Hang On

Acts 2:1-21

We call Pentecost the “birthday of the church” and in fact, some churches go all out and have cake to celebrate the day.  It is indeed the church’s birthday today.  Because Pentecost is when the disciples got their act together and took the show on the road, as it were, infused with the Holy Spirit.

That account we all just read together is an important narrative, so important that, as you saw, artists throughout the ages have been attempting to recreate this event on canvasses, in sculpture and even in quilts.  It’s filled with movement and excitement, isn’t it?  It’s a story that grabs you and even that long list of where everyone was from builds in anticipation.

That list, by the way, serves a function:  It lets the original readers and hearers of this book know that everyone was there.  It covered the known world and even a few countries that no longer existed.  The list runs the gamut and Luke, the author of Acts, was letting us know.

Luke fills this account with fulfillment: “they were all together;” “it filled the entire house;” “a tongue [of fire] rested on each of them;”  “all of them were filled with the Holy Sprit.”  And that’s just the first paragraph.

Luke, who wrote his gospel account of Jesus’ life as well as this book of Acts of the Apostles, uses an interesting word choice too in this account.  Remember his narrative of Jesus’ baptism, when God’s voice tells him “you are my beloved son.”  Well Luke chooses the same Greek word for voice when he talks about the sound like the rush of a violent wind.  That’s God’s voice we’re hearing as the Spirit rushes in.

If you’ve ever been in a major wind storm, you understand how the sound of the rushing wind could be mistaken for God’s voice.  There amongst the flailing tree branches and objects blowing about, if you listen closely you can hear God’s voice.

But I’m getting distracted.  We’re talking about the birthday of the church which may not actually be the best metaphor.  I was reading online about this particular holiday and one preacher said that she thought that graduation was a better way to describe it.

And if you think about it, it’s true.  Since Easter, it’s been six weeks of sightings of Jesus and the Disciples fumbling about trying to make sense of what’s happened.  Now they’re equipped to go forth into their world and proclaim that good news that needed to be heard then and still needs to be heard now.

And it’s true: if one thinks of graduation as we call it as a commencement rather than a conclusion, it is the start of a new period of time.  And Peter knew exactly what he was talking about in his commencement address.  No one is drunk--it’s too early for that.  But watch out because things are going to get worse before they get better.

Before the Lord’s great and glorious day arrives the sun will turn to darkness and the moon will become like blood.  And that’s exactly what the folks gathered in the year 33 or so needed to hear.  And it’s exactly what the folks gathered in 2010 need to hear.  Things are going to get worse before they get better and we’d better just prepare for that and hold onto our faith through the roller-coaster ride that’s coming.

We have car bombs in Times Square and an ecological disaster of huge proportions in the Gulf of Mexico.  Terrorists remain tenacious in their attacks and an unending war grinds on.  Immigrants live in fear and good people lose their homes and their savings daily.  The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before it’s all over, we’re told.

But Peter, in his sudden burst of wisdom and clarity, doesn’t leave us bereft.  Peter quotes Joel, a prophet who spoke to another age of dis-ease and turmoil.  And both Peter and Joel remind us that all sorts of people are going to have dreams and visions that will guide us out of this mess.  We just have to listen and hang on as the roller-coaster speeds along the tracks and we’re tossed about.

There in the midst of the wind storm, as we wake up daily to fresh distress, we are called to be the people God would have us be and do whatever it is we can.  We can listen to the visions of today’s dreamers and we can act to change our own lives.  We can seek out the modern day prophets while keeping a close eye on the sun and the moon. 

Pentecost is a time of beginnings, indeed.  Our church is begun over and over, for two thousand years; amidst the wind and the seemingly drunken ones speaking in languages for everyone on earth.  According to Walter Brueggemann, a Biblical scholar, our call is “to stand free and hope-filled in a world gone fearful…and to think, imagine, dream, vision a future that God will yet enact.”  As we grasp our faith, all the while imagining, dreaming, visioning, we know we aren’t in charge; God is.  And with that thought on this Pentecost Sunday, we can face the future free and hope-filled.

Sermon, Sunday, 8 March 2009

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 (with a passing nod to Romans 4:13-25)

I love maps. I always have. I went through a phase in third grade during which I often drew the outline of my home state, Pennsylvania, and presented the drawings to my teacher. I’m not sure what Mrs. Henney thought when she received yet another crudely drawn version of our commonwealth on her desk. I think most elementary school teachers must be close to sainthood based solely on their patience. (And, by the way, I’d like to point out that the outline of Pennsylvania is not as easy to draw as you might think, especially for a third grader. This wasn’t Wyoming or Utah, after all!)

When a little older I found out that you could write to the various states and get maps from them. (This was in the 60s, so the states had the budgets to give away maps then.) Wow...I had a wonderful time. I would trace car trips we took as a family on road maps. Even today, I like to follow where I’m going on a map, even those maps on the screens of airplanes that more-or-less show you where you supposedly are in the world.

My love of maps and the related enjoyment of geography eventually grew into my still held fondness for travel. In high school, I would plan entire trips around the country based on an Amtrak schedule that I had gotten a hold of somehow. (Yes, I was an early adapter of what is now called the nerd persona.) Mind you, there wasn’t an Amtrak station anywhere near where I lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania. But I could plan. And dream.

By and by, my interest in maps and travel and geography actually led to some treks here and there. First, there were car trips, usually with my parents, somewhere on the east coast. By the time I got to seminary though, I was primed for something bigger: I had seen the U.S. east coast from New England to North Carolina and out as far west as Ohio. So when I was able to orchestrate the tiniest glimmer of an opportunity to study overseas, I fanned and cared for that tiny flame until I found myself in a plane hurtling across North America, the Pacific, and the equator. I spent most of 1986, putatively studying theology, in Adelaide, South Australia. But I didn’t stay put the whole time certainly; there were journeys to the Outback, Uluru (which you may know as Ayers Rock), Melbourne, the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, and anywhere else I could find wheels that would get me there. I traveled by plane, train, car, and ferry. I felt, as a traveler, that I had arrived...some pun intended there.

Of course, I hadn’t arrived really. That big gulp of travel, after my prior sips, had only made me thirstier for more. I was primed to go and still to this day will gladly browse all the gadgets in travel stores. And, as you know, I still will board anything moving to see where it’s going. Travel is for me a cure for some deeply embedded symptoms, I think, which is why I’m fond of referring to our friend Marilyn as my “travel therapist”. T.S. Eliot was right, I think, when he said, “The journey not the arrival matters.” Just going is important.

When people think of the Bible these days, they think of it as a rule book or a guide or narrative or, some, as complete fiction. Few though think of it as a travelogue I would imagine. If we use that lens to view the Bible however, looking at scripture not so much as a tour book to the lands of the modern Middle East, but more as a travel memoir of the many varied characters who populate it, we might find some useful travel tips; tips that might help us as the travelers and tourists that we are in this funny, foreign land of faith.

And what better time to think about that than during Lent? Lent has so often been described as a journey (which I am first to admit I’m guilty of) that the metaphor may have become somewhat trite and overdone; a bit of a yawner, perhaps. “Oh, Lent?” we might hear ourselves responding, “it’s that ‘journey’ that we take every year for six weeks you know. I’m not sure where we start or where we end, but they keep telling me it’s a journey, so I just get on for the ride every spring when it rolls around.”

Compared to the journeys we find throughout the whole 66 books that make up our scripture, our travels today are pretty tame. We complain if our airplane seat won’t recline but Jonah was tossed off a ship in the midst of a terrible storm and swallowed by a big fish. We’re impatient if we’re delayed by an hour or two while we read that Moses led the Hebrew people through the wilderness for forty years--forty years!--waiting to get to the promised land. Paul’s missionary, evangelistic voyages are legendary and he encountered scorching heat, hunger, hostility, arguments, and raging storms at every step. Noah floated above a flooded earth with a living cargo bent on eating each other. The disciples scattered to the ends of their earth and told a remarkable story that lives on to this day. The Bible is all about journey from Adam & Eve walking out of the garden into a new and different life than they had known to the final journey that John of Patmos describes when we all end up before the celestial throne.

And so it is that we encounter Abram and Sarai today in the midst of their journey some 35 hundred years ago. The narrative that tells of their life on the road and of their descendants takes up a lot of the book of Genesis. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are more or less the story of all humanity as seen through the eyes of the authors of the Hebrew scriptures. They tell of creation and humanity’s wandering, or journeying, from God time and time again. The very first covenant that God makes is found in these first 11 chapters when God promises not to destroy all of creation again to Noah. When we reach chapter 12 though, things get a little more specific. Beginning in chapter 12 and all the way through to the end of Genesis in chapter 50, we get the tales of Abraham and Sarah and those who followed.

From these chapters last 38 chapters, we learn more and more about these forefathers and foremothers in faith. And it all begins with Abram and Sarai, not though in Canaan, the land they were to settle. They were from a place far from there: Ur in Mesopotamia or Sumeria. First they traveled to Harran, in modern day Turkey, where Abram’s father died. And there, in Harran, Abram received his call from God to go to Canaan, which we know today as Israel. So Abram & Sarai, along with nephew Lot, packed up and headed off to this funny place that was a buffer zone amidst all the big powers of the day.

Abram and Sarai were about 75 years old when they left Harran. They had lived a full life by this point. Well, not quite full because they were childless. And of course that meant a lot in those days; much more than we think of it today.

But they were 75 and setting off to do something new! A whole new journey. By the time we get to them today, they’ve had quite a few experiences; interesting experiences. Today we come to a point in the story that is pivotal. Not only does God make a covenant with them that they will be the parents of nations (that’s nations, in the plural) but to prove it, God actually changes their names--an event that occurs to people often when they encounter God and their lives are changed. This whole baby thing though; it’s wildly impossible and unthinkable. They’re both well beyond the point when having children is possible, not to mention convenient. In fact, in verse 17, just after our reading for this morning leaves off, the newly renamed, alleged father-to-be falls down laughing. In cyber speak he’s ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing). A chapter later, Sarah overhears that she’s going to become pregnant, and she too has a good chuckle over it.

Of course, the last laugh is on none other than God, who always seems to get the last laugh. And that’s often the way of our journeys, isn’t it? I’ve seen and heard a saying that Allen reminded me about this week: “If you want to hear God laugh, tell God what you plan to do with your life,” or variations to that effect.

The last thing on the mind of these two nonagenarians who have traveled countless miles through the course of their lifetime is what their descendants are going to think about them. But there they were, finally in Canaan and they have to think about bassinets and the practicality of cloth diapers versus disposables. And, true to the promise, God came through and, as Paul reminded us in that letter to the Romans, Abraham and Sarah not only gave birth to Isaac and a genetic lineage that would grow and multiply, but also to a faith genealogy in which we count ourselves.

Journeying is in our roots; in our spiritual roots; at the core of our very being. We don’t, like our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, stay put. At least we shouldn’t, I believe. We need to be wary of becoming too comfortable in what we think of as our home and recall that God is constantly calling people of faith out on the road. Our journey is, clearly, supposed to be towards God; toward that center of our being. But like the journey that one takes in a labyrinth, the route is twisted and confusing often. Just when we think we’re there, the path turns and we are moving away from our goal and closer union with the Divine.

Throughout the journey of my faith life, I have had many surprises and unexpected events. But like the physical, geographical journeys I take, those surprises and unexpected events are the very things that I remember, that make the journey memorable, that are looked back on as high-points rather than the potential problems and inconveniences that they might have seemed at the time.

At one point along the way of my faith journey, in a place in which I finally felt spiritually at home, I encountered a prayer by one of the holy ones of the 20th century, Thomas Merton. Like a precious souvenir that may mean little to others but floods the mind with memories of a place or time, I’ve carried this prayer with me along the way and I want to end today with it:

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." (from Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton)

Photo of Uluru by Peter Nijenhuis from his Flickr site.

Facing Lent -- Newsletter Article, 22 February 2009

As I write, it is Shrove Tuesday--the very eve of the season of Lent. (And, yes, we are having pancakes in our household this evening.) By the time some of you are reading this though, we will have already had our Ash Wednesday service with Community UCC. For some of you, the ashes will have faded from your foreheads, and we have already started those forty days (plus Sundays) that make up this liturgical time.

I have always been a little perplexed by Lent. It wasn't really noted, as much as I can recall, as I was growing up. I never felt the call to "give something up" as many of my friends at school did (well, the Roman Catholic ones during that era) and only later in life considered the possibility of taking something on as a spiritual discipline. (During my mid-20s, I decided my Lenten discipline would be to attend my church's worship every week. From that memory, I guess one could surmise I wasn't a regular attender at the time!)

In my perplexity about Lent, I've always kept it at a distance. What little I knew about Lent indicated that it was a time of self-deprivation and seemed even to verge on self-deprecation. I decided that I was self-deprecating enough that I didn't need any church telling me to do it more. And though I've never actually suffered through deprivation, there have been times when it's felt like I could see it from where I was.

When I can calm myself down enough however and consider the coming weeks simply as an opportunity for me to get closer to God, I can begin to embrace Lent. Later in this newsletter, you'll find an article which refers to Lent as a journey, a common metaphor these days. Indeed, I know I am always on a journey in my faith. Lent is a chance to ease myself, even if it's an almost imperceptible shift, ever nearer to the One Who First-Of-All Created; and in that movement I might gain the tiniest sliver of understanding of all that God can be and is.

Lent is not all that long, when you think about it; only 12% of a year. In that brief space of time, there is an opening of a window of opportunity, that allows the cool, fresh breezes of our ever-evolving faith to blow in. Breathe deeply...and take the first steps of Lent 2009.

Photo used by permission of the photographer and can be found on Flickr

9 November 2008

Matthew 25:1-13 (& 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

Some irony, huh? The Sunday after the election, in which not only did we elect the first African-American to the presidency of this nation, but we, at least those of us here in California and a couple of other states, voted, by a slim majority here, but a majority to be sure, to ban same-sex marriages…isn’t it ironic that this is the Sunday a parable arises out of the lectionary that makes us think about wedding customs—in another land and another time sure, but still the idea of a wedding, a marriage is there. And, like all parables, it’s not really about what it’s about. This parable isn’t a reminder about how to behave at a first-century, ancient Near-Eastern nuptial. Jesus tells this parable as a reminder of prudence. Be prudent, like the wise bridesmaids (or virgins as they were called in earlier translations of the Bible that many of us know); don’t be imprudent and forget to stock up on oil like those foolish bridesmaids.

But there it is. The week when I learn that millions of people in this state would deny my right to marry and probably, most assuredly, will go on to insist that Allen’s and my marriage this summer be annulled, I must think about the one thing I don’t want to think about—marriage. I’ve heard quite enough over the past several months about what a marriage is and isn’t, what constitutes a “biblical” marriage and what doesn’t. I don’t want to think about anything to do with marriage right now, thank you very much. I have to tell you that the passage of Proposition 8 dealt a body blow to me and to many others. And the thing is, I find that the “Yes on 8” folks are actually enjoying the body blow. They are exulting in their victory as they stomp on their fellow citizens’ rights.

Believe me, they are exulting. I’ve gotten caught up in a blog on the internet lately. For those without computer connections, a blog is sort of an online journal that someone, a blogger, writes publicly, for all to read. I happened upon one late this past week in which the person writing the blog commented on the protests and riots that were occurring in Los Angeles following the passage of Prop 8 and stating his opinion that Prop 8 is wrong and misguided. He’s gotten many comments in the past few days about his entry (on many blogs, anyone can respond and comment, usually anonymously). He was lambasted for supporting those unnatural and evil homosexuals. (I have no idea of the sexual orientation of the blogger who posted the original entry.) But here is a small taste of some of the responses that he got: [Note: I have not corrected the spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors of the following posts. But there are so many, that I can't add "sic" after each one.]

One person wrote: You must be gay or brain washed in to believeing that this moral degradation is “normal”. The drop in moral standards that have kept this country on it’s feet has degraded due to liberalism but the fact of the matter is homosexuality is a choice and therefore not subject to “Equal Rights”. It is not a race of people which are deserving of equal rights, it is a choice. The majority of people in Califormnia have spoken so it should be left as it is. let them go to Vermont or some other unholy state that allows it and quit trying to shove it down everyone else’s throat. Now, go ahead and claim that the other groups are the ones trying to ram there morality down the gays throat but I can promise you, the “normals” were here first and have made this country giving it stability. You won’t get that with gay marriages. I believe it was the first gay marriage in Vermont has already ended in divorce due to infidelity, etc. I could go on and on but it is a waste of breath since the people have spoken. The outrage is your support for it.

Another wrote: Well, I am glad to see that America didn’t lose everything, on election day!! I suppose we had to choose between who should we allow to riot, huh? 2500 homosexuals or 25 million blacks! You can tell a corrupt cause when the supporters are willing to behave like animals and destroy their own. THAT is the outrage, not Prop 8!!

[Racism mixed with homophobia; are any of us surprised?]

A third wrote: I think a “marriage” as defined by ancient law, the Bible, and by GOD, should be the union between one man and one woman. This is not about freedoms, or rights, or whatever the heck else the bleeding heart liberals want to call the funny business between two people of the same sex. It should have stayed in the closet where it belongs, instead of in our faces on every other TV program on the air today. We just banned same-sex unions in Florida to the point that it is now written into the State Constitution. Don’t get me wrong… I don’t condemn these people, and count some among my closest friends., I just think that it should NOT enjoy all the EXTRA molly-coddling these people enjoy just because they’re different. Where is this country going??

And on it went. I’ve read only three of many comments here. There were some, of course, that I agreed with; they weren’t all so vitriolic. But others, most in fact, were venomous, fear-based, and exhibited any lack of comprehension that this is an extremely complicated topic, relying, I felt, on tired arguments and spoon-fed thinking. Somewhere along the line, I, perhaps foolishly, entered the fray. But creating my own user name, I wrote:

Wow, if reading the responses to this blog is to be believed, there is a lot more ignorance and hatred in our society than I thought there was. The majority is not always in the right: the majority of Americans believed in slavery; the majority of Americans thought women should be second-class citizens. The majority is merely strength and power…not right not morally correct. The rights of the minority (be it an ethnic minority, sexual minority, cultural minority, economic minority, etc.) needs to be protected and that is why there are constitutions and laws, ineffective as they often are, which attempt to do just that. This vote to make discrimination a part of the CA state constitution subverts the ethical right and mandate to protect the few from the many.

I then went on to talk about how even if “Biblical marriage” existed, we probably wouldn’t want it. There are examples of polygamous, misogynistic, and lust-induced marriages throughout the Bible. Women had no rights, of course; they were merely property being exchanged in “Biblical marriages.”

Of course, after my post, I got attacked too. In fact, someone tried to turn my opening statement about ignorance on me and called me “ignorant.” Ah well. I just pointed out in my reply that I said that I had found that there was ignorance in our culture and the person who answered me felt a need to label me as ignorant and then asked him why he felt the need to denigrate. I’m sure I haven’t won many friends here; at least not among Ernie, ontheroc, Art and the man who answered my post.

And through it all, through all of this chatter about the fait-accompli that is Prop 8, there I was thinking about ancient marital practices; practices and traditions that Jesus obviously knew about and in fact was able to use in his parable, but that are lost to us today. Why were those bridesmaids, those virgins, waiting around for the groom? Why does the bridegroom show up all of a sudden at midnight? Why are the lamps so important? They’re so important, in fact, that the foolish ones felt they had to go and buy more oil? And then they’re locked out? Why is the door locked and no one is admitted? I just admit that I don’t get it and I don’t think this is a hetero vs homo-sexual thing. It’s clearly a cultural thing.

But the point is that Jesus was trying to make a point. And if I get caught up in the details about cultural traditions and nuptial mores in a place and time so foreign to me that I can even begin to imagine it, none-the-less understand it, then I’m missing the forest for the trees. Jesus, that radical, was telling his listeners that we don’t know when God is going to be around noticing what we’re doing so we’d just better be always prepared for any eventuality, even a bridegroom showing up late and taking everyone by surprise.

We have to remember the original audience of Matthew’s gospel as well as those new Christians in Thessalonica who received the letter from Paul, part of which we heard this morning. They believed with absolute conviction that Jesus was returning to earth…soon. He had said it prior to his ascension. Jesus would come back. 1st Thessalonians was written before Matthew’s gospel; anywhere from a decade to five decades earlier perhaps. But the concern on every early Christian’s mind was about when Jesus would return. Jesus had died, resurrected, and ascended at least 20 years prior to either of these books being put down in black and white. Time was marching on and people were starting to wonder when this return was going to happen.

Paul was busy quelling concerns about those good faithful people who had died in the interim—between the ascension and the promised return. “What would happen to them?” loved ones wondered and Paul assured them that Jesus would gather all the faithful together. Matthew’s hearers also were certainly anxious for Jesus to come back and FINALLY show that nasty old Roman empire just who was in charge. And who can blame them? I probably do not need to recount here the difficulty of living under Roman rule, especially if you were a follower of the Way.

But with upturned eyes, followers across the geography over which this young, struggling movement had spread scanned the heavens. With upturned eyes, hopes were lifted and prayers ascended. With upturned eyes, early Christians expected relief from misery and oppression by the appearance of the one who would do it.

In the context of these hopes and expectations and hearts that yearned for release, that wedding story makes some sense. Be prudent, plan ahead, don’t get caught off guard. The end times will come, but when you least expect them, Matthew reminded.

We, in the mainline tradition, don’t tend to focus on the end times much. We don’t worry much about Jesus’ coming again. That thought, eschatology is the big word for it, has been completely subsumed by those with a more conservative bent among the Christian faithful. There are books, extremely popular books and book series, and video games and movies devoted to the end times. There is a fascination among fundamentalists with Jesus’ second coming, that we don’t consider much.

But that’s the only way to understand today’s readings from the Christian Testament, with upturned eyes and a knowledge, no a certainty, that Jesus will come and care for us, relieving heart ache and misery and oppression. And you know, that’s almost exactly what I need right now.

Admittedly the constitutional amendment that Proposition 8 brings into being will not likely affect most of your lives much at all. Life will go on. In fact, on the surface, it’s not going to affect Allen’s and my lives a lot. No one is going to come in, as happened to gay men and lesbians throughout Nazi Germany, and drag us apart and force us into concentration camps, wearing pink triangles on our outfits to identify us as sexual deviants. (There are those in our culture, I’m sure, who would do exactly that though.) But no one is going to force us into marriages with women. The worst of it, really, is that things will go back to how they were; how they were for the 18 years that we have been together as a couple and even further back than that. And I will aver until my dying day that I am indeed married.

But, as I said, the vote on this proposition was a body blow to many of us. The fact is the state is at the mercy of a majority that seeks to impose its will and beliefs. The passage of Proposition 8 brought to the surface once again, at least for me, the fear that every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered person has felt in their life; a fear for safety and not just emotional safety. I’m talking about the fear for physical safety that most in our culture take for granted.

So with upturned eyes, I seek comfort and security and affirmation, not just for myself but also for all my brothers and sisters who are harmed by this voice of the majority. With those same upturned eyes that searched the heavens for the first glimpse of a returning, triumphant Jesus centuries ago, I too hunt for signs of hope in the midst of shock and oppression. And in the sweeping election of someone whose skin color would have prevented him from even voting not that many decades ago, I find that hope. And in the fact that the vote on Proposition 8 was won by a slim majority, reducing the difference between the yeses and the nos from a 20% spread eight years ago to just a few percentage points this past Tuesday, I find that hope. And as I stand with upturned eyes, Jesus does appear; but not in the heavens and not descending on a cloud. No, Jesus appears in the faces of those who have faithfully fought the good fight. Jesus appears to me right here in the midst of a community that embraces and cares. Jesus appears to each of us, personally and lovingly appears to each person here in the midst of whatever is going on; in your life or in the world. Make sure you’re prepared; be certain you’re ready. Be wise.