We’ve come through the season of Advent and Christmas, and now celebrate Epiphany. Epiphany marks the revelation of the Christ child to the Gentiles, as personified by the Magi. In the Hispanic community, Epiphany Sunday is known as Three Kings Day. Children leave their shoes out so that the Kings will leave them presents. In some Orthodox Christian communities, Epiphany is connected, not with the arrival of the Magi, but with the baptism of Jesus. In these Orthodox Christian traditions, Epiphany ceremonies involve the ritual blessing of water. These varied customs all point to God’s self-revelation, through the incarnation of Jesus, to humankind.
At the same time, we leave 2009, with all its trials and all its blessings, behind. For many, the trials of the past year have weighed heavily – and yet, even amid struggle and hardship, God has brought us through. A new year, 2010, awaits – a new year with untold possibilities and promise, a new year with new opportunities to love God and neighbor.
What will 2010 bring? In the coming year, how and where will God be revealed? How will we experience the coming of the Christ in our lives, in the life of our congregation, in our beloved community of Bridesburg? What strangers from the East – or West or South or North, from far away or from just next door - may come to Emanuel Church, asking where they can find Jesus, seeking to adore the Christ, seeking “God with us”?
Only God knows the answers to these questions. Come what may, may we walk in the confidence that our loving God watches over us and cares for us. May these words from the prayer known as the St. Francis Breastplate bring us comfort in days ahead:
Christ be with me, Christ within me
Christ behind me, Christ before me
Christ beside me, Christ to win me
Christ to comfort me and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger
Christ in hearts of all that love me
Christ in mouth of friend or stranger.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Leaping for Joy - A Sermon for a Snowstorm
(Philadelphia, like many cities on the East Coast, is under a snow emergency as I write this, and services at Emanuel Church, like those at many Philadelphia churches, are cancelled for December 20. We will have Christmas Eve services at 7 p.m. Since there will be no services on Sunday, this blog will be my only chance to "preach" this Sunday.)
For the past two weeks, we’ve been hearing from John the Baptist, the wildman in the wilderness whose ministry prepared the way for Jesus’ own. This week, the women finally have a chance to get a word or two in edgewise. And what words they give us!
In our Gospel today (Luke 1:39-56) pregnant Mary sets out to visit her relative Elizabeth, who in her old age is also miraculously pregnant. We don’t hear at this point from Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah; he was struck mute during his angelic visitation. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and her cry of joy is remembered by the Roman Catholic church in the words of the Rosary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary’s response has been called by the church the Magnificat, from the Latin rendering of its opening line – “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” And she continues with words that lay out major themes in Luke’s Gospel – “[God] 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.” Mary’s words also recall the song of Hannah in I Samuel 2:1-10, a response to her own miraculous conception of Samuel.
As we count down the final days of Advent, we can reflect on how God has used these simple, human stories – a visit from a relative, companionship during pregnancy, the birth of a child – to change the world. These small, human-scale stories are part of the great story of God’s salvation. We should never doubt that God can likewise use our lives, our stories, to change the world. One of my former pastors always told our congregation at Christmas that when God wants to change the world, he sends, not an army, but a baby.
What about those words of Mary (and of Hannah) about the downfall of the powerful and the uplift of the lowly. Mary’s words are spoken as if these things have already happened, but we who hear these words are still in the midst of seeing them come to fulfillment. The news of the past year has reminded us that the gap between the powerful and the lowly are as stark as ever, and perhaps even seem to be increasing. And yet Mary reminds us that, ultimately, Mary’s baby, and not King Herod (or the Herods of our time), carry the day. I’m reminded of a verse from the familiar carol:
O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow –
Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.
Amid the rush of final trips to the mall, in days ahead may we all make time and space to hear the music of the angels.
For the past two weeks, we’ve been hearing from John the Baptist, the wildman in the wilderness whose ministry prepared the way for Jesus’ own. This week, the women finally have a chance to get a word or two in edgewise. And what words they give us!
In our Gospel today (Luke 1:39-56) pregnant Mary sets out to visit her relative Elizabeth, who in her old age is also miraculously pregnant. We don’t hear at this point from Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah; he was struck mute during his angelic visitation. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and her cry of joy is remembered by the Roman Catholic church in the words of the Rosary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary’s response has been called by the church the Magnificat, from the Latin rendering of its opening line – “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” And she continues with words that lay out major themes in Luke’s Gospel – “[God] 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.” Mary’s words also recall the song of Hannah in I Samuel 2:1-10, a response to her own miraculous conception of Samuel.
As we count down the final days of Advent, we can reflect on how God has used these simple, human stories – a visit from a relative, companionship during pregnancy, the birth of a child – to change the world. These small, human-scale stories are part of the great story of God’s salvation. We should never doubt that God can likewise use our lives, our stories, to change the world. One of my former pastors always told our congregation at Christmas that when God wants to change the world, he sends, not an army, but a baby.
What about those words of Mary (and of Hannah) about the downfall of the powerful and the uplift of the lowly. Mary’s words are spoken as if these things have already happened, but we who hear these words are still in the midst of seeing them come to fulfillment. The news of the past year has reminded us that the gap between the powerful and the lowly are as stark as ever, and perhaps even seem to be increasing. And yet Mary reminds us that, ultimately, Mary’s baby, and not King Herod (or the Herods of our time), carry the day. I’m reminded of a verse from the familiar carol:
O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow –
Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.
Amid the rush of final trips to the mall, in days ahead may we all make time and space to hear the music of the angels.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
What Should We Do?
When I was preparing this morning, an old church camp song came to mind. Raise your hands if you’ve heard it before:
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
And there are lots of other verses – stomp your feet, shout out loud, say amen! No end of things to do if you’re happy.
Today is the third Sunday of Advent, that season of anticipation for the coming of the Christ child. Once again, while our neighbors are at the mall, our Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18) has us out in the desert with John the Baptist. And yet, today we also lit, along with the candles of hope and peace, the candle of joy. This year, our reading come from the Gospel of Luke, and, indeed, in Luke’s Gospel, joy is a recurring theme – joy that can last despite our circumstances.
Luke’s account of John the Baptist has much in common with Matthew and Mark – same guy dressed in camel skin, eating locusts and wild honey, same challenging words for those coming to him – “you brood of vipers” – you know, John’s not going to win many popularity points calling people snakes – same demand for repentance, same warning that their status as descendents of Abraham would not save them, as God could create descendents for Abraham from the stones on the ground. And, indeed, as God did create spiritual descendents for Abraham from the Gentile nations that accepted the good news gladly – and we here at Emanuel count among those spiritual descendents of Abraham that God has created.
But in Luke, the crowd pushes back at John a bit. “What should we do?” What do you want from us, John? As strident as John’s message has been so far, you might expect John to tell everyone to sell their homes and give away all their possessions and leave their families and flee the world and wear a hair shirt and come live with John in the desert – something really extreme – but John’s demands are – not that unreasonable. “Whoever has two coats must share with those who have none; those who have food must do likewise. Tax collectors, don’t collect more than is due. Soldiers, don’t blackmail or strong-arm or shake down the populace for money – be satisfied with your wages.” It may sound at first hearing like no more than “playing nice in the sandbox”, so to speak – don’t cheat, don’t extort – but more fundamentally John is asking his listeners not to abuse their authority, but to exercise it fairly. And there’s also a demand to share with those less fortunate. I would note that John’s demand to share a coat, if you have two, may be more demanding than it sounds. He didn’t say, if you have 22 coats, give away the one that’s the most worn out and threadbare…John’s demand is more like sharing half your possessions than just giving away one extra coat out of our surplus. So this would be costly - but this is all doable stuff – challenging, but doable. We can do this. And for a population that was used to being cheated and shaken down and watching others prosper while they starved, all of this would have been good news – cause for joy.
One wonders what John might say today if we were to go out into the desert to listen to him. Maybe something like: hey, investment bankers, don’t grab every last dollar in the economy for yourself – share some with the rest of us. Health insurance executives, don’t cut off peoples’ benefits the second they get sick. CEO’s, don’t pad your own pay by firing every last worker you can spare and shipping your jobs overseas. You can probably fill in a few suggestions on your own.
Luke tells us that with many other exhortations, John preached the good news to the people. Luke saw John’s words about repentance and turning around our lives as good news. But good news for who? And the answer is, ultimately us, our neighbor, and everyone. It’s all steps on the way toward that day of joy envisioned in Zephaniah, steps toward that day of the coming of the Kingdom when God will deal with the oppressors – those of Zephaniah’s time, those of John the Baptists’ and Jesus’ time, those of our own time - will gather the lame and the outcast, and turn shame into praise and renown.
Let me be clear: This isn’t about trying to work our way into the Kingdom of God. None of us can do any of this perfectly, and we will always need to ask forgiveness from Jesus, the coming one who is greater than John, for those places in our lives that are broken and those times when we sin against God and neighbor. It is only by God’s working in us that we can do any of this at all. But John’s message is about clearing the path, smoothing the way for the coming of Jesus and kingdom of God. John is a transitional figure, a bridge from Judaism’s “law and prophets” to Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom. He’s preparing the way for the greater one who is to come, and preaches repentance. Now when we think of repentance, we usually think of confession and being sorry for the sins of the past week – and that’s a part of it. But for John, repentance is not just about changing one’s mind, but about changing one’s behavior, ultimately about changing one’s life. Perhaps John is challenging his listeners to begin to live into the kind of behavior that expected in the kingdom of God. If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it. If you’ve got the joy of Jesus in your heart, you won’t be able to keep it to yourself.
John envisions Jesus, the coming one who is greater than he, as coming with a winnowing fork, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In that time, the winnowing fork would have been used to throw the wheat up in the air, so that the wind would catch and carry away the lighter chaff, or waste, leaving the wheat on the floor. When we hear about the wheat being separated by the chaff, we may think of Jesus separating the good people from the bad people, the sheep from the goats – and that may be part of it – but it’s also separating the good from the bad in each of us. And so it is with us; as we turn our lives over to Christ and live into being a disciple of Christ, as we go through the trials and storms of our lives and we feel like our lives are being tossed around and turned upside down, over the years Christ works to remove those things in our lives that keep us in bondage. And as we are more in harmony with God and neighbor, our lives will reflect the joy that comes with discipleship. If we’re happy and we know it, then our lives will surely show it. Then our lives will reflect Paul’s words from his letter to the Philippians, which he wrote from prison:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
For worry is at the heart of so much that is wrong with the world. As a society, fear of scarcity, fear that we won’t have enough, drives us to take more than our share. And that’s as true for the investment banker who insists he really needs a $3 million bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on $2 million, as it is for someone at the food bank who may try to take an extra can of vegetables. Fear and worry for our own safety drives us to turn our backs on our neighbors. If you’re worried and you know it, clench your fists…if you’re worried and you know it, grind your teeth….if you’re worried and you know it then your life will surely show it….But we don’t have to live in worry. Rather rejoice – even in unsettling times like our own. Let your gentleness be known. Don’t worry, but rather take your concerns in prayer to God, with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God – not a peace that’s enforced at gunpoint, not a peace that’s just a break between conflicts, but God’s peace that passes all human understanding, that will guard our hearts and minds so that, even though all around us is in an uproar, our hearts and minds will be focused on Christ Jesus. I began with a camp song, and I’m closing with a gospel song that you may not have heard, but maybe it’s one you can take home with you:
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Allelu Allelu Alleluia
So no matter what this hectic Advent season brings, may we keep our hearts and minds stayed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
And there are lots of other verses – stomp your feet, shout out loud, say amen! No end of things to do if you’re happy.
Today is the third Sunday of Advent, that season of anticipation for the coming of the Christ child. Once again, while our neighbors are at the mall, our Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18) has us out in the desert with John the Baptist. And yet, today we also lit, along with the candles of hope and peace, the candle of joy. This year, our reading come from the Gospel of Luke, and, indeed, in Luke’s Gospel, joy is a recurring theme – joy that can last despite our circumstances.
Luke’s account of John the Baptist has much in common with Matthew and Mark – same guy dressed in camel skin, eating locusts and wild honey, same challenging words for those coming to him – “you brood of vipers” – you know, John’s not going to win many popularity points calling people snakes – same demand for repentance, same warning that their status as descendents of Abraham would not save them, as God could create descendents for Abraham from the stones on the ground. And, indeed, as God did create spiritual descendents for Abraham from the Gentile nations that accepted the good news gladly – and we here at Emanuel count among those spiritual descendents of Abraham that God has created.
But in Luke, the crowd pushes back at John a bit. “What should we do?” What do you want from us, John? As strident as John’s message has been so far, you might expect John to tell everyone to sell their homes and give away all their possessions and leave their families and flee the world and wear a hair shirt and come live with John in the desert – something really extreme – but John’s demands are – not that unreasonable. “Whoever has two coats must share with those who have none; those who have food must do likewise. Tax collectors, don’t collect more than is due. Soldiers, don’t blackmail or strong-arm or shake down the populace for money – be satisfied with your wages.” It may sound at first hearing like no more than “playing nice in the sandbox”, so to speak – don’t cheat, don’t extort – but more fundamentally John is asking his listeners not to abuse their authority, but to exercise it fairly. And there’s also a demand to share with those less fortunate. I would note that John’s demand to share a coat, if you have two, may be more demanding than it sounds. He didn’t say, if you have 22 coats, give away the one that’s the most worn out and threadbare…John’s demand is more like sharing half your possessions than just giving away one extra coat out of our surplus. So this would be costly - but this is all doable stuff – challenging, but doable. We can do this. And for a population that was used to being cheated and shaken down and watching others prosper while they starved, all of this would have been good news – cause for joy.
One wonders what John might say today if we were to go out into the desert to listen to him. Maybe something like: hey, investment bankers, don’t grab every last dollar in the economy for yourself – share some with the rest of us. Health insurance executives, don’t cut off peoples’ benefits the second they get sick. CEO’s, don’t pad your own pay by firing every last worker you can spare and shipping your jobs overseas. You can probably fill in a few suggestions on your own.
Luke tells us that with many other exhortations, John preached the good news to the people. Luke saw John’s words about repentance and turning around our lives as good news. But good news for who? And the answer is, ultimately us, our neighbor, and everyone. It’s all steps on the way toward that day of joy envisioned in Zephaniah, steps toward that day of the coming of the Kingdom when God will deal with the oppressors – those of Zephaniah’s time, those of John the Baptists’ and Jesus’ time, those of our own time - will gather the lame and the outcast, and turn shame into praise and renown.
Let me be clear: This isn’t about trying to work our way into the Kingdom of God. None of us can do any of this perfectly, and we will always need to ask forgiveness from Jesus, the coming one who is greater than John, for those places in our lives that are broken and those times when we sin against God and neighbor. It is only by God’s working in us that we can do any of this at all. But John’s message is about clearing the path, smoothing the way for the coming of Jesus and kingdom of God. John is a transitional figure, a bridge from Judaism’s “law and prophets” to Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom. He’s preparing the way for the greater one who is to come, and preaches repentance. Now when we think of repentance, we usually think of confession and being sorry for the sins of the past week – and that’s a part of it. But for John, repentance is not just about changing one’s mind, but about changing one’s behavior, ultimately about changing one’s life. Perhaps John is challenging his listeners to begin to live into the kind of behavior that expected in the kingdom of God. If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it. If you’ve got the joy of Jesus in your heart, you won’t be able to keep it to yourself.
John envisions Jesus, the coming one who is greater than he, as coming with a winnowing fork, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In that time, the winnowing fork would have been used to throw the wheat up in the air, so that the wind would catch and carry away the lighter chaff, or waste, leaving the wheat on the floor. When we hear about the wheat being separated by the chaff, we may think of Jesus separating the good people from the bad people, the sheep from the goats – and that may be part of it – but it’s also separating the good from the bad in each of us. And so it is with us; as we turn our lives over to Christ and live into being a disciple of Christ, as we go through the trials and storms of our lives and we feel like our lives are being tossed around and turned upside down, over the years Christ works to remove those things in our lives that keep us in bondage. And as we are more in harmony with God and neighbor, our lives will reflect the joy that comes with discipleship. If we’re happy and we know it, then our lives will surely show it. Then our lives will reflect Paul’s words from his letter to the Philippians, which he wrote from prison:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
For worry is at the heart of so much that is wrong with the world. As a society, fear of scarcity, fear that we won’t have enough, drives us to take more than our share. And that’s as true for the investment banker who insists he really needs a $3 million bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on $2 million, as it is for someone at the food bank who may try to take an extra can of vegetables. Fear and worry for our own safety drives us to turn our backs on our neighbors. If you’re worried and you know it, clench your fists…if you’re worried and you know it, grind your teeth….if you’re worried and you know it then your life will surely show it….But we don’t have to live in worry. Rather rejoice – even in unsettling times like our own. Let your gentleness be known. Don’t worry, but rather take your concerns in prayer to God, with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God – not a peace that’s enforced at gunpoint, not a peace that’s just a break between conflicts, but God’s peace that passes all human understanding, that will guard our hearts and minds so that, even though all around us is in an uproar, our hearts and minds will be focused on Christ Jesus. I began with a camp song, and I’m closing with a gospel song that you may not have heard, but maybe it’s one you can take home with you:
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Allelu Allelu Alleluia
So no matter what this hectic Advent season brings, may we keep our hearts and minds stayed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.
A Voice In The Wilderness
Today is the second Sunday in advent, our period of waiting for the coming of the Christ child. Earlier today we lit the candle of peace. Yet our Gospel reading today features John the Baptist in the wilderness preaching repentance, preaching change. His words don’t always sound very peaceful. John the Baptist isn’t the first person who comes to mend when I hear the word “peace”. And yet John points to a peace far deeper and far more lasting than the “peace and quiet” for which we so often yearn.
Each of the Gospel writers shape their stories in various ways. Remember that last year, Mark’s Gospel started out with the words, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus” and then went right into talking about John. Luke, writing 20 years later for a wealthy patron whom Luke names as Theophilus, is very careful about setting out the background for his Gospel. In fact, he introduced his gospel by saying that he’d heard from the eyewitnesses to Jesus and read earlier accounts, and wanted to take all this material and set it carefully in the proper order so that his readers would understand. And so Luke 3rd chapter gives us historical context, telling us who society’s key players, the movers and shakers, were at the time – “Let’s see…15th year of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar…Pontius Pilate governor of Judea, Herod the tetrarch or ruler of Galilee, Herod’s brother Philip the tetrarch in charge of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanius the tetrarch or ruler of Abilene…Annas and Caiaphas in charge at the Temple. After telling us “who’s who” from the view of the society of the day, Luke then begins to tell us who’s really in charge…”the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Last Sunday during the Bible study and coffee hour we talked a little about John’s birth. John’s father was Zechariah, and John’s birth to the aged couple Zechariah and Elizabeth was announced by the angel Gabriel. Zechariah was one of the priests in the Temple at Jerusalem, and had been offering burnt incense when Gabriel appeared to him. Zechariah was a priest, and you know what they say about “PK’s” or preachers’ kids…they have a reputation for rebelling and running wild. Whether it was “PK syndrome” or for some other reason, Zechariah’s son John did his ministry in the wilderness, far away from the Temple establishment, and in fact John was quite critical of the religious leaders, calling them a brood of vipers. He grew up among them, surrounded by them, so I guess he’d have known what he was talking about. Even so, I’m sure Zechariah must have been perplexed at his son’s harsh criticism of all Zechariah had devoted his life to, and you might imagine Zechariah’s conversations with his priestly colleagues…. “what did I do wrong?...well, maybe John just had to find his own way…he always did kind of march to his own drummer….”
Luke follows the pattern of Mark and Matthew in tying John’s ministry – a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins – to words from Isaiah 40. The Isaiah 40 passage begins softly – “Comfort, comfort ye my people.” Handel’s “Messiah” has a single tenor voice singing these words – “Comfort ye….comfort ye my people, says your God, says your God” Isaiah says to speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry that she has served her term – in context, her exile in Babylon – and that her penalty is paid. And then Isaiah moves to the words quoted in the Gospels – “A voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And then we get words that sound like a project for PennDot – “make straight in the desert a highway for our God – every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain brought low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” Our civil engineering project having concluded, Luke, quoting Isaiah, says, “then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Repentance. Forgiveness. Valleys lifted up, mountains leveled. In a word, change. Earlier today we lit the candle of peace, but the idea of change doesn’t always bring peace. In fact, change usually brings anxiety. What’s wrong with the way things are now? If we change, we’ll have to learn new ways of doing things. We might make mistakes. We might fail. And for all the talk in church about repentance – change for those not in church - church is probably one of the places most resistant to change. Congregations have split over matters as trivial as the color of a new set of curtains in the social hall. There’s an old joke among pastors that the seven last words of the church are “we never did it that way before….”
Change brings anxiety – unless our current situation is a painful one, in which change may be very welcome. If the status quo is comfortable, we’ll resist change, but if we’re already in a world of hurt – well, when you think about it, what do we have to lose? And those who heard John’s message gladly were in a world of hurt – economically impoverished, politically oppressed and beaten down by Rome, spiritually oppressed by a corrupt religious hierarchy that had lost its way, much of which was in Rome’s pocket. For those in positions of comfort and power – the Caesars and Herods and Annases and Caiaphases of the world, the bad news was – things were about to change. For those who were at the bottom and on the margins of society, for those who were hurting, the good news was – things were about to change. For those whose lives were a perpetual struggle, the prospect of change brought, not anxiety, but hope and peace – the candles we lit today.
How about us? How we respond to John’s message may depend on, to use a favorite United Church of Christ phrase, where we are on our journey of life. If we are in a world of hurt, conscious of the brokenness in our lives, conscious that our actions have alienated us from God and neighbor, John’s message may be welcome – we know the status quo isn’t working, isn’t making it any more, and we’re overjoyed that change is even an option. Change may involve struggle and hard work, but we’re happy to embrace change – happy to repent, to leave our old ways behind – to have the chance for something better. And if you feel that tug of the heart, that voice of God calling you to change, to repent, I urge you to listen, and to respond. If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart.
If we’ve been in the church for a while, I’m concerned that John’s message may fade into background noise…We hear about John every year about this time, hear about a voice in the wilderness, a highway for our God, baptism of repentance…yep, we’ve heard it all before. After all, we may think, it’s those people out there that need to change. We’re already in the church. We’re saved. We’re ok. It may be unsettling to consider that the religious leaders of John’s day were the ones for whom John had the harshest words. It may be unsettling for us to consider that God, who has done so much for us and in whom we’ve had faith for so long, may yet again be doing new things in our midst, may yet again be calling us forward to new acts of obedience…. to move out of places that at one time nourished us but now have us stuck, to change direction; in a word, to repent.
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill
shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Luke 3:4-6
In the days and weeks ahead, may we prepare and clear the path for the new things that God will be doing in our midst. Amen.
Each of the Gospel writers shape their stories in various ways. Remember that last year, Mark’s Gospel started out with the words, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus” and then went right into talking about John. Luke, writing 20 years later for a wealthy patron whom Luke names as Theophilus, is very careful about setting out the background for his Gospel. In fact, he introduced his gospel by saying that he’d heard from the eyewitnesses to Jesus and read earlier accounts, and wanted to take all this material and set it carefully in the proper order so that his readers would understand. And so Luke 3rd chapter gives us historical context, telling us who society’s key players, the movers and shakers, were at the time – “Let’s see…15th year of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar…Pontius Pilate governor of Judea, Herod the tetrarch or ruler of Galilee, Herod’s brother Philip the tetrarch in charge of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanius the tetrarch or ruler of Abilene…Annas and Caiaphas in charge at the Temple. After telling us “who’s who” from the view of the society of the day, Luke then begins to tell us who’s really in charge…”the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Last Sunday during the Bible study and coffee hour we talked a little about John’s birth. John’s father was Zechariah, and John’s birth to the aged couple Zechariah and Elizabeth was announced by the angel Gabriel. Zechariah was one of the priests in the Temple at Jerusalem, and had been offering burnt incense when Gabriel appeared to him. Zechariah was a priest, and you know what they say about “PK’s” or preachers’ kids…they have a reputation for rebelling and running wild. Whether it was “PK syndrome” or for some other reason, Zechariah’s son John did his ministry in the wilderness, far away from the Temple establishment, and in fact John was quite critical of the religious leaders, calling them a brood of vipers. He grew up among them, surrounded by them, so I guess he’d have known what he was talking about. Even so, I’m sure Zechariah must have been perplexed at his son’s harsh criticism of all Zechariah had devoted his life to, and you might imagine Zechariah’s conversations with his priestly colleagues…. “what did I do wrong?...well, maybe John just had to find his own way…he always did kind of march to his own drummer….”
Luke follows the pattern of Mark and Matthew in tying John’s ministry – a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins – to words from Isaiah 40. The Isaiah 40 passage begins softly – “Comfort, comfort ye my people.” Handel’s “Messiah” has a single tenor voice singing these words – “Comfort ye….comfort ye my people, says your God, says your God” Isaiah says to speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry that she has served her term – in context, her exile in Babylon – and that her penalty is paid. And then Isaiah moves to the words quoted in the Gospels – “A voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And then we get words that sound like a project for PennDot – “make straight in the desert a highway for our God – every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain brought low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” Our civil engineering project having concluded, Luke, quoting Isaiah, says, “then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Repentance. Forgiveness. Valleys lifted up, mountains leveled. In a word, change. Earlier today we lit the candle of peace, but the idea of change doesn’t always bring peace. In fact, change usually brings anxiety. What’s wrong with the way things are now? If we change, we’ll have to learn new ways of doing things. We might make mistakes. We might fail. And for all the talk in church about repentance – change for those not in church - church is probably one of the places most resistant to change. Congregations have split over matters as trivial as the color of a new set of curtains in the social hall. There’s an old joke among pastors that the seven last words of the church are “we never did it that way before….”
Change brings anxiety – unless our current situation is a painful one, in which change may be very welcome. If the status quo is comfortable, we’ll resist change, but if we’re already in a world of hurt – well, when you think about it, what do we have to lose? And those who heard John’s message gladly were in a world of hurt – economically impoverished, politically oppressed and beaten down by Rome, spiritually oppressed by a corrupt religious hierarchy that had lost its way, much of which was in Rome’s pocket. For those in positions of comfort and power – the Caesars and Herods and Annases and Caiaphases of the world, the bad news was – things were about to change. For those who were at the bottom and on the margins of society, for those who were hurting, the good news was – things were about to change. For those whose lives were a perpetual struggle, the prospect of change brought, not anxiety, but hope and peace – the candles we lit today.
How about us? How we respond to John’s message may depend on, to use a favorite United Church of Christ phrase, where we are on our journey of life. If we are in a world of hurt, conscious of the brokenness in our lives, conscious that our actions have alienated us from God and neighbor, John’s message may be welcome – we know the status quo isn’t working, isn’t making it any more, and we’re overjoyed that change is even an option. Change may involve struggle and hard work, but we’re happy to embrace change – happy to repent, to leave our old ways behind – to have the chance for something better. And if you feel that tug of the heart, that voice of God calling you to change, to repent, I urge you to listen, and to respond. If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart.
If we’ve been in the church for a while, I’m concerned that John’s message may fade into background noise…We hear about John every year about this time, hear about a voice in the wilderness, a highway for our God, baptism of repentance…yep, we’ve heard it all before. After all, we may think, it’s those people out there that need to change. We’re already in the church. We’re saved. We’re ok. It may be unsettling to consider that the religious leaders of John’s day were the ones for whom John had the harshest words. It may be unsettling for us to consider that God, who has done so much for us and in whom we’ve had faith for so long, may yet again be doing new things in our midst, may yet again be calling us forward to new acts of obedience…. to move out of places that at one time nourished us but now have us stuck, to change direction; in a word, to repent.
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill
shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Luke 3:4-6
In the days and weeks ahead, may we prepare and clear the path for the new things that God will be doing in our midst. Amen.
O Come, O Come Emanuel
“And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Luke 1:47
We are once again entering Advent, the series of preparation and anticipation of the coming of the Christ-child. We also start the beginning of a new cycle of Scripture readings for the year, and this year our Gospel readings will come primarily from Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel is unique for its accounts of two angelic appearances: the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah in the Temple to announce that Zechariah’s aged wife, Elizabeth, would soon be giving birth to a son who was to be named John - and Gabriel’s appearance to Mary to announce that she would soon be bearing a Son conceived by the Holy Spirit. These angelic visits initially bring fear and confusion (and Zechariah is even struck mute for a time), but they end in great joy.
Joy is a recurring theme in Luke’s Gospel. Repeatedly in Luke’s gospel, through Jesus Christ, God’s grace reaches into unexpected places and embraces those on the margins of society, those who least expected to be remembered by God. As Jesus ministers to Jew and Gentile alike, God’s grace is understood in new ways, and confusion and uncertainty give way to great joy.
It is by God’s grace that we continue to have the joy of gathering at Emanuel each Sunday. By God’s grace this will be the third Advent season I have had the joy and privilege of sharing with Emanuel. By God’s grace we have the privilege of welcoming visitors, many of whom become friends and members of Emanuel. Through us, God’s grace continues to reach into unexpected places and light up with joy the faces of those who least expect it. As we await the coming of the Christ-child during Advent and prepare Him room at Christmas, may God surprise with joy all the members and friends of Emanuel United Church of Christ.
See you in church!
We are once again entering Advent, the series of preparation and anticipation of the coming of the Christ-child. We also start the beginning of a new cycle of Scripture readings for the year, and this year our Gospel readings will come primarily from Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel is unique for its accounts of two angelic appearances: the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah in the Temple to announce that Zechariah’s aged wife, Elizabeth, would soon be giving birth to a son who was to be named John - and Gabriel’s appearance to Mary to announce that she would soon be bearing a Son conceived by the Holy Spirit. These angelic visits initially bring fear and confusion (and Zechariah is even struck mute for a time), but they end in great joy.
Joy is a recurring theme in Luke’s Gospel. Repeatedly in Luke’s gospel, through Jesus Christ, God’s grace reaches into unexpected places and embraces those on the margins of society, those who least expected to be remembered by God. As Jesus ministers to Jew and Gentile alike, God’s grace is understood in new ways, and confusion and uncertainty give way to great joy.
It is by God’s grace that we continue to have the joy of gathering at Emanuel each Sunday. By God’s grace this will be the third Advent season I have had the joy and privilege of sharing with Emanuel. By God’s grace we have the privilege of welcoming visitors, many of whom become friends and members of Emanuel. Through us, God’s grace continues to reach into unexpected places and light up with joy the faces of those who least expect it. As we await the coming of the Christ-child during Advent and prepare Him room at Christmas, may God surprise with joy all the members and friends of Emanuel United Church of Christ.
See you in church!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Signs
This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new church year! As often happens, the church is out of step with the wider culture, and today the church calendar is doubly out of step, being both earlier and later than our daily calendar. Earlier, because we celebrate the beginning of a new church year more than a month before January 1st, our New Year’s Day. And later, because as far as our wider culture is concerned, it’s already time to dive into Christmas, while the church insists on Advent – a time of waiting and preparation that has nothing to do with shopping lists or trips to the mall. This reminds us that Kairos time – the right time, the appointed time, God’s time – is often out of step with chronos time, the time indicated by our calendar. Or, perhaps it’s more true that our calendars are sometimes out of step with God’s time.
And today it would seem that we’re doubly out of step, because our lectionary reading (Luke 21:25-36) is not about events leading up to Jesus’ birth, but about the eschaton – the last things – with, using imagery from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, “the Son of Man coming on the clouds.” As it happens, this is lectionary’s usual pattern for each year’s readings for the first Sunday of Advent: two years ago, the Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent was a similar passage from the book of Matthew, and a year ago we read from what is called Mark’s “little apocalypse.” As we enter Advent, as Christians we likely have expectations of who we’ll meet and what we’ll see – we’ll surely meet John the Baptist, and maybe we’ll see angels appearing to Joseph or Mary. And these meetings and sightings – some of them, anyway - are indeed waiting for us, but not this week. This week, the Gospel reading is unsettling, disturbing, perplexing, foreboding. What does it all mean?
What does it all mean? Glad you asked! That’s exactly the question confronting both Jeremiah’s and Luke’s readers. Our reading from Jeremiah, about God fulfilling the promise made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that a righteous Branch would spring up from David, who would execute justice and righteousness in the land. We read this passage, and for us as Christians, we see a reference to Jesus, whose lineage was traced to David’s line. But it helps to read the passage in context. At the time of Jeremiah’s writing, the city of Jerusalem would soon fall to Babylon; the siege ramps had already been rolled up, and the proverbial handwriting was on the wall – the city was doomed. And yet Jeremiah, who up to this point had repeatedly warned of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, now paradoxically offered hope. With Babylon about to destroy Jerusalem, Jeremiah….bought a piece of land. And while Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the fall of Jerusalem, was taken into exile, Jeremiah said that this was not the end of the Davidic line, nor the “end of the line” in our colloquial sense for the Jews, but rather that a righteous Branch would come forth – after all the destruction would eventually come restoration.
What does it all mean? We’re told that Luke’s Gospel was written roughly 50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Roughly 10-15 years before Luke’s gospel was written, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed by Rome, and the might of the Roman empire came down on Jerusalem like a ton of bricks. It’s hard for us to imagine how disorienting the destruction of the Temple would have been for Luke’s readers; perhaps we could imagine how shaken and distraught our Roman Catholic neighbors would feel if a bomb destroyed the Vatican – or perhaps we remember the sick, disoriented feeling we had watching the Twin Towers fall in New York City and hearing that a plane had been flown into the Pentagon. For Luke’s Jewish readers, their world had changed irrevocably, forever, and yet they had to find a way to make sense of this new world in which they found themselves. At the same time, among the first Christians there was the tradition that their generation would not pass away before Jesus returned – and yet by the time Luke was writing, most of those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ works on earth had either died or were well on in years, and Jesus had not returned. What did it all mean?
Each of the Gospel writers witnessed to Jesus in a way that made sense to their readers. The verses in Luke immediately preceding today’s reading deal with the destruction of the Temple. But in today’s reading, Luke quotes Jesus as talking in broader terms, about signs in the sun, moon and stars, echoing apocalyptic language from the books of Joel and Daniel. But – similar to Jeremiah – when everything appears to be falling apart and those around are fainting from fear, Luke quotes Jesus as telling his listeners to stand up and raise their heads, because their redemption draws nigh and the kingdom of God is near.
Jesus then goes on to talk about the fig tree – this is in Matthew and Mark as well, but Luke broadens it to include “all the trees” – when you see leaves, you know summer is on the way. In the same way, when everything seems to be falling apart, coming apart at the seams, while our neighbors are panicking and screaming and passing out from fear, we are to stand tall and be confident, for our redemption is near.
How are we supposed to, in the words of Kipling, keep our heads when all about are losing theirs? By being prepared – Jesus tells his hearers not to get weighed down by excess or drink or the distractions of life. If we’re swept up in the dailiness of our own lives, when that dailiness comes undone, comes unglued, comes apart at the seams, we’ll come unglued as well. We’ll panic, throw up our hands, faint. But if we are prepared, we will know that even when everything around us shakes, rattles, and rolls, our gracious God is still in charge – our redemption is drawing nigh.
So our Gospel reading today, more than anything, is a call to wake up – it’s as if Jesus wanted to grab his listeners – and wants to grab us, who live in a society suffering from some cultural version of attention deficit disorder - by the shoulders and shake us and say, “Wake up! Wake up! Pay attention! Don’t get distracted by shiny objects! Keep your eyes on the prize!” I don’t think it’s a call to engage in speculation about what year or what day Jesus will return. This passage isn’t about chronos time – isn’t about our calendars – but about kairos time – the appointed time, the right time, God’s time – about which only God knows for sure. Rather, it’s a call to be attentive at all times, and to trust that God is working out God’s purposes as God knows best.
What does it all mean? It’s hard to pay attention for days and weeks and months and years on end. It’s probably hard some Sundays to pay attention for a single hour, or less if our organist is away. It’s so easy to sleepwalk through life, to go through life on autopilot, to go through the motions. Even in the church, it’s easy to worship on autopilot. For longtime members, we’ve begun our worship with an opening hymn and then, except on communion Sundays, pages 4 and 5 in the liturgy for decades, maybe for our whole lives. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s what we know. And over the years we’ve sung all of the hymns at one time or another, except for the new ones Pastor Dave tries out now and then. Do we really expect God to break into a comfortable Sunday morning routine and shake us up? And if God did, what would it be like? Would it be a rude awakening? And yet Jesus assures us that somehow despite the familiarity, if we’re attentive, God can and God does break through. God shakes us up, causes us to hear even familiar words in a new way, causes us to change how we live, how we act toward God and neighbor.
“So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” So may we not sleepwalk through our lives or our common life together, but live fully awake and fully alive to all that God is doing around us and in us and through us for others. Amen.
And today it would seem that we’re doubly out of step, because our lectionary reading (Luke 21:25-36) is not about events leading up to Jesus’ birth, but about the eschaton – the last things – with, using imagery from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, “the Son of Man coming on the clouds.” As it happens, this is lectionary’s usual pattern for each year’s readings for the first Sunday of Advent: two years ago, the Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent was a similar passage from the book of Matthew, and a year ago we read from what is called Mark’s “little apocalypse.” As we enter Advent, as Christians we likely have expectations of who we’ll meet and what we’ll see – we’ll surely meet John the Baptist, and maybe we’ll see angels appearing to Joseph or Mary. And these meetings and sightings – some of them, anyway - are indeed waiting for us, but not this week. This week, the Gospel reading is unsettling, disturbing, perplexing, foreboding. What does it all mean?
What does it all mean? Glad you asked! That’s exactly the question confronting both Jeremiah’s and Luke’s readers. Our reading from Jeremiah, about God fulfilling the promise made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that a righteous Branch would spring up from David, who would execute justice and righteousness in the land. We read this passage, and for us as Christians, we see a reference to Jesus, whose lineage was traced to David’s line. But it helps to read the passage in context. At the time of Jeremiah’s writing, the city of Jerusalem would soon fall to Babylon; the siege ramps had already been rolled up, and the proverbial handwriting was on the wall – the city was doomed. And yet Jeremiah, who up to this point had repeatedly warned of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, now paradoxically offered hope. With Babylon about to destroy Jerusalem, Jeremiah….bought a piece of land. And while Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the fall of Jerusalem, was taken into exile, Jeremiah said that this was not the end of the Davidic line, nor the “end of the line” in our colloquial sense for the Jews, but rather that a righteous Branch would come forth – after all the destruction would eventually come restoration.
What does it all mean? We’re told that Luke’s Gospel was written roughly 50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Roughly 10-15 years before Luke’s gospel was written, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed by Rome, and the might of the Roman empire came down on Jerusalem like a ton of bricks. It’s hard for us to imagine how disorienting the destruction of the Temple would have been for Luke’s readers; perhaps we could imagine how shaken and distraught our Roman Catholic neighbors would feel if a bomb destroyed the Vatican – or perhaps we remember the sick, disoriented feeling we had watching the Twin Towers fall in New York City and hearing that a plane had been flown into the Pentagon. For Luke’s Jewish readers, their world had changed irrevocably, forever, and yet they had to find a way to make sense of this new world in which they found themselves. At the same time, among the first Christians there was the tradition that their generation would not pass away before Jesus returned – and yet by the time Luke was writing, most of those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ works on earth had either died or were well on in years, and Jesus had not returned. What did it all mean?
Each of the Gospel writers witnessed to Jesus in a way that made sense to their readers. The verses in Luke immediately preceding today’s reading deal with the destruction of the Temple. But in today’s reading, Luke quotes Jesus as talking in broader terms, about signs in the sun, moon and stars, echoing apocalyptic language from the books of Joel and Daniel. But – similar to Jeremiah – when everything appears to be falling apart and those around are fainting from fear, Luke quotes Jesus as telling his listeners to stand up and raise their heads, because their redemption draws nigh and the kingdom of God is near.
Jesus then goes on to talk about the fig tree – this is in Matthew and Mark as well, but Luke broadens it to include “all the trees” – when you see leaves, you know summer is on the way. In the same way, when everything seems to be falling apart, coming apart at the seams, while our neighbors are panicking and screaming and passing out from fear, we are to stand tall and be confident, for our redemption is near.
How are we supposed to, in the words of Kipling, keep our heads when all about are losing theirs? By being prepared – Jesus tells his hearers not to get weighed down by excess or drink or the distractions of life. If we’re swept up in the dailiness of our own lives, when that dailiness comes undone, comes unglued, comes apart at the seams, we’ll come unglued as well. We’ll panic, throw up our hands, faint. But if we are prepared, we will know that even when everything around us shakes, rattles, and rolls, our gracious God is still in charge – our redemption is drawing nigh.
So our Gospel reading today, more than anything, is a call to wake up – it’s as if Jesus wanted to grab his listeners – and wants to grab us, who live in a society suffering from some cultural version of attention deficit disorder - by the shoulders and shake us and say, “Wake up! Wake up! Pay attention! Don’t get distracted by shiny objects! Keep your eyes on the prize!” I don’t think it’s a call to engage in speculation about what year or what day Jesus will return. This passage isn’t about chronos time – isn’t about our calendars – but about kairos time – the appointed time, the right time, God’s time – about which only God knows for sure. Rather, it’s a call to be attentive at all times, and to trust that God is working out God’s purposes as God knows best.
What does it all mean? It’s hard to pay attention for days and weeks and months and years on end. It’s probably hard some Sundays to pay attention for a single hour, or less if our organist is away. It’s so easy to sleepwalk through life, to go through life on autopilot, to go through the motions. Even in the church, it’s easy to worship on autopilot. For longtime members, we’ve begun our worship with an opening hymn and then, except on communion Sundays, pages 4 and 5 in the liturgy for decades, maybe for our whole lives. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s what we know. And over the years we’ve sung all of the hymns at one time or another, except for the new ones Pastor Dave tries out now and then. Do we really expect God to break into a comfortable Sunday morning routine and shake us up? And if God did, what would it be like? Would it be a rude awakening? And yet Jesus assures us that somehow despite the familiarity, if we’re attentive, God can and God does break through. God shakes us up, causes us to hear even familiar words in a new way, causes us to change how we live, how we act toward God and neighbor.
“So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” So may we not sleepwalk through our lives or our common life together, but live fully awake and fully alive to all that God is doing around us and in us and through us for others. Amen.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough
(Scripture text: Philippians 4:1-13)
“Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough”
Today our nation will be celebrating Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, commemorating the Pilgrim’s celebration in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation for having survived the brutal winter. We’re told that the feast lasted three days, and provided food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.
Today, of course, we’ll be celebrating in circumstances that are of course very different from those encountered by the Pilgrims. For most of us, our mental image of Thanksgiving probably owes more to Saturday Evening Post illustrator Norman Rockwell than to Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford or Miles Standish or Squanto or the other names we may dimly remember from long-ago school lessons about the Pilgrims. You probably have seen the Norman Rockwell illustration – a large family seated around a kitchen table covered with a white tablecloth and laden with goodies. The children, grinning broadly, look out toward the viewer. Grandma is about to set a huge roasted turkey on the table, as grandpa stands behind her, beaming. And perhaps our mental image has been updated a bit to include an after-dinner football game and a nap on the couch.
As it happens, the Norman Rockwell painting I described was created to depict “Freedom from Want,” one of the “four freedoms” enunciated by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in a famous 1941 speech. (For those who are counting, the other three were freedom of speech, freedom to worship, and freedom from fear.)
We are celebrating Thanksgiving during a time when “Freedom from Want” is very much an open question. The rate of unemployment is the highest it’s been in recent memory, maybe the highest since the depression of the 1930’s. Our own neighborhood of Bridesburg has been hit hard by the economy. While our situation is hardly as dire as that of the Pilgrims who celebrated that first Thanksgiving, for some in our community – maybe for some of us here - it’s plenty dire enough. And with unemployment comes the despair that drives a host of related social ills: crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence directed against spouse and children. Against this backdrop, the smiling faces around Norman Rockwell’s thanksgiving table seem almost to be mocking us – hey, we have our Thanksgiving dinner. How about you?
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written at a time when Paul wasn’t necessarily sure how many “next meals” he had, and in which, on an external level, he had very little freedom at all. He was a prisoner awaiting trial and sentence and possible execution. Under the circumstances, there are many things he could have written. Were I in those circumstances, I think the first thing I’d have written is “get me out of here!” But Paul wrote “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry about anything! Take your requests in prayer to God! Be thankful! And one more time, in case you weren’t listening the first time - Rejoice!”
How could Paul rejoice? How could Paul give thanks? And how do you get your mind around Paul saying “Don’t worry” when he knew perfectly well that his own execution was a possibility. He lets us in on a secret: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” I don’t believe Paul was indulging in escapist fantasy, or, as in the Monty Python comedy from some years back, singing “always look on the bright side of life” while hanging from a cross. Rather, Paul’s many trials had brought him to a place where he was so focused on serving Christ that he was not concerned with his own comfort. Paul wasn’t ignoring or escaping the realities of his imprisonment, but he was focusing on the greater realities of the Kingdom of God. While he was under arrest and was restricted in what he could do and where he could go, his spirit had boundless freedom. His spiritual well-being didn’t vary with changing personal circumstances, because his spiritual well-being didn’t depend on circumstances. Instead, despite his own increasingly dire circumstances, the welfare of the churches, not his own welfare, was at the top of his mind. He had confidence that if he kept faith with the Lord, the Lord would supply his needs. He lived by the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else would be added to him.
This is an area in which our Christian faith is deeply counter-cultural. The world’s message is one of scarcity – there never has been enough; there isn’t enough now, and there never will be enough, so you’d better grab what you can while you can because if you don’t, the next guy will. The world worships at the altar of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed. The world tells us that there will never be enough – never enough food, never enough clothing, never enough money, never enough time, never enough love….never enough – and that’s as true for an investment broker insisting that he needs a three million dollar bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on two million, as it is for those seeking assistance from our food cupboard.
Our faith, by contrast, provides a message of the abundant love of a gracious God. We see this in the familiar story of the feeding of the four thousand. Faced with a hungry crowd after a long day of teaching, Jesus asked the disciples to feed them. Their response comes out of the world’s message of scarcity – we only have a handful of loaves and a couple fish, and look at all these people. We’re told that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples to distribute – and in Jesus’ hands “not nearly enough” became “more than enough - enough and to spare.”
I think I caught a glimpse of what this might look like recently. As members of Emanuel Church know, during the first week of November I was part of a delegation sent by the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to visit churches in Cuba. Our conference has been exploring a partnership with a group called the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Contrary to popular belief, rumors of the demise of the church in Cuba are greatly exaggerated – in Cuba, the church is very much alive. We visited over a half dozen churches in Havana and other communities on the west end of the island – urban churches, rural churches, house churches. In our travels, I was repeatedly struck by three observations: the poverty our Cuban brothers and sisters endure, their “can-do” attitude toward ministry, and the gracious and generous hospitality they offered us. Their poverty isn’t a subtle thing – it’s right in your face, as the Cuban housing stock and infrastructure in many places is crumbling, falling apart right in front of you. But despite that, we were welcomed as if we were long-lost family members. As little as they may have had, we were always offered a cup of expresso or guava juice or papaya juice or such. And as small as some of these congregations were – and while there are some large congregations in Cuba, some of the churches we saw had congregations of a dozen or two dozen or maybe as many as three dozen - many of them were planting gardens or raising rabbits and pigs to feed their members and their neighbors. Externally they have limited freedom – while they have some freedom of worship, other freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear are pretty much out the window. And yet I believe these brothers and sisters had discovered the truth of Jesus’ words that if the Son will make you free, you are free indeed – despite external circumstances.
I’m not advocating that our churches plant gardens or purchase feed troughs. But I think our congregations – especially in a neighborhood like Bridesburg that abounds with small-membership churches – sometimes buy into the culture’s message of scarcity – “there are so few of us - we’re so small – we’re so weak – we can’t do anything – our best years are behind us - we have nothing to offer – what we do offer, nobody wants.”
In response to this message of scarcity and defeat, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry! Instead, take your requests to God! Give thanks! Learn the secret of having plenty and of being in need. Be content and give thanks for what we have! We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! When we offer what we have and what we are to Christ, Christ will multiply our loaves and fishes to physically and spiritually feed multitudes! Just as we have been doing with the food cupboard with its recently-expanded distribution program. This program is many things – among them it is a lifeline for our needy neighbors – but the cupboard is also a way in which we can return thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on us.
From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Despite our circumstances, as Christians we have a great deal for which to be thankful. Whether we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our families or alone, we can give thanks for being members of the family of faith – we have each other. We can give thanks for God’s presence in our daily lives, for he has promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Most of all we can give thanks that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again so that we may be reconciled with God, and may have assurance that when plenty and hunger and food and clothing and our time on earth have passed, we may be welcomed into those heavenly mansions prepared for God’s faithful, where we will rejoice and give thanks in God’s presence forevermore. Amen.
“Giving Thanks When The Going Is Tough”
Today our nation will be celebrating Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, commemorating the Pilgrim’s celebration in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation for having survived the brutal winter. We’re told that the feast lasted three days, and provided food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.
Today, of course, we’ll be celebrating in circumstances that are of course very different from those encountered by the Pilgrims. For most of us, our mental image of Thanksgiving probably owes more to Saturday Evening Post illustrator Norman Rockwell than to Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford or Miles Standish or Squanto or the other names we may dimly remember from long-ago school lessons about the Pilgrims. You probably have seen the Norman Rockwell illustration – a large family seated around a kitchen table covered with a white tablecloth and laden with goodies. The children, grinning broadly, look out toward the viewer. Grandma is about to set a huge roasted turkey on the table, as grandpa stands behind her, beaming. And perhaps our mental image has been updated a bit to include an after-dinner football game and a nap on the couch.
As it happens, the Norman Rockwell painting I described was created to depict “Freedom from Want,” one of the “four freedoms” enunciated by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in a famous 1941 speech. (For those who are counting, the other three were freedom of speech, freedom to worship, and freedom from fear.)
We are celebrating Thanksgiving during a time when “Freedom from Want” is very much an open question. The rate of unemployment is the highest it’s been in recent memory, maybe the highest since the depression of the 1930’s. Our own neighborhood of Bridesburg has been hit hard by the economy. While our situation is hardly as dire as that of the Pilgrims who celebrated that first Thanksgiving, for some in our community – maybe for some of us here - it’s plenty dire enough. And with unemployment comes the despair that drives a host of related social ills: crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence directed against spouse and children. Against this backdrop, the smiling faces around Norman Rockwell’s thanksgiving table seem almost to be mocking us – hey, we have our Thanksgiving dinner. How about you?
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written at a time when Paul wasn’t necessarily sure how many “next meals” he had, and in which, on an external level, he had very little freedom at all. He was a prisoner awaiting trial and sentence and possible execution. Under the circumstances, there are many things he could have written. Were I in those circumstances, I think the first thing I’d have written is “get me out of here!” But Paul wrote “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry about anything! Take your requests in prayer to God! Be thankful! And one more time, in case you weren’t listening the first time - Rejoice!”
How could Paul rejoice? How could Paul give thanks? And how do you get your mind around Paul saying “Don’t worry” when he knew perfectly well that his own execution was a possibility. He lets us in on a secret: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” I don’t believe Paul was indulging in escapist fantasy, or, as in the Monty Python comedy from some years back, singing “always look on the bright side of life” while hanging from a cross. Rather, Paul’s many trials had brought him to a place where he was so focused on serving Christ that he was not concerned with his own comfort. Paul wasn’t ignoring or escaping the realities of his imprisonment, but he was focusing on the greater realities of the Kingdom of God. While he was under arrest and was restricted in what he could do and where he could go, his spirit had boundless freedom. His spiritual well-being didn’t vary with changing personal circumstances, because his spiritual well-being didn’t depend on circumstances. Instead, despite his own increasingly dire circumstances, the welfare of the churches, not his own welfare, was at the top of his mind. He had confidence that if he kept faith with the Lord, the Lord would supply his needs. He lived by the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else would be added to him.
This is an area in which our Christian faith is deeply counter-cultural. The world’s message is one of scarcity – there never has been enough; there isn’t enough now, and there never will be enough, so you’d better grab what you can while you can because if you don’t, the next guy will. The world worships at the altar of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed. The world tells us that there will never be enough – never enough food, never enough clothing, never enough money, never enough time, never enough love….never enough – and that’s as true for an investment broker insisting that he needs a three million dollar bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on two million, as it is for those seeking assistance from our food cupboard.
Our faith, by contrast, provides a message of the abundant love of a gracious God. We see this in the familiar story of the feeding of the four thousand. Faced with a hungry crowd after a long day of teaching, Jesus asked the disciples to feed them. Their response comes out of the world’s message of scarcity – we only have a handful of loaves and a couple fish, and look at all these people. We’re told that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples to distribute – and in Jesus’ hands “not nearly enough” became “more than enough - enough and to spare.”
I think I caught a glimpse of what this might look like recently. As members of Emanuel Church know, during the first week of November I was part of a delegation sent by the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to visit churches in Cuba. Our conference has been exploring a partnership with a group called the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Contrary to popular belief, rumors of the demise of the church in Cuba are greatly exaggerated – in Cuba, the church is very much alive. We visited over a half dozen churches in Havana and other communities on the west end of the island – urban churches, rural churches, house churches. In our travels, I was repeatedly struck by three observations: the poverty our Cuban brothers and sisters endure, their “can-do” attitude toward ministry, and the gracious and generous hospitality they offered us. Their poverty isn’t a subtle thing – it’s right in your face, as the Cuban housing stock and infrastructure in many places is crumbling, falling apart right in front of you. But despite that, we were welcomed as if we were long-lost family members. As little as they may have had, we were always offered a cup of expresso or guava juice or papaya juice or such. And as small as some of these congregations were – and while there are some large congregations in Cuba, some of the churches we saw had congregations of a dozen or two dozen or maybe as many as three dozen - many of them were planting gardens or raising rabbits and pigs to feed their members and their neighbors. Externally they have limited freedom – while they have some freedom of worship, other freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear are pretty much out the window. And yet I believe these brothers and sisters had discovered the truth of Jesus’ words that if the Son will make you free, you are free indeed – despite external circumstances.
I’m not advocating that our churches plant gardens or purchase feed troughs. But I think our congregations – especially in a neighborhood like Bridesburg that abounds with small-membership churches – sometimes buy into the culture’s message of scarcity – “there are so few of us - we’re so small – we’re so weak – we can’t do anything – our best years are behind us - we have nothing to offer – what we do offer, nobody wants.”
In response to this message of scarcity and defeat, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord! Don’t worry! Instead, take your requests to God! Give thanks! Learn the secret of having plenty and of being in need. Be content and give thanks for what we have! We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! When we offer what we have and what we are to Christ, Christ will multiply our loaves and fishes to physically and spiritually feed multitudes! Just as we have been doing with the food cupboard with its recently-expanded distribution program. This program is many things – among them it is a lifeline for our needy neighbors – but the cupboard is also a way in which we can return thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on us.
From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Despite our circumstances, as Christians we have a great deal for which to be thankful. Whether we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our families or alone, we can give thanks for being members of the family of faith – we have each other. We can give thanks for God’s presence in our daily lives, for he has promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Most of all we can give thanks that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again so that we may be reconciled with God, and may have assurance that when plenty and hunger and food and clothing and our time on earth have passed, we may be welcomed into those heavenly mansions prepared for God’s faithful, where we will rejoice and give thanks in God’s presence forevermore. Amen.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Who's In Charge Here?
During the week I was away in early November, I was with a delegation from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to Cuba, visiting churches in Havana and other areas on the western end of the island. On our last morning there, we were in the Jose Marti Airport in Havana, awaiting a flight to Miami. We arrived in plenty of time, cleared customs and immigration – and waited. As we glanced at our boarding passes, we noticed they didn’t actually have seat numbers listed; where they should have been listed, it said “XXX”. Had we been put on standby? Then one of our group happened to look at the flight board, and noticed that our flight number wasn’t listed. We figured, “well, maybe it’ll show up later.” An hour later, our flight number still wasn’t there. No seat number. No flight on the board. None of this seemed promising. Uh oh. So we searched for assistance, but they didn’t actually have any one standing at the gate who seemed to be running things. Occasionally we’d see someone scurry by who looked somewhat official, and we’d ask why our flight wasn’t up on the board. Answers were vague, but they tried to assure us, “don’t worry.” As it happened, there were one or two other English speaking groups waiting flights, and we talked with them – and their flights weren’t on the board either. And come to think of it, I hadn’t actually seen any planes take off. What’s going on? Cuba is big on centralized planning of production and the economy – where were their vaunted central planners when you need them?
By this time I had visions of being stranded forever in Cuba and never seeing my loved ones again. Occasionally we’d see someone in a uniform and would press them for information, but we just kept getting the same vague response – don’t worry. We ran into one traveler who had traveled to Cuba and back a number of times, and she told us – the flight board never has the right flights listed; in all the times she’d flown to Cuba, her flights had never shown up on the board – and not to worry. Eventually we started hearing flight announcements – sure enough, for flights not listed on the board. This made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to recognize the announcement for our flight, being spoken quickly in Spanish over a crackly intercom system. We saw the first plane for the morning take off – well, that had to be a good sign. A bit later, our flight was announced – and sure enough, just at departure, literally while we were walking toward the door leading to our plane, our flight number finally popped up on the flight board. And our flight made it to Miami, slightly late, but in plenty of time to make our connections to our flight to Philly. As is the custom with flights to and from Cuba, when we landed, everyone clapped. And all our worry was for naught.
This morning, the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar, is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or, in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. It’s a Sunday when we remember that Christ rules, not only over our hearts, but over everything in creation. We may remember the words of Handel’s Messiah – “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
And yet, we need only read the newspaper or look out our window to see a world that seems entirely out of control, in which signs of Jesus’ reign are seemingly impossible to find. This week, we approach Thanksgiving during the most difficult economic times our country has had in recent memory. It seems that our financial leaders have learned nothing from last year’s near-meltdown of the economy, and the billion-dollar bonus gravy train rolls along undisturbed, while millions are out of work and relying on food cupboards and soup kitchens to keep body and soul – and those of their families - together. Many of our political leaders engage in a peculiarly dysfunctional form of honesty – when they’re bought and paid for, they stay bought and paid for, being entirely loyal to those who write them big checks for their campaigns. Many no longer even bother to pretend to care about their constituents. Worldwide, the proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine, death – ride grimly along on their mission of destruction. We may feel a bit like my group did while waiting for our flight – who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge here? Anyone?
During these difficult times, we may be tempted to misinterpret Jesus’ words to Pilate in our Gospel reading this morning. Older translations quote Jesus as saying, “my kingdom is not of this world.” This has often been taken to mean that the reign of Jesus has nothing to do with our daily lives here on earth, that it’s only a promise of pie in the sky by and by when we die. Life on earth can be, in the memorable words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short,” and only when we die can we go to heaven and experience what it is for Jesus to reign. This is one way in which many Christians over the centuries have reconciled the beautiful promises of God’s reign to the ugly reality they face day after day. And one of the reasons church folk are often accused of being so heavenly-minded we’re of no earthly good.
But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The New Revised Standard Version, from which I read today, quotes Jesus, “my kingdom is not from this world,” meaning, it doesn’t originate here, it doesn’t depend on wealth or military strength or political machinations or any of the other ways in which earthly rulers cling like grim death to power. This can be useful for us to remember when we’re tempted to associate a particular political party or the actions of our national leadership with the reign of God.
At the same time, while Jesus’ reign is not from this world, it’s very definitely in this world, indeed intimately involved in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood. One of the most familiar verses in the New Testament begins, “God so loved the world…..” and that hasn’t changed. The writers of the Gospels saw Jesus’ acts of healing, feeding and teaching, not only as directed at the individuals being helped, but as Jesus’ tackling and overcoming the powers of darkness that keep people sick, hungry and ignorant, as signs of the Kingdom of God in their midst. Jesus’ reign is deeply counter to our culture. Our culture tells us that kingdoms are maintained by what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has called our world’s unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed, which is propped up by wealth, political power, and military might. Jesus’ reign is different – it is like seeds of kindness and caring, growing silently and invisibly until ready to bear fruit, and reproduce more seeds to bear still more fruit for the future.
So what do these seeds look like? When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, they looked like acts of healing, feeding, and teaching. Here in Bridesburg, they may look like our food cupboard. They may look like Christian education programs and youth programs to help neighborhood children avoid bad influences and grow up knowing there are loved by their families and by God. They may look like our neighborhood’s small congregations, doing what we can with the resources we have to bring God’s love to our neighbor. They may look like you and like me.
As I’ve said before, more than once, we live in an in-between time – Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and while it is here, it is not fully here. We live in the space between “already” and “not yet.” In this in-between time where the kingdom is here already, but not yet fully, God calls us to mission in our neighborhood and in our world. And God calls us to have faith in that coming day when God’s reign will be fully established, when all that brings sorrow and sighing will be no more, when we will be gathered together forever in the presence of a loving God. On that day there will be singing and praise – and maybe, as on my flight from Cuba to Miami, a round of applause that after all we’ve seen and done and been through, we’ve landed safely, and are finally truly home. Amen.
By this time I had visions of being stranded forever in Cuba and never seeing my loved ones again. Occasionally we’d see someone in a uniform and would press them for information, but we just kept getting the same vague response – don’t worry. We ran into one traveler who had traveled to Cuba and back a number of times, and she told us – the flight board never has the right flights listed; in all the times she’d flown to Cuba, her flights had never shown up on the board – and not to worry. Eventually we started hearing flight announcements – sure enough, for flights not listed on the board. This made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to recognize the announcement for our flight, being spoken quickly in Spanish over a crackly intercom system. We saw the first plane for the morning take off – well, that had to be a good sign. A bit later, our flight was announced – and sure enough, just at departure, literally while we were walking toward the door leading to our plane, our flight number finally popped up on the flight board. And our flight made it to Miami, slightly late, but in plenty of time to make our connections to our flight to Philly. As is the custom with flights to and from Cuba, when we landed, everyone clapped. And all our worry was for naught.
This morning, the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar, is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or, in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. It’s a Sunday when we remember that Christ rules, not only over our hearts, but over everything in creation. We may remember the words of Handel’s Messiah – “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
And yet, we need only read the newspaper or look out our window to see a world that seems entirely out of control, in which signs of Jesus’ reign are seemingly impossible to find. This week, we approach Thanksgiving during the most difficult economic times our country has had in recent memory. It seems that our financial leaders have learned nothing from last year’s near-meltdown of the economy, and the billion-dollar bonus gravy train rolls along undisturbed, while millions are out of work and relying on food cupboards and soup kitchens to keep body and soul – and those of their families - together. Many of our political leaders engage in a peculiarly dysfunctional form of honesty – when they’re bought and paid for, they stay bought and paid for, being entirely loyal to those who write them big checks for their campaigns. Many no longer even bother to pretend to care about their constituents. Worldwide, the proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine, death – ride grimly along on their mission of destruction. We may feel a bit like my group did while waiting for our flight – who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge here? Anyone?
During these difficult times, we may be tempted to misinterpret Jesus’ words to Pilate in our Gospel reading this morning. Older translations quote Jesus as saying, “my kingdom is not of this world.” This has often been taken to mean that the reign of Jesus has nothing to do with our daily lives here on earth, that it’s only a promise of pie in the sky by and by when we die. Life on earth can be, in the memorable words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short,” and only when we die can we go to heaven and experience what it is for Jesus to reign. This is one way in which many Christians over the centuries have reconciled the beautiful promises of God’s reign to the ugly reality they face day after day. And one of the reasons church folk are often accused of being so heavenly-minded we’re of no earthly good.
But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The New Revised Standard Version, from which I read today, quotes Jesus, “my kingdom is not from this world,” meaning, it doesn’t originate here, it doesn’t depend on wealth or military strength or political machinations or any of the other ways in which earthly rulers cling like grim death to power. This can be useful for us to remember when we’re tempted to associate a particular political party or the actions of our national leadership with the reign of God.
At the same time, while Jesus’ reign is not from this world, it’s very definitely in this world, indeed intimately involved in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood. One of the most familiar verses in the New Testament begins, “God so loved the world…..” and that hasn’t changed. The writers of the Gospels saw Jesus’ acts of healing, feeding and teaching, not only as directed at the individuals being helped, but as Jesus’ tackling and overcoming the powers of darkness that keep people sick, hungry and ignorant, as signs of the Kingdom of God in their midst. Jesus’ reign is deeply counter to our culture. Our culture tells us that kingdoms are maintained by what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has called our world’s unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed, which is propped up by wealth, political power, and military might. Jesus’ reign is different – it is like seeds of kindness and caring, growing silently and invisibly until ready to bear fruit, and reproduce more seeds to bear still more fruit for the future.
So what do these seeds look like? When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, they looked like acts of healing, feeding, and teaching. Here in Bridesburg, they may look like our food cupboard. They may look like Christian education programs and youth programs to help neighborhood children avoid bad influences and grow up knowing there are loved by their families and by God. They may look like our neighborhood’s small congregations, doing what we can with the resources we have to bring God’s love to our neighbor. They may look like you and like me.
As I’ve said before, more than once, we live in an in-between time – Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and while it is here, it is not fully here. We live in the space between “already” and “not yet.” In this in-between time where the kingdom is here already, but not yet fully, God calls us to mission in our neighborhood and in our world. And God calls us to have faith in that coming day when God’s reign will be fully established, when all that brings sorrow and sighing will be no more, when we will be gathered together forever in the presence of a loving God. On that day there will be singing and praise – and maybe, as on my flight from Cuba to Miami, a round of applause that after all we’ve seen and done and been through, we’ve landed safely, and are finally truly home. Amen.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Family Portraits - A Slightly Late All Saints Day Sermon
Today we’re celebrating All Saints Day a week later than the liturgical calendar would indicate, due to my absence last week. But in terms of the scriptures for the week (Ruth 3:1-5; Ruth 4:13-17), I’m actually glad we’re a week late, because the Scriptures work really well for an All Saints observance, for remembering our family members who have gone before us to be with God.
We have some tender, touching passages today from the book of Ruth. We discussed the book of Ruth two weeks ago during our church school hour, but for those who weren’t with us for the discussion, here’s some context – Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and their sons Mahlon and Chiliab are driven by famine from Bethlehem of Judah to the land of Moab. The sons marry Moabite women, Orpah (not Oprah) and Ruth. First Elimelech the husband dies, and then both sons die, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law bereaved and destitute in a strange land. Despairing, Naomi decides to make her way back to Judah – she heard the famine had eased there. Naomi thanked her two daughters in law for their great kindness to her, and bid them to return to their respective families, for Naomi had no more to offer them. Orpah reluctantly complies, but Ruth clings to Naomi, telling her, “where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die and there I will be buried; may the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” So Naomi and her loyal daughter in law Ruth make their way back to Judah, where Ruth gleans grain – picks up the leftovers that the harvesters missed - from the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Ruth. Boaz, shall we say, takes a shine to Ruth, and allows her to glean more grain than usual. Here’s where our reading today picks up – with Ruth, shall we say, working her feminine charms on Boaz. Boaz and Ruth marry, and bear a son, who becomes an ancestor of King David, and ultimately, of Jesus.
In the Bible we encounter many literary forms – poetry, proverbs or wisdom teaching, prophetic teaching. We encounter wide-ranging historical narration and biographical information. In the Epistles, we encounter theological interpretation of how the history of the Jewish people and the life of Jesus are to inform the life of God’s gathered people. God speaks to us in these varied ways, and we frequently find them wide-ranging, heady, covering thousands of years of time and hundreds of miles of geography. Yet every now and then, the focus narrows to a single individual – a Moses or a David, or John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul – or a family – Abraham and Sarah – or, as in today’s Gospel, Naomi and Ruth.
When we think of God’s reign, of God working out God’s purpose in the world, we often think of grand scale events – plagues, manna from heaven, mass feedings – all those spectacular events that were the stuff of the Cecil B. DeMille sagas of bygone decades. Yet in today’s reading, God’s purpose was carried out by a bereaved and at times bitter widow and her foreign-born, yet loyal, daughter-in-law, former refugees returning to a homeland in search of daily bread, eking out a precarious existence from the leftovers of those more prosperous than they, relying on the benevolence of distant relatives. We have an utterly charming, heartwarming family portrait of an ordinary life used in extraordinary ways.
In my almost two years – has it really been that long? – as your pastor, it has often been my privilege to hear the stories of your fathers and mothers, the saints of Emanuel Church. Like today’s Gospel reading, they are often stories of ordinary people – while we had some wealthy members in the earlier years of the congregation, to my knowledge we had no Rockefellers or Carnegies here – for the most part, we were and are ordinary people whose otherwise-ordinary lives God has used to extraordinary effect in carrying out God’s will here in Bridesburg. Ordinary people showing extraordinary generosity and extraordinary commitment to make sure that God’s word could be heard and God’s people served in our little corner of creation. It could be said that they lived out the words of this old hymn:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!
I wouldn’t want us to narrow our focus to brightening only the corner where we are. Through our United Church of Christ denominational ministries and our ecumenical Bridesburg Council of Churches ministries, through ecumenical and interfaith partnerships known and unknown, we can brighten corners across the city, around the country, and across the globe. As many of you know, last week I was among a group from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference hoping to share God’s light in some difficult corners of Cuba. And yet it’s true that often God’s cannot be heard in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still small voice; that God’s reign is like the growth of tiny seeds sprouting unseen; that God’s work is carried out, not always in great deeds, but in small deeds done with great love – like the giving of the widow’s mite in our Gospel, tiny to the point of insignificance, yet recognized by Jesus as an act of total commitment - like Ruth’s small acts of loyal care for her mother-in-law, that led to her inclusion of the lineage of King David and his successors, and of our Saviour himself.
As we remember our saints – those in our bulletin today, and those who have been among the unseen cloud of witnesses for many years, may we remember how God was present in their lives. May they be an inspiration to us, we who continue on to run the race, to fight the good fight. May we continue their acts of great love, so that our lives will be among the family portraits remembered by the coming generations of the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.
We have some tender, touching passages today from the book of Ruth. We discussed the book of Ruth two weeks ago during our church school hour, but for those who weren’t with us for the discussion, here’s some context – Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and their sons Mahlon and Chiliab are driven by famine from Bethlehem of Judah to the land of Moab. The sons marry Moabite women, Orpah (not Oprah) and Ruth. First Elimelech the husband dies, and then both sons die, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law bereaved and destitute in a strange land. Despairing, Naomi decides to make her way back to Judah – she heard the famine had eased there. Naomi thanked her two daughters in law for their great kindness to her, and bid them to return to their respective families, for Naomi had no more to offer them. Orpah reluctantly complies, but Ruth clings to Naomi, telling her, “where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die and there I will be buried; may the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” So Naomi and her loyal daughter in law Ruth make their way back to Judah, where Ruth gleans grain – picks up the leftovers that the harvesters missed - from the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Ruth. Boaz, shall we say, takes a shine to Ruth, and allows her to glean more grain than usual. Here’s where our reading today picks up – with Ruth, shall we say, working her feminine charms on Boaz. Boaz and Ruth marry, and bear a son, who becomes an ancestor of King David, and ultimately, of Jesus.
In the Bible we encounter many literary forms – poetry, proverbs or wisdom teaching, prophetic teaching. We encounter wide-ranging historical narration and biographical information. In the Epistles, we encounter theological interpretation of how the history of the Jewish people and the life of Jesus are to inform the life of God’s gathered people. God speaks to us in these varied ways, and we frequently find them wide-ranging, heady, covering thousands of years of time and hundreds of miles of geography. Yet every now and then, the focus narrows to a single individual – a Moses or a David, or John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul – or a family – Abraham and Sarah – or, as in today’s Gospel, Naomi and Ruth.
When we think of God’s reign, of God working out God’s purpose in the world, we often think of grand scale events – plagues, manna from heaven, mass feedings – all those spectacular events that were the stuff of the Cecil B. DeMille sagas of bygone decades. Yet in today’s reading, God’s purpose was carried out by a bereaved and at times bitter widow and her foreign-born, yet loyal, daughter-in-law, former refugees returning to a homeland in search of daily bread, eking out a precarious existence from the leftovers of those more prosperous than they, relying on the benevolence of distant relatives. We have an utterly charming, heartwarming family portrait of an ordinary life used in extraordinary ways.
In my almost two years – has it really been that long? – as your pastor, it has often been my privilege to hear the stories of your fathers and mothers, the saints of Emanuel Church. Like today’s Gospel reading, they are often stories of ordinary people – while we had some wealthy members in the earlier years of the congregation, to my knowledge we had no Rockefellers or Carnegies here – for the most part, we were and are ordinary people whose otherwise-ordinary lives God has used to extraordinary effect in carrying out God’s will here in Bridesburg. Ordinary people showing extraordinary generosity and extraordinary commitment to make sure that God’s word could be heard and God’s people served in our little corner of creation. It could be said that they lived out the words of this old hymn:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!
I wouldn’t want us to narrow our focus to brightening only the corner where we are. Through our United Church of Christ denominational ministries and our ecumenical Bridesburg Council of Churches ministries, through ecumenical and interfaith partnerships known and unknown, we can brighten corners across the city, around the country, and across the globe. As many of you know, last week I was among a group from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference hoping to share God’s light in some difficult corners of Cuba. And yet it’s true that often God’s cannot be heard in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still small voice; that God’s reign is like the growth of tiny seeds sprouting unseen; that God’s work is carried out, not always in great deeds, but in small deeds done with great love – like the giving of the widow’s mite in our Gospel, tiny to the point of insignificance, yet recognized by Jesus as an act of total commitment - like Ruth’s small acts of loyal care for her mother-in-law, that led to her inclusion of the lineage of King David and his successors, and of our Saviour himself.
As we remember our saints – those in our bulletin today, and those who have been among the unseen cloud of witnesses for many years, may we remember how God was present in their lives. May they be an inspiration to us, we who continue on to run the race, to fight the good fight. May we continue their acts of great love, so that our lives will be among the family portraits remembered by the coming generations of the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Leaving on a Jet Plane
Pastor Dave will be out of town on Sunday, November 1. The congregation elected to cancel services that Sunday. So - no services at Emanuel UCC on November 1. Please join us on November 8 at 10 a.m., when we'll hold a late All Saints commemoration and celebrate Holy Communion.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Bridesburg Health & Welfare Expo
The Bridesburg Council of Churches, which takes in six congregations from the United Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and United Church of Christ traditions, is hosting a community health fair. Anyone in the Phila area is welcome to attend and enjoy!
Serving and Served
On the old Honeymooners TV show from the 1950’s, Jackie Gleason, playing Ralph Cramden, once went off on a rant at his wife, Alice, played by Audrey Meadows. “I’m the king…this is my house, my castle. I’m the king, and you’re nothing.” Alice, who always had the perfect comeback, put her hand on her hips and said, “King of nothing. Big deal!”
Theologians have called Mark “the gospel of the stupid disciples,” and in our Gospel reading from Mark shows Jesus’ disciples to be as self-absorbed as the Ralph Cramden character. While it’s hard to get the flow of the narrative when it’s broken up over a number of weeks, Jesus has been preparing his disciples for the suffering and death he would suffer in Jerusalem. Remember that when Jesus began this discussion, Peter took him aside and rebuked him. And now after all that’s happened in our Gospels over the past few weeks – Jesus teaching that only those who come to the kingdom like a little child can enter the kingdom, his telling the rich young ruler that he had to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor before he could follow Jesus – the disciples still don’t get it. They just….don’t….get it! Jesus is pouring his heart out about his upcoming betrayal – trying for the third time to prepare his disciples for what lies ahead - and James and John are angling for glory. And when the other disciples hear about their request, they’re angry – mostly because they didn’t think of it first! What a train wreck of a conversation!
Here we have contrasts between the ways of the world and the way of the cross. At some level, James and John themselves knew that what they were asking was wrong. Remember how they led into their question: “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” They tried to trap Jesus into promising to grant what at some level they knew was an unworthy request. We may remember from our reading in Mark’s gospel from a number of weeks ago that Herod’s freely promised his daughter anything she asked, even half his kingdom – and Herod’s wife took this opportunity to ask for the head of John the Baptist. And so James and John unconsciously show that despite all their time with Jesus, they were still caught up in the same worldly thinking that had led to the death of John the Baptist and would ultimately lead to the death of Jesus.
So James and John made their request. Jesus asks them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” You would think that with all Jesus had just got done saying about his upcoming suffering and death, this question might have seemed a bit ominous, might have given them pause, but no, they glibly say, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Jesus responded, “You will drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with my baptism, but the places at my right and my left are not mine to appoint.” And reading this story from our perspective, we might remember that, at the crucifixion, the decision of who occupied the places to Jesus’ right and left was indeed not for Jesus to make – those places were filled by the two thieves that the Romans happened to crucify next to him.
But Jesus recognizes a teachable moment when he sees one, and so he makes contrast between the ways of the world and the way of discipleship: “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.” Remember that Jesus disciples were Jews, and to have Jesus compare their behavior to that of Gentiles would have brought them up short, been seen as a rebuke – “you’re acting like Gentiles” – ouch! But Jesus goes on, “But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The ways of the world versus the way of the cross….We all know too well the truth of Jesus’ words about the ways of the world. There’s a part of all of us – me too – that wants a place of glory – be it the biggest house on our block, the corner office at work, political office, our name in lights. And the draw isn’t just visibility, it’s the ability to throw our weight around, to have our way. Maybe you’ve seen the cartoon about the CEO who chews out a manager at work….and the manager yells at his flunkie, who goes home and yells at his wife, who yells at the kid, who kicks the dog. That cartoon sums up the way of the world, what theologians such as Walter Brueggeman and Walter Wink call the world’s domination system. And it’s not just true at the individual level; for many, our national pride as Americans is tied up in being the wealthiest and the strongest militarily, in being able, not just to set policies for ourselves, but to shape and mold the course of events in the world.
And too often even in the church it’s no different. Career pastors – unless they’re easing into retirement and want to slow down – if they want to leave their current pulpit, normally seek a call from a bigger congregation than the one they’re serving, and calls to the prominent “tall steeple” churches are highly sought. And lay leaders and members of larger, more prominent congregations thrive on their congregation’s prominent identity and recognition in the community. A megachurch with praise bands and multiple choirs and a paid staff of multiple pastors and professional counselors can offer a lot more glitz and glamour and glory to pastors and members alike than a small “St John’s by the gas station” country church or a small, struggling city congregation. Unfortunately, for us, as individuals anyway, when we die, we really can’t take all that with us – or as the Latin phrase goes “sic transit gloria mundi” – so passes the glory of the world. In the end, we really are, in Alice Kramden’s phrase, the king of nothing.
Jesus offers a different path. “But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” In recent years even the term “servant leadership” has been co-opted and corrupted by motivational speakers from the corporate culture, but the way of Jesus is the way of humble service. Even in the secular world, it’s been recognized that if there’s something that you really want to get done in an organization, it may be easier if you’re not too fussy about who gets the credit, if you’re willing to let others get the glory – the question becomes, “is it more important to me that this get done, or that people know that I did it.”
In his parables, Jesus compared God’s reign to a seed, not a sledgehammer….to a seed quietly, slowly, secretly sinking roots in the ground and growing up from below, bringing new life, not to loud, heavy sledgehammer pounding from above. God’s reign comes about when one person tells another about Jesus, when one person serves another in Jesus’ name, when one person joins another and another and another in Jesus’ name to keep their block safe, when one congregation cleans up a needle park so that children can once again play safely, when one congregation joins another and another and another in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. All quiet acts, nothing that’ll get you the corner office or your name in lights, but acts that bring the love of Jesus to hurting people, acts that help to usher in the reign of God. As John Wesley of the Methodist tradition put it, “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” And what we do, we are able to do because Jesus first came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many – to serve us and give his life a ransom for us.
We may remember the story of St Francis of Assisi – and our first hymn today was an adaptation of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun. In his youth, Francis had led a careless life, but over time gradually came to embrace a life of service. Finally, a confrontation came between Francis and his wealthy father, when Francis renounced his father and his inheritance, and even left behind the clothes he was wearing, and founded an order devoted to a life of poverty and service, in contrast to the corruption of the church hierarchies of his day. I’ll close with his famous prayer:
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.
Please join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ (Fillmore St off Thompson) on Sundays at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
Theologians have called Mark “the gospel of the stupid disciples,” and in our Gospel reading from Mark shows Jesus’ disciples to be as self-absorbed as the Ralph Cramden character. While it’s hard to get the flow of the narrative when it’s broken up over a number of weeks, Jesus has been preparing his disciples for the suffering and death he would suffer in Jerusalem. Remember that when Jesus began this discussion, Peter took him aside and rebuked him. And now after all that’s happened in our Gospels over the past few weeks – Jesus teaching that only those who come to the kingdom like a little child can enter the kingdom, his telling the rich young ruler that he had to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor before he could follow Jesus – the disciples still don’t get it. They just….don’t….get it! Jesus is pouring his heart out about his upcoming betrayal – trying for the third time to prepare his disciples for what lies ahead - and James and John are angling for glory. And when the other disciples hear about their request, they’re angry – mostly because they didn’t think of it first! What a train wreck of a conversation!
Here we have contrasts between the ways of the world and the way of the cross. At some level, James and John themselves knew that what they were asking was wrong. Remember how they led into their question: “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” They tried to trap Jesus into promising to grant what at some level they knew was an unworthy request. We may remember from our reading in Mark’s gospel from a number of weeks ago that Herod’s freely promised his daughter anything she asked, even half his kingdom – and Herod’s wife took this opportunity to ask for the head of John the Baptist. And so James and John unconsciously show that despite all their time with Jesus, they were still caught up in the same worldly thinking that had led to the death of John the Baptist and would ultimately lead to the death of Jesus.
So James and John made their request. Jesus asks them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” You would think that with all Jesus had just got done saying about his upcoming suffering and death, this question might have seemed a bit ominous, might have given them pause, but no, they glibly say, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Jesus responded, “You will drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with my baptism, but the places at my right and my left are not mine to appoint.” And reading this story from our perspective, we might remember that, at the crucifixion, the decision of who occupied the places to Jesus’ right and left was indeed not for Jesus to make – those places were filled by the two thieves that the Romans happened to crucify next to him.
But Jesus recognizes a teachable moment when he sees one, and so he makes contrast between the ways of the world and the way of discipleship: “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.” Remember that Jesus disciples were Jews, and to have Jesus compare their behavior to that of Gentiles would have brought them up short, been seen as a rebuke – “you’re acting like Gentiles” – ouch! But Jesus goes on, “But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The ways of the world versus the way of the cross….We all know too well the truth of Jesus’ words about the ways of the world. There’s a part of all of us – me too – that wants a place of glory – be it the biggest house on our block, the corner office at work, political office, our name in lights. And the draw isn’t just visibility, it’s the ability to throw our weight around, to have our way. Maybe you’ve seen the cartoon about the CEO who chews out a manager at work….and the manager yells at his flunkie, who goes home and yells at his wife, who yells at the kid, who kicks the dog. That cartoon sums up the way of the world, what theologians such as Walter Brueggeman and Walter Wink call the world’s domination system. And it’s not just true at the individual level; for many, our national pride as Americans is tied up in being the wealthiest and the strongest militarily, in being able, not just to set policies for ourselves, but to shape and mold the course of events in the world.
And too often even in the church it’s no different. Career pastors – unless they’re easing into retirement and want to slow down – if they want to leave their current pulpit, normally seek a call from a bigger congregation than the one they’re serving, and calls to the prominent “tall steeple” churches are highly sought. And lay leaders and members of larger, more prominent congregations thrive on their congregation’s prominent identity and recognition in the community. A megachurch with praise bands and multiple choirs and a paid staff of multiple pastors and professional counselors can offer a lot more glitz and glamour and glory to pastors and members alike than a small “St John’s by the gas station” country church or a small, struggling city congregation. Unfortunately, for us, as individuals anyway, when we die, we really can’t take all that with us – or as the Latin phrase goes “sic transit gloria mundi” – so passes the glory of the world. In the end, we really are, in Alice Kramden’s phrase, the king of nothing.
Jesus offers a different path. “But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” In recent years even the term “servant leadership” has been co-opted and corrupted by motivational speakers from the corporate culture, but the way of Jesus is the way of humble service. Even in the secular world, it’s been recognized that if there’s something that you really want to get done in an organization, it may be easier if you’re not too fussy about who gets the credit, if you’re willing to let others get the glory – the question becomes, “is it more important to me that this get done, or that people know that I did it.”
In his parables, Jesus compared God’s reign to a seed, not a sledgehammer….to a seed quietly, slowly, secretly sinking roots in the ground and growing up from below, bringing new life, not to loud, heavy sledgehammer pounding from above. God’s reign comes about when one person tells another about Jesus, when one person serves another in Jesus’ name, when one person joins another and another and another in Jesus’ name to keep their block safe, when one congregation cleans up a needle park so that children can once again play safely, when one congregation joins another and another and another in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. All quiet acts, nothing that’ll get you the corner office or your name in lights, but acts that bring the love of Jesus to hurting people, acts that help to usher in the reign of God. As John Wesley of the Methodist tradition put it, “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” And what we do, we are able to do because Jesus first came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many – to serve us and give his life a ransom for us.
We may remember the story of St Francis of Assisi – and our first hymn today was an adaptation of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun. In his youth, Francis had led a careless life, but over time gradually came to embrace a life of service. Finally, a confrontation came between Francis and his wealthy father, when Francis renounced his father and his inheritance, and even left behind the clothes he was wearing, and founded an order devoted to a life of poverty and service, in contrast to the corruption of the church hierarchies of his day. I’ll close with his famous prayer:
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.
Please join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ (Fillmore St off Thompson) on Sundays at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
Monday, October 12, 2009
Open Hands, Open Hearts
When I was a little kid, my parents gave me a red and white tricycle. And I loved that tricycle. When I was little, my coordination wasn’t too cool yet, so that if I tried to run fast, I’d inevitably trip over my feet and land on the ground. (Come to think of it, that’s what happens now when I try to run fast….) But on a tricycle I could go really fast. Nothing could stop me! And my tricycle and I were inseparable - I wanted to take my tricycle everywhere. Of course, when you are little, there are places your parents want to take you, where you can’t ride your tricycle….like the beach. Or an amusement park. Or even a grocery store. But my parents and I had some interesting conversations – well, maybe more like they talked and I howled - about why the tricycle that helped me go really fast when I was home, would just get in the way at the beach. And, of course, it’s now been more than 40 years since I’ve felt any need to ride a tricycle; it landed on the scrap heap decades ago.
Today we are continuing in Mark’s gospel in what some have called the “hard sayings” of Jesus. We walk alongside Jesus on the path that will ultimately lead him to the cross. As Jesus laid down His life, as His disciples, we, too, will have to lay aside those things that would distract us from following in his way. But we are promised that as Jesus was raised, we, too, will find new life as we follow in the way of Jesus.
In last week’s Gospel reading, Jesus faced hostile questioning from the Pharisees on the controversial topic of marriage. In this week’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-31), Jesus is questioned by a man who seemingly has everything he could want, but somehow senses that something is missing. We’re told that this wealthy man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him. And unlike the Pharisees, he was not a hostile questioner. Normally this young man might have had people running up to him to ask for assistance, so this rich man had genuinely humbled himself before Jesus. With all that he had, he still felt something lacking. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asks the man to consider his own words: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Mark’s is thought to have been the earliest Gospel written, and Mark doesn’t hit his readers over the head with evidence of Jesus’ divinity, but more or less lets his readers figure out for themselves who Jesus is, and how to respond to this realization.
Then Jesus leads the man to consider his own religious training: “You know the commandments – “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother.” The man replies, “All these I have kept from my youth.” And yet, something is missing, or else why would the man seemingly be asking Jesus for something more.
Mark tells us that Jesus, looking at the man, loved him – Jesus saw the man was not trying to trip him up, but was utterly sincere in his seeking. And we know that sometimes we have to say difficult things to those we love, for their own good. Like a doctor diagnosing a patient and offering a cure, Jesus saw into the man’s life and said, “You lack one thing. Go, sell what you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. And as we read, we can almost feel the man’s heartbreak at Jesus’ words, and Jesus’ sadness at the man’s response to his words.
Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.” The disciples didn’t know what to think, because the theology of the day saw wealth as God’s reward for righteous behavior. And certainly many of our TV preachers tell us their version of the very same thing – “God wants you rich.” Jesus, who evidently doesn’t take advice from the prosperity gospel folks, went on, “It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.” The disciples were even more astounded and said, “Then who can be saved.” Jesus said, “for people it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
“With God all things are possible.” We don’t know what ultimately happened with the rich young man. He may have told his companions, “I went to Jesus and asked to follow him, but Jesus asked too much.” Or Jesus’ words may have worked in the man’s mind and spirit over many days, and he may later have done as Jesus instructed. As Mark’s gospel does so often, we are only given a snapshot, not the entire movie down to the closing credits.
What are we to make of Jesus’ words to the rich young man? As I look around this sanctuary, I’m not seeing a lot of wealthy people. None of us have piles of extra cash lying around, and some of us are really struggling to get by. So there may be a temptation to dismiss the story as not applicable. On the other hand, compared to people in many countries in Africa and Mexico and South America, if we’re able to eat every day, we’re well-off indeed. And on the other other hand – I think I’m up to three hands now – does this story apply only to financial wealth?
I suspect it’s not entirely a coincidence that Mark places this story shortly after Jesus’ words – which we read two weeks ago - that go along the lines of, “if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out,” and “if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, better to enter eternal life with one than to enter hell with both.” The idea being that to the extent that we are put anything in this life before our commitment to following Jesus – even though it may be perfectly harmless in and of itself – it will inevitably lead us astray and cause us to stumble, to sin. In the case of the rich young man, it was his attachment to his possessions that caused him to miss the abundance that God offered him. Perhaps at some level he was aware of this even before he approached Jesus; or perhaps he couldn’t quite put his finger on the cause of his spiritual restlessness. Certainly he was aware that for all his possessions, something was missing; else he wouldn’t have approached Jesus in the first place. And certainly Jesus’ words brought complete clarity to the choice before the rich young man. Like cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye, parting with his possessions would have felt, for the rich young man, like an amputation.
I began my sermon by telling you about how attached I was long ago to my tricycle. As a pre-schooler, I looked at life in terms of “can I take my tricycle,” and if the answer was “no”, I howled in protest – missing the point that there were lots of fun things to do that didn’t involve tricycles. And I think that we miss the point of the story only if we look at what we’re asked to give up. God wishes to bless us with life that is not only eternal but abundant – rich in the spiritual blessings that come with walking in the way of Jesus. God comes to us not to deprive, but to give – indeed, no one can outgive God - but we cannot receive what God has to offer if our hands are clenched around something else that we feel we cannot live without. And we cannot follow where Jesus wishes to lead if we are stuck in some particular place that we feel we cannot leave. So while this story is about financial wealth, it’s not just about financial wealth – it’s about anything we take for granted, any kind of privilege, be it possessions or position of respect in society or a job title that gives us the right to be obeyed – it may even be personal attitudes that keep us focused on ourselves and oblivious to a community around us in need of Good News - all this we must be willing to lay aside to follow where Jesus leads.
The response of the disciples underscores all this. Peter began to say to him, “Look we have left everything and followed you.” In Mark’s gospel, the disciples in general and Peter in particular so often miss the point, but this time Peter’s words were spot on – he got exactly what Jesus was saying. Contrast Jesus’ response to Peter with his words to the rich young man: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” As we become a part of the life of the church, of the community of faith, those around us go from being folks who sit next to us in church to being our family of faith, mothers and sisters and brothers. And even in our small congregation, we celebrate each others’ joys and support each other in our times of loss. We are not left to our own resources, but we have access to those of the community as well. And, yes, there may be persecutions – this way of living runs counter to what our culture tells us, and our neighbors may not understand us.
May Emanuel Church continue to be, as we have been for nearly 150 years, a place of open hands and open hearts. May we be a place where those seeking to follow Jesus will find spiritual abundance – a supportive community nurturing of faith. And where Jesus leads, may we follow. Amen.
Today we are continuing in Mark’s gospel in what some have called the “hard sayings” of Jesus. We walk alongside Jesus on the path that will ultimately lead him to the cross. As Jesus laid down His life, as His disciples, we, too, will have to lay aside those things that would distract us from following in his way. But we are promised that as Jesus was raised, we, too, will find new life as we follow in the way of Jesus.
In last week’s Gospel reading, Jesus faced hostile questioning from the Pharisees on the controversial topic of marriage. In this week’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-31), Jesus is questioned by a man who seemingly has everything he could want, but somehow senses that something is missing. We’re told that this wealthy man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him. And unlike the Pharisees, he was not a hostile questioner. Normally this young man might have had people running up to him to ask for assistance, so this rich man had genuinely humbled himself before Jesus. With all that he had, he still felt something lacking. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asks the man to consider his own words: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Mark’s is thought to have been the earliest Gospel written, and Mark doesn’t hit his readers over the head with evidence of Jesus’ divinity, but more or less lets his readers figure out for themselves who Jesus is, and how to respond to this realization.
Then Jesus leads the man to consider his own religious training: “You know the commandments – “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother.” The man replies, “All these I have kept from my youth.” And yet, something is missing, or else why would the man seemingly be asking Jesus for something more.
Mark tells us that Jesus, looking at the man, loved him – Jesus saw the man was not trying to trip him up, but was utterly sincere in his seeking. And we know that sometimes we have to say difficult things to those we love, for their own good. Like a doctor diagnosing a patient and offering a cure, Jesus saw into the man’s life and said, “You lack one thing. Go, sell what you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. And as we read, we can almost feel the man’s heartbreak at Jesus’ words, and Jesus’ sadness at the man’s response to his words.
Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.” The disciples didn’t know what to think, because the theology of the day saw wealth as God’s reward for righteous behavior. And certainly many of our TV preachers tell us their version of the very same thing – “God wants you rich.” Jesus, who evidently doesn’t take advice from the prosperity gospel folks, went on, “It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.” The disciples were even more astounded and said, “Then who can be saved.” Jesus said, “for people it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
“With God all things are possible.” We don’t know what ultimately happened with the rich young man. He may have told his companions, “I went to Jesus and asked to follow him, but Jesus asked too much.” Or Jesus’ words may have worked in the man’s mind and spirit over many days, and he may later have done as Jesus instructed. As Mark’s gospel does so often, we are only given a snapshot, not the entire movie down to the closing credits.
What are we to make of Jesus’ words to the rich young man? As I look around this sanctuary, I’m not seeing a lot of wealthy people. None of us have piles of extra cash lying around, and some of us are really struggling to get by. So there may be a temptation to dismiss the story as not applicable. On the other hand, compared to people in many countries in Africa and Mexico and South America, if we’re able to eat every day, we’re well-off indeed. And on the other other hand – I think I’m up to three hands now – does this story apply only to financial wealth?
I suspect it’s not entirely a coincidence that Mark places this story shortly after Jesus’ words – which we read two weeks ago - that go along the lines of, “if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out,” and “if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, better to enter eternal life with one than to enter hell with both.” The idea being that to the extent that we are put anything in this life before our commitment to following Jesus – even though it may be perfectly harmless in and of itself – it will inevitably lead us astray and cause us to stumble, to sin. In the case of the rich young man, it was his attachment to his possessions that caused him to miss the abundance that God offered him. Perhaps at some level he was aware of this even before he approached Jesus; or perhaps he couldn’t quite put his finger on the cause of his spiritual restlessness. Certainly he was aware that for all his possessions, something was missing; else he wouldn’t have approached Jesus in the first place. And certainly Jesus’ words brought complete clarity to the choice before the rich young man. Like cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye, parting with his possessions would have felt, for the rich young man, like an amputation.
I began my sermon by telling you about how attached I was long ago to my tricycle. As a pre-schooler, I looked at life in terms of “can I take my tricycle,” and if the answer was “no”, I howled in protest – missing the point that there were lots of fun things to do that didn’t involve tricycles. And I think that we miss the point of the story only if we look at what we’re asked to give up. God wishes to bless us with life that is not only eternal but abundant – rich in the spiritual blessings that come with walking in the way of Jesus. God comes to us not to deprive, but to give – indeed, no one can outgive God - but we cannot receive what God has to offer if our hands are clenched around something else that we feel we cannot live without. And we cannot follow where Jesus wishes to lead if we are stuck in some particular place that we feel we cannot leave. So while this story is about financial wealth, it’s not just about financial wealth – it’s about anything we take for granted, any kind of privilege, be it possessions or position of respect in society or a job title that gives us the right to be obeyed – it may even be personal attitudes that keep us focused on ourselves and oblivious to a community around us in need of Good News - all this we must be willing to lay aside to follow where Jesus leads.
The response of the disciples underscores all this. Peter began to say to him, “Look we have left everything and followed you.” In Mark’s gospel, the disciples in general and Peter in particular so often miss the point, but this time Peter’s words were spot on – he got exactly what Jesus was saying. Contrast Jesus’ response to Peter with his words to the rich young man: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” As we become a part of the life of the church, of the community of faith, those around us go from being folks who sit next to us in church to being our family of faith, mothers and sisters and brothers. And even in our small congregation, we celebrate each others’ joys and support each other in our times of loss. We are not left to our own resources, but we have access to those of the community as well. And, yes, there may be persecutions – this way of living runs counter to what our culture tells us, and our neighbors may not understand us.
May Emanuel Church continue to be, as we have been for nearly 150 years, a place of open hands and open hearts. May we be a place where those seeking to follow Jesus will find spiritual abundance – a supportive community nurturing of faith. And where Jesus leads, may we follow. Amen.
Hope from Hard Teachings
“If any of you put a stumbling block before any of these little ones who believe in me, it would better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Mark 9:42
"Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:14-15
October’s readings from Mark’s Gospel contain what are sometimes known as the “hard teachings” of Jesus. They actually began with our Gospel for September 27, which contained the first quote above, along with words along the lines of, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; better to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” (Note to blog reader: Jesus intended this as a metaphor. Please don’t cut off your hand.) Our Gospel reading for October 4 contains, along with Jesus’ gracious invitation “let the little children come unto me”, his radical teaching on marriage. And October 11 contains the story of the rich young ruler, whose wealth stood in the way of his accepting Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me.” These passages show, side by side, both God’s desire for us to experience the health and wholeness that comes with committed discipleship – regardless of the cost - and God’s tender care for the most vulnerable in our midst.
Our Old Testament readings come from the book of Job. Like many of us, Job wondered why he was afflicted by calamity in the midst of his faithful living. Theodicy is a branch of theology which attempts to reconcile God’s goodness with the evil we all experience – or in more familiar words, why bad things happen to good people. Job offers no pat answers to this age-old question – in fact, the book appears to have been written precisely to make the point that there are no easy answers. At the same time, the book affirms the ultimate goodness of God and urges us to trust even when we cannot understand.
"Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:14-15
October’s readings from Mark’s Gospel contain what are sometimes known as the “hard teachings” of Jesus. They actually began with our Gospel for September 27, which contained the first quote above, along with words along the lines of, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; better to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” (Note to blog reader: Jesus intended this as a metaphor. Please don’t cut off your hand.) Our Gospel reading for October 4 contains, along with Jesus’ gracious invitation “let the little children come unto me”, his radical teaching on marriage. And October 11 contains the story of the rich young ruler, whose wealth stood in the way of his accepting Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me.” These passages show, side by side, both God’s desire for us to experience the health and wholeness that comes with committed discipleship – regardless of the cost - and God’s tender care for the most vulnerable in our midst.
Our Old Testament readings come from the book of Job. Like many of us, Job wondered why he was afflicted by calamity in the midst of his faithful living. Theodicy is a branch of theology which attempts to reconcile God’s goodness with the evil we all experience – or in more familiar words, why bad things happen to good people. Job offers no pat answers to this age-old question – in fact, the book appears to have been written precisely to make the point that there are no easy answers. At the same time, the book affirms the ultimate goodness of God and urges us to trust even when we cannot understand.
Monday, September 28, 2009
"Pronouns" - For Emanuel United Church of Christ's 148th anniversary
Our Old Testament reading (Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; Esther 9:20-22) is one of the few times in the lectionary that we encounter the book of Esther. The book of Esther captures a pivotal moment in the history of the Jewish people, when queen Esther’s bravery saves her people from destruction. This incident is the basis for the Jewish festival of Purim, which is still celebrated to this day. It’s one of the few places in Old Testament Scripture where, given the patriarchal society of the day, a woman was God’s chosen instrument for the salvation of the Jews.
There’s a good bit of backstory behind today’s reading, and what a soap opera it is. The story takes place when the Jews were in exile in Babylon. Esther was a descendent of Jewish exiles. The king’s former wife, Vashti, had failed to show proper respect to the king – i.e. refused to put herself on displace on the king’s half-drunken command to the kings’ half-drunken, drooling court officials - and was therefore exiled. The nerve! Who did Vashti think she was! As the king got over both his hangover and his royal temper tantrum, he soon missed Vashti, and ordered all the virgins of the land to participate in a sort of royal beauty contest, with the prize being the privilege of being the queen. Esther was one of those summoned. Ultimately Esther was deemed the most beautiful of all, and won the privilege of being queen. She deemed it prudent to hide her Jewish ancestry – her status as a descendent of the exiles - from the king. Meanwhile, Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, who had raised her, had fallen foul of Haman, one of the king’s officials, and as a result, an order was given for the execution, not only of Mordecai, but of the entirety of the Jewish people. Hearing of the order, Mordecai implored the queen to use her access to the King to save her people. Said Mordecai, “If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Esther replied that it was against the law for her to approach the king on her own initiative; only if he held out the royal scepter would her life be spared. Nonetheless, she said, “I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Esther put her life on the line, revealed her identity, and saved her people from destruction. Haman and his supporters found themselves hanging from the very same gallows that Haman had set up for the destruction of the Jews.
Consider what must have gone through the mind of the king at this time. The king’s advisors had talked about the Jews as “those people”, as “them.” As in “not us.” As in “other than us.” As in “maybe dangerous to us.” Had the king continued to see the Jews as “not us,” as “them,” they would have been destroyed. It took brave queen Esther to go to the king and risk her life to change his view, that the Jews were not “them – those people – an abstraction” but “me, the queen, the love of your life.” Because of Esther’s bravery, the Jews were no longer “them over there” but part of “us right here.” And of course, for the King, when Jews are part of the king’s household, are family to the king, the King will work to save them. Because Jews are no longer them, but us.
You. Me. Them. Us. Pronouns that draw lines or erase them, pronouns that draw circles to include or exclude. Pronouns that often determine how we respond to our neighbor – depending on whether that neighbor is a “them” or an “us.” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount tells us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” If we listened, what a wonderful world itwould be. In this world, though, where we live, we all carry biases that make us treat those congenial to us very well, and sometimes to treat those not congenial to us – uh…not very well. Or if we’re not hostile to the “them’s” in our life, we’re indifferent. When things happen to “them” it’s by definition “their” problem, as in “not our problem.” It doesn’t concern “us,” does it? . And I’m no exception; while I try very hard to treat everyone well, inevitably I find it an easier task with some people than with others, and the amount of energy I can bring to overcoming my biases varies from day to day and from circumstance to circumstance. So I’m preaching to myself as well.
Esther saved the Jewish people by risking her life in order to move from being a “them” to an “us.” Our society has many ways of defining “thems”. Some “thems” are relatively invisible. For the first half of the 20th century, Jews were considered outsiders to nearly as great a degree as during the time of our Old Testament reading. They were barred from some universities and from various lines of employment. Many changed their names and converted to Christianity in order to pass as “us”. The Holocaust awakened the conscience of many to the great danger of labeling and demonizing Jews as “thems.” And personal interaction also did a great deal. It’s easy to dismiss a word, an abstraction, less easy to dismiss a friend, a coworker, a neighbor right there in the flesh with whom we interact every day. And the lines between "us" and "them" shift over time. Germans, who founded our congregation, were once seen by other colonists as "them", and Ben Franklin despaired of Germans ever being able to function in proper American - that is to say, English speaking - society. Similarly, in past decades, other immigrant groups – Irish, Polish – eventually moved from being seen as a threat and considered “them” to acceptance as part of “us.” John’s Gospel speaks of Christ’s incarnation – his birth and life on earth - as “the Word becoming flesh,” but for “thems,” bridges can be built by the kind of interaction where a person labeled with a despised word – Jew or the name of some other group of “thems” – becomes right in front of you the flesh of someone you know and value, maybe love. This kind of incarnation can erase the lines between “them” and “us.” But if you’re a “them”, this interaction comes at a risk – you may be ostracized; you may be physically attacked, and one may approach such interactions with a fatalistic sense that, as Queen Esther said, “if I perish, I perish.”
While anti-semitism still rears its ugly head in various times and locations, Jews face much less overt hostility than they did 50 years ago. But evidently there’s just something in human nature – “sin” might be one descriptor - that needs a “them” to scapegoat, to hate and blame for all their problems. Nowadays, in the wake of 9-11, Muslims are very much considered as “them” – “!THEM!” in red, flashing capital letters – so much so that, my first class in seminary included a trip to a local mosque, in order to begin the process in our minds of moving Muslims from “them” to “maybe us.” Immigrants are also another “them” – while our rhetoric distinguishes between legal and illegal immigrants, in practice we tend to lump all immigrants together as “them.” We can all think of other groups of “thems” who are at best disregarded and at worst demonized. Gay folk. The mentally ill. The hungry. All the folks that get beat like a piñata and kicked around like a football during the runup to every election.
What does all this have to do with our 148th anniversary? I’d like to come back to Mordecai’s words to Esther, as Mordecai’s and Esther’s people faced destruction: “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” In other words, maybe this is why God led the King to choose Esther as queen. Behind these words is Mordecai’s deep conviction that, though his people faced grave and overwhelming danger, God was still in charge, and that by God’s providence Esther was in the position she was in for a reason.
We here at Emanuel Church are celebrating God’s care for us over the last roughly 150 years. From our founding during the time of the Civil War, our congregation has weathered a Great Depression and two World Wars. More locally, our congregation has also survived the passing of much of Bridesburg’s industrial base, as our neighborhood tries to hang on to the best of the past while finding a way to move forward. Those who have been here longer than I have, who are the living history of this congregation, have many wonderful stories of our history – our critical role in the founding of Bethany Children’s Home, now saving the lives of at-risk children and youth in Berks County, our cooperation and friendship with All Saints Roman Catholic church during their founding years. You’ve been there for the highs and lows – the comings and goings of many pastors over the years, some beloved, others who maybe didn’t quite fit, the church fights, and the reconciliations, the departure of old friends, and the arrivals of new friends.
And here we are, thanks in large part to the love and dedication of a core of dedicated members. And in the past year or two, it has been such a joy to welcome new members, from Bridesburg and nearby neighborhoods, and to have children with us in worship again. God is bringing new life in our midst. But one might ask, why are we here? Why has God enabled us to continue? I would answer, “we are here just for such a time as this?”
What kind of time is this? It’s a time in which many feel great spiritual hunger – incredibly strong need for meaning and purpose in their lives, for strength to overcome personal failings and to stand in the face of adversity, for connections to other human beings, for being part of something larger than just getting through the day - but are afraid to open the door of a church for fear of the condemnation they expect to find inside. In this economy, it’s also a time of great physical hunger, great need for food, clothing, and so many necessities of life. It’s a time in which economic and social factors put great stress on families, where it can take heroic efforts for parents to keep their children out of harm’s way and to bring them up to feel loved and valued, where parents are seeking safe and nurturing places for their children and themselves.
Why are we here? – just for such a time as this! Why are we here? – because God needs us, and because Bridesburg needs us. Why are we here? – to stand by those “thems” that the rest of society would prefer to forget, to love those whom others would hate or ignore. And as we do so, they are no longer “them”, but “us.”
It was risky for Esther to be there just at such a time as this. She had no way of knowing how the king would respond to her plea. And it’s risky for Emanuel to be here just as such a time as this. It’s risky to take on the challenges of a changing society. But it’s absolutely deadly to this congregation not to. In stepping out in faith to embrace the challenges God has set before us, we will find new life.
Our final hymn (Julian Rush’s “In the Midst of New Dimension”), from the New Century Hymnal, will be unfamiliar, and may seem like a strange choice for an anniversary Sunday. It’s a hymn about moving forward in times of uncertainty. The hymn speaks about working for peace amid conflict, about moving forward in the face of social change. But in its use of imagery such as the rainbow – sign of God’s promise to Noah never to destroy the earth – and fiery pillar – with which God led the children of Israel through the wilderness to the promised land – the hymn is a ringing affirmation of the faithfulness of God who has led Emanuel through the challenges and joys of Christian discipleship for the past nearly 150 years, and who, God willing, will continue to sustain us for many more. And the chorus is gives us a vision for the next 150 years, “we, your people; ours, the journey, now and evermore.”
There’s a good bit of backstory behind today’s reading, and what a soap opera it is. The story takes place when the Jews were in exile in Babylon. Esther was a descendent of Jewish exiles. The king’s former wife, Vashti, had failed to show proper respect to the king – i.e. refused to put herself on displace on the king’s half-drunken command to the kings’ half-drunken, drooling court officials - and was therefore exiled. The nerve! Who did Vashti think she was! As the king got over both his hangover and his royal temper tantrum, he soon missed Vashti, and ordered all the virgins of the land to participate in a sort of royal beauty contest, with the prize being the privilege of being the queen. Esther was one of those summoned. Ultimately Esther was deemed the most beautiful of all, and won the privilege of being queen. She deemed it prudent to hide her Jewish ancestry – her status as a descendent of the exiles - from the king. Meanwhile, Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, who had raised her, had fallen foul of Haman, one of the king’s officials, and as a result, an order was given for the execution, not only of Mordecai, but of the entirety of the Jewish people. Hearing of the order, Mordecai implored the queen to use her access to the King to save her people. Said Mordecai, “If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Esther replied that it was against the law for her to approach the king on her own initiative; only if he held out the royal scepter would her life be spared. Nonetheless, she said, “I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Esther put her life on the line, revealed her identity, and saved her people from destruction. Haman and his supporters found themselves hanging from the very same gallows that Haman had set up for the destruction of the Jews.
Consider what must have gone through the mind of the king at this time. The king’s advisors had talked about the Jews as “those people”, as “them.” As in “not us.” As in “other than us.” As in “maybe dangerous to us.” Had the king continued to see the Jews as “not us,” as “them,” they would have been destroyed. It took brave queen Esther to go to the king and risk her life to change his view, that the Jews were not “them – those people – an abstraction” but “me, the queen, the love of your life.” Because of Esther’s bravery, the Jews were no longer “them over there” but part of “us right here.” And of course, for the King, when Jews are part of the king’s household, are family to the king, the King will work to save them. Because Jews are no longer them, but us.
You. Me. Them. Us. Pronouns that draw lines or erase them, pronouns that draw circles to include or exclude. Pronouns that often determine how we respond to our neighbor – depending on whether that neighbor is a “them” or an “us.” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount tells us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” If we listened, what a wonderful world itwould be. In this world, though, where we live, we all carry biases that make us treat those congenial to us very well, and sometimes to treat those not congenial to us – uh…not very well. Or if we’re not hostile to the “them’s” in our life, we’re indifferent. When things happen to “them” it’s by definition “their” problem, as in “not our problem.” It doesn’t concern “us,” does it? . And I’m no exception; while I try very hard to treat everyone well, inevitably I find it an easier task with some people than with others, and the amount of energy I can bring to overcoming my biases varies from day to day and from circumstance to circumstance. So I’m preaching to myself as well.
Esther saved the Jewish people by risking her life in order to move from being a “them” to an “us.” Our society has many ways of defining “thems”. Some “thems” are relatively invisible. For the first half of the 20th century, Jews were considered outsiders to nearly as great a degree as during the time of our Old Testament reading. They were barred from some universities and from various lines of employment. Many changed their names and converted to Christianity in order to pass as “us”. The Holocaust awakened the conscience of many to the great danger of labeling and demonizing Jews as “thems.” And personal interaction also did a great deal. It’s easy to dismiss a word, an abstraction, less easy to dismiss a friend, a coworker, a neighbor right there in the flesh with whom we interact every day. And the lines between "us" and "them" shift over time. Germans, who founded our congregation, were once seen by other colonists as "them", and Ben Franklin despaired of Germans ever being able to function in proper American - that is to say, English speaking - society. Similarly, in past decades, other immigrant groups – Irish, Polish – eventually moved from being seen as a threat and considered “them” to acceptance as part of “us.” John’s Gospel speaks of Christ’s incarnation – his birth and life on earth - as “the Word becoming flesh,” but for “thems,” bridges can be built by the kind of interaction where a person labeled with a despised word – Jew or the name of some other group of “thems” – becomes right in front of you the flesh of someone you know and value, maybe love. This kind of incarnation can erase the lines between “them” and “us.” But if you’re a “them”, this interaction comes at a risk – you may be ostracized; you may be physically attacked, and one may approach such interactions with a fatalistic sense that, as Queen Esther said, “if I perish, I perish.”
While anti-semitism still rears its ugly head in various times and locations, Jews face much less overt hostility than they did 50 years ago. But evidently there’s just something in human nature – “sin” might be one descriptor - that needs a “them” to scapegoat, to hate and blame for all their problems. Nowadays, in the wake of 9-11, Muslims are very much considered as “them” – “!THEM!” in red, flashing capital letters – so much so that, my first class in seminary included a trip to a local mosque, in order to begin the process in our minds of moving Muslims from “them” to “maybe us.” Immigrants are also another “them” – while our rhetoric distinguishes between legal and illegal immigrants, in practice we tend to lump all immigrants together as “them.” We can all think of other groups of “thems” who are at best disregarded and at worst demonized. Gay folk. The mentally ill. The hungry. All the folks that get beat like a piñata and kicked around like a football during the runup to every election.
What does all this have to do with our 148th anniversary? I’d like to come back to Mordecai’s words to Esther, as Mordecai’s and Esther’s people faced destruction: “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” In other words, maybe this is why God led the King to choose Esther as queen. Behind these words is Mordecai’s deep conviction that, though his people faced grave and overwhelming danger, God was still in charge, and that by God’s providence Esther was in the position she was in for a reason.
We here at Emanuel Church are celebrating God’s care for us over the last roughly 150 years. From our founding during the time of the Civil War, our congregation has weathered a Great Depression and two World Wars. More locally, our congregation has also survived the passing of much of Bridesburg’s industrial base, as our neighborhood tries to hang on to the best of the past while finding a way to move forward. Those who have been here longer than I have, who are the living history of this congregation, have many wonderful stories of our history – our critical role in the founding of Bethany Children’s Home, now saving the lives of at-risk children and youth in Berks County, our cooperation and friendship with All Saints Roman Catholic church during their founding years. You’ve been there for the highs and lows – the comings and goings of many pastors over the years, some beloved, others who maybe didn’t quite fit, the church fights, and the reconciliations, the departure of old friends, and the arrivals of new friends.
And here we are, thanks in large part to the love and dedication of a core of dedicated members. And in the past year or two, it has been such a joy to welcome new members, from Bridesburg and nearby neighborhoods, and to have children with us in worship again. God is bringing new life in our midst. But one might ask, why are we here? Why has God enabled us to continue? I would answer, “we are here just for such a time as this?”
What kind of time is this? It’s a time in which many feel great spiritual hunger – incredibly strong need for meaning and purpose in their lives, for strength to overcome personal failings and to stand in the face of adversity, for connections to other human beings, for being part of something larger than just getting through the day - but are afraid to open the door of a church for fear of the condemnation they expect to find inside. In this economy, it’s also a time of great physical hunger, great need for food, clothing, and so many necessities of life. It’s a time in which economic and social factors put great stress on families, where it can take heroic efforts for parents to keep their children out of harm’s way and to bring them up to feel loved and valued, where parents are seeking safe and nurturing places for their children and themselves.
Why are we here? – just for such a time as this! Why are we here? – because God needs us, and because Bridesburg needs us. Why are we here? – to stand by those “thems” that the rest of society would prefer to forget, to love those whom others would hate or ignore. And as we do so, they are no longer “them”, but “us.”
It was risky for Esther to be there just at such a time as this. She had no way of knowing how the king would respond to her plea. And it’s risky for Emanuel to be here just as such a time as this. It’s risky to take on the challenges of a changing society. But it’s absolutely deadly to this congregation not to. In stepping out in faith to embrace the challenges God has set before us, we will find new life.
Our final hymn (Julian Rush’s “In the Midst of New Dimension”), from the New Century Hymnal, will be unfamiliar, and may seem like a strange choice for an anniversary Sunday. It’s a hymn about moving forward in times of uncertainty. The hymn speaks about working for peace amid conflict, about moving forward in the face of social change. But in its use of imagery such as the rainbow – sign of God’s promise to Noah never to destroy the earth – and fiery pillar – with which God led the children of Israel through the wilderness to the promised land – the hymn is a ringing affirmation of the faithfulness of God who has led Emanuel through the challenges and joys of Christian discipleship for the past nearly 150 years, and who, God willing, will continue to sustain us for many more. And the chorus is gives us a vision for the next 150 years, “we, your people; ours, the journey, now and evermore.”
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Kid's Stuff
The comic strip Dilbert, which was created by Scott Adams in the late 1980’s and is still relevant after 20 years, is a satire of office politics and the inane jockeying for position that comes with it. Dilbert is an engineer working in a cubicle in a large, soulless corporation. His life is an uphill struggle against despair as he submits his creative ideas to his dreaded incompetent pointy-haired boss, who doesn’t understand them, and in fact doesn’t have a clue about anything but holding onto his own position. One memorable comic strip had the pointy haired boss asking Dilbert how to turn on his computer. Dilbert wound up replacing the computer with a child’s Etch-A-Sketch toy – Dilbert told the boss that it was a newer model, and the boss didn’t know the difference anyway. Of course, the pointy-haired boss is very good indeed at holding onto his own status, and if his staff suffer in the process, so be it. So between the boss’s incompetence and maleavolence, all of Dilbert’s ideas to improve the efficiency of the office come to naught. And Dilbert’s pet dog, Dogbert, has his own ideas for taking over the world and humiliating Dilbert at every turn. Dilbert’s romantic overtures to female coworkers inevitably come to grief – stereotypically, Dilbert’s engineering creativity is matched only by his utter social incompetence, and dates always end in some surreal form of disaster. And the sociopaths in the company’s human resources department issue periodic workplace edicts in order to drain any remaining joy from Dilbert’s worklife. So Dilbert is reduced to finding meaning in his life by using a tape-measure to compare the size of his cubicle to those of his coworkers as a measure of his status. While I don’t read Dilbert much these days, I am reminded that I had a cubicle in the middle of a huge floor of cubicles when I started reading Dilbert in the late 1980’s. Now in my day job, I have an office, and some days I wonder if I haven’t turned into the dreaded pointy-haired boss I used to laugh at. If my work computer is replaced someday with an Etch-A-Sketch, I guess I’ll know for sure.
Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:30-37) reminded me of the bizarre office politics that was satirized by the Dilbert comic strip. Some theologians refer to Mark’s gospel as “the gospel of the clueless disciples.” While all of the Gospels in various ways remind us of the human limitations of the disciples, Mark –the earliest – is especially blunt in its depiction of the disciples’ persistent misunderstanding of Jesus, their master. Remember that in last week’s reading from Mark, Jesus had begun teaching his disciples that he would be rejected by the religious authorities, suffer, and die. From our perspective, we know how the story ends, but Jesus still had all this ahead of him. So Jesus is pondering his impending suffering and death; his disciples don’t understand a word he says, and are afraid to ask. And just to drive the point home, Jesus notices their silence, and asks them what they had been arguing about earlier while they were on the road. Turns out that, like Dilbert and his coworkers, they were jockeying for status, arguing about which was the greatest.
It’s notable that communication had broken down between Jesus and the disciples. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is sometime depicted as being blunt, direct, sometimes utterly without tact. He has a way of getting to the point of the matter, and if tender feelings are hurt, so be it. At one point, Jesus’ disciples were unable to heal a boy possessed by a demon, and Jesus responds by asking the crowd, “How long must I put up with you.” You can almost imagine Jesus burying his face in the palm of his hand. And so Mark’s Gospel tells us that his disciples didn’t understand him, and were afraid to ask.
So it was time for an object lesson – sort of like when our grade school teachers had “show and tell” time. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” It so happened that there was a small child nearby, and so Jesus took the child in his arms. “You want to know who’s the greatest in the kingdom. He is. And if you want to be great in the kingdom, you’ll welcome him.” “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” The disciples had been busy trying to draw an organization chart for the kingdom of heaven, each with himself near the top, just under Jesus. Jesus turned their chart upside down, with servants and children at the top.
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me….” In Jesus’ day, children had no status. While older children would eventually be able to work on the family farm or business, they would be dependent on their parents, who could sell, pawn off, or even kill their own kids if they so desired. In many ways, our society puts a much higher value on children. If you doubt that, consider what would happen if you drove past a school bus that’s picking up a child for school – when a kid gets on or off a school bus, all road traffic stops. In Pennsylvania, we also have safety-net provisions for medical care for children that don’t exist for adults. At the same time, our society can be remarkably inconsistent in our value for children. Many of those who are most vocally pro-life – making sure that pregnancies are carried to full term and delivered – can become awfully quiet when it comes time to be sure those children receive adequate food and clothing and education.
How about the church? When I became pastor of Emanuel Church, there were no children in worship on a regular basis. We still don't have many, but my warmest memories have been in watching our congregation welcome the children that have come our way in recent years. Those are the moments that keep me going! It has been some years since we've had a Sunday school for children, but perhaps one day in a few years, we'll be selecting curriculum for our primary class. To God be the glory!
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servants of all.” One way to welcome children is to welcome their parents, to be there for their parents in difficult times. This is one of the reasons I’m so excited about the expansion of the Bridesburg Council’s food ministry, held at our neighboring congregation Bridesburg Methodist. One way to welcome a child is to help their parents provide them with the necessities of life. I hope that some of our members who have time in their schedules on Monday evenings and on Tuesdays can support – and we can all help the cupboard with our financial support. I’m told that last Tuesday, they gave out a phenomenal amount of food, and the cupboard is nearly bare. Our donations will help them restock. And in terms of the need for volunteers, right now two or three members of Bridesburg Methodist are carrying almost the entire weight of the cupboard. They would be most grateful for more volunteers. I had helped put together food baskets for the Easter distribution earlier this year, but my class schedule so far has frustrated my efforts to be there to help give out food – even so, I’m hoping I can a long lunch hour now and then on some Tuesdays, so that Emanuel church can be represented.
“Truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” In these difficult days, may Emanuel Church continue to become even more of an oasis for refreshment, for our members and their children, for those who will find their way to join our congregation, to our neighbors and to all in need in our beloved community of Bridesburg. Amen.
Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:30-37) reminded me of the bizarre office politics that was satirized by the Dilbert comic strip. Some theologians refer to Mark’s gospel as “the gospel of the clueless disciples.” While all of the Gospels in various ways remind us of the human limitations of the disciples, Mark –the earliest – is especially blunt in its depiction of the disciples’ persistent misunderstanding of Jesus, their master. Remember that in last week’s reading from Mark, Jesus had begun teaching his disciples that he would be rejected by the religious authorities, suffer, and die. From our perspective, we know how the story ends, but Jesus still had all this ahead of him. So Jesus is pondering his impending suffering and death; his disciples don’t understand a word he says, and are afraid to ask. And just to drive the point home, Jesus notices their silence, and asks them what they had been arguing about earlier while they were on the road. Turns out that, like Dilbert and his coworkers, they were jockeying for status, arguing about which was the greatest.
It’s notable that communication had broken down between Jesus and the disciples. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is sometime depicted as being blunt, direct, sometimes utterly without tact. He has a way of getting to the point of the matter, and if tender feelings are hurt, so be it. At one point, Jesus’ disciples were unable to heal a boy possessed by a demon, and Jesus responds by asking the crowd, “How long must I put up with you.” You can almost imagine Jesus burying his face in the palm of his hand. And so Mark’s Gospel tells us that his disciples didn’t understand him, and were afraid to ask.
So it was time for an object lesson – sort of like when our grade school teachers had “show and tell” time. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” It so happened that there was a small child nearby, and so Jesus took the child in his arms. “You want to know who’s the greatest in the kingdom. He is. And if you want to be great in the kingdom, you’ll welcome him.” “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” The disciples had been busy trying to draw an organization chart for the kingdom of heaven, each with himself near the top, just under Jesus. Jesus turned their chart upside down, with servants and children at the top.
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me….” In Jesus’ day, children had no status. While older children would eventually be able to work on the family farm or business, they would be dependent on their parents, who could sell, pawn off, or even kill their own kids if they so desired. In many ways, our society puts a much higher value on children. If you doubt that, consider what would happen if you drove past a school bus that’s picking up a child for school – when a kid gets on or off a school bus, all road traffic stops. In Pennsylvania, we also have safety-net provisions for medical care for children that don’t exist for adults. At the same time, our society can be remarkably inconsistent in our value for children. Many of those who are most vocally pro-life – making sure that pregnancies are carried to full term and delivered – can become awfully quiet when it comes time to be sure those children receive adequate food and clothing and education.
How about the church? When I became pastor of Emanuel Church, there were no children in worship on a regular basis. We still don't have many, but my warmest memories have been in watching our congregation welcome the children that have come our way in recent years. Those are the moments that keep me going! It has been some years since we've had a Sunday school for children, but perhaps one day in a few years, we'll be selecting curriculum for our primary class. To God be the glory!
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servants of all.” One way to welcome children is to welcome their parents, to be there for their parents in difficult times. This is one of the reasons I’m so excited about the expansion of the Bridesburg Council’s food ministry, held at our neighboring congregation Bridesburg Methodist. One way to welcome a child is to help their parents provide them with the necessities of life. I hope that some of our members who have time in their schedules on Monday evenings and on Tuesdays can support – and we can all help the cupboard with our financial support. I’m told that last Tuesday, they gave out a phenomenal amount of food, and the cupboard is nearly bare. Our donations will help them restock. And in terms of the need for volunteers, right now two or three members of Bridesburg Methodist are carrying almost the entire weight of the cupboard. They would be most grateful for more volunteers. I had helped put together food baskets for the Easter distribution earlier this year, but my class schedule so far has frustrated my efforts to be there to help give out food – even so, I’m hoping I can a long lunch hour now and then on some Tuesdays, so that Emanuel church can be represented.
“Truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” In these difficult days, may Emanuel Church continue to become even more of an oasis for refreshment, for our members and their children, for those who will find their way to join our congregation, to our neighbors and to all in need in our beloved community of Bridesburg. Amen.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Who Are You?
Mark 8: 22-38 captures a pivotal moment in the ministry of Jesus. Chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel is roughly in the middle of the Gospel. Everything before today’s reading leads up to the question that Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” And everything that happens after is a consequence of the answer, as Jesus goes on to be a very different Messiah than what they’d envisioned. Instead of glory, suffering; instead of a crown, a cross. Not that glory and crowns for Jesus won’t come later, but the road to Easter Sunday inevitably runs through Good Friday.
Mark begins his Gospel, as we’ve noted several times, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.” This is followed by a series of vignettes – healings in Jewish territory, questions by the religious authorities and doubts even among his own family, missions into Gentile territory, where he heals many and is heard gladly. We get some glimpses of his preaching – parables about seeds sown on different types of soil. We get, not one, but two feeding stories – the feeding of 5,000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish, with 12 baskets left over, and the feeding of the 4,000 from 7 loaves and 2 fish, with 7 baskets left over. There is the story of Jesus calming the wind and waves. Commentators have noted that basically all of these stories are, in effect, presented as exorcisms, as forces of disease, hunger, and natural disaster are driven away by Jesus.
The narrative up until today’s reading has a number of themes – many miracles and healings, accounts of teaching in parables, skepticism from his family and his hometown, increasing opposition among the religious establishment, and increasing outreach to the surrounding Gentile community. All of this against the backdrop of John the Baptist’s proclamation, and John’s eventual beheading by Herod. So the grace from God and danger from human misunderstanding and opposition are both factors leading up to today’s reading. Today’s reading opens with an account of Jesus healing a blind man. Jesus leads the man out of the village where he had been, lays his hands upon the man, and the man says he can see – sort of – but the people to him look like tree trunks walking around. Jesus lays his hands on the man again, and his sight is completely restored. Jesus tells the man not to return to the village – not to return to what for him had been a place of blindness, but to move forward with his newly-restored vision.
Having sent the man on his way, Jesus leads into his question by asking, “Who do other people say that I am.” What’s the buzz? He gets a variety of answers – Elijah, or John the Baptist come back to life, or a prophet. All acknowledgements that Jesus was someone special, not a run of the mill religious leader. It’s likely an answer he expected, yet perhaps not quite the answer he was looking for.
“Who do you say that I am?” Peter, always one to open his mouth before engaging his brain, comes out with “You are the Messiah, the Anointed One.” Jesus cautions him to tell nobody of this. Then Jesus begins to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer and be executed. Peter takes Jesus aside and tells Jesus to stop being such a gloomy Gus. “These things will never happen to you, Jesus” But Jesus in turn rebuked Peter in front of everyone, saying “Get behind me, Satan – you’re thinking from a human viewpoint, not from God’s viewpoint."
“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus’ question is not only for Peter, but for us. In many ways, our answer will not only tell us who we think Jesus is, but who we ourselves are as well – sort of like a psychologist asking a patient to describe their response to an ink blot – our responses may say more about ourselves than about what we’re describing.
“They say you are John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.” This answer does two things at the same time – it gives an appearance of great respect, but it also distances us from having to make a commitment. Think of those who are admired in our day as saints – Mother Teresa, or Gandhi for example. We look up to them as wonderful people. God bless ‘em. But we don’t necessarily feel compelled to follow their example – we can just admire, from a safe distance.
“God forbid, Lord - These things will never happen to you.” Mark doesn’t tell us what Peter said when he took Jesus aside, but these words are Matthew’s version of Peter’s reaction when Jesus spoke of his impending suffering. Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah – but what kind of Messiah? One who would gloriously free Israel from Roman rule? And this is the Messiah that many in church look for today – the Messiah that will solve all our problems. The “name it and claim it”, “prosperity gospel” folks who think of Jesus as their cosmic bellhop are only some of the more egregious examples. There’s also “Fire Marshal Jesus” – pray a little prayer and Fire Marshal Jesus will give you a get out of hell free card. Conversely, we also know many who love the Jesus of the book of Revelations, the violent Jesus who will smite all their enemies. Smite on, King Jesus! They really look forward to seeing their enemies being tormented with fire and sulphur, and the smoke of their torment going up forever. This Jesus will fight all our battles for us. We’ll sit in the bleachers and cheer. I’ll observe that generally when Jesus hates the same folks we do, we may have given Jesus an extreme makeover in our own image. Or there’s therapeutic Jesus, Jesus our best friend forever, who will help us get over our low self-esteem and neurosis. He’s very accepting, and doesn’t ask much. Kinda like Barney on the kid’s show….”I love you, you love me….” Don’t misunderstand me – I firmly believe that Jesus brings healing of body, mind, and spirit. It’s why we pray for people every week. I believe – and have said so repeatedly - that Jesus ministered to those on the margins, including those – especially those - whom the religious establishment rejected. And in the life to come, God will wipe away every tear. But Jesus didn’t die on the cross just to give us warm fuzzies.
“But who do you say that I am?” Really, many of the alternatives I mentioned are partly true – Jesus was indeed a prophet, Jesus does indeed offer salvation from hell, and Jesus does indeed answer prayer – but any one of these is only part of the answer, and all are coming from a place of focusing on our own need. Who are you, Jesus – You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah – God the Son, the second person in the Trinity, God the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. Those who seek to save their lives will lose it, and those who lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel will save it.
The Jesus of our Gospel reading today is an uncomfortable Jesus. He tells us things we don’t really want to hear. He makes demands. And He calls us to follow in his way.
Jesus told his disciples that those who would save their lives will lose it, but those who lose their lives will save it. These words of Jesus were not just for his disciples, but are for us. As individual disciples of Jesus and as a congregation, playing it safe is, in the long run, a loser’s game. We’ll shrivel up and die. Only by taking the risk of following Jesus will we find true life.
I’ve talked a lot about taking risks and following Jesus – but haven’t offered a lot of specifics. There are some practical opportunities to experience this type of discipleship. And fortunately, it’s only mildly risky. The Bridesburg Council of Churches needs assistance (that's an understatement!) for the expansion of its feeding program. On Mondays, there will be the need for help unloading food. On Tuesdays, mid-day and evening, there is need to help staff the food bank. Yes, there’s a sacrifice of time, and we’re all very busy. And yes, there is theoretically the risk of helping people that we may not know very well – the risk of being taken advantage of, the risk that we’ll be asked for more help than we can offer. But this is an opportunity to meet our neighbors in a new way. You may find that in giving time and assistance, you receive. In blessing others, we may be blessed. If you're interested in helping, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with those running the food cupboard.
After Jesus’ conversation with Peter, Jesus heals another blind man, Bartimaeus. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ conversation with Peter is preceded and followed by healings from blindness. I believe that in telling the story in this way, Mark was making the point that Jesus not only healed physical blindness, but also healed the spiritual blindness of his followers, opening their eyes to a clearer vision of who Jesus was, and what God was asking of Jesus and of them. May Jesus also open our eyes to a new vision of faithful discipleship for Emanuel United Church of Christ, and where Jesus leads, may we have courage to follow. Amen.
Interested in a closer relationship with Jesus? Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ, Fillmore Street off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Mark begins his Gospel, as we’ve noted several times, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.” This is followed by a series of vignettes – healings in Jewish territory, questions by the religious authorities and doubts even among his own family, missions into Gentile territory, where he heals many and is heard gladly. We get some glimpses of his preaching – parables about seeds sown on different types of soil. We get, not one, but two feeding stories – the feeding of 5,000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish, with 12 baskets left over, and the feeding of the 4,000 from 7 loaves and 2 fish, with 7 baskets left over. There is the story of Jesus calming the wind and waves. Commentators have noted that basically all of these stories are, in effect, presented as exorcisms, as forces of disease, hunger, and natural disaster are driven away by Jesus.
The narrative up until today’s reading has a number of themes – many miracles and healings, accounts of teaching in parables, skepticism from his family and his hometown, increasing opposition among the religious establishment, and increasing outreach to the surrounding Gentile community. All of this against the backdrop of John the Baptist’s proclamation, and John’s eventual beheading by Herod. So the grace from God and danger from human misunderstanding and opposition are both factors leading up to today’s reading. Today’s reading opens with an account of Jesus healing a blind man. Jesus leads the man out of the village where he had been, lays his hands upon the man, and the man says he can see – sort of – but the people to him look like tree trunks walking around. Jesus lays his hands on the man again, and his sight is completely restored. Jesus tells the man not to return to the village – not to return to what for him had been a place of blindness, but to move forward with his newly-restored vision.
Having sent the man on his way, Jesus leads into his question by asking, “Who do other people say that I am.” What’s the buzz? He gets a variety of answers – Elijah, or John the Baptist come back to life, or a prophet. All acknowledgements that Jesus was someone special, not a run of the mill religious leader. It’s likely an answer he expected, yet perhaps not quite the answer he was looking for.
“Who do you say that I am?” Peter, always one to open his mouth before engaging his brain, comes out with “You are the Messiah, the Anointed One.” Jesus cautions him to tell nobody of this. Then Jesus begins to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer and be executed. Peter takes Jesus aside and tells Jesus to stop being such a gloomy Gus. “These things will never happen to you, Jesus” But Jesus in turn rebuked Peter in front of everyone, saying “Get behind me, Satan – you’re thinking from a human viewpoint, not from God’s viewpoint."
“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus’ question is not only for Peter, but for us. In many ways, our answer will not only tell us who we think Jesus is, but who we ourselves are as well – sort of like a psychologist asking a patient to describe their response to an ink blot – our responses may say more about ourselves than about what we’re describing.
“They say you are John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.” This answer does two things at the same time – it gives an appearance of great respect, but it also distances us from having to make a commitment. Think of those who are admired in our day as saints – Mother Teresa, or Gandhi for example. We look up to them as wonderful people. God bless ‘em. But we don’t necessarily feel compelled to follow their example – we can just admire, from a safe distance.
“God forbid, Lord - These things will never happen to you.” Mark doesn’t tell us what Peter said when he took Jesus aside, but these words are Matthew’s version of Peter’s reaction when Jesus spoke of his impending suffering. Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah – but what kind of Messiah? One who would gloriously free Israel from Roman rule? And this is the Messiah that many in church look for today – the Messiah that will solve all our problems. The “name it and claim it”, “prosperity gospel” folks who think of Jesus as their cosmic bellhop are only some of the more egregious examples. There’s also “Fire Marshal Jesus” – pray a little prayer and Fire Marshal Jesus will give you a get out of hell free card. Conversely, we also know many who love the Jesus of the book of Revelations, the violent Jesus who will smite all their enemies. Smite on, King Jesus! They really look forward to seeing their enemies being tormented with fire and sulphur, and the smoke of their torment going up forever. This Jesus will fight all our battles for us. We’ll sit in the bleachers and cheer. I’ll observe that generally when Jesus hates the same folks we do, we may have given Jesus an extreme makeover in our own image. Or there’s therapeutic Jesus, Jesus our best friend forever, who will help us get over our low self-esteem and neurosis. He’s very accepting, and doesn’t ask much. Kinda like Barney on the kid’s show….”I love you, you love me….” Don’t misunderstand me – I firmly believe that Jesus brings healing of body, mind, and spirit. It’s why we pray for people every week. I believe – and have said so repeatedly - that Jesus ministered to those on the margins, including those – especially those - whom the religious establishment rejected. And in the life to come, God will wipe away every tear. But Jesus didn’t die on the cross just to give us warm fuzzies.
“But who do you say that I am?” Really, many of the alternatives I mentioned are partly true – Jesus was indeed a prophet, Jesus does indeed offer salvation from hell, and Jesus does indeed answer prayer – but any one of these is only part of the answer, and all are coming from a place of focusing on our own need. Who are you, Jesus – You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah – God the Son, the second person in the Trinity, God the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. Those who seek to save their lives will lose it, and those who lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel will save it.
The Jesus of our Gospel reading today is an uncomfortable Jesus. He tells us things we don’t really want to hear. He makes demands. And He calls us to follow in his way.
Jesus told his disciples that those who would save their lives will lose it, but those who lose their lives will save it. These words of Jesus were not just for his disciples, but are for us. As individual disciples of Jesus and as a congregation, playing it safe is, in the long run, a loser’s game. We’ll shrivel up and die. Only by taking the risk of following Jesus will we find true life.
I’ve talked a lot about taking risks and following Jesus – but haven’t offered a lot of specifics. There are some practical opportunities to experience this type of discipleship. And fortunately, it’s only mildly risky. The Bridesburg Council of Churches needs assistance (that's an understatement!) for the expansion of its feeding program. On Mondays, there will be the need for help unloading food. On Tuesdays, mid-day and evening, there is need to help staff the food bank. Yes, there’s a sacrifice of time, and we’re all very busy. And yes, there is theoretically the risk of helping people that we may not know very well – the risk of being taken advantage of, the risk that we’ll be asked for more help than we can offer. But this is an opportunity to meet our neighbors in a new way. You may find that in giving time and assistance, you receive. In blessing others, we may be blessed. If you're interested in helping, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with those running the food cupboard.
After Jesus’ conversation with Peter, Jesus heals another blind man, Bartimaeus. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ conversation with Peter is preceded and followed by healings from blindness. I believe that in telling the story in this way, Mark was making the point that Jesus not only healed physical blindness, but also healed the spiritual blindness of his followers, opening their eyes to a clearer vision of who Jesus was, and what God was asking of Jesus and of them. May Jesus also open our eyes to a new vision of faithful discipleship for Emanuel United Church of Christ, and where Jesus leads, may we have courage to follow. Amen.
Interested in a closer relationship with Jesus? Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ, Fillmore Street off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
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