Newsletter - Pastor's Message - December, 2019

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 

(Matthew 3:1-6)

We begin another church year together as we celebrate Advent, the season of preparation for the coming of the Christ child.  Once again, our Advent wreath is set up (downstairs this year), as we light the candles signifying Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.  Once again, the United Church of Christ Advent devotional booklets are available, free of charge.  Once again, we sing the familiar Advent hymns. 

And once again we read about John the Baptist, the wild man in the wilderness sent by God to prepare the way for Jesus.  A less festive figure could hardly be imagined.   While our children look forward to department store Santas making promises for others to keep, John the Baptist offered those who came to him uncompromising demands and fearsome threats.  If we brought our children to see John the Baptist at the local mall, they’d probably run screaming.  But we’re told that people from all over the region traveled on foot through the wilderness to the Jordan River to be baptized by John.

Why did they go to John the Baptist?  What did they hope to learn or experience in their time with him?  

They were looking for change, in their lives, and in the world around them.  The vast majority of the people experienced grinding poverty and oppression under the Roman occupation, and the Temple system of sacrifices only added to their burdens.  They were looking for release from their oppression.  The prophet Malachi and others wrote that the Day of the Lord was coming, when “all arrogant and all evildoers would be stubble” to be burned, while for the faithful “the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:1-3)  Malachi further prophesied that God would “send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6) Dressed in camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, John the Baptist resembled the description of Elijah in 2 Kings 1:8.

John told his listeners that in order for the world around them to change, they themselves would have to change.  There would be no deliverance from the oppression around them if they themselves continued to project the oppression within them onto others. Put another way, the change they sought in the world around them would first have to begin within them.  Accepting John’s baptism was a commitment to repentance, to changing the direction of one’s life. And that may be why John reacted so harshly to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came for baptism, as John saw their teachings and practices as a source of oppression.   Their sense of certitude and entitlement as “children of Abraham” would present almost insurmountable obstacles to the change John demanded of his listeners. 

John told his listeners that in order for the world around them to change, they themselves would have to change. The same is true for us.  In our divided, polarized country, there is a plethora of pundits pointing out problems (real or imagined) and proposing solutions (real or imagined).  Few indeed, however, are those pundits who are willing to own their own role in creating and promoting antagonism.  The same is true of ordinary people; it is always easier to see the sins of our opponents than our own.  Often the qualities that most strongly provoke us in others are the same qualities we most strongly suppress in ourselves.  And yet those who have not experienced at least some measure of inner healing cannot bring healing to others.  Those who have not experienced at least some measure of transformation within themselves cannot bring transformation to others.  Franciscan priest and writer Richard Rohr uses such terms as “shadow work” and “shadow boxing” to describe the process of coming to terms with and ultimately being at peace with our own contradictions, limitations, mistakes, and failures.  Those in twelve-step recovery work may use phrases such as “letting go and letting God” to describe their process of healing and transformation.

Isaiah wrote these words, which the Gospel writers used in reference to the mission of John the Baptist:

 In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

It all sounds like a project for a PennDOT road crew, but this is God’s work of transformation.   What paths in our lives does the Lord want straightened?  What blind alleys and cul de sacs of concealed sin must be opened up, cleaned out, and connected to the more public parts of our lives? What valleys of despair and mountains of pride, what uneven ground and what rough places must be leveled before the glory of the Lord will be revealed in our lives? 

The last verse of a familiar Advent hymn (#88 in the E&R hymnal) runs as follows:

“O come, Desire of nations bind all peoples in one heart and mind.

Bid envy, strife, and discord cease; fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”

Blessings for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and the New Year!

Pastor Dave   

Newsletter - Pastor's Message - November 2019

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
    those he redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
    from the east and from the west,
    from the north and from the south.^[a]

Some wandered in desert wastes,
    finding no way to an inhabited town;
hungry and thirsty,
    their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress;
 he led them by a straight way,
    until they reached an inhabited town.
 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
 For he satisfies the thirsty,
    and the hungry he fills with good things.  Psalm 107:1-9

Later this month, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving.  Many will gather around a table with family members or friends to share food and fellowship. 

Psalm 107, of which a portion is printed above, is a psalm of thanksgiving.  This psalm contains a series of vignettes about God’s deliverance:  those lost in the desert being led to an inhabited town, those in the darkest of prisons being released and allowed to come into the light, those who suffered as a consequence of their own mistakes being delivered, those on the verge of shipwreck and drowning being brought to dry land.  With each of these stories comes the refrain, “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress…Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.”

At Emanuel Church, we have our own stories of deliverance – remission from cancer and other diseases, release from addiction, rescue from homelessness, relief from hunger.  Our stories may not be as dramatic as those of Psalm 107, but they are cause for thanksgiving all the same.

An attitude of thanksgiving, an attitude of gratitude, can do wonders for our outlook on life.  If we focus only on our problems, life can easily overwhelm us.  And if we approach life with an attitude of entitlement – an attitude that somehow “life owes us” – we will be disappointed all the days of our lives.  But, as Psalm 107 reminds us, even in the worst of calamities, we can call on the Lord for deliverance from our distress.  And even in dire circumstances, if we look hard enough, we can find something for which to be grateful.  Indeed, tomorrow is not promised to us, and so every day is a gift. 

Psalm 107: 2 says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble.”   As Christians, as those for whom Christ died, we are all “the redeemed of the LORD”.  To quote from the Rev. Scott Bohr, former pastor of Bridesburg Presbyterian church, thanksgiving can lead us to thanks-living   May we live out our thanksgiving, our gratitude, with words of kindness and deeds of generosity.  And may our thanks-living extend to embrace those who have no family nearby with whom to gather, no table around which to gather, no food to share, no sheltering roof overhead.   For whatsoever we do unto – or withhold from – the least of Christ’s sisters and brothers, we do unto – or withhold from – Christ.  (Matthew 25:31-46)

See  you in church!

Pastor Dave   

Peace (Sermon for 2nd Sunday in Advent)

Scriptures:     Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72

Romans 15:4-13,   Matthew 3:1-12

Today we lit the second Advent candle, the candle of peace.  Today, we lit the second Advent candle, as we lit the second Advent candle around this time last year, and the year before that.  But with every passing year, we seem further from peace.  Or peace seems further from us.   Perhaps we experience peace to be like a mirage in the desert, that seems so inviting at a distance, but that seemingly evaporates as we approach it.

Our reading from Isaiah chapter 11 gives us a lovely vision of peace.  It begins with a description of a person who is called “a shoot from the stock of Jesse” – Jesse was King David’s father.  I should mention for context that the preceding chapter, Isaiah chapter 10, features a vision of what we might call “God as lumberjack” – the nations, including Israel and Judah, are compared to a forest, and God cuts down all the trees, leaving nothing but stumps as far as the eye can see.  The nations are cut down because of their corruption, injustice, and rebellion against God.   It’s a desolate scene – and many of us have seen enough photos of forests clear-cut for logging or mining to have some idea of what this would look like. Seemingly, it’s a scene of no hope.  But then, hope appears, in the form of a twig growing from one of the stumps.

This twig is a person, a descendent of King David, of whom we’re told, in part,

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
   the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
   the spirit of counsel and might,
   the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
   or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
   and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

It’s easy for us to see why the early church identified this description with Jesus.

And then we’re given a vision of nature, with the instinct for predation removed.  Wolf lying down with lamb, leopard with goat, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leading them.  Bears grazing in the same way cows do, lions eating straw, and a child playing in safety near a snake pit.  (Note to any children in the audience – do not try this at home.  Pastor Dave says, “Stay away from snakes.”)  Isaiah sums up this description with the words, “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

This very much seems like a mirage.  For these animals, predators and prey, to live in peace seems unimaginable.  Old Testament professor Walter Brueggeman experienced this same sense of unreality, of unimaginability, as he read this.  But as he pondered the passage, he asked himself, “Why is this unimaginable? Why is this so hard to envision?  Why have I – why have we all – accepted violence and predation as normal?” 

I don’t think there’s a lot we can do about helping wolves lie down with lambs and so forth – at least I don’t want to, because I don’t much want to have my face chewed off.  But Brueggemann’s question prompts a larger question about the violence among humans that we accept as normal, as “just the way things are” – and while I can’t reason with wolves and lions, it should be possible at least in theory to reason with other people.  The violence we call normal: Wars that go on for a decade and more.   Shootings…..at this point, we’ve become so numb to shootings at schools, malls, houses of worship, and other public places that they hardly register, hardly create a blip on our spiritual radar.  Another gunman – and it’s almost always a man, with multiple weapons and a chip on his shoulder – another body count, we send up a prayer for the deceased and the survivors, shrug, and go on with our day.   And of course, on the streets of Philadelphia, gun violence happens on the daily, and in Philadelphia, a child or teen under age 18 is shot every 3.7 days, and 16-year-old Ceani Smalls, shot last weekend, was the 106^th person under age 18 shot in Philadelphia in 2019.  And this violence around us has a way of getting inside us, poisoning the halls of our schools with bullying and our family life with domestic violence.  And then, there’s violence turned inward – alcoholism, addiction, self-harm, suicide.  We accept so much violence as “just the way things are”, as “normal”.  Perhaps violence will strike especially close to us, and we’ll attend a candlelight vigil….an important act of witness to a resolve that this person’s life mattered, and his or her violent death is not ok.  But at the end, as we blow out our candles, along with the flame we seemingly also extinguish any resistance to violence we can muster.

I spoke of peace as seemingly being a mirage, attractive in the distance but elusive at close range.  Perhaps this is because we view peace as a destination – if we do this and that and this and that, we will arrive at a place called peace.  But what if peace isn’t the destination, but the journey?  Years ago I saw a bumper sticker that read, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”   My first reaction was to dismiss it – the driver must be some kind of bliss ninny, disconnected from reality.  Is that a California license plate I see?  But over time I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom in that bumper sticker.  Violent means won’t bring about a truly lasting, truly peaceful outcome – from earliest times, people have tried to enforce peace with a club, a sword, a gun, a bomb.  It works for a time – maybe a really long time – but eventually someone will find a bigger club/sword/gun/bomb. 

In our reading from Matthew’s gospel, the people are going out to John the Baptist.  They are crushed under the Roman occupation, and the Temple leadership in Jerusalem offers only to add to their burden.  They go out to John seeking deliverance.  But John the Baptist tells them that they have to start with themselves, that the way to begin resisting oppression is to remove oppressive behavior from their own lives.  Luke’s gospel tells us more about John’s teaching, that the one with two shirts should share with the one with none, and the same with food, that tax collectors should collect only what is due and soldiers should be content with their pay and not try to shake down the populace.  All of this falls under the heading of repentance – not just making a sad face and saying we’re sorry, but actually changing our behavior.  And those who resolved to live in this new way were baptized, signifying a new start to their lives.

In the same way, the journey toward peace starts within us, from the inside out, and not the reverse.  It starts with rejecting the world’s ways of violence, maintaining a kind of “holy discontent” with the violence around us, in order to accept Jesus’ alternate vision of peace, what he called the peace that the world can neither give nor take away.  It starts with rooting out the violence from our own thoughts, words, and actions.  It starts with looking for ways to de-escalate conflict with others.  It starts with modeling nonviolence for our children.  It starts with us, with not adding to the ever-escalating sum of violence in the world.  It starts with us.

We need a peaceful center within us if we are to be at peace with the world around us.  I’m not great at this…anyone who has driven with me knows that I’m rarely at peace with the drivers around me…..and sometimes life feels like being stuck in traffic on I95, running our engines, going nowhere.  Or dodging others who don’t stay in their lane.  But times of prayer and meditation can help us create a kind of peaceful center within ourselves, that we can take with us when we’re driving or elsewhere.  I have to confess that while I do a lot of praying – of the kind that feels like I’m giving God a shopping list -  meditation – just being still and silent before God and giving God a chance to get a word in edgewise – does not come naturally to me.   I’ve tried various meditation and centering prayer techniques, but my mind just races or jumps around.  Buddhists call this mental chatter and jumping around our “monkey mind” – it’s a pretty accurate image - and in meditation we quiet our monkey mind down. The Rev Wanda Craner, former Associate Conference Minister of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, who now practices Gestalt Pastoral Care, gave me the gift of an entry into meditation that actually manages to get me centered, to quiet the chatter in my mind.  Sometimes.  Two weeks ago we read Psalm 46.  Verse 10 of that Psalm is familiar:  “Be still and know that I am God.”  We can get comfortable, close our eyes, and meditate on this verse as follows, holding the words in our minds, maybe repeating them in our minds like a mantra:

“Be still, and know that I am God”

“Be still, and know that I am.”

“Be still, and know.”

“Be still”

“Be”

Maybe we can just take a moment or two in silence, to pray, to meditate…. 

“Be”

“Be still”

“Be still, and know”

“Be still, and know that I am”

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

And I’d invite us as we feel led to open our eyes.

If that is a helpful entry into meditation, feel free to thank the Rev Wanda Craner, former Associate Minister of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference.  If not…..I was going to say you can blame the Rev Wanda Craner, former Associate Minister of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, but there’s no need to blame.   We’re all wired differently, and may find different ways to quiet our monkey mind.  I’ll also say that for me, writing….as in writing sermons…..mentally takes me to a more centered place, a place where I can lose all sense of time, even if it’s Sunday morning and I’m trying to finish up my sermon before starting out on my pickups for rides to church.  I think of it as going down the rabbit hole, and it really feels like that for me, like I’m in my own space no matter what’s going on or who’s stomping around on the surface above me.  If you don’t write sermons, perhaps journaling or writing letters to yourself can do the same thing.  For those more artistically inclined, perhaps sketching or painting or working with clay.  The point is to find some kind of peaceful center within us, to hold that peaceful center so that we can take it with us even into the most stressful situations.

There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.  Be still, and know that I am God.  Be still.  May we walk in the way of peace, both so that we can be at peace ourselves, and so that we can model peace to those around us.  God grant us that peace of which Jesus spoke, which the world can neither give nor take away. Amen.