Of course, with email and the telephone so prominent these days, mail such as that has decreased. Now, I’m the last person who’s going to complain about email, so this sermon isn’t a complaint against modern communication methods. But I must say, there is something about going to the mailbox and finding a letter, a card, a note there that’s addressed to you.
Of course, for most of our human history, written letters were modern communication. For centuries, that’s how people at a distance communicated. Letters conveyed everything from negotiations between kingdoms to people expressing their love for each other. But even letter-writing was a luxury during certain periods of our history. Paper, ink and writing utensils were not as common as they are now. So letters, during these eras, were something extremely special.
And so it was during the first century, c.e. But spreading the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ was fortunately considered important enough. Thus we have a catalog of letters, mostly from Paul, to others about what it means to be Christian.
Today’s letter, which morphed into a book of the Bible, one of my favorite books, in fact, is no different. Corey read it pretty much in its entirety; there’s only a few closing verses missing. Paul wrote his letter to an important person, Philemon, about Onesimus. Onesimus is Philemon’s slave. Slavery was a common condition in the Greco-Roman world. In fact, it probably saved many people from starvation. But don’t get me wrong; for any positives of slavery, the negatives far outweighed them. Oddly, enough, this book, which deals with the slave Onesimus, was used by both sides of the slavery debate in our country’s history. Both pro- and anti-slavery proponents prior to and during the Civil War found it useful in their attempts to move good Christian folks to their side. But that’s getting ahead of my story.
Paul is in prison as he writes this letter. He has come in contact with Onesimus there. We don’t know how or why. Is Onesimus also a prisoner in jail with Paul? Or has he come to visit Paul in prison knowing Paul from Paul’s stopovers at Philemon’s house? Has Onesimus run away from Philemon’s household? We’ll never know the circumstances of their being together. But clearly Paul has a fond admiration of the slave, even going so far as to say Onesimus is his son.
Paul’s letter to Philemon is very personal. It’s a request that Philemon accept Onesimus back as a Christian brother. It’s that simple. There is disagreement among scholars and others though as to whether Paul is asking Philemon to free Onesimus. It’s a tricky thing, either way. But Paul is pointing out that Onesimus, as a fellow Christian, should have a special status with Philemon.
As I said, slavery was very common during this time. It was accepted as an economic fact of life. But there were roots of differences in the Jewish community, as Paul would have known. There were evidently rules that a Jew could not have another Jewish slave for life. There were conditions under which a Jewish slave would have to be released into freedom.
But in the Greco-Roman world, there were no such prohibitions. People, rich people, had slaves. It was a fact of life. Paul’s request, if indeed he was requesting that Philemon release Onesimus, was first of all rooted in Jewish law and secondly an odd request in the Roman world. But he made it nonetheless.
It may have been a bit of a surprise to Philemon when he read the letter. Is Paul meddling? Is he going where he shouldn’t go? Of course, Paul wouldn’t think so, because this is a matter of faith; of faith in Jesus Christ. Paul famously writes elsewhere that there is no more slave or free but all are equal under Jesus Christ. But to Philemon, a church leader, it created at the least undoubtedly some discomfort.
Because here was slavery, the status quo, on one hand,. And on the other hand was this new Christian way of being that may have been calling Philemon to a doing things a different way. Philemon was caught between two worlds; the old Roman way of being and the really new Christian behaviors, still a world that was being explored. Philemon probably never gave a thought about owning slaves until Paul’s letter arrived in his 1st century mailbox. Paul’s letter put a new perspective on everything in his world. The blinders came off and Philemon had to look anew at how things were done.
What in our culture might come under the same scrutiny if we stopped and looked at it through the lenses of our Christian faith? What might change if we actually took our faith completely seriously and applied it to our culture? What letter is going to arrive in our spiritual mailboxes that will change the way we look at things?
The place of women in the church and in our culture is one such example. Some of us believe that the Bible calls us to new understandings of the equality of the sexes. Now it’s not much of an issue for us in our congregation, perhaps. But there are plenty of congregations and entire denominations which still struggle with this issue. We’ve been called to pull off the blinders of sexism and recognize that women and men are equal under Jesus Christ. Just as Philemon was called to do with slavery in the person of Onesimus.
Perhaps we can count the struggle for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in this. Perhaps that’s something we have cultural blinders on and can’t see what we are called to do. It’s more difficult, for sure, but is it possible that Jesus Christ, through our Christian faith, is calling for a new way of being that explodes cultural understanding? Is it possible that the marriage issue, allowing people of the same gender who love each other to marry one another, is an issue for which our cultural blinders need to come off and we need to come to an new understanding of?
What other issues might we be blinded to? Of course, we can’t tell, because we are blinded by our culture. But what we have to be observant for are those letters—letters of and from our faith—that will guide us away from our culture and into a new faithful way of understanding. Once those letters arrive, in whatever form they might come, we must pay attention to them and heed them as if they were from Jesus himself.
Don’t you love to get mail—real letters that are for you—just for you? Watch for epistles of love that change the way you act, the way you behave. Watch for signs that the blinders need to come off and that the new is about to begin. Check your mailboxes.
2 September 2007
Luke 14:1, 7-14
The theme, this past July, of the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), was “Share the Feast.” Picking up on that theme, the Gay/Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance (GLAD) selected their own theme of “Jesus’ Diner.” “Jesus’ Diner—Always Open, All God’s Children Served” was the slogan. Of course, the GLAD booth didn’t serve any meals but the theme was carried through. “Jesus Diner” reminded us that Jesus would serve anyone. No need for those “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” signs that you see everywhere. No indeed not. Jesus is not going to exclude anyone from his diner. That’s what we believe at least.
And it’s supported by today’s gospel lesson from Luke. Jesus gives some etiquette lessons in our reading today; some thoughts about how to behave when you’re both a guest and a host at a dinner. Jesus knows that things are really awry when it comes to meals in his time and works to set that aright.
The scriptures are full of meals and rules about eating. Jesus’ proclamations just add to them. From the wandering Israelites receiving manna in the desert, to the Jewish dietary laws, to Jesus’ many meals described in the gospels, to what we call the Last Supper through to the urging of Paul to share meals with the poor in the epistles, we find food throughout the Bible. It’s clearly an important topic. And Jesus just adds to that importance today.
Jesus is invited to a meal with a leader of the Pharisees in today’s passage. And he was being watched closely as they already had it in for him, it seems. He got to the meal and saw the guests all jockeying for positions of honor at the table. Jesus told them that It’s better to aim low, sitting at a position of less honor and be brought up than aim high and be shot down. Jesus turns this into a life lesson at the end by saying, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
As he was giving these instructions to the guests, no doubt the host was there glad that he had escaped notice and wasn’t included in Jesus’ teachings this day. But then Jesus turned to him and gave out a lesson that is for all hosts. Don’t make your meals a cause for return and repayment. Don’t invite over people who will repay you in kind for your meals. Instead invite in “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” In other words, invite people who don’t have the ability to repay you. Invite in those whose resources are less than yours. Don’t do it necessarily as an act of charity, but because you will be repaid at the resurrection, according to Jesus.
Do we take this hosting advice seriously today? I know in our household, we do so little hosting, that when we do, repayment is the last thing on our minds. But we don’t exactly go out to Haight Street and invite in the homeless who throng that thoroughfare. I doubt most of us would do so either though.
But I’m actually more concerned about another time of hosting. What about that meal that is served here every week, week after week? We don’t technically host it, but we certainly control the guest list to this meal. Of course, I’m talking about the meal in which we’re about to partake: the holy meal that sums up everything about eating that’s in the Bible; communion; the lord’s supper; the eucharist.
What does our communion meal look like? Is it set up for those who can repay us? Or do we invite in those who don’t have the resources to return in kind to us? We proclaim that we celebrate an open table; anyone can participate in this meal with us. Nothing will bar someone who wishes to sup with us; not economic status, nor class, nor race, nor age, nor gender, nor sexual orientation, nor physical ability, nor mental capacity nor anything else. Nothing, we proclaim is a bar to this table.
That’s all well and good but do we actually invite others to dine with us? Do we actually take the time to say to someone who may have been rejected elsewhere, “Come, dine with us at this holy meal.”? “Come to this meal, where you will find God’s love and Jesus’ companionship.” Are we open and invitational when it comes to others, not like ourselves perhaps?
A few weeks ago, when our visioning committee met, we spoke of being a bridge; a bridge between the haves and have-nots of this community, of the peninsula. We could see ourselves reaching out on both sides: to those without resources who have great need and to those who have those very resources that others lack.
We have to be more than just open to others joining us. We have to be an invitational church. We have to go out and bid people in. We have to find those who don’t know how hungry they are for this meal and request their presence in our midst.
And we do so not expecting repayment. We aren’t called to do so to swell our worship attendance, a reason I very well could be guilty of wanting. We aren’t called to do so so our budget will balance. We aren’t called to do so for any earthly reason. But we are called to do so for heavenly reasons.
Because Jesus himself invites those we might pass by to this meal. We are called to ask others who aren’t like us to come to this holy repast as Jesus’ voice. We must do so because it is Jesus’ meal and we are merely the conduits through which the invitation is expressed.
We are given opportunities to know God’s love and welcome acceptance each and every week. We can’t keep it to ourselves. We must invite others to know this love and acceptance. It is our call. It is our responsibility.
We have to be “Jesus’ Diner—Always open, All God’s Children Served.”
The theme, this past July, of the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), was “Share the Feast.” Picking up on that theme, the Gay/Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance (GLAD) selected their own theme of “Jesus’ Diner.” “Jesus’ Diner—Always Open, All God’s Children Served” was the slogan. Of course, the GLAD booth didn’t serve any meals but the theme was carried through. “Jesus Diner” reminded us that Jesus would serve anyone. No need for those “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” signs that you see everywhere. No indeed not. Jesus is not going to exclude anyone from his diner. That’s what we believe at least.
And it’s supported by today’s gospel lesson from Luke. Jesus gives some etiquette lessons in our reading today; some thoughts about how to behave when you’re both a guest and a host at a dinner. Jesus knows that things are really awry when it comes to meals in his time and works to set that aright.
The scriptures are full of meals and rules about eating. Jesus’ proclamations just add to them. From the wandering Israelites receiving manna in the desert, to the Jewish dietary laws, to Jesus’ many meals described in the gospels, to what we call the Last Supper through to the urging of Paul to share meals with the poor in the epistles, we find food throughout the Bible. It’s clearly an important topic. And Jesus just adds to that importance today.
Jesus is invited to a meal with a leader of the Pharisees in today’s passage. And he was being watched closely as they already had it in for him, it seems. He got to the meal and saw the guests all jockeying for positions of honor at the table. Jesus told them that It’s better to aim low, sitting at a position of less honor and be brought up than aim high and be shot down. Jesus turns this into a life lesson at the end by saying, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
As he was giving these instructions to the guests, no doubt the host was there glad that he had escaped notice and wasn’t included in Jesus’ teachings this day. But then Jesus turned to him and gave out a lesson that is for all hosts. Don’t make your meals a cause for return and repayment. Don’t invite over people who will repay you in kind for your meals. Instead invite in “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” In other words, invite people who don’t have the ability to repay you. Invite in those whose resources are less than yours. Don’t do it necessarily as an act of charity, but because you will be repaid at the resurrection, according to Jesus.
Do we take this hosting advice seriously today? I know in our household, we do so little hosting, that when we do, repayment is the last thing on our minds. But we don’t exactly go out to Haight Street and invite in the homeless who throng that thoroughfare. I doubt most of us would do so either though.
But I’m actually more concerned about another time of hosting. What about that meal that is served here every week, week after week? We don’t technically host it, but we certainly control the guest list to this meal. Of course, I’m talking about the meal in which we’re about to partake: the holy meal that sums up everything about eating that’s in the Bible; communion; the lord’s supper; the eucharist.
What does our communion meal look like? Is it set up for those who can repay us? Or do we invite in those who don’t have the resources to return in kind to us? We proclaim that we celebrate an open table; anyone can participate in this meal with us. Nothing will bar someone who wishes to sup with us; not economic status, nor class, nor race, nor age, nor gender, nor sexual orientation, nor physical ability, nor mental capacity nor anything else. Nothing, we proclaim is a bar to this table.
That’s all well and good but do we actually invite others to dine with us? Do we actually take the time to say to someone who may have been rejected elsewhere, “Come, dine with us at this holy meal.”? “Come to this meal, where you will find God’s love and Jesus’ companionship.” Are we open and invitational when it comes to others, not like ourselves perhaps?
A few weeks ago, when our visioning committee met, we spoke of being a bridge; a bridge between the haves and have-nots of this community, of the peninsula. We could see ourselves reaching out on both sides: to those without resources who have great need and to those who have those very resources that others lack.
We have to be more than just open to others joining us. We have to be an invitational church. We have to go out and bid people in. We have to find those who don’t know how hungry they are for this meal and request their presence in our midst.
And we do so not expecting repayment. We aren’t called to do so to swell our worship attendance, a reason I very well could be guilty of wanting. We aren’t called to do so so our budget will balance. We aren’t called to do so for any earthly reason. But we are called to do so for heavenly reasons.
Because Jesus himself invites those we might pass by to this meal. We are called to ask others who aren’t like us to come to this holy repast as Jesus’ voice. We must do so because it is Jesus’ meal and we are merely the conduits through which the invitation is expressed.
We are given opportunities to know God’s love and welcome acceptance each and every week. We can’t keep it to ourselves. We must invite others to know this love and acceptance. It is our call. It is our responsibility.
We have to be “Jesus’ Diner—Always open, All God’s Children Served.”
26 August 2007
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Jeremiah, that old crusty prophet, was a boy once. Of course, every crusty old guy was a boy at some point. And today, we find crusty, old Jeremiah as a boy, receiving his call. It’s quite a moment for sure. We usually think of Jeremiah in his later years. Pictures of him throughout the centuries abound—he is old and has a beard. And that’s how we likely think of him. But there in chapter one that we heard this morning, he’s a boy. And that’s how the picture on the front of your bulletin depicts him; as a boy in wonder at all that’s happening to him.
He’s somewhat timid about this call thing. He protests immediately once God called him to the prophecy biz. And I can’t blame him. Being a prophet is no easy task. And here’s Jeremiah, boy Jeremiah, being told he has to point out the wrongs of nations to those very nations and their leaders. Yikes. I would have likely run in the other direction. But Jeremiah sticks around long enough to complain. And that’s when God gets him.
Jeremiah stays and puts up useless argument after useless argument only to have God touch him on the lips and say, “There; now you have my words to speak.” Once that was done, it was no use complaining. There was no getting out of it. Jeremiah was God’s for sure.
It’s funny who God calls and to what God calls them. Jeremiah: the boy who can’t speak is turned into one of the greatest prophets humanity has ever seen or heard. It’s a simple matter really: God calls and someone responds. How often is the response like Jeremiah’s though? How often does God call and the response God hears is filled with excuses and reasons the callee shouldn’t be called? It’s no different today than it was in the last quarter of the 7th century bce when Jeremiah received his call, all those centuries ago.
We tend to think of pastors and those who lead a professional religious life (such as nuns and monks) as being called. But clearly God calls beyond those who aren’t clergy. God calls everyone into ministry. Yes, each of us here today is called; not just Jeremiah, not just me.
There are a couple ways that you might feel called. You might be called to a profession, or vocation. You may feel God’s hand to have led you into that work you do on a daily basis. Certainly this is a valid call from God. Thanks heavens God doesn’t call everyone to be a clergyperson. What a mess this world would be if God did! But there are faithfilled vocations outside the clergy to which God calls.
What difference does it make if you perform your work as if you were called to it? Well, hopefully a large difference. Those called to their vocation will do their work intentionally, as if God were leading them throughout the workday. Now this doesn’t mean that those who claim and recognize that God has called them to their vocation always do their work cheerfully and with a contented smile on their face. No, indeed not. There are bad days and rough times; even for those who see their work as their call.
But there’s an intentionality about the called person’s work. Those who prayerfully listen for God’s call and follow it as closely as they can, find some degree of satisfaction and fulfillment that those who don’t feel called to their work feel.
Several years ago, when we were in New York City, before I was ordained, I was in a position from which I took no joy and felt no satisfaction. As I was talking about this to the mentor of a friend of mine, she simply said, “Well, you aren’t called to it.” I suddenly felt a realization about this job that I had never been able to define. I soon left that job and moved on to other places where I felt my gifts and talents more closely fit with my call.
But there is another way to be called that I want to mention today: that of being called to an avocation; called outside your vocation to work that needs to be done. Many of us are called this way. Our avocations are those things we do outside of our everyday work, beyond our so-called professions. Many of us answer those calls through church.
Tutoring at Homework Central may be one such call. Serving on the church board or as an officer may be yet another call. (I say this with some trepidation, since the nominating committee met just yesterday and some may respond now to our requests for leadership with “I don’t feel called.”) But God clearly calls us to labor outside of our vocations to work that furthers God’s realm here on earth.
We are an active congregation, there’s no doubt about that. And if we examine ourselves, we may find that this activity comes out of a sense of call from God; both individually and corporately. We need people in this world to feel called to do the ministry of work beyond our walls so that as a congregation we can still respond to God’s call to us.
How do you tell if your call is real? Well one indication is that your gifts and talents will align with the need that is part of the call. And each call that God issues involves a need. There is much need in our world today. God knows it and recognizes it but only has us to do the work; us and other faithful people throughout the world. We know our call is real when we see the need that is out there and realize that we can do something to change it. We know our call is real when the abilities we have been given match up with some need. We know our call is real when God provides us with what we need to get the work done.
You may not be called to be a prophet like Jeremiah. You may not be called to speak out against the powers and principalities. But then again you might. You just might find yourself using gifts you never knew you had. But God calls you. There is no doubt of that. Because God calls each one of us since there is such a great need in our world.
Prayerfully examine where God is calling you. And don’t think that if you’re retired you’re exempt from being called. God calls at all ages and expects a response. Let God touch your lips as God touched Jeremiah’s lips all those years ago. Let God touch your life and reach in and pull out the best in you. Follow your call, wherever it might lead you. God will go with you.
Jeremiah, that old crusty prophet, was a boy once. Of course, every crusty old guy was a boy at some point. And today, we find crusty, old Jeremiah as a boy, receiving his call. It’s quite a moment for sure. We usually think of Jeremiah in his later years. Pictures of him throughout the centuries abound—he is old and has a beard. And that’s how we likely think of him. But there in chapter one that we heard this morning, he’s a boy. And that’s how the picture on the front of your bulletin depicts him; as a boy in wonder at all that’s happening to him.
He’s somewhat timid about this call thing. He protests immediately once God called him to the prophecy biz. And I can’t blame him. Being a prophet is no easy task. And here’s Jeremiah, boy Jeremiah, being told he has to point out the wrongs of nations to those very nations and their leaders. Yikes. I would have likely run in the other direction. But Jeremiah sticks around long enough to complain. And that’s when God gets him.
Jeremiah stays and puts up useless argument after useless argument only to have God touch him on the lips and say, “There; now you have my words to speak.” Once that was done, it was no use complaining. There was no getting out of it. Jeremiah was God’s for sure.
It’s funny who God calls and to what God calls them. Jeremiah: the boy who can’t speak is turned into one of the greatest prophets humanity has ever seen or heard. It’s a simple matter really: God calls and someone responds. How often is the response like Jeremiah’s though? How often does God call and the response God hears is filled with excuses and reasons the callee shouldn’t be called? It’s no different today than it was in the last quarter of the 7th century bce when Jeremiah received his call, all those centuries ago.
We tend to think of pastors and those who lead a professional religious life (such as nuns and monks) as being called. But clearly God calls beyond those who aren’t clergy. God calls everyone into ministry. Yes, each of us here today is called; not just Jeremiah, not just me.
There are a couple ways that you might feel called. You might be called to a profession, or vocation. You may feel God’s hand to have led you into that work you do on a daily basis. Certainly this is a valid call from God. Thanks heavens God doesn’t call everyone to be a clergyperson. What a mess this world would be if God did! But there are faithfilled vocations outside the clergy to which God calls.
What difference does it make if you perform your work as if you were called to it? Well, hopefully a large difference. Those called to their vocation will do their work intentionally, as if God were leading them throughout the workday. Now this doesn’t mean that those who claim and recognize that God has called them to their vocation always do their work cheerfully and with a contented smile on their face. No, indeed not. There are bad days and rough times; even for those who see their work as their call.
But there’s an intentionality about the called person’s work. Those who prayerfully listen for God’s call and follow it as closely as they can, find some degree of satisfaction and fulfillment that those who don’t feel called to their work feel.
Several years ago, when we were in New York City, before I was ordained, I was in a position from which I took no joy and felt no satisfaction. As I was talking about this to the mentor of a friend of mine, she simply said, “Well, you aren’t called to it.” I suddenly felt a realization about this job that I had never been able to define. I soon left that job and moved on to other places where I felt my gifts and talents more closely fit with my call.
But there is another way to be called that I want to mention today: that of being called to an avocation; called outside your vocation to work that needs to be done. Many of us are called this way. Our avocations are those things we do outside of our everyday work, beyond our so-called professions. Many of us answer those calls through church.
Tutoring at Homework Central may be one such call. Serving on the church board or as an officer may be yet another call. (I say this with some trepidation, since the nominating committee met just yesterday and some may respond now to our requests for leadership with “I don’t feel called.”) But God clearly calls us to labor outside of our vocations to work that furthers God’s realm here on earth.
We are an active congregation, there’s no doubt about that. And if we examine ourselves, we may find that this activity comes out of a sense of call from God; both individually and corporately. We need people in this world to feel called to do the ministry of work beyond our walls so that as a congregation we can still respond to God’s call to us.
How do you tell if your call is real? Well one indication is that your gifts and talents will align with the need that is part of the call. And each call that God issues involves a need. There is much need in our world today. God knows it and recognizes it but only has us to do the work; us and other faithful people throughout the world. We know our call is real when we see the need that is out there and realize that we can do something to change it. We know our call is real when the abilities we have been given match up with some need. We know our call is real when God provides us with what we need to get the work done.
You may not be called to be a prophet like Jeremiah. You may not be called to speak out against the powers and principalities. But then again you might. You just might find yourself using gifts you never knew you had. But God calls you. There is no doubt of that. Because God calls each one of us since there is such a great need in our world.
Prayerfully examine where God is calling you. And don’t think that if you’re retired you’re exempt from being called. God calls at all ages and expects a response. Let God touch your lips as God touched Jeremiah’s lips all those years ago. Let God touch your life and reach in and pull out the best in you. Follow your call, wherever it might lead you. God will go with you.
12 August 2007
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
What do you think about when you hear the word “faith?” What comes first to mind?
Faith is a slippery thing. It doesn’t define easily. You have faith, keep the faith, are faithful, and faithfully do something. It’s sort of over and against theology, which we’re used to struggling with. In fact, Frederick Buechner says, “Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting" (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons).
Faith is a funny thing. We each in this room, I’m presuming, profess to have one. But ask us to define it and we might end up squirming a little. And how many people we have here is how many different expressions and understandings of faith there would be. Especially since we are Disciples of Christ; no one is going to tell us what our faith is! “No creed but Christ” is nice for allowing us to struggle with our faith, but isn’t very useful when it comes to defining who we are.
The author of the book of Hebrews puts faith in a succinct way: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith, according to this author, involves assurance, hope, conviction and things not seen. Let’s look at this more closely.
Assurance; what does that involve and who is doing the assuring? Well, we would say that God is doing the assuring. Assuring us that God is there and knows about our faith. Assurance is a calming presence. It allows us to relax a little. Assurance provides a base for us to stand on and not worry. It is a promise; a promise that we are God’s and God hears us.
Hope is a little more difficult. We tend to mix up hope. We think of hope as wishing for a parking space or a cure for a disease, though those can be important hopes. But I think the author of Hebrews was going deeper; talking about a hope that transcends these worldly cares. The hope the author was talking about is more along the lines of hoping for better things than this world; hoping for God’s realm to come in; hoping for justice and peace to fill the world. The hope that helps to define faith is deep and lasting and brings us to a better place.
Conviction. That’s the next element in this author’s definition of faith; conviction of things not seen. We are convinced about our faith. We have to be. Now don’t get me wrong; there is room for doubt and struggling with our faith. Jesus makes that clear throughout the gospels. But deep down, faith leads us to being convinced about Truth, with a capital T. We know there is a Truth out there that is bigger than we are. We know, deep down, perhaps so deep down that we can barely recognize it, that we are God’s and God claims us as God’s own. The conviction of which this author writes is one of a willingness to believe and hold something to be true.
And that brings us to the final element: things not seen. It’s a faith that doesn’t have visual confirmations. We’d like those at times, of course, but we don’t get them. Our faith is filled with unseen things. We can’t see our God; though he walked the earth at one point, Christ is unseen as is the Holy Spirit. A lot of our life is unseen. And our faith is no different. We can’t have visual proof.
So we deal with a faith that relies on our conviction of unseen things, while being assured of those things we hope for.
How often do you or this church do things out of faith? Do we step out in faith knowing that God will be there? That unseen, assured of God will see us through whatever actions we take in faith.
I have a bunch of quotes on my computer. I collect them there for the end of the weekly email newsletter. One of them deals directly with this. It is from Barbara J. Winter, who appears, from her website, to be an entrepreneur guru. She says: “When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness ... faith is knowing... there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly. “
Faith, our faith, is believing in a God who will be there to stand on or will teach us how to fly. We can’t see into the darkness of faith all the time. Sometimes we go forth into the unknown with only our faith to lead us on. We grope and stretch our arms out in an effort to get our bearings. But we use faith to know where we are. We use faith to locate ourselves in the darkness. We use faith to know that eventually the darkness will lift and we will be in the light of God once again.
It’s faith that allows us to operate amidst the swirling craziness of our world. In the midst of the oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, the fear, the longing and the desires of a culture driven by greed and denial, we have this unseen faith to cling onto. We know that our faith will be the rock on which we can cling in the middle of the roaring sea of our society.
As I prepared for this sermon, I ran across an old friend; a prayer by Thomas Merton that I had learned when I was at my field education church in Boston 20 years ago. The prayer is a fitting conclusion not only to this sermon but also to this passage from Hebrews. Though it doesn’t mention faith directly, it clearly states the principles of faith we’ve talked about today. The prayer goes like this:
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." (Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton)
What do you think about when you hear the word “faith?” What comes first to mind?
Faith is a slippery thing. It doesn’t define easily. You have faith, keep the faith, are faithful, and faithfully do something. It’s sort of over and against theology, which we’re used to struggling with. In fact, Frederick Buechner says, “Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting" (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons).
Faith is a funny thing. We each in this room, I’m presuming, profess to have one. But ask us to define it and we might end up squirming a little. And how many people we have here is how many different expressions and understandings of faith there would be. Especially since we are Disciples of Christ; no one is going to tell us what our faith is! “No creed but Christ” is nice for allowing us to struggle with our faith, but isn’t very useful when it comes to defining who we are.
The author of the book of Hebrews puts faith in a succinct way: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith, according to this author, involves assurance, hope, conviction and things not seen. Let’s look at this more closely.
Assurance; what does that involve and who is doing the assuring? Well, we would say that God is doing the assuring. Assuring us that God is there and knows about our faith. Assurance is a calming presence. It allows us to relax a little. Assurance provides a base for us to stand on and not worry. It is a promise; a promise that we are God’s and God hears us.
Hope is a little more difficult. We tend to mix up hope. We think of hope as wishing for a parking space or a cure for a disease, though those can be important hopes. But I think the author of Hebrews was going deeper; talking about a hope that transcends these worldly cares. The hope the author was talking about is more along the lines of hoping for better things than this world; hoping for God’s realm to come in; hoping for justice and peace to fill the world. The hope that helps to define faith is deep and lasting and brings us to a better place.
Conviction. That’s the next element in this author’s definition of faith; conviction of things not seen. We are convinced about our faith. We have to be. Now don’t get me wrong; there is room for doubt and struggling with our faith. Jesus makes that clear throughout the gospels. But deep down, faith leads us to being convinced about Truth, with a capital T. We know there is a Truth out there that is bigger than we are. We know, deep down, perhaps so deep down that we can barely recognize it, that we are God’s and God claims us as God’s own. The conviction of which this author writes is one of a willingness to believe and hold something to be true.
And that brings us to the final element: things not seen. It’s a faith that doesn’t have visual confirmations. We’d like those at times, of course, but we don’t get them. Our faith is filled with unseen things. We can’t see our God; though he walked the earth at one point, Christ is unseen as is the Holy Spirit. A lot of our life is unseen. And our faith is no different. We can’t have visual proof.
So we deal with a faith that relies on our conviction of unseen things, while being assured of those things we hope for.
How often do you or this church do things out of faith? Do we step out in faith knowing that God will be there? That unseen, assured of God will see us through whatever actions we take in faith.
I have a bunch of quotes on my computer. I collect them there for the end of the weekly email newsletter. One of them deals directly with this. It is from Barbara J. Winter, who appears, from her website, to be an entrepreneur guru. She says: “When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness ... faith is knowing... there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly. “
Faith, our faith, is believing in a God who will be there to stand on or will teach us how to fly. We can’t see into the darkness of faith all the time. Sometimes we go forth into the unknown with only our faith to lead us on. We grope and stretch our arms out in an effort to get our bearings. But we use faith to know where we are. We use faith to locate ourselves in the darkness. We use faith to know that eventually the darkness will lift and we will be in the light of God once again.
It’s faith that allows us to operate amidst the swirling craziness of our world. In the midst of the oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, the fear, the longing and the desires of a culture driven by greed and denial, we have this unseen faith to cling onto. We know that our faith will be the rock on which we can cling in the middle of the roaring sea of our society.
As I prepared for this sermon, I ran across an old friend; a prayer by Thomas Merton that I had learned when I was at my field education church in Boston 20 years ago. The prayer is a fitting conclusion not only to this sermon but also to this passage from Hebrews. Though it doesn’t mention faith directly, it clearly states the principles of faith we’ve talked about today. The prayer goes like this:
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." (Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton)
29 July 2007
Luke 11:1-13
The Presbyterians, as is their wont, tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. Back when I was a Presbyterian seminarian, I learned, all those years ago, that, in order to pass my ordination exams, there was a standard for prayer. I memorized it in case it came up during the worship portion of the exams. A good prayer, according to the Presbyterians, involves six elements: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, intercession and communion with the saints. I remembered it by the acronym formed by putting the first letters of each word together: ACTSIC. It worked.
Jesus’ disciples in today’s passage want to know how to pray. And they didn’t have the Presbyterian Church to tell them how to do it in those days. So they did what they could do; they went to Jesus. Now the disciples, being good, faithful Jews of their time, no doubt already prayed and knew how to pray. But they probably sensed in Jesus what we would call a deeper spirituality and wanted that connection to God for themselves. And who wouldn’t? I imagine all of us in this room today yearn for a deeper spirituality with God. And that is attainable through a deeper and richer prayer life.
So how is your prayer life? Are you satisfied with your connection with God? Don’t be discouraged if you answered in the negative. Most of us aren’t completely satisfied with our spirituality and need to work on our ongoing struggles with connecting with God. I know I need to, for certain.
So we find the disciples in the reading from Luke asking Jesus how to pray. They want to go deeper too. They want to be more like their teacher; connecting with God and finding God more often through their prayers.
Jesus response to the disciples’ question about prayer actually comes in three parts: a formula, a story and then some advice. Let’s look at them in order.
Jesus comes up with a formula, as it were. We’ve turned it into a prayer itself but if you look closely, it’s more like a template for a prayer than an actual prayer itself. It can guide you in your own prayer life if you use it as such. So let’s see what Jesus says about prayer.
The formula for praying in Luke is very short, shorter than it even is in Matthew’s version of this passage. It begins with an address to God which Jesus used often: Father. Naturally our address may vary; some of us have moved to different ways to address God. I believe that God not only accepts our varying addresses but embraces them. Whatever brings us closest to God is how God wants us to address God.
This prayer that Jesus teaches is both outward looking and inward looking. It is outward in that it asks for God’s reign to be fulfilled in the “your kingdom come” line. We seek the justice and mercy of God’s commonwealth on our earth and pray earnestly for it to happen.
It is inward focused in that we ask for God to be apart of our lives: give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. Each supplication is a request for God to enter in daily and to take care of us. We seek what we need in this prayer: we ask for bread and forgiveness. And we promise to forgive other’s indebtedness to us.
Finally in his example prayer, Jesus says to ask that we not be brought into the time of trial. I admit that I have the most problem with the prayer at this point. Is God going to bring me to a time of trial? Do I worship a God who would purposefully test me? I don’t like to believe that my God is actually like that. I don’t like to think that God is going to test me. But I think the meaning of this phrase is more along the lines of “keep me from facing hard times, God.” That’s the only way I can make sense of this line.
The story that Jesus tells in response to this question is one of persistence. It’s a story of approaching a friend, a neighbor, at midnight and asking for bread for visiting guests. Though the neighbor doesn’t want to get up and unlock his door, the supplicant is persistent. And that’s how we are to be with God; persistent. Seeking God time after time after time. Coming to God again and again and again.
It is important to note that the request for bread is not for the one who is asking for it. It’s for a traveler; a sojourner who needs care. The bread is for someone else. It is an intercession asking for God to take care of someone else’s needs. And so should our prayers include our requests, over and over, for God to care for others.
Finally, we come to the advice. It’s simply knock and the door will be opened; search and you will find. In other words, we have to actually do prayer in order to get results. It’s not going to happen without us doing our part. And once we do, we’re assured that God will listen.
And God will listen kindly. By using the metaphor of parenting and knowing what it is that is good for our children, Jesus reminds us that our heavenly parent, our creator is not going to do us wrong. Who would give a snake to a child when she asked for fish? Who would put a scorpion on the plate of a child expecting an egg? Certainly none of us would do that and certainly not God. Though we may not know what we actually need, God will not do us wrong. God will treat us as a parent would a child, knowing what is good and bad for us.
Prayer is our way of connecting with God. It’s an important part of our spiritual life. We not only speak to God through prayer but also seek to hear God through prayer. Prayer is two-way. Too often we think of it as one-way. But if we are truly serious about prayer, we wait to hear God’s voice to us. That voice may come in any number of ways, but we have to remain attentive in prayer.
I recommend that you follow your urgings for a closer relationship with God. Prayer is certainly one way that you will come closer to the divine. And we all can use a stronger connection to God. Don’t make it complicated like the Presbyterians try to do. Just remember to turn to God with the cares and concerns that you carry with you.
The Presbyterians, as is their wont, tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. Back when I was a Presbyterian seminarian, I learned, all those years ago, that, in order to pass my ordination exams, there was a standard for prayer. I memorized it in case it came up during the worship portion of the exams. A good prayer, according to the Presbyterians, involves six elements: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, intercession and communion with the saints. I remembered it by the acronym formed by putting the first letters of each word together: ACTSIC. It worked.
Jesus’ disciples in today’s passage want to know how to pray. And they didn’t have the Presbyterian Church to tell them how to do it in those days. So they did what they could do; they went to Jesus. Now the disciples, being good, faithful Jews of their time, no doubt already prayed and knew how to pray. But they probably sensed in Jesus what we would call a deeper spirituality and wanted that connection to God for themselves. And who wouldn’t? I imagine all of us in this room today yearn for a deeper spirituality with God. And that is attainable through a deeper and richer prayer life.
So how is your prayer life? Are you satisfied with your connection with God? Don’t be discouraged if you answered in the negative. Most of us aren’t completely satisfied with our spirituality and need to work on our ongoing struggles with connecting with God. I know I need to, for certain.
So we find the disciples in the reading from Luke asking Jesus how to pray. They want to go deeper too. They want to be more like their teacher; connecting with God and finding God more often through their prayers.
Jesus response to the disciples’ question about prayer actually comes in three parts: a formula, a story and then some advice. Let’s look at them in order.
Jesus comes up with a formula, as it were. We’ve turned it into a prayer itself but if you look closely, it’s more like a template for a prayer than an actual prayer itself. It can guide you in your own prayer life if you use it as such. So let’s see what Jesus says about prayer.
The formula for praying in Luke is very short, shorter than it even is in Matthew’s version of this passage. It begins with an address to God which Jesus used often: Father. Naturally our address may vary; some of us have moved to different ways to address God. I believe that God not only accepts our varying addresses but embraces them. Whatever brings us closest to God is how God wants us to address God.
This prayer that Jesus teaches is both outward looking and inward looking. It is outward in that it asks for God’s reign to be fulfilled in the “your kingdom come” line. We seek the justice and mercy of God’s commonwealth on our earth and pray earnestly for it to happen.
It is inward focused in that we ask for God to be apart of our lives: give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. Each supplication is a request for God to enter in daily and to take care of us. We seek what we need in this prayer: we ask for bread and forgiveness. And we promise to forgive other’s indebtedness to us.
Finally in his example prayer, Jesus says to ask that we not be brought into the time of trial. I admit that I have the most problem with the prayer at this point. Is God going to bring me to a time of trial? Do I worship a God who would purposefully test me? I don’t like to believe that my God is actually like that. I don’t like to think that God is going to test me. But I think the meaning of this phrase is more along the lines of “keep me from facing hard times, God.” That’s the only way I can make sense of this line.
The story that Jesus tells in response to this question is one of persistence. It’s a story of approaching a friend, a neighbor, at midnight and asking for bread for visiting guests. Though the neighbor doesn’t want to get up and unlock his door, the supplicant is persistent. And that’s how we are to be with God; persistent. Seeking God time after time after time. Coming to God again and again and again.
It is important to note that the request for bread is not for the one who is asking for it. It’s for a traveler; a sojourner who needs care. The bread is for someone else. It is an intercession asking for God to take care of someone else’s needs. And so should our prayers include our requests, over and over, for God to care for others.
Finally, we come to the advice. It’s simply knock and the door will be opened; search and you will find. In other words, we have to actually do prayer in order to get results. It’s not going to happen without us doing our part. And once we do, we’re assured that God will listen.
And God will listen kindly. By using the metaphor of parenting and knowing what it is that is good for our children, Jesus reminds us that our heavenly parent, our creator is not going to do us wrong. Who would give a snake to a child when she asked for fish? Who would put a scorpion on the plate of a child expecting an egg? Certainly none of us would do that and certainly not God. Though we may not know what we actually need, God will not do us wrong. God will treat us as a parent would a child, knowing what is good and bad for us.
Prayer is our way of connecting with God. It’s an important part of our spiritual life. We not only speak to God through prayer but also seek to hear God through prayer. Prayer is two-way. Too often we think of it as one-way. But if we are truly serious about prayer, we wait to hear God’s voice to us. That voice may come in any number of ways, but we have to remain attentive in prayer.
I recommend that you follow your urgings for a closer relationship with God. Prayer is certainly one way that you will come closer to the divine. And we all can use a stronger connection to God. Don’t make it complicated like the Presbyterians try to do. Just remember to turn to God with the cares and concerns that you carry with you.
8 July 2007
2 Kings 5:1-14
The story from 2nd Kings which Grace read for us this morning is one of power and powerlessness. It is filled with people of power: kings, generals & prophets. But if you listen carefully you’ll hear the voices of powerless people too.
It’s the story of a powerful general, Naaman, a general of the army of the king of Aram. Naaman was one of the favorite generals of the king of Aram, we’re told. This would indicate that he was successful in his field of…generaling. Possibly he was a brilliant strategist who knew what his enemies were doing before they did and responded accordingly. He likely had the ear of the king by this point and was well-respected throughout his kingdom.
But Naaman had a problem. He had leprosy. Now we don’t know exactly what it meant when the Bible says that someone had leprosy. It was likely a skin condition of some kind; not necessarily the debilitating disease that we’ve called leprosy over the past few centuries. But though we don’t know exactly what it was that was called leprosy, we do know a few things about it: it was incurable and it made you an untouchable in society.
So here was this powerful general, respected and admired by all around him, suffering from this dreaded disease; a disease that would preclude societal contact; a disease that would leave him on the outside. It was a mix of power and powerlessness on the part of Naaman.
But true powerlessness comes next into the picture, when the very lowest of the kingdom speaks up. A slave girl speaks to Naaman’s wife; a slave girl from Israel, taken no doubt in some military campaigns. She is not named in our scriptures; in fact neither the slave girl nor Naaman’s wife are named as is too often the case with women in the bible. But they are actors in this drama with consequences for all concerned.
How much powerless can you be than a slave girl? First off, you’re a foreigner, someone from outside the dominant culture. Our own 21st century struggles with immigration indicate the human propensity to be afraid of the other. It was no different during this era recounted in our scripture. Plus you’re a slave; an unpaid servant whose life is one of service and doing the bidding of others. And finally you’re a girl, indicating you’re young and you’re, worst of all, female. It’s the lowest of the low; the one without any voice in any matter.
But this slave girl spoke up on behalf of her master to her mistress. She said that there is a prophet back home where she came from who could cure the great general Naaman. She speaks with assuredness not usually heard in the powerless so Naaman’s wife passes on the information.
Naaman then goes to his king who says, “by all means, go!” And the king writes a letter of introduction, as it were, to the king of Israel. Now the Israelite king, as often the powerful are, was a bit paranoid when he received the letter. He assumes that the king of Aram is trying to pick a fight with him; to find an excuse to go to war. For if Naaman doesn’t come back cured, then Israel isn’t as powerful as all that after all! That or else the king of Israel prevented the healing of Naaman. So the king of Israel did what people in those ages did at the hearing of bad news: he tore his clothes or rent his garments in the old language.
Elisha, whom our scripture describes as “the man of God,” finds out about the king tearing his clothes and why he did so and sends word to the king essentially saying, “don’t be so silly: send the guy to me and I’ll show him who’s a prophet around here.”
So Naaman shows up at Elisha’s door and Elisha doesn’t even come out to see him. He just sends word through one of his servants, again an unnamed powerless figure, that Naaman should go to the Jordan River and wash seven times.
And now we see another aspect of powerful people. They expect things to be done in a certain way, because Naaman becomes enraged. He’s angry that Elisha himself didn’t come out to see him himself. He’s infuriated that he has to wash in the Jordan, that dumpy little river of Israel; why, he could have washed in one of the great rivers of Aram. Who does this so-called prophet think he is? And to whom does he think he’s talking? Naaman’s a powerful general, not to be dealt with by servants. He was, as the author of 2nd Kings says, in a rage.
Imagine that, enraged because the cure for your disease is beneath you. Naaman expected Elisha himself to come out and use his special powers right then and there, invoking God’s name before him.
Well, again the powerless come too the rescue. Naaman’s servants go to him and suggest he’s overreacting a just a wee bit. They know their boss because they say if you had been told to do something more difficult you would have gladly done it. Why not give this Jordan a try? Huh?
Of course, the exciting finale, which is only one verse long, tells us that Naaman swallowed his pride and washed in the Jordan River 7 times and came out with skin like a newborn babe. The cure worked.
The powerless in this story, servants all and without name, are the true heroes. God acts through them as much as God acts through any king or general. In fact, their voices are those that save the day and bring about the cure. Without them, Naaman would have never found his way to Israel and never would have bathed in the Jordan.
The true power of the story though, of course, is God’s power. Though Elisha comes through as the hero by coming up with the cure for Naaman, it is God’s actions that cure Naaman.
We need to listen to the voices of the powerless in our culture if we are to find the cures for our culture from God. We need to seek out and really listen to those who are disenfranchised and on the margins. The powerless of our culture, and I don’t have to name them. we all know who they are, the ones without voices need to be endued with their voice to point out to the powerful what we need to do for a cure.
The powerful, as we saw, can be vain and paranoid. Those in power are likely to ignore the voices of the powerless and seek out cures that are not of God. Fortunately Naaman listened to the voice of the powerless slave girl in his household and ended up cured of his incurable disease.
We have powerful people in our culture; many people who hold power and rule with firm hands, including in our country. We need to urge them to hear the voices of the powerless of our country and follow the leads the present for the cures of our culture. And our society is deeply in need of cures. There are wide gaps between the haves and the have-nots. Racism is still rampant. And our environment is under attack. And these are just a few examples. Certainly we could each think of other ways our culture needs God’s curing power. But we won’t find out what they are without stopping long enough to listen to the voices of the powerless. May we seek them out and join our voices with theirs.
The story from 2nd Kings which Grace read for us this morning is one of power and powerlessness. It is filled with people of power: kings, generals & prophets. But if you listen carefully you’ll hear the voices of powerless people too.
It’s the story of a powerful general, Naaman, a general of the army of the king of Aram. Naaman was one of the favorite generals of the king of Aram, we’re told. This would indicate that he was successful in his field of…generaling. Possibly he was a brilliant strategist who knew what his enemies were doing before they did and responded accordingly. He likely had the ear of the king by this point and was well-respected throughout his kingdom.
But Naaman had a problem. He had leprosy. Now we don’t know exactly what it meant when the Bible says that someone had leprosy. It was likely a skin condition of some kind; not necessarily the debilitating disease that we’ve called leprosy over the past few centuries. But though we don’t know exactly what it was that was called leprosy, we do know a few things about it: it was incurable and it made you an untouchable in society.
So here was this powerful general, respected and admired by all around him, suffering from this dreaded disease; a disease that would preclude societal contact; a disease that would leave him on the outside. It was a mix of power and powerlessness on the part of Naaman.
But true powerlessness comes next into the picture, when the very lowest of the kingdom speaks up. A slave girl speaks to Naaman’s wife; a slave girl from Israel, taken no doubt in some military campaigns. She is not named in our scriptures; in fact neither the slave girl nor Naaman’s wife are named as is too often the case with women in the bible. But they are actors in this drama with consequences for all concerned.
How much powerless can you be than a slave girl? First off, you’re a foreigner, someone from outside the dominant culture. Our own 21st century struggles with immigration indicate the human propensity to be afraid of the other. It was no different during this era recounted in our scripture. Plus you’re a slave; an unpaid servant whose life is one of service and doing the bidding of others. And finally you’re a girl, indicating you’re young and you’re, worst of all, female. It’s the lowest of the low; the one without any voice in any matter.
But this slave girl spoke up on behalf of her master to her mistress. She said that there is a prophet back home where she came from who could cure the great general Naaman. She speaks with assuredness not usually heard in the powerless so Naaman’s wife passes on the information.
Naaman then goes to his king who says, “by all means, go!” And the king writes a letter of introduction, as it were, to the king of Israel. Now the Israelite king, as often the powerful are, was a bit paranoid when he received the letter. He assumes that the king of Aram is trying to pick a fight with him; to find an excuse to go to war. For if Naaman doesn’t come back cured, then Israel isn’t as powerful as all that after all! That or else the king of Israel prevented the healing of Naaman. So the king of Israel did what people in those ages did at the hearing of bad news: he tore his clothes or rent his garments in the old language.
Elisha, whom our scripture describes as “the man of God,” finds out about the king tearing his clothes and why he did so and sends word to the king essentially saying, “don’t be so silly: send the guy to me and I’ll show him who’s a prophet around here.”
So Naaman shows up at Elisha’s door and Elisha doesn’t even come out to see him. He just sends word through one of his servants, again an unnamed powerless figure, that Naaman should go to the Jordan River and wash seven times.
And now we see another aspect of powerful people. They expect things to be done in a certain way, because Naaman becomes enraged. He’s angry that Elisha himself didn’t come out to see him himself. He’s infuriated that he has to wash in the Jordan, that dumpy little river of Israel; why, he could have washed in one of the great rivers of Aram. Who does this so-called prophet think he is? And to whom does he think he’s talking? Naaman’s a powerful general, not to be dealt with by servants. He was, as the author of 2nd Kings says, in a rage.
Imagine that, enraged because the cure for your disease is beneath you. Naaman expected Elisha himself to come out and use his special powers right then and there, invoking God’s name before him.
Well, again the powerless come too the rescue. Naaman’s servants go to him and suggest he’s overreacting a just a wee bit. They know their boss because they say if you had been told to do something more difficult you would have gladly done it. Why not give this Jordan a try? Huh?
Of course, the exciting finale, which is only one verse long, tells us that Naaman swallowed his pride and washed in the Jordan River 7 times and came out with skin like a newborn babe. The cure worked.
The powerless in this story, servants all and without name, are the true heroes. God acts through them as much as God acts through any king or general. In fact, their voices are those that save the day and bring about the cure. Without them, Naaman would have never found his way to Israel and never would have bathed in the Jordan.
The true power of the story though, of course, is God’s power. Though Elisha comes through as the hero by coming up with the cure for Naaman, it is God’s actions that cure Naaman.
We need to listen to the voices of the powerless in our culture if we are to find the cures for our culture from God. We need to seek out and really listen to those who are disenfranchised and on the margins. The powerless of our culture, and I don’t have to name them. we all know who they are, the ones without voices need to be endued with their voice to point out to the powerful what we need to do for a cure.
The powerful, as we saw, can be vain and paranoid. Those in power are likely to ignore the voices of the powerless and seek out cures that are not of God. Fortunately Naaman listened to the voice of the powerless slave girl in his household and ended up cured of his incurable disease.
We have powerful people in our culture; many people who hold power and rule with firm hands, including in our country. We need to urge them to hear the voices of the powerless of our country and follow the leads the present for the cures of our culture. And our society is deeply in need of cures. There are wide gaps between the haves and the have-nots. Racism is still rampant. And our environment is under attack. And these are just a few examples. Certainly we could each think of other ways our culture needs God’s curing power. But we won’t find out what they are without stopping long enough to listen to the voices of the powerless. May we seek them out and join our voices with theirs.
1 July 2007
Luke 9:51-62
It’s like Jesus didn’t want disciples. This passage from Luke is one of those occasions where Jesus comes across as petulant; even nasty. We read passages such as this one and think to ourselves, “is this the Lord that I follow?” Jesus, I admit does not come across all that well today.
Jesus has already set his face to Jerusalem, we’re told at the beginning of this passage, and we all know where that will lead. He is resolute in his journey. He knows how this trip to Jerusalem will end up too, I’m sure.
First they enter a village of the Samaritans. There’s no surprise that they don’t get a good reception there; the Samaritans and the Jews were hated enemies of each other. So they move on to another village.
On the way, Jesus talks to three people; three potential followers. And this is where we get into trouble. Jesus’ responses to these three would-be disciples are not what we expect. We expect Jesus to be chipper and say, “Sure, c’mon, join in. There’s room for all who want to follow me.” We want Jesus to be a Lord of politeness, making room for all.
But that’s not what we get. We get these somewhat cryptic, somewhat outright answers that put limits and conditions on being a follower. But let’s take a closer look at each of the three potential followers of Jesus and Jesus’ reply to each of them and think about what the consequences for us today are.
First, we have one follower say, “I will follow you wherever you go.” That sounds pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Anywhere you go in your wanderings, any place, I shall be there with you. Sounds like a good follower to me, doesn’t it to you?
What is Jesus’ response? “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Okay, at first this sounds like a warning to the would-be follower that things may not be easy. We’re not talking about staying at Marriots and sending out for meals. We’re talking about a hard life.
But there’s more to it than that, it appears. You know how we associate certain animals with certain countries? Like the eagle with the US and the bear with Russia? Well, it was no different in the first century. “Birds of the air” was evidently how the Jews referred to Gentiles, including the hated Romans who ruled the land. And remember at one point Jesus refers to Herod, the puppet king of Israel, as a fox? Well, Jesus is making the point to this potential follower that outsiders have places to rest in Israel but the one who is truly Israel, the Son of God, the Human One, really has no where in the land that is his. He’s not a ruler like these other rulers and anyone who is going to follow him had just better get used to that idea.
The second conversation is harder for us to grasp because it goes against our grain so much. Jesus says “follow me” to someone. The would-be follower says, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” This sounds like a reasonable request, especially when you consider that Jews had strict laws about burial of the dead. Jesus’ reply, about letting the dead bury their own and telling him to go and proclaim the kingdom of God instead seems downright abrupt and even cruel to someone who is in mourning.
But there’s something going on that we don’t realize in this passage; something we miss in our cross-cultural misunderstanding. At this point in history, in the Jewish culture, a son was expected to stay at home with his father until the father died. This is likely what the would-be follower was referring to; not that his father had died, but that he had to wait until the father had died before he could follow Jesus. That could be years or decades, of course. And Jesus was saying he can’t wait that long. The follower must make a choice between family obligations and his obligation to God. He must make a choice between cultural expectations and a new way of doing things. Jesus expected this follower to begin proclaiming the good news of God’s commonwealth here and now; not in some distant future time.
The final would-be follower simply wants to say goodbye to his loved ones before taking off with this itinerant preacher. This sounds like a reasonable request, doesn’t it? The words we heard this morning were, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Actually, it should read something more like, “let me take my leave of those at home.” There’s a slight difference between the two. In the first case, saying farewell, the leave-taker is in charge and goes off on his or her own. In the second case, that of taking one’s leave, there is an implied consent from those who are being left behind. Taking one’s leave entails asking for permission and receiving a blessing to go.
Now what family is going to give permission for a young person to go off with this hare-brained, itinerant teacher who just goes around stirring things up and making the religious authorities angry at him? No, Jesus knows that he doesn’t fit in with the status quo and knows also that no parent in his/her right mind is going to give leave to an offspring to go with Jesus. Now, Jesus’ response is cryptic…to us. But to someone in an agricultural society it makes perfect sense. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
When you’re plowing a field, you put a marker at the opposite end of the field as a place to aim for as you plow. Looking back or taking your eyes off that goal will end up with crooked furrows and an embarrassing field. No, following Jesus means keeping your eyes straight ahead and not varying from the goal of bringing in God’s commonwealth.
We are followers of Jesus, or so we claim to be. These verses, as difficult as they are to comprehend and take into our system, are as valid today as they were when Jesus first spoke them. We simply have to keep them in mind as we go about our business each and every day of our life.
The message is clear once this passage is cleared up. Following Jesus is neither popular nor easy and Jesus is not going to be the ruler that we assume him to be. Jesus expects you to make God your number one priority, over and against all other obligations including your family and the society in which you live. And it requires concentration and an unswerving allegiance to God and God’s commonwealth.
We’ve lost some of these concepts in our culture. With Christianity the majority culture in our society, we may not realize the radicalness of following Jesus and what it requires. But if we are to be true followers, we must remember the lessons of these three would-be disciples of Jesus.
It’s like Jesus didn’t want disciples. This passage from Luke is one of those occasions where Jesus comes across as petulant; even nasty. We read passages such as this one and think to ourselves, “is this the Lord that I follow?” Jesus, I admit does not come across all that well today.
Jesus has already set his face to Jerusalem, we’re told at the beginning of this passage, and we all know where that will lead. He is resolute in his journey. He knows how this trip to Jerusalem will end up too, I’m sure.
First they enter a village of the Samaritans. There’s no surprise that they don’t get a good reception there; the Samaritans and the Jews were hated enemies of each other. So they move on to another village.
On the way, Jesus talks to three people; three potential followers. And this is where we get into trouble. Jesus’ responses to these three would-be disciples are not what we expect. We expect Jesus to be chipper and say, “Sure, c’mon, join in. There’s room for all who want to follow me.” We want Jesus to be a Lord of politeness, making room for all.
But that’s not what we get. We get these somewhat cryptic, somewhat outright answers that put limits and conditions on being a follower. But let’s take a closer look at each of the three potential followers of Jesus and Jesus’ reply to each of them and think about what the consequences for us today are.
First, we have one follower say, “I will follow you wherever you go.” That sounds pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Anywhere you go in your wanderings, any place, I shall be there with you. Sounds like a good follower to me, doesn’t it to you?
What is Jesus’ response? “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Okay, at first this sounds like a warning to the would-be follower that things may not be easy. We’re not talking about staying at Marriots and sending out for meals. We’re talking about a hard life.
But there’s more to it than that, it appears. You know how we associate certain animals with certain countries? Like the eagle with the US and the bear with Russia? Well, it was no different in the first century. “Birds of the air” was evidently how the Jews referred to Gentiles, including the hated Romans who ruled the land. And remember at one point Jesus refers to Herod, the puppet king of Israel, as a fox? Well, Jesus is making the point to this potential follower that outsiders have places to rest in Israel but the one who is truly Israel, the Son of God, the Human One, really has no where in the land that is his. He’s not a ruler like these other rulers and anyone who is going to follow him had just better get used to that idea.
The second conversation is harder for us to grasp because it goes against our grain so much. Jesus says “follow me” to someone. The would-be follower says, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” This sounds like a reasonable request, especially when you consider that Jews had strict laws about burial of the dead. Jesus’ reply, about letting the dead bury their own and telling him to go and proclaim the kingdom of God instead seems downright abrupt and even cruel to someone who is in mourning.
But there’s something going on that we don’t realize in this passage; something we miss in our cross-cultural misunderstanding. At this point in history, in the Jewish culture, a son was expected to stay at home with his father until the father died. This is likely what the would-be follower was referring to; not that his father had died, but that he had to wait until the father had died before he could follow Jesus. That could be years or decades, of course. And Jesus was saying he can’t wait that long. The follower must make a choice between family obligations and his obligation to God. He must make a choice between cultural expectations and a new way of doing things. Jesus expected this follower to begin proclaiming the good news of God’s commonwealth here and now; not in some distant future time.
The final would-be follower simply wants to say goodbye to his loved ones before taking off with this itinerant preacher. This sounds like a reasonable request, doesn’t it? The words we heard this morning were, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Actually, it should read something more like, “let me take my leave of those at home.” There’s a slight difference between the two. In the first case, saying farewell, the leave-taker is in charge and goes off on his or her own. In the second case, that of taking one’s leave, there is an implied consent from those who are being left behind. Taking one’s leave entails asking for permission and receiving a blessing to go.
Now what family is going to give permission for a young person to go off with this hare-brained, itinerant teacher who just goes around stirring things up and making the religious authorities angry at him? No, Jesus knows that he doesn’t fit in with the status quo and knows also that no parent in his/her right mind is going to give leave to an offspring to go with Jesus. Now, Jesus’ response is cryptic…to us. But to someone in an agricultural society it makes perfect sense. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
When you’re plowing a field, you put a marker at the opposite end of the field as a place to aim for as you plow. Looking back or taking your eyes off that goal will end up with crooked furrows and an embarrassing field. No, following Jesus means keeping your eyes straight ahead and not varying from the goal of bringing in God’s commonwealth.
We are followers of Jesus, or so we claim to be. These verses, as difficult as they are to comprehend and take into our system, are as valid today as they were when Jesus first spoke them. We simply have to keep them in mind as we go about our business each and every day of our life.
The message is clear once this passage is cleared up. Following Jesus is neither popular nor easy and Jesus is not going to be the ruler that we assume him to be. Jesus expects you to make God your number one priority, over and against all other obligations including your family and the society in which you live. And it requires concentration and an unswerving allegiance to God and God’s commonwealth.
We’ve lost some of these concepts in our culture. With Christianity the majority culture in our society, we may not realize the radicalness of following Jesus and what it requires. But if we are to be true followers, we must remember the lessons of these three would-be disciples of Jesus.
17 June 2007
Luke 7:36-8:3
Our gospel lesson from Luke this morning shows us two ways to approach Jesus. Let’s look more closely at this scripture to determine where we might fit in.
There’s a party going on at the home of Simon, a well-known Pharisee. Simon has invited Jesus to the party as the honored guest. But there was a problem; a woman of ill repute also entered and lavished attention on Jesus. She carried with her a jar of ointment and bathed his feet with her tears. She was a known sinner, as Simon was quick to point out. This unnamed woman wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair and rubbed the ointment into his feet.
Simon was not pleased. Just try to imagine the situation today. If I were at a party, let’s say the upcoming Taco Party, and an obvious prostitute came and hung out with me you’d begin to wonder. There he is in tight short shorts and a shirt that reveals a lot about his body. You’d not only wonder what he was doing there but also why I knew him. You’d wonder why he was spending so much time with me; why he was lavishing attention on me. “How does Gerry know him?” you might think. What do I do in my off time, you might be wondering. One would expect me to be embarrassed by the attention from this person whose life is so unlike ours. And indeed I might be.
Well, would it have been any different, do you think, at this meal that Simon was putting on? Simon and the guests might certainly have been wondering why this woman, who was known to be a sinner, was lavishing such attention on Jesus. And lavishing is the only word that can be used here. She was not just paying attention to Jesus, she was pouring out her heart in all that she was doing.
Simon reacted just as we expect him to do so. He wondered why Jesus, who could be a great prophet at the least in Simon’s eyes, would stand to be around this woman. “Doesn’t Jesus know better?” he thought. “With whom has Jesus been hanging out?” “How does he know her?” Simon reacted with some repulsion and derision of both the woman and, by extension, of Jesus.
Jesus teaches Simon a bit of a lesson in the story he tells about the debtors and then does a most unusual thing: he pardons the woman from all her sins. Right there in front of everyone. The woman becomes an example of God’s great love to forgive even those who have sinned greatly.
There is a post-script on this passage that I’m glad the lectionary creators left in: the three verses about the woman who supported and traveled with Jesus from town to town. We hear about these women so infrequently as the gospels concentrate on the men who follow Jesus. But here we get a glimpse of the facts of the matter; that women were important to Jesus’ ministry. This following the story of an unnamed woman who shows great love to Jesus. I’m not going to dwell on these verses, but they deserve noting.
We have, besides Jesus, two main characters in this story: Simon and the woman. Each approaches Jesus in a different way. And each offers to us a guide as to how we might approach Jesus ourselves.
Some of us might be like Simon; too many of us, actually. The Simons among us see the greatness of Jesus. We are gratified that we have someone as important as Jesus in our home. We know that Jesus is well-known and a celebrity guest. We respect his position as a prophet and a great teacher. But we forget the standards of etiquette around him: we forget to wash his feet, as is required by hospitality of our day. We forget to greet him appropriately, with a kiss. We place him on a pedestal but fail to remember that he needs to be cared for and treated with the standards of protocol. We put him up so high that we forget that he’s up there.
On the other hand, there’s the woman; a woman who is known by everyone in town to have sinned greatly. We’re not told what her sins were; that’s left to our imagination. But she comes in and bathes Jesus’ feet with her tears. She wipes his feet with her hair. She doesn’t care what a spectacle she makes of herself because here she sees her chance to turn away from the sins she has committed and be freed of them. Those of us today who are like her don’t worry about societal convention when it comes to getting close to Jesus. We claim our place next to Jesus, at his feet, cleaning them with our tears. We recognize our own weaknesses and faults and realize that Jesus loves us through them, not in spite of them. We feel renewed in our meetings with our sovereign; leaving our encounters with Jesus refreshed and ready for life again.
How do you encounter Jesus? Do you place him up and far away? Is he a distant figure that you trot out for important occasions when it’s socially acceptable? Or is he close to you, so close you can clean his feet with your tear filled eyes? Can you feel his love and forgiveness as you bow before him?
We have choices to make in our encounters with Jesus. We can be like Simon, the religious leader who knew his place in society and stuck to it. He invites Jesus in but expects a certain type of behavior from him and doesn’t want him to vary from that behavior. Or we can be like the woman, as we face Jesus knowing that we bring all our sins and our faults and our problems and our history. We come anyways, humbly seeking out the forgiveness and grace that we know is granted even before we ask for it.
Yes, there are choices in our relationship with Jesus; choices that we make consciously or unconsciously; choices that we make each and every day. Spend time figuring out how you approach your relationship with Jesus and recognize the choices that you make at every turn.
Our gospel lesson from Luke this morning shows us two ways to approach Jesus. Let’s look more closely at this scripture to determine where we might fit in.
There’s a party going on at the home of Simon, a well-known Pharisee. Simon has invited Jesus to the party as the honored guest. But there was a problem; a woman of ill repute also entered and lavished attention on Jesus. She carried with her a jar of ointment and bathed his feet with her tears. She was a known sinner, as Simon was quick to point out. This unnamed woman wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair and rubbed the ointment into his feet.
Simon was not pleased. Just try to imagine the situation today. If I were at a party, let’s say the upcoming Taco Party, and an obvious prostitute came and hung out with me you’d begin to wonder. There he is in tight short shorts and a shirt that reveals a lot about his body. You’d not only wonder what he was doing there but also why I knew him. You’d wonder why he was spending so much time with me; why he was lavishing attention on me. “How does Gerry know him?” you might think. What do I do in my off time, you might be wondering. One would expect me to be embarrassed by the attention from this person whose life is so unlike ours. And indeed I might be.
Well, would it have been any different, do you think, at this meal that Simon was putting on? Simon and the guests might certainly have been wondering why this woman, who was known to be a sinner, was lavishing such attention on Jesus. And lavishing is the only word that can be used here. She was not just paying attention to Jesus, she was pouring out her heart in all that she was doing.
Simon reacted just as we expect him to do so. He wondered why Jesus, who could be a great prophet at the least in Simon’s eyes, would stand to be around this woman. “Doesn’t Jesus know better?” he thought. “With whom has Jesus been hanging out?” “How does he know her?” Simon reacted with some repulsion and derision of both the woman and, by extension, of Jesus.
Jesus teaches Simon a bit of a lesson in the story he tells about the debtors and then does a most unusual thing: he pardons the woman from all her sins. Right there in front of everyone. The woman becomes an example of God’s great love to forgive even those who have sinned greatly.
There is a post-script on this passage that I’m glad the lectionary creators left in: the three verses about the woman who supported and traveled with Jesus from town to town. We hear about these women so infrequently as the gospels concentrate on the men who follow Jesus. But here we get a glimpse of the facts of the matter; that women were important to Jesus’ ministry. This following the story of an unnamed woman who shows great love to Jesus. I’m not going to dwell on these verses, but they deserve noting.
We have, besides Jesus, two main characters in this story: Simon and the woman. Each approaches Jesus in a different way. And each offers to us a guide as to how we might approach Jesus ourselves.
Some of us might be like Simon; too many of us, actually. The Simons among us see the greatness of Jesus. We are gratified that we have someone as important as Jesus in our home. We know that Jesus is well-known and a celebrity guest. We respect his position as a prophet and a great teacher. But we forget the standards of etiquette around him: we forget to wash his feet, as is required by hospitality of our day. We forget to greet him appropriately, with a kiss. We place him on a pedestal but fail to remember that he needs to be cared for and treated with the standards of protocol. We put him up so high that we forget that he’s up there.
On the other hand, there’s the woman; a woman who is known by everyone in town to have sinned greatly. We’re not told what her sins were; that’s left to our imagination. But she comes in and bathes Jesus’ feet with her tears. She wipes his feet with her hair. She doesn’t care what a spectacle she makes of herself because here she sees her chance to turn away from the sins she has committed and be freed of them. Those of us today who are like her don’t worry about societal convention when it comes to getting close to Jesus. We claim our place next to Jesus, at his feet, cleaning them with our tears. We recognize our own weaknesses and faults and realize that Jesus loves us through them, not in spite of them. We feel renewed in our meetings with our sovereign; leaving our encounters with Jesus refreshed and ready for life again.
How do you encounter Jesus? Do you place him up and far away? Is he a distant figure that you trot out for important occasions when it’s socially acceptable? Or is he close to you, so close you can clean his feet with your tear filled eyes? Can you feel his love and forgiveness as you bow before him?
We have choices to make in our encounters with Jesus. We can be like Simon, the religious leader who knew his place in society and stuck to it. He invites Jesus in but expects a certain type of behavior from him and doesn’t want him to vary from that behavior. Or we can be like the woman, as we face Jesus knowing that we bring all our sins and our faults and our problems and our history. We come anyways, humbly seeking out the forgiveness and grace that we know is granted even before we ask for it.
Yes, there are choices in our relationship with Jesus; choices that we make consciously or unconsciously; choices that we make each and every day. Spend time figuring out how you approach your relationship with Jesus and recognize the choices that you make at every turn.
20 May 2007
John 17:20-26
One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One...life
One
Thus ends the song “One” by those musical prophets of our day and age, U2. And indeed they are in sync with Jesus in today’s gospel reading.
John’s gospel brings us this prayer of Jesus at the last supper which speaks of the oneness of his followers. By the time that John wrote his gospel, which is the latest of the four gospels, there were already factions among the followers of Jesus. We know from Paul’s letters that Corinth was fractured among followers of Apollos, followers of Paul and other factions. No doubt, by the time this gospel came around, other gatherings of these early Christians were experiencing differences: differences in the way they governed themselves, differences in theology, differences in their ethical viewpoints.
How could the message of Jesus become so divisive within a century after his death and resurrection? How could the followers of The Way, as the early Christians called themselves, set to arguing so quickly? Well, I think that’s one of the beautiful things about our faith—there has been room for interpretation from the beginning. From a foundation of teachings about God’s love and grace, there is much left for the individual Christian and group of Christians to discover.
When I was in seminary, a Greek Orthodox priest came and spoke to my ecumenism class. He explained Christianity this way: There was once a group of pilgrims who wandered the earth together on foot. They were the Orthodox church. A group of them decided that they would get where they were going faster if they built a train and had an engineer. They were the Roman Catholic Church and the engineer, of course, is the Pope. Well eventually folks on the train got tired of having to stay on the tracks and go only where the engineer decided. So they got out and all got into cars that kept bumping into each other. They were, naturally, the Protestant churches.
We’ve had divisions as God’s people from almost the beginning. But Jesus’ prayer is that we be one as Jesus is one with God. How do we resolve this almost natural proclivity towards divisions within the faith with this prayer of Jesus for oneness in the faith? By this point, here in the 21st century, we are so divided that unity seems a joke.
But we maintain hope. Our two denominations are both working towards oneness. The slogan of the United Church of Christ is “That All May Be One” and from the beginning of the Disciples of Christ we have proclaimed “unity is our polar star.” Both our denominations, though far from perfect, work towards unity through several denominational programs. Even our presence with each other today in this joint worship service is an answer to Jesus’ prayer from 2,000 years ago.
What does it mean to be “one?” U2 reminds us that “we’re not the same, we get to carry each other.” We’re not the same, but we’re called to be one. How do we maintain that balancing act?
We recognize the points in common that we do have together. They may be difficult to find at times. But perhaps it’s God’s cry for justice among us. Perhaps it’s the work we do together, when we agree that poverty and homelessness are not part of God’s plan for God’s commonwealth. Perhaps it’s when we, through organizations such as Peninsula Interfaith Action, which both our congregations support, advocate for a better way of being for our communities.
Working together with others of the Christian faith is a way of being one in Christ, fulfilling his prayer. We aren’t ignoring our differences; we’re transcending them; we’re going past them to find the unity to which we are called.
That’s what we do with the differences; acknowledge them and move past them to do what we can do together. That’s from where our oneness will come.
We are called to carry each other; to provide help where and when we can with our Christian sisters & brothers. And to accept their help when we need it.
It was indeed fortuitous that these scriptures were set for the lectionary today, the day of our joint service. It gets us thinking about working together and being one in Christ even as we worship together. It gets the ecumenical blood flowing. Jesus’ prayer that we be one can be fulfilled in our day. We have to work to make it happen though.
One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One...life
One
Thus ends the song “One” by those musical prophets of our day and age, U2. And indeed they are in sync with Jesus in today’s gospel reading.
John’s gospel brings us this prayer of Jesus at the last supper which speaks of the oneness of his followers. By the time that John wrote his gospel, which is the latest of the four gospels, there were already factions among the followers of Jesus. We know from Paul’s letters that Corinth was fractured among followers of Apollos, followers of Paul and other factions. No doubt, by the time this gospel came around, other gatherings of these early Christians were experiencing differences: differences in the way they governed themselves, differences in theology, differences in their ethical viewpoints.
How could the message of Jesus become so divisive within a century after his death and resurrection? How could the followers of The Way, as the early Christians called themselves, set to arguing so quickly? Well, I think that’s one of the beautiful things about our faith—there has been room for interpretation from the beginning. From a foundation of teachings about God’s love and grace, there is much left for the individual Christian and group of Christians to discover.
When I was in seminary, a Greek Orthodox priest came and spoke to my ecumenism class. He explained Christianity this way: There was once a group of pilgrims who wandered the earth together on foot. They were the Orthodox church. A group of them decided that they would get where they were going faster if they built a train and had an engineer. They were the Roman Catholic Church and the engineer, of course, is the Pope. Well eventually folks on the train got tired of having to stay on the tracks and go only where the engineer decided. So they got out and all got into cars that kept bumping into each other. They were, naturally, the Protestant churches.
We’ve had divisions as God’s people from almost the beginning. But Jesus’ prayer is that we be one as Jesus is one with God. How do we resolve this almost natural proclivity towards divisions within the faith with this prayer of Jesus for oneness in the faith? By this point, here in the 21st century, we are so divided that unity seems a joke.
But we maintain hope. Our two denominations are both working towards oneness. The slogan of the United Church of Christ is “That All May Be One” and from the beginning of the Disciples of Christ we have proclaimed “unity is our polar star.” Both our denominations, though far from perfect, work towards unity through several denominational programs. Even our presence with each other today in this joint worship service is an answer to Jesus’ prayer from 2,000 years ago.
What does it mean to be “one?” U2 reminds us that “we’re not the same, we get to carry each other.” We’re not the same, but we’re called to be one. How do we maintain that balancing act?
We recognize the points in common that we do have together. They may be difficult to find at times. But perhaps it’s God’s cry for justice among us. Perhaps it’s the work we do together, when we agree that poverty and homelessness are not part of God’s plan for God’s commonwealth. Perhaps it’s when we, through organizations such as Peninsula Interfaith Action, which both our congregations support, advocate for a better way of being for our communities.
Working together with others of the Christian faith is a way of being one in Christ, fulfilling his prayer. We aren’t ignoring our differences; we’re transcending them; we’re going past them to find the unity to which we are called.
That’s what we do with the differences; acknowledge them and move past them to do what we can do together. That’s from where our oneness will come.
We are called to carry each other; to provide help where and when we can with our Christian sisters & brothers. And to accept their help when we need it.
It was indeed fortuitous that these scriptures were set for the lectionary today, the day of our joint service. It gets us thinking about working together and being one in Christ even as we worship together. It gets the ecumenical blood flowing. Jesus’ prayer that we be one can be fulfilled in our day. We have to work to make it happen though.
6 May 2007
Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
Newness fills our scripture readings this morning. Freshness abounds throughout this season of Easter. A newness that can permeate our very beings if we let it. This freshness that can change our lives and affect everything we do.
Let’s look again at the three scriptures that bring the new to us (the Psalm doesn’t really have it in it—it’s all about praise as you may have noticed). First we have the Acts passage. Peter’s vision brings about a new way of life for the usually hard-fast apostle. He has never eaten anything unclean, as proscribed by the ancient texts. He has kept, what we would call today, kosher according to the Jewish law.
But his vision leads him to a new understanding. For God tells him that nothing God has made is unclean; nothing God has created is profane. So all of creation is clean. Peter therefore can eat with the gentiles, with the uncircumcised. He has this vision in the town of Joppa but has to explain to the elders in Jerusalem why he’s had this sudden change.
The passage from Revelation is also about newness. It begins with it in fact: the first phrase is “then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” John’s vision here is of the old being wiped away and God’s new creation coming into being. John’s vision is one of newness for all of us; all creation is made new.
In Revelation, John has a series of visions of heaven. The author, John, lived in perilous times. Rome was the power in much of the world without a doubt and had proved it. And one of the ways it had proved it was to completely overcome Jerusalem and destroy the Temple. There had been constant insurrection in Jerusalem about owing Rome its allegiance. Rome had finally had it and overcame the Jewish puppet state and began the Jewish Diaspora.
If ever there was time for a new heaven and a new earth, it was then. There was much oppression and Rome ruled with a heavy hand. The people, especially Jews and the early Christians were particular targets of the Roman state. And there was need for newness in their lives. John’s vision fits in with the need for something new to happen.
Finally, in our gospel reading, John, a different John than the one who wrote Revelation, quotes Jesus as forging a new commandment. This newness is one that is addressed directly to us, Jesus’ followers. The commandment is, of course, that “you love one another.”
The context for this new commandment is the last supper, just after Judas had left to go and betray him. Jesus had just taken the basin and washed all their feet, an unknown act of service by a teacher, telling them that they are to wash each other’s feet as he had done so. Then Judas departs to do his work. And finally we have the section we heard this morning. Jesus gathered with his disciples, tells them that they must love one another as he has loved them. This precedes all other commandments that they have learned before.
Jesus, knowing that his earthly time was coming to an end, had to sum up his teachings to his followers. He gave them something new; something that they could easily remember and follow his example on. This, tied to the foot-washing, which was about service, is a new way of being for them. And for us.
Yes, all this newness is for us too. We have to find new ways of being: as an individual, as a church and as a society. We must be brave like Peter and recognize that the freshness of our visions is viable and useful. We may tend to discount our visions for the future as unworkable or too new. But Peter’s change was major; no good Jew of the 1st century had ever considered eating something unclean. And similarly, John’s vision of the new heaven and new earth was one that shattered the old ways and overturned the status quo.
We have to embrace new ways. As a church, of course, this may not seem like a big deal. We were born, not that long ago, out of a new thing; out of a new way of being. We were created when a group of us decided to try something new; something that hadn’t been tried before. So we’re a church that knows what newness is about. But are we able to accept the newness before us now? I think so. I think we, as a congregation, can accept the new with relish and acceptance.
Individually, we must also be new people; the people who accept Jesus’ command to love one another. That is the basis of all newness in our lives; our loving each other. If we can really love each other, really truly love each other, with that Jesus-love, we can accept anything that comes our way, any new thing or change. For if we love one another we can accept change and move on.
Newness can be frightening. We don’t know how to behave or what will happen or what will come. All we know is that things are new. We struggle to keep our equilibrium, to keep ourselves in balance while things around us change. We are uncertain about our own reactions and our very selves at times.
But newness need not be feared. Peter, John and Jesus all embraced the idea of newness, bringing about changes in their worlds. We too can embrace this newness, a freshness of the Spirit in our midst, moving us to new ways of being, new ways of doing things.
Jesus calls us to be new people; to new ways of being. Through love, we can become the people Jesus calls us to be. Love one another. That’s the newest concept that we need accept. From there, we can accept anything that comes our way.
Newness fills our scripture readings this morning. Freshness abounds throughout this season of Easter. A newness that can permeate our very beings if we let it. This freshness that can change our lives and affect everything we do.
Let’s look again at the three scriptures that bring the new to us (the Psalm doesn’t really have it in it—it’s all about praise as you may have noticed). First we have the Acts passage. Peter’s vision brings about a new way of life for the usually hard-fast apostle. He has never eaten anything unclean, as proscribed by the ancient texts. He has kept, what we would call today, kosher according to the Jewish law.
But his vision leads him to a new understanding. For God tells him that nothing God has made is unclean; nothing God has created is profane. So all of creation is clean. Peter therefore can eat with the gentiles, with the uncircumcised. He has this vision in the town of Joppa but has to explain to the elders in Jerusalem why he’s had this sudden change.
The passage from Revelation is also about newness. It begins with it in fact: the first phrase is “then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” John’s vision here is of the old being wiped away and God’s new creation coming into being. John’s vision is one of newness for all of us; all creation is made new.
In Revelation, John has a series of visions of heaven. The author, John, lived in perilous times. Rome was the power in much of the world without a doubt and had proved it. And one of the ways it had proved it was to completely overcome Jerusalem and destroy the Temple. There had been constant insurrection in Jerusalem about owing Rome its allegiance. Rome had finally had it and overcame the Jewish puppet state and began the Jewish Diaspora.
If ever there was time for a new heaven and a new earth, it was then. There was much oppression and Rome ruled with a heavy hand. The people, especially Jews and the early Christians were particular targets of the Roman state. And there was need for newness in their lives. John’s vision fits in with the need for something new to happen.
Finally, in our gospel reading, John, a different John than the one who wrote Revelation, quotes Jesus as forging a new commandment. This newness is one that is addressed directly to us, Jesus’ followers. The commandment is, of course, that “you love one another.”
The context for this new commandment is the last supper, just after Judas had left to go and betray him. Jesus had just taken the basin and washed all their feet, an unknown act of service by a teacher, telling them that they are to wash each other’s feet as he had done so. Then Judas departs to do his work. And finally we have the section we heard this morning. Jesus gathered with his disciples, tells them that they must love one another as he has loved them. This precedes all other commandments that they have learned before.
Jesus, knowing that his earthly time was coming to an end, had to sum up his teachings to his followers. He gave them something new; something that they could easily remember and follow his example on. This, tied to the foot-washing, which was about service, is a new way of being for them. And for us.
Yes, all this newness is for us too. We have to find new ways of being: as an individual, as a church and as a society. We must be brave like Peter and recognize that the freshness of our visions is viable and useful. We may tend to discount our visions for the future as unworkable or too new. But Peter’s change was major; no good Jew of the 1st century had ever considered eating something unclean. And similarly, John’s vision of the new heaven and new earth was one that shattered the old ways and overturned the status quo.
We have to embrace new ways. As a church, of course, this may not seem like a big deal. We were born, not that long ago, out of a new thing; out of a new way of being. We were created when a group of us decided to try something new; something that hadn’t been tried before. So we’re a church that knows what newness is about. But are we able to accept the newness before us now? I think so. I think we, as a congregation, can accept the new with relish and acceptance.
Individually, we must also be new people; the people who accept Jesus’ command to love one another. That is the basis of all newness in our lives; our loving each other. If we can really love each other, really truly love each other, with that Jesus-love, we can accept anything that comes our way, any new thing or change. For if we love one another we can accept change and move on.
Newness can be frightening. We don’t know how to behave or what will happen or what will come. All we know is that things are new. We struggle to keep our equilibrium, to keep ourselves in balance while things around us change. We are uncertain about our own reactions and our very selves at times.
But newness need not be feared. Peter, John and Jesus all embraced the idea of newness, bringing about changes in their worlds. We too can embrace this newness, a freshness of the Spirit in our midst, moving us to new ways of being, new ways of doing things.
Jesus calls us to be new people; to new ways of being. Through love, we can become the people Jesus calls us to be. Love one another. That’s the newest concept that we need accept. From there, we can accept anything that comes our way.
22 April 2007
John 21:1-19
We can imagine the scene. Some of the disciples, after fishing all night with no success, are in the boat at daybreak. They’ve been casting their nets to no avail; tossing them overboard, time after time, and coming up empty. (It can sound a little too familiar, huh?) It’s frustrating, but that can be the life of those who fish, both for a living and as a pastime.
But then they get instructions from the shore: cast your nets to the other side. We can imagine the response from the boat: why bother? What’s the use? What difference is a boat’s width going to make? Grumbling and disbelief would naturally follow such a suggestion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that some of the disciples at least, were wondering why they should even try such a preposterous idea.
But they did follow the instructions of this stranger on the shore. They threw their nets over the other side of the boat and of course we know what happened: they had a huge catch of fish. That’s when they figured out that Jesus was this stranger on the shore. They had a shocking amount of fish in their nets; big fish, fish for food and nourishment. The nets didn’t even break after they caught these fish on the other side of the boat.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
Our church is in the midst of transition. We realize that things must change for our continued viability. We have a couple of committees at least that are working on this very thing: the Get Out the Word Committee and the Visioning Committee. We are in the midst of transformation. We are seeking out what we can do to keep our congregation alive and a living, breathing part of the Body of Christ.
We seek out new ways of being and doing. But we have to do things differently. We need to have the bravery to try new things, to be new people of God. We must seek out Jesus’ voice guiding us to try a new way of being.
I can’t tell you what those new ways of being might be. The options are out there though and we as a congregation must seek them out. It’s not just one person’s job; it is the work of all of us in this boat. It is a community effort to work to bring in the catch.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
Today is Earth Day. This is a day in which we stop to reflect on what we do and how we do it affects our home, the earth. Everything we do has an effect. Sometimes it’s a big effect; sometimes it’s a small effect. Sometimes it’s small effects that lead to a big effect.
This is a day to reflect on what those effects might be; a time to stop and consider how we treat our home, our earth. We must consider what our use of fossil fuels means and how it affects not only our earth but also others. We must consider what leaving on a light that’s not being used means; what running unused and unneeded water means; what driving means. It’s all those little things that we need to consider because we do have an effect. We make a difference on this earth.
As an individual, you may not be a major polluter or pump tons of carbon dioxide into the air on a daily basis. But we need to worry about those who do. Earth Day reminds us that we need to be an active part of the decision-making in our country; we need to be vigorous guardians of our environment.
The way we’re doing it doesn’t work right now. According to the Sierra Club: “The United States, with only 5% of the world’s population, emits one quarter of the world’s global warming gases.” In other words, we, as a country, leave a larger footprint on the earth than anyone else. And that’s not just. Something must change. We must hear the voices of those who call us away from the way that things are into new ways of being and doing.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
The violence that burst forth on the quiet campus of Virginia Tech this week has left us all shocked and stunned. When a deranged student killed 32 people and then himself, our world was changed forever, in a way that our world changed following Columbine and the destruction of September 11th.
We have allowed violence to seep into our culture in a major way. In many ways, we encourage and reward it. Though Cho Seung-Hui was clearly in need of help for mental illness, he was a product of a culture, since he was at least 8 years old, that glorifies violence. Thus, through his mental illness, he turned to the language of violence that he had learned to express it.
I’m not going to enter the gun control debate in this sermon, but I will wade into the waters of changing the veneration of guns and violence that we have in our current culture. The way we have isn’t working. Violence begets violence. We have state-sponsored killings and video games that train and educate our youth in violent ways. We war and we battle and we fight and we shoot without blinking an eye. Popular movies use violence as a selling point and many enjoy a shoot-‘em-up, vengeance-filled flick that splatters blood all around.
As evidenced in Blacksburg this week, violence only leaves broken lives, aching hearts and tear-stained eyes. We need to find a way out of this. We need to find someone who will call us forth from the violence into peace. We need to seek out the voices that call us to sanity.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
We can imagine the scene. Some of the disciples, after fishing all night with no success, are in the boat at daybreak. They’ve been casting their nets to no avail; tossing them overboard, time after time, and coming up empty. (It can sound a little too familiar, huh?) It’s frustrating, but that can be the life of those who fish, both for a living and as a pastime.
But then they get instructions from the shore: cast your nets to the other side. We can imagine the response from the boat: why bother? What’s the use? What difference is a boat’s width going to make? Grumbling and disbelief would naturally follow such a suggestion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that some of the disciples at least, were wondering why they should even try such a preposterous idea.
But they did follow the instructions of this stranger on the shore. They threw their nets over the other side of the boat and of course we know what happened: they had a huge catch of fish. That’s when they figured out that Jesus was this stranger on the shore. They had a shocking amount of fish in their nets; big fish, fish for food and nourishment. The nets didn’t even break after they caught these fish on the other side of the boat.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
Our church is in the midst of transition. We realize that things must change for our continued viability. We have a couple of committees at least that are working on this very thing: the Get Out the Word Committee and the Visioning Committee. We are in the midst of transformation. We are seeking out what we can do to keep our congregation alive and a living, breathing part of the Body of Christ.
We seek out new ways of being and doing. But we have to do things differently. We need to have the bravery to try new things, to be new people of God. We must seek out Jesus’ voice guiding us to try a new way of being.
I can’t tell you what those new ways of being might be. The options are out there though and we as a congregation must seek them out. It’s not just one person’s job; it is the work of all of us in this boat. It is a community effort to work to bring in the catch.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
Today is Earth Day. This is a day in which we stop to reflect on what we do and how we do it affects our home, the earth. Everything we do has an effect. Sometimes it’s a big effect; sometimes it’s a small effect. Sometimes it’s small effects that lead to a big effect.
This is a day to reflect on what those effects might be; a time to stop and consider how we treat our home, our earth. We must consider what our use of fossil fuels means and how it affects not only our earth but also others. We must consider what leaving on a light that’s not being used means; what running unused and unneeded water means; what driving means. It’s all those little things that we need to consider because we do have an effect. We make a difference on this earth.
As an individual, you may not be a major polluter or pump tons of carbon dioxide into the air on a daily basis. But we need to worry about those who do. Earth Day reminds us that we need to be an active part of the decision-making in our country; we need to be vigorous guardians of our environment.
The way we’re doing it doesn’t work right now. According to the Sierra Club: “The United States, with only 5% of the world’s population, emits one quarter of the world’s global warming gases.” In other words, we, as a country, leave a larger footprint on the earth than anyone else. And that’s not just. Something must change. We must hear the voices of those who call us away from the way that things are into new ways of being and doing.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
The violence that burst forth on the quiet campus of Virginia Tech this week has left us all shocked and stunned. When a deranged student killed 32 people and then himself, our world was changed forever, in a way that our world changed following Columbine and the destruction of September 11th.
We have allowed violence to seep into our culture in a major way. In many ways, we encourage and reward it. Though Cho Seung-Hui was clearly in need of help for mental illness, he was a product of a culture, since he was at least 8 years old, that glorifies violence. Thus, through his mental illness, he turned to the language of violence that he had learned to express it.
I’m not going to enter the gun control debate in this sermon, but I will wade into the waters of changing the veneration of guns and violence that we have in our current culture. The way we have isn’t working. Violence begets violence. We have state-sponsored killings and video games that train and educate our youth in violent ways. We war and we battle and we fight and we shoot without blinking an eye. Popular movies use violence as a selling point and many enjoy a shoot-‘em-up, vengeance-filled flick that splatters blood all around.
As evidenced in Blacksburg this week, violence only leaves broken lives, aching hearts and tear-stained eyes. We need to find a way out of this. We need to find someone who will call us forth from the violence into peace. We need to seek out the voices that call us to sanity.
Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.
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