Note: Today, January 16, Emanuel UCC is hosting a guest speaker, who will tell us of the challenges faced by Christians in Iraq. Guests are most welcome!! In place of a sermon, here's a message from Emanuel's January 2011 newsletter.
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:17
Happy 2011! As this newsletter goes to press, we give thanks to God for carrying us through the joys and challenges of 2010, and pray for God’s blessing in 2011. On the church calendar, it is the season of Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus to the world. In Matthew’s Gospel, Epiphany’s revelations begin with the visit of the Magi, Gentile “wise men” who came to pay homage to the Christ child. These revelations continue with the account of Jesus’ baptism, when a voice from heaven publicly proclaims Jesus to be God’s Son, the beloved, in whom God is well-pleased. We detour into John’s Gospel for a week, in which Jesus invites two of John the Baptist’s disciples to “come and see” where Jesus was staying, and where Jesus revealed Simon’s character by calling him Peter, meaning “Rock”. While Simon Peter’s character more often resembled shifting sand during the years in which Jesus walked the earth, after Christ’s resurrection, Peter did indeed become a rock of strength, a model of steadfast faith for the early church.
That’s often how it is for those seeking a deeper connection to their faith. We invite friends or neighbors to Emanuel Church, telling these friends to “come and see”. When these seekers “come and see” what God is doing at Emanuel Church, they may also gain new insight about their own lives, as they learn who they are and (more importantly) Whose they are. And like the Magi, they will not return by the same road they came. They cannot go back to their old lives and their old survival strategies. God will lead them on their journey of faith by another way. And perhaps, having “come and seen,” they will “go and tell” how God has blessed their lives.
Showing posts with label bridesburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bridesburg. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Coming and Going
Happy 2011! After our snow day last week, it’s great to be back at Emanuel, starting the New Year out right by spending time in worship. Since we were snowed out last week, today’s service includes elements of Christmas – the birth of Jesus – as well as Epiphany. So our service has included both Christmas carols and Epiphany hymns, and my sermon likewise has one foot in Christmas, and the other in Epiphany.
In the church’s liturgical calendar, today is Epiphany Sunday, which celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, which, I’d guess, is most or all of us. Remember that up to this point, everyone who encounters Jesus in the story – Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, presumably the shepherds, Jesus himself – are all Jews. But on Epiphany Sunday, we give thanks that this revelation spread to the world at large. The word “epiphany” has made its way into our secular language to describe those occasional “Aha” moments we all have, those moments when we understand something for the first time or connect the dots for the first time, when, figuratively speaking, the little light bulb over our head goes on, and we say that we’ve had an epiphany.
Our Old Testament reading sets the stage. Part of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis was not only that God would bless Abraham by making his descendents a great nation, but that great nation of Abraham’s descendents would become a blessing to the other nations. Our reading from Isaiah recalls this promise: the surrounding nations would come to Judah, to Jerusalem, seeking God’s glory. And they would come to Judah, to Jerusalem bearing gifts – the abundance of the sea, the wealth of nations…and, specifically, gold and frankincense. Matthew’s Gospel portrays the Isaiah reading come to life, in the form of – the Magi, or wise men, watchers of the skies who came from Persia, with gifts for a king. More than a little naively, they traveled to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital – where else would a "King of the Jews" be born, they supposed, asking “where is He who has been born King of the Jews, for we have seen His star, and have come to worship.”
While they may have been wise in tracking the movements of the stars in the heavens, perhaps they weren’t so wise in the ways of worldly politics. For in coming to Jerusalem and making their inquiry, they set off the paranoia of Herod, the local puppet ruler propped up by Rome – because as far as Herod was concerned, there was already a King of the Jews, and Herod was his name. No others need apply. To borrow some language from the old western movies, Jerusalem and Judah weren’t big enough for two kings of the Jews. But Herod forced a smile, consulted his religious advisors – who said the king would be born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem, a few miles down the road from Jerusalem. Herod sent them on their way, telling them to come back when they’d found the baby, so that Herod could also come and….worship. Yeah, worship, that’s the ticket. Of course, the rest of our Gospel reading tells us that Herod had, not worship, but murder on his mind.
Jesus’ birth was revealed to the Wise men, and they traveled for many miles to worship. Jesus’ birth was also revealed – by the wise men – to Herod, and he sent his men many miles to murder. And likewise, Jesus’ birth is revealed to all of us, and to our neighbors.
How will we respond? When we come to worship, what gift will we offer? And by what road will we depart? As we mark the turning of the calendar and the beginning of the new year, these are questions to contemplate.
On Friday night, I took the train into the city to spend part of New Years’ Eve at my home congregation, Old First, at 4th & Race Streets in Center City, for their New Years’ Eve Watchnight Service. While this is not a tradition in our churches – and in fact it’s only the 2nd time Old First held such a service - it’s a strong tradition in the African-American community. I’m told it came out of the time of emancipation, when on December 31, 1862, New Year’s Eve, slaves were counting down the hours and minutes until January 1, 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would take effect, and, on paper at least, they had freedom, glorious freedom. Pastor Michael, the pastor at Old First, who once served a congregation in NYC primarily of immigrants from the islands of the West Indies, also told us that there is a West Indies tradition that the way you bring in the New Year’s Eve will determine how you spend the whole year. In some West Indies communities, New Years Eve watchnight services are bigger than Christmas Eve service. Old First’s service didn’t actually run until midnight – we started at 7 pm and ran till about 8:30 – but it gave the feel of awaiting the New Year, in the presence of God and among the folks who for 20 years had been my church family week in and week out. It was a small group, about 15 of us gathered in a circle at the front of the church – though I told them that at Emanuel, it would be considered a good Sunday attendance. It was a meditative time for the 15 of us who were there, a time to consider the joys and struggles of the past year, to confess and ask God to forgive us our past failings and to help us to be more faithful in the coming year, to share our hopes and dreams for 2011. And, of course, I lifted up a prayer for Bridesburg, and for Emanuel Church, that we here can be a place of hope and love and peace for the beloved neighborhood of Bridesburg in which God has planted us.
Which path will we follow in the coming year? It’s tempting for us, as it was tempting for the Wise men, to go back to Herod, to give lip service to worshipping Jesus while living in ways which, though greed and gluttony and fear and hate, through our personal choices as well as our choices of how we participate in the wider society, bring death to our neighbors, or ultimately even ourselves. It’s the road many of our neighbors travel; perhaps it’s the road on which we found ourselves all too often in the past, and it’s tempting to return to what we know, to what’s familiar.
Or, like the Wise Men, we can turn from the failings of our past and follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us, and, having come to worship the newborn King, depart by another road, rejoicing and giving thanks for all we had heard and seen. We can follow in the way of Jesus, the way of love for God and neighbor. We can follow in the way of Jesus, being open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, embracing the future God has in store for us. For our congregation, celebrating our 150th year of service to this community, we can move out of the shadows of fear and discouragement, to say “yes” to the ways in which God is calling us to glorify God and serve our neighbors, to say “yes” to God’s call for us to say “welcome home” to those feel spiritually orphaned and homeless, to say “yes” to being the place of faith, hope, love, and peace that God is calling us congregation to be.
As we come forward in a few moments to the Lord’s table, may our souls be fed and our spirits strengthened, so that we can depart, rejoicing, to say “yes” to God in the coming year. May we, like the Wise Men, have our ears open to hear the voice of Jesus, our hearts open to feel the prompting of the Spirit. Where God leads, may we follow. Amen.
****************
Wise men and women still seek Jesus. Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
In the church’s liturgical calendar, today is Epiphany Sunday, which celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, which, I’d guess, is most or all of us. Remember that up to this point, everyone who encounters Jesus in the story – Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, presumably the shepherds, Jesus himself – are all Jews. But on Epiphany Sunday, we give thanks that this revelation spread to the world at large. The word “epiphany” has made its way into our secular language to describe those occasional “Aha” moments we all have, those moments when we understand something for the first time or connect the dots for the first time, when, figuratively speaking, the little light bulb over our head goes on, and we say that we’ve had an epiphany.
Our Old Testament reading sets the stage. Part of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis was not only that God would bless Abraham by making his descendents a great nation, but that great nation of Abraham’s descendents would become a blessing to the other nations. Our reading from Isaiah recalls this promise: the surrounding nations would come to Judah, to Jerusalem, seeking God’s glory. And they would come to Judah, to Jerusalem bearing gifts – the abundance of the sea, the wealth of nations…and, specifically, gold and frankincense. Matthew’s Gospel portrays the Isaiah reading come to life, in the form of – the Magi, or wise men, watchers of the skies who came from Persia, with gifts for a king. More than a little naively, they traveled to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital – where else would a "King of the Jews" be born, they supposed, asking “where is He who has been born King of the Jews, for we have seen His star, and have come to worship.”
While they may have been wise in tracking the movements of the stars in the heavens, perhaps they weren’t so wise in the ways of worldly politics. For in coming to Jerusalem and making their inquiry, they set off the paranoia of Herod, the local puppet ruler propped up by Rome – because as far as Herod was concerned, there was already a King of the Jews, and Herod was his name. No others need apply. To borrow some language from the old western movies, Jerusalem and Judah weren’t big enough for two kings of the Jews. But Herod forced a smile, consulted his religious advisors – who said the king would be born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem, a few miles down the road from Jerusalem. Herod sent them on their way, telling them to come back when they’d found the baby, so that Herod could also come and….worship. Yeah, worship, that’s the ticket. Of course, the rest of our Gospel reading tells us that Herod had, not worship, but murder on his mind.
Jesus’ birth was revealed to the Wise men, and they traveled for many miles to worship. Jesus’ birth was also revealed – by the wise men – to Herod, and he sent his men many miles to murder. And likewise, Jesus’ birth is revealed to all of us, and to our neighbors.
How will we respond? When we come to worship, what gift will we offer? And by what road will we depart? As we mark the turning of the calendar and the beginning of the new year, these are questions to contemplate.
On Friday night, I took the train into the city to spend part of New Years’ Eve at my home congregation, Old First, at 4th & Race Streets in Center City, for their New Years’ Eve Watchnight Service. While this is not a tradition in our churches – and in fact it’s only the 2nd time Old First held such a service - it’s a strong tradition in the African-American community. I’m told it came out of the time of emancipation, when on December 31, 1862, New Year’s Eve, slaves were counting down the hours and minutes until January 1, 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would take effect, and, on paper at least, they had freedom, glorious freedom. Pastor Michael, the pastor at Old First, who once served a congregation in NYC primarily of immigrants from the islands of the West Indies, also told us that there is a West Indies tradition that the way you bring in the New Year’s Eve will determine how you spend the whole year. In some West Indies communities, New Years Eve watchnight services are bigger than Christmas Eve service. Old First’s service didn’t actually run until midnight – we started at 7 pm and ran till about 8:30 – but it gave the feel of awaiting the New Year, in the presence of God and among the folks who for 20 years had been my church family week in and week out. It was a small group, about 15 of us gathered in a circle at the front of the church – though I told them that at Emanuel, it would be considered a good Sunday attendance. It was a meditative time for the 15 of us who were there, a time to consider the joys and struggles of the past year, to confess and ask God to forgive us our past failings and to help us to be more faithful in the coming year, to share our hopes and dreams for 2011. And, of course, I lifted up a prayer for Bridesburg, and for Emanuel Church, that we here can be a place of hope and love and peace for the beloved neighborhood of Bridesburg in which God has planted us.
Which path will we follow in the coming year? It’s tempting for us, as it was tempting for the Wise men, to go back to Herod, to give lip service to worshipping Jesus while living in ways which, though greed and gluttony and fear and hate, through our personal choices as well as our choices of how we participate in the wider society, bring death to our neighbors, or ultimately even ourselves. It’s the road many of our neighbors travel; perhaps it’s the road on which we found ourselves all too often in the past, and it’s tempting to return to what we know, to what’s familiar.
Or, like the Wise Men, we can turn from the failings of our past and follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us, and, having come to worship the newborn King, depart by another road, rejoicing and giving thanks for all we had heard and seen. We can follow in the way of Jesus, the way of love for God and neighbor. We can follow in the way of Jesus, being open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, embracing the future God has in store for us. For our congregation, celebrating our 150th year of service to this community, we can move out of the shadows of fear and discouragement, to say “yes” to the ways in which God is calling us to glorify God and serve our neighbors, to say “yes” to God’s call for us to say “welcome home” to those feel spiritually orphaned and homeless, to say “yes” to being the place of faith, hope, love, and peace that God is calling us congregation to be.
As we come forward in a few moments to the Lord’s table, may our souls be fed and our spirits strengthened, so that we can depart, rejoicing, to say “yes” to God in the coming year. May we, like the Wise Men, have our ears open to hear the voice of Jesus, our hearts open to feel the prompting of the Spirit. Where God leads, may we follow. Amen.
****************
Wise men and women still seek Jesus. Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Sunday, December 26, 2010
No Rest for the Weary? - A Snowy Sunday Sermon
(Scriptures: Isaiah 63:7-9, Hebrews 2:10-18 Matthew 2:1-23)
Note: Due to the forecasted snow, Emanuel has cancelled services for Dec 26. Here is the sermon planned for this morning
I’d like to begin by thanking everyone once again for all that everyone did to make our Christmas Eve service a night of beauty and wonder. From the beautiful decorations to the Scripture readings which everyone did so well, to Ralph’s beautiful organ music, to preparations for Holy Communion, I thought this year’s Christmas Eve service was especially meaningful.
And here we are again, not even two full days later, in worship to God. The presents have been opened, the turkey mostly eaten – or not – and we may feel like we need a vacation to recover from our Christmas holiday. We’re grateful for the privilege of making our annual pilgrimage to the manger, to pay tribute to the Christ child, but the time we spend there goes by all too quickly. We hope today will be a day of blessed rest, but tomorrow, we’ll be going “once more into the breach,” once more back to our daily lives. We may feel that while the lights and carols are beautiful, there’s no rest for the weary.
All this may give us at least a small taste of Mary and Joseph’s experience in today’s Scripture reading. This week’s and next week’s readings are out of sequence: next Sunday is Epiphany, when we read of the visit of the Wise Men. Today’s reading tells what happens in the aftermath of their visit, when Herod tries to have Jesus killed. Both readings tell of events approximately two years after the birth of Jesus. Mary and Joseph are no longer in the manger – we’re told that the wise men found the child, not in the manger, but in a house.
But we’ll hear from about the wise men next week. This week we’re stuck with brutal, paranoid Herod. Herod kept order and control over his subjects, but it could hardly be called peace – it was more like a reign of terror. We may remember news accounts in recent decades over the brutality of present and past rulers in the Middle East, who out of their paranoia arranged assassination attempts on members of their own family and their advisors. Herod would fit right in….in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Does anyone here today like to watch old westerns, maybe on Turner Classics? One familiar plotline is a new sheriff or US marshal riding in to clean up the town. At some point, the sheriff and the bad guy will run foul of each other, and the bad guy will tell the sheriff: “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m giving you 24 hours to clear out.” Of course, we know that the sheriff will chase out the bad guys, win the girl, and ride off into the sunset, and that’ll be the end of the story.
While the scenery is much different, today’s Gospel follows a similar plotline. The wise men had traipsed into Herod’s court and asked, “where is the king......., for we have seen his star?” Of course, as far as Herod was concerned, he was the king in them thar’ parts. Herod consulted his scribes and was told that a new king would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. And while Herod forced a smile when he talked to the wise men – “when you find him, let me know where he is; I’d like to come and…uh….worship as well. Yeah….worship…that’s the ticket” – our Gospel makes it very clear that, for Herod, his province wasn’t big enough for the both of them, Herod and the baby who is to become king; that Herod had, not worship, but murder on his mind.
For Mary and Joseph, who had endured one exhausting trip to Bethlehem to give birth to Jesus, there was no rest for the weary. But God does not leave the babe defenseless. Like the Joseph of whom we read in Genesis, whose dreams warned Egypt of impending famine and enabled Joseph, with Pharoah’s support, to store up grain against the upcoming years of hunger, the dreams of Mary’s husband Joseph warn of Herod’s murderous plans. Warned in a dream, Mary and Joseph and the babe become political refugees, fleeing to safety in Egypt until Herod’s deathMatthew is very explicit in drawing parallels between Joseph in Genesis and the Joseph who would become Jesus’ earthly father. In the same way, Matthew draws explicit parallels between Jesus and the Moses of the Exodus: Jesus for a time lives in exile in Egypt, until he, like Moses before him, can emerge to return to Galilee, to bide his time with his family until, as an adult, Jesus emerges to lead all humanity to salvation. Herod reacts in character to God’s intervention – unaware that Mary and Joseph and the babe had evaded his grasp, Herod has all the babies in and around Bethlehem 2 years and younger killed. And again, there are parallels to Exodus: here Herod is re-enacting the role of Pharoah, who instructed his midwives to have all the male Hebrew babies killed. For Matthew’s community of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus, these parallels between the Genesis and Exodus accounts and the birth narrative of Jesus would have been rich with meaning.
As extreme, as literally crazed as Herod’s reaction is, at one level it’s an entirely rational response. You see, Judea really wasn’t big enough for both Herod and Jesus. In fact, the whole world isn’t big enough for the ways of Herod and the way of Jesus. The ways of the world, the ways of Herod and the way of Jesus are incompatible. As believers, we can’t treat the way of Herod and Jesus as items on a buffet table, where we can take a little of one and a little of the other. The ways of the world, the ways of Herod, are ways of death, whereas the way of Jesus is the way of life, abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come.
In Jesus, God’s reign was breaking into our world in a new way, to break the grip of the powers of sin and death. As Ralph (in one of his moments away from the organ) read from John’s Gospel with such passion and eloquence at Christmas Eve, the Word, the creative power of God through whom all the universe was brought into being, became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. All who receive Jesus, who believe in Jesus’ name, are given power to become children of God. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known to us.
But, as Ralph also read, while the world came into being through the Word, the world did not know him. Jesus came into the world to save, and in response the world, through Herod, sought to destroy. Mary and Joseph were entrusted with the care of Jesus, the Word made flesh, and while their lives were eventful – the stories they could tell! - they could hardly have been called easy.
And so it often is with us. When we become disciples of Jesus, we turn away the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the world, the flesh, and the devil will push back. We may find our lives becoming, not easier, but more complicated, just as Mary and Joseph’s faith led them into life as political refugees. There are costs to being a disciple of Jesus. We find ourselves, not in a sheltered retreat, but on a battlefield, in the thick of the action. And we can’t even pick up Herod’s weapons and use them against Herod. The ways of Herod only lead to death. We can only combat Herod with the weapons of the spirit, following in the way of Jesus. God does not promise us an easy life, but God does promise his presence in the struggle, his presence on our journey of life.
Jesus said, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It’s a strange kind of rest, not a rest of idle inactivity, but a rest that comes with knowing that, while the battle may be fierce, the outcome is assured, and we will welcome it. Perhaps it could be compared to the calm at the center of a hurricane; while life swirls around us, we can find a calm center within ourselves that comes with faith in God. And while our lives may not be easy, we are promised that we will have the peace of Christ, that peace that passes all understanding, that peace that the world can neither give nor take away. May that peace be with us now, and go with us always. Amen.
**************
Please start off 2011 right, by joining us next Sunday at 10 am (Epiphany or "Three Kings" Sunday) at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson).
Note: Due to the forecasted snow, Emanuel has cancelled services for Dec 26. Here is the sermon planned for this morning
I’d like to begin by thanking everyone once again for all that everyone did to make our Christmas Eve service a night of beauty and wonder. From the beautiful decorations to the Scripture readings which everyone did so well, to Ralph’s beautiful organ music, to preparations for Holy Communion, I thought this year’s Christmas Eve service was especially meaningful.
And here we are again, not even two full days later, in worship to God. The presents have been opened, the turkey mostly eaten – or not – and we may feel like we need a vacation to recover from our Christmas holiday. We’re grateful for the privilege of making our annual pilgrimage to the manger, to pay tribute to the Christ child, but the time we spend there goes by all too quickly. We hope today will be a day of blessed rest, but tomorrow, we’ll be going “once more into the breach,” once more back to our daily lives. We may feel that while the lights and carols are beautiful, there’s no rest for the weary.
All this may give us at least a small taste of Mary and Joseph’s experience in today’s Scripture reading. This week’s and next week’s readings are out of sequence: next Sunday is Epiphany, when we read of the visit of the Wise Men. Today’s reading tells what happens in the aftermath of their visit, when Herod tries to have Jesus killed. Both readings tell of events approximately two years after the birth of Jesus. Mary and Joseph are no longer in the manger – we’re told that the wise men found the child, not in the manger, but in a house.
But we’ll hear from about the wise men next week. This week we’re stuck with brutal, paranoid Herod. Herod kept order and control over his subjects, but it could hardly be called peace – it was more like a reign of terror. We may remember news accounts in recent decades over the brutality of present and past rulers in the Middle East, who out of their paranoia arranged assassination attempts on members of their own family and their advisors. Herod would fit right in….in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Does anyone here today like to watch old westerns, maybe on Turner Classics? One familiar plotline is a new sheriff or US marshal riding in to clean up the town. At some point, the sheriff and the bad guy will run foul of each other, and the bad guy will tell the sheriff: “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m giving you 24 hours to clear out.” Of course, we know that the sheriff will chase out the bad guys, win the girl, and ride off into the sunset, and that’ll be the end of the story.
While the scenery is much different, today’s Gospel follows a similar plotline. The wise men had traipsed into Herod’s court and asked, “where is the king......., for we have seen his star?” Of course, as far as Herod was concerned, he was the king in them thar’ parts. Herod consulted his scribes and was told that a new king would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. And while Herod forced a smile when he talked to the wise men – “when you find him, let me know where he is; I’d like to come and…uh….worship as well. Yeah….worship…that’s the ticket” – our Gospel makes it very clear that, for Herod, his province wasn’t big enough for the both of them, Herod and the baby who is to become king; that Herod had, not worship, but murder on his mind.
For Mary and Joseph, who had endured one exhausting trip to Bethlehem to give birth to Jesus, there was no rest for the weary. But God does not leave the babe defenseless. Like the Joseph of whom we read in Genesis, whose dreams warned Egypt of impending famine and enabled Joseph, with Pharoah’s support, to store up grain against the upcoming years of hunger, the dreams of Mary’s husband Joseph warn of Herod’s murderous plans. Warned in a dream, Mary and Joseph and the babe become political refugees, fleeing to safety in Egypt until Herod’s deathMatthew is very explicit in drawing parallels between Joseph in Genesis and the Joseph who would become Jesus’ earthly father. In the same way, Matthew draws explicit parallels between Jesus and the Moses of the Exodus: Jesus for a time lives in exile in Egypt, until he, like Moses before him, can emerge to return to Galilee, to bide his time with his family until, as an adult, Jesus emerges to lead all humanity to salvation. Herod reacts in character to God’s intervention – unaware that Mary and Joseph and the babe had evaded his grasp, Herod has all the babies in and around Bethlehem 2 years and younger killed. And again, there are parallels to Exodus: here Herod is re-enacting the role of Pharoah, who instructed his midwives to have all the male Hebrew babies killed. For Matthew’s community of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus, these parallels between the Genesis and Exodus accounts and the birth narrative of Jesus would have been rich with meaning.
As extreme, as literally crazed as Herod’s reaction is, at one level it’s an entirely rational response. You see, Judea really wasn’t big enough for both Herod and Jesus. In fact, the whole world isn’t big enough for the ways of Herod and the way of Jesus. The ways of the world, the ways of Herod and the way of Jesus are incompatible. As believers, we can’t treat the way of Herod and Jesus as items on a buffet table, where we can take a little of one and a little of the other. The ways of the world, the ways of Herod, are ways of death, whereas the way of Jesus is the way of life, abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come.
In Jesus, God’s reign was breaking into our world in a new way, to break the grip of the powers of sin and death. As Ralph (in one of his moments away from the organ) read from John’s Gospel with such passion and eloquence at Christmas Eve, the Word, the creative power of God through whom all the universe was brought into being, became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. All who receive Jesus, who believe in Jesus’ name, are given power to become children of God. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known to us.
But, as Ralph also read, while the world came into being through the Word, the world did not know him. Jesus came into the world to save, and in response the world, through Herod, sought to destroy. Mary and Joseph were entrusted with the care of Jesus, the Word made flesh, and while their lives were eventful – the stories they could tell! - they could hardly have been called easy.
And so it often is with us. When we become disciples of Jesus, we turn away the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the world, the flesh, and the devil will push back. We may find our lives becoming, not easier, but more complicated, just as Mary and Joseph’s faith led them into life as political refugees. There are costs to being a disciple of Jesus. We find ourselves, not in a sheltered retreat, but on a battlefield, in the thick of the action. And we can’t even pick up Herod’s weapons and use them against Herod. The ways of Herod only lead to death. We can only combat Herod with the weapons of the spirit, following in the way of Jesus. God does not promise us an easy life, but God does promise his presence in the struggle, his presence on our journey of life.
Jesus said, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It’s a strange kind of rest, not a rest of idle inactivity, but a rest that comes with knowing that, while the battle may be fierce, the outcome is assured, and we will welcome it. Perhaps it could be compared to the calm at the center of a hurricane; while life swirls around us, we can find a calm center within ourselves that comes with faith in God. And while our lives may not be easy, we are promised that we will have the peace of Christ, that peace that passes all understanding, that peace that the world can neither give nor take away. May that peace be with us now, and go with us always. Amen.
**************
Please start off 2011 right, by joining us next Sunday at 10 am (Epiphany or "Three Kings" Sunday) at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson).
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Persisting in Faith
The Gospel for June 28 (Mark 5) builds on the theme of the miracles of Jesus that we began last week with Jesus calming the storm. In today’s healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage, Jesus heals not only physical disease, but also social ostracism.
Last week, we watched Jesus calm the storm while he was crossing the Sea of Galilee. He was crossing from the Jewish side of the sea – the area where his community of faith lived – to the Gentile side, where non-Jews lived. On the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus healed the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs – and greatly upset some pig farmers whose livestock ran wild off a cliff. He then re-crossed the Sea of Galilee back into Jewish territory. By including all this crossing and recrossing in the story, Mark is making a point – not subtly either, but practically highlighting and underlining it and drawing arrows around it – that Jesus’ ministry was to both Jews and Gentiles. The culture of the time dictated strict boundaries between Jew and Gentile, but Jesus crossed those boundaries repeatedly – literally crossed them by sailing back and forth from the Jewish to the Gentile communities that were divided by the Sea of Galilee. We’ll see him crossing other boundaries in today’s Gospel.
Anyway….so Jesus is back on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, back in familiar territory. He’s accosted by Jairus, leader of the local synagogue. Jesus was already drawing negative attention from many of the religious leaders, so Jairus was risking his standing in the community by approaching him –but his 12-year old daughter is dying, and he’s desperate, so he’s willing to put his reputation aside to save his little girl. Desperation has forced Jairus out of his comfort zone. And so Jesus begins the walk to Jairus’s house, with a crowd gathering as he proceeded.
On the way, Jesus is quietly approached by another desperate woman, one who has been afflicted with continual hemorrhages for 12 years. We’re told that she spent everything she had on physicians, but was worse rather than better for the effort. Imagine how exhausted and drained this woman would have felt after having been ill for so long. Remember that according to the purity guidelines of the day, she would have been considered ritually unclean – by the guidelines, should have been isolated from the rest of society - and would have ritually contaminated everyone she inadvertently bumped into as the crowd jostled its way along. Given her status, obviously she did not want to draw attention to herself. “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed,” she thinks. So she touched his cloak, and was healed immediately. Jesus felt healing power going forth from him, and asked, “who touched me.” The disciples responded “what do you mean, ‘who touched you’; the whole crowd is jostling against you.” But the woman approached him in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told Jesus what she’d done. Jesus took the time to face her and say, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” And she was healed, not only of her physical illness, but of the ritual uncleanness and isolation that had come with it. It was a holy interruption to Jesus’ journey, a holy interruption that forever changed the course of this woman’s life.
Good for the woman. At first glance, not so good for Jairus. While all this is going on, he tries to maintain his composure while becoming more and more frantic for Jesus to get to his home and heal his daughter. And then messengers come from Jairus’ house with the dread words, “Too late! She’s dead.” In his frantic effort to seek healing from Jesus, he had apparently missed the last, precious moments of his daughter’s life, had been away from her bedside during her last conscious moments.
In the midst of Jairus’ grief, Jesus responds with what one writer called his shortest sermon – “Do not fear. Only believe.” They arrived at the house, where the hired mourners are holding forth. Jesus asks why all the commotion: the little girl is not dead, but sleeping. The mourning turns to bitter laughter, and so the paid mourners are put outside. In the presence of Peter, James and John, Jesus calls to the little girl, “Little girl, get up.” The girl begins to blink her eyes and look around, and Jesus asks the family to get her something to eat.
Two women, nearly cut off from community by illness. Two desperate seekers for healing. In both cases Jairus and the anonymous woman crossed boundaries of ritual purity to reach Jesus, Jesus crossed boundaries of the ritual purity laws in order to heal each woman, and in both cases the healed women were restored to their communities. In these stories, healing is not just the removal of illness, but the wholistic restoration of wellness and right relationship in all aspects of life.
There are a number of ways of looking at this Gospel. One of the more traditional is to lift up the persistence of each of these seekers. Both had to go out way of their comfort zones to seek after Jesus; both had to overcome significant obstacles and great discouragement in their respective quests for healing. In effect, both through faith sought a “way out of no way,” sought the proverbial window of faith that opens when all doors have been slammed shut. Both refused to let those around them discourage them – remember the crowds that blocked the woman from easy access to Jesus, and the hired mourners who laughed at Jesus - and both were rewarded for their faith.
The difficulty comes when we think our prayers can control God – if we just pray enough, or fast enough, or believe enough, or tithe enough, God will give us the desire of our hearts. This mindset very nearly reduces faith to a commercial transaction – God, I’ll send up x number of prayers, and you’ll send down our heart’s desire. At the bottom of this type of thinking is fear, fear that God really doesn’t desire our good, fear that God needs to be bribed somehow by our prayers to act. Yet Jesus said, “Fear not; only believe.”
Along with the lesson of persistent faith, this Gospel teaches that God is always in control. Faced with Jairus’ request, Jesus moved with steadfast purpose. The anonymous woman’s interruption provided another opportunity to glorify God, but it did not deflect Jesus from his original purpose. Faced with the desperate anxiety of Jairus, the curiosity of the crowds, the perplexity of the disciples, the mockery of the professional mourners, and the apparently hopeless state of Jairus’ daughter, Jesus moved forward with purposeful, unhurried steps. And so it is with God’s response to our prayers. I believe God answers all prayer – sometimes yes, sometimes “not yet”, often, “no, but here’s something better.” God can see past our limited vision, the advertising and culture-induced wants that masquerade as needs, our sin that prompts us to ask for that which would hurt us, in order to give us what we truly need.
Jesus told Jairus – and tells us – do not fear; only believe. Fear not, though the wind and waves may come. Fear not, though life’s circumstances may leave us feeling depleted and alone. Fear not, though it seems all our efforts have come to naught, and our journey of faith has brought us to a dead end. Fear not. God has not left the building – indeed, God is waiting to do amazing things still, if we’ll get out of the way with our need for control. Despite all appearances, it is the God who loves us and loves our neighbors who is in control. Fear not. Only believe.
Last week, we watched Jesus calm the storm while he was crossing the Sea of Galilee. He was crossing from the Jewish side of the sea – the area where his community of faith lived – to the Gentile side, where non-Jews lived. On the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus healed the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs – and greatly upset some pig farmers whose livestock ran wild off a cliff. He then re-crossed the Sea of Galilee back into Jewish territory. By including all this crossing and recrossing in the story, Mark is making a point – not subtly either, but practically highlighting and underlining it and drawing arrows around it – that Jesus’ ministry was to both Jews and Gentiles. The culture of the time dictated strict boundaries between Jew and Gentile, but Jesus crossed those boundaries repeatedly – literally crossed them by sailing back and forth from the Jewish to the Gentile communities that were divided by the Sea of Galilee. We’ll see him crossing other boundaries in today’s Gospel.
Anyway….so Jesus is back on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, back in familiar territory. He’s accosted by Jairus, leader of the local synagogue. Jesus was already drawing negative attention from many of the religious leaders, so Jairus was risking his standing in the community by approaching him –but his 12-year old daughter is dying, and he’s desperate, so he’s willing to put his reputation aside to save his little girl. Desperation has forced Jairus out of his comfort zone. And so Jesus begins the walk to Jairus’s house, with a crowd gathering as he proceeded.
On the way, Jesus is quietly approached by another desperate woman, one who has been afflicted with continual hemorrhages for 12 years. We’re told that she spent everything she had on physicians, but was worse rather than better for the effort. Imagine how exhausted and drained this woman would have felt after having been ill for so long. Remember that according to the purity guidelines of the day, she would have been considered ritually unclean – by the guidelines, should have been isolated from the rest of society - and would have ritually contaminated everyone she inadvertently bumped into as the crowd jostled its way along. Given her status, obviously she did not want to draw attention to herself. “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed,” she thinks. So she touched his cloak, and was healed immediately. Jesus felt healing power going forth from him, and asked, “who touched me.” The disciples responded “what do you mean, ‘who touched you’; the whole crowd is jostling against you.” But the woman approached him in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told Jesus what she’d done. Jesus took the time to face her and say, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” And she was healed, not only of her physical illness, but of the ritual uncleanness and isolation that had come with it. It was a holy interruption to Jesus’ journey, a holy interruption that forever changed the course of this woman’s life.
Good for the woman. At first glance, not so good for Jairus. While all this is going on, he tries to maintain his composure while becoming more and more frantic for Jesus to get to his home and heal his daughter. And then messengers come from Jairus’ house with the dread words, “Too late! She’s dead.” In his frantic effort to seek healing from Jesus, he had apparently missed the last, precious moments of his daughter’s life, had been away from her bedside during her last conscious moments.
In the midst of Jairus’ grief, Jesus responds with what one writer called his shortest sermon – “Do not fear. Only believe.” They arrived at the house, where the hired mourners are holding forth. Jesus asks why all the commotion: the little girl is not dead, but sleeping. The mourning turns to bitter laughter, and so the paid mourners are put outside. In the presence of Peter, James and John, Jesus calls to the little girl, “Little girl, get up.” The girl begins to blink her eyes and look around, and Jesus asks the family to get her something to eat.
Two women, nearly cut off from community by illness. Two desperate seekers for healing. In both cases Jairus and the anonymous woman crossed boundaries of ritual purity to reach Jesus, Jesus crossed boundaries of the ritual purity laws in order to heal each woman, and in both cases the healed women were restored to their communities. In these stories, healing is not just the removal of illness, but the wholistic restoration of wellness and right relationship in all aspects of life.
There are a number of ways of looking at this Gospel. One of the more traditional is to lift up the persistence of each of these seekers. Both had to go out way of their comfort zones to seek after Jesus; both had to overcome significant obstacles and great discouragement in their respective quests for healing. In effect, both through faith sought a “way out of no way,” sought the proverbial window of faith that opens when all doors have been slammed shut. Both refused to let those around them discourage them – remember the crowds that blocked the woman from easy access to Jesus, and the hired mourners who laughed at Jesus - and both were rewarded for their faith.
The difficulty comes when we think our prayers can control God – if we just pray enough, or fast enough, or believe enough, or tithe enough, God will give us the desire of our hearts. This mindset very nearly reduces faith to a commercial transaction – God, I’ll send up x number of prayers, and you’ll send down our heart’s desire. At the bottom of this type of thinking is fear, fear that God really doesn’t desire our good, fear that God needs to be bribed somehow by our prayers to act. Yet Jesus said, “Fear not; only believe.”
Along with the lesson of persistent faith, this Gospel teaches that God is always in control. Faced with Jairus’ request, Jesus moved with steadfast purpose. The anonymous woman’s interruption provided another opportunity to glorify God, but it did not deflect Jesus from his original purpose. Faced with the desperate anxiety of Jairus, the curiosity of the crowds, the perplexity of the disciples, the mockery of the professional mourners, and the apparently hopeless state of Jairus’ daughter, Jesus moved forward with purposeful, unhurried steps. And so it is with God’s response to our prayers. I believe God answers all prayer – sometimes yes, sometimes “not yet”, often, “no, but here’s something better.” God can see past our limited vision, the advertising and culture-induced wants that masquerade as needs, our sin that prompts us to ask for that which would hurt us, in order to give us what we truly need.
Jesus told Jairus – and tells us – do not fear; only believe. Fear not, though the wind and waves may come. Fear not, though life’s circumstances may leave us feeling depleted and alone. Fear not, though it seems all our efforts have come to naught, and our journey of faith has brought us to a dead end. Fear not. God has not left the building – indeed, God is waiting to do amazing things still, if we’ll get out of the way with our need for control. Despite all appearances, it is the God who loves us and loves our neighbors who is in control. Fear not. Only believe.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
We Would See Jesus
My somewhat-odd sermon title comes from the King James Version rendition of our Gospel text. Near the end of Jesus’ public ministry, as pilgrims are flooding into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, Jesus is in Jerusalem as well. Some Greeks – likely Gentiles, certainly at least to some extent outsiders at the festival – approach Philip with the words, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Philip goes to Andrew, and then Philip and Andrew present them to Jesus.
It is a secret to nobody that churches don’t draw the numbers they once did. At one time, in the 1950’s, it was expected that families who wanted to be considered upstanding citizens would attend church, not necessarily out of strong conviction, but because it was a social obligation, the thing to do. Those days are long behind us. And maybe it’s not even entirely a bad thing - it’s possible, maybe even likely, that many of those people were attending church for the wrong reason, seeking decorum instead of discipleship; respectability instead of repentance; status instead of servanthood. These days, going to church is no longer the thing to do, but only one of a vast variety of possible things to do.
People no longer just sort of drift through our front door into worship by osmosis or inertia. Those who come to church, make the effort because they are seeking something. Something or someone – a sense of being spiritually connected to God and neighbor, a place where one can ask deep questions about big issues, a place to be embraced by a loving community, a place to find peace and healing and restoration. While the words may not be there, at some level those who visit our church or any church make the request, “Sir – Ma’am – we would see Jesus.”
What will they find? Will they find Jesus? I’m concerned that many of our congregations are so cluttered with other priorities that Jesus gets lost in the shuffle. Christian writer Michael Spencer, in an article called “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” envisions a future a generation or two from now, of half-empty (or more) evangelical churches, of ministries shuttering their doors for lack of funds and supporters. He sees this as the outcome of a too-close alliance between the more visible TV preachers and public evangelists and political conservatives, with the result that if you ask your average Joe on the street what evangelical Christians are like – and surveys have been done on this very question by respected polling organizations - they’ll tell you that Christians are people who are really angry about one or two hot-button social issues. While the intent may be to “love the sinner while hating the sin,” often the “hate” part is the only part that comes across. Among the unchurched, Christians are seen as people who hate. Let that sink in for just a minute…Christians are seen as people who hate. Yet the Jesus of the Bible attracts the unchurched, so they come to us requesting, “Sir – Ma’am, we would see Jesus.” Can Jesus be found among the calls of condemnation?
And sometimes we don’t do so good ourselves. When is the last time you or I actually shared our faith with someone? We can tell people about our church history, about the groups that share our space, about our auctions and rummage sales – and all that is valuable and there’s time for all that - but can we tell people about Jesus? To use the words of the old hymn, do we love to tell the story of Jesus and His love?
The truth is that all of us, as Christians, are windows through which others may see Jesus. At our worst, we can obscure that light, so that our neighbors see only our own fear and anger. A preacher friend of mine, who sometimes spreads herself too thin, sometimes acknowledges those moments when she’s not at her best by saying, “I’m afraid my congregation saw a little too much of me today, and not enough of Jesus.” At our best, though, our lives are like stained glass through which the light of God’s love shines, making patterns of beauty and joy and peace in the lives of those around us. May those who approach us with the request, “Sir – Ma’am – we would see Jesus” find what they’re looking for.
It is a secret to nobody that churches don’t draw the numbers they once did. At one time, in the 1950’s, it was expected that families who wanted to be considered upstanding citizens would attend church, not necessarily out of strong conviction, but because it was a social obligation, the thing to do. Those days are long behind us. And maybe it’s not even entirely a bad thing - it’s possible, maybe even likely, that many of those people were attending church for the wrong reason, seeking decorum instead of discipleship; respectability instead of repentance; status instead of servanthood. These days, going to church is no longer the thing to do, but only one of a vast variety of possible things to do.
People no longer just sort of drift through our front door into worship by osmosis or inertia. Those who come to church, make the effort because they are seeking something. Something or someone – a sense of being spiritually connected to God and neighbor, a place where one can ask deep questions about big issues, a place to be embraced by a loving community, a place to find peace and healing and restoration. While the words may not be there, at some level those who visit our church or any church make the request, “Sir – Ma’am – we would see Jesus.”
What will they find? Will they find Jesus? I’m concerned that many of our congregations are so cluttered with other priorities that Jesus gets lost in the shuffle. Christian writer Michael Spencer, in an article called “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” envisions a future a generation or two from now, of half-empty (or more) evangelical churches, of ministries shuttering their doors for lack of funds and supporters. He sees this as the outcome of a too-close alliance between the more visible TV preachers and public evangelists and political conservatives, with the result that if you ask your average Joe on the street what evangelical Christians are like – and surveys have been done on this very question by respected polling organizations - they’ll tell you that Christians are people who are really angry about one or two hot-button social issues. While the intent may be to “love the sinner while hating the sin,” often the “hate” part is the only part that comes across. Among the unchurched, Christians are seen as people who hate. Let that sink in for just a minute…Christians are seen as people who hate. Yet the Jesus of the Bible attracts the unchurched, so they come to us requesting, “Sir – Ma’am, we would see Jesus.” Can Jesus be found among the calls of condemnation?
And sometimes we don’t do so good ourselves. When is the last time you or I actually shared our faith with someone? We can tell people about our church history, about the groups that share our space, about our auctions and rummage sales – and all that is valuable and there’s time for all that - but can we tell people about Jesus? To use the words of the old hymn, do we love to tell the story of Jesus and His love?
The truth is that all of us, as Christians, are windows through which others may see Jesus. At our worst, we can obscure that light, so that our neighbors see only our own fear and anger. A preacher friend of mine, who sometimes spreads herself too thin, sometimes acknowledges those moments when she’s not at her best by saying, “I’m afraid my congregation saw a little too much of me today, and not enough of Jesus.” At our best, though, our lives are like stained glass through which the light of God’s love shines, making patterns of beauty and joy and peace in the lives of those around us. May those who approach us with the request, “Sir – Ma’am – we would see Jesus” find what they’re looking for.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Lifted Up
This past Sunday’s Old Testament reading (Numbers 21:4-9) is among the strangest in all of Scripture – and that’s saying something. It comes from a time near the end of the Hebrews’ journeys in the wilderness. The people had just concluded 30 days of mourning for Aaron, who had just died. Aaron’s son Eleazar had been vested with Aaron’s vestments and now served in Aaron’s stead. Moses had tried to lead the people through the territory of Edom, but the king of Edom refused. Therefore they had to go around the territory of Edom, through the desert. The people became rebelled against Moses – again – complaining about the lack of food and water, and about the monotony of the Manna they’d been eating all these years. Scripture tells us that, in response, God sent poisonous snakes, who bit the people. Then the people repented and asked Moses to pray for God to take away the snakes. God tells Moses to make an image of a poisonous snake and put it on a pole and set it up, and anyone who looked at the snake would live.
We may remember the Ten Commandments, and prominent among them is the prohibition on graven images – “You shall not make unto yourselves an idol of anything in the heaven above or the earth beneath or the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…” And yet here Moses is specifically instructed to make an image of a snake, and the people are specifically instructed to look to it for healing. What on earth is going on here?
When we read about cases of institutional corruption and deceit – be it corruption in government, corruption in the church – as during the clergy child abuse scandals – or corruption in business – as during our financial meltdown, the phrase inevitably – and properly – comes up: “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Those who do wrong want to tell us that, “well, the situation is complicated, it’s too big for you to understand. After all, if we delay in going to war, the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud. And you surely can’t understand the pressures that clergy with the pressures of the pastorate, live under. And if you try to interfere in the financial houses of cards that we’ve set up, the whole thing will come crashing down. You don’t understand, so you should let us handle it.” That’s what those who would conceal their sin behind their lies tell us. Human sin does not like to be out in the open – it prefers concealment. In words from John’s gospel, sinners prefer the darkness to the light, because their deeds are evil. The solution is to bring the issue out in the open. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
So it was in today’s Old Testament reading. The children of Israel rebelled, and snakes bit them. Calling on God in their behalf, Moses was told to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Whoever looked up at the serpent and repented would live. The serpent on the pole puts the issue – rebellion against God – out in the open, out into the sunlight, like a great big billboard that nobody could miss. In looking up, the people would be looking up at a reminder of their rebellion, in repentance – and past the serpent to Almighty God who would save them. Even today, when we take a slip for a prescription to the pharmacy or a sign in front of a doctor’s office, we may see the lingering memory of this story – entwined snakes on a pole, a symbol of healing.
In explaining his own role, Jesus harked back to this strange Old Testament story: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him should have eternal life. The cross, like the bronze serpent, is an image of human sin, brought out into the open, into the sunlight. We look to the crucified Jesus in repentance for our healing. Jesus’ harking back to this image of the brazen serpent in the desert also brings a new layer of meaning to Jesus’ familiar words “I am the bread of life” and his words about having living water. His words about the bread of life may lead us to think about holy communion, and indeed that is one layer of meaning. In the context of John’s gospel, however, Jesus is specifically comparing himself to the heavenly manna and to the springs of water that sustained the children of Israel in the desert. In the same way, Jesus sustains us, day by day, especially during those wilderness stretches in our own lives when life is difficult and God seems so far away. And in his being lifted up on the cross, when we look to him in repentance, our sins are forgiven. In the words of Isaiah: “he was wounded for our transgressions, and by his stripes we are healed.”
We may remember the Ten Commandments, and prominent among them is the prohibition on graven images – “You shall not make unto yourselves an idol of anything in the heaven above or the earth beneath or the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…” And yet here Moses is specifically instructed to make an image of a snake, and the people are specifically instructed to look to it for healing. What on earth is going on here?
When we read about cases of institutional corruption and deceit – be it corruption in government, corruption in the church – as during the clergy child abuse scandals – or corruption in business – as during our financial meltdown, the phrase inevitably – and properly – comes up: “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Those who do wrong want to tell us that, “well, the situation is complicated, it’s too big for you to understand. After all, if we delay in going to war, the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud. And you surely can’t understand the pressures that clergy with the pressures of the pastorate, live under. And if you try to interfere in the financial houses of cards that we’ve set up, the whole thing will come crashing down. You don’t understand, so you should let us handle it.” That’s what those who would conceal their sin behind their lies tell us. Human sin does not like to be out in the open – it prefers concealment. In words from John’s gospel, sinners prefer the darkness to the light, because their deeds are evil. The solution is to bring the issue out in the open. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
So it was in today’s Old Testament reading. The children of Israel rebelled, and snakes bit them. Calling on God in their behalf, Moses was told to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Whoever looked up at the serpent and repented would live. The serpent on the pole puts the issue – rebellion against God – out in the open, out into the sunlight, like a great big billboard that nobody could miss. In looking up, the people would be looking up at a reminder of their rebellion, in repentance – and past the serpent to Almighty God who would save them. Even today, when we take a slip for a prescription to the pharmacy or a sign in front of a doctor’s office, we may see the lingering memory of this story – entwined snakes on a pole, a symbol of healing.
In explaining his own role, Jesus harked back to this strange Old Testament story: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him should have eternal life. The cross, like the bronze serpent, is an image of human sin, brought out into the open, into the sunlight. We look to the crucified Jesus in repentance for our healing. Jesus’ harking back to this image of the brazen serpent in the desert also brings a new layer of meaning to Jesus’ familiar words “I am the bread of life” and his words about having living water. His words about the bread of life may lead us to think about holy communion, and indeed that is one layer of meaning. In the context of John’s gospel, however, Jesus is specifically comparing himself to the heavenly manna and to the springs of water that sustained the children of Israel in the desert. In the same way, Jesus sustains us, day by day, especially during those wilderness stretches in our own lives when life is difficult and God seems so far away. And in his being lifted up on the cross, when we look to him in repentance, our sins are forgiven. In the words of Isaiah: “he was wounded for our transgressions, and by his stripes we are healed.”
Monday, February 23, 2009
Transfigured
M Night Shymalan was acclaimed for his 1999 movie “The Sixth Sense.” You may remember the plot: a little boy who claimed, “I see dead people” is seeing a therapist. The therapist, played by Bruce Willis, listens to the boy tell of seeing the spirits of deceased people who do not know they’re dead. Meanwhile the psychiatrist is struggling with his own sense of estrangement from his wife, who does not speak to him and turns away from him when he’s in the room with her. The twist in the plot is the therapist ultimately discovers, to his dismay, that he himself is one of the dead people that the boy is seeing, and that his wife’s apparent silence and distance are expressions of her grief at his demise. This change in perspective allows the viewer to see everything that has gone before in a new way. The viewer who thought he or she was watching events unfold according to one pattern, found themselves at the end of the movie remembering these same events from a very different perspective.
In Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 9:2-9) Peter, James and John find themselves in a plot line that could come from one of Shymalan’s movies. You could say that it even involves the disciples seeing dead people. Peter had just declared his insight that Jesus was the Messiah – but then Jesus had disappointed Peter and the others by foretelling his suffering and death, that Jesus would be a very different Messiah than they expected. We’re told that six days later, Jesus led Peter, James and John up to a high mountain, away from the other disciples. Then Jesus was transfigured before them – “his clothes became dazzling white, whiter than any bleach could make them.” On either side of Jesus were Moses and Elijah, who spoke to Jesus.
What are we to make of all this? It’s certainly interesting to read about long-ago mountaintop experience, but what does that have to do with us?
I suspect many of us, maybe all of us, have had what could be called mountaintop experiences, times when, even if only for a few minutes or even a few seconds, we were seemingly lifted up out of our normal routine and given a moment or two of transcendence – moments when we could see beyond the normal daily humdrum and business to feel a sense of the big picture, a sense of connection with everything around us, a sense of knowing and being known, perhaps a sense of the eternal significance of the ordinary acts of love and caring that are part of our daily routine. Celtic Christians had a phrase – “thin places” – for their experiences of finding the veil separating earth and heaven seemingly thinner than usual, so that they could almost glimpse beyond time into eternity. These brief mountaintop experiences can provide perspective and renewed passion to help us slog through the muck and mire of our daily lives.
Our time in worship can sometimes be a mountaintop experience. Occasionally God breaks through the routine of familiar hymns and Scriptures to touch us directly. The words of a hymn go right to our souls, and we well up with tears of gratitude. Notes from organ accompaniment or other sacred music may seemingly reach right in and touch and heal our broken hearts. A Scripture strikes us as if God had written those very words just for us and just for the circumstances we’re going through. Perhaps a sermon illustration helps us see a nagging longtime frustration in a new light.
We can carry with us the memory of those mountaintop moments, those times when God seemed especially close. They can give us the perspective of eternity – the perspective that we’ve never had an ordinary, meaningless day in our lives, that no such thing as an ordinary day exists, that God is in us and in our neighbor, that God can use our most seemingly throwaway conversations and meaningless acts to bring about salvation, to usher in the Kingdom of God. As Christian writer C. S. Lewis put it,
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
May God transfigure our perspective on our neighbors, on our lives, and on the many gifts that God bestows on each of us – that every waking moment contains opportunities for service to God, that every encounter with another human being contains the potential for a life-changing encounter.
In Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 9:2-9) Peter, James and John find themselves in a plot line that could come from one of Shymalan’s movies. You could say that it even involves the disciples seeing dead people. Peter had just declared his insight that Jesus was the Messiah – but then Jesus had disappointed Peter and the others by foretelling his suffering and death, that Jesus would be a very different Messiah than they expected. We’re told that six days later, Jesus led Peter, James and John up to a high mountain, away from the other disciples. Then Jesus was transfigured before them – “his clothes became dazzling white, whiter than any bleach could make them.” On either side of Jesus were Moses and Elijah, who spoke to Jesus.
What are we to make of all this? It’s certainly interesting to read about long-ago mountaintop experience, but what does that have to do with us?
I suspect many of us, maybe all of us, have had what could be called mountaintop experiences, times when, even if only for a few minutes or even a few seconds, we were seemingly lifted up out of our normal routine and given a moment or two of transcendence – moments when we could see beyond the normal daily humdrum and business to feel a sense of the big picture, a sense of connection with everything around us, a sense of knowing and being known, perhaps a sense of the eternal significance of the ordinary acts of love and caring that are part of our daily routine. Celtic Christians had a phrase – “thin places” – for their experiences of finding the veil separating earth and heaven seemingly thinner than usual, so that they could almost glimpse beyond time into eternity. These brief mountaintop experiences can provide perspective and renewed passion to help us slog through the muck and mire of our daily lives.
Our time in worship can sometimes be a mountaintop experience. Occasionally God breaks through the routine of familiar hymns and Scriptures to touch us directly. The words of a hymn go right to our souls, and we well up with tears of gratitude. Notes from organ accompaniment or other sacred music may seemingly reach right in and touch and heal our broken hearts. A Scripture strikes us as if God had written those very words just for us and just for the circumstances we’re going through. Perhaps a sermon illustration helps us see a nagging longtime frustration in a new light.
We can carry with us the memory of those mountaintop moments, those times when God seemed especially close. They can give us the perspective of eternity – the perspective that we’ve never had an ordinary, meaningless day in our lives, that no such thing as an ordinary day exists, that God is in us and in our neighbor, that God can use our most seemingly throwaway conversations and meaningless acts to bring about salvation, to usher in the Kingdom of God. As Christian writer C. S. Lewis put it,
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
May God transfigure our perspective on our neighbors, on our lives, and on the many gifts that God bestows on each of us – that every waking moment contains opportunities for service to God, that every encounter with another human being contains the potential for a life-changing encounter.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Cooties
Do you remember back in grade school, there always seemed to be one or two kids who nobody liked? Maybe they came from poor or otherwise troubled families, and their clothes might be frayed hand-me-downs. They were always the last to be picked for games at recess, and always walked home from school alone. In my small-town grade school, there was Sheila, whose family was very poor. Everyone said that “Sheila has cooties.” As she walked home, the kids would chant, “Sheila has cooties, Sheila has cooties.” Nobody wanted to get too close to Sheila, because if you did, you might get cooties too. I have no idea whatever happened to Sheila, but I doubt she has a lot of fond memories from her years as a student in elementary school.
This week’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:40-45) reminded me of Sheila’s plight. In his travels, Jesus was approached by a leper – a man who had the skin disease of leprosy. Leprosy was a dreaded disease – disfiguring, and thought to be highly contagious. This was 1900 years before the discovery of penicillin or any sort of treatment, and so the only remedy was a public health approach – quarantine and isolation – just as some may remember for TB and flu and other epidemics before the invention of antibiotics. The idea of quarantine is that the authorities couldn’t cure those infected, but they could at least try to slow down or stop the spread of the disease by isolating the sick person. The book of Leviticus has very detailed instructions on how to tell leprosy from other skin diseases, and what procedures were to be taken in case of infection. Leviticus 13:45-46 “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”
In our Gospel today, the leper acted outside of the prescribed procedures – rather than shouting “unclean”, he asked Jesus for healing – “if you choose, you can make me clean.” After which we run headlong into a translation problem. Most of our Bibles say that in response to the leper’s plea, Jesus was moved with compassion. But some more recent translations may have a note at the bottom that says, “alternate translation – Jesus was moved with anger” – perhaps at the isolation the man had to endure. Exactly what Jesus felt, we don’t know – the translators aren’t certain, and neither are we. What we do know from the text is that Jesus said, “I do choose” and healed the man.
We don’t hear much about leprosy these days. As of a few years ago, the last leper colony, on the island of Molokoi, had only a handful of elderly leprosy patients. However, every society treats certain groups of “others” as lepers, or as though they have cooties.
Who are the lepers, the untouchables in our society? You know who they are – among them are the groups whom politicians beat like a piñata every election season, blaming them for all our problems. One example is the homeless, from whom we may avert our eyes as we walk down the street. (I’m as guilty as anyone else.) And it’s true that many of the homeless we see downtown are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Yet many in our society are living closer to the edge than we know, a few paychecks or pension checks away from being out on the street, a few paychecks or pension checks away from being one of those from whom we avert our eyes. And in today’s economy, if we’re not blessed with a strong support network of family and friends and church, we can find ourselves over the edge very quickly indeed.
Those with mental health problems frequently find themselves in extreme isolation. Our society frequently doesn’t treat mental illness as seriously as physical illness – the attitude is that the mentally ill are not “really” sick in the way that people with diabetes or heart disease are sick. Insurance companies frequently offer very limited coverage for mental health treatment – maybe 8 sessions with a therapist - if they offer any at all. Those without insurance may “self-medicate” with alcohol or street drugs. Employers who would offer common decency to a co-worker recovering from a heart attack may not offer anything like the same common decency to a co-worker struggling with severe depression. Jokes about multiple personalities or being treated like “the crazy aunt in the attic” can be funny – except if you’re mentally ill, in which case the punch line can feel like a punch in the gut.
Jesus told the healed leper, “Go, and show yourself to the priest.” In Jesus’ day, the priest had the role of reintroducing the healed leper to the wider society. We in the church have no magic cure for illness, but we do have a cure for the isolation of being shunned by society. The love of Christ enables us – and compels us - to include where others exclude, to embrace those whom others shun. For in the end, we’re every one of us broken in some way or another. All of us struggle with sin, struggle with frailties of body and spirit. While we try to distance ourselves from those who are different, using phrases like “the homeless” or “the mentally ill”, ultimately there’s no “the”, no them, only us, all of us. Ultimately the welcome we offer our society’s untouchables is the welcome God offers us.
This week’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:40-45) reminded me of Sheila’s plight. In his travels, Jesus was approached by a leper – a man who had the skin disease of leprosy. Leprosy was a dreaded disease – disfiguring, and thought to be highly contagious. This was 1900 years before the discovery of penicillin or any sort of treatment, and so the only remedy was a public health approach – quarantine and isolation – just as some may remember for TB and flu and other epidemics before the invention of antibiotics. The idea of quarantine is that the authorities couldn’t cure those infected, but they could at least try to slow down or stop the spread of the disease by isolating the sick person. The book of Leviticus has very detailed instructions on how to tell leprosy from other skin diseases, and what procedures were to be taken in case of infection. Leviticus 13:45-46 “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”
In our Gospel today, the leper acted outside of the prescribed procedures – rather than shouting “unclean”, he asked Jesus for healing – “if you choose, you can make me clean.” After which we run headlong into a translation problem. Most of our Bibles say that in response to the leper’s plea, Jesus was moved with compassion. But some more recent translations may have a note at the bottom that says, “alternate translation – Jesus was moved with anger” – perhaps at the isolation the man had to endure. Exactly what Jesus felt, we don’t know – the translators aren’t certain, and neither are we. What we do know from the text is that Jesus said, “I do choose” and healed the man.
We don’t hear much about leprosy these days. As of a few years ago, the last leper colony, on the island of Molokoi, had only a handful of elderly leprosy patients. However, every society treats certain groups of “others” as lepers, or as though they have cooties.
Who are the lepers, the untouchables in our society? You know who they are – among them are the groups whom politicians beat like a piñata every election season, blaming them for all our problems. One example is the homeless, from whom we may avert our eyes as we walk down the street. (I’m as guilty as anyone else.) And it’s true that many of the homeless we see downtown are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Yet many in our society are living closer to the edge than we know, a few paychecks or pension checks away from being out on the street, a few paychecks or pension checks away from being one of those from whom we avert our eyes. And in today’s economy, if we’re not blessed with a strong support network of family and friends and church, we can find ourselves over the edge very quickly indeed.
Those with mental health problems frequently find themselves in extreme isolation. Our society frequently doesn’t treat mental illness as seriously as physical illness – the attitude is that the mentally ill are not “really” sick in the way that people with diabetes or heart disease are sick. Insurance companies frequently offer very limited coverage for mental health treatment – maybe 8 sessions with a therapist - if they offer any at all. Those without insurance may “self-medicate” with alcohol or street drugs. Employers who would offer common decency to a co-worker recovering from a heart attack may not offer anything like the same common decency to a co-worker struggling with severe depression. Jokes about multiple personalities or being treated like “the crazy aunt in the attic” can be funny – except if you’re mentally ill, in which case the punch line can feel like a punch in the gut.
Jesus told the healed leper, “Go, and show yourself to the priest.” In Jesus’ day, the priest had the role of reintroducing the healed leper to the wider society. We in the church have no magic cure for illness, but we do have a cure for the isolation of being shunned by society. The love of Christ enables us – and compels us - to include where others exclude, to embrace those whom others shun. For in the end, we’re every one of us broken in some way or another. All of us struggle with sin, struggle with frailties of body and spirit. While we try to distance ourselves from those who are different, using phrases like “the homeless” or “the mentally ill”, ultimately there’s no “the”, no them, only us, all of us. Ultimately the welcome we offer our society’s untouchables is the welcome God offers us.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Wings
Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 40 says, in part, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” Today’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-39) gives us one of Jesus’ secrets for how he was able to deal with the demands of the crowds who came to him for healing and help. Mark 1:35 says, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, [Jesus] got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” For Jesus to help those who came to him, he needed regular quality time in prayer to God.
Communities of religious – monks, nuns – maintain a balance between prayer and work, or in Latin, ora et labora. Both are necessary for spiritual balance and growth. They drew this model from the life of Jesus, who would periodically draw away from the crowds to draw near God in prayer. Both are needed – constant activity that’s not spiritually grounded can run itself into the ground with exhaustion; constant meditation exclusive of service can easily become a head trip, pie in the sky fantasy and self-indulgence. We might think of the two arms of the cross, the vertical and the horizontal. True connection with God – true vertical connection – will inevitably lead us to make a true horizontal connection with neighbor. Ora provides the grounding for labora.
At a time when I was feeling burned-out by work and church demands, I went to a conference sponsored by my denomination. The keynote speaker told the story of her conversation with a volunteer who complained of feeling burned out. The keynote speaker told the volunteer, “You’re not burned out. You haven’t even caught fire yet.”
The way to catch fire and keep the flame burning bright is to go regularly to God in prayer. Prayer is how we keep our ears open and pay attention to the direction in which God is calling us. Prayer is how we keep our eyes open to catch the vision of how our individual lives and the life of Emanuel Church fit into the larger life of the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we must come away from the crowds and our workaday lives, to spend time in prayer with God. Empowered by God in prayer, we, like Jesus, can then return to the crowds and our daily tasks, can go back to our places of ministry renewed, refreshed, and ready to soar with wings like eagles as we serve our loving God.
Communities of religious – monks, nuns – maintain a balance between prayer and work, or in Latin, ora et labora. Both are necessary for spiritual balance and growth. They drew this model from the life of Jesus, who would periodically draw away from the crowds to draw near God in prayer. Both are needed – constant activity that’s not spiritually grounded can run itself into the ground with exhaustion; constant meditation exclusive of service can easily become a head trip, pie in the sky fantasy and self-indulgence. We might think of the two arms of the cross, the vertical and the horizontal. True connection with God – true vertical connection – will inevitably lead us to make a true horizontal connection with neighbor. Ora provides the grounding for labora.
At a time when I was feeling burned-out by work and church demands, I went to a conference sponsored by my denomination. The keynote speaker told the story of her conversation with a volunteer who complained of feeling burned out. The keynote speaker told the volunteer, “You’re not burned out. You haven’t even caught fire yet.”
The way to catch fire and keep the flame burning bright is to go regularly to God in prayer. Prayer is how we keep our ears open and pay attention to the direction in which God is calling us. Prayer is how we keep our eyes open to catch the vision of how our individual lives and the life of Emanuel Church fit into the larger life of the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we must come away from the crowds and our workaday lives, to spend time in prayer with God. Empowered by God in prayer, we, like Jesus, can then return to the crowds and our daily tasks, can go back to our places of ministry renewed, refreshed, and ready to soar with wings like eagles as we serve our loving God.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Come and See
It’s been quite a year for sports in Philadelphia! The Phillies, for the first time since 1980, won the World Series, breaking a long, long dry spell. There were some years after 1980 when the Phillies got really close – I remember 1993, when Philly won the national league championship and Dykstra and Daulton and Kruk and Williams and Schilling and the others got so close to a victory – but they seemed to choke near the end. After a while, we could perhaps be forgiven for figuring “why bother getting our hopes up. The Phillies always choke at the end. Must be something in the water….” But seemingly 2008 was the year the curse was lifted, as the Fighting Phils went all the way.
Sunday’s Gospel reading reminded me a little of the Phillies. Jesus went for a walk in Galilee, and met Philip, who became a follower. Philip, full of excitement over having met Jesus, goes to Nathanael and says, “We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets spoke, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathanael finds little reason to get his hopes up, and mutters, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth.” Philip says, “Come and see.” So Nathanael follows Philip to Jesus, who says, “Here comes an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael says, “where did you come to know me?” Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael does a 180 degree turn and says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel.” Jesus said, “Do you believe because I saw you under the fig tree? You’ll see greater things than these.” Or, to put it in today’s terms, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I think sometimes we who live in Philadelphia can be a little like Nathanael before his meeting with Jesus. We remember that some amazing things happened downtown at Independence Hall some years back, but 1776 was a long time ago. We don’t see much of that vision of Philadelphia anymore – what we see now more resembles journalist Lincoln Steffans’ description of Philadelphia – “corrupt and contented.” When people from the suburbs think of Philadelphia, probably the first things that come to their minds are “crime and taxes”. And those things are on our minds as well. Even here in Bridesburg, police officers have been gunned down not that far from where we live, and incidents of petty vandalism seem to be a daily occurrence. And we read on a daily basis about huge city budget deficits, and worry about what police and fire and recreation center services will be cut in order to balance the budget. And all that is in addition to our own personal struggles. We can sometimes get to feeling beaten down by life, and it may sometimes be hard to feel much hope for the future.
I’d invite anyone reading this blog to “come and see” what God is up to in Bridesburg. God is with us here in Philadelphia, here in Bridesburg, here at Emanuel Church on Fillmore Street. As Jesus saw Nathanael under a fig tree, before Philip called him, so God sees each one of us, every day. And God has plans for each of us that would blow our minds, were we to be able to see the future. God is at work in all the churches in Bridesburg – All Saints, Bridesburg Methodist, the Presbyterians, Baptists…certainly at Emanuel United Church of Christ. If you’re attending elsewhere and are being fed spiritually – praise God! We’d love for you to visit at Emanuel, but we have no desire to poach members from other congregations. But (here comes my bloggy version of an altar call) if you’re looking for a spiritual home, for a community of faith, and haven’t found one elsewhere, “come and see” us here at Emanuel Church some Sunday at 10 a.m. We’re a small congregation, but we’re good at welcoming people – and who knows, along with the coffee and cake afterward, you could have a life-changing (even life-saving) experience with God. Come and see.
Sunday’s Gospel reading reminded me a little of the Phillies. Jesus went for a walk in Galilee, and met Philip, who became a follower. Philip, full of excitement over having met Jesus, goes to Nathanael and says, “We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets spoke, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathanael finds little reason to get his hopes up, and mutters, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth.” Philip says, “Come and see.” So Nathanael follows Philip to Jesus, who says, “Here comes an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael says, “where did you come to know me?” Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael does a 180 degree turn and says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel.” Jesus said, “Do you believe because I saw you under the fig tree? You’ll see greater things than these.” Or, to put it in today’s terms, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I think sometimes we who live in Philadelphia can be a little like Nathanael before his meeting with Jesus. We remember that some amazing things happened downtown at Independence Hall some years back, but 1776 was a long time ago. We don’t see much of that vision of Philadelphia anymore – what we see now more resembles journalist Lincoln Steffans’ description of Philadelphia – “corrupt and contented.” When people from the suburbs think of Philadelphia, probably the first things that come to their minds are “crime and taxes”. And those things are on our minds as well. Even here in Bridesburg, police officers have been gunned down not that far from where we live, and incidents of petty vandalism seem to be a daily occurrence. And we read on a daily basis about huge city budget deficits, and worry about what police and fire and recreation center services will be cut in order to balance the budget. And all that is in addition to our own personal struggles. We can sometimes get to feeling beaten down by life, and it may sometimes be hard to feel much hope for the future.
I’d invite anyone reading this blog to “come and see” what God is up to in Bridesburg. God is with us here in Philadelphia, here in Bridesburg, here at Emanuel Church on Fillmore Street. As Jesus saw Nathanael under a fig tree, before Philip called him, so God sees each one of us, every day. And God has plans for each of us that would blow our minds, were we to be able to see the future. God is at work in all the churches in Bridesburg – All Saints, Bridesburg Methodist, the Presbyterians, Baptists…certainly at Emanuel United Church of Christ. If you’re attending elsewhere and are being fed spiritually – praise God! We’d love for you to visit at Emanuel, but we have no desire to poach members from other congregations. But (here comes my bloggy version of an altar call) if you’re looking for a spiritual home, for a community of faith, and haven’t found one elsewhere, “come and see” us here at Emanuel Church some Sunday at 10 a.m. We’re a small congregation, but we’re good at welcoming people – and who knows, along with the coffee and cake afterward, you could have a life-changing (even life-saving) experience with God. Come and see.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
What Are You Waiting For?
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 2:22-40) includes the story of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and the encounter of Mary and Joseph with the aged Simeon and Anna. Scripture tells us that Simeon was “righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It has been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.” Simeon sees the young couple, weary from their travels, and in the baby Jesus, Simeon recognizes that for which he had waited his entire life. He responds with the words, “Now let thy servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation….” The aged prophetess Anna was also in the Temple that day, as she had been every day for the decades since the passing of her husband. She, too, recognized the child as the fulfillment of her years of waiting, and gave praise and glory to God.
The book of Proverbs 29:18 contains these words, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Conversely, the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:24 writes, “For we are saved by hope.” With a vision, our lives are given meaning and purpose. I’ve often read of elderly persons, even persons struggling with terminal illness, who seemingly willed themselves to stay alive to witness the marriage of a child, or to see the birth of a grandchild. After the wedding, after the birth, they give themselves permission to say “Now let thy servant depart in peace….” In the same way, even in more mundane circumstances, if we as individuals have a vision of the good news Christ offers, a vision of how God has called us to live in response to this good news as disciples of Christ, it will give us strength to overcome many of our daily challenges. If we allow ourselves to be led by Christ, we won’t be deflected by the annoyances and challenges that are a part of every day.
The year 2008 is rapidly coming to a close. Some can likely look back on 2008 with gratitude. Others are ready to say “good riddance.” Regardless of how we experienced 2008, in a few days, God willing, we will awake to begin the year 2009. A brand new year is coming, full of promise, likely full of challenge as well. In the year ahead, let us “look to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The book of Proverbs 29:18 contains these words, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Conversely, the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:24 writes, “For we are saved by hope.” With a vision, our lives are given meaning and purpose. I’ve often read of elderly persons, even persons struggling with terminal illness, who seemingly willed themselves to stay alive to witness the marriage of a child, or to see the birth of a grandchild. After the wedding, after the birth, they give themselves permission to say “Now let thy servant depart in peace….” In the same way, even in more mundane circumstances, if we as individuals have a vision of the good news Christ offers, a vision of how God has called us to live in response to this good news as disciples of Christ, it will give us strength to overcome many of our daily challenges. If we allow ourselves to be led by Christ, we won’t be deflected by the annoyances and challenges that are a part of every day.
The year 2008 is rapidly coming to a close. Some can likely look back on 2008 with gratitude. Others are ready to say “good riddance.” Regardless of how we experienced 2008, in a few days, God willing, we will awake to begin the year 2009. A brand new year is coming, full of promise, likely full of challenge as well. In the year ahead, let us “look to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
O Holy Night
As with many churches, Christmas Eve is one of two days (the other being Easter) when the whole Emanuel Church family is with us. Our congregation is not large, even on Christmas Eve, but our members and friends drove in from Bucks County and New Jersey to spend Christmas Eve at Emanuel.
Tonight was my second Christmas Eve at Emanuel UCC. I added a few more carols this year and was concerned that the service might run overtime – but I needn’t have worried. A meaningful time was had by all. Kudos to Emanuel’s organist, Ralph Fisher, who outdid himself to make this year’s Christmas Eve service extra special.
Merry Christmas to all!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A Holy Interruption
John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy”, written for his son Sean, contains the words, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Tomorrow’s New Testament reading (Luke 1:26-55) is about God bringing new life to Mary while she was busy making other plans. We’re not told exactly what Mary was going when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, but we can be reasonably certain that the visit was not expected. Mary wasn’t sitting by the window waiting for Gabriel to come up the front walk. Rather, the Angel Gabriel came to Mary and said, “Greetings, favored one! Blessed are you among women.”
Mary is understandably perplexed, and wondered what sort of greeting this might be. She’s suspicious of this stranger with his words of friendly greeting. Was this stranger blessing her, or setting her up to take advantage of her? The angel senses her fear, and says, “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary understandably objects, “But I am a virgin” or as some translations say, “I do not know a man.” The angel explains that God will make all this possible, and tells her that in her old age her cousin Elizabeth is six months along in her pregnancy – for nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary gets in the last word: “Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. God broke in on Mary with new life at a time when she least expected it. “Blessed are you among women” Gabriel said. And Mary was blessed – because she was willing to allow a holy interruption to her plans.
Mary heard the words, “Blessed are you among women!” What does it mean to be blessed? When we pray, “We give you thanks, O God, for our many blessings…” what do we think of? Good health, a job, a family. Prominent evangelists such as Joel Osteen and the wonderfully named Creflo Dollar preach that “God wants us rich”. But Gabriel’s words and Mary’s response give us a very different picture of what it means to be blessed. For Mary, being blessed meant being part of God’s plan, being used by God – even at great personal cost. Being blessed means being where the action is, action in this case meaning God’s acts of saving the world. May we have eyes to see and ears to see the ways in which God is waiting to interrupt our plans, to experience the blessings God has for those whose trust is in the Lord.
Mary is understandably perplexed, and wondered what sort of greeting this might be. She’s suspicious of this stranger with his words of friendly greeting. Was this stranger blessing her, or setting her up to take advantage of her? The angel senses her fear, and says, “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary understandably objects, “But I am a virgin” or as some translations say, “I do not know a man.” The angel explains that God will make all this possible, and tells her that in her old age her cousin Elizabeth is six months along in her pregnancy – for nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary gets in the last word: “Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. God broke in on Mary with new life at a time when she least expected it. “Blessed are you among women” Gabriel said. And Mary was blessed – because she was willing to allow a holy interruption to her plans.
Mary heard the words, “Blessed are you among women!” What does it mean to be blessed? When we pray, “We give you thanks, O God, for our many blessings…” what do we think of? Good health, a job, a family. Prominent evangelists such as Joel Osteen and the wonderfully named Creflo Dollar preach that “God wants us rich”. But Gabriel’s words and Mary’s response give us a very different picture of what it means to be blessed. For Mary, being blessed meant being part of God’s plan, being used by God – even at great personal cost. Being blessed means being where the action is, action in this case meaning God’s acts of saving the world. May we have eyes to see and ears to see the ways in which God is waiting to interrupt our plans, to experience the blessings God has for those whose trust is in the Lord.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
To Live Again
At Emanuel UCC, one of the groups meeting at our church is called "To Live Again." It is a bereavement support group for those whose spouses have passed away. They meet on the 2nd Saturday of most months, beginning with a dinner at 6 p.m. (At present, I don't have a link to any contact information for the group; I'll update this post if I get any information.) They have traditionally invited the pastor and other members of Emanuel to attend their December meeting, and so I represented Emanuel UCC this year. It was my first meeting with the group, and while most of those present were middle-aged or older, they were a lively (verging on rowdy) bunch. For a group whose members have experienced mourning, the room was full of life. Several wanted to see the sanctuary of the church (which is upstairs from the social hall) and so I turned on the lights and invited them to take a look. (They didn't get away without a commercial; I also invited them to our 10 a.m. worship and our 7 pm Christmas Eve service.) I was grateful for the reminder that even out of death, God brings new life.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Rejoice!
As I write this, tomorrow (December 14) is the third Sunday in Advent. In some traditions, it is called “Gaudete Sunday” – the Latin word “gaudete” means “ rejoice”. Below is part of tomorrow’s Old Testament reading:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor….
Isaiah 61:1-2a
Many Bible scholars think that this text was written at some time after the return from exile in Babylon. The descendents of those who had been exiled to Babylon were finally allowed to return home to Jerusalem – but Jerusalem had been in ruins for decades, the Temple little more than a pile of rubble. Isaiah wrote to encourage those who were struggling to rebuild, to proclaim that God was with them, even in the midst of all their problems.
In Luke 4:14-30 (which is not one of tomorrow’s readings), Jesus preached on this text in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. His sermon was brief: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In Luke’s Gospel, for Jesus, this text was a kind of mission statement. And it’s also a mission statement for those who follow Christ today. Given the state of the economy, many find it difficult to rejoice, even as Christmas approaches. It’s important for the church to be a place where those who struggle can find good news. As God was with those struggling to rebuild in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, God is with us now – and so even in the midst of our problems, we can rejoice.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor….
Isaiah 61:1-2a
Many Bible scholars think that this text was written at some time after the return from exile in Babylon. The descendents of those who had been exiled to Babylon were finally allowed to return home to Jerusalem – but Jerusalem had been in ruins for decades, the Temple little more than a pile of rubble. Isaiah wrote to encourage those who were struggling to rebuild, to proclaim that God was with them, even in the midst of all their problems.
In Luke 4:14-30 (which is not one of tomorrow’s readings), Jesus preached on this text in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. His sermon was brief: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In Luke’s Gospel, for Jesus, this text was a kind of mission statement. And it’s also a mission statement for those who follow Christ today. Given the state of the economy, many find it difficult to rejoice, even as Christmas approaches. It’s important for the church to be a place where those who struggle can find good news. As God was with those struggling to rebuild in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, God is with us now – and so even in the midst of our problems, we can rejoice.
Hello Bridesburg, Hello World
This is the initial entry of what I hope to be a regular series of posts on happenings at Emanuel United Church of Christ, located on Fillmore Street in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia. (Website: www.emanuelphila.org) Before this blog goes on any further - everyone is invited to join us in worship Sundays at 10 a.m.
The gospel reading for December 7 is from Mark's gospel, which begins with the words, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And then the story moves quickly to John the Baptist, that strange character we encounter preaching in the wilderness, telling his listeners to look for the coming of someone who was even greater than John. John preached a gospel of repentance - a bit of church lingo meaning "change". John was telling his listeners that the way they were living their lives would not bring peace with God, reconciliation with neighbor, or health and wholeness in their own lives. Presumably his listeners already knew that the status quo wasn't working, which is why they heard John's words gladly. They were seeking for something beyond what they knew, for something more.
Our Old Testament reading is from Isaiah 40, which begins with the words, "Comfort ye" - but continue with words about change - "every valley shall be exalted, every hill brought low...". Isaiah, and John the Baptist, offer a strange sort of comfort. They bring a challenge - things must change; we ourselves must change. But for people stuck in a place of pain and grief, comfort comes from the idea that things *can* change, that we *can* change, that we don't have to be stuck in a world of hurt.
For the writer of Mark's gospel, good news began with the message of John the Baptist. And this is how good news begins for us. Perhaps we're experiencing family struggles, or facing illness or the loss of a job. We're feeling depressed, anxious, perhaps overwhelmed. And then someone - a family member, a friend - spends time with us, shares advice, gives us hope. For us, moments like this can be the beginning of good news.
During this Advent season, many of our neighbors are struggling. The economy is dismal, with many local employers eliminating positions and city government cutting services. Many of our neighbors are stressed. We can offer our neighbor a kind word or a helping hand, or maybe just our presence. Who knows what effect a random word of kindness or act of caring may have? Maybe for our neighbors, our words or actions can be the beginning of good news.
The gospel reading for December 7 is from Mark's gospel, which begins with the words, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And then the story moves quickly to John the Baptist, that strange character we encounter preaching in the wilderness, telling his listeners to look for the coming of someone who was even greater than John. John preached a gospel of repentance - a bit of church lingo meaning "change". John was telling his listeners that the way they were living their lives would not bring peace with God, reconciliation with neighbor, or health and wholeness in their own lives. Presumably his listeners already knew that the status quo wasn't working, which is why they heard John's words gladly. They were seeking for something beyond what they knew, for something more.
Our Old Testament reading is from Isaiah 40, which begins with the words, "Comfort ye" - but continue with words about change - "every valley shall be exalted, every hill brought low...". Isaiah, and John the Baptist, offer a strange sort of comfort. They bring a challenge - things must change; we ourselves must change. But for people stuck in a place of pain and grief, comfort comes from the idea that things *can* change, that we *can* change, that we don't have to be stuck in a world of hurt.
For the writer of Mark's gospel, good news began with the message of John the Baptist. And this is how good news begins for us. Perhaps we're experiencing family struggles, or facing illness or the loss of a job. We're feeling depressed, anxious, perhaps overwhelmed. And then someone - a family member, a friend - spends time with us, shares advice, gives us hope. For us, moments like this can be the beginning of good news.
During this Advent season, many of our neighbors are struggling. The economy is dismal, with many local employers eliminating positions and city government cutting services. Many of our neighbors are stressed. We can offer our neighbor a kind word or a helping hand, or maybe just our presence. Who knows what effect a random word of kindness or act of caring may have? Maybe for our neighbors, our words or actions can be the beginning of good news.
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