Emmanuel

Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
   and they shall name him Emmanuel,"
which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

I get an email five days a week from an organization called DelanceyPlace.com.  The email contains an excerpt of a nonfiction book:  some interesting nugget of information about history or business or some other aspect of life on this earth.  I’ve learned a lot, most of which, unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten.

Today’s reading from Matthew reminded me of an email I got from DelanceyPlace.com this past week excerpted from a book called Euphemania.  The excerpt was about euphemisms, those clever little phrases we all say to hide what we actually mean to say but can’t or won’t or don’t because of social strictures.  Did you ever hear the phrase “born on the wrong side of the blanket?”  Evidently, it was a euphemism popular in the late 18th century for...well, you can imagine what it was a euphemism for.  We all use euphemisms at one point or another to cover our meaning or avoid saying something directly.

Matthew’s writing this morning was heavy with euphemisms, at least part of it was.  Mary, he writes, was “found to be with child.”  In this instance we know exactly what Matthew is saying:  Mary was pregnant.  When we come to the words that Joseph planned to “dismiss her quietly” though, we’re not quite sure what Matthew meant.  Did it mean that he was going to send Mary away from her home and family to avoid the disgrace of being pregnant without being married?  Or did it mean that he would save her the horror of being stoned to death but still have her killed quietly?  We don’t know because that euphemism is lost to us now.

The words in Joseph’s dream are direct and to the point though.  They tell Joseph exactly what to do without any euphemisms or wavering in their meaning.  This clear message comes to Joseph via an angel.  Even though the angel is unnamed, I like to think it’s Gabriel again, the same angel who brought the news to Mary that she was going to bear Jesus.  That would make a nice symmetry: Gabriel, your all-purpose nativity angel.

What’s interesting about Matthew’s account of the birth narratives is that, unlike Luke’s account, this is told from Joseph’s perspective.  And this is the last we see of Joseph in the scriptures.  He disappears after this without a trace and is not mentioned again.  But Matthew, eager to settle in his Jewish readers minds that Jesus is a legitimate heir of David, gives us the genealogy from Joseph’s side and then tells the story of Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s viewpoint. 

God, through the angel, had to intervene to prevent Joseph from dismissing Mary quietly.   Without Mary, of course there would have been no birth.  But without Joseph, according to Matthew, there would have been no legitimacy to David’s throne.

Matthew is quick to quote Isaiah’s passage, the very one that we heard this morning in our Hebrew Bible reading.  In its original context, that reading was assuring a Judean king, Ahaz, that his line would continue with the birth of a son.  But Matthew uses that scripture in the context of Jesus’ birth, again adding in legitimacy to a Jewish readership that would know the original scripture well.   Matthew, from the very beginning is working to prove that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who has come to save the world from itself.

Of course, the Jewish folks of the first century, who would be reading Matthew’s gospel and were Matthew’s intended audience, were looking for a political Messiah, who would free Israel.  But by the time Matthew wrote his gospel, there was already a split between Jews and Christian Jews, such that the Christians were no longer allowed in the synagogue.  So they were ready to accept a spiritual Messiah, one who came and conquered not Rome but death and sin.

The angel, back to our reading this morning, spoke directly to Joseph:  don’t be afraid; Mary’s baby is from the Holy Spirit; name the baby Jesus; Jesus will save the people from their sins.  That’s the summation of the angel’s message and Joseph took it to heart.  The name “Jesus” by the way is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joshua” which means “God saves.”  Thus the addition of the fact that Jesus will save the people from their sins in the angelic proclamation makes sense with the name, Jesus.

And that’s how we like our communications from God, isn’t it?  Direct and to the point without any room for equivocation.  Except when we’re looking for another answer than the one we got; then we want wiggle room, of course.  But when God sends an angel to deliver the message, you know that you’re going to get it direct and true.

Matthew was making a point here by focussing on Joseph.  If you think back through the Hebrew Bible, there was another famous Joseph, one who was known for his dreams, who traveled to Egypt and was known to be righteous, just as we were told Joseph is righteous.  Matthew’s Jewish readers and hearers would certainly make that connection between the more recent Joseph and his ancestor in the faith.  Again, a link to Jesus’ Jewish past is established through Joseph.

Matthew, in quoting Isaiah, gives Jesus a second name:  Emmanuel.  Emmanuel is a Hebrew name which does in fact mean “God with us.”  And that’s what the nativity stories are all about, aren’t they:  God entering into humanity as God has never done before.  God being with us in new and exciting ways. 

In fact, the whole of Matthew’s gospel is working to show that God was with us in the person of Jesus Christ.  In fact, if you jump ahead twenty-eight chapters to the closing verses of the book of Matthew, you’ll find “God with us” there again if you look closely enough.  For there at the very end of his Gospel, Matthew tells us of Jesus’ promise to be with us to the end of the age.  Emmanuel.  God with us.  Always.

This birth narrative from Matthew sets his readers and us up for the continuing story of God’s presence among us both now and for all time.  Jesus came, we are told from the very start, to save the people, not from Rome or from any other earthly power but from their own sins.  And, as we journey through Matthew this coming year, we’ll hear how God remains with us and will remain with us forever.

[Painting is The Vision of St. Joseph, by James Tissot.]

Blossoms in the Desert

Isaiah 35:1-10

Using a favorite phrase of my friend Nancy, we have heard from a veritable plethora of prophets this morning.  There’s John the Baptist wondering if his prophecies about Jesus are true.  We hear Mary singing that the world is going to be a better place because of the son she is carrying and if that’s not prophecy, I don’t know what is.  And then we have Isaiah bringing hope to a captive people.  With so many prophets at hand, how is a preacher supposed to choose?  How do we focus our attention with so many working to grab that very attention we seek to focus?

Well, being a visual person, I went with the prophet who used visuals in his message and that of course is Isaiah.  Right there in the first sentence, Isaiah had me: “the desert shall rejoice and blossom.”  It didn’t take long for my imagination to get rolling.  In fact, my imagination didn’t have to come into play; I had my own memories to draw on.

During my time in Australia, I ventured forth into the great center of that continent, to the huge red desert that makes up a large majority of the land mass.  I went in winter, which meant that the temperatures were bearable.  But it also meant that in some of the places there had been some rain, an extremely rare occurrence, which I didn’t experience myself but which had preceded me.

Thus I got to see the desert in bloom, which I was told only happens once every six or seven years.  I counted myself lucky to see this rare event and it is permanently etched in my memory.

That’s what prophets do; they jog your imagination and stir up your memory and by bringing up the past show off the potential of the future.  Isaiah does that in spades in this verse and it’s needed in this instance.

This portion of Isaiah was written after the great exile of the people from Jerusalem to Babylon.  In fact, a generation or so had passed since that terrible event when the Babylonians had swept in, destroyed the holy city Jerusalem, and taken many of the city’s inhabitants as captives, transporting them to Babylon.

This prophet, whom we call Second Isaiah, came along and wanted to keep up the Jewish people’s interest in their land.  Second Isaiah was a cheerleader of sorts for the old country.  Memories were fading and Isaiah found it his job to remind the people what they had left behind.  Some of the folks were getting too comfortable in Babylon: some were attaining positions of importance and marriages were occurring between the Jewish people and the Babylonians.  Isaiah worked to remind them of the place they had left, which had long ago been promised to them.

Isaiah was stirring the people’s memories and inciting their imaginations so that they could envision a future in which they returned to their land.  Between them and their home though lay a vast desert.  A way had to be made there so that the return would be not only safe but also pleasant.  So no wild animals will attack and yes, there will be blossoms to make the way agreeable.

Isaiah knew his audience.  That vast desert between the exiles and home had to be made  traversable.  And it was God who was going to do just that; God would make the way back to Jerusalem available to all who wanted to return.  Not only that, the lame wouldn’t just be able to walk, they’d be leaping.  The speechless wouldn’t just talk: they’d be singing out in joy.  All manner of miracles will take place when God gets involved.  And God is definitely getting involved here.  After the hardship of exile, God is ready to renew God’s relationship with the people of Judah.  Isaiah was talking about restoration.  Justice. Healing.  Joy.  Words that seem impossible to a people in exile.  Are they impossible for us to hear though?

It is the sort of the thing we need to hear this Advent, isn’t it?  Though we aren’t in exile, it feels like we might be in some sort of spiritual exile, doesn’t it?  For instance, across the globe there are many who need a simple thing like water in order to survive, but who won’t get it.  Our war in Afghanistan goes on without any resolution or completion in sight.  The economy remains stubbornly lackluster leaving many un- or underemployed.  And here in our dear community of Chalice, we are facing 2011 with many questions about our future and how we shall remake ourselves.  If ever we needed God’s involvement and attention, as a church, as a nation, as a world, it is now. 

God doesn’t create lush gardens in the desert however for people who don’t want to return.  God doesn’t give sight to the blind who don’t want to see.  That’s why the prophet, Isaiah, needed to get the Jewish people into a state where they wanted to return.  Because if they were going to want to remain an exilic people, God wasn’t going to do those miraculous events for nothing.

Enough of us have to want to return home, to leave exile.  Enough of us have to want to walk again or see again or speak again.  Enough of us have to believe the prophecy that we will be able to go home again, believe it enough to pack our bags and have them waiting at the door, waiting for the desert to bloom and for God’s way to be made through the wilderness.

Yes, our veritable plethora of prophets, headed by Isaiah, all are saying about the same thing: this can be a different world but you need to allow God in and not rely only on yourselves.  Then, when we’ve let God into our lives and allow God to act as God alone can act, will the miraculous happen.  The desert blooming, for instance.

All Saints Day

Interior of Central Synagogue

Leaf from Weeping Willow Memorial

Weeping WIllow Memorial

Luke 6:20-31

Our gospel reading this morning ends on a familiar note.  We know the verse as the Golden Rule.  A form of it is found in many of the world’s religions--it’s not unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition.  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  It sounds nice doesn’t it?  That’s because we usually interpret it as saying, “be nice and others will be nice to you.” 

But being nice is a luxury of those who hold the power, isn’t it?  Point out the inequalities of a power situation or the fact that someone is being oppressed and somehow you’re no longer very nice.  And then the Golden Rule goes out the window.  If he, she or they aren’t going to be nice, well, I don’t have to be either, do I?  It says so right in the Bible.

Reading through the passage immediately before this Golden Rule that Jesus sets down, it does seem that Jesus wants us to be not only nice but sort of doormats.  But if you think about it, he’s putting forth radical ideas.  Love your enemies?  Wow, who’d’ve thought?  Enemies are there to be hated, aren’t they?  What is Jesus trying to do?  Make us into saints or something?

Well, yes and that’s why these scriptures are set for All Saints Day, which was actually last Monday, but is often celebrated in worship on the Sunday following.  So here we are commemorating All Saints Day and we have fairly clear instructions from this passage from Luke on how to be saints and what to avoid if we want to be known among the saints.  We usually have All Saints Day to remember and recall but it’s also a day of looking forward.  But before we look forward, we do spend time looking back and pulling up memories.

During our time in Budapest recently, one morning we visited the Dohany Street Central Synagogue which was built in the mid-19th century and is the 2nd largest synagogue in the world.  It’s the main though not the only synagogue for the large Jewish community of Budapest.  The interior, to make an understatement, is ornate…and gorgeous.  Two balconies for the women surround the main floor.  Gilt ornamentation is readily seen wherever you look.  One of our guidebooks said it was built to affirm the Jewish community’s place in the life of Budapest; an attempt, as it were, to keep up with the Christians.  They even included a few items, such as an organ and a pulpit, that aren’t usually found in most synagogues evidently. 

Behind the synagogue is a memorial garden, built to remember those who died in the holocaust.  It includes a symbolic, ceremonial grave for Raoul Wallenberg, the Christian Swedish ambassador who saved hundreds if not thousands of Jewish lives with his diplomatic abilities and handfuls of cash to bribe the proper officials.  Wallenberg died in a Soviet gulag in the 70s.

The main focal point of the Memorial Garden is a metal sculpture that is in the form of a weeping willow tree.  Just like a live weeping willow tree, its branches hang gracefully, sweeping down, until they almost touch the ground.  If you look closely, on the leaves are inscribed the names of those Budapestians who died in the holocaust, hundreds and thousands of leaves and names, all helping us to remember.

I never want to trivialize the experience of the Jews during the holocaust.  That was a terrible, unfathomable era of our human history with great suffering and tragedy.  But isn’t that what today’s often overlooked holiday is about; remembering?  Don’t we each inscribe a mental weeping willow leaf with the name of loved ones who have gone on, who have led us closer to God and taught us about turning the other cheek?  For those of us who are Christian, today is a day when we wander in our own memorial gardens and take note of those leaves, pausing at each one to recall how they brought the Golden Rule to life for us.  We remember because as humans we are almost programmed to do so.  We remember the ones who lived out the beatitudes and brought blessing and joy to us.

We look forward today in one way; look forward in hopes of becoming one of God’s saints in the eyes and memory of another.  But we also look back.  We look back and remember; we look back and recall the love that we felt that was and still is a reflection of God’s great, unconditional love.  Because that’s who the saints in our lives are: those who reflected God’s love through themselves, often selflessly, often tirelessly.

In a few moments, we’re going to recall the saints of our lives.  After strolling through our own memory gardens, I’ll ask us to name the names we find on the leaves there.  In the meantime, take this weeping willow leaf as a way to help you remember.  Let it be a tangible reminder of the person or people who are inscribed forever in your memorial garden.  And remember.

Being Shrewd

Luke 16:1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

What a parable we’ve just heard.  It’s one of those difficult sayings of Jesus that we end up scratching our heads over and hoping that next week’s lectionary reading is easier to understand; at least I do. But we ignore this parable at our own peril, so let’s look at it and spend some time trying to comprehend what Jesus may have been talking about.

To recap:  There’s a rich man who has a manager or steward.  The rich man discovers that the manager hasn’t been dealing with his accounts in his best interests.  The manager, upon learning that he’s been found out, hatches a plan to ensure that his good fortune continues.

He realizes that he’s too old or feeble to dig ditches and I can empathize with him there.  He’s also too proud to beg so there has to be another solution.  His solution is to create a circle of friends by reducing the debt they owe to the rich man.  Then comes the twist to the story; when the rich man learns of this plan, he commends his manager.  He doesn’t condemn him but rather calls him shrewd, as truly he is.

You’ve got to imagine that Jesus is telling this story with a glimmer in his eye.  He knows that the twists don’t make sense and that’s the joke of it all.  He’s telling this story to the man on the street; those who catch the early bus to get to grinding jobs.  This is a story for the run of the mill guy or gal who knows about rich men and how unlike they are from the rest of us.

And you have to remember that Luke, the author of our gospel, is particularly interested in proclaiming God’s preference for the poor.  Luke is concerned with what we would call economics; especially the economics of the poor versus the rich. 

So the rich man is not the hero here, well, at least not at the start.  Our protagonist is the manager, who shows how shrewd he is.  The translation we heard talks about him “squandering” his master’s riches.  In actuality, the Greek word is closer to “scattering:”  the manager was strewing about the rich man’s money. 

To where was he scattering it?  Well, very likely those hearers of the parable originally, those men and women of the street, would have assumed that it was going to the poor.  The manager was being an early Robin Hood, more or less.  Then he continues this use of his boss’ riches by shrewdly reducing the amount of what some of the rich man’s debtors owe.  And who are these debtors?  Well, once again they’re people who owe to rich people, in other words, poor people.

The manager is reducing the debts of these folks, in one case by 50%, so that they would feel an obligation to him.  Jesus is clear that the manager is doing this so he’ll be welcomed into the homes of these debtors once he’s out of a job.

Then comes the twist of the story.  The rich man learns of this turn of his affairs and commends the manager.  As Tom Boomershine, who taught me in my Digital Culture Certificate program, writes:  “This is a sign that the story is about God.  God is the one who commends a shrewd steward for acting in a way that was not in the benefit of a rich man.”  Jesus’ explanation about this is that the children of this age are shrewder than the children of light in their own generation.  That is to say, they know how to act; they know how to work the system and to have it work for them.  Children of light, Jesus is saying, are often naïve, pious, nice and don’t know how to use stuff such as money in their own interest.

Jesus knew what everyone else knew:  poor people welcome those who have treated them well into their homes.  That’s the shrewdness of this parable.  In Luke’s version of the beatitudes, the very first thing that Jesus says is that the poor shall inherit the kingdom of God; not the poor in spirit...that’s Matthew’s take on it.  And in the story about Lazarus and the rich man, it’s clear that the poor are going to be the gatekeepers for God’s realm. 

Jesus, according to Luke, is here for the poor.  And this parable only drives that point home.  We may look at it with alarm but that’s because in our materialistic culture, where money is a reward from God, the rich man is the hero.  We have to turn the tables and recognize this parable as a first century story and Jesus was telling it to the poor and those run of the mill, early bus catching guys and gals.  Jesus was, as he often does, turning things upside down; turning the story head over heels with a glint in his eye as he did it.

So where does all this leave us?  Likely none of us are in a position to scatter the riches of anyone in the upper income brackets and even if we did, we’d likely get a very different reaction when we were caught and let’s face it, we’d get caught.  Any scattering of someone else’s riches would likely land us in jail rather than commended.

And the answer to that question of where this leaves us is found in the paragraph that follows the parable, the very last line that we heard:  “You cannot serve God and wealth.”  If you’re serving wealth, you’re not going to scatter the riches around to those who need it, ignoring God’s call to serve them.  This is a parable of the end times, when things are turned as topsy turvy as the parable itself does; when God’s realm enters in fully and we don’t value people based on their bank account or garage contents.

Indeed we dismiss this parable at our own risk.  It must be viewed through the lens of God’s preference for the poor.  Only then can we begin to understand the lesson that this parable provides.

Lost & Found

Luke 15:1-10

There was a popular tv show that aired for several seasons though I myself never caught it.  It’s title came to me after reading today’s gospel lesson though.  The show was called Lost, and dealt, if I remember correctly, with a plane that went down in the middle of the ocean and the survivors who were lost to civilization on a deserted island.  From what I gathered, it was a more suspense-filled, less funny Gilligan’s Island, so to speak.

We all fear being lost.  It’s built into us from our earliest days.  I remember as a very young boy getting separated from my father in a store for just a few moments.  I still recall the fear that was brought up in that brief time for me when I thought I was lost.  Fortunately, Dad was closer than I thought and found me quickly, before there were any tears or panic.

Jesus was getting a lot of flak from the religious authorities at the start of today’s lesson.  This fact sometimes gets lost when we think about the two parables he told.  Jesus was responding to the Pharisees when he told about the lost sheep and the lost coin.  This was a pointed response to quiet them down because he was hanging out, so they thought, with the wrong people.  He was actually eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. 

We don’t need to go into the feasibility of leaving ninety-nine sheep behind while you go to search for one.  And I always wondered about the practicality of throwing a party and spending the money that you had just found.  Those details really don’t apply in this situation because we’re talking about parables; stories meant to make a point and the point was made in spite of picky details.

Too often we identify ourselves in these parables with the lost items.  We’re lost and God will come searching for us.  It’s a comforting thought.  No matter how lost we are, God will seek us out.  That is true enough.

But that’s not the only way we can fit ourselves into these stories.  We very well could be among the 99 sheep who are left behind and in many ways we are.  These, along with the coins that weren’t lost, are those religious authorities to whom Jesus is directing the parables.  We don’t like to think of ourselves in the same light as the Pharisees and scribes but in many ways we are more like them than we’d like to admit.  We, like they, think we’ve got our religious ducks in a row, if you’ll allow me to mix farmland metaphors between ducks and sheep.  We may be uncomfortable with such an identification, but we can’t avoid it.  In many ways we are similar to those 1st century religious authorities as we wonder why Jesus has left us to go out after the homeless, drug-crazed junkie.

But I’d like to challenge us today to think of ourselves as the other actor in the story:  as the one who goes seeking the lost; that caring shepherd off to bring back the 1% of his flock or the persistent woman who cleans until she finds that one important coin, a tenth of her entire savings.  We are called, I believe, to seek out the lost, to put ourselves in situations that will put us closer to the lost souls in our world.

I read an article in the New York Times this week about a woman who lives in the Bronx in New York City.  [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/nyregion/10muslim.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&nl&emc=aua1] She’s a single mother of three and an immigrant from the Ivory Coast.  Every 11th of September she gathers her children and they go down to Ground Zero in lower Manhattan where the World Trade Centers once stood.  There they pray because it was there, nine years ago that Mrs. Traoré lost her husband who worked in the Windows on the World restaurant atop one of the towers.

Mrs. Traoré and her children, in their prayers, invoke the name of Allah, because they are devout Muslims.  Her husband and their father is among the lost, those 60 or so Muslims who were killed that day by the terrorists along with the thousands of others who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  Of course, the Times printed this article about Mrs. Traoré as the flap about a building that would contain a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero reaches a fevered pitch, including the ridiculous and blasphemous burning of Korans that was supposed to happen yesterday in Florida.

There is quite a bit of religious posturing these days by so-called religious authorities, including that minister in Gainesville who initiated the Koran burnings.  If they’re paying any attention at all, they might be wondering why God would be off, seeking the lost ones such as Mrs. Traoré to comfort and console rather than joining in their bonfires.

We live in a world where it seems that the figures are much higher than 1 in 100 or even 1 in 10 who are lost.  All too often the self-proclaimed “religious authorities” are too busy keeping those ducks in their proper rows to notice that their Jesus is off gathering up the lost that they’re ignoring or, worse, reviling.

If we can find it in ourselves to extricate ourselves from the position of a religious authority to walking beside Jesus as he seeks out the lost, we are then truly living into our calling.  The lost are all around us if we only open our eyes.  They are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and of no faith.  They are of all colors and ages.  They speak all the languages of our world.  They are everywhere and we only have to seek them out to find them.

They aren’t going to find us.  We, like Jesus, have to be the actors on this occasion.  Lost items aren’t going to naturally get themselves found, nor are lost people.  It’s our effort to make and our initiative to take.  We have to break out of the crowd and find the lost to care for them and to help them back.

As I prepared for this sermon, I read another preacher’s sermon on this same passage from Luke.  In her sermon, Rev. Huey talked about a segment of a television news show that she saw.  She wrote:

This week, I watched a segment of Primetime Live in which Diane Sawyer was revisiting – eight years later – several young people she had interviewed on the streets of a city in Oregon. These kids were definitely lost children. At least two of them were gay, and one can only imagine the terrible rejection that drove them from their homes and families. One young boy was asked to describe his dream home. He answered quickly, as if he had dreamed of it often: his dream home would have a marble staircase and a big entrance hall (doesn't that sound like someone who feels the need to be welcomed?). Asked to describe his dream parents, he said "They would have their mouths taped shut so they couldn't yell at me and their hands tied so they couldn't hit me." Years later, this same young man looked back on the years he spent as a runaway; when Diane Sawyer asked him, "Is that what you wanted – for someone to come and find you?" His response: "Yes, that's what I wanted – I wanted someone to care enough to come looking for me."   [by Kathryn Matthews Huey, from sample sermon at http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-12-2010.html]

You know, there are times when I feel very lost myself and at those times, I want to be found.   I imagine you each have felt the same.  But I think more often we are called to be the finders in the world.  We are called to care enough to go looking for the lost.  And then when we find them, we can rejoice just like the woman with the coin in the parable.

Onesimus & Philemon

[Note:  This sermon is based on the book of Philemon.  The entire book is quoted in the sermon and is reprinted here in italics throughout.]

 

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus.

Thus begins one of Paul’s most personal letters.  Throughout this sermon, I’m going to be breaking up the letter, which is only one chapter long and one entire book in the New Testament.  This will give us a chance to really look at what Paul was saying and how he goes about it.  Much of this sermon has come from a book I have been reading by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan entitled, “The First Paul.” 

Some background first.  Paul is purported to have written several books of the New Testament.  Most are letters to churches, either that Paul had had some hand in founding or, in one case, a church he was planning to visit.  The letters can be divided into three groups:  those seven books that are undisputed by scholars to be by Paul; then there are three letters that scholars agree were not written by Paul; and finally there is a group of three letters which are disputed with scholars disagreeing on whether they were written by Paul or not.  Our letter this morning falls into the first category: it was clearly written by Paul and there’s agreement about that.  Most of Paul’s undisputed letters were written sometime around the year 50 c.e., a couple of decades at least before the earliest gospels were written.  Thus Paul’s letters are the oldest of the New Testament books.

In this letter to Philemon, Paul begins in a standard way of starting a letter during that time.  What’s different is that he calls himself a “prisoner of Christ Jesus” which is unusual for him.  Normally, in his other letters, he names himself as an “apostle of Christ Jesus” but in this case he defines himself as a prisoner.  In fact, in the letter, as we’ll hear, he uses the word “prisoner” twice and the phrase “during my imprisonment” twice also.  It’s important to Paul that Philemon knows he is in prison as he writes this.

You might well be wondering who this Philemon is that he should be the recipient of a personal letter from Paul.  We know little of Philemon, only that he was a Christian and probably fairly well off, and that Paul knew him from visits to his home.  Though Paul addresses this letter to others, it is Philemon who is really the intended reader.

Paul’s letter continues:

I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.
For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.

After the niceties of the start of the letter, Paul gets right to the heart of the matter quickly.  It appears that Onesimus, a slave belonging to Philemon, has found his way to Paul and is seeking his aid.  It was not uncommon during this era for slaves, if they find a way to do so, to appeal for mercy at the feet of those who were above their masters.  Thus Onesimus, likely in some trouble with Philemon, having fled from Philemon, appeals to his master’s superior, namely Paul.  It’s interesting to note that Paul is considered Philemon’s superior.  It seems that it’s an agreed upon situation.

It’s in this passage that Paul makes a little pun that we miss because we don’t know the original Greek.  Onesimus means “useful,” and was a common name for slaves of this era.  By saying that Onesimus was useless but is now useful, Paul is emphasizing how the formerly pagan slave has become a brother in Christ.

In fact Paul goes on to say that directly:

Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

Onesimus, once only a pagan slave, is now a brother; a beloved brother at that.  And not just a brother to me, Paul writes, but also to you, Philemon.  Paul is being sly here and backing Philemon into a corner.  Previously he wrote how Philemon’s good deed regarding Onesimus might be voluntary and here he declares Onesimus his brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord.  What can Philemon do?

Paul begins to conclude his letter:

So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.  One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.

Poor Philemon doesn’t know what hit him.  As if Paul had an account with Philemon.  As if Paul, the itinerant preacher, could repay the cost of a freed slave.  And, oh, by the way, Paul adds, once I’m freed from this prison, I’m going to be stopping by, using your guest room, and checking up on you. 

Paul uses the word “obedience” in this passage, indicating that this isn’t a request at all, but actually a command.  One is not obedient to requests; one complies with requests.  One is obedient to a command.  Paul is pulling no punches here. 

The conclusion of the letter seems fairly formulaic:

Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Think about this though: if this is a personal letter about a private concern between Paul and Philemon (and of course Onesimus), how private does it sound?  At least five other people know about this letter and its contents.  It may be personal but it’s not private.  Those five people will know about the plight of their Christian brother, Onesimus, and likely they, too, will be checking in on Philemon to see how all this ended.

Paul ends the letter with a blessing of grace.  Indeed, Philemon may be feeling like he needs it.  But Paul knows freedom in Christ is for everyone.  And that includes living freely.  In the third chapter of Galatians, Paul writes those famous words that  “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)  Christ is the great equalizer in society, including a society run by imperial forces, including a society in which the gap between the rich and the poor grows increasingly.  Paul, truly believing that we are all one in Christ, sets forth to live that by bringing Onesimus to freedom.

© Gerry Brague, September 2010, San Francisco

Rules vs. Wholeness

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Imagine the scene:  there in the synagogue is Jesus, the exciting teacher who has stirred things up all around, and he is there teaching and preaching.  It’s the sabbath, and therefore the synagogue is full of people, all there to fulfill their religious requirements.  All eyes are on Jesus.

All eyes, that is, except for a pair of a woman, probably hiding in the back, as she has done for the past 18 years.  Her eyes are focused downwards, toward her feet which has been the only way she’s been able to look for almost 2 decades.  Her view for all those years has been of the area around her feet and slanted glances in other directions.  She has been bent over at the waist permanently.  After 2,000 years it’s a little difficult to make a diagnosis; her condition may have been medical or it could have come from too many years of difficult labor.

Luke, the author of our gospel, was a doctor and he says that she was crippled by a spirit that kept her that way.  Luke, by the way, is the only one of the gospel writers to include this story in his account.  Luke the doctor remembers this story and includes it in his gospel.  Perhaps his training had made him more attuned to the healing stories of Jesus.  Luke also includes more women in his gospel.  So it’s natural that a healing story about a woman would catch his attention more so than the other gospel writers.

Jesus is teaching and notices the woman who likely has spent years trying not to be noticed.  Illness and crippling diseases were seen as caused by sin, so the bearer of any ills has not only to deal with the disease but also the social stigma.  So keeping a low profile was probably a part of this woman’s life: keeping out of people’s way, as best you can when you can’t see them, was standard operating procedure for her. 

Jesus, for whatever reason he chooses, decides to heal the woman.  Why this woman, we have to wonder.  Surely there must have been plenty of other people there who needed healing. Don’t we all need some sort of healing, after all?  Was she the most noticeable, hunched over as she was at the back of the room?  No friends or relatives approached Jesus about her.  He just picked her out of the crowd that was gathered there that day. 

Now we don’t notice it but Jesus stepped over the bounds of the rules of their society in two ways that day:  first, he healed on the sabbath, healing being a form of work and working on the sabbath is definitely not allowed; second, he touched the woman, which is something a man just doesn’t do, at least not a woman to whom he’s not related.  We can almost feel the shock and excitement in the air as the crowd witnesses this act that crosses boundaries and breaks open rules that have long guided their world.

Maybe this is what Jesus was talking about in some of the verses that precede this passage, which were the lectionary reading from the gospel last week.  In those verses, Jesus spoke about bringing division into the world, confusing words from the one we call the Prince of Peace.  But certainly Jesus divided the crowd that day into two parties:  the crowd who was electrified by his boundary-bursting healing and the religious leaders who could only see the laws that had to be followed…and weren’t being followed.  Division was clearly a part of Jesus’ ministry, at least it was on this day. 

In the controversy that arises, the leader of the synagogue, no doubt urged on by his fellow religious leaders, says that healings can happen any day of the other six days of the week besides the sabbath.  Following that comment, Jesus then lets loose on them.   He calls them hypocrites, which is as strong an accusation then as it is now.  He points out that the rabbis have taught that it is permissible to untie an ox or a donkey so as to give them a drink of water on the sabbath, another activity that is considered work.  Surely if God cares about donkeys and oxen that much, God will care enough about one of God’s daughters to heal her, sabbath or not.

Actually, Jesus refers to the woman as a “daughter of Abraham” which is the only time that term is used in the whole of the New Testament.  In any case, she is worthy of Jesus’ attention as a child of God.  She is worthy of Jesus’ healing ministrations whether its the sabbath or not.

Jesus breaks all bounds to unloose this woman from her own bounds; that which has bound her in her stooped condition for all these years.  She couldn’t wait another day for her healing and Jesus knew that.  The healing must come now, on the sabbath, on the day when no work is to be done.

The critics of Jesus could fume and fret all they wanted.  But Jesus was not going to give an inch.  This was an important event that needed attention right now.  Jesus chose healing, and caring, and wholeness over the rituals and rules that had governed his culture for centuries.  Jesus opted to bring that daughter of Abraham to completion over the strictures that would have bound him as tightly as that woman herself was bound by her condition.


How often do we choose rules and rituals over healing and wholeness?  How often do we opt for the status quo rather than bringing our world a little closer to God’s realm?  I think it’s more often than we’d like to admit.  I think too often we take the attitude that it’s just easier to get along than it is to stir up trouble.

Oftentimes our rules are around possessions for example and what we own being what we are.  The unspoken rules of our culture are that more is better:  the more you possess the better you are.  There’s even a movement within Christianity called the prosperity gospel which says that if God really loves you, God will reward you with greater wealth and more possessions.  And too often, we do like to think that’s true.  For many of us, in fact, it might be a comforting thought. 

Though we might disagree with the premise of this belief, we don’t often act like it.  We too often go along with the rules and rituals of our culture and work hard at accumulating rather than seeking the justice that God would have which distributes wealth among all of us, throughout all of God’s children.

Jesus healed the woman who was bent over at the waist against several proscriptions of his day.  But he saw a chance for wholeness for one of God’s children and he seized the opportunity.  May we be watchful to guard against ways that we might be more like the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, holding tightly to rules and rituals of our culture that no longer serve us.  May we be more like Jesus, bursting forth through boundaries that serve no purpose other than to keep things as they are.

Never Alone

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace. 

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect. 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (NRSV)

We know precious little about the book of Hebrews.  We have no idea who the author was; we don’t know who the intended audience was; and we’re not exactly sure when it was written.  But on some of these points we can make guesses or good estimates based on the information within the book itself.

As Dan Clendenin, the author of a weekly website I often turn to in my sermon preparation called “Journey with Jesus,” put it,  “The recipients of the letter are second-generation believers who heard the gospel from first-generation Christians (2:3). The text's elegant Greek, its quotations from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (LXX), and its distinctly Jewish themes all suggest that the readers were a community of Hellenistic Jewish believers.”

So that tells us something.  Clendenin goes on to explain that since the book doesn’t mention the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70, it was probably written sometime before then. 

But it’s clear that the original recipients were under some sort of persecution.  Given that they were second-generation hearers of the gospel, that put it later in the century, rather than nearer to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in the thirties. 

Of course, we all know the famous story about Nero fiddling while Rome burned.  Whether that’s true or not, whether Nero actually played some musical instrument during the conflagration that devoured parts of Rome in the year 64, we do know that he sought to blame the fire on the Christians of the time.  Nero was not, we might say today, the most stable of rulers.  Mental stability doesn’t seem to go hand in hand with being a ruler, as we know from some of the rulers who held sway during the last century, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Hussein. 

Nero, though, in his attempts to pin the fire on the Christians of the time, went to great lengths to persecute them, making a sport of the manner he would kill them.  He would dress them up in animal skins to be mauled to death by dogs before cheering crowds.  They were crucified and set on fire to light the night.  To put it mildly, it wasn’t always easy being a Christian during this era.

And so the author of Hebrews needs to encourage his little flock of believers through the persecutions that they may be facing.  With the oppression of mighty Rome on one side and a distrustful Jewish leadership on the other, they indeed needed all the encouragement they could get.

So when encouragement is needed, where does one turn?  To the great cloud of witnesses that surround us.  I can’t help but wonder whether Oscar Hammerstein had this passage in mind when he wrote a particularly stirring bit of lyrics from the musical “Carousel” with his collaborator Richard Rodgers.

When you walk through a storm
keep your chin up high
and don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm
is a golden sky
and the sweet, silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
walk on through the rain,
though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone,
you’ll never walk alone.

Indeed, we find we are not alone when the storms buffet us and toss us about like a dried leaf.  Because the author of Hebrews, along with the more recent prophetic words of Oscar Hammerstein, reminds us that all around us are those who have been through trials and tribulations and are here for the specific purpose of cheering us on.

In “The Message” bible, Eugene Peterson translates one of our verses from Hebrews this morning in this way:  “God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.”  I like that image; that without the faith of those who have gone before, those who have struggled before, those who have persevered before, my faith is incomplete.  And likewise, without my faith, theirs does not attain fulfillment.  Both parts of the puzzle are necessary to complete the picture.

We don’t face the same turmoils that Christians of the first century faced, without a doubt and we thank God for that.  But the struggles of those early Christians live on in and through us.  Because of their struggles and persecutions, through their faith, we are able to be the worshipping community that we are today. 

The author of Hebrews knew his congregation and in his writing, he picked out some of the superheroes of the faith:  starting with Abraham and Moses, just prior to today’s reading and including Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel.  These were names that the original recipients would have known quite a bit about.  And doubtless a list like that generated another list in the hearers’ minds.  Much as it does today.

We can remember Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Oscar Romero, who would have turned 93 on this very day had he not been assassinated 30 years ago.  King, Bonhoeffer, and Romero knew the cost of faith even in the 20th century.  All three paid with their lives for their faith and are martyrs of our time.  And each of them is in the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us now, urging us forward, telling us to hold on and hold tightly to what is dear.

We do not walk alone.  We are indeed surrounded by witness after witness after witness  who urge us to run the race before us with perseverance.

Impressionism as Avant Garde

Dear Friends,

Allen and I went to the de Young Museum recently to see the “Birth of Impressionism” special exhibit that is running there right now.  If you have even the slightest interest in visual arts or painting, you should find time to see this show.  It traces the beginnings of impressionism with works from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, which is going through renovations at present.  The show runs at the de Young until 6 September. 

Impressionism, which found its home in Paris at the end of the 19th century, was a sharp departure from the classical art that had been the standard prior to this era.  Impressionist painters couldn’t get their paintings hung in the salon and had to have their own shows, for which they were derided, in order to be seen. 

These paintings that we now hold in such esteem, that are truly masters, were avant garde by the standards of the time.  Some laughed at the artists who were producing them and very few took them seriously.  What a difference a century can make. 

We have to be careful what we deride and consider foolish, and not just in the world of art.   For what we think today is impossible or too far out there for reality may soon become not only possible, but the new standard.

The ruling about Proposition 8 by Judge Walker is another such change that, not too long ago, would have been considered a foolish goal.  Marriage between two people of the same gender would have been thought of as too far out for any reasonable person to think about.  Even among gay and lesbian people, not that long ago, marriage seemed such an unattainable goal that it was deemed not worthy of putting effort into.  But here we are with a federal judge declaring that it’s a constitutional right.

Watch what you consider outré or avant garde...it may soon be the norm by which all else is measured.

Peace,
Gerry

Listening and Doing

Luke 10:38-42






Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

I must admit to being somewhat ill at ease when it comes to today’s passage from Luke.  I thought about avoiding it entirely and preaching on one of the other lessons from the lectionary but was drawn back to it.  I do realize that the Bible isn’t there to make me feel comfortable.  It may be comforting at times but it’s not always comfortable.

To understand this passage we have to look a little more closely at the context in which the gospel writer, Luke, places it.  Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem, where of course he will be tried and executed as a criminal by the powers that be.  Immediately preceding this passage, a lawyer asks Jesus about how he can go about inheriting eternal life.

Jesus talks about loving God and loving neighbor.  In other words, Jesus talks about relationships and how important they are.  On this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is trying to teach about what it means to be a disciple.  What it means to follow.  Then Jesus ends up telling the lawyer, and the rest of us, the parable of the good Samaritan in which a stranger, a hated stranger at that, does good toward one who is injured along the road.  It’s a tale of doing good deeds and taking action when others have not done so.

Then we reach today’s passage in which Jesus stops by at his friends’ home, the house of Mary and Martha.  We know from other passages that Mary and Martha had a brother, Lazarus, but he is not mentioned this time through.  While at their home, Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to his teaching while Martha busies herself with all that goes into hosting a beloved guest.  When Martha complains to Jesus that Mary isn’t really helping out at all, Jesus takes her down a peg in telling her that Mary has made the wisest choice, which is to sit and listen to him.  He seems to belittle Martha for all her busyness in the process.

Those who make their livings commenting on the Bible have pointed out that Luke has a particular emphasis throughout his gospel on hearing AND doing.  So this passage this morning must be read in that light.  And that’s why its proximity to the story about the good Samaritan is so important.

Certainly the Samaritan is a doer.  He stops to help an injured traveler and does a lot for him: providing care there at the roadside, transporting him, paying for his continued care and so on.  It makes us wonder how that story can immediately precede this one about listening?

It precedes it because both are important.  You can’t have one without the other: it’s listening and doing.  It’s not either or.  Jesus lays it all out here one, two, three:  be in right relationship with God and neighbor, do good works, and listen with all your heart.

So why would such a story make me ill at ease?  Well, of course, what makes me uncomfortable is that door over there. [pointing at the kitchen door]  That door and thousands upon thousands like it across Christendom.  And all the hours that are wracked up behind those doors. And all the doing that happens that’s just like Martha’s busying of herself. 

No preacher in his or her right mind is going to get up this morning and, using this text, tell people to stop all their good works, whether it’s in the kitchen, at the coffee hour table, in the food pantry, at the homeless shelter or anywhere else for that matter.  Too much good comes of all the doing that goes on in churches just like this one that to misinterpret this passage would be a major mistake.  And I don’t believe that Jesus was saying that either.

But Jesus was making a point with Martha that day.  And once again, we have to look at context to understand.  A woman’s place, in that day and place, was definitely not at the feet of a teacher.  A woman did not get the benefit of a teacher, none-the-less one of Jesus’ stature. He had his disciples for that, always men.  But Jesus always made a point of speaking with women, something unheard of in his time.  And Mary, in sitting at his feet, was breaking convention along with him.

Jesus was not discounting the work that Martha was doing.  He was saying however that Mary had seen an opportunity that is rarely afforded her and took it.  And she was rewarded for her decision with Jesus’ affirmation of her choice. 

Taken together, the parable of the Samaritan who helps his fellow traveler, along with the story which took place in Mary & Martha’s home, brings us back to Luke’s emphasis on hearing and doing.  We need both. 

We need to listen: by studying scripture, by attending worship, by conversing with each other, and by all the other ways that we can listen in the broadest sense of the word.  And we need to act:  we need to be doing the good works that all that listening calls forth from us. 

And of course, all of this springs out of the right relationships that Jesus set forth with the lawyer:  to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.  From there we move into the listening and doing that is so important. 

Don’t think that what happens behind those doors isn’t important.  Or if you do, don’t try to use today’s passage as your excuse for the way you think.  Our calls are clearly to listen and to act.

Power of Powerlessness

2 Kings 5:1-14

It’s the little words and the small people to which you sometimes have to pay attention.  Without them, things usually turn out differently.  Take this morning’s reading from 2nd Kings for instance.

Naaman was a great and mighty warrior in the kingdom of Aram, which is where Syria now is.  He was commander of the king’s army, we’re told.  Yet, there was a ‘but’ in the introduction to him.  That little word ‘but’ makes all the difference in the world.  Because in spite of all his power and strength there was that ‘but’ which was, of course, that he was a leper.  Yes, even though he commanded hosts of men in the Aram armies, he suffered from leprosy.  That ‘but’ or ‘though’ or ‘yet’ can make all the difference. 

Now leprosy in the Hebrew Bible is different from modern day leprosy.  Then it was essentially any disease of the skin: boils, eczema, dry patches, such as what I have here on my right hand ring finger.  Any of those and more would make someone a leper.  This is not to downplay the importance of the disease but to clarify.  So Naaman suffered from some form of leprosy, making him unclean. 

At the end of the day, after removing his armor and battle finery, he was reminded that he was a leper just by a quick look at his body.  However the disease took its course, it no doubt left its ravages on what was likely an otherwise perfect specimen of a body.  That was the ‘but,’ the small word that changed everything for Naaman.

But there, right in Naaman’s household, was one of those small people who can make a difference.  A slave girl, from Samaria of all places,, that little country also known as Israel, whose name isn’t even recorded and who serves his wife, tells of a prophet back home who could cure Naaman.  She makes this bold claim because she knows the power of her God and truly believes in it.

So Naaman, in all his power, does what people of power do; he goes to other people of power, in this case his king.  He asks for permission to seek out this prophet and the king does what any king would do; he writes to his fellow king, again, power seeking out power.  The slave girl, whatever her name was, is forgotten by this point and we’re dealing on a whole new level now: power to power.

Of course the King of Israel thinks this is some trick when Naaman comes to see him with the letter.  He reads the message that the King of Aram has written and concludes that Aram is picking a fight with them, probably a fight that Israel can’t afford to have right now.  He does what any good king would do: he rips his clothing in frustration and grief, something you did in those days.

Now when a king rends his garments, it makes the evening news.  It’s big news in fact.  And word of the rending gets through to Elisha, the very prophet about whom that nameless slave girl was referring.  Elisha, nonplussed by the big boys and their games, gets word through to the king to send Naaman to him and he’ll take care of the whole thing.

So off Naaman goes, with all the gifts he has brought with him and his fine chariots and undoubtedly a platoon of soldiers without whom he never travels.  Have you ever noticed that?  People of power tend to travel with their power surrounding them so that it’s unnoticeable.  Naaman was no different.

He gets to Elisha’s and expects this Israelite man of God to come out, bowing and scraping to do magical incantations over his scarred body.  Instead Elisha barely notices his presence.  He sends out a servant, again someone without a name, to give a message to Naaman.  That’s it.

And to top it off, the message is to go and wash in the Jordan seven times.  How insulting can you get?  They’ve got rivers in Syria, Naaman says, fine ones in fact; rivers that make the Jordan look like a muddy old creek.  Why should a person, a warrior, as important and powerful as Naaman lower himself to washing in a podunk river like the Jordan?  Really! 

Again, the small, nameless people come into play when Naaman’s servants, who have seen the ravages of leprosy on their boss first hand, persuade him to give the Jordan a try.  They’re in the neighborhood and what does he have to lose after all?  Naaman relents, listens to these people who probably know him better than anyone, and bathes in the Jordan.  Naturally, his skin is not only restored, but he’s better than a kid again.  He now has the skin of a young boy, we’re told, which is a far cry from leprosy. 

This story hangs on that small ‘but’ at the beginning because it builds in a tension between the military power and physical might of Naaman versus his powerlessness against the disease he lives with each and every day.  The power of Naaman versus the wisdom of a nameless young slave girl.  The kings of Israel and Aram providing a side story of power at the very top versus the almost nonchalant demeanor of the prophet Elisha.  The mighty rivers of Naaman’s homeland versus the muddy trickle of the Jordan.  Power versus powerlessness runs through this story from start to finish.

How does that make you feel, on this fourth of July, living in one of the most powerful countries in global history?  I know it makes me stop and think a little.  Who has power these days and who are the powerless ones we should be listening to?  What about our own personal power and how do we use it?  Who do we listen to when dealing with our power?  Do the powerless, nameless people around us have a voice?  Do we allow them to be heard?

Of course, there are far too many examples of powerless, nameless ones in our society: the homeless person, the immigrant, the youth, to name a few.  Do we listen to them for their words of prophecy and healing?  Sure, we most likely acknowledge them and recognize their worth as children of God.  Do we go that extra step though to seek out whatever wisdom they may bring to a situation? 

When it comes to immigration or homelessness, for example, do we really look to those who are immigrants or homeless for their voice about how to solve those huge problems of our culture?  Remember it was a nameless, powerless slave girl who pointed Naaman to Elisha and his eventual cure.

Stones

This sermon is for Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered Pride Sunday service which Chalice holds in combination with Forest Hill Christian Church in San Francisco each year during San Francisco's Pride activities.


Joshua 4:1-8

The Hebrew people were on the very brink of entering the land promised to them.  They just had to cross the Jordan River and they would be in their new homeland after 40 some years of wandering in the wilderness.  It was indeed a momentous occasion if there ever was one.

But how to remember such an occasion?  How to make sure the future generations would know how important this event was?  How would those who followed know that this spot on the Jordan was where the water stopped flowing so that the people could cross over and the ark of the covenant would remain dry on the shoulders of the priests carrying it?

Joshua told a member of each of the 12 tribes to select a stone from the river and carry it to the bank where it would be placed as a memorial.  Then when their children and grandchildren asked them “What do these stones mean?” they could relate the story of their entrance into the Promised Land. 


“What do these stones mean?”  We all hope that future generations will look back kindly on our lives and ask “What does this mean?”, “What does that mean?” “ Why did you do this?”  A part of being human is hoping that somehow our name and legacy lives on beyond us.  We all want future generations to look back from some future date and remember something we did or said that changed something for the better.  “What do these stones mean?”

What stones are we leaving behind in the struggle for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people?  What markers are there that will cause those who come after us to stop and give thanks for our work, for our perseverance, for our very selves?

Perhaps some 30 or 40 or 100 years in the future, someone will come across a pink triangle and learn that homosexuals were incarcerated in the Nazi death camps and forced to wear that pink triangle as a symbol.  The pink triangle helps us remember that l/g/b/t people have sometimes suffered with their lives for being who they are.  They’ll know that the symbol was readopted to honor those who died in the concentration camps.  What do these stones mean?

Maybe someone will come across a rainbow flag and discover that gay pride movements swept across many cities and these flags were flown to show the world that l/g/b/t people are proud of who they are.  The flag was developed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker to highlight the diversity that’s within the gay community.  It’s frequently flown now across the globe wherever l/g/b/t people can openly express who they are.  What do these stones mean?

Possibly someone from the future will find an “I do support the freedom to marry” sign and wonder in amazement at the fact that there was a time when same-sex couples were denied the right to marry the person of their choice.  They will find out about the struggle we are in the midst of right now for that one part of equality to be gained.  Maybe they’ll also learn of the struggle of people to serve in the military without regard to sexual orientation.  Or of ministers to be ordained and serve as God calls them regardless of their orientation.  What do these stones mean?


What stones will you leave behind?  Will future generations know of the work you did to make our world, their world a better place, a place where equality for all people is assured?  Will people know of your work and dedication to bringing in God’s realm to a needy world?  In the shadowed corners all around us, have you brought the light that shines forth from within you that is a reflection of God’s love?

Truly, we are leaving behind stones all the time, stones that will indicate how deeply we were involved in creating a more just and equal world.  We set up stones as markers when we write to our representatives about issues; when we volunteer our time; when we give of ourselves with our talents, or our resources; when we work for justice in our world and the the world that is yet to come.

“What do these stones mean” is indeed the question that will be asked by those from yet unborn generations.  When the stories of the struggle for justice for all people are told, will your name be included?  Will your work be found amidst the stones that are left behind?

Despair & Silence

1 Kings 19:1-15a

It’s very tempting with this passage from 1st Kings to focus on what is called the theophany or the appearance of God to Elijah. That’s the dramatic part, as well it should be. Preachers who use the lectionary are no doubt going on about the wind, earthquake, & fire and the lack of God’s presence in them.  And very likely, much is being said about the sheer silence or still small voice as many of us grew up hearing about it.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  That theophany is important and has a lot to teach us.  If we expect to find God in all the noise and hubbub of daily living or even the unexpected noise of major events and don’t look for God in the silences, we’re on the wrong track and Elijah would be the first to tell us so.  To focus on that event, however, in the midst of this story is to miss a major point of the passage.

But let’s back up a bit and find out what’s really going on.  Just prior to this narrative, Elijah has a showdown with the prophets of Baal.  Baal, you might remember, was the god of the queen, Jezebel.  In fact, she was working to institute the worship of Baal in the northern kingdom of Israel, there where worship of Yahweh was supposed to happen.

The prophets of Baal had sacrificed a bull and placed it upon an altar and they cried to their god throughout the day to bring down fire upon the altar, all to a stunning non-result.  The silence, as one might say, was deafening.

Elijah took his turn then.  To make the trick even more astounding, he had the bystanders pour buckets upon buckets of water upon the altar until it flowed out and filled a trench that surrounded it.  Then Elijah called upon Yahweh to ignite the altar, which happened in no uncertain terms.  In fact the fire was so hot that the water in the trench evaporated.  As would happen in those days, Elijah, the winner of this contest, then massacred the prophets of Baal.  Then he went on to end the drought that Israel had been going through, adding a nice little twist to his victory.

That’s when we pick up today’s reading.  When Jezebel finds out about all that’s gone on, she hits the proverbial royal roof and makes some fairly strong & nasty threats against Elijah.  In fact, within a day’s time, she says, he’s going to be as dead as those prophets of Baal find themselves.

Now Elijah may be one of the greatest prophets in Jewish history, but in the end he’s still just a human.  And he does what any human in their right mind would do; he makes a run for it.  He doesn’t want to stick around to see if Jezebel is good for her word and hits the Israelite highway.  He runs so far, we’re told that he ends up about as distant from her that he can and still be in Hebrew territory: Beer-sheba, which is the southernmost point in the southern kingdom of Judah.

There he does an odd thing.  Having escaped death, he asks God to kill him.  In the midst of his despair, he asks God to take his life, because it’s just not worth living anymore.  But, you know, people in despair and desperate situations don’t always make sense.  So we’ll just have to chalk this request of Elijah to that despair and likely utter exhaustion.  He is ministered to by an angel who feeds him.  Elijah gets a little more rest, undoubtedly needed and deserved, and then heads out into the wilderness for forty days and nights. 

Forty days and nights.  Sound familiar?  It has echoes of the forty years that the Hebrew people spent in the wilderness. It means a really, really long time.  And where does he end up in that wandering time but Mt. Horeb, which we know also as Mt. Sinai,  Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the commandments that are the basis of Judaism.  Mt. Sinai, where Moses was allowed to view God, or at least God’s backside, during another well-known theophany.

Important things happen on mountains in the Bible.  Anytime there’s a mountain, you should pay attention.  Think about it:  Ararat, Sinai, Carmel, Pisgah, not to mention the Sermon on the Mount and the mountain top transfiguration event.  So Elijah, in his despair and desire to stop living, ends up on a mountaintop.  And then today’s theophany comes in.  Elijah encounters God, but not nearly in a way that he expected.  After all that’s happened to him, Elijah meets God in sheer silence.  And from that experience, Elijah is sent on his way, back up to be the proper thorn in the side of Ahab and Jezebel that he was called to be.

“Called to be.”  Is it possible that through all that has happened in this story that it boils down to vocation or calling?  Is all this about Elijah’s calling to be a prophet of Yahweh?  If so, how can any of us relate to it?

I mean, we’re not going to have a face-off with the prophets of some forgotten deity.  No queen is going to threaten our lives because we messed with her prophets.  We probably even won’t ever have to go on the lam because we’ve peeved the wrong person. 

You know what though?  Each of us here assuredly knows something about despair.  Some of us may have even considered that the world would be a better place without our living presence at one time or another.  We have all heard God’s call to us (because God doesn’t just call certain people you know) and struggled to maintain some semblance of sanity in the midst of that call.  We may have felt that our calls and vocations were not properly supported and felt frustration when responses were low.

And that brings us right back to that theophany of finding God in the silence.  Because if we don’t make the space to listen, really listen for and to God, we’re going to stay frustrated and in despair; stuck without the strength we need for our wilderness wanderings.

In many ways this congregation could be seen as being in that very situation.  We have listened and heard God’s call which has led us to start Homework Central and be instrumental in beginning what is now known as Home and Hope, serving those whose lives are on the margins here in San Mateo County.  We have provided a warm place of acceptance and inclusion in our worship and community life.  We have looked both outward and inward, caring for others and ourselves with the same intensity and devotion.  And yet, we find ourselves on the run, in despair.  Are we, as a congregation, better off dead?

I think we know that answer to that question.  Because no, I firmly believe, God does not want us to cease to exist.  We need to find the answer in the silences though.  We need to seek out God’s call; to renew our commitment to our vocation as a congregation.  That doesn’t mean doing, doing, doing, necessarily.  All that doing can be as distracting as the wind, earthquake, and fire.  Once we’ve done all our doing, we need to listen, really listen to God in the silence and then move forward from there.

Do You See

Luke 7:36-8:3

I must admit to some ambivalence when it comes to this morning’s reading from Luke.  I’m unsettled by it and not sure what to do with it.  (Which may explain why this sermon sat as a blank screen on my computer so long.)  But I’m confused about with whom I am supposed to identify in the story.

I want to identify with the woman who comes and washes Jesus’ feet.  She is quite the role model.  She doesn’t care about convention or the proper way of doing things.  She bursts into this dinner uninvited, probably as the only woman in the room, and shows her gratitude and joy at Jesus’ feet.  She has what in Yiddish they call chutzpah and I admire that.

But I worry that I’m more like Simon, the Pharisee who invited Jesus into his home in the first place.  Simon might be an okay sort of guy.  He’s curious about this traveling preacher who’s in town.  So he invites him over to share a meal.  Not a bad start.

But from there it’s down hill for Simon.  He doesn’t offer the usual good host sort of things: water to wash off hot, dusty feet or oil for anointing his guests’ heads.   Not even a kiss to greet his guest.  There’s no way he’s going to earn the first century good housekeeping seal of approval that way.  But that’s not why I fear I identify with Simon.  It’s his reaction to the woman at Jesus’ feet and then to Jesus himself that has me nervous.

You see the woman who came in was a sinner.  We’re told that right off.  Now we all know about sinners.  We know that all of us are sinners; we’re human, we just can’t help it.  But we also know that some people are “capital S sinners.”  Well, this woman was a “capital S sinner” without a doubt.  Her sins were well-known and, undoubtedly, well-discussed in the community.  Her reputation wafted into the room long before the scent of the perfume in her jar made it.

Jesus asked Simon a question: “Do you see this woman?”  It’s a simple question, and of course Simon saw her.  But did he really?  Or did he just see the sin that she carried around with her.  Simon wondered why Jesus would affiliate with such a person, but in our eyes, we wonder why Jesus was associating with Simon. 

I’m still stuck however with worrying that I’m more like Simon than I am like the woman.  I want to think that I’d be the one on my knees, weeping and cleaning feet.  But more likely, I’m sitting at my table judging others, deciding whose sin is allowable and whose isn’t; who is a “capital S sinner” and who isn’t. 

I want to relate to the woman for a couple of reasons:  first she puts herself into this wholeheartedly without reservation.  She’s in it mind, body, and soul.  She doesn’t hold back and I admire that in her.  But second, I know too what it means to need to be forgiven and the release that finding that forgiveness brings.  Knowing the grace that brings about transformation is a joyous and beautiful experience.

And who doesn’t dislike Simon?  He’s judgmental and hypocritical.  I can really get going when it comes to casting aspersions on him.  He doesn’t do what’s proper, he doubts whether Jesus is a prophet, and he is too much like one of the good old boys of Judea of the time.  He’s disgraceful in his behavior.

I mean, look at me being open-minded and open-hearted about the woman while seeing through the thin facade to the core of Simon.  I know his type.  And then, of course, I realize that I’m acting no differently than Simon is and here I am haughtily dividing the world into two types of people--the sinners and the “capital S sinners.”  The more things change the more they remain the same!  I can almost hear Jesus saying, “Gerry, do you see this man?”

Because that, I believe, is the highpoint and most important section of the reading, that question, “do you see this woman?”  It’s one that I should be listening for time after time.  Because I am quick to look past the person and just assign sin to any number of people.

There are those who disagree with me politically.  “Gerry, do you see this woman?”  And there are those who read the Bible differently than I do.  “Gerry, do you see this man?”  The question echoes through my head time after time and more often than not, I have to say, “No, I didn’t see that man or that woman.  I only saw their sin or their veneer of whatever it is I’m reacting to.”  I’m no better than Simon, the one I sit in judgment of.

We’re all victims of a sort of tunnel vision that only allows us to see what we want to see in others.  We’re all in need of the question, “Do you see that woman or that man?  Do you really see him or her?”  That tunnel vision has been going for millennia and has caught many off guard.  Simon was using it when he looked on the woman who came into his dinner party and he used it again when he make suppositions about Jesus because of his association with the woman.

We use this tunnel vision all too often and don’t even realize we’re doing so.  We’re called to see though, to really see the other: those who are marginalized, those who are our enemy, those who live lives as different from ours as can be.

Let go of your tunnel vision as best you can.  We can all be more hospitable, more accepting, less judging and kinder than we are.  We can recognize that we are much more like that “capital S sinner” woman who is standing in the need of grace and forgiveness in the story from Luke this morning.  We can try to see, really see, the other.

Give Them Hope

1 Kings 17:8-24

Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights leader whose 80th birthday we commemorated last weekend, is often quoted from various of his speeches as saying that you’ve got to give them hope, “them” being any number of disenfranchised people.  He’d end his speech, though, by saying “and you, and you, and you…you’ve got to give them hope.”

Though Harvey was not Christian, hope certainly is a Christian value.  Paul’s famous chapter about love from 1st Corinthians ends with “faith, hope and love abide” ranking hope right up there with faith and love as enduring parts of our religious life.  Hope certainly isn’t confined to Christianity, but Christians who do not have or promote hope seem somehow lifeless.

Thus is it through that lens that we can read the passage from the Hebrew Bible this morning when we are introduced to Elijah and his time with the widow from Sidon.  But before we get to that, let’s look at what got us to this point.

Elijah was one of the great prophets of Israel.  He was a particular thorn in the side of Ahab, one of the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom.  As Frederick Buechner puts it: “If, generally speaking, a prophet to a king was like ants at a picnic, Elijah was like a swarm of bees.” (Peculiar Treasures, p. 9) Don’t forget that after Solomon’s rule, the kingdom that his father David has built up, broke into two parts: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  There followed a succession of kings in the two countries who ruled with varying degrees of ability and were faithful to God to varying degrees.  Particularly in the northern kingdom, there was court intrigue after court intrigue as murders and abductions occurred to alter the line of succession. 

Into this Ahab came along as king in the north, in Israel.  He took for his wife one whose name lives on to today as a symbol of a suspicious and wanton woman--Jezebel.  Jezebel was not Jewish; Ahab married outside the clan and the faith and Jezebel brought with her her own particular god, Baal.  She even persuaded Ahab to erect shrines to Baal in Israel so that Baal could be worshipped, there in the midst of God’s land.  You can just imagine how well that went over in some quarters.

Now Baal was a storm, rain, and fertility god who allegedly controlled the precipitation in those parts.  So when our prophet Elijah comes along and says that because of all the worship of Baal that’s going on in Israel there’s going to be a drought, it’s a double whammy.  First because a drought is not a good thing and is coming as punishment and second because Elijah is pointing out that this storm god Baal can’t control the weather over what the Hebrew God decides.  Of course, a drought ensues.

This, to put it mildly, doesn’t make Elijah a popular man in the seat of government.  Prophets usually aren’t very well-received by those against whom they are prophesying, typically those in power and rulers.  But Elijah gets a special award for making himself unpopular in Israel by proving the queen’s god to be a false one. 

God, being wise, decides to relocate Elijah until things cool down and sends him on the lam.  At first Elijah spends some time in the wilderness where ravens come with food to care for him.  Then we pick up the story where we jumped in today, in 1st Kings as God calls Elijah to Sidon. 

Now the interesting thing about Elijah, the great prophet of Yahweh, being called to Sidon is that that’s exactly where his nemesis Jezebel came from.  That’s right, she was a Sidon girl from way back and that’s where she learned her Baal worship.  So we have a switch going on--Jezebel, the infidel from Sidon stirring up trouble with Baal in Israel while the holy man from Israel, Elijah, brings his God to godless Sidon.  Truly poetic, don’t you think?

By the way, Sidon shows up again in the Bible, in the gospels.  Sidon is where Jesus meets the Syro-phoenecian woman who argues with Jesus about the crumbs beneath the tables.  It’s another instance of a woman from that region who is doing all she can for the good of her child.  Jesus is out away from his own territory here, just like Elijah.  Surely the early hearers of the gospels would have known this story from 1st Kings and heard the echoes through the centuries of the similarities of the stories.

But back to our story.  So here in the region of Sidon, the town of Zarephath to be specific, Elijah engages a nameless widow.  Of course she wasn’t nameless then, but the author of 1st Kings didn’t think she was important enough to give her name so we can only refer to her as the widow of Sidon--mostly because “widow of Zarephath” is too hard to say.  This widow of Sidon, when we meet her, is filled with despair;  the drought has hit her, being a widow, hard and she has a small amount of flour and oil left to prepare a final meal for her and her son before they die.  She’s out in fact collecting some firewood for this sad last supper when she and Elijah come upon each other. 

Elijah asks her for some bread and water whereupon she recounts the doleful tale of her and her son.  Elijah says something that we should always remember; his first words are “Don’t be afraid.”  He then tells her to go use up the grain and oil to bake him some bread because there will be more provided.

“Don’t be afraid.”  Easier said than done but the widow follows Elijah’s instructions and indeed there continues to be food enough for them to survive on.  And then the twist in the story comes along: the son, the only thing the widow has, dies.  She blames Elijah, essentially, and I imagine the whole thing leaves Elijah just a bit stunned.  Elijah however rises to the occasion and takes the boy to his own room where he expresses some anger at God but then goes on to bring the boy back to life.  The widow rejoices and proclaims Elijah to be a “man of God.”  Happy ending.

Twice in this story though we find the widow in despair; desolate even.  We would think that there wasn’t room within her for hope at either time in the story.  It’s just in those times of despair, of utter and complete desperation, that sometimes hope creeps in.  We sometimes need to get down to rock bottom before the possibilities of transformation occur to us.  Logic doesn’t enter into it.  If the widow had been logical she would have said that there was only enough grain and oil for her and her son and that was that.  She would have never agreed to feed this strange man from a foreign land.

Hope sneaks up on you when you least expect it usually.  It’s transformative; it transforms that despair into possibilities, maybe even probabilities.  Against all logic, hope works.  Sometimes it’s astounding, sometimes it’s rather ho-hum.  But it comes when it’s needed. 

Mind you, not all hopes are fulfilled; some hopes remain dry as dust.  Hope in the midst of despair though provides life at the time, even if the hopes remain unfulfilled.  As I said, hope often runs counter to logic so hope gets us to shed the equation of if X then Y and think of new possibilities.

Where in your life do you need hope.  Perhaps it’s right here, in this church where hope is needed.  And in some ways, hope has taken a hold here.  The youth rally this week, for instance, is definitely a sign of hope that defies logic.  Logic would say, “We have very few youth so have no need of a youth program.”  Hope says, “Let’s have a rally to invite youth into our midst.”

Between our two congregations, certainly we are in need of hope and there are signs of that hope hereabouts.  Don’t be among those who would deny the hope.  Live into it instead, doing whatever you can to promulgate the hope that all of us need.  As Harvey Milk would say, “and you, and you, and you...you’ve got to give them hope.”