How Long?

Scriptures:     Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4,  Psalm 137

2 Timothy 1:1-14    Luke 17:5-10

How Long?

Today is World Communion Sunday, a celebration of the unity of the church.  World Communion Sunday, celebrated on the first Sunday of October, started as a Presbyterian initiative right here in Pennsylvania, in the Pittsburgh area, and later spread to other mainline Protestant Churches.  And notice how this unity is celebrated – not by the reading of a proclamation, but by celebrating communion on the same Sunday – in essence, sharing a meal together, at least ideally, around the world.  One Sunday a year, sharing a meal together!  Of course, every year I remind us of my Roman Catholic friend who reminded me that, for Roman Catholics, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday, because Roman Catholics celebrate the Eucharist at every mass.  So they share a meal together at every worship service…..but as Protestants we’re not invited of course.  So around the table around which we are supposed to be able to gather in unity, there’s brokenness in all directions.  And for us independence-minded Protestants, I suppose getting our act together enough to be on the same page in celebrating communion together one Sunday at year is a considerable accomplishment, and about as much as we can hope for.

As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, our Old Testament texts remind us that we celebrate and break bread together in the midst of considerable pain.  Our Old Testament texts are difficult indeed, full of raw grief and pain.  Our text from Habakkuk, written just before the Babylonian invasion of Judah, begins with the prophet all but throwing up his hands at the self-satisfied corruption and violence that surrounds him, and virtually screams at God to do something about it.  “How long, O Lord?  Things are so bad that just opening my eyes in the morning makes me want to hurl.  Corruption and violence are everywhere, and the police and judges are all bought off.  How can you stand it, God?  Why don’t you do something?  Why don’t you come down here and fix this!”

In a section not included in today’s reading, God responds to the prophet by telling him that God indeed sees and knows all that has gone wrong in Habakkuk’s society, and agrees with all that Habakkuk has said.  God goes on to tell Habakkuk that God indeed is going to act – by bringing on the Babylonians – Judah’s longtime enemies - to conquer Judah.  To send Judah’s people into exile.  To destroy everything the prophet had ever known.  To put it into our terms, imagine – and as a sort of trigger alert, I emphasize, this is just an imaginary scenario to help us understand what Habakkuk was experiencing – I don’t want anyone to wake up out of a nap partway through my sermon and think this is really happening – imagine that one of us complained to God about all that’s wrong with America, and God responded that God was going to fix America’s problems by allowing Russia to conquer us and march us all off to Moscow.   Again, an imaginary scenario, to give us some sense of what Habakkuk would have been thinking when he heard from God that Judah was going to be conquered by Babylon.  At this point, the phrase “be careful what you ask God for” might come to mind.

This isn’t exactly the solution Habakkuk was going for, and he starts to plead with God:  Yes, God, our society is corrupt, dysfunctional, a disaster, but the Babylonians are a thousand times worse!  How can you stand to look on them?   Why would you want to set them up to conquer us?  And so, when we pick up the second half of our reading, Habakkuk is waiting for God’s response.  And God does respond, saying, “There is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to dawdle, wait for it; it will surely come and will not delay.”  God’s bottom line is, “The righteous live by their faith.” 

Psalm 137, our Psalm reading for this morning, comes from the time of the exile in Babylon.  It’s a psalm written in a time of grief and rage.  The Jews are in exile in Babylon, far away from everything they’d ever known and loved.  And their captors are asking them, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” Again, imagine if you had been marched off from Philadelphia and somehow forced to live in Moscow, and the folks who captured you said, “Hey, we’d like to hear you sing ‘God bless America!’”  You’d be seeing red, I’m sure.  And this might help us understand the grief in this Psalm – “If I forget Jerusalem, let my right hand fall off” – and the rage expressed at Babylon – “Happy shall they be who take your children and smash them against a rock!”          

Well.   We don’t plan to smash any children against rocks this morning – you’re welcome.  But this morning’s readings remind us that the Scriptures give us the full range of human experience – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The Bible is not a book about a bunch of perfect people perfectly worshipping God and behaving perfectly with perfect love toward one another.  Far from it.   Scripture records the full range of human sin and brokenness, and many of its pages are stained with blood.  And in response to this brokenness and sin and bloodshed, we weep, we mourn, we rage – and God allows us freedom and space to grieve and to rant.  After all, this Psalm that we read this morning was part of the music of the Temple, in essence part of the hymnbook used in worship.               

We wince at that last phrase in Psalm 137 – “Happy shall they be who take your children” – that is to say, the children of Babylon – “and smash them against a rock.”  It sounds so barbaric.  And yet are we any better?  Are we any different?  After 9-11, we were in shock, many of us veering back and forth between grief and rage – and what happened to Judah those thousands of years ago was not an attack on a few major buildings, but the destruction of an entire country, exponentially worse, like 9-11 to the 100^th power.   And in the days following 9-11, many American voices cried out for blood, cried out for vengeance…..and those in power in Washington at the time harnessed those cries for vengeance to declare war on Afghanistan and Iraq – Iraq, of course, containing the territory that was once Babylon.  Many children and adults who had nothing to do with 9-11 were bombed.  Smashing them with rocks would have been humane compared to what our country did to them.  And in turn, many of the survivors were left wanting to dash the children of Americans against rocks, or worse.   After all, if you want to turn someone into a terrorist, killing their children before their eyes will get the job done.

Since that time, it seems like much in this country and in this world has only spun further out of control.  Endless war, financial meltdowns, mutual distrust between police and the communities they are sworn to protect and serve,  shootings and threats of shootings of public schools - it seems like the world is going crazy.  And on a particularly grim note, it was announced that climate scientists say that our planet has passed the threshold of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide, likely on a permanent basis – a threshold we’re told will likely lead to ongoing and irreversible climate change.  At my age, I won’t live to see the worst of it, but I dread the thought of the world that our congregation’s children, the children of this neighborhood, will inherit from us.   And all of this isn’t even to mention all the individual challenges we face – financial challenges, health challenges, on and on.

In these unsettling and uncertain times and overwhelming times, our readings from Habakkuk challenge us to keep faith with God, even when we don’t see answers to our prayers.  Habakkuk brought his questions to God, and God told him to expect things to get worse, not better.  And yet, even in the midst of exile, God did not abandon God’s people.  In fact, as years and decades in Babylon went by, those in exile learned that indeed they could sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.  As God told Habakkuk, “The righteous shall live by their faith.”  And so can we, even when there are no easy answers, even when we live with uncertainty.  God never promised an easy journey to those who follow him – and throughout Scripture those who followed God often found their lives made more complicated, not easier…..but God also promised his presence on the journey.  And that is enough.

And the exiles in Babylon learned that they could sing the Lord’s song in a strange land together – just as we can journey through the times we live in together, just as we can come to the Lord’s table together.  We are not alone – God is with us, and we are with one another.  World Communion Sunday reminds us that, in these crazy times, we are connected, coming to the table with Christians around the globe.  We mourn the empty seats at the table left by victims of violence, and there are far too many.  But together at the table we can comfort one another, and give one another strength to carry on.

In today’s reading from Paul’s letter to Timothy, Paul is in prison, and preparing Timothy for the hardship that will await him in serving Jesus.  Paul reminds Timothy that God has been faithful to his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice….by way of saying that God will be faithful to Timothy as well, even through the worst of times.  Paul reminds Timothy that God has given both Paul and Timothy- and all believers – a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.  Even though Paul is in prison, he writes to Timothy, “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.”

“I know the one in whom I have put my trust.”  When the world is going crazy, when our live are seemingly falling apart, these are words we can hold onto.  “I know the one in whom I have put my trust.”  May we once again entrust ourselves to the faithful God we worship, and may others come to trust in God through our words and actions of love. Amen.

                                                                                                                                        

 

Memory and Hope

Scriptures:       Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15,  Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

                        I Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31          

Happy 155^th anniversary, Emanuel United Church of Christ!  Another September rolls around, and we give thanks to God for bringing Emanuel Church through another year.   This past year has been eventful – building challenges, a number of worship services shared with Bridesburg Presbyterian Church, some members and friends with us now who weren’t here a year ago; some members and friends with us a year ago who for a variety of reasons no longer gather with us now – but here we are - In the words of John Lennon, “Another year over; a new one just begun.”  And we’re grateful to God for bringing us this far by faith.

An anniversary is always a time to take stock.  Where have we been?  Where are we now?  Where is God leading us?  I can say a few things about the first and second questions.  To the third, I can only respond with speculation.  But still, I think there’s value in pausing and taking stock.

Those who have been with us a while know the story of our formative years – founded by German and Swiss immigrants who gathered in the late 1850’s, served initially by Lutheran and Methodist missioners, but steadfast in a desire to worship in the Reformed tradition; a desire that was fulfilled by the Rev. J. G. Neuber, our founding pastor, and his successors.  Those who know our founding story remember that our first members were few in number – 34 in all - and low on funds – we started with all of $9 in the bank – but long on faith, hope, and love – and long on determination.  By the grace of God and the hard work of our founding members the congregation acquired the land and constructed the building in which we worship to this day.  Our story also connects with that of Bethany Children’s Home, because Bethany was started by our former pastor the Rev. Emanuel Boehringer, who was grieved by the number of children orphaned by the Civil War and in response founded in 1863 what he called the Orphans Home of the Shepherd of the Lambs, which was located first in South Philly, then for a few years in Bridesburg, before moving in 1870 to its current location in Womelsdorf, PA.  After those eventful early years, our congregation settled into its role as a neighborhood church serving Bridesburg’s German population – historically, Bridesburg was almost entirely Irish, Polish, and German, and that demographic mix hasn’t changed all that much to this day.  In some ways, we’ve adapted over the years to changing circumstances, introducing services in English in the early 1920’s and phasing out German worship in the 1940’s.  But, language aside, our worship style is largely unchanged from that of the early 1940’s.

In some ways we’ve come full circle.  We began with 34 members, and right now we have roughly 40 members on the rolls, of whom roughly half attend on any given Sunday – which actually is a good percentage compared to a lot of congregations.  Of that roughly 40 people, close to half have joined in the past ten years, which is encouraging.  We’ve been able to widen our welcome well beyond the German population our church served for most of our history.  And by the grace of God, we’ve had many more baptisms than funerals.  In fact, by far, most of the funerals I’ve done as pastor here have been on request of Rose Funeral Home and other area funeral homes for folks in the community.  In a year or so, I hope we can have a confirmation class, our first in many years.  We can hardly call ourselves a wealthy church, but we have far more in the bank than the $9 we started with.

And yet it’s a stressful time for churches.  Many are closing – and we know that here in Bridesburg, the Archdiocese closed All Saints a couple years back, and Bridesburg Baptist closed last year – and our Presbyterian sisters and brothers are hoping to avoid a similar fate. Many pastors are throwing up their hands and in their discouragement are walking away from the ministry.  Many churches, even if they stay open, are having to work with fewer resources, going to part-time pastors - and of course that includes Emanuel Church.   I’m a bivocational pastor, working a full-time day job in order to minimize my financial burden on the church, so that the great majority of our remaining expenses are related in some way to the operation and maintenance of the building and cemetery.  And indeed the maintenance of an aging building and the upkeep of our cemetery is a constant challenge. Both are blessings, but both come with burdens as well.

What does the future hold?  I think our Scriptures this morning offer us guidance that is both challenging and hopeful.  We hear first from the prophet Jeremiah.  Our reading from Jeremiah comes roughly 2/3 of the way through the book.  Chapter after chapter, Jeremiah has been warning the king and religious leadership of Judah that for their unfaithfulness, God would allow Judah to be invaded, the city of Jerusalem and its Temple destroyed, and the people driven into exile.  And yet – with Jeremiah knowing that the threat of exile was just around the corner and even though he himself was in prison, Jeremiah does a remarkable thing:  he buys a field that had belonged to his uncle Shallum.  Our reading includes the details of the purchase price and the paperwork involved, and apparently Jeremiah intentionally draws attention to himself as he goes through the process.  Because for Jeremiah, the purchase of this field is no ordinary real estate transaction, but a testimony of faith that beyond the immediate threat of exile was the hope that “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land”.  That is to say, that while the threat of exile was very real, there was also very real hope of a return from exile.   The corrupt society and institutions against which Jeremiah prophesied had to die – but Jeremiah also spoke of hope of a return from exile, a rebuilding of Jerusalem and its Temple - a kind of resurrection. 

And in our walk with God, the cycle of death and resurrection is always with us – not only our own ultimate death and resurrection, but smaller deaths and resurrections all along the way.  We know from science that in the human body, cells are created, live for a time, and then die, making space for new cells to be created.   The grey hair I have now is surely not the same peach fuzz I was born with.  Similarly, all throughout our journey in faith, we experience the death of habits and traditions and even cherished beliefs that have run their course, the death of false hopes and dreams, but with the knowledge that on the other side of these deaths would be resurrection – new traditions more suited to the times, new beliefs deeply grounded in Scripture and tradition, but also in tune with changing life experience, new hopes and dreams more faithful to the God who calls us to serve.  And our church has experienced some of these.  I’m sure it was threatening to many in the 1920’s when English worship was phased in, and heartbreaking to many in the 1940’s when German worship was phased out, but worship in English brought new life and vitality to the church.   Had we continued to worship only in German, we’d likely have closed long ago.  It was heartbreaking to me personally when the “To Live Again” bereavement group disbanded several years back – it meant a lot to me that they chose our church as their meeting place – but the Second Chance Kinship Network is using our space to bring hope to children and families in crisis.  And there’s the constant slow cycle of new people joining while occasionally others who had been members decide to walk apart from us and worship elsewhere, or perhaps worship nowhere.  And so our individual lives, and the life of our church, are a constant cycle of death and resurrection, letting go of what has run its course and embracing the new thing to which God calls us.  And the process will continue – as we have in the past, we will have to set aside things that we once loved but are no longer life-giving, so that our hands are open to receive what God has for us in this day.  Even if we grieve the loss of the past, our future as a congregation depends on our being hopeful and alert and attuned to discern where God is leading in the future.  Our future as a congregation depends on our living in faith rather than fear.

In our reading from I Timothy, we’re given a picture of Paul near the end of his life mentoring his young protégé, Timothy.  Paul is preparing Timothy to take over Paul’s duties, warning him of pitfalls, instructing him on how to organize and administer, encouraging him to perform his duties with love and with diligence.  Paul knows that his own time of active ministry – in fact, his life itself - will soon be coming to a close, and so he prepares to prepare Timothy to carry on in his place, to fight the good fight of faith that Paul had fought for so long.  Paul doesn’t want his deep knowledge of the Lord Jesus to die with him.  And this will be so important for the future of Emanuel Church.  Our longtime members have so much deep knowledge of God and of this church – deep knowledge that our newer members desperately need.  Some of our newer members come from other denominations, or may have bounced around between churches of all kinds of denominations over the course of their lives.  And we draw some people with very little church background, who with all the good intentions in the world have hardly a clue what churches do and how they do them.   They won’t magically learn what they need to know just by walking through the door.  They need to be taught, nurtured, mentored – not only by the pastor, but by those of us who have sustained this church and kept it going over many years. 

Finally, in our reading from Luke’s gospel, we have Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar covered with sores who was laid at the rich man’s doorstep.  Likely whoever laid Lazarus at the rich man’s doorstep did so hoping that the rich man would use his resources to help Lazarus – but that didn’t happen.  And so the rich man is condemned – not because he stuck his tongue out at Lazarus or called Lazarus names or kicked Lazarus on his way out of the house, but because he did nothing when he had the resources to do something.  Even in hell, the rich man tries to treat Lazarus as his personal errand boy, asking Abraham to send Lazarus to him with a drop of cool water, or to warn his brothers to change their ways.  The rich man’s life was all about himself – as far as he was concerned, it was his world, and everybody else just happened to be in it.  And this is a challenge to us – as church, we do not exist only for our own benefit.  We do not exist only to serve our ourselves.  William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said that “The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.” It has also been said that “The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.”  And that mission is not only for ourselves – not even primarily about ourselves -  but for our neighbors.

So – again – happy birthday Emanuel Church!  Happy 155^th birthday!  May God grant us another year, and many years to come, of loving and serving our neighbors, of training up our children and mentoring our new members in the faith, and of being alert and welcoming to the new possibilities to which God calls us.  Where Jesus leads, may we follow.  Amen.