(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)
I preached for the first time about 6 years ago. I was meeting with a small Liberian congregation in Southwest Philadelphia who were considering joining the United Church of Christ. In fact, this congregation is where I first met Isaac, who was assistant to the pastor. So I was making arrangements on behalf of the Phila Association of the UCC to visit the congregation, and Isaac said to me, “You will preach.” And I responded, “I don’t preach…..I’ll just bring greetings from the denomination.” And Isaac said, “You will preach.” And I said, “I’ve never preached in my life…..please, I’ll just bring some brief greetings and then sit down.” And Isaac said, “You will preach.” And we went back and forth a few more times, but Isaac said “You will preach” more times than I said “no”….so…oh, all right….I wound up preaching at the Liberian congregation. It was Trinity Sunday, and so I preached on the Trinity, which has been known to send parishioners into a coma, but also about the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, which is more energizing. I wound up my sermon and quickly got ready to take a seat…thank goodness that’s over....but then the pastor gave an altar call. Oh, no. The churches to which I had belonged didn’t do altar calls – ever - and while I’d seen altar calls at other churches, I’d never been up front with the clergy for one. And so I was muttering to myself, ‘Oh, please, nobody come up, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do at an altar call; nobody come up please please please.’ And so a whole big family came up, a mom, some kids, and some men from the congregation with her to support her. And the pastor told me to pray with them, and I said, “Oh no, this is your church; we’re doing this together.” And so the Liberian pastor and I prayed over the family and laid hands on them as they poured out their hearts to Jesus.
Our readings from Jonah and from Mark’s Gospel show enthusiastic reactions to two preachers, Jonah and Jesus. Jonah was a most reluctant preacher – today’s reading gives us only a snippet from the story, but we remember that earlier in the story, the first time when God told Jonah to preach in Nineveh, Jonah went off in exactly the opposite direction and got on a boat to sail even further away. After all, Jonah didn’t even like the folks in Nineveh; he wanted God to smite them, not save them. But, by means of a convenient whale that happened by, Jonah is brought back to his starting point, and God tells Jonah, “Ok, let’s try this once again.” And so Jonah says, “oh, all right” and slogs his way part way into Nineveh, bringing God’s message, “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Like me at the Liberian church, Jonah was probably muttering to himself, “Hey Nineveh people, please don’t listen to a word I say”, but instead the people drop everything and respond with fervent repentance. And so God spared Nineveh, and Jonah was angry at God again….but we’ll save that for some other Sunday.
And then our Gospel reading shows Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. As we found last week, Mark tells his story in a very condensed, right-to-the-point, fast-moving way. The Greek words “kai euthus” – “and immediately” occur over and over in Mark’s gospel. Jesus is not reluctant, as Jonah was, but our reading begins with an ominous note: “Now after John was arrested…..” Whoa! Where’d that come from? Mark will tell us more about John’s arrest later….but with just that brief transition, we see Jesus begin his public ministry. John is baptizing, then John is arrested, then Jesus begins preaching. Did the disruption among the crowds by the Jordan caused by John’s arrest impel Jesus to step in and continue what John had begun?
Jesus begins to preach that God’s reign has come near, to repent and believe. And then he begins to call his disciples. And, as Mark tells it, they respond immediately: “And immediately Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed him…..Immediately Jesus called James and John, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
What these readings share with the snippet from I Corinthians is a sense of urgency. Now, Jonah doesn’t feel any urgency at all about preaching to Nineveh, but God does, and won’t let Jonah off the hook until he accomplishes his mission. Paul preaches, “the appointed time has grown short.” Jesus preaches “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe.” In all three readings, those proclaiming the Good News are going outside their comfort zones: Jonah preaching to an enemy city, Paul trying to motivate an early church, Jesus rebounding from the arrest of John, who had baptized him. All three followed God into unfamiliar territory, and God used all three to accomplish mighty deeds.
Two thousand years later, God is still urgently working for our salvation, and for that of our neighbors. And God can use us, as God used Simon and Andrew, to fish for people, to draw people into the reign of God. God can use us – if we’re willing. And maybe even if we’re not – remember God sending a whale to bring Jonah from where Jonah had fled, back to where God could use him.
Are we where God can use us? Like Simon and Andrew, James and John, God calls us to fish for people. To do that, we need to go where the people are. A fisherman who sits back, arms folded, expecting the fish to spontaneously jump out of the water and land in his boat will likely go home emptyhanded and hungry. And yet, we in the church behave as if we expect our neighbors to spontaneously jump out of their Sunday morning routines – soccer, Sunday newspaper, Sunday brunch, whatever - and land in the front pew of the church. And, you know, occasionally it happens – but not often enough to count on. We need to invite our neighbors to come in. Or, if we really want our neighbors to hear good news, we may need to go to them. We may need to bring church to them.
That’s the challenging news. The good news is that God can use all of us to spread the Good News. Simon and Andrew, James and John had no particular qualifications, and God used them to turn the world upside down. And God can use our little church to turn Bridesburg upside down, if we let him. If we let him. We can’t follow Jesus and follow the status quo at the same time – Jesus just isn’t a status quo guy. Status quo, same old same old, is Zebedee left behind in the boat while his sons leave him to follow Jesus.
There’s one thing that always bothered me about the metaphor of fishing for people. If a fish gets caught, it’s good news for the fisherman, but bad news for the fish. A fish that’s caught is going to get skinned and cleaned and eaten. And given all the news stories about misconduct in the church, a lot of our neighbors expect that if they set foot in a church, they’ll get skinned alive and their bank accounts cleaned out as well. It’s up to us not only to tell our neighbors, but to show our neighbors, that what we have to offer truly is good news. Perhaps the fishing we’re asked to do is like some sort of catch and release program, where we catch fish in a net in order to rescue them from the cramped, polluted aquarium of our world’s way of doing things, and release them into the wide, blue ocean of God’s grace, to live with the freedom that God intended.
From Mark’s Gospel: “As [Jesus] went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.” May our lives reflect the words of the old Gospel song:
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back, no turning back.
Amen.
Showing posts with label Emanuel Bridesburg Philadelphia United Church of Christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emanuel Bridesburg Philadelphia United Church of Christ. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Water and Spirit
(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)
This Sunday, after detours into the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, we return to Mark’s Gospel, where we will spend much of the coming year. Mark’s Gospel is thought to have been the first of the four Gospels to have been written, from which Matthew and Luke drew much of their material. Mark’s is a fast-moving Gospel, portraying Jesus as a man of action. English translations smooth out the language, but the original Greek reads like a story told by an excited child: Jesus did this, and right away Jesus did that, and then right away Jesus said this, and then right away Jesus said that. The Greek phrase “kai euthus” – “and immediately” or “and right away” – occurs over and over. Mark’s Gospel catches the spirit of what it must have felt like to have been a disciple of Jesus, to be have been caught up among those who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry – Jesus does and says one amazing thing after another, and as the readers of Mark’s Gospel, we stand by watching, with our mouths hanging open in amazement.
Today’s reading is no exception. For one thing, we’ve fast-forwarded from the time of Jesus’ birth until Jesus was about 30 years old. We begin by meeting John the Baptist in the wilderness, that strange character who dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt and eating locusts – bugs – and wild honey. His appearance brings up historic memories for his listeners. If we were to see someone at Independence Hall dressed in a colonial costume reading from parchment, we would be reminded of the American revolution – and in the same way, John’s dress reminds the crowds of Elijah. Luke’s Gospel tells us that John’s father was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, but John is out in the wilderness, far away from the religious establishment of the day, indeed, offering an alternative to the religious establishment – and at the Jordan River, where Joshua long ago had led the Hebrews from the wilderness through the Jordan and into the promised land, into the land of freedom. Mark’s Gospel tells us that crowds of people from the countryside and even from Jerusalem were coming out to see John, to confess their sins and be baptized by John. Mark gives us a picture of a people who are spiritually hungry, who are not being fed spiritually by the rituals of the Temple and the teaching of the established religious leaders, who are willing to travel long distances on foot and far out of their comfort zone in the chance that John will give them something, anything to hold on to.
We think of baptism primarily as a Christian ritual, but Christian baptism had its origin in the Jewish mikveh, a ritual bath. Jews took such a ritual bath as a rite of purification after some event had occurred to make them ritually impure. Orthodox and Conservative Jews continue the practice to this day, the Orthodox Jews so much so that a newly-gathered community is instructed to build a mikveh for the ritual bath before building the synagogue. So John’s baptism would have been like a washing from sin, a fresh start. The mikveh or ritual bath was also a rite of conversion, by which Gentiles were purified before joining the Jewish community. What is striking is that those coming to be baptized by John were already Jews – but the unsatisfying practices of the religious establishment left them feeling defiled and alienated from God. John’s baptism offered a radical way to re-connect to their faith.
So Mark sets the stage – John out in the wilderness leading a renewal movement which attracted Jews from all over. And John says that he is only preparing the way for the coming of one who will be greater than John. John says that he is not worthy to tie this person’s shoelaces. In other words, John tells his followers, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
And then along comes Jesus. John baptizes him – this would have been full immersion baptism, Jesus down in the muddy water of the Jordan - and Jesus sees the heavens torn open – the sense of this is that the heavens were in some way ripped apart - and the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove. He hears a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
This is a turning point in Jesus’ life. The other Gospels tell us that up until this point, he was the carpenter’s son, not seen by most people as anyone special. Those in Jesus’ hometown assumed he would grow up and take over his father’s business and that would be that. But Jesus, following the leading of the Spirit, makes the long journey on foot out into the wilderness to see John the Baptist. With his baptism, Jesus’ life goes off in a radically new direction. Although we won’t read about it until we begin Lent, we know that after Jesus baptism he was tested in the wilderness, and after John was arrested, began to proclaim the coming of the Reign of God. At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens were ripped apart, and God broke into the moment. Jesus’ miracles, healings, teaching were all ways in which Jesus not only proclaimed the Reign of God, but demonstrated God breaking in to take on the powers of evil.
What sustained Jesus through all that he faced throughout his life – testing in the wilderness, the exhaustion that came with ministering to the crowds, the frustration of dealing with his disciples, the emotional stress of confrontation and opposition from the religious establishment? What kept him from crashing and burning? We know that he spent frequent time in prayer, often going off alone to pray. But perhaps part of what kept him going was this moment of baptism, this moment of seeing the heavens ripped apart, of being equipped with the gift of the Holy Spirit, of hearing the voice of God name him as God’s beloved Son. While many of us were baptized as infants and may not remember our baptism, we too can be sustained by the knowledge that, in baptism, God has claimed each of us and called each of us beloved daughters and sons. In words from the funeral service, we remember that we are baptized into Christ’s death so that just as we share a death like Christ’s, we will also share a resurrection like Christ’s. Just as Jesus was equipped at his baptism with the Holy Spirit, so those being baptized are told, “receive the Holy Spirit, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church.”
Like Jesus, we may experience grief, anger, frustration, loneliness. Like Jesus on the cross, there are those moments when we feel so overwhelmed that we say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” In those moments, our baptism reminds us that God will never abandon us. The words of the old Heidelberg Catechism that our older members grew up with, we’re told that our only comfort, in life and in death, is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ - who through the waters of baptism has claimed us for his very own.
This Sunday, after detours into the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, we return to Mark’s Gospel, where we will spend much of the coming year. Mark’s Gospel is thought to have been the first of the four Gospels to have been written, from which Matthew and Luke drew much of their material. Mark’s is a fast-moving Gospel, portraying Jesus as a man of action. English translations smooth out the language, but the original Greek reads like a story told by an excited child: Jesus did this, and right away Jesus did that, and then right away Jesus said this, and then right away Jesus said that. The Greek phrase “kai euthus” – “and immediately” or “and right away” – occurs over and over. Mark’s Gospel catches the spirit of what it must have felt like to have been a disciple of Jesus, to be have been caught up among those who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry – Jesus does and says one amazing thing after another, and as the readers of Mark’s Gospel, we stand by watching, with our mouths hanging open in amazement.
Today’s reading is no exception. For one thing, we’ve fast-forwarded from the time of Jesus’ birth until Jesus was about 30 years old. We begin by meeting John the Baptist in the wilderness, that strange character who dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt and eating locusts – bugs – and wild honey. His appearance brings up historic memories for his listeners. If we were to see someone at Independence Hall dressed in a colonial costume reading from parchment, we would be reminded of the American revolution – and in the same way, John’s dress reminds the crowds of Elijah. Luke’s Gospel tells us that John’s father was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, but John is out in the wilderness, far away from the religious establishment of the day, indeed, offering an alternative to the religious establishment – and at the Jordan River, where Joshua long ago had led the Hebrews from the wilderness through the Jordan and into the promised land, into the land of freedom. Mark’s Gospel tells us that crowds of people from the countryside and even from Jerusalem were coming out to see John, to confess their sins and be baptized by John. Mark gives us a picture of a people who are spiritually hungry, who are not being fed spiritually by the rituals of the Temple and the teaching of the established religious leaders, who are willing to travel long distances on foot and far out of their comfort zone in the chance that John will give them something, anything to hold on to.
We think of baptism primarily as a Christian ritual, but Christian baptism had its origin in the Jewish mikveh, a ritual bath. Jews took such a ritual bath as a rite of purification after some event had occurred to make them ritually impure. Orthodox and Conservative Jews continue the practice to this day, the Orthodox Jews so much so that a newly-gathered community is instructed to build a mikveh for the ritual bath before building the synagogue. So John’s baptism would have been like a washing from sin, a fresh start. The mikveh or ritual bath was also a rite of conversion, by which Gentiles were purified before joining the Jewish community. What is striking is that those coming to be baptized by John were already Jews – but the unsatisfying practices of the religious establishment left them feeling defiled and alienated from God. John’s baptism offered a radical way to re-connect to their faith.
So Mark sets the stage – John out in the wilderness leading a renewal movement which attracted Jews from all over. And John says that he is only preparing the way for the coming of one who will be greater than John. John says that he is not worthy to tie this person’s shoelaces. In other words, John tells his followers, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
And then along comes Jesus. John baptizes him – this would have been full immersion baptism, Jesus down in the muddy water of the Jordan - and Jesus sees the heavens torn open – the sense of this is that the heavens were in some way ripped apart - and the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove. He hears a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
This is a turning point in Jesus’ life. The other Gospels tell us that up until this point, he was the carpenter’s son, not seen by most people as anyone special. Those in Jesus’ hometown assumed he would grow up and take over his father’s business and that would be that. But Jesus, following the leading of the Spirit, makes the long journey on foot out into the wilderness to see John the Baptist. With his baptism, Jesus’ life goes off in a radically new direction. Although we won’t read about it until we begin Lent, we know that after Jesus baptism he was tested in the wilderness, and after John was arrested, began to proclaim the coming of the Reign of God. At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens were ripped apart, and God broke into the moment. Jesus’ miracles, healings, teaching were all ways in which Jesus not only proclaimed the Reign of God, but demonstrated God breaking in to take on the powers of evil.
What sustained Jesus through all that he faced throughout his life – testing in the wilderness, the exhaustion that came with ministering to the crowds, the frustration of dealing with his disciples, the emotional stress of confrontation and opposition from the religious establishment? What kept him from crashing and burning? We know that he spent frequent time in prayer, often going off alone to pray. But perhaps part of what kept him going was this moment of baptism, this moment of seeing the heavens ripped apart, of being equipped with the gift of the Holy Spirit, of hearing the voice of God name him as God’s beloved Son. While many of us were baptized as infants and may not remember our baptism, we too can be sustained by the knowledge that, in baptism, God has claimed each of us and called each of us beloved daughters and sons. In words from the funeral service, we remember that we are baptized into Christ’s death so that just as we share a death like Christ’s, we will also share a resurrection like Christ’s. Just as Jesus was equipped at his baptism with the Holy Spirit, so those being baptized are told, “receive the Holy Spirit, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church.”
Like Jesus, we may experience grief, anger, frustration, loneliness. Like Jesus on the cross, there are those moments when we feel so overwhelmed that we say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” In those moments, our baptism reminds us that God will never abandon us. The words of the old Heidelberg Catechism that our older members grew up with, we’re told that our only comfort, in life and in death, is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ - who through the waters of baptism has claimed us for his very own.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Empire Strikes Back
(Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-23)
Today we celebrate Epiphany – the actual feast of Epiphany was on Friday, January 6, marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, as personified by the Magi, those strange visitors from the East who came to worship Jesus – and who, in the process of seeking Jesus tipped Herod off to the existence of a rival to his power. It’s a story of wonder, the coming of these foreigners to worship the newborn king – a story of horror, as we read of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents – a story of dislocation and exile, as Mary and Joseph and the babe live for a time in Egypt to escape Herod’s fury, basically as political refugees. During my first Christmas Eve here, back in December 2007 – and I used the same readings that had been used before I got here, and have continued with them almost unchanged in the years since - I was struck that the reading from Matthew 2 didn’t stop with the departure of the wise men, but continued all the way to the end of the chapter, with all that we heard Stella read today. Most churches stop short of reading the whole chapter – not wanting to frighten the children on Christmas Eve with words about a murderous psychopath of a king leaving a trail of slaughtered children in his wake – but your Christmas Eve service included everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And on that first Christmas Eve here, I thought that said something about this congregation I was just starting to get to know, that you didn’t want an edited, prettied up, Hallmark greeting card Christmas story, but wanted to hear the whole thing, warts and jagged edges and all – and I thought that said something about the faith of this congregation that was mature enough, durable enough to withstand all that life deals out. I was impressed – and I still am.
Matthew’s Gospel circulated within an early Christian community that was primarily but not exclusively Jewish, and so Matthew at every turn ties his birth narrative to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, there’s a tension, a tug of war, between readings that admonish the Jews to keep separate from the Gentiles, to avoid any contact with them, to maintain ritual purity, and other readings that speak of the Jews being a light to the nations, instructing the Gentiles – which obviously involves being in contact with the Gentiles. This is especially true for those Scriptures written after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. So on one hand we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah admonishing the Jews returning from exile to divorce and send away their foreign wives and any children they may have had with them, while on the other hand we have readings such as this morning’s reading from Isaiah, which tells the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem that “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”, picturing camels coming from the surrounding nations, laden with gifts for the Jews rebuilding the temple, bringing gold and frankincense, proclaiming the praise of the Lord. And this is the image Matthew has in mind when he tells us of the coming of the wise men, with their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. In the coming of the wise men, our reading from Isaiah is being played out. Matthew is telling us that while Jesus the Messiah was born a Jew, he was to be a light to the nations, his coming was for all, Jew and Gentile alike – for you, for me, for all of us, and for our neighbors as well.
And then Matthew goes on to tell us that while the wise men from the east were delighted at the birth of child Jesus, the powers of the Roman empire, in the person of Herod, were distraught. For the powers of the Roman empire, the coming of Jesus was not a gift, but a threat. Rome wasn’t looking for a new king of the Jews – they had already appointed a king for the Jews, and his name was Herod. No others need apply. And so Matthew sketches out an account which would have reminded his Jewish readers of the Old Testament stories of Joseph and of Moses – just as Pharaoh had ordered the slaughter of all male Hebrew babies, Herod ordered the slaughter of the boys of Jesus age. Just as the dreams of Joseph in the Old Testament led him to Egypt, so the dreams of Joseph in Matthew’s gospel led him into Egypt. Just as Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, so Mary and Joseph brought Jesus out of Egypt. For Matthew and his community, Jesus was the new Moses, come to lead everyone out of bondage to sin into the freedom of God’s reign.
And so the birth of Jesus provoked wildly divergent reactions – joy, worship, fear, rage, even murder. To the powerless and those on the margins – the shepherds, the wise men traveling from afar – Jesus’ coming brought great joy. To the powers and principalities of the world, Jesus’ coming provoked great opposition – truly for them, Jesus was, as we read last week, a sign to be opposed, so that their inner thoughts would be revealed. And so throughout today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew repeats over and over and over, like a mantra: “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Joseph is told to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him….and they went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. Even after Herod’s death, with Herod’s son Archelaus ruling, Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Galilee and keep his distance from Jerusalem.” Don’t return to Herod. Flee Herod, for Herod means harm. Stay away from Herod and his family.
Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Herod was the local puppet ruler propped up by the Roman empire – and having been threatened by the birth of Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, the empire strikes back, to borrow a title from the Star Wars series. Having made our annual pilgrimage to worship the newborn king, which road will we take? Will we return to Herod, or will we depart by another path?
For us, Herod represents the worldly powers that be, the powers of empire – the powers of militarism, consumerism, the imposition of the values of the empire on other cultures. As Americans we’re trained from childhood on to see our military power, our wealth, our way of life as gifts from God. But one definition of idolatry is to worship God’s gifts, rather than worshipping God as the giver. And we can – and we do – misuse God’s gifts. World renowned theologian and UCC member Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia prior to his retirement, has compared the situation of Christians living in America to that of the Jews living in the Babylonian empire, or that of the early Christians living in the Roman empire – and the Jews and Christians faced a constant struggle not to get sucked into the values of Babylon and Rome. As Christians, if we are not to return to Herod, departing by another way means being not buying into everything our culture wants to sell us, but rather being self-reflective, even self-critical, seeing ourselves as we are, warts and all.
For in Ramah – located north of Jerusalem, and according to some traditions where Rachel was buried – and in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other lands, Rachel still weeps and refuses to be consoled. I recently attended a talk by Celeste Zappala, a member of First United Methodist Church of Germantown and a Gold Star Mother for Peace. Her oldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004 as he provided security for the inspectors who were searching for the fictitious weapons of mass destruction. She holds no grudge against the Iraqi people, and indeed feels solidarity with the millions of mothers there whose children have been killed over the past 10 years. Her words of rebuke are reserved for the government who sent her son into harm’s way on false premises. Her talk began with the words of Matthew 2:18: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” As Herod was on the rampage in our Gospel reading, Herod is still on the rampage to this day, killing innocents the world over. War is a human tragedy, often provoking crimes against humanity, but for military contractors, war is big business. They make a killing, in more ways than one.
We read this passage at our Bible study last Sunday, and many of us asked the question: “Why did God allow all those poor innocent babies to be killed?” At other times we’ve asked about the Holocaust, how God could allow the genocide of millions of Jews. But God did not create human beings as robots, nor is God willing to step in minute by minute to override every stupid, sinful decision human beings make - but instead God allows humans freedom of choice – and real choices have real consequences, intended and unintended – so in one sense, to blame God is to pass the buck. Perhaps a more appropriate - and more challenging – question is, “Why do we allow it?” We need to be aware of the road that leads back to Herod, and of the other road that leads to freedom in Christ.
I’ll close with these words from a song most of us learned as children: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” As the sign on our social hall door says, “Let peace begin with me” – and with you, and with all of us here at Emanuel. After all, it has to start somewhere. Amen.
Today we celebrate Epiphany – the actual feast of Epiphany was on Friday, January 6, marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, as personified by the Magi, those strange visitors from the East who came to worship Jesus – and who, in the process of seeking Jesus tipped Herod off to the existence of a rival to his power. It’s a story of wonder, the coming of these foreigners to worship the newborn king – a story of horror, as we read of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents – a story of dislocation and exile, as Mary and Joseph and the babe live for a time in Egypt to escape Herod’s fury, basically as political refugees. During my first Christmas Eve here, back in December 2007 – and I used the same readings that had been used before I got here, and have continued with them almost unchanged in the years since - I was struck that the reading from Matthew 2 didn’t stop with the departure of the wise men, but continued all the way to the end of the chapter, with all that we heard Stella read today. Most churches stop short of reading the whole chapter – not wanting to frighten the children on Christmas Eve with words about a murderous psychopath of a king leaving a trail of slaughtered children in his wake – but your Christmas Eve service included everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And on that first Christmas Eve here, I thought that said something about this congregation I was just starting to get to know, that you didn’t want an edited, prettied up, Hallmark greeting card Christmas story, but wanted to hear the whole thing, warts and jagged edges and all – and I thought that said something about the faith of this congregation that was mature enough, durable enough to withstand all that life deals out. I was impressed – and I still am.
Matthew’s Gospel circulated within an early Christian community that was primarily but not exclusively Jewish, and so Matthew at every turn ties his birth narrative to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, there’s a tension, a tug of war, between readings that admonish the Jews to keep separate from the Gentiles, to avoid any contact with them, to maintain ritual purity, and other readings that speak of the Jews being a light to the nations, instructing the Gentiles – which obviously involves being in contact with the Gentiles. This is especially true for those Scriptures written after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. So on one hand we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah admonishing the Jews returning from exile to divorce and send away their foreign wives and any children they may have had with them, while on the other hand we have readings such as this morning’s reading from Isaiah, which tells the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem that “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”, picturing camels coming from the surrounding nations, laden with gifts for the Jews rebuilding the temple, bringing gold and frankincense, proclaiming the praise of the Lord. And this is the image Matthew has in mind when he tells us of the coming of the wise men, with their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. In the coming of the wise men, our reading from Isaiah is being played out. Matthew is telling us that while Jesus the Messiah was born a Jew, he was to be a light to the nations, his coming was for all, Jew and Gentile alike – for you, for me, for all of us, and for our neighbors as well.
And then Matthew goes on to tell us that while the wise men from the east were delighted at the birth of child Jesus, the powers of the Roman empire, in the person of Herod, were distraught. For the powers of the Roman empire, the coming of Jesus was not a gift, but a threat. Rome wasn’t looking for a new king of the Jews – they had already appointed a king for the Jews, and his name was Herod. No others need apply. And so Matthew sketches out an account which would have reminded his Jewish readers of the Old Testament stories of Joseph and of Moses – just as Pharaoh had ordered the slaughter of all male Hebrew babies, Herod ordered the slaughter of the boys of Jesus age. Just as the dreams of Joseph in the Old Testament led him to Egypt, so the dreams of Joseph in Matthew’s gospel led him into Egypt. Just as Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, so Mary and Joseph brought Jesus out of Egypt. For Matthew and his community, Jesus was the new Moses, come to lead everyone out of bondage to sin into the freedom of God’s reign.
And so the birth of Jesus provoked wildly divergent reactions – joy, worship, fear, rage, even murder. To the powerless and those on the margins – the shepherds, the wise men traveling from afar – Jesus’ coming brought great joy. To the powers and principalities of the world, Jesus’ coming provoked great opposition – truly for them, Jesus was, as we read last week, a sign to be opposed, so that their inner thoughts would be revealed. And so throughout today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew repeats over and over and over, like a mantra: “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Joseph is told to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him….and they went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. Even after Herod’s death, with Herod’s son Archelaus ruling, Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Galilee and keep his distance from Jerusalem.” Don’t return to Herod. Flee Herod, for Herod means harm. Stay away from Herod and his family.
Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Herod was the local puppet ruler propped up by the Roman empire – and having been threatened by the birth of Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, the empire strikes back, to borrow a title from the Star Wars series. Having made our annual pilgrimage to worship the newborn king, which road will we take? Will we return to Herod, or will we depart by another path?
For us, Herod represents the worldly powers that be, the powers of empire – the powers of militarism, consumerism, the imposition of the values of the empire on other cultures. As Americans we’re trained from childhood on to see our military power, our wealth, our way of life as gifts from God. But one definition of idolatry is to worship God’s gifts, rather than worshipping God as the giver. And we can – and we do – misuse God’s gifts. World renowned theologian and UCC member Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia prior to his retirement, has compared the situation of Christians living in America to that of the Jews living in the Babylonian empire, or that of the early Christians living in the Roman empire – and the Jews and Christians faced a constant struggle not to get sucked into the values of Babylon and Rome. As Christians, if we are not to return to Herod, departing by another way means being not buying into everything our culture wants to sell us, but rather being self-reflective, even self-critical, seeing ourselves as we are, warts and all.
For in Ramah – located north of Jerusalem, and according to some traditions where Rachel was buried – and in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other lands, Rachel still weeps and refuses to be consoled. I recently attended a talk by Celeste Zappala, a member of First United Methodist Church of Germantown and a Gold Star Mother for Peace. Her oldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004 as he provided security for the inspectors who were searching for the fictitious weapons of mass destruction. She holds no grudge against the Iraqi people, and indeed feels solidarity with the millions of mothers there whose children have been killed over the past 10 years. Her words of rebuke are reserved for the government who sent her son into harm’s way on false premises. Her talk began with the words of Matthew 2:18: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” As Herod was on the rampage in our Gospel reading, Herod is still on the rampage to this day, killing innocents the world over. War is a human tragedy, often provoking crimes against humanity, but for military contractors, war is big business. They make a killing, in more ways than one.
We read this passage at our Bible study last Sunday, and many of us asked the question: “Why did God allow all those poor innocent babies to be killed?” At other times we’ve asked about the Holocaust, how God could allow the genocide of millions of Jews. But God did not create human beings as robots, nor is God willing to step in minute by minute to override every stupid, sinful decision human beings make - but instead God allows humans freedom of choice – and real choices have real consequences, intended and unintended – so in one sense, to blame God is to pass the buck. Perhaps a more appropriate - and more challenging – question is, “Why do we allow it?” We need to be aware of the road that leads back to Herod, and of the other road that leads to freedom in Christ.
I’ll close with these words from a song most of us learned as children: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” As the sign on our social hall door says, “Let peace begin with me” – and with you, and with all of us here at Emanuel. After all, it has to start somewhere. Amen.
Endings and Beginnings
(Scriptures Isaiah 61:10-11, Isaiah 62:1-3, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:21-40)
I’m sure, among the Christmas music that we’ve heard on the radio since about Halloween or so, you remember hearing John Lennon’s song that begins:
“And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.”
This song, written in 1971 – when I was all of 10 years old - as a protest to the Vietnam war – remember the chorus – “War is over, if you want it” - has after 40 years faded into the background music while we shop at the mall. I guess almost anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough. A song that 40 years ago had an edge to it, had a bite to it, after 40 years has seemingly had its teeth extracted and its dentures put in a glass to soak. Anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough – and there’s a risk that our Gospel reading for this morning, which has great pathos, sudden shifts in feeling and mood, along with some sharp, jagged edges, can likewise fade into background noise, especially on this New Year’s morning, when perhaps it’s a bit harder than usual to focus. So I’d challenge us to pay special attention to our changing feelings as we consider this morning’s reading from the Gospel of St. Luke.
This morning’s reading gives us a poignant moment in the life of Mary and the baby Jesus. We’re told that in accordance to the requirements of the law – Luke is very particular about quoting the requirements, including Jesus’ circumcision on his 8th day – Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple, to offer the prescribed sacrifice – a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. So far we’ve read about the law, about the fulfillment of prescribed religious observance, about Mary and Joseph doing their religious duty. And we all know what that feels like…doing one’s duty makes one feel….dutiful – sort of like sending in one’s tax return - but it doesn’t necessarily bring any great amount of joy or feeling of liberation, just the relief of having done what is expected and of avoiding criticism or even punishment for noncompliance – sort of like the relief we may feel when we drop our tax return off at the post office on April 15. Relief, but hardly refreshment.
As Mary and Joseph trudge their way to the Temple to do their duty, to do what’s expected, unexpected encounters ensue with two other people who were coming to the Temple that day. (And here’s one quick takeaway – no Sunday morning in church is ‘just another Sunday morning’ – there’s always the chance that God will find a way to surprise us.) Luke tells us that old Simeon, prompted by the Holy Spirit, was on his way to the Temple. Simeon’s path crossed that of Mary and Joseph, and all of a sudden he started gushing on and on and on some more about this baby whom he’d never laid eyes on before. “Now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Simeon had been told by God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah – in Jewish rabbinical literature in use even to this day, there’s all manner of instruction as to where one will find the Messiah and how one will recognize the Messiah - and now Simeon recognized the Messiah, recognized that God’s promise was fulfilled. Simeon goes on, calling the child “a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of God’s people Israel.”
A few more lyrics from John Lennon’s song:
“And so this is Christmas/ For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones/ The world is so wrong
And so Happy Christmas/ For black and for white
For yellow and red ones/ Let's stop all the fight”
We’re told that Simeon blesses the child, but it’s quite a cryptic blessing – Simeon says that the child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, calls the child a sign that will be opposed, revealing the inner thoughts of many – and warns Mary that a sword will pierce her heart as well. Mary’s heart was pierced with a sword more than once, when Jesus left his family behind to hang out at the Temple, when Jesus began his earthly ministry, certainly at the cross. And so we have pain in the midst of God’s blessing, God’s blessing in the midst of the world’s pain – a tension that Mary lived with, that Jesus certainly experienced in his earthly ministry – the state-sponsored execution of John, who had baptized him; misunderstanding by friends and foes alike, betrayal, desertion, his own state-sponsored execution on the cross. It’s a tension that we in the church live with as well, knowing that it is in our deepest moments of sorrow and desolation that God is nearest to us. God is there, and our pain is there in God’s presence. The pain is there, and God is present there in the midst of the pain.
As it is for us and as it was for John Lennon, so it was in Jesus time – “for weak and for strong, for rich and the poor ones, the world was and is so wrong. For black and for white, the yellow and red ones, there was and is a need to stop all the fight” Jesus was a threat to Herod, to Pilate, and Jesus remains a threat to the Herods and Pilates of our day, to the empires of our day, to the worldly powers that be. And for exactly that reason, Jesus remains a source of hope for those of us who, with Jesus, don’t march to the world’s beat, but march to the different drummer of the Spirit within our hearts. I’m reminded of these words of the Roman Catholic Trappist monk, mystic and writer Thomas Merton:
“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room, His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in the world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. . . . It is in these that He hides Himself, for whom there is no room.”
(Thomas Merton, “The Time of the End is the Time of No Room,”
in Raids on the Unspeakable, pp. 72-3)
Luke tells us that after Mary and Joseph part from Simeon, they have yet another divine encounter, with a prophet – a female prophet, let me underscore – “Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.” Luke tells us that
“She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."
For Herod, the birth of Jesus was bad news. But for aged Simeon, who had waited so faithfully for so long, and for aged Anna, who had been without a husband for so many years, vulnerable and increasingly frail with the passing of the years, the birth of the Christ-child was great good news – news that upset the status quo, literally earth-shaking (or at least society-shaking) news, but good news all the same. Sometimes having our cages rattled is a good thing, and having our prison doors opened is the best news of all. In a Christmas Eve service in 1978, the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was gunned down in 1980 by a government hit squad while celebrating Mass, preached these words:
“No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God., Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God.”
Archbishop Oscar Romero, December 24, 1978,
in James Brockman, ed., the Church Is All of You
Our Gospel reading was a reading about endings and beginnings, the end of waiting for fulfillment of God’s promises for old Simeon and Anna, as they meet the Christ child at hils life’s beginning. Last night and today are days of endings and beginnings as well, as we say goodbye to the year 2011 and begin the year 2012. Forty years after John Lennon sang regarding the Vietnam war, “War is over, if you want it”, our troops have at long last ended another war, are at long last leaving Iraq. We will still have a diplomatic presence there, large enough to populate a sizable town actually, but at least on paper, this particular war is over – though other wars drag on elsewhere in the middle east. For many of us, whether we had loved ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, or not, it was a difficult year as we fought our own individual and family battles against grief, illness, unemployment, domestic upheaval, depression, deprivation, and as we say goodbye to 2011, we may be tempted to say “good riddance” as well. It may only be in retrospect, looking back months or years from now, that we understand where God was with us in our pain. And for many of us, 2012 will bring both new joys and new battles. May we remember that when we are in need, that is when God is most present with us, that when we feel most strongly our poverty of spirit, we can also know the abundance of God.
I’ll close with these lyrics from John Lennon:
A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
May we enter 2012 surrounded by that perfect love of God which casts out all fear, surrounded and filled with the presence of God with us, Emanuel. Amen.
I’m sure, among the Christmas music that we’ve heard on the radio since about Halloween or so, you remember hearing John Lennon’s song that begins:
“And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.”
This song, written in 1971 – when I was all of 10 years old - as a protest to the Vietnam war – remember the chorus – “War is over, if you want it” - has after 40 years faded into the background music while we shop at the mall. I guess almost anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough. A song that 40 years ago had an edge to it, had a bite to it, after 40 years has seemingly had its teeth extracted and its dentures put in a glass to soak. Anything can become background noise if we listen to it long enough – and there’s a risk that our Gospel reading for this morning, which has great pathos, sudden shifts in feeling and mood, along with some sharp, jagged edges, can likewise fade into background noise, especially on this New Year’s morning, when perhaps it’s a bit harder than usual to focus. So I’d challenge us to pay special attention to our changing feelings as we consider this morning’s reading from the Gospel of St. Luke.
This morning’s reading gives us a poignant moment in the life of Mary and the baby Jesus. We’re told that in accordance to the requirements of the law – Luke is very particular about quoting the requirements, including Jesus’ circumcision on his 8th day – Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple, to offer the prescribed sacrifice – a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. So far we’ve read about the law, about the fulfillment of prescribed religious observance, about Mary and Joseph doing their religious duty. And we all know what that feels like…doing one’s duty makes one feel….dutiful – sort of like sending in one’s tax return - but it doesn’t necessarily bring any great amount of joy or feeling of liberation, just the relief of having done what is expected and of avoiding criticism or even punishment for noncompliance – sort of like the relief we may feel when we drop our tax return off at the post office on April 15. Relief, but hardly refreshment.
As Mary and Joseph trudge their way to the Temple to do their duty, to do what’s expected, unexpected encounters ensue with two other people who were coming to the Temple that day. (And here’s one quick takeaway – no Sunday morning in church is ‘just another Sunday morning’ – there’s always the chance that God will find a way to surprise us.) Luke tells us that old Simeon, prompted by the Holy Spirit, was on his way to the Temple. Simeon’s path crossed that of Mary and Joseph, and all of a sudden he started gushing on and on and on some more about this baby whom he’d never laid eyes on before. “Now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Simeon had been told by God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah – in Jewish rabbinical literature in use even to this day, there’s all manner of instruction as to where one will find the Messiah and how one will recognize the Messiah - and now Simeon recognized the Messiah, recognized that God’s promise was fulfilled. Simeon goes on, calling the child “a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of God’s people Israel.”
A few more lyrics from John Lennon’s song:
“And so this is Christmas/ For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones/ The world is so wrong
And so Happy Christmas/ For black and for white
For yellow and red ones/ Let's stop all the fight”
We’re told that Simeon blesses the child, but it’s quite a cryptic blessing – Simeon says that the child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, calls the child a sign that will be opposed, revealing the inner thoughts of many – and warns Mary that a sword will pierce her heart as well. Mary’s heart was pierced with a sword more than once, when Jesus left his family behind to hang out at the Temple, when Jesus began his earthly ministry, certainly at the cross. And so we have pain in the midst of God’s blessing, God’s blessing in the midst of the world’s pain – a tension that Mary lived with, that Jesus certainly experienced in his earthly ministry – the state-sponsored execution of John, who had baptized him; misunderstanding by friends and foes alike, betrayal, desertion, his own state-sponsored execution on the cross. It’s a tension that we in the church live with as well, knowing that it is in our deepest moments of sorrow and desolation that God is nearest to us. God is there, and our pain is there in God’s presence. The pain is there, and God is present there in the midst of the pain.
As it is for us and as it was for John Lennon, so it was in Jesus time – “for weak and for strong, for rich and the poor ones, the world was and is so wrong. For black and for white, the yellow and red ones, there was and is a need to stop all the fight” Jesus was a threat to Herod, to Pilate, and Jesus remains a threat to the Herods and Pilates of our day, to the empires of our day, to the worldly powers that be. And for exactly that reason, Jesus remains a source of hope for those of us who, with Jesus, don’t march to the world’s beat, but march to the different drummer of the Spirit within our hearts. I’m reminded of these words of the Roman Catholic Trappist monk, mystic and writer Thomas Merton:
“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room, His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in the world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. . . . It is in these that He hides Himself, for whom there is no room.”
(Thomas Merton, “The Time of the End is the Time of No Room,”
in Raids on the Unspeakable, pp. 72-3)
Luke tells us that after Mary and Joseph part from Simeon, they have yet another divine encounter, with a prophet – a female prophet, let me underscore – “Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.” Luke tells us that
“She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."
For Herod, the birth of Jesus was bad news. But for aged Simeon, who had waited so faithfully for so long, and for aged Anna, who had been without a husband for so many years, vulnerable and increasingly frail with the passing of the years, the birth of the Christ-child was great good news – news that upset the status quo, literally earth-shaking (or at least society-shaking) news, but good news all the same. Sometimes having our cages rattled is a good thing, and having our prison doors opened is the best news of all. In a Christmas Eve service in 1978, the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was gunned down in 1980 by a government hit squad while celebrating Mass, preached these words:
“No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God., Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God.”
Archbishop Oscar Romero, December 24, 1978,
in James Brockman, ed., the Church Is All of You
Our Gospel reading was a reading about endings and beginnings, the end of waiting for fulfillment of God’s promises for old Simeon and Anna, as they meet the Christ child at hils life’s beginning. Last night and today are days of endings and beginnings as well, as we say goodbye to the year 2011 and begin the year 2012. Forty years after John Lennon sang regarding the Vietnam war, “War is over, if you want it”, our troops have at long last ended another war, are at long last leaving Iraq. We will still have a diplomatic presence there, large enough to populate a sizable town actually, but at least on paper, this particular war is over – though other wars drag on elsewhere in the middle east. For many of us, whether we had loved ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, or not, it was a difficult year as we fought our own individual and family battles against grief, illness, unemployment, domestic upheaval, depression, deprivation, and as we say goodbye to 2011, we may be tempted to say “good riddance” as well. It may only be in retrospect, looking back months or years from now, that we understand where God was with us in our pain. And for many of us, 2012 will bring both new joys and new battles. May we remember that when we are in need, that is when God is most present with us, that when we feel most strongly our poverty of spirit, we can also know the abundance of God.
I’ll close with these lyrics from John Lennon:
A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
May we enter 2012 surrounded by that perfect love of God which casts out all fear, surrounded and filled with the presence of God with us, Emanuel. Amen.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Expecting!
(Scriptures: I Samuel 2:1-11, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:25-56)
Every now and then, events come to pass that we thought we’d never live to see. When many of us were growing up, the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was an entrenched fact of life, something we thought was an unchangeable reality, like death and taxes. Many who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s remember bomb shelters and duck and cover drills in school, where, in case of nuclear attack, school children were told to kneel under their desks with their hands clutched around their heads and necks. In 1961, the Berlin wall went up, dividing capitalist West Germany from Communist East Germany. By the 1970’s, when I was in high school, the duck and cover drills had ceased, but the tension between our countries remained, as it seemed like capitalism and communism were in a fight to the death for world domination. And then, in the late 1980’s, it just….ended…in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and events continued rapidly from there. Similarly, many of us remember other moments we never thought we’d live to see – apartheid, which enforced segregation between the races in South Africa, coming to an end in the early 1990’s, what were called “the troubles” in Ireland, in which Protestants seeking union with Great Britain and Catholics nationalists wanting to preserve independence from Great Britain killed one another for decades starting in the 1960’s, coming to an end in the “Good Friday” Belfast Accord of 1998. More recently, years of violence in Liberia have come to end in a fragile time of relative peace under President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf. In these times of change, there are many theories of what happened, what brought them about. In some cases, these events are still too recent for us to have fully developed a perspective on them; the histories are still being written.
This may seem like a very strange way to begin a sermon for the last Sunday in Advent. We want angels and wise men and a manger, not talk of social change. Our Advent readings include statements that seemed extravagant, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky. But the examples of sweeping change with which I began this sermon remind us that sometimes entrenched oppression, entrenched misery gives way to new hope; the impossible becomes not only possible, but inevitable, and what seems unreal becomes reality.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we draw near to the end of this season of waiting, today’s Scripture readings give us words from not one, but two mothers. Our Old Testament reading quotes the words of Hannah, the first of two wives of Elkanah. Elkanah’s other wife is Peninnah – in Hebrew the name just means “the second one” or “the other one”. Hannah had been barren, so perhaps Elkanah married Peninnah to assure himself that he would have children, that his name would live on on. Hannah went to Shiloh to beg the Lord for a child, and vowed that if the Lord gave her a child, the child would be devoted to the Lord’s service. As Hannah left her child, Samuel, with the aged priest Eli, she prayed the beautiful words we heard read earlier. And, of course, our Gospel reading includes Mary’s Magnificat, Mary’s hymn of praise to God and thanksgiving for the child within her, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
We have a number of moms in our congregation, those with young children, and those whose children are grown, but no doubt remember what it was like to be expecting. That’s an experience I haven’t had. But I would imagine that as your bodies were going through the changes of pregnancy, you had so many thoughts about the child growing within you. Of course, boy or girl? What will we call the baby? Would he or she take after you or the baby’s father? I’d imagine, as you gave birth and as your baby grew, you’ve had such hopes and dreams for your child. What sort of person would your child grow up to be?
And our two moms in our readings this morning, Hannah and Mary, had high hopes for their children – and that’s putting it mildly. Hannah and Mary both literally expected their children to turn society upside down – or maybe right-side up. Here’s Hannah: “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” And here’s Mary: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” Not exactly the kind of language we’d include in an invitation for a baby shower. Hannah and Mary are speaking in what is sometimes called the prophetic past tense, speaking with such certainty that it’s as if all these things have already happened. If Jesus heard words like this as he was growing up, it’s no wonder that his first sermon, as recorded by Luke, was on the text, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This was Jesus’ personal mission statement, what drove him, what motivated him to ministry.
You don’t need me to tell you that many people in this neighborhood, in our city, our country, in the world are hurting. The divide between the rich and the poor is as wide as it has been since the Gilded Age of the 1870’s and 1880’s. For those at the bottom of the economic ladder, prospects for improvement are dismal. In these days, it’s easy to lose hope for anything better. In these days, it’s easy to become discouraged, and just expect more of the same.
When we think about the forces that have power to create change in society, we think of guns and tanks, or people of great wealth and political influence. But throughout the Bible, we see that when God wants to bring change, he sends, not an army, but a baby. Think of Isaac, son of the promise, born to the aged Abraham and Sarah. Think of Moses, born to lead the children of Israel to freedom. Think of Hannah in our Old Testament reading giving birth to Samuel, who marked the transition from the social disorder of the time of the judges to the relative stability of the monarchy. And think of the birth John the Baptist, born, like Abraham, to an aged, childless couple, born to proclaim the coming Messiah, and Jesus, born to Mary, God in the flesh, in whom we are all saved.
We may think of Hannah’s and Mary’s dreams for their children as extravagant, over the top. But I think perhaps the question for us is not “why did they expect so much?” but rather “why do we expect so little?” Why do we expect so little? Hannah and Mary expected their children to turn their society upside down – or maybe right side up. But throughout history, the church, which professes to follow Mary’s son, instead of turning the world upside down, so often has just blessed the status quo. Hannah and Mary looked for the poor to be lifted up and the powerful to be humbled. Too often over the centuries, the church has upheld and blessed entrenched power as God’s will, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Here at Emanuel, I think we sometimes let our size discourage us from hoping that God can use our congregation; we think that because we don’t have hundreds of members in the pews and millions of dollars in the endowment fund, God can’t use us to usher in the reign of God.
In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul said that God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, uses that which is weak to shame the strong. Jesus was born, not in a palace, but in a stable. Jesus’ birth was a threat to Herod, a threat to the Roman empire and to all worldly empires, but good news to the shepherds and foreign wise men who came to pay him homage. It is not with the strong but with the weak that we find Jesus. So here at Emanuel, Jesus is right at home.
Hannah’s and Mary’s words gave voice to the hope within them, that the child within each of them would be used by God to turn society upside down – or maybe, turn it right-side up. And we here at Emanuel, as small as we are, still have new life within us – we’ve baptized several babies over the past year. Can a 150 year old church have children – “yes”! Can God use a 150 year old church to change lives, to nourish the life of the Spirit. Absolutely yes!
Did Hannah, did Mary know what plans God had for their children? Who can tell what plans God has for us, for the babies recently baptized and their families, and for those of us whose baptisms happened long years ago? We worship a God who uses old couples, long-childless mothers, unwed mothers to bring forth new life. And God can use us, if we’ll allow it. So, in a way, just as Hannah was expecting, just as Mary was expecting, so are we here at Emanuel – expecting, pregnant with possibilities, capable still of bringing forth new life, if God so wills.
During this Advent season of hope, peace, love, and joy, may we live with a sense of expectation – expectation that God who did great things in the past will do great things here in the future, that Jesus who passed from death to resurrection life will bring about resurrection life here at Emanuel Church. May it be so with us. Amen.
Every now and then, events come to pass that we thought we’d never live to see. When many of us were growing up, the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was an entrenched fact of life, something we thought was an unchangeable reality, like death and taxes. Many who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s remember bomb shelters and duck and cover drills in school, where, in case of nuclear attack, school children were told to kneel under their desks with their hands clutched around their heads and necks. In 1961, the Berlin wall went up, dividing capitalist West Germany from Communist East Germany. By the 1970’s, when I was in high school, the duck and cover drills had ceased, but the tension between our countries remained, as it seemed like capitalism and communism were in a fight to the death for world domination. And then, in the late 1980’s, it just….ended…in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and events continued rapidly from there. Similarly, many of us remember other moments we never thought we’d live to see – apartheid, which enforced segregation between the races in South Africa, coming to an end in the early 1990’s, what were called “the troubles” in Ireland, in which Protestants seeking union with Great Britain and Catholics nationalists wanting to preserve independence from Great Britain killed one another for decades starting in the 1960’s, coming to an end in the “Good Friday” Belfast Accord of 1998. More recently, years of violence in Liberia have come to end in a fragile time of relative peace under President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf. In these times of change, there are many theories of what happened, what brought them about. In some cases, these events are still too recent for us to have fully developed a perspective on them; the histories are still being written.
This may seem like a very strange way to begin a sermon for the last Sunday in Advent. We want angels and wise men and a manger, not talk of social change. Our Advent readings include statements that seemed extravagant, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky. But the examples of sweeping change with which I began this sermon remind us that sometimes entrenched oppression, entrenched misery gives way to new hope; the impossible becomes not only possible, but inevitable, and what seems unreal becomes reality.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we draw near to the end of this season of waiting, today’s Scripture readings give us words from not one, but two mothers. Our Old Testament reading quotes the words of Hannah, the first of two wives of Elkanah. Elkanah’s other wife is Peninnah – in Hebrew the name just means “the second one” or “the other one”. Hannah had been barren, so perhaps Elkanah married Peninnah to assure himself that he would have children, that his name would live on on. Hannah went to Shiloh to beg the Lord for a child, and vowed that if the Lord gave her a child, the child would be devoted to the Lord’s service. As Hannah left her child, Samuel, with the aged priest Eli, she prayed the beautiful words we heard read earlier. And, of course, our Gospel reading includes Mary’s Magnificat, Mary’s hymn of praise to God and thanksgiving for the child within her, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
We have a number of moms in our congregation, those with young children, and those whose children are grown, but no doubt remember what it was like to be expecting. That’s an experience I haven’t had. But I would imagine that as your bodies were going through the changes of pregnancy, you had so many thoughts about the child growing within you. Of course, boy or girl? What will we call the baby? Would he or she take after you or the baby’s father? I’d imagine, as you gave birth and as your baby grew, you’ve had such hopes and dreams for your child. What sort of person would your child grow up to be?
And our two moms in our readings this morning, Hannah and Mary, had high hopes for their children – and that’s putting it mildly. Hannah and Mary both literally expected their children to turn society upside down – or maybe right-side up. Here’s Hannah: “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” And here’s Mary: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” Not exactly the kind of language we’d include in an invitation for a baby shower. Hannah and Mary are speaking in what is sometimes called the prophetic past tense, speaking with such certainty that it’s as if all these things have already happened. If Jesus heard words like this as he was growing up, it’s no wonder that his first sermon, as recorded by Luke, was on the text, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This was Jesus’ personal mission statement, what drove him, what motivated him to ministry.
You don’t need me to tell you that many people in this neighborhood, in our city, our country, in the world are hurting. The divide between the rich and the poor is as wide as it has been since the Gilded Age of the 1870’s and 1880’s. For those at the bottom of the economic ladder, prospects for improvement are dismal. In these days, it’s easy to lose hope for anything better. In these days, it’s easy to become discouraged, and just expect more of the same.
When we think about the forces that have power to create change in society, we think of guns and tanks, or people of great wealth and political influence. But throughout the Bible, we see that when God wants to bring change, he sends, not an army, but a baby. Think of Isaac, son of the promise, born to the aged Abraham and Sarah. Think of Moses, born to lead the children of Israel to freedom. Think of Hannah in our Old Testament reading giving birth to Samuel, who marked the transition from the social disorder of the time of the judges to the relative stability of the monarchy. And think of the birth John the Baptist, born, like Abraham, to an aged, childless couple, born to proclaim the coming Messiah, and Jesus, born to Mary, God in the flesh, in whom we are all saved.
We may think of Hannah’s and Mary’s dreams for their children as extravagant, over the top. But I think perhaps the question for us is not “why did they expect so much?” but rather “why do we expect so little?” Why do we expect so little? Hannah and Mary expected their children to turn their society upside down – or maybe right side up. But throughout history, the church, which professes to follow Mary’s son, instead of turning the world upside down, so often has just blessed the status quo. Hannah and Mary looked for the poor to be lifted up and the powerful to be humbled. Too often over the centuries, the church has upheld and blessed entrenched power as God’s will, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Here at Emanuel, I think we sometimes let our size discourage us from hoping that God can use our congregation; we think that because we don’t have hundreds of members in the pews and millions of dollars in the endowment fund, God can’t use us to usher in the reign of God.
In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul said that God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, uses that which is weak to shame the strong. Jesus was born, not in a palace, but in a stable. Jesus’ birth was a threat to Herod, a threat to the Roman empire and to all worldly empires, but good news to the shepherds and foreign wise men who came to pay him homage. It is not with the strong but with the weak that we find Jesus. So here at Emanuel, Jesus is right at home.
Hannah’s and Mary’s words gave voice to the hope within them, that the child within each of them would be used by God to turn society upside down – or maybe, turn it right-side up. And we here at Emanuel, as small as we are, still have new life within us – we’ve baptized several babies over the past year. Can a 150 year old church have children – “yes”! Can God use a 150 year old church to change lives, to nourish the life of the Spirit. Absolutely yes!
Did Hannah, did Mary know what plans God had for their children? Who can tell what plans God has for us, for the babies recently baptized and their families, and for those of us whose baptisms happened long years ago? We worship a God who uses old couples, long-childless mothers, unwed mothers to bring forth new life. And God can use us, if we’ll allow it. So, in a way, just as Hannah was expecting, just as Mary was expecting, so are we here at Emanuel – expecting, pregnant with possibilities, capable still of bringing forth new life, if God so wills.
During this Advent season of hope, peace, love, and joy, may we live with a sense of expectation – expectation that God who did great things in the past will do great things here in the future, that Jesus who passed from death to resurrection life will bring about resurrection life here at Emanuel Church. May it be so with us. Amen.
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
(Scriptures: Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 126, I Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28)
We continue on in Advent, that season of waiting, waiting for the coming of the Christ child, waiting for the coming of hope, peace, and now, joy. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday, Gaudete, from the Latin for the word “rejoice”. Rejoice!
Our readings speak of a joy that is hard-won, a joy that comes at the end of a long period of endurance. Our reading from Isaiah comes at the end of the exile in Babylon, when the Jews are preparing to return to their homeland at last, after decades in a foreign land. After long decades of brutal exile, God will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep. Psalm 126 captures the mood of those returning from exile – “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
The Declaration of Independence lifts up three basic rights of human beings – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Americans have been pursuing happiness for some 235 years now. During this Christmas shopping season, we’re promised, as we’re promised every year, that if we buy more, better, bigger, faster, we will be happy.
But the joy of today’s readings wasn’t bought at the mall. Some of you remember that early in my time here at Emanuel, I went on two trips with the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference to visit churches in Cuba, as part of a delegation forming a partnership between the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference and the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Despite the signs everywhere proclaiming the triumph of the Castro Revolution – then celebrating its 50th year - by American standards, our hosts had very little – most buildings needed at least several coats of paint and most needed a good bit of exterior and interior repair, functioning indoor plumbing was a luxury, transportation options ran the gamut from surprisingly new Chinese buses to 1950’s vintage American cars, held together with hope and duct tape, to bicycle cabs to horses. On the way to a rural church, I saw a team of oxen pulling a jeep out of a ditch. Havana does have some lovely hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists, and so we ate quite well – and since we were paying, our hosts ate quite well while they were with us - but were very aware that many of those around us were accustomed to missing meals. Similarly, the churches we visited ran the gamut from long-established houses of worship that dated from before the Castro revolution, to churches set up in storefronts and even house churches. And yet at these churches the joy was just bouncing off the walls. From a material point of view, our hosts had very little to sing about – but at all the churches we visited, the joy of the Lord was in the house, evidenced by singing and clapping and shouting and swaying. And they shared the joy with those around them – even the smallest house church we visited raised rabbits and grew medicinal herbs for the members and also for their neighbors.
Our readings from Isaiah 40 and Psalm 126 show the joy of those returning from exile. It was a hard-won joy – they had been through a lot during the long years of exile. As Psalm 126 put it, they went into exile weeping, bearing seeds for sowing in a strange land, and now they were coming home with joy, bearing the sheaves, the fruits of their long endurance. And there was still much to endure – they were returning to a city of Jerusalem in ruins, a Temple site that had been burned to the ground. They had a whole lot of work ahead of them. And yet they were just so happy to be back home, back in the land that God had promised Abraham and his descendents.
I think I caught a tiny glimpse of what that joy might have looked like during my first winter here at Emanuel. You had worshiped downstairs in the social hall for a number of years because Rev. Grau could no longer climb the stairs. We went upstairs – so you were back in your sanctuary - but we had no organist. The search for an organist dragged on for months. Finally we found Ralph, our organist, and he graciously agreed to come and play for us, and was with us on Easter Sunday. And the joy in the congregation that morning – oh my goodness! - you were so happy to hear your organ again. Christ had risen from the dead, and it felt like something about the spirit of the congregation was resurrected that day as well. And the joy continues.
For a surprising number of our members, 2011 was a difficult year. The passing of various members of our congregation’s families, hospitalizations of other members, other personal tragedies that we’ve carried, and each one of us affected in one way or another by a difficult economy. For me, the joy is that as small as we are, we’ve been able to take each challenge, each tragedy, and wrap it in love and lift it up and offer it in prayer to God. As I’ve heard you say, more than once, we’re a small church, but we pray big. And even in this difficult year, there have been moments of joy – recovery and healing for several of our members, several baptisms, the many former members and friends of the congregation with us on our anniversary, the video you made of so many holy moments over the 150 year history of our congregation. This is joy that is a gift of the Spirit, a joy that can carry us through hard times. This is the joy that Paul was talking about in our reading from I Thessalonians:
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances – in ALL circumstances - for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. "
So on this 3rd Sunday in Advent, we celebrate the gift of the Spirit that is joy. May the joy of the Spirit be with us in this season of Advent as we await the coming of the Christ child. And as we wait,
"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this."
May it be so among us. Amen."
We continue on in Advent, that season of waiting, waiting for the coming of the Christ child, waiting for the coming of hope, peace, and now, joy. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday, Gaudete, from the Latin for the word “rejoice”. Rejoice!
Our readings speak of a joy that is hard-won, a joy that comes at the end of a long period of endurance. Our reading from Isaiah comes at the end of the exile in Babylon, when the Jews are preparing to return to their homeland at last, after decades in a foreign land. After long decades of brutal exile, God will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep. Psalm 126 captures the mood of those returning from exile – “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
The Declaration of Independence lifts up three basic rights of human beings – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Americans have been pursuing happiness for some 235 years now. During this Christmas shopping season, we’re promised, as we’re promised every year, that if we buy more, better, bigger, faster, we will be happy.
But the joy of today’s readings wasn’t bought at the mall. Some of you remember that early in my time here at Emanuel, I went on two trips with the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference to visit churches in Cuba, as part of a delegation forming a partnership between the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference and the Fraternity of Baptists in Cuba. Despite the signs everywhere proclaiming the triumph of the Castro Revolution – then celebrating its 50th year - by American standards, our hosts had very little – most buildings needed at least several coats of paint and most needed a good bit of exterior and interior repair, functioning indoor plumbing was a luxury, transportation options ran the gamut from surprisingly new Chinese buses to 1950’s vintage American cars, held together with hope and duct tape, to bicycle cabs to horses. On the way to a rural church, I saw a team of oxen pulling a jeep out of a ditch. Havana does have some lovely hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists, and so we ate quite well – and since we were paying, our hosts ate quite well while they were with us - but were very aware that many of those around us were accustomed to missing meals. Similarly, the churches we visited ran the gamut from long-established houses of worship that dated from before the Castro revolution, to churches set up in storefronts and even house churches. And yet at these churches the joy was just bouncing off the walls. From a material point of view, our hosts had very little to sing about – but at all the churches we visited, the joy of the Lord was in the house, evidenced by singing and clapping and shouting and swaying. And they shared the joy with those around them – even the smallest house church we visited raised rabbits and grew medicinal herbs for the members and also for their neighbors.
Our readings from Isaiah 40 and Psalm 126 show the joy of those returning from exile. It was a hard-won joy – they had been through a lot during the long years of exile. As Psalm 126 put it, they went into exile weeping, bearing seeds for sowing in a strange land, and now they were coming home with joy, bearing the sheaves, the fruits of their long endurance. And there was still much to endure – they were returning to a city of Jerusalem in ruins, a Temple site that had been burned to the ground. They had a whole lot of work ahead of them. And yet they were just so happy to be back home, back in the land that God had promised Abraham and his descendents.
I think I caught a tiny glimpse of what that joy might have looked like during my first winter here at Emanuel. You had worshiped downstairs in the social hall for a number of years because Rev. Grau could no longer climb the stairs. We went upstairs – so you were back in your sanctuary - but we had no organist. The search for an organist dragged on for months. Finally we found Ralph, our organist, and he graciously agreed to come and play for us, and was with us on Easter Sunday. And the joy in the congregation that morning – oh my goodness! - you were so happy to hear your organ again. Christ had risen from the dead, and it felt like something about the spirit of the congregation was resurrected that day as well. And the joy continues.
For a surprising number of our members, 2011 was a difficult year. The passing of various members of our congregation’s families, hospitalizations of other members, other personal tragedies that we’ve carried, and each one of us affected in one way or another by a difficult economy. For me, the joy is that as small as we are, we’ve been able to take each challenge, each tragedy, and wrap it in love and lift it up and offer it in prayer to God. As I’ve heard you say, more than once, we’re a small church, but we pray big. And even in this difficult year, there have been moments of joy – recovery and healing for several of our members, several baptisms, the many former members and friends of the congregation with us on our anniversary, the video you made of so many holy moments over the 150 year history of our congregation. This is joy that is a gift of the Spirit, a joy that can carry us through hard times. This is the joy that Paul was talking about in our reading from I Thessalonians:
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances – in ALL circumstances - for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. "
So on this 3rd Sunday in Advent, we celebrate the gift of the Spirit that is joy. May the joy of the Spirit be with us in this season of Advent as we await the coming of the Christ child. And as we wait,
"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this."
May it be so among us. Amen."
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Prepare the Way
(Scriptures: Isaiah 61:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8)
Since early October, we’ve been reading and watching on TV the “Occupy” movement – first “Occupy Wall Street” and then Occupy Oakland, Portland, and, more locally, Occupy Philadelphia, which until Tuesday last week was situated at City Hall. A nucleus of Occupiers – somewhere upwards of 100 tents at any given time – were camped out 24/7 in tents on Dilworth Plaza, outside City Hall. Around this nucleus, a larger and incredibly eclectic assortment of activists – students, environmental activists, anarchists, Quaker and interfaith peace activists, clergy, labor union leaders, assorted other groups such as the “Granny Peace Brigade” – came and went as family schedules and day jobs permitted. There were also many homeless persons, who slept on Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall most nights. While these homeless were perplexed to see so many new neighbors on their doorstep, they were also grateful for the meals that the Occupy group served, over 1000 meals a day. The news media covering the Occupy movement were frustrated, first, that the Occupiers didn’t have a single leader – with their very participatory form of organization, all however many hundred people at Dilworth Plaza, everyone there, were potential leaders – nor did they have a tidy list of demands, beyond an overall message that the wealthiest 1% of Americans are causing financial hardship, political disenfranchisement, and environmental devastation for the remaining 99% of Americans, and indeed, for the rest of the world. Put simply, those at Dilworth Plaza were and are sick and tired of being sick and tired. On Tuesday last week, the police cleared Dilworth Plaza, but while the tents are gone, the feeling of being sick and tired of being sick and tired remains. As one of the signs at the Occupy camp said, “You can’t evict an idea.”
Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel beings with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark’s is thought by Bible scholars to have been the first of the four Gospels to be written, to which Matthew and Luke added additional material and of which the writer of John’s Gospel was at least aware. To Mark’s material, Matthew and Luke added, among other information, the birth narratives – the announcement of the angel to Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the manger, the wise men. John’s Gospel begins with a cosmic portrait of Christ as the pre-existing Word who was with God and who was God from the beginning, now become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. But Mark’s Gospel has none of that. Mark begins with a quotation from Isaiah – with some additional material from Micah included – about a messenger preparing the way, and the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!’ And with that very brief introduction, we meet John the Baptist out in the wilderness. We’re told that people from the whole Judean countryside and even from Jerusalem were going out to John, to be baptized in the river Jordan as a sign of repentance. It almost sounds a little like John the Baptist had his own “Occupy the Jordan River” movement going on. Certainly with the description of his being clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, he’d have fit in just fine with the scruffy crowd in Dilworth Plaza – though the description is intended to remind us of Elijah, whom the prophet Micah said would announce the coming of the Messiah.
We may wonder why so many went out to the wilderness to be baptized by John. After all, it isn’t like everyone could just hop in their SUV or even carpool out to the Jordan. SEPTA and Amtrak didn’t go there. It was a long, uncomfortable walk or donkey ride from Jerusalem and the countryside to the wilderness, a major investment of time, a major investment of effort, to go out into the wilderness, where there were no creature comforts, no turnpike service plazas or vending machines, not even a porta-potty, nothing at the end of their long walk but John and the Jordan River.
Why did they go? We’re told they came to be baptized as a sign of repentance. Over 2000 years, we’ve layered a lot of religious glop on the word repentance, but at its core, repentance means a change of mind, a change of consciousness, a change of direction. It’s a recognition that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, and a resolve to stop doing what isn’t working in order to do something that will work, or at least that might work. For John’s followers, similar to the current Occupy folk, the status quo that needed to change was both personal and societal. After all, if going to the Temple and performing the prescribed sacrifices and rituals – or going to the local synagogue to hear the reading and exposition of Torah – had been sufficient, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. If they had been living comfortably under Rome’s occupation of Judea, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. But, in fact, none of these things were working. The Roman occupation was messed up, the religious establishment was messed up, and they themselves were messed up. The crowds had no grand social vision, and really neither did John. They just knew that both they and their society were broken, that they were sick and tired of being sick and tired, that they needed God to intervene in a deep way in their lives and in society. And John was very clear that he was the messenger, not the Messiah. It was not for John to save the people or their society; he could only point the way to the One who would.
Today’s reading from Mark reminds us that the Good News of Jesus may begin with the bad news that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, specifically, that we – you, me, each of us, all of us - need to change direction. As Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospels, it is those who are sick who need a doctor, not those who are well. Our reading from Isaiah brings a message that would resonate powerfully with the Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza, and no doubt resonated with John’s followers: “Bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” It’s a message of radical change, radical personal change and radical social change. It was not for John to bring all this about himself, but to point to Jesus, the One anointed by God to do all these things – remember that in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus chose this very Isaiah text for his very first sermon. Like the 1% who hold great power in our day, the powerful of Jesus day were offended at this text, and in fact tried to throw him off a cliff. But for those who were oppressed, brokenhearted, and captive to the powers and principalities, in Jesus’ day and in ours, Jesus’ words were life-changing, like rivers of water in the desert.
The Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza were there to point to the need for change. John was out in the desert, to point to the need for change. And we as followers of Jesus are likewise called to point to the need for change, and to point to Jesus as the one who makes change possible, to point to Jesus as the one whose birth and life, death and resurrection have brought in God’s reign. We can point to Jesus by telling our neighbors about Jesus, by inviting them to church. We can also point to Jesus in our lives, by modeling a way of life that’s different, by living in a way that says that Jesus, not the almighty dollar, reigns. We do that by raising money for the food cupboard and for the ministries of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference. We do that by providing safe space for parents to raise their children. We do that by providing a place where hurting people can come for prayer, and coffee and cake, and a kind word.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” said John the Baptist. In these remaining weeks of Advent, may we at Emanuel Church prepare ourselves and help to prepare our world for the coming of the Christ child. Let every heart prepare him room. Amen.
Since early October, we’ve been reading and watching on TV the “Occupy” movement – first “Occupy Wall Street” and then Occupy Oakland, Portland, and, more locally, Occupy Philadelphia, which until Tuesday last week was situated at City Hall. A nucleus of Occupiers – somewhere upwards of 100 tents at any given time – were camped out 24/7 in tents on Dilworth Plaza, outside City Hall. Around this nucleus, a larger and incredibly eclectic assortment of activists – students, environmental activists, anarchists, Quaker and interfaith peace activists, clergy, labor union leaders, assorted other groups such as the “Granny Peace Brigade” – came and went as family schedules and day jobs permitted. There were also many homeless persons, who slept on Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall most nights. While these homeless were perplexed to see so many new neighbors on their doorstep, they were also grateful for the meals that the Occupy group served, over 1000 meals a day. The news media covering the Occupy movement were frustrated, first, that the Occupiers didn’t have a single leader – with their very participatory form of organization, all however many hundred people at Dilworth Plaza, everyone there, were potential leaders – nor did they have a tidy list of demands, beyond an overall message that the wealthiest 1% of Americans are causing financial hardship, political disenfranchisement, and environmental devastation for the remaining 99% of Americans, and indeed, for the rest of the world. Put simply, those at Dilworth Plaza were and are sick and tired of being sick and tired. On Tuesday last week, the police cleared Dilworth Plaza, but while the tents are gone, the feeling of being sick and tired of being sick and tired remains. As one of the signs at the Occupy camp said, “You can’t evict an idea.”
Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel beings with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark’s is thought by Bible scholars to have been the first of the four Gospels to be written, to which Matthew and Luke added additional material and of which the writer of John’s Gospel was at least aware. To Mark’s material, Matthew and Luke added, among other information, the birth narratives – the announcement of the angel to Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the manger, the wise men. John’s Gospel begins with a cosmic portrait of Christ as the pre-existing Word who was with God and who was God from the beginning, now become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. But Mark’s Gospel has none of that. Mark begins with a quotation from Isaiah – with some additional material from Micah included – about a messenger preparing the way, and the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!’ And with that very brief introduction, we meet John the Baptist out in the wilderness. We’re told that people from the whole Judean countryside and even from Jerusalem were going out to John, to be baptized in the river Jordan as a sign of repentance. It almost sounds a little like John the Baptist had his own “Occupy the Jordan River” movement going on. Certainly with the description of his being clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, he’d have fit in just fine with the scruffy crowd in Dilworth Plaza – though the description is intended to remind us of Elijah, whom the prophet Micah said would announce the coming of the Messiah.
We may wonder why so many went out to the wilderness to be baptized by John. After all, it isn’t like everyone could just hop in their SUV or even carpool out to the Jordan. SEPTA and Amtrak didn’t go there. It was a long, uncomfortable walk or donkey ride from Jerusalem and the countryside to the wilderness, a major investment of time, a major investment of effort, to go out into the wilderness, where there were no creature comforts, no turnpike service plazas or vending machines, not even a porta-potty, nothing at the end of their long walk but John and the Jordan River.
Why did they go? We’re told they came to be baptized as a sign of repentance. Over 2000 years, we’ve layered a lot of religious glop on the word repentance, but at its core, repentance means a change of mind, a change of consciousness, a change of direction. It’s a recognition that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, and a resolve to stop doing what isn’t working in order to do something that will work, or at least that might work. For John’s followers, similar to the current Occupy folk, the status quo that needed to change was both personal and societal. After all, if going to the Temple and performing the prescribed sacrifices and rituals – or going to the local synagogue to hear the reading and exposition of Torah – had been sufficient, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. If they had been living comfortably under Rome’s occupation of Judea, they wouldn’t have slogged out to the desert. But, in fact, none of these things were working. The Roman occupation was messed up, the religious establishment was messed up, and they themselves were messed up. The crowds had no grand social vision, and really neither did John. They just knew that both they and their society were broken, that they were sick and tired of being sick and tired, that they needed God to intervene in a deep way in their lives and in society. And John was very clear that he was the messenger, not the Messiah. It was not for John to save the people or their society; he could only point the way to the One who would.
Today’s reading from Mark reminds us that the Good News of Jesus may begin with the bad news that the status quo isn’t working, that change is needed, specifically, that we – you, me, each of us, all of us - need to change direction. As Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospels, it is those who are sick who need a doctor, not those who are well. Our reading from Isaiah brings a message that would resonate powerfully with the Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza, and no doubt resonated with John’s followers: “Bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” It’s a message of radical change, radical personal change and radical social change. It was not for John to bring all this about himself, but to point to Jesus, the One anointed by God to do all these things – remember that in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus chose this very Isaiah text for his very first sermon. Like the 1% who hold great power in our day, the powerful of Jesus day were offended at this text, and in fact tried to throw him off a cliff. But for those who were oppressed, brokenhearted, and captive to the powers and principalities, in Jesus’ day and in ours, Jesus’ words were life-changing, like rivers of water in the desert.
The Occupy folks at Dilworth Plaza were there to point to the need for change. John was out in the desert, to point to the need for change. And we as followers of Jesus are likewise called to point to the need for change, and to point to Jesus as the one who makes change possible, to point to Jesus as the one whose birth and life, death and resurrection have brought in God’s reign. We can point to Jesus by telling our neighbors about Jesus, by inviting them to church. We can also point to Jesus in our lives, by modeling a way of life that’s different, by living in a way that says that Jesus, not the almighty dollar, reigns. We do that by raising money for the food cupboard and for the ministries of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference. We do that by providing safe space for parents to raise their children. We do that by providing a place where hurting people can come for prayer, and coffee and cake, and a kind word.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” said John the Baptist. In these remaining weeks of Advent, may we at Emanuel Church prepare ourselves and help to prepare our world for the coming of the Christ child. Let every heart prepare him room. Amen.
Wait and Hope
(Scriptures: Isaiah 64:1-9, I Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37)
Today is the first Sunday in Advent – the first Sunday in the church year. As sometimes happens, the church is out of step with society, and today doubly so. While our society celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1st, we celebrate the beginning of a new church year today. At the same time, most of society is already celebrating Christmas, has been celebrating Christmas since about Columbus Day or thereabouts – but in the church, we wait. We’ll celebrate Christmas in due time, but for now we observe Advent – from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” – a time of waiting for One we know is coming, but has not yet arrived.
This year, Advent begins at a time when it may feel like things are coming unglued, falling apart. We just went through a Black Friday in which gung-ho shoppers used fists and pepper spray to drive off fellow shoppers - at a mall in North Carolina, the soundtrack of Christmas music was momentarily drowned out by the sound of gunfire. At good old Penn State, wholesome Happy Valley – my alma mater – the university president, Graham Spanier, along with longtime football coach Joe Paterno were dismissed amid accusations of having covered up the sexual abuse of teens and pre-teens. There’s an increasing sense that our national government is dysfunctional, political leaders from both parties bought (or bought off) and paid for by Wall Street – and at Occupy Philadelphia and other Occupy gatherings across the country, people are taking to the streets to demand change. While the protesters have been mostly peaceful, in many cities the police have not, and we’ve been treated to the ugly sight of police officers pepper-spraying and beating nonviolent protesters. International news is no more comforting, amid the threat of financial default in Europe, the threat of war in the Middle East. Amid frightening national and international news, we’ve had our own personal traumas – death of family members or friends, illness, unemployment, domestic violence striking us or those close to us. At our community Thanksgiving service on Wednesday, I heard that the cupboard, with the help of our donations, served over 300 families last week. 300 families who, but for God’s grace and the generosity of Emanuel and other churches, would go hungry. What a witness of the struggles our neighbors are grappling with here in Bridesburg and surrounding neighborhoods. We may be tempted to throw up our hands in despair. For people of faith, we can hardly be faulted for asking, “Why doesn’t God do something? Is God on lunch break, or did God maybe clock out early and go on vacation? Where’s God when we need Him?”
Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah was written at a time when it seemed like things were falling apart, spinning out of control. It comes from one of the last few chapters of Isaiah, written after the Jews had returned from exile and settled back in Jerusalem. They had returned from exile with such high hopes. But the rebuilding of the Temple had been slowed down by threats and interference from surrounding tribes, and also bogged down by community infighting. Similar to some of our current controversies over inclusion within the church, there was disagreement over who could be called a Jew, who could gather to worship the Lord, with some calling for exclusion of all except the super-observant, the purest of the pure, while others called for broad inclusion. The devastation of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem matched the disorganization and conflict among the Jewish people.
And so in his frustration Isaiah cries out to God, “Get down here and do something, will ya! Tear open the heavens and come down! Send fire and earthquake, so that our enemies will know you’re still in charge!” Isaiah recalls God’s works in the past – “When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” Isaiah confesses the guilt of the people – “We have all become unclean, and even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags….our sin blows us away like the wind….nobody calls on you.” And Isaiah even blames some of the people’s misdeeds on God, “You were angry, and we sinned, because you hid yourself we messed up.” Isaiah reminds God “Yet, O Lord, you are our father, we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Now consider, we are all your people.”
In Advent, we remember that God did indeed tear open the heavens, did indeed come down here and do something. He came down here in the child Jesus. Mark’s Gospel tells us that at his baptism, Jesus saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion includes an earthquake. So, in Jesus, Isaiah’s prayers were answered, though likely on a schedule far different – and better – than Isaiah had envisioned.
From our Gospel reading we are reminded that Jesus will come again, not as a baby this time, but in power and glory. Jesus employs apocalyptic language and figures of speech used in his day to express the overwhelming scale and impact of this coming event – there will be signs in the heavens, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory, to gather the elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
Jesus also said that only the Father knows when all this will happen – the angels don’t, even the Son doesn’t. There are lots of folks who want to try to set dates for us – this year marked the failure of not one but two of Harold Camping predictions, that of the Rapture on May 21 and the end of the world on October 21. I’m confident that the predictions of Hal Lindsay and John Hagee and the other screamers and shouters on radio and TV are just as far off-base – for example, Lindsay’s prediction of the Rapture a generation – estimated by Lindsay at 40 years - after the 1948 founding of the state of Israel is well past its sell-by date these 60+ years later.
That said, it’s easy to understand why so many listen to these predictions – because our world, like the world in Isaiah’s time, like the world of Jesus’ day, is threatening, especially to people of faith. Things seem out of control. Our natural environment is under assault on a global scale. There is great spiritual wickedness in high places. It may seem like God has left the building, like God has left the planet, has left us to our fate. When all that seems familiar is coming unglued, it’s a very natural human impulse to want the disruption to end. And it will, someday. But when it will happen, is not for us to know. In the meantime, in our reading from Mark’s Gospel, we have our instructions - to keep awake, to be faithful servants who are at their post whenever the Master returns. We have our instructions, to wait faithfully, and to live in hope.
The point of Jesus’ words is not for preachers on radio and TV to try to commit God to their timelines – the TV and radio preachers simply don’t have that authority over God. Rather, the point of Jesus’ words is for God to commit us to living our lives in a way that’s faithful to the Gospel. God in God’s sovereignty keeps God’s own council on matters of timing. Meanwhile, we are to preach and live out the Gospel. Jesus says, “Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all – Keep awake!”
The day will come when Jesus will return in unimaginable power and glory. Until then, Christ’s body, the church, is here. Until then, Jesus said that wherever two or three gather in His name, he’ll be in the midst. Until then, every day in some congregations – among the Roman Catholics, for example - and at least every week here at Emanuel, the gathered church prays to God, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Until then, we’re praying for the coming of the Kingdom, for Jesus to return, and God will honor those prayers. Until then, through the work and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in our words of love and deeds of compassion.
Remember that, as the saying goes, our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible that unbelievers will ever read, the only Gospel they will ever hear. Let us at Emanuel Church not lead them astray by scribbling our own agendas in the margins. Instead, may we at Emanuel Church let God’s word shine forth from our lives, day by day for however many days God grants us on this earth. May those who walk through our doors truly say that “surely the Lord is in this place”, through our words of love and deeds of compassion truly come to know and love Emanuel – God with us. Amen.
Today is the first Sunday in Advent – the first Sunday in the church year. As sometimes happens, the church is out of step with society, and today doubly so. While our society celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1st, we celebrate the beginning of a new church year today. At the same time, most of society is already celebrating Christmas, has been celebrating Christmas since about Columbus Day or thereabouts – but in the church, we wait. We’ll celebrate Christmas in due time, but for now we observe Advent – from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” – a time of waiting for One we know is coming, but has not yet arrived.
This year, Advent begins at a time when it may feel like things are coming unglued, falling apart. We just went through a Black Friday in which gung-ho shoppers used fists and pepper spray to drive off fellow shoppers - at a mall in North Carolina, the soundtrack of Christmas music was momentarily drowned out by the sound of gunfire. At good old Penn State, wholesome Happy Valley – my alma mater – the university president, Graham Spanier, along with longtime football coach Joe Paterno were dismissed amid accusations of having covered up the sexual abuse of teens and pre-teens. There’s an increasing sense that our national government is dysfunctional, political leaders from both parties bought (or bought off) and paid for by Wall Street – and at Occupy Philadelphia and other Occupy gatherings across the country, people are taking to the streets to demand change. While the protesters have been mostly peaceful, in many cities the police have not, and we’ve been treated to the ugly sight of police officers pepper-spraying and beating nonviolent protesters. International news is no more comforting, amid the threat of financial default in Europe, the threat of war in the Middle East. Amid frightening national and international news, we’ve had our own personal traumas – death of family members or friends, illness, unemployment, domestic violence striking us or those close to us. At our community Thanksgiving service on Wednesday, I heard that the cupboard, with the help of our donations, served over 300 families last week. 300 families who, but for God’s grace and the generosity of Emanuel and other churches, would go hungry. What a witness of the struggles our neighbors are grappling with here in Bridesburg and surrounding neighborhoods. We may be tempted to throw up our hands in despair. For people of faith, we can hardly be faulted for asking, “Why doesn’t God do something? Is God on lunch break, or did God maybe clock out early and go on vacation? Where’s God when we need Him?”
Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah was written at a time when it seemed like things were falling apart, spinning out of control. It comes from one of the last few chapters of Isaiah, written after the Jews had returned from exile and settled back in Jerusalem. They had returned from exile with such high hopes. But the rebuilding of the Temple had been slowed down by threats and interference from surrounding tribes, and also bogged down by community infighting. Similar to some of our current controversies over inclusion within the church, there was disagreement over who could be called a Jew, who could gather to worship the Lord, with some calling for exclusion of all except the super-observant, the purest of the pure, while others called for broad inclusion. The devastation of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem matched the disorganization and conflict among the Jewish people.
And so in his frustration Isaiah cries out to God, “Get down here and do something, will ya! Tear open the heavens and come down! Send fire and earthquake, so that our enemies will know you’re still in charge!” Isaiah recalls God’s works in the past – “When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” Isaiah confesses the guilt of the people – “We have all become unclean, and even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags….our sin blows us away like the wind….nobody calls on you.” And Isaiah even blames some of the people’s misdeeds on God, “You were angry, and we sinned, because you hid yourself we messed up.” Isaiah reminds God “Yet, O Lord, you are our father, we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Now consider, we are all your people.”
In Advent, we remember that God did indeed tear open the heavens, did indeed come down here and do something. He came down here in the child Jesus. Mark’s Gospel tells us that at his baptism, Jesus saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion includes an earthquake. So, in Jesus, Isaiah’s prayers were answered, though likely on a schedule far different – and better – than Isaiah had envisioned.
From our Gospel reading we are reminded that Jesus will come again, not as a baby this time, but in power and glory. Jesus employs apocalyptic language and figures of speech used in his day to express the overwhelming scale and impact of this coming event – there will be signs in the heavens, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory, to gather the elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
Jesus also said that only the Father knows when all this will happen – the angels don’t, even the Son doesn’t. There are lots of folks who want to try to set dates for us – this year marked the failure of not one but two of Harold Camping predictions, that of the Rapture on May 21 and the end of the world on October 21. I’m confident that the predictions of Hal Lindsay and John Hagee and the other screamers and shouters on radio and TV are just as far off-base – for example, Lindsay’s prediction of the Rapture a generation – estimated by Lindsay at 40 years - after the 1948 founding of the state of Israel is well past its sell-by date these 60+ years later.
That said, it’s easy to understand why so many listen to these predictions – because our world, like the world in Isaiah’s time, like the world of Jesus’ day, is threatening, especially to people of faith. Things seem out of control. Our natural environment is under assault on a global scale. There is great spiritual wickedness in high places. It may seem like God has left the building, like God has left the planet, has left us to our fate. When all that seems familiar is coming unglued, it’s a very natural human impulse to want the disruption to end. And it will, someday. But when it will happen, is not for us to know. In the meantime, in our reading from Mark’s Gospel, we have our instructions - to keep awake, to be faithful servants who are at their post whenever the Master returns. We have our instructions, to wait faithfully, and to live in hope.
The point of Jesus’ words is not for preachers on radio and TV to try to commit God to their timelines – the TV and radio preachers simply don’t have that authority over God. Rather, the point of Jesus’ words is for God to commit us to living our lives in a way that’s faithful to the Gospel. God in God’s sovereignty keeps God’s own council on matters of timing. Meanwhile, we are to preach and live out the Gospel. Jesus says, “Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all – Keep awake!”
The day will come when Jesus will return in unimaginable power and glory. Until then, Christ’s body, the church, is here. Until then, Jesus said that wherever two or three gather in His name, he’ll be in the midst. Until then, every day in some congregations – among the Roman Catholics, for example - and at least every week here at Emanuel, the gathered church prays to God, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Until then, we’re praying for the coming of the Kingdom, for Jesus to return, and God will honor those prayers. Until then, through the work and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in our words of love and deeds of compassion.
Remember that, as the saying goes, our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible that unbelievers will ever read, the only Gospel they will ever hear. Let us at Emanuel Church not lead them astray by scribbling our own agendas in the margins. Instead, may we at Emanuel Church let God’s word shine forth from our lives, day by day for however many days God grants us on this earth. May those who walk through our doors truly say that “surely the Lord is in this place”, through our words of love and deeds of compassion truly come to know and love Emanuel – God with us. Amen.
Love Wins
(Scriptures: Ezekiel 34:11-24, Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46)
Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, known as Christ the King Sunday, or more recently as Reign of Christ Sunday. And so we sing the church’s coronation hymns: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name….Jesus Shall Reign where’er the sun does his successive journeys run….Crown Him with Many Crowns. (I always think that last hymn should be a favorite of dentists…..bad joke, I know.) Our hymns point to the reign of Christ, point to where all our faith in Christ and faithfulness to the church is leading, that great and glorious day when Christ will ascend the throne of his glory.
Our Scripture readings invite us to ponder what it means to call Christ our Lord, to say that Jesus will reign. It’s interesting that Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday always comes in November, just a couple weeks after our November elections. This year, there were mostly local and some statewide races, no big national names on the ballot – although, in Liberia, for whom we’ve been praying for some weeks now, there was a hugely important national runoff election – I understand President Sirleaf was re-elected. But even here, locally, on election day we collectively made decisions – who will we name as our city councilman, our county judges, our county row offices – recorder of deeds and prothonatary and dogcatcher and so on. If we voted, we made choices. If we didn’t vote, we also made a choice – to rely on the votes of others to select our political leaders. In any political process, the candidates make lots of promises before the election, but it is only after they have been sworn into office that we truly learn how they will govern and carry out their responsibilities, be it as mayor or dogcatcher or anywhere in between. Only after the election do we learn what kind of mayor or councilperson or dogcatcher they will be. In the same way, in today’s readings we consider what kind of ruler Jesus will be, what sort of reign Jesus will carry out.
It’s clear from our Scriptures that Christ is not aloof or remote or detached or above-it-all. Rather, his rule, his reign is very hands-on, very much involved with the details, passionately, intimately involved with humankind.
Both our Old Testament reading and our Gospel reading use the actions of sheep as a metaphor for human behavior. Our reading from Ezekiel is part of a message from God against the rulers of Israel, who, rather than caring for their flocks – that is to say, the people of Israel – have only looked out for their own interests. Rather than feeding their flocks, they have fed only themselves, leaving their flocks – the people – to fend for themselves. God proclaims that God himself will gather the sheep who have been scattered. But Ezekiel’s message from God is not only against the negligent shepherds, but against those sheep who in their arrogance have driven the weaker sheep from the fold, who in their greed have not only grabbed the best for themselves, but spoiled what was left for everyone else. We here in America may find ourselves in this text, where we consume far more than our share of the planet’s resources, and leave environmental destruction affecting the planet in our wake. Indeed, it’s a surprisingly current image when, in a news story unfolding day by day before our eyes, moneyed interests in our nation and even right here in Pennsylvania are willing to risk environmental degradation to parts of the state, ripping open the earth and potentially poisoning the water, in order to get rich by extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale reserves by the highly polluting process of hydrofracking. The developers will get the big bucks, and the rest of us will be stuck with the mess. Well does God say, in the words of Ezekiel, that God will judge between sheep and sheep.
And then we have the well-known parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew chapter 25, which develops Ezekiel’s image of God judging between sheep and sheep into an image of the final judgment. We are given a picture of Jesus as a king so concerned about his people that, not content to rely on his court officials for information and guidance about his populace, he disguises himself as a beggar and walks around incognito to see how his subjects treat one another. The king behaves almost like a modern-day secret shopper who enters a store and pretends to be a customer, in order to see how the store treats its customers. Or like an undercover investigative reporter who wears a hidden camera and approaches members of a religious cult or a drug gang, ostensibly seeking affiliation, but in reality trying to learn what goes on behind closed doors.
It’s been said that “character is how we behave when we think nobody’s looking.” In Jesus’ parable, the king’s ploy works – both sheep and goats think nobody’s looking, and go about their business as they always do. The king’s disguise works so well that neither the sheep nor the goats recognize the king, and so both the sheep and the goats behave in character, behave as they do when they think nobody’s looking – the sheep offering assistance, and the goats offering nothing. Both sheep and goats ask the king, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” Both sheep and goats were told, “as you did – or did not do – unto the least of these, you did – or did not do – unto me.”
The point of Jesus’ parable isn’t about trying to work our way into the kingdom. Rather, it’s about Jesus, like the shepherd in our Ezekiel passage, trying to gather his sheep who have been mixed among other flocks. Shepherds would mark their sheep, so that if they got mixed up among other flocks, they could distinguish their sheep from the rest. And Jesus’ sheep are marked as well – marked initially by the waters of baptism, marking the death of our nature of sin and by God’s grace, the beginnings of new life in Christ, and as we live into our baptismal vows, by love for God and neighbor. In Jesus’ parable, love, compassion, hospitality, caring are the marks that separate the sheep from the goats.
It’s striking that in Jesus' parable, the goats are characterized not by having overtly done evil – the goats didn’t kill or steal or pillage or plunder - but by having failed to do good, by having done - nothing. And this aspect of Jesus’ parable challenges me – sometimes terrifies me. Maybe it challenges you as well. I can remember many times when I’ve fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, visited prisoners - when I was at Old First, there were several persons with ties to Old First who got into trouble and were arrested, because of drug addictions or mental illness, and who I visited from time to time. And I can remember many times when I haven’t – times when I have passed by street people seeking donations without so much as speaking a word, times when I meant to visit someone in the hospital but never quite got there, never even got around to sending a card, times when somebody asked for something as simple as a ride, and I was too busy. Too busy. My record of compassion is a mixed bag. I feel like I’m not entirely sheep or entirely goat, but some of each, some sort of critter even stranger than the ones you’ll find at the Philadelphia zoo.
So maybe Jesus’ parable speaks on more than one level. It’s been said that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Maybe the line between the sheep and the goats is not only between people, but also within them. As we live into our baptismal vows, as the Holy Spirit we received at our baptism works within us over the course of our lives, as we ask God’s forgiveness week by week and implore God’s grace, by God’s grace we conform less and less to the world, and are more and more transformed into the image of Christ. God begins to give us an extreme makeover, as we begin to be transformed more and more from goats into sheep. The formal theological term is sanctification. It’s a process that begins in this life, but is completed in the life to come.
It’s a process that begins not only in our own lives, but in the lives of others. Genesis tells us that human beings are created in God’s image. Sin distorts that image, but does not erase it. When we’re tempted to lash out at another human being, to insult them, to ignore them….remember that they, like we, are created in God’s image. Sometimes the divine image is really, really, really hard to find – but it’s there. Somewhere. And so it really is true that how we treat other human beings is how we treat God.
Every week as we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The Reign of Christ has begun – began with the resurrection of Christ, is spread in part through the work of the church – but is not complete. Jesus reigns, but not everyone has gotten the memo. We live in the space between “now” and “not yet.” But today’s Gospel reading tells us what God’s kingdom, God’s reign, will look like. Also remember that I John 4 tells us that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.” And so, if God is love, and God reigns – then love reigns. Love rules. Love wins. All within ourselves and all within others that is unloving, will be left outside the door of God’s kingdom. God loves us, and at last we will be able to love God as we should, will be united in our love for God, and God’s love for us.
You don’t need me to tell you that we’re not there yet. We won’t get there in this life. But the beginnings of the kingdom are sprouting, even sprouting here at Emanuel Church. The love of God and love for one another we experience here, even though we don’t always get it right, is a small sample of the love we will experience unfailingly in the world to come. You could say that, at our best, we’re like a little outpost of heaven. Paul’s lofty words in our reading from Ephesians: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” – may seem far away from our own experience. But even as Paul looks ahead to Christ’s reign coming in its fullness, Paul is so certain of it that he speaks as if it’s already happened – as if, even though we only get glimpses of it in this life, it’s already a done deal. And it’s a done deal that will include us, the church, as Paul goes on: “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” For the church – hey, that’s us, the church, the body of Christ.
May we at Emanuel Church continue to be a place where God’s love can be found. May we continue to be a place where people can come and see and taste that the Lord is good, where people can get a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of the goodness that is to come. May it be so with us. Amen.
Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, known as Christ the King Sunday, or more recently as Reign of Christ Sunday. And so we sing the church’s coronation hymns: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name….Jesus Shall Reign where’er the sun does his successive journeys run….Crown Him with Many Crowns. (I always think that last hymn should be a favorite of dentists…..bad joke, I know.) Our hymns point to the reign of Christ, point to where all our faith in Christ and faithfulness to the church is leading, that great and glorious day when Christ will ascend the throne of his glory.
Our Scripture readings invite us to ponder what it means to call Christ our Lord, to say that Jesus will reign. It’s interesting that Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday always comes in November, just a couple weeks after our November elections. This year, there were mostly local and some statewide races, no big national names on the ballot – although, in Liberia, for whom we’ve been praying for some weeks now, there was a hugely important national runoff election – I understand President Sirleaf was re-elected. But even here, locally, on election day we collectively made decisions – who will we name as our city councilman, our county judges, our county row offices – recorder of deeds and prothonatary and dogcatcher and so on. If we voted, we made choices. If we didn’t vote, we also made a choice – to rely on the votes of others to select our political leaders. In any political process, the candidates make lots of promises before the election, but it is only after they have been sworn into office that we truly learn how they will govern and carry out their responsibilities, be it as mayor or dogcatcher or anywhere in between. Only after the election do we learn what kind of mayor or councilperson or dogcatcher they will be. In the same way, in today’s readings we consider what kind of ruler Jesus will be, what sort of reign Jesus will carry out.
It’s clear from our Scriptures that Christ is not aloof or remote or detached or above-it-all. Rather, his rule, his reign is very hands-on, very much involved with the details, passionately, intimately involved with humankind.
Both our Old Testament reading and our Gospel reading use the actions of sheep as a metaphor for human behavior. Our reading from Ezekiel is part of a message from God against the rulers of Israel, who, rather than caring for their flocks – that is to say, the people of Israel – have only looked out for their own interests. Rather than feeding their flocks, they have fed only themselves, leaving their flocks – the people – to fend for themselves. God proclaims that God himself will gather the sheep who have been scattered. But Ezekiel’s message from God is not only against the negligent shepherds, but against those sheep who in their arrogance have driven the weaker sheep from the fold, who in their greed have not only grabbed the best for themselves, but spoiled what was left for everyone else. We here in America may find ourselves in this text, where we consume far more than our share of the planet’s resources, and leave environmental destruction affecting the planet in our wake. Indeed, it’s a surprisingly current image when, in a news story unfolding day by day before our eyes, moneyed interests in our nation and even right here in Pennsylvania are willing to risk environmental degradation to parts of the state, ripping open the earth and potentially poisoning the water, in order to get rich by extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale reserves by the highly polluting process of hydrofracking. The developers will get the big bucks, and the rest of us will be stuck with the mess. Well does God say, in the words of Ezekiel, that God will judge between sheep and sheep.
And then we have the well-known parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew chapter 25, which develops Ezekiel’s image of God judging between sheep and sheep into an image of the final judgment. We are given a picture of Jesus as a king so concerned about his people that, not content to rely on his court officials for information and guidance about his populace, he disguises himself as a beggar and walks around incognito to see how his subjects treat one another. The king behaves almost like a modern-day secret shopper who enters a store and pretends to be a customer, in order to see how the store treats its customers. Or like an undercover investigative reporter who wears a hidden camera and approaches members of a religious cult or a drug gang, ostensibly seeking affiliation, but in reality trying to learn what goes on behind closed doors.
It’s been said that “character is how we behave when we think nobody’s looking.” In Jesus’ parable, the king’s ploy works – both sheep and goats think nobody’s looking, and go about their business as they always do. The king’s disguise works so well that neither the sheep nor the goats recognize the king, and so both the sheep and the goats behave in character, behave as they do when they think nobody’s looking – the sheep offering assistance, and the goats offering nothing. Both sheep and goats ask the king, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” Both sheep and goats were told, “as you did – or did not do – unto the least of these, you did – or did not do – unto me.”
The point of Jesus’ parable isn’t about trying to work our way into the kingdom. Rather, it’s about Jesus, like the shepherd in our Ezekiel passage, trying to gather his sheep who have been mixed among other flocks. Shepherds would mark their sheep, so that if they got mixed up among other flocks, they could distinguish their sheep from the rest. And Jesus’ sheep are marked as well – marked initially by the waters of baptism, marking the death of our nature of sin and by God’s grace, the beginnings of new life in Christ, and as we live into our baptismal vows, by love for God and neighbor. In Jesus’ parable, love, compassion, hospitality, caring are the marks that separate the sheep from the goats.
It’s striking that in Jesus' parable, the goats are characterized not by having overtly done evil – the goats didn’t kill or steal or pillage or plunder - but by having failed to do good, by having done - nothing. And this aspect of Jesus’ parable challenges me – sometimes terrifies me. Maybe it challenges you as well. I can remember many times when I’ve fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, visited prisoners - when I was at Old First, there were several persons with ties to Old First who got into trouble and were arrested, because of drug addictions or mental illness, and who I visited from time to time. And I can remember many times when I haven’t – times when I have passed by street people seeking donations without so much as speaking a word, times when I meant to visit someone in the hospital but never quite got there, never even got around to sending a card, times when somebody asked for something as simple as a ride, and I was too busy. Too busy. My record of compassion is a mixed bag. I feel like I’m not entirely sheep or entirely goat, but some of each, some sort of critter even stranger than the ones you’ll find at the Philadelphia zoo.
So maybe Jesus’ parable speaks on more than one level. It’s been said that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Maybe the line between the sheep and the goats is not only between people, but also within them. As we live into our baptismal vows, as the Holy Spirit we received at our baptism works within us over the course of our lives, as we ask God’s forgiveness week by week and implore God’s grace, by God’s grace we conform less and less to the world, and are more and more transformed into the image of Christ. God begins to give us an extreme makeover, as we begin to be transformed more and more from goats into sheep. The formal theological term is sanctification. It’s a process that begins in this life, but is completed in the life to come.
It’s a process that begins not only in our own lives, but in the lives of others. Genesis tells us that human beings are created in God’s image. Sin distorts that image, but does not erase it. When we’re tempted to lash out at another human being, to insult them, to ignore them….remember that they, like we, are created in God’s image. Sometimes the divine image is really, really, really hard to find – but it’s there. Somewhere. And so it really is true that how we treat other human beings is how we treat God.
Every week as we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The Reign of Christ has begun – began with the resurrection of Christ, is spread in part through the work of the church – but is not complete. Jesus reigns, but not everyone has gotten the memo. We live in the space between “now” and “not yet.” But today’s Gospel reading tells us what God’s kingdom, God’s reign, will look like. Also remember that I John 4 tells us that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.” And so, if God is love, and God reigns – then love reigns. Love rules. Love wins. All within ourselves and all within others that is unloving, will be left outside the door of God’s kingdom. God loves us, and at last we will be able to love God as we should, will be united in our love for God, and God’s love for us.
You don’t need me to tell you that we’re not there yet. We won’t get there in this life. But the beginnings of the kingdom are sprouting, even sprouting here at Emanuel Church. The love of God and love for one another we experience here, even though we don’t always get it right, is a small sample of the love we will experience unfailingly in the world to come. You could say that, at our best, we’re like a little outpost of heaven. Paul’s lofty words in our reading from Ephesians: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” – may seem far away from our own experience. But even as Paul looks ahead to Christ’s reign coming in its fullness, Paul is so certain of it that he speaks as if it’s already happened – as if, even though we only get glimpses of it in this life, it’s already a done deal. And it’s a done deal that will include us, the church, as Paul goes on: “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” For the church – hey, that’s us, the church, the body of Christ.
May we at Emanuel Church continue to be a place where God’s love can be found. May we continue to be a place where people can come and see and taste that the Lord is good, where people can get a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of the goodness that is to come. May it be so with us. Amen.
For All The Saints
(Scriptures: Joshua 24:1-25, I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13)
Today we celebrate All Saints Day – Tottenfest is what the German founders of the congregation called All Saints, when we remember our saints – our family members, members of Emanuel church, other people who have touched our lives before passing from this life to be gathered to the Church Triumphant. It’s a time of gratitude, a time of giving thanks for the ways in which God’s grace was at work in the lives of our loved ones. And by remembering our saints, those who have gone before us, we are led in turn to remember who we are, and more importantly, whose we are.
All three of today’s Scripture readings have something to tell us about the importance of remembering who we are. Our reading from Joshua gives us Joshua’s farewell speech and final charge to the Israelites whom he had led into the promised land. The children of Israel had driven out the Canaanites and settled the promised land. The Lord had granted Israel rest from the enemies. But Joshua is concerned that peace and prosperity may lead the children of Israel to forget their covenant with the Lord. And so Joshua begins his farewell speech by retelling the entire story of Israel, beginning with God’s call of Abraham, the entry of Joseph into Egypt, the Exodus of Moses from Egypt, the long years in the wilderness, and the various conquests made by Israel as they settled the land of promise. Joshua recounts all this history in order to tell the people of Israel – remember who you are. Remember where you have been, and what you have gone through to arrive where you are. Most of all, remember how all this came about: not by your might, but by God’s gracious will. God says, “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.” All this goodness is God’s gift.
Having recounted all of God’s mighty acts on their behalf, Joshua begins to tell how the people must respond, beginning, “Now therefore….” God’s mighty deeds on their behalf demand a response. “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt.” Joshua challenged the people with the choice that was before them: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” You can serve the gods that your fathers served beyond the River, or those of Egypt, or those of the people you just got done driving out of this land, but – Joshua says – “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Those Emanuel saints whom we remember today confronted that same choice. Faced with options to devote their lives to accumulating wealth, or to pleasure, or to any number of other things, they chose to serve the Lord. They served the Lord by attending this church or other congregations, by being active in the life of their faith communities and supporting the church financially, by living their faith in their family lives, by clinging to the Lord in time of trouble and remembering the Lord in time of plenty. Just as the Israelites had their stories of how God had called them and delivered them from slavery and led them through many difficulties, we at Emanuel have our stories of those saints who taught us the faith, who served this church faithfully through good times and bad.
In our epistle reading from I Thessalonians, Paul is comforting those who have suffered the death of loved ones, and are worried that they’ll never see their loved ones again. Paul relieves their fear by telling them that those who have died in Christ will rise first, before those who are alive at the time of his coming. So we have assurance that we will see our loved ones, our saints, again. Reunited with our loved ones, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, Paul says, encourage one another with these words.
Finally, our Gospel reading reminds us that while we don’t know the times God has appointed, we are to live in such a way as we are ready at any time – to meet our Lord at the moment of death, or to meet our Lord at the second coming. Not a one of us here – not you, not me - has any assurance that we will wake up tomorrow morning. So we need to be ready. If there are those to whom we owe a phone call or a letter, a word of forgiveness, or an “I love you” - do it now. Do it now. Don’t delay. Don’t wait until tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come. We are prepared – for Christ’s coming, or for our own departing – when we share the good news of Jesus with those around us, when our love of God overflows into love for neighbor. In our Gospel reading, what made the bridesmaids wise wasn’t that they knew when the bridegroom was coming. After all, when the bridegroom was delayed, both the wise and foolish bridesmaids fell asleep. But the wise bridesmaids brought extra oil, so that their lamps would go the distance to the wedding banquet. In the same way, we need a durable faith, so that the light of our faith will go the distance, lighting a path for others.
Our saints here at Emanuel had that durable faith that went the distance. Through a Great Depression and two World Wars many of them married, raised families, and supported the ministries of the church. They were faithful during the years Emanuel was growing, and they continued faithful in more recent years as our numbers declined. Now they are with God, part of that great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the letter to the Hebrews. That great cloud of witnesses surrounds you, and you, and you, and me, and all of us. They have run the race of faith, and I think of them now up in the stands, up in the bleachers, cheering us on as we run the same race they ran. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.
In a portion of the book of Joshua immediately following this morning’s reading, after the people covenanted to serve the Lord, Joshua set up a stone, and when he had set up the stone, he said to the people, “see, this stone shall be a witness.” And we have stones that have been set up as witnesses. The headstones outside our window are a witness to the faith of our fathers and mothers. On this All Saints Sunday, may their faith inspire us to keep faith with the God of our fathers and mothers. May their faith live on in all we do, as individuals, and as the gathered community of Emanuel Church. Amen.
Today we celebrate All Saints Day – Tottenfest is what the German founders of the congregation called All Saints, when we remember our saints – our family members, members of Emanuel church, other people who have touched our lives before passing from this life to be gathered to the Church Triumphant. It’s a time of gratitude, a time of giving thanks for the ways in which God’s grace was at work in the lives of our loved ones. And by remembering our saints, those who have gone before us, we are led in turn to remember who we are, and more importantly, whose we are.
All three of today’s Scripture readings have something to tell us about the importance of remembering who we are. Our reading from Joshua gives us Joshua’s farewell speech and final charge to the Israelites whom he had led into the promised land. The children of Israel had driven out the Canaanites and settled the promised land. The Lord had granted Israel rest from the enemies. But Joshua is concerned that peace and prosperity may lead the children of Israel to forget their covenant with the Lord. And so Joshua begins his farewell speech by retelling the entire story of Israel, beginning with God’s call of Abraham, the entry of Joseph into Egypt, the Exodus of Moses from Egypt, the long years in the wilderness, and the various conquests made by Israel as they settled the land of promise. Joshua recounts all this history in order to tell the people of Israel – remember who you are. Remember where you have been, and what you have gone through to arrive where you are. Most of all, remember how all this came about: not by your might, but by God’s gracious will. God says, “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.” All this goodness is God’s gift.
Having recounted all of God’s mighty acts on their behalf, Joshua begins to tell how the people must respond, beginning, “Now therefore….” God’s mighty deeds on their behalf demand a response. “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt.” Joshua challenged the people with the choice that was before them: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” You can serve the gods that your fathers served beyond the River, or those of Egypt, or those of the people you just got done driving out of this land, but – Joshua says – “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Those Emanuel saints whom we remember today confronted that same choice. Faced with options to devote their lives to accumulating wealth, or to pleasure, or to any number of other things, they chose to serve the Lord. They served the Lord by attending this church or other congregations, by being active in the life of their faith communities and supporting the church financially, by living their faith in their family lives, by clinging to the Lord in time of trouble and remembering the Lord in time of plenty. Just as the Israelites had their stories of how God had called them and delivered them from slavery and led them through many difficulties, we at Emanuel have our stories of those saints who taught us the faith, who served this church faithfully through good times and bad.
In our epistle reading from I Thessalonians, Paul is comforting those who have suffered the death of loved ones, and are worried that they’ll never see their loved ones again. Paul relieves their fear by telling them that those who have died in Christ will rise first, before those who are alive at the time of his coming. So we have assurance that we will see our loved ones, our saints, again. Reunited with our loved ones, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, Paul says, encourage one another with these words.
Finally, our Gospel reading reminds us that while we don’t know the times God has appointed, we are to live in such a way as we are ready at any time – to meet our Lord at the moment of death, or to meet our Lord at the second coming. Not a one of us here – not you, not me - has any assurance that we will wake up tomorrow morning. So we need to be ready. If there are those to whom we owe a phone call or a letter, a word of forgiveness, or an “I love you” - do it now. Do it now. Don’t delay. Don’t wait until tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come. We are prepared – for Christ’s coming, or for our own departing – when we share the good news of Jesus with those around us, when our love of God overflows into love for neighbor. In our Gospel reading, what made the bridesmaids wise wasn’t that they knew when the bridegroom was coming. After all, when the bridegroom was delayed, both the wise and foolish bridesmaids fell asleep. But the wise bridesmaids brought extra oil, so that their lamps would go the distance to the wedding banquet. In the same way, we need a durable faith, so that the light of our faith will go the distance, lighting a path for others.
Our saints here at Emanuel had that durable faith that went the distance. Through a Great Depression and two World Wars many of them married, raised families, and supported the ministries of the church. They were faithful during the years Emanuel was growing, and they continued faithful in more recent years as our numbers declined. Now they are with God, part of that great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the letter to the Hebrews. That great cloud of witnesses surrounds you, and you, and you, and me, and all of us. They have run the race of faith, and I think of them now up in the stands, up in the bleachers, cheering us on as we run the same race they ran. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.
In a portion of the book of Joshua immediately following this morning’s reading, after the people covenanted to serve the Lord, Joshua set up a stone, and when he had set up the stone, he said to the people, “see, this stone shall be a witness.” And we have stones that have been set up as witnesses. The headstones outside our window are a witness to the faith of our fathers and mothers. On this All Saints Sunday, may their faith inspire us to keep faith with the God of our fathers and mothers. May their faith live on in all we do, as individuals, and as the gathered community of Emanuel Church. Amen.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
First Things First
(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90, I Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46)
Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?
The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?
Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.
So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?
In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.
Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.
St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?
The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?
Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.
So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?
In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.
Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.
St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Press On!
(Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-20, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46)
In the United Church of Christ and in many Protestant churches, today is World Communion Sunday. This designation originated in 1936 within the Presbyterian Church, and was rapidly adopted by other denominations. The Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) began promoting World Communion Sunday in 1940, as a reminder that Christian churches around the globe, though divided by many differences in belief and observance, are ultimately and finally united in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
I’ll share the story that I often share on World Communion Sunday, of the day perhaps 20 years ago or more when I told a Roman Catholic friend about World Communion Sunday. Perhaps I waxed a bit grandiose about the unity displayed by Protestant Churches all around the globe in celebrating communion together. To all of this, my Roman Catholic friend responded by informing me that Roman Catholic churches around the globe celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, so for Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. And, yes, his words deflated my grandiosity a bit. Just the same, it’s a blessing that we Protestants, who fuss amongst ourselves over so many differences, can manage to get our act together once a year and join our Catholic brothers and sisters at the table of the Lord.
Here at Emanuel Church, we celebrate communion at least monthly, with additional observances for special services such as Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost. As we come forward later in the service for our cube of bread and sip of wine, on this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we approach the Lord’s table, we approach a table that in a spiritual sense extends around the globe, as we join believers of every race and nationality and socioeconomic level, join Christians who worship in cathedrals and Christians who worship in storefront churches and Christians worshipping in tents and open fields in eating bread and drinking wine in memory of Jesus, in sharing the body and blood of Christ, broken and poured out for us. At various locations of this great table, some believers are eating pita bread and some are eating rye bread, some pumpernickel bread, while others are eating the wafers used in Catholic and Anglican churches – and yet in a spiritual sense, all these different types of bread are part of the one celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Through the ages, God has given God’s people gifts around which God’s people can unite and form community. For the ancient Hebrews and for Jews to this day, the law, as represented in this morning’s Old Testament reading by the Ten Commandments, was and is a point of unity. For those of us who are used to the interpretations by Luther and other reformers of Paul’s writings about the law, who are used to seeing the law in negative terms, as a burden from which we are delivered by the grace of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult to wrap our minds around the reality that the law was received as a tremendous gift, a unique sign of God’s favor, God’s special gift to God’s chosen people. The words of this morning’s call to worship in the bulletin are taken from Psalm 19, and I’d ask you to look at the call to worship again. The writer of the Psalm 19 expressed overflowing joy and gratitude for the law, calling it more to be desired than much fine gold, sweeter than honey, rejoicing the heart. Even today, in synagogue services of some traditions, when the scroll of the law is brought forth, the congregation dances around the scroll and even kiss it as it passes by.
Along with the law, the ancient Hebrews were united by the sharing of a meal, the Passover, to celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as God led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the land of bondage. In the same way, we are united by a meal, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, as we give thanks for our deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ from bondage to sin and death and liberation to the freedom of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ.
As we share this meal, our Gospel reading reminds us that we are not hosts, but guests, at the banquet of the Lord. In Jesus’ parable, the tenant farmers started to act as if they were the owners of the vineyard rather than renters. Some churches act in a similar way around Communion, acting as if they own it, as if it is for them to bar others from the table. But Jesus said that the blessings of the vineyard would be taken from the wicked tenants, and given to those who produce fruit. In the same way, the Lord’s table is not ours to hoard to ourselves, but rather to invite others to partake. This is not our table, but the Lord’s table, and at the Lord’s table all seeking to draw close to Christ are welcome.
To me, it is striking that, in the midst of the Great Depression, with such widespread suffering, the Presbyterian Church conceived the idea of a day for all Christians to celebrate communion, to gather at the table. And it’s even more striking that, with World War II as a backdrop, the National Council of Churches adopted and promoted World Communion Sunday. Amid hunger and conflict, the church responded to God’s call in a way that seems impractical, but from a Christian perspective is compelling. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, it’s much more difficult to turn them away from our own table hungry, isn’t it. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, making war and bombing that person’s home and family is no longer an abstraction, but the annihilation of a human being with a face and a name and an eternal soul, a child of God like ourselves. The conception and promotion of World Communion Sunday in that troubled time, then, can be seen not just as a sentimental gesture, but as a prophetic act, pointing beyond the alarms of the day to the “beloved community” to which God calls us all.
We may forget that Paul wrote to the Philippians amid a similarly foreboding backdrop – he was separated from his beloved brothers and sisters at Philippi, confined to prison, with his future uncertain. In today’s reading, Paul gives us his resume as a Jew, to remind us of the cost of his obedience to Christ. It would have been easy for Paul to tell God, “hey, God, I didn’t sign up for this.” Instead, he tells the church at Philippi,
“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As Paul pressed on, so the National Council of Churches pressed on despite dangerous times toward that same prize. And so we, who just celebrated our 150th anniversary but are beset with many challenges, we who proclaim Christ in a time in which many suffer and cry out for justice, are called to press on, to press on toward the goal, to keep our eyes on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
In the United Church of Christ and in many Protestant churches, today is World Communion Sunday. This designation originated in 1936 within the Presbyterian Church, and was rapidly adopted by other denominations. The Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) began promoting World Communion Sunday in 1940, as a reminder that Christian churches around the globe, though divided by many differences in belief and observance, are ultimately and finally united in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
I’ll share the story that I often share on World Communion Sunday, of the day perhaps 20 years ago or more when I told a Roman Catholic friend about World Communion Sunday. Perhaps I waxed a bit grandiose about the unity displayed by Protestant Churches all around the globe in celebrating communion together. To all of this, my Roman Catholic friend responded by informing me that Roman Catholic churches around the globe celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, so for Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. And, yes, his words deflated my grandiosity a bit. Just the same, it’s a blessing that we Protestants, who fuss amongst ourselves over so many differences, can manage to get our act together once a year and join our Catholic brothers and sisters at the table of the Lord.
Here at Emanuel Church, we celebrate communion at least monthly, with additional observances for special services such as Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost. As we come forward later in the service for our cube of bread and sip of wine, on this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we approach the Lord’s table, we approach a table that in a spiritual sense extends around the globe, as we join believers of every race and nationality and socioeconomic level, join Christians who worship in cathedrals and Christians who worship in storefront churches and Christians worshipping in tents and open fields in eating bread and drinking wine in memory of Jesus, in sharing the body and blood of Christ, broken and poured out for us. At various locations of this great table, some believers are eating pita bread and some are eating rye bread, some pumpernickel bread, while others are eating the wafers used in Catholic and Anglican churches – and yet in a spiritual sense, all these different types of bread are part of the one celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Through the ages, God has given God’s people gifts around which God’s people can unite and form community. For the ancient Hebrews and for Jews to this day, the law, as represented in this morning’s Old Testament reading by the Ten Commandments, was and is a point of unity. For those of us who are used to the interpretations by Luther and other reformers of Paul’s writings about the law, who are used to seeing the law in negative terms, as a burden from which we are delivered by the grace of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult to wrap our minds around the reality that the law was received as a tremendous gift, a unique sign of God’s favor, God’s special gift to God’s chosen people. The words of this morning’s call to worship in the bulletin are taken from Psalm 19, and I’d ask you to look at the call to worship again. The writer of the Psalm 19 expressed overflowing joy and gratitude for the law, calling it more to be desired than much fine gold, sweeter than honey, rejoicing the heart. Even today, in synagogue services of some traditions, when the scroll of the law is brought forth, the congregation dances around the scroll and even kiss it as it passes by.
Along with the law, the ancient Hebrews were united by the sharing of a meal, the Passover, to celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as God led them forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm from the land of bondage. In the same way, we are united by a meal, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, as we give thanks for our deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ from bondage to sin and death and liberation to the freedom of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ.
As we share this meal, our Gospel reading reminds us that we are not hosts, but guests, at the banquet of the Lord. In Jesus’ parable, the tenant farmers started to act as if they were the owners of the vineyard rather than renters. Some churches act in a similar way around Communion, acting as if they own it, as if it is for them to bar others from the table. But Jesus said that the blessings of the vineyard would be taken from the wicked tenants, and given to those who produce fruit. In the same way, the Lord’s table is not ours to hoard to ourselves, but rather to invite others to partake. This is not our table, but the Lord’s table, and at the Lord’s table all seeking to draw close to Christ are welcome.
To me, it is striking that, in the midst of the Great Depression, with such widespread suffering, the Presbyterian Church conceived the idea of a day for all Christians to celebrate communion, to gather at the table. And it’s even more striking that, with World War II as a backdrop, the National Council of Churches adopted and promoted World Communion Sunday. Amid hunger and conflict, the church responded to God’s call in a way that seems impractical, but from a Christian perspective is compelling. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, it’s much more difficult to turn them away from our own table hungry, isn’t it. After we’ve broken bread with someone at the Lord’s table, making war and bombing that person’s home and family is no longer an abstraction, but the annihilation of a human being with a face and a name and an eternal soul, a child of God like ourselves. The conception and promotion of World Communion Sunday in that troubled time, then, can be seen not just as a sentimental gesture, but as a prophetic act, pointing beyond the alarms of the day to the “beloved community” to which God calls us all.
We may forget that Paul wrote to the Philippians amid a similarly foreboding backdrop – he was separated from his beloved brothers and sisters at Philippi, confined to prison, with his future uncertain. In today’s reading, Paul gives us his resume as a Jew, to remind us of the cost of his obedience to Christ. It would have been easy for Paul to tell God, “hey, God, I didn’t sign up for this.” Instead, he tells the church at Philippi,
“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As Paul pressed on, so the National Council of Churches pressed on despite dangerous times toward that same prize. And so we, who just celebrated our 150th anniversary but are beset with many challenges, we who proclaim Christ in a time in which many suffer and cry out for justice, are called to press on, to press on toward the goal, to keep our eyes on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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