Sunday, September 24, 2017

Standing Firm

Scriptures:     Exodus 16:2-15, Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30,   Matthew 20:1-16



Happy 156th birthday, Emanuel Church!  We’ve made it through another year together – and these days, that’s an accomplishment that none of our churches here in Bridesburg can take for granted.  Officially chartered in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, our congregation has seen two World Wars and numerous regional conflicts, a Great Depression along with any number of recessions, changes in our country, changes in our city, changes in our neighborhood – and here we are, still.  When Emanuel Church began, we worshipped in German; now we worship in English.  We started with $9 in the bank – and while we have a much larger bank balance now, we continue to live with financial challenges.   The group that began meeting in 1857 to plan and organize this congregation started with 34 members, and after four years of planning together and 156 years of walking together as Emanuel Church, we are back at roughly that number of members. Some things have changed, some haven’t changed, and some have come full circle.  And yet, here we are, still.  Here we are, still preaching and living the good news of Jesus Christ in a neighborhood that needs good news.  That’s one thing that hasn’t changed in 156 years.
In our reading from Philippians, Paul is writing from prison to the church he had started in Philippi.  The church in Philippi, despite having very little themselves, had been generous to Paul in supporting his mission.  Paul told them that when he was just beginning his missionary travels – what Paul called “the early days of the Gospel,” they – the church at Philippi - were the first ones and indeed the only ones to support him, and they dug deep into their pockets, supporting Paul’s ministry repeatedly.  The letter ends with thanks for the latest gift  the church in Philippi sent to Paul in prison.  Besides thanking them for their generosity, Paul’s main wish and concern for the church was unity.  Paul was writing to heal some divisions between two faithful, dedicated church workers who were at odds, and whose squabbling was causing division.  In our reading today, Paul wrote that he wanted know that they were “standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.”
Standing firm.  The challenge of Christian discipleship is stand firm, to be faithful, not just for an hour or for a day or for a week, but for the long haul.  Christian discipleship is, in the words of the title of a book by Eugene Peterson, “a long obedience in the same direction”.  Anyone can get caught up in a moment, perhaps at a revival or after hearing a particularly inspiring sermon at church, or after having been spared some awful calamity or blessed in some unforgettable way, and say “Yes, Jesus, Yes!  Yes, Jesus, I will follow you to the end.  Yes, Jesus, I will follow you all of my days....”  But then one day comes, and then another, and another, and the enthusiasm starts to fade away, like air slowly seeping out of a balloon until it lands on the floor, deflated.  And then maybe trouble comes, illness or family problems or financial struggles….  We may be tempted to say, “Yes, Jesus, I said I’d follow you, but you didn’t tell me it was going to be like this.”  And we may be tempted to fall away, and dismiss our promise of discipleship as a passing phase – “I tried the church thing for a while and it didn’t work.”
What makes the difference between faith being just a moment, versus faith being a lifetime movement of long obedience in the same direction?  Of course, Scripture gives us the witness of those who knew Jesus and those who were part of the church from its earliest beginnings, and reading Scripture will strengthen our faith.  Regular, daily time in prayer will also sustain us.  But even with the gifts of Scripture and prayer,  it’s very difficult to sustain faith over the long haul on our own.  To be a Christian in isolation can feel like clapping with one hand – you can see that your hand is moving, but you don’t hear or feel much of anything, and nothing much seems to be happening.  
And so, in addition to Scripture and prayer, God has also given us the gift of community, the gift of the church, the gift of one another.  As we have seen in our readings from Matthew’s gospel earlier this month, community was incredibly important to Jesus, so much so that he told his disciples, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be in the midst of you.”   And so as we gather to worship, each of us here is a gift from God to one another.  Each of us is a gift.  If someone ever told you that you acted like you were God’s gift to the world, well, here at church, its true – although it’s true of each of us, not just you, so don’t get a big head.  Our Psalm reading proclaimed, “One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”   We need to share our faith from one generation to another, from older to younger, from younger to older.  Our longtime members, those who have labored faithfully and kept the church going for so long, have such a vital role in telling how God sustained them and the church over the course of their lives.  We need to hear their stories.  We need to hear from those who have walked this road , that it’s worth being faithful, even when everything and everyone around us is telling us to quit.  And we need the stories of our newer and younger members as well.  Our longtime members need to know that when they go on to their heavenly reward, their work here won’t have been in vain, that what they did here made a difference in the lives of others, that the younger generations will pick up the baton from them and in turn pass it on to their children.  “One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”  We need to pass down our history without being trapped by our history, to share our stories from the past while being open to writing new stories for the future.
Our reading from Exodus tells us a story of a difficult moment in the movement of the Israelites from slavery to freedom.  Moses had led the people out of Egypt, out of slavery, and into the wilderness, and the people were hungry.  There was no Wawa in sight, no Crispy Crème donuts to munch on.  And as the people got hungrier, they blamed Moses, and looked back to the “good old days” in Egypt – even though we know that in reality they were very bad old days of being worked nearly to death as slaves.  But in their hunger, the people didn’t remember the back-breaking work.  They only remembered the food:  “If only God had killed us in Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread, because now you’ve gone and dragged us way out here in the desert to kill us all with hunger.” 
It’s good to read stories like this in Scripture, even on Anniversary Sunday, maybe especially on Anniversary Sunday. Because we at Emanuel have had our struggles over the years.  Back in 1863, when our pastor the Rev Emanuel Boehringer and his wife started what would become Bethany Children’s Home, I’m sure there were members of the congregation who grumbled that he should be spending his time and energy on the church, on them, the folks who were paying his salary, and not on caring for other peoples’ children.  There were epidemics in the early years of the 20th century – there’s a headstone in our cemetery marking the burial place of a number of children who died in one epidemic, with the words, “Here rest in God our children.” – and dealing with all that sickness and death must have been a strain on pastor and congregation alike.  In the late teens and early 1920’s, under the leadership of the Rev. Felix Steinmann – Felix Steinmann was my great-grandfather, as it happens - the congregation started services in English, and I’m sure there were longtime members who struggled to welcome the new people these services would have attracted.  In the 1940’s, under the leadership of the beloved Rev. Victor Steinberg, we ended worship in German, and I’m sure there were members who mourned the passing of an era.  It’s easy to hold hands and sing kumbaya when all is well, but with difficulties come differences in opinion, and with change comes controversy – and we may be tempted to despair whether the church will be strong enough to come out on the other side.  But God provided manna in the wilderness to the grumbling Israelites, and over the years God has provided for our congregation even in lean times – and is providing for us now.  The Israelites got through their grumbling and eventually made it to the promised land, and over the years our congregation has come out on the other side of the struggles of the day, stronger for having gone through the storm.
What does the future hold for Emanuel Church?  I have no crystal ball.  These are lean times for the church – nearly all churches are struggling, and many are closing.   The days are long gone when a church could just open up its doors and expect people to flock in.   Our situation is like that of the early church, surrounded by a culture that doesn’t understand us – and much of this misunderstanding is due to the bad witness of churches and pastors over the years and over the centuries. Many people in our country, in our city, maybe even in this neighborhood, have been traumatized by the churches they grew up in, by Christians who preached love on Sunday but acted with hate or indifference Monday through Saturday, by Christians who talked about caring for the poor on Sunday but did nothing to help them Monday through Saturday.  For many, the church has a bad reputation to overcome.  That is why Paul’s instruction to the Philippians to “live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ” is so crucial.  For those who will never darken the doorstep of a church, our lives may be the only sermon they’ll ever hear.  For those outside the church, our lives out there in the world preach sermons, for good and bad – so let’s make our life sermons good ones. 
We also know that in the earliest days of the church, the church didn’t just sit and wait for people to come to them – the church went out to the people.  And we will have to do the same.   If the people will not come to church, the church must go to the people.  We must bring church to the people, to our neighbors.  We must find ways to preach good news and to be good news out there, where the people are.  Paul’s words in his second letter to Timothy can be our guide:  “Preach the word; be persistent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and encourage, with utmost patience in teaching….Always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” (2 Timothy 4:2,5)
“Declare God’s mighty acts from one generation to another.”  “Stand firm in one spirit.”  “Live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  “Preach the word, in season and out of season.  Do the work of an evangelist.  Carry out your ministry fully.”  These are God’s words to us today.  These are the words of those believers who have gone before us, who have run their race of faith and who have passed the baton of faith on to us, that we may run our portion of the race and in turn pass the baton to others.   May these words be engraved on our hearts and minds, and may they be carried out in our lives and in the work of Emanuel Church. Amen.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

70 x 7



Scriptures:     Exodus 14:19-31                    Psalm 103:1-13
Romans 14:1-12                     Matthew 18:21-35




Our reading from Matthew’s gospel is the second part of a sort of two-part series on conflict resolution, done the Jesus way.  Last week’s gospel reading provides a framework for confronting wrongdoing – first confront the offender one on one, and if that doesn’t resolve the issue, take two or three others as witnesses, and if that doesn’t resolve the issues, bring it before the church, and if that doesn’t resolve the issue, then the person needs to leave the community.  This procedure allows space both to preserve the offender’s dignity and reputation while safeguarding the health of the greater community.   It’s a kind of damage control, a way to try to isolate the infection of wrongdoing before it spreads and sickens the entire community.  And ultimately, the hope is that the offender will be forgiven and restored to community.
In this week’s reading, the conversation between Jesus and the disciples continues.  Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  Peter likely thought he was being generous – and he was certainly more generous than we may be inclined to be.  For some reason, I think we tend offer forgiveness according to baseball rules – three strikes and you’re out.  Certainly, our legal system sometimes functions in those terms.  And there’s a logic to it:  who among us hasn’t messed up at least once.  Who among us with a driver’s license hasn’t been preoccupied with something else and run a stop sign or red light, or forgotten to put on our turn signal when changing lanes…and who among us hasn’t unwittingly failed to stay in our own lane in other ways at least once.  But if someone offends in the same way a second time, or a third, there’s a sense that the offense is more than an accidental glitch, that there’s something about the person that causes repeated bad behavior, that the behavior is willful, intentional.  And so with repeated bad behavior comes increasingly harsh consequences.  We want to say, and in some cases our legal system does say “three strikes and you’re out”.  Peter’s willingness to give someone seven strikes may seem quite generous to us.
But Jesus invites Peter to go further – much further.  “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy times seven” – at least according to some translations.  Others say “seventy seven times.”  It has to do with the word order, and in different manuscripts, the words may have been copied down slightly differently. 
No matter.  Jesus isn’t going for mathematical precision here.  Jesus’ response to Peter is not about different math, but a different mindset.  Peter’s offer of forgiving someone seven times seems generous – but it still puts Peter – and us – in the realm of keeping score, of remembering – and tracking – how many times a person has offended us, of counting balls and strikes.  Jesus knocks Peter’s words out of the ballpark – literally.  Whereas Peter offers to keep score in a generous way, Jesus gives Peter a number that realistically is impossible to track – who on earth is going to keep a tally sheet tracking 490 offenses or even 77 offenses for every single person they know - in effect telling Peter: Stop keeping score altogether.  Stop keeping score.  Just stop.
It sounds like Jesus is being pie in the sky impractical.  But, Jesus was very realistic about human nature.  Nobody’s perfect.  We all mess up.  And more than that, each one of us has a shadow side to our personality.  Each one of us has tendencies to sin, of which we may not be conscious – and often they are connected to our strengths – like the garden in one of Jesus parables, in which wheat and weeds grew side by side, with the roots intertwined.   For example, a person may have a burning passion to see justice done – but the shadow side of that passion may be self-righteousness, or vengefulness.  Or a person may have a great need for calm and peace – but the shadow side of that tendency may be squelching and stifling the voices of those who are being hurt by the status quo.  A person may have a great respect for the traditions of the past – but the shadow side of that tendency can be rigidity and resistance to needed change.  A person may have a very easy-going, tolerant nature – but the shadow side of that may look like apathy or indifference.   Generosity can have the shadow side of a desire to control others by keeping them dependent on us rather than developing their own gifts and talents.  Each of us has blind spots.   Each of us has our own unique combination of strengths and weaknesses, all inseparably intertwined, so what looks like righteous behavior to us may bring harm and pain to others.  Some of the greatest crimes of humanity – the Crusades, the Inquisition, on a much smaller scale the Salem witch trials – were committed by people who thought they were doing God’s will.  Indeed, the arrest and execution of Jesus was committed by the leaders of Jewish and Roman society, the best each society had to offer, the Jewish leadership doing what they thought was God’s will, and the Roman leadership doing what they thought Roman law demanded.  They couldn’t see the shadow side of their own self-righteous behavior.  Instead of acknowledging their own limitation and brokenness, they projected their own sense of sin and guilt onto other people, whom they labeled infidels and heretics and witches, in the case of Jesus, labeled him a false prophet and a rebel against Rome – in short, a troublemaker - scapegoating others for their own sins – with results so awful that we remember them even today, as cautionary tales to avoid fanaticism.

Throughout our readings from last week and this week, Jesus’ goal is healing and restoration of relationship between individuals, with a further goal of maintaining the health of the community.  Our readings last week and this week tell us that for healing to take place, two things need to happen:  there needs to be acknowledgment of wrongdoing, recognition that a relationship has been broken – in short, confession and repentance – and there needs to be forgiveness.
There are no shortcuts.  While we can brush off minor offenses, when one person has seriously wronged another, the offender – and maybe even the offended party – may want to deny there’s a problem.  “It’s not that big a deal. Let’s not stir up trouble.  Let’s just move on.”  But denying a problem exists doesn’t make the problem go away – if anything, denial of wrongdoing, of a break in relationship, guarantees it’s going to resurface, again and again.  It has been said that if trauma isn’t healed, it will be transmitted.  That is to say, unless healing takes place, people who have been hurt will hurt other people.  Unless healing takes place, traumatized people traumatize other people.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke of the denial within the society of his day, saying, “They bandage the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace.”   And so, to get to healing, there’s no shortcut or detour around acknowledgement of wrongdoing, acknowledgement that there is a break in relationship.
Once wrongdoing has been acknowledged, the other tendency is for the offended party to get stuck in their own pain.  Without forgiveness, both the offender and the offended party are stuck in a place of pain, with no possibility of healing.  And vengeance only perpetuates a cycle of violence.  As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”  Forgiveness is the circuit breaker that keeps violence from passing on from generation to generation. When we forgive, we claim our own power to stop the cycle of violence from escalating.
We acknowledge this in the church, at least in traditions in which confession of sin and assurance of pardon are part of the liturgy.   We begin the service with adoration of God – usually with a hymn of praise.  But then we acknowledge that we’ve broken faith with God and neighbor through the week, that our relationship with God and neighbor is broken.  The only way to get past that broken relationship is through confessing our sins.   We confess our sin and ask for mercy – Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us.  And then the priest or pastor offers assurance of pardon:  If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  And only after there is confession and pardon can we move on with the rest of the service.  Because we alternate between two or three prayers of confession for most of our worship, the words may become rote, but I’d encourage us to really read over the prayer of confession, really ponder it, truly pray it, along with the assurance of pardon.
Many of the recurring problems in our national life are likewise due to unacknowledged and unhealed trauma, due to national sin that is unconfessed and unforgiven.  The legacy of the slave trade and the Jim Crow laws passed after emancipation continue to play out in our country to this day.  Some say, “That was a long time ago.  Get over it. Move on” while others say that while there’s no changing the past, the consequences of the past are still playing out in the present, damaging lives here and now – unhealed trauma playing out generation after generation.  Again, if trauma is not healed, it will be transmitted.  It will not just go away.  South Africa attempted to come to terms with its awful legacy of apartheid, racial separation, by means of a Truth and Reconciliation commission, in which the sins of the past and present were confessed and acknowledged, not for the sake of punishment, but for healing and reconciliation.  The outcome was far from perfect – South Africa has many problems, with extremes of wealth and poverty and a high rate of crime – but it was an attempt to avoid the cycles of violence and retribution that plague so many other countries during times of political upheaval, an attempt, however imperfect, to heal trauma instead of transmitting it.
If the person who offended us doesn’t acknowledge their wrongdoing and change their ways, what then?   There’s going to be strain and distance in the relationship.  But Jesus also tells us to love our enemies, to pray for those who wrong us.  If we can’t get them to acknowledge their offense, we pray that God will open their hearts, and love them - anyway.   The pain may be such that we may need to limit contact, to love the person at a distance.  Even so, we keep ourselves open to the possibility of reconciliation, even in the midst of a damaged relationship – in the same way that God always seeks reconciliation with us, even when we’re unfaithful – not because of who we are, but because of who God is.  As Paul wrote, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.”  While we were yet sinners.  Even before we acknowledged our sin, God gifted us with unconditional love.   God doesn’t love us because we’re good, but in order that through love’s transforming power, we may be led to change our ways for the better.
In a few moments we’ll pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.  Forgive us our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive those of others.  God’s forgiveness of us is tied to our forgiveness of others.   May we come to know the magnitude of God’s love, forgiveness and grace shown to us, that we may pass it along to others, and in that way help to heal our broken nation and our broken world. Amen. 

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

"The Heat And Burden Of The Day" (Pastor's message, September 2017 newsletter)



Dear Emanuel Members and Friends –

“‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’”  Matthew 20:1-16

The passage above is the lectionary’s Gospel reading for September 24, which is also the day on which we will celebrate 156 years of ministry in Bridesburg.  We hope for a joyous day, with a catered luncheon (provided by the generous donation of a lifelong member) and a showing of the beautiful video that was prepared for our 150th anniversary, back in 2011, showing photos from Emanuel Church over the decades – confirmation classes, church socials, special worship services - all accompanied by recorded organ music from our longtime organist, the late Florence Werner.   This lovely video truly reveals the heart and soul of Emanuel Church as experienced through the eyes and ears of our longtime members.  It was a revelation to me when I saw it for the first time at our 150th anniversary, and I’m sure that on seeing it a second time, I’ll appreciate much that I missed on my first viewing.  I strongly urge as many as can to be with us on this special milestone in our congregation’s history.

It’s striking that a number of our members and regular visitors may be seeing this video for the first time.  That is to say, some of us weren’t at Emanuel Church as recently as 2011, just six years ago.   And as small as we are, a significant portion of our members and friends weren’t with us as recently as ten years ago – and neither was I, since my first sermon at Emanuel Church (as a guest preacher) was on November 11, 2007 – as I write this, I’m two months short of ten years at Emanuel.  While for many of us, our anniversary will bring back fond memories, for many others who will be with us, the images and music will be unfamiliar.  For the newer members and friends among us, as they experience the video, the words of British novelist L. P. Hartley may resonate: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”  It is equally true that, for our longtime members, the present with its changing technology and changing values may likewise feel a bit like a foreign country.  And yet we are still the same Emanuel Church.  We each have opportunities to act as translators for one another, interpreting the events of our generation for those of past or future generations.



Our congregation is a bit like the workers in Jesus’ parable.  We have our longtime, lifelong members, who have truly “borne the heat and burden of the day”.  Over many decades, our longtime members have worked so hard, invested so many hours, tithed and prayed and planned and labored to preserve Emanuel Church on as a legacy for the future.  Every member of Emanuel Church owes these longtime members a profound debt of gratitude.  And we have our newer members, who haven’t been here for quite so many decades, but who are starting to take on some of the responsibilities of leadership, to move beyond weekly attendance to involvement in events of the present and plans for the future.  All of us likewise owe these newer members a profound debt of gratitude for their willingness to help carry on the legacy of Emanuel Church.  I pray that, years from now, they will in turn be the wise elders sharing the benefit of their experience with a new generation of Emanuel Church members.  We are indeed profoundly grateful and indebted to both longtime and newer members and friends. 

In Jesus’ parable, those who had worked for the entire day and those who had worked for an hour each received a full days’ wage.  Similarly, at Emanuel Church, the uplift of worship and the joy of community are available to longtimers and newcomer alike.   It has been heartening and refreshing to see longtime and newer members enjoying conversation and working together, and, unlike Jesus’ parable, without jealousy and grumbling.   It has been a joy watching our longtime members share the benefit of their experience with newer members, and to see our newer members share their energy and enthusiasm, all for the benefit of Emanuel Church, for the glory of God, and for the benefit of our neighbors here in  Bridesburg, where Emanuel Church has ministered for 156 years.  Thanks be to God!

See you in church –
                         
Pastor Dave