Traveling Light

(Scriptures:  Amos 5:6-15; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31)

If you’re of a certain age – well, namely, my age – you may have watched the TV show Gilligan’s Island when you were growing up.  Perhaps you remember the not-entirely-plausible premise of the show – seven people – Gilligan, the Skipper, the fabulously wealthy Thurston Howell III and his wife Lovey, actress Ginger Grant, Mary Ann and the Professor, embark on an ill-fated three hour tour on a small boat appropriately called the Minnow, and end up stranded somehow on a remote island with no way off.  Among the recurring – and the more implausible – premises of the show is all the stuff that everybody brought along for a three hour tour – Mrs. Howell and Mary Ann each brought several changes of clothing, and Ginger brought her whole wardrobe; the Professor somehow squeezed the contents of an entire science laboratory on board, and the Skipper brought along enough tools and supplies to outfit an entire shipyard – though apparently not the ones needed to repair the damage to the boat.  With all that stuff on board, it’s no wonder that, when the weather started getting rough and the tiny ship was tossed, despite the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow was almost lost.

OK, so nobody here would take their entire wardrobe, the contents of a college science lab, and the inventory of a shipyard along for a three hour boat ride.  But even among the few of us here, we probably vary in how we pack when we go on a trip, be it an afternoon trip down the shore or a longer trip.  Some of us bring along everything but the kitchen sink, and are prepared for every contingency.  I admire those who make careful preparations and anticipate every possible contingency. Others of us – I count myself as one – are more spur-of-the-moment travelers, tend to travel light - and always manage to forget something – a toothbrush, a change of clothes, suntan lotion, bug repellant, whatever.  One result from my absent-minded propensity to forget stuff, is to find out that, well, maybe I really didn’t need it all that much anyway.  Maybe had I packed it, it just would have gotten in the way, would just have slowed me down.

Our Gospel reading contains one of the very difficult teachings of Jesus.  As Jesus prepares to set out on a journey, a young man runs up to Jesus and kneels in front of him. We’re later told this man is very wealthy – he’s the proverbial man who has everything – and yet his behavior tells us that he must feel that despite all his possessions, something is missing.  He’s feeling uneasy, anxious, enough for him to sacrifice all dignity by running up and kneeling at the feet of Jesus. For the disciples it must have been quite a scene, this wealthy young man huffing and puffing up to Jesus and throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, who was penniless and homeless, with no place to lay his head, and probably more than just a little sweaty and smelly to boot.  “Good Teacher”, the man asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus gets the man to slow down and think his words through:  “Why do you call me ‘good’ – none but God alone is good.”   Hey, rich young man, do you understand what you’re saying when you call me good?  So Jesus has the man’s attention, and he goes on – “You know the commandments,” Jesus says, and then goes on to list some of them – notably all commandments about how human beings should treat other human beings.  The man says that he has kept all them from his youth.  Jesus looks at the man – we’re told Jesus loved him – and said, “You lack one thing: go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor, and you’ll have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  The man is shocked and sadly walks away.

Let’s think about what Jesus did not say.  Some unscrupulous religious leaders would say to themselves, “Hey, I think I just found my next meal ticket.” Many religious leaders, even very scrupulous religious leaders, would welcome the man with open arms, no questions asked, and find themselves forever thereafter tiptoeing around the man and treating him with kid gloves, avoiding any challenge or confrontation of the man’s behavior, lest he be offended and stomp off, taking his money with him.  But that’s not how Jesus responded to the man’s question. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus loved the man, and so Jesus loved him enough not to let the man off the hook with his statement that he had obeyed all the commandments from his youth.  He also did not tell the man to come up front and pray the sinner’s prayer, or ask him to memorize a creed.  Jesus accurately diagnosed the cause of the man’s unease – his attachment to his wealth – and instructed the man to break this attachment by selling all he had and giving the proceeds to the poor.  And this the man could not do.  The man’s wealth was more than just a lot of stuff he happened to have lying around the house – it had become part of the man, part of the man’s identity, so much so that parting with it would be like amputating a limb.  The man walked away, knowing that Jesus loved him and understood him completely and indeed that Jesus had asked the man to do exactly the thing that would give him peace – and also that what Jesus asked was precisely the one thing the man would not do – indeed, could not bring himself to do.

Jesus, knowing a teaching moment when he sees one, says to his disciples, “Children, how difficult it is for those with riches to enter the kingdom of God.”  In response to the disciples’ astonishment – after all, in the experience of the disciples, the rich are always the first in line – Jesus repeats himself – How difficult it is to enter the kingdom of  God.  Or, as an alternative translation, on which the King James Version is based, reads, “How difficult it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of  God.  It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  And aside from the literal picture of a big ole smelly camel trying to fit through an opening so small the camel can hardly see it, let along squeeze through it, perhaps another image may come to mind – a small, narrow doorway leading to a place of boundless joy and untold delight, with someone loaded down with possessions standing outside – the many possessions won’t fit through the door, and the man won’t let go of them in order to enter.  So he stays on the outside, with his possessions, looking in longingly – and indeed those on the inside are coaxing him to leave the baggage behind and walk on in – but the man is unable to do what’s necessary to enter.

At this point Peter breaks in with the words, “Look, we’ve left everything to follow you.”  And for a change, Jesus does not rebuke Peter, but responds with assuring words: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or mother or father or sister or brother or children or fields, for my sake and the sake of the good news, who will not receive in this age – in this age - a hundred times as much – houses, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, fields – with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life.  But many who are now first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Jesus promised his followers that for whatever they gave up for the sake of Jesus and the good news would receive in this age a hundred times as much.  What could Jesus mean by such a seemingly outrageous claim? Well, he was likely using strong language to make his point – but even so, there was a point to be made.  Some preachers of the prosperity gospel would likely instruct you to give them as much as you can, and wait for the heavens to literally rain down wealth a hundredfold.  But Jesus doesn’t ask us to take his words as cynical guidelines for investing our worldly wealth in the church, only in order to expect more worldly wealth in return.  Rather, Jesus was creating a society in which his followers held onto their possessions loosely, so that they were willing to share what they had, so that indeed, among the community of the followers of Jesus, many houses and fields were available to all, and all acted as mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers to one another.  Indeed, we’re told in the Book of Acts that members of the early church did exactly what Jesus invited the rich young man to do – sell all they had and lay the proceeds at the feet of the disciples, to be distributed among the poor.  Most of all, Jesus was telling us that eternal life is not just pie in the sky by and by when we die – but rather, that for believers, eternal life has already begun in our present life, that our former self-centered lives are dead, and our new lives as followers of the Risen Christ have begun – that there’s not only a direct connection, but indeed even a direct continuity between our lives on earth as Christians and our lives in the world to come.

The challenge of many of Jesus’ teachings, especially in the parables, is that they invite us to locate ourselves in the story.  For example, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we may find ourselves in the story as the prodigal who has made many mistakes and is begging for a second chance, or as the self-righteous elder brother seeking to disown the prodigal, or as the father having to deal with both sons.  And where we find ourselves may vary as our life circumstances change.  So although today’s Gospel reading was not a parable, I’d still like to ask - where do we find ourselves in today’s Gospel reading?  Probably not as Jesus – there’s only one of him.  But as we look at our own lives, where do we find ourselves – as the rich young ruler, wanting what Jesus offers but unwilling to make a break with the past, unwilling to leave our comfort level?  As the disciples, very conscious of having made considerable sacrifices to be faithful to Jesus?  Or somewhere else?  Or perhaps we don’t find ourselves in the story at all.  And if we don’t, what might that be telling us?

In the 1950’s – during the Red Scare – the words “In God We Trust” were adopted as our national motto – likely in order to distinguish God-fearing Americans from the godless Communists who were our nemesis.  These words had already appeared on coinage since the 1860’s, but now our paper money likewise proclaimed, “In God We Trust”.  But for many in American society, I wonder whether these words speak the truth.  Is it true that, for all Americans, “In God We Trust”.  There are many whose Sunday religious professions uphold these words, but whose lives on the other six days of the week speak of a slightly different commitment – “In gold we trust”.  One little letter.  So much difference.  Because, indeed, trust is the issue.  Do we trust in the care of a loving God?

I’m reminded of these words of Paul from Philippians:  “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”  And, indeed, Paul himself was only emulating example of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As Paul writes, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, 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 death, even death on a cross.”  If Christ was willing not to grasp and hold tight to his glory, but rather to empty himself for our salvation, we can act in a Christlike manner by letting loose of the death grip on our possessions.  In trusting God, not gold, we show that we are not possessed by our possessions.  May we at Emanuel Church not be like those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, but rather may we, like Paul, affirm the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord, in our gracious words and our generous acts.   Amen.

 

October 2012 Newsletter - Pastor's Message

 

“As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments….’  The man said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’  Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.  When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.  Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!.....It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ Peter said, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’”  Mark 10:17-19a, 20-23, 25,28-31

The “Occupy” movement added the phrase “the 99% and the 1%” to our vocabulary.  The phrase refers to the increasingly inequitable distribution of wealth in our country.  The “1%” are the very rich, that 1% of the population who are said to possess or control much of America’s wealth.   The large political donations of the wealthiest “1%” are used to persuade both political parties to serve the priorities of the “1%”.  The 99% are…..the rest of us.

In the Gospel passage above, Jesus is accosted by a member of the “1%” of his day.  “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” the man asks.  Jesus reminded the man of the commandments, which the man affirms he has kept faithfully from his youth.  Jesus tells the man, “You lack one thing; sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  As it turns out, it was not what the man lacked – apparently he lacked for very little - but what the man possessed, that was his problem. The rich young man saw eternal life as one more possession to be possessed, one more commodity to be purchased.  But following Jesus meant traveling light, and the man’s possessions and his concern for them would endlessly be getting in the way and slowing down their mission. Jesus gently, lovingly gives the man an ultimatum – “You can keep all that stuff, or you can follow me.  You can’t do both.”  And the man made his choice, a choice that revealed his true priorities.

Care for the poor and dispossessed and condemnation of extreme and unjust wealth are recurring themes throughout Scripture.  Those with land were told not to harvest every last piece of fruit or vegetable from their fields, but to leave some around the edges for the poor to glean (Leviticus 19:9-10).  In effect, the wealthy were commanded to provide a social safety net for those less fortunate. The prophets denounced those who “sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way….they lay themselves beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed (Amos 2:6-8).”  James, whose epistle we read in worship during September, writes, “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you…..The wages of your laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out!” (James 5:1,4)  According to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus not only taught, “Blessed are you who are poor” but “Woe to you who are rich.” (Luke 6:20, 24) And in the passage above, Jesus made it clear to the rich man that his personal piety and scrupulous religious observance would not save him.

By contrast, Jesus tells Peter, “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age.”  Jesus was building a new kind of community, the Reign of God, in which Jesus’ followers would act as brother and sister and mother and father and children to one another, sharing all that they possessed among one another.  In the spirit of the saying, “Mi casa es su casa” (my house is your house); the followers of Jesus shared their possessions – houses, fields – so that many houses and many fields were available to all members of the community. Paradoxically, in the reign of God, if we grasp tightly to what we consider ours, we lose it and it helps no one; if we open our hands and share what is ours with others, blessings are multiplied, for others and for ourselves.  May Emanuel Church be a place where the lonely can find mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and children aplenty; a community of open hands and open hearts.

See you in church –

Pastor Dave

Sanctuary

 

(Scriptures:       Esther 7:1-10, 9:20-22; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50)

Many of you likely have either read Victor Hugo’s book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or seen one of its movie adaptations, perhaps the old black and white version with Charles Laughton in the title role.  The horribly deformed title character, Quasimodo, with very few exceptions spends his life within the walls of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, rarely venturing beyond the walls of the cathedral, until he falls in love with the beauty of the Gypsy girl Esmerelda.  At a climactic scene, when Esmerelda is threatened with execution, Quasimodo swoops in as her protector, rescues her and carries her into the church, crying “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”  For it was the law of the time that even fugitives from the law could seek sanctuary in a house of worship, and their right to safety within the walls of the church was recognized.  This tradition goes back even further, to the book of Numbers, 35^th chapter, when the Levites were commanded to establish six cities of refuge, where even a murderer could flee to safety.  Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that Cain, the first murderer in the Bible, is also said to have established the first city, Enoch, named after his son.  Whether it was a city of refuge, we are not told, though Cain himself was marked in such a way that he would remain unharmed.

The book of Esther, from which our Old Testament reading is taken, is an unusual book in the Bible, for several reasons.   First, it’s one of very few – Ruth is the only other one that comes to my mind, and there’s also the book of Judith in the apocrypha – that’s named for a woman.  In a patriarchal culture, for a sacred text to be named after a woman, for a woman to play a leading role in part of the drama of salvation, is a rare occurrence.  It’s also notable that in the book of Esther, the God of Israel is never explicitly mentioned.  The book was written during the time of the exile, and perhaps the writer thought it prudent to keep his theology between the lines of the book, rather than stating it explicitly.  And yet divine providence, and divine care for the chosen people, even when in exile, runs between every line of the book. 

For those who aren’t familiar with the book of Esther – which is likely most of us – here’s the Cliff Notes version, and I’ll be leaving out quite a bit of good reading, so I’d encourage you to read the whole book; it’s not that long, only 10 chapters, and chapter 10 is only about a paragraph long.  But anyway, here’s the Cliff Notes:  We’re told that King Ahasuerus, king of the Persian empire, rules all the area between India and Ethiopia, and is fabulously rich.  He gives a fabulous banquet for all his officials, and after he’s had a few cups of wine too many, he commands his wife, Vashti, to “display her beauty” – i.e. make a spectacle of herself – in front of all the kings officials.  The queen refuses, creating a national crisis – for, as the king’s rather overreactive officials warn, if the Queen Vashti gets away with disobeying the king, it’ll set a bad example and housewives everywhere will disobey their husbands.  So Vashti is sent packing, and peace is restored.

Except that the king misses Vashti, and is lonely.  The king’s officials – the ones who created the problem in the first place by sending Vashti away – convinced the king to hold a sort of royal beauty contest, with the prize, essentially, to be….the king. (Oh goody!) Esther is a Jewish exile, watched over by her uncle Mordecai.  Esther’s beauty attracts notice, and she is brought before the king along with many other beautiful women. Mordecai, her uncle, had counseled her not to tell the king she was Jewish.  Esther proves to be the fairest of them all, and is made queen.  Mordecai later falls foul of one of the king’s officials, Haman, and Haman reacts by plotting the death, not only of Haman, but of all the Jewish people.  Haman tells the king that the Jews, while living in the king’s empire, had different customs from others of the king’s subjects, and did not obey the king’s laws – and the king gives Haman permission to do what he wants.  (One of the secondary themes of the story of Esther, and the source of much of its humor, is that the king and his advisors come across as a bunch of buffoons, wildly overreacting at the slightest provocation.)  Mordecai catches wind of the plot and implores Esther to go to the king, saying, in one of the few indirect references to God in the book:  “If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish.  Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such as time as this.”  Esther foils the plot by going to the king, revealing that she herself is a Jew, and revealing Haman’s treachery.  The king orders Haman’s execution, and grants sanctuary to the Jewish exiles living in his kingdom.  This story forms the basis for the Jewish festival of Purim, which is still celebrated to this day.  This festival fits the explanation I was once told for the meaning of Jewish festivals:  (1) They tried to kill us; (2) We won; (3) Let’s eat!

When we as present-day readers encounter the book of Esther, the story has a feeling of “once upon a time….” – something that happened long ago and far away, not relevant to our lives.  And yet, beyond the specifics of the story, the broader themes – God’s people living in exile among those of differing beliefs, wicked people in high places spreading lies and slander about a vulnerable minority, the needs of vulnerable minorities for safe space and supportive allies – are very much with us today.  In some cases, the Jews are still the subject of slander – on some disreputable corners of the internet, you can still find stories blaming everything that’s wrong with the world on conspiracies involving the Jews – or perhaps specific Jewish families such as the Rothschilds – along with the Pope and Vatican hierarchy, the Freemasons, the Trilateral Commission, and all manner of other groups who, in real life, would likely never be found in the same room together. 

But even those who don’t go in for elaborate conspiracy theories can give in to plain old fashioned bigotry.   We remember that Jews were not the only folks persecuted by Hitler – communists, socialists, members of trade unions, gypsies, gay men and lesbians, Jehovah’s witnesses, and a variety of other disfavored groups were persecuted, arrested, killed – including German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so Christians were not safe either.   You may remember the words of Pastor Martin Neimoller:

            First they came for the communists,

            and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

            Then they came for the socialists,

            and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

            Then they came for the trade unionists,
            and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

            Then they came for me,
            and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are many today who would rattle off a similar list of folks to blame for the problems of today’s world, adding racial and ethnic minorities, Muslims, and immigrants to the top of the list.  For politicians seeking election or re-election, rattling off a list of all the world’s problems and blaming them on some disfavored group – pointing the finger and saying, “It’s all their fault!” - is an easy way to get supporters to the polls.  And Christians – good church folk – can get caught up in this sort of thinking as well.

For Quasimodo as he sought to save Esmerelda, the cathedral was a place of sanctuary.  And the church today is called to be sanctuary, safe space, as well.  Indeed, our worship space is called “the sanctuary”  Some churches refer to it as the “nave”, which comes from the same word from which we get the word navy – and the church has often been compared to Noah’s ark, a place of safety for all kinds of critters amid the world’s storm and tempest.  The emphasis of the United Church of Christ on inclusion – various resolutions of the national setting of the church have urged local congregations to be united and uniting, working for justice and peace, a church that is multi-racial/multicultural, open and affirming to sexual minorities, and accessible to all, including persons with physical and mental challenges – these commitments are often criticized by outsiders as political correctness, but really it’s about calling the church to act like the church – which, among other things, means offering safe space in the name of Jesus Christ for all sorts and conditions of persons – sort of like Noah herding two of every critter into the ark.  Some churches – United Church of Christ and others – have made a very strong commitment to providing sanctuary to undocumented aliens, thus living out the command from God to the ancient Israelites to care for the stranger and alien, for the chosen people themselves had once been aliens enslaved in a strange land.  In the 1980’s, churches in the Sanctuary Movement provided safe havens for refugees from war-torn Central America.  Today, churches in the New Sanctuary Movement provide shelter and advocacy for undocumented aliens and their families threatened with deportation.

Our congregation may or may not feel a call to get involved in various sanctuary movements – though if we do have anything in abundance to offer, it’s meeting space.  But never doubt that God can bring great things out of small congregations like ours.  When I was in Cuba, one of the churches I visited was the First Baptist Church of Matanzas.  The church dates from 1899, and worships in a large building, constructed long before the Castro Revolution.  Currently it’s a sort of sanctuary for artists and creative folk of many types – in fact, First Baptist is where I purchased the small crosses that some of you got, along with the large banner on our lectern.  But First Baptist wasn’t always such a thriving place.  Immediately after the triumph of the Castro revolution, many pastors fled for America, leaving their flocks behind with no one to lead them.  The Castro government in those early years could be quite hostile to the churches, though they later became more open to working with churches rather than against them.  We were told that during those very difficult early years, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Matanzas, like many pastors, had fled for America.  The congregation had dwindled to a little group of six or seven women, all middle-aged or older.  Since there was no pastor, there were no sermons and no sacraments.  But the women continued to meet together, to sing the hymns they remembered and to pray.  They met together and did this Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month, for years on end, until decades later, at long last conditions gradually became more favorable for the churches.  We’re talking about a period from the early 1960’s to the late 1980’s.  And this little cluster of women kept First Baptist open. For this little cluster of women, First Baptist church was a sanctuary from the revolution going on outside.  And because of the faithful persistence of this little group of women, the church was kept open and is now a flourishing, lively sanctuary for a new generation of worshippers creating beautiful works of art like this banner – and in the process, discovering anew what it is to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

“Lord prepare us to be a sanctuary….”  May Emanuel Church be a place of sanctuary and safety, as we remember the sanctuary that God has provided to us through Jesus Christ, who at the cross created a place of sanctuary for us, who goes to prepare a place of sanctuary for us, so that where he is, we may be also.  Lord, prepare us to be a sanctuary for all who come seeking you.  In Jesus’ name, may it be so. Amen.

 

Welcoming Jesus (A 151st Anniversary Sermon)

 

(Scriptures:  Psalm 103; James 3:13-18; Mark 9:30-37)

 

Well, first of all, let me begin by saying happy 151^st anniversary, Emanuel Church!  One of our windows shows Jesus welcoming the little children. That window was presented by George and Katherine Pfirmann.  While today’s Gospel reading is not the one that inspired this window – you’ll be hearing that reading from Mark’s Gospel in a couple weeks, with the well-known words “suffer the little children to come unto me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven”– the window fits the theme of today’s reading as well.  I also think that window says something about who this congregation has been – we’ve been a place where children are welcome.

In today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel, the disciples weren’t thinking about children – in fact, mostly, they were thinking of themselves, not an unusual circumstance.  Peter, James, and John had just watched Jesus’ transfiguration up on the mountain, when they caught a glimpse of his glory.  Back down in the valley, they had just watched Jesus cast a demon out of a young boy.   Now Jesus had just been teaching the disciples that he would be betrayed, and suffer, and be killed, and rise again on the third day. We’re told that, after they arrived at Capernaum, Jesus asks what the disciples had been arguing about on the road, and the disciples, who had been quite chatty to this point, go silent – full stop.  At the same time Jesus had been talking about his upcoming suffering, the disciples were dreaming of their own upcoming glory.  Clearly they hadn’t heard a word Jesus had been saying, or if they heard, nothing had sunk in.

Jesus recognizes a teaching moment when he sees it, and so he sits the disciples down and tells them, whoever among you would be the first of all must be the last of all and the servant of all.  And then Jesus gives them a mental picture to put with his words – a little child, with the words, “whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the One who sent me.”  It’s a sweet picture – certainly we get warm fuzzies looking at our stained glass window showing Jesus with the children, but what we may miss is that in the society of Jesus’ time, in a society in which status and power and honor were much sought after, children were the lowest status members of the household, considered entirely expendable.  There was no ethic of saving “women and children first” in that culture - after all, it was routine and even expected that not all children would live to adulthood.  So in this teaching Jesus was, once again, turning the priorities of his society upside down, putting the highest value on those whom the surrounding society valued least.

I think that at least part of this teaching has gotten through to our society.  Our society is much more protective of children than that of Jesus’ day.  If you don’t believe that, try passing a school bus with its flashers on while school children are boarding – it’s a major traffic offense.  When a child boards a school bus, all traffic comes to a halt.  And rightly so.

This teaching – “whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me” - also motivated early pastor Emanuel Boehringer, who was not content to wring his hands at the number of children orphaned by the Civil War, but felt compelled to do something to make things better for them.  Caroline Engel was the first of many children welcomed by the Rev. Boehringer and his wife.  When they welcomed Caroline Engel, they welcomed Jesus himself, and when they welcomed Jesus himself, they welcomed the God who sent Jesus.  Almost 150 years later, Bethany Children’s Home is still providing safe space for at-risk children, and welcoming children in Christ’s name.

Over the past 150 or so years, Emanuel Church has seen our membership grow from a nucleus of 34 founding members.  Over those 150 years we’ve welcomed many children – I remember all those many, many confirmation photos – your confirmation photos - over our church’s history, that were shown at our 150^th anniversary last year, with a recording of Florence Werner’s organ music in the background.  For many years, we also had a flourishing Girl Scout program, and the Girl Scouts still hold training sessions here from time to time.  Now we’ve returned to roughly that same number we started with - we have maybe 30 on the membership rolls these days.   It’s been a few years since we’ve had a confirmation class – though I live in hope that I’ll see the day when we’ll once again be ordering curriculum and certificates for confirmation.  But, after a few dormant years, we have Sunday school again…..and so we’re still welcoming children in Christ’s name, even though these days, it’s mostly one or two at a time. 

Our congregation made its most public statement of welcome to children – and therefore of welcome to Jesus - not when the congregation was at its height, but early on, when membership totals were small and money was limited, when we’d just erected this building and were really just getting started.  And now we’ve come full circle – once again our membership totals are small and our finances are limited – so maybe it’s time once again to dream big, like this church’s founders and early pastors did. 

What are your dreams for Emanuel Church?  We can be proud of all we do to care for our graveyard, to honor our foremothers and forefathers, but Emanuel Church is more than a cemetery maintenance society with organ music.  Emanuel Church is not a museum to the past, but a living witness – a living witness - to the Risen Christ, where the fruits of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, and faithfulness – can be found in action.

What would Emanuel Boehringer do if he were pastor here today?  The American civil war is long over, but wars are raging in other places around the globe.  Many children are separated from their parents, not by the war, but by family strife, by alcohol and drug abuse, by an economy that forces both parents to work multiple jobs in order to feed, clothe, and shelter their families.  While we have outlawed child labor in the United States, children live in servitude in other places around the globe, and even in some of the offshore US territories such as the Marianas Islands which have been exempted from US laws prohibiting child labor.  Much closer to home, right here in Pennsylvania, our country’s continuing addiction to fossil fuels threatens the environment, as the process of extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation via hydrofracking has led to unnatural destruction of mountaintops and contamination of wells, aquifers, and municipal water sources, threatening not only natural habitats and home values, but health and life itself.  Right here in Philadelphia, our water supply may be threatened.  Not just parents, but all of us, have cause for concern – into what kind of world have we brought our children?  In what kind of world will our children growing up? What kind of world are we bequeathing our children?

Despite the looming threat of the Civil War, when it wasn’t immediately clear whether America would continue as one country or break into two, a little cluster of 3 dozen or so German Reformed immigrants, barely off the boat, trusted God sufficiently to establish this congregation, to call a pastor, acquire land, and erect this building.  In the midst of the Civil War, in 1863, when the fighting had drawn as close to home as Gettysburg, PA, Emanuel Boehringer and his wife trusted God enough to welcome Caroline Engel into their home, and to share with the congregation their vision for the Orphans Home of the Shepherd of the Lambs – which we now know as Bethany Children’s Home. 

So, in a world full of threats, God isn’t calling us here at Emanuel to solve all the world’s problems.  He’s calling us to welcome Caroline Engel – or Caroline’s sisters and brothers in our midst today.  And by welcoming them in the name of Christ, God is calling us to welcome Jesus.

How can we welcome Caroline Engel?  How can we welcome Jesus?  At the most basic level, we can welcome and be supportive of those families with young children who come our way, and invite others to be with us.   We can continue to support the food cupboard, so that families, with or without children, in our midst can eat. What else can we do to welcome Caroline Engel, to welcome Jesus? Could we host an afterschool program here, or a daycare?  That may be a little ambitious – but not beyond the reach of reality.  If any feel a call to be Girl Scout leaders, I can give you the email and phone number of our former Girl Scout leader – she said that if we could find some leaders, she could help us start up a Girl Scout troop again, and nothing would make me happier.  We could reach out to our local schools to see if some way we could partner with them.   Beyond donating to the food cupboard, we can get involved in neighborhood organizations – maybe the Bridesburg Boys and Girls Club – that improve the quality of life for children.  And as individuals, we can support policies that promote peace and put the long-term well-being of the environment – of the planet, of the world our children will inherit – ahead of short-sighted policies aimed at improving corporate bottom lines for the next quarter.

Then Jesus took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’  May Emanuel Church continue to be, as we have been for 151 years, a place where Caroline Engel and her sisters and brothers are welcome, where Jesus is welcome, and where we continue to welcome all who come our way in Jesus name.  Amen.

 

The Cost and Joy of Discipleship

(Scriptures:  Isaiah 50:4-9a;  James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38)

 

The importance of our personal identity has become one of the pressing issues of our day.  Protecting our identity – our social security number, our credit information – from those who would impersonate us to commit theft – has required increasing levels of vigilance.  We’re a long way from the days when we did most of our commerce on a local, face-to-face basis, in which we shopped on Main Street and we knew the shop owner and the shop owner knew us.  In a world where we can buy from and sell to people across the country and across the globe, the folks we deal with don’t know us as living, breathing human beings, but only as a credit card number and a shipping address, and perhaps a profile of shopping habits compiled from past transactions.  Given the recent passage of Pennsylvania’s voter-ID law, requiring photo ID in order to vote – widely seen as a partisan attempt to disenfranchise elderly and minority voters who may not have reason to carry a driver’s license or other photo ID – inability to prove one’s identity may become a barrier to voting for as many as 800,000 Pennsylvanians, many right here in Philadelphia.   And, in the eleven years since 9-11, we have read of increasing government surveillance of political activity, our emails and even our phone calls.  All of which is to say, lots of people want to know who we are, and with a variety of motives.

Today’s Gospel reading – which asks a number of questions about who Jesus is - marks a turning point in Mark’s Gospel.  Mark begins his Gospel with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God” – but from that point, his presentation of Jesus is almost like that of a detective novel, giving us clues and asking us to draw our own conclusions.  Up until this point, we’ve seen Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, his temptation in the wilderness, and his call of his disciples.  We’ve observed Jesus casting out demons, feeding the multitudes, teaching and healing.  We’ve watched Jesus deal with rejection from the religious authorities, questions from John’s disciples, and even misunderstanding from his own family.  All of which brings us to today’s reading, in which Jesus asks his followers to put together all that they’ve seen so far, and draw their own conclusions.  We’re told that they’re traveling toward Caesarea Philippi, which had been made a regional center of government by Philip the Tetrarch.  First he asks, “Who do the crowds say I am?”.  The crowds know Jesus only superficially, and their answers are superficial – John the Baptist come back to life, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.  Of course, the disciples would have much more personal day-to-day experience of Jesus, and so Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”   And Peter blurts you, “You are the Messiah.”

Great answer – so far as it went.  Unfortunately, the term “Messiah” came with a lot of baggage.  While different groups of Jews attached different types of baggage to the word “Messiah”, many expected that the Messiah would be a righteous political leader who would rescue Israel from all its enemies and restore independence.  Deuteronomy 18:15 quotes Moses as saying that God would raise up another prophet like Moses.  The book of Malachi ends with the words that before the great and terrible day of the Lord, God would send the prophet Elijah.  The crowd’s guesses as to Jesus’ identity didn’t come out of no-where - the word “Messiah” was weighed down with many expectations.

Perhaps the bottom line is that Peter expected that if Jesus is the Messiah, the road they travel with him would be a road to glory – especially since Jesus waited to start the conversation until the shining governmental buildings of Caesarea Philippi were nearby.  Sort of like our politics – if you’re a crony of the winning presidential or gubernatorial or mayoral candidate, you can expect to get a plum position in the winner’s administration.   Indeed, next week’s reading from Mark includes the argument among the disciples among who was the greatest, so it would appear that they were already lobbying for positions in Jesus’ cabinet. 

Jesus responds by throwing a huge bucket of cold water on all their aspirations to glory.  Mark tells us, “ Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”  Hey, Jesus, you’re going way off message with all this talk of suffering and death.  You’re probably just tired.  Maybe you should lay down and take a nap, and you’ll feel better when you wake up.  But Jesus responds sharply: “‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

And Jesus keeps tossing bucket after bucket of cold water on their hopes. Indeed, what the disciples had once hoped would be a victory lap was suddenly looking like a very hard slog indeed.   “‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^* will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words^* in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ 

These words of Jesus are an embarrassment to much of what goes on in many churches.  The question frequently comes up, “Why are the churches so empty.”  It’s a great question to consider - a question that may cut deeper than we realize.  When we ask the question, we’re asking why the churches are empty of worshippers, why so few come to fill the pews – but perhaps the reason they’re empty of people is they may be empty in other ways – empty of faith, empty of discipleship, empty of sacrifice, empty of cost.  Our society has turned church membership into just another consumer item.  There was once a time when the neighborhood church within walking distance of home was the only game in town, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time.  Church shoppers now have options.  They want a church with a large and expanding Sunday school program, a classically-trained choir – or maybe a praise band – or maybe multiple services with various musical options.  They want a pastor whose sermons meet them where they are every week – despite the reality of a congregation where various people are in all kinds of emotional spaces at any given time.  They want the church to offer professionally-trained counselors to get us through life’s rough spots.  And they’d certainly like a large, well-maintained building to impress our neighbors.  The more items a church can offer on its religious smorgasbord, the better – especially if the church has a large enough financial endowment that the members don’t have to kick in much.  (As a member of a prosperous church in the suburbs once told me, “Our dead members give more to the church than our living members.”)   If the church doesn’t cater to them sufficiently – or as they sometimes put it, “if we’re not being fed spiritually” – and especially if the pastor says something to ruffle feathers – church shoppers will pick up and move on to the next church.  Or they’ll stay home and turn on feel-good religious programming on the radio or the TV, where they’ll hear messages that comfort those who are entirely too comfortable with the status quo, and that afflict those who are already much afflicted at the hands of the powers that be.

Christian discipleship is not a spectator sport.   Going to church and praising God isn’t like going down to Citizens Bank park and cheering on the Phillies.  Hear again these words of Jesus: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Christian discipleship is not about shopping around for fulfillment, but for laying down our lives to follow God’s call to fulfill the needs of others; not about what we can get, but about what we give; not about what we keep, but about what we sacrifice – not only money, but time and talent as well.  Not for nothing did God in the Old Testament call for a tithe – 10% off the top, not from leftovers - to be offered to the Lord – a tithe, not a tip.  The prophet Malachi accused those who failed to tithe of robbing God.  In the book of Acts, we’re told that early Christians sold their lands and houses and laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles, to be shared by the church.   Certainly we have no millionaires here at Emanuel Church….but I think we all – myself very much included - can look at our discipleship – not only our giving, but our living, how we live our lives, how we use our time and talent as well as our treasure, in the light of the cross.  I’ll adapt the words of one of our former presidents, which some of you will remember:  “Ask not what your church can do for you, but what you can do for your church.” 

If all Jesus has to offer is an unending series of demands, why even listen to him, let alone follow him?  Why not look for an easier path through life?   As St. Augustine put it, “God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.”  There is a God-shaped void in each of us.  The paradox of Jesus’ words is that as long as we are wrapped up in ourselves – our wants, our needs, our comforts, or perhaps our egos, our need for recognition, our need to see our own name in print and hear the sound of our own voice – we will always have a vague sense that something is missing, will always find ourselves wanting something more.  Part of the process of forming a strong connection with other human beings is letting down our defenses and becoming vulnerable to them, being willing at times to let our wishes and our convenience take second place so that the other person’s needs are met.   Certainly those who are raising or have raised children know that with children come with endless demands on time and energy, and yet also comes a sense of fulfillment in bringing new life into the world and nurturing that life to adulthood..  In the same way, those who we find are on fire for God are those who have let down their defenses and opened up their hearts so that following God’s call is primary.  It’s about getting one’s self out of the way so that Christ can live in us.

The German pastor and 20^th century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book “The Cost of Discipleship”, offers this reflection on costly grace.

“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.  Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

And, finally, I’ll close with the familiar but life-changing words of the prayer of St. Francis, which show us how to respond to this costly grace:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

 

"Be Opened!"

(Scriptures:  Isaiah 35:4-7a;  James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37)

 

Many of you know that my mother and sister live in the Reading area.  As I drive north from Philadelphia to Reading on route 422, there’s a building with a sign that always catches my attention – “Mary Merritt’s Museum of Childhood.” That sign always makes me ponder, because the words “Childhood” and “Museum” seem to point in different directions.  A museum, of course, is where we go to see artifacts from our past, to remember where we’ve been.  On the other hand, when we are children, we have our whole lives ahead of us, with little memory of the past.  What would a “Museum of Childhood” look like.  I’ve never actually pulled over to see what’s inside - I think it might be a doll museum or some such – but as you can tell, that sign always starts my mind going.

Our “Blessing of the Backpacks” is a small way for our church to recognize and lift up those who have returned to classes this week.  We’re also reminded that our forebears in the faith valued education.  The book of Proverbs tells us “Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding.”  And so we are happy for those students, young and not-so-young, who seek to further their education, to open their minds to new wisdom and new understanding.

The writer of our brief reading from Isaiah spoke words of encouragement to a people who were under threat of conquest by the Assyrians.  Isaiah points past the present danger to speak of better days to come, a time when “the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, when the lame will leap and the speechless sing for joy.”  We see these verses come to life in Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man who was brought to Jesus for healing.  Jesus speaks the Aramaic word “Ephphatha” – in English, “be opened” – and we’re told his ears were opened, his tongue released, and he spoke plainly.  Those who witnessed the healing said, “He has done all things well, he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

“Ephphatha - Be opened!”  These words are likewise our prayer for those students, young and not so young, returning to class.  “Be opened” – opened to new learning, to new insights, to new ways of seeing the world, new ways of hearing what our neighbors have to tell us – and new ways to proclaim this new knowledge in word and deed.

“Ephphatha - Be opened!”  I believe these are also Jesus’ prayer for us in the church.  On one hand, for our children attending public or private school, we want them to have the most modern facilities, the most up-to-date textbooks, and shiny new sports equipment.  If at school, our children were taught geography from an old, threadbare textbook that said that America had 48 states, and showed the countries of Africa with the names they carried when they were colonies of Great Britain and France and such, parents would be outraged. . On the other hand, in many churches, “newness” of any kind – new hymns, new insights from Scripture, new ways of worshipping – are sometimes greeted with ambivalence.  I’m grateful that at Emanuel, while we definitely treasure our history, those holy moments where God has met us in the past, you’ve also been willing to try some new things.  For God does not call on us to be curators, but explorers.  We may remember that the name of God given to Moses – which in English we may say as “Jehovah” – is usually translated in our Bibles as “I am who I am”, it also means “I will be who I will be.” 

God offers us continuity with the past along with newness in the future – not one or the other, but both.  On one hand, did not Jesus say, “Let the little children come unto me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven”, and in another place, “those who will not receive the reign of God as a child will never enter it.”  And the writer of I Peter asked his readers to crave pure spiritual milk, like newborn babies.   On the other hand, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”  And the writer of Hebrews implored his readers to move beyond the stage of needing nourishment from spiritual milk, and to move on to spiritual meat.  And Jesus himself called on his hearers, not to try to fit the new wine of his teachings into the old wineskins of longstanding tradition, but to use new wineskins to contain the new wine.  God is gracious to meet us wherever we are – be it ever so humble – but God will not leave us there.  This is not to say that we should go along with every new spiritual fad to come down the pike.  We need to use discernment.  As I John 4 says, “Dear friends, do not receive every spirit, but test the spirits, to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  So on one hand, we as Christians can’t live with our eyes closed and our hands over our ears to block out all new information; on the other hand, we need to engage in discernment over new teachings, to see if they’re consistent with our basic understanding of God, or, perhaps, the new insights are so compelling that they call into question our theological framework.   Sort of like Paul, who before his conversion had his faith all figured out – until God knocked him off his horse with a vision of the risen Christ.

We in the church are called to be lifelong learners.  We here at Emanuel experience some of that through our Bible study which we hold after church.  On the other hand, often our most memorable learning experiences come, not through texts and lectures, but through the people we meet – new visitors, former members returning to active participation.  And, in fact, today’s Gospel reading carries a story in which it seemed even Jesus seems to have experienced a learning moment in his encounter with a Syro-Phoenecian woman – a Gentile, we’re told, an outsider to Jesus’ community.   Mark’s Gospel gives us a very human portrait of Jesus, and this encounter is a very human moment.  We’re told that Jesus tried to keep his presence a secret – it sounds like perhaps he was tired and needed some "down time" – but a woman outside his community knocks on the door and begs for healing for her daughter.  Like we may do sometimes when we’re tired and don’t want to be disturbed, Jesus apparently tries to brush her off with a really insensitive comment about keeping bread for the children and not throwing it to the dogs – basically saying that his primary focus is on bringing good news to the Jews, not to every Gentile who happens to knock on the door.  And yet the woman pushes right back, saying that the dogs eat the crumbs that the children drop, basically saying she’s willing to be content with table scraps, so long as her daughter is cured.  And Jesus recognizes that in her desperation the woman has shown great faith, and cures the woman’s daughter – and in so doing perhaps gained a larger picture of what God was calling on him to do, that the grace he was bringing was not just for his own community, but for all.  It’s interesting that Mark set the story of Jesus becoming open to the plea of the Syro-Phoenecian woman next to the story in which he used the words “Be opened” to restore a man’s hearing and speech.

Our reading from the book of James reminds us in very stark terms that, in the church, we are likewise called to show hospitality to all, also, in its own way, calls on us to “be opened.”  A few years ago, the national offices of the United Church of Christ put together an ad campaign to highlight the importance of welcoming and including of all sorts of people.  It began with a picture of an imposing, tall steeple church with a velvet rope and a couple of bouncers outside, such as you’d find at an exclusive nightclub.  There was a line, and the bouncers were choosing who could enter, and more importantly, who could not.  A white, middle-class couple with children got right in, no questions.  Others – someone of middle-eastern descent, a gay couple, possibly a girl on crutches – it’s been a few years and I can’t totally remember the ad – but anyway, the more motley of the folks in the line were refused entrance.  Of course, the point of the ads is that churches are not like an exclusive nightclub, and we’re supposed to be welcoming to all. 

While the scenario in the ads may seem a little outlandish, the ads were really just elaborations of the scenario set up by James in our scripture reading today:  a rich person with all the bling walks into worship, and the ushers fall all over themselves catering to that person, while a poor person walks in and is all but ignored, certainly not made to feel welcome.  James reminds us that God does not see as we do, that the poor person in his story is rich in faith before God, and that our gatherings must be open to all who come our way.

Jesus said to the man in search of healing, “Ephphatha – Be opened.”  May God open our eyes to the vision of the reign of God to which we are called, open our ears to the cries of need in our community.  And may God loose our tongues so we can praise God’s name and proclaim good news to all who come our way.  Amen.