Pastor Dave's Blog

Gone Fishing

2012-01-22T13:43:00.003-05:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)

I preached for the first time about 6 years ago. I was meeting with a small Liberian congregation in Southwest Philadelphia who were considering joining the United Church of Christ. In fact, this congregation is where I first met Isaac, who was assistant to the pastor. So I was making arrangements on behalf of the Phila Association of the UCC to visit the congregation, and Isaac said to me, “You will preach.” And I responded, “I don’t preach…..I’ll just bring greetings from the denomination.” And Isaac said, “You will preach.” And I said, “I’ve never preached in my life…..please, I’ll just bring some brief greetings and then sit down.” And Isaac said, “You will preach.” And we went back and forth a few more times, but Isaac said “You will preach” more times than I said “no”….so…oh, all right….I wound up preaching at the Liberian congregation. It was Trinity Sunday, and so I preached on the Trinity, which has been known to send parishioners into a coma, but also about the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, which is more energizing. I wound up my sermon and quickly got ready to take a seat…thank goodness that’s over....but then the pastor gave an altar call. Oh, no. The churches to which I had belonged didn’t do altar calls – ever - and while I’d seen altar calls at other churches, I’d never been up front with the clergy for one. And so I was muttering to myself, ‘Oh, please, nobody come up, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do at an altar call; nobody come up please please please.’ And so a whole big family came up, a mom, some kids, and some men from the congregation with her to support her. And the pastor told me to pray with them, and I said, “Oh no, this is your church; we’re doing this together.” And so the Liberian pastor and I prayed over the family and laid hands on them as they poured out their hearts to Jesus.

Our readings from Jonah and from Mark’s Gospel show enthusiastic reactions to two preachers, Jonah and Jesus. Jonah was a most reluctant preacher – today’s reading gives us only a snippet from the story, but we remember that earlier in the story, the first time when God told Jonah to preach in Nineveh, Jonah went off in exactly the opposite direction and got on a boat to sail even further away. After all, Jonah didn’t even like the folks in Nineveh; he wanted God to smite them, not save them. But, by means of a convenient whale that happened by, Jonah is brought back to his starting point, and God tells Jonah, “Ok, let’s try this once again.” And so Jonah says, “oh, all right” and slogs his way part way into Nineveh, bringing God’s message, “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Like me at the Liberian church, Jonah was probably muttering to himself, “Hey Nineveh people, please don’t listen to a word I say”, but instead the people drop everything and respond with fervent repentance. And so God spared Nineveh, and Jonah was angry at God again….but we’ll save that for some other Sunday.

And then our Gospel reading shows Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. As we found last week, Mark tells his story in a very condensed, right-to-the-point, fast-moving way. The Greek words “kai euthus” – “and immediately” occur over and over in Mark’s gospel. Jesus is not reluctant, as Jonah was, but our reading begins with an ominous note: “Now after John was arrested…..” Whoa! Where’d that come from? Mark will tell us more about John’s arrest later….but with just that brief transition, we see Jesus begin his public ministry. John is baptizing, then John is arrested, then Jesus begins preaching. Did the disruption among the crowds by the Jordan caused by John’s arrest impel Jesus to step in and continue what John had begun?

Jesus begins to preach that God’s reign has come near, to repent and believe. And then he begins to call his disciples. And, as Mark tells it, they respond immediately: “And immediately Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed him…..Immediately Jesus called James and John, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

What these readings share with the snippet from I Corinthians is a sense of urgency. Now, Jonah doesn’t feel any urgency at all about preaching to Nineveh, but God does, and won’t let Jonah off the hook until he accomplishes his mission. Paul preaches, “the appointed time has grown short.” Jesus preaches “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe.” In all three readings, those proclaiming the Good News are going outside their comfort zones: Jonah preaching to an enemy city, Paul trying to motivate an early church, Jesus rebounding from the arrest of John, who had baptized him. All three followed God into unfamiliar territory, and God used all three to accomplish mighty deeds.

Two thousand years later, God is still urgently working for our salvation, and for that of our neighbors. And God can use us, as God used Simon and Andrew, to fish for people, to draw people into the reign of God. God can use us – if we’re willing. And maybe even if we’re not – remember God sending a whale to bring Jonah from where Jonah had fled, back to where God could use him.

Are we where God can use us? Like Simon and Andrew, James and John, God calls us to fish for people. To do that, we need to go where the people are. A fisherman who sits back, arms folded, expecting the fish to spontaneously jump out of the water and land in his boat will likely go home emptyhanded and hungry. And yet, we in the church behave as if we expect our neighbors to spontaneously jump out of their Sunday morning routines – soccer, Sunday newspaper, Sunday brunch, whatever - and land in the front pew of the church. And, you know, occasionally it happens – but not often enough to count on. We need to invite our neighbors to come in. Or, if we really want our neighbors to hear good news, we may need to go to them. We may need to bring church to them.

That’s the challenging news. The good news is that God can use all of us to spread the Good News. Simon and Andrew, James and John had no particular qualifications, and God used them to turn the world upside down. And God can use our little church to turn Bridesburg upside down, if we let him. If we let him. We can’t follow Jesus and follow the status quo at the same time – Jesus just isn’t a status quo guy. Status quo, same old same old, is Zebedee left behind in the boat while his sons leave him to follow Jesus.

There’s one thing that always bothered me about the metaphor of fishing for people. If a fish gets caught, it’s good news for the fisherman, but bad news for the fish. A fish that’s caught is going to get skinned and cleaned and eaten. And given all the news stories about misconduct in the church, a lot of our neighbors expect that if they set foot in a church, they’ll get skinned alive and their bank accounts cleaned out as well. It’s up to us not only to tell our neighbors, but to show our neighbors, that what we have to offer truly is good news. Perhaps the fishing we’re asked to do is like some sort of catch and release program, where we catch fish in a net in order to rescue them from the cramped, polluted aquarium of our world’s way of doing things, and release them into the wide, blue ocean of God’s grace, to live with the freedom that God intended.

From Mark’s Gospel: “As [Jesus] went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.” May our lives reflect the words of the old Gospel song:

I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back, no turning back.

Amen.

Water and Spirit

2012-01-22T13:39:00.003-05:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)

This Sunday, after detours into the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, we return to Mark’s Gospel, where we will spend much of the coming year. Mark’s Gospel is thought to have been the first of the four Gospels to have been written, from which Matthew and Luke drew much of their material. Mark’s is a fast-moving Gospel, portraying Jesus as a man of action. English translations smooth out the language, but the original Greek reads like a story told by an excited child: Jesus did this, and right away Jesus did that, and then right away Jesus said this, and then right away Jesus said that. The Greek phrase “kai euthus” – “and immediately” or “and right away” – occurs over and over. Mark’s Gospel catches the spirit of what it must have felt like to have been a disciple of Jesus, to be have been caught up among those who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry – Jesus does and says one amazing thing after another, and as the readers of Mark’s Gospel, we stand by watching, with our mouths hanging open in amazement.

Today’s reading is no exception. For one thing, we’ve fast-forwarded from the time of Jesus’ birth until Jesus was about 30 years old. We begin by meeting John the Baptist in the wilderness, that strange character who dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt and eating locusts – bugs – and wild honey. His appearance brings up historic memories for his listeners. If we were to see someone at Independence Hall dressed in a colonial costume reading from parchment, we would be reminded of the American revolution – and in the same way, John’s dress reminds the crowds of Elijah. Luke’s Gospel tells us that John’s father was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, but John is out in the wilderness, far away from the religious establishment of the day, indeed, offering an alternative to the religious establishment – and at the Jordan River, where Joshua long ago had led the Hebrews from the wilderness through the Jordan and into the promised land, into the land of freedom. Mark’s Gospel tells us that crowds of people from the countryside and even from Jerusalem were coming out to see John, to confess their sins and be baptized by John. Mark gives us a picture of a people who are spiritually hungry, who are not being fed spiritually by the rituals of the Temple and the teaching of the established religious leaders, who are willing to travel long distances on foot and far out of their comfort zone in the chance that John will give them something, anything to hold on to.

We think of baptism primarily as a Christian ritual, but Christian baptism had its origin in the Jewish mikveh, a ritual bath. Jews took such a ritual bath as a rite of purification after some event had occurred to make them ritually impure. Orthodox and Conservative Jews continue the practice to this day, the Orthodox Jews so much so that a newly-gathered community is instructed to build a mikveh for the ritual bath before building the synagogue. So John’s baptism would have been like a washing from sin, a fresh start. The mikveh or ritual bath was also a rite of conversion, by which Gentiles were purified before joining the Jewish community. What is striking is that those coming to be baptized by John were already Jews – but the unsatisfying practices of the religious establishment left them feeling defiled and alienated from God. John’s baptism offered a radical way to re-connect to their faith.

So Mark sets the stage – John out in the wilderness leading a renewal movement which attracted Jews from all over. And John says that he is only preparing the way for the coming of one who will be greater than John. John says that he is not worthy to tie this person’s shoelaces. In other words, John tells his followers, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

And then along comes Jesus. John baptizes him – this would have been full immersion baptism, Jesus down in the muddy water of the Jordan - and Jesus sees the heavens torn open – the sense of this is that the heavens were in some way ripped apart - and the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove. He hears a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

This is a turning point in Jesus’ life. The other Gospels tell us that up until this point, he was the carpenter’s son, not seen by most people as anyone special. Those in Jesus’ hometown assumed he would grow up and take over his father’s business and that would be that. But Jesus, following the leading of the Spirit, makes the long journey on foot out into the wilderness to see John the Baptist. With his baptism, Jesus’ life goes off in a radically new direction. Although we won’t read about it until we begin Lent, we know that after Jesus baptism he was tested in the wilderness, and after John was arrested, began to proclaim the coming of the Reign of God. At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens were ripped apart, and God broke into the moment. Jesus’ miracles, healings, teaching were all ways in which Jesus not only proclaimed the Reign of God, but demonstrated God breaking in to take on the powers of evil.

What sustained Jesus through all that he faced throughout his life – testing in the wilderness, the exhaustion that came with ministering to the crowds, the frustration of dealing with his disciples, the emotional stress of confrontation and opposition from the religious establishment? What kept him from crashing and burning? We know that he spent frequent time in prayer, often going off alone to pray. But perhaps part of what kept him going was this moment of baptism, this moment of seeing the heavens ripped apart, of being equipped with the gift of the Holy Spirit, of hearing the voice of God name him as God’s beloved Son. While many of us were baptized as infants and may not remember our baptism, we too can be sustained by the knowledge that, in baptism, God has claimed each of us and called each of us beloved daughters and sons. In words from the funeral service, we remember that we are baptized into Christ’s death so that just as we share a death like Christ’s, we will also share a resurrection like Christ’s. Just as Jesus was equipped at his baptism with the Holy Spirit, so those being baptized are told, “receive the Holy Spirit, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church.”

Like Jesus, we may experience grief, anger, frustration, loneliness. Like Jesus on the cross, there are those moments when we feel so overwhelmed that we say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” In those moments, our baptism reminds us that God will never abandon us. The words of the old Heidelberg Catechism that our older members grew up with, we’re told that our only comfort, in life and in death, is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ - who through the waters of baptism has claimed us for his very own.

The Empire Strikes Back

2012-01-10T22:25:00.001-05:00

(Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-23)

Today we celebrate Epiphany – the actual feast of Epiphany was on Friday, January 6, marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, as personified by the Magi, those strange visitors from the East who came to worship Jesus – and who, in the process of seeking Jesus tipped Herod off to the existence of a rival to his power. It’s a story of wonder, the coming of these foreigners to worship the newborn king – a story of horror, as we read of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents – a story of dislocation and exile, as Mary and Joseph and the babe live for a time in Egypt to escape Herod’s fury, basically as political refugees. During my first Christmas Eve here, back in December 2007 – and I used the same readings that had been used before I got here, and have continued with them almost unchanged in the years since - I was struck that the reading from Matthew 2 didn’t stop with the departure of the wise men, but continued all the way to the end of the chapter, with all that we heard Stella read today. Most churches stop short of reading the whole chapter – not wanting to frighten the children on Christmas Eve with words about a murderous psychopath of a king leaving a trail of slaughtered children in his wake – but your Christmas Eve service included everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And on that first Christmas Eve here, I thought that said something about this congregation I was just starting to get to know, that you didn’t want an edited, prettied up, Hallmark greeting card Christmas story, but wanted to hear the whole thing, warts and jagged edges and all – and I thought that said something about the faith of this congregation that was mature enough, durable enough to withstand all that life deals out. I was impressed – and I still am.

Matthew’s Gospel circulated within an early Christian community that was primarily but not exclusively Jewish, and so Matthew at every turn ties his birth narrative to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, there’s a tension, a tug of war, between readings that admonish the Jews to keep separate from the Gentiles, to avoid any contact with them, to maintain ritual purity, and other readings that speak of the Jews being a light to the nations, instructing the Gentiles – which obviously involves being in contact with the Gentiles. This is especially true for those Scriptures written after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. So on one hand we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah admonishing the Jews returning from exile to divorce and send away their foreign wives and any children they may have had with them, while on the other hand we have readings such as this morning’s reading from Isaiah, which tells the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem that “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”, picturing camels coming from the surrounding nations, laden with gifts for the Jews rebuilding the temple, bringing gold and frankincense, proclaiming the praise of the Lord. And this is the image Matthew has in mind when he tells us of the coming of the wise men, with their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. In the coming of the wise men, our reading from Isaiah is being played out. Matthew is telling us that while Jesus the Messiah was born a Jew, he was to be a light to the nations, his coming was for all, Jew and Gentile alike – for you, for me, for all of us, and for our neighbors as well.

And then Matthew goes on to tell us that while the wise men from the east were delighted at the birth of child Jesus, the powers of the Roman empire, in the person of Herod, were distraught. For the powers of the Roman empire, the coming of Jesus was not a gift, but a threat. Rome wasn’t looking for a new king of the Jews – they had already appointed a king for the Jews, and his name was Herod. No others need apply. And so Matthew sketches out an account which would have reminded his Jewish readers of the Old Testament stories of Joseph and of Moses – just as Pharaoh had ordered the slaughter of all male Hebrew babies, Herod ordered the slaughter of the boys of Jesus age. Just as the dreams of Joseph in the Old Testament led him to Egypt, so the dreams of Joseph in Matthew’s gospel led him into Egypt. Just as Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, so Mary and Joseph brought Jesus out of Egypt. For Matthew and his community, Jesus was the new Moses, come to lead everyone out of bondage to sin into the freedom of God’s reign.

And so the birth of Jesus provoked wildly divergent reactions – joy, worship, fear, rage, even murder. To the powerless and those on the margins – the shepherds, the wise men traveling from afar – Jesus’ coming brought great joy. To the powers and principalities of the world, Jesus’ coming provoked great opposition – truly for them, Jesus was, as we read last week, a sign to be opposed, so that their inner thoughts would be revealed. And so throughout today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew repeats over and over and over, like a mantra: “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Joseph is told to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him….and they went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. Even after Herod’s death, with Herod’s son Archelaus ruling, Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Galilee and keep his distance from Jerusalem.” Don’t return to Herod. Flee Herod, for Herod means harm. Stay away from Herod and his family.

Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Herod was the local puppet ruler propped up by the Roman empire – and having been threatened by the birth of Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, the empire strikes back, to borrow a title from the Star Wars series. Having made our annual pilgrimage to worship the newborn king, which road will we take? Will we return to Herod, or will we depart by another path?

For us, Herod represents the worldly powers that be, the powers of empire – the powers of militarism, consumerism, the imposition of the values of the empire on other cultures. As Americans we’re trained from childhood on to see our military power, our wealth, our way of life as gifts from God. But one definition of idolatry is to worship God’s gifts, rather than worshipping God as the giver. And we can – and we do – misuse God’s gifts. World renowned theologian and UCC member Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia prior to his retirement, has compared the situation of Christians living in America to that of the Jews living in the Babylonian empire, or that of the early Christians living in the Roman empire – and the Jews and Christians faced a constant struggle not to get sucked into the values of Babylon and Rome. As Christians, if we are not to return to Herod, departing by another way means being not buying into everything our culture wants to sell us, but rather being self-reflective, even self-critical, seeing ourselves as we are, warts and all.

For in Ramah – located north of Jerusalem, and according to some traditions where Rachel was buried – and in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other lands, Rachel still weeps and refuses to be consoled. I recently attended a talk by Celeste Zappala, a member of First United Methodist Church of Germantown and a Gold Star Mother for Peace. Her oldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004 as he provided security for the inspectors who were searching for the fictitious weapons of mass destruction. She holds no grudge against the Iraqi people, and indeed feels solidarity with the millions of mothers there whose children have been killed over the past 10 years. Her words of rebuke are reserved for the government who sent her son into harm’s way on false premises. Her talk began with the words of Matthew 2:18: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” As Herod was on the rampage in our Gospel reading, Herod is still on the rampage to this day, killing innocents the world over. War is a human tragedy, often provoking crimes against humanity, but for military contractors, war is big business. They make a killing, in more ways than one.

We read this passage at our Bible study last Sunday, and many of us asked the question: “Why did God allow all those poor innocent babies to be killed?” At other times we’ve asked about the Holocaust, how God could allow the genocide of millions of Jews. But God did not create human beings as robots, nor is God willing to step in minute by minute to override every stupid, sinful decision human beings make - but instead God allows humans freedom of choice – and real choices have real consequences, intended and unintended – so in one sense, to blame God is to pass the buck. Perhaps a more appropriate - and more challenging – question is, “Why do we allow it?” We need to be aware of the road that leads back to Herod, and of the other road that leads to freedom in Christ.

I’ll close with these words from a song most of us learned as children: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” As the sign on our social hall door says, “Let peace begin with me” – and with you, and with all of us here at Emanuel. After all, it has to start somewhere. Amen.

Endings and Beginnings

2012-01-10T22:20:00.002-05:00

(Scriptures Isaiah 61:10-11, Isaiah 62:1-3, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:21-40)

I’m sure, among the Christmas music that we’ve heard on the radio since about Halloween or so, you remember hearing John Lennon’s song that begins:

“And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.”

This song, written in 1971 – when I was all of 10 years old - as a protest to the Vietnam war – remember the chorus – “War is over, if you want it” - has after 40 years faded into the background music while we shop at the mall. I guess almost anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough. A song that 40 years ago had an edge to it, had a bite to it, after 40 years has seemingly had its teeth extracted and its dentures put in a glass to soak. Anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough – and there’s a risk that our Gospel reading for this morning, which has great pathos, sudden shifts in feeling and mood, along with some sharp, jagged edges, can likewise fade into background noise, especially on this New Year’s morning, when perhaps it’s a bit harder than usual to focus. So I’d challenge us to pay special attention to our changing feelings as we consider this morning’s reading from the Gospel of St. Luke.

This morning’s reading gives us a poignant moment in the life of Mary and the baby Jesus. We’re told that in accordance to the requirements of the law – Luke is very particular about quoting the requirements, including Jesus’ circumcision on his 8th day – Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple, to offer the prescribed sacrifice – a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. So far we’ve read about the law, about the fulfillment of prescribed religious observance, about Mary and Joseph doing their religious duty. And we all know what that feels like…doing one’s duty makes one feel….dutiful – sort of like sending in one’s tax return - but it doesn’t necessarily bring any great amount of joy or feeling of liberation, just the relief of having done what is expected and of avoiding criticism or even punishment for noncompliance – sort of like the relief we may feel when we drop our tax return off at the post office on April 15. Relief, but hardly refreshment.

As Mary and Joseph trudge their way to the Temple to do their duty, to do what’s expected, unexpected encounters ensue with two other people who were coming to the Temple that day. (And here’s one quick takeaway – no Sunday morning in church is ‘just another Sunday morning’ – there’s always the chance that God will find a way to surprise us.) Luke tells us that old Simeon, prompted by the Holy Spirit, was on his way to the Temple. Simeon’s path crossed that of Mary and Joseph, and all of a sudden he started gushing on and on and on some more about this baby whom he’d never laid eyes on before. “Now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Simeon had been told by God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah – in Jewish rabbinical literature in use even to this day, there’s all manner of instruction as to where one will find the Messiah and how one will recognize the Messiah - and now Simeon recognized the Messiah, recognized that God’s promise was fulfilled. Simeon goes on, calling the child “a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of God’s people Israel.”

A few more lyrics from John Lennon’s song:

“And so this is Christmas/ For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones/ The world is so wrong
And so Happy Christmas/ For black and for white
For yellow and red ones/ Let's stop all the fight”

We’re told that Simeon blesses the child, but it’s quite a cryptic blessing – Simeon says that the child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, calls the child a sign that will be opposed, revealing the inner thoughts of many – and warns Mary that a sword will pierce her heart as well. Mary’s heart was pierced with a sword more than once, when Jesus left his family behind to hang out at the Temple, when Jesus began his earthly ministry, certainly at the cross. And so we have pain in the midst of God’s blessing, God’s blessing in the midst of the world’s pain – a tension that Mary lived with, that Jesus certainly experienced in his earthly ministry – the state-sponsored execution of John, who had baptized him; misunderstanding by friends and foes alike, betrayal, desertion, his own state-sponsored execution on the cross. It’s a tension that we in the church live with as well, knowing that it is in our deepest moments of sorrow and desolation that God is nearest to us. God is there, and our pain is there in God’s presence. The pain is there, and God is present there in the midst of the pain.

As it is for us and as it was for John Lennon, so it was in Jesus time – “for weak and for strong, for rich and the poor ones, the world was and is so wrong. For black and for white, the yellow and red ones, there was and is a need to stop all the fight” Jesus was a threat to Herod, to Pilate, and Jesus remains a threat to the Herods and Pilates of our day, to the empires of our day, to the worldly powers that be. And for exactly that reason, Jesus remains a source of hope for those of us who, with Jesus, don’t march to the world’s beat, but march to the different drummer of the Spirit within our hearts. I’m reminded of these words of the Roman Catholic Trappist monk, mystic and writer Thomas Merton:

“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room, His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in the world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. . . . It is in these that He hides Himself, for whom there is no room.”
(Thomas Merton, “The Time of the End is the Time of No Room,”
in Raids on the Unspeakable, pp. 72-3)

Luke tells us that after Mary and Joseph part from Simeon, they have yet another divine encounter, with a prophet – a female prophet, let me underscore – “Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.” Luke tells us that

“She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."

For Herod, the birth of Jesus was bad news. But for aged Simeon, who had waited so faithfully for so long, and for aged Anna, who had been without a husband for so many years, vulnerable and increasingly frail with the passing of the years, the birth of the Christ-child was great good news – news that upset the status quo, literally earth-shaking (or at least society-shaking) news, but good news all the same. Sometimes having our cages rattled is a good thing, and having our prison doors opened is the best news of all. In a Christmas Eve service in 1978, the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was gunned down in 1980 by a government hit squad while celebrating Mass, preached these words:

“No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God., Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God.”
Archbishop Oscar Romero, December 24, 1978,
in James Brockman, ed., the Church Is All of You

Our Gospel reading was a reading about endings and beginnings, the end of waiting for fulfillment of God’s promises for old Simeon and Anna, as they meet the Christ child at hils life’s beginning. Last night and today are days of endings and beginnings as well, as we say goodbye to the year 2011 and begin the year 2012. Forty years after John Lennon sang regarding the Vietnam war, “War is over, if you want it”, our troops have at long last ended another war, are at long last leaving Iraq. We will still have a diplomatic presence there, large enough to populate a sizable town actually, but at least on paper, this particular war is over – though other wars drag on elsewhere in the middle east. For many of us, whether we had loved ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, or not, it was a difficult year as we fought our own individual and family battles against grief, illness, unemployment, domestic upheaval, depression, deprivation, and as we say goodbye to 2011, we may be tempted to say “good riddance” as well. It may only be in retrospect, looking back months or years from now, that we understand where God was with us in our pain. And for many of us, 2012 will bring both new joys and new battles. May we remember that when we are in need, that is when God is most present with us, that when we feel most strongly our poverty of spirit, we can also know the abundance of God.

I’ll close with these lyrics from John Lennon:

A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear

May we enter 2012 surrounded by that perfect love of God which casts out all fear, surrounded and filled with the presence of God with us, Emanuel. Amen.

Expecting!

2011-12-22T05:12:00.001-05:00

(Scriptures: I Samuel 2:1-11, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:25-56)

Every now and then, events come to pass that we thought we’d never live to see. When many of us were growing up, the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was an entrenched fact of life, something we thought was an unchangeable reality, like death and taxes. Many who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s remember bomb shelters and duck and cover drills in school, where, in case of nuclear attack, school children were told to kneel under their desks with their hands clutched around their heads and necks. In 1961, the Berlin wall went up, dividing capitalist West Germany from Communist East Germany. By the 1970’s, when I was in high school, the duck and cover drills had ceased, but the tension between our countries remained, as it seemed like capitalism and communism were in a fight to the death for world domination. And then, in the late 1980’s, it just….ended…in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and events continued rapidly from there. Similarly, many of us remember other moments we never thought we’d live to see – apartheid, which enforced segregation between the races in South Africa, coming to an end in the early 1990’s, what were called “the troubles” in Ireland, in which Protestants seeking union with Great Britain and Catholics nationalists wanting to preserve independence from Great Britain killed one another for decades starting in the 1960’s, coming to an end in the “Good Friday” Belfast Accord of 1998. More recently, years of violence in Liberia have come to end in a fragile time of relative peace under President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf. In these times of change, there are many theories of what happened, what brought them about. In some cases, these events are still too recent for us to have fully developed a perspective on them; the histories are still being written.

This may seem like a very strange way to begin a sermon for the last Sunday in Advent. We want angels and wise men and a manger, not talk of social change. Our Advent readings include statements that seemed extravagant, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky. But the examples of sweeping change with which I began this sermon remind us that sometimes entrenched oppression, entrenched misery gives way to new hope; the impossible becomes not only possible, but inevitable, and what seems unreal becomes reality.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we draw near to the end of this season of waiting, today’s Scripture readings give us words from not one, but two mothers. Our Old Testament reading quotes the words of Hannah, the first of two wives of Elkanah. Elkanah’s other wife is Peninnah – in Hebrew the name just means “the second one” or “the other one”. Hannah had been barren, so perhaps Elkanah married Peninnah to assure himself that he would have children, that his name would live on on. Hannah went to Shiloh to beg the Lord for a child, and vowed that if the Lord gave her a child, the child would be devoted to the Lord’s service. As Hannah left her child, Samuel, with the aged priest Eli, she prayed the beautiful words we heard read earlier. And, of course, our Gospel reading includes Mary’s Magnificat, Mary’s hymn of praise to God and thanksgiving for the child within her, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

We have a number of moms in our congregation, those with young children, and those whose children are grown, but no doubt remember what it was like to be expecting. That’s an experience I haven’t had. But I would imagine that as your bodies were going through the changes of pregnancy, you had so many thoughts about the child growing within you. Of course, boy or girl? What will we call the baby? Would he or she take after you or the baby’s father? I’d imagine, as you gave birth and as your baby grew, you’ve had such hopes and dreams for your child. What sort of person would your child grow up to be?

And our two moms in our readings this morning, Hannah and Mary, had high hopes for their children – and that’s putting it mildly. Hannah and Mary both literally expected their children to turn society upside down – or maybe right-side up. Here’s Hannah: “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” And here’s Mary: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” Not exactly the kind of language we’d include in an invitation for a baby shower. Hannah and Mary are speaking in what is sometimes called the prophetic past tense, speaking with such certainty that it’s as if all these things have already happened. If Jesus heard words like this as he was growing up, it’s no wonder that his first sermon, as recorded by Luke, was on the text, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This was Jesus’ personal mission statement, what drove him, what motivated him to ministry.

You don’t need me to tell you that many people in this neighborhood, in our city, our country, in the world are hurting. The divide between the rich and the poor is as wide as it has been since the Gilded Age of the 1870’s and 1880’s. For those at the bottom of the economic ladder, prospects for improvement are dismal. In these days, it’s easy to lose hope for anything better. In these days, it’s easy to become discouraged, and just expect more of the same.

When we think about the forces that have power to create change in society, we think of guns and tanks, or people of great wealth and political influence. But throughout the Bible, we see that when God wants to bring change, he sends, not an army, but a baby. Think of Isaac, son of the promise, born to the aged Abraham and Sarah. Think of Moses, born to lead the children of Israel to freedom. Think of Hannah in our Old Testament reading giving birth to Samuel, who marked the transition from the social disorder of the time of the judges to the relative stability of the monarchy. And think of the birth John the Baptist, born, like Abraham, to an aged, childless couple, born to proclaim the coming Messiah, and Jesus, born to Mary, God in the flesh, in whom we are all saved.

We may think of Hannah’s and Mary’s dreams for their children as extravagant, over the top. But I think perhaps the question for us is not “why did they expect so much?” but rather “why do we expect so little?” Why do we expect so little? Hannah and Mary expected their children to turn their society upside down – or maybe right side up. But throughout history, the church, which professes to follow Mary’s son, instead of turning the world upside down, so often has just blessed the status quo. Hannah and Mary looked for the poor to be lifted up and the powerful to be humbled. Too often over the centuries, the church has upheld and blessed entrenched power as God’s will, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Here at Emanuel, I think we sometimes let our size discourage us from hoping that God can use our congregation; we think that because we don’t have hundreds of members in the pews and millions of dollars in the endowment fund, God can’t use us to usher in the reign of God.

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul said that God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, uses that which is weak to shame the strong. Jesus was born, not in a palace, but in a stable. Jesus’ birth was a threat to Herod, a threat to the Roman empire and to all worldly empires, but good news to the shepherds and foreign wise men who came to pay him homage. It is not with the strong but with the weak that we find Jesus. So here at Emanuel, Jesus is right at home.

Hannah’s and Mary’s words gave voice to the hope within them, that the child within each of them would be used by God to turn society upside down – or maybe, turn it right-side up. And we here at Emanuel, as small as we are, still have new life within us – we’ve baptized several babies over the past year. Can a 150 year old church have children – “yes”! Can God use a 150 year old church to change lives, to nourish the life of the Spirit. Absolutely yes!

Did Hannah, did Mary know what plans God had for their children? Who can tell what plans God has for us, for the babies recently baptized and their families, and for those of us whose baptisms happened long years ago? We worship a God who uses old couples, long-childless mothers, unwed mothers to bring forth new life. And God can use us, if we’ll allow it. So, in a way, just as Hannah was expecting, just as Mary was expecting, so are we here at Emanuel – expecting, pregnant with possibilities, capable still of bringing forth new life, if God so wills.

During this Advent season of hope, peace, love, and joy, may we live with a sense of expectation – expectation that God who did great things in the past will do great things here in the future, that Jesus who passed from death to resurrection life will bring about resurrection life here at Emanuel Church. May it be so with us. Amen.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

2011-12-22T05:07:00.002-05:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 126, I Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28)

We continue on in Advent, that season of waiting, waiting for the coming of the Christ child, waiting for the coming of hope, peace, and now, joy. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday, Gaudete, from the Latin for the word “rejoice”. Rejoice!

Our readings speak of a joy that is hard-won, a joy that comes at the end of a long period of endurance. Our reading from Isaiah comes at the end of the exile in Babylon, when the Jews are preparing to return to their homeland at last, after decades in a foreign land. After long decades of brutal exile, God will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep. Psalm 126 captures the mood of those returning from exile – “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.”

The Declaration of Independence lifts up three basic rights of human beings – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Americans have been pursuing happiness for some 235 years now. During this Christmas shopping season, we’re promised, as we’re promised every year, that if we buy more, better, bigger, faster, we will be happy.

But the joy of today’s readings wasn’t bought at the mall. Some of you remember that early in my time here at Emanuel, I went on two trips with the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference to visit churches in Cuba, as part of a delegation forming a partnership between the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference and the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Despite the signs everywhere proclaiming the triumph of the Castro Revolution – then celebrating its 50th year - by American standards, our hosts had very little – most buildings needed at least several coats of paint and most needed a good bit of exterior and interior repair, functioning indoor plumbing was a luxury, transportation options ran the gamut from surprisingly new Chinese buses to 1950’s vintage American cars, held together with hope and duct tape, to bicycle cabs to horses. On the way to a rural church, I saw a team of oxen pulling a jeep out of a ditch. Havana does have some lovely hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists, and so we ate quite well – and since we were paying, our hosts ate quite well while they were with us - but were very aware that many of those around us were accustomed to missing meals. Similarly, the churches we visited ran the gamut from long-established houses of worship that dated from before the Castro revolution, to churches set up in storefronts and even house churches. And yet at these churches the joy was just bouncing off the walls. From a material point of view, our hosts had very little to sing about – but at all the churches we visited, the joy of the Lord was in the house, evidenced by singing and clapping and shouting and swaying. And they shared the joy with those around them – even the smallest house church we visited raised rabbits and grew medicinal herbs for the members and also for their neighbors.

Our readings from Isaiah 40 and Psalm 126 show the joy of those returning from exile. It was a hard-won joy – they had been through a lot during the long years of exile. As Psalm 126 put it, they went into exile weeping, bearing seeds for sowing in a strange land, and now they were coming home with joy, bearing the sheaves, the fruits of their long endurance. And there was still much to endure – they were returning to a city of Jerusalem in ruins, a Temple site that had been burned to the ground. They had a whole lot of work ahead of them. And yet they were just so happy to be back home, back in the land that God had promised Abraham and his descendents.

I think I caught a tiny glimpse of what that joy might have looked like during my first winter here at Emanuel. You had worshiped downstairs in the social hall for a number of years because Rev. Grau could no longer climb the stairs. We went upstairs – so you were back in your sanctuary - but we had no organist. The search for an organist dragged on for months. Finally we found Ralph, our organist, and he graciously agreed to come and play for us, and was with us on Easter Sunday. And the joy in the congregation that morning – oh my goodness! - you were so happy to hear your organ again. Christ had risen from the dead, and it felt like something about the spirit of the congregation was resurrected that day as well. And the joy continues.

For a surprising number of our members, 2011 was a difficult year. The passing of various members of our congregation’s families, hospitalizations of other members, other personal tragedies that we’ve carried, and each one of us affected in one way or another by a difficult economy. For me, the joy is that as small as we are, we’ve been able to take each challenge, each tragedy, and wrap it in love and lift it up and offer it in prayer to God. As I’ve heard you say, more than once, we’re a small church, but we pray big. And even in this difficult year, there have been moments of joy – recovery and healing for several of our members, several baptisms, the many former members and friends of the congregation with us on our anniversary, the video you made of so many holy moments over the 150 year history of our congregation. This is joy that is a gift of the Spirit, a joy that can carry us through hard times. This is the joy that Paul was talking about in our reading from I Thessalonians:

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances – in ALL circumstances - for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. "

So on this 3rd Sunday in Advent, we celebrate the gift of the Spirit that is joy. May the joy of the Spirit be with us in this season of Advent as we await the coming of the Christ child. And as we wait,

"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this."

May it be so among us. Amen."

Prepare the Way

2011-12-04T19:12:00.001-05:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 61:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8)

Since early October, we’ve been reading and watching on TV the “Occupy” movement – first “Occupy Wall Street” and then Occupy Oakland, Portland, and, more locally, Occupy Philadelphia, which until Tuesday last week was situated at City Hall. A nucleus of Occupiers – somewhere upwards of 100 tents at any given time – were camped out 24/7 in tents on Dilworth Plaza, outside City Hall. Around this nucleus, a larger and incredibly eclectic assortment of activists – students, environmental activists, anarchists, Quaker and interfaith peace activists, clergy, labor union leaders, assorted other groups such as the “Granny Peace Brigade” – came and went as family schedules and day jobs permitted. There were also many homeless persons, who slept on Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall most nights. While these homeless were perplexed to see so many new neighbors on their doorstep, they were also grateful for the meals that the Occupy group served, over 1000 meals a day. The news media covering the Occupy movement were frustrated, first, that the Occupiers didn’t have a single leader – with their very participatory form of organization, all however many hundred people at Dilworth Plaza, everyone there, were potential leaders – nor did they have a tidy list of demands, beyond an overall message that the wealthiest 1% of Americans are causing financial hardship, political disenfranchisement, and environmental devastation for the remaining 99% of Americans, and indeed, for the rest of the world. Put simply, those at Dilworth Plaza were and are sick and tired of being sick and tired. On Tuesday last week, the police cleared Dilworth Plaza, but while the tents are gone, the feeling of being sick and tired of being sick and tired remains. As one of the signs at the Occupy camp said, “You can’t evict an idea.”

Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel beings with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark’s is thought by Bible scholars to have been the first of the four Gospels to be written, to which Matthew and Luke added additional material and of which the writer of John’s Gospel was at least aware. To Mark’s material, Matthew and Luke added, among other information, the birth narratives – the announcement of the angel to Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the manger, the wise men. John’s Gospel begins with a cosmic portrait of Christ as the pre-existing Word who was with God and who was God from the beginning, now become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. But Mark’s Gospel has none of that. Mark begins with a quotation from Isaiah – with some additional material from Micah included – about a messenger preparing the way, and the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!’ And with that very brief introduction, we meet John the Baptist out in the wilderness. We’re told that people from the whole Judean countryside and even from Jerusalem were going out to John, to be baptized in the river Jordan as a sign of repentance. It almost sounds a little like John the Baptist had his own “Occupy the Jordan River” movement going on. Certainly with the description of his being clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, he’d have fit in just fine with the scruffy crowd in Dilworth Plaza – though the description is intended to remind us of Elijah, whom the prophet Micah said would announce the coming of the Messiah.

We may wonder why so many went out to the wilderness to be baptized by John. After all, it isn’t like everyone could just hop in their SUV or even carpool out to the Jordan. SEPTA and Amtrak didn’t go there. It was a long, uncomfortable walk or donkey ride from Jerusalem and the countryside to the wilderness, a major investment of time, a major investment of effort, to go out into the wilderness, where there were no creature comforts, no turnpike service plazas or vending machines, not even a porta-potty, nothing at the end of their long walk but John and the Jordan River.

Why did they go? We’re told they came to be baptized as a sign of repentance. Over 2000 years, we’ve layered a lot of religious glop on the word repentance, but at its core, repentance means a change of mind, a change of consciousness, a change of direction. It’s a recognition that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, and a resolve to stop doing what isn’t working in order to do something that will work, or at least that might work. For John’s followers, similar to the current Occupy folk, the status quo that needed to change was both personal and societal. After all, if going to the Temple and performing the prescribed sacrifices and rituals – or going to the local synagogue to hear the reading and exposition of Torah – had been sufficient, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. If they had been living comfortably under Rome’s occupation of Judea, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. But, in fact, none of these things were working. The Roman occupation was messed up, the religious establishment was messed up, and they themselves were messed up. The crowds had no grand social vision, and really neither did John. They just knew that both they and their society were broken, that they were sick and tired of being sick and tired, that they needed God to intervene in a deep way in their lives and in society. And John was very clear that he was the messenger, not the Messiah. It was not for John to save the people or their society; he could only point the way to the One who would.

Today’s reading from Mark reminds us that the Good News of Jesus may begin with the bad news that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, specifically, that we – you, me, each of us, all of us - need to change direction. As Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospels, it is those who are sick who need a doctor, not those who are well. Our reading from Isaiah brings a message that would resonate powerfully with the Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza, and no doubt resonated with John’s followers: “Bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” It’s a message of radical change, radical personal change and radical social change. It was not for John to bring all this about himself, but to point to Jesus, the One anointed by God to do all these things – remember that in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus chose this very Isaiah text for his very first sermon. Like the 1% who hold great power in our day, the powerful of Jesus day were offended at this text, and in fact tried to throw him off a cliff. But for those who were oppressed, brokenhearted, and captive to the powers and principalities, in Jesus’ day and in ours, Jesus’ words were life-changing, like rivers of water in the desert.

The Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza were there to point to the need for change. John was out in the desert, to point to the need for change. And we as followers of Jesus are likewise called to point to the need for change, and to point to Jesus as the one who makes change possible, to point to Jesus as the one whose birth and life, death and resurrection have brought in God’s reign. We can point to Jesus by telling our neighbors about Jesus, by inviting them to church. We can also point to Jesus in our lives, by modeling a way of life that’s different, by living in a way that says that Jesus, not the almighty dollar, reigns. We do that by raising money for the food cupboard and for the ministries of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference. We do that by providing safe space for parents to raise their children. We do that by providing a place where hurting people can come for prayer, and coffee and cake, and a kind word.

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” said John the Baptist. In these remaining weeks of Advent, may we at Emanuel Church prepare ourselves and help to prepare our world for the coming of the Christ child. Let every heart prepare him room. Amen.

Wait and Hope

2011-12-04T19:09:00.002-05:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 64:1-9, I Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37)

Today is the first Sunday in Advent – the first Sunday in the church year. As sometimes happens, the church is out of step with society, and today doubly so. While our society celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1st, we celebrate the beginning of a new church year today. At the same time, most of society is already celebrating Christmas, has been celebrating Christmas since about Columbus Day or thereabouts – but in the church, we wait. We’ll celebrate Christmas in due time, but for now we observe Advent – from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” – a time of waiting for One we know is coming, but has not yet arrived.

This year, Advent begins at a time when it may feel like things are coming unglued, falling apart. We just went through a Black Friday in which gung-ho shoppers used fists and pepper spray to drive off fellow shoppers - at a mall in North Carolina, the soundtrack of Christmas music was momentarily drowned out by the sound of gunfire. At good old Penn State, wholesome Happy Valley – my alma mater – the university president, Graham Spanier, along with longtime football coach Joe Paterno were dismissed amid accusations of having covered up the sexual abuse of teens and pre-teens. There’s an increasing sense that our national government is dysfunctional, political leaders from both parties bought (or bought off) and paid for by Wall Street – and at Occupy Philadelphia and other Occupy gatherings across the country, people are taking to the streets to demand change. While the protesters have been mostly peaceful, in many cities the police have not, and we’ve been treated to the ugly sight of police officers pepper-spraying and beating nonviolent protesters. International news is no more comforting, amid the threat of financial default in Europe, the threat of war in the Middle East. Amid frightening national and international news, we’ve had our own personal traumas – death of family members or friends, illness, unemployment, domestic violence striking us or those close to us. At our community Thanksgiving service on Wednesday, I heard that the cupboard, with the help of our donations, served over 300 families last week. 300 families who, but for God’s grace and the generosity of Emanuel and other churches, would go hungry. What a witness of the struggles our neighbors are grappling with here in Bridesburg and surrounding neighborhoods. We may be tempted to throw up our hands in despair. For people of faith, we can hardly be faulted for asking, “Why doesn’t God do something? Is God on lunch break, or did God maybe clock out early and go on vacation? Where’s God when we need Him?”

Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah was written at a time when it seemed like things were falling apart, spinning out of control. It comes from one of the last few chapters of Isaiah, written after the Jews had returned from exile and settled back in Jerusalem. They had returned from exile with such high hopes. But the rebuilding of the Temple had been slowed down by threats and interference from surrounding tribes, and also bogged down by community infighting. Similar to some of our current controversies over inclusion within the church, there was disagreement over who could be called a Jew, who could gather to worship the Lord, with some calling for exclusion of all except the super-observant, the purest of the pure, while others called for broad inclusion. The devastation of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem matched the disorganization and conflict among the Jewish people.

And so in his frustration Isaiah cries out to God, “Get down here and do something, will ya! Tear open the heavens and come down! Send fire and earthquake, so that our enemies will know you’re still in charge!” Isaiah recalls God’s works in the past – “When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” Isaiah confesses the guilt of the people – “We have all become unclean, and even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags….our sin blows us away like the wind….nobody calls on you.” And Isaiah even blames some of the people’s misdeeds on God, “You were angry, and we sinned, because you hid yourself we messed up.” Isaiah reminds God “Yet, O Lord, you are our father, we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Now consider, we are all your people.”

In Advent, we remember that God did indeed tear open the heavens, did indeed come down here and do something. He came down here in the child Jesus. Mark’s Gospel tells us that at his baptism, Jesus saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion includes an earthquake. So, in Jesus, Isaiah’s prayers were answered, though likely on a schedule far different – and better – than Isaiah had envisioned.

From our Gospel reading we are reminded that Jesus will come again, not as a baby this time, but in power and glory. Jesus employs apocalyptic language and figures of speech used in his day to express the overwhelming scale and impact of this coming event – there will be signs in the heavens, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory, to gather the elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

Jesus also said that only the Father knows when all this will happen – the angels don’t, even the Son doesn’t. There are lots of folks who want to try to set dates for us – this year marked the failure of not one but two of Harold Camping predictions, that of the Rapture on May 21 and the end of the world on October 21. I’m confident that the predictions of Hal Lindsay and John Hagee and the other screamers and shouters on radio and TV are just as far off-base – for example, Lindsay’s prediction of the Rapture a generation – estimated by Lindsay at 40 years - after the 1948 founding of the state of Israel is well past its sell-by date these 60+ years later.

That said, it’s easy to understand why so many listen to these predictions – because our world, like the world in Isaiah’s time, like the world of Jesus’ day, is threatening, especially to people of faith. Things seem out of control. Our natural environment is under assault on a global scale. There is great spiritual wickedness in high places. It may seem like God has left the building, like God has left the planet, has left us to our fate. When all that seems familiar is coming unglued, it’s a very natural human impulse to want the disruption to end. And it will, someday. But when it will happen, is not for us to know. In the meantime, in our reading from Mark’s Gospel, we have our instructions - to keep awake, to be faithful servants who are at their post whenever the Master returns. We have our instructions, to wait faithfully, and to live in hope.

The point of Jesus’ words is not for preachers on radio and TV to try to commit God to their timelines – the TV and radio preachers simply don’t have that authority over God. Rather, the point of Jesus’ words is for God to commit us to living our lives in a way that’s faithful to the Gospel. God in God’s sovereignty keeps God’s own council on matters of timing. Meanwhile, we are to preach and live out the Gospel. Jesus says, “Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all – Keep awake!”

The day will come when Jesus will return in unimaginable power and glory. Until then, Christ’s body, the church, is here. Until then, Jesus said that wherever two or three gather in His name, he’ll be in the midst. Until then, every day in some congregations – among the Roman Catholics, for example - and at least every week here at Emanuel, the gathered church prays to God, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Until then, we’re praying for the coming of the Kingdom, for Jesus to return, and God will honor those prayers. Until then, through the work and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in our words of love and deeds of compassion.

Remember that, as the saying goes, our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible that unbelievers will ever read, the only Gospel they will ever hear. Let us at Emanuel Church not lead them astray by scribbling our own agendas in the margins. Instead, may we at Emanuel Church let God’s word shine forth from our lives, day by day for however many days God grants us on this earth. May those who walk through our doors truly say that “surely the Lord is in this place”, through our words of love and deeds of compassion truly come to know and love Emanuel – God with us. Amen.

Love Wins

2011-12-04T19:06:00.001-05:00

(Scriptures: Ezekiel 34:11-24, Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46)

Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, known as Christ the King Sunday, or more recently as Reign of Christ Sunday. And so we sing the church’s coronation hymns: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name….Jesus Shall Reign where’er the sun does his successive journeys run….Crown Him with Many Crowns. (I always think that last hymn should be a favorite of dentists…..bad joke, I know.) Our hymns point to the reign of Christ, point to where all our faith in Christ and faithfulness to the church is leading, that great and glorious day when Christ will ascend the throne of his glory.

Our Scripture readings invite us to ponder what it means to call Christ our Lord, to say that Jesus will reign. It’s interesting that Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday always comes in November, just a couple weeks after our November elections. This year, there were mostly local and some statewide races, no big national names on the ballot – although, in Liberia, for whom we’ve been praying for some weeks now, there was a hugely important national runoff election – I understand President Sirleaf was re-elected. But even here, locally, on election day we collectively made decisions – who will we name as our city councilman, our county judges, our county row offices – recorder of deeds and prothonatary and dogcatcher and so on. If we voted, we made choices. If we didn’t vote, we also made a choice – to rely on the votes of others to select our political leaders. In any political process, the candidates make lots of promises before the election, but it is only after they have been sworn into office that we truly learn how they will govern and carry out their responsibilities, be it as mayor or dogcatcher or anywhere in between. Only after the election do we learn what kind of mayor or councilperson or dogcatcher they will be. In the same way, in today’s readings we consider what kind of ruler Jesus will be, what sort of reign Jesus will carry out.

It’s clear from our Scriptures that Christ is not aloof or remote or detached or above-it-all. Rather, his rule, his reign is very hands-on, very much involved with the details, passionately, intimately involved with humankind.

Both our Old Testament reading and our Gospel reading use the actions of sheep as a metaphor for human behavior. Our reading from Ezekiel is part of a message from God against the rulers of Israel, who, rather than caring for their flocks – that is to say, the people of Israel – have only looked out for their own interests. Rather than feeding their flocks, they have fed only themselves, leaving their flocks – the people – to fend for themselves. God proclaims that God himself will gather the sheep who have been scattered. But Ezekiel’s message from God is not only against the negligent shepherds, but against those sheep who in their arrogance have driven the weaker sheep from the fold, who in their greed have not only grabbed the best for themselves, but spoiled what was left for everyone else. We here in America may find ourselves in this text, where we consume far more than our share of the planet’s resources, and leave environmental destruction affecting the planet in our wake. Indeed, it’s a surprisingly current image when, in a news story unfolding day by day before our eyes, moneyed interests in our nation and even right here in Pennsylvania are willing to risk environmental degradation to parts of the state, ripping open the earth and potentially poisoning the water, in order to get rich by extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale reserves by the highly polluting process of hydrofracking. The developers will get the big bucks, and the rest of us will be stuck with the mess. Well does God say, in the words of Ezekiel, that God will judge between sheep and sheep.

And then we have the well-known parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew chapter 25, which develops Ezekiel’s image of God judging between sheep and sheep into an image of the final judgment. We are given a picture of Jesus as a king so concerned about his people that, not content to rely on his court officials for information and guidance about his populace, he disguises himself as a beggar and walks around incognito to see how his subjects treat one another. The king behaves almost like a modern-day secret shopper who enters a store and pretends to be a customer, in order to see how the store treats its customers. Or like an undercover investigative reporter who wears a hidden camera and approaches members of a religious cult or a drug gang, ostensibly seeking affiliation, but in reality trying to learn what goes on behind closed doors.

It’s been said that “character is how we behave when we think nobody’s looking.” In Jesus’ parable, the king’s ploy works – both sheep and goats think nobody’s looking, and go about their business as they always do. The king’s disguise works so well that neither the sheep nor the goats recognize the king, and so both the sheep and the goats behave in character, behave as they do when they think nobody’s looking – the sheep offering assistance, and the goats offering nothing. Both sheep and goats ask the king, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” Both sheep and goats were told, “as you did – or did not do – unto the least of these, you did – or did not do – unto me.”

The point of Jesus’ parable isn’t about trying to work our way into the kingdom. Rather, it’s about Jesus, like the shepherd in our Ezekiel passage, trying to gather his sheep who have been mixed among other flocks. Shepherds would mark their sheep, so that if they got mixed up among other flocks, they could distinguish their sheep from the rest. And Jesus’ sheep are marked as well – marked initially by the waters of baptism, marking the death of our nature of sin and by God’s grace, the beginnings of new life in Christ, and as we live into our baptismal vows, by love for God and neighbor. In Jesus’ parable, love, compassion, hospitality, caring are the marks that separate the sheep from the goats.

It’s striking that in Jesus' parable, the goats are characterized not by having overtly done evil – the goats didn’t kill or steal or pillage or plunder - but by having failed to do good, by having done - nothing. And this aspect of Jesus’ parable challenges me – sometimes terrifies me. Maybe it challenges you as well. I can remember many times when I’ve fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, visited prisoners - when I was at Old First, there were several persons with ties to Old First who got into trouble and were arrested, because of drug addictions or mental illness, and who I visited from time to time. And I can remember many times when I haven’t – times when I have passed by street people seeking donations without so much as speaking a word, times when I meant to visit someone in the hospital but never quite got there, never even got around to sending a card, times when somebody asked for something as simple as a ride, and I was too busy. Too busy. My record of compassion is a mixed bag. I feel like I’m not entirely sheep or entirely goat, but some of each, some sort of critter even stranger than the ones you’ll find at the Philadelphia zoo.

So maybe Jesus’ parable speaks on more than one level. It’s been said that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Maybe the line between the sheep and the goats is not only between people, but also within them. As we live into our baptismal vows, as the Holy Spirit we received at our baptism works within us over the course of our lives, as we ask God’s forgiveness week by week and implore God’s grace, by God’s grace we conform less and less to the world, and are more and more transformed into the image of Christ. God begins to give us an extreme makeover, as we begin to be transformed more and more from goats into sheep. The formal theological term is sanctification. It’s a process that begins in this life, but is completed in the life to come.

It’s a process that begins not only in our own lives, but in the lives of others. Genesis tells us that human beings are created in God’s image. Sin distorts that image, but does not erase it. When we’re tempted to lash out at another human being, to insult them, to ignore them….remember that they, like we, are created in God’s image. Sometimes the divine image is really, really, really hard to find – but it’s there. Somewhere. And so it really is true that how we treat other human beings is how we treat God.

Every week as we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The Reign of Christ has begun – began with the resurrection of Christ, is spread in part through the work of the church – but is not complete. Jesus reigns, but not everyone has gotten the memo. We live in the space between “now” and “not yet.” But today’s Gospel reading tells us what God’s kingdom, God’s reign, will look like. Also remember that I John 4 tells us that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.” And so, if God is love, and God reigns – then love reigns. Love rules. Love wins. All within ourselves and all within others that is unloving, will be left outside the door of God’s kingdom. God loves us, and at last we will be able to love God as we should, will be united in our love for God, and God’s love for us.

You don’t need me to tell you that we’re not there yet. We won’t get there in this life. But the beginnings of the kingdom are sprouting, even sprouting here at Emanuel Church. The love of God and love for one another we experience here, even though we don’t always get it right, is a small sample of the love we will experience unfailingly in the world to come. You could say that, at our best, we’re like a little outpost of heaven. Paul’s lofty words in our reading from Ephesians: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” – may seem far away from our own experience. But even as Paul looks ahead to Christ’s reign coming in its fullness, Paul is so certain of it that he speaks as if it’s already happened – as if, even though we only get glimpses of it in this life, it’s already a done deal. And it’s a done deal that will include us, the church, as Paul goes on: “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” For the church – hey, that’s us, the church, the body of Christ.

May we at Emanuel Church continue to be a place where God’s love can be found. May we continue to be a place where people can come and see and taste that the Lord is good, where people can get a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of the goodness that is to come. May it be so with us. Amen.

For All The Saints

2011-12-04T19:04:00.001-05:00

(Scriptures: Joshua 24:1-25, I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13)

Today we celebrate All Saints Day – Tottenfest is what the German founders of the congregation called All Saints, when we remember our saints – our family members, members of Emanuel church, other people who have touched our lives before passing from this life to be gathered to the Church Triumphant. It’s a time of gratitude, a time of giving thanks for the ways in which God’s grace was at work in the lives of our loved ones. And by remembering our saints, those who have gone before us, we are led in turn to remember who we are, and more importantly, whose we are.

All three of today’s Scripture readings have something to tell us about the importance of remembering who we are. Our reading from Joshua gives us Joshua’s farewell speech and final charge to the Israelites whom he had led into the promised land. The children of Israel had driven out the Canaanites and settled the promised land. The Lord had granted Israel rest from the enemies. But Joshua is concerned that peace and prosperity may lead the children of Israel to forget their covenant with the Lord. And so Joshua begins his farewell speech by retelling the entire story of Israel, beginning with God’s call of Abraham, the entry of Joseph into Egypt, the Exodus of Moses from Egypt, the long years in the wilderness, and the various conquests made by Israel as they settled the land of promise. Joshua recounts all this history in order to tell the people of Israel – remember who you are. Remember where you have been, and what you have gone through to arrive where you are. Most of all, remember how all this came about: not by your might, but by God’s gracious will. God says, “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.” All this goodness is God’s gift.

Having recounted all of God’s mighty acts on their behalf, Joshua begins to tell how the people must respond, beginning, “Now therefore….” God’s mighty deeds on their behalf demand a response. “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt.” Joshua challenged the people with the choice that was before them: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” You can serve the gods that your fathers served beyond the River, or those of Egypt, or those of the people you just got done driving out of this land, but – Joshua says – “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Those Emanuel saints whom we remember today confronted that same choice. Faced with options to devote their lives to accumulating wealth, or to pleasure, or to any number of other things, they chose to serve the Lord. They served the Lord by attending this church or other congregations, by being active in the life of their faith communities and supporting the church financially, by living their faith in their family lives, by clinging to the Lord in time of trouble and remembering the Lord in time of plenty. Just as the Israelites had their stories of how God had called them and delivered them from slavery and led them through many difficulties, we at Emanuel have our stories of those saints who taught us the faith, who served this church faithfully through good times and bad.

In our epistle reading from I Thessalonians, Paul is comforting those who have suffered the death of loved ones, and are worried that they’ll never see their loved ones again. Paul relieves their fear by telling them that those who have died in Christ will rise first, before those who are alive at the time of his coming. So we have assurance that we will see our loved ones, our saints, again. Reunited with our loved ones, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, Paul says, encourage one another with these words.

Finally, our Gospel reading reminds us that while we don’t know the times God has appointed, we are to live in such a way as we are ready at any time – to meet our Lord at the moment of death, or to meet our Lord at the second coming. Not a one of us here – not you, not me - has any assurance that we will wake up tomorrow morning. So we need to be ready. If there are those to whom we owe a phone call or a letter, a word of forgiveness, or an “I love you” - do it now. Do it now. Don’t delay. Don’t wait until tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come. We are prepared – for Christ’s coming, or for our own departing – when we share the good news of Jesus with those around us, when our love of God overflows into love for neighbor. In our Gospel reading, what made the bridesmaids wise wasn’t that they knew when the bridegroom was coming. After all, when the bridegroom was delayed, both the wise and foolish bridesmaids fell asleep. But the wise bridesmaids brought extra oil, so that their lamps would go the distance to the wedding banquet. In the same way, we need a durable faith, so that the light of our faith will go the distance, lighting a path for others.

Our saints here at Emanuel had that durable faith that went the distance. Through a Great Depression and two World Wars many of them married, raised families, and supported the ministries of the church. They were faithful during the years Emanuel was growing, and they continued faithful in more recent years as our numbers declined. Now they are with God, part of that great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the letter to the Hebrews. That great cloud of witnesses surrounds you, and you, and you, and me, and all of us. They have run the race of faith, and I think of them now up in the stands, up in the bleachers, cheering us on as we run the same race they ran. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.

In a portion of the book of Joshua immediately following this morning’s reading, after the people covenanted to serve the Lord, Joshua set up a stone, and when he had set up the stone, he said to the people, “see, this stone shall be a witness.” And we have stones that have been set up as witnesses. The headstones outside our window are a witness to the faith of our fathers and mothers. On this All Saints Sunday, may their faith inspire us to keep faith with the God of our fathers and mothers. May their faith live on in all we do, as individuals, and as the gathered community of Emanuel Church. Amen.

Always Reforming

2011-10-30T21:15:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Joshua 3:7-17, I Thessalonians 2:9-13, Matthew 23:1-12)

Today is Reformation Sunday, when we remember that time in our heritage when differences with the Roman Catholic church to the formation of the churches of the Reformation – among them the Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian denominations, along with the Church of England and its descendents. The birth of these churches was traumatic, a split in the body of Christ. While much of the immediate emotion – the mutual recriminations and, indeed, mutual excommunications, political wrangling, even armed conflict – has dissipated over the centuries, the effects of this split persist to this day. While today we celebrate the insights of the Reformers – that we are saved by God’s grace, not our own merit; that the Scriptures are available to all believers in their own language, not only to the clergy in Latin – we may feel some ambivalence about the divisions and misunderstandings that came out of that period of history.

Our Gospel reading this morning reminds us that religious conflicts were no easier in Jesus’ time than at the time of the Reformation, or in our own time; that conflicts within a faith community can grow heated indeed. Our Gospel gives us one side, Jesus’ side, of a disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees. When we read Jesus’ contentious words, it’s easy to forget that Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew – and that his disagreement with the Pharisees was, in a sense, an argument within the Jewish faith community, a family argument. Jesus’ earliest followers were Jews, and in the years immediately after Jesus’ ascension, many of them continued to practice their faith within the context of the synagogue. Over the course of several decades, the synagogue leadership increasingly excluded the followers of Jesus from their assemblies. And the early Christians responded in kind, condemning the synagogue communities from which they had been expelled. The Apostle Paul spent time on both sides of this divide, first as a Jew persecuting the upstart Christian movement, and then as a Jewish follower of Jesus wrestling in conflict with his former supporters in the synagogue. The influx of Gentile converts, who had no memory of the synagogue, only served to reinforce the parting of ways between church and synagogue. And that division continues to this day; just as we in the church are the spiritual descendents of the early Christian movement, the Jewish communities of our day are the spiritual descendents of the Pharisee movement of Jesus’ day.

In the midst of these divisions, it’s easy to forget that the Pharisees and Jesus agreed on a great deal; indeed, they agreed more than they disagreed. Both passionately worshipped God, and both passionately sought to live in accordance with God’s law as revealed to Moses and the prophets. In contrast with the Sadducees, whose obedience to God was almost entirely limited to carrying out the Temple’s rituals of sacrifice and worship, Jesus agreed with the Pharisees on one key point: that obedience to God is not simply a matter of maintaining correct Temple ritual, but that God’s will is to be carried out in all areas of life. The Pharisees tried to accomplish this with their ever-expanding oral tradition of interpretation. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave his views on how God’s will is to be lived out daily. Where they differed was in discerning their basis for interpretation. For the Pharisees, purity – maintaining ritual cleanliness, remaining separate from anything or anyone unclean – was the key to understanding God’s law. The Pharisees showed their love for God by upholding the rules of purity. Love of neighbor was important, but mostly limited to those within the community. For Jesus, love – love of God and love of neighbor, with the term “neighbor” broadly defined as “anyone in need” – was the key to understanding Scripture, and trumped purity.

The disagreements that led to the Reformation are not all that different from those between Jesus and the Pharisees, that led to the break of the church from the synagogue. All of those we know as Reformers – Martin Luther, whose thought informs the Lutheran Church, John Calvin, whose ideas live on in the Presbyterian church, Ulrich Zwingli, whose thought informed the German, Dutch, and Swiss Reformed Churches and their descendents, including the United Church of Christ - and others – began within the context of the Roman Catholic church. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. He was overwhelmed by a burden of guilt and unworthiness before God, that all the rituals of the church could not overcome. His reading of Romans – that the righteous shall live by faith – led him to disagree with the penitential system of confessing one’s sins to a priest and doing deeds of penance, and most especially the buying and selling of indulgences, essentially ecclesiastical “get out of purgatory free” cards. He experienced the Roman church’s system of penance – confession of sin to a priest, prescribed acts of penance, and, for him, ongoing guilt no matter how much penance he did, as a burden, and so his reliance on God’s grace, by contrast, Luther considered gospel freedom. Luther did not seek to leave the church – when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg church, he was only seeking to start discussion, much like posting a document on Facebook or a blog today. But what started as a post evolved into a medieval version of a email or Facebook flame war, with accusations flying back and forth. Ultimately the church excommunicated Luther, and the ministry of Luther and his followers continued outside the Roman church.

While the Reformers differed among themselves on specifics, they held much in common. They uplifted Scripture as the primary authority in the believer’s life, indeed, the only authority – “sola scriptura” was one of the rallying cries of the Reformation. There were others. The purpose of Scripture is to point to the faith – “sola fide” that unassisted by our own works brings us to salvation. And we come to an understanding of saving faith entirely by God’s grace, and not by virtue of our own merits, so “sola gratia” was yet another mantra of the Reformation. In all, there were five “solas”, five essentials involved in the Protestant doctrine of salvation: By grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solus Christus), known through Scripture alone (sola scriptura), and to God alone be the glory (sola deo gloria).

Despite sharing these foundational beliefs, the various Reformed churches organized themselves in different ways and evolved in different directions. From the same Bible, various reformers found support for very hierarchical churches such as the Lutheran churches, which have bishops, while others found support for congregationalism, where the local church sets its own course – that was the path of the Puritans who settled in New England, while still others adopted a structure in which authority rested, not with the local congregation or a bishop, but with local or regional synods – that was the course charted by the Presbyterian church as well as the Evangelical and Reformed Church prior to the merger that formed the UCC. From the same Bible, Christians found support for the continuation of slavery and for the abolition of slavery. From the same Bible, some Christians found precedent and support for the authorization of women for ordained ministry, while others to this day still don’t.

Indeed, in the centuries since the time of the Reformation, while denominations have stayed separate, there has been much cross-pollination of practices. Roman Catholic churches have embraced at least some of Luther’s insights; indeed, our first hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God, is sung in Roman Catholic churches. Roman Catholic worshippers hear at least as much Scripture read in church as Protestants do, and probably more than in most Protestant churches. (Years ago when I invited a Roman Catholic friend to join me worshipping at a Protestant church, he was amazed that there was only one Scripture reading; in Catholic churches, there are four readings – Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, Gospel.) By the same token, Protestants are increasingly embracing traditionally Roman Catholic prayer and devotional exercises, such as the daily prayer of self-examination and lectio divina, divine reading of Scripture or devotional literature. Catholic and many Protestant churches alike use the Revised Common Lectionary, reading at least some of the same Biblical texts every Sunday, so that, literally as well as figuratively, we are at least in some ways on the same page.

A motto of the Reformation is “Reformed and Always Reforming.” This means that we do not content ourselves to hold the insights of the Reformers of 500 and 600 years ago, but rather we are always open to new light and truth breaking forth from God’s holy word. God is not done with us yet, as individuals or as a church. God is constantly calling us forward on a pilgrimage of faith, constantly sending us out to be salt and light in the world.

The world in which many of us grew up, in which the church was the center of family and community life, is gone. As our third hymn states, “new occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth.” Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever – but our society is constantly changing, and even though the message of salvation is the same, the church cannot proclaim this eternal message to this changed society by doing the same things we’ve always done. In some ways, our society is similar to the society encountered by the early church, in which many people have never been inside a church, have only second-hand knowledge or maybe no knowledge at all of the Gospel. Churches are rediscovering the need for evangelism – we can no longer rely on family and societal expectations to bring people into the church, and so church members are finding it necessary once again to go out into the community and witness to their faith. More and more churches – including Emanuel – cannot afford full-time professional clergy. New models of ministry involving teleconferencing and social media are emerging – I know one church who, when it snows, holds worship via videoconference. Old patterns of ministry such as tentmaker ministries, where the pastor earns his living elsewhere in order to reduce the financial burden on the church – that model goes back to St. Paul - and shared ministries in which nearby churches are yoked together into two and three point charges served by one pastor, are being rediscovered and repurposed.

Society has changed, but society’s need for salvation has not changed. We live in a neighborhood, in a city, in a society that needs good news. Perhaps the church is on the cusp of a new reformation, not based so much on fine points of theology, but on discerning God’s will for us in a transformed society, on loving God and neighbor in a way that speaks God’s good news to this generation. May we always keep our eyes and ears open for the light and truth which God reveals to us. Amen.

First Things First

2011-10-29T21:46:00.002-04:00

(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90, I Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46)

Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?

The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?

Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.

So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?

In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.

Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.

St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.

Glory Be!

2011-10-18T19:13:00.002-04:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 33:12-23
I Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22)

Those among us of a certain age may remember the old 1950’s TV show “The Honeymooners”. Or if you were a little younger, you might have watched the Flintstones, which was sort of a cartoon version. The main character, Ralph Cramden, was loud and volatile, but his wife, Alice, knew how to manage him, and certainly knew how to cut through Ralph’s bombast. Just about every episode had a moment when Ralph and Alice were squabbling, and Ralph would come out with lines like, “One of these days, Alice, Pow! To the moon!” But just about every episode ended with Ralph telling Alice, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”

In our Old Testament reading, Moses has been talking God down from a “pow, to the moon, Alice!” moment with God’s people. The context of today’s reading from Exodus is the aftermath of last week’s reading from Exodus, when Aaron made a golden calf for the people to worship. At this point, the relationship between God and the chosen people is strained nearly to the breaking point, with Moses caught in the middle, between the sinful people and an angry God. Not a really comfy place to be. Certainly not a place I’d want to be. In last week’s reading, God had threatened to destroy the people and start over with Moses’ descendents, but Moses implored God not to destroy the people. While God relents, God also tells Moses that he would not accompany the people, lest God’s anger break out and destroy them. Once again, Moses implores God to go with them, and God once again relents. Reading the text is like watching a married couple or a pair of close friends after a really bad falling out, when they’re awkwardly trying to repair the relationship and aren’t quite sure what to say in order to get past the previous ugliness. Sometimes it takes longer than a half-hour sitcom to get to the “Baby, you’re the greatest” ending. But sometimes during that time of patching things up, we’re open to sharing ourselves at a much deeper level than we do when things are going smoothly.

Something of the sort happens in today’s reading. After Moses’ success in imploring God to turn away from God’s anger, and Moses feels like things are patched up at least a little bit, Moses becomes a bit bolder and asks God, “show me your glory.” Remember that God led the people of Israel, appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. We’re told that Moses used to go to what was called the tent of meeting, located outside the camp. Moses would enter the tent, and the Lord would speak to Moses, and we’re told that the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Moses experienced God’s presence in a special way, and the Hebrew even uses the word “face” to describe God’s presence. As we sometimes talk about God’s strong arm as a metaphor to indicate God’s power, the Hebrew uses the word “face” in this passage as a metaphor to indicate presence. But even with all that, Moses wants more. “Show me your glory, Lord.” Let me see you, not just as appearances of cloud and fire, not just your “face” as in a metaphor for your presence, but as you truly are, in your fullness.

Moses may not fully have known what he was asking. We’re told that God in God’s holiness is not like us, but “other”. God is utterly holy, and we are sinful. Remember that Moses first saw God in the appearance of a bush that burned but was not consumed. Scripture tells us that “our God is a consuming fire.” To see God in all God’s glory would be more that Moses could stand, and still live.

So God offers to give Moses as much as Moses can handle without being destroyed. God says that all of God’s goodness – not his glory in all its fullness, but his goodness, would pass before Moses. God would share with Moses the divine name, and allow Moses to see God’s back after he had departed. For, God tells Moses, you cannot see my face and live. Moses hears the divine name, which amounts to hearing the divine identity: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The name is related to the phrase “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”

While our Exodus reading seems strange and far removed from our own life experience, this account may help us gain a deeper understanding of our relationship with God. We all yearn to draw closer to God. As Augustine wrote, God has made us for Godself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in God. In our yearning for closeness, we look for some tangible token of God’s presence, something we can see and hear and touch and even smell and taste – maybe even something we can use and control, like a lucky rabbit’s foot. This is why shrines of saints and relics of departed saints were so popular in the Middle Ages – as tangible evidence of someone else’s encounter with the divine – and why even today we read news accounts every now and then about someone who sees the face of Jesus or Mary in the bark of a tree or in a piece of toast or a sticky bun or whatever. In a very different way, but with similar intent, many Christians misuse Scripture to try to hold Jesus to some sort of rigid timetable for Jesus’ return. To put Jesus on a timetable is to try to control Jesus – some Christians even try to orchestrate events in world politics to try to accelerate the 2nd coming of Christ. But Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation and everywhere in between, is very clear that while God listens and responds to our prayers, God will not be controlled by human beings, will not be held to a timetable, will not be contained within the boundaries of human theology or human understanding. God’s graciousness in hearing our prayers should not be mistaken for our entitlement in expecting God to wait on our every demand.

Martin Luther contrasted what he called a theology of glory – a theology which Luther opposed, a theology which relied on displays of church pomp to point to God’s glory - with what Luther called the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross, which Luther embraced, said that God is known, not in human power, but in human weakness; not in our wealth, but in our poverty; not in our self-reliance, but in our brokenness and consequent reliance on God. Paul wrote that in Christ, the foolishness of God is wiser than all human wisdom, and the weakness of God, stronger than human strength. As we read in Philippians a few weeks ago, we worship a God who in Jesus Christ emptied himself of all glory for the sake of the salvation of humanity and all creation. Those times when we feel most desolate and forsaken may be the exact times when God is closest, carrying us when we’re too weak to stand on our own.

God allowed Moses to see God’s back, after God had passed by him. And that’s often how it is with us. We may not see God coming, but we may see him going. It is often in retrospect, looking back after we’ve gone through some life-changing experience, that we know God was somehow in the midst of that experience, that “surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn’t even know it.” Remember that the two disciples on the Emmaus road didn’t recognize Jesus until Jesus broke the bread – and as soon as the disciples recognized Jesus, Jesus disappeared, lest the two disciples try to hold onto the moment. Or we may remember the story of the risen Christ, on his encounter with Mary in the garden, telling her “don’t touch me.” Some writers interpret Jesus’ words as meaning “stop holding onto me” or “don’t try to hold onto me.” Our God is not static, not a statue or idol, but a God always in motion. So our task as Christians is to discern where God is, and meet God there.

Our Gospel reading gives us in a few sentences the contrast between human attempts to grab at glory and the elusive glory of God. Jesus used a trick question about taxes as a teaching moment. He asked whose image was on a coin, and of course it was that of the emperor. In a typical human attempt to strive for glory, the emperor had his image stamped on the coin so that people couldn’t even buy the necessities of life or sell or conduct business without encountering an image of the emperor. Meanwhile, God’s glory is hidden, not in the imperial glory of Rome, or in the arrogance and contempt of the religious establishment, but in the humble person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Theologians tell us that God is both imminent and transcendent. God’s imminence is in those personal, private or even congregational “holy moments” when we feel God’s presence so strongly we can just about touch it. We heard about some of Emanuel’s holy moments during our anniversary in September. But God in his transcendence is the God who created everything, who is beyond all earthly things, who is utterly unlike us, utterly other than us. God is both imminent and transcendent – far beyond our understanding, yet closer than our own breath. In a sense, God can even be seen as playful, always just beyond us, playfully teasing us with the most tantalizing hints of his presence, able to be felt and experienced, but not controlled.

I’ll mention it for probably the 100th or more time – at any rate, not for the first time, or the last – that our name, Emanuel, means God with us. We remember those holy moments when God was with us, our parents and grandparents, in years long past. But we cannot relegate God-with-us to the past, to memory. Emanuel doesn’t mean “God was with us” but “God is with us.” God’s name can mean “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Even in our weakness, God is with us and will be with us, for, as Paul wrote, God’s strength is made perfect or complete in human weakness. May we here at Emanuel, as a community and as individuals, continue to experience God’s goodness passing before us – and may we at Emanuel invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.

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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia, on Fillmore St, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org

Holy Cow!

2011-10-09T21:12:00.003-04:00

At our 150th anniversary celebration, I was struck by the video that Kris put together, that we watched in the social hall following worship. It was like going through an old family photo album – literally, two, three, four or more generations of some of our longtime members have been members here, so for them, the old confirmation photos and such were photos of grandmom and grandpop or mom and dad when they were little.

Going through our own old family albums can bring up lots of memories - we may feel sad, or wistful, or we may find some old photos really funny, or even embarrassing. For those of us –like me - who grew up in the 70’s, where long hair and pastel colors were the fashion, we may wince a bit looking at our high school graduation photo. And then some of us have those photos we hope nobody else will ever see, the photos we pray nobody will ever post to Facebook. Sadder but wiser now, we may look back on some of our old photos and ask ourselves, “What on earth was I thinking?”

Today’s Old Testament reading is like one of those embarrassing photos in the family album of God’s people, one of those moments in the journey of the Hebrews where you just want to smack your forehead and say, “What on earth were they thinking?” The old movie The Ten Commandments had a lot of fun with this Scripture, conjuring up all sorts of wild ceremonies as part of worship of the Golden Calf. Fortunately for us, the writer of Exodus and those who preserved this book over many centuries, did not feel an obligation to try to gloss over these moments when God’s people fell flat on their faces. The Hebrews are presented, warts and all, and so perhaps in looking at those times when they went astray, we can recognize ourselves.

Last week Ralph, our organist, read, with great gusto, the Ten Commandments. I’d joked with Ralph that last week was Ralph’s Charlton Heston moment. But Moses did not immediately come down the mountain – along with the Ten Commandments, God gave Moses all manner of other instruction about how God was to be worshipped and how society was to be organized. In Exodus, God’s instruction to Moses covers more than 10 chapters. Some forms of Jewish tradition hold that on Mt. Sinai, Moses received not only the written Torah – what we call the first five books of the Old Testament – but also what Jews call the Oral Torah, the traditions of interpretation that would not be written down for centuries, but that helped God’s people make sense of the written Torah through changing circumstances – in Jewish thought, Moses was thought to have received all of that at least in seed form. And all of this took time.

Meanwhile the people are at the bottom of the mountain, wondering what happened to Moses. They saw him go up the mountain, but he hadn’t come down yet. And so they became uneasy. Perhaps God had struck Moses dead up on that mountain. Perhaps Moses had abandoned them. Meanwhile, there they were. How long were they supposed to hang around, waiting?

So the people went to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and asked Aaron to make gods for them. And Aaron complied, making a golden calf. The people sacrificed to it, and as Scripture memorably says, “they sat down to eat and rose to revel.” God threatened to wipe them out on the spot, but Moses interceded with God and the people were spared.

Why a golden calf? Some scholars tell us that Aaron’s intent was not to worship a different god, but to create an image of the Lord for them to worship – after all, Aaron did say that their sacrifice would be “a festival to the LORD”. A calf would have reminded them of youth and strength, perhaps also of fertility and new life, and would have expressed the conviction that God is all these things. But certainly such an image would say nothing of God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s holiness. This is the reason that God commanded his people never to try to make an image of God, because God is so great and so far beyond our comprehension that any image would inevitably leave out much that is important about God. This prohibition is still followed in Judaism and especially in Islam. In Christianity, while we don’t literally worship images, there’s a broad range of tradition about the use of images of Jesus and the saints in worship, from the Eastern Orthodox traditions, where icons are everywhere, to the Protestant traditions, which may accept images such as the empty cross or pictures of Jesus, but is not as receptive of portrayals of the saints – and in some traditions the worship space is almost completely unadorned.

This Exodus passage is not the last we hear of a golden calf in the Bible. Many centuries later, following the breakup of united Israel into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, the golden calf makes a return appearance. Since Jerusalem was located in the southern kingdom of Judah, for those in the northern kingdom, Jerusalem was essentially located in foreign territory. Those in the northern kingdom could not go to Jerusalem without leaving their country – and it was feared that if people from the northern kingdom went to Jerusalem to worship, they might stay there, or they might turn against the northern kingdom. The solution was to set up alternate worship sites at historic holy places in the Northern kingdom, such as Bethel and Dan. And at each of these alternative worship sites in the north, in the temple was a golden calf. And Jeroboam used the same words used by Aaron – “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” Prophets from both north and south spoke out against these worship sites, calling their worship idolatrous.

We may look back on these stories, these very old snapshots from the family album of God’s people, as relics of a long-ago past, as evidence of thought processes that today we would consider primitive. Today we don’t literally create golden calves or totem poles and bow down to them. But let’s remember what was behind the creation of the golden calf – impatience, fear that God had abandoned the people. God’s promises of God’s presence weren’t enough, and so the people asked for an image to reassure themselves that God was still with them. And later on during the time of the northern kingdom, a king’s insecurity for his throne led him to create golden calves for his worship sites. In a word, behind the creation of the golden calf was a feeling of insecurity.

It seems that most of our very secular society doesn’t bow down to much of anything. But secular people still feel insecure. It’s part of the human condition. Even a secular society will find ways to act out its insecurity. Given the extreme divide in our society between the fantastically wealthy and the miserably poor, where investment bankers and CEO’s of major corporations earn hundreds of times what their average worker makes, where corporate leaders use their wealth not to create jobs but to outsource or automate or otherwise eliminate them – and given the resistance among some in government to putting any restraint whatever on corporate greed – it would seem that worship of the golden calf is alive and well – and is even blessed and encouraged by some clergy on TV and radio who give lip service to God but whose real religion is worship of the almighty dollar. And how is idolatry to wealth, to the market, working out for our society? How’s that working out for us? Adam Smith, in his long-ago economic treatise The Wealth of Nations, said that if each person was allowed to pursue his own economic self-interest, the invisible hand of the market would work to the benefit of all. But these days, the invisible hand seems to be punching the poor in the gut. The very wealthy sit down to eat and rise up to revel – and if you want to watch, you can turn on Wealth TV - while the rest of us struggle and the poorest of us starve. I suspect that decades from now, we’ll be looking back on this time, smack our heads, and ask, what were we thinking?

In our Bible study of the minor prophets that we’ve had after church, we’ve seen that during times when the very wealthy in Israel and Judah looked out only for themselves and abandoned the poor to their fate, prophets such as Amos and Micah and Habakkuk and others came forward to denounce their greed and call them to account. And in our time, there finally at long last seems to be the beginnings of some movement to call our corporate and financial leaders to accountability. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spread to many cities, including Philadelphia, where City Hall seems to be the gathering place. Thus far, these are peaceful gatherings. I can only pray they stay that way. Two weeks ago, at historic Tindley Temple Baptist Church on South Broad Street, an interfaith coalition of churches and synagogues, called POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild – was formed to speak from a position of faith to government and corporate leaders about the need to return jobs to our city. These gatherings are not coming from a place of rage and hostility, but thus far have been surprisingly gentle, coming from a desire to remind those in leadership that with power comes responsibility, of calling government and business leaders to a better way of using their wealth.

Psalm 23, which appears in our call to worship, and our reading from Philippians give us ways to deal with insecurity that rely on God, not golden calves. Psalm 23 reminds us that the Lord is our shepherd, no matter what. In a passage often read at funerals, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” But God’s care is not only for the dying, but for the living. The Psalmist sings of God setting a table for us, even in the presence of our enemies – even in a dangerous place, God cares for us. In his letter to the church at Philippi, written at a time in which both Paul in prison and a church undergoing internal division were experiencing insecurity, Paul tells his readers, of all things, to rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Don’t worry about anything,” Paul writes, “but in prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.” And, Paul assures his readers – and us – “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Our Gospel reading, even with its violent imagery, reminds us of the vision of God’s reign, a vision which goes back to Old Testament times, not as sitting through a sermon droning on through all eternity like this one, but a heavenly feast. Not a boring lecture, but a banquet, where there is more than enough for all. It’s a banquet to which we’re all invited, at which we’re all welcome. Many in our society turn away from this banquet in order to feast at the world’s table, where plenty for a few means starvation for many. But at God’s table there is room and plenty for all. God continues to invite us to the wedding banquet, and urges us to invite others. So may we go out into the highways and byways with the invitation to God’s love and grace. Amen.

Press On!

2011-10-01T23:01:00.002-04:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-20, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46)

In the United Church of Christ and in many Protestant churches, today is World Communion Sunday. This designation originated in 1936 within the Presbyterian Church, and was rapidly adopted by other denominations. The Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) began promoting World Communion Sunday in 1940, as a reminder that Christian churches around the globe, though divided by many differences in belief and observance, are ultimately and finally united in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

I’ll share the story that I often share on World Communion Sunday, of the day perhaps 20 years ago or more when I told a Roman Catholic friend about World Communion Sunday. Perhaps I waxed a bit grandiose about the unity displayed by Protestant Churches all around the globe in celebrating communion together. To all of this, my Roman Catholic friend responded by informing me that Roman Catholic churches around the globe celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, so for Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. And, yes, his words deflated my grandiosity a bit. Just the same, it’s a blessing that we Protestants, who fuss amongst ourselves over so many differences, can manage to get our act together once a year and join our Catholic brothers and sisters at the table of the Lord.

Here at Emanuel Church, we celebrate communion at least monthly, with additional observances for special services such as Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost. As we come forward later in the service for our cube of bread and sip of wine, on this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we approach the Lord’s table, we approach a table that in a spiritual sense extends around the globe, as we join believers of every race and nationality and socioeconomic level, join Christians who worship in cathedrals and Christians who worship in storefront churches and Christians worshipping in tents and open fields in eating bread and drinking wine in memory of Jesus, in sharing the body and blood of Christ, broken and poured out for us. At various locations of this great table, some believers are eating pita bread and some are eating rye bread, some pumpernickel bread, while others are eating the wafers used in Catholic and Anglican churches – and yet in a spiritual sense, all these different types of bread are part of the one celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Through the ages, God has given God’s people gifts around which God’s people can unite and form community. For the ancient Hebrews and for Jews to this day, the law, as represented in this morning’s Old Testament reading by the Ten Commandments, was and is a point of unity. For those of us who are used to the interpretations by Luther and other reformers of Paul’s writings about the law, who are used to seeing the law in negative terms, as a burden from which we are delivered by the grace of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult to wrap our minds around the reality that the law was received as a tremendous gift, a unique sign of God’s favor, God’s special gift to God’s chosen people. The words of this morning’s call to worship in the bulletin are taken from Psalm 19, and I’d ask you to look at the call to worship again. The writer of the Psalm 19 expressed overflowing joy and gratitude for the law, calling it more to be desired than much fine gold, sweeter than honey, rejoicing the heart. Even today, in synagogue services of some traditions, when the scroll of the law is brought forth, the congregation dances around the scroll and even kiss it as it passes by.

Along with the law, the ancient Hebrews were united by the sharing of a meal, the Passover, to celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as God led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the land of bondage. In the same way, we are united by a meal, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, as we give thanks for our deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ from bondage to sin and death and liberation to the freedom of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ.

As we share this meal, our Gospel reading reminds us that we are not hosts, but guests, at the banquet of the Lord. In Jesus’ parable, the tenant farmers started to act as if they were the owners of the vineyard rather than renters. Some churches act in a similar way around Communion, acting as if they own it, as if it is for them to bar others from the table. But Jesus said that the blessings of the vineyard would be taken from the wicked tenants, and given to those who produce fruit. In the same way, the Lord’s table is not ours to hoard to ourselves, but rather to invite others to partake. This is not our table, but the Lord’s table, and at the Lord’s table all seeking to draw close to Christ are welcome.

To me, it is striking that, in the midst of the Great Depression, with such widespread suffering, the Presbyterian Church conceived the idea of a day for all Christians to celebrate communion, to gather at the table. And it’s even more striking that, with World War II as a backdrop, the National Council of Churches adopted and promoted World Communion Sunday. Amid hunger and conflict, the church responded to God’s call in a way that seems impractical, but from a Christian perspective is compelling. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, it’s much more difficult to turn them away from our own table hungry, isn’t it. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, making war and bombing that person’s home and family is no longer an abstraction, but the annihilation of a human being with a face and a name and an eternal soul, a child of God like ourselves. The conception and promotion of World Communion Sunday in that troubled time, then, can be seen not just as a sentimental gesture, but as a prophetic act, pointing beyond the alarms of the day to the “beloved community” to which God calls us all.

We may forget that Paul wrote to the Philippians amid a similarly foreboding backdrop – he was separated from his beloved brothers and sisters at Philippi, confined to prison, with his future uncertain. In today’s reading, Paul gives us his resume as a Jew, to remind us of the cost of his obedience to Christ. It would have been easy for Paul to tell God, “hey, God, I didn’t sign up for this.” Instead, he tells the church at Philippi,

“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

As Paul pressed on, so the National Council of Churches pressed on despite dangerous times toward that same prize. And so we, who just celebrated our 150th anniversary but are beset with many challenges, we who proclaim Christ in a time in which many suffer and cry out for justice, are called to press on, to press on toward the goal, to keep our eyes on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Stuck in the Middle With You

2011-10-01T22:53:00.002-04:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 17:1-7, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32)

What a glorious anniversary celebration we enjoyed last Sunday! What a joy it was to see our church full, to greet so many people connected to Emanuel Church who are no longer with us on a week-to-week basis, but still feel a connection to Emanuel! What a glorious testimony to all that God has done in this place over the past 150 years. It was a special joy to see the video that Kris had put together of all the old photos from Emanuel – the many confirmation photos and photos of the Women’s Guild and photos of the Memorial Day tributes and all manner of other photos, with Florence Werner’s beautiful organ music in the background setting the mood. “Remember God’s Wonderful Works!”, Geneva preached, and we certainly did that last week!

Of course, there are those other moments from Emanuel’s history, the ones that didn’t make the anniversary booklet or the video collage, those moments that don’t get written down anywhere, but that come up in conversation now and then during our Bible study and at other moments when we’re reminiscing – the occasional pastors over the years that didn’t quite fit, the moments when a big decision had to be made and not everyone was on board, the church fights, the folks who left with hurt feelings over the years, the times when we were, as the saying goes, not quite ready for prime time, not at our best. Those moments don’t find their way into the anniversary booklet or the video collage, but just the same we remember them in conversation decades later – and I think we do so, at least in part, because the fact that God got us through those moments of tension and discord and disagreement and even pain in the past gives us hope that as God got us through painful times in the past, God will do so now and in the future.

Fortunately, in both the Old and New Testament, God’s people were willing to confess and write down for future generations not only their moments of heroism, but their moments of weakness; not only the moments when they were united in singing God’s praises, but those moments when they were divided into opposing factions and shouting at each other. Both our Old Testament reading from Exodus and our reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians give a snapshot of God’s people, caught in difficult circumstances. In Exodus, we see Moses leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, on the way to Mt. Sinai. Many centuries later, Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, is writing from prison to one of his favorite churches, the congregation at Philippi, to bring them encouragement, even though his own future is uncertain. And God is present, even in these very difficult circumstances.

On Mt. Sinai the children of Israel will encounter God in the form of smoke and thundering, and Moses will receive the law. But for now, they are in the wilderness, escaped from captivity in Egypt, but not yet in the promised land. And they’re tired, and it’s hot, and they’re thirsty. And they take their frustration out on Moses – “Have you led us out here in the middle of nowhere to die of thirst?” And Moses cried unto God – “Help! They’re ready to stone me!” And God provides! – Moses, together with some of the elders, is instructed to go to a certain rock at Horeb and strike it with his rod, and water comes out of the rock for the people to drink. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah. These names have significance – the Hebrew word Massah can mean “despair”, but it can also mean “testing”. Meribah means “quarrel”. And so these names are appropriate for a place where Moses cried to God from a place of despair, where the people quarreled with Moses, asking “Is the Lord with us or not?”

This place, Massah and Meribah, comes back at various places in the Old Testament. In Numbers chapter 20, the story is retold, with a difference – God commanded Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock and command it to pour out water, but instead Moses and Aaron struck the rock and failed to give glory to God for the water, and so they were not allowed to enter the promised land. In Psalms 81 and 95 and 106, the Psalmist invokes the memory of Massah and Meribah – “do not rebel against the Lord, as you did at Massah and Meribah.” Just as, for Americans of a certain age, the name “Watergate” is not just the name of a hotel in Washington DC, but a symbol of government corruption, for Israel, Massah and Meribah become a sort of shorthand for a time of despair and rebellion, a time when the people of Israel fought among themselves and tested God’s patience with their lack of faith, and even their leaders, Moses and Aaron, fell short. For generations to come, God’s people would look back on that moment and say to themselves, “See what happened when we quarreled and put God to the test. We don’t want to go back to that place again!”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians, written many centuries later, comes at a time when both Paul and this church he had founded were going down a difficult road. Paul is in prison, either in Rome or in some Roman prison elsewhere in the empire, uncertain of his fate. The church at Philippi, meanwhile, is going through difficult times, facing opposition from without and division from within, with two church leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, at odds, and the church split into factions, supporting one and opposing the other. It is notable that these were female leaders, and there’s nothing in Paul’s letter to suggest that this is anything unusual, and unlike some of the conservative churches of our day, it speaks of the greater status women had in at least some congregations of the early church. But, for now, the church at Philippi was in the midst of a squabble. Later in the letter, Paul notes that Euodia and Syntyche had struggled right along Paul and others for the cause of the Gospel. For now, though, they’ve fallen to struggling against one another.

Paul began his letter by sharing that some good had come even from his imprisonment; characteristically, Paul responded to imprisonment by taking the opportunity to preach the gospel to his captors, leading at least some of them to faith in Christ. And then Paul reframes the suffering undergone by the Philippian church by saying that what they’re going through is a privilege – the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well, in sharing in the same suffering that Paul is undergoing. It’s much easier to go through times of suffering if we can see some purpose, if we can find meaning in our situation. It’s not necessarily suffering, but meaningless suffering, that can break our spirit.

Paul urges his followers at Philippi to be in accord, of one mind, for his followers to look, not after their own interests, but to the interests of their brothers and sisters. And then Paul gives them the ultimate example of grace under fire, the example of Jesus. Paul’s words about Jesus are known among Scripture scholars as “the Christ hymn.” They are thought to be a fragment of a hymn or a part of the early church liturgy, perhaps part of a creed or affirmation of faith used in a service of baptism. Hear once again these words, used in the worship of the early church:

though he – that is Christ - was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

What is striking is that Christ, in the form of God, did not exploit or even grasp onto his divine status, but emptied himself. The greek word for self-emptying is “kenosis”, and Paul sketches out several stages of self emptying – from existing in the form of God to taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And not content to take human form, Christ empties himself still further, humbling himself to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Having emptied himself, having given up all divine privilege and even life itself, Christ does not exalt himself, but is exalted by God, and given the name above all other names, not to his own glory, but to the glory of God the Father.

Years ago I heard this explanation of the word “grace” – “God’s riches at Christ’s expense”. And the Christ hymn speaks of Christ’s self-emptying, and of the riches of God’s grace for us. But that grace is not for us to hold for ourselves, but to pass on to others. Paul seems to be saying: since we follow Christ who emptied himself for our salvation, how can we his followers insist on our having our own way and insisting on our own priorities. Rather, we are to live in the same spirit Christ did, being willing to care not about ourselves, but about our sister and brothers in Christ, and about our neighbors. This isn’t about being a bunch of phonies or pretending to be something we’re not, but allowing ourselves to be guided by the spirit of Christ.

It is said that suffering can make us bitter, or better. Remember that the name Massah means both “despair” and “testing”. We all have those times in our lives when we feel like we’ve hit bottom, our spirits are dry, crying out for refreshment. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we may well ask, “Why is all this happening to me, to my family? Is the Lord with us or not?” I would never discourage people from going to God in prayer with our questions, our doubts, our fears. Far better to lift up our doubts and questions to God, to bring them to the Lord in prayer, than to give into despair, better to bring our pain to the Lord rather than to follow the advice of Job’s wife to curse God and die. While we may not always get answers – or we may not like the answers we do get - God is big enough to handle our questions. As God did not abandon the children of Israel in the wilderness, God will not abandon us, even at our worst.

And we are led to an oasis of refreshment now and again. I see last week’s anniversary celebration as such an oasis. A packed church – wow, what a joy to see a packed church - beautiful music, a chance to talk with friends from far away, friends we haven’t seen in years or decades, recognition from the Conference and a great sermon by our Associate Conference minister, a chance to remember God’s past blessings….what a great way for God to refresh our spirits here at Emanuel. Many of our members and friends shared testimonies of what Emanuel has meant to them. I especially remember one of the Bethany Children's Home alumni, getting choked up as he shared his experience as an orphan, raised at the Bethany Home. This man who grew up without a mom and dad found (I think he said) over 800 family members. That’s a man on a mission. And because of Bethany’s roots at Emanuel, Bob feels a powerful sense of connection to this church. We're part of his extended family. He shared over and over: “This church matters. Emanuel Church matters. What you do here matters.” He sent me an email after he got home to Virginia, and I wrote him back, telling him how much his words meant to me, when week after week we struggle with attendance and resources – that it’s important that we keep on keeping on.

So now we’re setting out on another year of our church’s history. As our history booklet put it, our 150th anniversary celebration was not a goal in itself, but a waystation on the journey. Once again, God is leading God’s people forth. God has led us forth from despair, but we’re not yet in the promised land. We’re stuck in the middle – with you, with me, with each other – most importantly, with God, with the Spirit leading us on. So long as God is with us, it's a good place to be. And God – Emanuel, God with us – continues to stand by us through thick and thin. While we journey, with God as our guide, may the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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Please join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're located on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Philadelphia's Bridesburg neighborhood. www.emanuelphila.org

"Remember God's Wonderful Works" (The Rev. Dr. Geneva Butz's 150th Anniversary Sermon)

2011-09-24T12:45:00.007-04:00

Note: Emanuel United Church of Christ celebrated its 150th anniversary on Sunday September 18, 2011. The Rev. Dr. Geneva Butz, Associate Conference Minister for the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ, was guest preacher. Geneva's inspiring sermon follows...
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(Scriptures: Psalm 105:1-6, Philippians 1:21-30)

Remember God’s Wonderful Works

A sermon preached by Rev. Geneva M. Butz - September 18, 2011

Happy Birthday, Emmanuel UCC! Happy 150th Anniversary!! Today is a milestone in your history, and I am honored and pleased to be here to join in the celebration. I bring you greetings from our new Interim Conference Minister, Rev. Judith Youngman, and the 174 churches of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference.

You know it says in scripture, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." Well, today is a day of rejoicing, and we all join with you in marking this celebration! 150 years is quite an achievement. I’m sure there have been times when you wondered if you would see this day. Well, here it is! Congratulations!
The Psalm for today is a wonderful text for your celebration. It’s Psalm 105. The Psalm begins, in some translations, with a familiar word "Hallelujah!" There is no real meaning to this word, Hallelujah. It is simply a cry of praise. We say it when we are extremely happy. Hallelujah! Let us all say it together! Hallelujah!! Hallelujah to God for giving us this day. Psalm 105 is part of a series of Hallel Psalms that all begin with the word Hallelujah.

The next words we hear in this Psalm are words of thanksgiving: "O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name." Again, these are good words to hear this day. Today is a day of thanksgiving, of looking to God with gratitude for all that has gone before, of thanking God for all that has happened in and through this congregation. We could not find a better way to celebrate this anniversary than to give thanks to God for these 150 years. Surely you will agree, you did not make it on your own. God was with you, God was guiding you, God’s presence saw you through many difficult times and situations. So we begin this celebration by praising God and saying, thank you! You were with us, and because of you, O God, we pulled through.

According to Psalm 105, there is to be music in our celebration. And there has been very fine music today. The Psalmist asks us to sing our praises to God...to give glory to God’s name with song. We are to celebrate with our hearts and our voices, from the inside out, as we give praise to God with doxology–with music and singing. This Psalm itself was most likely sung because the Book of Psalms is the hymnal of the Jewish people.

Then the Psalmist asks us to remember all the wonderful works that God has done. You see, when we give thanks, it should not be just a general thanksgiving, rather it should be a specific listing of all the very real and rich, deep and meaningful things that God has done in this place with you, God’s people. Your time of testimony this morning was very beautiful, very moving. I really appreciated all the very real stories which were shared.

The Psalmist does likewise. The rest of Psalm 105 and the entirety of Psalm 106 are a recitation of the main events in the history of Israel. This is a good Psalm for a day of celebrating history. Starting with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Psalmist recounts the amazing experiences of the people of Israel–from slavery in Egypt and the Exodus, to the wilderness wanderings and settling in the Promised Land of Canaan. "So God brought the people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing. God remembered God’s holy promise, and gave them the lands of the nations....Praise the Lord!"

Today we are adding your stories to the history of Israel. We are adding the history of the church and your history here at Emanuel.

Maybe we should go next door to the cemetery and ask those who have gone before you to help us with this list. They are the communion of saints who constantly surround us and cheer us on. Just imagine, what they could tell us about all that God has done in their lives in and through this church.

I have read the history that Pastor Dave updated to include all 150 years–right up to the present time. In it are specific events which have occurred over the years. As I read through at your history, as outlined by Pastor Dave, I noted many small efforts which grew into something wonderful and significant. What are some of these?
 1862 - first Sunday School organized - 12 scholars before a house of worship was built.
 Money ($3,000) for plot of ground was raised by Ladies Aid Society–women sacrificing to pay for the ground on which this church was built.
 Started an orphanage in 1863–the 300th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism, now Bethany Children’s Home in Womelsdorf, PA. Still working with children. First contribution was $1.50
 Lots of missionary activity - pastors returned from the mission field and went or sent children to the mission field (China, Africa, South America)
 Your current pastor (Pastor Dave) is the great-grandson of Rev. Steinmann who served from 1918-1923 - introduced first English services.
 Connection with the Philadelphia Protestant Home - pastors lived there or served as chaplain there, including Rev. Gene and Dorothy Grau.
 Two ordinations: Rev. Charles F. Williman and Rev. Lois Ostermayer.
 Youth activities throughout your history - Knights of the Cross, Youth Fellowship, Junior Choir, Girl Scout Troops
 Recently ecumenical involvement - Polish Assemblies of God Church; support of Bridesburg Council of Churches

You may wonder, why it is important to know the history of your church. Why do you need to lift up events of the past? These stories happened years ago. What do they have to do with today?

Going back to Psalm 105, the Psalmist asks us not only to remember the wonderful works of God, but to tell about them, to name them, to talk about them. The Psalm actually says, "tell of all God’s wonderful works." Don’t miss one. Be specific. Lift them up, repeat the stories, share them, get excited as you remember how good, how great, and how steadfast God has been. God has been faithful. God has not wavered over all these years. God’s grace has been present, even when you or your ancestors doubted, were discouraged, or were unfaithful. When you look back and remember the stories from the past, the stories help you look ahead with hope and confidence. Because you know that God did not forget you in the past, you can be certain that God will not abandon you in the future. God will always be with you. That is God’s promise.

Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko writes these words in a novel titled Ceremony, "I will tell you something about stories....They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories."

As a church you are rich in stories. You have personal stories of faith, stories about events which happened in your life, stories about how God has healed and forgiven you and transformed your life. You have stories about your church which we are recounting today. And you also have stories from the Bible, stories of your ancestors in faith, stories about how God was with them and delivered them from hardships and difficulties. These stories give hope and direction and meaning to life. So you need to tell them and teach them and pass them on from one generation to another.

Stories that are written up in a book and put on a shelf have no meaning. Stories only have meaning when they are told. Emily Dickinson once wrote, "A word is dead until it is said." Then it has life and gives life. Stories are powerful. They shape and mold a person’s identity and outlook on life. They anchor a person, giving strength and courage for the future.

So, teach the stories of your faith to your children and your grandchildren; tell newcomers and the people in this neighborhood what this church is all about. Talk about this day, tell others what this church means to you and how God has been with you through the years. Let people know that Emanuel means, "God with us," and that you are here to bear witness to the truth of your name. Let this community know that God is present, not just for you, but for them as well.

Many people today know only stories of disappointment and failure. But you know the one who defeated failure and even death. Telling and talking is how you offer hope to others going through tough times. The stories of our faith have the power to save people from hopelessness, isolation, and discouragement. They give life. And you are here as a community, not just to share these words, but to provide a welcome and a home to all who seek God.

I like this summary from your printed history: "The growth of Emanuel has not always been easy. Beset with reverses and disappointments over the years, this congregation, with divine guidance, has continued to move forward despite temporary setbacks."

These are good words. The setbacks are temporary, but God’s faithfulness endures.

2000 years ago the Apostle Paul wrote challenging and comforting words to the young church in Philippi. He wanted to encourage them, even in the midst of stressful times. These words of Paul can give you, the people of Emanuel Church and the people of the Bridesburg community, hope and encouragement too. Paul wrote: "Live in such a way that you are a credit to the gospel of Christ....Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the Gospel, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the slightest before opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they are up against: defeat for them, victory for you–and both because of God. There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There is also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting."

Suffering and hope, they are linked. You learn that when you uncover the stories of your faith...and the stories of this church.

Emanuel Church, you have trusted in Christ, and you have suffered for Christ. Today, we celebrate and sing, we rejoice and are glad. And we say, thanks be to God because God has given you the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. May God grant you the grace of many more years of mission and ministry in this place.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m., as we give thanks for God's continuing wonderful works. We're on Fillmore Street (just off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org　
　
　

Forgiven and Forgiving

2011-09-11T14:30:00.003-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 50:15-21, Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35)

I suspect each of us has a story to tell about where we were on September 11, 2001. I remember it was a Tuesday, and a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. For myself, I remember I was at my office in Elkins Park, north of the city. I’d just gotten to the office maybe half an hour before, and was on the phone with someone from Blue Cross about some relatively mundane matter, when I heard a gasp on the other end of the line. I asked the person what was wrong, and she said that she heard on the radio that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Other people in my office had had similar conversations, and the few of us who had radios turned them on. As the events of the day unfolded – a 2nd plane flew into another tower, the Twin Towers collapsed, we heard about a 3rd plane flying into the Pentagon, and yet another plane crashing in Shanksville, PA – heard the words “America is under attack” - we were in a daze. People responded in various ways to the unfolding events. Many called their families, and then began to make calls to check in on any friends they had in New York City. Of course, the phone lines were jammed. In the days that followed, there were worries about other potential targets, even in Philadelphia. In 2001, I was on the Official Board of Old First Reformed church down at 4th & Race Street – right smack dab next to the Mint building. Would a terrorist try to fly a plane into the Mint, or Independence Hall, or some other symbolic target in Philadelphia?

Even now, 10 years on, the memory of that day gives me a sick, dazed, angry feeling. I suspect I’m not the only one. Our lives have changed. We have words in our vocabulary – homeland security, Patriot Act, transportation safety administration – that weren’t there 10 years ago. If we travel by air, we now take it for granted that we’re expected to remove our shoes so that screeners can be sure they don’t contain plastic explosives, and we know that we can only take tiny amounts of sunblock and toothpaste and other items that come in tubes and bottles. (On my first church trip to Cuba in 2008, my sunblock was confiscated, and I joked for the rest of the trip about my sunblock of mass destruction.) We live with the knowledge that our email messages and phone calls are likely under potential or actual government surveillance.

On a day like today, with all manner of local and national September 11 remembrances, today’s Scripture readings may seem not only irrelevant, but even offensive, practically obscene. On a day like today, listening to a Gospel reading about forgiving others 70 x 7 may make us angry, angry enough to see red, maybe even angry enough to walk out of the church service, perhaps spitting at an usher on the way out. On a day like today, our Epistle reading about respecting differences in worship traditions may make us instead want to thump our chests and insist that we, who of course worship God aright, are saved, and everyone else is damned. On a day like today, listening to Joseph’s words in our Old Testament reading – “what you meant for evil, God meant for good” – may make us turn away in disgust. What possible good can God bring out of a terrorist attack? And for those of us who lost loved ones in the attacks, September 11 will for the rest of our lives be a day not only of national, but of personal, mourning.

Our country has changed in the 10 years since September 11, and not necessarily for the better. I haven’t heard the phrase “freedom fries” for a while, nor have I heard people from France referred to as – to clean the phrase up a bit - “cheese-eating surrender junkies” recently – but 10 years after September 11, there is, I think more than before the attacks of 10 years ago, a very strong tendency in our country to think that every dispute, personal or national, can and should be settled with a fist, a knife, a gun, a bomb, that diplomacy and negotiation are for wimps and weaklings, for the French – indeed, for cheese-eating surrender junkies. Movies in which the hero saves the day by shooting people and blowing things up are a dime a dozen, but when’s the last movie anyone has seen about resolving personal or national disputes by means of conversation and negotiation. We don’t know, and don’t especially care, how other countries view the United States. And within the USA, the aftermath of the attacks has done nothing to bring us together as a nation. Within the USA, there seems to be little sense of community, little sense of what it is to work for the common good, almost no sense of what it is to be our brother’s or sister’s keeper. Congress is bitterly and hopelessly divided, for the most part bought and paid for by corporate donations, and outside of Washington DC it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. Those few who have risked their lives and their well-being for the common good – our military personnel, our national guard, our first responders, fire and rescue personnel – if they are injured, find themselves out of luck, our society expressing its gratitude by leaving them without sufficient health and disability benefits. More than a few of the folks we encounter on the street, missing arms and legs, panhandling, years ago had gone to Iraq and Afghanistan, and before that Vietnam, on our behalf. After World War II, a generous United States through the Marshall Plan sacrificed to rebuild war-devastated Europe. Fifty-five years later, the highways, bridges, and rail lines our fathers and grandfathers built are crumbling around us, and we won’t even sacrifice to restore them – our own infrastructure - to its former condition, let alone expand and improve them.

There’s a genre of movies – “Back to the Future” is the first that comes to my mind, “The Butterfly Effect” is a more recent effort – that envision what would happen if the lead character could travel back in time and get a “do-over” on some decision they later regretted. What would happen if the hero had asked the girl out on a date instead of pining for her at a distance? What would happen if they avoided a certain intersection where a fatal car accident happened? What if? Even though, yes, hindsight is 20-20 – even so, I’d ask us to think over the past 10 years and ask what if? What if our national leaders had worked to bring our country together, had worked to promote a sense of shared sacrifice, rather than letting poor and working class families bear almost the entire cost– in terms of death and injury – of our national defense over the past 10 years, while telling the rest of us to go shopping? What if our sense of patriotism had gone beyond waving flags, to actually trying to care for our injured troops and their families. What if we had tried to understand Islam – not convert to Islam, not agree with Islam, just try to understand Islam - instead of demonizing it? What if we had taken the time to find out who actually planned the attacks of September 11, 2001 and held them responsible, rather than stomping into other countries with guns blazing, willy nilly? Ten years after 9-11, it’s a haunting question. What if?

To be fair, our Scripture readings today are about resolving disputes within the family, within the church. Peter asked Jesus how many times he should be expected to forgive a member of the church. Paul was writing about disputes between the early congregations, early house churches, who had different views on whether it was necessary for Christians to observe the kosher laws. Joseph is addressing his own kin. Today’s readings say nothing directly about our actions toward those outside the church.

Even so – while our impulse is to read these passages like W. C. Fields, as he once said, “looking for loopholes” – the clear thrust of all three of our Scriptures is forgiveness, and beyond that, the desire for the restoration of a renewed relationship. Individual congregations are not to be divided into hostile factions; clusters of congregations are not to demonize and undermine each other. And beyond our own walls, in the words of our reading from last week, we are called to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us. Jesus’ talk of loving one’s enemies sounds lovely – until the moment we actually encounter an enemy, when suddenly these words of Jesus sound, not beautiful, but contemptible. And yet these words of Jesus stand. Pastor Dave didn’t put those words in the Bible; they were there in the Bible when I found it, there before I or any of us here ever thought to open a Bible. If we are to call ourselves Christians, we need to find a way to come to terms with those very difficult commands of our Savior.

I believe that, even in the horrors of the aftermath of 9-11, there were divine lessons to be learned, had we at the time ears to hear. And the book of Jonah reminds me that when God wants us to do something, God has a way of making it happen, has a way of sending a whale to pick us up from wherever we’ve fled and bring us back to where God wants us. To whatever extent we haven’t fully learned the lesson of forgiveness, God may find ways to replay the lesson for our benefit.

When we hold grudges, personal or national, what is missing is the consciousness of how much God has forgiven us. As difficult as it would be for any of us to find peace with the acts of 9-11 – God in God’s commitment to humankind, God in God’s gracious love for each of us has had to make peace with so much worse. Our crucified Savior reminds us that our purported righteousness is like filthy rags, that we all come before God with empty hands, that we are all entirely dependent on God’s grace. Because we are forgiven, we too are called to be forgiving.

The national office of the UCC sent out a 9-11 remembrance message this week. It acknowledged the losses, but it also called on us to remember with hope. It included two sayings of Jesus: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Perhaps for today it’s enough for each of us, in our own way, to ponder what it means to remember 9-11 in light of these words of Jesus. Amen.

Genuine Love (A sermon in a hurricane)

2011-08-26T20:26:00.000-04:00

**Note - Due to the impending hurricane, services at Emanuel are cancelled for Sunday August 28. Please make appropriate preparations and stay safe.**

(Scriptures:Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28)

Genuine Love

St. Francis of Assisi is probably one of the most venerated Roman Catholic saints. Born to a wealthy family, he felt a strong call from God to give up his worldly possessions, to live in poverty, and to serve the poor. He felt a strong connection to nature and once preached to a flock of birds. During the Crusades, he sought to make peace with Muslim Sultan of Egypt. His life was characterized by a deep desire to pattern his life as closely as possible to that of Jesus Christ.

We are continuing with Paul’s teaching in Romans. Remember last week, we read about offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, about being transformed by the renewal of our minds. We spoke of how this transformation is a gradual process, the work of a lifetime, that we should not be surprised to encounter obstacles to our transformation within us and outside us. This process of transformation is a lifelong process of letting go of our attachments to the world and its ways of doing things, and letting God remake us into the new creation God would have us be.

Paul’s lofty phrases in last week’s reading may leave us asking – what does this transformation look like? How will we know when God is at work within us? What will our transformed lives look like? And so in today’s reading Paul gives us some very tangible, down to earth, brass tacks, nitty-gritty, rubber-hitting-the-road pictures of what the new life in Christ looks like.

“Let love be genuine…. love one another with mutual affection, outdo each other in showing honor.” Eugene Peterson paraphrases this opening phrase “Love from the center of who you are….discover beauty in everyone.” Another translation says, “Don’t just pretend you love others. Really love them.” And if we really love others, we will love them with our actions as well as with our words.

“Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” A word of caution here: the verse says to hate what is evil, not to hate people who are evil. In our society – and even in the church – it’s easy, all too easy, to designate some persons – Muslims, gays and lesbians, atheists – as being beyond the reach of God’s love, as people whom we’re allowed, even encouraged, to hate, or, as in the words of one presidential candidate, saying that this group or that group of persons is “of Satan” - but that is absolutely *not* what this verse is telling us to do. We are to love everyone, not just our friends, but our enemies, not just those who help us, but those whose actions hurt us. We are not qualified to know what plans God has in mind for those around us, or where they are on their spiritual journey. We are on the invitation committee, inviting others to the new life in Christ, not the selection committee to determine who’s saved and who’s damned. No human being is qualified to say that any person or group of persons is “of Satan” – in fact, that line of thought has the potential to lead to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, attributing God’s work, the work of God’s Spirit in the lives of our neighbors, to Satan. Yes, we should hate what is evil – our culture of greed and selfishness in which the rich get richer and the poor get trampled, the gun violence that ruins so many lives in Philadelphia, our society’s neglect of the crumbling public housing and urban schools in which young people lose hope for a better tomorrow – we should hate these cirumstances, and oppose them, and pray and work to change them. But under no circumstances are we to hate other human beings. Under no circumstances.

And Paul goes on, “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” We need a quality of faith which will keep on keeping on even through times of discouragement – like Father McNamee in North Philadelphia, whom I mentioned last week, slogging through day after difficult day, year after impossible year in serving one of the poorest parishes and neighborhoods in the region.

Paul continues – “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Here we see that there are no limits on those to whom we should show love. Those who persecute us we should bless, those whom we count as enemies we are to feed them and give them something to drink. We are not to repay the evil of other with evil of our own, but are to overcome evil with good. The principle of an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. We cannot use the devil’s weapons to overcome the devil. Someone must act in love to break the cycle of escalating hatred and abuse – and as Christians, we are called to be that someone.

This is what Jesus was talking about, in different words, in today’s Gospel reading. Remember last week that Peter had claimed Jesus as the Messiah, the son of the Living God. So far so good. But then Jesus began to elaborate on what that would mean for himself – suffering, death, but on the third day resurrection. In response to Peter’s objection, Jesus told the disciples that they, like Jesus, must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him. To take up the cross and follow Jesus means to deny ourselves, to let go of our own projects and priorities in favor of the work of God’s kingdom, to let go of our own comfort in favor of serving those in need whom God sends our way. To take up the cross means to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us, to respond with love to abuse from others – as Jesus did. We must avoid giving non-Christians opportunity to say, as Gandhi was quoted, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” If we are disciples of Christ, there should be at least some faint resemblance between our lives and the life of the Christ we claim to follow.

None of this is easy. This genuine love Paul calls us to show is not weak and sentimental. It’s a durable love that goes on even when people are at their very worst – just as God continued to love the world that sent Jesus to the cross.

I’ll close with these words from the prayer of St Francis, which captures the essence of today’s readings:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
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Transformed

2011-08-24T07:42:00.002-04:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 1:8 – 2:10, Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:1-30)

Over the course of the summer, I’ve been re-reading the book “Diary of a City Priest” by Roman Catholic priest Fr. John McNamee. The book was made into a movie several years ago – perhaps some of you saw it? Fr. McNamee was pastor of St Malachy’s church at 11th & Master Street in North Philadelphia, near Temple University, before his retirement a few years ago. His book recounts his struggle to minister, day after discouraging day, year after exhausting year, to an impoverished neighborhood in which hardly any Roman Catholics live; the challenge of making his home in a neighborhood overwhelmed by poverty, substance abuse, violence. His book is a series of short but memorable vignettes about his interactions with his neighbors, and for me, many of the most memorable have to do with the seemingly incessant requests for help he receives – in the form of phone calls from neighborhood people who are overwhelmed with life and need a sympathetic ear, in the form of constant knocks on the door of the church from people from the nearby projects seeking food, or a few dollars to help pay for SEPTA passes and such. In his book, Father McNamee sometimes expresses second thoughts about his life choices – the celibate, often lonely life of a priest rather than the comforts of wife and family, the disconnect and distance between his ministry amid North Philadelphia’s devastation and the pomp and ceremony of Philadelphia’s hierarchy, the “official” church.

Father McNamee’s book came to my mind as I considered the words of today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome. Paul’s words at the beginning of our reading, which I’ve included in the bulletin as this morning’s focus verse, have a way of grabbing our attention: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Living sacrifice – yikes! We may be tempted to stop reading and change the subject right there, but I want to try to persuade all of us not only to keep reading, but to take Paul’s words to heart.

Paul’s words – “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” – may seem extreme, over-the-top, fanatical, freakish even. But I’d like to point out Paul’s opening words: “I appeal to you therefore….” Therefore. Paul appeals to his readers to present their bodies as living sacrifices, as a response to his words that precede this reading. What words would these be?

Those words of Paul, which Paul makes the basis for his appeal, tell of God’s incredible love, God’s incredible grace toward sinners, Jew and Gentile alike, the incredible affirmation that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the incredible affirmation that neither death, not life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then Paul speaks of God’s grace in cutting off dead branches in order to graft the Gentiles – that would be us - into the tree of faith. Grace. Grace! Paul’s letter, up to this point, has been a recounting of God’s persistent, overwhelming grace toward humankind and all creation.

So, with today’s reading, we have God’s life-giving grace, within us and all around us, that surrounds us in everything we do – therefore – how can we help but respond with praise and thanksgiving! And not only thanksgiving, but – to borrow a word from my colleague the Rev. Scott Bohr at the Presbyterian church – thanks-living. Thanks-living – living a life of worship and service, in gratitude to all that God has done for us.

Now Philadelphia isn’t always known for expressions of gratitude. During an Eagles game some 40 years ago, the fans booed a volunteer pressed into service at the last minute to play Santa Claus during halftime, and that reputation – as boo-birds, as the city that boos Santa Claus - has defined Philly sports fans, and Philadelphians in general, ever since. So perhaps in Philadelphia, getting to gratitude may take an extra dose of divine intervention. But Paul’s got that covered as well: he tells us not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. To be transformed – why? So that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. It’s only through the transforming power of God that we can even know God’s will, let alone try to live our lives in accordance with it.

With transformed minds, we are able to see ourselves with sober judgment, not as living for ourselves, but as part of something beyond ourselves, the body of Christ, of which we are all members, with different gifts and different functions. God has given each of us different gifts for service, to be used, not for ourselves, but for others.

The phrase “living sacrifice” may conjure visions of some dramatic act of heroism, but the reality may look more like small, daily acts of sacrifice – the sacrifice parents make to raise their children, the sacrifice adult children make to look after aging parents - the sacrifices of time and resources that many people have made over many years so that we are able to carry on the ministry of Emanuel Church to this day. It involves letting go – letting go of our pride, letting go of our priorities, letting go of our time and resources – not insisting on our own way, but letting go and letting God’s will prevail. It may look like the ministry of Father McNamee at St Malachy’s – daily acts of visiting the sick, listening on the phone to those who are overwhelmed by life, giving to those who ask for a can of food or a few dollars for carfare - less dramatic than running into a burning building to rescue someone, but exhausting just the same. It is in these daily acts of self-sacrifice, this daily life as a living sacrifice, that God transforms us so that we are no longer conformed to the world’s pattern, but instead to the will of God.

This transformation does not come quickly or easily. Very few people experience the instantaneous transformation of being knocked off our horse and being transformed from Saul into Paul. Most often, the process of transformation, the process of God’s renewing our mind, comes slowly and gradually over time. We may find ourselves taking three steps forward and two steps back. We may hit periods of discouragement. Father McNamee writes, of his own experience:

“Several times recently, people have said they don’t know how I do it, day after day, year after year in such an impossible landscape. Well, this is how I do it – poorly. I falter; I fail; I scream. I upset myself so that sleep will be uneasy….For myself, accept the fact that I am going to perform poorly often enough.”

And yet, even with his sense of his own incompleteness and limitation, Father McNamee’s book ends with a note of quiet grace. At the end of his book, which he wrote in the waning days of the year, Father McNamee writes, of his wrestling with his faith:

“When one experiences faith as so illusive, so fragile, one might have to cling more surely, and the fragile hold keeps one close and humble….Holding on so desperately at least makes me hold on, makes me aware that we have here no lasting place, gives me a healthy sense of my own need.

So. I close the book on this year with no sense of anything finished or even ongoing. It looks like still another year is given me, and I have little light, except that I should continue to be where I am and do what I am doing, only to do it more generously and patiently.”

In the words of our hymn earlier today, “Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave, and follow Thee.” May we at Emanuel live our lives in the shadow of Christ’s cross, offer our lives as living sacrifices, in service to neighbor and worship of God. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel Church on September 18 to celebrate our 150th anniversary. Worship is at 10 a.m., followed by lunch and social hour. www.emanuelphila.org

God's Inclusive Love (by the Rev. Dr. Michael W Caine)

2011-08-15T04:28:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 56:1-8, Matthew 15:21-28)

Note: On August 14, Pastor Dave did a pulpit exchange with the Rev. Dr. Michael W. Caine, pastor of Old First Reformed UCC at 4th & Race Streets. Below is Michael's sermon at Emanuel UCC.)

Our story today, about who can be, who is entitled to be at the table, is in between two miraculous feeding stories.

In the middle of the 14th chapter, we have Matthew’s version of the feeding of the 5000. You know that story-- where a great multitude of people --5000 men, not to even number, much less count the women and children-- has come out to a deserted place to hear and be healed by Jesus. When it got late, the disciples suggest Jesus should send all these people away, as they will need food and nothing is available for such a crowd in the middle of nowhere. Jesus takes the 5 loaves and 2 fishes; everyone is fed; 12 baskets of peices are left over.

The 15th chapter ends with another miraculous feeding, known as the feeding of the 4000. Similar to the first-- Jesus has compassion on the crowd; the disciples can’t imagine there could be food in the desert to feed such a multitude; after everyone’s been fed, there are baskets of leftovers. You might think that it’s a slightly altered version-- or in an oral culture, a differently remembered variant-- of the first feeding story.

But there’s importance in the details-- 4000 fed; 7 loaves and a few fish; and 7 baskets of broken pieces left over.

But before we get to that. The story we are given for today. Matthew 15:21-28. Alongside of the parable of the Laborers and the Hours, this might be my favorite Gospel passage.

A Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus to heal her daughter. That’s not so out of the ordinary. How many people came to Jesus seeking healing for themselves, their loved ones or acquaintances? And the daughter is healed-- just a day in the life of our Savior.
But in between the mother’s cry and daughters’ healing, there are some jarring details.

First of all, there’s the identity of this woman, a Canaanite woman. Matthew’s choice of the word “Canaanite” is important. By the time of Jesus, people were no longer called “Canaanites.” That was an old label, from the days when the Israelites were in the wilderness. eyeing the promised land, to take it from “the Canaanites.”

But In Jesus’ or Matthew’s day, the name was no longer on the map. It’d be like referring to New York as “New Amsterdam” or Cleveland “the Northwest Territories.”
In other words, Matthew uses “Canaanite” on purpose: his very pointed point is that this woman is “other.” She’s not just foreign. She’s also the enemy.

Neither Jesus nor we should be surprised at that... he’s left his own neighborhood; he’s in enemy territory, the region of Tyre and Sidon, home base for this woman and her people. Not where Jews lived. She is of a people who were historically enemies of the Jews.

And if we encountered her passionate pleas, even right here in church, we’d probably judge her strange too. She keeps begging Jesus in this loud voice to heal her daughter who is tormented by a demon.

We’re UCC, we don’t pray like that. Or play like that. Demons aren’t part of our religious pantheon. And even our prayers--- truth be told, when life gets really hard, we too may beg God sometimes, but in a quieter, more private way.

But this mother, she’s desperate and comes out shouting: “Have mercy on me!”

But, church, there’s more: in Jesus’ day, women did not speak to unknown men in public. Actually, women didn’t really speak to men outside of their families. Well, some women did, but custom suggested that only prostitutes acted in such a brazen, forward way.

Isn’t that what we do with people who are different? Disapprove, add a negative value judgement to what makes them different; leave them morally suspect?

Maybe Matthew means for us to remember another women mentioned earlier in his story... Rehab, the prostitute who is named in Jesus’ genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew. Rehab, too, was a Canaanite. What’s a Canaanite prostitute doing in Jesus’ family tree?

The disciples don’t want to think about such questions. They want nothing to do with such women: “Send her away!” they tell Jesus. The same response when faced with thousands of hungry people. “How can we handle their needs; send them away, Lord.”

But this time, surprisingly, Jesus also advocates dismissal. He too is unwilling to help. This woman may not be Jewish, but she calls out to Jesus in language of the Jewish prayer: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” But Jesus isn’t fooled or swayed by her use of familiar language. In his understanding, this woman has nothing to do with him, no claim on him. He does not answer her at all.

This isn’t Jesus at his best, church. Or at least, it’s Jesus on a bad day, when he agrees with the disciples’ wish that she’d just go away. Only the disciple’s request-- that Jesus send her away-- gets him to respond. He now adds to their sentiment, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

But our Canaanite woman, she isn’t backing down easily. She’s right in his face now. She’s not going anywhere, and Jesus isn’t shying away from a confrontation either. Here’s a recipe for something happening.

Then Jesus goes right to the dogs. He answers her, “It’s not right to take what is meant for the children of God and throw it to the dogs.”

Ouch. No soft, loving Jesus here. Our tradition teaches Jesus was both “fully God” and “fully human.” And Jesus’ humanity, usually it’s appealing. That our holy One can also be that much like us.

But not this human! ...because this human, he’s neither approachable nor particularly godly. Instead, he comes off as rough and arrogant. Narrow, just plain mean, racist.

Does this sound like the Jesus you know, the Jesus you trust, the Jesus we worship?
I’ve not been sent for your people; I only minister to my own kind.

Or

God’s love is for some, not others.

Or

You people are dogs.

Matthew doesn’t clean up this story or touch up his picture of Jesus.

I suspect that’s important for us. We probably don’t want to say it in church even half as loud as the Canaanite woman was begging for mercy, but we all have someone we doubt God’s love stretches far enough to reach. Each of us rests assured that Jesus came to us and our kind before coming to... you fill in the blank... “those people” or “that kind of person.”

But, like I said, our Canaanite sister... she’s not backing down. Maybe she’s just feisty and stubborn. Or is it the fight in mom with a dying daughter? Or could it be that somewhere deep inside of her, God’s assured her, deeply, unquestioningly, of her worth-- in ways Jesus hasn’t even imagined yet.

“Yes, Lord,” she retorts, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

I imagine at this point, Jesus, hearing her chutzpah, feeling the sting of her insight against his short-sightedness and prejudice... Jesus must have smiled. At her wisdom and grace under pressure. At how she’s seen something about God that she’s just shown him.
“Woman, great is your faith!”

Her faith does have an expansiveness to it. She’s speaking the truth, perhaps a truth she’s know a long time, even all along. There’s no reason to believe Jesus is about to reward her for a conversion experience she’s having.

Jesus is the one who’s heart and mind are being transformed. Letting our bible stories speak together, I can almost imagine him putting together these various episodes:

The children have been fed. 5000 men besides the women and children. And there were 12 baskets of pieces left over. That was my lesson... illustration really-- to the disciples and everyone else gathered there... that the love of God promises abundance that meets every need.

And, this sister, foreign as she may to my faith, understands my teachings better than I do!

The conversion of faith wasn’t the Canaanite woman’s but Jesus’ who was converted that day to a larger vision of the commonwealth of God. Jesus saw and heard a fuller revelation of God in the voice and in the face of the Canaanite woman.

How do I know this? Here’s where we need to get back to the two food-multiplication stories that Matthew uses to bookend the Canaanite woman’s story.

The second feeding story happens where Jesus encountered this woman. Meaning, Jesus is now multiplying loaves and fishes for non-Jews-- 4000 men are fed -- besides women and children. And there are 7 baskets left over. 7, the number, in the Bible, of wholeness, completeness-- in this context signifying inclusion of all the nations.
After the first food-multiplication-miracle, 12 baskets are left over-- there’s food enough for all 12 tribes of Israel. But in this second food-multiplication-miracle, 7 baskets left after Jesus fed Gentiles promises God’s got food enough for all the nations.

The Canaanite woman teaches Jesus that “others” deserve more than crumbs. Jesus learns her lesson, and his ministry changes, expands... After this point in Matthew’s Gospel, he understands his mission to go further than the boundaries of Israel.

If Jesus could be changed, can’t we also? Surely God’s love is enough to offer all children more than crumbs?

Gathered and Gathering

2011-08-14T13:56:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 56:1-8, Matthew 15:21-28)

Note: Pastor Dave did a pulpit exchange with the Rev. Michael Caine, pastor of Old First Reformed United CHurch of Christ in center city Philadelphia. Pastor Michael preached at Emanuel, and Pastor Dave preached at Old First. Below is Pastor Dave's sermon at Old First:
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It’s a great joy to be back at Old First. These days, I serve a congregation in Philadelphia’s Bridesburg neighborhood, where Michael is preaching this morning – and so I’m here. I see lots of familiar faces – which brings great comfort – and lots of unfamiliar faces, which gives me a great deal of hope for the Old First’s future.

I don’t get here much these days, but I keep up with things to some extent via the weekly E-pistles from Michael, with the links to various current events and topics of interest. A year or two ago, I attended, along with many here, focus groups whose intent was to name those communities who might be especially responsive to Old First’s message of welcome: young post-college professionals, families with young children, the LGBT community, and those who have been turned off by past experiences of church. Given the number of unfamiliar faces I see here this morning, your message of welcome is getting through – to people who are a part of your target communities, and to those who aren’t, but still feel called to make Old First their spiritual home. Thanks be to God!

Who is our target population? Or, in a broader sense, “Who’s welcome in the Lord’s house? Who’s welcome to come here and encounter God in worship?” This question is one with which all churches struggle. Generally answers to this question fall along two contrasting lines. On one hand, there’s often a tendency, especially in times of change and tension, to circle the wagons, to maintain strong and well-defined boundaries, to protect the community by keeping unwelcome strangers out, lest they disrupt the congregation’s fragile equilibrium. Countering that is the Gospel call to extend welcome and Christian love to all. I was struck by a statement on Old First’s website: “Everyone new who walks in the door changes who we are.” For some churches, that statement is a threat, bringing tension and anxiety. For Old First, it’s an expression of hope.

This question of when to circle the wagons in order to protect the community, vs. when to welcome the stranger and the sojourner, is a question with which the church has struggled from its earliest days. Could Gentiles become Christians without first becoming Jews? Could women have leadership roles in the church, or should they be silent and save their questions for when they were home with their husbands? More recently, during America’s first century of independence, could slaves become Christians? Who is welcome in the Lord’s house?

And these very questions – “When do we maintain strong community boundaries? When do we welcome outsiders?” - are questions Isaiah is addressing in today’s Old Testament reading. Isaiah was addressing the Jews who had returned from exiles in Babylon. They had come home to Jerusalem with such high hopes. But things had gotten bogged down; it had taken so long to get the Temple reconstruction project off the ground. Beyond that, there was the question of who would be welcome in the Temple once it was built. After all, the Jews had lived in Babylonian exile for 50 years. The younger returnees had no memory of the Temple; for many, Hebrew was a second language, or even a foreign language. Some of the exiled Jews had married foreign wives. Some of their men had held positions of trust in the Babylonian leadership – at the high cost of becoming eunuchs. Who’s welcome to assist with rebuilding the Temple, and when it’s built, who’s welcome to worship there?

From its earliest days, God’s word offered guidelines about who was included and who was excluded from the family of faith. Of course, circumcision was a sign of the covenant, a sign of inclusion in the community. But there were other restrictions. Some of these are found in the 23rd chapter of Deuteronomy: “No male whose privates have been maimed or cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. No Ammonite or Moabite, nor their descendents even to the tenth generation, shall be admitted to the assembly.” It’s not that such persons were entirely excluded from living in the same town or village as the Jews; indeed, Deuteronomy 24 specifically offers protection to resident aliens. But it was a limited welcome, a welcome that stopped at the Temple door.

After the return from Babylon, many community leaders used such guidelines as justification to circle the wagons, to maintain strict boundaries on the worshipping community. Zerubbabel, who led one of the early groups of returnees, was adamant that only Jews could participate in rebuilding the Temple. Ezra and Nehemiah, who spearheaded much of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, led a national rite of purification before resuming worship in the Temple. As part of this purification rite, Jewish men were commanded to divorce and send away any foreign wives. The message from these leaders was clear: the purity and integrity of the community had to be preserved, lest the community go astray once again and be sent into yet more decades of exile, perhaps even permanent exile. Anyone and anything foreign to the community had to go – and they’d best be careful not to let the door hit ‘em on the way out!

Isaiah sent a different message. He remembered that God had not only promised to make Abraham a great nation, but had also promised that this great nation would be a blessing to other nations – remember, God told Abraham “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Again and again, Isaiah invokes the promise that the nations would come to Judah to learn of God: “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” “Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you.” Those whom Ezra and Nehemiah saw as a threat, Isaiah saw as a potential source of blessing.

In today’s reading, Isaiah specifically lifts up two groups: eunuchs, and foreigners, both of whom see themselves as being disowned by God’s family, cut off from the community of faith. You could say these are Isaiah’s target population in this passage, analogous to Old First’s desire to reach out to those who have had bad experiences with church. It was not uncommon for monarchs in the nations surrounding Israel to place eunuchs in positions of trust in their royal courts – for example, they could be trusted to guard the royal harem – and doubtless this was the experience of some who had gone into exile in Babylon. In Isaiah’s time, reproduction and perpetuation of the family name were considered paramount obligations – especially during the return from exile, when those returning were trying to retrace their family lineage. To die childless was considered a crushing misfortune, for your family name would die with you. And, of course, eunuchs were powerless to father children to carry on the family name. From that narrowly focused point of view, what were they good for? Why are they here. They felt like they were just taking up space. Well might they say, in despair, “I am just a dry tree.”

But, says Isaiah, the Lord offers words of encouragement: “Thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep (or hold fast) to my Sabbath, who choose those things in which I delight, and who seize my covenant, I will give within my house and within my walls a monument and a name that shall not be cut off. So those for whom the possibility of continuing the family lineage was “cut off”, would be given a monument and a name that would not be “cut off.” In other words, that while their family lineage or family name may be “cut off” from the standpoint of bearing sons, within the Lord’s house, their monument and name will not be cut off, but rather will last forever, built into the very walls of the house of the Lord, never to be removed. A monument and a name that would last forever, built into the very walls of the house of the Lord – that’s what God promised those eunuchs who despaired that their family name would end with them.

God makes a similar promise to the “sons of that which is foreign” who join themselves to the LORD (the Hebrew word for “join” is also sometimes used to say “borrow” or “loan”; the sense may be “those who put themselves on perpetual loan to the Lord”), to minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath, and hold fast my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples Those who thought they would be separated from God by reason of their foreignness, can instead come with celebration, with joy, to God’s holy mountain. They can come - not just to stand in the back near the door, but to be welcomed into the center of the family of faith, rejoicing that their sacrifices, their worship, will be accepted – indeed, will be welcomed.
The section concludes with verse 8, which literally translates as something close to “The Lord God, who gathers those banished from Israel, still gathers to those already gathered.” So God, who gathered those banished from Israel when Isaiah’s words were written, was still gathering last year, and was still gathering last month, was still gathering yesterday, while you were doing laundry – and is gathering today, right this minute - and will be gathering tomorrow. God gathered you, and God gathered me, and God is still gathering people to God’s holy mountain, still making God’s house a house of prayer for all peoples. For all peoples! Not just for some.

We see God’s ongoing action of gathering people in our Gospel reading this morning, in which Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman with a prayer request. In our Gospel reading, we literally see Isaiah’s words come true. On encountering the Canaanite woman, not only the disciples, but even Jesus himself is initially torn between the impulse to circle the wagons and the impulse to reach out, between the imperative to maintain purity and the imperative to extend love. Initially, responding from the traditional stance of maintaining separation, he tells his woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus had a target population for his ministry, and Canaanite women weren’t part of it. Because of the woman’s persistence, however, Jesus came to rethink and expand his sense of mission, expanded the target population of his ministry.

This choice of strong walls or open doors is one with which Old First is well-acquainted – and Old First is making faithful choices, thanks be to God. Our church’s moves, amid demographic changes, from 4th & Race to 10th & Wallace and later to 51st and Locust reflected the congregation’s recognition that the target population of its ministry was not the population surrounding the church building. Old First literally chased its desired target population from one end of Philadelphia to the other. Faced in the 1960’s with the need for yet another move, Old First made a different choice this time, a choice, not to follow its target population out into the suburbs, but to return to our original home, open our doors, and welcome those whom God has gathered and sent our way.

In the United Church of Christ, one of the UCC national office’s favorite bumper-sticker phrases in recent years has been “God is still speaking.” But for this morning’s purposes, I’d like to change that a bit, to say, “God is still gathering.” God is still gathering, still gathering us, still gathering our friends, still gathering our neighbors, and still gathering lots of folks we’ve never met into God’s house of prayer for all people.

One of my frequent reminders to my congregation in Bridesburg is that, “God has appointed us to the invitation committee, not to the selection committee.” So let’s welcome all those whom God has gathered, and is gathering, and will gather in the years that remain to us and to our congregation. May God grant that Old First will continue to live into Isaiah’s vision of being a “house of prayer for all people”
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“Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, ‘I will gather others to them beside those already gathered.’” Those whom God gathers, let us not scatter. Those whom God gathers, let us welcome. Let us give thanks and praise to God who gathered us, and let us give thanks and praise to God for all whom God will gather in days to come. Amen.

That Sinking Feeling

2011-08-07T13:06:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33)

One of the joys of my day job in accounting is that my boss has an endless stream of - accountant jokes. (It’s ok, he’s an accountant too. It’s ok when accountants make fun of ourselves.) For example, what’s the difference between an introverted accountant and an extroverted accountant? An introverted accountant looks at his shoes when he talks to you. An extroverted accountant looks at your shoes when he talks to you. How do you pick an accountant out of line up? Easy - It’s the guy wearing both a belt and suspenders….just to be sure his pants stay where they’re supposed to. All of which is to say that, while accountants are not known for their sparkling social skills, they – we - are legendary for being cautious, for doing what we can to anticipate everything – to use the words of Donald Rumsfeld, “the known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns” - that could threaten the financial stability of their employer.

While Jesus told a parable about an accountant – remember the parable of the unjust steward – these days, it would be the parable of the Enron accountant – and while Jesus had a tax collector, Matthew, along his followers, today’s Gospel reading is not about Matthew the tax collector but Peter the fisherman. The outlook of an accountant and the outlook of a fisherman of Jesus’ day could not be more different. For an accountant, doing one’s job is all about being accurate about the things that are known, and being cautious in estimating the things that can’t be pinpointed. Accountants don’t like to take risks. However, for a fisherman, if he isn’t willing to take some risks, in getting into the boat and putting out into water, he and his family aren’t going to eat. And from the record of the Gospels, it appears that Peter and the other disciples were willing to take risks. More than once, the Gospels tell us of the disciples being caught on water in violent storms – I suppose it would be considered an occupational hazard.

Today’s Gospel reading is one of those times when the disciples were on the sea in rough water. Jesus had sent the disciples off in the boat to return to Genesseret, then went by himself up the mountain to pray. Meanwhile the disciples were fighting the wind and waves, and it was in the wee hours of the morning. Jesus comes to the boat, walking on the water, and the disciples start freaking out, thinking they were seeing a ghost. And Jesus told them not to be afraid. Peter, still not sure, told Jesus, “if it’s you, command me to talk on the water.” And Jesus, probably smiling a bit, went along with Peter – “ok, Peter, get out of the boat.” And, amazingly enough, Peter stepped out of the boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus – until, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the waves and felt the wind whipping around him. He started to sink, and cried out for Jesus to save him. Of course, Jesus was there to catch him, and said to Peter, “you of little faith – why did you doubt?”

Why do we doubt? The church has often been compared to a boat, to an ark, a place of refuge for God’s people on the rough seas of life. Sometimes, though, we behave more like accountants than sailors; rather than leaving shore and taking a chance on the boat – and ourselves – getting bounced around, we’d rather keep the boat on shore, and content ourselves with painting the hull – and maybe sing some songs about sailing while we’re puttering around. We want to focus inward, caring for our building, caring for ourselves, taking care of our own. And it’s no great challenge to trust in Jesus when our feet are planted on solid ground, when our lives are humming along predictably. But Jesus calls us to get into the boat, and push out into the water. We want to focus on maintenance, but Jesus calls us to mission. He wants us, as the church and as individual believers, to actually go places and do things in his name.

So, ok, we’re on the water. We may need to adjust a bit – get over our seasickness, take some Dramamine if we need to – and the boat rises and falls, and we need to get our sea legs, adjust to walking on a deck that’s bobbing up and down, and there are occasional jolts – but, ok. We’re in the church. We’re doing mission. We’ve moved from being accountants to being sailors, and sailing is a good bit riskier than bookkeeping – but we’ve adjusted. We’ve learned to trust Jesus through the normal rise and fall of the waves.

But then there are times in all of our lives when the wind really starts whipping and the waves come crashing onto the deck of the ship. We wonder if God has forgotten about us. Or maybe God was never there to begin with – maybe it was our own voice we heard, telling us to leave shore. We feel ourselves taking on water, and we panic! What’s going to happen to us? We may be so terrified, so freaked out, that even when Jesus comes to be present with us, we don’t recognize him.

When Jesus calls, “it is I, do not be afraid” – what is our response? Remember that as long as Peter kept his focus on Jesus, he was safe, even out of the boat, doing something seemingly crazy, walking on the water. It was when Peter was distracted by the wind and waves going on around him that he panicked again, and began to sink. And of course Jesus didn’t let Peter drown, but reached out a hand to catch him.

By focusing on God, even when the wind and waves are swirling around us, we can find a calm place within us, a place that the wind and waves can’t touch. Even when our circumstances turn against us, when all that was once familiar to us seems strange and threatening, God does not abandon us.

Remember the story of Joseph that was our Old Testament reading. Joseph, who was his father’s favorite, became the object of his brothers’ jealousy. Joseph was taken from the security of his family and ended up in, of all places, Egypt. And yet, even in that strange place, Joseph kept faith with God, and God watched over him. In fact, Joseph was able to provide for his brothers in time of famine. At the end of his life, Joseph was able to tell his brothers, “what you meant for evil, God meant for good.” Like the Apostle Paul, we can affirm that “no one who believes in God will be put to shame.” Like the Apostle Paul, even when the wind and waves are swirling around us, even when all that we know has turned against us, we, like Paul, can affirm that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Come what may, let us look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was waiting endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Amen.
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Please climb on in and take a seat at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore St (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

Grabby!

2011-07-31T13:27:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 32:22-31
Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21)

Our Old Testament reading this morning is about Jacob, the flawed, complicated, infuriating man, son of Isaac, twin brother of Esau, who nonetheless was shown great favor by God. As we meet in Scripture the various characters who have been part of the great drama of faith, we may identify emotionally or spiritually with some characters more than others, may respond to some characters with awe, to others with pity. But we may not know what to do with Jacob. He’s just not a nice guy. We may have family members or coworkers who rub us the wrong way, who step on our toes, who God apparently put in our lives in order to teach us patience. And Jacob is like that. But we may find reassurance that, if someone as difficult, as ornery as Jacob can find favor with God, there’s hope for us as well.

Literally from the moment of his birth, Jacob did not play well with others – from the moment of his birth, from the moment he drew his first breath, he was grabbing the heel of his brother Esau, and his name is a play on the Hebrew word for “heel”, and is interpreted to mean “one who supplants”. Today we’d call that person “grabby”. This birth narrative set the tone for the relationship between the two brothers – Jacob does indeed turn out to be a heel - as Jacob first bought Esau’s birthright in exchange for a bowl of stew, and then tricked his aged father Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau. Not surprisingly, Esau was murderously angry at Jacob. Rebekah, Jacob’s mother, arranged for Jacob to stay with her brother Laban, and then told Jacob to get out of Dodge City.

At key points in his life, Jacob experienced visionary encounters with the divine. As he fled Esau to go to his uncle Laban, Esau had the vision in which he saw a ladder ascending to heaven, with angels ascending and descending. At this time of crisis, where he was literally fleeing for his life, God reassured him with the promise that had earlier been given to Abraham, of land and of a great family of descendents.

Having arrived at his destination, Jacob finds Laban to be every bit as tricky as Jacob is. Jacob and Laban turn out to be well-matched – not so much like peas in a pod, but more like a pair of scorpions in a bottle. Laban tricks Jacob into serving him for a total of fourteen years and marrying off both Rachel, whom Jacob loved, and the older sister Leah. But Jacob ends up prevailing over Laban in the end. After a total of 20 years with Laban, with Jacob and Laban for 20 years trying to get over on each other, Jacob left Laban, takes with him not only both Laban’s daughters, but vast flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.

At this point, Jacob learned that Esau was coming to meet him, with 400 men, and Jacob was terrified. Jacob had spent his whole life taking advantage of others, tricking his father, getting over on his brother, matching wits with Laban. He’d spent his whole life grabbing – grabbing his brother’s birthright and blessing, grabbing Laban’s daughters and flocks. Now Esau was coming for him, and he wasn’t alone. Had Esau been stewing, nursing a grudge for those 20 years? Was Esau coming for revenge? Was Jacob’s lifetime of grabbing what belonged to others, his lifetime of being a heel, going to come crashing down on his head?

And at this crisis point, Jacob has another vision, in which he spends the night wrestling with an unknown stranger. As he had all his life, Jacob seems to prevailing over the stranger – until the stranger fights dirty, putting out Jacob’s hip. Disabled, Jacob still hangs on for dear life, refusing to let go. He tells the stranger, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” The stranger gives Jacob a new name – Israel – meaning “God strives” or “one who strives with God.” And Jacob gives the place a new name, Peniel, meaning “face of God.” – because, Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face and lived to tell the tale.” Jacob walks off from that place, limping because of his hip, to meet his brother Esau for the first time in 20 years – it’s a tentative meeting, polite on the surface, but cautious – and Jacob tells Esau – “to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” As the stranger at the river had proved to be gracious to Jacob, so Esau likewise proved gracious. And, for once, instead of grabbing what belonged to someone else, Jacob presented Esau with gifts of cattle. Jacob, who had been blessed by God, was able for once to be a blessing to Esau.

This story of Jacob wrestling with God and the renaming of Jacob with the ambiguous name Israel – God strives, or one who strives with God – sets the tone for God’s relationship, not only with Jacob, but with Jacob’s descendents, the whole nation of Israel. Israel is blessed by God, but Israel grapples with God and God struggles to control and tame Israel. It’s a difficult, stormy, contentious relationship, but our gracious God refuses to walk away from Israel….as God refuses to walk away from us.

For Jacob’s story, Israel’s story, may be our story as well. Twice in the midst of crisis – when Jacob had to flee from his brother’s fury and when Jacob 20 years later finally had to face his brother – twice when Jacob feared for his life, Jacob experienced God’s presence in the midst of fear. What looked like a threat turned out to be a blessing. In his wrestling with God, Jacob was both changed and blessed. He came away from that experience with a blessing, with a new name – a new identity - but also with a limp that would always remind him of his face-to-face encounter with the divine.

We all encounter crisis points in our lives. A natural disaster or an accident or illness threatens our health, perhaps our life. Loss of employment leaves us in fear for our future. Anger and betrayal threatens to divide our family, or threatens a lifelong friendship. The sins of our past catch up with us, threatening the future. We’re upset, off-balance. We’re in crisis mode, with adrenalin pumping. “Why did this have to happen?” we ask. “Where do I go from here? Where is God in all this? Has God abandoned me?”

We may also struggle with our own sense of sinfulness. We may have things in our past that make us feel cut off from God’s love. Maybe we’ve had bad experiences with church in our past. We may wonder if God can love us.

It may be that, far from being abandoned, this place of crisis is exactly the place in which God seeks to meet us in a life-changing way. Rather than running, perhaps it’s time to face our fear, to grapple with fears in light of our faith, to grab onto God for dear life and hold on tight. We may be in for the ride of our lives. Like Jacob, out of crisis we may be both changed and blessed. We may come out of our crisis carrying the scars of our struggle, but with a changed life and with blessings from God that follow us from that time forward. Looking back on our struggle, we, like Jacob, may say, “Surely the Lord was in that place, and I didn’t even know it.” May we, like Jacob, keep on keeping on through times of crisis, and seek the God’s presence in the struggle. Amen.
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Need a place to ride out a time of crisis? Come to Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m., and grab onto the joy and love of Christ. We're on Fillmore St (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

A Turning Point (August 2011 Newsletter)

2011-07-30T22:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –

“[Jesus] said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Matthew 16:15

Jesus’ question to Peter marks a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. Until this point, most of Matthew’s Gospel has told of Jesus teaching the crowds, healing the sick, feeding the multitudes, calming the wind and waves. Asked by John’s disciples if he was the one for whom they had waited, Jesus’ response seems ambiguous. Jesus reminded John’s disciples of his miracles and allowed them to draw their own conclusions. He spoke as if, for John, Jesus’ deeds should speak for themselves. And then Jesus sent the disciples out on their first mission. Up to this point, they had experienced Jesus as teacher, healer, worker of miracles. Accordingly, when Jesus asked who the crowds thought he was, the disciples said that he was seen by the crowds as a prophet.

But then Jesus asked, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, always eager to run off at the mouth, blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus was well-pleased with Peter’s answer. But then Jesus began to speak of the suffering he would undergo, and Peter was thrown off balance, to the extent that Jesus rebuked Peter’s lack of understanding. Jesus went on to tell the disciples that, just as Jesus would suffer, his disciples would have to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him.

Jesus’ question to Peter is also Jesus’ question to us. So how do we answer Jesus’ question? Who is Jesus for us? Do we see Jesus primarily as one who will meet our needs, answer our prayers, give us emotional “warm fuzzies”? Not that any of these responses are necessarily wrong - Jesus does all these things - but is this all Jesus is? Like the crowds who followed Jesus, is our faith primarily about getting our own needs met? Do we have a quality of faith that will go the distance when Jesus bids us take up our cross and follow him? Where Jesus leads, are we prepared to follow?

Jesus challenged his disciples to go beyond the easy, noncommittal, partial understanding of the crowd, to go deeper, to reach a place in our faith where we are ready to embrace, not only the joys, but the costs of discipleship. Difficult times, times of tragedy, times of distress, challenge our faith. Like Job, we ask, “where is God in all of this?” But if we are willing to hang on tight to our faith, to wrestle with life’s challenges and questions in light of our faith, we may find a blessing. What we find may not exactly be answers to our questions, but an experience of God’s presence. We may be able to look back on our time of struggle and challenge, and say, “Surely the Lord was with us in that place!”

See you in church!

Pastor Dave

Seed, Yeast, Pearl, & Fish

2011-07-30T22:52:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 29:15-28
Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)

I’ll open today’s sermon with what is perhaps a familiar story: the story of the ten blind men describing an elephant. Since they were blind, they could experience the elephant primarily through their sense of touch. The ten touched and handled different parts of the elephant. Asked to describe the elephant, the one who touched the trunk said, “The elephant is like a snake, slithering back and forth”. One who touched the leg said, “The elephant is like a tree trunk, very thick and sturdy.” One who touched a tusk said, “The elephant is curved and very hard and pointy on one end.” One who touched an ear said, “The elephant is like a leaf, flapping in the wind.” And so on. All were right – about the part of the elephant each touched – and all were wrong in assuming that what they experienced is all there was. The elephant was, in part, like all of these things, but in its entirety was like none of these things.

Today’s sermon title may look like the name of a law firm – “if you’ve been injured in an accident, call the law offices of Seed, Yeast, Pearl & Fish….” – but in reality it’s a combination of the various metaphors Jesus uses in today’s Gospel to give his listeners a glimpse of the Reign of God. I think the wide range of images tells us that the Reign of God Jesus describes is something that’s nearly impossible to sum up in just a few words, something that is not just one thing, but many things. It’s sort of as if, in order to explain what this Reign of God is, Jesus is having a sort of “show and tell” time with his listeners, pulling different images out of his mind and sharing them with his hearers, and explaining how each of these images tells something about God’s reign.

The first two images describe the Reign of God as something that grows, that starts out very small and has power far beyond the size of its origins. In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus is playing with images that would have been familiar to his Jewish audience. The Ezekiel, 17th chapter, verse 22, provides a classic Old Testament image of the coming of the Messiah: “God will a twig from the top of a cedar and plants it on a high mountain, so it will produce branches and bear fruit and becomes a mighty, noble cedar, and in its shade, every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest birds of every kind.” In this parable, the birds represent the Gentile nations; it’s the image repeated elsewhere in the Old Testament of a time in which Israel will be a blessing to the Gentiles, to the nations, and people would come from the north and south and east and west to be blessed by Israel. In his mustard seed parable, Jesus plays with this image – he may have had his tongue in his cheek as he was speaking - and brings it down to earth: instead of the noble cedar tree, the common mustard bush. While mustard could be grown as a spice, there were also wild mustard bushes that you might not necessarily want in your garden, that could grow like a weed and take over any ground in which it landed. So Jesus’ image of God’s reign is equal parts ‘mighty oaks from little acorns grow’ and “you give it an inch, it’ll take a mile.” But it also includes the image of shelter; the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. All sorts of people – Jew and Gentile – will find shelter, will make their home in the expansive reign of God. The parable of the yeast parallels the mustard seed image; a tiny bit of yeast in three measures of flour – which in our measuring would have been about a bushel of flour - can make loaf rise into a huge amount of bread, to provide nourishment for many. Like the image of the mustard bush, there’s some ambiguity in this image as well: remember that while under the kosher guidelines leavened bread could be eaten most of the time, in preparation for Passover, observant Jews were to purge their homes of any leavened bread. So these images of the reign of God are very down to earth, not speaking of something far away on a mountain top and or set apart for high holy days, but something that’s common, something that ordinary people could experience every day, but something that has enormous power of growth and transformation. Sort of like the old camp song you may remember: “it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up to its glowing/ that’s how it is with God’s love, once you’ve experienced it, you spread His love to everyone, you want to pass it on.”

The next two snapshots of the kingdom – treasure hidden in a field, a pearl of great price – to show that responding to God’s reign isn’t just a priority, one of many, but rather the priority. The response of the person who wasn’t even looking, but stumbled onto a treasure – and the response of the merchant who was looking for something, but found a treasure far beyond expectations – is not moderate. Apparently they never heard the saying, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Their reaction isn’t like that of a stockbroker who prudently wants to keep a balanced portfolio of investments – some stocks, some bonds, some money markets, a little of this sector, a little of that. No, in both cases they sell everything else in order to acquire the treasure. And Jesus is saying that that’s the response he seeks from us – our commitment to God’s kingdom isn’t to be one commitment among many, one of the many balls we juggle and try to keep in the air – but rather the commitment, our foremost commitment, the commitment that makes us get up in the morning and put our shoes on and face the day.

And finally, the parable of the fish caught in a net. This parable is sort of like last week’s parable of the wheat and the weeds – all sorts of folk will respond to the invitation of the kingdom. When we evangelize, we’re to cast a wide net, inviting in as many as possible. It’s not our job to sort people out, but rather to invite them in - “Love them all, and let God sort them out.”

Whew! What a strange collection of images! How do you bring all this together?

I guess one way to look at it is to consider what these images are not. These images are not about tidiness, not about moderation, not about straight lines and neat boxes. They’re also not about heavy-handed power from above. Rather, they’re about growth that runs wild, about a kingdom that draws everyone in and provokes extravagant responses. It’s also a kingdom that doesn’t look like much at first glance, and involves all kinds of people. Just as God chose an aged, childless couple named Abram and Sarai as father and mother of a nation, just as God uses the trickery of characters like Jacob and Laban to produce the 12 tribes of Israel - God’s realm is the same way – all kinds of folks are to be found there, and all sorts of folks have a part in God’s plan. We expect something that resembles a mighty oak tree or cedar, but we end up with a mustard bush growing out of control, or yeast bubbling up inside a lump of dough. There’s immense – even supreme - value there, but it’s hidden, hard to find, like the pearl of great price.

So today’s message seems to be – wake up! Keep your eyes open. Be aware of your surroundings. And expect the unexpected. God reigns, but likely in the last place we’d care to look, or among the last people we’d expect to find it. And when we find it, we are to respond with everything we have, joyfully being willing to put everything else on the shelf in order to respond to God’s call.

I was at the morning funeral for our former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Gene Grau. Gene Grau was one who followed the Lord wherever the Lord called – to Ghana, to an interim pastorate in England, to numerous pastorates in southeastern Pennsylvania, including of course here at Emanuel. At the funeral, in addition to folks from Brownback’s United Church of Christ and numerous other UCC congregations, there were two rows of people from Ghana, some in African dress – and who but Gene Grau could have drawn such a wildly diverse collection of people into the same room. Truly, like yeast, God’s love got into the life of Gene Grau, and his life story is the account of his extravagant response to God’s call. Like a mustard seed, God’s love was planted in Gene Grau, and as God’s love grew in Gene, people from around the globe found shelter through Gene’s many ministries over his lifetime of service.

And what happens when we make this extravagant response, when we give ourselves to God’s work? God doesn’t promise us a rose garden. There are risks. We can think of the early disciples, faced with hostility both from the Jewish religious establishment and the mighty Roman empire. They were few, they were weak, they were persecuted, and some were martyred….and yet they turned the world upside down, sort of a mustard seed producing a huge bush in which birds could find shelter, or yeast making a lump of dough rise. Even facing all that hostility, they had assurance of God’s care, similar to what we find in our reading of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome:

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose….If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
'For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God worked through that small group of early disciples, as God worked through Gene Grau, and I’m convinced that God is working through our small gathering here at Emanuel, just as God worked mightily through the small group that founded Emanuel congregation back in 1861. At first glance, we may not look like much, but neither does a mustard seed, or yeast….and yet when we put ourselves in God’s hands, God will use us far beyond what our numbers and resources suggest. When we put ourselves in God’s hands, we are more than conquerors, and nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. So let us allow ourselves to be surprised by joy at what God is doing and what God will do through Emanuel Church, here in Bridesburg, and in places we’ll never know about until that great day when we see God, not dimly as in a mirror, but face to face. Amen.
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Please join us on Sunday mornings at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org

Sower, Seed, Soil

2011-07-10T22:49:00.001-04:00

Scriptures: Genesis 25:19-34,
Romans 8:1-11 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

(Note: This sermon includes a brief tribute to Emanuel UCC's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went home to be with the Lord on July 8.)

Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel gives us one of the more familiar of Jesus’ parables. The parable and its interpretation seem fairly straightforward – a sower tosses seed onto varying kinds of soil, some favorable to the growth of the seed and some unfavorable. The seed falling on the varying kinds of bad soil – stony, shallow, weedy – either doesn’t sprout at all, dies early, or is choked and fails to produce fruit. The seed falling on the good soil, by contrast, produces a bumper crop. In Matthew’s interpretation, the seed is the gospel, and the varying kinds of soil parallel varying responses to the Gospel. The parable is so straightforward that it seems difficult to say anything new about it – it says what it says, and that’s that. But it sometimes happens that when we are confident we know what a Scripture says, we may later find that what appeared to be a straightforward Scripture has layers of meaning we’d never considered. If we are too quick to turn off our hearing aids in response to familiar Scriptures, we may miss a message God has waiting in the text for us.

For example, the sower’s methods may seem, to us, a bit odd. If we’re planting tomatoes in our garden or rows of corn on some patch of land we own, we would likely first take time to prepare the soil by plowing it to break up the hard surface and by pulling weeds. And we might be careful in spacing out the seeds, roughly estimating some number of inches between each seed, lest we plant them too close together and in competing for nutrients, they crowd each other out. That’s what we would do, but the sower in our story behaves very differently. The sower tosses handfuls of seed here, and there, and everywhere, so that some seeds land on the hard path, others amid the rocks, others under a thorn bush – and yes, the sower does manage to get some of them inside the garden, onto the soil that’s known to be good. If you’re trying to conserve a limited number of seeds and wants the greatest return on that limited investment, you won’t do what the sower in Jesus’ parable did. But in the framework of the parable, the seed is the Gospel – God’s good news – which is unlimited, boundless. There’s no threat of running short or running out of Gospel – with God, there’s always good news in abundance. So, if the sower has an unlimited, self-replenishing supply of seed – well, then the sower can afford to take a more expansive view of sowing, tossing seed onto the soil that’s known to be prepared and fertile, as well as giving the less desirable ground a chance to nourish the seed. And that’s what God does with us, offering the Gospel to those prepared for it, but also to those whose hearts truly aren’t prepared to act on it – or at least not prepared to act on it at that moment. God gives everyone a chance to respond.

Why did the early church record this parable of Jesus? Perhaps they were perplexed that despite their best efforts, so many seemed unresponsive to the Gospel. Various teams of disciples would enter a town, find their way to the town square, and proclaim the message of Jesus. While some would respond, often with extravagant joy, others would be indifferent and some would be openly hostile. How could so many turn away from Good News? For those early disciples, hostile reactions to the gospel must have seemed as baffling as hostile reactions to ice cream would seem to us. And then the early church remembered this parable and reflected that Jesus never expected everyone to respond – or at least not to respond immediately.

Which brings me to another point about this parable that caught my interest. In the framework of the parable, the sowing of the seed, or the sowing of the Gospel, is something that happens once. Either the seed sprouts, or it doesn’t. You snooze, you lose. But one parable can’t say everything there is to say about God’s saving acts in the world, and in our experience, the seed is sown not once, but many times, over and over. The seed is sown every Sunday here at Emanuel and other churches, is sown in words of hope and deeds of kindness throughout the week. And our lives may contain all sorts of soil, some areas receptive to the Gospel and other parts, not so much. As Alexander Solzhynistan wrote, the line between good and evil runs, not between countries or between political parties, but through every human heart, through each of our lives. I can think of any number of times when I heard some word of godly exhortation, that at the time I heard it, either didn’t make sense or seemed downright offensive. But while nothing much may have happened at the time, that seed, that word, exactly because it annoyed or bothered me, got tucked away in the back of my mind until some later point in my life when, with more life experience – that is to say, more experience of God’s grace - under my belt, I was ready to respond. In this way, I’ve changed my mind on lots of topics over the course of my life. I suspect each of you have too. I believe God is constantly tilling the soil, constantly preparing our hearts for the gospel. Those parts of our lives that are hard like trampled-over ground or crowded with the weeds of conflicting priorities - God will eventually get around to plowing and weeding even this unpromising soil. Those parts of our lives that in the past may have seemed untouched by Good News – jobs that drain us, difficult relations with family members, our use of our time and money – will finally be prepared to respond to God’s word of grace.

And what a response! Jesus said that when the seed of the word falls into fertile ground, it will bring forth fruit in abundance, 30 times as much, or 60 times, or 100 times as much. No matter how beaten-down we may feel, we may find ourselves amazed by the fruit of God’s work in our lives. In this connection, I think of my predecessor, Emanuel's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went to be with his Lord late last week. His was an amazing life, including missionary service in Ghana, leadership positions in the Philadelphia Association and the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, and faithful pastoral service for more than six decades, including more than a decade here at Emanuel. We at Emanuel knew Rev. Grau when he was in his 80’s and 90’s – but I’d ask us to remember that once upon a time, long years ago, Rev. Grau had been a baby, had been a young child, had been a little boy named Eugene Grau. I would love to know – who planted the seed of the Gospel in Eugene Grau’s life? His parents? His home church? Whoever planted that seed, there’s no way they could have known how fruitful for the Lord Gene’s life would become. Truly in Rev. Grau’s life, the seed of the Gospel brought forth fruit a hundred fold, a thousand fold even. Who can know how many lives were touched by the seeds of the Gospel planted by Rev. Grau over the course of more than nine decades on this earth.

Rev. Grau was an outstanding example of a life well lived for the Lord, and not all of us can point to accomplishments like his. But all of us can respond to the Gospel in our own way, with words of kindness and deeds of love, taking the fruit of the Gospel in our lives and planting them as seeds in the life of others. Those who respond to the Gospel can affirm, with Paul, “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With Paul, we can cry to God, “Abba! Father!” even calling God “Daddy” – that’s what “Abba” means in this context, knowing that it is the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. With Paul, we can affirm that in Christ, God is able to do in our lives what we are unable to do for ourselves. May this good news of the Gospel bear abundant fruit in our lives, and may that fruit of the Gospel be life-giving to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.

Lighten Up!!

2011-07-10T22:40:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures:
Genesis 24:34-67 Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19,25-30)

Jesus’ words near the end of our Gospel reading are among the most comforting in Scripture. Jesus invites all who labor and are heavy laden, all those weighed down by the cares of life, to come to him. Jesus promises that his yoke is easy, and his burden lighter than the burdens we impose on ourselves.

This message of Jesus runs counter to the message of our society, and counter to our own attempts to manage our heavy loads. In our culture, we draw much of our identity from our work. If I meet someone for the first time, I may ask them, “well, where do you work?” or just “what do you do?” Since the Industrial Revolution, our society has used machinery to reduce the need for brute force, and more recently computer technology has reduced the need for mundane, repetitive mental labor. The hope has always been that this technology would introduce an age of leisure, with machines and robots tending to our every need. The outcome, however, has not been a reduction of work, but rather a change in the nature of work. While there is indeed less need for physical strength or certain forms of mental drudgery in the work place – it’s been a long time since I’ve had to add up long columns of numbers by hand - the work force seems divided between those who have difficulty finding work, because of limited demand for their skills, and those who are employed and are working longer and longer hours to keep up with the demands of management, or working two and three low-pay, no-benefits part-time jobs – want fries with that? - to keep up with the bills. We have not, thank goodness, yet reached the point of Japan, where the cultural expectation to work weekends and overtime has led to the Japanese national phenomenon of karoshi, death by overwork. But our culture’s overemphasis on work leads to strain on families, lack of sleep, and, for many, an ongoing sense of feeling drained, spent, used up.

In the church, we may find expectations that may be different, but just as daunting. A sense of obligation can lead us to take on more and more responsibility at church – as if everything depends on us, and the entire place will fall apart if we don’t show up, if we don’t stand and deliver. Guilt and shame – whether over specific failings or a general sense of failure – may block out the light of God’s love and joy from our lives. Our attempts to deny and hide from our sins and limitations can make it hard to be honest with those around us. If we carry a false image of a God who is angry, endlessly demanding, vengeful, we can tie ourselves up in knots trying to appease the wrath of the great Taskmaster in the sky.

In our reading from Romans, Paul gives us a vivid description of his struggles with sin and his thanksgiving for God’s grace. As Saul, trying to please God apart from the saving work of Jesus, he tied himself up in knots and tore himself to shreds. Remember that when, as Saul, he persecuted the church, he did it precisely because he thought it was what God wanted. After his Damascus road encounter with the Risen Christ, he learned that those he thought were detestable sinners were instead God’s beloved, that his best, most fervent attempts to please God were instead sin, were instead precisely an offense to God. The law declares God’s will, and Paul wants to do God’s will, but because of the power of sin finds himself instead doing what he detests. Like an addict, the compulsion of sin drives Paul to do what makes him sick at heart. For Paul, the law acts as a mirror, and gazing into that mirror, Paul is horrified by what he sees. He feels himself locked away from light of God’s grace, staggering under his burden of guilt. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul asks. And then Paul answers his own anguished question with words of gratitude and praise – “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

We may find ourselves described in Paul’s words. We affirm that, in baptism, our sinful nature has been put to death, and we rise out of the water in the new life of Christ. These are God’s promises – but the fulfillment of these promises comes over the course of our lives. The power of sin, though ultimately broken, still stubbornly hangs on. The new life in Christ, begun in baptism, is only fully realized in the life to come. Our future is with God, but the past, represented by sin working through our flesh, is still very much with us. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, for despite our stumbles in this life, by God’s grace, we are assured that the new life begun in baptism will become eternal life with God. For now, Paul says in Colossians 3:3, our lives are hidden in Christ – the true selves that God would have us be, the true selves that in the future we will be, for now are hidden in Christ. When we feel weighed down with guilt, we can have faith that sin and death do not have the last word. Though life in the present may be a very mixed bag, our true selves, the selves we are destined to become, are hidden in Christ. And we can rest in that. Every week we confess our sin, and every week we affirm that, in Christ, our sins are forgiven. This isn’t to say that God is indifferent to sin – indeed, human sin led Jesus Christ, God the Son, to the cross - but rather to affirm that the power of sin in our lives is broken, not by our own efforts, but by the saving work of Jesus Christ. Having been freed by Christ from sin, we are now freed to love and serve God and neighbor. Having broken the heavy yoke of sin under which we staggered, we are fitted with the easy yoke – the Greek calls it a good yoke or a kind yoke - offered by Christ.

What burdens are you carrying? Are these the easy burden of Christ, or the heavy yokes we lay on ourselves and each other. It is not Jesus who bids us to work ourselves to an early grave – remember that God commanded us to observe the Sabbath – that is, to rest – and in the Deuteronomy version of the 10 Commandments, God explicitly links the command of Sabbath rest to God’s liberation of Israel from the heavy servitude of Egyptian bondage, where there was no rest. Characteristically, the religious establishment of Jesus’ day turned the Sabbath itself into yet another burden, but it was Jesus who liberated the Sabbath, saying that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath. It is not Jesus who bids us to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. It’s not Jesus who leads us to envy the lives of others. It’s not Jesus who calls us to pretend to be something we’re not, to project a false image of ourselves.

Indeed, the power of sin tries to project a false image of God – tries to depict our gracious God , our God of love, as a vicious, vengeful God, as a puritanical God who wants to stamp out every bit of pleasure in our lives. But in Scripture, God’s love and grace come through. Our Old Testament readings depict this experience of God’s love. After last week’s harrowing reading from Genesis, in which God narrowly averted Abraham from offering Isaac as a sacrifice, we have today’s somewhat long, but utterly lovely story of the coming together of Isaac and his wife, Rebekah. Human love, human caring, human tenderness, are gifts from God, gifts to be embraced, not shunned. This comes through even more strongly in our reading from the Song of Solomon, a collection of ancient love songs, one of the few such readings in the lectionary. If you think of Scripture as dry and didactic, a collection of “thou shalt nots”, if you haven’t read the Song of Solomon for a while, I’d encourage you to give it a look. It’s sensuous, it’s erotic – and it’s in the Bible. Later interpreters saw these songs as an image of God’s love for humankind – and if this is the case, God’s love is passionate, tender, God wooing and God pursuing humankind in love.

And finally, in our reading from Matthew, Jesus responds to criticisms that he hangs out with the wrong kind of people. He’s seen as a party guy, hanging out and even eating with sinners. In Jesus’ time, the banquet table was seen as an image of the kingdom of God – if you invited someone to a banquet, you were in effect also saying that you’d like to sit at table with this person in the kingdom of God – and Jesus kept inviting the wrong people to the banquet. Again, God pursuing sinners, not dragging them off to a public flogging, but inviting them to a banquet.

In a few moments, we will gather to be refreshed at the Lord’s table, to share bread and wine, to remember Christ’s offering of his body and blood, in the assurance that in this act of eating and drinking together, Christ is truly present with us. So come to the table, not because you must, but because you may. Come to the table, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and Christ will give you rest. Amen.

A Prophet's Reward

2011-07-10T22:37:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 22:1-14 Jeremiah 28:5-9
Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:32-42)

Today the lectionary gives us an odd, and challenging, assortment of Scripture readings. We have the very difficult story of Abraham’s willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice before God stops him. We have Jeremiah’s response to a false prophet who promised a speedy end to Babylonian captivity. We have Paul’s ruminations about the power of sin and grace in our lives. And we have the tail end of a section of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in preparation of sending them out on their first mission. He is very up front about how divisive his message will be – households will be set to disagreement about him, because Jesus makes an absolute claim for the primary loyalty of his disciples. Jesus said that those who would put even their own families above their commitment to Jesus are not worthy of Jesus.

We get a picture of what loyalty to God will mean in our very difficult reading from the Old Testament. We’re told that God tests Abraham by demanding that he offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. In hearing this, we should remember that Isaac was Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, the son that God had promised Abraham and Sarah, the son for whom, in their old age, Abraham and Sarah had waited for so long. And now God was telling Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. And as we read, we wonder – how could God ask such a thing. It’s a barbaric request. It didn’t make sense. And the text heightens the unease within us when, in addressing Abraham, God explicitly refers to Isaac as “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.” Talk about twisting the knife!

Oddly, we’re not given any sense that Abraham hesitated. He makes the necessary preparations and calls Isaac to go on a walk with him. We’re not given access to Abraham’s thoughts during the long walk to the top of Mt. Moriah. We do learn that Isaac seemed to be getting some hint of what was to come, or at least was feeling increasingly uneasy about where this walk with his father might be leading, when Isaac observed that Abraham had brought everything but the sacrificial animal, to which Abraham said that the Lord would provide the sacrifice. And, of course, that’s just what happened: After Abraham had bound Isaac for sacrifice and raised his knife, the Lord stopped him just in time, Abraham saw a ram stuck in the bushes, and offered the ram as the sacrifice. God commended Abraham for proving that he would not withhold his own son from God. As awful as this story reads to us, it’s considered a holy moment in Jewish history; the mountain was called Yahweh-yireh or Jehovah-Jireh – the Lord provides. Through the years, as people would ask “how did this mountain get the name “The Lord Provides”, the community elders would recount this story. Many centuries later, King David offered a sacrifice on this same site to ward off a plague on his people, and it is thought that this is the same mountain where Solomon’s Temple was built. Also, this incident established once and for all that, unlike some of the false gods of the peoples surrounding Israel, Israel’s God did not demand human sacrifice as payment for the peoples sins.

It would be hard to imagine what the walk down the mountain was like for Abraham and Isaac. On one hand, both were alive to walk down the mountain, and that’s good. But what would the conversation have been like? Perhaps Isaac asked his father “what on earth were you thinking?” Isaac must have wondered if he could ever fully trust his father again. Both lived to tell of their encounter with the divine, and both were blessed for their faithfulness, but both were forever changed by the experience – it was a most costly blessing.

Now, in our Gospel reading, as Jesus is preparing his disciples for their first mission trip, Jesus is not asking his disciples to offer their families on altars as human sacrifice. But Jesus is asking his disciples potentially to sacrifice their relationships with their families, to put their loyalty to Jesus ahead of their loyalties to their families. Especially with the more conservative expressions of Christianity having become so identified with what they call “family values”, Jesus’ words here seem almost – dare I say it – unchristian. And so we may hasten to try to explain away Jesus’ words….surely he didn’t mean to say that! But if we read the Gospels with an open mind, without preconceived notions, with the blinders off, we will likely find that Jesus’ sense of family values was and is very different from the family values we hear about from the TV and radio preachers. On one hand, Jesus saw marital vows as binding, and left only narrow grounds for divorce. Jesus also condemned the tradition of his day by which one could avoid supporting their parents by designating portions of their possessions as items designated to donated in the future to the synagogue, and the writer of I Timothy says that one who fails to provide for their family is worse than an unbeliever. Divorced women and widows without support were very vulnerable in Jesus’ day, and Jesus didn’t want the Christian community to leave these vulnerable ones out in the cold, so to speak. On the other hand, Jesus was calling his followers into a family of faith whose ties were to be even stronger than those of our natural family. This is how Paul, in one of our readings from Romans that we’ll encounter in a couple weeks, could call Jesus the firstborn of a large family. This is how Jesus could say that his disciples who had left behind their families would receive a family a hundredfold. Indeed, once when Jesus was teaching and someone said his mother and brothers were outside the house, Jesus called his followers his true family, and left mom and the brothers standing outside. So it is in this sense that Jesus said he had come to bring a sword; the kind of Christian community he sought to build would inevitably intrude on families of birth or families of marriage, would leave non-Christian family members feeling like they, too, were shut out of some part of the lives of their Christian family members.

Jesus ends this difficult, difficult section of teaching by saying that those who find their lives will lose them, while those who lose their lives for his sake would find them. At this point, Jesus’ demands likely were giving his disciples second thoughts…do we really want to hang around with this guy? Maybe when he sends us out, we should just keep walking. But then Jesus ends with a few verses about rewards – that those who provide hospitality for his disciples, it is as though they provided hospitality for Christ himself. Anyone who welcomes a prophet as a prophet receives a prophet’s reward, and one who welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person receives the reward of the righteous, and one who does as little as offer a cup of cold water to a new believer – whom Jesus called “one of these little ones” – would not lose their reward.

That phrase, “a prophet’s reward” struck me as having multiple layers of meaning. What is a prophet’s reward? On one hand, we know that prophets generally met with opposition – remember that Jesus called Jerusalem the city that stoned the prophets. Our brief reading from Jeremiah reminds us that false prophets like Hananiah, who told people what they wanted to hear, were welcomed, while true prophets such as Jeremiah, who told them difficult things that they needed to hear, were persecuted. And certainly those who openly welcomed and provided hospitality to a prophet, might risk bringing down on their own heads the persecution encountered by the prophet – a sort of guilt by association. On the other hand, by casting their lot with the prophet, and by extension, casting their lot with God, God would set their hospitality on the same level as the prophet’s faithfulness, and reward them accordingly. So prophets received contrasting rewards, if you will – persecution from the world; eternal life from God.

It would seem that, in these passages, God is making a whole lot of extreme demands. God asks much. Perhaps it seems that God asks too much. How can God possibly expect us to be willing to leave everything else behind to be disciples of Christ? When we start to think along these lines, we should remember that God is not asking anything of us that God did not do himself. Abraham was, finally, not asked to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but God did offer his son Jesus as a sacrifice. As costly as Christian discipleship may be for us, it’s nothing compared to what God’s passionate, committed love affair with humankind has cost God. As today’s reading from Romans says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord is the gift of God, free to us – but purchased by God at great price, the death of his Son Jesus. Similarly, while we cannot work our way into heaven or do anything to earn eternal life – truly responding to the message of Jesus will, over time, change our lives in radical ways. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, because of the saving work of Christ, we are freed from sin to be radically obedient to God, called from self-absorbed, self-centered isolation into the new community of faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of this in his book “The Cost of Discipleship” when he contrasted what he called “cheap grace” – the false view that because of the saving work of Christ, we can continue to do whatever we want and Christ will somehow clean it up in the end – with what Bonhoeffer called “costly grace” – grace that makes a radical change in our lives. And Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached: Bonhoeffer’s radical obedience to God at a time when the German church of his day was corrupted by obedience to Hitler, led him to his execution by the Nazis.

From Romans 11:22 – “Note then the kindness and the severity of God.” God’s great kindness led Jesus to the cross. God’s severity demands a response from those who would follow. In today’s readings, God’s severity may demand that we leave behind all that is familiar for the sake of the Gospel. By contrast, in God’s kindness, God will reward even those who offer a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus to the least of Christ’s disciples. May God’s radical kindness toward us lead us toward radical kindness toward our neighbors. May we at Emanuel always be ready to welcome those whom God sends us. Amen.

One in Three

2011-07-10T22:33:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1 – Genesis 2:3 Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20)

Today is Trinity Sunday, in which the church lifts up the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in other language, God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday following Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Given the amount of thought the church has given to this doctrine and the amount of conflict the doctrine has produced – there have been numerous controversies, and even the split in around the year 1054 between the Eastern and Western church was related to the way in which the Holy Spirit relates to the other two persons of the Trinity – not to mention the much more recent and much more localized split in New England and elsewhere between the Trinitarian Congregationalists, who went on to become part of the UCC, and the Unitarians, who did not - it is striking that the word Trinity is nowhere found in Scripture. While readings such as today’s mention the persons of the trinity and there are other hints of the Trinity elsewhere in Scripture, the full-blown doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in Scripture. I say this to remind us that the doctrine of the Trinity is a human creation, a human attempt to understand that One God who is presented in three persons in Scripture. Inevitably it a human attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, to define the undefinable – for any God within our ability to define is inevitably a God that we have shrunken and made over in our own image. And whenever we discuss human doctrine, no matter how venerable, we need to maintain some measure of humility, recognizing that while doctrine is – one hopes - derived from Scripture, it does not carry the weight of authority that Scripture does. Nonetheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is among the most venerable the church has to offer.

One way in which the Trinity is understood is in terms of function: God the Father as creator, who created the world, and not just our world, but the cosmos, all that is, God the Son as the redeemer, who proclaimed the reign of God and by his death and resurrection liberated us from sin, and God the Holy Spirit as sustainer, God within us, God among us, giving us strength for each new day, praying in groans to deep for words when our human thoughts and words fail us. Yet all acts of creating, redeeming, and sustaining are done, not by three separate gods, but by our one gracious God.

However, the doctrine of the Trinity speaks, not of one God with three functions, but of one God in three persons. So there is an image of intimacy, fellowship, among the three persons of the trinity. This intimacy is defined under the Greek word “perichoresis”, meaning mutual interpenetration and mutual indwelling, beside which the deepest human intimacy appears only as the faintest of shadows. We get some sense of this in John’s Gospel in Jesus’ farewell address to his disciples, when he says such things as “I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and you are in me as I am in the Father. This only mentions two persons of the Trinity, Father and Son, but it’s no great leap to extend the metaphor to include the Holy Spirit in this image. Perichoresis – peri means “around”, and “choresis” comes from the same root as choreography – so we can think of the three persons of the Trinity in a continual, eternal, never-ending choreography or dance of mutual love. All of which is to say that we worship a God who is relational, both within Godself and in always reaching out in love to humankind, with a depth of relationship, of passion and yearning, that human beings can, at best, only barely begin to glimpse.

Our reading from Genesis shows our Triune God at work. As God speaks the universe into being – “let us create” – we remember that John’s Gospel affirms that Son, the Word made flesh, was present from the beginning, and we feel the Spirit moving over the face of the waters.

During the coffee hour last Sunday, we read the creation story, as we read it this morning. We noted that there’s something different in the creation of humankind than from the other parts of creation, that humankind is said to be created in God’s image. It’s the only part of the creation story where we read this affirmation – in God’s image God created them, male and female God created them. Certainly, we share much in common with animals – we have bodies, internal organs, and such. We have much of the same fight or flight instincts they do, what evolutionary biologists call our “lizard brains”. But as we think of the ways in which humans differ from animals – in having consciousness, a soul, the ability to think, to plan, to relate, to love – to name just a few – we can affirm that in these elements, humans resemble God in a way that animals do not. We’ve spoken of the dance of mutual love among the persons of the Trinity, and given that joy, we may well wonder, with the Psalmist, “what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them.” – and yet the Psalmist also affirms that God has created us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. The miracle is that, even though God has no particular need of us, yet in his grace he passionately cares for us, whom God created in God’s image. Certainly sin has deeply marred that image of God within each of us, but the resemblance is still there, however faint. This is important to remember when we’re inclined to abuse others, to oppress others, to dismiss others, to use others for our own purposes – and we are all guilty at times of the sin of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around – that those whom we abuse, oppress, dismiss, and use – are, like us, bearers of the divine image, however deeply buried under the wreckage of sin, and passionately beloved by God.

Our Gospel reading today is the last four verses of Matthew’s Gospel, commonly called the Great Commission. It is one of the very few places in which all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are named together…..appropriate for Matthew’s Gospel, as, among the four Gospels, Matthew’s Gospel includes the most developed language relating to the church. However, we should remember that our reading is not called the Great Theological Summit, but the Great Commission – the focus is not on theological reflection, but on action, on mission. There are two uses of the word “all” that are noteworthy. The Risen Jesus says that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” and “go and make disciples of all nations.” – and we are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything (or “all”) that I have taught.
This is all-encompassing language – Christ has all authority – not just over our Sunday mornings, but over all things; therefore we are to make disciples of all nations – which involves going way, way, way outside our comfort zones - and teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. But with this broad claim of authority and the broad mission statement comes an equally broad promise: I will be with you always”. Not just now and then. Not just on Sunday mornings. Always. Always.

Amid all that is mysterious about the Trinity, Jesus is the best revelation we have of the character of God. Remember that, in John’s Gospel, Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, to which Jesus replied that since they had seen Jesus, they had seen the Father. And so if we want to know what God is like, the best way to do that is to look at Jesus as presented in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. Jesus who came preaching good news to the poor, liberation of the captive, the reign of God, Jesus who ate and drank with those whom society scapegoated as sinners and confronted those who used their positions of power to oppress, Jesus who cast out demons and healed diseases, Jesus who, while we were yet sinners, died for us – this is the best image we have of what God the father is like. And as followers of Jesus, we are to live in the same way, going forth into all the world to make disciples and baptize and teach, so that through our words of caring and deeds of love, our neighbors nearby and our neighbors far away come to know this same Good News. May God use our congregation, Emanuel Church, to bring this good news to our neighbors down the block and our neighbors around the globe. Amen.

That's the Spirit!

2011-06-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Numbers 11:24-30 Acts 2:1-21
I Corinthians 12:1-13 John 20:19-23)

Today we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and empowered them for ministry and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is also often called “the birthday of the church”. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s followers were a frightened huddle, meeting behind closed doors, uncertain what the future held for them. After the coming of the Spirit, they were united into the church, the body of Christ, empowered and equipped to proclaim and to serve.

Today’s Scriptures give us a variety, a kaleidoscope of images associated with the Holy Spirit. Our reading from the book of Numbers comes at a time when Moses was feeling overwhelmed by the burden of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses told God that he’d rather that God killed him right there where he stood, than have to put up with the peoples’ complaints. Instead, God tells Moses to choose 70 elders that would help to share Moses’ leadership burden. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and gave it to the 70 elders. This is fairly typical of the Old Testament – it was not given to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Generally, when God wished to equip kings, prophets, and other leaders of the people, God gave the Spirit to them to provide the special stamina and insight needed for their special tasks. Likewise, when God had a special message that God wished to proclaim, God’s spirit would come upon the prophet or person God designated to carry the message. In our Numbers reading, we get the striking image of the Spirit falling upon the two elders who had stayed behind in the camp, so that they prophesied where they stood. Joshua is horrified and wants Moses to make them stop, but Moses responds that he wished the Spirit would fall on everyone. As it happens, Moses’ wish came true in our reading from Acts.

Our readings from John’s Gospel and from Acts give us two contrasting images of the coming of the Spirit. John’s image is quiet, almost unnoticed – Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “receive the Holy Spirit”. With that Holy Spirit comes the power to forgive sins. But John gives us none of the ecstatic behavior we see in Acts. In Acts, between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, the disciples more or less mark time. They deal with organizational housekeeping matters – they felt a need to find someone to fill the position held by Judas, and choose Matthias for that role. But there were no mighty acts from them until the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 2nd chapter of Acts gives the image we usually associate with the coming of the Spirit – the rush of a mighty wind, divided tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples declaring the Gospel in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims who were in Jerusalem.

Nowadays, we usually associate Pentecost with…..Pentecostals, whose manifestations of the Holy Spirit include “speaking in tongues”, “being slain in the Spirit” and other forms of ecstatic experience. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians indicates that speaking in unknown tongues was a divisive issue in the church at Corinth. But in the Acts account of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in tongues unknown to themselves, but known to those listening. While “speaking in tongues” was a divisive issue for Paul’s followers – and is still an issue that divides churches today – in Acts, the speech of the apostles was not intended to divide, but to unite; not to confound, but to make clear the Gospel to those present. It was sort of the Tower of Babel story in reverse: in Genesis, human beings were united in their hubris in trying to build a tower so they could climb up and look in on God – in modern terms, to climb up to heaven so they can walk up God’s sidewalk, ring the doorbell, and say ‘howdy’ - and God confused their language. On Pentecost, through the Holy Spirit, persons of many different languages who normally would be unintelligible to one another, were able to understand what the apostles were saying. Human initiative and human overreaching resulted in division and confusion. Divine initiative resulted in mutual understanding among humans.

In reading these passages together, we may be left with a question: why was the experience of the Holy Spirit opened up to so many. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was uniquely bestowed on select individuals gifted for ministry. And this appears to be the model in John’s Gospel as well – just as God had anointed Moses, David, and others with the Spirit in preparation for their leadership responsibilities, in John’s Gospel, Jesus bestowed the spirit on his disciples in preparation for the work they were to do. But in Acts, it is such a dramatic, open display of the Spirit, by contrast with the other readings. Why is this account seemingly different?

Part of this is because it is expected that, in the church, all believers, not just a select few, would be carrying out the ministry of the Gospel in various ways. Our reading from Acts, quoting the prophet Joel, says that in the last days the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh – sons and daughters, young and old, even slave and free alike – and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” – and as ministers, those in the church – all believers - would need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to be prepared for their duties. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to describe the different gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues – given to equip the church by the one Spirit. In the words of a newer hymn that we sang earlier in the service, “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways.”

However, the point I want to underline is that, while in our reading from Acts the Spirit is more widely distributed, the purpose has not changed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is to prepare us for ministry, for worship and service. This was the case in the Old Testament, in John’s Gospel, in I Corinthians, and in Acts. The Spirit is not given to us for our own gratification. While the Spirit acts as our Advocate before God, interceding for us before God with sighs to deep for words when we ourselves cannot find it in ourselves to pray – it is there not only for us, but rather to make us more able to be there for others. This is where the Corinthian church went off track – those with the more flashy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, felt that this gift conferred some special merit on those who practiced speaking in tongues, lacking in those who did not. And this is where some modern-day Pentecostal churches may go wrong as well, if they see their speaking in tongues as something that sets them above and apart from others. But in Acts and in Paul’s letters, quite the opposite is the intent – tongues and other gifts of the Spirit are intended, not to divide, but rather to bring us together as the Body of Christ.

What does the coming of the Spirit look like in Bridesburg? What does it look like here at Emanuel Church. What are the signs of the Spirit here? Our congregation will not likely be mistaken anytime soon for what is commonly called a Pentecostal church. Anyone coming to Emanuel church to see people speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles, falling to the ground, slain in the Spirit as the saying goes, will walk away sadly disappointed. The Spirit has not endowed Emanuel Church with those gifts. But look at the gifts the Spirit has given us. Here we bring together our Bridesburg neighbors with those who live in other neighborhoods. Here we are equipped to view our daily work not just as a way to earn a living, but as vocations dedicated to God’s glory. Here those who are weighed down with life find new hope and strength. Here the members of a small church “pray big”, remembering persons and situations all over the greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region. Like the small frightened huddle of disciples emerging from their locked rooms to go forth and minister across the known world of their day, we through our partnerships with the Bridesburg Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ send our prayers and our offerings to join with those of others to bless struggling people outside our door and around the globe.

As I said at the beginning of this sermon, Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. So, as we prepare for Communion, let me say, “Happy birthday, church.” As we prepare to approach the table, may we open our hearts to the Spirit’s prompting. Amen.
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Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org

Going and Coming

2011-06-11T09:37:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Acts 1:1-14, Ephesians 1:15-23,
Luke 24:44-53)

Today’s reading from Luke and Acts remind us, if nothing else, that Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s Gospel tells of the acts of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Acts tells us about the acts of the Apostles, of the early church – the acts of Peter, of John, the acts of Philip, James, etc. - and after the account of Paul’s conversion, the focus rapidly shifts to the acts of Paul.

Acts is a sequel to Luke, and so Acts basically picks up where Luke begins. Luke tells us that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and as he blessed them, he was taken up from them. Acts begins by retelling and to some extent expanding and reshaping the narrative at the end of Luke. In Acts, Jesus’ “blessing” sounds more like a “challenge”. In today’s reading, Jesus is spending his final moments with his disciples before ascending to heaven. And as usual, the disciples are out to lunch, oblivious to what Jesus is telling them. “Now will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. Jesus is about to leave them, and they’re still caught up in their parochial, tribal, nationalistic concerns.

Jesus, even in his last minutes on earth, is to the last a master teacher. Jesus was unwilling to engage the explicit question the disciples asked, but he realized that behind their explicit question was an implicit question, sort of a “question behind the question”, which went as follows: “Where do we go from here, Jesus?”. Jesus’ response is worth noting. He redirects them from the specific question they did ask – which they had no business asking – to the implicit “question behind the question”– which Jesus answered graciously. He responds to their explicit question by basically telling them to mind their own business – “it’s not for you to know the times the Father has set by his own authority” – but then answers their “question behind the question” – “where do we go from here” - by going on to say that they will receive power to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Jesus gives them an expanded frame of reference, a greatly expanded mission field. The disciples prematurely want to declare “mission accomplished”, hoping that they can bask in the glory of having been by Jesus’ side as he restored independence to Israel. By contrast, Jesus is telling them that their adventures in faith, far from being over, were really just beginning. Like a loving parent caring for toddlers, Jesus had walked beside the disciples and held their hands through the course of his earthly ministry. Like tuckered-out toddlers, the disciples thought it was high time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. But instead, Jesus would now be ascending to the Father, and, like growing children, they were going to have to learn how to look both ways and cross the street on their own. It must have been a jarring conversation for the disciples.

It may also be a jarring conversation for us. Listening to the disciples may be like looking at ourselves in a mirror. Like the disciples, we may define our faith in ways that are narrow and self-centered. We may define our faith primarily in terms of “I” and “me” and “my” – Am I saved? What will happen to me when I die? Will I get to heaven? Will I see my family again? And there is a time and a place for these concerns. They’re very important concerns. When we’re grieving the death of loved ones, when we or our family members are on beds of pain and illness, when we or our family members faced with our own mortality, our faith can become a great source of personal strength and comfort. Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. As the saying goes, when we’re at the end of our rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on…and we do that by leaning on the everlasting arms of God.

But if we define our faith in Christ primarily in those terms – what’s in it for me? – we’ve greatly truncated the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples. Sort of like that movie from a few years ago, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids.’ - ‘Honey, we’ve shrunk the mission.’ We’ve shrunk the mission of witnessing to the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole world into “Well, at least I’m saved” or “Well, at least my family will be together in heaven. Us four, no more. Everyone else can fend for themselves.” No wonder we may latch onto to those who huckster and traffic in myths about the end times. After all, we and our families are saved….what else is there to do? Mission accomplished! Time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. I think part of the reason so many get caught up in the end-times mania is that the mainline churches haven’t done what Jesus did for his disciples in our reading from Acts, haven’t done a good job of helping their congregations understand their mission, understand why we’re here. Because of this lack of a big picture focus, we’re prone to focus on ourselves, prone to declare “mission accomplished” when in fact our mission has hardly begun. Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles didn’t sit around obsessing about their own salvation – come to think of it, they didn’t sit around much, period - they had much bigger things on their minds.

Because the mission that Jesus defined for his disciples – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world” – still stands. It’s an ongoing mission. Think of it this way: everytime a baby is born, surprise! - there’s a new person who hasn’t heard about Jesus. So the mission field is ever before us.

Another way to think of it is to go back to the Luke narrative – Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany, from whence he ascended. Bethany, where Jesus visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and where he was hosted by Simon the Leper. While there are some disputes as to the meaning of the name Bethany, most authorities interpret the name as meaning “house of pain, house of suffering” – “Beth” means “house”, and “ani” or “anya” means “pain” and “affliction”. Some think there may at one time have been an almshouse or poor house there. So, before his ascension, perhaps Jesus gave the disciples not only verbal instructions, but visuals as well – a place of suffering, a place which needed the good news of Christ.

I suspect that, at this point, we may be feeling a little exhausted at the thought of witnessing to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Me too. If it’s only up to us, we’re not going to get very far. We’ll feel worn out, feel like settling down for milk and cookies and a nap. Hey, I feel worn out after a morning of handout of Emanuel church flyers in Bridesburg. We’ll want to declare “mission accomplished” prematurely, want God to fast forward to the 2nd coming. And so here’s where it’s appropriate to lift up another part of Jesus’ words – “you will receive power when trhe Holy Spirit comes upon you.” God isn’t asking us to do all this on our own. God will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will empower us to do far more than we could ask or think. One of the fascinations of Luke-Acts is watching how the disciples, who, as in the other Gospels, are about as clueless as can be, suddenly become powerful preachers and teachers and evangelists. Think of Peter, who, when he walked alongside Jesus during Jesus’ earthly mission, never missed an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter once again opened his mouth – and three thousand people were saved. Same disciples. Very different results. The difference is the coming of the Holy Spirit, having God’s spirit planted within them, empowering them and guiding them and directing their paths.

Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit can empower and direct us, if we allow, if we get out of the Spirit’s way. Like the apostles, we may find that we have to set aside our own agendas. Like the disciples, we may find that if we are left with unanswered questions, it may be because they’re not the questions God would have us ask. We may be asking God the wrong questions.

I’ve taken beginners Spanish courses several times – despite which I’ve never really learned Spanish beyond a handful of phrases. I really don’t have an aptitude for language, and my brain forgets the unfamiliar phrases almost immediately. My middle-aged brain’s attempts to absorb Spanish is like a brick attempting to soak up water. But the last time I took Spanish, I remember our teacher telling the class that we need to learn to tune our ears to understand Spanish. And that phrase stuck with me. I remember when I visited Cuba with the Penn Southeast Conference, at first the conversations going on around me were just background noise, babble. But as the days went on, I could start to pick out a word or a phrase here and there. By the last day, I understood much of what was being said around me, and could even put in a few words of my own here and there. (Of course, when I got home, it all went out the window by the time I’d gotten home from the airport.) But in the same way I tuned my ears in Cuba for at least a few days to understand at least a little Spanish, we may need to tune our spiritual ears to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, in the midst of all the background noise – including all the religious background noise. We need to tune our ears to pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd, amid the voices of all the hirelings and hucksters that would lead us off course, who at best seek to fleece us, and at worst may seek to destroy us.

Having tuned our ears to the voice of the Spirit, may we be like the church at Ephesus to whom Paul wrote, saying, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” May Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians be answered for us as well, as in a few minutes we come to the table and share the communion meal, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ, now raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name, not only in this age but in the age to come. May it be so for us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. May it be so for us at Emanuel Church. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

Love and Obey

2011-06-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Acts 7:55-60, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21)

In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?

Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.

Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?

OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?

Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.

I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:

“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”

These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.

There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”

But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.

Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.

We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.

As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org

Beam Me Up! (From Emanuel's June 2011 newsletter)

2011-05-22T14:36:00.004-04:00

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –
“So when they had come together, they asked [Jesus], ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Acts 1:6-9

Our Scripture readings from the book of Acts tell of a time of “going and coming”. On June 5, we remember Christ’s ascension, when Jesus was lifted up into heaven. We’re told that Christ went to prepare a place for his disciples, and intercedes for us before the throne of God. Christ’s “going” into heaven is followed by Pentecost, the “coming” of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate on June 12. Christ and the Spirit, along with God the Father, make up the Trinity, which we’ll consider on June 19. One (admittedly greatly oversimplified) way of thinking about the Trinity is to think of God the Father above us, Jesus the Son beside us, and the Spirit within us – God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer - yet not three Gods, but one God in three persons. Through the Holy Spirit, God is present within us, giving us strength for facing our own challenges and for ministry to others.

Changing the topic a bit: In looking at the first two sentences from the Scripture that opens this newsletter, I’d ask us to think back to a spectacular prediction for May 21, 2011 that didn’t come to pass. Harold Camping and his followers proclaimed – via Camping’s “Family Radio” station on 106.9 FM, via billboards, via ads on the sides of buses, and via folks on the street handing out flyers – that the “Rapture” would happen on May 21. According to Camping, on May 21, all true Christians were to be snatched off the earth to meet with Jesus in the clouds, while all others were to be left behind. Despite the clear meaning of Jesus’ words to his disciples – “it’s not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority” and Jesus’ own words in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36 that not even the Son knows the day or hour, but only the Father – Camping repeatedly proclaimed “Judgment Day – May 21, 2011” on his website “WeCanKnow.com” Camping has also proclaimed that on May 21st of another year, May 21, 1988 to be exact, the spirit of God left the churches, and Satan entered in. Camping repeatedly told his listeners “Come out from the churches – Depart out from among them!” My response is that perhaps Harold Camping’s arrogance had so completely inundated and overwhelmed the “ministry” of Family Radio that there was no longer time or space for God to get a word in edgewise. And, as Proverbs 16:18 states, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” I’m not privileged to know whether God’s spirit has “departed out” from Family Radio – but I strongly urge our members and friends, if you’re in the habit of listening to Family Radio, to turn the dial elsewhere.

Harold Camping is only the most extreme of a whole parade of would-be “prophets” – Hal Lindsey, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye, on and on and on and on – who have ripped Bible verses out of context and pasted them together (sort of like a ransom note pasted together from single words clipped from a newspaper) to construct supposed timelines for the second coming of Christ. As 2 Timothy 4:3-4 states, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” Sensational (but false) myths about the End Times will always outsell sound (but demanding and perhaps disagreeable) teaching about how to live as disciples of Christ in the present. But listening to these sensational but false predictions, these myths, is escapism, a way to run away from the life of discipleship to which Christ has called us, as Jonah tried to run away from God’s call for Jonah to preach to Nineveh. I think of the predictions of Camping, Lindsey, Hagee, LaHaye and company as “spiritual junk food”. Like candy or “energy drinks”, spiritual junk food such as the End Times “rapture” myths of Camping, Lindsey, Hagee, and LaHaye may taste good and fill our bellies for a time, but it won’t help us grow strong in the Lord. A diet heavy in spiritual junk food will stunt, not strengthen, our spiritual growth. And if we habitually overindulge our craving for spiritual junk food, we may not desire or even recognize healthy spiritual nourishment even if it’s right in front of us. Like the sugar high we get from eating too much candy, we may briefly feel ourselves spiritually lifted up, may for a time feel “special” because we in our hubris mistakenly think we have an “inside track” on knowing the mind of God. But, like the crash that follows overindulgence in candy or “energy drinks”, we will inevitably find ourselves spiritually depleted and let down when these predictions fail, as they always have, just as Camping’s followers – some of whom, sadly, donated their life savings to help Camping broadcast his wild speculations – these days are likely feeling depleted spiritually, emotionally, and financially, and wondering just what possessed them to empty their bank accounts on Camping’s behalf.

Any such feeling of spiritual let-down is not because God is a liar or the Bible is untrue, but is a direct result of relying on the false teachings of charlatans like Camping and Lindsey and Hagee and LaHaye and company. Paul responds to the “false teachers” mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 by offering the following advice or “sound teaching” to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5: “As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”And here’s some more sound teaching: In Acts 1:11, two angels told the disciples, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Setting dates or constructing timelines for Christ’s return is exactly, precisely what Jesus told his disciples not to do. Clearly, rather than standing around staring into the sky (or sitting on our Barcaloungers reading the latest sensationalized “Left Behind” novel) we are to be steadfast in waiting on the Lord through prayer and study of Scripture and active in serving God and neighbor. We are to receive the promised power of the Holy Spirit, and be Christ’s witnesses – perhaps not in Jerusalem, Judea, or Samaria (though our giving to the UCC’s special denominational offerings helps us to witness in these and many other places) – but (to put Jesus’ command in local terms) to witness in Bridesburg, in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to the ends of the earth.

Make no mistake: Christ will come again. Christ could come again before I put this newsletter in the mail or on email. Christ could come again today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Or Christ may not come until long after all readers of this newsletter, along with their children and grandchildren, have passed on to their eternal reward. Despite what Camping, Lindsey and company tell us, God simply hasn’t given us that information. As Jesus said quite clearly and plainly and definitively and authoritatively in our opening quote from Acts, it’s not for us to know. We must accept that God has both the authority and the right to keep God’s own counsel on the timing of Christ’s return. Christ’s final word on the subject, before his ascension: “Mind Your Own Business!!” No matter: until that day, whenever it comes, we at Emanuel United Church of Christ are to be about the ministry that Christ has given us here on this earth that God has created and in this neighborhood in which God has placed us. In the words of an old hymn (“He Who Would Valiant Be”, #296 in the E&R Hymnal):

“Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with thy Spirit, We know we at the end shall life inherit.
Then, fancies, flee away! I’ll fear not what men say; I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.”

May God be with each of us on our lifelong pilgrimage of Christian discipleship!
See you in church!

Pastor Dave

Dinner With Friends

2011-05-17T03:08:00.001-04:00

Scriptures: Acts 2:14a, 36-41, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35

If when you were young – or maybe not so young – you read Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer, you may remember the scene in which Tom and his friends walked in on their own funeral. Tom had gone fishing with his friends. Their raft had disappeared and was later found downriver, and those who found it assumed that Tom and his friends had drowned. So a funeral service was held, and the townspeople, who hadn’t previously had a whole lot of patience with Tom and his friends and their capers, listened to the minister eulogize Tom and friends right up to the heaven of heavens. How could they all have missed all the good that had been in Tom and his friends, that had been right before their eyes? Of course, by the time the minister has got everyone in the little country church, including himself, to sobbing, wracked with grief – why, right on cue, Tom and his friends, who had been up in the gallery listening to their own funeral, saunter down the center aisle of the church, to the wonderment of all assembled. As Aunt Polly and others smothered Tom and his friends in hugs, the minister shouted: ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow – SING – and put your hearts in it!’ And their singing of Old Hundredth, which we sing here each week as the Doxology, shook the rafters.

Mark Twain’s story has more than a little in common with our Gospel reading for today. Our Gospel reading takes place on the first day of the week, the day of resurrection, after Mary and the women had told the disciples of their encounter with the angel, and after Peter had gone to the tomb and come back, reporting that it was empty. Two followers of Jesus – we’re told the name of one of them, Cleopas; the other is unnamed – are leaving Jerusalem. Their teacher, Jesus, had been crucified. They didn’t know what to make of the idle tale that the women had told them, and in any case there was no longer any reason for them to stay in Jerusalem. Any memories of Jerusalem would only bring them grief – or so they thought. So they headed toward Emmaus, a small town about 7 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Here they could get some distance and perspective on their disappointment and grief, before returning to the lives they’d led before they had met Jesus.

As they walked, they talked about all that had happened. And as they walked and talked, and sighed and hung their heads, a stranger joined them, who asked what they were talking about. They asked the stranger, “Are you the only one who doesn’t know what just happened in Jerusalem?” Today they’d have probably asked the stranger, “Have you been living under a rock for the past week?” And they unfolded their tale of woe. The stranger, whom the pair don’t recognize but whom we know to be Jesus, listened as they talked. It may have been a bit like listening to the eulogy for a funeral that had not been held, but perhaps Jesus wanted to hear their understanding of what they’d just experienced.

And then the stranger brought them up short, calling them foolish and slow to believe the prophets – and then the stranger began to unfold his own tale. He offered much better news, telling the pair that all that had happened had been spoken by the prophets, and that the end was not death, but glory. Perhaps the pair began to feel that they, not the stranger, were the ones who had been living under a rock. As the afternoon wears on, the two invite the stranger to the place where they were staying. And as the stranger blesses and breaks bread with them, suddenly they realize that they had been walking and sharing bread with Jesus – who at that moment vanished from their sight!

Last week we read John’s account of Jesus’ two appearances to the disciples, for one of which Thomas was present. Thomas had said he would not believe until he could feel the print of the nails in Jesus’ hands and the mark of the spear in Jesus’ side. We could say that for Thomas, seeing was believing. By contrast, the two disciples on the Emmaus road found that believing was seeing – their grief had blinded them to the presence of the risen Christ in their midst, and it was not until they had taken in all that the stranger had taught them on the road, that in the breaking of the bread, they recognized the stranger as Jesus.

Believing is seeing. It’s striking that, in effect, both the pair on the road to Emmaus and the stranger told the same story. The two travelers on the road told of the crucifixion of Jesus, and the stranger in their midst told of the crucifixion of Jesus. But the stories told of the crucifixion came from two very different perspectives. The two travelers spoke out of their immediate experience. The stranger on the road was able to take the pair’s story of the crucifixion and add context by tying it into the words of Moses and all the prophets, to show them that this was all within God’s plan.

Believing is seeing for us as well – or at least it can be. As Christians we are called to see, not only with our physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes, with the eyes of faith. Through the eyes of faith the cross - an instrument of torture and execution - becomes a symbol of God’s love. Through the eyes of faith, a splash of water, a cube of bread, a sip of wine become elements of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, moments in which we encounter the Divine. Through the eyes of faith our weaknesses can demonstrate God’s power; through the eyes of faith our struggles and failures can be opportunities for God’s glory to shine through. Just as one of our Scriptures for two Sundays from now will tell us that the stone which the builders rejected – the stone that from their viewpoint belonged on the scrapheap – becomes the cornerstone, chosen and precious

But our spiritual eyes need to be open. We can go through life with blinders on, so caught up in our own daily routine, our own set of priorities, that we don’t give God a chance to break into our lives, or so wedded to preconceived notions of what God’s glory will look like that we can miss that glory when it’s right before us, but in an unexpected form.

Like Thomas, we can be so fixated on our need to see and touch that we allow no room for the mystery of God. For example, some listen to the History Channel explanations of how the parting of the Red Sea was due to an earthquake or a windstorm or such, seeking a computer model to give a literal explanation for this or that Biblical miracle. This approach turns Scripture into something flat, one-dimensional, linear. It turns the Scriptural narrative of our faith, the Great Story of God’s dealings with humankind and the cosmos throughout time and eternity, into a newspaper article. It leaves no room for the mystery of God, for the majesty of God. Such models may or may not tell us “how” something happened, but they have nothing to say on the more important questions of why it happened, or what its inclusion in Scripture tells us about God – about God’s holiness, about God’s love, about God’s justice, about God’s mercy. Or, if we are wedded to preconceived notions about where God is to be encountered – only on Sunday morning, only in church, only among church members – we may miss the presence of Christ in a chance encounter with the stranger we meet on the road.

The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard said that “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” The two travelers on the Emmaus road, living life forwards, were engulfed in despair. Having encountered Jesus in the breaking of the bread, understanding backwards from that point, they could affirm, “did not our hearts burn within us as he opened the Scriptures to us.” And they acted on that understanding. Today’s Gospel ends with the two travelers retracing their steps, returning to Jerusalem, from which they had previously fled. Jerusalem, which had been a place of dread and despair, had become a place of hope, and a site to break bread with the apostles and do ministry among the masses.

C S Lewis caught something of this in his book “The Great Divorce” when he said that, as Christ works in peoples’ lives, their self-understanding and their memories of their lives are reinterpreted over time. Faith in Christ provides context for all that happens in our lives. For those in Christ, their memories of even difficult times are transformed in the light of Christ, and they can see where God was present in their struggles. Their earthly lives become outposts of heaven.

Believing is seeing. So may our spiritual eyes be open to seeing the risen Christ in the stranger on the road, the chance encounter on the bus, the conversation at work, and even dinner with family or friends. May our hearts be strangely warmed by Christ’s presence in all we say and do. Amen.

A Divine Do-Over

2011-05-04T22:27:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Acts 2:14a, 22-32
I Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31)

This morning’s Gospel reading tells of one of the most famous of Jesus’ appearances after the resurrection, namely, his appearance to Thomas. In a sense, though, today’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance is sort of a two-fer: buy one, get one free – because Jesus actually appears to the disciples twice. We’re told that on the evening of the resurrection, the apostles were all locked away behind closed doors, for fear of the religious authorities. For some unspecified reason, Thomas was not with them. Jesus appeared to them, showing them his hands, which bore the print of the nails, and his side, where the soldier’s spear had pierced. After this appearance, when Jesus was no longer with them, Thomas showed up. The disciples are all bursting to tell him “we’ve seen the Lord we’ve seen the Lord oh my goodness we’ve seen the Lord.” It was then that Thomas told the disciples “Unless I feel the print of the nail and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.” It is from this story that the disciple gets his nickname “doubting Thomas”. A week later, the scene repeats: same disciples, hiding in the same room behind the same locked door for the same reason: fear of the religious authorities. The only difference is, this time Thomas is with them. And once again, Jesus appears, and shows his wounds to Thomas as he had to the other disciples. Jesus invites Thomas to touch them, but we’re not told that Thomas actually did. Thomas cries out, “My Lord and my God.” It was then that Jesus says, “Do you believe because you have seen? Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Thomas has the reputation for being a doubter, but I think it’s actually a bad rap. While the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke just name Thomas as one of the disciples, with no other information given, John’s Gospel fleshes out our picture of Thomas a bit. Thomas pops up two other times in John’s Gospel, once when Jesus was returning to Judea to visit Mary, Martha and Lazarus – Jesus had just escaped a crowd that wanted to stone him, and the disciples were questioning why Jesus would ever want to go back there, but Thomas bravely said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” And at the Last Supper, Thomas’s question about the way to where Jesus was going led to Jesus’ declaration, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” So in John’s Gospel at least, Thomas wasn’t any kind of problem child disciple – he’s shown to have courage and to be theologically engaged with Jesus, willing to risk asking a question if Jesus is talking over his head. And in today’s reading, Thomas essentially had the same encounter with the risen Christ that the other disciples did – it just happened a week later. While this Scripture has a very explicit lesson for the readers of John’s Gospels – essentially, blessed are those who read this book and believe and are willing to stake your life on what’s written there – I think there’s also a subtle lesson about the nature of God’s love.

Jesus could very well have limited himself to just that first appearance to the disciples, the one when Thomas was absent. He could have left a message with the disciples for Thomas: hey, you had your chance, but you were out to lunch when I appeared. Or maybe you’d gone fishing. Or maybe you needed your beauty sleep. You snooze, you lose. But that’s not what Jesus did – instead, Jesus patiently waited a week and did a do-over of his earlier appearance, just for Thomas. The wording of the gospel is the same in both appearances, except for Jesus’ additional words to Thomas. In golf, if you take a really bad swing and your fellow golfers are forgiving, they may allow you to do the shot over, to take a mulligan. And in a sense, Jesus allowed Thomas a mulligan. God allowed a divine do-over of the appearance of Jesus just for Thomas’ sake. That’s how much Jesus loved Thomas, and that’s how important Thomas was to God’s plan for the disciples.

How about us? I think all of us need a do-over, a mulligan, now and then, not only in golf, but in life. Sometimes we’re not where we need to be when God is doing a great work. Sometimes we miss the boat. We don’t always understand immediately or get everything right the first time – far from it. But we worship a God of the second chance, a God who welcomes seekers whether they come early or late in life. We know so many stories: the parable of the prodigal son, coming home to ask his dad for another chance. Paul on the Damascus road, his life turned around to witness to the Christ whose church he had earlier tried to stamp out. God patiently waited for Paul to be in the place where God could reach him with a vision of the risen Christ. God seeks out the lost sheep and the lost coin, and when found brings them home rejoicing.

People come to Christ in different ways and at different times in their lives. Many – I suspect most of Emanuel’s long-time members, were raised in the church, were brought to Jesus as children and blessed. Fifty years ago, that was the norm. But not today. But not everyone finds Christ in that way. Some come to Jesus via a conversion experience, via a prayer for salvation that emerges out of some deep crisis. Some come to Jesus as a way to find deeper meaning to life or connection with others. Some come to Jesus early in life, and some come later. I’ve experienced that myself, as a fifty-year old answering a call after I’m already midway into a career in health care finance, well into middle age, sitting next to 20-somethings just out of college, responding to that same call. But nobody comes to Christ, whom Christ does not call first. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” And when God chooses us, God waits for us, waits until we are ready for an encounter with Christ – be that in infancy, in childhood, in adulthood, in old age, or even on our deathbed. And we as Emanuel Church need to be ready to welcome those whom God chooses, no matter where they are on life’s journey when they find us.

Jesus told the disciples that he had chosen them so that the would go and bear much fruit. And, indeed, Thomas was more than faithful, more than diligent on this point. While we don’t read much more about Thomas in the Bible other than a brief mention in the book of Acts, there’s a very strong tradition that the Apostle Thomas brought the Gospel to India, specifically to a community of Jews living in a part of India called Kerela. Most Indian Christians trace their faith in some way through the Apostle Thomas. And we have two such congregations in Philadelphia affiliated with the United Church of Christ, including one whose members all came from Kerela, where Thomas was first said to have brought the Gospel. So the outcomes of Jesus’ calling Thomas to faith are not just long ago and far away, but are alive, to this day, in the UCC, in Philadelphia.

There’s one other point in our reading from John’s Gospel, a powerful point, but mentioned so briefly that we can miss it while we’re waiting to hear about Thomas. When Jesus appeared to the disciples, John tells us, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In essence, these words, brief as they are, constitute John’s Pentecost story, John’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the conferral of apostolic authority on the eleven disciples. In contrast to Luke’s account of the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of flame and the disciples speaking in foreign tongues, John’s account of the conferring of the Holy Spirit is quiet, possible to miss if you’re not looking for it. In fact, this sentence “Receive the Holy Spirit” is part of the sacrament of baptism, but again, it can go by so quickly we can miss it.

Today we will be celebrating both Sacraments – baptism and holy communion. May we be attentive for God’s presence, during this holy moment in our church’s history.
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Feel the need for a do-over in your relationship with God? Join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (between Thompson and Almond). www.emanuelphila.org

Strangely Warmed

2011-04-30T07:05:00.001-04:00

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –

“They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while [Jesus] was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” Luke 24:32

The Gospel readings for May follow along two themes. For the first two weeks, we are given accounts of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus: to the disciples (including the followup appearance to Thomas) and to the two disciples on the Emmaus road. For the last two weeks, we are given portions of Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples at the Last Supper. Sandwiched in the middle, on May 15, is a reading about Jesus’ self-description as the Good Shepherd.

It is perhaps this image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that unites the seemingly disjointed series of readings for May. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd. During his last Passover meal with his disciples (which we call the Last Supper), Jesus told the disciples that, even though they would be scattered in days ahead, it was Jesus’ will that they would again be gathered together to be united as apostles of Christ. And after the resurrection, Jesus the Good Shepherd is gathering his flock which had been scattered by the events of Holy Week.

Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote that “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” At the time of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion, the disciples, “living forwards”, thought that all their hopes and dreams as disciples of Christ had come to an end. It was only after Easter, when the disciples looked back over the events of Holy Week from the perspective of the resurrection, that they understood that Jesus had not abandoned them; that God had been with them the whole time.

Our experience may be similar. While we’re “living forwards” - mourning a loss, coping with a personal or national tragedy, or slogging our way through the muck and mire of daily life - it may feel like God is nowhere to be found. We may feel abandoned, may feel that God has left the building, so to speak. It is often only in “understanding backwards” after the passage of time that we may see where God had been present all along. In the weeks ahead, may our hearts be, in Methodist founder John Wesley’s words, “strangely warmed” by unexpected encounters with God’s grace.

See you in church!

Pastor Dave

Surprised by Joy! (An Easter Sermon)

2011-04-28T19:15:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Acts 10:34-43 , Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4 Matthew 28:1-10)

*Note: Sermon title is the title of a book by Christian writer C. S. Lewis*

Of course it was the women who were faithful to the end. Judas had betrayed Jesus, Peter had denied he ever knew the guy, and the other disciples practically burnt the bottoms off their sandals running away from him after the arrest. But the women stood by Jesus as he was crucified, though off at a distance. It was Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph who watched as Jesus was crucified, and it was the two Marys who watched as Joseph of Arimithea buried Jesus in his own tomb. We’re told that after Joseph had rolled a stone in front of the tomb and gone away, the two Marys stayed there, sitting opposite the tomb.

And on the first day of the week, it was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary who went once again to the tomb. Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us why they went, but Mark’s Gospel tells us that the women went to anoint the body, and despaired of how they were going to move the stone.

However, after both Joseph of Arimathea and the two Mary’s had left the tomb the day before, some other folks went to the tomb as well. They weren’t there to mourn, or even to pay their respects to Jesus…but rather, to pay disrespect to Jesus from the Temple leadership. Matthew tells us, you see, that the Pharisees and chief priests were afraid Jesus’ disciples would stage a hoax by stealing the body and claiming he’d been raised. So they were given a detachment of guards to stand watch over the tomb.

So Matthew sets the stage: the women had watched as Jesus was put in the tomb, and then went home; then guards came to standing watch at the tomb, and now the women are going back to the tomb. But suddenly another party is heard from: God, in the form of an earthquake, and an angel who rolled away the stone and sat on it.

Both the guards and the women encountered the angel. Matthew gives us their contrasting reactions: the guards, tough men who’d seen it all, shook and became like dead men. The angels had nothing to say to them. But to the grieving women, the angel said, “Do not be afraid! Jesus has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: “he has been raised from the dead, and is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”

“He is going ahead of you to Galilee….” Then the women remembered. At his last Passover meal with the disciples, Jesus had said that the disciples would all desert him. But then Jesus made this odd statement: “But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” At the time, the disciples probably just shrugged; Jesus was saying a lot of things that at the time didn’t make sense. But now the angel was saying the same thing to the women: go and tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where Jesus was going ahead to meet them. They quickly made their way from the tomb, with fear and great joy….when they ran into Jesus himself. Matthew tells us that they grabbed his feet….perhaps to assure themselves that he wasn’t just a disembodied spirit, wasn’t a ghost…and worshipped him. And then Jesus repeated the message – go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.
Both the guards and the women encountered the angel. The guards, who had no allegiance to Jesus but were just there to do the job they’d been ordered to do, were so scared they fainted. But the women, while terrified by all that happened – the earthquake, the angel – were also surprised by joy! In a place where they had hoped to mourn the dead, they encountered an empty tomb, and resurrection life. Life, not death, had the last word for Jesus.

And has the last word for us. Amid all that is death-dealing in our lives – the passing of loved ones, physical illness, broken relationships, lost jobs, all that weighs us down – Jesus points us to see beyond all that. Illness, estrangement, unemployment – even death itself – does not have the last word. To borrow a verse from our first hymn, ours is indeed the cross – all the struggles of this life, all the struggles that are a part of being a disciple – and ours is the grave – but ours is also the skies. Christ is raised from the dead, and our lives are hidden in Christ, become part of the life of the risen Christ.

And Jesus promises, not only life and hope, but his abiding love. Remember that Jesus told the women: Go and tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee. After Peter denied him and the rest deserted him, Jesus could still claim them as – his brothers. And when we have failed, when we have failed God, when we have failed ourselves, when we have let God or others or even ourselves down, betrayed them, denied them, deserted them, Christ still claims us as brothers and sisters. He still promises to go ahead and meet us, even when in our guilt and fear we’re not quite ready to meet him.

We at Emanuel Church know a few things about tombs. We worship God in a sanctuary surrounded on two sides by a cemetery, the upkeep of which is an ongoing project of our congregation. We know what to expect when we walk through our cemetery – the familiar headstones of our departed loved ones and of those others who founded this church. We’ll find grass and trees, palm crosses and floral arrangements or other mementos left at graveside by loved ones. What’s out there in the cemetery - our headstones and our mementos, and all the effort that goes into maintaining the cemetery, is a testimony to this congregation’s love for our forebears in the faith. But what goes on inside here, in this sanctuary, in this space, our hymns and our prayers and our celebration of communion, the community we create with one another when we meet, is our testimony that the grave is not the end, that what’s outside our window is not the end, that while the mortal remains of our loved ones lie outside our window – because Christ was risen, our loved ones are with Christ, in God’s presence where tears and pain and illness are no more.

Jesus told the women that he was going ahead to Galilee, to meet the disciples there. So, in a sense, Matthew’s Gospel ends where it began, in Galilee, where Jesus had grown up, where Jesus had begun his ministry; indeed, where Jesus had originally chosen and commissioned his disciples. And where Jesus will meet with them again, on the mountain, to commission them to go out into all the world, teaching them and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The disciples are back home in Galilee. Everything has come full circle, but nothing will ever be the same again. And it can be like that for us, as well, as we meet Jesus in familiar surroundings, and are surprised by joy as all that is familiar is transformed by his presence.

In a few moments we will celebrate Holy Communion. As we break the bread and share the cup, we are assured that we are truly members of the mystical body of Christ, and heirs through hope of God’s everlasting kingdom. Having come and seen, we too are told to go and tell, to go and tell of the mighty things that Christ has done for us. Amen.

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Come and be surprised by joy at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

What A Week! (A Sermon for Palm Sunday)

2011-04-28T19:10:00.000-04:00

(Scriptures: Zechariah 9:9-12 Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 21:1-11)

This morning we begin the holiest week of the Christian calendar. During these past 37 days, we have stood with Jesus as he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, witnessed his evening meeting with Nicodemus – mentally I use the phrase “Nick at night” to remember the timing of Jesus’ initial meeting with Nicodemus - and his daytime meeting with the nameless woman at the well, marveled at his healing of the man born blind and his raising of Lazarus from the dead. Now we stand among the crowds shouting Hosanna as Jesus enters Jerusalem, slowly lurching along as he rides on a donkey that has never before been written.

The word “ambivalence” can be defined as the presence of two opposing ideas, attitudes, or emotions at the same time. Palm Sunday is a day in which our feelings may be ambivalent. This ambivalence is captured in the lectionary’s choices of readings for the day. One of these sets of readings – the texts from Psalms and Matthew that we heard earlier today – is focused on the triumphant entry. There is another set of texts – our reading from Philippians is one of them, along with an Isaiah text that we did not read this morning – which are focused on the events, not of Sunday, but of Thursday and Friday, the betrayal, the arrest in the garden, the trial and crucifixion. And so an increasing number of churches refer to today as “Palm/Passion Sunday”. It’s a day in which we hear the crowds cheering – but we’re not sure they know what they’re cheering for – as, at the end of our Matthew text, they refer to “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” – which is true, as far as it goes, but not a complete picture. Likewise, Jerusalem, the holy city, where God is thought to dwell within the Temple, built by Solomon, rebuilt by Zerubbabel on the return from Babylonian exile, greatly expanded and decorated by Herod….is also, in Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” As the crowds cheer Jesus as a prophet, in the background we hear the Temple religious leaders muttering threats among themselves, and we know that Jesus will likewise suffer the fate faced by all prophets sent to Jerusalem. Matthew captures this sense of ambivalence, this sense of duality: two disciples are sent to get two animals, a donkey and a colt, for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem, both the holy city and the city that murders the prophets, to the cheers of crowds that both do and don’t know who Jesus is. Perhaps in that last bit of duality, Matthew wants us to remember Jesus’ dual nature – fully human, fully divine. And perhaps this is the most important dualism of all. As one both fully human and fully divine, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, sentenced, and crucified…and resurrected on the third day. As German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “If Christ is not fully human, how can he save us? If Christ is not fully divine, how can he save us?” Only one who is at the same time fully human – one who knows fully, in every cell and to the marrow of his bones, the full gamut of the human experience, the best and the worst life as a human has to offer, along with everything in-between, yet without sin – and one who is fully divine, of one being and of one essence with God the father – only that one can save us.

Everything Jesus has said and done has led him to this point, and in the days ahead he will go from the high of the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, to controversy and opposition from the religious establishment, to the anointing of his head by a nameless woman at Bethany, to a final Passover meal with his inner circle, the twelve, who promise to stand with him but within hours desert him, to betrayal by one of the twelve, arrest, trials before religious and civil authorities, and the painful, shameful, humiliating, literally god-awful death of the cross.. What a week Jesus has ahead of him! But we Christians know what radio commentator Paul Harvey called, “the rest of the story” – an empty tomb, the announcement of the angel, the appearance of the risen Christ to “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary,” the instructions for his disciples to go to Galilee, where the Risen Christ will meet them. And Jesus’ final commission to his disciples to tell others this “rest of the story” – Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” What a week! What a horrible week! What a glorious week! What a week!

The reformer Martin Luther coined the phrase “the theology of the cross” to remind his followers – and even though we at Emanuel are not Lutherans, we are among those who in a broader sense are informed by his theology – Luther coined the phrase “the theology of the cross” to remind us that, ultimately, the only way to truly understand Jesus – and to understand ourselves as disciples of Jesus – is through the cross. Luther used this phrase, “the theology of the cross” in contrast to what Luther called “the theology of glory” which wants to dwell on human wisdom and human achievement, which wants to minimize the importance of the crucifixion. But to ignore or even to minimize the crucifixion is more than a little like saying, “Well, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” There is no Easter without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without crucifixion. As Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, God chose the foolish things in the world to shame the wise; chose the weak things in the world to shame the strong. In Jesus, the foolishness and weakness of God entered Jerusalem, lurched along into Jerusalem on a never-before-ridden donkey, his feet barely a few inches off the ground, and man’s strength and wisdom, man’s best efforts, as represented by the Temple hierarchy and the Roman empire, nailed Jesus to the cross.

Because we know “the rest of story” of the crucified and risen Christ, ultimately we know the outcome of our own. We are saved from aimlessness and sin, granted abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come, not by our own efforts, but because we know the rest of the story – saved by grace through faith in the crucified and Risen Christ.

And because we worship a Savior who has been through the worst that this life has to offer, whose path to Easter came through the pain and horror of Good Friday, we have the privilege of coming in prayer before a Savior who knows our pain, our sorrow, our anger, our frustration, to the depth of his being. As the letter to the Hebrews 4:15-16 states, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

All too often, we live in a Good Friday world, where money talks and might makes right, and faith, hope, and love are crushed to the ground. All too often, it is our hopes and dreams that are crushed to the ground, and it’s understandable to give into despair. But we know the rest of the story. In the words of a famous sermon by Tony Campolo…”It’s Friday…………but Sunday’s comin’. Amen.
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Christ the Lord is risen! Join the celebration at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

It's Friday...But Sunday's Coming!

2011-04-03T17:55:00.002-04:00

(Pastor Dave was away this Sunday, getting needed rest. In lieu of a sermon, here's the pastor's message in the April newsletter)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –

“Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" [Martha] said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."’’ John 11:25-26
The Scripture above, from the story of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead (our Scripture for April 10), gives the central affirmation of the Christian faith: that in Christ, everyone who lives and believes in Christ has eternal life. Through the sin of Adam, death entered the world. Through Christ, the power of death is broken. Life, not death, has the last word.

Our Scriptures for April follow Jesus through the final days of his earthly ministry, his triumphal Palm Sunday entry in to Jerusalem, the betrayal and arrest in the garden, the trial, and the crucifixion. But our Scriptures do not leave us there – our Easter scriptures tell of an empty tomb, the angel’s announcement, and the encounter of “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” with the risen Christ!

So often in our daily lives, it seems like Good Friday. Natural disaster, such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, war and social unrest, the misconduct of our political and religious leaders, the unexpected illness and death of loved ones, and the struggles of daily life in this difficult economy – all these may leave us feeling surrounded by death. It seems like death has the last word. It may seem that God has abandoned us. But as Christians we know that when the powers of death have done their worst, that is God’s moment to bring about resurrection. In the words of a famous sermon, “It’s Friday……..but Sunday’s coming!”

In the words of the hymn:
“The powers of death have done their worst, but Christ their legions has dispersed:
Let shouts of holy joy outburst. Alleluia!”

See you in church!

Pastor Dave

Thirsty?

2011-03-28T23:29:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42)

Today’s reading from John’s Gospel is the second in a two-part series comparing Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus, which we read last week, and his meeting with the nameless Samaritan woman at the well, which was the subject of today’s reading. By setting today’s reading about the Samaritan woman right after the reading about Nicodemus, John is linking the two stories together. The two readings are family portraits of a sort, not unlike a religious painting or icon we might see in a museum in which portraits of two different saints are framed together, side by side. Because the placement of these stories is not accidental – John very much wants his readers to understand one story in light of the other.

The two encounters contrast in every way: Jesus meets Nicodemus by night, after which he meets the Samaritan woman by day – not only by day, in fact, but at high noon, in the heat of the sun. Nicodemus is a leader of the religious establishment, a man of power and means, one of the ultimate insiders of his society. The woman, by contrast, is powerless, an outsider several times over – a woman in a male-dominated society (we don’t even learn her name), a Samaritan – considered by Jews a foreigner, someone whose family and national heritage was considered corrupted by the intermarriage of Jews with hostile Gentile invaders, someone not even worthy to be spoken to – and a woman with, shall we say, an interesting family and marital history. And – perhaps the greatest contrast – Nicodemus, the powerful religious teacher, does not fully comprehend or respond to Jesus’ words, but basically departs from Jesus literally and figurative under cover of darkness, in a state of confusion, mostly keeping his questions and his hopes to himself until after the crucifixion. Essentially, the teacher Nicodemus is portrayed as a slow and inarticulate student. The nameless Samaritan woman, an outsider with no religious credentials and indeed a questionable personal history, by contrast, winds up being a teacher and evangelist to the Samaritans, bringing countless Samaritan people to faith in Christ. In a sense, these two stories, set side by side, act out some of most difficult of the words that open John’s Gospel, in John chapter 1, verse 11-12: Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he became power to become children of God, born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.

As the story unfolds, Jesus, having thrown the money changers out of the Temple and having met with Nicodemus in Jerusalem is on his way back home. As John’s Gospel notes, to get from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north, he had to go through Samaria, which lie smack dab in the middle. Some history that will help us understand some of the conversation between Jesus and the woman: many centuries before, just after the death of king Solomon, the united kingdom of the 12 tribes of Israel governed by Solomon, split apart early in the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. The split occurred for a reason that seems very modern - a dispute over taxes – Solomon had taxed heavily, and all the tribes asked Rehoboam for, in modern language, tax cuts. Rehoboam not only refused their request, but in crude language promised a whopping tax increase. At this, ten of the twelve tribes split off to form what was called the northern kingdom of Israel, while the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, under the name of the southern kingdom of Judah. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom not only rejected Rehoboam’s political authority, they rejected Solomon’s Temple and Jerusalem as a holy site of worship, instead setting up their own temple on Mt. Gerazim, which had its own sacred history, having many centuries earlier been a holy site shortly after the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. The books of 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles tells of the increasing corruption and falling away of the ten tribes, who were eventually conquered by the Assyrians. The Assyrians exiled many of the members of the ten tribes, and settled foreigners in their place. The Samaritans were considered to be the descendents of the mixed lineage of the remaining members of the northern kingdom who had intermarried with those settled by the Assyrians. Their worship was a mixture of many of the early traditions of the Jews together with various local customs, but completely rejected the sanctity of Jerusalem or Solomon’s temple. By contrast, the Jews of the Southern kingdom took great pride in preserving the purity of their bloodlines and the integrity of their worship even through their own exile in Babylon – and they looked down on the Samaritans, whom they saw as having compromised their religious heritage. In modern day terms, Samaria is situated in what is now the disputed West Bank area, so even now the area knows no peace.

So, anyway, with all this religious and historical ugliness lurking in the background – Jesus is heading home, through hostile Samaritan territory. He’s sent his disciples off to buy food. It’s hot, the journey has been long, and Jesus is tired. He sits by Jacob’s well to rest. It’s high noon, and the sun is baking.

And along comes a woman of Samaria to draw water. In itself, this is a bit odd. Normally, women would have come to the well in the cooler early morning hours, to draw water and maybe share some conversation. This woman came at high noon, in the heat of the day, when she expected nobody to be around. Given what we later learn of her personal history, perhaps she had feared that if she came when others came, she’d wind up being the topic of conversation, and not in a good way.

So she makes her solitary journey in the burning noontime heat to the well, and finds…oh, crud, she’s not alone after all. Not only is she not alone, but one whom she recognizes as a Jew is sitting by the well. The disrespect of her Samaritan neighbors would be nothing compared to the utter contempt she could expect from this man. She had no reason to expect this encounter to end well.

But she needed water, so she kept a stiff upper lip and went to the well. And then the man had the nerve to ask her for a drink. Surprised that he even condescended to recognize her existence, the woman asked how he, a Jew, could ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink. Relations between Jews and Samaritans were so hostile that one could not expect even simple hospitality, in a land where hospitality was a life or death matter.

The man answers by telling her that she should have asked him for a drink of living water. He’s got no bucket that she can see, but he tells her that if she drinks of the water he offers, she’ll never be thirsty again. The conversation is becoming decidedly strange… but it’s a burden coming to this well every day, so she’s willing to play along: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

The man then tells her to call her husband and come back. Now he’s getting a bit too personal. If Facebook existed back then, she’d have listed her relationship status as “it’s complicated”…..and there’s no need for him to know all the gory details, so she tries to leave it at “I have no husband” – which in that society is a difficult enough admission to make, as widows and unmarried women were very vulnerable. But Jesus bores in still closer, affirming that what she said was true – so far as it went – as she’d had five husbands and was living with a man not her husband. Whether she had been widowed multiple times or not, we don’t know, but hers was not a pretty story – and this man knew all about it. He was getting way too close for comfort, so the woman tries to change the topic to the main religious dispute of the day between Jews and Samaritans – should God be worshipped in Jerusalem or Mt. Gerazim – and Jesus says that the day will come when the Father will be worshipped on neither mountain – the day will come when the labels and ethnic identities will fall away - as true worshippers worship God wherever they are in spirit and in truth. The woman says that she knows the Messiah is coming, and Jesus says “I am.” The woman departs, leaving her water jar behind – evidently she no longer needed it, having been refreshed by the living water Jesus offered – and went home to start tell everyone about the man she’d met at the well. Because of her words, more Samaritans came out to meet Jesus, and he ended up staying another two days. Of course, the guys try to have the last word, as guys then and now tend to do, telling the woman, “it is no longer because of what you say that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Again, last week’s Gospel and this week’s Gospel are a study in contrasts. When Nicodemus approached Jesus, Nicodemus’ status, the things he thought he knew, only got in the way, and Nicodemus remained stuck, responding only slowly and tentatively over time to Jesus’ words. When Jesus approached the woman at the well, her lack of status left her wide open to the truth of the Gospel, and she spread that truth everywhere she went. As the old song goes, it only takes a spark to get a fire going – and the conversation with Jesus lit a spark in the woman that led many of her neighbors to salvation.

As I look out at our congregation, I suspect there are more Samaritan women than Nicodemuses among us. We’re a church with a tall steeple, but we’re not a tall-steeple church in the sense of being a prestige parish. Once upon a time, we may have had some movers and shakers in the congregation, but most of our members these days are “just folks”. And, while our life stories may not look exactly like that of the Samaritan woman, I think everyone here has encountered enough potholes and speed bumps on life’s journey – me too - to know how the Samaritan woman felt when she realized that Jesus knew who she was and where she’d been – and accepted her anyway.

It’s not always easy to tap into that well of living water. God continually calls us to leave what is safe and familiar to set out on the journey of faith. God may lead us out of our comfort zone, into unfamiliar territory. The road is dusty and hot, and the journey is long. Like those in our Old Testament reading – that other story about water we heard earlier this morning – it’s tempting to join those Moses led in the wilderness to complain to God, “where are you taking me, God? Where are you leading us? Have you forgotten us? What are you trying to do to us?

Perhaps it would be better to ask, “what is God trying to do with us?” The children of Israel were forever marked and shaped by their forty years in the wilderness. And during our times in the wilderness, God will not abandon us. The life experience of the Samaritan woman – difficult as it was – prepared her for her encounter with Jesus. Her life was never the same again, and her story led many to Jesus. During our own times in the wilderness, God may be shaping us, preparing us for an experience of God’s love that will flow out from us to our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, all those with whom our lives come in contact.

God’s saving love – can become a spring of living water bubbling up in us, offering refreshment to us and those around us. In the words of the gospel hymn:
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
Opens prison doors, sets the captive free
I’ve got a river of life flowing out from me.

May the living water of God’s saving love flow out from Emanuel Church, to refresh our neighbors, in Bridesburg, or with all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
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Please join us on Sundays at 10 a.m at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

God So Loves

2011-03-23T07:33:00.001-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 12:1-4 Romans 4:1-17 John 3:1-17)

This morning’s Scripture readings tell us of two men, Abram and Nicodemus. While they’re separated by centuries of time, they are united in the journey of faith in which they are engaged. Both men journey from places of security and familiarity into the unknown. Perhaps most important, both men’s journeys are not something they thought up, but are made in response to God’s call.

Our reading from Genesis comes just after the account of God’s confusing the language of the people who had been building the tower of Babel. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are an account of humankind, created in the image of God, disobeying God in the garden by seeking to be godlike themselves by knowing good and evil – and after their expulsion from the garden, they mostly came to know evil, as they went from bad to worse, to the point where it is said of humans that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” By Genesis chapter 11, humanity seems to have seems to have run itself into a blind alley – after their language was confused and they left off building the tower and were scattered, the reader is left saying to him- or herself – what now?

Immediately after the account of the failure of the effort to build the tower and the scattering abroad of the human race, Genesis gives us….a geneology – Shem became the father of Arpachshad, who became the father of Shelah - or in the King James Bible, a list of begats – Shem begat Arpachshad begat Shelah, and so forth. If you’re like me, when you see a geneology, or a list of begats, your eyes may glaze over and you may skip to the end of the list. But this geneology forms a bridge that brings us to Abram and his wife Sarai. At first, this geneology, like the bridge in Alaska of which we heard so much a few years ago, looks like a bridge to nowhere, as we’re told Sarai is barren. It seems that the geneology begins with Shem only to end with Abram and Sarai. It would seem that Abram and Sarai, in their barrenness and advancing age, represent the end of the line – literally the end of the line of Shem, and figuratively the end of the line for God’s dealings with humanity. But what seems like an end is instead a new beginning, as God keeps bringing life out of death, making a way out of no way. Genesis chapter 12 takes us into the beginnings of God’s call to Abram. God promises Abram, whose wife Sarai was to that point unable to have children, that Abram will become a great nation. But along with the promise came a call: Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Abram was asked to leave what was familiar, what was secure – but what was certain to end in the his family line dying out with his own death – and set out for the unknown, to set out for a land that he had not seen, with only God’s promise to sustain him.

In John’s Gospel, we watch Nicodemus begin a spiritual pilgrimage. We’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a religious leader – in Jesus’ words, “a teacher of Israel.” Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night – and this has several layers of meaning. He doesn’t want others to see him approaching Jesus, lest he be discredited. But also the darkness may also represent the state of Nicodemus’ mind – being only to see and understand Jesus only in part, fumbling in the darkness, groping for greater understanding. (I’ll mention that immediately following Nicodemus’ midnight encounter with Jesus, John writes about Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well at high noon, in broad daylight – it’s our Gospel reading for next week – and while it takes some effort for the woman and Jesus to get onto the same page, ultimately her mind is wide open to the truth Jesus offers. So in John’s telling, night and day are not only literal, but spiritual.) Nicodemus begins by referring to the signs that Jesus had done: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus’ words reveal that his understanding of Jesus, and that of those others of Nicodemus’ community who know Jesus is a teacher sent by God, is based primarily on Jesus’ miracles. Jesus’ response seems to be a non-sequitur – he says that “nobody can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The greek word “anothen” in this context can mean born again or born from above. It’s notable that, in Jesus’ metaphor, inclusion in the kingdom of God is on God’s initiative, not human initiative – people cannot will themselves to be born from above, any more than a baby can will itself to be born. Jesus is trying to lead Nicodemus from his partial faith, based on signs and cloaked in darkness, to understand that the kingdom of which Jesus speaks comes from God’s actions. The conversation with Jesus appears, at least initially, only to puzzle and confuse Nicodemus – Nicodemus starts out by telling Jesus, “we” – Nicodemus and his followers – “know you are a teacher sent by God.” Jesus responds by saying that “We” – Jesus and his disciples – “speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but you” – Nicodemus and your followers – “do not receive it.”

As I said, this conversation begins a spiritual journey for Nicodemus. Like the spiritual journey of Abram, the beginnings do not look promising – Abram’s wife is barren, and it also appears that Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus had been barren, for they appear to spend their time together talking past each other, never really connecting. And yet, for Nicodemus, something happened to him in that conversation. Nicodemus recurs two other times in John’s Gospel. In John 7, when the religious leaders are considering arresting Jesus, Nicodemus speaks out in Jesus’ defense – though in a cautious way, appealing to the need to follow correct legal procedure, what we would call due process, rather than acknowledging his own faith in Jesus. And after Jesus’ crucifixion, Nicodemus at last openly came, with Joseph of Arimithea, to claim the crucified body of Jesus for burial, perhaps finally acknowledging Jesus and claiming Jesus for his own. Nicodemus’ nighttime conversation with Jesus began a journey that led him to the foot of the cross of Jesus. Beneath the cross of Jesus, after everyone had gone home from the crucifixion, Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, finally took their stand.

How about us? Our faith in Christ is also a pilgrimage, a journey. It may not seem that way. Much popular religion seems to depict faith in Christ not as a journey, but rather as a refusal to journey, as staying in one place, standing on the promises of God, being steadfast, immovable. And when the world tries to knock us off balance, tries to enlist us in its wanderings, we need to say “no”, need to be steadfast. But when, in the words of our hymn, Jesus still leads on, to dig in our heels and refuse to budge from where we are is a not a demonstration of faith, but a rejection of faith. Think how different our lives, our world would be if Abram had said to God, “I like it where I am. I’m not budging.” Imagine how different our faith would be if, after Jesus had begun expounding the mysteries of the Kingdom, Nicodemus had folded his arms across his chest and responded, “well, you and your followers may allow yourselves to be blown about in the wind, but we know what we know; that’s our story – that’s our faith story - and we’re sticking to it.”

For, in truth, the story of our faith is ultimately not Abram’s story or Nicodemus’ story, not their story for them to shape or change – ultimately the story of our faith is God’s story, in which God is gracious to allow us to have a part. And the story of faith, the journey of faith, continues. We quote John chapter 3, verse 16 most Sundays during the assurance of pardon: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The entire Gospel can be summed up in this one verse. But the word “loved” – past tense – may lead us to look on God’s love as being “past tense”- a thing of the past. Now, the death and resurrection of Jesus is indeed a past event – Christ died and rose once for all. But the saving love of the risen Christ continues to this day. God’s love continues to this day. The movement of the Spirit continues to this day. It’s not just “God so loved” – yesterday, a bunch of folks in the middle east wearing funny robes way back then – but “God so loves” – today, this hour, this minute, you, me, all of us here, God so loves each of us, that as we are born from above by the movement of the Spirit, God graciously writes each of us into the story of salvation, includes each of us on the roll call of those Christ died to save, invites each of us forward on the journey of faith.

God so loved – you, and you, and you, and me – that he gave his only Son. God so loves you and you and you and me that the presence of his Spirit continues to lead us on. God so loves – all them out there – that he has sent us to proclaim the Good News. Jesus, still lead on. Guide us by your hand, to the promised land. Amen.
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Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

What A Friend!

2011-03-13T17:10:00.003-04:00

(Scriptures: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11)

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, those forty days each year in which we follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. It’s a time to shut out the world’s distractions, and focus on Jesus, so that, having been refreshed in our time with Jesus, we are renewed to return to the world to share God’s love through our words and actions. As Jesus spent 40 days alone in the desert, pondering the call he heard from God, so are we to draw apart and consider the calling to which God has called each of us, and the calling to which God has called this faith community called Emanuel Church.

We aren’t given a lot of detail about what Jesus was doing out in the desert. This morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel takes place immediately after Jesus’ baptism, when, as John was baptizing him, the spirit came down like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” Then we’re told that the Spirit led him into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. Matthew’s Gospel brings out parallels between Jesus’ experience and that of Moses, and today’s reading is no exception; in Matthew’s telling, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness parallel the 40 years of Moses’ and Israel’s wandering in the wilderness – except where Israel and even Moses ultimately fell short, Jesus overcame temptation and remained faithful to God.

Twice, the devil introduces the question, ‘If you are the Son of God….’ After the affirmation of love that Jesus experienced at his baptism, with the voice from heaven calling Jesus God’s Son, the Beloved…now, after Jesus has been out baking in the heat of the desert for 40 days, growing hungrier by the minute, the devil introduces doubt. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off this mountain so that God will bear you up. If you are the Son of God. If. Are you sure that voice of love you heard at your baptism was God’s voice? Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe you dreamed the whole thing. Giving into those doubts, giving into that “if” would lead to distance between Jesus and the Father.

The three temptations themselves – to turn stones into bread, to force God into a display of power, to gain political power at the cost of turning from God – on one level, are outside our experience. They seem like decisions we will never face. After all, I can’t snap my fingers and turn stones into bread, and I suspect you can’t either. And yet, in overcoming all these temptations, Jesus must define what his ministry will be about. Will Jesus use his powers to benefit others, or himself? Will his ministry be about humbly serving those in need, or dazzling others with flashy displays of power? Will Jesus be a Savior, or an earthly dictator? In all these encounters with the devil, Jesus is being tempted to make his ministry smaller than God intends, to make his ministry about himself rather than others. Three times, the devil offers Jesus a chance to save his life, rather than lose it. Three times, the devil offers Jesus an easy short-cut to glory that bypasses the cross.

Our Old Testament reading from Genesis shows the consequence of doubting God’s goodness and trying to take shortcuts to fulfillment. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden, in communion with God, with all their needs met. It was the voice of the serpent that introduced doubts – “Did God say, you cannot eat of any tree in the Garden…..If you eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree, you will not die, but rather your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” They ate, and in their new awareness of their nakedness before God and one another, they hid. Where there had been close communion between God and humans, now there was shame and alienation; humans hid from God.

So, in a sense, our lectionary, by putting the Genesis story of the fall alongside the story of Jesus temptation in the wilderness, underscores that Jesus overcame the temptation that defeated Adam and Eve. In Genesis, in the garden, the tempter succeeded in breaking the communion between God and humankind. In the wilderness, the tempter tried the same thing - tried to introduce doubt and distance and alienation between Jesus and the Father, tried to induce Jesus to bypass the painful way of the cross – but Jesus stood firm.

These are temptations all of us face as individuals, and that we face as the church, the body of Christ. Every one of us goes through wilderness periods in our lives, when the earthly comforts that normally sustain us, are taken away. How will we respond? Will we follow the advice of Job’s wife to “curse God and die?” Will we take shortcuts to try to regain the comfort we once had, or the comfort we would like to have – resorting to morally questionable means, be it cheating clients or cheating on taxes as a shortcut to maintain our financial security, resorting to morally questionable means such as cheating on a spouse or partner as a shortcut to meeting our emotional needs, if our primary relationship has seemingly gone stale. Will we make our faith about meeting our own needs rather than meeting the needs of others?

History records many times when the church has given into the temptation to amass wealth and power while the poor have starved, where the church has played political games in an attempt to assure its own welfare. How about the church of our time? In our day, when the cultural supports of “respectability” that once propped up the church have been taken away, the church faces temptation as well. Will the church – be it our particular congregation, Emanuel Church, or the universal church, the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, big “C” church - risk popularity by standing against oppression, violence, and injustice, by speaking out against our national sin of greed that has created a society where a few hundred people hold more wealth than the poorest third of our neighbors – let alone the poor of other countries - or will we take the safe route of telling people what they want to hear, reassured in our respectability, limiting our denunciation of sin to pointing our fingers at those on the margins that our society scapegoats as sinners, thus building walls around ourselves and buying into bigotry in order to reassure ourselves of our self-righteousness, rather than looking at our own complicity, the part we all play in perpetuating injustice and violence. Will the church challenge our members to grow, or by entertaining them lull them to sleep? Will we as Christians receive the spiritual bread that will sustain us on our journey, that will strengthen us to take on the world, the flesh, and the devil - or will we gorge ourselves on the spiritual junk food that’s out there – and, like fast food restaurants on every major road selling super-duper-humdinger McWhopper burgers that are like a heart attack on a sesame seed bun, you can find spiritual junk food literally everywhere, from the many and various TV and radio preachers and most of the feel-good books in the religion section of many bookstores, spiritual junk food that makes us fat rather than strong, makes us spiritually lazy and sleepy, content to sit back on our couch, safe in our little cocoon, rather than energizing us to love and worship God and love and serve our neighbor. When we hear the voices calling our church to be content to be a little holy huddle, focused on our own survival and, to the extent our resources allow, our own comfort, rather than preaching the Gospel and sharing God’s love with our neighborhood, our city, our country, our world – when we hear the voices of our day calling us to be respectable rather than faithful – in the society of his day, Jesus was absolutely anything but respectable - we can be sure that this is the voice of the tempter, telling us to play it safe and take shortcuts, and not the voice of God.

That’s the bad news. The good news of the Gospel is that, even if we’ve wandered off course, taken shortcuts, compromised our faith, made deals with the devil that have left us estranged from God and neighbor, God does not leave us there. The Psalmist knew what it was to live with the guilt that comes with cutting corners and making deals with the devil - “while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the summer’s heat.” And we’ve all been there. But the Psalmist doesn’t leave us there. He goes on: “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” In the words of the hymn, we have the privilege of taking to the Lord in prayer all our sins and shortcomings. We need not worry about others standing in judgment of us, for the ground is level at the foot of the cross. At the foot of the cross nobody is respectable and nobody is disrespectable. At the foot of the cross we all stand on the same level, as sinners in need of God’s grace. We follow a God always in search of the last, the lost, and the least. We always have the privilege to take it – whatever it is that separates us from God and neighbor, whatever it is that weighs us down and holds us back – we always have the privilege to take it to the Lord in prayer.

John Newton, the former slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” near the end of his life was heard to say, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” In these forty days of Lent, may we never hesitate to come to that great Savior. May we never hesitate to take all that we have and all that we are to the Lord in prayer. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org

A Divine Encounter (Transfiguration Sunday sermon)

2011-03-06T14:01:00.003-05:00

(Scriptures: Exodus 24:12-18, Psalm 99, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Matthew 17:1-9

Today is the first Sunday in March. This year, it is also the last Sunday in Epiphany, the season of the church calendar that celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the world. Later this week will be Ash Wednesday – which will be celebrated at Bridesburg Methodist, as in past years – and next Sunday will be the first Sunday in Lent. On this last Sunday in Epiphany, it is appropriate that the Gospel reading describes the Transfiguration, in which Jesus revealed himself in a special way to three of his disciples, Peter, James and John.

Matthew’s Gospel is thought to have been written to an early Christian community comprised mostly, though not entirely, of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus. Matthew brings out many parallels between the Transfiguration of Jesus and the giving of the law to Moses. Both the giving of the law to Moses and the transfiguration of Jesus occur on mountains, which because of their height were considered especially close to heaven and were therefore thought to be places in which encounters with the Holy were especially likely to occur – similar to what the Irish have called “thin places,” places where the barrier between earth and heaven became almost translucent, and one could almost see from one side to the other. Six days Moses stayed on the mountaintop, enveloped by the glory of God appearing as a cloud, before Moses received the law; six days after revealing to his disciples that he would be killed in Jerusalem, Jesus invited Peter, James, and John to hike with him up the mountain, where Jesus then appeared before them transfigured, appeared to them in a glory that had not previously been apparent. God spoke to Moses out of the cloud of glory; Jesus spoke with Moses – representing the law – and Elijah – representing the prophets – on the mountain of transfiguration. Of course, the disciples are beside themselves with joy and with awe; Peter, supposing that this sort of summit meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah might go on for a while, maybe even overnight, offers to build huts for each of them to live in. And then, as if seeing Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah weren’t enough, the three disciples hear God’s voice booming at them out of a cloud, in words that remind us of the voice heard at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well-pleased; listen to Him.” Joy becomes terror, and they hit the deck, falling face down on the ground. Then the vision vanishes, and Jesus gently reaches out to touch them on the shoulder, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

What are we to make of this? At first glance, we may think the entire account is beyond our experience. And yet, I think we’ve all had experiences in which we learn something we didn’t know previously about someone long familiar to us – perhaps a parent or a spouse or a lifelong friend - that helps us see that familiar person in a whole new way. For example, perhaps growing up, we asked our dad about some military medals we found tucked away in the back of a drawer, and out came stories dad’s military heroism, long years before we were born, that give us new respect for our dad. Or maybe one night over the dinner table, Mom reminisced about how she’d worked night shift in a factory to support dad through school, and we saw a side of Mom’s character that we hadn’t seen before.

And so one part of the Transfiguration account was that Jesus gave to Peter, James and John, the three disciples to whom Jesus was closest, a special revelation of His character – that, indeed, Jesus was a teacher and a healer, but not only that, that Jesus was the beloved of God, was himself God, in dialogue with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, direct encounters with God are under normal circumstances too much for frail human beings to handle; for example, when God gave the law to Moses, the people told Moses, “You speak to us, and we’ll listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we’ll die.” And so normally God’s glory is hidden from us. But for his closest followers, on this one occasion, Jesus pulled back the veil just a bit, gave them just a glimpse of the glory of God that was always with Jesus – glory that was always there - but under normal circumstances was hidden from their sight.

Why did Jesus give this vision to his three closest disciples? Was it just a moment of indulgence, a chance to show off a bit? Or was something deeper going on? Remember the context of the account – six days before the Transfiguration, Jesus had begun to tell his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem, where he would be put to death. And so this special vision was granted to the inner circle of his disciples to prepare them for what was to come – the journey to Jerusalem, opposition from both the Temple religious establishment and the Roman establishment, his arrest and execution on the cross.

Again, this account of the Transfiguration may seem outside our experience, something that is perhaps interesting to read, but disconnected from our lives. And yet, as we prepare for the upcoming season of Lent, when spiritually for 40 days we walk alongside Jesus on his journey to the cross, let us consider the ways in which we encounter God’s presence in our own lives. We may feel God’s presence when we come to church and, as we sing a beloved hymn or lift up the needs of our neighbors in prayer, we may hear God’s still small voice within our hearts, or feel the touch of God’s hand brush against us. During a difficult period in my early teens, the ringing of the bells of my hometown church, as the carillon rang out hymns at noon, 3pm and 6 pm every day, the sound of the bells played familiar hymns as I walked home from school and I remembered the words of the hymn, “help of the helpless, O abide with me....” at a time when I was feeling very helpless indeed, to me was like God’s voice, telling me that God had not forgotten me, that God was going to carry me through….and so when I preached at Emanuel for the first time back in November 2007, as nervous and awkward as I was, tripping over steps and stumbling over words, as church bell was rung before service, you can imagine that the sound of the bell brought back reassuring memories to me from years past – God is here, too. We may feel God’s presence as we read a passage of Scripture and something jumps out at us that we hadn’t seen before. We may feel God’s presence as we read a prayer or a Psalm or sing a hymn that was a favorite of our mother or father. We may feel God’s presence in a brilliant sunrise or sunset, or, in the words of the old hymn, “in the rustling grass I hear him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.” We may encounter God’s presence, that of God, in each other and in our neighbors, if we have eyes to see. As Christian writer C. S. Lewis wrote,

“There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal… It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”

We also experience God’s presence in the sacraments. Through the waters of baptism, God claims us for God’s own, as we or our parents on our behalf promise to walk in God’s ways, and the church promises to support that lifelong walk with God. And in a few moments, we’ll have the privilege to encounter the presence of Christ in the elements of Communion, as we remember the body of Christ, broken for us, and the blood of Christ, poured out for our salvation. May God’s presence strengthen us for the 40 days of Lent, and may God’s presence be with us and go with us wherever our lives may take us. Amen.
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Please join us for worship Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore St off Thompson in Philadelphia's Bridesburg section. www.emanuelphila.org

Lent Begins

2011-03-06T13:59:00.000-05:00

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’’ Matthew 4:1-4

With the coming of the month of March, our liturgical calendar transitions from Epiphany to Lent. Epiphany was a season of proclamation and revelation, as Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles, was baptized, and began his teaching and healing ministry. Lent, by contrast, is a time of introspection, self-examination, and repentance. In a sense, in Epiphany we journey beyond ourselves outward in faith to share Christ with our neighbors. Lent, by contrast, is about the journey inward, as we examine our lives in the light of the cross of Christ.

During this season of Lent, I would encourage each of us to re-connect more deeply with our faith in Jesus. This year’s United Church of Christ’s Lenten devotional booklet, called “The Jesus Diaries”, offers thought-provoking mediations on the question “Who is Jesus to me?” from a variety of writers. See the article later in this newsletter for more information. In addition, as in past years, the Bridesburg Council of Churches will offer a series of Wednesday night Lenten services, beginning with Ash Wednesday on March 9 at Bridesburg Methodist. The services will rotate among the Bridesburg churches according to the schedule later in this newsletter; Emanuel Church will host services on Wednesdays, March 30 and April 13.

I’d also encourage us to be alert for signs of God’s presence in our every day lives. The Gospel for March 6 (Transfiguration Sunday), tells of a time when Jesus invited Peter, James and John for what started out as a mountain hike, but ended up as an encounter with the divine, as Jesus was revealed to them in a new way. (The Scripture reference is Matthew 17:1-9.) Our experience may not look like that experience, but if we are alert, we may find that God is present in our daily encounters with family, friends, coworkers, or in the ordinary events of the day. To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only those who see, take off their shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

During this season of Lent, may we be alert to those times when we, too, stand on holy ground.
See you in church!
Pastor Dave

Bridesburg Council of Churches Lenten Schedule
(All Wednesday evening services at 7 p.m.,; most services are preceded by soup and/or refreshments)
March 9 (Ash Wednesday) Bridesburg Methodist
March 16 Bridesburg Baptist
March 23 Bethesda Methodist
March 30 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 6 Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 13 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 22, 1-2 pm Good Friday Service, Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 23 9:30 a.m. Easter Egg Hunt Bridesburg Presbyterian Churchyard
April 24, 7 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service Bridesburg Baptist

Don't Worry?

2011-03-06T13:54:00.003-05:00

(Scriptures: Isaiah 49:8-16a, Psalm 131, I Corinthians 4:1-5, Matthew 6:7-15, 19-34)

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is the last we’ll hear for a while from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. While we may have been comforted three weeks ago by the Beatitudes, for the past two Sundays Jesus has offered some very difficult sayings, telling us not only not to commit adultery and kill, but also not even to entertain lust or anger in our minds, not even to allow lust and anger to linger in our thoughts, but to let go of them without hesitation. Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell us to overcome our instincts for survival so that God can give us the gift of a love that will go the 2nd mile, a love that will extend beyond our friends to our enemies, a love willing to do good unto all. By now, we may feel that Jesus have gone from preaching to meddling, as the saying goes.

With this Sunday’s reading, we may think that Jesus has completely taken leave of his senses, that he’s gone from asking the impossible to ranting nonsense. After all, in this awful economy, when people are being fired left and right while the rich just get richer, how can we possibly take Jesus seriously when he tells us not to worry where our next meal is coming from? It may seem that Jesus has lost touch with reality. But I’m here to say that the opposite is true – Jesus is, figuratively speaking, jumping up and down trying to draw our attention from the distractions of our daily lives to the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of God.

I began the Gospel reading a bit earlier in Matthew 6 than the lectionary reading indicated, in order to include the Lord’s Prayer. We will pray the Lord’s Prayer following the sermon, as we do every Sunday when we worship here. It’s such a familiar prayer that it’s tempting to just recite it by rote, as if we were talking in our sleep, not unlike school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as nothing more than a jumble of syllables, with no real meaning. When treated like this, it becomes background noise, losing its power to transform our lives. But in our reading, Jesus lifted up several thoughts in connection with the Lord’s Prayer. First of all, it’s quite short and simple. Jesus specifically taught his followers not to heap up long, empty prayers full of flowery words, as if to try to impress God. But Jesus also says, in this connection, that our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask. The prayer “give us this day our daily bread” is not intended to remind an absent-minded, forgetful, fumbling God: "Yo, don’t forget to feed us!" Rather, it’s to remind us of our utter daily dependency before God. At the end of the prayer, Jesus lifts up the necessity of forgiving the offenses of others, as we have been forgiven by God.

And then Jesus goes on to speak of what we do with the blessings with which God has blessed us. Do we, in our greed and our anxiety about tomorrow, hang onto them with a deathgrip, or do we make our blessings available to others. Jesus’ talk about “treasures in heaven” is his way of speaking of almsgiving, or sharing our treasure with the poor. When Jesus contrasts treasures on earth with treasures in heaven, he’s contrasting the behavior of hanging onto our wealth, vs sharing it with others.

And then Jesus speaks of the frustration of serving of trying to serve two masters who would pull us in opposite directions: inevitably we’ll love one and reject the other. Inevitably one master is not going to be happy with us. In the same way, serving Mammon – figuratively, the god of money, that which for many represents prosperity and comfort – will lead us to neglect our relationship with God, just as serving God will inevitably lead us not to be invested in our own prosperity and comfort.

Fortunately Jesus does not leave us, in the words of the old Mary McGregor song, “torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool…..” – he gives us a definite shove in the direction of serving God, and letting the other stuff happen as it happens. Just as Jesus said in his lead-in to the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus again reminds us that God already knows we need food and clothing and shelter, and that if God lovingly provides for lilies and sparrows that are here today and gone tomorrow or next week, how much more so will God lovingly provide for our needs. Jesus knows that if we’re freed up from our obsessive focuses on ourselves, our own needs, our own wants, our own wants that pretend to be needs, we’ll be liberated to love God and neighbor. In a society that’s obsessed with looking out for number one – and that describes the society of Jesus’ day, as well as our society and pretty much every human society on the planet before or since – Jesus is trying to build an alternative society in which, with the real number one, God, already looking out for us, we can care for the welfare of others.

“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or wear…” – that would pretty much put out business the advertising industry, which succeeds precisely by getting us to worry about just those things, and more. Meanwhile, it’s a measure of how utterly co-opted by American materialism, how utterly sucked into the world’s way of doing things, much of our country’s religious establishment is that, by and large, most churches aren’t even trying to create that alternative society of which Jesus spoke. By and large, conservative churches and religious leaders support political leaders who are trying to shred what remains of our country’s social safety net, trying to destroy whatever ability those on the margins of our society have to better themselves. Exhibit A is what’s happening in Wisconsin, with the newly-elected governor and legislature engaging in union-busting tactics. And this trend has spread to other states, with the enthusiastic support of many in the church, who try to let themselves off the hook of their guilty consciences by handing out a few food baskets at Christmas. What are folks supposed to live on the rest of the year? The wealthy of our time, have increased their wealth by distracting folks like us, by setting up state workers and union members as scapegoats and telling us that these scapegoats have life too easy, meanwhile the wealthy are picking our back pockets while our attention is diverted. America today has the greatest inequality of wealth that we’ve had in nearly 100 years – and it’s growing. Talk about powers and principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places!! And many TV and radio preachers, rather than combating this spiritual wickedness, instead work to get their share of the action, leading their supporters to send in whatever little money they have left, mopping up anything their listeners may have left over. All of this blatant greed is million miles away from anything Jesus preached. While many of our conservative churches try to make morality all about sex, certain kinds of sex, anyway – under the title of “family values” – but are strangely silent on the topic of wealth and the greed that comes with it – Jesus seldom spoke about sex, but was an absolute pain in the neck on the subject of money, going on and on about the spiritual danger of greed. The United Church of Christ, for our part, has echoed Jesus’ message about the need to overcome greed, to share our treasure with the poor, but we’re a voice crying in the wilderness, heard by few, ignored by most. As has been said in various ways by many different people – from Gandhi to German Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Pearl S. Buck to Hubert H Humphrey – “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” By that measure, I’d have to say our American society is failing that test, miserably. Not only are we as a society failing, we’re not even trying to get it right.

Having reminded his listeners that as God cares for the grass of the fields and the birds of the air, God will care for us – having told us what we shouldn’t obsess over, Jesus tells us what we should focus on – and it’s what we sang about during the offering: Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness, and all this other stuff will be added to us. Now the kingdom of God is not just some ethereal realm, pie in the sky by and by when we die. Seek first the kingdom of God – where the last, the least, and the lost are cared for, where nobody is left to drop out of the bottom of society, where love of God is inseparable from love of neighbor, even those neighbors we may not like very much, who make us uncomfortable, who make our skin crawl – those are the neighbors God has commanded us to love. Remember the words of our reading from Isaiah, which tell us what our purpose is: “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, "Come out," to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves." They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.” This is a picture of how God wants us to live, and how God wants us to act toward those on the margins of our society. This is a picture of the Kingdom of God, which will be fully realized at the end of time – but which we begin to experience here and now as followers of Jesus, as disciples of Christ.

Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and not our own comfort and convenience. Seek first the kingdom of God, not just when the sun is shining and the birds are singing – Jesus has no need of fair weather friends – but when it’s stormy weather, when we have to plod through puddles and slog through snowdrifts to seek it. May we at Emanuel Church not be fair weather friends to Jesus, but seek first God’s kingdom, that our neighbors here in Bridesburg and our neighbors far away may receive the blessings of God….and that in being a blessing to others, we too may be blessed. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Bridesburg. www.emanuelphila.org