This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new church year! As often happens, the church is out of step with the wider culture, and today the church calendar is doubly out of step, being both earlier and later than our daily calendar. Earlier, because we celebrate the beginning of a new church year more than a month before January 1st, our New Year’s Day. And later, because as far as our wider culture is concerned, it’s already time to dive into Christmas, while the church insists on Advent – a time of waiting and preparation that has nothing to do with shopping lists or trips to the mall. This reminds us that Kairos time – the right time, the appointed time, God’s time – is often out of step with chronos time, the time indicated by our calendar. Or, perhaps it’s more true that our calendars are sometimes out of step with God’s time.
And today it would seem that we’re doubly out of step, because our lectionary reading (Luke 21:25-36) is not about events leading up to Jesus’ birth, but about the eschaton – the last things – with, using imagery from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, “the Son of Man coming on the clouds.” As it happens, this is lectionary’s usual pattern for each year’s readings for the first Sunday of Advent: two years ago, the Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent was a similar passage from the book of Matthew, and a year ago we read from what is called Mark’s “little apocalypse.” As we enter Advent, as Christians we likely have expectations of who we’ll meet and what we’ll see – we’ll surely meet John the Baptist, and maybe we’ll see angels appearing to Joseph or Mary. And these meetings and sightings – some of them, anyway - are indeed waiting for us, but not this week. This week, the Gospel reading is unsettling, disturbing, perplexing, foreboding. What does it all mean?
What does it all mean? Glad you asked! That’s exactly the question confronting both Jeremiah’s and Luke’s readers. Our reading from Jeremiah, about God fulfilling the promise made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that a righteous Branch would spring up from David, who would execute justice and righteousness in the land. We read this passage, and for us as Christians, we see a reference to Jesus, whose lineage was traced to David’s line. But it helps to read the passage in context. At the time of Jeremiah’s writing, the city of Jerusalem would soon fall to Babylon; the siege ramps had already been rolled up, and the proverbial handwriting was on the wall – the city was doomed. And yet Jeremiah, who up to this point had repeatedly warned of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, now paradoxically offered hope. With Babylon about to destroy Jerusalem, Jeremiah….bought a piece of land. And while Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the fall of Jerusalem, was taken into exile, Jeremiah said that this was not the end of the Davidic line, nor the “end of the line” in our colloquial sense for the Jews, but rather that a righteous Branch would come forth – after all the destruction would eventually come restoration.
What does it all mean? We’re told that Luke’s Gospel was written roughly 50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Roughly 10-15 years before Luke’s gospel was written, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed by Rome, and the might of the Roman empire came down on Jerusalem like a ton of bricks. It’s hard for us to imagine how disorienting the destruction of the Temple would have been for Luke’s readers; perhaps we could imagine how shaken and distraught our Roman Catholic neighbors would feel if a bomb destroyed the Vatican – or perhaps we remember the sick, disoriented feeling we had watching the Twin Towers fall in New York City and hearing that a plane had been flown into the Pentagon. For Luke’s Jewish readers, their world had changed irrevocably, forever, and yet they had to find a way to make sense of this new world in which they found themselves. At the same time, among the first Christians there was the tradition that their generation would not pass away before Jesus returned – and yet by the time Luke was writing, most of those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ works on earth had either died or were well on in years, and Jesus had not returned. What did it all mean?
Each of the Gospel writers witnessed to Jesus in a way that made sense to their readers. The verses in Luke immediately preceding today’s reading deal with the destruction of the Temple. But in today’s reading, Luke quotes Jesus as talking in broader terms, about signs in the sun, moon and stars, echoing apocalyptic language from the books of Joel and Daniel. But – similar to Jeremiah – when everything appears to be falling apart and those around are fainting from fear, Luke quotes Jesus as telling his listeners to stand up and raise their heads, because their redemption draws nigh and the kingdom of God is near.
Jesus then goes on to talk about the fig tree – this is in Matthew and Mark as well, but Luke broadens it to include “all the trees” – when you see leaves, you know summer is on the way. In the same way, when everything seems to be falling apart, coming apart at the seams, while our neighbors are panicking and screaming and passing out from fear, we are to stand tall and be confident, for our redemption is near.
How are we supposed to, in the words of Kipling, keep our heads when all about are losing theirs? By being prepared – Jesus tells his hearers not to get weighed down by excess or drink or the distractions of life. If we’re swept up in the dailiness of our own lives, when that dailiness comes undone, comes unglued, comes apart at the seams, we’ll come unglued as well. We’ll panic, throw up our hands, faint. But if we are prepared, we will know that even when everything around us shakes, rattles, and rolls, our gracious God is still in charge – our redemption is drawing nigh.
So our Gospel reading today, more than anything, is a call to wake up – it’s as if Jesus wanted to grab his listeners – and wants to grab us, who live in a society suffering from some cultural version of attention deficit disorder - by the shoulders and shake us and say, “Wake up! Wake up! Pay attention! Don’t get distracted by shiny objects! Keep your eyes on the prize!” I don’t think it’s a call to engage in speculation about what year or what day Jesus will return. This passage isn’t about chronos time – isn’t about our calendars – but about kairos time – the appointed time, the right time, God’s time – about which only God knows for sure. Rather, it’s a call to be attentive at all times, and to trust that God is working out God’s purposes as God knows best.
What does it all mean? It’s hard to pay attention for days and weeks and months and years on end. It’s probably hard some Sundays to pay attention for a single hour, or less if our organist is away. It’s so easy to sleepwalk through life, to go through life on autopilot, to go through the motions. Even in the church, it’s easy to worship on autopilot. For longtime members, we’ve begun our worship with an opening hymn and then, except on communion Sundays, pages 4 and 5 in the liturgy for decades, maybe for our whole lives. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s what we know. And over the years we’ve sung all of the hymns at one time or another, except for the new ones Pastor Dave tries out now and then. Do we really expect God to break into a comfortable Sunday morning routine and shake us up? And if God did, what would it be like? Would it be a rude awakening? And yet Jesus assures us that somehow despite the familiarity, if we’re attentive, God can and God does break through. God shakes us up, causes us to hear even familiar words in a new way, causes us to change how we live, how we act toward God and neighbor.
“So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” So may we not sleepwalk through our lives or our common life together, but live fully awake and fully alive to all that God is doing around us and in us and through us for others. Amen.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough
(Scripture text: Philippians 4:1-13)
“Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough”
Today our nation will be celebrating Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, commemorating the Pilgrim’s celebration in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation for having survived the brutal winter. We’re told that the feast lasted three days, and provided food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.
Today, of course, we’ll be celebrating in circumstances that are of course very different from those encountered by the Pilgrims. For most of us, our mental image of Thanksgiving probably owes more to Saturday Evening Post illustrator Norman Rockwell than to Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford or Miles Standish or Squanto or the other names we may dimly remember from long-ago school lessons about the Pilgrims. You probably have seen the Norman Rockwell illustration – a large family seated around a kitchen table covered with a white tablecloth and laden with goodies. The children, grinning broadly, look out toward the viewer. Grandma is about to set a huge roasted turkey on the table, as grandpa stands behind her, beaming. And perhaps our mental image has been updated a bit to include an after-dinner football game and a nap on the couch.
As it happens, the Norman Rockwell painting I described was created to depict “Freedom from Want,” one of the “four freedoms” enunciated by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in a famous 1941 speech. (For those who are counting, the other three were freedom of speech, freedom to worship, and freedom from fear.)
We are celebrating Thanksgiving during a time when “Freedom from Want” is very much an open question. The rate of unemployment is the highest it’s been in recent memory, maybe the highest since the depression of the 1930’s. Our own neighborhood of Bridesburg has been hit hard by the economy. While our situation is hardly as dire as that of the Pilgrims who celebrated that first Thanksgiving, for some in our community – maybe for some of us here - it’s plenty dire enough. And with unemployment comes the despair that drives a host of related social ills: crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence directed against spouse and children. Against this backdrop, the smiling faces around Norman Rockwell’s thanksgiving table seem almost to be mocking us – hey, we have our Thanksgiving dinner. How about you?
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written at a time when Paul wasn’t necessarily sure how many “next meals” he had, and in which, on an external level, he had very little freedom at all. He was a prisoner awaiting trial and sentence and possible execution. Under the circumstances, there are many things he could have written. Were I in those circumstances, I think the first thing I’d have written is “get me out of here!” But Paul wrote “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry about anything! Take your requests in prayer to God! Be thankful! And one more time, in case you weren’t listening the first time - Rejoice!”
How could Paul rejoice? How could Paul give thanks? And how do you get your mind around Paul saying “Don’t worry” when he knew perfectly well that his own execution was a possibility. He lets us in on a secret: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” I don’t believe Paul was indulging in escapist fantasy, or, as in the Monty Python comedy from some years back, singing “always look on the bright side of life” while hanging from a cross. Rather, Paul’s many trials had brought him to a place where he was so focused on serving Christ that he was not concerned with his own comfort. Paul wasn’t ignoring or escaping the realities of his imprisonment, but he was focusing on the greater realities of the Kingdom of God. While he was under arrest and was restricted in what he could do and where he could go, his spirit had boundless freedom. His spiritual well-being didn’t vary with changing personal circumstances, because his spiritual well-being didn’t depend on circumstances. Instead, despite his own increasingly dire circumstances, the welfare of the churches, not his own welfare, was at the top of his mind. He had confidence that if he kept faith with the Lord, the Lord would supply his needs. He lived by the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else would be added to him.
This is an area in which our Christian faith is deeply counter-cultural. The world’s message is one of scarcity – there never has been enough; there isn’t enough now, and there never will be enough, so you’d better grab what you can while you can because if you don’t, the next guy will. The world worships at the altar of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed. The world tells us that there will never be enough – never enough food, never enough clothing, never enough money, never enough time, never enough love….never enough – and that’s as true for an investment broker insisting that he needs a three million dollar bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on two million, as it is for those seeking assistance from our food cupboard.
Our faith, by contrast, provides a message of the abundant love of a gracious God. We see this in the familiar story of the feeding of the four thousand. Faced with a hungry crowd after a long day of teaching, Jesus asked the disciples to feed them. Their response comes out of the world’s message of scarcity – we only have a handful of loaves and a couple fish, and look at all these people. We’re told that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples to distribute – and in Jesus’ hands “not nearly enough” became “more than enough - enough and to spare.”
I think I caught a glimpse of what this might look like recently. As members of Emanuel Church know, during the first week of November I was part of a delegation sent by the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to visit churches in Cuba. Our conference has been exploring a partnership with a group called the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Contrary to popular belief, rumors of the demise of the church in Cuba are greatly exaggerated – in Cuba, the church is very much alive. We visited over a half dozen churches in Havana and other communities on the west end of the island – urban churches, rural churches, house churches. In our travels, I was repeatedly struck by three observations: the poverty our Cuban brothers and sisters endure, their “can-do” attitude toward ministry, and the gracious and generous hospitality they offered us. Their poverty isn’t a subtle thing – it’s right in your face, as the Cuban housing stock and infrastructure in many places is crumbling, falling apart right in front of you. But despite that, we were welcomed as if we were long-lost family members. As little as they may have had, we were always offered a cup of expresso or guava juice or papaya juice or such. And as small as some of these congregations were – and while there are some large congregations in Cuba, some of the churches we saw had congregations of a dozen or two dozen or maybe as many as three dozen - many of them were planting gardens or raising rabbits and pigs to feed their members and their neighbors. Externally they have limited freedom – while they have some freedom of worship, other freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear are pretty much out the window. And yet I believe these brothers and sisters had discovered the truth of Jesus’ words that if the Son will make you free, you are free indeed – despite external circumstances.
I’m not advocating that our churches plant gardens or purchase feed troughs. But I think our congregations – especially in a neighborhood like Bridesburg that abounds with small-membership churches – sometimes buy into the culture’s message of scarcity – “there are so few of us - we’re so small – we’re so weak – we can’t do anything – our best years are behind us - we have nothing to offer – what we do offer, nobody wants.”
In response to this message of scarcity and defeat, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry! Instead, take your requests to God! Give thanks! Learn the secret of having plenty and of being in need. Be content and give thanks for what we have! We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! When we offer what we have and what we are to Christ, Christ will multiply our loaves and fishes to physically and spiritually feed multitudes! Just as we have been doing with the food cupboard with its recently-expanded distribution program. This program is many things – among them it is a lifeline for our needy neighbors – but the cupboard is also a way in which we can return thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on us.
From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Despite our circumstances, as Christians we have a great deal for which to be thankful. Whether we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our families or alone, we can give thanks for being members of the family of faith – we have each other. We can give thanks for God’s presence in our daily lives, for he has promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Most of all we can give thanks that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again so that we may be reconciled with God, and may have assurance that when plenty and hunger and food and clothing and our time on earth have passed, we may be welcomed into those heavenly mansions prepared for God’s faithful, where we will rejoice and give thanks in God’s presence forevermore. Amen.
“Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough”
Today our nation will be celebrating Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, commemorating the Pilgrim’s celebration in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation for having survived the brutal winter. We’re told that the feast lasted three days, and provided food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.
Today, of course, we’ll be celebrating in circumstances that are of course very different from those encountered by the Pilgrims. For most of us, our mental image of Thanksgiving probably owes more to Saturday Evening Post illustrator Norman Rockwell than to Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford or Miles Standish or Squanto or the other names we may dimly remember from long-ago school lessons about the Pilgrims. You probably have seen the Norman Rockwell illustration – a large family seated around a kitchen table covered with a white tablecloth and laden with goodies. The children, grinning broadly, look out toward the viewer. Grandma is about to set a huge roasted turkey on the table, as grandpa stands behind her, beaming. And perhaps our mental image has been updated a bit to include an after-dinner football game and a nap on the couch.
As it happens, the Norman Rockwell painting I described was created to depict “Freedom from Want,” one of the “four freedoms” enunciated by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in a famous 1941 speech. (For those who are counting, the other three were freedom of speech, freedom to worship, and freedom from fear.)
We are celebrating Thanksgiving during a time when “Freedom from Want” is very much an open question. The rate of unemployment is the highest it’s been in recent memory, maybe the highest since the depression of the 1930’s. Our own neighborhood of Bridesburg has been hit hard by the economy. While our situation is hardly as dire as that of the Pilgrims who celebrated that first Thanksgiving, for some in our community – maybe for some of us here - it’s plenty dire enough. And with unemployment comes the despair that drives a host of related social ills: crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence directed against spouse and children. Against this backdrop, the smiling faces around Norman Rockwell’s thanksgiving table seem almost to be mocking us – hey, we have our Thanksgiving dinner. How about you?
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written at a time when Paul wasn’t necessarily sure how many “next meals” he had, and in which, on an external level, he had very little freedom at all. He was a prisoner awaiting trial and sentence and possible execution. Under the circumstances, there are many things he could have written. Were I in those circumstances, I think the first thing I’d have written is “get me out of here!” But Paul wrote “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry about anything! Take your requests in prayer to God! Be thankful! And one more time, in case you weren’t listening the first time - Rejoice!”
How could Paul rejoice? How could Paul give thanks? And how do you get your mind around Paul saying “Don’t worry” when he knew perfectly well that his own execution was a possibility. He lets us in on a secret: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” I don’t believe Paul was indulging in escapist fantasy, or, as in the Monty Python comedy from some years back, singing “always look on the bright side of life” while hanging from a cross. Rather, Paul’s many trials had brought him to a place where he was so focused on serving Christ that he was not concerned with his own comfort. Paul wasn’t ignoring or escaping the realities of his imprisonment, but he was focusing on the greater realities of the Kingdom of God. While he was under arrest and was restricted in what he could do and where he could go, his spirit had boundless freedom. His spiritual well-being didn’t vary with changing personal circumstances, because his spiritual well-being didn’t depend on circumstances. Instead, despite his own increasingly dire circumstances, the welfare of the churches, not his own welfare, was at the top of his mind. He had confidence that if he kept faith with the Lord, the Lord would supply his needs. He lived by the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else would be added to him.
This is an area in which our Christian faith is deeply counter-cultural. The world’s message is one of scarcity – there never has been enough; there isn’t enough now, and there never will be enough, so you’d better grab what you can while you can because if you don’t, the next guy will. The world worships at the altar of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed. The world tells us that there will never be enough – never enough food, never enough clothing, never enough money, never enough time, never enough love….never enough – and that’s as true for an investment broker insisting that he needs a three million dollar bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on two million, as it is for those seeking assistance from our food cupboard.
Our faith, by contrast, provides a message of the abundant love of a gracious God. We see this in the familiar story of the feeding of the four thousand. Faced with a hungry crowd after a long day of teaching, Jesus asked the disciples to feed them. Their response comes out of the world’s message of scarcity – we only have a handful of loaves and a couple fish, and look at all these people. We’re told that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples to distribute – and in Jesus’ hands “not nearly enough” became “more than enough - enough and to spare.”
I think I caught a glimpse of what this might look like recently. As members of Emanuel Church know, during the first week of November I was part of a delegation sent by the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to visit churches in Cuba. Our conference has been exploring a partnership with a group called the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Contrary to popular belief, rumors of the demise of the church in Cuba are greatly exaggerated – in Cuba, the church is very much alive. We visited over a half dozen churches in Havana and other communities on the west end of the island – urban churches, rural churches, house churches. In our travels, I was repeatedly struck by three observations: the poverty our Cuban brothers and sisters endure, their “can-do” attitude toward ministry, and the gracious and generous hospitality they offered us. Their poverty isn’t a subtle thing – it’s right in your face, as the Cuban housing stock and infrastructure in many places is crumbling, falling apart right in front of you. But despite that, we were welcomed as if we were long-lost family members. As little as they may have had, we were always offered a cup of expresso or guava juice or papaya juice or such. And as small as some of these congregations were – and while there are some large congregations in Cuba, some of the churches we saw had congregations of a dozen or two dozen or maybe as many as three dozen - many of them were planting gardens or raising rabbits and pigs to feed their members and their neighbors. Externally they have limited freedom – while they have some freedom of worship, other freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear are pretty much out the window. And yet I believe these brothers and sisters had discovered the truth of Jesus’ words that if the Son will make you free, you are free indeed – despite external circumstances.
I’m not advocating that our churches plant gardens or purchase feed troughs. But I think our congregations – especially in a neighborhood like Bridesburg that abounds with small-membership churches – sometimes buy into the culture’s message of scarcity – “there are so few of us - we’re so small – we’re so weak – we can’t do anything – our best years are behind us - we have nothing to offer – what we do offer, nobody wants.”
In response to this message of scarcity and defeat, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry! Instead, take your requests to God! Give thanks! Learn the secret of having plenty and of being in need. Be content and give thanks for what we have! We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! When we offer what we have and what we are to Christ, Christ will multiply our loaves and fishes to physically and spiritually feed multitudes! Just as we have been doing with the food cupboard with its recently-expanded distribution program. This program is many things – among them it is a lifeline for our needy neighbors – but the cupboard is also a way in which we can return thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on us.
From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Despite our circumstances, as Christians we have a great deal for which to be thankful. Whether we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our families or alone, we can give thanks for being members of the family of faith – we have each other. We can give thanks for God’s presence in our daily lives, for he has promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Most of all we can give thanks that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again so that we may be reconciled with God, and may have assurance that when plenty and hunger and food and clothing and our time on earth have passed, we may be welcomed into those heavenly mansions prepared for God’s faithful, where we will rejoice and give thanks in God’s presence forevermore. Amen.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Who's In Charge Here?
During the week I was away in early November, I was with a delegation from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to Cuba, visiting churches in Havana and other areas on the western end of the island. On our last morning there, we were in the Jose Marti Airport in Havana, awaiting a flight to Miami. We arrived in plenty of time, cleared customs and immigration – and waited. As we glanced at our boarding passes, we noticed they didn’t actually have seat numbers listed; where they should have been listed, it said “XXX”. Had we been put on standby? Then one of our group happened to look at the flight board, and noticed that our flight number wasn’t listed. We figured, “well, maybe it’ll show up later.” An hour later, our flight number still wasn’t there. No seat number. No flight on the board. None of this seemed promising. Uh oh. So we searched for assistance, but they didn’t actually have any one standing at the gate who seemed to be running things. Occasionally we’d see someone scurry by who looked somewhat official, and we’d ask why our flight wasn’t up on the board. Answers were vague, but they tried to assure us, “don’t worry.” As it happened, there were one or two other English speaking groups waiting flights, and we talked with them – and their flights weren’t on the board either. And come to think of it, I hadn’t actually seen any planes take off. What’s going on? Cuba is big on centralized planning of production and the economy – where were their vaunted central planners when you need them?
By this time I had visions of being stranded forever in Cuba and never seeing my loved ones again. Occasionally we’d see someone in a uniform and would press them for information, but we just kept getting the same vague response – don’t worry. We ran into one traveler who had traveled to Cuba and back a number of times, and she told us – the flight board never has the right flights listed; in all the times she’d flown to Cuba, her flights had never shown up on the board – and not to worry. Eventually we started hearing flight announcements – sure enough, for flights not listed on the board. This made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to recognize the announcement for our flight, being spoken quickly in Spanish over a crackly intercom system. We saw the first plane for the morning take off – well, that had to be a good sign. A bit later, our flight was announced – and sure enough, just at departure, literally while we were walking toward the door leading to our plane, our flight number finally popped up on the flight board. And our flight made it to Miami, slightly late, but in plenty of time to make our connections to our flight to Philly. As is the custom with flights to and from Cuba, when we landed, everyone clapped. And all our worry was for naught.
This morning, the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar, is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or, in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. It’s a Sunday when we remember that Christ rules, not only over our hearts, but over everything in creation. We may remember the words of Handel’s Messiah – “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
And yet, we need only read the newspaper or look out our window to see a world that seems entirely out of control, in which signs of Jesus’ reign are seemingly impossible to find. This week, we approach Thanksgiving during the most difficult economic times our country has had in recent memory. It seems that our financial leaders have learned nothing from last year’s near-meltdown of the economy, and the billion-dollar bonus gravy train rolls along undisturbed, while millions are out of work and relying on food cupboards and soup kitchens to keep body and soul – and those of their families - together. Many of our political leaders engage in a peculiarly dysfunctional form of honesty – when they’re bought and paid for, they stay bought and paid for, being entirely loyal to those who write them big checks for their campaigns. Many no longer even bother to pretend to care about their constituents. Worldwide, the proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine, death – ride grimly along on their mission of destruction. We may feel a bit like my group did while waiting for our flight – who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge here? Anyone?
During these difficult times, we may be tempted to misinterpret Jesus’ words to Pilate in our Gospel reading this morning. Older translations quote Jesus as saying, “my kingdom is not of this world.” This has often been taken to mean that the reign of Jesus has nothing to do with our daily lives here on earth, that it’s only a promise of pie in the sky by and by when we die. Life on earth can be, in the memorable words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short,” and only when we die can we go to heaven and experience what it is for Jesus to reign. This is one way in which many Christians over the centuries have reconciled the beautiful promises of God’s reign to the ugly reality they face day after day. And one of the reasons church folk are often accused of being so heavenly-minded we’re of no earthly good.
But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The New Revised Standard Version, from which I read today, quotes Jesus, “my kingdom is not from this world,” meaning, it doesn’t originate here, it doesn’t depend on wealth or military strength or political machinations or any of the other ways in which earthly rulers cling like grim death to power. This can be useful for us to remember when we’re tempted to associate a particular political party or the actions of our national leadership with the reign of God.
At the same time, while Jesus’ reign is not from this world, it’s very definitely in this world, indeed intimately involved in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood. One of the most familiar verses in the New Testament begins, “God so loved the world…..” and that hasn’t changed. The writers of the Gospels saw Jesus’ acts of healing, feeding and teaching, not only as directed at the individuals being helped, but as Jesus’ tackling and overcoming the powers of darkness that keep people sick, hungry and ignorant, as signs of the Kingdom of God in their midst. Jesus’ reign is deeply counter to our culture. Our culture tells us that kingdoms are maintained by what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has called our world’s unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed, which is propped up by wealth, political power, and military might. Jesus’ reign is different – it is like seeds of kindness and caring, growing silently and invisibly until ready to bear fruit, and reproduce more seeds to bear still more fruit for the future.
So what do these seeds look like? When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, they looked like acts of healing, feeding, and teaching. Here in Bridesburg, they may look like our food cupboard. They may look like Christian education programs and youth programs to help neighborhood children avoid bad influences and grow up knowing there are loved by their families and by God. They may look like our neighborhood’s small congregations, doing what we can with the resources we have to bring God’s love to our neighbor. They may look like you and like me.
As I’ve said before, more than once, we live in an in-between time – Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and while it is here, it is not fully here. We live in the space between “already” and “not yet.” In this in-between time where the kingdom is here already, but not yet fully, God calls us to mission in our neighborhood and in our world. And God calls us to have faith in that coming day when God’s reign will be fully established, when all that brings sorrow and sighing will be no more, when we will be gathered together forever in the presence of a loving God. On that day there will be singing and praise – and maybe, as on my flight from Cuba to Miami, a round of applause that after all we’ve seen and done and been through, we’ve landed safely, and are finally truly home. Amen.
By this time I had visions of being stranded forever in Cuba and never seeing my loved ones again. Occasionally we’d see someone in a uniform and would press them for information, but we just kept getting the same vague response – don’t worry. We ran into one traveler who had traveled to Cuba and back a number of times, and she told us – the flight board never has the right flights listed; in all the times she’d flown to Cuba, her flights had never shown up on the board – and not to worry. Eventually we started hearing flight announcements – sure enough, for flights not listed on the board. This made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to recognize the announcement for our flight, being spoken quickly in Spanish over a crackly intercom system. We saw the first plane for the morning take off – well, that had to be a good sign. A bit later, our flight was announced – and sure enough, just at departure, literally while we were walking toward the door leading to our plane, our flight number finally popped up on the flight board. And our flight made it to Miami, slightly late, but in plenty of time to make our connections to our flight to Philly. As is the custom with flights to and from Cuba, when we landed, everyone clapped. And all our worry was for naught.
This morning, the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar, is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or, in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. It’s a Sunday when we remember that Christ rules, not only over our hearts, but over everything in creation. We may remember the words of Handel’s Messiah – “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
And yet, we need only read the newspaper or look out our window to see a world that seems entirely out of control, in which signs of Jesus’ reign are seemingly impossible to find. This week, we approach Thanksgiving during the most difficult economic times our country has had in recent memory. It seems that our financial leaders have learned nothing from last year’s near-meltdown of the economy, and the billion-dollar bonus gravy train rolls along undisturbed, while millions are out of work and relying on food cupboards and soup kitchens to keep body and soul – and those of their families - together. Many of our political leaders engage in a peculiarly dysfunctional form of honesty – when they’re bought and paid for, they stay bought and paid for, being entirely loyal to those who write them big checks for their campaigns. Many no longer even bother to pretend to care about their constituents. Worldwide, the proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine, death – ride grimly along on their mission of destruction. We may feel a bit like my group did while waiting for our flight – who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge here? Anyone?
During these difficult times, we may be tempted to misinterpret Jesus’ words to Pilate in our Gospel reading this morning. Older translations quote Jesus as saying, “my kingdom is not of this world.” This has often been taken to mean that the reign of Jesus has nothing to do with our daily lives here on earth, that it’s only a promise of pie in the sky by and by when we die. Life on earth can be, in the memorable words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short,” and only when we die can we go to heaven and experience what it is for Jesus to reign. This is one way in which many Christians over the centuries have reconciled the beautiful promises of God’s reign to the ugly reality they face day after day. And one of the reasons church folk are often accused of being so heavenly-minded we’re of no earthly good.
But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The New Revised Standard Version, from which I read today, quotes Jesus, “my kingdom is not from this world,” meaning, it doesn’t originate here, it doesn’t depend on wealth or military strength or political machinations or any of the other ways in which earthly rulers cling like grim death to power. This can be useful for us to remember when we’re tempted to associate a particular political party or the actions of our national leadership with the reign of God.
At the same time, while Jesus’ reign is not from this world, it’s very definitely in this world, indeed intimately involved in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood. One of the most familiar verses in the New Testament begins, “God so loved the world…..” and that hasn’t changed. The writers of the Gospels saw Jesus’ acts of healing, feeding and teaching, not only as directed at the individuals being helped, but as Jesus’ tackling and overcoming the powers of darkness that keep people sick, hungry and ignorant, as signs of the Kingdom of God in their midst. Jesus’ reign is deeply counter to our culture. Our culture tells us that kingdoms are maintained by what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has called our world’s unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed, which is propped up by wealth, political power, and military might. Jesus’ reign is different – it is like seeds of kindness and caring, growing silently and invisibly until ready to bear fruit, and reproduce more seeds to bear still more fruit for the future.
So what do these seeds look like? When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, they looked like acts of healing, feeding, and teaching. Here in Bridesburg, they may look like our food cupboard. They may look like Christian education programs and youth programs to help neighborhood children avoid bad influences and grow up knowing there are loved by their families and by God. They may look like our neighborhood’s small congregations, doing what we can with the resources we have to bring God’s love to our neighbor. They may look like you and like me.
As I’ve said before, more than once, we live in an in-between time – Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and while it is here, it is not fully here. We live in the space between “already” and “not yet.” In this in-between time where the kingdom is here already, but not yet fully, God calls us to mission in our neighborhood and in our world. And God calls us to have faith in that coming day when God’s reign will be fully established, when all that brings sorrow and sighing will be no more, when we will be gathered together forever in the presence of a loving God. On that day there will be singing and praise – and maybe, as on my flight from Cuba to Miami, a round of applause that after all we’ve seen and done and been through, we’ve landed safely, and are finally truly home. Amen.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Family Portraits - A Slightly Late All Saints Day Sermon
Today we’re celebrating All Saints Day a week later than the liturgical calendar would indicate, due to my absence last week. But in terms of the scriptures for the week (Ruth 3:1-5; Ruth 4:13-17), I’m actually glad we’re a week late, because the Scriptures work really well for an All Saints observance, for remembering our family members who have gone before us to be with God.
We have some tender, touching passages today from the book of Ruth. We discussed the book of Ruth two weeks ago during our church school hour, but for those who weren’t with us for the discussion, here’s some context – Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and their sons Mahlon and Chiliab are driven by famine from Bethlehem of Judah to the land of Moab. The sons marry Moabite women, Orpah (not Oprah) and Ruth. First Elimelech the husband dies, and then both sons die, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law bereaved and destitute in a strange land. Despairing, Naomi decides to make her way back to Judah – she heard the famine had eased there. Naomi thanked her two daughters in law for their great kindness to her, and bid them to return to their respective families, for Naomi had no more to offer them. Orpah reluctantly complies, but Ruth clings to Naomi, telling her, “where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die and there I will be buried; may the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” So Naomi and her loyal daughter in law Ruth make their way back to Judah, where Ruth gleans grain – picks up the leftovers that the harvesters missed - from the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Ruth. Boaz, shall we say, takes a shine to Ruth, and allows her to glean more grain than usual. Here’s where our reading today picks up – with Ruth, shall we say, working her feminine charms on Boaz. Boaz and Ruth marry, and bear a son, who becomes an ancestor of King David, and ultimately, of Jesus.
In the Bible we encounter many literary forms – poetry, proverbs or wisdom teaching, prophetic teaching. We encounter wide-ranging historical narration and biographical information. In the Epistles, we encounter theological interpretation of how the history of the Jewish people and the life of Jesus are to inform the life of God’s gathered people. God speaks to us in these varied ways, and we frequently find them wide-ranging, heady, covering thousands of years of time and hundreds of miles of geography. Yet every now and then, the focus narrows to a single individual – a Moses or a David, or John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul – or a family – Abraham and Sarah – or, as in today’s Gospel, Naomi and Ruth.
When we think of God’s reign, of God working out God’s purpose in the world, we often think of grand scale events – plagues, manna from heaven, mass feedings – all those spectacular events that were the stuff of the Cecil B. DeMille sagas of bygone decades. Yet in today’s reading, God’s purpose was carried out by a bereaved and at times bitter widow and her foreign-born, yet loyal, daughter-in-law, former refugees returning to a homeland in search of daily bread, eking out a precarious existence from the leftovers of those more prosperous than they, relying on the benevolence of distant relatives. We have an utterly charming, heartwarming family portrait of an ordinary life used in extraordinary ways.
In my almost two years – has it really been that long? – as your pastor, it has often been my privilege to hear the stories of your fathers and mothers, the saints of Emanuel Church. Like today’s Gospel reading, they are often stories of ordinary people – while we had some wealthy members in the earlier years of the congregation, to my knowledge we had no Rockefellers or Carnegies here – for the most part, we were and are ordinary people whose otherwise-ordinary lives God has used to extraordinary effect in carrying out God’s will here in Bridesburg. Ordinary people showing extraordinary generosity and extraordinary commitment to make sure that God’s word could be heard and God’s people served in our little corner of creation. It could be said that they lived out the words of this old hymn:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!
I wouldn’t want us to narrow our focus to brightening only the corner where we are. Through our United Church of Christ denominational ministries and our ecumenical Bridesburg Council of Churches ministries, through ecumenical and interfaith partnerships known and unknown, we can brighten corners across the city, around the country, and across the globe. As many of you know, last week I was among a group from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference hoping to share God’s light in some difficult corners of Cuba. And yet it’s true that often God’s cannot be heard in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still small voice; that God’s reign is like the growth of tiny seeds sprouting unseen; that God’s work is carried out, not always in great deeds, but in small deeds done with great love – like the giving of the widow’s mite in our Gospel, tiny to the point of insignificance, yet recognized by Jesus as an act of total commitment - like Ruth’s small acts of loyal care for her mother-in-law, that led to her inclusion of the lineage of King David and his successors, and of our Saviour himself.
As we remember our saints – those in our bulletin today, and those who have been among the unseen cloud of witnesses for many years, may we remember how God was present in their lives. May they be an inspiration to us, we who continue on to run the race, to fight the good fight. May we continue their acts of great love, so that our lives will be among the family portraits remembered by the coming generations of the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.
We have some tender, touching passages today from the book of Ruth. We discussed the book of Ruth two weeks ago during our church school hour, but for those who weren’t with us for the discussion, here’s some context – Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and their sons Mahlon and Chiliab are driven by famine from Bethlehem of Judah to the land of Moab. The sons marry Moabite women, Orpah (not Oprah) and Ruth. First Elimelech the husband dies, and then both sons die, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law bereaved and destitute in a strange land. Despairing, Naomi decides to make her way back to Judah – she heard the famine had eased there. Naomi thanked her two daughters in law for their great kindness to her, and bid them to return to their respective families, for Naomi had no more to offer them. Orpah reluctantly complies, but Ruth clings to Naomi, telling her, “where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die and there I will be buried; may the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” So Naomi and her loyal daughter in law Ruth make their way back to Judah, where Ruth gleans grain – picks up the leftovers that the harvesters missed - from the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Ruth. Boaz, shall we say, takes a shine to Ruth, and allows her to glean more grain than usual. Here’s where our reading today picks up – with Ruth, shall we say, working her feminine charms on Boaz. Boaz and Ruth marry, and bear a son, who becomes an ancestor of King David, and ultimately, of Jesus.
In the Bible we encounter many literary forms – poetry, proverbs or wisdom teaching, prophetic teaching. We encounter wide-ranging historical narration and biographical information. In the Epistles, we encounter theological interpretation of how the history of the Jewish people and the life of Jesus are to inform the life of God’s gathered people. God speaks to us in these varied ways, and we frequently find them wide-ranging, heady, covering thousands of years of time and hundreds of miles of geography. Yet every now and then, the focus narrows to a single individual – a Moses or a David, or John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul – or a family – Abraham and Sarah – or, as in today’s Gospel, Naomi and Ruth.
When we think of God’s reign, of God working out God’s purpose in the world, we often think of grand scale events – plagues, manna from heaven, mass feedings – all those spectacular events that were the stuff of the Cecil B. DeMille sagas of bygone decades. Yet in today’s reading, God’s purpose was carried out by a bereaved and at times bitter widow and her foreign-born, yet loyal, daughter-in-law, former refugees returning to a homeland in search of daily bread, eking out a precarious existence from the leftovers of those more prosperous than they, relying on the benevolence of distant relatives. We have an utterly charming, heartwarming family portrait of an ordinary life used in extraordinary ways.
In my almost two years – has it really been that long? – as your pastor, it has often been my privilege to hear the stories of your fathers and mothers, the saints of Emanuel Church. Like today’s Gospel reading, they are often stories of ordinary people – while we had some wealthy members in the earlier years of the congregation, to my knowledge we had no Rockefellers or Carnegies here – for the most part, we were and are ordinary people whose otherwise-ordinary lives God has used to extraordinary effect in carrying out God’s will here in Bridesburg. Ordinary people showing extraordinary generosity and extraordinary commitment to make sure that God’s word could be heard and God’s people served in our little corner of creation. It could be said that they lived out the words of this old hymn:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!
I wouldn’t want us to narrow our focus to brightening only the corner where we are. Through our United Church of Christ denominational ministries and our ecumenical Bridesburg Council of Churches ministries, through ecumenical and interfaith partnerships known and unknown, we can brighten corners across the city, around the country, and across the globe. As many of you know, last week I was among a group from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference hoping to share God’s light in some difficult corners of Cuba. And yet it’s true that often God’s cannot be heard in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still small voice; that God’s reign is like the growth of tiny seeds sprouting unseen; that God’s work is carried out, not always in great deeds, but in small deeds done with great love – like the giving of the widow’s mite in our Gospel, tiny to the point of insignificance, yet recognized by Jesus as an act of total commitment - like Ruth’s small acts of loyal care for her mother-in-law, that led to her inclusion of the lineage of King David and his successors, and of our Saviour himself.
As we remember our saints – those in our bulletin today, and those who have been among the unseen cloud of witnesses for many years, may we remember how God was present in their lives. May they be an inspiration to us, we who continue on to run the race, to fight the good fight. May we continue their acts of great love, so that our lives will be among the family portraits remembered by the coming generations of the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.
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