A Controversial Cure

Scriptures:       Isaiah 58:9b-14   Psalm 71:1-6         Hebrews 12:18-29        Luke 12:49-56, Luke 13:10-17

At my day job, people are constantly bringing in food – bagels, donuts, cake, you name it.  Some days it feels like we go there to eat, and try to fit in work between snacks.  It explains a few things why I buy my shirts in Omar the Tentmaker size.  One former co-worker in particular – she found another position a year or so ago – was always bringing in something to eat.  Often it was Girl Scout cookies – her daughter was in Girl Scouts, and so this co-worker would pull up to the building with what seemed like a U-Haul full of boxes of S’mores and Samoas and Thin Mints and Thanks-A-Lots, and of course if you didn’t buy a box or several boxes, you felt like a jerk.  But every now and then she’d bring in a box of crackers and a plate of wasabi.  Has anyone here eaten wasabi?  For those who haven’t, it’s green, and probably the closest thing I can compare the taste to might be horseradish mixed with jalapeno peppers – but spicier.  Much spicier. At least ten times spicier.  The first time she brought in wasabi and crackers, I had no idea what wasabi tasted like, and so I got a cracker and I looked at the wasabi…..well, it was green, I thought how strong could it be?….so I slathered it on my cracker, and took a great big bite.  And for a second or two, I tasted it, and I thought, well, this tastes odd; I’m not sure whether I like it or not….and then my mouth practically caught fire and I went lunging for the water fountain, almost knocking an older coworker to the floor in the process! My mouth was burning….my eyes were watering….my nose was running……and my mind is just going “this hurts, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop….”  I learned quickly that, when it comes to wasabi, a little goes a really long way.  It’s hard to be neutral about wasabi; you either love it or you hate it.   I count myself in the latter category….if someone ever starts a club for Wasabi Haters of America, sign me up!  On future occasions when my coworker brought in her crackers and wasabi and my coworkers were gathered around scarfing it down, I was perfectly happy sticking to something safe like cheese spread, thank you very much.  And now this coworker works elsewhere, and is inflicting her vile wasabi concoction on a whole new batch of coworkers.  Lucky them.

For today’s service I decided to include both the reading that was supposed to be for last week’s service along with the reading for today’s service.  Because of the baptism last week over at the Presbyterian church, I didn’t think the Baby Christopher’s parents and extended family from Costa Rico wanted to hear about Jesus’ coming to set the earth on fire and coming basically to stir up trouble....it’s one of those “hard sayings” of Jesus that just doesn’t sit well with our ideas of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”   But I felt it was too important to ignore, so we heard it today – especially since it goes so well with the text for today, about Jesus healing the bent-over woman, and the controversy that ensued.

“I have come to set fire to the earth…I have come to bring, not peace, but rather division!”  I don’t think Jesus necessarily wanted to cause division.  But, unlike our politicians, who are trained to stay on message and won’t open their mouths without commissioning a poll and a focus group first – Jesus was real, authentic, vivid, intense even, called things as he saw them, often said things that offended people in power, and was willing to catch flack for it.  Maybe the message of Jesus was like wasabi in a culture that was used to religious leaders whose words were like the taste of mayonnaise or maybe Velveeta if they were really feeling adventurous.   The message of Jesus for them, like the taste of wasabi for me, was way outside their comfort zones, or even their zones of tolerable discomfort.  Jesus’ listeners either loved what he had to say, or hated it.  And so those who “got” what Jesus was saying hung on his every word, while those who didn’t went running for the exits, like I went lunging for the water fountain after my wasabi misadventure.

In his healing of the bent-over woman, we see what Jesus meant about causing division.  We’re told that Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. As he was teaching, in walked a woman with a spirit that had kept her bent over for eighteen years.  When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  Jesus laid his hands on her, and then she stood up straight – for the first time in 18 years, remember - and began praising God!  And you’d think everyone there would have praised God as well, and you’d be wrong.  The synagogue leader freaked out and said, “There are six days on which work can be done; come back and be cured on one of those days, and not on the Sabbath day.”  So instead of being happy that the woman was cured, the synagogue leader was furious, livid, because the woman was cured on what he considered to be the wrong day.  And Jesus basically called BS on the synagogue leader, saying, “You hypocrite!  Do you force your animals to go without food and water so that you can avoid working on the Sabbath, or do you untie them and lead them to food and water on the Sabbath? Of course you untie them and lead them to food and water on the Sabbath.  And shouldn’t this woman, this daughter of Abraham, this member of your community, whom Satan had kept tied up for eighteen years, be set free on the Sabbath?”  The synagogue leader was put to shame, and the crowd rejoiced. 

The woman was bent over for eighteen years.  Think of what that would have meant, living like that.  It’s hard to walk when you’re bent over.  It’s hard to carry anything bent over, because you’re always off balance.  It’s hard even to breathe when you’re bent over – you can’t really fill your lungs all the way with air when you’re bent over - which makes walking distances even harder.  Your back hurts all the time.   It would be a major struggle to turn your head enough to see the sun or the sky.  Mostly what you see is your own shoes, and the ground for a few feet in front of you.   For eighteen years, this woman’s field of vision was mostly restricted to her shoes and the ground for a few feet in front of her.  We here at Emanuel know of Alyssa’s struggle with scoliosis, and all that Alyssa’s family has done and is doing and will be doing to save Alyssa from ending up like this bent over woman in our gospel reading – and we need to support Alyssa and her family in this struggle.

The woman had a spirit that kept her bent over for eighteen years.  There are many people, and maybe some of us, whose spirits are bent over, even if their bodies – our bodies - can walk straight.  If we’re bent over, it’s hard to see the sun.  If we’re bent over, it’s nearly impossible to reach for the stars.  Instead, all we see is our immediate surroundings, what’s right in front of us.  Circumstances can, if we let them, take away our hopes for anything better.    We stop dreaming, and start settling.  And, like the synagogue leader, there are people in power who are perfectly happy for us to stay bent over, to live our whole lives bent over, like the verse in the carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Remember the words?  “O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow.”   We’re no threat to their power if we’re bent over in our own struggles.  But if we “Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing” – or, having looked and listened and rested, we can stand up straight and look the powers that be in the eye...well, that might force change.  What would it look like for Christ to heal our bent-over spirits?  What would it look like to be released from that bondage?

Not only people, but whole neighborhoods, whole communities living in poverty and stress and fear can have bent-over spirits.  Churches can have bent-over spirits.  Pastors can have bent-over spirits. It might be that this church and this pastor live with a bent-over spirit, finding it hard to move, hard to breathe, finding it less exhausting to stay in one place.  It may be that we at Emanuel Church – including me - need to stop settling, and start dreaming again.  As the little photo in the bulletin says, “Too many churches die of small thinking.” What would it look like not to be focused just on the ground in front of us – not just focused on hobbling through to the next Sunday, hobbling through the next grass cutting or repair bill, through the next season, to the next auction – and start reaching for the stars again, as those who started this church did?  What would it look like to be setting Bridesburg on fire for Jesus, as the founders of this church did?  Some of you were here two weeks ago when Harry ____ a long-ago member connected somehow with the _______ family, now living in Florida, stopped by to see the church and the cemetery just as worship was ending.  And I talked to him, and I know some of you did as well.  And he was telling me about the days he remembered, when this place used to have over 200 people here on a Sunday morning, when you had to get here early even to get a seat up in the balcony.  I honestly can’t even imagine what that would look like.  Shame on me for my lack of ability to imagine such a thing.

One thing that’s different.  Back in the ‘50’s, going to church was the culturally accepted thing to do – especially with blue laws keeping everything else closed on Sunday – and so if a church opened its doors and led a reasonably engaging worship service, folks showed up.  Nowadays, the culture won’t bring people here – indeed, the wider culture offers a hundred competing priorities every Sunday morning - so we need to go out there, out of this building, into the neighborhood.  We need to hit the streets.  Yesterday I was at a workshop by the Conference on Building Stronger Churches.  A few highlights from what I wrote down:  they started with the story in the book of Acts of the coming of the Holy Spirit – remember? people from all over everywhere in Jerusalem in one place, and the Spirit coming, and people understanding the word in their own language – and some hecklers saying they were drunk – and Peter speaking up to interpret what had just happened.  Three thousand were added to the Lord that day.  And then they didn’t just huddle together, but instead went out, back to their communities.  At the workshop we were asked questions like, “Who is in your community?  What problems do they have?  What can your church do to help with those problems? What neighborhood needs can your church meet?”  And here’s a really challenging question, a really painful question: “If your church closed tomorrow, would anyone in your neighborhood notice?”  Ouch!  Kind of like a church version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”…. In the movie, what would Bedford Falls have been like if George Bailey had never been born?  The question for us is, “If  Emanuel Church closed its doors, would Bridesburg be any different?”  I’m seriously asking you to consider these questions on your own, to discuss amongst yourselves.  What is God calling us to be? What need is God calling us to fill?  What difference are we making? What difference do we have the potential to make?

I pass all this along, actually not to be a downer, but instead to liberate us, to ask us to consider what it might be like as a congregation not only to stand up straight, but to reach for the stars, to dream big dreams for God, and then work to make those dreams realities.  Yes, the week-to-week nuts and bolts have to be taken care of, but we also need to ask God to help us dream – to quote from Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  We need a vision. Visions and dreams need to be part of the nuts and bolts of running this church. We won’t make it if we’re bent over and just staring at the ground in front of our shoes.  Churches die of small thinking.  We need to stand tall, and stretch, and ask God to help us reach for the stars.  And yes, standing tall and reaching for the stars could not only shake us up, but could shake up the neighborhood.  Our neighbors are used to an Emanuel Church that’s struggling to keep the lights on and the doors open on Sunday morning.  How would they respond to an Emanuel Church drawing so many people that there’s no parking, so many people that there are programs going on here seven days a week and the church doors open for people to come and go every day of the week.

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  Where we’re used to being mayonnaise, God is calling us to be wasabi!  “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’  Ought not this neighborhood, ought not this church, be set free to stand tall, and stretch, and dream?  May God grant, as on the day of Pentecost, for our young men and women to see visions and our old men and women to dream dreams, so that all who call upon the name of the Lord here in Bridesburg and beyond may be saved. Amen.

Water and Spirit (A Baptism Sermon)

Scriptures: Psalm 91, Hebrews 11:29-12:2, Luke 18:15-17

Today we gather for the baptism of Baby Christopher !  What a wonderful day, with a baby being born of water and of the spirit.  As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 6: 

“How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

The First letter of Peter gives us a different image, that of Noah’s ark:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

And so, in baptism our sinful nature is put to death in the waters of baptism, and we come out of the water with the new life in Christ, filled with the Spirit.   This is the promise.  And then we spend the rest of our lives living into this promise.  And we baptize not only adults, but children, because Jesus welcomed the little children, and in the early church, when the head of the household became a Christian, the whole rest of the household was baptized as well, regardless of age.

When Baby Christopher is baptized, he becomes part of larger family, the family of the faithful of all who have followed God through the ages.  This family of faith extends not only around the globe, but through time as well, past, present, and future.  Our reading from Hebrews reminds us of other members of this family, and what they did:

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets - who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Our reading also reminds us that faithful living can come at a high price:

Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented - of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

These are our ancestors in the family of faith that Baby Christopher will be joining through his baptism. When we read these words, we might have second thoughts:  This family sounds scary!  Is this a family that we want Baby Christopher to be a part?  Do we really want to go through with this?  And yet, paradoxically, our faith tells us that the safest place we can be is under God’s care.  Our reading from Psalm 91 tells us of God’s care for those who love him:

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,  who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress;  my God, in whom I trust.’
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler  and from the deadly pestilence;
he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge;
   his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. 
You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day,
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday.

And later on in the Psalm:

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling-place,
no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.

These are beautiful words.  We read these words, and if we read them only on the surface, we may think that because we are Christians, nothing bad will happen to us.  And yet we know that bad things happen to Christians just as they happen to anyone else.  We know that as Baby Christopher goes through infancy and childhood, makes his way through his teen years, grows into an adult, perhaps starts a family of his own, he will face his own share of troubles.  Christians, as much as anyone else, are victims of crime, are involved in car accidents, have family struggles, deal with physical and mental illness, and die.  Many Christians aren’t given a long life on this earth.  And in addition to these struggles that everyone deals with, living according to the gospel may bring additional opposition, as our reading from Hebrews reminds us. So we read these words, and we may ask – where was God when our ancestors in faith were mocked, and flogged, and put in chains, and imprisoned, and stoned and – good heavens, sawn in two - killed by the sword and all the rest? Where was God’s protection?

We often ask, “Why does God let so many bad things happen?”  But maybe that’s the wrong question.  Our ancestors in the faith knew perfectly well that bad things happened. They took for granted that life involved suffering.  But they trusted that when bad things happened, God was with them, so that they were not suffering alone – and, even more importantly, that God would bring them through their suffering – that even if their path led to death, God would not abandon them even in death.  We know from our experience that it’s one thing to struggle through hard times, and a much more difficult thing to struggle through hard times alone.  We can get through the worst of times if we know our family and friends have our back – we know our family and friends can’t fix everything for us, but just knowing they care means the world.  How much more when God promises to have our back!  The Psalm uses phrases like “you need not fear the terror of the night or the arrow that flies by day”  It doesn’t say there will be no terrors or arrows, but rather that we don’t need to fear them.  The Psalmist uses poetic language, and we don’t want to take it literally – in fact, one of the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness was precisely to take literally the language about “angels bearing you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone” by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple.  And this was a temptation Jesus rejected.  Jesus, more than anyone before him or after him, trusted in God’s protection, but Jesus also knew the difference between faith and magical thinking – and Jesus rejected magical thinking. Perhaps the bottom line is near the end of the Psalm, when it says, “Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue and honor them.”   Let me repeat that one phrase:  I will be with them in trouble.  There will be trouble, and I will be with them in the midst of it.  We are assured that though we may face trouble, may face threats, may face really scary times, we don’t face them alone; we’re assured that when we go through troubled times, God is right there with us, that God will never leave us nor forsake us.  And throughout Baby Christopher’s life, though he will surely face his share of the same troubles we all face, God will be with him.  That’s God’s promise, to Baby Christopher and to us all.

So, welcome Baby Christopher into the family of God’s people! Welcome into the family of faith here at our church!  It’s a family that’s been around a long time, but has been waiting all these years just to welcome you.   May God’s spirit be with you and may God’s love surround you all the days of your life.  Amen.

How Long? (Pastor's message for July 2016 newsletter)

Dear Emanuel Members and Friends –

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,   and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted. (Habakkuk 1:2-4)

Habakkuk’s complaint to God about the breakdown of his society may sound strangely familiar.  Destruction, violence, strife and contention are our daily news headlines.  It seems that scarcely a week goes by without yet another mass shooting here at home or terrorist incident overseas.  It seems increasingly we are governed by coin-operated legislators and asked to choose between coin-operated political candidates – and as a cynical parody of the “golden rule” states, “those who have the gold make the rules”.  As Habakkuk wrote, “the law becomes slack and justice never prevails” and “judgment comes forth perverted”. 

As Christians, how do we respond?  We need to begin by recognizing that as Christians, our primary allegiance is to God as revealed in Christ Jesus – not to a candidate, not to a political party, not to the NRA or the ACLU or to any other interest group within society.  Indeed, our allegiance to God even transcends national boundaries.  As the old song goes, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”

Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,  and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because they 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;
father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down 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)

They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,  but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,  but you shall not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.  (Amos 5:10-12)

The prophets are commonly thought to have predicted events hundreds or thousands of years in the future – but this is a misunderstanding of their mission.  Biblical prophets such as Habakkuk and Amos were not fortune-tellers, but instead were like physicians, accurately diagnosing the evils of their society and making a prognosis of the harm that would come to society in the future if society didn’t change – just as a doctor might tell a patient that if he or she continues to smoke three packs a day, sooner or later he or she is likely to get lung cancer.   Unmasking the evils in society that those in power tried to hide, naming the elephants in the room that those in power preferred to leave unmentioned – this was the mission of the prophets.  For example, the writings of Amos, Isaiah, and other Old Testament prophets, along with the teachings of Jesus, make it clear that God is greatly displeased by vast gulf between the fantastically wealthy and the indigent poor.  Following the example of the prophets, we as Christians should not ignore the evils of our day, but be willing to speak up for what is right, even if it costs us to do so. 

“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love….So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. (Ephesians 4:14-16, 25)

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

But before we speak, we need to know what we’re talking about.  Political leaders often gain votes by telling half-truths, if not outright lies.  Radio, TV, and cable commentators gain listeners by stirring up emotions, seeking to inflame rather than inform.   Speeches at political conventions often give off more heat than light.  Anyone with a grudge or an agenda and some minimal talent in the use of Photoshop can create a misleading photo or Facebook meme – and social media makes it possible for such misinformation to circulate instantaneously, so that, as the saying goes, “a lie can make its way halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its shoes on.”  Even if (especially if) the claims of candidates, commentators, and social media postings mesh with our preconceived notions and prejudices (we all have them), it’s important to verify their truth or falsehood before passing them on.  Websites such as Snopes.com and Factcheck.org, while not infallible, can be helpful in sifting falsehood from truth.  God is not honored by the circulation of half-truths and lies, even if done with the best of intentions.  Before we forward that political email from a friend of a friend or share that meme from Facebook, let’s do our homework.

“The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” (James 3:6-10)

It’s not only important what we say and write, but how we say and write it.  Satan is not running for office in this election on any political party’s ticket.  We can hold strong political views, and we can strongly criticize and even condemn policy positions without dehumanizing or demonizing the candidates and voters who support them.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:1-11)

The Beatitudes, along with the other teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, give us a vision of the lives Jesus would have us live and the society – the reign of God – that Jesus came to establish.  Unfortunately, Jesus is not running for President on any political party’s ticket.   But the teachings of Jesus do give us a guide for evaluating candidates and policy positions.  When listening to any policy proposal, we would do well to ask, “Would Jesus support this?  What would Jesus do?”

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. (Psalm 20:7)

God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.  (2 Timothy 1:7)

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  (I John 4:18)

Citizens who are afraid are citizens who can be manipulated.  Politicians and commentators have often used fear to stampede people into supporting policies that benefit those in power, but leave the population weak and divided. To quote a line from the movie “Dune”, “Fear is the mind-killer.”  While living with our eyes open and being fully aware of the many challenges that face us, we need to move past our fears, and let the love of God be our guide.  To quote an old hymn:

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand.

See you in church – Pastor Dave