(Scriptures: Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42)
Today’s reading from John’s Gospel is the second in a two-part series comparing Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus, which we read last week, and his meeting with the nameless Samaritan woman at the well, which was the subject of today’s reading. By setting today’s reading about the Samaritan woman right after the reading about Nicodemus, John is linking the two stories together. The two readings are family portraits of a sort, not unlike a religious painting or icon we might see in a museum in which portraits of two different saints are framed together, side by side. Because the placement of these stories is not accidental – John very much wants his readers to understand one story in light of the other.
The two encounters contrast in every way: Jesus meets Nicodemus by night, after which he meets the Samaritan woman by day – not only by day, in fact, but at high noon, in the heat of the sun. Nicodemus is a leader of the religious establishment, a man of power and means, one of the ultimate insiders of his society. The woman, by contrast, is powerless, an outsider several times over – a woman in a male-dominated society (we don’t even learn her name), a Samaritan – considered by Jews a foreigner, someone whose family and national heritage was considered corrupted by the intermarriage of Jews with hostile Gentile invaders, someone not even worthy to be spoken to – and a woman with, shall we say, an interesting family and marital history. And – perhaps the greatest contrast – Nicodemus, the powerful religious teacher, does not fully comprehend or respond to Jesus’ words, but basically departs from Jesus literally and figurative under cover of darkness, in a state of confusion, mostly keeping his questions and his hopes to himself until after the crucifixion. Essentially, the teacher Nicodemus is portrayed as a slow and inarticulate student. The nameless Samaritan woman, an outsider with no religious credentials and indeed a questionable personal history, by contrast, winds up being a teacher and evangelist to the Samaritans, bringing countless Samaritan people to faith in Christ. In a sense, these two stories, set side by side, act out some of most difficult of the words that open John’s Gospel, in John chapter 1, verse 11-12: Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he became power to become children of God, born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.
As the story unfolds, Jesus, having thrown the money changers out of the Temple and having met with Nicodemus in Jerusalem is on his way back home. As John’s Gospel notes, to get from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north, he had to go through Samaria, which lie smack dab in the middle. Some history that will help us understand some of the conversation between Jesus and the woman: many centuries before, just after the death of king Solomon, the united kingdom of the 12 tribes of Israel governed by Solomon, split apart early in the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. The split occurred for a reason that seems very modern - a dispute over taxes – Solomon had taxed heavily, and all the tribes asked Rehoboam for, in modern language, tax cuts. Rehoboam not only refused their request, but in crude language promised a whopping tax increase. At this, ten of the twelve tribes split off to form what was called the northern kingdom of Israel, while the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, under the name of the southern kingdom of Judah. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom not only rejected Rehoboam’s political authority, they rejected Solomon’s Temple and Jerusalem as a holy site of worship, instead setting up their own temple on Mt. Gerazim, which had its own sacred history, having many centuries earlier been a holy site shortly after the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. The books of 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles tells of the increasing corruption and falling away of the ten tribes, who were eventually conquered by the Assyrians. The Assyrians exiled many of the members of the ten tribes, and settled foreigners in their place. The Samaritans were considered to be the descendents of the mixed lineage of the remaining members of the northern kingdom who had intermarried with those settled by the Assyrians. Their worship was a mixture of many of the early traditions of the Jews together with various local customs, but completely rejected the sanctity of Jerusalem or Solomon’s temple. By contrast, the Jews of the Southern kingdom took great pride in preserving the purity of their bloodlines and the integrity of their worship even through their own exile in Babylon – and they looked down on the Samaritans, whom they saw as having compromised their religious heritage. In modern day terms, Samaria is situated in what is now the disputed West Bank area, so even now the area knows no peace.
So, anyway, with all this religious and historical ugliness lurking in the background – Jesus is heading home, through hostile Samaritan territory. He’s sent his disciples off to buy food. It’s hot, the journey has been long, and Jesus is tired. He sits by Jacob’s well to rest. It’s high noon, and the sun is baking.
And along comes a woman of Samaria to draw water. In itself, this is a bit odd. Normally, women would have come to the well in the cooler early morning hours, to draw water and maybe share some conversation. This woman came at high noon, in the heat of the day, when she expected nobody to be around. Given what we later learn of her personal history, perhaps she had feared that if she came when others came, she’d wind up being the topic of conversation, and not in a good way.
So she makes her solitary journey in the burning noontime heat to the well, and finds…oh, crud, she’s not alone after all. Not only is she not alone, but one whom she recognizes as a Jew is sitting by the well. The disrespect of her Samaritan neighbors would be nothing compared to the utter contempt she could expect from this man. She had no reason to expect this encounter to end well.
But she needed water, so she kept a stiff upper lip and went to the well. And then the man had the nerve to ask her for a drink. Surprised that he even condescended to recognize her existence, the woman asked how he, a Jew, could ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink. Relations between Jews and Samaritans were so hostile that one could not expect even simple hospitality, in a land where hospitality was a life or death matter.
The man answers by telling her that she should have asked him for a drink of living water. He’s got no bucket that she can see, but he tells her that if she drinks of the water he offers, she’ll never be thirsty again. The conversation is becoming decidedly strange… but it’s a burden coming to this well every day, so she’s willing to play along: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
The man then tells her to call her husband and come back. Now he’s getting a bit too personal. If Facebook existed back then, she’d have listed her relationship status as “it’s complicated”…..and there’s no need for him to know all the gory details, so she tries to leave it at “I have no husband” – which in that society is a difficult enough admission to make, as widows and unmarried women were very vulnerable. But Jesus bores in still closer, affirming that what she said was true – so far as it went – as she’d had five husbands and was living with a man not her husband. Whether she had been widowed multiple times or not, we don’t know, but hers was not a pretty story – and this man knew all about it. He was getting way too close for comfort, so the woman tries to change the topic to the main religious dispute of the day between Jews and Samaritans – should God be worshipped in Jerusalem or Mt. Gerazim – and Jesus says that the day will come when the Father will be worshipped on neither mountain – the day will come when the labels and ethnic identities will fall away - as true worshippers worship God wherever they are in spirit and in truth. The woman says that she knows the Messiah is coming, and Jesus says “I am.” The woman departs, leaving her water jar behind – evidently she no longer needed it, having been refreshed by the living water Jesus offered – and went home to start tell everyone about the man she’d met at the well. Because of her words, more Samaritans came out to meet Jesus, and he ended up staying another two days. Of course, the guys try to have the last word, as guys then and now tend to do, telling the woman, “it is no longer because of what you say that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Again, last week’s Gospel and this week’s Gospel are a study in contrasts. When Nicodemus approached Jesus, Nicodemus’ status, the things he thought he knew, only got in the way, and Nicodemus remained stuck, responding only slowly and tentatively over time to Jesus’ words. When Jesus approached the woman at the well, her lack of status left her wide open to the truth of the Gospel, and she spread that truth everywhere she went. As the old song goes, it only takes a spark to get a fire going – and the conversation with Jesus lit a spark in the woman that led many of her neighbors to salvation.
As I look out at our congregation, I suspect there are more Samaritan women than Nicodemuses among us. We’re a church with a tall steeple, but we’re not a tall-steeple church in the sense of being a prestige parish. Once upon a time, we may have had some movers and shakers in the congregation, but most of our members these days are “just folks”. And, while our life stories may not look exactly like that of the Samaritan woman, I think everyone here has encountered enough potholes and speed bumps on life’s journey – me too - to know how the Samaritan woman felt when she realized that Jesus knew who she was and where she’d been – and accepted her anyway.
It’s not always easy to tap into that well of living water. God continually calls us to leave what is safe and familiar to set out on the journey of faith. God may lead us out of our comfort zone, into unfamiliar territory. The road is dusty and hot, and the journey is long. Like those in our Old Testament reading – that other story about water we heard earlier this morning – it’s tempting to join those Moses led in the wilderness to complain to God, “where are you taking me, God? Where are you leading us? Have you forgotten us? What are you trying to do to us?
Perhaps it would be better to ask, “what is God trying to do with us?” The children of Israel were forever marked and shaped by their forty years in the wilderness. And during our times in the wilderness, God will not abandon us. The life experience of the Samaritan woman – difficult as it was – prepared her for her encounter with Jesus. Her life was never the same again, and her story led many to Jesus. During our own times in the wilderness, God may be shaping us, preparing us for an experience of God’s love that will flow out from us to our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, all those with whom our lives come in contact.
God’s saving love – can become a spring of living water bubbling up in us, offering refreshment to us and those around us. In the words of the gospel hymn:
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.
Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
Opens prison doors, sets the captive free
I’ve got a river of life flowing out from me.
May the living water of God’s saving love flow out from Emanuel Church, to refresh our neighbors, in Bridesburg, or with all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
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Please join us on Sundays at 10 a.m at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
God So Loves
(Scriptures: Genesis 12:1-4 Romans 4:1-17 John 3:1-17)
This morning’s Scripture readings tell us of two men, Abram and Nicodemus. While they’re separated by centuries of time, they are united in the journey of faith in which they are engaged. Both men journey from places of security and familiarity into the unknown. Perhaps most important, both men’s journeys are not something they thought up, but are made in response to God’s call.
Our reading from Genesis comes just after the account of God’s confusing the language of the people who had been building the tower of Babel. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are an account of humankind, created in the image of God, disobeying God in the garden by seeking to be godlike themselves by knowing good and evil – and after their expulsion from the garden, they mostly came to know evil, as they went from bad to worse, to the point where it is said of humans that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” By Genesis chapter 11, humanity seems to have seems to have run itself into a blind alley – after their language was confused and they left off building the tower and were scattered, the reader is left saying to him- or herself – what now?
Immediately after the account of the failure of the effort to build the tower and the scattering abroad of the human race, Genesis gives us….a geneology – Shem became the father of Arpachshad, who became the father of Shelah - or in the King James Bible, a list of begats – Shem begat Arpachshad begat Shelah, and so forth. If you’re like me, when you see a geneology, or a list of begats, your eyes may glaze over and you may skip to the end of the list. But this geneology forms a bridge that brings us to Abram and his wife Sarai. At first, this geneology, like the bridge in Alaska of which we heard so much a few years ago, looks like a bridge to nowhere, as we’re told Sarai is barren. It seems that the geneology begins with Shem only to end with Abram and Sarai. It would seem that Abram and Sarai, in their barrenness and advancing age, represent the end of the line – literally the end of the line of Shem, and figuratively the end of the line for God’s dealings with humanity. But what seems like an end is instead a new beginning, as God keeps bringing life out of death, making a way out of no way. Genesis chapter 12 takes us into the beginnings of God’s call to Abram. God promises Abram, whose wife Sarai was to that point unable to have children, that Abram will become a great nation. But along with the promise came a call: Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Abram was asked to leave what was familiar, what was secure – but what was certain to end in the his family line dying out with his own death – and set out for the unknown, to set out for a land that he had not seen, with only God’s promise to sustain him.
In John’s Gospel, we watch Nicodemus begin a spiritual pilgrimage. We’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a religious leader – in Jesus’ words, “a teacher of Israel.” Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night – and this has several layers of meaning. He doesn’t want others to see him approaching Jesus, lest he be discredited. But also the darkness may also represent the state of Nicodemus’ mind – being only to see and understand Jesus only in part, fumbling in the darkness, groping for greater understanding. (I’ll mention that immediately following Nicodemus’ midnight encounter with Jesus, John writes about Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well at high noon, in broad daylight – it’s our Gospel reading for next week – and while it takes some effort for the woman and Jesus to get onto the same page, ultimately her mind is wide open to the truth Jesus offers. So in John’s telling, night and day are not only literal, but spiritual.) Nicodemus begins by referring to the signs that Jesus had done: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus’ words reveal that his understanding of Jesus, and that of those others of Nicodemus’ community who know Jesus is a teacher sent by God, is based primarily on Jesus’ miracles. Jesus’ response seems to be a non-sequitur – he says that “nobody can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The greek word “anothen” in this context can mean born again or born from above. It’s notable that, in Jesus’ metaphor, inclusion in the kingdom of God is on God’s initiative, not human initiative – people cannot will themselves to be born from above, any more than a baby can will itself to be born. Jesus is trying to lead Nicodemus from his partial faith, based on signs and cloaked in darkness, to understand that the kingdom of which Jesus speaks comes from God’s actions. The conversation with Jesus appears, at least initially, only to puzzle and confuse Nicodemus – Nicodemus starts out by telling Jesus, “we” – Nicodemus and his followers – “know you are a teacher sent by God.” Jesus responds by saying that “We” – Jesus and his disciples – “speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but you” – Nicodemus and your followers – “do not receive it.”
As I said, this conversation begins a spiritual journey for Nicodemus. Like the spiritual journey of Abram, the beginnings do not look promising – Abram’s wife is barren, and it also appears that Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus had been barren, for they appear to spend their time together talking past each other, never really connecting. And yet, for Nicodemus, something happened to him in that conversation. Nicodemus recurs two other times in John’s Gospel. In John 7, when the religious leaders are considering arresting Jesus, Nicodemus speaks out in Jesus’ defense – though in a cautious way, appealing to the need to follow correct legal procedure, what we would call due process, rather than acknowledging his own faith in Jesus. And after Jesus’ crucifixion, Nicodemus at last openly came, with Joseph of Arimithea, to claim the crucified body of Jesus for burial, perhaps finally acknowledging Jesus and claiming Jesus for his own. Nicodemus’ nighttime conversation with Jesus began a journey that led him to the foot of the cross of Jesus. Beneath the cross of Jesus, after everyone had gone home from the crucifixion, Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, finally took their stand.
How about us? Our faith in Christ is also a pilgrimage, a journey. It may not seem that way. Much popular religion seems to depict faith in Christ not as a journey, but rather as a refusal to journey, as staying in one place, standing on the promises of God, being steadfast, immovable. And when the world tries to knock us off balance, tries to enlist us in its wanderings, we need to say “no”, need to be steadfast. But when, in the words of our hymn, Jesus still leads on, to dig in our heels and refuse to budge from where we are is a not a demonstration of faith, but a rejection of faith. Think how different our lives, our world would be if Abram had said to God, “I like it where I am. I’m not budging.” Imagine how different our faith would be if, after Jesus had begun expounding the mysteries of the Kingdom, Nicodemus had folded his arms across his chest and responded, “well, you and your followers may allow yourselves to be blown about in the wind, but we know what we know; that’s our story – that’s our faith story - and we’re sticking to it.”
For, in truth, the story of our faith is ultimately not Abram’s story or Nicodemus’ story, not their story for them to shape or change – ultimately the story of our faith is God’s story, in which God is gracious to allow us to have a part. And the story of faith, the journey of faith, continues. We quote John chapter 3, verse 16 most Sundays during the assurance of pardon: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The entire Gospel can be summed up in this one verse. But the word “loved” – past tense – may lead us to look on God’s love as being “past tense”- a thing of the past. Now, the death and resurrection of Jesus is indeed a past event – Christ died and rose once for all. But the saving love of the risen Christ continues to this day. God’s love continues to this day. The movement of the Spirit continues to this day. It’s not just “God so loved” – yesterday, a bunch of folks in the middle east wearing funny robes way back then – but “God so loves” – today, this hour, this minute, you, me, all of us here, God so loves each of us, that as we are born from above by the movement of the Spirit, God graciously writes each of us into the story of salvation, includes each of us on the roll call of those Christ died to save, invites each of us forward on the journey of faith.
God so loved – you, and you, and you, and me – that he gave his only Son. God so loves you and you and you and me that the presence of his Spirit continues to lead us on. God so loves – all them out there – that he has sent us to proclaim the Good News. Jesus, still lead on. Guide us by your hand, to the promised land. Amen.
*******************
Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
This morning’s Scripture readings tell us of two men, Abram and Nicodemus. While they’re separated by centuries of time, they are united in the journey of faith in which they are engaged. Both men journey from places of security and familiarity into the unknown. Perhaps most important, both men’s journeys are not something they thought up, but are made in response to God’s call.
Our reading from Genesis comes just after the account of God’s confusing the language of the people who had been building the tower of Babel. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are an account of humankind, created in the image of God, disobeying God in the garden by seeking to be godlike themselves by knowing good and evil – and after their expulsion from the garden, they mostly came to know evil, as they went from bad to worse, to the point where it is said of humans that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” By Genesis chapter 11, humanity seems to have seems to have run itself into a blind alley – after their language was confused and they left off building the tower and were scattered, the reader is left saying to him- or herself – what now?
Immediately after the account of the failure of the effort to build the tower and the scattering abroad of the human race, Genesis gives us….a geneology – Shem became the father of Arpachshad, who became the father of Shelah - or in the King James Bible, a list of begats – Shem begat Arpachshad begat Shelah, and so forth. If you’re like me, when you see a geneology, or a list of begats, your eyes may glaze over and you may skip to the end of the list. But this geneology forms a bridge that brings us to Abram and his wife Sarai. At first, this geneology, like the bridge in Alaska of which we heard so much a few years ago, looks like a bridge to nowhere, as we’re told Sarai is barren. It seems that the geneology begins with Shem only to end with Abram and Sarai. It would seem that Abram and Sarai, in their barrenness and advancing age, represent the end of the line – literally the end of the line of Shem, and figuratively the end of the line for God’s dealings with humanity. But what seems like an end is instead a new beginning, as God keeps bringing life out of death, making a way out of no way. Genesis chapter 12 takes us into the beginnings of God’s call to Abram. God promises Abram, whose wife Sarai was to that point unable to have children, that Abram will become a great nation. But along with the promise came a call: Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Abram was asked to leave what was familiar, what was secure – but what was certain to end in the his family line dying out with his own death – and set out for the unknown, to set out for a land that he had not seen, with only God’s promise to sustain him.
In John’s Gospel, we watch Nicodemus begin a spiritual pilgrimage. We’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a religious leader – in Jesus’ words, “a teacher of Israel.” Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night – and this has several layers of meaning. He doesn’t want others to see him approaching Jesus, lest he be discredited. But also the darkness may also represent the state of Nicodemus’ mind – being only to see and understand Jesus only in part, fumbling in the darkness, groping for greater understanding. (I’ll mention that immediately following Nicodemus’ midnight encounter with Jesus, John writes about Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well at high noon, in broad daylight – it’s our Gospel reading for next week – and while it takes some effort for the woman and Jesus to get onto the same page, ultimately her mind is wide open to the truth Jesus offers. So in John’s telling, night and day are not only literal, but spiritual.) Nicodemus begins by referring to the signs that Jesus had done: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus’ words reveal that his understanding of Jesus, and that of those others of Nicodemus’ community who know Jesus is a teacher sent by God, is based primarily on Jesus’ miracles. Jesus’ response seems to be a non-sequitur – he says that “nobody can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The greek word “anothen” in this context can mean born again or born from above. It’s notable that, in Jesus’ metaphor, inclusion in the kingdom of God is on God’s initiative, not human initiative – people cannot will themselves to be born from above, any more than a baby can will itself to be born. Jesus is trying to lead Nicodemus from his partial faith, based on signs and cloaked in darkness, to understand that the kingdom of which Jesus speaks comes from God’s actions. The conversation with Jesus appears, at least initially, only to puzzle and confuse Nicodemus – Nicodemus starts out by telling Jesus, “we” – Nicodemus and his followers – “know you are a teacher sent by God.” Jesus responds by saying that “We” – Jesus and his disciples – “speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but you” – Nicodemus and your followers – “do not receive it.”
As I said, this conversation begins a spiritual journey for Nicodemus. Like the spiritual journey of Abram, the beginnings do not look promising – Abram’s wife is barren, and it also appears that Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus had been barren, for they appear to spend their time together talking past each other, never really connecting. And yet, for Nicodemus, something happened to him in that conversation. Nicodemus recurs two other times in John’s Gospel. In John 7, when the religious leaders are considering arresting Jesus, Nicodemus speaks out in Jesus’ defense – though in a cautious way, appealing to the need to follow correct legal procedure, what we would call due process, rather than acknowledging his own faith in Jesus. And after Jesus’ crucifixion, Nicodemus at last openly came, with Joseph of Arimithea, to claim the crucified body of Jesus for burial, perhaps finally acknowledging Jesus and claiming Jesus for his own. Nicodemus’ nighttime conversation with Jesus began a journey that led him to the foot of the cross of Jesus. Beneath the cross of Jesus, after everyone had gone home from the crucifixion, Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, finally took their stand.
How about us? Our faith in Christ is also a pilgrimage, a journey. It may not seem that way. Much popular religion seems to depict faith in Christ not as a journey, but rather as a refusal to journey, as staying in one place, standing on the promises of God, being steadfast, immovable. And when the world tries to knock us off balance, tries to enlist us in its wanderings, we need to say “no”, need to be steadfast. But when, in the words of our hymn, Jesus still leads on, to dig in our heels and refuse to budge from where we are is a not a demonstration of faith, but a rejection of faith. Think how different our lives, our world would be if Abram had said to God, “I like it where I am. I’m not budging.” Imagine how different our faith would be if, after Jesus had begun expounding the mysteries of the Kingdom, Nicodemus had folded his arms across his chest and responded, “well, you and your followers may allow yourselves to be blown about in the wind, but we know what we know; that’s our story – that’s our faith story - and we’re sticking to it.”
For, in truth, the story of our faith is ultimately not Abram’s story or Nicodemus’ story, not their story for them to shape or change – ultimately the story of our faith is God’s story, in which God is gracious to allow us to have a part. And the story of faith, the journey of faith, continues. We quote John chapter 3, verse 16 most Sundays during the assurance of pardon: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The entire Gospel can be summed up in this one verse. But the word “loved” – past tense – may lead us to look on God’s love as being “past tense”- a thing of the past. Now, the death and resurrection of Jesus is indeed a past event – Christ died and rose once for all. But the saving love of the risen Christ continues to this day. God’s love continues to this day. The movement of the Spirit continues to this day. It’s not just “God so loved” – yesterday, a bunch of folks in the middle east wearing funny robes way back then – but “God so loves” – today, this hour, this minute, you, me, all of us here, God so loves each of us, that as we are born from above by the movement of the Spirit, God graciously writes each of us into the story of salvation, includes each of us on the roll call of those Christ died to save, invites each of us forward on the journey of faith.
God so loved – you, and you, and you, and me – that he gave his only Son. God so loves you and you and you and me that the presence of his Spirit continues to lead us on. God so loves – all them out there – that he has sent us to proclaim the Good News. Jesus, still lead on. Guide us by your hand, to the promised land. Amen.
*******************
Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Sunday, March 13, 2011
What A Friend!
(Scriptures: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11)
Today is the first Sunday in Lent, those forty days each year in which we follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. It’s a time to shut out the world’s distractions, and focus on Jesus, so that, having been refreshed in our time with Jesus, we are renewed to return to the world to share God’s love through our words and actions. As Jesus spent 40 days alone in the desert, pondering the call he heard from God, so are we to draw apart and consider the calling to which God has called each of us, and the calling to which God has called this faith community called Emanuel Church.
We aren’t given a lot of detail about what Jesus was doing out in the desert. This morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel takes place immediately after Jesus’ baptism, when, as John was baptizing him, the spirit came down like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” Then we’re told that the Spirit led him into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. Matthew’s Gospel brings out parallels between Jesus’ experience and that of Moses, and today’s reading is no exception; in Matthew’s telling, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness parallel the 40 years of Moses’ and Israel’s wandering in the wilderness – except where Israel and even Moses ultimately fell short, Jesus overcame temptation and remained faithful to God.
Twice, the devil introduces the question, ‘If you are the Son of God….’ After the affirmation of love that Jesus experienced at his baptism, with the voice from heaven calling Jesus God’s Son, the Beloved…now, after Jesus has been out baking in the heat of the desert for 40 days, growing hungrier by the minute, the devil introduces doubt. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off this mountain so that God will bear you up. If you are the Son of God. If. Are you sure that voice of love you heard at your baptism was God’s voice? Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe you dreamed the whole thing. Giving into those doubts, giving into that “if” would lead to distance between Jesus and the Father.
The three temptations themselves – to turn stones into bread, to force God into a display of power, to gain political power at the cost of turning from God – on one level, are outside our experience. They seem like decisions we will never face. After all, I can’t snap my fingers and turn stones into bread, and I suspect you can’t either. And yet, in overcoming all these temptations, Jesus must define what his ministry will be about. Will Jesus use his powers to benefit others, or himself? Will his ministry be about humbly serving those in need, or dazzling others with flashy displays of power? Will Jesus be a Savior, or an earthly dictator? In all these encounters with the devil, Jesus is being tempted to make his ministry smaller than God intends, to make his ministry about himself rather than others. Three times, the devil offers Jesus a chance to save his life, rather than lose it. Three times, the devil offers Jesus an easy short-cut to glory that bypasses the cross.
Our Old Testament reading from Genesis shows the consequence of doubting God’s goodness and trying to take shortcuts to fulfillment. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden, in communion with God, with all their needs met. It was the voice of the serpent that introduced doubts – “Did God say, you cannot eat of any tree in the Garden…..If you eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree, you will not die, but rather your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” They ate, and in their new awareness of their nakedness before God and one another, they hid. Where there had been close communion between God and humans, now there was shame and alienation; humans hid from God.
So, in a sense, our lectionary, by putting the Genesis story of the fall alongside the story of Jesus temptation in the wilderness, underscores that Jesus overcame the temptation that defeated Adam and Eve. In Genesis, in the garden, the tempter succeeded in breaking the communion between God and humankind. In the wilderness, the tempter tried the same thing - tried to introduce doubt and distance and alienation between Jesus and the Father, tried to induce Jesus to bypass the painful way of the cross – but Jesus stood firm.
These are temptations all of us face as individuals, and that we face as the church, the body of Christ. Every one of us goes through wilderness periods in our lives, when the earthly comforts that normally sustain us, are taken away. How will we respond? Will we follow the advice of Job’s wife to “curse God and die?” Will we take shortcuts to try to regain the comfort we once had, or the comfort we would like to have – resorting to morally questionable means, be it cheating clients or cheating on taxes as a shortcut to maintain our financial security, resorting to morally questionable means such as cheating on a spouse or partner as a shortcut to meeting our emotional needs, if our primary relationship has seemingly gone stale. Will we make our faith about meeting our own needs rather than meeting the needs of others?
History records many times when the church has given into the temptation to amass wealth and power while the poor have starved, where the church has played political games in an attempt to assure its own welfare. How about the church of our time? In our day, when the cultural supports of “respectability” that once propped up the church have been taken away, the church faces temptation as well. Will the church – be it our particular congregation, Emanuel Church, or the universal church, the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, big “C” church - risk popularity by standing against oppression, violence, and injustice, by speaking out against our national sin of greed that has created a society where a few hundred people hold more wealth than the poorest third of our neighbors – let alone the poor of other countries - or will we take the safe route of telling people what they want to hear, reassured in our respectability, limiting our denunciation of sin to pointing our fingers at those on the margins that our society scapegoats as sinners, thus building walls around ourselves and buying into bigotry in order to reassure ourselves of our self-righteousness, rather than looking at our own complicity, the part we all play in perpetuating injustice and violence. Will the church challenge our members to grow, or by entertaining them lull them to sleep? Will we as Christians receive the spiritual bread that will sustain us on our journey, that will strengthen us to take on the world, the flesh, and the devil - or will we gorge ourselves on the spiritual junk food that’s out there – and, like fast food restaurants on every major road selling super-duper-humdinger McWhopper burgers that are like a heart attack on a sesame seed bun, you can find spiritual junk food literally everywhere, from the many and various TV and radio preachers and most of the feel-good books in the religion section of many bookstores, spiritual junk food that makes us fat rather than strong, makes us spiritually lazy and sleepy, content to sit back on our couch, safe in our little cocoon, rather than energizing us to love and worship God and love and serve our neighbor. When we hear the voices calling our church to be content to be a little holy huddle, focused on our own survival and, to the extent our resources allow, our own comfort, rather than preaching the Gospel and sharing God’s love with our neighborhood, our city, our country, our world – when we hear the voices of our day calling us to be respectable rather than faithful – in the society of his day, Jesus was absolutely anything but respectable - we can be sure that this is the voice of the tempter, telling us to play it safe and take shortcuts, and not the voice of God.
That’s the bad news. The good news of the Gospel is that, even if we’ve wandered off course, taken shortcuts, compromised our faith, made deals with the devil that have left us estranged from God and neighbor, God does not leave us there. The Psalmist knew what it was to live with the guilt that comes with cutting corners and making deals with the devil - “while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the summer’s heat.” And we’ve all been there. But the Psalmist doesn’t leave us there. He goes on: “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” In the words of the hymn, we have the privilege of taking to the Lord in prayer all our sins and shortcomings. We need not worry about others standing in judgment of us, for the ground is level at the foot of the cross. At the foot of the cross nobody is respectable and nobody is disrespectable. At the foot of the cross we all stand on the same level, as sinners in need of God’s grace. We follow a God always in search of the last, the lost, and the least. We always have the privilege to take it – whatever it is that separates us from God and neighbor, whatever it is that weighs us down and holds us back – we always have the privilege to take it to the Lord in prayer.
John Newton, the former slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” near the end of his life was heard to say, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” In these forty days of Lent, may we never hesitate to come to that great Savior. May we never hesitate to take all that we have and all that we are to the Lord in prayer. Amen.
***********
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Today is the first Sunday in Lent, those forty days each year in which we follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. It’s a time to shut out the world’s distractions, and focus on Jesus, so that, having been refreshed in our time with Jesus, we are renewed to return to the world to share God’s love through our words and actions. As Jesus spent 40 days alone in the desert, pondering the call he heard from God, so are we to draw apart and consider the calling to which God has called each of us, and the calling to which God has called this faith community called Emanuel Church.
We aren’t given a lot of detail about what Jesus was doing out in the desert. This morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel takes place immediately after Jesus’ baptism, when, as John was baptizing him, the spirit came down like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” Then we’re told that the Spirit led him into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. Matthew’s Gospel brings out parallels between Jesus’ experience and that of Moses, and today’s reading is no exception; in Matthew’s telling, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness parallel the 40 years of Moses’ and Israel’s wandering in the wilderness – except where Israel and even Moses ultimately fell short, Jesus overcame temptation and remained faithful to God.
Twice, the devil introduces the question, ‘If you are the Son of God….’ After the affirmation of love that Jesus experienced at his baptism, with the voice from heaven calling Jesus God’s Son, the Beloved…now, after Jesus has been out baking in the heat of the desert for 40 days, growing hungrier by the minute, the devil introduces doubt. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off this mountain so that God will bear you up. If you are the Son of God. If. Are you sure that voice of love you heard at your baptism was God’s voice? Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe you dreamed the whole thing. Giving into those doubts, giving into that “if” would lead to distance between Jesus and the Father.
The three temptations themselves – to turn stones into bread, to force God into a display of power, to gain political power at the cost of turning from God – on one level, are outside our experience. They seem like decisions we will never face. After all, I can’t snap my fingers and turn stones into bread, and I suspect you can’t either. And yet, in overcoming all these temptations, Jesus must define what his ministry will be about. Will Jesus use his powers to benefit others, or himself? Will his ministry be about humbly serving those in need, or dazzling others with flashy displays of power? Will Jesus be a Savior, or an earthly dictator? In all these encounters with the devil, Jesus is being tempted to make his ministry smaller than God intends, to make his ministry about himself rather than others. Three times, the devil offers Jesus a chance to save his life, rather than lose it. Three times, the devil offers Jesus an easy short-cut to glory that bypasses the cross.
Our Old Testament reading from Genesis shows the consequence of doubting God’s goodness and trying to take shortcuts to fulfillment. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden, in communion with God, with all their needs met. It was the voice of the serpent that introduced doubts – “Did God say, you cannot eat of any tree in the Garden…..If you eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree, you will not die, but rather your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” They ate, and in their new awareness of their nakedness before God and one another, they hid. Where there had been close communion between God and humans, now there was shame and alienation; humans hid from God.
So, in a sense, our lectionary, by putting the Genesis story of the fall alongside the story of Jesus temptation in the wilderness, underscores that Jesus overcame the temptation that defeated Adam and Eve. In Genesis, in the garden, the tempter succeeded in breaking the communion between God and humankind. In the wilderness, the tempter tried the same thing - tried to introduce doubt and distance and alienation between Jesus and the Father, tried to induce Jesus to bypass the painful way of the cross – but Jesus stood firm.
These are temptations all of us face as individuals, and that we face as the church, the body of Christ. Every one of us goes through wilderness periods in our lives, when the earthly comforts that normally sustain us, are taken away. How will we respond? Will we follow the advice of Job’s wife to “curse God and die?” Will we take shortcuts to try to regain the comfort we once had, or the comfort we would like to have – resorting to morally questionable means, be it cheating clients or cheating on taxes as a shortcut to maintain our financial security, resorting to morally questionable means such as cheating on a spouse or partner as a shortcut to meeting our emotional needs, if our primary relationship has seemingly gone stale. Will we make our faith about meeting our own needs rather than meeting the needs of others?
History records many times when the church has given into the temptation to amass wealth and power while the poor have starved, where the church has played political games in an attempt to assure its own welfare. How about the church of our time? In our day, when the cultural supports of “respectability” that once propped up the church have been taken away, the church faces temptation as well. Will the church – be it our particular congregation, Emanuel Church, or the universal church, the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, big “C” church - risk popularity by standing against oppression, violence, and injustice, by speaking out against our national sin of greed that has created a society where a few hundred people hold more wealth than the poorest third of our neighbors – let alone the poor of other countries - or will we take the safe route of telling people what they want to hear, reassured in our respectability, limiting our denunciation of sin to pointing our fingers at those on the margins that our society scapegoats as sinners, thus building walls around ourselves and buying into bigotry in order to reassure ourselves of our self-righteousness, rather than looking at our own complicity, the part we all play in perpetuating injustice and violence. Will the church challenge our members to grow, or by entertaining them lull them to sleep? Will we as Christians receive the spiritual bread that will sustain us on our journey, that will strengthen us to take on the world, the flesh, and the devil - or will we gorge ourselves on the spiritual junk food that’s out there – and, like fast food restaurants on every major road selling super-duper-humdinger McWhopper burgers that are like a heart attack on a sesame seed bun, you can find spiritual junk food literally everywhere, from the many and various TV and radio preachers and most of the feel-good books in the religion section of many bookstores, spiritual junk food that makes us fat rather than strong, makes us spiritually lazy and sleepy, content to sit back on our couch, safe in our little cocoon, rather than energizing us to love and worship God and love and serve our neighbor. When we hear the voices calling our church to be content to be a little holy huddle, focused on our own survival and, to the extent our resources allow, our own comfort, rather than preaching the Gospel and sharing God’s love with our neighborhood, our city, our country, our world – when we hear the voices of our day calling us to be respectable rather than faithful – in the society of his day, Jesus was absolutely anything but respectable - we can be sure that this is the voice of the tempter, telling us to play it safe and take shortcuts, and not the voice of God.
That’s the bad news. The good news of the Gospel is that, even if we’ve wandered off course, taken shortcuts, compromised our faith, made deals with the devil that have left us estranged from God and neighbor, God does not leave us there. The Psalmist knew what it was to live with the guilt that comes with cutting corners and making deals with the devil - “while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the summer’s heat.” And we’ve all been there. But the Psalmist doesn’t leave us there. He goes on: “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” In the words of the hymn, we have the privilege of taking to the Lord in prayer all our sins and shortcomings. We need not worry about others standing in judgment of us, for the ground is level at the foot of the cross. At the foot of the cross nobody is respectable and nobody is disrespectable. At the foot of the cross we all stand on the same level, as sinners in need of God’s grace. We follow a God always in search of the last, the lost, and the least. We always have the privilege to take it – whatever it is that separates us from God and neighbor, whatever it is that weighs us down and holds us back – we always have the privilege to take it to the Lord in prayer.
John Newton, the former slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” near the end of his life was heard to say, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” In these forty days of Lent, may we never hesitate to come to that great Savior. May we never hesitate to take all that we have and all that we are to the Lord in prayer. Amen.
***********
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Sunday, March 6, 2011
A Divine Encounter (Transfiguration Sunday sermon)
(Scriptures: Exodus 24:12-18, Psalm 99, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Matthew 17:1-9
Today is the first Sunday in March. This year, it is also the last Sunday in Epiphany, the season of the church calendar that celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the world. Later this week will be Ash Wednesday – which will be celebrated at Bridesburg Methodist, as in past years – and next Sunday will be the first Sunday in Lent. On this last Sunday in Epiphany, it is appropriate that the Gospel reading describes the Transfiguration, in which Jesus revealed himself in a special way to three of his disciples, Peter, James and John.
Matthew’s Gospel is thought to have been written to an early Christian community comprised mostly, though not entirely, of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus. Matthew brings out many parallels between the Transfiguration of Jesus and the giving of the law to Moses. Both the giving of the law to Moses and the transfiguration of Jesus occur on mountains, which because of their height were considered especially close to heaven and were therefore thought to be places in which encounters with the Holy were especially likely to occur – similar to what the Irish have called “thin places,” places where the barrier between earth and heaven became almost translucent, and one could almost see from one side to the other. Six days Moses stayed on the mountaintop, enveloped by the glory of God appearing as a cloud, before Moses received the law; six days after revealing to his disciples that he would be killed in Jerusalem, Jesus invited Peter, James, and John to hike with him up the mountain, where Jesus then appeared before them transfigured, appeared to them in a glory that had not previously been apparent. God spoke to Moses out of the cloud of glory; Jesus spoke with Moses – representing the law – and Elijah – representing the prophets – on the mountain of transfiguration. Of course, the disciples are beside themselves with joy and with awe; Peter, supposing that this sort of summit meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah might go on for a while, maybe even overnight, offers to build huts for each of them to live in. And then, as if seeing Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah weren’t enough, the three disciples hear God’s voice booming at them out of a cloud, in words that remind us of the voice heard at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well-pleased; listen to Him.” Joy becomes terror, and they hit the deck, falling face down on the ground. Then the vision vanishes, and Jesus gently reaches out to touch them on the shoulder, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
What are we to make of this? At first glance, we may think the entire account is beyond our experience. And yet, I think we’ve all had experiences in which we learn something we didn’t know previously about someone long familiar to us – perhaps a parent or a spouse or a lifelong friend - that helps us see that familiar person in a whole new way. For example, perhaps growing up, we asked our dad about some military medals we found tucked away in the back of a drawer, and out came stories dad’s military heroism, long years before we were born, that give us new respect for our dad. Or maybe one night over the dinner table, Mom reminisced about how she’d worked night shift in a factory to support dad through school, and we saw a side of Mom’s character that we hadn’t seen before.
And so one part of the Transfiguration account was that Jesus gave to Peter, James and John, the three disciples to whom Jesus was closest, a special revelation of His character – that, indeed, Jesus was a teacher and a healer, but not only that, that Jesus was the beloved of God, was himself God, in dialogue with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, direct encounters with God are under normal circumstances too much for frail human beings to handle; for example, when God gave the law to Moses, the people told Moses, “You speak to us, and we’ll listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we’ll die.” And so normally God’s glory is hidden from us. But for his closest followers, on this one occasion, Jesus pulled back the veil just a bit, gave them just a glimpse of the glory of God that was always with Jesus – glory that was always there - but under normal circumstances was hidden from their sight.
Why did Jesus give this vision to his three closest disciples? Was it just a moment of indulgence, a chance to show off a bit? Or was something deeper going on? Remember the context of the account – six days before the Transfiguration, Jesus had begun to tell his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem, where he would be put to death. And so this special vision was granted to the inner circle of his disciples to prepare them for what was to come – the journey to Jerusalem, opposition from both the Temple religious establishment and the Roman establishment, his arrest and execution on the cross.
Again, this account of the Transfiguration may seem outside our experience, something that is perhaps interesting to read, but disconnected from our lives. And yet, as we prepare for the upcoming season of Lent, when spiritually for 40 days we walk alongside Jesus on his journey to the cross, let us consider the ways in which we encounter God’s presence in our own lives. We may feel God’s presence when we come to church and, as we sing a beloved hymn or lift up the needs of our neighbors in prayer, we may hear God’s still small voice within our hearts, or feel the touch of God’s hand brush against us. During a difficult period in my early teens, the ringing of the bells of my hometown church, as the carillon rang out hymns at noon, 3pm and 6 pm every day, the sound of the bells played familiar hymns as I walked home from school and I remembered the words of the hymn, “help of the helpless, O abide with me....” at a time when I was feeling very helpless indeed, to me was like God’s voice, telling me that God had not forgotten me, that God was going to carry me through….and so when I preached at Emanuel for the first time back in November 2007, as nervous and awkward as I was, tripping over steps and stumbling over words, as church bell was rung before service, you can imagine that the sound of the bell brought back reassuring memories to me from years past – God is here, too. We may feel God’s presence as we read a passage of Scripture and something jumps out at us that we hadn’t seen before. We may feel God’s presence as we read a prayer or a Psalm or sing a hymn that was a favorite of our mother or father. We may feel God’s presence in a brilliant sunrise or sunset, or, in the words of the old hymn, “in the rustling grass I hear him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.” We may encounter God’s presence, that of God, in each other and in our neighbors, if we have eyes to see. As Christian writer C. S. Lewis wrote,
“There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal… It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”
We also experience God’s presence in the sacraments. Through the waters of baptism, God claims us for God’s own, as we or our parents on our behalf promise to walk in God’s ways, and the church promises to support that lifelong walk with God. And in a few moments, we’ll have the privilege to encounter the presence of Christ in the elements of Communion, as we remember the body of Christ, broken for us, and the blood of Christ, poured out for our salvation. May God’s presence strengthen us for the 40 days of Lent, and may God’s presence be with us and go with us wherever our lives may take us. Amen.
************
Please join us for worship Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore St off Thompson in Philadelphia's Bridesburg section. www.emanuelphila.org
Today is the first Sunday in March. This year, it is also the last Sunday in Epiphany, the season of the church calendar that celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the world. Later this week will be Ash Wednesday – which will be celebrated at Bridesburg Methodist, as in past years – and next Sunday will be the first Sunday in Lent. On this last Sunday in Epiphany, it is appropriate that the Gospel reading describes the Transfiguration, in which Jesus revealed himself in a special way to three of his disciples, Peter, James and John.
Matthew’s Gospel is thought to have been written to an early Christian community comprised mostly, though not entirely, of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus. Matthew brings out many parallels between the Transfiguration of Jesus and the giving of the law to Moses. Both the giving of the law to Moses and the transfiguration of Jesus occur on mountains, which because of their height were considered especially close to heaven and were therefore thought to be places in which encounters with the Holy were especially likely to occur – similar to what the Irish have called “thin places,” places where the barrier between earth and heaven became almost translucent, and one could almost see from one side to the other. Six days Moses stayed on the mountaintop, enveloped by the glory of God appearing as a cloud, before Moses received the law; six days after revealing to his disciples that he would be killed in Jerusalem, Jesus invited Peter, James, and John to hike with him up the mountain, where Jesus then appeared before them transfigured, appeared to them in a glory that had not previously been apparent. God spoke to Moses out of the cloud of glory; Jesus spoke with Moses – representing the law – and Elijah – representing the prophets – on the mountain of transfiguration. Of course, the disciples are beside themselves with joy and with awe; Peter, supposing that this sort of summit meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah might go on for a while, maybe even overnight, offers to build huts for each of them to live in. And then, as if seeing Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah weren’t enough, the three disciples hear God’s voice booming at them out of a cloud, in words that remind us of the voice heard at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well-pleased; listen to Him.” Joy becomes terror, and they hit the deck, falling face down on the ground. Then the vision vanishes, and Jesus gently reaches out to touch them on the shoulder, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
What are we to make of this? At first glance, we may think the entire account is beyond our experience. And yet, I think we’ve all had experiences in which we learn something we didn’t know previously about someone long familiar to us – perhaps a parent or a spouse or a lifelong friend - that helps us see that familiar person in a whole new way. For example, perhaps growing up, we asked our dad about some military medals we found tucked away in the back of a drawer, and out came stories dad’s military heroism, long years before we were born, that give us new respect for our dad. Or maybe one night over the dinner table, Mom reminisced about how she’d worked night shift in a factory to support dad through school, and we saw a side of Mom’s character that we hadn’t seen before.
And so one part of the Transfiguration account was that Jesus gave to Peter, James and John, the three disciples to whom Jesus was closest, a special revelation of His character – that, indeed, Jesus was a teacher and a healer, but not only that, that Jesus was the beloved of God, was himself God, in dialogue with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, direct encounters with God are under normal circumstances too much for frail human beings to handle; for example, when God gave the law to Moses, the people told Moses, “You speak to us, and we’ll listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we’ll die.” And so normally God’s glory is hidden from us. But for his closest followers, on this one occasion, Jesus pulled back the veil just a bit, gave them just a glimpse of the glory of God that was always with Jesus – glory that was always there - but under normal circumstances was hidden from their sight.
Why did Jesus give this vision to his three closest disciples? Was it just a moment of indulgence, a chance to show off a bit? Or was something deeper going on? Remember the context of the account – six days before the Transfiguration, Jesus had begun to tell his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem, where he would be put to death. And so this special vision was granted to the inner circle of his disciples to prepare them for what was to come – the journey to Jerusalem, opposition from both the Temple religious establishment and the Roman establishment, his arrest and execution on the cross.
Again, this account of the Transfiguration may seem outside our experience, something that is perhaps interesting to read, but disconnected from our lives. And yet, as we prepare for the upcoming season of Lent, when spiritually for 40 days we walk alongside Jesus on his journey to the cross, let us consider the ways in which we encounter God’s presence in our own lives. We may feel God’s presence when we come to church and, as we sing a beloved hymn or lift up the needs of our neighbors in prayer, we may hear God’s still small voice within our hearts, or feel the touch of God’s hand brush against us. During a difficult period in my early teens, the ringing of the bells of my hometown church, as the carillon rang out hymns at noon, 3pm and 6 pm every day, the sound of the bells played familiar hymns as I walked home from school and I remembered the words of the hymn, “help of the helpless, O abide with me....” at a time when I was feeling very helpless indeed, to me was like God’s voice, telling me that God had not forgotten me, that God was going to carry me through….and so when I preached at Emanuel for the first time back in November 2007, as nervous and awkward as I was, tripping over steps and stumbling over words, as church bell was rung before service, you can imagine that the sound of the bell brought back reassuring memories to me from years past – God is here, too. We may feel God’s presence as we read a passage of Scripture and something jumps out at us that we hadn’t seen before. We may feel God’s presence as we read a prayer or a Psalm or sing a hymn that was a favorite of our mother or father. We may feel God’s presence in a brilliant sunrise or sunset, or, in the words of the old hymn, “in the rustling grass I hear him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.” We may encounter God’s presence, that of God, in each other and in our neighbors, if we have eyes to see. As Christian writer C. S. Lewis wrote,
“There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal… It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”
We also experience God’s presence in the sacraments. Through the waters of baptism, God claims us for God’s own, as we or our parents on our behalf promise to walk in God’s ways, and the church promises to support that lifelong walk with God. And in a few moments, we’ll have the privilege to encounter the presence of Christ in the elements of Communion, as we remember the body of Christ, broken for us, and the blood of Christ, poured out for our salvation. May God’s presence strengthen us for the 40 days of Lent, and may God’s presence be with us and go with us wherever our lives may take us. Amen.
************
Please join us for worship Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore St off Thompson in Philadelphia's Bridesburg section. www.emanuelphila.org
Lent Begins
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’’ Matthew 4:1-4
With the coming of the month of March, our liturgical calendar transitions from Epiphany to Lent. Epiphany was a season of proclamation and revelation, as Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles, was baptized, and began his teaching and healing ministry. Lent, by contrast, is a time of introspection, self-examination, and repentance. In a sense, in Epiphany we journey beyond ourselves outward in faith to share Christ with our neighbors. Lent, by contrast, is about the journey inward, as we examine our lives in the light of the cross of Christ.
During this season of Lent, I would encourage each of us to re-connect more deeply with our faith in Jesus. This year’s United Church of Christ’s Lenten devotional booklet, called “The Jesus Diaries”, offers thought-provoking mediations on the question “Who is Jesus to me?” from a variety of writers. See the article later in this newsletter for more information. In addition, as in past years, the Bridesburg Council of Churches will offer a series of Wednesday night Lenten services, beginning with Ash Wednesday on March 9 at Bridesburg Methodist. The services will rotate among the Bridesburg churches according to the schedule later in this newsletter; Emanuel Church will host services on Wednesdays, March 30 and April 13.
I’d also encourage us to be alert for signs of God’s presence in our every day lives. The Gospel for March 6 (Transfiguration Sunday), tells of a time when Jesus invited Peter, James and John for what started out as a mountain hike, but ended up as an encounter with the divine, as Jesus was revealed to them in a new way. (The Scripture reference is Matthew 17:1-9.) Our experience may not look like that experience, but if we are alert, we may find that God is present in our daily encounters with family, friends, coworkers, or in the ordinary events of the day. To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only those who see, take off their shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
During this season of Lent, may we be alert to those times when we, too, stand on holy ground.
See you in church!
Pastor Dave
Bridesburg Council of Churches Lenten Schedule
(All Wednesday evening services at 7 p.m.,; most services are preceded by soup and/or refreshments)
March 9 (Ash Wednesday) Bridesburg Methodist
March 16 Bridesburg Baptist
March 23 Bethesda Methodist
March 30 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 6 Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 13 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 22, 1-2 pm Good Friday Service, Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 23 9:30 a.m. Easter Egg Hunt Bridesburg Presbyterian Churchyard
April 24, 7 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service Bridesburg Baptist
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’’ Matthew 4:1-4
With the coming of the month of March, our liturgical calendar transitions from Epiphany to Lent. Epiphany was a season of proclamation and revelation, as Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles, was baptized, and began his teaching and healing ministry. Lent, by contrast, is a time of introspection, self-examination, and repentance. In a sense, in Epiphany we journey beyond ourselves outward in faith to share Christ with our neighbors. Lent, by contrast, is about the journey inward, as we examine our lives in the light of the cross of Christ.
During this season of Lent, I would encourage each of us to re-connect more deeply with our faith in Jesus. This year’s United Church of Christ’s Lenten devotional booklet, called “The Jesus Diaries”, offers thought-provoking mediations on the question “Who is Jesus to me?” from a variety of writers. See the article later in this newsletter for more information. In addition, as in past years, the Bridesburg Council of Churches will offer a series of Wednesday night Lenten services, beginning with Ash Wednesday on March 9 at Bridesburg Methodist. The services will rotate among the Bridesburg churches according to the schedule later in this newsletter; Emanuel Church will host services on Wednesdays, March 30 and April 13.
I’d also encourage us to be alert for signs of God’s presence in our every day lives. The Gospel for March 6 (Transfiguration Sunday), tells of a time when Jesus invited Peter, James and John for what started out as a mountain hike, but ended up as an encounter with the divine, as Jesus was revealed to them in a new way. (The Scripture reference is Matthew 17:1-9.) Our experience may not look like that experience, but if we are alert, we may find that God is present in our daily encounters with family, friends, coworkers, or in the ordinary events of the day. To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only those who see, take off their shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
During this season of Lent, may we be alert to those times when we, too, stand on holy ground.
See you in church!
Pastor Dave
Bridesburg Council of Churches Lenten Schedule
(All Wednesday evening services at 7 p.m.,; most services are preceded by soup and/or refreshments)
March 9 (Ash Wednesday) Bridesburg Methodist
March 16 Bridesburg Baptist
March 23 Bethesda Methodist
March 30 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 6 Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 13 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 22, 1-2 pm Good Friday Service, Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 23 9:30 a.m. Easter Egg Hunt Bridesburg Presbyterian Churchyard
April 24, 7 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service Bridesburg Baptist
Don't Worry?
(Scriptures: Isaiah 49:8-16a, Psalm 131, I Corinthians 4:1-5, Matthew 6:7-15, 19-34)
This Sunday’s Gospel reading is the last we’ll hear for a while from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. While we may have been comforted three weeks ago by the Beatitudes, for the past two Sundays Jesus has offered some very difficult sayings, telling us not only not to commit adultery and kill, but also not even to entertain lust or anger in our minds, not even to allow lust and anger to linger in our thoughts, but to let go of them without hesitation. Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell us to overcome our instincts for survival so that God can give us the gift of a love that will go the 2nd mile, a love that will extend beyond our friends to our enemies, a love willing to do good unto all. By now, we may feel that Jesus have gone from preaching to meddling, as the saying goes.
With this Sunday’s reading, we may think that Jesus has completely taken leave of his senses, that he’s gone from asking the impossible to ranting nonsense. After all, in this awful economy, when people are being fired left and right while the rich just get richer, how can we possibly take Jesus seriously when he tells us not to worry where our next meal is coming from? It may seem that Jesus has lost touch with reality. But I’m here to say that the opposite is true – Jesus is, figuratively speaking, jumping up and down trying to draw our attention from the distractions of our daily lives to the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of God.
I began the Gospel reading a bit earlier in Matthew 6 than the lectionary reading indicated, in order to include the Lord’s Prayer. We will pray the Lord’s Prayer following the sermon, as we do every Sunday when we worship here. It’s such a familiar prayer that it’s tempting to just recite it by rote, as if we were talking in our sleep, not unlike school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as nothing more than a jumble of syllables, with no real meaning. When treated like this, it becomes background noise, losing its power to transform our lives. But in our reading, Jesus lifted up several thoughts in connection with the Lord’s Prayer. First of all, it’s quite short and simple. Jesus specifically taught his followers not to heap up long, empty prayers full of flowery words, as if to try to impress God. But Jesus also says, in this connection, that our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask. The prayer “give us this day our daily bread” is not intended to remind an absent-minded, forgetful, fumbling God: "Yo, don’t forget to feed us!" Rather, it’s to remind us of our utter daily dependency before God. At the end of the prayer, Jesus lifts up the necessity of forgiving the offenses of others, as we have been forgiven by God.
And then Jesus goes on to speak of what we do with the blessings with which God has blessed us. Do we, in our greed and our anxiety about tomorrow, hang onto them with a deathgrip, or do we make our blessings available to others. Jesus’ talk about “treasures in heaven” is his way of speaking of almsgiving, or sharing our treasure with the poor. When Jesus contrasts treasures on earth with treasures in heaven, he’s contrasting the behavior of hanging onto our wealth, vs sharing it with others.
And then Jesus speaks of the frustration of serving of trying to serve two masters who would pull us in opposite directions: inevitably we’ll love one and reject the other. Inevitably one master is not going to be happy with us. In the same way, serving Mammon – figuratively, the god of money, that which for many represents prosperity and comfort – will lead us to neglect our relationship with God, just as serving God will inevitably lead us not to be invested in our own prosperity and comfort.
Fortunately Jesus does not leave us, in the words of the old Mary McGregor song, “torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool…..” – he gives us a definite shove in the direction of serving God, and letting the other stuff happen as it happens. Just as Jesus said in his lead-in to the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus again reminds us that God already knows we need food and clothing and shelter, and that if God lovingly provides for lilies and sparrows that are here today and gone tomorrow or next week, how much more so will God lovingly provide for our needs. Jesus knows that if we’re freed up from our obsessive focuses on ourselves, our own needs, our own wants, our own wants that pretend to be needs, we’ll be liberated to love God and neighbor. In a society that’s obsessed with looking out for number one – and that describes the society of Jesus’ day, as well as our society and pretty much every human society on the planet before or since – Jesus is trying to build an alternative society in which, with the real number one, God, already looking out for us, we can care for the welfare of others.
“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or wear…” – that would pretty much put out business the advertising industry, which succeeds precisely by getting us to worry about just those things, and more. Meanwhile, it’s a measure of how utterly co-opted by American materialism, how utterly sucked into the world’s way of doing things, much of our country’s religious establishment is that, by and large, most churches aren’t even trying to create that alternative society of which Jesus spoke. By and large, conservative churches and religious leaders support political leaders who are trying to shred what remains of our country’s social safety net, trying to destroy whatever ability those on the margins of our society have to better themselves. Exhibit A is what’s happening in Wisconsin, with the newly-elected governor and legislature engaging in union-busting tactics. And this trend has spread to other states, with the enthusiastic support of many in the church, who try to let themselves off the hook of their guilty consciences by handing out a few food baskets at Christmas. What are folks supposed to live on the rest of the year? The wealthy of our time, have increased their wealth by distracting folks like us, by setting up state workers and union members as scapegoats and telling us that these scapegoats have life too easy, meanwhile the wealthy are picking our back pockets while our attention is diverted. America today has the greatest inequality of wealth that we’ve had in nearly 100 years – and it’s growing. Talk about powers and principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places!! And many TV and radio preachers, rather than combating this spiritual wickedness, instead work to get their share of the action, leading their supporters to send in whatever little money they have left, mopping up anything their listeners may have left over. All of this blatant greed is million miles away from anything Jesus preached. While many of our conservative churches try to make morality all about sex, certain kinds of sex, anyway – under the title of “family values” – but are strangely silent on the topic of wealth and the greed that comes with it – Jesus seldom spoke about sex, but was an absolute pain in the neck on the subject of money, going on and on about the spiritual danger of greed. The United Church of Christ, for our part, has echoed Jesus’ message about the need to overcome greed, to share our treasure with the poor, but we’re a voice crying in the wilderness, heard by few, ignored by most. As has been said in various ways by many different people – from Gandhi to German Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Pearl S. Buck to Hubert H Humphrey – “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” By that measure, I’d have to say our American society is failing that test, miserably. Not only are we as a society failing, we’re not even trying to get it right.
Having reminded his listeners that as God cares for the grass of the fields and the birds of the air, God will care for us – having told us what we shouldn’t obsess over, Jesus tells us what we should focus on – and it’s what we sang about during the offering: Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness, and all this other stuff will be added to us. Now the kingdom of God is not just some ethereal realm, pie in the sky by and by when we die. Seek first the kingdom of God – where the last, the least, and the lost are cared for, where nobody is left to drop out of the bottom of society, where love of God is inseparable from love of neighbor, even those neighbors we may not like very much, who make us uncomfortable, who make our skin crawl – those are the neighbors God has commanded us to love. Remember the words of our reading from Isaiah, which tell us what our purpose is: “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, "Come out," to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves." They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.” This is a picture of how God wants us to live, and how God wants us to act toward those on the margins of our society. This is a picture of the Kingdom of God, which will be fully realized at the end of time – but which we begin to experience here and now as followers of Jesus, as disciples of Christ.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and not our own comfort and convenience. Seek first the kingdom of God, not just when the sun is shining and the birds are singing – Jesus has no need of fair weather friends – but when it’s stormy weather, when we have to plod through puddles and slog through snowdrifts to seek it. May we at Emanuel Church not be fair weather friends to Jesus, but seek first God’s kingdom, that our neighbors here in Bridesburg and our neighbors far away may receive the blessings of God….and that in being a blessing to others, we too may be blessed. Amen.
**************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Bridesburg. www.emanuelphila.org
This Sunday’s Gospel reading is the last we’ll hear for a while from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. While we may have been comforted three weeks ago by the Beatitudes, for the past two Sundays Jesus has offered some very difficult sayings, telling us not only not to commit adultery and kill, but also not even to entertain lust or anger in our minds, not even to allow lust and anger to linger in our thoughts, but to let go of them without hesitation. Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell us to overcome our instincts for survival so that God can give us the gift of a love that will go the 2nd mile, a love that will extend beyond our friends to our enemies, a love willing to do good unto all. By now, we may feel that Jesus have gone from preaching to meddling, as the saying goes.
With this Sunday’s reading, we may think that Jesus has completely taken leave of his senses, that he’s gone from asking the impossible to ranting nonsense. After all, in this awful economy, when people are being fired left and right while the rich just get richer, how can we possibly take Jesus seriously when he tells us not to worry where our next meal is coming from? It may seem that Jesus has lost touch with reality. But I’m here to say that the opposite is true – Jesus is, figuratively speaking, jumping up and down trying to draw our attention from the distractions of our daily lives to the ultimate reality of the Kingdom of God.
I began the Gospel reading a bit earlier in Matthew 6 than the lectionary reading indicated, in order to include the Lord’s Prayer. We will pray the Lord’s Prayer following the sermon, as we do every Sunday when we worship here. It’s such a familiar prayer that it’s tempting to just recite it by rote, as if we were talking in our sleep, not unlike school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as nothing more than a jumble of syllables, with no real meaning. When treated like this, it becomes background noise, losing its power to transform our lives. But in our reading, Jesus lifted up several thoughts in connection with the Lord’s Prayer. First of all, it’s quite short and simple. Jesus specifically taught his followers not to heap up long, empty prayers full of flowery words, as if to try to impress God. But Jesus also says, in this connection, that our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask. The prayer “give us this day our daily bread” is not intended to remind an absent-minded, forgetful, fumbling God: "Yo, don’t forget to feed us!" Rather, it’s to remind us of our utter daily dependency before God. At the end of the prayer, Jesus lifts up the necessity of forgiving the offenses of others, as we have been forgiven by God.
And then Jesus goes on to speak of what we do with the blessings with which God has blessed us. Do we, in our greed and our anxiety about tomorrow, hang onto them with a deathgrip, or do we make our blessings available to others. Jesus’ talk about “treasures in heaven” is his way of speaking of almsgiving, or sharing our treasure with the poor. When Jesus contrasts treasures on earth with treasures in heaven, he’s contrasting the behavior of hanging onto our wealth, vs sharing it with others.
And then Jesus speaks of the frustration of serving of trying to serve two masters who would pull us in opposite directions: inevitably we’ll love one and reject the other. Inevitably one master is not going to be happy with us. In the same way, serving Mammon – figuratively, the god of money, that which for many represents prosperity and comfort – will lead us to neglect our relationship with God, just as serving God will inevitably lead us not to be invested in our own prosperity and comfort.
Fortunately Jesus does not leave us, in the words of the old Mary McGregor song, “torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool…..” – he gives us a definite shove in the direction of serving God, and letting the other stuff happen as it happens. Just as Jesus said in his lead-in to the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus again reminds us that God already knows we need food and clothing and shelter, and that if God lovingly provides for lilies and sparrows that are here today and gone tomorrow or next week, how much more so will God lovingly provide for our needs. Jesus knows that if we’re freed up from our obsessive focuses on ourselves, our own needs, our own wants, our own wants that pretend to be needs, we’ll be liberated to love God and neighbor. In a society that’s obsessed with looking out for number one – and that describes the society of Jesus’ day, as well as our society and pretty much every human society on the planet before or since – Jesus is trying to build an alternative society in which, with the real number one, God, already looking out for us, we can care for the welfare of others.
“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or wear…” – that would pretty much put out business the advertising industry, which succeeds precisely by getting us to worry about just those things, and more. Meanwhile, it’s a measure of how utterly co-opted by American materialism, how utterly sucked into the world’s way of doing things, much of our country’s religious establishment is that, by and large, most churches aren’t even trying to create that alternative society of which Jesus spoke. By and large, conservative churches and religious leaders support political leaders who are trying to shred what remains of our country’s social safety net, trying to destroy whatever ability those on the margins of our society have to better themselves. Exhibit A is what’s happening in Wisconsin, with the newly-elected governor and legislature engaging in union-busting tactics. And this trend has spread to other states, with the enthusiastic support of many in the church, who try to let themselves off the hook of their guilty consciences by handing out a few food baskets at Christmas. What are folks supposed to live on the rest of the year? The wealthy of our time, have increased their wealth by distracting folks like us, by setting up state workers and union members as scapegoats and telling us that these scapegoats have life too easy, meanwhile the wealthy are picking our back pockets while our attention is diverted. America today has the greatest inequality of wealth that we’ve had in nearly 100 years – and it’s growing. Talk about powers and principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places!! And many TV and radio preachers, rather than combating this spiritual wickedness, instead work to get their share of the action, leading their supporters to send in whatever little money they have left, mopping up anything their listeners may have left over. All of this blatant greed is million miles away from anything Jesus preached. While many of our conservative churches try to make morality all about sex, certain kinds of sex, anyway – under the title of “family values” – but are strangely silent on the topic of wealth and the greed that comes with it – Jesus seldom spoke about sex, but was an absolute pain in the neck on the subject of money, going on and on about the spiritual danger of greed. The United Church of Christ, for our part, has echoed Jesus’ message about the need to overcome greed, to share our treasure with the poor, but we’re a voice crying in the wilderness, heard by few, ignored by most. As has been said in various ways by many different people – from Gandhi to German Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Pearl S. Buck to Hubert H Humphrey – “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” By that measure, I’d have to say our American society is failing that test, miserably. Not only are we as a society failing, we’re not even trying to get it right.
Having reminded his listeners that as God cares for the grass of the fields and the birds of the air, God will care for us – having told us what we shouldn’t obsess over, Jesus tells us what we should focus on – and it’s what we sang about during the offering: Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness, and all this other stuff will be added to us. Now the kingdom of God is not just some ethereal realm, pie in the sky by and by when we die. Seek first the kingdom of God – where the last, the least, and the lost are cared for, where nobody is left to drop out of the bottom of society, where love of God is inseparable from love of neighbor, even those neighbors we may not like very much, who make us uncomfortable, who make our skin crawl – those are the neighbors God has commanded us to love. Remember the words of our reading from Isaiah, which tell us what our purpose is: “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, "Come out," to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves." They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.” This is a picture of how God wants us to live, and how God wants us to act toward those on the margins of our society. This is a picture of the Kingdom of God, which will be fully realized at the end of time – but which we begin to experience here and now as followers of Jesus, as disciples of Christ.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and not our own comfort and convenience. Seek first the kingdom of God, not just when the sun is shining and the birds are singing – Jesus has no need of fair weather friends – but when it’s stormy weather, when we have to plod through puddles and slog through snowdrifts to seek it. May we at Emanuel Church not be fair weather friends to Jesus, but seek first God’s kingdom, that our neighbors here in Bridesburg and our neighbors far away may receive the blessings of God….and that in being a blessing to others, we too may be blessed. Amen.
**************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Bridesburg. www.emanuelphila.org
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