George Miller's Inkspot

Christmas Eve Homily

2011-12-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Did it ever occur to you that there is danger in Christmas? We can be so blinded by the joy of the season, the shimmer of the star, the reverent awe of the manger scene, we forget what a revolution is occurring in Bethlehem. Birth is a beginning, a doorway into the totally unknown.

A baby is a blessed gift, but it will require nursing, protecting, feeding, diapering, clothing, disciplining, teaching, worrying over, arguing with, wondering how to pay for its education, how will he make it through the drug scene, is that girl the right one for him, will he survive the broken bones, the emergency surgery, the chemotherapy, the heartache, the danger of flagging hope .....

Well, Jesus didn’t have to face all that, but his parents would face much before his untimely end at Calvary. And the truth is, the most blessed of gifts, the most longed for of hopes, the most cherished of dreams are also dangerous. They all require one thing - change.

As much as we hope for some great good, we will - upon receiving it - find our lives inevitably alter when the unknown comes into us. I remember meeting the girl who would become my wife. I had not been looking for her, she simply appeared in my world, and before long, spending time with her was all I wanted to do. Our courtship, simple and chaste enough to satisfy the most demanding Puritan, became so important, my whole future changed course. A year and a half later the courtship had ended and the marriage begun.

I need not describe the changes! A friend had told me, when I announced my engagement, that he had never known what true happiness was until he got married - and then it was too late! Ah those days of adjustment. Sweet, terrible, we began a journey that knocked all our previous notions of marital bliss out the window. Don’t get me wrong. That love was true and enduring. Our marriage lasted 45 years, and was richer, deeper, more gratifying than I’d ever hoped for, clear up to the day she died. For that I feel profoundly grateful.

But I was changed. Everything changed. And change takes courage.

Remember the birth of your first child? We were in Houston, the steamiest, hottest place I ever lived, and we had wrapped up our precious five day old daughter in two layers of clothes and a receiving blanket to take her home - a good hour’s drive from the hospital, in a car that had no air-conditioning! That child was beyond red - she was purple when we got home. But we had protected her from catching cold! Well, you parents know, life changed. It would never be the same. To this day, even though that child is now a mother herself, she can still tug my heart strings as insistently and endearingly as she did that day in Houston.

That Bethlehem birth represents the greatest gift we ever received, a gift for which the Jews had waited so long, and for which we wait with equal eagerness, certain that when God comes into our lives, we will be satisfied at last. Remember Simeon, that pious old man known for his earnest and faithful watching for the Messiah, there in the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus there? He uttered those famous words, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation”.

We get it. We feel his elation. We share his joy at finally seeing that for which he’d longed for such a long, long time. We celebrate the gift of God’s love into our world. But there’s a slight hitch. You see, up ‘til now it’s been our world, a world we believed we owned and had already learned how to control for ourselves. We want the love, but we also want the world we already have. We want the familiar because it is safe. It is ours. But to receive the gift of love and new life, we must be prepared and willing to change. And we don’t always like change. More often than not, we resist it with every ounce of strength in us.

The birth of an idea always challenges what we thought we knew. The creation of a new piece of art, or a new chord of music, or a new turn of a phrase must fight for its place in a world that never heard of such a thing before. We wanted the marriage, but we had to surrender the independence. We wanted the love, but we had to dare the risk of being loved by one who sees in us what we don’t see ourselves. We want the child, but must know that child will not stay a child. We want the job, but we may not be ready for the sacrifices that job can demand of us.

If I could give one gift to you all, it would be the gift of courage. Courage to accept and use the new hope that is in this wondrous babe of Bethlehem. Love sees possibilities our eyes have not yet glimpsed. It takes courage to dare to believe, as Jesus lived and believed, in a better world, a better life, a better way, a God-blessed life here on this planet we call home.

Perhaps the greatest courage of all comes with the birth of love. To be loved, to be seen with God-blessed eyes that know the possibilities of new growth in us, is to be aware of opportunity and risk that will change us into beings we never thought of or dared to believe we could be. Can we do it? Can we be it? “Lord, are you sure you really know me?” Think of Moses. Think of Jeremiah. Think of Isaiah. Think of yourself and all its faults and frailties. All imperfect. All unworthy. All trembling at the endless possibilities of change before us.

“Merry Christmas” we cry. Merry Christmas indeed. But far more important, have a Brave Christmas! A Courageous Christmas! A Daring Christmas! A Hallowed Christmas! For when Christ is born in us - and that is his true manger, not a stable in Bethlehem - we will be launched on a journey the like of which no eye can see, no mind can grasp, no imagination can fully fathom.

Yes - the Christ child is born - not just in Bethlehem - but in you and me. God grant we may have the courage and the faith to make him more alive - more real - in this hurt and trembling world. Amen.

Christmas, 2011

Sermon: "In the Meantime.....Love!"

2011-10-18T09:40:00.000-06:00

(Based on Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 & Matthew 22:34-46: The Message)

Moses is an interesting character. An unlikely candidate for becoming a leader of a nation, he pulls off an exodus from the then most powerful nation in the known world. Self-described shy and self-abasing, he manages to hold the Hebrews together through a grueling 40 year trek across the Sinai peninsula to the shores of the river Jordan. Apparently a man of sage judgment, he was subject to fits of temper that barred him from reaching his hoped-for destination. Willing to persist no matter what the odds, his impatience could be his undoing. Perhaps most remarkable of all, he was a man of acute spiritual sensitivity who received an incredible gift from God, a personal encounter such as few ever have. Such a man is entitled to operate on a higher level of faith than is usually encountered in our far from perfect world. Yet for all his achievements, he is left on the wrong side of the river, peering into a promised land he will never set foot on himself.

On first glance, Moses is unlike anyone I’ve ever known, and certainly unlike me. Yet as I strive to list all the reasons why he is not like us, the more similarity I discover between us. Take for instance that psalm we heard read this morning.

It’s rather unique in that it is attributed to Moses himself. Whether he was the author or not scholars may debate. That it is true to his character works for me. It is the words of a man who feels comfortable enough in his relationship to God to speak plainly. He does not shy away from thorny issues.

It is the song of an old man. I think those of us who have traveled the course of our three-score years and ten, may appreciate his feelings more personally than the young might. Out of the mud we came and we know our return is close. Though Deuteronomy assures us Moses would get his four-score and even two more, yet this old man does not forget from dust he came and to dust he will return. And one of the privileges of being ancient is the right to speak our minds. (I still remember Bess, a woman comfortably launched into her nineties, who was lavish in her praises of my sermons. “I don’t know how you do it. I thought last Sunday’s sermon was your best, but this Sunday’s was even better.” But then came the inevitable Sunday when Bess said, “I don’t know about anybody else, but that sermon didn’t do a damn thing for me.”)

Yes, Moses was old, and he was candid, and he was barred from his life-time dream. Is that not true for us all? Oh, I know there are many who achieve great things, and I know we all can look back on great moments which make us glad. Yet who among us can truly say we’ve done it all. We’ve won our prize. We are truly satisfied. We are in our promised land. I dare say even the most satisfied among us still is capable of finding one disappointment in his or her life. Or, if not disappointment, still longs for one unreachable star that beckons beyond touch.

Interestingly enough, Moses doesn’t seem to brood on this disappointment, does he? He has seen the Promised Land and that appears to be enough.

You know, it reminds me a bit of a favorite film of mine. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. Aside from the derring-do which is all smoke and mirrors, what grips me about that film is the last scene when Indiana has found the cup of the Holy Grail, and used it to save his father’s life. Now, when the unspeakable happens and the cup is about to be irrevocably lost, his father tells Indiana to let the cup go. It isn’t as important as his son’s life.

Somehow our promised lands aren’t the real goal after all, are they? I think that’s one of the reasons why depictions of heaven fall so far short of satisfaction. Dante’s vision at the end of his classic “The Divine Comedy” is frankly static, over-blown and boring. It can’t hold a candle to the vivid depictions we’ve already seen of hell and purgatory. The depiction of heaven in the Book of Revelation is just as disappointing to me frankly. The whole Bible has been a journey to this heavenly destination, but what can we rejoice in here besides flashing jewels and eternal hymns, while angels strut their stuff in endless parades. Can’t you imagine the Queen of England perched on that balcony of hers forever? One more bagpipe ensemble playing “God Save the Queen” one more bloody time. Must I really endure “Amazing Grace” for another 300 billion times?

There’s something of a cheat about promised lands. The real satisfaction is knowing there’s still one more song to sing, still one more step to learn in this thing we call the dance of life. And while Moses may be kept from that heavenly promised land, he apparently is still alive enough that he can finish out his days in obscurity, seeking who knows what, doing what who could ever guess, still content to make his way back to dust convinced it had all been worthwhile.

Yes, I can identify with Moses. And I have at least one advantage he did not have. I have the example of Christ who would make his inexorable way to the grave with the same kind of faith and confidence. He walked our road with LOVE.

And that leads me to my other theme for today: Love. Such a common word. So ubiquitous. How quickly we mouth it. How gratefully we remind everyone ours is a God of love, not dogma. I believe I’ve heard it said “love makes the world go round”. And that genius composer Andrew Lloyd Webber assures us that “Love Changes Everything”. But even the eloquence of a William Shakespeare can’t capture all the nuances and definitions of love.

We could do worse than review Erich Fromm’s treatise “The Art of Loving”. I reread it recently, and while I have a few more quibbles about it than I did when I first read it — Good Lord! Fifty years ago? Still he has some useful things to say about it. And rather surprising for one who claimed to be at least an agnostic. He was in hearty agreement with Jesus’ great commandment while also acknowledging that the love commandment is what we now call an oxymoron, for if there is one thing love can’t be, it can’t be commanded. It is always a gift. It can come to us as a surprise - both the giving and the getting. And it always comes with admiration, respect, a deep valuing of the beloved. Interestingly enough, it must spring from a lover that is admired, respected, valued, genuinely loved. Put simply, we can’t love others if we don’t love ourselves.

For me, the act of love is an act of faith. It sees what others may or may not see. Even flaws can be recognized, embraced, valued. Some mocked that line in the film “On Golden Pond” when Katherine Hepburn refers to Henry Fonda as “You old poop”. But many more of us were inwardly applauding. We identified with it. We had known such a love. We cherished it. We had moved on from that adolescent fixation on finding Mr or Mrs “Right”, off on a search for the ideal beloved, the one who would magically fill the empty hole inside us we could not fill ourselves. In its place we had grown comfortable and grateful for the ideal one at our side, warts and all.

I often think of an episode from the old TV western “Bonanza” that concerned a rancher who had a fondness for fine horses, particularly race horses. He knew he must not indulge himself in this passion. His wife did not share it and would surely skin him alive if he brought home another of those old hay-burners, but he has succumbed to his love, and now must try to figure out how to keep the horse and not have his wife find out about it. Of course the story would have no zip to it if she did not find out - and find out she most certainly does. After her explosion of anger, she finally turns to the chastened husband and says, “Oh, tie that old hay-burner to the back of the wagon and let’s go home.” The line itself does not reveal the real message. It is the look in her eye and the heart-felt sigh that accompanies it that tells us our hero is not only forgiven, he is loved. And more important still, he is loved, not in spite of his foolishness, but because of it! She values even his flaws for they make up the fascinating totality of his deeply cherished being.

Indiana Jones and his father had much to learn, and loving each other may not have been what they thought they wanted, but it was precisely that love they had always needed, a recognition of the value and importance that lay inside both of them all along. Moses may not have been able to cross over into the Promised Land, but he had gained enough wisdom to know he was already there, and had been his whole life long. How is that to be so? By love. By the love of God. By the acceptance of God. By the affirmation of God. By the unshakable certainty that God was still his closest, dearest, most very best friend. And nothing would ever change that.

Did you see the news clip of the soldier stationed in Ramstein AFB in Germany finally screwing up his courage to tell his father – over a long distance phone call – “Daddy, I’m gay”. What made that moment so special to me was the response of the father. “You are my son and I love you. I will always love you. And I am so proud of you.”

Put your own shame in that story - we all have them - and hear God’s response. “I know, and it doesn’t matter. I love you and always will.” On, and by the way, Let’s not forget all the others waiting to hear that word too! Love them, just as you have learned how much you are loved.

We all live in the meantime — the time between what was, what might have been and what we wish could be — but still “meantime”. So please, in the meantime, love. Love with your whole being. Love for all you’re worth.

Amen.

(October 23, 2011)

Thoughts in Holy Worship

2011-09-04T11:59:00.001-06:00

I am weary of right words.
Give me a liberated tongue
that I may speak my words.

There is an itch in my mind
they cannot scratch –
a tear chokes my throat
so that I gag on undigested song.

I tremble in thy holy presence
quivering in my groin,
alive, tongue dumb and heart bruised -
quivering in the grip of shame
for not living the right words.

I am weary of right words
that slay the giant
before he breaks his chains!

The Jesus "Do-Over"

2011-08-18T09:09:00.000-06:00

Matthew 15:21-28 (the "Message")

Once, when I was a chemical dependency counselor, client Cassie made a point I thought could be corrected. Using my best therapist logic, and being careful to choose the most acceptable way to make my point, I tried to suggest a different way to look at the situation she was describing. When I finished, she flashed me a bright smile, her eyes sparkling, and she said, “You know, you are so wise and so helpful, I love what you’ve done for me. So it just slays me when you say stupid things like that!”

* * * * *

When I listen to Jesus, frankly, I am not amused. This saying is not his finest hour. A woman has come to him with a perfectly reasonable request. She has done so at the risk of being rejected. She knows she’s not a Jew. She knows she has no rights, no standing, with this stranger/miracle worker. And she knows she has made a nuisance of herself. She’s an embarrassment to everyone there.

But she loves her daughter, she knows her daughter’s affliction, and she doesn’t care what anyone else might think of her bold maneuver to get her help. Love cancels out all other considerations. Isn’t that enough? Can’t even the most callous person understand this act and make allowances? How could Jesus act so unfeelingly? I want to reach through the pages of the Bible, grasp Jesus by the throat and shake him. “Take that back, Jesus. That’s beneath you. You are the Son of God. You came to teach us a new gospel of hope. You are recruiting people to join your kingdom. You tell us the first commandment is to love one another. You can’t mean what you just said.”

* * * * *

I pause and reflect. No, he didn’t say this. He couldn’t have. This is all a big mistake. Someone has put these words in his mouth. After all, Matthew was writing for Jewish Christians, wasn’t he? He knew how offended they would be if Jesus helped a Gentile. Didn’t Jews call them “dogs” all the time? It was as common as the “N” word once was in our mouths not that many years ago.

But can you be sure? If Jesus didn’t say it, how did it ever get put in here and not challenged centuries ago?

Theologians have wrestled with it. Bible translators struggle with it. Read a half dozen translations and notice how they try to blunt it a little. Peterson’s paraphrase takes a stab at it by suggesting Jesus was so busy, so over-worked, so preoccupied with his mission to the Jews he simply missed the anguish in the woman’s voice. Her persistent clamor went unheard by the Master. It was the disciples who finally had had enough and urged him to get rid of her.

Understandable. Possible. Yes, I could see myself acting that way if I were in that situation. But it’s a stretch. Jesus was so good at identifying needs, even before people knew they had the need. He healed a lame man who seemed less than anxious to be healed. He gave sight to a blind man who hadn’t even asked for it. He challenged a tax collector to come down out of a tree and make dinner for him, a man who certainly did not need or want the publicity. How could Jesus miss this woman’s? What excuse can he give for his actions. “I’m too busy?” Excuse me, Jesus. A request for a trophy house in Telluride, or a winning ticket in the lottery - yes, I’d say those requests can be ignored, or at least put down the list a ways - way down, actually. But a loving, despairing cry for a beloved child? No. We don’t brush that off with a peremptory shrug, and a demeaning insult to boot.

But Jesus said it, apparently, and he has to be accountable for his words.

* * * * *

In his defense, we might point out that he was speaking the truth. He was busy. He did have a big job on his hands. He wasn’t handing out Tootsie Rolls to children, or autographed pictures of himself to an adoring crowd. He was about his Father’s business, remember? That’s the way Luke would describe it in his gospel. The dispensing of the grace of God is serious stuff. It costs. His very life before it’s over. Don’t come to Jesus looking for a miracle for amusement. Andrew Lloyd-Webber has King Herod taunt Jesus with the words:

     Prove to me that you’re no fool,
     Walk across my swimming pool!

Jesus was not a carnival attraction, here to amaze us with cheap tricks. “Take me seriously” he is saying to this mother.

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Here is where the Canaanite Mother looks him square in the eye and challenges Jesus to take her seriously too. “Call me a dog if you will, I know my place. I know what I deserve. I’ll take the scraps, and willingly. But give them to me. My daughter needs them, and I’ll do anything you ask of me. Just heal her, for pity sake.”

How many times have we approached God with requests that were frivolous, half-hearted, or worse, flippant as if such requests were our right? I remember Cora (not her real name, although you wouldn’t know her real name anyway) approaching me and demanding that I pray for total healing for a sick child. Wealthy Cora, who could demand obedience from anyone she met. She paid her way. She was entitled to get whatever she wanted.

Not this Canaanite woman. She did not come to Jesus expecting to be granted her wish because of her rank and position in society. She did not “buy” her miracle with the power of her pocketbook. She knew who she was, and what she asked. She faced the master with naked honesty and integrity. We could learn a thing or two about real praying from her.

* * * * *

But there’s one thing more happening here: it’s called real faith. Really believing that God is approachable, God really cares, and that we really matter whether we’re dogs or not. I think we tend to forget this. In the hurry and scurry of our daily lives, we act as if we are either our own gods and expend boundless energy on getting our own way and doing our own thing as if God is only needed when we’ve exhausted all other human resources. Or we act as if God was running some kind of gigantic machine that moves without thought to us. We don’t count in the grander scheme of things. Our petty problems are just part of the collateral damages of a universe busily going its own way.

How many of you still give yourselves comfort with the thought that “Whatever will be will be?” “If it’s your time to go, you’ll go?” “There’s no point in pestering God with juvenile requests. God won’t listen to us anyway.” We scoff at the advice of the prophet Joel, who cried out to the people:

     Yet even now, says the LORD,
     turn back to me wholeheartedly
     with fasting, weeping, and mourning,
     Rend your hearts and not your garments,
     and turn back to the LORD your God,
     for he is gracious and compassionate,
     long-suffering and ever constant,
     ready always to relent when he threatens disaster.
     It may be he will turn back and relent
     and leave a blessing behind him. (Joel 2:12-14a REB)

Joel holds out a slim but vital hope. God is not implacable. God does relent. God has changed course before. Even when God is most enraged, yet the almighty hand of wrath has been withdrawn.

The Gospels tell us Jesus himself could change his mind. Matthew relates that, when he heard of the beheading of his cousin John the Baptist, he was so disturbed, he took his disciples and tried to withdraw into a “lonely place apart” to rest and pray. He was exhausted and struck to the heart with grief. Who could blame him for seeking such solace in silence and retreat? But when he got there, he found the crowd had already anticipated his actions and were gathered there, “a great throng”. As exhausted and grief-stricken as he was, he could not ignore them. You see his heart had gone out to them, because they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.

That’s the clincher. That’s the hope in this story. The mother’s plea was heard and answered. No matter what has happened, no matter what we may have done, no matter how undeserving we feel, ours is a God whose heart goes out to us. God can have a change of heart. Jesus may be busy, he may even be unthinking and rude (and that’s a novel thought, isn’t it?) But he can also change his mind.

I will not speculate on what God will do. The solace, the healing of God may not come in the manner we wish. But it will come.

Even Jesus can use a “do-over”, and don’t you forget it! Amen

God’s Treasure

2011-08-18T09:01:00.000-06:00

(Based on Matthew 13:31-33; 44-46)

“Are you listening to this? Really listening?”

That’s a curious question Jesus asks, right in the middle of these sayings. Of course, we’re listening, Jesus. We are soaking up every word you ever uttered. And yet Jesus seems bent on prodding us with this question, as if he was saying “Do you get it? Do you really understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

This doesn’t strike me as an offhand remark, something like the tedious habit some people have of following each sentence with that irritating “you know?”, as if they can’t think of anything else to say, but they don’t want to stop talking.

No, I think Jesus may well be trying to give us a new thought that is on the edge of our comprehension, one that we are so unaccustomed to hearing he does well to wonder if we are catching his meaning.
* * * * *

He’s talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven - a curious remark when you stop to think about it. I dare say most of us think of it as the heavenly after-life, one we’ve grown accustomed to hearing about and hoping we’ll get into some day. But if that is all it is, these sayings are difficult to comprehend.

It’s valuable, it’s a treasure buried in a field so valuable a man would sell all he has to get it. It starts small, but grows incredibly. Eugene Peterson increases the size a bit by changing the metaphor from a mustard plant to a pine tree. I think Jesus would approve of that.

But where will we find this Kingdom? What will it really look like? And what relevance does it have to us, here on this side of the grave?

Frankly, it’s not very helpful if what it refers to is something we have to die to get into. And that’s pretty uncharacteristic of the rest of Jesus’ sayings. The beatitudes, the Golden Rule, the Great Commandment of love, all are solidly grounded in the present. They apply in the here and now.

So if the Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to be understood as a “Here and Now” place, just as we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer - “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” - then I think an attitude adjustment is in order.
* * * * *
The Kingdom is quite simply that place where God is king. To enter the kingdom of God is to become a naturalized citizen of heaven. It is to live life as a member of God’s family. It is to think of God as a present reality. We do not walk alone.

With that said, where do we look for it? Where is that pearl of great price? Where is the field worth selling all we have to purchase it?

Many people spend their lives searching for “the truth” but they wonder if any one will ever find it. It’s sort of like treasure hunters trying to find the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition mountains of Arizona. Or the lost treasure of Captain Kidd. Or the “Open Sesame” Cave of Wonder of Ali Baba. So many hunters, so few finders.

Do you suppose we’ve got it wrong?

Maybe Jesus wasn’t sending us on a scavenger hunt, maybe we’re not supposed to be the ones looking. What if Jesus is the hunter, and we are the treasure?

I know that sounds crazy, but think about it. If you look at the Bible as the story of the human race gone missing with God trying to find us and bring us home, it takes on a whole new meaning.

The children of Israel lost in Egypt are rescued by God and set free on a journey to new life and hope. They are given the Law of Moses so they won’t get lost again.

They get lost.

Judges are provided to give them guidance, but they prefer establishing their own form of government. Kings are what other nations have, they want them too. So God gives them Saul and David and what turns into a double line of kings in a divided kingdom, men who, by and large turn out to be corrupt, greedy, despicable tyrants. Again the Jews get lost.

God then provides a series of prophets, spokesmen who can give them guidance. Such prophets supplied them a more direct line to God, but that doesn’t work either. “If you can’t prophesy anything nice,” the people complain, “then don’t prophesy anything at all”- and again they get lost.

Now Jesus has come, the living embodiment of a searching God, the shepherd trying to reclaim his sheep, the God who spends his all - the life of his incarnate son, to demonstrate just how valuable he considers these precious human lives he’s created.

Suddenly these parables come leaping off the page. A pine seed - so small, so insignificant, but look what it can produce. Thus, the kingdom of Heaven is made up of insignificant human lives, mister and missus anonymous, but the accumulation of these nameless people is a mighty tree of strength and endurance.

A germ of yeast, so small we can’t really see it, turns out to have power that lies dormant in its chemical structure. More important, that power can permeate the whole lump of dough, making it rise many many times its own size.

And we, the people of God, far from being soiled, worn out, worthless - as we have been taught to think of ourselves - are treasure, buried in an empty field, and infinitely valuable. As one wagster put it, “If God had a refrigerator, our pictures would be on its door”. Face it, God’s crazy about you.

Are you getting it? Jesus asked. “Do you really get it?”

* * * * *

I’ve had my days of feeling worthless. I’ve had my moments of shame. I carry memories that plague me like locust that don’t wait seven years to come down on me with their buzzing fury. Why did I do that? Why did I say that? Oh how I wish I could do that over again.

And St. Paul - the mighty giant of the Christian faith, Paul - cries out about his “thorn in the flesh”, his constant reminder that he is far from perfect. “That which I should do, I do not; and that which I should not do, is the very thing I do do every time. Woe is me. Who can rescue me from this hell I’m in?”

Jesus himself depicts it indelibly in his Sermon on the Mount. “You say, thou shalt not kill, but I tell you, all you have to do is hate your brother and you have already committed murder. You say you will not commit adultery, but I must remind you, even if the only thing you’ve done is lusted after another, you’ve already done the deed.”

“Good Lord, master,” his disciples object, “If that’s true, who can ever be saved?”

Miserable sinners. Loathsome to ourselves. Despised by all decent people. Surely God knows the dreadful truth better than anyone else. We are worthless.

But what does the Bible show us? A God who never gives up on us. Hear Jesus’ reply to his disciples, “Left up to ourselves, it is impossible. But cheer up, with God, all things are possible.”

Here’s the good: ours is a God who says “I’ll pay the price. You’re worth it to me.”

* * * * *

The Kingdom of Heaven is you and me. The Kingdom of Heaven is growing in us. The Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure of infinite worth. The Kingdom of Heaven is that place where God is King - and that is in our hearts. It is in our mouths. It is in our hands. It is in our pocket books. It is in our imaginations. It is in our hopes and dreams. It is in us, right here, right now.

This is the amazing news God has for us. But be careful. This is not news that should make us proud and boastful. We have not been given permission to strut like peacocks, or stand in the Temple loudly proclaiming “God, I’m so glad I’m not like other people. I’m way better than that pitiful sinner over there.” Ah, how our attitude can tarnish the precious metal of God’s treasure.

But we can also tarnish it by robbing God of his treasure, by living as if we were the ones in charge, the seekers, the builders of our own dreams. Like the ancient story of tower of Babel, we would prefer to be our own masters, our own gods. And like Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the landlord’s vineyard who kill the owner’s son so they can claim the vineyard as their own.

We are the owner’s treasure; we do not belong to ourselves. Amen.

2011-08-18T08:55:00.000-06:00

HOPE - the Labor Pains of Life

based on Romans 8:12-25

When Viktor Frankl wrote his classic “Man’s Search for Meaning”, he focused his attention on the concept of “Hope”. He had survived the holocaust and become a beacon of light for countless people who have read and cherished his writings. He was a psychotherapist, and a Jew, when he was imprisoned, and used his time in the camp observing and pondering the lessons people were learning there. On the surface, the book is a memoir of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. At a deeper level, it is a revelation of the nature of the human soul.

At one point he remarks, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future–his future–was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.” (P. 82)

“Faith in the Future” is another way of saying “Hope”, and for Frankl, hope was – and is - the essential mode for existence. We cannot exist without it.

The Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, writing in quite a different style, came to the same conclusion. He wrote a witty drama depicting hell as the place where hope no longer exists. That’s an odd approach, isn’t it? Well, Shaw was a most eccentric author. In the play, a woman has just discovered that she has died and gone to hell; a development she considers shocking. All her good works had gone for nothing. She immediately announces she will starting praying. Another character quickly interrupts her saying, “Don’t do that. If you pray, you will throw away one of the chief advantages of this place. Written over the gates are the words ‘Leave all hope behind, ye who enter’. Think what a relief that is. For what is hope after all but a form of moral responsibility. Here we have nothing to hope for, nothing to work for, nothing to pray for. We can do exactly as we please.’” To another character, that is an excellent definition of hell, and the very thing that makes it so horrible. To be forced to live wheren there is nothing left to live for - that is the ultimate essence of hell.

One might think Paul had every reason to long for death. His was not an easy life. As a young man he was tormented with depression, insecurity, doubt. He was driven to live a good life even when he found no satisfaction or relief in his austere life. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, his life got significantly worse. As a Jew he had been admired and respected. As a Christian he would be beaten, imprisoned, stoned, ship-wrecked, and if tradition is accurate, finally executed in Rome - all for his loyalty to a Jewish carpenter who had been crucified and whose body mysteriously disappeared. Paul dedicated his life to telling this unbelievable story to people who constantly misunderstood him or argued with him or ignored him. But in spite of all this, he would write friends in Corinth that, as much as he would like to die and be with God, yet he still very much wanted to live and serve that God. “So that, whether here or away, whether in this body or in the new body of eternal life, (he) was always content.”

The key to this attitude was, and is, hope. Even in that famous passage in I Corinthians, when he sums up his belief in those familiar words “Thus abideth faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love,” hope cannot be overlooked. It may or may not be the greatest, I will not quarrel with St. Paul about that. But I think I will demure just a bit and suggest, while love is what life is really all about, such an insight rests on an intellectual belief - a matter of faith. And faith, as a mere creedal statement is good for a memorable quote, a beloved verse of scripture to memorize. But where the rubber meets the road, where it all comes down to energizing a human life, is in that four letter word HOPE. That is what makes it possible to get up in the morning.

Frankl said of the moment when hope died: “We all feared this moment–not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. Usually it began with the prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash or to go out on the parade grounds. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect. He just lay there, hardly moving.” The death of hope was the prelude to death itself.

He also made it clear that such a hope had to be grounded in the present. One cannot live merely on the promise of some day. You see, hope for someone, someday, somewhere is rather like a well-dressed store window at Christmastide. It’s lovely, it’s admirable, and it may even be enjoyed by live people - but it’s not my feast, my fireside, my festivity. Hope is that elusive quality that makes the possible my possible. It grows in the heart that has been affirmed, cherished, valued, loved.

I wish I had known St. Paul. I wish we’d been able to sit down together and talk about the weather. I wish I could have heard about his day. About the sandal strap that was coming loose and caused him to limp a little as he climbed Mars hill. I wish I could have told him about the scary dream that grabbed my mind and would not go away. I wish we could have compared our taste in vegetables. Did he despise bell peppers too? I wish I could have felt his hand grab hold of mine as I struggled to get to my feet. It would have been a steady hand that not only helped me but believed in the strength of my legs. I wish I had known all this, for it is out of this seed bed of common humanity that faith is bred and hope ignited.

Hope is hard. It must survive the blind rush of life that can bruise as well as heal. It must stand up against the impersonal, the mindless, the selfish, the cruel. It is the beacon light that reassures us that we do matter, that someone does indeed care, that someone laughs with joy at our awkward loveliness, and weeps with our disappointments and our losses. And hope never settles for rewards postponed. Hope sustained St. Paul, and four year old Jeanette who skipped through her house singing lustily “Jesus loves me! Rah! Rah! Rah!”

Hope is the Energizer Bunny that keeps going whether anyone is looking or not. Hope is the springboard of creativity that strives to perfect the turn of a phrase, to return to that one brief shade on a painting that makes the picture come alive. A story is told of the actress Lynne Fontaine that she had struggled with one brief line in a play that had never seemed to be just right. The evening of the last performance, she burst into her husband’s dressing room and exclaimed, “I’ve got it! I know how to do that line.” “For heaven’s sake, Lynnie,” Alfred Lunt replied, “It’s our last night.” “Ah,” she replied wisely, “But that’s just it. There is still tonight!”

And hope can get exhausted prisoners up out of bed in the morning, convinced that this new day matters. It matters because they matter.

That’s the message of our Psalm today, isn’t it? The indisputable truth is crystal clear. God created us. God knows us. And God never gives up on us. The missing link was establishing that truth in us. A link, a bond, a connection that transformed theory into reality. For me, that link has always been reinforced with a human hand. God in human flesh. God in human hearts. God, incarnate, in the Holy Spirit.

I remember Bill. He had hit bottom, a truly terrible bottom. He had lost his career, his reputation, his ‘significant other’. He had given up on sobriety. He could not believe in God. His substitute was an empty whisky bottle that had given him no relief. And finally, the thought that he might be able to redeem himself by donating a kidney to his sister was rejected. Doctor’s established it was not a suitable match. In his despair, Bill chose a bullet in his brain, only to wake up in a hospital bed with the humiliating thought he couldn’t even successfully kill himself. One thing sustained him. One friend was left; a friend who loved and valued him in spite of all the rest that had gone before. It was a slim thread to tie on to life, but it would be enough. I call that thread hope. And it was held out by the human hand of a friend.

Paul called hope our birth pangs. Never forget. Where there is labor, there is life. Life, the ultimate gracious gift of God. Amen.

Tag, You're It!

2011-08-18T08:52:00.000-06:00

(based on John 14:1-14)

I wish we knew more about John. His gospel is so deeply loved and cherished, it would be nice to know just who this man was and how he came about recording this special view of Christ and his teachings. I referred to him as a "he", but we don't even know that for sure. The name has been added to the Gospel later, it has not been verified anywhere in the gospel itself - or anywhere else for that matter. All that we think we know comes from tradition about the Gospel and could be quite wrong.

But putting aside such questions for the moment and just reading the gospel as a piece of literature, it is so different from the other three gospels, one wonders how it got written this way in the first place. Much of what it reports does not occur elsewhere. And much that does occur is presented in a totally different light. Who is this mysterious author and where did he get his information? Again, we simply do not know.

We can infer some things. It appears to have been the last of the gospels to be written. It seems to have been written for new Christians who needed a word of encouragement in a time of cruel persecution. And it seems to call on us to look deep into the inner workings of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who knew Jesus and those who now are striving to keep faith with him now that his physical body is gone. While Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the story of Jesus, John preaches the story, striving to get at the relevance of it to our lives. Without realizing it, readers are drawn to John's gospel for it's direct appeal to us to have faith, believe, trust this mighty Son of God, so that we might have life, real life, a full and fruitful life, as God originally intended for us to have. We move out of theoretical belief into living action. If our creed tells us Christ is alive, John tells us because Christ is alive, we are too.

The center of the gospel is chapter eleven where we are told the story of the raising of Lazarus. I don't think it's a coincidence that John chooses this point for this story. It is the apex of the gospel, it is the miracle of miracles Jesus performs, and it is the entrance into the life of faith we are urged to discover for ourselves. Put simply, we believe in Jesus so that we can be fully and completely alive, people who had been dead before but are now vibrantly alive, and not just frantically busy as are many people who think the more they put on their calendars, the more important they are. No, in a quite incredible turn of events, we find ourselves more completely alive in order that we might take up the work Christ was doing and carry it further than he did.

Christianity is not a "feel good" joy ride at Disneyland. It is a transformed existence fraught with exhilaration and challenge. It is true living and also genuine danger. It is glorious and terrible in its opportunities for distortion and destruction. The film "Bruce Almighty" tries to get at this in a comedic way. Bruce is given the job of being God for a day to see how well he can handle the infinite number of problems in the world. The result is chaos.

John's gospel shows us what that job looks like. He does his best to sort through all the qualities that made Jesus God in human flesh and then points his finger directly at us and says "Tag: you're it." The movie is just a movie, and Bruce is let off the hook in the end. We don't get let off the hook. We're more like Tim Allen's character in "The Santa Claus" who has no graceful way out of the job. Try as he might to shed the uniform, it keeps coming back.

"You will do the work I do" Jesus cautions us. And what's more, we will do even greater work than Jesus did. You don't hear that verse preached very often, do you? My God, we cry out in dismay, this is too much. You better believe it's too much. That's why we are promised a helper, a Holy Spirit, a safety net of friends of faith who will sustain us when the storm gets too heavy, who will enlighten us when our eyesight is too feeble, who will comfort us when our defeats - and there will be defeats - are too painful. The church is God's ark, if you will, our last place of refuge and safety in a storm that threatens to overwhelm us.

The TV series "Joan of Arcadia" tried to get at this truth and stumbled. The concept made it one of the most important and relevant "Christian" TV series ever attempted, but the writers and producers just weren't up to the task. They stumbled and the public soon sensed the hokeyeness of it. Joan was not asked to be "Joan Almighty" but she was challenged to be a living presence of God in the world. It did not take long for her to realize just how inadequate she was for the job, and we - the audience watching her - were invited to discover just how weak and ineffective we are too. Unfortunately, a TV series couldn't quite offer the hope Jesus offered. There were friends surrounding Joan but they didn't seem to have what it takes to be a Holy Spirit, if you will.

You and I have a job we didn't look for and can't see how we have the qualifications to fill. It's only training is "on the job". There will be no retirement from it, unless you consider death as the final resting place. (Frankly, I have an uneasy suspicion that it's more like the next level in a video game where new challenges, new lessons, new opportunities emerge.) Jesus' appearances to the disciples after his resurrection suggest as much to me. I'm still alive, mates, I'm still working, the Kingdom is still coming. And now YOU are that Kingdom, you are the living, breathing presence of a vibrantly alive God in a world that is infinitely more challenging and complex than the one Christ knew or could even imagine. Think what Christ might have accomplished if he'd had Facebook and Twitter to work with!

John tells us that Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. But the kicker in this "good news" is that the life we now have doesn't really belong to us. It's God's life. It's God's work in the world. It's the continuing revelation of Almighty God taking on human flesh.

You may have read the story of the student who watched a new boy in school get bullied and teased and shunned and saw him knocked down, spilling has backpack of books all over the ground. He went to the aid of the boy, helped him pick up his books, and started to get to know him. What was a mere moment of kindness turned into the start of a genuine friendship. And what had been a shy, introverted school untouchable became a strong, confident student and at graduation the one who was chosen to be class valedictorian. Imagine how he must have felt when he heard his friend begin by telling of that awful moment when he was knocked to the ground. All those books, they were not a sign of a bookworm nerd, he had just cleaned out his school locker and was taking his possessions home where he intended to kill himself - an intention that was avoided by the spontaneous act of kindness of another boy who had been picked by God to do a work God needed to have done.

Now that is a pretty dramatic example, but please believe me, God is alive and well and working in the world, and he's at work in simple human beings just like you and me. We rarely know when we've done our job - or where we've failed to do it for that matter! But we are on the job all the same. When Marilyn died and I discovered grief in ways I had never even thought of before, I once remarked to a kind friend, "I don't know if I can do this. I don't even know if I want to do this. It's too hard." My friend only looked at me and listened with patience and understanding. And after a moment, I added, "But I don't have a choice, do I?" He smiled and nodded. "That's what I was thinking too." That smile, that acceptance, that patient understanding was God at work offering me the help I needed, the only help that could sustain me in that dark place called grief.

"The works I do, you will do," Jesus tells us, "and not only my work, but even greater work than I could ever do. But don't worry, you won't have to do it alone. The Holy Spirit will be there helping you." That's what John believed. That's what I believe too. Amen.

On the Road

2011-08-18T08:49:00.000-06:00

(Based on Luke 24:13-35)

If there’s one story in the Bible upon which I most often depend, it’s this story of the two disciples making their way on the road to Emmaus. It reminds me of many truths, chief among them is what it tells us about our search for God.

You see, rarely in the Bible do we read of any one finding God. The cry of Elijah, "Oh if I knew where I might find Him" is a universal lament. We all long for union with God, one way or another. Augustine said it in his Confessions when he prays to God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

We look in many ways. The weak struggle to be strong, the poor rich, the bored entertained. The alcoholic is not thirsty for drink, he is thirsty for the Spirit of God, a spirit he tries to copycat with the "spirits" of alcohol. The sex addict pursues sexual encounters, the gambler the thrill of "living on the edge". They all have one thing in common: they all reveal an empty space within themselves they are trying to fill, a space only the true God can occupy, and all these other things become their pseudo-gods.

Those who turn to the Bible for wisdom will discover that we do not "find" God. The truth is, it is God who finds them. It is God who is searching. It is God who initiates the divine encounter. And the human reaction for them all is virtually the same: surprise, disbelief, fear. Isaiah cowering in the temple; Jeremiah amazed; Moses trembling barefoot before a burning bush; Elijah more ready to die than to hear the voice of God; Paul struck blind.

This fact is not a comfortable one for a people used to making their own happiness, figuring out their own problems, lording over creation with their own superior power. We are the children who were raised to help ourselves, be independent, go after our own goals, claim success as our well-earned right. It’s almost un-American to propose the notion that we must give up our searching and wait patiently for God to find us. The poet Henley captures our national creed in his poem "Invictus" when he declares "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

Today’s story presents a different truth. Two men, disciples of Jesus, walking down a dusty road, discouraged, heart-broken, are met on the road by a stranger. Their grief is so deep they do not recognize him. Why would they? Jesus had been crucified, his body put in a tomb and then taken away. There’s no reason why they should expect to be walking beside him on this road. Now see what happens.

FIRST Jesus listens to them and in listening is able to help them sort out their thoughts. If we see God, we must first sort out our thoughts, clear away our preconceptions, become teachable. How often do we take time to look at why we are as busy as we are? Why are we so driven to achieve our unexamined goals? Where is that empty space inside ourselves we are so intent on filling? C.S. Lewis put it in an interesting parable. He says we cannot encounter God "Until We Have Faces". We must first become genuine and real ourselves. Then God has something to meet.

SECOND we must journey together. Rare is the individual who can map out his or her road entirely alone. Even the reclusive scholar is not really alone. He walks with his books, his mentors, his invisible guides. We walk with the teachers of our past. As many have confessed, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We are the recipients of wisdom, insight, understanding passed on to us by benefactors of yesterday. The myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.

I understand that we do much, we are not merely passive objects, empty vessels to be filled by someone else. But we need the training, we need a model, we need the touch of another to set afire the creativity within us. The very conduit of learning - language - must be learned from others. Without it there is no making sense of our complex world.

THIRD we must be truly hungry. The disciples have stopped at an inn to share a meal with the stranger who has joined them. For most of us, we can be so obsessed with our own plans, our own search and satisfying what we think is our hunger with the substitute that most pleases us, that we are unaware of our real hunger. It’s only when we encounter the stone wall of tragedy, when we are broken and unable to get up, when our carefully manicured facade cracks that we become ready to be fed.

How often have we pushed food on people who are in the beginning stages of grief. "You’ve got to eat something!" we say. In part that is our need to believe we’re being helpful, but it is also in recognition that grief robs people of the will to go on. Get them to eat and they will have taken their first step toward recovery.

FOURTH we must realize that the Christ who meets us, listens to us, feeds us, disappears. Once glimpse God and he is gone. We don’t like this. Peter instinctively voiced our concern when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. Let’s build a temple up here so we can stay here forever. We want permanence. We want dependability. The Prudential Insurance Company showed astute business sense when it chose the rock of Gibralter as their logo. As strong and dependable as a rock. That’s what we want.

In the face of that demand, Jesus disappears. No leaning post he, he goes on before us. The place to expect an encounter with God is on the road. We will stop and rest. We will say our prayers. We will take up our cross, as Jesus put it, our mission in the world. But we will do so with the memory of what we once saw and heard. "Did our hearts not burn when he spoke to us?" the disciples remark. And we will go "on the road" ourselves.

FIFTH we must be careful that we not get too busy again. Once know what our true hunger is, be careful that the old ways of satisfying our hunger don’t return. Remember to stop, to eat, to share with others. Remain open to when he might join us again. For he does. We do not have only one encounter. There will be many. And like as not, they will come disguised and ill-timed.

I was a child riding a carousel at the zoo in San Francisco. I was delirious with the game of it all. There was a contraption that offered rings for you to try and grasp as you went whirling by. Most were mere iron, but some were brass, and if you caught the gold-colored ring, you could have an extra free ride. There was also a canvas with a clown’s face painted on it. It had a gaping hole for the clown’s mouth. You threw the useless iron rings in the clown’s mouth. I was delirious with delight throwing my rings into that mouth. Then, as I threw the next ring I heard voices shouting, "You’ve got the gold ring! You’ve got the gold ring!" And I saw that, indeed, I had just thrown the gold ring into the grinning mouth of that clown.

We must all seek God on the road. But we must be open and ready for his coming. God will come and dine with you, but in His time and in His way. Amen.

I’ve Got My Eye on You!

2011-07-21T08:46:00.000-06:00

O LORD, You have examined me and know me.
When I sit down or stand up You know it;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You ... are familiar with all my ways.

The Psalmist’s faith in the all-knowing nature of God is both reassuring and disconcerting. While it is comforting to be reminded that we are thoroughly known by God, inside and out, it can also be disturbing.

Forty-five years of marriage with my wife was made special one day by her remark, “living with you, I wake up with a stranger every morning.” That was probably one of the most loving things I ever heard from anyone. Since I was discovering the same thing about myself, it was comforting and gratifying to know this life I was unfolding was under scrutiny and valued by another. After all, why bother to examine something that had no worth at all?

The Psalmist is asserting that God is searching and examining us with the same kind of diligence, not to take note of all our imperfections, but to discern the fascinating evolution of human lives that are constantly in the process of growth and change. That is the privilege and wonder of love.

One might say God has to love us. Like any parent, it’s required. Well, maybe so, but love demanded, esteem that is compulsory, praise taken for granted sounds like a pretty cheap commodity. I prefer to think of God as the loving one, eternally fascinated, vigilantly watching for some new manifestation of creativity and worth in us.

I recall another examination that jolted me. It came in a sigh and a look, that spoke louder than words. The examiner was a professor, disappointed by my poor performance on an assignment. Her look spoke volumes: “You can do so much better than this, I wish I knew how to get you to do it.”

It took a while for me to dare to believe that word and test my own capabilities, just as it seems to take we human beings a long time to hear that same affirmation from an all-knowing, all loving God. We might refuse to believe God’s daring expectation of us. We may even try to hide in that old excuse, “Boy have I got you fooled, Lord.” The Psalmist was right. God knows us better than that.

The God who sees and knows us is the God who cares and loves. This God is the greatest friend we’ll ever have. The Psalmist may have wished he could hide, could be invisible, could escape the scrutiny of God. But he remembered something else. The scrutiny of God is the work of love.

That’s why he could earnestly pray, “Search me and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Limping toward Glory

2011-07-21T08:40:00.000-06:00

Jacob called the place Peniel, saying
“For I have seen God face to face
and yet my life is preserved.”
The sun rose on him ... limping”
Genesis 32:30-31

Jacob may have had his faults, don’t we all? I know I do. But he did know what to do when put to the test. He held on.
Granted, that’s a risky virtue. I remember one fellow admitting shame-facedly that he was a coward. He hated fighting because he didn’t like getting hurt. His friend replied ruefully, “I don’t know if that makes you a coward but I can think of a few fights I wish I’d walked away from.”

Jacob didn’t walk away from his wrestling match with that angel, or some kind of heavenly being. “Let me go,” the stranger pleaded. “Not until you bless me” Jacob replied. The wrestling bout left Jacob lame, so that he limped the rest of his life, but he got his blessing - a new name: Israel, a name that would live on to the present day.

There are some wrestling matches that are life-transforming. The battle the recovering alcoholic has with his addiction is a clear example. Life without booze may seem insignificant to those who have not succumbed to the tyranny of alcohol. However, for one who has gone down that road, sobriety is hard-won, and the scars last a life-time. Sober life is a new-found blessing, but it’s also a pronounced limp, especially in a society and a culture that places such a high priority on drinking.

I suspect we all have our demons (or angels!) to wrestle. The teenager up against peer pressure. The GLBT person seeking acceptance and the deepest level of all, self-acceptance. The victim of physical or sexual abuse. And the perpetrators, caught in a compulsive behavior they believe they are helpless to control.

“Let me go!” the stranger demands, “it’s almost daylight.” Yes. The light is coming. I will be exposed. But Jacob held on. Damn the exposure, and damn the shame. I must have my blessing.

We can claim a blessing too. Not necessarily one we wanted. It may not look so attractive at first sight. And no one can predict the ultimate outcome.

This much we do know: we may limp, but we will be limping in the sunlight. There is blessing if we can just hold on.

"Who Do You Trust?" (based on John 3:1-17)

2011-03-22T07:19:00.001-06:00

There are so many truths in this passage one could preach on it every Sunday for a year and not do it justice. Some have spent hours speculating on why Nicodemus chose to go see Jesus at night. Too busy? Too important to be seen going to a country preacher? He had a bad conscience and couldn’t sleep? He was waiting until the Sabbath had ended? And on and on.

What strikes me about this passage is the immediacy of it. Nicodemus is in the presence of the Son of God. He doesn’t know it, but he senses there is something special about Jesus that he can only respect and honor. One would think Jesus would appreciate that fact, even glory in it. But he does not. “ You say nice things, and offer me your respectful attention, but you do not believe me. You trust your own teachings more than you trust me. “

It’s painful. Plato spoke about the same thing in a parable . He describes a nation of people who are trapped in a cave. Their feet are shackled to the floor, their heads held rigid so that all they can see is a blank wall. A fire burns behind them and objects are placed between them and the fire so that they cast their shadow upon the wall. That is their reality. That is all they know: shadows. Then one man manages to escape his shackles and slip out of the cave into the real world, a world of dimensions and color. He is dazzled by what he sees. But how shall he explain what the real world looks like when he goes back into the cave?

That is the dilemma of the Son of Man who has been to heaven and back and is now charged with telling mortals what he has seen and known. This is the challenge of the Messiah. This is the heartbreaking reality of the “seer” who has glimpsed divine truths that simply can’t be condensed into words.

Let’s put this on a still more “human” level. You’ve been in the amusement park and you saw the roller coaster beckon. It was way too scary to attempt, but it was also so attractive. It must be incredibly exciting. Listen to the screams and squeals of delight of the happy rider. Nothing bad happened to them. Surely it was safe, or authorities would shut it down. In a moment of daring, you decide to give it a try. And it is glorious! Now you can’t wait to share the exhilaration with your friends, but they won’t go. Too dangerous. Impossible. How do you tell them you felt like a god in heaven itself?

Of course Jesus was God. The analogy doesn’t quite fit. No, in fact, it fits even more. Jesus spoke of what he knew from his own experience. But what he said was so preposterous - born again. No, no way. Quite impossible. How frustrating to know you are speaking the truth and you are not being understood. You are either put down as a liar or a lunatic. All right, a nice liar - you mean well. Just like coaxing a child to take medicine you know tastes terrible, but it will be good for the child. Or a benign lunatic, one who has harmless delusions. “Thinks he’s the son of God, but he’s not dangerous.”

The newcomer to an AA meeting is confronted with just such “lunatics” who confidently say “There’s hope. I was down for the count, and look at me now.” And the newcomer says, “Good for you. I wish it could work for me, but it won’t.” It’s frustrating and heart breaking. It echoes Thomas Merton’s cry “How can I tell people they are walking around shining like the sun?”

This is the anguish of Jesus, and of God. To love us so much. To be so vitally wrapped up in our lives and caring so deeply, and be unable to be heard, believed, understood.

Our problems are many, but chief among them is our fear - our fear of the holiness of God. Our fear of such perfection that can singe us. Our fear of an expected wrath that could annihilate us with one word from the omnipotent God. How can God get over that very human fear?
Jesus tries to reassure Nicodemus. God’s not on the warpath out to punish us endlessly. Those who think so give God a terrible reputation. I am not only appalled at such preaching, I am incensed that God’s good news should be polluted by such madness. These folk who go to funerals and cemeteries spewing out hatred and call it the will of God - I think surely, if God does have anger, it must be focused on them who make God out to be a monster.

But we need not blame only such fanatics; this misguided thinking abides in the nation at large. I have heard it too many times not to know what people are really thinking. When someone draws near to death, or someone suffers an untimely death, there are good people, people who mean well, people who love Jesus and serve God faithfully, but who are obsessed with fear that their loved one may not have been saved. Did they never listen to Jesus’s words? Did they not believe him when he spoke of God’s grace? Don’t they understand our God is a gracious and loving God, quick to forgive, eager to be friends?

What we can’t understand is a loving God who is forgiving of that which we cannot forgive ourselves. We judge ourselves far more fiercely than God does. We believe our own judgment more than the good news of the Son of God. Any God who would overlook my mistakes is too imperfect for me. I need a perfect God, and obviously such perfection would have nothing to do with me.

Yet we sing the hymn, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” We like the song, and think, “Wouldn’t it be nice?” and go right on condemning ourselves as beyond forgiveness anyway.

Well, all I can say is this, Jesus offers hope. We get the benefit of that hope by accepting it: a free gift. Our part in the matter is simple: believe it, accept it. In other words “Have Faith”. Simple, right? Well,
not so simple. We are so certain this good news is faulty, we shake our heads and dismiss it.

We don’t know what Nicodemus did with his good news. He came in the night and left in the darkness. And the rest of us? Well, who knows. The wind of the spirit comes and goes. How blessed are those who dare to trust Jesus and believe the good news they’ve heard, more than their own idea of who God is and what God is really like.

That roller coaster ride is bliss! Amen

Who’s in Charge Here? - Matthew 6:24-34 (CEV)

2011-02-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder about this passage. Being the child of a materialistic culture, the wealthiest the world has ever produced, I have always been taught that the accumulation of things was a sign of the good life. And more, that the more things you own, the better proof of your goodness as a person.

The poor you have with you always - Jesus told Judas. They are the godless ones; or so we assume. Say “welfare” and immediately, images come forth of worthless women having babies in order to collect money from the state - surely an evil practice and one worthy of our scorn.

We are Calvinist and we believe we are saved by faith, not by good works. The Calvinist pushed the logic of that belief a step further and declared that God alone knows who will be saved because God alone chooses the “elect”. Work for salvation all you want, your efforts are pointless.

But — since God is a just God, stern in judgment and always fair, he surely would not allow a bad person to be prosperous. That defies logic. We cannot prosper without the implied blessing of God.

Well, what a convenient logic! If one prospers, one automatically must be good - it makes sense. Add to this logic the theory of evolution - what we call social Darwinism - and you can be happy in the knowledge that only the fittest survive. Those who survive and prosper must be the elite, the creme de la creme.

Which all adds up to one thing - material goods do matter. They are a barometric reading of our spiritual condition. We live in a prosperous country. We are prosperous ourselves. Therefore, we must be good.
Only Calvin didn’t say this, and neither did Jesus. Calvin said such worldly prosperity was no guarantee of holiness, it was a blind chance, nothing more. He knew wealthy men and he knew that wealth - what Paul called the love of money - is the root of all evil. Read a history of the builders of the transcontinental railroad, for instance, and you will discover these men were rascals to the core. They not only showed no mercy for their neighbors, they saw no point in such mercy. Selfishness and greed was their rule and they lived by it.

Jesus also knew how corrupting material goods can be. The King James Version of the Bible uses the word “mammon” and that translates into a love of things. It is a god, a demanding god, a god with a voracious appetite. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too, if I can figure a way to get my hands on it. Serve mammon, and you push God out of your life.

We are confronted with a choice here - and it is not simply a choice between having things and not having things. (God forgive me, but I cling to my toys like any other man. My computer, my DVD’s, my books, my fine dining - all indulgences of the flesh and the spirit that make life worth living - I can scarce contemplate life without them.

As I said, the choice is not just about things. The choice is as it always was - what will be my God? What will dominate my life? What will motivate me to action? What comes first? Some of you remember Jack Benny, the comic with a reputation for being a miser. One of his famous moments was when he was confronted by a thief who was pointing his gun at the comedian. “Your money or your life” the thief demands. There is a long pause, “Well?” the thief prompts him. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” protests Benny.

I see at least two things going on here: one is pride. As I pointed out earlier, our wealth stands as a measuring stick for our success, our worthiness. I remember the first season of “The Apprentice” when Donald Trump invited one of the winning teams up to his penthouse to show off its glittering walls of gold. Everything was gold. How can one doubt the worth of such a man who has so much to show for his wealth?

The other is fear - and this Jesus points to with unswerving insistence. In his eyes, the accumulation of wealth has to do with fear about tomorrow. It has to do with anxiety that there won’t be enough food to eat, clothes to wear. Existence itself is threatened by the lack of worldly goods.

The fearful man is the loner, eking out a meager existence and in constant dread of the next day. Soren Kierkegaard asked “What is anxiety? Anxiety is the next day.” It is that mythical tomorrow we expect to come, the one for which we must always be prepared, the one that can bring blessing or disaster - we never know which one. So we must be ready.

We must be. Only that isn’t a “we” it’s a “me”. Me, me alone, only me.

Here Jesus parts company with conventional wisdom. He points to another possibility. No, this is more than a possibility - he points to another reality, a certainty, an unshakable faith. We are not alone.

You see, we are not in charge, God is. Somehow our anxiety has clouded our vision. Our lives become misdirected in our search for safety. We become driven by our need to secure ourselves and perpetuate our own immortality.

At the moment, the world watches as men of power are growing old and weak. Their insatiable appetite for wealth and power has consumed so many they can no longer hold on to their wealth and position. And they don’t know it. They have lived their privileged lives so long they can’t imagine any other way of living. They are desperately alone.

Recall the eccentric Howard Hughes who died a pitiful death, with no more dignity, no more stature, no more self-worth than the most common beggar. His wealth proved nothing. Mubarek may have escaped Egypt with untold riches at his command, but who is he in the eyes of the world now? Ghadaffi faces exile, declaring he’d rather die. Hussein’s statue was toppled and he himself died cursing his enemies and defying them to the end.

All alone. All thought they were successful. All thought they had limitless power. All worshiped themselves and relied on their own powers, their own brains, their own indomitable will. And they all were alone in the end.

Jesus would also die. But even in the darkness of Golgotha, and in spite of that terrible moment when he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”, he would cling to one more word of faith. “Father, into your hands I place my spirit.”

The prophet Isaiah said God will never forget you. “I’ve got your names tattooed on the back of my hands!”

That unshakable confidence is at the core of the Christian life. Now please understand, Jesus does not say everything will turn out all right. There is no promise here that we will be happy, healthy, and successful in the manner of a Donald Trump who can gild every inch of his penthouse with 24 karat gold. The presence of God is an assurance that whatever we face, whatever we are called upon to experience and endure, is faced with the presence of God.

I think you might say, God is there with the reassuring words, “I’ve got your back”.

That’s what Jesus is talking about here. Whatever comes, God is a part of the story, we are not - and we never will be alone.

We like to think we’re in charge. Well, we aren’t. History has proved that again and again. We’d be willing to trust God if we could be sure he’s in charge. Jesus seemed to think that’s so. But remember, history can be tricky. Things don’t always go the way we wish. Events occur that seem quite out of the realm of the control of God. Jesus would suffer and die.

The good news is - God brings victory out of even the most disastrous defeats.

Don’t worry folks - when you do, you’ve taken back control. You are laboring under the delusion that you’re in charge again - and you’re not. Trust God, he’s got your back! Amen

Living Gospels

2011-02-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

Sermon (Based on Matthew 5:13-20)

When Jesus called his disciples “salt of the earth, and “light of the world” he did something important. He made them “living gospels”. They became the conduit through which the Holy Spirit of God passes into the world.

In previous generations, God spoke through priests and prophets. The people waited hungrily for words of guidance and courage, for correction and consolation that came to them through the lips of a Moses or a Samuel, an Isaiah or a Micah. Then, after a long waiting, a Messiah was to come and all that had gone wrong with mankind and our world would be set right. Jesus was that messiah - or so his disciples believed, and so have we Christians through the ages.

But our expectations did not change. The messiah brought hope, but it was not the hope we had looked for. He spoke of a new Kingdom of Heaven, but it did not look like a kingdom. Rome still ruled, the Jews still suffered, and the new believers, now calling themselves Christians, resumed their waiting - only this time it was for a radical end of this world and the beginning of an entirely new one. The Book of Revelation came to be understood as a promise of cosmic warfare, the humiliation and defeat of Satan, and the launching of a new heaven and a new earth with a kingly Christ returning to usher in this promised paradise. Somehow, the simple message Christ taught his disciples got diminished in significance. It has the sound of a coach’s pep-talk before the game begins, rather than the unexpectedly startlingly new message - we are now the messengers, we are the medium and the message (to borrow a notion from Marshall McLuen). We get the part about how we could do better, make a greater effort, but we miss the crucial edge of this teaching - we already ARE the medium and the message. Now we must ask what kind of living gospels have we become.

I say, “we missed it,” or was this only an unfortunate oversight on my part? Did I hear and see but fail to understand? Perhaps you caught the message better than I. It occurs to me that many Christians are under the false impression that they should be the salt Jesus speaks of, or the light Jesus expects the world to see. If I read his words properly, that’s not the point. Put simply, we ARE salt, we ARE light. The question is, what kind of salt shall we be, what do we do with the light that shines through us?

Have you seen the bumper sticker that reads, "I have no problem with Jesus, it’s his friends I can’t stand"? That’s a pretty damning statement, and all too unhappily true. We all know people who profess Jesus but manage to make us feel inferior and unwanted. They may be Jesus’ friends, but they do little to make us want them to be our friends. Charles Dickens, novelist and crusader for the poor and the oppressed, loved to point out the hypocrisy of pious church goers who agonized over the plight of natives in Africa while turning a blind eye to the misery that surrounded them in London or Liverpool. Mark Twain took an equally jaundiced view of religions that seemed to be good for nothing more than making people ashamed of themselves. I remember Myrna who spoke of her teenage years being so fraught with fears that she was an unforgivable sinner rushing toward damnation she made rededicating her life to Christ a regular Sunday morning ritual. Her father once said "I wish to God I knew what you’ve been doing every Saturday night!"

My wife the nurse came home from the hospital one day and reported a conversation she’d had with the volunteer chaplain. "I don’t know how to talk to an alcoholic who’s in here again to get over another drinking binge." "Why?" she asked, "he’s just sick like everybody else, isn’t he?" "I know," he protested, "but his sickness is self-inflicted. His suffering is his own fault." "So’s my being overweight," she replied, "but that doesn’t take away my suffering. If anything, it adds to it." We all suffer from our sinful ways, but that doesn’t mean we are no longer entitled to the mercy and redemption of God.

And I remember pastor Ralph, who served a church that devoted itself to knowing the truth and preaching it unflinchingly. When invited to make a donation to the United Way, he was actually shocked. "We don’t participate in such worldly things."

Is it any wonder that there are people out there who take a dim view of Jesus’ friends? And don’t protest that this isn’t fair. We must not condemn Christianity because there are church people who don’t live up to the ideals Jesus taught. Of course the world condemns hypocrisy. Of course the world notices when we proclaim good news but don’t get around to living it. Why wouldn’t they? What else do they have to go on? That’s not our fault.

Wasn’t it? Where was the light? What happened to the salt? It was there, but it was pretty dim and tasteless. The Gospel of John said the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never been able to put it out. And when Jesus called us "salty" he knew that salt doesn’t really lose it’s flavor. Salt is always salty. It can be diluted, it can be hidden by other flavors, but it’s there all the same.

So what happened?

What flavor of faith are you giving out? It’s not enough to say you believe in Jesus, you need to show it. We are not performing good deeds to make ourselves righteous and worthy of a place in heaven. We are living our faith so that the world might see what the grace of God looks like. The minister who labors over producing a great sermon should not be surprised to discover that what people heard wasn’t necessarily what he said. Nor should he be offended when he learns the kindness of a faithful church member meant more than his carefully worded interpretation of John 3:16. What gospel am I living? That’s the real message.

What look is on my face as I go down the sidewalk? What tone of voice do people hear when I call them on the telephone? How promptly do I pay my bills? How considerate am I on the highway? How attentive am I to the needs of others when I have my cell phone in my hand?

Why do I ask these questions? What do they have to do with your faith? They demonstrate your faith. They are a visible, indelible impression of who you are. But they are more than that: they are a witness to who God is and what God is like.

Jesus cautioned his disciples to beware the mistaken notion that, just because they were friends of God, that did not mean they could ignore the good works God urges us to do. True, the legalism of the religious pharisee is misplaced. We cannot aspire to holiness just by assuming the appearance of holiness. But neither can we ignore the rules of good behavior as irrelevant. To accept the grace of God in Jesus Christ and then rest on our laurels as if we now belonged to some privileged class is equally wrong.

We are now on duty. We have a task. We are the extension of God’s saving grace. We are the salt that gives flavor to faith. We are the ones who make the gospel tasty, appetizing, appealing to the world. We are the light that helps people find their footing.

We are, in a word, living gospels. We are God’s good news. We are God’s models of new life. We are hope in living flesh. You “I can’t do this, it’s too much for me. Remember Moses? Remember Isaiah? They tried that line and God over ruled it. Jesus has already hired us on. The issue now becomes what kind of witness will we be?

Jesus talks about our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven being somehow linked to our salt and our light. A hasty reading might suggest that we need to clean up our act so we can qualify for going to heaven. But look again. Jesus says we will have a lower position in heaven. Or perhaps another way of putting it, we will have less significance. Diluted salt and flickering light are of little use to God. You see, this isn’t about getting into the Kingdom, it’s about our status in the Kingdom already.

The Kingdom of Heaven, as I read it, is not what we’ll find after we die. The Kingdom of Heaven is the fellowship of saints who have gone before us and who will come after us and who are presently surrounding us in our world right now. It is nothing more than that place where God is acknowledged as our King, our higher power, our supreme being. If you live as a child of God, you are already a citizen in the Kingdom.

Then once more I must ask, what kind of citizen am I? One who embodies the grace and mercy of God? Or one who wears a God face to look good in the world but is actually motivated by selfishness, greed, prejudice, a desire to be my own God. Does the zest of Christ permeate my being, or am I cold porridge hardly fit to feed the dog? Am I the light house people seek out in the midst of their raging dark storms, or have I satisfied myself by preserving a waning battery in an old flashlight, turned on only in emergencies? You know, that proverbial foxhole prayer?

Think about it. The question is not, will you be a sunbeam for God? The question is what kind of sunbeam are you now? Amen.

Following Directions

2011-01-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

(Based on Micah 6 and Matthew 5)

I shall never forget Diane’s earnest remark about her church and its beliefs. "Honestly", she said, "we don’t believe we’re better than anyone else, we’re just afraid of not getting the gospel right. We have to be so very strict, you see. What if we got it wrong? We’d spend all eternity in hell!"

Bless poor frightened Diane. She has company, doesn’t she? Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. How unfortunate, how sad. Didn’t we hear the prophet Micah?

He has told you, O man, what is good,

And what the LORD requires of you:

Only to do justice

And to love goodness,

And to walk modestly with your God.

The Christian life is quite simple, really. The rules, if you wish to call them that, are clear, succinct, and applicable for everyone in every walk of life. Be just, love goodness - or be kind, and be modest or humble. The hard part is discovering how to apply these very basic principles.

Take justice. Humanity has long recognized this is an appropriate rule. What’s right for A should be equally right for B. Anyone can grasp that concept. Children on the playground learn it quickly. “That’s not fair!” an anguished voice cries. We all have seen it, we’ve all felt it. Recognizing the universality of that truth, our Declaration of Independence states all men are created equal. Only we don’t act it. We don’t even believe it. By the time the United States Constitution was adopted, such equality applied only to white men, and as for voting, not only were slaves not counted, neither were women. Our physically challenged folk have long recognized the world belongs to the able-bodied. Left-handed folk know society designed our furniture and implements with right-handed people in mind.

All these examples are issues that emerge from that basic principle, be just. The principle is good. The prophet speaks well. The problem is figuring out how to act justly.

Love goodness - or be kind and merciful. Again, the words say easy. We have many sayings that help us achieve this goal. “Be nice” we say to children, “good little children share with others.” Their puzzled looks remind us that being nice is a weird concept that has nothing to do with their desire to have the whole ice cream cone rather than share a bite with another child. Why should I let someone have what is mine when I want to keep it for myself? Any fool can see that. You say a good man shares what he has. Then sociologists and economists and anthropologists and psychologists gather around and tell us it may not be such a good idea giving all these goods to others. They need to learn how to take care of themselves, don’t they? They even point to Darwin who taught us there’s another principle here called “The survival of the fittest”. If you can’t make it on your own, maybe you’re not supposed to.

So Micah adds one more rule - walk meekly or humbly or modestly with God. Ah, now that is where we stop preaching and start meddling. How do you do that? Do you testify every where you go, telling people about the mercy and love of God? That would be nice. Of course, there are people like Ralph who takes great pride in knowing there is no God, and for him such unasked for advice is merely a nuisance. Or there’s Sally who cringes when told God is her loving father, for she had such a loving father - one who entered her bed nightly and took away her personhood, her dignity, her innocence and any chance of her ever being able to trust and respect herself or any man again. So our good news may not always be enough. Then let us live out our good news with a positive attitude. Let a smile be your umbrella. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to shine for him each day. You can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. And then I remember Peggy of the sweet smile who told biting lies with those cheerful lips inflicting hurt wherever she went. She showed God, all right, a god of bitterness and hypocrisy.

What can our prophet tell us now? It’s not in the script, but it’s there between the lines: being human is a full time job and requires a fearful honesty that will keep us searching our souls, our motivations, our true impulses and needs for that which can best reflect the image of God placed in us by our creator. When I walk with God, I see the difference between my creature imperfection and the ideal that God represents. When I walk with God, I am better able to walk with my neighbor in true humility and kindness because I walk with God in you. (I may just discover that God is walking in you with me, and that you are God’s blessing for me when I am hurting!) When I walk with God, I hope I learn that you and I are of the same fabric, that humanity means I can feel and understand what you are like, what you need, what you fear, what you dream, and I can be attentive to another rule that sums up all Micah has said: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Our passage from Matthew carries on the proclamation of Micah. But instead of giving us rules to follow, it pronounces blessings that come from God on those who strive to live by these principles. These are current, of this moment, present-tense blessings, and what’s more, they radiate their very blessedness out to others. If those who have been hurt will hurt others, those who are blessed will be blessings to others.

However, please notice that this “simple” rule is just as difficult to follow as those Micah puts before us.

For one thing: you are not me. What you need or want or long for or dream about, is unknown to me. And vice versa. Give me tickets to the Super bowl and you will be disappointed that I do not respond with instant joy and gratitude, any more than you will respond with equal elation when I give you season tickets to a box seat at the Opera. Take me to the ski slope and you can only wonder why I choose to sit by the fire in the lodge rather than break my neck on the mountainside. Or consider my dismay when I serve you my beef stroganoff only to watch you push it from one side of your plate to the other because, unfortunately, you happen to be a vegetarian.

Living Christ’s great commandment to love others as we love ourselves isn’t easy. It takes sensitivity. It takes open-mindedness. It takes being aware, awake, alert - to your own beliefs, tastes, and principles every bit as much as the beliefs, tastes, and principles of the other. Put together the teachings of Micah and Jesus and you will have guides for how to do as God would have you do. But you’re still not home free. We need something more.

Here is where we look to Jesus who lived these principles, embodied them, and treated those whom he met according to all these rules. He took on himself the nature of a servant, lived among us as a genuine human being and showed us what being human is finally all about. He showed us how to be the human being God created us to be. He lived our lives, dreamed our dreams, shared our hopes and fears, grieved as we grieve: in a word, he knew us through and through and could treat us as his very own best friends. This kind of knowing was not just behaving nicely. The goodness of Jesus went to the very core of his being.

Remember what he said about breaking the Ten Commandments? Don’t congratulate yourself because you have not committed adultery: you have entertained lustful thoughts. Don’t think refraining from killing your neighbor is noble: be honest, you killed him with your hatred or your biting words, or the evil look you gave him that murders the soul even more than a knife or a bullet would do. When you think about it, your offense may be even worse than murder. By hating rather than murdering your neighbor, you avoided the consequences of committing murder. You weren’t holy, you were simply a bitter coward.

I remember Herbie who spoke complacently about being insulted by someone to whom he was trying to witness for Jesus. “He was even a minister; a man of God! And he slammed the door in my face. But I prayed for him anyway.” Without thinking what I was saying, I remarked “That’s getting even with him, Herbie”. The look of shock on his face told all. “I’m not sure I like that.” he said. And rightly so. I had unwittingly shown him his true nature. He did not really pray for that man, he enjoyed feeling spiritually superior. Of course Herbie didn’t like what I said. My words were not likable. But I must add I too, was guilty. I hadn’t meant to be kind. I had just broken the Golden Rule myself, all in the name of Jesus.

All these rules, all these principles, all these wise and godly sayings are meant to help us live lives that reflect the nature of God and also reveal that nature that resides in us, for we are created in God’s image. But simple though they are, they are not easy. Live by them as best you can and you will be driven to your knees in remorse and frustration. How weary God must be hearing me cry out “Oh Lord, I did it again!” You may think our prayer of confession each Sunday morning is a bit excessive: I disagree. That prayer is essential, it is the way we prepare for a course correction in our lives.

God mercifully, graciously, lovingly did for us what all the rules and principles could not do. He sent Jesus to live the pattern and die for us. He showed us the consequences of not living as Micah urged us to do. But Jesus does more than show the love of God in action, he redeems us from our sinful nature. He brings us good news. He shows us that though we still suffer from our pride, our egotism, our self-centeredness, our natural bent for grabbing the whole ice cream cone for ourselves, though we still are blind to the devastating consequences of our prejudice, our hypocrisy, our self-righteousness, God does not hold a grudge against us or give up on us. God still has hope for us, God still has the last word and that word is “I love you, you are mine and I will not let you go.”

Trust God and allow him to instruct you and redeem what we could not redeem ourselves. Amen

Ouch! - January 8, 2011

2011-01-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

I can usually take the world for whatever it offers. No doubt that’s from my training in philosophy and my long years of dealing with the human race as a minister, counselor, helper and friend. But there are moments when I receive a kick in the gut that winds me and I am left wordless and stunned. All I feel is stinging tears and a gulf of despair too awful to contemplate.

That’s happening this morning. The attempted assassination of a congressman in Arizona, for whatever the reason and by whomever the perpetrator, has assassinated me - momentarily. My usual confidence in the abiding care taking of God seem childish and futile. For the moment, the only thing that makes sense is retaliation and revenge. I assume the shooter(s) had some motive they thought reasonable. Now it’s our turn to wreck vengeance.

Hurt me and I’ll hurt you back, that’s the warning embedded in our DNA, isn’t it? I immediately recall the phenomenon I saw repeatedly in my counseling practice amongst survivors of drug and alcohol abuse, of family members in the wake of hellacious abuses, the scars that still ache for the despised, the disadvantaged, the exception to our society’s norms: it was a simple observation, "Hurt people hurt people".

The trouble with such observations is quite simply, it’s too pat, too obvious, it’s trying to soothe a bruise with a parental kiss and a reassuring hug. At moments like this, we do not want to be soothed, or comforted, we want blood. And for those like myself, who never was much good at inflicting physical pain on others, there is too often the other escape - despair. We find ourselves growling "I hate the human race", only to realize such a confession necessarily includes self-hatred, for we all belong to this despised race, whether we like it or not.

I do believe in God. I do believe in the possibilities of humanity. I cherish the progress I have seen, and in which I eagerly participate. I just can’t quite get past the hurt, the dismay, the horror that is exposed by an act like this. It is as if Satan himself had suddenly popped up in front of me grinning: "Go ahead, hate me" he gloats, "I want you to. Hate is my victory."

It is just such moments when I can completely understand the pathos of the cross and be humbled by the spirit of Jesus who simply prays "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

I have a new neighbor that is taking some getting used to. In all my years I have not had a boombox neighbor before. The resonance of his stereo is felt and heard and slamming doors, and scraps of dropped trash finding their way unto my lawn only add to my dissatisfaction with him. I feel helpless, not wanting to be an old grouch, yet unable to deny I am feeling intensely grouchy. I’ve spent much time contemplating this situation and wondering what I could do about it.

As I pondered the tragedy of this senseless killing in Tucson, it suddenly struck me that I am preparing myself for just such an insane act myself, right here on Phillips Ct. My anger and my urge to retaliate springs from the same fountain of perversity that fed the act of that gunman who killed so wantonly in Arizona. He is not alone. We’ve seen this at Ft. Hood, and in Maryland, in an Amish schoolhouse and in sky scrappers in New York City. Never mind the motive, a woman killed in Paonia or a fallen president in Dallas, all are victims of that same propensity for hatred and violence. And my pouting at a trashy neighbor next door is first cousin to these criminals.

I have no answer to this demon that resides in me, but I do have an unshakable belief. I believe that God weeps with us. This was not, and could never be, the will of God. I also believe that God is not and will never be defeated by this hatred. God may be the composer of a grand symphony that gets interrupted by these squeals of a misplayed clarinet, but even these wails can be the inspiration of a new loveliness so desperately needed by the human soul.

Anne Frank, in her diary, reflecting on the evil and madness of the holocaust that was going on around her, maintained her faith in the human race. She wrote, "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart". And Jesus on his cross could affirm that God was good and his creation redeemable. Perhaps I am redeemable too.

I pray God that those deaths in Arizona will not be wasted. If no other good comes from them, at least I shall look at my neighbor differently than I did before.

* * * * *

“A Father’s Story”

2010-12-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

(based on Matthew 2:18-25)

When the time was accomplished that my wife should be delivered of our first-born child, we made our way to the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. It was one o’clock in the morning, and there was little traffic on the streets. When we entered the doors of the Emergency Department, there was no delay. One look and the nurse commandeered a wheelchair and speeded us on our way to the elevator that would take us to the labor and delivery room. We had pre-registered and in no time we were at the swinging doors of the Delivery room. “Give your husband your wedding ring and kiss him goodbye” were the instructions given to her. I think it was the first time either of us had considered what it was going to feel like having to say this abrupt “goodbye” and face this moment alone.

I thought of that moment as I reread this passage in Matthew. Though procedures have changed a great deal since that moment in Houston in 1965, and fathers can take a much more active role in the birthing event than we were allowed in those days, yet there’s still a poignant element to this scene where Joseph must stand by, empty handed and subject to fears named and unnamed. It’s all very well to honor Joseph for his role in the Christmas story, but the truth remains that his position in that stable is clearly a supporting role.
He had a right to fear and wonder. Though marriage customs were different in his day, and pregnant brides probably no more uncommon then than they are now, yet he had a right to know this pregnancy was different. He certainly knew he was not the father, and if he was not, then who was? And if word should ever get out about this, Mosaic law was clear on the matter. An adulterous woman was to be shunned, if not stoned outright. Of course he was afraid. No one would blame him for putting her away, perhaps in the care of some distant relation in a village far away.

Then comes the dream.

I suppose we might consider him remarkable for giving credence to it. Could it not have been wishful thinking? No doubt we all would like to have an angel give us advice, especially in a difficult and embarrassing situation like his. But on a deeper level, heart-wrenching circumstances cry out for divine guidance. How comforting and reassuring to have a dream give us the answer we can’t find on our own.

In Joseph’s case, I rather doubt he’d understand our talk of dream analysis, or how wishful thinking and rationalizations can produce vivid and convincing images. In his day dreams were respected, trusted. They were to be divine communications that not only were significant for the dreamer, they could have significance for the whole community. Pharaoh’s dreams, in the time of Joseph, is a case in point. His dreams about seven fat calves and seven lean ones bore a message that the whole country of Egypt needed to hear.

So we would expect Joseph to take his dream seriously. But he also had to deal with a message that would mean shame and hardship and grief before it was over. He must take on responsibility for a child, not his own, that was to be a threat to Herod and who could say what beyond that? My fears about becoming a father in Houston in 1965 pale by comparison.

The lesson I learn from this moment is how Joseph dared to trust the dream, dared to believe that God was an active God, alive and well and initiating something new that would make a permanent difference to the world. That is a remarkable faith.

There are many sadnesses in our world, many tragedies that overwhelm us. But one sadness I think we don’t notice, and should, is the numb inertia of human hearts that have stopped looking for wonders, that no longer dream dreams or expect visions. We are so completely submerged in our man-made miracles of technology we are immune to wonder. If God were to initiate a miracle in our midst, chances are likely we’d never notice it, or dismiss it as some new kind of marvel created by science.

We need the simplicity of Joseph who still believes in the miraculous, but not the kind of miracles we can analyze and dissect and turn to some profit of our own. His miracle was the kind that unsettled, displaced, drove him to the edge of all he’d ever believed and known and forced him to continue on into the unknown.

In my life, the real living has begun when I was in foreign lands where I seldom could speak the language or find my bearings. My real growth began with the admission “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” My advance occurred when I dared go to Egypt - dared? Was forced more likely. That’s why I sometimes chuckle when I hear someone say, “I’m not comfortable with this” or “I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that.” Good words, and appropriate words, but sometimes I think those are the very moments we should be uncomfortable. Birth isn’t comfortable. For the mother or the child. We are foolish to think we could ever grow without it.

Joseph took his family to Egypt on the instruction of a vision. We probably will not have any such vision, but we will take risks. How silly of me to think, at my wedding, that merely saying “I do” with this person whom I thought I knew and loved so well, was just a formality. It meant a whole new world, one I still explore, even all these years after she’s gone. And who could have predicted the life that was about to open to me when I first made the discovery of the magic of alcohol? That first drink would mean a journey that wold take me virtually around the world. And how could I ever have imagined that an innocent remark from my pastor when I was still a teenager, suggesting I might have a calling for the Ministry, would find me here in Delta long after I had retired still trying to make sense out of that call?

Joseph trusted the angel and the dream. He faced his fear and took action. He dared to be open to a God who asked so much and to act upon that trust. Amazing. We thought the miracle of God happened in Bethlehem centuries ago - who could ever have believed that stable was right here, in our hearts, today? Amen.

Are You the One

2010-12-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Are You the One? (based on Matthew 11:2-11

I stumbled across a quote from the great (and admittedly controversial) stage and film director Elia Kazan who, in his autobiography, summed up his philosophy of life with a few simple words: “Wonder is our need today, not information.” I am forced to admit this is not a popular philosophy. We are products of a different culture and a different way to thinking. We demand understanding. We want clear explanations for everything. We measure our progress by our scientific knowledge and technological no-how. What works? We ask. And what will be in it for us? Pragmatists, materialists, even in our religious beliefs, we are not as concerned about how we might best live our lives today as we are in how much we can assure ourselves of salvation and eternal life in the hereafter. To counter that, I would suggest we re-examine this interchange between John and Jesus.

John, please remember, was sent as the prophet who would foretell the arrival of the messiah and the new kingdom of heaven for which the Jews had longed for centuries. He had a following of his own. He had met Jesus at the river Jordan and baptized him, a sign of passing on his prophetic mantle to the new prophet of God. Surely he must have known who Jesus was and trusted him more than anyone else who ever met him. But John is in prison. His followers are being torn between faithfulness to John and curiosity about Jesus. John succumbs to doubt, uncertainty, wonder. He needs reassurance and asks for it.

In this sense, John is our stand-in. We too know prisons. Perhaps not with bars and guards, but we know the cold, damp confinement of fear, uncertainty. Perhaps we are struggling with financial problems. Perhaps we are in a relationship that is eroding our self-worth. Perhaps we are battling some addictive behavior. Perhaps we are in the grip of a relentless disease that seems to have no cure. All these, and God knows how many more forms of prison can trap us and leave us feeling helpless and lost.

Do we wonder? Do we question? Do we face a black and empty sky, and ache for some security, some place to stand that will not let us down? Of course we do. We would scarcely be human if we did not. I’ve quoted him before, but he keeps coming back to mind: the poor young Jew who, in a time of devastation, having just been told he and his neighbors must leave their home village in three days, cries out to the rabbi, “We’ve been looking for the messiah all our lives. Wouldn’t now be a good time for him to come?” We may not be Jews, but we do look for a savior nonetheless. John thought he had found him. But had he? He did not know. And he had met Jesus, some accounts claim they were even related. Would not he - of all people - be certain?

My first word to you today: do not be dismayed that you have your moments of uncertainty. You are not failing your Christianity because you can’t see the clear road ahead. You are no less Christ’s friend because you find yourself in you own private prison. Send for help. Ask. See if God cannot give you help at a time you need it most.

But now notice the answer Jesus gives. Rather than reply, “Of course I am” as we might desperately want him to do, he says “Tell John what you see happening.” This is scarcely the kind of answer we were looking for - or John either, I imagine. Explanation, education, clarification, instruction - this is what we expect, what we want. Instead, Jesus says nothing about himself. He doesn’t even say explicitly “I am giving sight to the blind, I am curing leprosy, I am raising the dead.” He simply points to these miracles and - by implication - points us to a renewed trust in God who is doing these things. The Kingdom of God is that gathering of trusting folk who embody the presence of a very much alive and active and involved and caring and loving God, right here and right now.

This is a message too little heard or remembered. We are quick to look for someone to rescue us. I will be the first to confess this. Give me something to deal with, a strange ache or pain in my body, a new grief at the loss of a friend, a fear that overwhelms me as I face some new dilemma I can’t seem to unravel, and instinctively I begin wondering “Who can I call?” “Who can I turn to?” Where’s my messiah, now, when I so obviously need him?

We think that is Jesus’s job. He is the ultimate rescuer. I remember hearing a young girl remark, “When trouble knocks on my door, I tell Jesus to answer it.” I liked that idea. I even tried it. It didn’t work. I could just imagine Jesus saying “Answer it yourself, it’s your door.”

Today I think that may be pretty much what Jesus did say to John. What you need, John, is not my telling you who or what I am. What you need is to wonder, to puzzle over, and discern the signs of what God is doing in this situation - not what I am doing.

My second word for you is to depend on wonder, not on answers. Wonder prompts us to look for signs we have overlooked or forgotten, or failed to see the significance of. It may be a small point, but the very fact we ask is a sign of trust. We look for answers because we expect answers to be there, somewhere. What we don’t realize is that many times the signs point us in directions we either did not expect, or could not see the importance of.

We have often been told God never closes a door without opening a window. What I would like to suggest is that it isn’t always God who closes those doors. And the windows that open aren’t always the best choices either. Wondering about them both frees us to explore, to choose, to backtrack and examine again until we do find the key that opens our prison. But in order to do that, trust must come first. And Jesus remembers this by pointing toward the miracles that are taking place all around us.

You see, God is, and God is here. God is alive and he lives here in us. Even in our prisons, God is present. Theologians speak of this living, abiding God as both Emmanuel (meaning God with us) and the Holy Spirit. This living, present God gives the lie to the idea that we are somehow abandoned, on our own, left out, forgotten, lost.

I remember Helen. She once remarked - and quite possibly she was quoting someone else: so much of the wisdom that finds its way into our lives is borrowed from somewhere else - “I love you, not for what your are, but for what I become when I am with you.” I think Jesus would have smiled at that remark. He did not need to be the center of attraction. (May I tell you a secret? I am really uncomfortable with prayers that keep repeating Jesus’ name. I’m especially disturbed by all this emphasis on how “Precious” Jesus’ name is. I think he would be equally uncomfortable.) Instead, Jesus lived his life as a walking billboard of the presence of God, and he dedicated himself totally to making God more real. What he saw was transformed lives - not because of him, but because of the transforming love of God.

And that leads me to one final word: if Helen spoke truly, and she loved her friend - not for what her friend was, but for what she became when she was with her friend - is it not quite possible that you may well be “The One” through whom God is at work for someone you may not even know? “Look, the blind see, the lame walk, the leper is cleansed, the deaf hear, and even the dead are raised to life.”

Such miracles are the work of God - who’s to say they may not be works God is achieving through the use of you? Wonder, my friends, please wonder! Amen.

Wait and See

2010-11-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Based on Matthew 24:36-44
Can one truly be human and not be impatient?

We human beings have the gift of imagination which means we also have the ability to live in the future. Some of my happiest times have been those when I imagine what a party is going to be like, or what I’ll see when I open a package, or what I’ll feel when I hold my grandchild in my arms. The bliss of imagining future joys has always been one of my favorite pastimes.

Of course, it also has a dark cousin: anxiety and fear are products of the imagination that can cripple the strongest person. The one who dwells in the halls of perpetual dread knows the tortures of hell. For them, there is scarcely a sillier word of advice than the assurance, “Don’t worry.” “Don’t worry? “Who wants to worry, for heaven’s sake. But I can’t help it. I was born worrying.”

Daydreamers and doomsayers both reside in a future that rarely ever turns out the way they thought it would. But they share something in common: the dread of waiting.

Down through history, Christians have had to make peace with what appears to be an endless waiting. Many speculations have been spread abroad about the “end time”, or the return of Jesus. Although the scripture clearly states “No one knows when it will come,” such advice rarely puts an end to the speculations. So many dates have been set, and then broken, that fewer and fewer people put much stock in these announcements. Still, we are as curious as we ever were wondering, “Could this be it?” The fact that the world has not come to an end would seem proof that we could better spend our time reading “War and Peace” or painting a new “Mona Lisa”.

I have noticed two main schools of thinking about this puzzling question - “How long, O Lord, how long?” One school is eager for the world to come to an end so they can live in heaven, a paradise where death and disease and tears will be no more. The other school sees the second coming of Christ as a continuing occurrence. This latter view is a little harder to describe, but in essence, it has to do with striving to bring the Kingdom of God into being here on earth where we live and work now.

How would this work? Well, the first group basically sees human life as a temporary phenomenon. We put up with this world until we can be released and live in the “real” world of God’s house. Although we don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, we simply can’t get too excited about issues in this world. Global warming, AIDS, over-population, economic hardships, war, poverty, drugs - those are the givens in this far from perfect world. Thus it has always been since the sin of Adam and Eve, and such it will always be. Have as little to do with it as possible. None of it really counts anyway. Given that perspective, Christ’s second coming will be the release from this far from perfect world. Be attached to nothing here since glory is only in the yet to come.

The second group sees God coming to us continuously. This world is God’s obsession. His love for his creation is limitless and he is eager for us to love it too. The poet and the artist are but extensions of the creator God. Their talents are on loan that God may bring into being that which has not been seen before. When we despise this world, we despise the handiwork of God. This includes God’s mightiest creation by the way - self-hatred spits upon the goodness of the God who gave us form and life in the first place.

When we listen to the scriptures speak of no one knowing the day or the hour when Christ will come, we may either hear this as an announcement of the possibility of a cataclysmic end of the world, a dreadful conflagration that snuffs out all of the world and its inhabitants with a few hopeful ones enjoying eternity in paradise because they’ve lived pious lives. Or, we may think of it as those serendipitous moments when Christ confronts us unexpectedly in our daily lives, bringing about a transformation of how we view ourselves or the world in which we live. This second view, paradoxically enough, is the true hopeful one, for it sees more chances for all. It sees hope for improvement. It sees doorways that invite us to new realms of possibility. It rejoices in the dawning of new ways of seeing that which we hadn’t seen, or thought of before.

The first view remembers the parable of the bridegroom barring the door of his banquet to those who arrived too late and tremble at the horror of being left out of heavenly bliss with God. The second takes seriously the caution to stay awake, stay attentive, be ready to have your eyes opened, your souls fed, even when you thought you were too late. Perhaps the doors are closed at this banquet, but who’s to say what other banquet awaits you still unannounced or undreamed of?

I remember many a feast that I missed, and was glad of it later. I remember many doors that were useless to me until I was ready to appreciate what I could find on the other side. Remember the broken heart you thought would never mend, which left you still available for a new relationship that would prove far more suitable and enduring? Remember the job you thought an ideal opportunity which can’t compare with the one you were yet to discover?

Luke speaks of Jesus meeting discouraged disciples on the Road to Emmaus. They do not recognize him. Only later are their eyes opened. How joyous they were! How their hearts burned within them. But when they do recognize him, instead of having a permanent relationship now in place, to their amazement, he disappears. They find glimpsing Jesus is a short-term affair. He will not stay confined in one particular moment or one specific place.

This realization could lead us to despair. Yet think again. It is the Jesus who goes ahead of us that beckons to us to come see what else may yet be. This Jesus, rather than seated sedately on his throne in heaven, strives in the trenches of our war fronts, labors beside our scientists in their laboratories, guides the sensitive fingers of our surgeons, grants glimpses of new color and form for our artists and fine-tunes the ears of our singers and musicians who live and move and have their being in the enveloping presence of the Holy Spirit of God.

I worship a God who has come to us, not once, but many times. And I worship a God who still comes. Our Christmas Carols celebrate one of those comings. We have yet to hear the rest of the angels’ songs. Amen.

In Whose Image

2010-11-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

We have been pummeled in recent days with campaign rhetoric, media spin, half-truths and other examples of tortured logic, all in the good cause of seeking the victory of one candidate and the defeat of another. What wins that have occurred seem to have come too often at the defeat of solid reasoning and glimpses of truth. But all’s fair in love and war, and politics seems to fit into both categories. Lest we think this is proof of the deterioration of Western culture, we might notice the Pharisees were employing the same tricks in the time of Jesus. It’s a proven strategy: if you wish to embarrass your opponent, ask him a question that cannot be answered without displeasing somebody. This juxtaposition of taxes to Caesar and reverence for God seemed ideal for their purpose. If Jesus sides with the orthodox Jew, as he is expected to do, he will be in trouble with the Roman governors. On the other hand, if he sides with the Roman authorities, which is the expedient and politic thing to do, the Jews will be offended. Either way, Jesus will be discredited.

His reply, coupled with a bit of showmanship, seems like a simple trick of slipping through the thicket of opposing opinion. It is not really an answer. Today’s politician uses that tactic all the time. Don’t like the question asked you? Answer one you do like. “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and unto God what belongs to God.” Very well: Jesus has demonstrated he is an obedient citizen as well as a legitimate son of Abraham. Put down your spears and your stones, folks: this man out-foxed you.

Unfortunately, for too many of us, this easy answer isn’t as easy as it looks. On first reading, it merely proposes we live in a society of divided loyalties and it is appropriate that we support both. Yes, we can have our cake and eat it too, if you will. However, if you push that logic very far, you find yourself in a divided world where God gets his divine due and Caesar gets his. So who gets the 54 inch flat screen TV and who gets the BMW? Well, that’s not too hard to answer. What would God do with either of them? Caesar can have the sales tax, we’ll keep the BMW.

But there’s a deeper issue here, and both Jesus and the Pharisees knew it. The question isn’t just about taxes, it’s about loyalty. Who comes first: Caesar of God? I enjoyed the days when Ken Jennings racked up a $2,500.000 prize winnings at Jeopardy. I really hated to see his winning streak come to an end. And part of the fun was to hear him freely acknowledge that 10% of his winnings were already ear-marked for his church. He didn’t question it; he didn’t seem to be trying to find loopholes that would allow him to keep a little more of his gains. His church was, no doubt, watching each day’s performance and tallying its share by the time the last commercial came on the air. Some might point out that, at two and a half million, he could well afford to give his ten percent to his church. It may have been a handy write off. That’s beside the point. I enjoyed the smile and the sparkle in his eye that suggested he had no problem paying God his dues.

There are others, however, who find such decisions foolish. Come on! That’s a lot of money. Let’s be practical here. God’s kingdom is not of this world. God does not need our shekels. Have we not already been told “The love of money is the root of all evil?” The church should have no accumulated wealth. It’s not good for it. God wants cheerful hearts, not soiled money bags. Others counter, “That may well be, but there are light bills to pay, repairs on the roof, salaries for the employees, and that takes money. Trying to decide what belongs to this world and what to the next isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Besides, dividing the world into two realities tends to marginalize God and make the religious life totally separate from this world. We are strangers on this earth. We belong to the eternal city of God. We don’t have to worry about this world and its needs. I still remember calling on the pastor of another church in the town where I lived to ask him about a possible donation to the community United Fund. His look of shock was a revelation. He quickly corrected me by telling me he and his church did not participate in such endeavors. In other words, their loyalty was to another world and not this.

I have trouble with this “two world” notion. In the very first chapter of Genesis, we are told God created this world and pronounced it good. Whatever else we may think of the manner in which this creation took place, I think we are on respectably solid ground when we affirm God made us and blessed what he made. I see nothing here suggesting we are now to despise and neglect it, use it up, and throw away the heritage of future generations because “This world doesn’t really count. We should only be concerned about escaping this earthly realm and do our best to deserve a blessed eternity in the life that is to come.” If that were really true, why on earth did God create this world in the first place?

No, this two-world concept is too divisive, it puts God too far out of our world, especially as we learn more and more about the vast reaches of the universe. I want to look again at this vignette of Jesus. We see him take a coin and ponder it for a moment and then ask “whose image is this?” The answer is clear: “Caesar”. The image of Caesar is etched on a coin. Have you stopped to think where God’s image is etched? Ah, intriguing question. The answer was read in our scripture this morning. The first chapter of Genesis, the creation story, says plainly “Let us make human beings in our own image.” The image of God resides in you and me.

Granted, theologians will quickly point out that we have fallen from that original image. We have not kept the image polished. The only one who clearly reflects the Image of God is Jesus Christ. And that point is well taken. However, the faith of the Christian adds, “Christ restored that image in us.” However we look at Jesus’ life and death, this much is clear, we have been cleansed, we have been redeemed, and we have been given the status of children of God. This may be adoption, we may not have deserved such a name originally (although I have long believed there was more of that original image in us than we’re usually given credit for), there’s no question the prodigal child has been welcomed home, the broken relationship has been mended, we now live free men and women, beloved by God and now channels of God’s love that reaches out to all the world.

The Image of God is stamped on us. We don’t “look” like God: heavens, who dares claim what God really looks like? We wear the image of God in our capacity to be like God – that is, we can reason, we can enter into relationships with one another, we can empathize, we show compassion, in a word, we LOVE. That is the important sign of the Image of God. The First Epistle of John declares this truth most clearly. “God is love, and when we love we show God”. It’s that simple and that clear.

Now hear Jesus’ answer: “Whose image is this?” Ah, render Caesar the respect and support to which he is entitled, but render to God what belongs to God. And that something is far bigger, far more important, far more powerful than mere coins. We render to God what belongs to God when we give yourselves to God.

When you approach the Joash chest this morning, you will be performing a symbolic act. You will be giving as the widow gave. Your promise to support God’s ministry through the ministry of this church is sealed with this visible token of your giving. But I hope it will be a moment for you to consider the greater gift: your life, your being, the essence of all your hopes and dreams, of your creativity, your unique view of the world, your imagination, your passion, all that makes you completely and entirely you.

Because, finally, ultimately, completely we do belong to God. Amen

A Fruitful Faith

2010-11-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

based on Mark 11:12-14, 20-22

This is a puzzling story. It only occurs in Mark and Matthew. Luke and John don’t mention it at all. Mark slips it in with only three verses and then adds two more verses later. He makes no comment other than to record the disciples heard Jesus say this. Matthew, when he recounts the story, embellishes it slightly, telling us that the fig tree immediately withered and presumably died. (In Mark, the tree is found dead the next day) It seems to suit Matthew’s purpose. He likes to see God work wonders. Again, no moral is drawn from this; we must find whatever sense we can out of it ourselves.

Either way, the story remains troubling. What can we make of a Jesus who curses a tree and makes it promptly die? This is not the gentle Jesus, meek and mild we are accustomed to. This is more like the mischievous boy who appears in what we call the apocryphal gospels which is pretty much discredited by later Biblical scholars. These stories, thought to have been written centuries after Jesus, presumably by some pious monks somewhere, show Jesus getting angry with other children for not letting him play with them and telling one of them, “You won’t make it home alive.” The boy promptly drops dead. Hardly good PR for the Messiah who came to show us the mercy and love of God, is it?

Still, the cursing of the fig tree remains for us to ponder, and perhaps it will yield up a useful lesson. We might notice, for instance, that the gospels tell us Jesus was hungry. This tidbit is useful for it makes clear that Jesus was flesh and blood. He was not a heavenly being just parading around as a human being. We could forget this in our worship of the Son of God. For many, Jesus is held so high he is unapproachable. We forget he depended on his disciples. He spoke of loving one another, which implies we all have a need to be in relationship with one another. Including Jesus! After all, why would God send his son to us if he didn’t love us and ask for us to love him in return? Yes, a hungry Jesus is a metaphor of a God who wants as well as a God who gives. And by implication, a God who wants something from us must believe that we have that something, or he wouldn’t be asking us for it, now would he.

So we stand before a fig tree. Jesus is hungry. He wants fruit. The tree is not providing it. And the curse is uttered.

Is this kind of Jesus? Mark tells us the tree was not at fault. It was not the time for it be bearing fruit. Surely Jesus knew that. Then cursing an innocent tree is unkind. Are we to expect Jesus to do the same thing with us? We have our seasons too, don’t we? We have our times when we can be cheerful, generous, loving, compassionate, understanding - all the things we think of as our “better nature”. But we have other times as well. Other seasons when our faith is shaky, when our brains aren’t functioning too well, when we are frightened, or angry, or stubborn or just plain thoughtless and unable to make sense out of our lives or the world around us. Who among us escapes these very human frailties? Are we to be cursed for our very human weaknesses? We’ve heard of Jesus throwing a temper tantrum in the Temple because of the godless attitude of the money changers. We know he can be angry. And there is another intriguing episode in the gospel of John, when Jesus “flies off the handle” at the lack of faith he sees in Mary and Martha outside the tomb of their brother Lazarus. (For that’s a pretty close approximation of what the original Greek means. Our English translations tone it down quite a bit!)

What I’m beginning to see is a Jesus who has high hopes for us, has great expectations, and he is frustrated when we consistently fail to live up to those hopes. In other words, the lesson of the fig tree is not so much how Jesus has to go hungry and is mad about it. No, he’s used to that kind of spiritual hunger. He will soon hang on a cross and implore God not to be angry with we human beings who have committed this terrible deed. Why? “They don’t know what they’re doing!” Even in his dying Jesus can see and understand this. He is not a vengeful vindictive Jesus - even though the Jews had long seen God as just that. From the time of Moses their view of God was one of a supreme being poised ready to hurl destruction down on his enemies. With Jesus, that vision is erased forever.

But Jesus is clearly angry in this story. There’s no getting around it. All the disciples know it. So what is touching off this anger? Could it be frustration at a fruitless people who could do so much more if they dared to believe more? Could it be an impatient Jesus who has waited so long and is weary of how slowly we progress? Could it be that Jesus is tiring from the effort to inspire faith and hope and love in us who have no clue about the potential inside us? Thomas Merton captures this truth so vividly in his journals when he writes:

Thank God! Thank God! I am only another member of the human race, like all the rest of them. I have the immense joy of being a man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Think of it! Being the Son of God and seeing this kind of potential, this kind of glory, this kind of hope for the future in every person you meet. And then think of the repeated disappointment heaped upon your heart as you watch we human beings as the poet once put it:

The world is too much with us, late and soon.

Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.

Our scramble to make another dollar, climb another rung of success, find more ways to secure our future - oblivious to the glory that already resides in us. I can hear God crying out, “Oh my children, if only you could see. If only you could realize the harvest that lies sleeping in your souls!”

Then I understand the fig tree. It could have been so much more. That, I believe, helps me make sense out of this puzzling story. Jesus expects so much more of us because he - unlike we - can see the possibilities, can trust what we don’t trust, needs what we so reluctantly and so unthinkingly refuse to give.

This is stewardship season. We could make this about giving money. Personally, I hate money. It has a nasty way of shifting my attention away from what is really important in life – the business of recognizing and utilizing the resources that already reside inside us. But as we are often reminded in this “giving” season, true stewardship is about bearing fruit. It is about letting the riches of our intelligence, our time, our talents, our sensitivity, our skills as giving back to the world beauty and strength and hope and wholeness. We are harvesting an inexhaustible supply of goodness within, and seeking ways to bless the world with those fruits.

I have a crab apple tree in my front yard. It bears a fruit I’ve never tasted. When I planted that tree I was assured it was a non-fruit bearing tree. Why it defied its name and bears that fruit anyway, I have no idea. But I think of that tree - faithful to its nature, giving what I did not ask for, continuing to be fruitful even when I blindly ignore its gifts. It is a far better steward than I. I think Jesus would have loved my tree.

What about yours? Amen.

ATTENTION: Jesus Calling

2010-11-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

based on Luke 19:1-10

I want you to use your imagination. Word has come that God is going to be coming to town. You can’t really believe it. There is no precedent for such an event. Angels maybe, but very unlikely. Even prophets are in short supply, and too often unreliable. What would you do?

As skeptical as you might be, let’s say you are still curious. Maybe not expecting to see anything that special, but at least to take a look at the stranger. More likely, your eyes focus on the crowds that clog the village street. That gives you some idea what to expect. If it’s the unwashed rabble, you can ignore the whole thing as unworthy of your attention. If the local rabbi is there, maybe you need to pay it more heed. Considering your wealth and your position in the community, you might be interested to see if any of your social circle shows up. Whatever you do, you may well prefer keeping a low profile until you have tested the waters to be sure you aren’t making a fool of yourself by being there. You may even be wondering why you’d show up in the first place. This is not your usual kind of event. Being a tax collector, you aren’t exactly welcome amongst your neighbors. Normally, that doesn’t bother you. You have a business to conduct, just like any other businessman. You’d be pretty bad at it if you let your feelings get involved. Widows with no resources, men down on their luck, fathers who have sick children or sons off in that secret militia of theirs - there’s always some excuse why they can’t pay their taxes. If you listened to them all ... well, you can’t collect taxes like that. And Rome is not going to excuse you from meeting your quota. If Pilate throws commoners into jail without blinking an eye, why would he hesitate throwing his tax-collector into the jail too? Everyone knows the tax-collector is the wealthiest man in the town. You pay up, and you pay up first.

So you go. You keep your eyes peeled. You try to figure the odds, even while you are asking yourself “Why should I care?” Well, why shouldn’t I care? I’m a human being, aren’t I? I’m as curious as the next guy. Only there are a lot of people who aren’t curious and could care less. They are standing out here in this dusty street craning their necks to look at a stranger, that’s all. This is Jericho. Strangers come through here all the time. Granted, they don’t usually claim to be the Messiah. On the other hand, neither has this man. It’s those disciples of his that make him look suspiciously like a holy man. It’s true, he’s done some strange things that look like miracles. Still, most of Jericho would usually ignore such a man.

In this case, there’s a big enough crowd here that you can’t see around them very well. Ah, the curse of being small. It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? That promised growth your parents said would come some day, long after you and they knew it wasn’t going to happen? It didn’t come. You knew it wouldn’t. You are old enough now not to pay attention to the teasing. You’ve heard it all before. And you’ve gotten your own back for it. Ah yes, you’ve made them pay, and pay handsomely. You’ve learned to make an asset out of your lack of height Only being in a crowd like this, it can still be a nuisance. A nearby tree looks handy. And it will cover you from public scrutiny. It might be inconvenient if people saw you staring like a wide-eyed child at a traveling magician in hopes of seeing some marvel or other. Best be inconspicuous After all, you owe it to your reputation to be above that sort of thing. You can’t be too careful.

You would never admit you had any other reason for being here, some hidden thought, some childish wish that at last you had seen - with your own eyes - a true visitor from God. You had looked for that God once, and the search was fruitless and painful. How can one go on believing in God when God so clearly doesn’t want to be seen by you? You and God aren’t friends. Can’t be. But still you wish you could be. Isn’t that ridiculous? Puzzle that one out if you can. You’ll never understand it. You do all the religious observances. You know the law of Moses in and out. You pretend to scoff at them, to act as if you’re too sophisticated and grown up to believe in those childish ideas. Yet, inside you there’s still that hurting soul that wishes it could believe. How comforting it would be.

Of course, it would be a problem too. Given the life you lead, the people you’ve cheated, the contempt you’ve had for your pious neighbors - no, you’re better off in a world where gods are just superstitious fancies. Leave your offerings at their temples if you like, but make them small so you won’t miss them. No one need ever know of that one offering you would gladly make if you could be sure that the God they all speak about was truly real.

So the crowds are thicker now, the furor more intense, and you’ve found a perch on a limb of a tree where the leaves are thick enough to keep you out of sight but also thin enough you can see what’s going on down below. When Jesus arrives, no one is more surprised than you when he stops, speaks to you directly and insists you come down out of the tree and hurry home to prepare a meal for him. This is the one thing you could never have imagined happening, and it is very embarrassing. Now everyone knows you were not only in this crowd, Jesus has chosen you to be his host for his stay in Jericho. Normally hosting dignitaries was a political function reserved for the Roman authorities. While you are wealthy and can afford the duties of a host, still you do not have the social standing such a person is entitled to. This is especially unsettling for your Jewish acquaintances because your general attitude toward things religious is well-known. No good Jew would do the things you have done and continue to do. Eating with a woman of the town would be easier to imagine than eating with you.

Then why on earth didn’t you laugh, sneer, mock this ridiculous idea? “You’ve got to mean somebody else, not me. Let your pious Jewish friends prepare your meal for you, the way Moses would insist it be prepared.” How did this total stranger convince you and make you climb down out of your tree? You didn’t have to. It’s true, you dislike scenes. It makes you uncomfortable having people scrutinizing you. Knowing all the acts you’ve committed that could blacken your name even more should they ever become public knowledge, you are always nervous when people start looking at you. So be inconspicuous, stay anonymous, shun the public eye. Perhaps it was just easier to go along with this unexpected command from Jesus than cause an even more embarrassing scene. At least it gave you an excuse to scurry home and hide your face.

You still could have turned Jesus away when he got to your door. “You were mistaken Jesus. I’m not your host. You would never be comfortable here.” Even as you survey the sumptuous surroundings of your home, the fine carpets, the silver and gold dishes, the silk hangings, you could still see they do not measure up to what the Roman palace could offer. Your staff of house slaves is far too small to accommodate Jesus and his entourage. No one could fault you for turning down this request. It was so unexpected, and so untimely. Such a feast would normally take months to prepare. The house is a mess.

Yet you work miracles with your slaves. When Jesus arrives at your door, the floors are swept, the carpets turned, the furniture ready. The cooks are well on the way to producing a fine feast, and even the best wines from your stock have been decanted and are ready to be poured. You scarcely know yourself. The last thing in the world you ever wanted to do - host a banquet for a visiting rabbi, a carpenter’s son from Galilee, along with his fishermen associates who have no manners at all - why are you so excited? What is there about this man that has made you forget Rome and taxes and jealous neighbors and stinging taunts and a whole life of never, never, never being able to measure up. You are so carried away by this impossible occurrence you find yourself volunteering to give away half your wealth to the poor and repaying four-fold any of the monies you have cheated out of your neighbors. This is not you.

And yet, this is you. To the marrow of your bones, to the core of your being, to the soul of your soul, this is the you you always knew was in you though you’d never once seen it, heard its cry, or felt its stirring. Something inside you always knew it existed. You almost danced with its leap of joy, shouted with its elation, stripped the walls of its finery and decked your guests with silks. All that stopped you was the certainty no one would understand. They would have been embarrassed, looked at each other with questioning eyes, made note of this man gone berserk and reported you to the authorities for at least deserving a reprimand if not severe punishment and demotion.

But even that would not have mattered to you - not really. For something in the tone of his voice and the look in Jesus’ eye gave you assurance beyond any certainty that what you were feeling he understood and recognized. Though born a Jew, a true son of Abraham, you had never ever belonged to this family of God. Here, now, before a disbelieving and amazed crowd, one man recognized you for who you truly were and called you his brother. You would live on that the rest of your life.

No wonder St Luke felt compelled to record this story, as bewildering and unlikely as it seems, for it fit so well his wider gospel - a story of a God who comes into our midst, calling our name and relying on us to make a space for him in our lives. It should come as no surprise that the tax- collector who once knew only one God, the God of money, should so eagerly seek out ways to give it away. For on this hot, dusty day in Jericho, Zaccheus, a lost and hurting soul was found at last. Amen

Why the Chimes Rang

2010-11-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

There was once in a far-away country where few people have ever traveled, a wonderful church. It stood on a high hill in the midst of a great city; and every Sunday, as well as on sacred days like Christmas, thousands of people climbed the hill to its great archways, looking like lines of ants all moving in the same direction.

When you came to the building itself, you found stone columns and dark passages, and a grand entrance leading to the main room of the church. This room was so long that one standing at the doorway could scarcely see to the other end, where the choir stood by the marble altar. In the farthest corner was the organ; and this organ was so loud that sometimes when it played, the people for miles around would close their shutters and prepare for a great thunderstorm. Altogether, no such church as this was ever seen before, especially when it was lighted up for some festival, and crowded with people, young and old.

But the strangest thing about the whole building was the wonderful chime of bells. At one corner of the church was a great gray tower, with ivy growing over it as far up as once could see. I say as far as one could see, because the tower was quite great enough to fit the great church, and it rose so far into the sky that it was only in very fair weather that any one claimed to be able to see the top. Even then one could not be certain that it was in sight. Up, and up and up climbed the stones and the ivy; and, as the men who built the church had been dead for hundreds of years, every one had forgotten how high the tower was supposed to be.

Now all the people knew that at the top of the tower was a chime of Christmas bells. They had hung there ever since the church had been build, and were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some thought it was because a great musician had cast them and arranged them in their place; others said it was because of the great height, which reached up where the air was clearest and purest: however that might be, no one who had ever heard the chimes denied that they were the sweetest in the world. Some described them as sounding like angels far up in the sky; others, as sounding like strange winds singing through the trees.

But the fact was that no one had heard them for years and years. There was an old man living not far from the church, who said that his mother had spoken of hearing them when she was a little girl, and he was the only one who was sure of as much as that. They were Christmas chimes, you see, and were not meant to be played by men or on common days. It was the custom on Christmas Eve for all the people to bring to the church their offerings to the Christ-child; and when the greatest and best offering was laid on the altar, there used to come sounding through the music of the choir the Christmas chimes far up in the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and others that they were so high that the angels could set them swinging. But for many long years they had never been heard.

It was said that people had been growing less careful of their gifts for the Christ-child, and that no offering was brought, great enough to deserve the music of the chimes. Every Christmas Eve the rich people still crowded to the altar, each one trying to bring some better gift than any other, without giving anything that he wanted for himself, and the church was crowded with those who thought that perhaps the wonderful bells might be heard again. But although the service was splendid, and the offerings plenty, only the roar of the wind could be heard, far up in the stone tower.

Now, a number of miles from the city, in a little country village, where nothing could be seen of the great church but glimpses of the tower when the weather was fine, lived a boy named Pedro, and his little brother. They knew very little about the Christmas chimes, but they had heard of the service in the church on Christmas Eve, and had a secret plan, which they had often talked over when by themselves, to go to see the beautiful celebration.

“Nobody can guess, Little Brother,” Pedro would say, “all the fine things there are to see and hear; and I have even heard it said that the Christ-child sometimes comes down to bless the service. What if we could see Him?”

The day before Christmas was bitterly cold, with a few lonely snowflakes flying in the air, and a hard white crust on the ground. Sure enough, Pedro and Little Brother were able to slip quietly away early in the afternoon; and although the walking was hard in the frosty air, before nightfall they had trudged so far, hand in hand, that they saw the light of the big city just ahead of them. Indeed, they were about to enter one of the great gates in the wall that surrounded it, when they saw something dark on the snow near their path, and stepped aside to look at it.

It was a poor woman, who had fallen just outside the city, too sick and tired to get in where she might have found shelter. The soft snow made of a drift a sort of pillow for her, and she would soon be so sound asleep, in the wintry air, that no one could ever waken her again. All this Pedro saw in a moment, and he knelt down beside her and tried to rouse her, even tugging at her arm a little, as though he would have tried to carry her away. He turned her face toward him, so that he could rub some of the snow on it, and when he had looked at her silently a moment he stood up again, and said:

“It’s no use little brother. You will have to go on alone.”

“Alone?” cried Little Brother. “And you not see the Christmas festival?”

“No,” said Pedro, and he could not keep back a bit of a choking sound in his throat. “See this poor woman. Her face looks like the Madonna in the chapel window, and she will freeze to death if nobody cares for her. Every one has gone to the church now, but when you come back you can bring some one to help her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, and perhaps get her to eat the bun that is left in my pocket.”

“But I can not bear to leave you, and go on alone,” said Little Brother.

“Both of us need not miss the service,” said Pedro, “And it had better be I than you. You can easily find your way to the church; and you must see and hear everything twice, Little Brother–once for you and once for me. I am sure the Christ-child must know how I should love to come with you and worship Him; and oh! If you get a chance, Little Brother, to slip up to the altar without getting in any one’s way, take this little silver piece of mine, and lay it down for my offering, when no one is looking. Do not forget where you have left me, and forgive me for not going with you.”

In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the city, and winked hard to keep back the tears as he heard the crunching footsteps sounding farther and farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to lose the music and splendor of the Christmas celebration that he had been planing for so long, and spend the time instead in that lonely place in the snow.

The great church was a wonderful place that night. Every one said that it had never looked so bright and beautiful before. When the organ played and the thousands of people sang, the walls shook with the sound, and little Pedro, away outside the city wall, felt the earth tremble around him.

At the close of the service came the procession with the offerings to be laid on the altar. Rich men and great men marched proudly up to lay down their gifts to the Christ-child. Some brought wonderful jewels, some baskets of gold so heavy that they could scarcely carry them down the aisle. A great writer laid down a book that he had been making for years and years. And last of all walked the king of the country, hoping with all the rest to win for himself the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great murmur through the church, as the people saw the king take from his head the royal crown, all set with precious stones, and lay it gleaming on the altar, as his offering to the holy Child. “Surely,” every one said, “we shall hear the bells now, for nothing like this has ever happened before.”

But still only the cold old wind was heard in the tower, and the people shook their heads; and some of them said, as they had before, that they never really believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they ever rang at all.

The procession was over, and the choir began the closing hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped playing as though he had been shot, and every one looked at the old minister, who was standing by the altar, holding up his hand for silence. Not a sound could be heard from any one in the church, but as all the people strained their ears to listen, there came softly, but distinctly, swinging through the air, the sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away, and yet so clear the music seemed–so much sweeter were the notes than anything that had been heard before, rising and falling away up there in the sky, that the people in the church sat for a moment as still as though something held each of them by the shoulders. Then they all stood up together and stared straight at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the long-silent bells.

But all that the nearest of them saw was the childish figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly down the aisle when no one was looking, and had laid Pedro’s little piece of silver on the altar.

Raymond MacDonald Alden, 1902

On Faith

2010-10-09T15:49:00.002-06:00

based on Lamentations 3:19-26, Luke 17:5-6

Here’s one of those saying that have continued to puzzle me all my life. How much faith will it take to move a mountain? The very question bewilders me. How does one measure faith? Presumably that’s what’s asked of us. Increase your faith. Step up to the challenge of doing some real faith. We’re in the Olympic Games of Faith here. Only the most fit, the best trained, the most earnest practitioner of faith need bother to come forward for measurement.

Isn’t that the image that comes to mind when you contemplate this mystery? Is that enough faith Lord? Or That? Or THAT? If you’re at all like me, none of these tests work. Gigantic efforts to make myself believe just exhaust my imagination. I give up on Faith.

One commentator, George Buttrick, tries to redirect our attention by saying having enough faith is not a matter of quantity, for we have already established it is impossible to measure such an elusive thing. It’s a matter of quality. Here we face the challenge: improve the quality of your faith and that mountain will be flying through the air in the wink of an eye.

What a relief. Not quantity, quality. But wait a minute. Aren’t we still being asked to measure something? How does one measure a quality? Once more we have the impossible before us. Quality is as elusive as quantity.

Then let us agree not to talk in terms of measurement. More or less is all but meaningless. Let’s see if there aren’t some mountains that have been moved. I think of the film “The Blind Side” Based on a true story, a wealthy Southern woman Leigh Anne Tuohy, notices a large colored high school student, poorly dressed, trudging along in the rain. Something stirs in her. This is a sight she cannot ignore or forget. She tells the boy to get into the family car. This begins a journey to a whole new life for the boy and the family. He has no way of knowing how a mountain is about to be hurtled into the ocean. Neither does she, for that matter. She only sees a need and feels a compulsion to do something to meet that need.

Perhaps faith is that blessed gift of second sight that not only sees a need but sees the way to do something about that need.

Not many people ever heard of Cordell, Oklahoma. There’s not that much there to notice or talk about. But for someone interested in classical music and especially Wagnerian opera, Cordell has something to brag about. The Wagnerian soprano Roberta Knie was born and raised there, and returns there frequently to visit her family. I had the good fortune to meet her and she graciously allowed my 14 year old son to interview her. A lad with budding aspirations of becoming a performer in musical theater himself, he was naturally interested in how a nobody from Cordell ever dared to become an opera star. She took his question seriously and said, “well I became an opera singer because nobody ever told me I couldn’t”

Could it be that there is no more mystery in these words of Jesus than that? See a need and have an idea you can do something about it, and then act. That may be the heart and core of faith.

Faith: it’s not about how much, it’s a matter of what in, or who in.

The author of Lamentations, usually assumed to be the prophet Jeremiah, reflects on the grief he felt at the desolation surrounding the Jewish people who were about to be shipped off to Babylon in slavery. “Just thinking of my troubles and my lonely wandering makes me miserable. That's all I ever think about, and I am depressed. Then I remember something that fills me with hope.” What he thinks of is the ever present goodness of God. The core of his faith is the dependability of God.

I don’t believe this is simply a matter of attitude. It’s far more than that. It is also a remembering. It is holding a clear vision of what once was right and good and filled with real hope. Viktor Frankel says that it is this kind of reality-based remembering that got him through the horror of the concentration camps in Germany. When counseling a discouraged woman, he reminds her of the dependability of faith. The woman replies, “In what? I can’t believe in anything right now.” “All right,” Frankel went on, if you can’t believe in anything else, you can believe in me.” “In you?” she responded, puzzled. “Yes. Tell yourself, ‘even though I can’t believe in myself, Dr. Frankel believes in me.’” It may sound meager, insignificant, beside the point to say to someone “I believe in you”. And in fact, the words alone are easily spoken and much harder to believe. But I know, from my own experience, they make a difference. The words joined with the look in the eye and the feel of the hand have a way of igniting power that helps us do things we never dreamed of doing. We have moved a mountain - a mountain of doubt and disbelief.

This kind of faith is not magical. It does not depend on spells and incantations. It rests on reawakened memory, of sanctified moments we had taken for granted but which now look remarkably like huge accomplishments. ‘ I can’t believe I did that’, we say to ourselves. Or perhaps the more familiar remark, “I’m glad I didn’t know before hand what I was going to have to go through, or do. I’d have never made it if I’d known.”

All that tells us is that we’ve not had too little faith, we’ve had too much faith in the wrong thing. We were more ready to believe in our weakness, or insignificance, or unworthiness, than we were to believe we were people of worth, people with talent, people with gifts to offer the world around us. In my experience, that faith was generated by someone seeing possibility in me I was unable to see in myself unaided. In virtually every case, there was someone who sat beside me, listened to me, trusted me, believed in me.

That’s what Jeremiah experienced. God was no stranger to him. That’s what the disciples experienced. Jesus took them seriously, relied on them, trusted them, expected great things to come from their efforts. This of the apostle Peter.

It may only be a parable, but it tells a great truth. Peter saw Jesus walking on water and suddenly found himself doing the same thing when he asked Jesus to help him. At first it seemed easy. Then he became self-conscious, distracted, and took his eyes off Jesus. That’s when he began to sink in the water. Faith is putting aside one’s usual doubts and looking instead on Jesus who has already believed in you. Lack of faith is only shifting your eyes to something else. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Fear says, “No way, this ain’t going to happen.”

Viktor Frankel’s patient looked in the eyes of the doctor who believed in her and found the beginnings of faith in her self. Teenager Bobbie Knie had a dream and saw no reason why it should remain a dream. Her teachers shared her dream and believed in it too. She followed that dream to stardom in the most demanding roles of all opera. Leigh Anne Tuohy saw a boy who needed help and she did something about it. When that boy proved to have talent and eventually became a star football player, his success was born in her faith in him.

In each of these examples, the miracle wasn’t a matter of a lightning bolt slashing out of the sky producing a fabulous fortune, or fame, or whatever. It was seeing a possibility, believing in it, and living as if of course it was going to happen.

I dare say some mountains have been dug up. Maybe they’ve even been deposited in the sea. Isn’t that what the Arabs have done in that city they’re building, Dubai? The site of the tallest building in the world? Yes, even mountains can be transported into the sea.

Jesus’ words aren’t so mysterious and puzzling after all then, are they? If we have faith, enough faith, amazing things can happen. But first be sure to ask “just what is my faith?” What do I have faith in? Who has shared that faith with me? Remember our faith is grounded in a good and gracious and loving God. Then there can be no measuring that kind of faith. It is boundless.

Look out mountains! You’re about to make a move. Amen.

Don't Forget to Remember

2010-10-09T15:47:00.000-06:00

based on II Timothy 2:8-15, and Luke 17:11-19

If you can't remember your last drink, you haven't had it yet!

This is a saying I learned from my friends in AA. Those who have battled the demon of alcoholism don't have to have this saying explained to them. You see, that last drink is a dramatic experience. It represents what the recovering alcoholic refers to as "hitting bottom". That is the necessary watershed moment for recovery. Until you have hit bottom, you are not ready to begin the new life of sobriety. In the old days of AA, it was often believed that if a newcomer arrived at an AA meeting still wearing a wrist watch, he hadn’t hit that proverbial “bottom”. He wasn’t desperate enough. He was not ready to undergo the discipline of the Twelve Steps.

There is wisdom in that belief. Psychologists know that one is not likely to change his or her behavior until that behavior is no longer satisfying. We have learned that people drink alcohol because they like the effect it produces. When they stop liking the effect it produces, (the hangovers, the blackouts, the family problems, the job losses, the legal difficulties, the financial disasters - all connected to the drinking) and continue to drink anyway, then they have crossed over that invisible line from social drinking into alcoholic drinking. So, remembering that last drink serves as a deterrent against taking another drink. If you no longer remember that last drink, you do not have that deterrent to guard you against relapse.

As I read the scriptures this morning, I was struck by two different references to remembering. One in Paul’s letter to Timothy urges his disciple to remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead. The other is a vignette of Jesus who, having healed a group of lepers, is struck by the way only one remembered to come thank him for his healing. This memory was even more striking to Jesus because he remarked “that man was a Samaritan!” This is significant given the then current prejudice of the Jews and the Samaritans. It’s rather like a Tea Party patriot having to admit a liberal Democrat had done something commendable.

Let me suggest something to think about. We are who we think we are. We are a summary of all our experiences. We are the next chapter in the soap opera we call life. We are always, always living in the “to be continued” mode. And if we remember that, then we must remember that, on a continuum of A to B to C, A is our past, B the present moment and C what is yet to come. Of the three B is the only real moment. But if we’re going to ever get to C we must be as completely in the present moment as we can be, and that means we must continually review A. I am who I am when I embrace all of who I was and rightly assess what that can mean for who I can become.

OK. That was a chunk of philosophy, and I’ll back off a bit. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he was interested in reminding the young man of what had happened to him. He had met Jesus Christ. Now this wasn’t just anybody, this was God himself in human flesh, come to alert us that ours is a God intimately involved in our creation including you and me. This great God rescued us from the insanity we had chosen, this delusion that we were - and are - independent, on our own, in charge of our own lives and by extension, in charge of everything and everyone around us.

This - as I understand it - is the true dynamic of what we call sin. It’s not how much booze we drank, or how many swear words we uttered, or how sexually lustful and lascivious we have been. No, sin is how much we have turned our backs on God in the pursuit of our own will and our own way. The consequence, Paul reminds us, is death. Our bodies will die any way, but that’s not the point. The point is, the essence of who we are dies in the morass of our self-centered living.

I think of that moment when James Cameron accepted the Oscar for his accomplishments with the film “Titanic” and his joyous declaration “I’m king of the world!” He was misunderstood. What he thought he was doing was aping a pivotal moment in the movie when Leonardo diCaprio stands on the bow of the ship screaming that announcement. What we saw and what we heard was the universal declaration of every human soul, momentarily stripped of all pretense and showing its true desire and character. We all hunger for just that accomplishment. We all want to be “King (or Queen) of the world”.

Paul knew it. He lived it. He was living it when Christ met him on the road to Damascus and Paul would die. Quite literally, he died. Even his name changed. (He had formerly been known as Saul.) So it seems quite natural for him to remind Timothy, “you’ve died in Christ.” We aren’t the people we once were. The past is finished and gone. We have become something entirely new. The challenge facing us now is to live that new life. And one of the most important ways we do this is by remembering. Don’t forget that last drink. Don’t forget what you used to be like. Don’t forget who you once were. Don’t forget what happened. Don’t forget what God has done.

Jesus’ observation about the Samaritan thanking him for his healing is usually put before us as a reminder to be grateful. That’s a good one. But don’t forget what gratitude really is. It is a reminder of what once was and has now been changed through the gracious healing of God. Often we like to put the bad memories behind us. The recovered alcoholic puzzles the non-alcoholic person with his insistence upon still calling himself an alcoholic even though he no longer drinks. Why bring that up? Aren’t you over that by now? Yes. He is over it, the drinking part, but he is reminding himself of what he once was and will be again should he decide to drink again. You see, we don’t change our metabolism when we quit drink. Well, we do change it, but it is not a permanent cure. It is in remission if you will. Forget what you once were and you open the door to revising your opinion of what you are. It won’t hurt me now. Wrong. I’ve known too many who lost their sobriety after long periods of abstinence. They forgot to remember.

Paul tells Timothy, “deny Jesus and he will deny you.” We deny Jesus by forgetting him. By marginalizing him. By relegating him to the status of a fair weather friend. Or a fox-hole colleague when the going gets rough! But Jesus doesn’t deny us out of spite, or hurt feelings, or anything that petty. He didn’t reverse the healing of the nine lepers who forgot to thank him. What Jesus does do is waits for us to “come to our senses” if you will - and in that waiting, we are alone. We are abandoned. We have denied ourselves the pleasure of his company. That blessed relief of no longer having to exist in that living-death we once were in has been neglected, lost, become useless.

Gratitude is a reminder that something has changed. Something is uniquely different. And if I am going to fully appreciate that difference, I must never forget what it was like before. I remember hearing a story years ago about a boy whose parents left him with a guardian while they went on a trip. He had been told to be good. He’d also been told if he misbehaved, the guardian was to pound a nail into a fence post in the yard for each misdeed. The boy paid little attention to this instruction until he noticed how many nails had appeared in the post. Since he’d also been told good deeds could take nails out of the post, his behavior dramatically changed. By the time the parents returned, not a single nail remained in the post. When they praised him for his good behavior, he shame-facedly replied, “Yes, but the holes are still there where the nails were.”

This is not a particularly good story on several levels. For one thing, contrary to popular opinion, God is not keeping track of all our bad deeds and recording each one in a big book in heaven somewhere. Nor do we get to erase them by performing good deeds, as the parable of the boy and the post suggests. I don’t even think there are holes left that God sees. But the story is useful in this regard - when we remember, our eyes are drawn to the loving face of God who did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Our hope is all the sweeter when we recall what we used to be like, and what we could so easily become again if we forget what happened to make this dramatic change.

For who we are today is dramatically different from who we used to be. That’s the point. Not only did Christ die for us, we died in that same death, and we are new creatures launched on new adventures if you will. We are growing up in Christ.

Each Sunday morning we take a moment to make our confession to God. This act may seem a little ritualistic, old-fashioned, superfluous, but in fact it is not. It is an essential element for the right worship of God, for this is our “remembering” time. This is when we - like the prodigal son - come home to ourselves, and remind ourselves who we used to be and who we now are. Repentance is not about how bad we’ve been and how ashamed we are - although those are the words we continue to use. Repentance is about truly acknowledging what we’ve been and can continue to be -if we forget. Then repentance takes on powerful new meaning for it is our way of reminding ourselves we still need God’s grace, God’s cleansing, God’s love.

Those who forget to remember - pray for them. And be sure, when you do, you remember to pray for yourselves as well. Amen.

Jesus Wept

2010-09-03T08:40:00.000-06:00

Directly across the street from the site of the Murrah Building Memorial Plaza in Oklahoma City stands a larger than life-sized statue of Jesus, his face in his hands, weeping. It is a touching sight, made even more poignant by the fact that Jesus stands facing away from the site, as if he cannot bear to look at it - at least, not yet.

I think of that when I hear the dispute raging over the plans to build a Islamic center two blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. Both sites are tragic. They are hallowed sites, made so by the loss of life, sacrificed in the name of extremist ideologies. Whether the god be Allah or political fervor, these acts are somehow linked to religious belief and have left a bitterness that is likely to hang on for no one can say how long.

In Oklahoma the pain was easier to bear for it was commonly assumed the perpetrator was a lone maniac; he did not represent a religious group or nation. The Twin Towers tragedy will forever be linked to Islamic extremists compounding the bitterness. Never mind that true Islam teaches peace, the terrorists have indelibly stained the image of Islam itself. Now we must struggle with our repugnance over their acts as well as our far from clear picture of their religion. The struggle is compounded by people confusing the name of our new president with Islamic culture, and tarring him with a guilt he did not earn or deserve.

I am proud to be an American, proud to revere and enjoy our government and its laws which protect the religious freedom of all individuals. I am shaken when those freedoms are threatened, no matter what the reason. I am also deeply touched by the pain that lives on in the hearts and minds of people directly touched by the tragedy of 9/11. But I think we must be very careful not to confuse the insane acts of a handful of terrorists with the beliefs and culture of the Islamic people as a whole.

I can remember breaking a dish because it had “made in Germany” stamped on its back. We were children in grade school. We knew nothing of Germany or Japan, we only knew our countries were at war, and it was a show of patriotism to destroy a product that “belonged to the enemy.” Childish? Yes, but understandable. We heard our parents talk. We saw the posters on the walls. We lived under the strictures of rationing. We could name the boys who had left our community, some never to return. We saw and wept over, the gold stars that hung in the windows of our friends and neighbors.

Now a patriotism that must break a dish because it came from a certain foreign country strikes us as foolish. Perhaps the present controversy over building a cultural center meant to educate and inform people about the true meaning of Islam and to honor the believers in Allah who died in the 9/11 catastrophe will also one day disappear. Meanwhile, I still see that statue of Jesus in Oklahoma City, weeping, his face turned away from a sight too painful even for him to see. And I think, “He is facing the other way, but he’s nonetheless there. He has turned his back, but not out of anger or disgust. He is hiding his tears.” We too must weep - for the living and the dead. But God help us, let us not also shake our fist!

Serious Christianity based on Psalm 139, Luke 14:25-33

2010-09-03T08:31:00.000-06:00

I saw a woman crossing the street this week. She carried a white cane. She walked briskly as if she could see where she was going. Then she reached the curb and it was clear she could not see. Once on the sidewalk again, she stayed close to the wall of the storefront, her cane reaching ahead of her to give her warning of unseen obstacles. She walked so confidently! That surprised me. Blind people aren’t supposed to have confidence.

Then as I reflected on that thought, I remembered something I’d been told many years ago. “If you are in a strange town, one you’ve never been in before, and you are trying to find your way, the best person to ask for directions is a blind person. They know better than anyone else. They have to. They have counted the steps, memorized the obstacles, know each step up, each dip down. Their life depends on knowing.”

I thought of that as I reflected on Jesus’ teaching about the cost of discipleship. His words sound harsh, unreasonable, impossible to accept and follow. If we take them seriously, we must ask - as his disciples once asked - “Lord, if this is true, who can ever be saved?” Here Jesus tells us we must give up everything. Our family, our homes, our very lives, all must go. And beyond that, once we have let everything go, we must take up a cross and follow Jesus. Too much, we cry out, way too much. Who can ever do all this?

Jesus does not consider that question. He leaves that to us, and wisely so. In another place he speaks of the narrow path that few may follow. The parable of the sower and the seeds is really about the same thing. There are many kinds of soils, but only a few seeds find their way to fertile ground. And when the disciples suggest they want to do what is right so they may win a place in the Kingdom of God, Jesus puts the bar so high they conclude it is impossible. No one can get it. Jesus agrees saying, “with human beings it is impossible, but all things are possible with your father in heaven.”

I would be a wiser man than I am to be able to say I know for certain what Jesus is trying to say here. It is a mystery. As the Psalmist put it long before Jesus was born, “ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high , I cannot attain unto it.” But this much has dawned on me. Whatever else Jesus is trying to make us see, our faith is a serious business. Like that woman counting her steps so she may find her way, we must pay attention. We must be alert. We must be noticing people, always on the look-out for telling clues to help us find our way.

The early Christians lived with the expectation Jesus was coming back in triumphant glory and their suffering would be replaced with eternal bliss. They walked the dusty roads of the Roman Empire with one eye on the lookout for Jesus to come towards them. However, that belief was short-lived. Before the first century was out, they had accepted the fact that Jesus was not coming back any time soon, at least not as they had expected. Now 2000 years later there is no consensus of opinion just what that “return” will be like.

I take a more dynamic view of that “coming”. I see the Kingdom coming in a gradual unfolding, and Jesus’ presence in the Holy Spirit as the leaven in us as we strive to make that Kingdom a reality. But in order for that to happen, we must be willing to surrender self, surrender ego, surrender anything that attaches us to this world, so that God has space in us and in our society to do his work. Such a belief is difficult to maintain and carry out. We are challenged to give up the usual things we consider important - family ties for one, all our resources for another - while at the same time living very firmly in this world. There are towers to be built and wars to be fought. Jesus is not a hermit who turns his back on the world and retreats into a haze of contemplation. A balance has to be struck between this world and the Kingdom of God, and one way of achieving that balance is to treat them both as one.

In that case, I see our task as taking our life here seriously. With respect. Reverence. Awe. The Psalmist says to God, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. I take it he means there is much more to my life than I know, that I shall ever know. And I must treat it with care. To do any the less is to forfeit our inheritance, if you will. The artist has a gift for creating music, but it is a gift that cannot be realized without practice. The athlete may be a star contender, but he must work at it, hone his skills, study his moves, be constantly examining what he is doing to achieve greater and greater levels of competence. Jesus points us at this truth and reminds us, “the possibility is in you, you must give yourself to it completely.” To me, that is what he means when he urges us to count the cost.

If that is true for the gifted and talented, it is just as true for the rest of us in the arena of human life. In Zen Buddhism, one practices how to prepare and serve a cup of tea impeccably. Does the tea taste better that way? Or is it a matter of honing one’s self to a high point of attention, of focused purpose, or total respect for one’s self and one’s task? I shall never be a house painter. I haven’t the eye for it, or the intention, either one. I have watched my father lying on his back painting the inside of a cupboard in a space no one but he would ever see. But still it must be done. I watched my uncle disassemble an antique clock, reverently placing each part, large and small, in specific order. He respected the integrity of the clock and served it, even as he expected it to serve him in the end.

Less than that kind of total commitment will accomplish nothing. The cost is total in our lives as well. Discipleship on Sundays and Wednesday, while we reserve the other five days of the week to our other plans, will achieve scant returns. Will God love us any the less? Of course not. Will we be relegated to the tourist class section of paradise? I’ve never heard of any such arrangement. But how we rob ourselves of glory, when we give only a little.

I remember Dr. Lake. She was my professor and did so much for me in my study of the Bible. I had produced a very poor piece of work on a project she assigned us. I knew it was poor work and she did too. She gave me a passing grade, but she also gave me a look I shall never forget. “You are capable of so much more” that exasperated look said, “I just wish I knew how to get you to do it!” I left her office hating her because she made me see how I had wasted her time and mine. I also hated her because she saw possibility in me I was not willing to see. Don’t expect so much of me, I wanted to cry out. If you do, I might have to start expecting it of myself, and such responsibility frightens me. But that look stayed with me, I see it still today. And I no longer hate her. What I once took as an accusation of my failure, I came to recognize as an affirmation of love.

It was the look Jesus was giving those who aspired to being his disciples. And it came with a price and a challenge. Be serious. And be ready. Your faith will ask far more of you thank you can yet imagine. I remember Gert who was a very rich but also a very sick alcoholic. At the point of death, she experienced conversion. She was so astounded at what had happened she gave her entire life over to spreading the word of the goodness of God and what God is ready to do for us, if we will but accept the gift. She traveled all over the country, all over the world, telling her story. She was a woman of wealth who gave it all away in a trust fund she could not touch or control. She was hampered by paralyzing stage fright, and gave that to God too as she spoke to audience everywhere. She said one day she was so tired from all her speaking engagements and travels she said to God, “Can I have a night off? I’m worn out.” God’s answer? “No, Gert, you got started late and you still have a lot of work to do. Get going.”

I don’t expect us all to hear such a challenge, but I do think Jesus was alerting us of one thing: take your life seriously. Respect it. As the Psalmist reminds us, we are the product of God’s handiwork, and we have so much more to us than we will ever know.

The blind woman I saw this week reminds me not only do we have resources inside us we must honor and nurture, it really is a matter of life and death. To walk blind without attention being paid is unthinkable. Her very life depends on her keeping track, alert, counting, making sure she knows her path and is faithfully following it. In the life of faith, we must do the same. Without such single-mindedness, we become but aimless wanderers on a vast, unbroken plain, helpless beneath an empty, uncaring sky.

Count the cost Jesus said, pay attention, be serious. That’s the challenge of the gospel. And guess what. Gert was not the only one who got started late - We ALL got started late. God help us to get going. Amen.

Famous Last Words based on Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

2010-09-01T17:39:00.000-06:00

Many people are interested in the last words of a person who is dying. I believe it was W.C. Fields who said “I’d rather be in Philadelphia!” and the French satirist and philosopher Voltaire, when a priest urged him to renounce Satan, supposedly replied, “This is no time to make new enemies”. One friend fondly remembers the passing of a beloved pastor who, just before he died, sat up in his bed, a look of amazement and wonder on his face, and said “I didn’t know it would be so beautiful!”

Our passage this morning is not a death-bed utterance, but it has that quality of finality, of urgency, the intensity of the speaker who desperately wants his or her listeners to get the message. Forget all the rest, but don’t forget this. This is what I need for you to remember. This is important.

The gospel of Matthew tells us Jesus’ final words, before his ascension into heaven were, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” The gospel of John reports Jesus’ final words to his disciples when he appears to them by the sea of Galilee. He tells Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep” and “follow me”. Paul’s likely last greeting, written to the young Christians in Philippi, is a word of joy and thanksgiving and a brief prayer of benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

The author of Hebrews writes, “Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.” Somehow these final words, for me, are connected with each other and establish the distinctive mark of a Christian. A promise of the abiding presence of Christ in us. An exhortation that we follow or stay close to Jesus. These are our final “orders” if you will, and in doing them, we will nourish all those we meet. The author of Hebrews sums it all up with the single word, “love”.

We are used to talking about love. It is the banner word of our society. Well, maybe I should say, in the 60's it was the motto of the hour. Remember the old slogan, “Make love, not war?” It sounded nice. For those of us who still had fresh memories of the Second World War and were living under the threat of a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb, we longed for some better truth than a frantic search for wealth. Love was the key. I still enjoy the romantic ditty we used to sing. Remember it? “Nature Boy”, and we couldn’t hear it often enough. I would not be surprised to hear it still being sung today. Its lyrics tells it all:

There was a boy,

a very strange enchanted boy,

they say he wandered very far,

very far, over land and sea.

A little child, and sad of eye

but very wise was he.

And then one day

one happy day he passed my way

and as we talked of many things

fools and kings,

this he said to me,

“the greatest thing, you’ll ever learn

is just to love,

and be loved in return.”

Come down to more modern times and you’ll hear Andrew Lloyd Webber assure us “Love changes everything” and we were eager to believe it. Or, as my daughter reminds me, perhaps the more plaintiff lyrics of Don Henley in his song - Heart of the Matter, which speak just as poignantly about the centrality of the need for love:

These times are so uncertain

There's a yearning undefined

And people filled with rage

We all need a little tenderness

How can love survive in such a graceless age?

The trust and self assurance that lead to happiness

Are the very things we kill, I guess

Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms

And the work I put between us doesn't keep me warm

Time passes, fashion changes, old truths become yesterday’s cliches, and while we haven’t exactly “given up” on love, we’ve learned there’s more to it than mere words. As a minister, who is called upon to perform marriages, and later to offer counseling for the disillusioned pair who can no longer do the hard work of love, I am saddened by how often the word is shunned, or discounted. It is as if, once people get close to one another, they discover closeness requires intimacy, a stripping away of our protective masks, and risks exposure, disgust, humiliation. The poet may believe it is “better to have loved, and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Today’s generation seems more inclined to get its love vicariously through movies and TV where it looks nice in others but is too hard for us. Odd, isn’t it, that we should continue to praise the ideal of love while personally denying its possibility at all.

Keep on loving one another, the author of Hebrews says. Of course, we shrug. Easy for you to say. You knew Jesus. It was all still real for you. It’s a different world now. Aside from the fact it’s quite unlikely that the author did know Jesus, is our world so different? Oh, I know we are much more sophisticated - although I wonder if we are as intellectually astute as were the Greeks. We are more mobile. Although, I read recently Americans are moving less now than they did in the 18th and 19th centuries, or even the first half of the 20th. Alright, but we have better technology, we have - as the slogan goes - better living through chemistry. Of course, with our chemistry we also have pollution. Our technology may have tied us closer together through our Twitterings and our Facebooks, but the downside to that is how impersonal we have become. Deprive us of our cell phones and our laptop computers and we are at a loss knowing how to interact with another human being.

As for the age of the Romans and the early Christians, while they had none of these advantages and disadvantages, yet they had to cope with persecution from the Roman Empire AND from their own Jewish families. They were outcasts from both. Their’s was a time that demanded conformity just as ours does, and when they sought to follow the teachings of a Jewish rabbi who had been executed in the most cruel and indecent way, they weren’t simply misunderstood, or thought of as lunatics, they were seen as dangerous rebels, enemies of the state, disrupters of the status quo who threatened the political establishment by creating unrest. The religious community of the Jews were equally aghast at this stark heresy that threatened the very foundation of Judaism. The new Christians must have found the commandment to love one another as difficult to live and do then as we find it today.

Love requires connectedness. Love recognizes both our isolation as unique human beings and our reliance on relationships in order to be complete. Americans historically have prized the rugged individualist. A Davy Crockett or a Daniel Boone is a true American hero, and the Robber Barons like Carnegie, or Gould or Vanderbilt or Rockefeller were our icons of success. Horatio Alger set the pattern for us and we rejoice when we see someone scale the heights from obscure poverty to fame and fortune. What we don’t see is how none of these heroes were finally truly independent. They all relied on help from someone or some group who gave them the vision, the courage, the strength they needed to succeed.

We are incomplete as isolated individuals. We need one another. Our vary ability to speak is dependent upon interaction with other human beings. Our ability to discern values comes from that same interaction. The myth of a Tarzan or a Mowgli, raised with animals in the wilderness, is just that, a myth. The command that we love one another is just as important for our own well-being as it is for those around us. Those who cannot love are to be pitied most deeply, for they are robbed an essential requirement of being human.

When Paul was summing up his anthem of praise to the concept of love, in the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, he says quite simply, “when all else fails, love still stands”. It is love, more than anything else, that provides the pattern for what we call the “image of God”. Our ability to love, to interact with others, to relate to others at the deeper levels of our beings, is what not only makes us fully human, but what makes us most nearly like God. We show our kinship to God when we love one another.

So it strikes me as vitally important, essential, that we be continually reminded of the centrality of love as the essence of our humanity. If we would be truly human and truly alive, we must truly love. Such a love is not a bit of romantic fluff, it is the essence of our beings.

Keep on loving each other, it’s the only thing that really matters. Do that, and you will know God, and in knowing God, you will finally know yourself. Amen.

Famous Last Words based on Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

2010-09-01T17:36:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Life

2010-08-17T09:31:00.000-06:00

based on Psalm 71, Luke 13

From an orthodox Jewish point of view, Jesus really is a scoff-law. He neglected the traditions and laws of the tribe. He was a non-conformist. An iconoclast. The priests of his day would go further and say he was a heretic. We, who have been taught to follow Jesus rather than Moses, tend to forget this. We see Jesus as the norm. He was not the Jewish norm. But what was he?

Our Psalm this morning may shed a little light on Jesus’ ministry. It is one of the hopeful psalms, one that sings of God’s dependability. We may return to God again and again knowing that God will be there and he will be on our side. The psalmist says to God, “you brought me safely through birth”, a reminder that God was there at the very beginning of our lives. Jesus represents a new “birthing”.

Of all the moments that will comprise our days, there is scarcely one more fraught with fear and danger than that moment of birth. We are expelled from the safety of the womb. We are sent where we have never been before into an existence about which we have no knowledge, and have only the vaguest sense of selfhood. We simply don’t know what’s happened to us and we have no expectation of what could or should happen next. Our very newness is all we really know.

I recall from somewhere that the noted psychologist Karl Menninger, in reflecting on this moment says of the newborn infant, “That first cry sounds very much like anger more than anything else.”

How reassuring then, to hear the psalmist say to God, “ I have relied on you from the day I was born. You brought me safely through birth,.”

I would propose that this incident in Jesus’ ministry is a similar kind of birthing. What had once been certain is suddenly overturned. What the Jews had always depended upon, the solid rock of the Mosaic law, was not only challenged, it was overthrown.

I remember Kenneth. Not quite ten years old, Kenny was already on his way to becoming a politician. He had a winning smile, a quick intelligence, an eager handshake that met no strangers, and a certain indefinable quality of personality that won instant trust. He wasn’t just a “nice kid”. He was special. When my wife commented on this quality in him, he grinned and confirmed her assessment of him. “Of course, I’m going to be president” he said. “Too bad I won’t be able to vote for you, though” Marilyn remarked. “Why not?” he asked, “You’re a Republican, aren’t you?” “Sorry,” she replied, “I’m a Democrat.” The look of dismay on Kenneth’s face told it all. She could not have shocked him any more deeply had she announced she was a drug-runner, or a serial murderer.

A silly analogy you say? Perhaps, but useful all the same. Kenneth was still at that age where the world was all one color, where right was right and no deviation was even thinkable. Had you met his family, you would have understood him even better, for he had been taught his truth from his earliest days. His truth was the truth because there was no other to even consider.

Now consider the shocked Pharisee watching in disbelief the miracle Jesus has just performed. He is the confident Jew, raised in a culture that had followed the teaching of Moses with faithfulness and total confidence. There was no other god. There was no other truth. There was no other way. One did not have to ponder about a decision, the proper way was already before them. Place Kenneth in that crowd around Jesus and he would have been as shocked as they were. What Jesus had done simply was not done.

But Jesus did it, and we have since commended his choice. Of course you heal. Any idiot would have, had they been able to. The Sabbath? No work on the Sabbath? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you work on the Sabbath. You rescue an ox or an ass,. You know perfectly well you do. It would be stupid not to. So what’s the difference here?

There’s a whole way of life that’s different. There’s the loss of a certainty that is at stake. You just don’t start making up your own rules as you go along.

A play - and later a movie - I really liked asked this same question. It concerned the British statesman Thomas More and his battle with King Henry VIII. The issue seemed simple enough. Henry wanted to divorce his first wife and marry Ann Boleyn. The Catholic Church did not permit it. So Henry set up his own church and divorced his wife any way. When statesmen and church leaders objected, he demanded they sign a decree, under oath, stating he’d done the right thing. Thomas refused. Friends urged him to do it anyway. Just lie a little. More refused. Why? Because it meant making a statement under an oath, a promise before God. To swear such an oath would endanger his immortal soul. He goes to his death for it. Was Thomas right, or just pigheaded? Was he doing God’s will, or being a fool? The play leaves no doubt - Thomas is the hero, and he will eventually be granted sainthood for his faithfulness. But what about his friends, or Henry himself? Were they so wrong? Or were they simply stuck with a world view they could not see beyond?

The Jews who were shocked by Jesus’ breaking of the Sabbath Law were people who could not see beyond the sacredness of the Mosaic Law. Just as Kenneth could not imagine having a friend he liked turn out to be a Democrat. Such things simply don’t happen. They were impossible.

On a more personal level, I remember Larry. So hurt, so frightened, so defensive against criticism he could not even hear a compliment from his wife without finding a way to turn it into a complaint. When she tried to tell him how angry she was with his boss for treating him badly, Larry thought she was angry with him. I said, “Wait a minute, I don’t think you understood what Mary was saying. Will you say that again?” She did, and once more Larry bristled. “You see? She’s still doing it.” At that point I said, “Will you let me tell Larry what I heard you say?” “Please do” she replied. I then repeated the exact same words she’d used. I didn’t change a single one. Larry looked at me in surprise and said, “Oh, is that what she meant?” What made the difference? Not my words, they were the same: it was me. He had not already made up his mind what I would say, as he had about her.

The Jews had already made up their minds. They could not hear what Jesus was saying because he did not fit their expectations. He was an alien from outer space. He threatened their security, their sanity, their very lives. They worshiped a God who permitted no deviations. They worshiped a God who could get angry, and when that God got angry, the consequences were horrendous. Do you remember that TV commercial of many years ago? For margarine if I remember correctly. An angry woman dressed in flowing robes, wearing a crown, and swinging a wand around threateningly, producing thunder and lightning, shouts, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” Change the gender, and you have an angry God, one you do well not to upset.

I grow repetitious. My point is simple. Jesus was showing us something new, something we were not able to grasp, something that simply did not make sense, and it frightened us. The Jews were in much the same position as that frightened newborn babe. We’re in a new environment. We have a new kind of freedom we didn’t know was possible. We don’t have the experience, the vocabulary, the mental equipment to know what to do with this new reality Jesus is showing us.

But Jesus is really nothing more than the midwife assisting us at our new birth. He is the embodiment of God, attending at our entrance into a new world. He understood what we could not yet comprehend. Life is birth. Each day is our birthday. Each hour is a whole new world. Each minute the entrance into a new reality we had not considered before.

Do you remember the moment it dawned on you you had “fallen in love”? How feeble even the words sound in trying to describe that moment. Everything changed. There was a different color in the sky. To feel love, is to feel a new kind of connectedness, to know what once was loneliness will never be that way again.

Of course, that newness brings many other sensations. I can still hear the sobs my wife cried, the first time she let me see I had hurt her. That was a new world too. Another birthing. Another beginning. But Jesus was showing us that we are not alone. We will see more, we will feel more, we will be more. That’s what life is really all about.

The psalmist was confident God was there at his birth. Jesus showed us God is there for all our birthings, if we will rely on him, trust him, dare to believe the impossible. He did not say such birthings would be pleasant, easy, natural. Neither did the psalmist. But both were confident we would never have to go through them alone. Even when we thought we were abandoned - remember Jesus on the cross cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” - even then, his God was there and Jesus could say, “Into your hands, I place my spirit.”

Welcome to life - God’s here and so glad to see you! Amen.

Praying When You’d Rather Not

2010-08-09T16:05:00.000-06:00

(Based on Psalm 37:1-11, and Luke 6:27-38

Last Sunday a question was raised about praying for one’s enemy. It was not a theoretical question, it came from the heart and in response to the tragic slaying of medical missionaries in Afghanistan. We have heard of similar atrocities in recent times. Tempers run high when we learn of brutal, and what strikes us as senseless, slayings, often committed in the name of religious beliefs. The God in question may be Yahweh, or Allah, or some pagan deity who it is believed not only condones such behavior, but demands it. Or it may be strictly secular and political in nature. It scarcely matters. Such behavior strikes at the core of our beliefs about human beings.

We live in a nation that says all men are created equal and that we are endowed with certain inalienable rights, rights that come from God or a higher power or whatever name we choose to use. We believe in the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Such a belief is the foundation of our government and our way of life. Our laws and civil codes do not make sense without this fundamental belief.

Because we believe this, it always shocks us when we encounter behavior that violates these rights. We forget rights are not sacred to all peoples and races and nations. There are things we simply do not do. And when others do them with impunity, we are shocked, repulsed, appalled. Timothy McVey, the Oklahoma City bomber, spoke of the death of innocent children as "collateral damage" and we were stunned. Those children were living, breathing, human beings. They were life renewing itself. They were God’s children. You cannot, you must not dismiss them this way.

Arguments about abortion make no sense if human life has no intrinsic worth. Disputes over illegal immigration are easily resolved if all one sees is statistics, dollar signs and data in a computer. Without the human equation, disputes about social issues sound foolish. I was watching a video of a Harry Potter movie recently in which dragons are given a hard time. In keeping with the usual disclaimer we so often see at the end the credits, assuring us no animals were harmed in the making of this film, the producers proudly announced "No dragons were harmed in the making of this film." If one does not happen to be an animal love, one might ask "who cares?". I, for one, would be delighted to see someone announce, "No human beings were harmed in the making of this film". Such an announcement would certainly be in keeping with our stated belief in the sacredness of human life.

However, wars still go on. Cruelty is still tolerated. Nations, tribes, families, drug cartels, religious fanatics, you name it, all still divide up the human race, labeling some as being good, decent, acceptable human beings while others are dismissed as not worthy of the benefits of being called human. Mark Twain attacks this in a less than subtle way in his classic "Huckleberry Finn" when he has Huck respond to a question about an explosion on a river boat asking ‘was anybody hurt?’. Huck replies with the casual words, ‘no ma’am, just a nigger got killed.’ That such a remark raised no eyebrows speaks volumes about attitudes toward blacks in those days. That we haven’t come that far in our attitudes since then, is all too regrettably true. Back in the fifties when I was on a seminary choir tour, I remember being assured by my host that people got along just fine with the colored folk in Florida. "We have no race prejudice here." He boasted. And almost in the next breath, he pointed at a stretch of beach and said, "That’s where the damn Jews swim."

Even Christians carry on the warfare, with antics like the self-proclaimed Rev. Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, who proudly pickets the funerals of known gay soldiers announcing how God hates gays and has sent another one to hell.

So when we hear of the death of decent, caring, human beings because they represent a hated religion, or a despised nation, we show we have learned our lesson well. Such behavior is unacceptable. You just don’t do such things. At the same time, we are challenged to look at what we do do. How do we respond to such cruelty? What is our responsibility to the hated enemy? Can we really pray for them? In the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" the rabbi is asked if there is a prayer for everything. Is there a prayer for the Czar? He replies, "Of course." and he chants, "May the Lord bless and keep the Czar, far away from us!"

Our scriptures this morning give us guidance, but it is advice we might rather not hear. Don’t fret about evildoers, the Psalmist tells us. Trust in the Lord and do good. And Jesus tells his disciples "You’ve been taught ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ but I don’t go along with that. No, if someone steals a garment from you, give him your cloak. If he slaps your cheek, turn your face and let him slap the other." Even as we listen to this advice, every molecule in our body rebels. This is too much. No way.

There was an interesting incident that occurred in Philadelphia, also in the fifties. A Korean student named In Ho Oh was murdered by a gang of teenagers. The student was on the way to the post office to mail a letter to his family in Korea when three or four teenagers confronted him and demanded money. When it became clear the student had none, they took out their frustration on him by beating him senseless. He later died in the emergency room at the hospital. I knew the nurse who was there when this happened.

What makes this story interesting is the reaction of the student’s parents. They wrote a letter to the City of Philadelphia requesting a piece of ground where their son might be buried. They did not want to spend the money it would cost to transport his body back to Korea. Instead, they set aside that money in a fund they created for the purpose of providing an education for the teenagers who had killed their son. They wanted good to come out of tragedy.

I’ve wondered what finally happened. Did the boys get the education those Korean parents were ready to provide for them? Did they make something useful of their lives? Did grace grow out of tragedy? I do not know. What I do know is how that example of forgiveness set an example for countless Christians who might not have been reached any other way.

I know how impossible Jesus’ teaching sounds. I know how praying for one who has hurt you can seem idiotic. I also know what happens to the soul that clings to bitterness and revenge. I remember Howard whose father was of the old school of discipline (those were Howard’s words). That meant the father never spared the rod, but beat the boy relentlessly. One day, the beating was so severe, an arm was broken. In Howard’s word, he said, "I learned an important lesson that day. As bad as it hurt, I remember saying to myself, he’s either going to kill me, or he’ll finally get too tired to beat me any more. Either way, it will have to end. I’ll never be afraid of him again." Of course, this did not change the boy’s behavior, it merely proved to the father he had no control over his son. The boy was immune to threats or pain - a very dangerous way to be.

I’ve learned another lesson, one not born so much of violence, but from the corruption of the human heart. Hatred destroys twice. It destroys the relationship in which that hatred was born. It also destroys the one who hates. As one person put it, "Resentment is the poison I prepare to kill you but end up drinking myself." When I hate you, you win. Even indifference, that in-between form of hatred, destroys both the hater and the one hated. When Jesus urged us to pray for our enemies, and do good to those who would harm us, he merely reminded us what wise men have relearned through the ages - that hatred harms the hater far more than the one hated. I carry the burden in my soul when I hate you. I am the one who sickens, and finally die.

Thus being urged to pray for one’s enemy is not just a pious suggestion, a Pollyanna game of sweetness and light; it is a radical prescription for healing that is the only real healing one can ever find that really works. When Jesus hung on the cross, we are told he prayed for those who had hung him there. "Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing." Did this in some way change God’s mind about the soldiers, the priests, the fellow criminals or the crowd that mocked him? I doubt it, although it may have cause one or two of them to think again about what they’d done. But it did do something for Jesus. It released him from the hatred and revenge that could have poisoned his own soul as he hung in agony on that cross. It was enough that he had to die, it would have been far worse if he had taken bitterness and anger with him to his grave.

Can we pray for our enemy? Can we pray for those who show no regard for human life? Can we pray for terrorists? Religious fanatics? Murderers? Child rapists? Spouse beaters? Vicious gossips? Evil doers of all kinds? Jesus believed we can. He showed us how. Knowing what can happen if we do not, the question must be rephrased. Can we pray for our enemy? Ah, how dare we not! Amen.

Holding On to the Dust

2010-07-27T07:20:00.000-06:00

Wake up! Do something, Lord!

Why are you sleeping?

Don’t desert us forever.

Why do you keep looking away?

Don’t forget our sufferings

and all of our troubles.

We are flat on the ground,

holding on to the dust.

Do something! Help us!

Show how kind you are

and come to our rescue.

Psalm 44:23-26 (CEV)

Sometimes a phrase grabs our imagination and takes on powerful meaning. Today, such a phrase caught my eye that shall stick with me.

I noticed the words, “holding on to the dust” embedded in Psalm 44. I was caught by the image of being prostrate on the ground, weak, helpless, in incredible pain - physical, mental, spiritual - and holding on for dear life lest I descend into madness.

Fortunately, such moments have been infrequent in my life, and I hope that is true for you too. Yet they are real, and will surely happen to us all. The tragic death of a 12 year old at a church camp comes to mind. The unexpected earthquake that destroys a whole nation. The suicide that robs us of a beloved relative or friend. The loss of a relationship, the death of a pet, even the breaking of an heirloom - which may seem insignificant to some, but precious beyond price to others - all can be devastating. Then it is we find ourselves “holding on to the dust”, and our hearts cry out to God “Do something! Help me.”

The Psalmist puts into words what our lips might hesitate to utter. Can we talk this way to God? Dare we accuse God of being forgetful, or even asleep? The Psalmist does not hesitate. He tells God exactly how it is with him: “I’m hurting here, God, it’s time to do something.”

I find just being able say the words, helps. I don’t need explanations, excuses, erudite sermons about the goodness of God in contrast to my own sinful ways. I don’t even need for God to speak, or apologize. What I need is the freedom to cry OUCH, and not just to cry out, but have the assurance there is someone who is listening and cares. How much more bearable the unbearable can be when we know we’re not alone.

The Psalmist gives me the courage - and the permission - to reach out to God, frankly, whole- heartedly, sometimes even blasphemously if that’s what it takes. The child who cries over a broken toy is closer to God than the stoic Christian determined to show no tears or utter any complaint. If God could hear Jesus cry out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Surely God can hear us too.

I have held on to the dust. It is good to know there’s a word for what I’m feeling, and a God big enough, strong enough, caring enough, loving enough to hear my weeping and share my sorrow.

Dr. George Miller

The Universal Question

2010-07-18T08:40:00.002-06:00

I once heard a piece of profound wisdom from an anonymous voice. He was a young man reflecting on his journey towards wholeness. “Every time I think I’ve finally got it figured out, that’s when I’m sure I don’t.” Ah, how true.

Pity the one who has it all figured out, for it is at that dangerous moment that the mind closes and the understanding is left unfed. The atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer told newsman Edward R Murrow on a TV interview back in the fifties that science had just cracked open the door to a whole new universe and had not even stepped across the threshold. That was not mere false modesty, it was a profound description of the true condition of the human mind. How great is our knowledge and how puny in the face of all there is yet to be understood.

But there is a second danger in this notion. When we have it all figured out, we take the next step of thinking our answer is THE answer. Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? And yet, this is the underlying cause of such aberrations as the “Ultimate Solution” which the world now calls the holocaust. The well-meaning busybody who is only trying to help, unwittingly can be the cruel tyrant who insists “I know what’s best for you.” What a short distance lies between that statement and the assumption of omniscience. An old Buddhist saying is so true: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”

With that in mind, consider this lesson learned by the apostle Peter.

Good Jew though he was and aware of the prohibitions of the Mosaic law concerning dietary practices, he had eaten a meal with the gentiles. This simply was not done. Why? Who knew? Who asked? It was the law. And that was the end of the matter. So let us agree, their question was legitimate and Peter guilty as charged.

And what do we do when someone so obviously steps off the straight and narrow path of righteousness? Scold them. Correct them. Remind them how they were supposed to act. The problem with this is that it assumes such rules and laws are chiseled in stone. They are eternal. There is no room for new insight and growth. And they forget what the purpose was behind those rules.

It’s an old story but a good one. A young bride, remembering how delicious her mother’s roast was, asked her for the recipe. The mother said it was easy enough. “First you cut off the end of the roast.” “Why?” asked the new bride. “I don’t know,” her mother replied. “That’s just the way your grandmother taught me. Ask her.” So she did. The grandmother looked at her granddaughter with impatience, “Why? Because it was too big for the pan, of course!”

Good rules, but maybe we need to understand the purpose of the rule. Peter lived with rules that had been in place for hundreds of years. They had become self-evident. But just living by the letter of the law could be anything but the intention and will of God as Peter found out.

He dreamt a dream that put him in a dilemma. He was told to eat forbidden food. His refusal brought about a confrontation with an angel who chided him for his disobedience. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” It was a troubling order. Who was he to defy the Law of Moses and risk the wrath of God? On the other hand, who was he to resist a direct order when that order came from God? Wanting to be faithful and righteous, he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

It was resolved when he was later challenged to go to a gentile who needed him. Now the uncertainty about a dietary law disappeared in the face of a more significant issue. Would gentiles be accepted into the new Kingdom of God, or was Jesus’ mission only for the Jews? Peter was not only a good practitioner of the Mosaic Law, he was also a good Jew. What he now faced was unique. Had he not had that vision of the unclean food, he might have refused to go to the gentiles. But he went, telling his Pharisee critics he had to ask himself the question “who was I that I could hinder God?”

As I read this passage again, I found myself asking “In what ways do I hinder God?” And worse, “How often have I hindered God while believing I was doing so for God?” I shall not go to confession with you on that issue. It is troubling enough to have to admit I have done it many times. And probably no longer ago than this past week!

Ultimately, this event, this vignette, this glimpse into the story of Peter is about action not belief. We can argue until the earth looks flat about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but what action does our belief produce? Believe the gentiles are impure and it only makes sense to avoid them. Believe that the Jews are impure and you justify the holocaust. Believe that someone’s sexual practices are impure and you have just cause for turning them into objects of ridicule and scorn.

I am not free of these unholy judgments. As I heard one woman put it, “I’m a snob. I look down on people who look down on people!” Oh, I wish she hadn’t said that. Yes, I too am guilty. Where there is hatred, prejudice, intolerance, injustice there is a profanation of the holy. We all are created in the Image of God and no matter how far we have defaced that image, God has not shut the door on any of us.

For Peter, the lesson meant action. It was not enough to have a vision of unclean food; he was called to minister to the hated ones. He was invited into their home where he saw with his own eyes an anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the enemy. It’s rather like seeing one’s home team ignored while the challengers from out of town have God in their bleachers!

No, no, no. That’s intolerable. Isn’t it? Or is it? Wasn’t that what Peter was doing when he was urged to go to the Gentiles? Or think of Jonah, that righteous man who tried to run away from God rather than risk telling the Ninehvites how God felt about them and see them repent and be saved. Oh dear. Could God love that pimple faced thug who aspires to dating my daughter?

Apparently God could, and does, and urges us to do likewise. It’s not just a new world we Christians are living in, it’s a newer world every day. There’s no keeping up with it. I listened to a report on NPR yesterday which speaks of this new “i” generation. The generation of the i-pod, the i-pad, google and twitter and facebook. Lord have mercy on us. We are raising children who understand the uses of the internet by the time they’re in first grade. When I can’t get my MP3 player to work, I find a 5th grader to explain it to me. Can we honestly think that the gospel we learned fifty years ago really fits the world in which they live? We may long for the “good old days” and lament the easy morals of today’s youth, but I must remind you, their morals are not that different from the ones we practiced or that our forebearers took for granted. Thus it will ever be as long as we stay satisfied merely obeying the letter of the law without looking beyond the forbidden food to see the miracle God is constantly working in our constantly changing world.

Don’t think Peter got it right away. Told to eat unclean food he rebelled. Never. Never? Why Peter, think who you’re talking to. You know more than God?

Well, yes. The laws are pretty clear on this. And it’s what everyone else believes. And yet, are we really so clear? It’s not been that long ago a couple were convicted of contributing to the death of their son when they refused to avail themselves of the aid of modern medicine for him because of their religious beliefs. We were horrified. How could they do that? Yet how could they not? Given their understanding of the requirements of their faith, to do otherwise was to deny God. Suppose everything you ever believed was being thrown out the window when you were totally convinced that God had ordered things otherwise? How frightening, how dreadful, how terrible for you and your son.

The Universal Question continues to be, “Am I doing the will of God, or am I getting in the way of God’s will?” And that is why I was reminded of that remark I heard long ago, “Just when I think I have it figured out, I realize I haven’t got it figured out.” And to take it a step further, “Just when I’m sure I know the will of God - ah, how strange that I cannot understand the will of God at all!” The poet Stephen Vincent Benet, in his epic poem about the Civil War, imagined Abraham Lincoln struggling to know God’s will:

What is God’s will?

They come to me and talk about God’s will

In righteous deputations and platoons,

Day after day, laymen and ministers,

They write me Prayers From Twenty Million Souls

Defining me God’s will and Horace Greeley’s.

God’s will is General This and Senator That,

God’s will is those poor colored fellows’ will,

It is the will of the Chicago churches,

it is this man’s and his worst enemy’s.

But all of them are sure they know God’s will.

I am the only man who does not know it.

And yet, if it is probable that God

Should, and so very clearly, state His will

To others, on a point of my own duty,

It might be thought He would reveal it me

Directly, more especially as I

So earnestly desire to know His will.

God bless the Peters of this world and the Abraham Lincolns, and the young man who thought he knew but discovered he did not know. God bless us who want to do what is right but must live in a world that keeps changing, changing so radically our sacred rules seem useless.

God bless you as you hear Jesus’ words:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

May God give us the courage, the humility and the faith to hear those words as if we had never heard them before, and the resolve to live by them as best we can this day. Amen.

The Blessedness of an Empty Tomb

2010-07-18T08:39:00.003-06:00

The saying goes, “Seeing is believing”. That’s the rallying cry of the realist, the credo of all down-to-earth people. We are followers of the disciple Thomas who vowed unless he saw with his own eyes and felt with his own hands the risen Christ, he would not believe. And that’s what makes the Easter story so incredibly hard to swallow. It isn’t what we see that makes the difference - it’s what we don’t see.

Think about it. We are here today celebrating a non-sight, an empty tomb. Now we may go on and on about the implications of that empty tomb. We may protest and say “But that only proves Christ rose from the dead.” Not necessarily so. Even the disciples were unconvinced, and dismissed the words of the women as an “idle tale.”

In this, Luke tells a different story from the other Gospel writers. We have no Jesus in the garden, who confronts Mary. Nor do the disciples get to visit with the angelic messengers. No. We are left with an empty space - and a sense of wonder.

Very unscientific - and very un-American I might add. We are the “Show me” people. Unless we see for ourselves, we will not believe.

But how much we miss for all our scientific approach to things. In my experience, when I am on familiar ground, when I have all the facts in hand, when I know what I am talking about - then I am least able to recognize God.

It is in the empty places I am forced to start searching. Who seeks food when he or she is already full? Who seeks enlightenment when he or she already knows? Who explores new territory when he or she is content at home?

In the book of Revelation, the Church in Laodicea is chided for being “lukewarm.” They think they are rich, they think they are well dressed, they think they are healthy. Laodicea was known throughout the whole Roman Empire for its fine wool, for an eye salve that was produced there from minerals found in the area, and for the mint that produced coins for Rome. Yet, the author says they are “poor, blind and naked.” The implication is clear - how much better off you would be if you were poor, blind and naked - then perhaps you would recognize your true need. You would hear me knocking at the door, and you would invite me in so we could sit down and dine together.

The empty places, they are the blessed places - and they are the very places we strive the hardest to avoid. I invite you to contemplate this empty tomb - think not about where Jesus is, think only about where he is not. We cannot keep him in a dusty tomb. He will not be confined in our churches. He will burst out of our theological formulae. It’s rather like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn attending their own funeral, watching the people grieve over the poor dead angels. Jesus peeks over our shoulders, looks into the empty grave and says “It is empty, isn’t it. Surprise!”

The life of faith, unlike the life of the pragmatist, is lived in an empty space where the unexpected can take place. Only in the empty place can God come tapping at our door, and we will hear and invite him in.

It’s an old legend, but still powerful - about the tailor in a small Russian village, who is told in a dream that he will be visited by God the next day. He is overjoyed at such an honor, and sets out to prepare for the great visitor. But hard as he tries to prepare he keeps getting interrupted. He prepares a feast, and then a beggar comes needing food. The only food in the house sits on the table waiting for the divine guest, he has nothing to give the beggar. But he can’t turn the poor fellow out. Especially when he learns the man has a sick wife and small children at home, all starving. He packs up the meal and sends it off with the poor man. He has stayed up all night sewing a handsome robe for his guest - only to have another beggar come tapping at the door. It is winter and cold and the poor man is in rags and freezing. The tailor can find nothing to help the cold man, all he has left in his shop is this splendid robe. But he can’t turn the fellow out either. He gives him the cloak, and rues the fact there is nothing left in his house for his divine guest. He has a few pennies left, which he decides to use to go get some bread - but on the way he meets still another beggar, and can’t find it in his heart to refuse the outstretched hand. The pennies are given, and the tailor goes home cold and hungry to wait for God. When God does not come, he is shattered. He tells his disappointment to his neighbor. The neighbor, wisely, remembers something he had read, and turning in the Gospels, he finds Jesus saying “I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me - for in as much as you did it onto the least of these, my brothers, you did it onto me.”

Who knows when we have played host to the Spirit of God - in disguise? Our humble tailor could have missed his divine guest. In all the excitement of getting ready for God; in the egotism that surely must come from the thought the he would be host to the Almighty; how disappointed he was. It took a neighbor to challenge him and help him see the real truth.

Luke will do much the same thing with his story. Rather than making a grand entrance and dazzling the disciples, the next thing we read is of two men on their way to Emmaus where a stranger joins them on the road. They are so caught up in their own grief they don’t recognize the stranger. Jesus even explains the situation to them and they still don’t know who he is. Only when they sit down to eat at the inn are their eyes opened. Only in the common time, the ordinary time, the everyday moment we all share as human beings, do they become aware of who their guest really is.

And once they do recognize him, Jesus vanishes from their sight.

There, in a nutshell, is the formula for the life of faith in Christ. We worship a God we cannot see, a God who refuses to be pinned down, a God who joins us when we least expect it, and most often in the common and ordinary places of our lives where we are doing the common and ordinary things of life.

I can repeat the good news - Christ is risen. But more important than the good news is my willingness to live it in the everyday places of my life. Thank God for this empty tomb that prompts us to be on our way. Happy reunions on your journey. Amen.

No Longer I

2010-07-18T08:36:00.002-06:00

Luke leaves little doubt as to the sin this woman has committed. She’s the town’s prostitute, a profession that has had poor press in the history of the Jews. I wonder if the story would have had quite the same impact if she had been an attorney! That Jesus would so easily forgive her is as shocking to the Pharisees as it is gratifying to the rest of us who might think “if that sin can be forgiven, surely mine can be, because God knows I’m not that bad.”

But be careful. When you start to compare sins, you’re on shaky ground. This parable is not about sexual misconduct, it’s about forgiveness, and more to the point, whether Jesus over-stepped his bounds when he forgave this woman. Who was he to forgive sins? Only God could do that!

There’s another sin here, one that is not so obvious, yet perhaps even more destructive than fornication. Jesus’ brief parable points us to this truth. “Simon”, Jesus says, “there once were two debtors”. Two. The woman is not the only sinner in the room, the Pharisee is the other. One owes fifty denarii the other five hundred. One debt is ten times the size of the other. The woman’s sins is obvious and universally despised. But what about Simons?

A religious man. A man of good reputation in the community. Apparently generous: he’s hosted a feast for Jesus, hasn’t he? What is his sin? Someone this righteous can’t have much on his conscience. We might conclude his was the fifty denarii debt while the woman’s was the five hundred. But I believe that conclusion would be dead wrong.

You see, the one sin is basically one of breaking a moral law. The other is against God himself. It isn’t just breaking the great commandment of loving God and loving our neighbor. It breaks our relationship with both. Laws can be mended, they can be out of date, they can be just plain wrong. Relationships are another matter. God is love - so says John in his first epistle. Refuse to love and you refuse God. Refuse to love your neighbor and you become the impediment for God’s love. For the love of God is not some invisible force that drops out of the sky willy nilly, it is transmitted to us through others. We are the channel of God’s love, forgiveness, mercy.

Jesus’ parable is of two debtors, not one, and rightly understood, it points to Simon much more than to the prostitute. Jesus elaborates this by reminding Simon that she has washed his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, poured perfume on them, kissed them. Simon has done none of these things. At first glance, such extravagance is a bit bizarre for our modern eyes. I daresay most of us would be uncomfortable with such attention. But you see, this isn’t about our feet, it’s about her gratitude and love, her instinctive understanding that something about Jesus transcends a casual meeting. Any man could possess her body, only Jesus relates to her inner being, her soul. It is the one who can be comfortable with our souls that is our truest friend. A favorite saying of mine was voiced by a woman I knew who said of a friend, “I love her, not for what she is, but for what I become when I am with her.”

We see this kind of love in this woman, and her gift of perfume and tears flows out of this instinctive sense of gratitude in her. Clearly, Simon the Pharisee does not know what Jesus’ is talking about here. In his world, obedience to a law is all that is required of him. Such obedience guarantees him good standing in God’s eyes. It begins and ends with him.

For Jesus, the important point is how open we are to the searching eye of God and God’s forgiveness. The sign of such openness is the gratitude we display for the good grace of God, a grace we never thought we’d deserve. That is the alchemy of love, the transforming power of God’s spirit that takes on life and meaning in human relationships. And the fruit of such forgiveness is the way we make ourselves available to God to extend that forgiveness and love to others.

When Paul was writing his letter to the Galatians, he was dealing with a similar issue: new Christians being required to obey the Jewish Law rather than experiencing the liberating grace of love. He dismisses his credentials as worthless compared to his story, his experience of unearned love. Such a shift in emphasis is tricky. It can so easily look like boasting, and Paul knew it. If you concentrate on the ecstatic experience of being loved and broadcast it to all the world, you can become obnoxious. You’ve met such people I’m sure.

So Paul tells the story of what happened to him and then explains that the Saul he once was is now no more. The transformation is so total he even ceases to be Saul and is now called Paul. The difference is so marked he thinks of his old self as dead and a new self has emerged. And the remarkable sign of that new self is that he has become totally committed to Christ, so much so that his new life is only an extension of Christ. He lives now so that Christ can live in him.

Forgive me for being confessional here, but I can’t find any other words for it. Today marks the anniversary of the transforming moment for my life when I was released from the tyranny of my addiction to alcohol. That was 37 years ago. I mention this, not because I am proud of my sobriety - after all, it is rather foolish to take pride in not doing something, especially when others can drink without harm to themselves or anyone else. On the contrary, the miracle in my case was the way I was freed to serve others and be an extension of hope in a loving God who never gives up on us. Paul says, “I no longer live, now it is Christ who lives in me.” Those who have experienced release in AA discover early on that the key to their sobriety is in their efforts to help others. We call it “Twelfth stepping”. The miracle was not something we could keep to our selves, we had to pass it on.

I recall Jimmy whom I met briefly when he was in the throes of DT’s waiting for transportation to the alcoholic ward of the state mental hospital. There was little I could do. Newly sober myself, not even a full year, I had very little wisdom and virtually no experience at all in “working the steps” as we call it. But I could sit with him and keep him company until his ride came. It was Good Friday - how symbolic! - and as it would happen, Easter Sunday I would be in the same town as the hospital, so I decided to drop in on him to see how he was coming along.

He was still shaky, but the monsters that had been coming at him through cracks in the wall were gone, as was the look of terror I’d first seen in his eyes. His words were beginning to make sense. And he told me, “When you saw me Friday, I was so scared. I hardly knew what was happening to me. Today is the first day I could start to make sense out of anything. When I woke up this morning, I knew it was Easter and I missed my family. They don’t even know I’m here. I felt so lonely. And then you walked into the room, and when I saw you, you looked just like Jesus Christ!”

I have no mistaken notions about being Jesus, and no desire to compete with him as the savior of the world. But I understood what he was talking about. I remembered the night I had sat in an AA meeting feeling so desperately lonely and unforgivable, a “man of God” who had sinned grievously, and when a total stranger sat next to me, keeping me company and treating me as a human being deserving of compassion, understanding and love, the miracle of new life began for me. He had been my “Jesus Christ” even though I hadn’t called him that.

As the years have gone by, I have been learning more and more the lesson Paul was trying to teach us, that we are all extensions of the Christ to one another, and that where we will love, God loves, where we will listen, God listens, where we will care, God cares. But we must first be broken, our pride cracked open, our need for acceptance of love and healing ourselves revealed.

You see, Jesus not only described Simon’s sin, the sin of self-righteous and moral superiority, he told him both debtors were forgiven, not just the one. Think what you will about who was the greater sinner - in the end it really doesn’t matter. Both were sinners and both forgiven. That is the good news. The question is, which will show the fruits of that forgiveness - Simon or the Prostitute? The evidence is pretty conclusive, isn’t it?

Gratitude is the sign of the New Life, and service its hallmark. I love the prayer of the old slave, who said to God,

Oh Lord, I ain’t what I oughta be.

Oh Lord, I ain’t what I wanta be.

Oh Lord, I ain’t what I’m gonna be.

But Thanks Lord, I ain’t what used to be! Amen.

So Much More

2010-07-18T08:34:00.002-06:00

I’m guessing we were in what they now call Middle School, give or take a year. My sister was talking to mother about something or other and I wanted to know what she was talking about - probably for the sake of argument. (We did a lot of arguing, my sister and I!) I asked for an explanation. My sister, who was a year younger than I, mind you, gave me a condescending look and said those galling words, “You’re not old enough to understand.”

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t those about the most irritating words you can ever hear? For one thing, you’ve probably asked a perfectly acceptable question, which in itself is both an admission of ignorance AND a willingness to be enlightened. To have that very vulnerable position made worse by rubbing your nose in it is unbearable. No wonder my sister and I fought all the time. It was all her fault, you understand. She did not understand the protocol of diplomacy, let alone the fragility of the male ego. Come to think of it, she may have understood it all too well. I never appreciated how deceptively cunning a woman could be. Sigh.

Funny that memory should come back to me now as I read John’s account of this final teaching Jesus gave his disciples in the upper room. There is certainly nothing condescending or patronizing in him. I doubt his name would even be known today had that been his personality and character. But if we can get passed the implied insult to our intelligence, there is so much truth in this statement.

More to Learn

For one thing, the story isn’t over, there is so much more to learn. Generally speaking we’re a people who don’t like to be in the dark. I remember Helen. She was under the hair dryer at the beauty parlor and curious what two women were talking about. She could only catch a snatch of the conversation here and there, but it sounded like some steamy goings on were being discussed. Being in a small town where everybody knew everybody else’s secrets, it was unbearable not to know more details. Just who was cheating on who. She was dying to know. When she got out from under the dryer, and the other women had gone, she asked the operator to fill in the details. She looked a little blank at first, then laughed and said, “Oh that. They were talking about somebody on their soap opera!”

A silly story, but it describes our incurable curiosity. How stale and dull life would be if we weren’t always “in the dark” about something or other. There is so much more to life, so much more to learn, so much beyond our eyes and comprehension. When Jesus says he has more to tell us, he affirms that hope - that there is more, infinitely more, and implies that the time will come when we can hear it.

How sad when people forget this. How limiting. How frustrating. The story may be apocryphal but it illustrates my point. I read or heard somewhere that the head of the US Patent Office (date and time no longer recalled!) resigned his position because there was nothing more to invent! In his opinion, everything that could be known was already known. And this before the technological revolution had really gotten started. To think that we are living in a live and pulsing world, one constantly creating and growing, one with discoveries that make the Arabian Nights look childish - and yet confine ourselves to notions that were stale almost from the day we first learned them. How pitiful. A man in a shop that sold computer games told me he had a masters degree in computer science, but had been unable to find a job. Three years later the degree he had was useless.

Unhappily, too many of us have settled for an old understanding of the Bible and religion that isn’t up to coping with the modern world in which we live today. It’s not enough to ask “What would Jesus do?” as much as we might wish it were. What would Jesus do about oil gushing out of the earth beneath the waters of the Gulf Coast? What would Jesus do about the rising suicide rate amongst adolescents, or the increase in juvenile diabetes in our “fast food” society? What would Jesus do about our attitudes toward sexuality in a world that not only offers us the “pill” but Viagra as well?

No, no, no! Although we know so much more than we once knew, there is so much more we don’t know - always. The possibilities are absolutely infinite. But it is always possibility, we never know it all. And we won’t know any of it until we begin by an admission that we don’t know it all. The philosopher Herbert Spencer once observed that “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a person in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” Put more simply, this is the person who says, “I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Jesus tells us to consider there is so much more to know.

Getting Ready

Willingness to learn is essential. Humility is too. It is never shameful to admit you don’t know something. I remember Donny who was having trouble in school. “Did you tell the teacher you didn’t understand the question?” “No.” “Why not?” “I don’t know. I thought you were supposed to figure it out for yourself.” How human. How many of us suffer from the mistaken notion that we were supposed to know virtually everything. We’re too ashamed to admit we don’t. (And to make matters worse, we assume that everyone else does know!)

We all have a bit of Donny in us, don’t we? We are ashamed of our mistakes, ashamed of our ignorance, embarrassed to admit others might know something we don’t know. We’re afraid to look “bad” in the eyes of the world. What Jesus is trying to tell us is we’re supposed to be stupid. The tennis star Billie Jean King got it right when she said, “For me, losing a tennis match isn't failure, it's research” and the esteemed author James Joyce echoed that sentiment when he wrote: “Mistakes are the portals of discovery”. We don’t look bad, we look ready to learn.

I confess this is one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever tried to learn - and I’m still working at it. It’s really all right not to know. It’s really all right to be in the dark. It’s really all right to wonder. Think what we know today because somebody somewhere didn’t know and decided to find out. Leonardo wondered how birds could fly. Now we know. Well somebody knows. We’re doing it! Good heavens, now we’re even talking about going to Mars.

There is so much more Jesus wanted to tell us, but we couldn’t hear it, we didn’t have the experience, the training, the basic knowledge . We could not understand or make use of what he was telling us. My sister was almost right when she said I was not old enough to understand. What Jesus is telling us is we don’t have enough knowledge or experience to understand. And Jesus is right. How were we to understand a God who loved us so much he could die for us, especially when we were the ones who were killing him? All we understood were the Laws of Moses and a God who seemed ready to punish for something or other. This new reality simply didn’t make sense.

Do not be afraid of having wrong ideas about God. God’s used to that. Be afraid of being convinced you have God completely figured out. Too many people live with a God who is too small, one who has to fit into their pre-conceived notions of what he ought to be. When God is trying to open our eyes to new truths, we are getting in the way with our limited vision. Instead of looking through a plate glass window at the universe, we are looking through the peep hole in the door! Get ready to be surprised, to learn, to grow, to encounter a God bigger than anything your brain can comprehend.

Helps Coming

This may be the trickiest part of all, the notion that Jesus hasn’t given up on us. No, we are enrolled in a new school and we have a new teacher. The church has given it a name - the Holy Spirit. He will teach us what we need to know.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the King James Bible is the way it translated the word “pneuma”. It chose the word “ghost”, an invisible entity that floats around in the air, basically invisible, but sometimes dimly glimpsed. I’ve always been a little suspect of that word. “Spirit” helped, for I could associate it to spirituality. Still it wasn’t much better, for it, too, was invisible and seemed somehow foreign to us, basically an illegal immigrant if you will.

Our seminary professor was a big help to me. “The Holy Spirit is the Living Activity of God in the world.” I know, I know - academic garbledegook. That’s one of those definitions that needs to be defined! In a nutshell, The Holy Spirit is our name for the God who has taken up permanent residence with us and in us. Where people love one another, God is present. Where people care for one another, God is there. Where people are considerate of one another, God is ministering to them.

In this passage, Jesus speaks of the spirit of truth. I have been led by wise teachers who showed me truth I could not grasp on my own. And they did more. They encouraged me to open my eyes and look for my truth, truth I could give back, if you will. We’re all on a journey of exploration, and as we follow others who discover truth for us, we too, are discoverers who will expand the horizon of knowledge. The Holy Spirit cannot only be trusted, Jesus is telling us God trusts us as well. But remember, it is in relationships that are respectful, loving, caring.

Jesus once remarked that where two or three are gathered together, he will be in their midst. That is the Holy Spirit. When I am with someone I trust, with someone I know respects and trust me, Christ is there. We are “in” love.

Conclusion

Today is both Trinity Sunday and the day we remember those we love who have gone on before us. Trinity Sunday is the reminder that there is a new relationship between us and God. We are one unity. Memorial Day reminds us that that union is eternal. Not even death separates us from God and one another.

I would remind you of Jesus’ words: Be teachable, be open, be loving and be grateful for the Spirit that is in us and among us, a spirit that is here to stay! Amen.

City Planning: Christian Style

2010-07-18T08:32:00.001-06:00

There is a stunning image in the book of Revelation; it is the author’s depiction of the ideal Promised Land. He calls it the New Jerusalem, a vision of hope for all God’s people. There are twelve gates that stand open: no one will be shut out. There are trees that provide fruit all year round. There’s a river of living water rushing through the city with no hint of flooding. Amazingly, there is no sun or moon because there is no more night. No GE light bulbs there. No DMEA.

What do we make of such a vision?

At first glance, it’s tempting to think of this as Utopia. No more tears, no more worries, no more death. Come on, this is paradise. Every religion promises such a spot, doesn’t it? Islam has its Garden of Allah replete with endless virgins to play with. The Norse legends depict a warlike Valhalla where the gods get to show off their physical prowess and brag about past conquests. The playwright Marc Connelly provides another image - heaven seen through the eyes of the Negro slave: a non-stop fish fry in green pastures complete with cigars and fresh batches of “firmament” that get you tipsy without embarrassment or hangovers.

While such fanciful images of paradise sound ideal, others wonder. George Bernard Shaw described such an after life as being like spending an eternity in a candy shop, a sure cause for ennui and eternal boredom. I remember Frank, a banker friend, who said he had a lot of anxiety about going to heaven. While golden streets might be a novelty, if gold was that plentiful, what was the point of having it? Besides, he had no desire to spend eternity sitting on a cloud and plucking harp strings.

Then what shall we make of this vision of John? Such literal interpretations seem to create as many problems as they solve. But if we look below the surface, I think we find an intensely satisfying promise. For one, these visions are about life.

The Tree of Life

Death has always been the great insult, the implacable enemy that refuses to go away. It is not surprising that a promise of eternal life would be the ace in the hole for believers. But we must be careful with this promise. Endless life, while it seems to satisfy a deep human hunger, if it is ever granted, can be a punishment of its own. Myths and legends are filled with examples of hapless folk afflicted with eternal life. One familiar version is of the Wandering Jew. He is a figure from medieval Christian folklore whose legend began to spread in Europe in the thirteenth century. The original legend concerns a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming. In this instance, just living forever is no blessing, it is a terrible curse.

Endless living is not enough. The true gift is being truly alive. The images in Revelation are dynamic rather than static. Fruit and fresh water, growing, flowing, movement, that is the heart of these promises. The Gospel of John sums it up succinctly when Jesus remarks, “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.” At the end of the Gospel, the author strikes that note once again when he says,

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

The question we must ponder is not, how long will we live, but how alive will we be while we’re living. What keeps us from being fully, vibrantly alive? I read an obituary recently of Doris “Granny” Haddock, a campaigner for election reform who died on March 9th at the age of 100. Do you remember her? A tireless campaigner for the cause in which she believed, she set out to walk from Pasadena, California to Washington DC to capture attention to her cause. Remember? She was 90 at the time and it took her a year to complete her trek. You may say, “So what?” I say, praise God. Whether you adopt her cause, you must applaud her example of life. She was still planning more actions when she died. Another example comes to mind: a group of Senior Citizens in Mass. who have established a name for themselves singing concerts of Rock and Roll music. The results is chronicled in a delightful documentary called “Young at Heart”. Their message? It’s not how old you are, it’s how alive you are.

The New Jerusalem is that place where we are thrillingly, vibrantly alive. And people like Doris Haddock show us we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to live there.

No Lights

Another sign of the New Jerusalem is the absence of artificial light. There isn’t even a sun. An odd distinction, don’t you think? It sounds like we might as well all be blind! Ah, be careful. That is hardly heaven. In fact, a quick survey of the Bible shows that “darkness” is the exact opposite of heaven. The book of Job strikes this note over and over again, and the Psalms continually refer to the similarity between darkness and Sheol, another word for hell.

Then what is there about heaven that is so blessed when a chief characteristic is the absence of the sun? The answer, quite simply, is God. The need for light has been satisfied by the glory of God. Frankly, here the vision of John carries me beyond my knowledge and understanding. I am at a loss how to explain this mystery. I can call upon the works of imagination that have satisfied others. For instance, Dante, at the climax of his classic “The Divine Comedy” an epic poem describing hell and heaven, completes his masterpiece by attempting to describe God himself in the center of the universe. It is not a satisfactory description. God is simply light, a blinding light, so bright, so intense that the poet falls silent. He can say no more.

Frankly, this image fails to move me. I am more attracted to a different kind of light, the kind that accompanies that wonderful “ah ha” moment when we glimpse some new insight or truth. While a flash of light may accompany this vision, it’s hardly the point, is it? It’s the seeing, not the light. It’s the understanding, not the view. It’s the amazing “ah ha” that reshapes everything we thought we knew or understood. It’s Paul saying “when I was a child I understood as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” It’s Job saying “I thought I knew, but I did not. Now I understand”.

Not that such knowing and understanding are necessarily clear. No, not at all. More often - no, I’d go even further and say - always they are course corrections that steer us away from what we thought we knew into a new unknown where our journey continues for the next glimpse of insight. John Henry Newman captures this in his beloved hymn “Lead Kindly Light”

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me."

Not the whole journey, just the single step. That is what God’s light grants us. Frankly, it is probably all we can bear. In John’s gospel, Jesus remarks to his disciples a the Last Supper, “There is much more that I would tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” (John 16:12) We walk in the light God provides as we need it and to the extent that we can comprehend it. And that is all.

No Temple

Perhaps the most remarkable omission in the New Jerusalem is the absence of a Temple. How can God permit such an oversight? Down through history, temples have been essential. We literally grade civilizations by their temples, cathedrals, altars. Show me where you worship and honor your God and you show me the true nature of your soul. I think it no accident that explorers and missionaries begin their conquests by obliterating the temples of the pagans and replacing them with their own altars

When John wrote his vision, he lived in a culture replete with Roman and Greek temples to every God under the sun. While the Jews had prohibited statues, they still revered the memory of their temple, and their most recent grief had to do with its destruction. Surely heaven would restore that temple with a grandeur the human imagination could not comprehend. Yet John sees no temple. There isn’t even a vacant lot for future construction.

And for good reason: John is told God no longer needs a temple. God is not living in an ark, or a building, God has become a living temple. The greatest promise of all is the simple assertion: God is completely with us. All separation is over.

The Gospel of John had already tried to describe this. It quotes Jesus as praying:

It is not for these alone that I pray, but for those also who through their words put their faith in me. May they all be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so also may they be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one; I in them and you in me, may they be perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me, and that you loved them as you loved me.

- John 17: 20-23

This vision of oneness, unity, wholeness is the ultimate depiction of heaven and, again, need not wait until we die to be realized. We live in that promise today. But not in the static sense that now we are one big happy family, we all see alike, all prejudice is gone, good will exists among all people, the divisions amongst Christians are overcome, etc, etc, etc. No, as with our other visions, this is the promise that is being realized, and the final outcome is not only beyond our vision, it’s even beyond our comprehension.

The Lord’s Prayer

Each Sunday we pray, “They Kingdom come, thy will be done”, little thinking how these words are a reminder that the kingdom is coming and we are already a part of it. The vision in Revelation is describing this coming also. The Early Christians were blessed to have it for their encouragement and consolation. But it was no Hollywood preview of coming attractions. It was a challenge for the here and now. The distinguished psychotherapist Victor Frankel, a survivor of the holocaust, wrote an incredible book about his internment in a concentration camp called “From Death Camp to Existentialism”. In it he said that simply being told of a hope for tomorrow, or next week, or sometime in the unspecified future would not have been enough to keep him alive. His hope had to be in today, and it was grounded in an imperishable conviction that what was happening to him was known to God and mattered. Being Jewish, he did not have the vision of heaven we find in the book of Revelation, but he had the essence of it anyway. He lived where there was no need of light, no need of temple, no need indeed of longevity of life. He lived in the spirit of God.

May we live there too. Amen.

Credentials and Testimonies

2010-07-18T08:31:00.000-06:00

When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, he did not know we would be reading it today. He didn't even know who would be reading it - for sure. This letter did not go to a particular church or a particular town, it went to a region we now call Asia Minor and he expected it to be passed from church to church, a kind of general letter for the attention of a wide group of people. In this sense, it must have had particular significance to him, since he wanted to reach as many people as possible. To emphasize just how important he thought it was, he took the pen in his own hand to underscore how he felt about what he was writing. "See what big letters I write!" he says, probably because he suffered from poor eyesight and usually relied on a scribe to write his letters for him.

We need, if we can, to feel that same sense of urgency when we read it today, and in order to do that, we need to ask ourselves, "in what ways do we resemble these Galatians? What were they doing Paul considered so disturbing, and are we doing the same thing?"

The problem seems simple enough: the Galatians, being gentiles, had never followed the rigors of the Mosaic Law: in particular, the practice of circumcision. Some body had come to them, a Jew who had converted to Christianity, or even a gentile who had become a Christian - such people were called Judaizers - and explained to these men that it was necessary for them to obey the Jewish Law if they were to become full-fledged Christians. That meant they must be circumcised.

Now Paul was born both a Jew and a Roman citizen: he had dual citizenship if you will. He had lived by the Mosaic law, including circumcision, and he could brag about his righteousness as well as any other Jew. But Paul knew something else. His righteousness had never satisfied him. As hard as he tried, he could not get good enough to face God with clean hands and a pure heart, and he knew it. His relief came when he meant Christ on the road to Damascus, intent on going there to seek out converts to Christ and kill them.

At first blush, this hardly seems like a contemporary issue for us. How are we supposed to get instruction from this non-issue? If Paul was that upset, shouldn’t we be too?

I think so, but we have to read carefully to see what Paul was really upset about. It wasn’t the circumcision issue itself. I don’t think Paul cared one way or the other. But he did care passionately about what getting circumcised signified to these pseudo-Christians. For them it was a mark of being true Christians, the guarantee that they were saved if you will. And to Paul’s mind it shifted the emphasis from faith in Christ to faith in how well we obeyed the law.

Put in a nutshell, it was trusting in having the right belief rather than faith in Jesus.

Paul tells the Galatians he can match their righteousness with his own record. Born a Jew. Raised in the Jewish faith. Taught by the Pharisees. Zealous in his observance of the Mosaic Law, his record is unblemished. That’s his credentials, if you will. But what mattered was not what he did but what God did. God erased the sin and guilt by sending us Jesus Christ.

How does this speak to any issues we might have today? Well, stop and think about what you consider important in your religious life. Where do you put your faith and trust? We say we have accepted Jesus, but that says easy and does hard. The truth is, we don’t trust Jesus, we trust behaving ourselves. Work hard, be good, and God will take care of you. God helps those who help themselves. God won’t put more on you than you can bear. Love your neighbor as yourself. You know the list. I won’t argue with it. They’re all good. Notice Paul doesn’t argue with such rules either. He argues with the motive - the trusting part, the part that says “If I do these things, I’ll be all right.”

Well, he did all those things, and he wasn’t all right. And we’ve done all those things, and we weren’t all right either. I remember a remark an elder from my church made when we discovered our beautiful building had become infested with termites. He was incredulous. This was impossible. He could understand termites attacking a house of ill repute, but not a church! If we put our faith in living good, clean lives, we are making a short-cut to righteousness. We are saying, in affect, we trust our own ability to save ourselves. I remember Roger, a fellow seminary student, who was genuinely puzzled by all the fuss over the Ten Commandments. He had never broken any of them. They were the rules, you lived by them, and you had a clean bill of spiritual health.

Jesus seemed to think it was not that easy. “Do not kill” - “He who hates his brother has already killed him.” (Matthew 5:21-22) “Do not commit adultery” but if you lust after another - (Jesus says a man lusting after a woman, but I see no reason to confine it to men alone!) You have committed adultery already in your heart.(Matthew 5:27-28) Paul doesn’t tell us how much he struggled with obeying the law. That he had struggles we know from a cryptic remark he once made in his second letter to the Corinthians - “I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet me” (12:7) We don’t know what it was, what he does tell us is that we all are afflicted with such problems. He told the Romans “There is no one righteous; no, not one:” and he proceeds to describe us in humiliating detail. And it’s not all about sex either. That’s hardly the big sin in his eyes. The big one is our assumed righteousness, our pride in our goodness, our smug self-righteousness - the kind of thing my seminary friend Roger was demonstrating - that’s the big one, and Paul knew whereof he spoke, because he considered himself first among sinners on that score.

The book of Galatians is Paul’s testimony, if you will, his attempt to redirect our eyes and our thoughts from concentrating on laws we don’t break, to the inner reaches of our hearts where our ungovernable wills run riot. He does this, not by recounting his stellar record as a good man, but by placing before us the incredible power of Jesus Christ who met him at the very moment when he - Paul - was determined to destroy all traces that Jesus had ever lived! It’s this story, not a book of instructions, that Paul believes will bring relief and healing.

When I consider the world in which I live, I am struck by how amazing we are, how no miracle seems too impossible for us to accomplish. Yet how miserable we are. We have countless rules to guide us, yet even those who obey all the rules can still be miserable. Termites still come. We talk a good talk about rules and regulations to make sure that we will be safe - from oil spills in the Gulf, for instance, or explosions in coal mines. Yet we still find ways to get around those rules for the sake of profit. And we use those rules to justify ourselves. “We didn’t do anything illegal.” And in the end, we have only succeeded in proving that our true god is not love, or goodness, or truth, but expediency and profit.

That’s what Paul is talking about. That’s what has upset him so he must write in Big Letters! And that’s why we need to listen to him so carefully today. The credentials of a Christian is our story - the story of how we have been met by the Christ, and our lives been changed. We must give up trusting our ideas about being good, and turn instead to the Christ who makes us good in God’s eye - not because we deserve it, but because we are loved.

Call Waiting: The Tale of Three Boys

2010-07-18T08:29:00.000-06:00

This morning I’d like to tell the story of three boys. They’re all in the Bible. They never knew each other, but all are remembered and revered and may have something to teach us. They were, you see, special and had much in common. They each received a call — from God.

Samuel

For Samuel, the call came early. It was in the early days of the Hebrews, the period we call the time of the Judges. The Jews were a collection of tribes living in the promised land after God had rescued them from Egypt. Moses is long dead and Joshua too is gone. The people have no leader, and while they still have the ark of the covenant, that sacred table in which they preserved the stone tablets of Moses’ Law, their existence is precarious and not always godly.

Samuel was his mother’s pride and joy. She had long been barren and finally made a pact with God that, should he grant her a son, she in turn would raise the boy specifically for God. In this story we find Hannah has kept her promise. The boy was given to the old priest Eli at the temple at Shiloh to be apprenticed into the life of a priest himself.

The lad served the old priest at the temple. He no doubt received religious training there and from what little we are told must have been a source of satisfaction to him. Perhaps his only joy, for Eli was old and there was trouble in the land. The Philistines had gathered nearby threatening their peace and safety. His sons were little satisfaction to him. Though meant to be priests like their father, the Bible tells us these young men neglected their duties and paid little attention to the niceties of the Mosaic Law. Eli could not control them, nor could he do much about the dangers surrounding the people. Until one night when Samuel heard a voice and thought it was the old priest who was calling him. But he was wrong. It was God.

This was the beginning of a remarkable life and an historic time for the Hebrews. The people needed guidance, more than a novice priest could give. Samuel was appointed a Judge, like Samson and Deborah before him, to be their leader. He was not a king, that honor was reserved for God, but Judges had special insight and power in the eyes of the people. The trouble was, they didn’t have enough; at least not enough to face down the dreaded Philistines The Jews grew more frightened and discontented. They needed something more powerful than a judge. After all, Samuel was no longer a boy, he was growing old and unbending in his ways. When the Philistines attacked them and stole the ark of the covenant, the people began clamoring for a king who could really lead and protect them. After all, big countries had kings, if they had one too, it might give them strength and prestige among the nations. Samuel, with God’s urging, reluctantly chose them a king, a man named Saul, and thus ended his story as far as the Jews were concerned. God no longer needed him. What do you do with a worn out Judge?

Jeremiah

The time of Judges passed, replaced by a line of kings. But kingdoms fade too, and the kingdom that had grown so mighty under David and his son Solomon was also gone. Worshiping God when it suited them, the Hebrews had been prone to quarreling and dividing. They had even become two nations instead of one with Israel, the larger, to the North, and Judah to the south. Israel was conquered in 721 BC leaving Judah, the smaller of the two scarcely much more than a city state with Jerusalem its capital. King Josiah had attempted to bring reform to the land, but it was too little and too late, and Babylon was too strong for them. God was preparing them for a new covenant. He called Jeremiah to be his spokesman.

Perhaps Jeremiah was not technically a youth, nor quite as untutored as some children, still when his story begins it is clear that he considers himself far too young to be commissioned to prophecy for God. Even though he belonged to a priestly family that lived in a village just outside Jerusalem, the religious center of the nation, and surely had religious training of his own, he apparently did not think of himself as priestly material. Surely God needed a more likely person than he. “Who is going to listen to a child?” he asks God.

It was not a happy assignment. No, rather than a wise leader upon whom the people could rely for guidance, his would be the more difficult calling. Like it or not, he would be a prophet. Being God’s prophet is not a happy calling and as some spiritual advisors have put it, “If you can be anything else but a minister, be it.” “The sky is falling, the sky is falling”, cries the prophet, and you know how unpopular that kind of person usually is.

Some prophets could at least hold out some hope. Joel, for instance, had called for a national day of repentance and prayer, saying, “Maybe God will turn around and change his mind.” Micah had urged them to “Do justly, love kindness and walk humbly with God.” There was still time. God was giving them another chance.

Jeremiah had no such message. “Lay down your arms” he thundered. “You’re not just fighting the Babylonians, you are fighting God. God is on their side this time. It’s too late. Give up. Accept your fate and take your punishment. It was nice while it lasted, but it’s over.”

He was hated for it, of course. And he was broken-hearted. He would witness the fall of Judah and the destruction of the Temple in 587 BC. He fled to Egypt where he spent the rest of his life in exile. No wonder he has been given the nickname “The weeping prophet” : he would become a symbol for suffering and tragedy for all times.

The Boy Jesus

I don’t need to tell the story of Jesus, do I? Not in detail. But I would like to look a moment at this strange boy who, at the age of twelve, goes to the temple to listen and learn and do some teaching of his own, without the permission of his parents.

He’s a bit of a contrast to the other two boys, isn’t he? Samuel, naive, Jeremiah reluctant, Jesus eager to be about his Father’s work. Samuel hears a strange voice and must have the old priest Eli explain it to him. Jeremiah apparently hears God’s voice too, but has no difficulty recognizing it. Prophets have a peculiar trait: hearing that inner voice and feeling a sense of compulsion that goes beyond their own willingness

Jesus does not seem to have this struggle, this reluctance: at least not at first. His love of God is all-consuming. He is, after all, God in human flesh. How could he quarrel with God’s mission for him? Still, we know the rest of the story, and we know how many times he was misunderstood, rejected, reviled and even threatened with death. And all this before his final act of obedience: his week in Jerusalem which would end with a trial and a cross.

It seems strange to me that all three boys would be given so completely to God, remain faithful - even if at times reluctant - to their mission, and all three would suffer so dreadfully.

Each lived in a time of trouble and crisis. It was during Samuel’s lifetime that the Philistines attacked Shiloh and stole the ark of the covenant. This represented not only the weakness of the Jews in the face of attack from the enemy, it also suggested that God was either angry with them and had taken his protection away from them, or that he was too weak a god to prevent such desecration, a horrible thought.

Jeremiah lived in a time of turmoil also. The Babylonians were poised for conquest on their northern borders, and the religious practices of the Jews had grown lax and corrupt. Exile would mean the end of the mighty nation, and though there would be a return to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, the old glory would not return.

And of course, the Palestine in which Jesus lived was under the military rule of the Roman Empire. They called it peace, the Pax Romana, but it was still slavery. There may have been a congenial relationship with the authorities, but the Jews were subservient to their masters in Rome - a puppet state, and a galling one considering what they had once been under King David.

But the point of it all is that in each case, God was on watch, God was preparing for new things, and God called each of these boys to an important task that would change, not only their lives, but all our lives.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them

What is the moral of these stories? Consider one more child: There is an unflattering anecdote that occurs in all three Synoptic Gospels concerning an argument that developed amongst the disciples. It seems they were doing some head count about who was the likeliest leader of their number - after Jesus of course. They were jockeying for positions of authority and honor in the new Kingdom they expected Jesus to establish when they got to Jerusalem. It’s rather like the celebration that typically occurs on election night for the campaign workers of the winning candidate.

Jesus took a child and set it before them and announced that this child was worthier of such recognition than any of them. Later, when people brought their children to Jesus for recognition and blessing, and the disciples, proving their memories were short, tried to protect the Master from such an undignified interruption, Jesus corrected them again, suggesting that entrance into the Kingdom of God required the innocence and the wide-eyed trust of a small child.

What are we to make of this teaching? Not that children are so cute and cuddly, although they can certainly be that. But as any parent knows ‘tis not always so. No, our three boys tell us that children hear more because they are more curious, more willing to listen, more eager to learn. It is as if we all arrive with a vague sense of purpose buried deep within that suggests we belong first to God, and then are on loan to this world for a little while. Such a knowing is too vague, too indistinct, to be put into words. We grow into it.

We also learn that such a calling is not necessarily a happy assignment, for we live in a less than happy world. Thus it has always been. God is like a potter, constantly reworking the clay, constantly striving to bring this imperfect creation to a higher degree of perfection. Ours are the hands he uses to - as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, - make “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.

But as we learn the lesson of the little child, let us be careful to remember, it is not an assignment of privilege, it is a labor that can and quite likely will break the heart. It is also the only life worth living!

There is a call waiting: will anyone answer? Amen.

Freedom to Serve

2010-07-18T08:27:00.000-06:00

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1)

fit for service in the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62)

The British have contributed a host of remarkable writers to the world, and there have been significant preachers, missionaries and theologians that came from the United Kingdom. One writer, not particularly well known, qualifies as both. He has become a favorite of mine. His name is Charles Williams and was a friend and companion of writers like CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, Owen Barfield and Dorothy Sayers. Williams has a style that blends theology and fantasy with a grounding in classical literature and mythology that is theologically provocative and always intriguing story-telling.

One such book has a character, a young woman named Pauline, who is haunted by a ghost-like figure that seems to follow her everywhere. It also happens to look exactly like her! It is so persistent, she becomes afraid to leave her house for fear this ghost/woman will meet her around the next corner. One day she meets a man, Professor Stanhope, who takes seriously her increasing fear and tells her “The next time you see that apparition, tell yourself you need not be afraid because I will be feeling the fear for you.” She thinks this is an odd solution to a problem that has grown so great she is almost paralyzed by it. Yet when she takes a chance and leaves her house, she reminds herself of that promise. Meanwhile, Stanhope keeps it by trying to imagine just what such a fear must feel like. As luck would have it, the figure does appear, but Pauline, remembering what Stanhope said, tells herself, “I do not need to be afraid, for he is feeling that fear for me.” The strategy works. She meets the apparition and finds there is no harm in it. When she later tells Stanhope how the fear had been lifted and she is free, he tells her, “now it is your turn to bear someone else’s fear. “ Williams suggests that what has happened here is a living example of the doctrine of substituted love. When Jesus died on the cross, we were relieved of the burden of our sin. Now, with that freedom, our shoulders are ready to assume the burden of other peoples’ sin, if you will.

Our two readings seem to support Williams’ fictional account. Freedom is a big issue for Paul. At first glance, it seems to be freedom from the Law of Moses. That’s what the Galatians are succumbing to. It’s an odd notion, when you think about it. Why should obeying a law be slavery? To answer that question, you must remember Paul’s story. Remember, he is a faithful Pharisee and a zealous adherent of the law of Moses. He followed this path believing that this was necessary for him to find peace of mind and a sense of goodness in the world. However, the harder he tried to obey those laws, the more complex they became to him, and impossible to obey.

(There is an interesting book written a year or two ago, by a Jewish writer who set out to obey the Mosaic Law down to the jot and tittle. He did it, not to achieve holiness, but to discover for himself just what it would be like actually living by those rules. As the weeks and months pass, it became increasingly obvious that living by the rules would be a major disruption in his life and his marriage. And this just to write a book. It was not to save his immortal soul!)

But Paul’s problem went deeper. Even if he had succeeded in obeying the rules, he discovered a new kind of tyranny of sin - an obnoxious self-righteousness that relied more on the rigorous efforts of obeying the law than on faith in a loving God who does for us what we cannot do ourselves. Works-righteousness is the name we usually give it and what makes it so intolerable is how it takes our eyes off God and puts them on ourselves. This is “operation bootstraps”. This is “self-help” to the max. This is living as if there was no God, and in fact, need not be any.

Paul’s emphasis is on the saving acts of God. His eyes are on the gracious work of God revealed in Jesus. Here is where the freedom is really felt. When Paul rejoices in freedom, it is similar to the exhilaration the woman in Charles Williams’ fantasy felt when she relied on a promise made to her by the new friend she’d met. I am free from trying so hard and always failing. I am living by God’s grace, not by exhausted efforts.

However, our modern parable looks beyond the freedom won for us by Christ to the challenge such freedom brings. Our shoulders are empty, now we can carry the load of others. It is intriguing to me how twelve steps programs - and there are a host of them - all include this emphasis. Salvation is not a possession we keep, it is activated, if you will, when we give it away.

Our passage from St. Luke gives us a glimpse of the nature of discipleship. It is rigorous; it is alienating; it is a whole new world; it demands total commitment. For what? Not the salvation of our souls - which is what we are most often warned. No, it is for service. The Christian life is not how to keep our souls safe for heaven, it is an invitation and a challenge to open our souls and give them completely away.

Through the years, I have noticed how we approach people to serve on Sessions, or session committees, or in community service. How many times have we hastened to reassure them “This won’t take much of your time!” We are quick to minimize the work that must be done. This was not Jesus’ approach!

I worked with the Red Cross one summer and I remember a remark the chairman of volunteer services made. “When someone comes to me and says ‘I don’t have anything to do. I think I need to do some volunteer work.’ I thank them for the offer, but I never call on them. No, I choose someone who tells me they are so busy with their many commitments they wonder how they’ll squeeze yet another task into their already busy lives. That’s the person I know will actually do the work.” It’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? And yet, you have seen this yourselves. Those who have been freed of their own personal burdens are the ones who understand the importance of helping others. Oscar Hammerstein, no Christian theologian, still understood the importance of this truth, and expressed it in the last lyric he ever wrote. It was added to the musical “The Sound of Music.” Maria sings it to Liesel who is pondering the confusing emotions of love:

A bell is no bell ‘til you ring it,

A song is no song ‘til you sing it,

And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay;

Love isn’t love, ‘til you give it away.

Jesus did not rely on poetic lyrics to say the same thing. We are saved to serve. When he performed miracles of healing, he never asked for a “thank you”, nor did he seek recognition from the crowds. When he asked the lame man at the pool of Siloam “Do you want to be healed?” he didn’t stop with that brief question. He told the beggar to take up his mat and walk. He could have simply said, “I heal you”, but he didn’t. The beggar was healed so he could walk. That was Jesus’ way.

Paul lived out the same example. He could have stayed in the desert of Arabia, grateful for his salvation and content to enjoy his freedom from the slavery of sin. That was not enough. He wrote the Philippians “To me, to live is Christ”, and to that end, he must give himself to a life of service to Christ - a service Jesus told the disciples has no end. Once we have put our hand to the plow of service, there is no looking back.

I have found a curious truth about this saying. I once thought this remark put the emphasis on moral responsibility. If we look back, we cease to be fit for service in the Kingdom of God. In other words, we look back at ourselves and wonder about being good enough. On the contrary, that problem has already been addressed by Christ. The issue is whether we are now equipped for service. Are we in fit condition to serve.

What I’ve discovered is that once beginning to serve, one really can’t go back. The opportunities for service are too great. Jesus once put it, the fields are ripe - who will go out to harvest? (Luke 10:2) You see, our freedom to serve comes with a startling awareness that we are most fully alive when we are serving. The healthy ones are those who seek out ways to give back, not the ones who scramble to acquire more.

It comes down to this: we are not saved in order to get into heaven. We are saved to serve. We are freed from our old life to bring good news to others. We are given new meaning by our commission to be God’s people at work in God’s world.

A New Creation

2010-07-18T08:25:00.000-06:00

Ever wondered what you’d say if you found a genie in a bottle and were offered three wishes? What do you want? What do you really want? What seems so vitally important that you would spend one of your precious wishes for it? Our scripture texts this morning give one answer. See if that answer fits you.

First there is the army general Naaman, For him, the answer is obvious. He wants relief from his loathsome disease. We may need to linger a moment and be clear about that disease. What Naaman suffered was a skin disorder that the Hebrews called Tzaraath. Thought to be contagious, lepers were quarantined and shunned by society as a whole. Hansen’s disease, the medical name for leprosy, while similar, is not contagious once treatment begins and need not be shunned. Naaman’s affliction was not only painful, it was a source of shame. Thought to be incurable, the sufferer was condemned to a life of isolation and self-loathing. Naaman’s wish is for healing and restoration to human society.

A second man is involved in this story, Jehoram, king of Israel. His is a different affliction. He has been approached with a king’s ransom of tribute for the purpose of securing healing for a valued army general, Naaman. His problem? Jehoram is not a faith healer and he has no idea how to heal this general. Therefore he wonders, “Why are they coming to me? Is this a set up? When I am unable to heal this general, will they use this as an excuse to attack my kingdom and destroy me?” Probably a rescuer, someone to get him out of this hot water he finds himself in. As Shakespeare has one of his kings remark, “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown! Saying “No” to kings is not normally a healthy thing to do.

Our third player is the apostle Paul. His wish is clear and unwavering - a new creation. Not a do-over, not things as they’ve always been without the uncomfortable complications. Not my wistful sigh as I contemplate the figures on my scale, the obvious result of my recent binge on ice cream and chocolate cake. Why can’t I be like those other people who can eat all they want and never gain weight? Many an alcoholic can truthfully say “I’d like to be sober” but on closer inspection this wish might better be phrased “I’d like to be able to drink as much as I want without the usual unpleasant consequences.” It’s the plight of the child who is not really sorry for stealing cookies from the cookie jar. The regret comes from having been caught!

Paul found his treasure in becoming a new creation. “The old is finished and gone. We have become new creatures in Jesus Christ.”

Obstacles to the New Creation

For Naaman there were several obstacles: his expectations, his pride, his social position, his xenophobia, his arrogance. This is a successful man accustomed to VIP treatment. He is not only on speaking terms with a king, he has been given royal treatment by that king. The amount of money he carries to Jehoram is truly staggering. Even though kings can be insanely generous (visit Blenheim palace in England, the palatial country estate of the Duke of Marlborough and gift of Queen Anne, and you can see what kings are capable of) but they do not bestow such gifts capriciously. Naaman had to have been worth the expense, just as John Churchill was at the battle of Blenheim. Naaman was a VIP of great magnitude and he expected the very best treatment. Being told to take a bath in the River Jordan, not the cleanest of water and certainly a mundane treatment that could have been done just as well back home, was an insult to his position and reputation. “I may be a leper, but I’m a high-class leper.”

A contemporary situation might be the popularity of resort type rehabilitation centers where the rich and famous can maintain their style of living while seeking recovery How difficult it is for them to achieve the simplicity and humility required for sobriety. . Blessed are the poor who know they are poor, blessed are the despised who have felt the sting of social ostracism. The well-to-do can find recovery, but the path to new life must first take them through the rigors of ego-deflation, and few are willing to undergo that humiliation when they still have the wherewithal to buy whatever they want.

Another problem is one of expectation and intellectual arrogance. Many cannot find healing because they have already determined: a) what the “real” problem is, b) how it should be dealt with and c) what the outcome should be. Both William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” and Soren Kierkegaard speak of the blessedness of the simple believer, the one who knows his or her need and puts that need in the hands of a God they can trust. For the rest - and these two distinguished scholars counted themselves among them - knowing ahead of time what should be done and how it should be carried out, keeps us from receiving the healing we need.

In our story, a young slave girl makes the obvious observation, “If you’d been asked to do something difficult, you’d have done it without question. Why can you do something so simple as washing in the Jordan?” Why not indeed.

Paul would have applauded her commonsense. The Galatians have also taken on the arduous task of obeying the Jewish law, as if such effort would insure salvation. Wrong. The law was never meant to save us, it’s only use was to show us how far short we’ve fallen of true goodness. Our help is not in our arrogance and contempt for the “common people” so to speak. Our help is in a God ready to do for us what we can never do for ourselves.

The New Creation

The chief obstacle remains - what do we really need? Is it the Oscar, or the Pulitzer Prize? Being President of the United States, or singing a perfect high C on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera? Is it the Nobel Peace Prize or accumulating ten million dollars in your bank account? Is it marrying your Prince Charming or the girl of your dreams? It’s rather like that game I remember playing when I was a child: the Game of Life. One set up a goal toward which you strove. There were three categories: wealth, fame or love. I always chose “Love” figuring without that the other two would be meaningless in the end. As I played the game, I found that the wisest strategy was a prudent mix of all three. Even so, I don’t ever recall finally winning.

Naaman learned humility was the prerequisite for healing. Only when you admit you’re down and out can you begin the task of recovery and healing. Life is tricky - it’s the game we win by losing, we give up to get up, it’s when we die to our old life that we really start to live the new one. King Jehoram showed amazing good sense when he

took the advice of his advisors and called in a competent miracle worked names Elisha. In his way, he had to learn the same lesson Naaman learned: humility. That sometimes our greatest obstacle is our own misguided pride. But Paul could have taught them something more: the real prize was not clean skin or escape from attack by an outraged king. The real prize was a new creation. We are broken people who have been healed, not so we can keep on doing what we did before (without the bad consequences!) But so we can embark on a new reality, becoming God’s people in a new and always unexpected way.

Now that can be an uncomfortable goal too. After all, the old way of life is the familiar way. We understand how the old life work. Daring to become new means all bets are off. The addict gets clean and sober and has to learn a whole new way to face life and the world. The man who loses his wife and must learn how to live by himself on his own. The pianist who loses an arm in battle and learns to play again with one hand. Oh dear, the list is endless because everyone of us has had a life-altering even that forced us to take on a new creation.

For Paul that new creation was what we needed all along. CS Lewis wrote an intriguing parable called “The Great Divorce”. In it, souls in hell are given permission to have one day in heaven. Not just one day, they are invited to stay for eternity there. But most of the souls don’t like it. It isn’t what they’re used to. One soul is a positive mother who has only come to heaven to get the soul of her son and take him back to hell with her where she can take care of him for all eternity. Another soul is a minister who is teaching a Bible study in hell and considers himself indispensable back there. Still another has a personal demon he considers his closest friend, one he can’t imagine living without. In every instance, angels are there pleading with them, encouraging them, trying to convince them heaven really is their natural home. They just have to stick around and let their souls get used to it. Nearly all the souls return to hell, the place where they will feel most comfortable, most “themselves”, most at home.

Paul saw through that lie. He’d lived it, and he earnestly begs the Galatians to see through it too. We are the stuff of a new creation, one we can’t begin to comprehend on our own. If we will but surrender our own preconceived notions, if we’ll trust beyond our eyesight, if we’ll dare to become new, then we can discover what it means to be most fully and truly and completely alive. God grant you the faith to become new creations in his eyes! Amen.

Mercy: The Forgotten Virtue

2010-07-18T08:23:00.000-06:00

“I hope you don’t mind that I never call you Rev. Miller.”

“No, Not many people do” I replied.

The worry lines on her face did not go away.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful of you, I really don’t. It’s just that my church teaches us not to.”

“I understand” I assured her.

The worry was still in her eyes, but there was relief there too.

“You see, it’s not that we think we’re better than any other church, it’s just that we are so afraid we might do something wrong. That’s why we must be so very careful.”

“So afraid we might do something wrong” - that admission has stuck with me for 20 years. And I have felt sorry, and sad, for a very nice person who earnestly tried to do what God wanted her to do, but could not get beyond her barrier of fear. She trembled before an unforgiving and vengeful God.

A Plumb Line

Our texts this morning suggest one reason why. We have been taught to quail before the perfection of God. Amos uses the analogy of a plumb line. It establishes the norm, it measures anything that is off balance, and threatens horrible consequences for any misdeed. The Pharisee, asking Jesus about the requirements for a holy life is looking for a plumb line also. He is as fearful as was the woman I mentioned earlier. When you strive to worship and be obedient to a vengeful God, you do well to be afraid. There is no rigging the results of a plumb line. It will disclose your every deviation from the perpendicular.

As for Amos, we need to remember he was not a priest or a holy man in the accepted sense of the word. He was a shepherd, an uncouth one at that apparently, who spoke bluntly and could be insulting. When Amaziah, the priest of Bethel protested, Amos was unrepentant. He redoubled his threats of woe about to fall upon the nation. You see, both men lived in a time of relative peace and prosperity where people were not overly-scrupulous in their observance of the Mosaic Law. Amos was offended by what he saw and held up a plumb line as his measuring device for how far the people had fallen away from the perfect norm he expected of them. When perfection is your measurement, there is no leeway, no “gimmes”, no almosts being good enough. It’s all good or equally bad.

When Israel failed to measure up, the consequence was divine retribution. You break the law, you pay for your sins. It’s as simple as that.

By the time of Jesus, the laws were more refined, the voices of prophets more muted. I suppose the Jews had grown more skeptical of God doing much to rescue them from the Romans. But this did not mean they had lost interest in the possibility of a Messiah. Sadly, the law had become so difficult to observe, only the very wealthy had much chance of ever observing it satisfactorily. The priestly class and the social elite were the most likely to be “saved” - the rest could forget about it.

This, I think, is why Jesus so often emphasized the plight of the poor, the naked, the widowed and the orphaned. These were people who could not meet the requirements of the Law and had given up trying. They were beyond caring.

I remember Rosalie, a young woman in counseling who remarked in a matter-of-fact voice, “I’ll never get to heaven. I’ve done too many bad things. I’m unforgivable.”

She did not elaborate on just what it was she had done, but it hardly mattered. Her despair was palpable and irrevokable. She had seen the plumb line, if you will, and knew what it meant.

Mercy

In the face of such pessimism we hear a simple story about a despised man, a down and outer, if you will, showing compassion to a victim lying beside the road. This Samaritan was not a good candidate for the grace of God. Despised by God for worshiping a wrong God in a wrong temple in a wrong place, the Samaritan represents a human being who has no “pull” with God, if you will. How fitting that he should be the one to show mercy. In that one word, Jesus cuts through the theological arguments of what is sin and what is not, and simply shows the healing power of God in a gesture of compassion and mercy.

I have stumbled over this parable, wondering who represents what in the story. I’m not the only one. I’ve also been troubled by the example of the Samaritan when I think of the poor and down-trodden I’ve passed on the other side of the road. Must I stop and pick up every stray I see on the highway? How dare I look the other way when a fellow human being is in obvious need? Can I really be a Christian if I haven’t helped the stricken one?

Unfortunately, what I have done is literalized the story and overlooked the pertinent lesson. This is not about helping beggars, although it can be. This is about having an attitude of compassion for others. It is about having the capacity to empathize with others. It is the act of putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It is laying aside the plumb line, and considering the circumstances instead.

I remember Margaret who was so offended by a decision by our Presbytery that she indignantly cried out, “But what about the purity of the Church?” never stopping to think of how the Pharisees had sought to do away with Jesus for precisely the same reason. How dare we exercise mercy before an immaculate: Heaven forbids it.

The Perfect Law

Yet isn’t that precisely what God did for us in Jesus Christ? Lay down the plumb line in order that we might have a right relationship reestablished with him and with our neighbor? Jesus asks the Pharisee, “How do you read the Law?” and the Pharisee quotes Deuteronomy - “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says “Exactly. Do that and live”. But the righteous man, uncomfortable with such a broad interpretation, seeks clarification. “Who is my neighbor?” The answer? The one who showed mercy.”

You see, the victim beside the road is not just anybody, that victim is you and me. We are the ones who have suffered and been left helpless. The good neighbor is God who sees our plight and does for us what we’ve never been able to do on our own. And Jesus Christ is how God showed us that mercy.

If we accept that gift of mercy, then we are in the position to pass that gift on to others. By being agents of mercy ourselves. We are here to walk beside one another, to affirm the value of one another, to be caring and loving, to lay aside judgment and show acceptance instead. To be merciful.

God forgive me if all I have to say to my Lord at the end of my life is that I did my best to live a good life by keeping as many of the rules as I possibly could. I remember as story I heard eons ago about the miser who upon arriving at St Peter’s gate is asked to name one reason why he should be admitted into heaven? Can he remember a single act of kindness or generosity he had ever committed? After much thought he finally remembered how he had once given a dime to a newspaper boy for a newspaper that only cost a nickel and told the boy to keep the change. “That’s all?” Peter asks. “I’m afraid so.” Peter turned to the recording angel and said, “Give him his nickel and tell him to go to the devil!”

The question that really matters is “Did you show mercy where it was undeserved?” Did you care when no one else did? Were you a true neighbor to one in need? Mercy: the forgotten virtue - and the one, after all, that really counts! Amen

God, Our Good Neighbor

2010-07-18T08:20:00.002-06:00

God, Our Good Neighbor

It’s funny what a difference a word, or a new piece of information can make. A fellow counselor friend tells this story. She was trying to get to work in a blinding blizzard and was relieved to finally see the entrance to her parking lot ahead of her. Unfortunately, as she approached the entrance, a man suddenly appeared out of the blowing snow. He was walking in the middle of the street, and my friend could not get around him. She knew she was late and wanted to get her car parked and out of the blizzard. She lost her temper and started honking her horn vehemently at this stupid man plodding down the middle of the street where he didn’t belong. At the sound of the horn behind him, the man turned around, and it was then my friend saw he was carrying a white cane in his hand! The man was blind. You can imagine how quickly her attitude changed.

Social scientists call this kind of event a “paradigm shift”. I experience this when some word or thought makes me see a situation in a whole new light. It’s rather like the hymn writer John Newton’s immortal words in his hymn “Amazing Grace” -“I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”

There is a word in our passage today that has made a dramatic change in my understanding of this text. But you did not hear it in the scripture reading. It comes instead from the insight of a seminary professor I once heard preach on this text. His name was John Wyck Bowman, and he taught New Testament studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo. Bowman had been a missionary in the Middle East, and he brought a new perspective to this story out of his missionary experiences.

The word was shamelessness. This is the only place it appears in the gospels, and that makes it a problem. How do we translate a word we have not seen anywhere else in the Bible? Bowman suggests that the closest word the translators could find for the original Greek term was “shameless”, but they were unwilling to use it because of its negative connotation. “Shameless” in English suggest “brazen”, “insolent”, “audacious”, “unblushing”. Surely Jesus was not suggesting this was an appropriate attitude for us to assume in prayer. How dare we approach God with our nose in the air and a defiant announcement, “Here’s what I want God, now do it!”

Therefore, translators turned to another story in Luke 18:1-8. An unjust judge becomes so irritated by a widow’s persistent nagging, he finally gives in and lets her have what she wants. Jesus draws from this parable the virtue of persistent faith. Keep believing, even when the heavens seem to have been shut against you. From this story, the translators applied the same notion to the word “shameless” as being more suitable.

But to Bowman, the new word brings its own problems. Persistence in one’s faith, is one thing, being a nagger is something else. And whatever it is, it has little to do with being “shameless”.

He suggests we step back and look at the story again. What is it really about? It is about being caught short and needing help - not just for yourself, but for your guest. In the Middle East, hospitality is not simply a kind gesture, it can be a matter of life and death. If you are hungry and left out in the night alone, you can turn to a total stranger and know that your need will be recognized and honored. If you, as the one receiving the knock on your door, refuse such a request, you will bring shame on yourself, and by extension, on the whole village where you live. The beggar can go to another village and tell how he was treated by you. That is truly shameful and unthinkable.

With that insight in mind, consider the parable again. Would you give a snake to your child rather than the fish that was requested? Or a scorpion instead of an egg? These contrasts are vivid and the answer easy: of course not. So if we know better than that ourselves - and we, after all, are not perfect like God is! - how much more can we depend upon God giving us what we most desperately need? The implication is inescapable. God would be ashamed not to answer our request.

Put this way, then, the admonition, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened unto you,” is seen in an entirely new light. Instead of concentrating on asking endlessly, as if this were a condition we had to fulfill to show our faith - which actually shows the opposite when you stop and think about it! - we are being urged to rely on the honor and trustworthiness of God. Jesus’ recommendation that we consider the lilies of the field how they grow, how they neither toil nor spin, is in the same spirit of faith and trust. We don’t have to frantically beg, we can rely on God who must hear and answer.

Now there are difficulties with this interpretation too. Bowman has managed to relieve us of the anxiety of nervously worrying about how we ask and whether we have asked enough times. (It reminds me of the question one woman asked about prayers for the soul of her recently deceased mother. “How many prayers does it take to get her into heaven?”) But we are still left with a promise that does seem reckless. “Is that all we have to do? Just ask? And God has to answer?” It sounds almost as if God is our servant, waiting on our beck and call.

Right or not, that pretty well describes how many of us use prayer. “God helps those who help themselves” Ben Franklin suggested, and we concur. That means, only when I’m in a tight spot, only when I’m at my wits end, only when I can’t see any other way out of my dilemma - then I will refer the matter to God. And when I didn’t get what I wanted, the fault was obviously mine because I didn’t ask the right way, or more likely, I didn’t have enough faith. Now, if Bowman is right, we are saying, “No, it isn’t my fault: it’s God’s fault. He ought to be ashamed of himself!” I’m not satisfied with that conclusion either.

What can I say? Well, for one thing, I believe we are not required to nag God endlessly as if we thought he had no ears. This isn’t about persistently asking and not getting. But it is about adjusting our faith to concentrate on a good God who really does care. This is not an unjust judge who finally gives us what we want in order to get rid of us. This is a neighbor that we can rely on and trust.

But I think Jesus’ teaching also shows us something about the kind of things we pray for. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance, is a model of praying for the basics - food and health, forgiveness and mercy. His parable also emphasizes the seriousness of the crisis. The request for bread so we can feed a friend at midnight is a legitimate need and clearly one any good neighbor would honor. I have known people who customarily pray for a good parking place and they tell me that God provides it every time they ask. I don’t want to doubt their stories, but I cringe at the thought of using God as one’s personal divine parking attendant!

On the other hand, I do not have access to the mind of God and do not want to presume to know what God thinks is an appropriate prayer request and what is not. That’s God’s business, not my own. Maybe God does help them find their parking spaces. I do still think these parables teach us one lesson: to always pray seriously. Sure, winning the lottery might be great. I’ve been wondering lately if I need to start putting my name in the barrel for the Publishers’ Clearing House again! But the thought that God is waiting to draw my name or my number out of the millions ahead of me, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But perhaps God is shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Hey dude, I’m ready to do my part, but you got to work with me on this one. Start buying your lottery tickets!”

Well - I am content to declare the God I worship has been faithful and met my needs and when Jesus urges me to trust that God, I strive to do just that. But forgo the nagging please. Let us pray for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry it out. And strive to find the faith and courage to trust our good neighbor, a gracious, attentive and loving God! Amen.

Choosing the Better

2010-07-18T08:18:00.000-06:00

Have you ever noticed how sometimes people seem to take on certain personality characteristics that go with their names? I remember my aunt being curious what we would name our baby if he were a boy. We told her “Andrew”. She thought for a moment and then said, “That’ll be all right. I’ve never had trouble with any Andrews in my classes.” (She taught fourth graders, if I remember correctly.) “Just don’t call him Charles, or Robert. They’re trouble makers, trust me.”

I have no statistics on that observation, but I have noticed a tendency among women named Martha to be the practical-minded, down to earth worker bees, more interested in sorting out the tasks at hand rather than pondering the eternal truths of the universe. My mother-in-law was a Martha, and her three daughters would all be no-nonsense, take control, manager types. My wife Marilyn could not walk into your house and simply be your guest. Her first words would always be “How can I help you?” One such “Martha” type, a friend of my Mother’s, carried it a step further. When she came into our home, she didn’t even bother to offer help. She simply rearranged furniture and rehung pictures where they were “supposed” to be. Fortunately she did not go into my bedroom and straighten it out, although I’m sure she’d have liked to. Such unrequested “help” didn’t seem to bother my mother. She simply put things back where she had them before, once her friend had gone.

Well, that’s all beside the point, but it does give us a glimpse of this “Martha” who has just presented her complaint about her sister to Jesus. We’ve all known her, haven’t we? She’s a marvel at managing a house, but she can also be a pain. You almost hate to sit on her sofa for fear of putting creases in the cushions! At the same time, the “Martha’s” of this world are valuable assets to society. They see the important work that needs doing, and they do something about it.

We Presbyterians would do well to honor our “Marthas”. So intent on doing things properly, or “decently and in order” as we like to put it, we can form committees at the drop of a hat, and get so mired in the details we lose sight of the desired goal. (I’ll tell you a secret. My status as a retired minister is one of my most prized titles, for it excuses me from those endless meetings and committees. I’ve been there, I’ve done it to a fare-thee-well, bought the T-Shirt and worn out!) It’s the Marthas in our midst who remind us there’s work to be done, so do it!

So though Marthas may annoy me, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for this Martha. There’s no telling what was going on in this household in Bethany. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Mary to be a daydreamer sort of person. If she were alive today, she’d be the one who walks passed the shoes in the middle of the floor and never thinks to pick them up and put them away. She’s the one reading the latest best-seller while the roast is showing signs of going up in flames in the oven. She’s the one who cares deeply about the plights of women, abandoned children, cruelty to animals and drug abuse amongst teenagers while her family wonders if they’ll ever have a supper they didn’t have to throw together themselves from the assortment of odds and ends in the pantry and the freezer. We have to go to the Gospel of John to discover there’s also a brother in this house in Bethany, one who apparently suffers poor health. After all, we first hear of Lazarus when he’s on his deathbed. Clearly it’s Martha who holds all this together. Then why on earth was Jesus so callous and unfeeling towards her? Or so it would seem.

On the other hand, it’s easy to understand why Jesus would take Mary’s part. They’re two of a kind, aren’t they? Jesus is a dreamer too. He wanders the countryside, the first century equivalent of the 20th century flower child. What does he say about hearth and home? The fox has his hole and the bird his next, but I have no where to lay my head. What is his advice to his disciples? Don’t worry, consider the lilies of the field, they neither weave or spin, but God clothes them. You ask about paying taxes to Caesar? Give Caesar what is Caesar’s and give God what belongs to God.

Lest you think Jesus is just a daydreamer, totally out of touch with reality, he does tell us to plan ahead. Don’t start building towers if you haven’t first figured out how you’re going to pay for them. Don’t go to war if your enemy is bigger than you are. Contemplate God all you want, but be on the lookout for the God who comes like the bridegroom when you have fallen asleep and let your lamps burn out of oil. Jesus may have set his heart on higher things - as Paul would like to describe the Christian life - but he had his practical side too. He was very much a realist, reading correctly the undependability of Peter and the traitor’s heart of Judas. He saw value in the tax collector Matthew and chose the fanatic Pharisee Saul to become his first and most persistent apostle Paul.

So what can we make of this household in Bethany? Who should we emulate? What is Jesus saying to us? He tells Martha “You worry too much”. And as an antidote to this worry he adds, “Mary has chosen the better part.” Does this mean we must put aside action and simply choose contemplation? There’s many a monk and hermit - male and female - who seem to have made that choice. I’m afraid to choose this option. How will the world ever get on with progress that way?

On the other hand: did you notice what I just said? “I’m afraid”. Ah. Hasn’t Jesus just said something about “fear?” “Martha, you are worried and upset about many things!” Jesus does not criticize her for rightly understanding there’s work to be done and someone needs to do it. But what about that “worried and upset” business? That’s what concerns Jesus.

I remember a difficult time in my ministry, many years ago. It was Christmas week. I had several extra responsibilities heaped upon me. I didn’t know how I was going to get it all done. Although, if the truth be told, I did know they would get done. What caught me off guard was the phone call telling me of a death in the congregation and the need for a funeral service just two days before Christmas Eve! I went into quite a tizzy over that until, in a moment of quiet and relative sanity, I found myself thinking. “What’s the big deal here?”

Christmas is coming: true. It comes every year. And at the same time, too. So what’s different about this one? A funeral? Yes, but what’s different about this funeral? Just because it’s Christmas time? So when can people ever schedule their funerals to meet your schedule? Funerals always interrupt a minister’s schedule. So, I repeat, what’s so different about this one? Well the answer was, there wasn’t anything different. Why was I worried and upset?

The answer was less than flattering. I began to realize that my panic was basically just me turning up the drama a bit, a rather shameful attempt at showing how important I was that I had all these important things to do. If I just took it as “business as usual” where would the drama and glory of it all be? I was choosing fear and chaos in a shabby way of exaggerating my own importance.

When I remember that lesson, I begin to see Martha in a different light. What was so different about this meal that she had to have Mary help her? Or, what kept her from finding a moment to ask Mary for help? And if Mary turned her down, what was keeping Martha from scaling down her own expectations of herself. Did this have to be a sit-down meal with china and crystal, or could they have “dinner on the ground with paper plates and napkins”. Was this request a legitimate one, or was Martha simply feeling “left out” while Mary got all the attention? Martha worried, but why? Was it really because important work needed to be done? Or was it because she felt taken advantage of? Or that she was being overlooked? Or she didn’t look as holy as Mary?

What do we worry about? And why?

St Luke does not elaborate, he simply reports, and his report is neither a rebuke of Martha or a commendation of Mary. It is a reminder about what’s important. We stumble when we think he was referring to sitting at his feet as the “better” work, if you will. No, look in your heart and discern what it is that is making you worried and afraid.

Mary chose the better part, can we? Amen

2010-03-31T11:48:00.000-06:00

Rehab

So another celebrity goes to rehab. It’s becoming a cliche. Fame brings opportunity to indulge in your favorite past time. Indulgence breeds contempt and habit. Habituation becomes addiction. Addiction wears a false mask. Those so afflicted cannot see their own face. They become oblivious to the consequences of their behavior. They are exposed. What seemed innocent to them and perhaps only foolish to their friends, now takes on a more sinister appearance. Now the dabblers in questionable behavior are shocked that others view them as sinners (does anybody really believe in sin anymore?) or victims of malicious rumors, or sufferers of an imperious urge they cannot control. The answer? Rehab.

Famous couples, infamous couples, anonymous couples, the key to escape from the consequences of their behavior is rehab. Unfortunately, the track record of those who have gone to rehab is not encouraging. Whether the husband of a Hollywood star or a priest of no prominence at all, rehab seems to be the accepted route of reentry into society’s acceptance. Everyone’s entitled to a second chance, right? Of course, right, But what about the repeat offender, the recidivist, the chronic relapser! Some have returned to rehab more than a dozen times.

I’m afraid rehab is being presented with a fraudulent ID. Instead of representing a strenuous method for transformation involving fearless and searching self-examination and a reorientation to one’s neighbors, and for most rehab programs a new understanding of spirituality and the key role it plays in addiction, too often rehab seems to be a short-hand way of saying “Sure, I was bad and I admit it but now you’ve got to understand I didn’t know what I was doing, and in fact, given the upbringing I had and the societal influences that affected my life, I was a victim of circumstances. It wasn’t my fault.”

Excuse me. Of course it was your fault. Granted there were extenuating circumstances but the act was a matter of choice. The drink was self- administered, the child was fondled by a hand obeying the orders of a mind that made the decision. Declaring “I am an addict” does not take away responsibility for one’s behavior.

And those who labor in the field of addiction and rehabilitation know that. Rehab is appropriate. Rehab works. Rehab makes more sense than shame or punishment. But rehab does not erase responsibility. Changed behavior - that is the criteria for recovery. Rehab enables that change to take place. It also ameliorates the onus of shame that too often accompanies such acts. But it does not excuse, or free one from assuming responsibility

When one goes to rehab, one makes an astonishing discovery. Or at least that is what is hoped. People discover who they really are and who they have become. They learn about the nature of addiction and how it takes over one’s life. Quite often they discover hidden demons within that have tyrannized them all their lives, demons that are potent but not as powerful and real as they seemed. And they discover they can say “No” to them. Did I say it was easy? Or guarantee anyone can do it? Oh that such a promise could be made. It is not easy, and there are no guarantees. There will always be those who seem incapable of undergoing the rigors of rehab. But that does not mean they can be excused for their behavior. We live in a world of actions and consequences, and we are always responsible for what we have done. Mitigating circumstances aside, what we do , we do, and we have to admit that, own that, continue to search for how that has affected others and ourselves. That is what rehab is about.

So when someone goes into treatment, we must see that moment as the opportunity for a new beginning, not as the explanation for what happened in the past and therefore tantamount to erasing the debt - no, worse, declaring it was all an unfortunate mistake we can put behind us with a sigh of relief.

No: rehab is just that, rehabilitation. Don’t let it be an excuse that makes the offense meaningless. Society needs more accountability than that. And so does the offender.

Earthquakes

2010-01-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to hear that the US Senate had lost its filibuster-proof majority by a major upset election in Massachusetts. That, I thought was upset enough to put me in a thoughtful mood. But to my dismay that would not be the big upset. No, the real news item was an earthquake in Haiti. Old news, you say? We did that last week . Such devastation: there is no describing the human suffering that has swept over that poor island nation. Only today’s story is about another earthquake in the same spot, the dreaded after-shock quake we have often heard of. This one a mere 6.1, compared to the 7.something that hit there a week ago. Sounds pretty bad, nonetheless, and with the capitol of Port-a-Prince in rubble, surely another disaster of major proportion.

Now I have been in Port-a-Prince, and I have been in a major earthquake. Perhaps that makes me a little more sensitive to such a news item. Yet that was more than fifty years ago. That hardly counts for today. But honestly, does one need to have had such personal experience to be sensitive to the plight of the Haitians? The face of human suffering is timeless and not hard to recognize. The tear-streaked cheeks, the dried blood and sometimes not so dry, the crippled limbs, the maimed bodies, the uncountable corpses, the nobodies who all had once lived and breathed and worked and loved and worshiped and prayed and laughed and danced are no more. What beauty, what intelligence, what creativity, what vision, what dedication to that frail thing called hope that stirred those unknown nobodies: lost, irreparably lost. Mankind is diminished. Weep. We all must weep. We have been robbed once again by a force we could not defeat, we could not even protect ourselves from it. Not finally. What a way to start a new day.

The political earthquake in Massachusetts rose up just as suddenly, as earthquakes and fires and floods and terrible winds are wont to do. There’s not much to be said. Much will be said, however, and with fervor and an air of omniscience by those who will claim they knew this was coming, knew it had to come, and will explain it all to us with maddening logic. But what matters it now what was known and what unknown, the shifting of political tectonic plates are as invisible to the naked eye and unsearchable to the most competent of human minds as the moving rock deep beneath our feet. We live on moving ground and we must make the best of it.

So I am incredulous at the report of a prominent TV evangelist announcing to his followers that what has happened to the Haitians is their own fault. That a loving and compassionate God who wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus can have perpetrated this disaster on a struggling, poverty stricken nation whose one sin was to want to be free. Of course, he didn’t put it that way: no, apparently he has some inside information about a pact with the devil two hundred years ago for which the nation is now paying the price. Where evidence of such a pact can be found, I have no idea. That such a pact is even possible is questionable in the extreme. How can an entire nation make such a pact? The notion is ludicrous. And even if one could make a case for this outlandish idea, would it not have to be pretty much the case of every aspiring group of people longing for freedom? Did we not break away from our former rulers, as the Haitians did? But we were God-fearing, will be claimed. We made no pact with Satan. Certainly not, yet to the outsider, what would have been the marks of distinction between us and the Haitians? That we thrived and they did not?

I’ve read somewhere that history is written by the winners. Another way of putting it might be, history is written the way we want to believe it, and I am not immune to this desire. My dismay at facing a new day with agony of heart and confusion of mind arises from the immutable fact that life will not behave itself according to my opinions and expectations. There will be setbacks, tragedies, disasters. And there will be those who don’t even call it that. For every defeated enemy a rejoicing winner will celebrate, and for every ear of corn that has been robbed its drop of rain beneath a dry and copper sky, another will swell its sweetness from the moisture that is gratefully sucked up from the rain-washed ground. Who tells the story? Who will teach us how to discern, how to care?

These are the thoughts that crowd into my mind as I get myself ready to face another day. The earthquakes will subside, the rubble will be cleared away, life will go on, and someday, somehow, those who have been lost will be forgotten, replaced by new sprouts of life, eager to bear new fruit for a hungry world. For now, I am left wondering why I think of all these things, and why I feel driven to write it down.