Sermon, Sunday, 20 December 2009

Luke 1:39-45 & 46-55

If you look at the four gospels, you’ll notice that each of them has an account of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus as a central turning point in their accounts.  Mark starts his gospel out with this event without any prelude or lead up. 

If you read the other three gospels until that point, you get a mini-version of what is to come.  John’s prelude is other worldly in many ways:  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.  (John 1:5 NRSV)  Matthew spends a lot of time fixing Jesus firmly within the Jewish tradition yet with an eye to speaking the gospel outside which are evidenced by his immediate listing of Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham through David as well as the visit to the young savior Jesus by three mysterious, outsider Magi.  You know, as you read through Matthew, that he’s going to return to those themes of Jesus’ Jewishness and the spreading of the gospel outside.

But Luke, if you read his prologue, gives a very different story and is the only one to include the accounts we heard this morning of women, particularly of Mary and Elizabeth’s reunion and the extraordinary song that Mary sings as she comes to fully understand what is really going on.  Only Luke puts an emphasis on the women, silencing Elizabeth’s husband, Zachariah, and he keeps Joseph waiting in the wings for a few more verses.  Only Luke recounts Mary’s incredible song that is at once intensely personal as well as political to the extreme.  You know Luke’s gospel is going to be filled with good things.

Thus it is good for us to stop on this final Sunday before we reach Christmas and ponder with Mary and Elizabeth just what is happening.  This fourth Sunday in Advent when we’re almost but not quite there.  This final time of worship before the attention is all on a baby in a box of straw.  We stop for a breath in the frenetic pace that leads up to the 25th of December and listen to Elizabeth and Mary, almost touching heaven but remaining firmly planted here on earth.

First we have Elizabeth, surprised by her own pregnancy with a child who would grow up to be John the Baptist.  Both she and fetus John know something is up as soon as they hear Mary’s voice.  They don’t even have to see her; her voice is sufficient for them to start rejoicing about the approach, the advent if you will, of Mary and the particularly special treasure she is carrying.  With John leaping in the womb, Elizabeth has little choice but to greet Mary with words usually reserved for royalty and those who will bear royalty, which of course is what is going on. 

We’re not told why Mary decides to pay a visit to her kinswoman, Elizabeth, but something has drawn her there, perhaps inevitably; perhaps Mary herself doesn’t even know why she’s there.  Mary has already had her encounter with the angel Gabriel and is full of the knowledge that she’s been asked to perform a special duty and, more so, has accepted that duty.  Within, she knows, she is carrying one who is going to change all of history.  She knows this as only a mother can know it.

And that leads us to the second part of our scripture from Luke.  There, safe with Elizabeth, unfettered by having to act a certain way or do certain things as she would have to do back in Nazareth, she sings her heart out; singing as only an expectant mother can do about how her child is going to change everything and will turn the status quo upside down.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about this singing that Mary does:

This song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn.  It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, and one might even say, the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.  This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here.  This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols.  It is, instead, a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power and God and the powerlessness of humankind.  These are the tones of the women prophets of the Old Testament that now come to life in Mary’s mouth.  (The Mystery of Holy Night, p. 6)

And so, before we charge headlong into this event we call Christmas, before we stop in a chilly stable beneath a starry sky, before we sing the carols that we have sung for ages, we stop and consider the words that burst forth from a young, pregnant woman’s lips over two thousand years ago.  We consider how she saw the topsy-turvy world into which her child would be born and how he would bring into being his own topsy-turvy world and we realize that the song is song as strongly today as it ever has been.  The powerful still need to be brought down from their thrones and the lowly should be uplifted.  There are hungry ones in our midst who need their fill of good things while the proud could indeed use some scattering.

Mary’s song, sung out in safety in Elizabeth’s home echoes and echoes through the ages to us today.  It’s message is not diminished, indeed, if you listen closely enough, you will hear it just before you perceive the beating of angels’ wings.

Sermon, Sunday, 8 November 2009

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

The thin book of Ruth, only four chapters long, is only one of two books of the Bible with a woman’s name attached to it.  And it shows up in the lectionary only twice in the three-year cycle.  So it’s good, when she makes her appearance, to pay attention to this book.  The story of Ruth covers more than what we heard this morning.  So let me recap that story a bit.

Naomi and her husband and two sons move from Bethlehem to Moab, which is another country near to Israel.  There the sons marry Moabite women, Orpah & Ruth, and all seems well.  Until the worst of the worst happens: first Naomi’s husband dies followed by the death of both of the sons.  We aren’t told how or why these tragic events transpire, just that they do, leaving behind three widows.

Of course, to be a widow was about as low as you could get socio-economically.  The only thing worse would be to find yourself a widow without any sons, which was the situation in which Naomi, Orpah, & Ruth found themselves.  And to add to that, Naomi was a foreigner in Moab--a son-less, husband-less, foreign, woman.

Naomi makes the decision to return home, so she would at least be among her kin people.  At first, her two daughters-in-law follow her on the sad trek back to Bethlehem.  But Naomi stops and says, “Go home...go back to your people.  Make lives for yourselves there.  I have no more sons to offer you and there’s nothing for you with me.”  They argue a bit and eventually Orpah does decide to turn back and cast her fate among the Moabites, and there follows a tearful farewell. 

Ruth, however, is a different story.  She will not be budged; she insists on following Naomi.  She speaks those words to her mother-in-law that many of us have likely heard before: 

Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die--there will I be buried.  May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.  (Ruth 1:16b-17)

Naomi sees how determined Ruth is and gives up trying to convince her otherwise.  So the two women continue their journey on the dusty road to Bethlehem.

So we have Naomi and Ruth back in Bethlehem, still without husbands or sons.  Naturally, the life of a poor woman was as difficult then as it is now, if not even more so.  She had to work from dawn to dusk just to survive.  And one of the ways that you could survive was by gleaning.

In the painting on your bulletin covers and now on the screen, the painter Nicholas Poisson shows Ruth meeting Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi who notices Ruth from the very first time.   Ruth is an outsider; only a member of the clan because of her persistent attachment to Naomi. 

Gleaning was a way that poor people could get grain to make bread for their survival.  After reapers went through a field with their sickles bundling the sheaves of grain as they went, they naturally would miss some of the grain, which fell to the earth.  Gleaners would come after them and pick up the pieces they missed for their own use.  There were laws that allowed people like Ruth to glean and prohibited the landowner from going back to pick up what was missed.

There is a famous painting in the Orsay Museum by Jean-François Millet, painted around the time that Poisson painted his painting, called “The Gleaners.”  It’s one of my favorite paintings and a print of it hangs in our apartment.  Something about that painting speaks to me.  As you can see, gleaning is back-breaking work.  Gleaners had to bend over in the stubble that was left behind to find what they could.  This painting shows some of that and one can imagine Ruth there, picking through what was left behind to feed herself and Naomi.

This is where today’s story picks up.  As I said, Boaz has already noticed the Moabite outsider named Ruth and knows of her connection to his kinswoman, Naomi.  This is important, because the laws of inheritance required that a dead man’s property would go to his next-of-kin; property was not only land but widows and any other dependent relatives.  The trick is that even though Boaz has obviously taken a shine to Ruth and Ruth, with Naomi’s help and advice as we heard in the first part of today’s reading, works to get into Boaz’s heart; but even though Boaz is a kinsman, he’s not the next-of-kin.  That’s someone else and Boaz very cleverly get this other kinsman to give up his right to Naomi’s husband’s property and that Maobite woman.  Which nicely leaves Boaz able to take Ruth as his wife.  And we all heard how Ruth then gives birth to a son and, in the process, Naomi is taken care of.  A true rags to riches story.  Happy ending, curtain down.

Except I’m going to fast-forward us a few centuries to the point in time of the books of Ezra & Nehemiah.  Ezra & Nehemiah are from the period of the return of the exiles from Babylon.  As you probably remember, Judah was overrun by the Babylonians, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, and many of the people of Judah were taken into exile into Babylon.  There they remained several decades--long enough for another generation to be born, a generation that had never seen the glory of the Temple and had never set foot in Jerusalem.  This generation grew up in Babylon, learning its language and in some cases taking spouses from the Babylonian population.

Upon their release and subsequent return to Jerusalem, a faction appeared that wanted to purify the people.  They wanted to rid themselves of foreign influences, including these outside wives.  Ezra and Nehemiah are about these attempts, including the rebuilding of the Temple from the ruins of that once noble city.  They were attempting to step backward in time.  As we all know, when looking back, things are always better, as we put on our rosy-colored glasses for our hindsight vision.  It was no different then then it is now.

The leaders at the time of Ezra & Nehemiah sought to cleanse their society and purge out all elements that didn’t seem like it fit with their ideal world.  Except this tale of Ruth, the Moabite woman, comes onto the scene.  Ruth, who not only is a foreigner who marries into the Jews, but is also the mother of a long, important line of Jewish leaders.  That’s why that final line in today’s reading is so important:  They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

David, you probably realize, is none other than King David, the best and most revered ruler that Israel had ever known.  Yes, David’s, King David’s, great-grandmother was a Moabite, the worst foreigner you could think of.  By recounting this tale during the time of Ezra & Nehemiah, somebody was saying “Not so fast with this attempt at purity.  Remember our history.  Remember our past when God intervened through a foreign woman and we got David out of it.”


The story of Ruth and its subsequent use years later does sound somewhat familiar, at least it does to me.  For example, we hear cries about immigrants from far and wide; how they’re taking over and changing our culture; how they’re taking jobs away from hard-working Americans.  Yet, we put on those rose-colored glasses when we look back and miss the fact, somehow, that all of us, unless we have Native American blood in us, came from immigrant stock at one point or other.  We forget that the Irish and Italians and Chinese and those from many other lands all suffered when they first come to this country because they were immigrants.  And we’ll leave aside for the time being the forced immigration of countless Africans before the slave trade ended.  But we forget that immigration has always been with us, as we put on those rosy-colored glasses and look back smilingly.

Those rosy-colored glasses, however they’re used for hindsight viewing, will always get you into trouble.  It’s as true now as it was during the era when the exiles returned from Babylon.  They blind us to truths that we have to face and recognize; and sometimes to occasions for celebration.

The lesson from Ruth, one of them at least, is that we are all gleaners.  We all are seeking to pick up the bits of our past that will help us survive in this day and age.  We have to rely on the kindness of the field owner as well as on the fact that the ones who own the field will follow the rules and laws that are made to help the least of these and keep us alive.

The Book of Ruth is a very thin work, just a few pages long.  But its story is one that speaks through the ages over and over again.


Top painting:  Summer, or, Boaz and Ruth by Nicholas Poisson, 1860-1864
Second painting: The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet, 1857 

Deft & Clumsy, Sermon, Sunday, 18 October 2009

Mark 10:35-45

As I pondered the passage from Mark today, I remembered a Peanuts cartoon that I had seen years ago.  It showed Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog, chasing after a bubble that was floating through the air.  Snoopy gently and adroitly grabs the bubble in his teeth and starts to trot back to Charlie Brown with it in his mouth but in the next to last panel, he trips and the bubble bursts.  Charlie Brown says to him, “You the only one I know who can be deft and clumsy all at the same time.”

In some ways, the Zebedee brothers, James and John, are exhibiting their own simultaneous deftness and clumsiness in these scriptures.  To understand why I say that about them though, we have to look at a bigger picture than we got in this morning’s reading because context may not be everything in scripture, but it sure is a lot.

The passage just prior to this reading, ending right at verse 34, is Jesus’ prediction of his own death and resurrection.  The sentence immediately prior to our reading for this morning is:

[Jesus] took the twelve aside again and began to tell them was was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again. (32b-34)

Pretty direct, don’t you think?  There’s not much there to wonder about.  Jesus even gets rather specific.  And this is the third time that he’s done this as they journey to Jerusalem.  He’s told the disciples about his impending death and resurrection three times now.

And what is the first thing out of the mouths of those sons of Zebedee?  “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  It’s such a jarring disconnect that you wonder if they understood a word that Jesus said.  How did they so miss what Jesus had just said as to come up with a glaring, grating non sequitur?  Following a previous prediction of his death, at least Peter understood what Jesus was saying but then tried to deny it, getting a sharp rebuke for his efforts.  But Peter understood what Jesus was talking about, it seems.  These two, James & John, seem like they were standing there just waiting for Jesus to get done with whatever he was going on about this time so they could ask him their all important question.

Or were they?  Did they actually get it, perhaps?  Did they know what Jesus was talking about and were ready to sign on for whatever came along, but they still wanted their share of the power and the glory that was to come?

Of course, what they were asking for was a big deal.  Hosts would put the most important guests right next to themselves at a feast.  Rulers kept their most trusted advisors right beside themselves.  These sons of Zebedee wanted those positions of honor and power for themselves, as did, no doubt, most if not all of the rest of the disciples.  They wanted to be next to Jesus, even in the time beyond  his death that he had just finished predicting.

They seem all too quick and easy though in their reply that they are indeed able to drink from the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism as Jesus.  Following as it does so quickly on the prediction of his impending crucifixion, these two metaphors are clearly about death and I think the Zebedees understand that.  They aren’t being flip and Jesus goes on to affirm that they, like many of the earliest leaders of the fledgling Christian community, will suffer because of following him.

Like Snoopy, James and John are deft in their adroit handling of the precious bubble that is the way of following Jesus but clumsy in their grasp of what Jesus’ heavenly reign actually means.  I believe they are going in with eyes wide open and know full well that having given their life to their teacher they may yet be called to truly give of their life.  But they haven’t followed completely the teachings they’ve heard because they don’t fully understand for what they’re asking.

Most of us are not going to be called upon to give our lives for our faith.  There are some notable martyrs of the past century, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, the nuns of El Salvador, Martin Luther King Jr. and others whose names we may not know.  Most of us though will not face our death because we hold to our faith so securely as they and those early Christian leaders who faced persecution from the state did.

But still, we too are Zebedeean in our following if we don’t stop and realize just what deaths are required of us, if indeed we are to follow the teachings of Jesus and truly claim him as the Christ.  For we must die to this world and its ways in order to follow.  And we must die to our selves in order to follow.

The world and all its trappings is an glittery attraction that draws us into materialism.  If we follow the way of the world, we embrace greed and denial.  It offers us comfort and security.  It beckons us with offers of “more,” “new,” and “improved.”  It tells us that what we have is never enough.  Our deaths, because of our faith, are to this world and a renunciation of what it offers.  If we drink from the cup that Jesus drinks from, we will die to this world and face away from the plastic offerings that tempt us.

Likewise, if we become so self-focussed that we turn away from the plight of others, we are being as blind about Jesus’ teachings as those early disciples were.  We must die to self-absorption and the inflation of our egos.  If we care only for ourselves and ignore that which is going on all around us, we need to find ourselves on the journey with Jesus to Jerusalem.  If we are to be baptized with the same baptism that Jesus faced, we must die to ourselves.

But we’ll be just like the sons of Zebedee if we think by doing so, we’ll get special considerations.  If we’re deft enough to accept the deaths we must face in ourselves because of our faith, but still clumsily seek out special favors or a power boost for our prayer requests, we’ve missed the mark as surely as James & John did two thousand years ago.

Interesting, this cycle from Mark begins and end with the healings of blind men starting back in chapter 8 and moving through to the end of chapter 10, immediately following today’s passage.  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.  I think Mark, in putting together his gospel, knew exactly what he was doing in saying that we all have to open our eyes and see, really see, the truth about following Jesus.  Yes, we must drink from the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism in order to follow.  And we must do so with few expectations and little to gain in a worldly way from it.

Blessed by Animals

Dear Friends,

The animal blessing service that we held last Saturday gave me pause for thought. Clearly there was a lot of energy about our newest endeavor, from both inside and outside our congregation.

As we gathered on the lawn of the church and spoke to people passing by about their pets or animal companions, we were interacting with a community...our community.  There was a lot of traffic because of the street festival going on just a few short blocks away.  Several blessings occurred on the spur of the moment; dog walkers passing by just stopped in when invited to get their dogs blessed.

In the process of having the honor to bless these wonderful creatures, I realized that what my friend Alexandra Child wrote to me was true.  (Alexandra graciously sent me the animal blessing service that she had previously put together and was that on which I based our service.)  Alexandra wrote that she comes at animal blessings from the viewpoint that it is the animals who bless us.

As I knelt besides pooches of all sizes and gazed at pictures of cats (even blessing one cat via a cell phone picture) I realized the love that passes between humans and their companions is unadulterated and very often pure; especially from the animal companion to the human.

Truly they bless us with all that they do and are for us.  And not just our companions, but all the animals of God’s creation.

Give thanks and praise to God for any & all animals in your life.

Peace,
Gerry

photo © Allen Foster
text © Gerry Brague

Sermon, Sunday, 11 October 2009

Mark 10:17-31

Princess Diana is quoted as saying, “They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?”  I think that explains a lot about today’s gospel reading from Mark.

It’s so hard for us to give up possessions, isn’t it?  Even for the tradeoff to be poor and happy; or the bigger tradeoff to get into heaven.  This gospel lesson makes me uncomfortable.  Because even though I have never considered myself rich, even moderately so, in comparison to much of the world, I am so much more like the rich man turning away in grief than I am anyone else in this story.

Our possessions, our wealth, brings us happiness and security.  We surround ourselves with things in our quest for joy not realizing at times that those very things are what prevent joy from embracing us.  With our fortresses of material possessions and financial security, we can scarcely move at times, stifling any attempts we may make to follow Jesus on the journey that was referred to at the beginning of the passage from Mark.

So we, like the man in the reading, throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet hoping for an easy answer.  I really don’t think that man was looking for an easy compliment in doing that.  I believe he, like us, truly wanted to know what else he needed to do to get into heaven.  He was a good man and Jesus knew that.  A touching, poignant portion of the passage is when Jesus looked at him and loved him.  It’s one of the most direct statements about Jesus in scripture.  He looked at him and loved him. 

Jesus saw and knew what was going on.  In spite of that man’s grief Jesus loved him to death, literally.  Because he was calling on that man to give everything away.  And notice that Jesus didn’t say sell everything and give the proceeds to me so that I can continue my ministry.  No, indeed, the money that the man would realize were he to sell his possessions was to go to the poor.  And then he could come and follow Jesus.

Unlike Princess Diana, Jesus doesn’t really allow for compromises.  There’s no gray area when it comes to giving.  It’s all or nothing.

In the movie “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” which tells the story of a certain man named Francis who lived in Assisi some 800 years ago, there is a pivotal scene in which Francis, born into a wealthy cloth merchant family, renounces his wealth by stripping off his clothes in the town square and heading off into the mountains to begin a life of poverty and service.  Francis did what the rich man in the gospel seemingly could not do.  And what most of us seemingly cannot do.

But….but I have to wonder.  The gospel writer Mark leaves the end of this particular story open with a question mark, I think.  Yes it said the rich man went away grieving, but it doesn’t actually say whether the man did do as Jesus said or not.  Certainly we can allow him his grief, in giving up all that he possesses.  That’s a mighty task and even as unrich as I am, if asked to do the same thing, I would grieve too. 

But I keep coming back in my thoughts to that simple statement that Jesus looked at the man and loved him.  And that gives me the strength to guess at an answer to that question mark at the end of the story.  Because a love that strong is mighty powerful and can cause you to do all sorts of things you wouldn’t do otherwise.

Not too long from now, we’ll regroup ourselves for one of our monthly conversations and this time our conversation is going to revolve around stewardship.  Stewardship, meaning what we do with the resources that are put in our charge; our wealth, in other words.

But don’t limit yourselves when you think about your wealth; it’s not just about money or what your bank statements look like.  Because true wealth goes deeper than money.  True wealth, as we all know, involves family and friends and faith.  True wealth is about the talents we possess and the abilities we have innately within us.

Perhaps that’s the part of the rich man that Jesus loved--his abilities and talents for following the law and for leading an upright life.  Jesus knew that if the man was going to follow him on the journey before him, he couldn’t be encumbered by the possessions that held him down.  Jesus wanted his full wealth...his real wealth on the road with him.

So when you think of stewardship this afternoon, don’t leave here grieving.  Go away with joy, grateful for the resources, all the resources, that are in your care.

The Messiness of Wisdom

Dear Friends,
According to dictionary.com, wisdom is defined as “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.”

Wisdom is more than intelligence. Wisdom uses our native intelligence to make decisions that are right and good. Wisdom keeps us from foolishness, according to the author of Ephesians. And wisdom is what Solomon sought when God asked him in a dream what it was he most wanted.

For people of the Christian faith, wisdom is a gift from God that is used to bring our world ever closer to God’s realm. Wisdom thus involves not just thought but action.

In worship on Sunday, I used a familiar image when I spoke of wisdom: Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker. But that’s only part of the story of wisdom. After one thinks, one is moved to action based on one’s thoughts.

As Paula Poceicha, our Regional Minister for Congregational Care, pointed out during the Invitation to Communion, wisdom can be messy. It’s chaotic. Wisdom is not linear like intelligence. Wisdom does not necessarily go neatly from point A to point B to point C.

We prefer in our daily lives the straightforwardness and sedentary nature of intelligence. With wisdom, we are moved to action in the midst of a world that doesn’t make sense.

Wisdom eschews the greed and denial of the world, opting instead for justice and getting our hands dirty with the work to which God calls us.

Wisdom is indeed chaotic as doing the right thing is not always clear and easy. Wisdom can lead us down paths we’d rather not travel and may even make us unpopular. Wisdom is engaging the intelligence of the world and bending it and turning it to become wise and discerning.

Seek wisdom; each and every day. Be ready for the chaos and the confusion it brings.

Peace,
Gerry

text © Gerry Brague
photo © Wally Gobetz, wallyg on flickr used by Creative Commons license

Sermon, Sunday, 16 August 2009

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 Ephesians 5:15-20

Suppose you were granted one wish, for what would you ask? I know that genies in lamps regularly allow three wishes, but this is an irregular lamp purchased at the seconds outlet and you only get one wish. Would you ask for money? For fame? For health? For power? Or perhaps, thinking on a bigger scale, you’d ask for world peace. Or for an end to any number of the terrible diseases that are all around us. Or for poverty and homelessness and hunger to cease.

I’m willing to wager that many people in our society today might ask for such things; either the self motivated or other-motivated wishes. Solomon, the son of King David who was given the kingdom upon David’s death, was indeed granted the opportunity to ask for something and, as we know, he chose wisdom. And along with building the Temple in Jerusalem, Solomon is known for his wisdom.

There are those who would argue that only a wise person would ask for wisdom, something of a circular argument, if you ask me. But Solomon, we heard, got it both ways: because he chose wisdom, he got riches and honor throughout his life.

Solomon said he chose wisdom because he was so young. And that’s likely true that he was young: he may have been about 20 years old when he became king. Such a young age to inherit a realm. And having to follow his father, David, the great king who made Israel what it was during its glory days. Not to mention having to deal with a jealous older brother who expected the throne as his and with his father’s several enemies still hovering around. With all the intrigue swirling about him, it’s no wonder that he asked to be discerning and wise.

Think for a moment about the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Is there any? Are intelligent people automatically wise? I don’t think they are. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, to find out that our former president Richard Nixon was intelligent. But was he wise? Did he rule wisely? Some might ask the same thing about another former president, Bill Clinton. In fact, many of our world leaders in this era would likely be described as intelligent but I find wisdom is at a premium.

It’s interesting to note that in the Ephesians passage for this morning that the opposite of wisdom isn’t stupidity but foolishness: Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (5:15-17) Ephesians’ author points to an important distinction between wisdom and intelligence; there is a relational and ethical aspect to wisdom that is not ascribed to intelligence. If we are wise, we seek to understand God’s will. It’s ongoing in its relationship as we attempt to use the intelligence we do have for the good.

Maintaining wisdom is a tricky business. Solomon struggled with it throughout his life and at the end he ended up looking fairly foolish by worshiping the gods of his many foreign wives. Though he sought wisdom as the fresh-faced young man we found in today’s reading, sustaining it through to the end was something he was unable to do. Because in worshiping other gods, in turning his back on the God of Israel who had sustained him and brought him the riches and honor that came as bonus gifts with the wisdom, he showed his foolishness and lack of willingness to seek out wisdom.

I keep hearing that we have the capacity to end hunger. We are intelligent enough to do that. We have the intelligence, I pray, to turn around global warming and stop the destruction of our planet. But sadly I’m not certain we are wise enough; because greed and denial seem always to be entering in and preventing us from actually doing the difficult work necessary to do that which is needed.

As a culture we have strained our relation with the divine, much as Solomon did at the end of his long life. Mind you, please note that I did not say “as a nation;” in spite of the vocal protestations of many of a more conservative stripe, I don’t believe we are or should be a Christian nation. But I wonder if those of us who do proclaim ourselves to be Christian (to keep it in the family) are actually wise. Are there among us, those who seek the will of God in daily dealings and each decision? Is that something each of us does? Do we seek wisdom each and every day? Or do we ask for it, assume we’ve got it, tuck it into our purse or back pocket and then forget it?

We can’t rely on our intelligence alone. I’ve already raised the examples of what happens when we’re intelligent without the moral and relational aspects of wisdom. It’s no different if we’re a regular old Joe or Jane and making day-to-day decisions that seemingly affect us and only perhaps a small circle of family and friends or if we’re one of those world leaders whose choices affects dozens and dozens of others.

Because we fool ourselves if we think the options we choose affect only a small circle around us. Behind each decision we make, because of the relational aspect of wisdom, are the lives of many others we don’t know. A theologian or philosopher, whose name I cannot recall, once said that the course of history rests on whether he decides to have a cup of tea or not.

Each moment in our lives we are making decisions and as people of faith, we are called to make them wisely; remembering our relationships, with God, with each other and recognizing the outcomes of those decisions. It’s very easy to fall into lockstep with a culture that is so firmly grounded in greed and denial, forgetting that our choices affect others, many of them much worse off than we are and opting for our own gain over the good of others.

Wisdom is portrayed as a female figure in other Hebrew Bible writings; a woman who calls out for believers to follow her. She says:

“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”(Proverbs 9:5-6)

That is true wisdom, laying aside the immaturity that holds us back and walking in the way of true insight. Be as the young Solomon was and seek out wisdom, not once or twice, but each and every moment.

(Photo by Davic from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/davic/3083793614/; Painting by Paolo Veronese, "Allegory of Wisdom and Strength," c. 1580)

Sermon, Sunday, 2 August 2009

John 6:24-35

I don’t know about you, but I find it all too tempting and much too easy to spiritualize Jesus’ words especially as found in the book of John. We like to think that there’s something transcendent about what Jesus has to say. We’re looking for higher meaning. In fact, if you do a quick survey of the chapters preceding the one we heard this morning we find some rather otherworldly things going on. There’s Jesus speaking with Nicodemus about being born again or born of the Spirit turning the earthy, messy event of giving birth into a spiritual one. Then, shortly after that, Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well and speaks of living water. Again, he uses an image of water--splashing, wet water--and turns it into something else; something ethereal. And then in this morning’s reading, Jesus proclaims himself the bread of life; and once again we have a very basic staple from the earth, the stuff of life itself, bread, and talks about it in spiritual ways.

Jesus doesn’t really help things much by initiating what we call communion by using bread to speak of his body a little later on. We call communion a holy meal, sometimes even a feast, but when you stop to think about it, it’s not much of a meal, none-the-less a feast. It’s a little piece of bread; a tiny bit of flour and yeast and water mixed together; hardly enough to assuage anyone with a stomach-growling hunger who may approach the Table. By instituting this “meal” with bread, he further spiritualizes this very common commodity.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Because it’s dangerous to think of Jesus or his teaching just in spiritual terms. In doing so, we run the risk of falling into a trap of saying to those who suffer right here, right now that their reward will be in heaven or that they’ll have an extra star in their heavenly crown or some such unhelpful comment. By separating the spiritual from the physical, and elevating the spiritual over the physical, we just might miss the suffering that is going on all around us.

And there’s not really any reason to do so. If I may, I’d like to back up in John’s gospel again, but only going back a few verses this time rather than to the chapters I mentioned earlier. The start of chapter six, almost immediately preceding our reading this morning about living bread, is about real live bread which Jesus uses to feed five thousand. The narrative just prior to Jesus’ words this morning have Jesus using a young boy’s five loaves and two fishes to fill the stomachs of some very hungry people. Only the story of Jesus walking across the water to reach the boat the disciples were in intersects the two sections of the gospel about bread.

Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa spoke words that have echoes in our gospel reading today. He said: “I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, ‘Now is that political or social?’ He said, ‘I feed you.’ Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.”* Tutu recognizes that there is no split between our physical hunger and our spiritual hunger. He sees in Jesus one who reacts to people’s needs where they are and who they are.

Given the proximity of the feeding of the 5,000 story to our scripture for this morning, it is somewhat surprising that the big request that the crowd had for Jesus was for a sign that he was actually from God. “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” (6:30) they asked and then pointed out that manna appeared to their ancestors in the wilderness when they were hungry. Didn’t they just receive their fill of bread and fish? Didn’t they see that miracle happen right in front of them? Here they are chasing after a beleaguered Jesus only to require another sign.

I’m not certain I would have had Jesus’ patience because he just gives them the answer, “I’m the bread you’re looking for, the bread of life.”

It’s not surprising that manna comes up in this passage; manna was bread from heaven. John, our gospel writer, would have known that as would his original audience. The connection would have been immediate and strong for both author and hearer. Especially considering that by the time John’s gospel was written, the last of the four, a ritual of a holy meal had certainly taken hold; the holy meal that I’ve already mentioned that we call communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s supper. A holy meal with an emphasis on bread. More than that, though, the early church had a sense of a feast; a common gathering for a meal that was in itself holy and sacred. This was a meal when the poorest of the community shared with the richest at table, breaking bread, holding in common a meal, the meal.

Manna comes from heaven and John reminds us that Jesus does too. Manna fed hungry people lost in the wilderness and Jesus fed a large gathering of people, out far from towns, from places they could get food. And Jesus offered himself as bread, bread once again from heaven. Bread for those wandering and hungry in their own wildernesses.

Yes, it is dangerous to overspiritualize all of this, but on the other hand there is a danger of ignoring the spiritual elements. It’s a balance between the earthy and the heavenly. The missionary and evangelist D.T. Niles sums it up when he says “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.”*

Indeed we are all beggars, seeking bread, living bread, to appease a growling stomach that won’t let go, that won’t let us stop seeking the slaking of our hunger, our deep, deep hunger for the bread Jesus provides.

* Both quotes were found on the United Church of Christ lectionary website, Samuel (http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-2-2009-eighteenth-sunday.html)

Photo by John Cordes, used by permission
(c) Gerry Brague, 2 August 2009

Breaking Down the Fences--Article from 29 July 2009 Herald

Dear Friends,

This past Sunday, I brought forth the image of the wall, building on the passage from Ephesians about God breaking down the dividing wall. I also used Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” which begins “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall."

Though most people who know that poem remember the line “fences make good neighbors,", Frost’s intent, in my opinion, was the opposite. Fences divide us and keep us apart.

We are constantly fencing ourselves off from others. Though we may not erect physical barriers (though sometimes we do), we wall ourselves off from others with our attitudes, our preconceptions & prejudices and our unwillingness to extend ourselves into unknown territory.

Walls & fences & barriers are built for good reason often: for protection, for privacy, for claiming our own space. And indeed we need to feel safe.

But sometimes we erect those barriers when they don’t need to be there. Sometimes we fence ourselves in in a misguided attempt to close ourselves off from the world around us; God’s world. Sometimes the last thing we need, in order to live out our calls as Christians, is the safety within the confines of our walls and fences.
What barriers do you erect around you? What attitudes prevent you from being fully engaged as a child of God? What prejudices keep you from reaching across your fences to others who need a hand or simply understanding?

Stop for a moment and envision the fence that is around you. Is there a gate in it or have you made it impermeable? How high is your fence; can you see over it or is it so high that others can’t see in? What would happen if you took down the fence? Where would you be without your barriers? How might you find safety and privacy without your fence?

Ponder these questions as you remember that God seeks to break down the dividing walls.

Peace,
Gerry

text © Gerry Brague, photograph © Beatrice Murch, used with permission (http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/)

Sermon, Sunday, 5 July 2009

Mark 6:1-13a

I have a friend, Marge, who was a seminary student with me back in the beyond time. I became friends with Marge, as well as her husband (who was also one of our professors) and her teenage daughter, Aimee. I often housesat for Marge when she and her husband would travel, so Aimee and I got to be buddies. At one point, Aimee was set to travel for the first time out of the country, to Europe; to France, if I recall correctly. Having recently returned from my own sojourn beyond our country’s borders, I wanted to give Aimee a small bon voyage gift to mark the momentous occasion of her trip, so I purchased a passport case. When I gave it to her, I also provided a bit of advice, which was to keep close watch on her passport because U.S. passports are valuable overseas and can be stolen and used for nefarious activities.

Marge later told me that Aimee told them about my advice and seemed to take it as sacred truth. Marge also told me that they had said exactly the same thing to Aimee before but it wasn’t until she heard it from me, a non-parent in her life, did it really take hold.

I have a feeling that such a reaction is not completely unknown to parents of teenagers or parents with children of any age for that matter. And that reaction is not all that different from what Jesus must have experienced that day in Nazareth. We all know the familiar phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” and indeed that phrase could easily have been borne out of the incident we heard from the first part of the lectionary reading from Mark’s gospel this morning.

But before we get too hard on those folks from Nazareth, let’s consider the situation for a moment. If any of our neighbors in the apartment building where Allen & I live came up to me to tell me that they were sent by God to reform the world, I might be a little skeptical. Why, that’s just Cliff or Shana or Carlos. How can she or he be such an important person?

And of course, all this is only more intensified when you’re talking about someone returning to their hometown. How can he be that important? He’s just Walt & Susan’s kid, the one who got caught smoking behind the A&P. Who does she think she is? Her parents were plain old laborers who had little education. In fact, I’m not sure if her father is her father, if you know what I mean. Such comments and ones like them, perhaps not spoken but certainly considered, are all too common. And they lead to the discounting of many a prophet. And Jesus wasn’t the only one to note this phenomenon. Plutarch, who did his moral philosophizing during the first century not long after Jesus, said, “The most sensible and wisest people are little cared for in their own hometown.”

Just prior to our reading from today, Jesus had been out starting his ministry; traveling around healing, performing miracles, preaching, and teaching. Undoubtedly word of his activities filtered back to Nazareth; those sorts of events aren’t kept quiet for long, as the gospel writers themselves note from time to time. But I’m willing to bet that the miracles and the healings got much bigger and better press than his teachings and preaching ever did. It’s still true today; if you want to get a message across you do it rather than talk about it. We’re fascinated by action but not so interested in words. I believe it’s human nature transcending culture, time, and geography.

So very likely the home folks back in Nazareth heard about the paralyzed man in Capernaum who walked again, about the man with the withered hand who stretched out his cured hand, about the maniacal demoniac in the land of the Gerasenes who was brought back to sanity, about the woman who touched Jesus’ hem & was healed of her decades long flow of blood and about the young girl who was even brought back to life from death. Those stories travel. But had they heard what he had to say; what he was preaching and teaching throughout Galilee? If they even heard it, they probably didn’t remember it because the miracles were so impressive and words...well, words are just words.

So when Jesus got up to speak in the synagogue, his words, his thoughts of doing things differently, of interpreting scripture in a new way, came across as brand new to his listeners that day. They simply weren’t expecting what they heard. Jesus was issuing a challenge to the status quo and it was coming from within, from one of their own. It was coming, in fact, from the son of a carpenter for crying out loud. This was coming from Jesus, Mary’s son. Did you notice they didn’t even mention Joseph? “Jesus doesn’t have the credentials to do this,” was assuredly the thought in several minds that day.

Interestingly, this is the last time that Mark puts Jesus in the synagogue. From here on out, he goes out to the people directly, avoiding the standard routes of religious proclamation, eschewing what we would call “church” and instead preaching wherever he could gather a crowd of folks who would listen. As much as the crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth rejected Jesus that day, Jesus rejected them.

And the lectionary gets it right by making sure that the two seemingly disparate stories we heard from Mark earlier are indeed read together. Though the sending out of the disciples seems like a completely separate narrative, the fact that it follows this tale of rejection is important. Because as Jesus realizes that he won’t be accepted and heard through the usual religious routes, he discovers that he needs to do things in a new way. Sending forth his disciples in pairs is all part and parcel of the reaction to rejection. Jesus essentially says, “Fine, if I can’t do it your way, I’ll do it mine and put my message right out there in the midst of the people.”

Jesus’ instructions to his disciples as he sent them out was to pack light carrying only a staff; a staff for support? or defense perhaps? or because that’s what shepherds carry? Who knows. It was clear that he was saying, however, don’t get weighted down in non-essentials. What you need will be provided. Just take my word out there...to the people. And they did.


Those of us in the seemingly ever-shrinking mainline may need to pay attention to these two narratives closely if we wish to survive and be a presence within Christianity. Because if we’re going to expect “them” to come flocking to us in our churches, it may not happen. And you know whom I mean by “them.” “They’re” called the unchurched, which, I’ll point out, is our term for them, not theirs. “They’re” just folks. They don’t define themselves in relation to church or religion at all.

They’re the people Jesus went out to and sent his disciples to in order to heal and speak with after being rejected by the synagogue, by the religious establishment, by those who knew him best. They’re the people on which Jesus’ subsequent ministry focussed.

How often do we reject our own when they try to speak a new word? How frequently do we find that familiarity does indeed breed contempt? And of course, the very person we’re most familiar with, our very selves, is the one we reject the quickest. “I can’t do that because my ideas are too crazy, too far out there,” we hear ourselves saying. “I’m not a good speaker.” “I am unable because I don’t have the latest computer or the best clothes or a reliable car.” “I could never do that because…” and you fill in the blank. We all stop and reject ourselves all too quickly, as quickly as Nazareth rejected Jesus. We reject the one we know the best because indeed we can be very contemptuous of ourselves because of our familiarity.

But we are, like those early disciples, called to go out without our vast holdings of material goods and a simple supportive, defensive staff in hand. We need the support and defense that that staff provides because there are many places that will also reject us and our message of inclusivity and love. And just like the disciples were instructed to do, we need to shake the dust off our feet and continue on to more receptive ears.

You are equipped, right now, right here, to do ministry. Each of you. Every single one of us can leave this place this morning with all that we need to provide healing in an extremely broken world, a world that may be receptive or may not. But that’s not our concern. We are called, both individually and as communities of God’s church, to break down the walls and barriers that our culture tends to erect and speak a new word...out there...out in the midst of God’s people.

© Gerry Brague

Newsletter article for the week of 14 June 2009--Looking for power in all the wrong places

Dear Friends,

What must have been going through young David’s mind. A few moments earlier he was in the fields, watching the family’s sheep: keeping them safe from predators and making sure none of them strayed off.
Then, suddenly, without warning, he was summoned to the sacrifice that was going on in his hometown of Bethlehem. There the priest Samuel looked at him and said, “Yep, this is the one that God wants!” And with that poured oil over him, anointing him and starting a process that would eventually make him king of Israel. Surrounding him were his father, his probably peeved brothers who had just been passed by for the same honor, and likely some astonished townsfolks.

I don’t think it’s an accident or coincidence that about a thousand years later, in those same hills outside of Bethlehem, other shepherds, perhaps minding descendent sheep of the ones that David was watching that day, were suddenly and unexpectedly drawn away from their duties to pay a visit to a newborn baby, himself of David’s lineage.

Shepherds are the least likely to grow up to be king or to get in early in paying homage to a just born king. Shepherds are just expected to stay with the sheep; that’s their job after all. When it comes to dead-end jobs,shepherding must rank up there with the best(or worst?) of them.

In our modern-day, non-agrarian culture though, we don’t get that joke so much. God chooses a shepherd to rule over the promised land?! God chooses shepherds as the first recipients of the good news of salvation of humanity?! Right! Tell me another good one.

But it’s true. God works with who God will to bring about God’s commonwealth here on earth. And there’s no reason to believe that God has given up yet on doing any of that.
If we think however that we’ll find God anointing anyone in the halls of power and places of influence, we’re looking in the wrong places and we need to read about shepherds a little more.

Peace,
Gerry

[This post is out of order--it should have come before the sermon on the 21st. Oops. My apologies.]

© Gerry Brague

Sermon, Sunday, 21 June 2009

1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11,19-23, 32-49 and Mark 4:35-41

Storms and giants. Giants and storms. The Hebrew Bible reading and the gospel reading together cause deep resonance some two and three thousand years after they occurred. And here we are, on a lovely Sunday morning in California, replete with images of storms and giants.

Now I have never faced a Goliath in my life: a real life, gargantuan person who was clearly out to do me harm. And, similarly, the times I have been on any sort of water craft have been peaceful, calm affairs without the stress and angst of a storm raging about me. (Okay, the time I did go water-skiing was not so calm, but it was a beautiful day.) But certainly, looking at these passages as metaphors, we each have faced our share of giants and storms in our lives. Each of us has stood toe-to-toe with our own personal Goliaths. Each of us has been buffeted and tossed helplessly about while we cling as best we can to whatever sense of reality we can grasp.

The reactions of the actors within these stories are worth investigating. I think that keeping an eye on David and on the disciples might be instructive. Both react differently to the particular stress they face. Both come out okay...eventually. And it might be useful to use the lens of art history to view these stories.

At the start of the Renaissance, that amazing period of time in history when humanity got its act together in some respects and dusted off the bleakest times of the dark ages, artists were finally seen as something more than craftspeople. Prior to this period, art adorned and the creators of art weren’t necessarily known entities; we don’t really have the names of many of the artists prior to the renaissance.

In the midst of this change comes Donatello, who, early in the renaissance, created some stunning works of art, including the first nude free-standing statue in a very long time. Statues, prior to this for several centuries, had been part of architectural features, not items to be viewed from all sides. And what was the subject of this first of its kind statue? None other than one of our heroes from the readings this morning, David.

Now, most of you probably know much better the famous other sculpture of David. But let’s look at this earlier take on the subject, which precedes Michelangelo’s version by about 70 years and is also found in Florence, Italy.

Donatello chose to cast his David in bronze, perhaps a reference to the armor of Saul’s which David didn’t wear or the obviously really heavy, impressive, and clearly useless armor that Goliath did wear. This David is not terribly large--true to the scripture, David is small, as is the statue itself.

We find David here at the point of having just killed Goliath. We see Goliath’s sword in David’s hand and there at David’s feet is the freshly decapitated head of Goliath, still wearing his less than helpful helmet. David’s face is calm repose, almost blank. This is still the early renaissance--emotion did not yet play a large role perhaps. But in that face, we see a David who is self-assured and certain. It seems like David has his eyes cast down; in humility perhaps, but also maybe regarding the spoils of his victory.

So, some 70 years later, one of the greatest artists who ever lived, took on the same subject, but with a very different approach, with a different medium, having a different result. Michelangelo took about three years to turn an enormous block of marble into the David who knew what he was about to do but had not yet done.

This David stands ready; facing his Goliath with assuredness and certainty. Against all the warnings of his own countrypeople and the derision of the opposing army, especially Goliath, David comes to face the foe who would enslave God ‘s people.

In his right hand, he holds a stone, visible only from behind. This hand is strong though and prepared; the veins are showing and the grip on his stone is tight. The right hand is prepared and ready to spring into action.

David’s face and left hand are different though. This face, in comparison to the face of Donatello’s David we just saw, is filled with emotion and confidence. David knows here that he is facing one of the biggest foes, at least physically, that he will ever face. The left hand is up at his shoulder, holding the slingshot waiting for its stone. You can’t quite see it here, but this hand is smooth; no bulging veins. The grip is loose yet ready.

Finally we turn to the painting that is on the bulletin cover: Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee, painted about 120 years after Michelangelo was working on his David. The boat, if you’ll notice is barely visible heightening the sense of urgency; in the midst of this raging storm, there is little support for the terrified band of disciples. With waves that big and the wind obviously howling all around them, I’m not sure I don’t blame them their lack of nerve for which Jesus chastised them.

And there, at the center of all those frightened disciples, sits Jesus. You really have to look for him in the midst of all that’s going on. But he is the calm, the eye of the storm, so to speak. We peer into the situation through this painting in that moment just after Jesus has been awakened from his sleep and just before he calms the waters. The astonishment of the disciples which we heard about in the reading after he calmed the store has not yet replaced the fear and terror.

As we deal with the giants and storms of our lives, we can make choices: we can remove all the armor that surrounds us yet weighs us down, the armor that our culture insists we put up. We can strip ourselves of our defenses and face them with the certainty and knowledge that God stands with us. We can strive to listen for those simple words “peace, be still” and know that the storm will truly eventually end. We can rest assured that victory is ours, no matter the outcome of our struggles and that we are God’s people, in the midst of facing our giants and storms.

© 21 June 2009, Gerry Brague

Sermon, Sunday, 14 June 2009

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 Mark 4:26-34 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Through the long liturgical season which we have just started, the season known as the days after Pentecost, when you hopefully like the color green in all its variations, there are actually two tracks in the revised common lectionary for the Hebrew Bible readings. One track is tied to the Christian Testament readings, especially the gospel reading. These readings are usually linked in some thematic way and they will bounce all over the Hebrew Bible. The other track is not tied to the gospel readings and goes through the sweep of a story. I have usually chosen to follow that 2nd track and am doing so this year. So our reading today from Samuel is the start of the narrative about David, the great king of Israel. Next week, we’ll pick up again in the story about David and in ensuring weeks hear more about him.

Therefore, there’s not really supposed to be a thematic link between this reading and the Mark reading. But did you notice a happy coincidental theme between them? David, small and young, is an unlikely candidate for the kingship. And Jesus, in the second parable he tells in today’s reading, makes a great deal about the mustard seed, which is tiny and one wouldn’t expect major things to come out of it. But Jesus points out that a shrub big enough for birds to nest in grows from it.

Our faith history, according to the Bible, is topsy-turvy this way so often. The weak become strong; the small, big. It’s unexpected. The powerful aren’t always as powerful as we think. Joseph’s brothers thought they were done with him when they sold him off to Egypt, but little did they know their little brother would have power in the end; power enough to save them from starvation.

Esther was a woman in the court of a mighty king and outwitted a powerful advisor who was going to kill the Jewish people. Mordecai, that nasty villain, was out to eradicate all the Jews but Esther, in a surprise turn, comes from her humble position and saves the people while eliminating the threat that Mordecai posed.

So it goes: Jeremiah was only a boy; Moses stuttered; “whatever you do for the least of these you do for me;” the angels announced the birth of Jesus to lowly shepherds. Even Paul gets it when he casts off the power he held that allowed him to search out and eliminate the new Christian faith and becomes one of those persecuted himself.

Throughout the Bible, tables are turned again and again. Maybe it’s what Paul was writing about in today’s epistle reading when he said that “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) He really did get it: the old orders of things have got to change; in Christ everything is new and upside down.

And David, out there minding the family flock like a good boy, missing the big shindig in town, was no doubt surprised when he was summoned and found himself under the oil horn that Samuel was wielding. He was the least likely of the family to go far...after all, he was the youngest. Nothing was expected of him. When it came time for the whole anointing ritual, he was an afterthought on his father’s part.

Now remember, the kingship of Israel was a new thing, so it’s not like David or anyone else was sitting there aspiring to be king. Israel had not had kings. God was their king. Theirs was a loose confederation of tribes which had gone to judges to settle important matters. They had great generals who secured the promised land for them and kept out invaders. They had high priests who led the people in their religious life. But kings, earthly rulers, were not a part of their socio-political life.

The people grumbled though that they thought they needed a king like all the other countries around them. You know that ever-present drive of human nature that says if Mary has a red wagon then her neighbor Johnny has to have one too? It works the same for countries and governments. Israel grumbled loud and long enough that finally God gave in and said “alright already, you can have a king” and Saul was named.
Well, Saul is one of those tragic figures from the Bible who starts off good and ends up at the bottom of the heap. We won’t go into Saul’s decline here, but as you heard in today’s reading, God repents--yes, God repents--of having chosen Saul as king. And Samuel, who has been doing God’s work for several chapters now, has to go off and anoint a new king in Bethlehem.

Well, things around Israel must have been tense; Samuel doesn’t want to do this because if Saul gets wind that he’s getting the royal pink slip, he’s not going to be happy and Samuel has a good idea of how that regal unhappiness will play out. So Samuel is on edge. The people of Bethlehem seem a little edgy too; when they see Samuel approaching they don’t rush out to welcome him. No, their first jittery question is “Do you come peaceably?” It makes you think that there are things going on between the lines of our reading.

But Samuel says he’s come to do a sacrifice, which is the cover story for the anointing. So he begins and he gets Jesse to parade all his sons before him, all seven of them: big, handsome, strapping examples of manhood in its prime. But God has a surprise for everyone, including Samuel and David. The runt of the litter is the one God wants. God is not going to make the same mistake again from when God gave Saul the royal ball to run with.

It all reminds me of the search a certain prince carried out, when he was looking for the one woman who would fit into a glass slipper that he has kept as a souvenir. Of course all the maidens of the country want to fit into that slipper, and they all try, but, as we all know, it only fits the lowly, soot-covered Cinderella.

It’s a common story in human history, this rags to riches tale. It’s found from folklore to literature, including scripture. And Jesus knew that when he compared God’s realm to a mustard seed.

A mustard seed? How could that be? We all know that God’s realm is like the vast ocean; God’s realm is like the huge cities that we’ve built; God’s realm is fast cars and roaring jets and the expanse of the desert.
No, says Jesus, think smaller...think, in fact, tiny. God’s realm is so tiny you might just miss it, which most people do as they search for the grand and glorious. Because Jesus knows things little can and do grow. Jesus knows enough about farming to point out that it takes a seed, a wee seed, for something to grow. And Jesus knows too about David coming from the bottom of the heap to end up as the greatest ruler that Israel ever knew. If Samuel had said to Jesse, “yeah, you’re right...the kid out with the sheep probably smells bad anyways and God certainly wouldn’t want someone that low” things would have been very different in Israel’s history.

We don’t see as God sees; that’s stated plainly in our reading this morning. God sees beyond what we mortals can take in. God sees potential and hope and fulfillment while we usually look at size and stature and glitziness. And if we’re not careful, while we’re oohing and ahhing about how grand something is, we just might miss the fact that that little mustard seed is growing up and providing homes for birds and doing whatever else mustard bushes are meant to do.

Listen for God telling you to go ahead, hook up with the little ones all around you: the marginalized, the dispossessed, the have-nots. God already sees them. God wants you to see them too.


Image from http://www.finaltrump.com/2009/03/the-three-anointings-of-david/ and looks like an old Sunday School picture. I liked it though...those really put-off brothers in the background tell a story in and of themselves.

© Gerry Brague, 13 June 2009

Lection Divina--Newsletter Article for the week of 31 May 2009

Dear Friends,

During worship on Pentecost Sunday, we used Lectio Divina, for our scripture reading, a spiritual practice in which one tries to listen actively to what the text, and God through the text, is trying to say to you.

Lectio Divina is active, sacred listening. It is a way of hearing a text in a new manner, allowing it to sink into your being. It is a different way of reading or hearing a text than how you might read or hear a newspaper story or a piece of junk mail. And though we did Lectio Divina as a group, it can be done privately also. Simply follow the same steps we did on Sunday with any text that you wish to go more deeply with.

To begin, select your text. You may want to follow the lectionary. Or you may wish to find some old, familiar texts that you need to hear in a new way.

Then quiet yourself. Turn off not only your stereo and tv and telephones and any other distractions you may have but also turn off, to the best of your ability, all the things that are nagging you and are running through your head. Spend a few minutes in silence.

Then read the passage. Though you can read it silently, I recommend that you do it aloud so that you can actually hear the words of the text. Read slowly and evenly, making sure each word gets its proper emphasis. Notice, as you read, what word or phrase sparkles or shines or jumps out at you. Don’t analyze why that word or phrase stood out. When you’ve finished the first reading, spend some time in silence with your word.
Then read the text again, this time through the lens of the word that spoke to you. Spend time in silence seeking understanding on what that word or phrase means to you.

On the third and final reading, seek to grasp what the text is calling you to do. Is it a call to action? Is it simply a response of gratitude? Is there something in your life that needs to be changed?

Finally, spend time in silence to bring all these experiences together. Throughout, seek God’s presence with you as you look to understand the word God sends to you.

Peace,
Gerry

Sermon, Sunday, 31 May 2009 -- Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-13

April in New England can be an iffy affair. Some in that section of our country joke that there are really only three seasons: summer, winter, and mud. April can be a part of that mud season with one day filled with spring sunshine and the warming of winter out of one’s bones while the next can bring a drop of many degrees and several inches of snow on the flowers doing their best to begin the growing process.

So it was in April 1934. There were some wonderful days of sunshine and then a terrible storm arose. Of course, on the tops of the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire, those changes in weather are only accentuated to the extremes. And the summit of Mt Washington, the tallest of the White Mountains and one of the highest on the eastern seaboard is no exception.

It was there, atop that treeless apex, that on April the 12th of 1934 that the fastest wind speed on earth was recorded, a measurement that stands to this day. Does anyone know what the speed of the wind was in that wild storm? There was a gust of 231 miles per hour.

Since that’s the fastest recorded wind speed, and because I sincerely doubt that anyone here today was there on top of Mt. Washington some 75 years ago, I imagine none of us have really experienced such high wind speeds. But who’s been in the midst of a hurricane? Or a wind storm sweeping across the plains? Or been atop a high, unprotected mountain in the midst of a storm.

I experienced the high winds of a hurricane while in seminary and those winds only got to 80 miles per hour or so. Still, from my dorm room window, we watched several of the tall pine trees on our campus lose their branches, one entire tree giving into the relentless pressure of those winds and toppling over. And those winds were only a quarter of those from the top of Mt. Washington back in 1934.

We’re told that on that day when the disciples gathered to celebrate the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection, that besides the tongues of fire that appeared and the miraculous speaking in languages which everyone understood, there was a violent wind that rushed from heaven and filled the house in which they were gathered.

Let me be clear: this was not a puff...not a breeze...not a wafting zephyr. No, this was a VIOLENT wind. A wind that would knock your socks off, though I doubt they wore socks yet by this point in history.

In the original Greek, the word used here is biaios and it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The King James Version translates this word as ‘mighty’, but the translation of the word biaios is closer to forcible or violent, which is how the New Revised Standard Version translates it.

Too often we want to think of the Spirit as moving among us in those puffs and wafts and gentle zephyrs. Too often, we invite the Spirit into our midst and expect a breeze to blow through; nothing too strong or anything that would disturb our carefully coiffed theological stances. Our prayers often seek a kinder, gentler Spirit to blow around us.

But that’s not the Biblical precedent. If we are to read the Pentecost story and believe that nothing has changed since then, we should expect major, mighty, violent wind to accompany the Spirit. It’s not a wind that we can control like an oscillating fan in a too warm bedroom. It blows where it will and as strong as it will. And we’d just better be prepared for it not only to undo our tightly curled, perfectly in place hairstyle that we call church, but to blow us right along with it to places we may not want to go. This violent, forcible Spirit will move us and shake up everything we think is already right in place, and just where it should be.

I’ve been on the top of Mt. Washington. (Don’t think I got too athletic and hiked up or anything--there’s a road and a van that takes you there.) Like the top of most high, unprotected mountains, it is a very windy place, even on the best of days. I have a feeling though those winds, and the winds of that hurricane I experienced, are nothing to what God has in store for us when the Spirit is unleashed among us.

Photo of the Pentecost Dome at Basilica San Marco, Venezia, Italia; photographer unknown

Sermon, Sunday, 10 May 2009

[Please note: I shall be on vacation for a little while, so this will be the last post until I return.]

Psalm 22 (25-31)

It’s a moment, even if we haven’t experienced or witnessed it ourselves, that is easy enough to imagine. Think of a crowded shopping mall...or a busy downtown street...or a teeming subway train. A small child becomes separated from her Mother, even if for a brief instant. Mom, of course, knows where her daughter is the whole time, but, in that instant, the child has no idea where her Mother is; Mother, her source of protection & nourishment. For a brief moment, a look of bewilderment flashes across the young girl’s face. Then comes fear followed by crying out. Reunion, because Mom is ever watchful, ever listening, is swift and brings comfort, quelling fears, reassuring the young one that all is well. But until that happens, there is confusion and fear and longing...longing for a return to safety and solace...longing for arms that hold and words that soothe.

Now age the young girl a few decades or so. Elongate that time of bewilderment, fear, and longing. Stretch it out to be several decades long itself in fact. Delay that reunion, withholding comfort, safety, and care from the one who longs for a return.

That description is the way many have experienced God; or better put, experience a lack of God. That description delineates what many of us feel about the Divine. Those of us who are bewildered or anxious or frightened because we feel we’ve been abandoned in the shopping mall we call life, surrounded by strangers in a strange land, seek and yearn for God’s return to our lives, yet think our cries go unheard; we feel abandoned because indeed God does not come to scoop us up in God’s arms right away. We stand amidst the swirl of people going to and fro all around us; people who are seemingly going about their business; people who seem to be connected to their God; people whom we want to be. Instead we yearn for the one who is no longer in sight. Instead we ache for God’s loving embrace once again. Instead, we are left seeking and crying out in our distress.

The verses from the Psalms that we read together today is the very end of Psalm 22. Those verses belie the beginning of the Psalm in which the author cries out in a way I have just described. Yes, we hear about the psalmist’s praise and how even the dead will bow down to God and deliverance is for generations and generations yet to come.

Yet hear the opening words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Sound familiar? Of course, it’s the very same words that Jesus used from the cross; the words that he was mocked for saying, in the same way that the Psalmist was mocked and felt abandonment in the first 24 verses of this Psalm. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” (1-2)

It sounds familiar because it is familiar to anyone who’s been around a church during Holy Week and know all too well the narrative of the crucifixion. For some of us though, it rings true for other reasons. Not only is it the cry of Jesus from the cross, in his pain and sorrow and grief as he hung awaiting death, but it’s the cry that many have exclaimed when feeling forsaken, abandoned, bereft, deserted. Deserted, indeed, by the Creator, by my God, my God.

We all know the good works of Mother Teresa, the Albanian religious sister who served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, that poorest of the poor city. If anyone who has graced the pages of the daily newspapers in our lifetimes is going to end up being declared a saint, it is, no doubt, she. She worked tirelessly to alleviate suffering, to care for those who needed care, to bring the Christ into the lives of “the least of these.”

Yet listen to her words:

"There is so much contradiction in my soul, no faith, no love, no zeal. . . . I find no words to express the depths of the darkness. . . . My heart is so empty. . . . so full of darkness. . . . I don't pray any longer. The work holds no joy, no attraction, no zeal. . . . I have no faith, I don't believe." (as quoted in The Journey With Jesus Website, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/)

These words, made public at the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her death in 1997 from her letters, surprised many. But to many believers...yes, believers...her words had the ring of authenticity and truth. They all sound too familiar; too much the truth of our own lives; too resonant with the very thoughts that have found a home in the shadowed moments of our own lives.

The Psalmist complains that

“I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people...On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.” (6, 10-11)

This ancient author goes on to describe the bulls and dogs who surrounded and are ready to attack. We read of the pining for God...an ache so real that it calls out through the centuries upon centuries to Mother Teresa and to many of us.

In our yearning, we struggle to maintain our balance in the swirl all around us. As we reach out, stretching our arms into the seeming void,we hope to grasp onto something, anything that will lead us to God, to that reunion we desperately crave.

But like Mother Teresa, we all too often find need in our midst instead of God. Our yearning is overshadowed by the great deprivation which surrounds us. The work that needs to be done eclipses our own deep-seated want for God’s touch.

So we set off, off-balance as we are, to right whatever wrongs we can along the way, as we ourselves stumble along. We do right because it is, well, right; because in the absence of a God who calls, suffering must be addressed, whatever the motivation.

So the Mother Teresas and all who know too well the mood of the beginning of Psalm 22, reach out for God and in our reaching out happen upon those who cry not for spiritual food, but for real, belly-filling food. As we seek to be sheltered by God, we find those who don’t know what real shelter is, sleeping night after night in a new doorway on the street. Our thirsting for the connection with the Divine remains unslaked as we provide cool cups to those who thirst for water that quenches thirst from the lack of clean, accessible water.

If these sermon words of mine seem foreign to you, if Mother Teresa’s story is unfamiliar, if the early verses of Psalm 22 do not describe your situation, rejoice and be glad. Love the God who is your companion and your way.

If however you have noticed the nodding of your head throughout these words of mine, know you are not alone. From Mother Teresa around the globe to our community, there are many who seek God, but find God to be unreachable and remote. Continue to do the work that gives meaning to your life. God, when God reveals Godself to you again, will have been there with you as you reached out to those needing care.