(Scriptures: Joshua 3:7-17, I Thessalonians 2:9-13, Matthew 23:1-12)
Today is Reformation Sunday, when we remember that time in our heritage when differences with the Roman Catholic church to the formation of the churches of the Reformation – among them the Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian denominations, along with the Church of England and its descendents. The birth of these churches was traumatic, a split in the body of Christ. While much of the immediate emotion – the mutual recriminations and, indeed, mutual excommunications, political wrangling, even armed conflict – has dissipated over the centuries, the effects of this split persist to this day. While today we celebrate the insights of the Reformers – that we are saved by God’s grace, not our own merit; that the Scriptures are available to all believers in their own language, not only to the clergy in Latin – we may feel some ambivalence about the divisions and misunderstandings that came out of that period of history.
Our Gospel reading this morning reminds us that religious conflicts were no easier in Jesus’ time than at the time of the Reformation, or in our own time; that conflicts within a faith community can grow heated indeed. Our Gospel gives us one side, Jesus’ side, of a disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees. When we read Jesus’ contentious words, it’s easy to forget that Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew – and that his disagreement with the Pharisees was, in a sense, an argument within the Jewish faith community, a family argument. Jesus’ earliest followers were Jews, and in the years immediately after Jesus’ ascension, many of them continued to practice their faith within the context of the synagogue. Over the course of several decades, the synagogue leadership increasingly excluded the followers of Jesus from their assemblies. And the early Christians responded in kind, condemning the synagogue communities from which they had been expelled. The Apostle Paul spent time on both sides of this divide, first as a Jew persecuting the upstart Christian movement, and then as a Jewish follower of Jesus wrestling in conflict with his former supporters in the synagogue. The influx of Gentile converts, who had no memory of the synagogue, only served to reinforce the parting of ways between church and synagogue. And that division continues to this day; just as we in the church are the spiritual descendents of the early Christian movement, the Jewish communities of our day are the spiritual descendents of the Pharisee movement of Jesus’ day.
In the midst of these divisions, it’s easy to forget that the Pharisees and Jesus agreed on a great deal; indeed, they agreed more than they disagreed. Both passionately worshipped God, and both passionately sought to live in accordance with God’s law as revealed to Moses and the prophets. In contrast with the Sadducees, whose obedience to God was almost entirely limited to carrying out the Temple’s rituals of sacrifice and worship, Jesus agreed with the Pharisees on one key point: that obedience to God is not simply a matter of maintaining correct Temple ritual, but that God’s will is to be carried out in all areas of life. The Pharisees tried to accomplish this with their ever-expanding oral tradition of interpretation. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave his views on how God’s will is to be lived out daily. Where they differed was in discerning their basis for interpretation. For the Pharisees, purity – maintaining ritual cleanliness, remaining separate from anything or anyone unclean – was the key to understanding God’s law. The Pharisees showed their love for God by upholding the rules of purity. Love of neighbor was important, but mostly limited to those within the community. For Jesus, love – love of God and love of neighbor, with the term “neighbor” broadly defined as “anyone in need” – was the key to understanding Scripture, and trumped purity.
The disagreements that led to the Reformation are not all that different from those between Jesus and the Pharisees, that led to the break of the church from the synagogue. All of those we know as Reformers – Martin Luther, whose thought informs the Lutheran Church, John Calvin, whose ideas live on in the Presbyterian church, Ulrich Zwingli, whose thought informed the German, Dutch, and Swiss Reformed Churches and their descendents, including the United Church of Christ - and others – began within the context of the Roman Catholic church. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. He was overwhelmed by a burden of guilt and unworthiness before God, that all the rituals of the church could not overcome. His reading of Romans – that the righteous shall live by faith – led him to disagree with the penitential system of confessing one’s sins to a priest and doing deeds of penance, and most especially the buying and selling of indulgences, essentially ecclesiastical “get out of purgatory free” cards. He experienced the Roman church’s system of penance – confession of sin to a priest, prescribed acts of penance, and, for him, ongoing guilt no matter how much penance he did, as a burden, and so his reliance on God’s grace, by contrast, Luther considered gospel freedom. Luther did not seek to leave the church – when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg church, he was only seeking to start discussion, much like posting a document on Facebook or a blog today. But what started as a post evolved into a medieval version of a email or Facebook flame war, with accusations flying back and forth. Ultimately the church excommunicated Luther, and the ministry of Luther and his followers continued outside the Roman church.
While the Reformers differed among themselves on specifics, they held much in common. They uplifted Scripture as the primary authority in the believer’s life, indeed, the only authority – “sola scriptura” was one of the rallying cries of the Reformation. There were others. The purpose of Scripture is to point to the faith – “sola fide” that unassisted by our own works brings us to salvation. And we come to an understanding of saving faith entirely by God’s grace, and not by virtue of our own merits, so “sola gratia” was yet another mantra of the Reformation. In all, there were five “solas”, five essentials involved in the Protestant doctrine of salvation: By grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solus Christus), known through Scripture alone (sola scriptura), and to God alone be the glory (sola deo gloria).
Despite sharing these foundational beliefs, the various Reformed churches organized themselves in different ways and evolved in different directions. From the same Bible, various reformers found support for very hierarchical churches such as the Lutheran churches, which have bishops, while others found support for congregationalism, where the local church sets its own course – that was the path of the Puritans who settled in New England, while still others adopted a structure in which authority rested, not with the local congregation or a bishop, but with local or regional synods – that was the course charted by the Presbyterian church as well as the Evangelical and Reformed Church prior to the merger that formed the UCC. From the same Bible, Christians found support for the continuation of slavery and for the abolition of slavery. From the same Bible, some Christians found precedent and support for the authorization of women for ordained ministry, while others to this day still don’t.
Indeed, in the centuries since the time of the Reformation, while denominations have stayed separate, there has been much cross-pollination of practices. Roman Catholic churches have embraced at least some of Luther’s insights; indeed, our first hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God, is sung in Roman Catholic churches. Roman Catholic worshippers hear at least as much Scripture read in church as Protestants do, and probably more than in most Protestant churches. (Years ago when I invited a Roman Catholic friend to join me worshipping at a Protestant church, he was amazed that there was only one Scripture reading; in Catholic churches, there are four readings – Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, Gospel.) By the same token, Protestants are increasingly embracing traditionally Roman Catholic prayer and devotional exercises, such as the daily prayer of self-examination and lectio divina, divine reading of Scripture or devotional literature. Catholic and many Protestant churches alike use the Revised Common Lectionary, reading at least some of the same Biblical texts every Sunday, so that, literally as well as figuratively, we are at least in some ways on the same page.
A motto of the Reformation is “Reformed and Always Reforming.” This means that we do not content ourselves to hold the insights of the Reformers of 500 and 600 years ago, but rather we are always open to new light and truth breaking forth from God’s holy word. God is not done with us yet, as individuals or as a church. God is constantly calling us forward on a pilgrimage of faith, constantly sending us out to be salt and light in the world.
The world in which many of us grew up, in which the church was the center of family and community life, is gone. As our third hymn states, “new occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth.” Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever – but our society is constantly changing, and even though the message of salvation is the same, the church cannot proclaim this eternal message to this changed society by doing the same things we’ve always done. In some ways, our society is similar to the society encountered by the early church, in which many people have never been inside a church, have only second-hand knowledge or maybe no knowledge at all of the Gospel. Churches are rediscovering the need for evangelism – we can no longer rely on family and societal expectations to bring people into the church, and so church members are finding it necessary once again to go out into the community and witness to their faith. More and more churches – including Emanuel – cannot afford full-time professional clergy. New models of ministry involving teleconferencing and social media are emerging – I know one church who, when it snows, holds worship via videoconference. Old patterns of ministry such as tentmaker ministries, where the pastor earns his living elsewhere in order to reduce the financial burden on the church – that model goes back to St. Paul - and shared ministries in which nearby churches are yoked together into two and three point charges served by one pastor, are being rediscovered and repurposed.
Society has changed, but society’s need for salvation has not changed. We live in a neighborhood, in a city, in a society that needs good news. Perhaps the church is on the cusp of a new reformation, not based so much on fine points of theology, but on discerning God’s will for us in a transformed society, on loving God and neighbor in a way that speaks God’s good news to this generation. May we always keep our eyes and ears open for the light and truth which God reveals to us. Amen.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
First Things First
(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90, I Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46)
Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?
The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?
Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.
So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?
In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.
Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.
St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?
The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?
Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.
So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?
In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.
Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.
St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Glory Be!
(Scriptures: Exodus 33:12-23
I Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22)
Those among us of a certain age may remember the old 1950’s TV show “The Honeymooners”. Or if you were a little younger, you might have watched the Flintstones, which was sort of a cartoon version. The main character, Ralph Cramden, was loud and volatile, but his wife, Alice, knew how to manage him, and certainly knew how to cut through Ralph’s bombast. Just about every episode had a moment when Ralph and Alice were squabbling, and Ralph would come out with lines like, “One of these days, Alice, Pow! To the moon!” But just about every episode ended with Ralph telling Alice, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
In our Old Testament reading, Moses has been talking God down from a “pow, to the moon, Alice!” moment with God’s people. The context of today’s reading from Exodus is the aftermath of last week’s reading from Exodus, when Aaron made a golden calf for the people to worship. At this point, the relationship between God and the chosen people is strained nearly to the breaking point, with Moses caught in the middle, between the sinful people and an angry God. Not a really comfy place to be. Certainly not a place I’d want to be. In last week’s reading, God had threatened to destroy the people and start over with Moses’ descendents, but Moses implored God not to destroy the people. While God relents, God also tells Moses that he would not accompany the people, lest God’s anger break out and destroy them. Once again, Moses implores God to go with them, and God once again relents. Reading the text is like watching a married couple or a pair of close friends after a really bad falling out, when they’re awkwardly trying to repair the relationship and aren’t quite sure what to say in order to get past the previous ugliness. Sometimes it takes longer than a half-hour sitcom to get to the “Baby, you’re the greatest” ending. But sometimes during that time of patching things up, we’re open to sharing ourselves at a much deeper level than we do when things are going smoothly.
Something of the sort happens in today’s reading. After Moses’ success in imploring God to turn away from God’s anger, and Moses feels like things are patched up at least a little bit, Moses becomes a bit bolder and asks God, “show me your glory.” Remember that God led the people of Israel, appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. We’re told that Moses used to go to what was called the tent of meeting, located outside the camp. Moses would enter the tent, and the Lord would speak to Moses, and we’re told that the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Moses experienced God’s presence in a special way, and the Hebrew even uses the word “face” to describe God’s presence. As we sometimes talk about God’s strong arm as a metaphor to indicate God’s power, the Hebrew uses the word “face” in this passage as a metaphor to indicate presence. But even with all that, Moses wants more. “Show me your glory, Lord.” Let me see you, not just as appearances of cloud and fire, not just your “face” as in a metaphor for your presence, but as you truly are, in your fullness.
Moses may not fully have known what he was asking. We’re told that God in God’s holiness is not like us, but “other”. God is utterly holy, and we are sinful. Remember that Moses first saw God in the appearance of a bush that burned but was not consumed. Scripture tells us that “our God is a consuming fire.” To see God in all God’s glory would be more that Moses could stand, and still live.
So God offers to give Moses as much as Moses can handle without being destroyed. God says that all of God’s goodness – not his glory in all its fullness, but his goodness, would pass before Moses. God would share with Moses the divine name, and allow Moses to see God’s back after he had departed. For, God tells Moses, you cannot see my face and live. Moses hears the divine name, which amounts to hearing the divine identity: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The name is related to the phrase “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”
While our Exodus reading seems strange and far removed from our own life experience, this account may help us gain a deeper understanding of our relationship with God. We all yearn to draw closer to God. As Augustine wrote, God has made us for Godself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in God. In our yearning for closeness, we look for some tangible token of God’s presence, something we can see and hear and touch and even smell and taste – maybe even something we can use and control, like a lucky rabbit’s foot. This is why shrines of saints and relics of departed saints were so popular in the Middle Ages – as tangible evidence of someone else’s encounter with the divine – and why even today we read news accounts every now and then about someone who sees the face of Jesus or Mary in the bark of a tree or in a piece of toast or a sticky bun or whatever. In a very different way, but with similar intent, many Christians misuse Scripture to try to hold Jesus to some sort of rigid timetable for Jesus’ return. To put Jesus on a timetable is to try to control Jesus – some Christians even try to orchestrate events in world politics to try to accelerate the 2nd coming of Christ. But Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation and everywhere in between, is very clear that while God listens and responds to our prayers, God will not be controlled by human beings, will not be held to a timetable, will not be contained within the boundaries of human theology or human understanding. God’s graciousness in hearing our prayers should not be mistaken for our entitlement in expecting God to wait on our every demand.
Martin Luther contrasted what he called a theology of glory – a theology which Luther opposed, a theology which relied on displays of church pomp to point to God’s glory - with what Luther called the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross, which Luther embraced, said that God is known, not in human power, but in human weakness; not in our wealth, but in our poverty; not in our self-reliance, but in our brokenness and consequent reliance on God. Paul wrote that in Christ, the foolishness of God is wiser than all human wisdom, and the weakness of God, stronger than human strength. As we read in Philippians a few weeks ago, we worship a God who in Jesus Christ emptied himself of all glory for the sake of the salvation of humanity and all creation. Those times when we feel most desolate and forsaken may be the exact times when God is closest, carrying us when we’re too weak to stand on our own.
God allowed Moses to see God’s back, after God had passed by him. And that’s often how it is with us. We may not see God coming, but we may see him going. It is often in retrospect, looking back after we’ve gone through some life-changing experience, that we know God was somehow in the midst of that experience, that “surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn’t even know it.” Remember that the two disciples on the Emmaus road didn’t recognize Jesus until Jesus broke the bread – and as soon as the disciples recognized Jesus, Jesus disappeared, lest the two disciples try to hold onto the moment. Or we may remember the story of the risen Christ, on his encounter with Mary in the garden, telling her “don’t touch me.” Some writers interpret Jesus’ words as meaning “stop holding onto me” or “don’t try to hold onto me.” Our God is not static, not a statue or idol, but a God always in motion. So our task as Christians is to discern where God is, and meet God there.
Our Gospel reading gives us in a few sentences the contrast between human attempts to grab at glory and the elusive glory of God. Jesus used a trick question about taxes as a teaching moment. He asked whose image was on a coin, and of course it was that of the emperor. In a typical human attempt to strive for glory, the emperor had his image stamped on the coin so that people couldn’t even buy the necessities of life or sell or conduct business without encountering an image of the emperor. Meanwhile, God’s glory is hidden, not in the imperial glory of Rome, or in the arrogance and contempt of the religious establishment, but in the humble person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Theologians tell us that God is both imminent and transcendent. God’s imminence is in those personal, private or even congregational “holy moments” when we feel God’s presence so strongly we can just about touch it. We heard about some of Emanuel’s holy moments during our anniversary in September. But God in his transcendence is the God who created everything, who is beyond all earthly things, who is utterly unlike us, utterly other than us. God is both imminent and transcendent – far beyond our understanding, yet closer than our own breath. In a sense, God can even be seen as playful, always just beyond us, playfully teasing us with the most tantalizing hints of his presence, able to be felt and experienced, but not controlled.
I’ll mention it for probably the 100th or more time – at any rate, not for the first time, or the last – that our name, Emanuel, means God with us. We remember those holy moments when God was with us, our parents and grandparents, in years long past. But we cannot relegate God-with-us to the past, to memory. Emanuel doesn’t mean “God was with us” but “God is with us.” God’s name can mean “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Even in our weakness, God is with us and will be with us, for, as Paul wrote, God’s strength is made perfect or complete in human weakness. May we here at Emanuel, as a community and as individuals, continue to experience God’s goodness passing before us – and may we at Emanuel invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
*********
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia, on Fillmore St, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
I Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22)
Those among us of a certain age may remember the old 1950’s TV show “The Honeymooners”. Or if you were a little younger, you might have watched the Flintstones, which was sort of a cartoon version. The main character, Ralph Cramden, was loud and volatile, but his wife, Alice, knew how to manage him, and certainly knew how to cut through Ralph’s bombast. Just about every episode had a moment when Ralph and Alice were squabbling, and Ralph would come out with lines like, “One of these days, Alice, Pow! To the moon!” But just about every episode ended with Ralph telling Alice, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
In our Old Testament reading, Moses has been talking God down from a “pow, to the moon, Alice!” moment with God’s people. The context of today’s reading from Exodus is the aftermath of last week’s reading from Exodus, when Aaron made a golden calf for the people to worship. At this point, the relationship between God and the chosen people is strained nearly to the breaking point, with Moses caught in the middle, between the sinful people and an angry God. Not a really comfy place to be. Certainly not a place I’d want to be. In last week’s reading, God had threatened to destroy the people and start over with Moses’ descendents, but Moses implored God not to destroy the people. While God relents, God also tells Moses that he would not accompany the people, lest God’s anger break out and destroy them. Once again, Moses implores God to go with them, and God once again relents. Reading the text is like watching a married couple or a pair of close friends after a really bad falling out, when they’re awkwardly trying to repair the relationship and aren’t quite sure what to say in order to get past the previous ugliness. Sometimes it takes longer than a half-hour sitcom to get to the “Baby, you’re the greatest” ending. But sometimes during that time of patching things up, we’re open to sharing ourselves at a much deeper level than we do when things are going smoothly.
Something of the sort happens in today’s reading. After Moses’ success in imploring God to turn away from God’s anger, and Moses feels like things are patched up at least a little bit, Moses becomes a bit bolder and asks God, “show me your glory.” Remember that God led the people of Israel, appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. We’re told that Moses used to go to what was called the tent of meeting, located outside the camp. Moses would enter the tent, and the Lord would speak to Moses, and we’re told that the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Moses experienced God’s presence in a special way, and the Hebrew even uses the word “face” to describe God’s presence. As we sometimes talk about God’s strong arm as a metaphor to indicate God’s power, the Hebrew uses the word “face” in this passage as a metaphor to indicate presence. But even with all that, Moses wants more. “Show me your glory, Lord.” Let me see you, not just as appearances of cloud and fire, not just your “face” as in a metaphor for your presence, but as you truly are, in your fullness.
Moses may not fully have known what he was asking. We’re told that God in God’s holiness is not like us, but “other”. God is utterly holy, and we are sinful. Remember that Moses first saw God in the appearance of a bush that burned but was not consumed. Scripture tells us that “our God is a consuming fire.” To see God in all God’s glory would be more that Moses could stand, and still live.
So God offers to give Moses as much as Moses can handle without being destroyed. God says that all of God’s goodness – not his glory in all its fullness, but his goodness, would pass before Moses. God would share with Moses the divine name, and allow Moses to see God’s back after he had departed. For, God tells Moses, you cannot see my face and live. Moses hears the divine name, which amounts to hearing the divine identity: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The name is related to the phrase “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”
While our Exodus reading seems strange and far removed from our own life experience, this account may help us gain a deeper understanding of our relationship with God. We all yearn to draw closer to God. As Augustine wrote, God has made us for Godself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in God. In our yearning for closeness, we look for some tangible token of God’s presence, something we can see and hear and touch and even smell and taste – maybe even something we can use and control, like a lucky rabbit’s foot. This is why shrines of saints and relics of departed saints were so popular in the Middle Ages – as tangible evidence of someone else’s encounter with the divine – and why even today we read news accounts every now and then about someone who sees the face of Jesus or Mary in the bark of a tree or in a piece of toast or a sticky bun or whatever. In a very different way, but with similar intent, many Christians misuse Scripture to try to hold Jesus to some sort of rigid timetable for Jesus’ return. To put Jesus on a timetable is to try to control Jesus – some Christians even try to orchestrate events in world politics to try to accelerate the 2nd coming of Christ. But Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation and everywhere in between, is very clear that while God listens and responds to our prayers, God will not be controlled by human beings, will not be held to a timetable, will not be contained within the boundaries of human theology or human understanding. God’s graciousness in hearing our prayers should not be mistaken for our entitlement in expecting God to wait on our every demand.
Martin Luther contrasted what he called a theology of glory – a theology which Luther opposed, a theology which relied on displays of church pomp to point to God’s glory - with what Luther called the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross, which Luther embraced, said that God is known, not in human power, but in human weakness; not in our wealth, but in our poverty; not in our self-reliance, but in our brokenness and consequent reliance on God. Paul wrote that in Christ, the foolishness of God is wiser than all human wisdom, and the weakness of God, stronger than human strength. As we read in Philippians a few weeks ago, we worship a God who in Jesus Christ emptied himself of all glory for the sake of the salvation of humanity and all creation. Those times when we feel most desolate and forsaken may be the exact times when God is closest, carrying us when we’re too weak to stand on our own.
God allowed Moses to see God’s back, after God had passed by him. And that’s often how it is with us. We may not see God coming, but we may see him going. It is often in retrospect, looking back after we’ve gone through some life-changing experience, that we know God was somehow in the midst of that experience, that “surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn’t even know it.” Remember that the two disciples on the Emmaus road didn’t recognize Jesus until Jesus broke the bread – and as soon as the disciples recognized Jesus, Jesus disappeared, lest the two disciples try to hold onto the moment. Or we may remember the story of the risen Christ, on his encounter with Mary in the garden, telling her “don’t touch me.” Some writers interpret Jesus’ words as meaning “stop holding onto me” or “don’t try to hold onto me.” Our God is not static, not a statue or idol, but a God always in motion. So our task as Christians is to discern where God is, and meet God there.
Our Gospel reading gives us in a few sentences the contrast between human attempts to grab at glory and the elusive glory of God. Jesus used a trick question about taxes as a teaching moment. He asked whose image was on a coin, and of course it was that of the emperor. In a typical human attempt to strive for glory, the emperor had his image stamped on the coin so that people couldn’t even buy the necessities of life or sell or conduct business without encountering an image of the emperor. Meanwhile, God’s glory is hidden, not in the imperial glory of Rome, or in the arrogance and contempt of the religious establishment, but in the humble person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Theologians tell us that God is both imminent and transcendent. God’s imminence is in those personal, private or even congregational “holy moments” when we feel God’s presence so strongly we can just about touch it. We heard about some of Emanuel’s holy moments during our anniversary in September. But God in his transcendence is the God who created everything, who is beyond all earthly things, who is utterly unlike us, utterly other than us. God is both imminent and transcendent – far beyond our understanding, yet closer than our own breath. In a sense, God can even be seen as playful, always just beyond us, playfully teasing us with the most tantalizing hints of his presence, able to be felt and experienced, but not controlled.
I’ll mention it for probably the 100th or more time – at any rate, not for the first time, or the last – that our name, Emanuel, means God with us. We remember those holy moments when God was with us, our parents and grandparents, in years long past. But we cannot relegate God-with-us to the past, to memory. Emanuel doesn’t mean “God was with us” but “God is with us.” God’s name can mean “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Even in our weakness, God is with us and will be with us, for, as Paul wrote, God’s strength is made perfect or complete in human weakness. May we here at Emanuel, as a community and as individuals, continue to experience God’s goodness passing before us – and may we at Emanuel invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
*********
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia, on Fillmore St, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Holy Cow!
At our 150th anniversary celebration, I was struck by the video that Kris put together, that we watched in the social hall following worship. It was like going through an old family photo album – literally, two, three, four or more generations of some of our longtime members have been members here, so for them, the old confirmation photos and such were photos of grandmom and grandpop or mom and dad when they were little.
Going through our own old family albums can bring up lots of memories - we may feel sad, or wistful, or we may find some old photos really funny, or even embarrassing. For those of us –like me - who grew up in the 70’s, where long hair and pastel colors were the fashion, we may wince a bit looking at our high school graduation photo. And then some of us have those photos we hope nobody else will ever see, the photos we pray nobody will ever post to Facebook. Sadder but wiser now, we may look back on some of our old photos and ask ourselves, “What on earth was I thinking?”
Today’s Old Testament reading is like one of those embarrassing photos in the family album of God’s people, one of those moments in the journey of the Hebrews where you just want to smack your forehead and say, “What on earth were they thinking?” The old movie The Ten Commandments had a lot of fun with this Scripture, conjuring up all sorts of wild ceremonies as part of worship of the Golden Calf. Fortunately for us, the writer of Exodus and those who preserved this book over many centuries, did not feel an obligation to try to gloss over these moments when God’s people fell flat on their faces. The Hebrews are presented, warts and all, and so perhaps in looking at those times when they went astray, we can recognize ourselves.
Last week Ralph, our organist, read, with great gusto, the Ten Commandments. I’d joked with Ralph that last week was Ralph’s Charlton Heston moment. But Moses did not immediately come down the mountain – along with the Ten Commandments, God gave Moses all manner of other instruction about how God was to be worshipped and how society was to be organized. In Exodus, God’s instruction to Moses covers more than 10 chapters. Some forms of Jewish tradition hold that on Mt. Sinai, Moses received not only the written Torah – what we call the first five books of the Old Testament – but also what Jews call the Oral Torah, the traditions of interpretation that would not be written down for centuries, but that helped God’s people make sense of the written Torah through changing circumstances – in Jewish thought, Moses was thought to have received all of that at least in seed form. And all of this took time.
Meanwhile the people are at the bottom of the mountain, wondering what happened to Moses. They saw him go up the mountain, but he hadn’t come down yet. And so they became uneasy. Perhaps God had struck Moses dead up on that mountain. Perhaps Moses had abandoned them. Meanwhile, there they were. How long were they supposed to hang around, waiting?
So the people went to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and asked Aaron to make gods for them. And Aaron complied, making a golden calf. The people sacrificed to it, and as Scripture memorably says, “they sat down to eat and rose to revel.” God threatened to wipe them out on the spot, but Moses interceded with God and the people were spared.
Why a golden calf? Some scholars tell us that Aaron’s intent was not to worship a different god, but to create an image of the Lord for them to worship – after all, Aaron did say that their sacrifice would be “a festival to the LORD”. A calf would have reminded them of youth and strength, perhaps also of fertility and new life, and would have expressed the conviction that God is all these things. But certainly such an image would say nothing of God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s holiness. This is the reason that God commanded his people never to try to make an image of God, because God is so great and so far beyond our comprehension that any image would inevitably leave out much that is important about God. This prohibition is still followed in Judaism and especially in Islam. In Christianity, while we don’t literally worship images, there’s a broad range of tradition about the use of images of Jesus and the saints in worship, from the Eastern Orthodox traditions, where icons are everywhere, to the Protestant traditions, which may accept images such as the empty cross or pictures of Jesus, but is not as receptive of portrayals of the saints – and in some traditions the worship space is almost completely unadorned.
This Exodus passage is not the last we hear of a golden calf in the Bible. Many centuries later, following the breakup of united Israel into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, the golden calf makes a return appearance. Since Jerusalem was located in the southern kingdom of Judah, for those in the northern kingdom, Jerusalem was essentially located in foreign territory. Those in the northern kingdom could not go to Jerusalem without leaving their country – and it was feared that if people from the northern kingdom went to Jerusalem to worship, they might stay there, or they might turn against the northern kingdom. The solution was to set up alternate worship sites at historic holy places in the Northern kingdom, such as Bethel and Dan. And at each of these alternative worship sites in the north, in the temple was a golden calf. And Jeroboam used the same words used by Aaron – “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” Prophets from both north and south spoke out against these worship sites, calling their worship idolatrous.
We may look back on these stories, these very old snapshots from the family album of God’s people, as relics of a long-ago past, as evidence of thought processes that today we would consider primitive. Today we don’t literally create golden calves or totem poles and bow down to them. But let’s remember what was behind the creation of the golden calf – impatience, fear that God had abandoned the people. God’s promises of God’s presence weren’t enough, and so the people asked for an image to reassure themselves that God was still with them. And later on during the time of the northern kingdom, a king’s insecurity for his throne led him to create golden calves for his worship sites. In a word, behind the creation of the golden calf was a feeling of insecurity.
It seems that most of our very secular society doesn’t bow down to much of anything. But secular people still feel insecure. It’s part of the human condition. Even a secular society will find ways to act out its insecurity. Given the extreme divide in our society between the fantastically wealthy and the miserably poor, where investment bankers and CEO’s of major corporations earn hundreds of times what their average worker makes, where corporate leaders use their wealth not to create jobs but to outsource or automate or otherwise eliminate them – and given the resistance among some in government to putting any restraint whatever on corporate greed – it would seem that worship of the golden calf is alive and well – and is even blessed and encouraged by some clergy on TV and radio who give lip service to God but whose real religion is worship of the almighty dollar. And how is idolatry to wealth, to the market, working out for our society? How’s that working out for us? Adam Smith, in his long-ago economic treatise The Wealth of Nations, said that if each person was allowed to pursue his own economic self-interest, the invisible hand of the market would work to the benefit of all. But these days, the invisible hand seems to be punching the poor in the gut. The very wealthy sit down to eat and rise up to revel – and if you want to watch, you can turn on Wealth TV - while the rest of us struggle and the poorest of us starve. I suspect that decades from now, we’ll be looking back on this time, smack our heads, and ask, what were we thinking?
In our Bible study of the minor prophets that we’ve had after church, we’ve seen that during times when the very wealthy in Israel and Judah looked out only for themselves and abandoned the poor to their fate, prophets such as Amos and Micah and Habakkuk and others came forward to denounce their greed and call them to account. And in our time, there finally at long last seems to be the beginnings of some movement to call our corporate and financial leaders to accountability. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spread to many cities, including Philadelphia, where City Hall seems to be the gathering place. Thus far, these are peaceful gatherings. I can only pray they stay that way. Two weeks ago, at historic Tindley Temple Baptist Church on South Broad Street, an interfaith coalition of churches and synagogues, called POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild – was formed to speak from a position of faith to government and corporate leaders about the need to return jobs to our city. These gatherings are not coming from a place of rage and hostility, but thus far have been surprisingly gentle, coming from a desire to remind those in leadership that with power comes responsibility, of calling government and business leaders to a better way of using their wealth.
Psalm 23, which appears in our call to worship, and our reading from Philippians give us ways to deal with insecurity that rely on God, not golden calves. Psalm 23 reminds us that the Lord is our shepherd, no matter what. In a passage often read at funerals, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” But God’s care is not only for the dying, but for the living. The Psalmist sings of God setting a table for us, even in the presence of our enemies – even in a dangerous place, God cares for us. In his letter to the church at Philippi, written at a time in which both Paul in prison and a church undergoing internal division were experiencing insecurity, Paul tells his readers, of all things, to rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Don’t worry about anything,” Paul writes, “but in prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.” And, Paul assures his readers – and us – “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Our Gospel reading, even with its violent imagery, reminds us of the vision of God’s reign, a vision which goes back to Old Testament times, not as sitting through a sermon droning on through all eternity like this one, but a heavenly feast. Not a boring lecture, but a banquet, where there is more than enough for all. It’s a banquet to which we’re all invited, at which we’re all welcome. Many in our society turn away from this banquet in order to feast at the world’s table, where plenty for a few means starvation for many. But at God’s table there is room and plenty for all. God continues to invite us to the wedding banquet, and urges us to invite others. So may we go out into the highways and byways with the invitation to God’s love and grace. Amen.
Going through our own old family albums can bring up lots of memories - we may feel sad, or wistful, or we may find some old photos really funny, or even embarrassing. For those of us –like me - who grew up in the 70’s, where long hair and pastel colors were the fashion, we may wince a bit looking at our high school graduation photo. And then some of us have those photos we hope nobody else will ever see, the photos we pray nobody will ever post to Facebook. Sadder but wiser now, we may look back on some of our old photos and ask ourselves, “What on earth was I thinking?”
Today’s Old Testament reading is like one of those embarrassing photos in the family album of God’s people, one of those moments in the journey of the Hebrews where you just want to smack your forehead and say, “What on earth were they thinking?” The old movie The Ten Commandments had a lot of fun with this Scripture, conjuring up all sorts of wild ceremonies as part of worship of the Golden Calf. Fortunately for us, the writer of Exodus and those who preserved this book over many centuries, did not feel an obligation to try to gloss over these moments when God’s people fell flat on their faces. The Hebrews are presented, warts and all, and so perhaps in looking at those times when they went astray, we can recognize ourselves.
Last week Ralph, our organist, read, with great gusto, the Ten Commandments. I’d joked with Ralph that last week was Ralph’s Charlton Heston moment. But Moses did not immediately come down the mountain – along with the Ten Commandments, God gave Moses all manner of other instruction about how God was to be worshipped and how society was to be organized. In Exodus, God’s instruction to Moses covers more than 10 chapters. Some forms of Jewish tradition hold that on Mt. Sinai, Moses received not only the written Torah – what we call the first five books of the Old Testament – but also what Jews call the Oral Torah, the traditions of interpretation that would not be written down for centuries, but that helped God’s people make sense of the written Torah through changing circumstances – in Jewish thought, Moses was thought to have received all of that at least in seed form. And all of this took time.
Meanwhile the people are at the bottom of the mountain, wondering what happened to Moses. They saw him go up the mountain, but he hadn’t come down yet. And so they became uneasy. Perhaps God had struck Moses dead up on that mountain. Perhaps Moses had abandoned them. Meanwhile, there they were. How long were they supposed to hang around, waiting?
So the people went to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and asked Aaron to make gods for them. And Aaron complied, making a golden calf. The people sacrificed to it, and as Scripture memorably says, “they sat down to eat and rose to revel.” God threatened to wipe them out on the spot, but Moses interceded with God and the people were spared.
Why a golden calf? Some scholars tell us that Aaron’s intent was not to worship a different god, but to create an image of the Lord for them to worship – after all, Aaron did say that their sacrifice would be “a festival to the LORD”. A calf would have reminded them of youth and strength, perhaps also of fertility and new life, and would have expressed the conviction that God is all these things. But certainly such an image would say nothing of God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s holiness. This is the reason that God commanded his people never to try to make an image of God, because God is so great and so far beyond our comprehension that any image would inevitably leave out much that is important about God. This prohibition is still followed in Judaism and especially in Islam. In Christianity, while we don’t literally worship images, there’s a broad range of tradition about the use of images of Jesus and the saints in worship, from the Eastern Orthodox traditions, where icons are everywhere, to the Protestant traditions, which may accept images such as the empty cross or pictures of Jesus, but is not as receptive of portrayals of the saints – and in some traditions the worship space is almost completely unadorned.
This Exodus passage is not the last we hear of a golden calf in the Bible. Many centuries later, following the breakup of united Israel into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, the golden calf makes a return appearance. Since Jerusalem was located in the southern kingdom of Judah, for those in the northern kingdom, Jerusalem was essentially located in foreign territory. Those in the northern kingdom could not go to Jerusalem without leaving their country – and it was feared that if people from the northern kingdom went to Jerusalem to worship, they might stay there, or they might turn against the northern kingdom. The solution was to set up alternate worship sites at historic holy places in the Northern kingdom, such as Bethel and Dan. And at each of these alternative worship sites in the north, in the temple was a golden calf. And Jeroboam used the same words used by Aaron – “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” Prophets from both north and south spoke out against these worship sites, calling their worship idolatrous.
We may look back on these stories, these very old snapshots from the family album of God’s people, as relics of a long-ago past, as evidence of thought processes that today we would consider primitive. Today we don’t literally create golden calves or totem poles and bow down to them. But let’s remember what was behind the creation of the golden calf – impatience, fear that God had abandoned the people. God’s promises of God’s presence weren’t enough, and so the people asked for an image to reassure themselves that God was still with them. And later on during the time of the northern kingdom, a king’s insecurity for his throne led him to create golden calves for his worship sites. In a word, behind the creation of the golden calf was a feeling of insecurity.
It seems that most of our very secular society doesn’t bow down to much of anything. But secular people still feel insecure. It’s part of the human condition. Even a secular society will find ways to act out its insecurity. Given the extreme divide in our society between the fantastically wealthy and the miserably poor, where investment bankers and CEO’s of major corporations earn hundreds of times what their average worker makes, where corporate leaders use their wealth not to create jobs but to outsource or automate or otherwise eliminate them – and given the resistance among some in government to putting any restraint whatever on corporate greed – it would seem that worship of the golden calf is alive and well – and is even blessed and encouraged by some clergy on TV and radio who give lip service to God but whose real religion is worship of the almighty dollar. And how is idolatry to wealth, to the market, working out for our society? How’s that working out for us? Adam Smith, in his long-ago economic treatise The Wealth of Nations, said that if each person was allowed to pursue his own economic self-interest, the invisible hand of the market would work to the benefit of all. But these days, the invisible hand seems to be punching the poor in the gut. The very wealthy sit down to eat and rise up to revel – and if you want to watch, you can turn on Wealth TV - while the rest of us struggle and the poorest of us starve. I suspect that decades from now, we’ll be looking back on this time, smack our heads, and ask, what were we thinking?
In our Bible study of the minor prophets that we’ve had after church, we’ve seen that during times when the very wealthy in Israel and Judah looked out only for themselves and abandoned the poor to their fate, prophets such as Amos and Micah and Habakkuk and others came forward to denounce their greed and call them to account. And in our time, there finally at long last seems to be the beginnings of some movement to call our corporate and financial leaders to accountability. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spread to many cities, including Philadelphia, where City Hall seems to be the gathering place. Thus far, these are peaceful gatherings. I can only pray they stay that way. Two weeks ago, at historic Tindley Temple Baptist Church on South Broad Street, an interfaith coalition of churches and synagogues, called POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild – was formed to speak from a position of faith to government and corporate leaders about the need to return jobs to our city. These gatherings are not coming from a place of rage and hostility, but thus far have been surprisingly gentle, coming from a desire to remind those in leadership that with power comes responsibility, of calling government and business leaders to a better way of using their wealth.
Psalm 23, which appears in our call to worship, and our reading from Philippians give us ways to deal with insecurity that rely on God, not golden calves. Psalm 23 reminds us that the Lord is our shepherd, no matter what. In a passage often read at funerals, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” But God’s care is not only for the dying, but for the living. The Psalmist sings of God setting a table for us, even in the presence of our enemies – even in a dangerous place, God cares for us. In his letter to the church at Philippi, written at a time in which both Paul in prison and a church undergoing internal division were experiencing insecurity, Paul tells his readers, of all things, to rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Don’t worry about anything,” Paul writes, “but in prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.” And, Paul assures his readers – and us – “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Our Gospel reading, even with its violent imagery, reminds us of the vision of God’s reign, a vision which goes back to Old Testament times, not as sitting through a sermon droning on through all eternity like this one, but a heavenly feast. Not a boring lecture, but a banquet, where there is more than enough for all. It’s a banquet to which we’re all invited, at which we’re all welcome. Many in our society turn away from this banquet in order to feast at the world’s table, where plenty for a few means starvation for many. But at God’s table there is room and plenty for all. God continues to invite us to the wedding banquet, and urges us to invite others. So may we go out into the highways and byways with the invitation to God’s love and grace. Amen.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Press On!
(Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-20, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46)
In the United Church of Christ and in many Protestant churches, today is World Communion Sunday. This designation originated in 1936 within the Presbyterian Church, and was rapidly adopted by other denominations. The Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) began promoting World Communion Sunday in 1940, as a reminder that Christian churches around the globe, though divided by many differences in belief and observance, are ultimately and finally united in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
I’ll share the story that I often share on World Communion Sunday, of the day perhaps 20 years ago or more when I told a Roman Catholic friend about World Communion Sunday. Perhaps I waxed a bit grandiose about the unity displayed by Protestant Churches all around the globe in celebrating communion together. To all of this, my Roman Catholic friend responded by informing me that Roman Catholic churches around the globe celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, so for Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. And, yes, his words deflated my grandiosity a bit. Just the same, it’s a blessing that we Protestants, who fuss amongst ourselves over so many differences, can manage to get our act together once a year and join our Catholic brothers and sisters at the table of the Lord.
Here at Emanuel Church, we celebrate communion at least monthly, with additional observances for special services such as Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost. As we come forward later in the service for our cube of bread and sip of wine, on this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we approach the Lord’s table, we approach a table that in a spiritual sense extends around the globe, as we join believers of every race and nationality and socioeconomic level, join Christians who worship in cathedrals and Christians who worship in storefront churches and Christians worshipping in tents and open fields in eating bread and drinking wine in memory of Jesus, in sharing the body and blood of Christ, broken and poured out for us. At various locations of this great table, some believers are eating pita bread and some are eating rye bread, some pumpernickel bread, while others are eating the wafers used in Catholic and Anglican churches – and yet in a spiritual sense, all these different types of bread are part of the one celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Through the ages, God has given God’s people gifts around which God’s people can unite and form community. For the ancient Hebrews and for Jews to this day, the law, as represented in this morning’s Old Testament reading by the Ten Commandments, was and is a point of unity. For those of us who are used to the interpretations by Luther and other reformers of Paul’s writings about the law, who are used to seeing the law in negative terms, as a burden from which we are delivered by the grace of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult to wrap our minds around the reality that the law was received as a tremendous gift, a unique sign of God’s favor, God’s special gift to God’s chosen people. The words of this morning’s call to worship in the bulletin are taken from Psalm 19, and I’d ask you to look at the call to worship again. The writer of the Psalm 19 expressed overflowing joy and gratitude for the law, calling it more to be desired than much fine gold, sweeter than honey, rejoicing the heart. Even today, in synagogue services of some traditions, when the scroll of the law is brought forth, the congregation dances around the scroll and even kiss it as it passes by.
Along with the law, the ancient Hebrews were united by the sharing of a meal, the Passover, to celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as God led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the land of bondage. In the same way, we are united by a meal, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, as we give thanks for our deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ from bondage to sin and death and liberation to the freedom of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ.
As we share this meal, our Gospel reading reminds us that we are not hosts, but guests, at the banquet of the Lord. In Jesus’ parable, the tenant farmers started to act as if they were the owners of the vineyard rather than renters. Some churches act in a similar way around Communion, acting as if they own it, as if it is for them to bar others from the table. But Jesus said that the blessings of the vineyard would be taken from the wicked tenants, and given to those who produce fruit. In the same way, the Lord’s table is not ours to hoard to ourselves, but rather to invite others to partake. This is not our table, but the Lord’s table, and at the Lord’s table all seeking to draw close to Christ are welcome.
To me, it is striking that, in the midst of the Great Depression, with such widespread suffering, the Presbyterian Church conceived the idea of a day for all Christians to celebrate communion, to gather at the table. And it’s even more striking that, with World War II as a backdrop, the National Council of Churches adopted and promoted World Communion Sunday. Amid hunger and conflict, the church responded to God’s call in a way that seems impractical, but from a Christian perspective is compelling. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, it’s much more difficult to turn them away from our own table hungry, isn’t it. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, making war and bombing that person’s home and family is no longer an abstraction, but the annihilation of a human being with a face and a name and an eternal soul, a child of God like ourselves. The conception and promotion of World Communion Sunday in that troubled time, then, can be seen not just as a sentimental gesture, but as a prophetic act, pointing beyond the alarms of the day to the “beloved community” to which God calls us all.
We may forget that Paul wrote to the Philippians amid a similarly foreboding backdrop – he was separated from his beloved brothers and sisters at Philippi, confined to prison, with his future uncertain. In today’s reading, Paul gives us his resume as a Jew, to remind us of the cost of his obedience to Christ. It would have been easy for Paul to tell God, “hey, God, I didn’t sign up for this.” Instead, he tells the church at Philippi,
“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As Paul pressed on, so the National Council of Churches pressed on despite dangerous times toward that same prize. And so we, who just celebrated our 150th anniversary but are beset with many challenges, we who proclaim Christ in a time in which many suffer and cry out for justice, are called to press on, to press on toward the goal, to keep our eyes on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
In the United Church of Christ and in many Protestant churches, today is World Communion Sunday. This designation originated in 1936 within the Presbyterian Church, and was rapidly adopted by other denominations. The Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) began promoting World Communion Sunday in 1940, as a reminder that Christian churches around the globe, though divided by many differences in belief and observance, are ultimately and finally united in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
I’ll share the story that I often share on World Communion Sunday, of the day perhaps 20 years ago or more when I told a Roman Catholic friend about World Communion Sunday. Perhaps I waxed a bit grandiose about the unity displayed by Protestant Churches all around the globe in celebrating communion together. To all of this, my Roman Catholic friend responded by informing me that Roman Catholic churches around the globe celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, so for Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. And, yes, his words deflated my grandiosity a bit. Just the same, it’s a blessing that we Protestants, who fuss amongst ourselves over so many differences, can manage to get our act together once a year and join our Catholic brothers and sisters at the table of the Lord.
Here at Emanuel Church, we celebrate communion at least monthly, with additional observances for special services such as Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost. As we come forward later in the service for our cube of bread and sip of wine, on this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we approach the Lord’s table, we approach a table that in a spiritual sense extends around the globe, as we join believers of every race and nationality and socioeconomic level, join Christians who worship in cathedrals and Christians who worship in storefront churches and Christians worshipping in tents and open fields in eating bread and drinking wine in memory of Jesus, in sharing the body and blood of Christ, broken and poured out for us. At various locations of this great table, some believers are eating pita bread and some are eating rye bread, some pumpernickel bread, while others are eating the wafers used in Catholic and Anglican churches – and yet in a spiritual sense, all these different types of bread are part of the one celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Through the ages, God has given God’s people gifts around which God’s people can unite and form community. For the ancient Hebrews and for Jews to this day, the law, as represented in this morning’s Old Testament reading by the Ten Commandments, was and is a point of unity. For those of us who are used to the interpretations by Luther and other reformers of Paul’s writings about the law, who are used to seeing the law in negative terms, as a burden from which we are delivered by the grace of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult to wrap our minds around the reality that the law was received as a tremendous gift, a unique sign of God’s favor, God’s special gift to God’s chosen people. The words of this morning’s call to worship in the bulletin are taken from Psalm 19, and I’d ask you to look at the call to worship again. The writer of the Psalm 19 expressed overflowing joy and gratitude for the law, calling it more to be desired than much fine gold, sweeter than honey, rejoicing the heart. Even today, in synagogue services of some traditions, when the scroll of the law is brought forth, the congregation dances around the scroll and even kiss it as it passes by.
Along with the law, the ancient Hebrews were united by the sharing of a meal, the Passover, to celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as God led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the land of bondage. In the same way, we are united by a meal, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, as we give thanks for our deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ from bondage to sin and death and liberation to the freedom of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ.
As we share this meal, our Gospel reading reminds us that we are not hosts, but guests, at the banquet of the Lord. In Jesus’ parable, the tenant farmers started to act as if they were the owners of the vineyard rather than renters. Some churches act in a similar way around Communion, acting as if they own it, as if it is for them to bar others from the table. But Jesus said that the blessings of the vineyard would be taken from the wicked tenants, and given to those who produce fruit. In the same way, the Lord’s table is not ours to hoard to ourselves, but rather to invite others to partake. This is not our table, but the Lord’s table, and at the Lord’s table all seeking to draw close to Christ are welcome.
To me, it is striking that, in the midst of the Great Depression, with such widespread suffering, the Presbyterian Church conceived the idea of a day for all Christians to celebrate communion, to gather at the table. And it’s even more striking that, with World War II as a backdrop, the National Council of Churches adopted and promoted World Communion Sunday. Amid hunger and conflict, the church responded to God’s call in a way that seems impractical, but from a Christian perspective is compelling. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, it’s much more difficult to turn them away from our own table hungry, isn’t it. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, making war and bombing that person’s home and family is no longer an abstraction, but the annihilation of a human being with a face and a name and an eternal soul, a child of God like ourselves. The conception and promotion of World Communion Sunday in that troubled time, then, can be seen not just as a sentimental gesture, but as a prophetic act, pointing beyond the alarms of the day to the “beloved community” to which God calls us all.
We may forget that Paul wrote to the Philippians amid a similarly foreboding backdrop – he was separated from his beloved brothers and sisters at Philippi, confined to prison, with his future uncertain. In today’s reading, Paul gives us his resume as a Jew, to remind us of the cost of his obedience to Christ. It would have been easy for Paul to tell God, “hey, God, I didn’t sign up for this.” Instead, he tells the church at Philippi,
“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As Paul pressed on, so the National Council of Churches pressed on despite dangerous times toward that same prize. And so we, who just celebrated our 150th anniversary but are beset with many challenges, we who proclaim Christ in a time in which many suffer and cry out for justice, are called to press on, to press on toward the goal, to keep our eyes on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Stuck in the Middle With You
(Scriptures: Exodus 17:1-7, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32)
What a glorious anniversary celebration we enjoyed last Sunday! What a joy it was to see our church full, to greet so many people connected to Emanuel Church who are no longer with us on a week-to-week basis, but still feel a connection to Emanuel! What a glorious testimony to all that God has done in this place over the past 150 years. It was a special joy to see the video that Kris had put together of all the old photos from Emanuel – the many confirmation photos and photos of the Women’s Guild and photos of the Memorial Day tributes and all manner of other photos, with Florence Werner’s beautiful organ music in the background setting the mood. “Remember God’s Wonderful Works!”, Geneva preached, and we certainly did that last week!
Of course, there are those other moments from Emanuel’s history, the ones that didn’t make the anniversary booklet or the video collage, those moments that don’t get written down anywhere, but that come up in conversation now and then during our Bible study and at other moments when we’re reminiscing – the occasional pastors over the years that didn’t quite fit, the moments when a big decision had to be made and not everyone was on board, the church fights, the folks who left with hurt feelings over the years, the times when we were, as the saying goes, not quite ready for prime time, not at our best. Those moments don’t find their way into the anniversary booklet or the video collage, but just the same we remember them in conversation decades later – and I think we do so, at least in part, because the fact that God got us through those moments of tension and discord and disagreement and even pain in the past gives us hope that as God got us through painful times in the past, God will do so now and in the future.
Fortunately, in both the Old and New Testament, God’s people were willing to confess and write down for future generations not only their moments of heroism, but their moments of weakness; not only the moments when they were united in singing God’s praises, but those moments when they were divided into opposing factions and shouting at each other. Both our Old Testament reading from Exodus and our reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians give a snapshot of God’s people, caught in difficult circumstances. In Exodus, we see Moses leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, on the way to Mt. Sinai. Many centuries later, Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, is writing from prison to one of his favorite churches, the congregation at Philippi, to bring them encouragement, even though his own future is uncertain. And God is present, even in these very difficult circumstances.
On Mt. Sinai the children of Israel will encounter God in the form of smoke and thundering, and Moses will receive the law. But for now, they are in the wilderness, escaped from captivity in Egypt, but not yet in the promised land. And they’re tired, and it’s hot, and they’re thirsty. And they take their frustration out on Moses – “Have you led us out here in the middle of nowhere to die of thirst?” And Moses cried unto God – “Help! They’re ready to stone me!” And God provides! – Moses, together with some of the elders, is instructed to go to a certain rock at Horeb and strike it with his rod, and water comes out of the rock for the people to drink. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah. These names have significance – the Hebrew word Massah can mean “despair”, but it can also mean “testing”. Meribah means “quarrel”. And so these names are appropriate for a place where Moses cried to God from a place of despair, where the people quarreled with Moses, asking “Is the Lord with us or not?”
This place, Massah and Meribah, comes back at various places in the Old Testament. In Numbers chapter 20, the story is retold, with a difference – God commanded Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock and command it to pour out water, but instead Moses and Aaron struck the rock and failed to give glory to God for the water, and so they were not allowed to enter the promised land. In Psalms 81 and 95 and 106, the Psalmist invokes the memory of Massah and Meribah – “do not rebel against the Lord, as you did at Massah and Meribah.” Just as, for Americans of a certain age, the name “Watergate” is not just the name of a hotel in Washington DC, but a symbol of government corruption, for Israel, Massah and Meribah become a sort of shorthand for a time of despair and rebellion, a time when the people of Israel fought among themselves and tested God’s patience with their lack of faith, and even their leaders, Moses and Aaron, fell short. For generations to come, God’s people would look back on that moment and say to themselves, “See what happened when we quarreled and put God to the test. We don’t want to go back to that place again!”
Paul’s letter to the Philippians, written many centuries later, comes at a time when both Paul and this church he had founded were going down a difficult road. Paul is in prison, either in Rome or in some Roman prison elsewhere in the empire, uncertain of his fate. The church at Philippi, meanwhile, is going through difficult times, facing opposition from without and division from within, with two church leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, at odds, and the church split into factions, supporting one and opposing the other. It is notable that these were female leaders, and there’s nothing in Paul’s letter to suggest that this is anything unusual, and unlike some of the conservative churches of our day, it speaks of the greater status women had in at least some congregations of the early church. But, for now, the church at Philippi was in the midst of a squabble. Later in the letter, Paul notes that Euodia and Syntyche had struggled right along Paul and others for the cause of the Gospel. For now, though, they’ve fallen to struggling against one another.
Paul began his letter by sharing that some good had come even from his imprisonment; characteristically, Paul responded to imprisonment by taking the opportunity to preach the gospel to his captors, leading at least some of them to faith in Christ. And then Paul reframes the suffering undergone by the Philippian church by saying that what they’re going through is a privilege – the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well, in sharing in the same suffering that Paul is undergoing. It’s much easier to go through times of suffering if we can see some purpose, if we can find meaning in our situation. It’s not necessarily suffering, but meaningless suffering, that can break our spirit.
Paul urges his followers at Philippi to be in accord, of one mind, for his followers to look, not after their own interests, but to the interests of their brothers and sisters. And then Paul gives them the ultimate example of grace under fire, the example of Jesus. Paul’s words about Jesus are known among Scripture scholars as “the Christ hymn.” They are thought to be a fragment of a hymn or a part of the early church liturgy, perhaps part of a creed or affirmation of faith used in a service of baptism. Hear once again these words, used in the worship of the early church:
though he – that is Christ - was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
What is striking is that Christ, in the form of God, did not exploit or even grasp onto his divine status, but emptied himself. The greek word for self-emptying is “kenosis”, and Paul sketches out several stages of self emptying – from existing in the form of God to taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And not content to take human form, Christ empties himself still further, humbling himself to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Having emptied himself, having given up all divine privilege and even life itself, Christ does not exalt himself, but is exalted by God, and given the name above all other names, not to his own glory, but to the glory of God the Father.
Years ago I heard this explanation of the word “grace” – “God’s riches at Christ’s expense”. And the Christ hymn speaks of Christ’s self-emptying, and of the riches of God’s grace for us. But that grace is not for us to hold for ourselves, but to pass on to others. Paul seems to be saying: since we follow Christ who emptied himself for our salvation, how can we his followers insist on our having our own way and insisting on our own priorities. Rather, we are to live in the same spirit Christ did, being willing to care not about ourselves, but about our sister and brothers in Christ, and about our neighbors. This isn’t about being a bunch of phonies or pretending to be something we’re not, but allowing ourselves to be guided by the spirit of Christ.
It is said that suffering can make us bitter, or better. Remember that the name Massah means both “despair” and “testing”. We all have those times in our lives when we feel like we’ve hit bottom, our spirits are dry, crying out for refreshment. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we may well ask, “Why is all this happening to me, to my family? Is the Lord with us or not?” I would never discourage people from going to God in prayer with our questions, our doubts, our fears. Far better to lift up our doubts and questions to God, to bring them to the Lord in prayer, than to give into despair, better to bring our pain to the Lord rather than to follow the advice of Job’s wife to curse God and die. While we may not always get answers – or we may not like the answers we do get - God is big enough to handle our questions. As God did not abandon the children of Israel in the wilderness, God will not abandon us, even at our worst.
And we are led to an oasis of refreshment now and again. I see last week’s anniversary celebration as such an oasis. A packed church – wow, what a joy to see a packed church - beautiful music, a chance to talk with friends from far away, friends we haven’t seen in years or decades, recognition from the Conference and a great sermon by our Associate Conference minister, a chance to remember God’s past blessings….what a great way for God to refresh our spirits here at Emanuel. Many of our members and friends shared testimonies of what Emanuel has meant to them. I especially remember one of the Bethany Children's Home alumni, getting choked up as he shared his experience as an orphan, raised at the Bethany Home. This man who grew up without a mom and dad found (I think he said) over 800 family members. That’s a man on a mission. And because of Bethany’s roots at Emanuel, Bob feels a powerful sense of connection to this church. We're part of his extended family. He shared over and over: “This church matters. Emanuel Church matters. What you do here matters.” He sent me an email after he got home to Virginia, and I wrote him back, telling him how much his words meant to me, when week after week we struggle with attendance and resources – that it’s important that we keep on keeping on.
So now we’re setting out on another year of our church’s history. As our history booklet put it, our 150th anniversary celebration was not a goal in itself, but a waystation on the journey. Once again, God is leading God’s people forth. God has led us forth from despair, but we’re not yet in the promised land. We’re stuck in the middle – with you, with me, with each other – most importantly, with God, with the Spirit leading us on. So long as God is with us, it's a good place to be. And God – Emanuel, God with us – continues to stand by us through thick and thin. While we journey, with God as our guide, may the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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Please join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're located on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Philadelphia's Bridesburg neighborhood. www.emanuelphila.org
What a glorious anniversary celebration we enjoyed last Sunday! What a joy it was to see our church full, to greet so many people connected to Emanuel Church who are no longer with us on a week-to-week basis, but still feel a connection to Emanuel! What a glorious testimony to all that God has done in this place over the past 150 years. It was a special joy to see the video that Kris had put together of all the old photos from Emanuel – the many confirmation photos and photos of the Women’s Guild and photos of the Memorial Day tributes and all manner of other photos, with Florence Werner’s beautiful organ music in the background setting the mood. “Remember God’s Wonderful Works!”, Geneva preached, and we certainly did that last week!
Of course, there are those other moments from Emanuel’s history, the ones that didn’t make the anniversary booklet or the video collage, those moments that don’t get written down anywhere, but that come up in conversation now and then during our Bible study and at other moments when we’re reminiscing – the occasional pastors over the years that didn’t quite fit, the moments when a big decision had to be made and not everyone was on board, the church fights, the folks who left with hurt feelings over the years, the times when we were, as the saying goes, not quite ready for prime time, not at our best. Those moments don’t find their way into the anniversary booklet or the video collage, but just the same we remember them in conversation decades later – and I think we do so, at least in part, because the fact that God got us through those moments of tension and discord and disagreement and even pain in the past gives us hope that as God got us through painful times in the past, God will do so now and in the future.
Fortunately, in both the Old and New Testament, God’s people were willing to confess and write down for future generations not only their moments of heroism, but their moments of weakness; not only the moments when they were united in singing God’s praises, but those moments when they were divided into opposing factions and shouting at each other. Both our Old Testament reading from Exodus and our reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians give a snapshot of God’s people, caught in difficult circumstances. In Exodus, we see Moses leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, on the way to Mt. Sinai. Many centuries later, Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, is writing from prison to one of his favorite churches, the congregation at Philippi, to bring them encouragement, even though his own future is uncertain. And God is present, even in these very difficult circumstances.
On Mt. Sinai the children of Israel will encounter God in the form of smoke and thundering, and Moses will receive the law. But for now, they are in the wilderness, escaped from captivity in Egypt, but not yet in the promised land. And they’re tired, and it’s hot, and they’re thirsty. And they take their frustration out on Moses – “Have you led us out here in the middle of nowhere to die of thirst?” And Moses cried unto God – “Help! They’re ready to stone me!” And God provides! – Moses, together with some of the elders, is instructed to go to a certain rock at Horeb and strike it with his rod, and water comes out of the rock for the people to drink. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah. These names have significance – the Hebrew word Massah can mean “despair”, but it can also mean “testing”. Meribah means “quarrel”. And so these names are appropriate for a place where Moses cried to God from a place of despair, where the people quarreled with Moses, asking “Is the Lord with us or not?”
This place, Massah and Meribah, comes back at various places in the Old Testament. In Numbers chapter 20, the story is retold, with a difference – God commanded Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock and command it to pour out water, but instead Moses and Aaron struck the rock and failed to give glory to God for the water, and so they were not allowed to enter the promised land. In Psalms 81 and 95 and 106, the Psalmist invokes the memory of Massah and Meribah – “do not rebel against the Lord, as you did at Massah and Meribah.” Just as, for Americans of a certain age, the name “Watergate” is not just the name of a hotel in Washington DC, but a symbol of government corruption, for Israel, Massah and Meribah become a sort of shorthand for a time of despair and rebellion, a time when the people of Israel fought among themselves and tested God’s patience with their lack of faith, and even their leaders, Moses and Aaron, fell short. For generations to come, God’s people would look back on that moment and say to themselves, “See what happened when we quarreled and put God to the test. We don’t want to go back to that place again!”
Paul’s letter to the Philippians, written many centuries later, comes at a time when both Paul and this church he had founded were going down a difficult road. Paul is in prison, either in Rome or in some Roman prison elsewhere in the empire, uncertain of his fate. The church at Philippi, meanwhile, is going through difficult times, facing opposition from without and division from within, with two church leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, at odds, and the church split into factions, supporting one and opposing the other. It is notable that these were female leaders, and there’s nothing in Paul’s letter to suggest that this is anything unusual, and unlike some of the conservative churches of our day, it speaks of the greater status women had in at least some congregations of the early church. But, for now, the church at Philippi was in the midst of a squabble. Later in the letter, Paul notes that Euodia and Syntyche had struggled right along Paul and others for the cause of the Gospel. For now, though, they’ve fallen to struggling against one another.
Paul began his letter by sharing that some good had come even from his imprisonment; characteristically, Paul responded to imprisonment by taking the opportunity to preach the gospel to his captors, leading at least some of them to faith in Christ. And then Paul reframes the suffering undergone by the Philippian church by saying that what they’re going through is a privilege – the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well, in sharing in the same suffering that Paul is undergoing. It’s much easier to go through times of suffering if we can see some purpose, if we can find meaning in our situation. It’s not necessarily suffering, but meaningless suffering, that can break our spirit.
Paul urges his followers at Philippi to be in accord, of one mind, for his followers to look, not after their own interests, but to the interests of their brothers and sisters. And then Paul gives them the ultimate example of grace under fire, the example of Jesus. Paul’s words about Jesus are known among Scripture scholars as “the Christ hymn.” They are thought to be a fragment of a hymn or a part of the early church liturgy, perhaps part of a creed or affirmation of faith used in a service of baptism. Hear once again these words, used in the worship of the early church:
though he – that is Christ - was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
What is striking is that Christ, in the form of God, did not exploit or even grasp onto his divine status, but emptied himself. The greek word for self-emptying is “kenosis”, and Paul sketches out several stages of self emptying – from existing in the form of God to taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And not content to take human form, Christ empties himself still further, humbling himself to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Having emptied himself, having given up all divine privilege and even life itself, Christ does not exalt himself, but is exalted by God, and given the name above all other names, not to his own glory, but to the glory of God the Father.
Years ago I heard this explanation of the word “grace” – “God’s riches at Christ’s expense”. And the Christ hymn speaks of Christ’s self-emptying, and of the riches of God’s grace for us. But that grace is not for us to hold for ourselves, but to pass on to others. Paul seems to be saying: since we follow Christ who emptied himself for our salvation, how can we his followers insist on our having our own way and insisting on our own priorities. Rather, we are to live in the same spirit Christ did, being willing to care not about ourselves, but about our sister and brothers in Christ, and about our neighbors. This isn’t about being a bunch of phonies or pretending to be something we’re not, but allowing ourselves to be guided by the spirit of Christ.
It is said that suffering can make us bitter, or better. Remember that the name Massah means both “despair” and “testing”. We all have those times in our lives when we feel like we’ve hit bottom, our spirits are dry, crying out for refreshment. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we may well ask, “Why is all this happening to me, to my family? Is the Lord with us or not?” I would never discourage people from going to God in prayer with our questions, our doubts, our fears. Far better to lift up our doubts and questions to God, to bring them to the Lord in prayer, than to give into despair, better to bring our pain to the Lord rather than to follow the advice of Job’s wife to curse God and die. While we may not always get answers – or we may not like the answers we do get - God is big enough to handle our questions. As God did not abandon the children of Israel in the wilderness, God will not abandon us, even at our worst.
And we are led to an oasis of refreshment now and again. I see last week’s anniversary celebration as such an oasis. A packed church – wow, what a joy to see a packed church - beautiful music, a chance to talk with friends from far away, friends we haven’t seen in years or decades, recognition from the Conference and a great sermon by our Associate Conference minister, a chance to remember God’s past blessings….what a great way for God to refresh our spirits here at Emanuel. Many of our members and friends shared testimonies of what Emanuel has meant to them. I especially remember one of the Bethany Children's Home alumni, getting choked up as he shared his experience as an orphan, raised at the Bethany Home. This man who grew up without a mom and dad found (I think he said) over 800 family members. That’s a man on a mission. And because of Bethany’s roots at Emanuel, Bob feels a powerful sense of connection to this church. We're part of his extended family. He shared over and over: “This church matters. Emanuel Church matters. What you do here matters.” He sent me an email after he got home to Virginia, and I wrote him back, telling him how much his words meant to me, when week after week we struggle with attendance and resources – that it’s important that we keep on keeping on.
So now we’re setting out on another year of our church’s history. As our history booklet put it, our 150th anniversary celebration was not a goal in itself, but a waystation on the journey. Once again, God is leading God’s people forth. God has led us forth from despair, but we’re not yet in the promised land. We’re stuck in the middle – with you, with me, with each other – most importantly, with God, with the Spirit leading us on. So long as God is with us, it's a good place to be. And God – Emanuel, God with us – continues to stand by us through thick and thin. While we journey, with God as our guide, may the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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Please join us for worship at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're located on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) in Philadelphia's Bridesburg neighborhood. www.emanuelphila.org
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