Jeremiah 33:14-16 Luke 21:25-36
November 29, 2009
Do you remember those signboard cartoons, often found in the NY Times? …a man is walking down a busy street, with a signboard announcing that the end of the world is coming soon. The end is near.I remember seeing one that is a better fit for today’s scripture readings which said,
“The world is not going to come to end, you are just going to have to cope.”
Apocalyptic writings, whether found on signboards, in movies such as 2012, or in scriptures such as found in today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, always have a strange mixture in them. Is this end of time scenario a good thing or a bad thing?
What exactly is coming to an end? What is about to begin? Who is in power and gets to decide?
Where is the sign of hope in writing a doomsday scenario that imagines everything that we know being destroyed?
And what in heaven’s name is it doing here, on the first Sunday of Advent? The first Sunday of the New Year? The first Sunday when begin anticipating the coming of the Christ child into the world?
That’s what we are going to explore this morning.
The Latin root of Advent is a word that means, “coming.” Advent thus means “toward the coming.” Advent is preparation for the coming of Jesus to the world—then in the past; now in the present; and … later, in the future.” (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan The Last Christmas 231)
Advent is remembering the past, so we can reframe the present, so that we can re-imagine the future.
“Advent is a reliving in the present of ancient Israel’s hope and yearning that is expressed in that favorite advent hymn that the choir sang this morning.
O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.” (The Last Christmas)
We look at so many lives today and see humanity in a time of exile, captive, mourning, lonely, longing. And in looking at the Scriptures in the Old Testament, we remember the great new insights into the nature of the divine-human connection that were born out of that suffering and we wonder what is being born now that gives us hope?
And so the first reading for the season of advent is a open-eyed and honest looking at how things are in the our world, in the world today.
Violence in our cities, escalation of war, and the realities of global warming are familiar to s all.
In the Gospel reading from Luke for this morning we have a passage is easily categorized as apocalyptic. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book, The First Christmas, refer to this as the Great Divine Clean-up. It is not that the world is coming to an end, it is that corrupt, greedy, and violent practices are unraveling and coming to an end. We hope.
As we read the Bible we see that this yearning for God to come into our lives and help us begin again has always been a part of the human consciousness. It goes back a thousand years before the birth of Jesus and continues in the hearts of many today.
“The Old Testament cycle begins with creation and ends with the renovation of the world into a commonwealth of shalom, a place of justice and peace. This is a very large promise for which the promised land of Canaan is mere foreshadowing, a sort of down payment. This enlarged promise is not just to Jews, but to everyone. Also, according to some of the most lyrical passages in the Hebrew scriptures, it includes the whole creation, the plants and animals, the seas and stars. This means that one way to see the mystery of [evolution] is to view it as an unfinished narrative, a work in progress. It can be seen as a process in which the new, the surprising, and the unexpected constantly emerge. It means we live in a world whose potential is yet to be fulfilled.” (Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith)
Mahatma Gandhi, the peaceful revolutionary, who led India to freedom from the British Empire was once asked, what he thought of Western Civilization. He replied, “I think it would be a good idea.”
It has been a good idea, which we understand, as a promise. A promise given to us by God.
We can visualize a world where peace and justice live together, where nations will beat their swords into plowshares.
We can imagine such a world
and then
we read the daily newspaper.
Or we get on-line and read the NY Times.
And we see a world that seems to be coming apart, again.
We see a world where the idea of affordable health care coverage seems like a strange idea, but the continual expensive reliance on military weapons to bring about peace makes sense.
We see a world where the greedy are rewarded with legislation in Congress that just fills their bank accounts while the unemployment rises and people are losing their homes.
We see a world where we have to wonder and pray will the nations gathering in Copenhagen agree on the sacrifices and commitments required to restore the health of the planet?
On this first Sunday in the beautiful season of Advent, the end of the world scenarios, set the context for a world in need a Savior.
It is almost like the first step of a twelve step program in Alcoholics Anonymous. We are called to admit that we are powerless over the mess that we are in. And in that honesty the potential for a new force of energy and healing is released, anticipated, prayed for, received.
If things were all going fine in the world, in our lives, why would be waiting for the Messiah?
And what does Jesus say to us today as we face this world that is so out of balance?
Jesus says, “When you see these things, do not cower in fear, for your transformation is drawing near.”
Your transformation is drawing near.
It is good to remember that the Gospel of Luke was written 10 to 15 years after the Romans had destroyed the Temple and 50 years after Jesus walked this earth. For the early Christians this destruction of the most sacred site must have seemed cataclysmic.
Luke is writing his Gospel for a people who knew suffering and were looking for something to give them hope.
Advent teaches us that in the darkest places of human oppression, the pain of hunger, and political distress that God’s reign is among us. “Do not be caught off-guard by the fear-filled tides of history,” Jesus warned.
“But be mindful, praying for strength, that you may escape the fears that roil the earth, and may stand with God” (Luke 21:36).
Earlier this month the UCC Clergy of northern California gathered at San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville. It is a beautiful retreat Franciscan Retreat Center. It is a peaceful place, with a labyrinth set in the middle of an abundant garden.
This year’s guest speaker was Diana Butler-Bass, who has written several books which give hope to mainline churches that are committed to progressive Christian values. One of her books, Christianity for the Rest of Us tells the story of moderate and progressive mainline Protestant congregations - and how they found new vitality through spiritual practices and deeper meaning by pursuing God's hope for transformation in the world.
Diana Butler-Bass is a sociologist, historian, and inspiring theologian. She sees signs of hope for churches such as ours all around the country who commit themselves to deepening the spiritual practices of compassion, hospitality, and social justice as the primary function of the church.
I mention her at this moment because she finds in this morning’s scripture passage an invitation to a spiritual practice that may deepen our experience of Advent.
She focuses on the passage, “But be mindful, praying for strength, that you may escape the fears that roil the earth, and may stand with God” (Luke 21:36).
“1. Be mindful (paying attention to what is really going on around one self's, a congregation, and society; being discerning; listening);
2. Pray for the real situation, for wisdom, for courage, for risk, the Spirit's involvement in one's actions; and
3. Standing firm by having confidence in God, your own discernment, convictions, and passions. Not to be shaken by resistance and push-back.” (Diana Butler-Bass, www.beatitudessociety.org)
This is an answer to the question posed earlier in this sermon, “Why does Advent begin with such a seemingly dark scenario?”
The signboard I referred to earlier said the world is not going to come an end, you are just going to have to cope.
The message of Advent is that we can do more than cope, we can hope.
Diana Butler-Bass has given us more than an answer, she has also given us a spiritual practice for Advent, so that we may prepare deeply for the coming of Christ into our lives.
Be mindful, pay attention to what is really going on, just notice it;
Pray, for what you see, and for what God sees;
Stand in hope, stand in trust of God’s presence in life.
Jim Wallis, has a wonderful quote that speaks to this. “Hope, in spite of the evidence, and watch the evidence change.”
Hope is a powerful force that is not based upon our best wishes or intentions, it based upon a mindful, prayerful, confident standing with God.
1600 years earlier Saint Augustine said something else that is related to the meaning of Advent, when he said, “God without us, will not; we without God, cannot.
Advent and Christmas is not about being rescued, it is about transformation based upon the teachings of compassion, extravagant hospitality and social justice.
Advent is a time of being mindful that some paths we have been on, as individuals and as societies are not working.
Advent is a time of praying that the human and the divine will work in harmony with one another.
Advent is a time of standing in hope, seeing clearly and not despairing.
Advent is a time of being a people who choose to stand and sing, even in times such as these,
Hope, peace, love, and joy to the world,
the Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King.
Let every heart prepare him room.
And heaven and nature sing.
And heaven and nature sing.
And heaven, and humanity, and nature sing.”
Stand with a signboard that says, The world is not going to come to an end, because Christ is coming into the world I choose to:
have hope,
make peace,
share love,
and be joy.
Let the people say, Amen
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Come In, Come In Whoever You Are
I Corinthians 12: 4-26
Rev. Alan Claassen November 15, 2009
Please pray with me:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (I Cor. 13: 1-3) O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, come from the grace of your love. Amen.
What a blessing it is for this church to have a storyteller, C.R., as a member of our church.
And what a blessing that C. was the liturgist for this Sunday, so that she could bring all of her storytelling skills to the reading of this morning’s scripture.
I hope to further enrich our experience of this scripture passage where the Apostle Paul compares the church to a body, where the diversity of the parts of the body enriches the work of the entire body.
Last Thursday our Bible study class completed the study called Listening to Scripture. In that class we learned six strategies for exploring the meaning of the books of the Bible for the original author and audience.
Then with that understanding, to explore the variety of meanings that the Bible has for us today.
We discovered that knowing the historical setting of the text, the literary context, and original meaning of words and phrases might provide us with a completely different meaning of a particular passage than the one we might have, just reading the verses on face value.
Last Thursday we applied this approach to a passage from the 1st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the same letter that Cynthia read from this morning.
What was going on in this early Christian church in Corinth that gave rise to this letter?
In this early Christian community there was a diverse mixture of peoples, theologies, cultures, levels of wealth, poverty, and social standing.
And they were being challenged by Paul to find a new unity in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
It was difficult. There was conflict. There was grace.
The Romans in 146 BCE had destroyed the city of Corinth. It was rebuilt in 44BCE as a colony to which Roman authorities sent their surplus population such as recently freed slaves, displaced peasants, and army veterans.
Corinth was a seaport, and it quickly developed into a busy hub of east-west trade in Roman Empire. Corinth was also the site of a religious community that worshipped Aphrodite.
There was a synagogue in Corinth, which Paul visited in 50 or 51CE. He met the leaders of the synagogue, including Priscilla and her husband, Aquila.
Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months, organizing and teaching in the small house churches of Corinth. Periodically these house churches would gather as a whole assembly to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, which in the early Christian church was more like our potluck dinners than our service of Holy Communion.
The people of Corinth were greatly influenced by Hellenistic culture, which placed great emphasis on status. The fact that Priscilla’s name is most often cited before her husband’s may to point to the fact that she came from a wealthier family than Aquila, and therefore had a higher standing, even though she was a woman.
Possibly under the influence of Gnostic religions, “the Corinthian Christians attached great importance to the acquisition and display of special religious knowledge, and so tended to equate spirituality with possession of the more spectacular kinds of gifts, such as speaking in tongues, prophesying, understanding all mysteries and knowledge.”
Paul did not commend these practices.
Paul taught that as Christians, our source of wisdom is in the cross, which most people will think of as foolishness.
Speaking in tongues, knowledge of secret mysteries, and power to move mountains, all amount to nothing.
What is most important that type of love which is received as a gift from God.
This gift from God, symbolized in the cross, reminds us to lay aside all claims of status and superiority over others.
The distinctions of male and female, rich or poor, Gentile or Jew, are secondary to the true life and freedom that comes from receiving God’s love and celebrating our common humanity.
In the passage that the class studied last week, we learned that wealthy members of the community were abusing the Lord’s Supper in those large gatherings of the small house churches that I spoke of earlier.
The wealthy of the community provided much of the food that was shared at a common meal, and since they paid the bills, and often arrived at the large assembly site before the working class and hungry folk could, the wealthy thought that they could go ahead and eat, drink, and be merry before the others arrived.
For the poor folk this Lord’s Supper was literally their daily bread.
Paul had harsh words for the community members who claimed a privileged status, not just because of their selfishness, but because in denying their brother and sister a place at the table they were denying Jesus.
They had lost the purpose of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, which was to remember the self-giving love of Jesus, on behalf of humanity, on behalf of all people.
They were still caught up in lording over their neighbor instead of loving them.
That same theme is found in this morning’s scripture reading, which is found in Chapter 12.
There is no hierarchy in the Christian community. The richness of our unity as the Body of Christ is in our diversity. The foot and the elbow need one another. The heart and the head need one another. The ear and mouth need one another.
The Apostle Paul had a very difficult job in Corinth. He had to speak the truth in love to a culture that was based upon status and tell them that true knowledge, salvation and freedom, come from self-giving love.
Paul wanted to convince these early Greek, Roman, Jewish, rich and poor followers of the way of Jesus, that understanding the holy mystery of God comes from opening ones heart to the love of God and affirming that others, different than you, are also well loved.
Paul had to tell the Christians of Corinth that they had to let go of the knowledge that was handed down to them, and understand something that was radically new.
Paul had to write more than one letter to the Corinthians.
Paul, in his love for the people of Corinth knew that change is never easy, and yet, he was confident, that he could show them a still, better way. This better way is described in Chapter 13, which I will read as the Pastoral Prayer this morning.
In our final class last week, we students of the Bible were given the task of moving from asking what a text meant to the original author and audience, to asking what the passage might mean for us today. It is not there is one meaning of any text. But when we understand the original meaning of the passage, it helps us to form clearer questions for our own time and situation.
Let me share with you one application that I see in this morning’s scripture reading. Remembering that we all see through a glass dimly I do not say that this is the only way to understand the passage. But I do see a way of approaching the Open and Affirming process through the wisdom that is offered in this passage.
But first a story.
One of my favorite games as a child was hide and seek. I loved playing it as a child, as a high schooler, and I love it still. Though I can’t fit or get into the some of the hiding places I used to.
As a child I remember that magical moment at the end of a hide and seek game, when the person who is “it” has given up on finding everyone and calls out in a loud voice, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Or, “Ollie, Ollie Ox and free.”
And then like lost children, like successful pirates, like masterminds of small spaces, the lost who hadn’t been found came out with beaming smiles on their faces.
I wonder what would have happened to those friends of ours, hiding in that seemingly perfect hiding place, if someone hadn’t cried out to the neighborhood, to the park, to the forest, to the community, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Everyone may have gone to his or her comfortable homes, while those in hiding would stay stuck, wondering, is it safe to come out now?
Have they forgotten me? Is this a trap to capture me?
Have they all gone and left me here alone? When is it safe? Where is it safe to come out of hiding?
The person doesn’t know unless they hear, while still in their hiding place, “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
I believe that there are individuals and there are families waiting to hear that cry, so that they can know, before they enter the doors of this sanctuary, that they are welcome here.
We as a community are being asked to consider what it would mean to be a church that proclaims to the community something that would seem like foolishness to many. What would it mean for us to call out that we are open and affirming of all people, no matter their sexual orientation or their gender, their age, their religious perspective, their race, their economic statues, or their physical or mental abilities?
That is what the Open and Affirming process is all about. Knowing what we as a community truly believe so that we as a community can act together of one accord, one heart and mind, as we welcome new members into the life of this diverse community.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit in an open, honest, and compassionate process of sharing information, feelings, experiences that comes from engaging the open and affirming process, regardless of the outcome.
In fact, the way that we engage one another in this process may be the most significant outcome.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation, to trust one another, and to trust the Holy Spirit, as we walk this journey together.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation to let go of status, and to re-examine long held beliefs that we were taught by our culture but go against the grain of the Gospel.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as we listen, compassionately, to one another’s observations, feelings, needs and requests.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation, to see that the love that Christ shared expanded the circle of who is included in the kin-dom of heaven, and by the grace of God, it includes us.
What we will learn together in this process, regardless of the final outcome, that no one can know at this time, can be for us a time to deepen our experience of what it means to be the Body of Christ together.
As we respect the differences of each part of the body, may we remember that the head of the body is Jesus.
May we remember to look to Jesus, who gave his life for whole body of humanity, as we learn together what the Bible says, what science says, what each part of the body is saying.
May our words, our thoughts, and our actions come from the grace of Christ’s self-giving love for all of humanity.
Let the people who stand by these words say... Amen
__________________________________________________________________
Resource for background material on Corinth was taken from Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Paul Achtemeier, General Editor, Harper One, 1996
Rev. Alan Claassen November 15, 2009
Please pray with me:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (I Cor. 13: 1-3) O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, come from the grace of your love. Amen.
What a blessing it is for this church to have a storyteller, C.R., as a member of our church.
And what a blessing that C. was the liturgist for this Sunday, so that she could bring all of her storytelling skills to the reading of this morning’s scripture.
I hope to further enrich our experience of this scripture passage where the Apostle Paul compares the church to a body, where the diversity of the parts of the body enriches the work of the entire body.
Last Thursday our Bible study class completed the study called Listening to Scripture. In that class we learned six strategies for exploring the meaning of the books of the Bible for the original author and audience.
Then with that understanding, to explore the variety of meanings that the Bible has for us today.
We discovered that knowing the historical setting of the text, the literary context, and original meaning of words and phrases might provide us with a completely different meaning of a particular passage than the one we might have, just reading the verses on face value.
Last Thursday we applied this approach to a passage from the 1st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the same letter that Cynthia read from this morning.
What was going on in this early Christian church in Corinth that gave rise to this letter?
In this early Christian community there was a diverse mixture of peoples, theologies, cultures, levels of wealth, poverty, and social standing.
And they were being challenged by Paul to find a new unity in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
It was difficult. There was conflict. There was grace.
The Romans in 146 BCE had destroyed the city of Corinth. It was rebuilt in 44BCE as a colony to which Roman authorities sent their surplus population such as recently freed slaves, displaced peasants, and army veterans.
Corinth was a seaport, and it quickly developed into a busy hub of east-west trade in Roman Empire. Corinth was also the site of a religious community that worshipped Aphrodite.
There was a synagogue in Corinth, which Paul visited in 50 or 51CE. He met the leaders of the synagogue, including Priscilla and her husband, Aquila.
Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months, organizing and teaching in the small house churches of Corinth. Periodically these house churches would gather as a whole assembly to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, which in the early Christian church was more like our potluck dinners than our service of Holy Communion.
The people of Corinth were greatly influenced by Hellenistic culture, which placed great emphasis on status. The fact that Priscilla’s name is most often cited before her husband’s may to point to the fact that she came from a wealthier family than Aquila, and therefore had a higher standing, even though she was a woman.
Possibly under the influence of Gnostic religions, “the Corinthian Christians attached great importance to the acquisition and display of special religious knowledge, and so tended to equate spirituality with possession of the more spectacular kinds of gifts, such as speaking in tongues, prophesying, understanding all mysteries and knowledge.”
Paul did not commend these practices.
Paul taught that as Christians, our source of wisdom is in the cross, which most people will think of as foolishness.
Speaking in tongues, knowledge of secret mysteries, and power to move mountains, all amount to nothing.
What is most important that type of love which is received as a gift from God.
This gift from God, symbolized in the cross, reminds us to lay aside all claims of status and superiority over others.
The distinctions of male and female, rich or poor, Gentile or Jew, are secondary to the true life and freedom that comes from receiving God’s love and celebrating our common humanity.
In the passage that the class studied last week, we learned that wealthy members of the community were abusing the Lord’s Supper in those large gatherings of the small house churches that I spoke of earlier.
The wealthy of the community provided much of the food that was shared at a common meal, and since they paid the bills, and often arrived at the large assembly site before the working class and hungry folk could, the wealthy thought that they could go ahead and eat, drink, and be merry before the others arrived.
For the poor folk this Lord’s Supper was literally their daily bread.
Paul had harsh words for the community members who claimed a privileged status, not just because of their selfishness, but because in denying their brother and sister a place at the table they were denying Jesus.
They had lost the purpose of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, which was to remember the self-giving love of Jesus, on behalf of humanity, on behalf of all people.
They were still caught up in lording over their neighbor instead of loving them.
That same theme is found in this morning’s scripture reading, which is found in Chapter 12.
There is no hierarchy in the Christian community. The richness of our unity as the Body of Christ is in our diversity. The foot and the elbow need one another. The heart and the head need one another. The ear and mouth need one another.
The Apostle Paul had a very difficult job in Corinth. He had to speak the truth in love to a culture that was based upon status and tell them that true knowledge, salvation and freedom, come from self-giving love.
Paul wanted to convince these early Greek, Roman, Jewish, rich and poor followers of the way of Jesus, that understanding the holy mystery of God comes from opening ones heart to the love of God and affirming that others, different than you, are also well loved.
Paul had to tell the Christians of Corinth that they had to let go of the knowledge that was handed down to them, and understand something that was radically new.
Paul had to write more than one letter to the Corinthians.
Paul, in his love for the people of Corinth knew that change is never easy, and yet, he was confident, that he could show them a still, better way. This better way is described in Chapter 13, which I will read as the Pastoral Prayer this morning.
In our final class last week, we students of the Bible were given the task of moving from asking what a text meant to the original author and audience, to asking what the passage might mean for us today. It is not there is one meaning of any text. But when we understand the original meaning of the passage, it helps us to form clearer questions for our own time and situation.
Let me share with you one application that I see in this morning’s scripture reading. Remembering that we all see through a glass dimly I do not say that this is the only way to understand the passage. But I do see a way of approaching the Open and Affirming process through the wisdom that is offered in this passage.
But first a story.
One of my favorite games as a child was hide and seek. I loved playing it as a child, as a high schooler, and I love it still. Though I can’t fit or get into the some of the hiding places I used to.
As a child I remember that magical moment at the end of a hide and seek game, when the person who is “it” has given up on finding everyone and calls out in a loud voice, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Or, “Ollie, Ollie Ox and free.”
And then like lost children, like successful pirates, like masterminds of small spaces, the lost who hadn’t been found came out with beaming smiles on their faces.
I wonder what would have happened to those friends of ours, hiding in that seemingly perfect hiding place, if someone hadn’t cried out to the neighborhood, to the park, to the forest, to the community, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Everyone may have gone to his or her comfortable homes, while those in hiding would stay stuck, wondering, is it safe to come out now?
Have they forgotten me? Is this a trap to capture me?
Have they all gone and left me here alone? When is it safe? Where is it safe to come out of hiding?
The person doesn’t know unless they hear, while still in their hiding place, “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
I believe that there are individuals and there are families waiting to hear that cry, so that they can know, before they enter the doors of this sanctuary, that they are welcome here.
We as a community are being asked to consider what it would mean to be a church that proclaims to the community something that would seem like foolishness to many. What would it mean for us to call out that we are open and affirming of all people, no matter their sexual orientation or their gender, their age, their religious perspective, their race, their economic statues, or their physical or mental abilities?
That is what the Open and Affirming process is all about. Knowing what we as a community truly believe so that we as a community can act together of one accord, one heart and mind, as we welcome new members into the life of this diverse community.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit in an open, honest, and compassionate process of sharing information, feelings, experiences that comes from engaging the open and affirming process, regardless of the outcome.
In fact, the way that we engage one another in this process may be the most significant outcome.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation, to trust one another, and to trust the Holy Spirit, as we walk this journey together.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation to let go of status, and to re-examine long held beliefs that we were taught by our culture but go against the grain of the Gospel.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as we listen, compassionately, to one another’s observations, feelings, needs and requests.
I believe that there can be for us a great benefit, as a congregation, to see that the love that Christ shared expanded the circle of who is included in the kin-dom of heaven, and by the grace of God, it includes us.
What we will learn together in this process, regardless of the final outcome, that no one can know at this time, can be for us a time to deepen our experience of what it means to be the Body of Christ together.
As we respect the differences of each part of the body, may we remember that the head of the body is Jesus.
May we remember to look to Jesus, who gave his life for whole body of humanity, as we learn together what the Bible says, what science says, what each part of the body is saying.
May our words, our thoughts, and our actions come from the grace of Christ’s self-giving love for all of humanity.
Let the people who stand by these words say... Amen
__________________________________________________________________
Resource for background material on Corinth was taken from Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Paul Achtemeier, General Editor, Harper One, 1996
Monday, October 26, 2009
We Are Who We Adore
Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Mark 10:46-52
Please pray with me:
From the cowardice that does not face the truth
From the laziness that accepts half-truths
And from the arrogance that thinks it knows the whole truth
Lord, deliver me. Amen
In Portland there is a famous bookstore that fills an entire city block. Powell’s Books. Old and new books on four floors covering every category you can imagine.
Once while checking out of Powell’s Books with another armful of books, which I hope to read some day, I saw a collection of magnets with witty sayings on them. One in particular got my attention. It simply said, “Don’t make me come down there.” God.
Today we will be completing our study of a man who got God to come down here, Job.
For any here not familiar with the Book of Job, it is a fictional narrative about a man who was inflicted with sores all over is body, who loses his wife, family, and home. He has three friends who counsel that he must have done something wrong to offend God and he should confess his sins. But Job, was a good man, so he refused to confess for something he did not do. He argues with his friends’ conventional wisdom. and through expressing his grief and his anger Job comes to have a first hand experience of God.
In my sermon two weeks ago I spoke about Job’s lament as an act of faith in God. I said that,in spite of experiencing the “heaviness” of God’s hand, in spite of wishing to vanish into darkness, Job clings to God as the One who can be reasoned with; as one who can hear whatever we have to say, whether in anger of fear or grief, as the one who can offer an answer.
When Job is finally finished with chapters and chapters of lament, and argument and self-defense and angry questions, God speaks out of the whirlwind, with a dizzying rush of questions. But the intent of God’s question are to provide Job with an insight that will go beyond the limits of Job’s previous understanding of God and life and suffering.
Two weeks ago I said that I would share with the response that God gave to Job. And true my word, here it is, in verses selected from Chapters 39-41 of Job.
Job got God to come down and this is what God, a voice in the whirlwind said,
Job, I have heard your questions. I have some of my own for you.
4‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
8‘Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—
11 and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped”?
19‘Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,
24What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25‘Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a way for the thunderbolt,
26to bring rain on a land where no one lives,
on the desert, which is empty of human life,
28‘Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?
31‘Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?
36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,*
or given understanding to the mind?*
37Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
Mighty heady questions, aren’t they. Can you imagine having these on a final exam?
Then God goes on to name the animals and how they are cared for. The raven, mountain goat, wild mule and ox, ostrich, horse, hawk, eagle, crocodile and hippo are each identified.
God goes on to name the great mythical sea creature Leviathan, symbol of chaos, being overtaken by order, form, and beauty. In the time and place that the book of Job was written, the majority of people believed that Leviathan was a god. But God who is speaking to Job encompasses all of life’s energies; including chaos.
When speaking of the land creature Behemoth, God says, “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you.”
Through all of these verses lifting up the wonders and realities of creation
God is saying, “Job, I heard your question.”
As I made Behemoth, and I made you.
As I made the oceans that sometimes flood the shorelines, I made you.
As I made the great Sierra Nevada Mountain range with volcanoes and earthquakes and massive amounts of land forces meeting in one place, turning over and over, pushing higher and higher, and created Yosemite Valley, I created you.
As I made the basic elements of the universe from the intense heat of a dying supernovae, I made you.
Do you see all the beauty that is all around you? And the death and the sorrow?
Job I made the eyes that you see all of those things with.
Job I made your heart which breaks when you lose someone you love.
Job the way that life is, is exactly what it takes, to make life what it is.
"Death is the mother of beauty."(Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning)
Would you avoid death, Job?
Would you really want to create a world without it?
And then gets a little cheeky and says something like,
Next time a universe is going to be created I will remember to give you a call and let you be in charge.
In the meantime, live with this one.
Live with life, Job. As it is in this moment, live with it.
This is holy ground Job.
This is a sanctuary Job, true to life. Be true to life, Job.
You need help? There is help.
You have questions? Ask them in the right places and the right time and answers will come.
Live life, with all that you have got. With humility, compassion, gratitude and in community.
How does Job respond after hearing these words from God, describing the creation of universe?
Job says,
"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you; I despise myself and I repent in dust in ashes." (Job 42:5-6)
Through the questioning, debating, arguing, with God, and then the listening to God, Job sees God clearly, he wants to turn around, his old self is in ashes.
He doesn’t give up, he gives in, to God.
Surrendering into God Job is ready to live life with eyes wide open.
Job no longer desires to make the world in his image.
Job is ready to go a new direction,
and give his complete attention to God’s image revealed in creation.
And how does God respond to Job now?
As God does time and time again in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. God responds with mercy.
As in the story from the Gospel of Mark that we heard read this morning, The blind beggar calls out from the crowd, “Son of David have mercy on me.”
Jesus calls Bartimaeus.
The crowd around Bartimaeus says, “Take heart, he is calling you.”
“Take heart, he is calling you.”
God did not cause Bartimaeus’ blindness, any more that God caused the Loma Prieta earthquake. But in the way the earth is made, earthquakes happen. Blindness happens. And mercy happens.
“Jesus is “another wave of mercy, the kind of mercy that God has been doing all through the Hebrew Bible….waves and waves of mercy, because God’s mercy is given continually in the world and has made all things new.”
Here, at the end of a long journey full of healing and teaching, at the edge of what is to come – suffering, death, and resurrection – we remember that Jesus “gave his life as a continuing act of mercy.
“Mercy, is that strange transformative reach
from a center of strength
to a center of need that changes everything and makes all things new.”
(Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann).
And …”Grace is the mysterious strength
that God lends human beings
who commit themselves to the work of transformation.”
(Anthony B. Robinson Changing the Conversation)
Job learns that…
“God is not a hypothesis or a good idea, but a power in the universe who turns what was, into what will be.” (Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann).
Bartimaeus believes that mercy is passing by and calls out. The crowd says, “Take heart, he is calling you. Mercy is calling you.”
Bartimaeus is brought before Jesus who asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Bartimaeus is responsible for asking for what he needs.
Jesus does not presume to know.
Jesus does not fix what he believes needs fixing, Jesus asks Bartimaeus to name it.
Bartimaeus replies to Jesus, “Teacher, let me see again.”
And his sight is restored.
Just as Job, who had been operating only on a hearsay understanding of God, now sees God.
God, let me see again.
Lord, have mercy on me.
Job and Bartimaeus were surrounded by friends who told them to be quiet.
But Job and Bartimaeus knew their need, they called out, and they received mercy.
“Those who received mercy are formed into a new community.
That would be us, in the church, a community of people who have received mercy and now have the opportunity, the responsibility, the call, to extend mercy to all of God’s children in need.” (Breuggeman)
Job got God to come down.
And God got Job to look around
to see that our love of God and compassion for our neighbor eases the suffering the world and restores the balance that we need to move with grace and mercy.
Bartimaeus got Jesus to stop.
And Jesus got Bartimaeus
to trust that his giving into Jesus would enable him to see the road that leads to healing.
I invite us, one and all, to take whatever burden we are carrying, for ourselves, for our community, or for our world, and take a good look around at the world, as it is. And ask God all the questions that you want to, wait for an answer, receive the new insight in humility, and then trust that mercy and grace will surely follow you all of your days.
And then do whatever you can to continue to build and grow this transforming community of faith where God’s love echoes through us to all creation.
Let the people say,
Amen
Please pray with me:
From the cowardice that does not face the truth
From the laziness that accepts half-truths
And from the arrogance that thinks it knows the whole truth
Lord, deliver me. Amen
In Portland there is a famous bookstore that fills an entire city block. Powell’s Books. Old and new books on four floors covering every category you can imagine.
Once while checking out of Powell’s Books with another armful of books, which I hope to read some day, I saw a collection of magnets with witty sayings on them. One in particular got my attention. It simply said, “Don’t make me come down there.” God.
Today we will be completing our study of a man who got God to come down here, Job.
For any here not familiar with the Book of Job, it is a fictional narrative about a man who was inflicted with sores all over is body, who loses his wife, family, and home. He has three friends who counsel that he must have done something wrong to offend God and he should confess his sins. But Job, was a good man, so he refused to confess for something he did not do. He argues with his friends’ conventional wisdom. and through expressing his grief and his anger Job comes to have a first hand experience of God.
In my sermon two weeks ago I spoke about Job’s lament as an act of faith in God. I said that,in spite of experiencing the “heaviness” of God’s hand, in spite of wishing to vanish into darkness, Job clings to God as the One who can be reasoned with; as one who can hear whatever we have to say, whether in anger of fear or grief, as the one who can offer an answer.
When Job is finally finished with chapters and chapters of lament, and argument and self-defense and angry questions, God speaks out of the whirlwind, with a dizzying rush of questions. But the intent of God’s question are to provide Job with an insight that will go beyond the limits of Job’s previous understanding of God and life and suffering.
Two weeks ago I said that I would share with the response that God gave to Job. And true my word, here it is, in verses selected from Chapters 39-41 of Job.
Job got God to come down and this is what God, a voice in the whirlwind said,
Job, I have heard your questions. I have some of my own for you.
4‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
8‘Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—
11 and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped”?
19‘Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,
24What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25‘Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a way for the thunderbolt,
26to bring rain on a land where no one lives,
on the desert, which is empty of human life,
28‘Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?
31‘Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?
36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,*
or given understanding to the mind?*
37Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
Mighty heady questions, aren’t they. Can you imagine having these on a final exam?
Then God goes on to name the animals and how they are cared for. The raven, mountain goat, wild mule and ox, ostrich, horse, hawk, eagle, crocodile and hippo are each identified.
God goes on to name the great mythical sea creature Leviathan, symbol of chaos, being overtaken by order, form, and beauty. In the time and place that the book of Job was written, the majority of people believed that Leviathan was a god. But God who is speaking to Job encompasses all of life’s energies; including chaos.
When speaking of the land creature Behemoth, God says, “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you.”
Through all of these verses lifting up the wonders and realities of creation
God is saying, “Job, I heard your question.”
As I made Behemoth, and I made you.
As I made the oceans that sometimes flood the shorelines, I made you.
As I made the great Sierra Nevada Mountain range with volcanoes and earthquakes and massive amounts of land forces meeting in one place, turning over and over, pushing higher and higher, and created Yosemite Valley, I created you.
As I made the basic elements of the universe from the intense heat of a dying supernovae, I made you.
Do you see all the beauty that is all around you? And the death and the sorrow?
Job I made the eyes that you see all of those things with.
Job I made your heart which breaks when you lose someone you love.
Job the way that life is, is exactly what it takes, to make life what it is.
"Death is the mother of beauty."(Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning)
Would you avoid death, Job?
Would you really want to create a world without it?
And then gets a little cheeky and says something like,
Next time a universe is going to be created I will remember to give you a call and let you be in charge.
In the meantime, live with this one.
Live with life, Job. As it is in this moment, live with it.
This is holy ground Job.
This is a sanctuary Job, true to life. Be true to life, Job.
You need help? There is help.
You have questions? Ask them in the right places and the right time and answers will come.
Live life, with all that you have got. With humility, compassion, gratitude and in community.
How does Job respond after hearing these words from God, describing the creation of universe?
Job says,
"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you; I despise myself and I repent in dust in ashes." (Job 42:5-6)
Through the questioning, debating, arguing, with God, and then the listening to God, Job sees God clearly, he wants to turn around, his old self is in ashes.
He doesn’t give up, he gives in, to God.
Surrendering into God Job is ready to live life with eyes wide open.
Job no longer desires to make the world in his image.
Job is ready to go a new direction,
and give his complete attention to God’s image revealed in creation.
And how does God respond to Job now?
As God does time and time again in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. God responds with mercy.
As in the story from the Gospel of Mark that we heard read this morning, The blind beggar calls out from the crowd, “Son of David have mercy on me.”
Jesus calls Bartimaeus.
The crowd around Bartimaeus says, “Take heart, he is calling you.”
“Take heart, he is calling you.”
God did not cause Bartimaeus’ blindness, any more that God caused the Loma Prieta earthquake. But in the way the earth is made, earthquakes happen. Blindness happens. And mercy happens.
“Jesus is “another wave of mercy, the kind of mercy that God has been doing all through the Hebrew Bible….waves and waves of mercy, because God’s mercy is given continually in the world and has made all things new.”
Here, at the end of a long journey full of healing and teaching, at the edge of what is to come – suffering, death, and resurrection – we remember that Jesus “gave his life as a continuing act of mercy.
“Mercy, is that strange transformative reach
from a center of strength
to a center of need that changes everything and makes all things new.”
(Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann).
And …”Grace is the mysterious strength
that God lends human beings
who commit themselves to the work of transformation.”
(Anthony B. Robinson Changing the Conversation)
Job learns that…
“God is not a hypothesis or a good idea, but a power in the universe who turns what was, into what will be.” (Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann).
Bartimaeus believes that mercy is passing by and calls out. The crowd says, “Take heart, he is calling you. Mercy is calling you.”
Bartimaeus is brought before Jesus who asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Bartimaeus is responsible for asking for what he needs.
Jesus does not presume to know.
Jesus does not fix what he believes needs fixing, Jesus asks Bartimaeus to name it.
Bartimaeus replies to Jesus, “Teacher, let me see again.”
And his sight is restored.
Just as Job, who had been operating only on a hearsay understanding of God, now sees God.
God, let me see again.
Lord, have mercy on me.
Job and Bartimaeus were surrounded by friends who told them to be quiet.
But Job and Bartimaeus knew their need, they called out, and they received mercy.
“Those who received mercy are formed into a new community.
That would be us, in the church, a community of people who have received mercy and now have the opportunity, the responsibility, the call, to extend mercy to all of God’s children in need.” (Breuggeman)
Job got God to come down.
And God got Job to look around
to see that our love of God and compassion for our neighbor eases the suffering the world and restores the balance that we need to move with grace and mercy.
Bartimaeus got Jesus to stop.
And Jesus got Bartimaeus
to trust that his giving into Jesus would enable him to see the road that leads to healing.
I invite us, one and all, to take whatever burden we are carrying, for ourselves, for our community, or for our world, and take a good look around at the world, as it is. And ask God all the questions that you want to, wait for an answer, receive the new insight in humility, and then trust that mercy and grace will surely follow you all of your days.
And then do whatever you can to continue to build and grow this transforming community of faith where God’s love echoes through us to all creation.
Let the people say,
Amen
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Strength That Empowers Us
Psalm 19 Mark 5: 24-34
March 15, 2009
Rev Alan Claassen
Did you know that going to church is good for your health? Faculty at Duke University did a study and they found that:
1) People who attend church regularly are hospitalized less often than people who never or rarely participate in church services
2) People who pray and read the Bible have lower blood pressure
3) People who attend religious services have stronger immune systems than their less religious counterparts.
So it’s healthy to come to church. Research proves it.
And there’s no Waiting Room.
So if you are looking to improve your health this morning, you’ve come to the right place.
The Gospel reading this morning tells of a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. “A long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before…” (The Message, Eugene Peterson)
“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in crowd and touched his cloak.”
Unlike Bartimaeus in our scripture reading from two weeks ago,
the blind beggar who called out from the crowd,
“Jesus, Son of David have mercy,”
this woman, whose name we do not know,
“moved toward Jesus silently, secretively, and in shame.
She had reason for her silence. As a bleeding person, she was considered by the orthodox to be unclean, contaminated, and untouchable.
For twelve years she had not been embraced or touched, even by her family.
As she walked down the street, people carefully moved aside, …” (Miracle, pg39 Wuellner)
Flora Wuellner, in her book, Miracle, sees in this woman a pain deeper than the chronic illness and loss of resources, namely, loneliness and a sense of shame. “It is hard not to internalize what others think of us. [The woman] probably thought of herself as unworthy and unclean.
How could she possibly believe that Jesus would deliberately touch her or encourage her to touch him?
If others saw her touching Jesus, they would consider him contaminated also, unfit to do God’s work until he had been purified. Jesus was on his way to the dying daughter of Jairus, an important man in the community.
If by her touch [the woman] prevented this, she would be blamed. She might be cast out of the community altogether.
Hers was a silent cry for a secret healing—a quick, shamed, touch on the outer garment. She hoped no one would notice, especially not Jesus.” (Miracle, pg 40, Wuellner)
This connection between the woman’s faith inspired by belief in Jesus fascinates me. When the woman reaches out to touch Jesus, he feels the spirit go out our him, he calls out who touched me, he sees the woman, hears her story, and says,
“Your faith has made you well.”
There are two active participants in this story, Jesus, a man who completely embodied the life-giving love of God and a woman who completely embodied desire for healing and faith that just the cloak of Jesus could heal her.
And even though I can only humbly approach this story at that level of mystery and grace, not really being able to understand it, I want to remember it.
I want us to remember for those in moments in our lives of not knowing where to turn.
When our own power is gone, when we feel like all eyes upon us a critical,
when we feel like everything in our lives is telling us to withdraw within ourselves
we have available to us the invitation to reach out to another source of power, the healing presence of God.
In that moment our prayer may simply be:
God, please send me guidance,
the open heart to receive it
and the courage to act upon it.
We may only be given the courage to move silently in the direction of silence. There are many good things that begin in silence. But don’t be surprised when healing comes and the light shines on the darkness. And don’t surprised in how good that will feel.
When the woman is brought out of her closet of shame by Jesus asking, “Who touched my cloak, the woman identifies herself. She became visible to the entire community.
The invisible takes center stage.
What will happen?
Her hemorrhaging has already been healed.
Then Jesus to woman, “Your faith has made you well.”
In that pronouncement she is restored with her community. She is different than she was. She is healed. She is no longer the untouchable that she was before. She is no longer to be seen.
She no longer assumes that she will be greeted with judgmental stares or rejection.
She receives more than just the healing of her illness; she is also reunited with her community.
Jesus restores her health and announces to the community that she is well.
This connection between healing and community is the one that I find compelling.
Because for a moment I take seriously the statement that we make about ourselves that we, the church, are the body of Christ.
I ask myself how we can live our lives as a faith community that would encourage someone to reach out to us in hopes of healing, friendship, and affirmation.
The woman who had been suffering physically and emotionally for twelve years needed more than bodily healing.
“She needed also to hear Jesus tell her openly,
in front of everyone,
that she was a worthy, faithful person.
[Jesus] called her daughter. Only in this particular story does Jesus refer to a woman as daughter. How deeply she must have needed that word of intimacy and respect. With his tenderness and peace, Jesus gave her not only bodily healing but also a deeper healing of her heart and spirit.
The community members need to see and to hear that God’s love excluded no one. They needed to learn that compassionate mercy matters for more than rules. They needed to hear that it is not God’s will that for anyone to remain sick, drained, lonely, uncomforted.
As Jesus challenged the ancient cruel laws he was revealing to them, to us, what God’s kin-dom really is.” (Miracle, pg 45, Wuellner)
This year, for this church’s observance of Lent, many of us wrote on pieces of cloth, the places in our own lives that are in need of healing, body, mind, and spirit. Those pieces of cloth, which we touched, our draped around the cross.
We touch the outer garment of Jesus’ cloak, and we wrap our places of need, brokenness, and separation, around the cross trusting that this is a place of healing, of strength beyond our own and yet within our reach.
What shall we reach out for?
The Holy Healing Spirit that was in Jesus and through Jesus for that woman who touched his cloak, is still within reach.
Somehow, in ways that no one can explain, we are able to touch the garment of the risen Christ, just as that woman touched the robe Jesus was wearing.
To make this seeming impossibility more real for us, Jesus gave us each other in this community of faith.
We bring ourselves, as we are, and as we want to become to this sacred place. We ask to be guided on the level path.
We asked to overcome fear and judgment and give ourselves to love. We are given an opportunity to be with Christ Jesus who knows our goodness and wants us to step forward, in love, for whatever life brings us next.
I said at the beginning of the sermon that church is good for your health.
Well rather than telling you take two aspirin and stay in bed,
I am going to give you one prayer and a way to remember it.
Say these words while doing the corresponding action:
God, please send me guidance, (Make eyeglasses over eyes)
the open heart to receive it (Place hands over heart, then open)
and the courage to act upon it. (Quickly extend hands directly forward)
Let the people, who love mercy and seek justice say,
Amen
___________________________________________________________________________
The Message, The New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, Eugene Peterson, Navpress, Colorado Springs
Miracle, When Christ Touches Our Deepest Need, Flora Slosson Wuellner, Upper Room Books, Nashville
March 15, 2009
Rev Alan Claassen
Did you know that going to church is good for your health? Faculty at Duke University did a study and they found that:
1) People who attend church regularly are hospitalized less often than people who never or rarely participate in church services
2) People who pray and read the Bible have lower blood pressure
3) People who attend religious services have stronger immune systems than their less religious counterparts.
So it’s healthy to come to church. Research proves it.
And there’s no Waiting Room.
So if you are looking to improve your health this morning, you’ve come to the right place.
The Gospel reading this morning tells of a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. “A long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before…” (The Message, Eugene Peterson)
“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in crowd and touched his cloak.”
Unlike Bartimaeus in our scripture reading from two weeks ago,
the blind beggar who called out from the crowd,
“Jesus, Son of David have mercy,”
this woman, whose name we do not know,
“moved toward Jesus silently, secretively, and in shame.
She had reason for her silence. As a bleeding person, she was considered by the orthodox to be unclean, contaminated, and untouchable.
For twelve years she had not been embraced or touched, even by her family.
As she walked down the street, people carefully moved aside, …” (Miracle, pg39 Wuellner)
Flora Wuellner, in her book, Miracle, sees in this woman a pain deeper than the chronic illness and loss of resources, namely, loneliness and a sense of shame. “It is hard not to internalize what others think of us. [The woman] probably thought of herself as unworthy and unclean.
How could she possibly believe that Jesus would deliberately touch her or encourage her to touch him?
If others saw her touching Jesus, they would consider him contaminated also, unfit to do God’s work until he had been purified. Jesus was on his way to the dying daughter of Jairus, an important man in the community.
If by her touch [the woman] prevented this, she would be blamed. She might be cast out of the community altogether.
Hers was a silent cry for a secret healing—a quick, shamed, touch on the outer garment. She hoped no one would notice, especially not Jesus.” (Miracle, pg 40, Wuellner)
This connection between the woman’s faith inspired by belief in Jesus fascinates me. When the woman reaches out to touch Jesus, he feels the spirit go out our him, he calls out who touched me, he sees the woman, hears her story, and says,
“Your faith has made you well.”
There are two active participants in this story, Jesus, a man who completely embodied the life-giving love of God and a woman who completely embodied desire for healing and faith that just the cloak of Jesus could heal her.
And even though I can only humbly approach this story at that level of mystery and grace, not really being able to understand it, I want to remember it.
I want us to remember for those in moments in our lives of not knowing where to turn.
When our own power is gone, when we feel like all eyes upon us a critical,
when we feel like everything in our lives is telling us to withdraw within ourselves
we have available to us the invitation to reach out to another source of power, the healing presence of God.
In that moment our prayer may simply be:
God, please send me guidance,
the open heart to receive it
and the courage to act upon it.
We may only be given the courage to move silently in the direction of silence. There are many good things that begin in silence. But don’t be surprised when healing comes and the light shines on the darkness. And don’t surprised in how good that will feel.
When the woman is brought out of her closet of shame by Jesus asking, “Who touched my cloak, the woman identifies herself. She became visible to the entire community.
The invisible takes center stage.
What will happen?
Her hemorrhaging has already been healed.
Then Jesus to woman, “Your faith has made you well.”
In that pronouncement she is restored with her community. She is different than she was. She is healed. She is no longer the untouchable that she was before. She is no longer to be seen.
She no longer assumes that she will be greeted with judgmental stares or rejection.
She receives more than just the healing of her illness; she is also reunited with her community.
Jesus restores her health and announces to the community that she is well.
This connection between healing and community is the one that I find compelling.
Because for a moment I take seriously the statement that we make about ourselves that we, the church, are the body of Christ.
I ask myself how we can live our lives as a faith community that would encourage someone to reach out to us in hopes of healing, friendship, and affirmation.
The woman who had been suffering physically and emotionally for twelve years needed more than bodily healing.
“She needed also to hear Jesus tell her openly,
in front of everyone,
that she was a worthy, faithful person.
[Jesus] called her daughter. Only in this particular story does Jesus refer to a woman as daughter. How deeply she must have needed that word of intimacy and respect. With his tenderness and peace, Jesus gave her not only bodily healing but also a deeper healing of her heart and spirit.
The community members need to see and to hear that God’s love excluded no one. They needed to learn that compassionate mercy matters for more than rules. They needed to hear that it is not God’s will that for anyone to remain sick, drained, lonely, uncomforted.
As Jesus challenged the ancient cruel laws he was revealing to them, to us, what God’s kin-dom really is.” (Miracle, pg 45, Wuellner)
This year, for this church’s observance of Lent, many of us wrote on pieces of cloth, the places in our own lives that are in need of healing, body, mind, and spirit. Those pieces of cloth, which we touched, our draped around the cross.
We touch the outer garment of Jesus’ cloak, and we wrap our places of need, brokenness, and separation, around the cross trusting that this is a place of healing, of strength beyond our own and yet within our reach.
What shall we reach out for?
The Holy Healing Spirit that was in Jesus and through Jesus for that woman who touched his cloak, is still within reach.
Somehow, in ways that no one can explain, we are able to touch the garment of the risen Christ, just as that woman touched the robe Jesus was wearing.
To make this seeming impossibility more real for us, Jesus gave us each other in this community of faith.
We bring ourselves, as we are, and as we want to become to this sacred place. We ask to be guided on the level path.
We asked to overcome fear and judgment and give ourselves to love. We are given an opportunity to be with Christ Jesus who knows our goodness and wants us to step forward, in love, for whatever life brings us next.
I said at the beginning of the sermon that church is good for your health.
Well rather than telling you take two aspirin and stay in bed,
I am going to give you one prayer and a way to remember it.
Say these words while doing the corresponding action:
God, please send me guidance, (Make eyeglasses over eyes)
the open heart to receive it (Place hands over heart, then open)
and the courage to act upon it. (Quickly extend hands directly forward)
Let the people, who love mercy and seek justice say,
Amen
___________________________________________________________________________
The Message, The New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, Eugene Peterson, Navpress, Colorado Springs
Miracle, When Christ Touches Our Deepest Need, Flora Slosson Wuellner, Upper Room Books, Nashville
We Are Who We Entrust
Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Mark 10:17-31
Rev. Alan Claassen October 11, 2009
We are in our second week of our Annual Stewardship Campaign. This year’s campaign is a little unusual as it based on a song and a dance, the Hokey Pokey. The focus line of the song that is the key to the campaign is, Put Your Whole Selves In.
You begin the dance by warming up slowly: right hand, shake it all about, left hand, shake it all about, right and left leg, front side, back side, warming up slowly until you are ready to put our whole self in, shake it all about, and then turn it all around.
What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about? What if the journey of our lives is to see, that each moment of our lives, tears and joys, successes and failures, is always turning us around until we see what it is really all about?
Like whirling dervishes we are spun around and around by the circumstances and choices of our lives.
What keeps us from getting dizzy and falling down?
On each Sunday of this five week Stewardship campaign we are focusing on one way in which we live and grow together as a community of faith. We began last week with the word connecting.
Today’s focus is on Learning.
And I want to suggest to you that what keeps from getting dizzy and falling down with all the twists and turns of life is Wisdom.
And I want to suggest to you this morning that the Book of Job is an excellent source of Wisdom, even though today’s passage, taken out of context, might make you doubt that claim.
In our adult Bible study, Listening to Scriptures, we are learning that knowing the context of the author of a book helps us understand the text so much better. We are learning to ask such questions as,
“When was this book written?”
“What, if anything, do we know about the author or authors of the book of the Bible that we are reading?”
“What do we know about the community that the author was writing to?”
“What literary form is being used? Is this passage history, myth, poetry, parable, part of a worship service or ceremony?”
Bob gave us some context for the reading from Job this morning. I want to add a little more to what Bob said, because I love the Book of Job.
So some context. When was the Book of Job written?
During the time of Jewish exile. In the 6th century before Christ the great ancient civilization of Babylon was rising and it swallowed up Israel. As a means for controlling this province the victorious army took all the significant leaders of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon.
And the exiled leaders were treated well. They were allowed to live together, and worship together.
But these 50 years of exile was a very challenging time. They had equated their connection with God in relation to the promised land.
Now that they were in exile, where did that leave them in relation to God? Had God abandoned them? Could they maintain the covenant while living in a strange land? Were the gods of the Babylonians more powerful than their God? Many questions came up for the Jewish people at this time. That is the historical context for the Book of Job.
What is the literary form of the Book Job? Two answers to this question.
“There is a body of literature in the Hebrew Bible that stands apart. It is often referred to as “wisdom literature,” and has little to do with Israel’s distinctive sacred history or the prophets’ call for return to the covenant. Books like Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms fit here. And because it raises philosophical questions of God’s justice, … so does the Book of Job.” (pg 95, Understanding the Bible, John A. Buehrens)
Wisdom literature both advises us on what it takes to live the good life, as well as questioning the assumptions of our best made plans and formulas.
The Book of Job calls into question the assumption that if you do the right thing you will be rewarded, and the corollary, if your life is going miserably, then you must have done something wrong to deserve punishment.
The Book of Job, was asking the question that the Judean exiles must have wondered, “What did I do, what did my innocent children do, to deserve this?” Centuries later this question is still being asked and Rabbi Harold Kushner is famous for addressing this question in his popular book,
“Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”
Which brings me to the second answer to the question, “What is the literary form of the Book of Job?” The particular passage that was read today is a lament.
“Lament is one of the most important, and often most neglected, forms of prayer in Hebrew Scriptures. Nearly one third of the Psalms are laments. The responses of Job to his three self-righteous friends are laments.
“Laments are protests and complaints raised in times of need or crisis, whether of individuals or community. One reason for their neglect comes in the manner the laments address God. These are not polite, soothing words, rendered in timid submission to God. The emotions are on the surface and God is sometimes depicted, as in Job 23, with images that are not easy to hear.
“God’s hand is heavy… the Almighty has terrified me.”
“Psalm 22 begins with some of the most devastating words of any lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Laments cut across the grain of culture and religion, that doesn’t want to hear distressing things. Those who raise laments are counseled, as Job was by his friends, to stop saying such words.
“The fault must be yours Job. Be quiet.”
Taken out of its historical and literary context, this lament of Job may appear to be a denial of faith or avoidance of relationship with God.
But quietness in this case is not faith. Lament is faith.
Why?
Because it keeps the dialogue with God alive.
Lament does not throw hands up in the air and walk away unheard.
Lament hangs on to God, pleading and protesting in hope of a response to the need or crisis that overwhelms.
In spite of experiencing the “heaviness” of God’s hand, in spite of wishing to vanish into darkness, Job clings to God as the One who can be reasoned with; as the one who can offer an answer.
And though he could not have known it at the time of his lamentations, God is going to provide Job with an answer that will bring an abiding connection with eternal life, no matter what the outward appearances, wealth or poverty are.
And that leads to the one of the most characteristic and surprising elements of lament in Hebrew Scriptures. Once the protests have been sounded, once the rawness of the complaint has been laid open, lament typically ends in trust and in hope of God’s action.
And there also comes a deeper sense of wisdom, of understanding the limits of one’s previous understanding of the situation at hand. A new insight is awakened in our heart of hearts.
What comes of Job’s lament? We will discuss that in two weeks. Of course, if you can’t wait that long for the answer, you can always read the Book of Job.
Or hear this words from a man of great faith who endured great suffering, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Let us remember that there is a great benign power in the universe whose name is God, and God is able to make a way out of now way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. This is our hope for becoming a better people. This is our mandate for seeking to make a better world.”
Though not as noble or historic I hear a similar faithfulness in the words of Jack Williams, a songwriter from South Carolina, who wrote a song of lament in remembrance of the disappeared cotton fields that he remembered as a young boy.
Cotton, high cotton. The more I see the less I know.
The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
Swing high, swing low. High cotton.
The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
The well runs deeper than our lamentations, our limitations, our mistakes, our anger. Even though we may be at the end of our rope that doesn’t mean that the well is empty. We may just need a longer rope, a deeper understanding. Wisdom.
The way to learn what you need to get your bucket deeper into the well is to put your whole self into your community that centers itself in God’s unconditional love.
As with the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies, keep the commandments and care for the poor with everything that you’ve got.
Today’s word is learning. What part of your life is asking a question that this community of faith might be able to answer? What wisdom do we seem to have a grasp on here that we believe would benefit our community?
Our beliefs are initially informed by what we are taught and we thank God for our teachers. But we are transformed by our experiences. Wisdom comes from being shaken up, turned around, and then hearing, from the whirlwind, God calling our name, saying,
“You are my beloved. I have been by your side all the time. Let me show you something you seem to have missed that is front of your eyes.”
And in sharing with one another, our deepest questions in ways that are honest, open, and safe, we will uncover the wisdom that we have been entrusted with, by the grace of God.
And that my friends, is what it’s all about.
Let the people say, Amen.
Rev. Alan Claassen October 11, 2009
We are in our second week of our Annual Stewardship Campaign. This year’s campaign is a little unusual as it based on a song and a dance, the Hokey Pokey. The focus line of the song that is the key to the campaign is, Put Your Whole Selves In.
You begin the dance by warming up slowly: right hand, shake it all about, left hand, shake it all about, right and left leg, front side, back side, warming up slowly until you are ready to put our whole self in, shake it all about, and then turn it all around.
What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about? What if the journey of our lives is to see, that each moment of our lives, tears and joys, successes and failures, is always turning us around until we see what it is really all about?
Like whirling dervishes we are spun around and around by the circumstances and choices of our lives.
What keeps us from getting dizzy and falling down?
On each Sunday of this five week Stewardship campaign we are focusing on one way in which we live and grow together as a community of faith. We began last week with the word connecting.
Today’s focus is on Learning.
And I want to suggest to you that what keeps from getting dizzy and falling down with all the twists and turns of life is Wisdom.
And I want to suggest to you this morning that the Book of Job is an excellent source of Wisdom, even though today’s passage, taken out of context, might make you doubt that claim.
In our adult Bible study, Listening to Scriptures, we are learning that knowing the context of the author of a book helps us understand the text so much better. We are learning to ask such questions as,
“When was this book written?”
“What, if anything, do we know about the author or authors of the book of the Bible that we are reading?”
“What do we know about the community that the author was writing to?”
“What literary form is being used? Is this passage history, myth, poetry, parable, part of a worship service or ceremony?”
Bob gave us some context for the reading from Job this morning. I want to add a little more to what Bob said, because I love the Book of Job.
So some context. When was the Book of Job written?
During the time of Jewish exile. In the 6th century before Christ the great ancient civilization of Babylon was rising and it swallowed up Israel. As a means for controlling this province the victorious army took all the significant leaders of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon.
And the exiled leaders were treated well. They were allowed to live together, and worship together.
But these 50 years of exile was a very challenging time. They had equated their connection with God in relation to the promised land.
Now that they were in exile, where did that leave them in relation to God? Had God abandoned them? Could they maintain the covenant while living in a strange land? Were the gods of the Babylonians more powerful than their God? Many questions came up for the Jewish people at this time. That is the historical context for the Book of Job.
What is the literary form of the Book Job? Two answers to this question.
“There is a body of literature in the Hebrew Bible that stands apart. It is often referred to as “wisdom literature,” and has little to do with Israel’s distinctive sacred history or the prophets’ call for return to the covenant. Books like Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms fit here. And because it raises philosophical questions of God’s justice, … so does the Book of Job.” (pg 95, Understanding the Bible, John A. Buehrens)
Wisdom literature both advises us on what it takes to live the good life, as well as questioning the assumptions of our best made plans and formulas.
The Book of Job calls into question the assumption that if you do the right thing you will be rewarded, and the corollary, if your life is going miserably, then you must have done something wrong to deserve punishment.
The Book of Job, was asking the question that the Judean exiles must have wondered, “What did I do, what did my innocent children do, to deserve this?” Centuries later this question is still being asked and Rabbi Harold Kushner is famous for addressing this question in his popular book,
“Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”
Which brings me to the second answer to the question, “What is the literary form of the Book of Job?” The particular passage that was read today is a lament.
“Lament is one of the most important, and often most neglected, forms of prayer in Hebrew Scriptures. Nearly one third of the Psalms are laments. The responses of Job to his three self-righteous friends are laments.
“Laments are protests and complaints raised in times of need or crisis, whether of individuals or community. One reason for their neglect comes in the manner the laments address God. These are not polite, soothing words, rendered in timid submission to God. The emotions are on the surface and God is sometimes depicted, as in Job 23, with images that are not easy to hear.
“God’s hand is heavy… the Almighty has terrified me.”
“Psalm 22 begins with some of the most devastating words of any lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Laments cut across the grain of culture and religion, that doesn’t want to hear distressing things. Those who raise laments are counseled, as Job was by his friends, to stop saying such words.
“The fault must be yours Job. Be quiet.”
Taken out of its historical and literary context, this lament of Job may appear to be a denial of faith or avoidance of relationship with God.
But quietness in this case is not faith. Lament is faith.
Why?
Because it keeps the dialogue with God alive.
Lament does not throw hands up in the air and walk away unheard.
Lament hangs on to God, pleading and protesting in hope of a response to the need or crisis that overwhelms.
In spite of experiencing the “heaviness” of God’s hand, in spite of wishing to vanish into darkness, Job clings to God as the One who can be reasoned with; as the one who can offer an answer.
And though he could not have known it at the time of his lamentations, God is going to provide Job with an answer that will bring an abiding connection with eternal life, no matter what the outward appearances, wealth or poverty are.
And that leads to the one of the most characteristic and surprising elements of lament in Hebrew Scriptures. Once the protests have been sounded, once the rawness of the complaint has been laid open, lament typically ends in trust and in hope of God’s action.
And there also comes a deeper sense of wisdom, of understanding the limits of one’s previous understanding of the situation at hand. A new insight is awakened in our heart of hearts.
What comes of Job’s lament? We will discuss that in two weeks. Of course, if you can’t wait that long for the answer, you can always read the Book of Job.
Or hear this words from a man of great faith who endured great suffering, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Let us remember that there is a great benign power in the universe whose name is God, and God is able to make a way out of now way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. This is our hope for becoming a better people. This is our mandate for seeking to make a better world.”
Though not as noble or historic I hear a similar faithfulness in the words of Jack Williams, a songwriter from South Carolina, who wrote a song of lament in remembrance of the disappeared cotton fields that he remembered as a young boy.
Cotton, high cotton. The more I see the less I know.
The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
Swing high, swing low. High cotton.
The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
The well runs deeper than our lamentations, our limitations, our mistakes, our anger. Even though we may be at the end of our rope that doesn’t mean that the well is empty. We may just need a longer rope, a deeper understanding. Wisdom.
The way to learn what you need to get your bucket deeper into the well is to put your whole self into your community that centers itself in God’s unconditional love.
As with the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies, keep the commandments and care for the poor with everything that you’ve got.
Today’s word is learning. What part of your life is asking a question that this community of faith might be able to answer? What wisdom do we seem to have a grasp on here that we believe would benefit our community?
Our beliefs are initially informed by what we are taught and we thank God for our teachers. But we are transformed by our experiences. Wisdom comes from being shaken up, turned around, and then hearing, from the whirlwind, God calling our name, saying,
“You are my beloved. I have been by your side all the time. Let me show you something you seem to have missed that is front of your eyes.”
And in sharing with one another, our deepest questions in ways that are honest, open, and safe, we will uncover the wisdom that we have been entrusted with, by the grace of God.
And that my friends, is what it’s all about.
Let the people say, Amen.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Hearts Open Slowly
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Mark 7:24-37
September 6, 2009 Rev. Alan Claassen
Please pray with me:
From the cowardice that does not face the truth
From the laziness that accepts half-truths
And from the arrogance that thinks it knows the whole truth
Lord, deliver me. Amen
Last week, while over 75 of us worshiped at White Pines Lake,
sharing music, the beauty of nature and the sacrament of baptism,
5 members of our congregation, led by F. Messer, shared in prayer together.
I would like to read one of the prayers that they shared together.
This is a prayer written by the saint, Mister Rogers:
At the center of the universe is a loving heart
That continues to beat
And that wants the best for every person.
Anything we can do to help foster
The intellect and spiritual and emotional growth
Of our fellow human beings,
That is our job.
Those of us who have this particular vision
Must continue against all odds.
Life is for service.
As I prepare sermons and share in dialogue and ministry with this congregation in the year ahead,
I will remember that this is my job,
to help foster your intellect,
and your spiritual and the emotional growth.
It’s your job too.
This is love.
As I speak what is true for me I will listen to you with an open heart.
That is what Christ calls me, and each one of us to do, to bring the kin-dom of heaven a little closer to earth, the right place for love.
This week's scripture passage, from the Gospel of Mark
is about listening well and speaking clearly.
In light one of the classes that we will be offering this fall,
we could say this morning’s gospel reading is about
Compassionate Communication.
Though it didn’t start out that way.
Listen again to the exchange between Jesus and the pagan mother,
which often makes us uncomfortable when we read it.
The Gentile woman hears that Jesus, whom she must have heard about,
has left his homeland, crossed the borders, and come into her territory.
She begs Jesus to cast the demons out of her daughter.
Jesus replies, “Let the children (of Israel) be fed first,
for it is not fair to take the children’s food
and throw it to the dogs.”
The woman, who has just been called a dog by Jesus,
uses a little compassionate communication,
and replies to the riddle Jesus has posed
with an answer that shows a lot of cleverness and love.
“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Jesus responds to her compassion and cleverness and tells her to go home,
her daughter is healed.
If we simply gloss over the apparent uncharacteristic rudeness of Jesus
and the to-be-expected healing of the woman’s daughter
we may miss this intention of the Gospel writer and its meaning for us today.
How, we might ask, can Jesus, our loving and tender Savior,
tell a desperate mother that she and her little girl are "dogs"?
Our discomfort with Jesus' humanity and his perspective as a faithful Jew,
trips us up on this exchange, even though things turn out well in the end.
But if we look closer,
using the tools of contemporary Biblical scholarship
that we will be studying in another class we are offering this fall,
we can find another way to approach the meaning of this passage
for the community that the Gospel of Mark was first written for,
as well as a possible meaning for us today.
Could this story in fact be a great turning point in the Gospel of Mark?
It is always good to remember that the Gospels were written 50 -70 years after Jesus died.
They were each written in a particular community
that was still in process of transitioning from a Jewish community into a Christian one.
They each had particular questions to answer that influenced the stories that were told
and the way that they were told.
Could the struggles of the early church, which produced this narrative,
be evident in the tension it expresses and resolves?
They had to answer the question, “Do we welcome Gentiles into the church?”
Do we welcome women into positions of authority in the church?
Is God’s love for everyone?
Just before Jesus left the crowds of Galilee
for the hoped for seclusion of the Gentile lands,
he had shocked the religious authorities by declaring all foods clean
and by focusing instead on what lives in our hearts.
Whether he wanted to or not, he encountered a tenacious, determined mother
in search of healing for her little girl,
a woman who would not be turned away from the table of God's grace,
even if all she got was the crumbs that fell to the floor.
She used her wits in a culture that valued riddles for figuring things out,
and she won both the argument
and the healing she had requested of this teacher from another religion
and another land.
The heart of Jesus is touched, even moved in new directions,
by love,
the love of a mother for her child,
that is at the heart of God's own love.
Something deep inside Jesus remembers and recognizes this.
We might even say that something in Jesus' heart and mind is "opened up" by this love.
Borders were crossed,
boundaries broken down,
hearts were opened,
and so was the Christian mission,
as Gentiles and women
embraced the good news of the gospel,
and were welcomed into the Christian community
Just as Jesus declared all foods clean, then,
he declared all people "clean," acceptable, included at the table.
Is Mark I writing this story this way, saying to his fledgling Christian community,
“If Jesus can expand his boundaries of who is acceptable, can we?
The second story relates another kind of opening.
Friends brought a deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus.
Jesus touched the man’s ears,
Touched the man’s tongue,
Looked up to heaven and said the eph-phatha! (Be opened)
Eph-phatha is an Aramaic word, and aramaic was the native tongue of Jesus and those among whom he ministered.
The multiple layers of the Aramaic word, eph-phatha are interesting in this story.
On one level it simply means opening, such as opening the man’s ear passages.
On another level, it addresses the fears that are stopping us from becoming who we are.
The healed man is able to speak plainly after his ears were opened and his tongue was released.
It is good to remember the connection between listening and speaking.
For the church to become a place where hearts are allowed to open slowly
it is also good to remember to have an ongoing dialogue with God.
To speak your need for guidance and then to listen…….
In other words, to be in prayer with God on a daily basis.
I personally don’t see how it is possible to do the work of fostering
the intellectual, spiritual and emotional growth
of our fellow human beings
without that listening and speaking,
humble asking and courageous responding,
dialogue with God.
I don’t see how we can do any of this without prayer.
Prayer that directs our attention to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit
That touches our deafness,
our inability to speak,
our frightened place
With love, not judgment.
With prayer that opens the heart slowly.
May our time of holy communion this morning be a time be a prayer
where we hear the word and feel the touch of the compassionate healer,
Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom we call Christ.
May our time of sharing the pieces of the bread broken open for us
and the cup emptied for us
be a time of remembering both our need and our strength,
our need for one another and for God,
who is the loving heart at the center of the universe
who wants the best for everyone.
Let the people say,
Amen.
For the Biblical interpretation of the Gospel of Mark passage I thank Kate Huey in her article that can be found in the worship section of ucc.org
September 6, 2009 Rev. Alan Claassen
Please pray with me:
From the cowardice that does not face the truth
From the laziness that accepts half-truths
And from the arrogance that thinks it knows the whole truth
Lord, deliver me. Amen
Last week, while over 75 of us worshiped at White Pines Lake,
sharing music, the beauty of nature and the sacrament of baptism,
5 members of our congregation, led by F. Messer, shared in prayer together.
I would like to read one of the prayers that they shared together.
This is a prayer written by the saint, Mister Rogers:
At the center of the universe is a loving heart
That continues to beat
And that wants the best for every person.
Anything we can do to help foster
The intellect and spiritual and emotional growth
Of our fellow human beings,
That is our job.
Those of us who have this particular vision
Must continue against all odds.
Life is for service.
As I prepare sermons and share in dialogue and ministry with this congregation in the year ahead,
I will remember that this is my job,
to help foster your intellect,
and your spiritual and the emotional growth.
It’s your job too.
This is love.
As I speak what is true for me I will listen to you with an open heart.
That is what Christ calls me, and each one of us to do, to bring the kin-dom of heaven a little closer to earth, the right place for love.
This week's scripture passage, from the Gospel of Mark
is about listening well and speaking clearly.
In light one of the classes that we will be offering this fall,
we could say this morning’s gospel reading is about
Compassionate Communication.
Though it didn’t start out that way.
Listen again to the exchange between Jesus and the pagan mother,
which often makes us uncomfortable when we read it.
The Gentile woman hears that Jesus, whom she must have heard about,
has left his homeland, crossed the borders, and come into her territory.
She begs Jesus to cast the demons out of her daughter.
Jesus replies, “Let the children (of Israel) be fed first,
for it is not fair to take the children’s food
and throw it to the dogs.”
The woman, who has just been called a dog by Jesus,
uses a little compassionate communication,
and replies to the riddle Jesus has posed
with an answer that shows a lot of cleverness and love.
“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Jesus responds to her compassion and cleverness and tells her to go home,
her daughter is healed.
If we simply gloss over the apparent uncharacteristic rudeness of Jesus
and the to-be-expected healing of the woman’s daughter
we may miss this intention of the Gospel writer and its meaning for us today.
How, we might ask, can Jesus, our loving and tender Savior,
tell a desperate mother that she and her little girl are "dogs"?
Our discomfort with Jesus' humanity and his perspective as a faithful Jew,
trips us up on this exchange, even though things turn out well in the end.
But if we look closer,
using the tools of contemporary Biblical scholarship
that we will be studying in another class we are offering this fall,
we can find another way to approach the meaning of this passage
for the community that the Gospel of Mark was first written for,
as well as a possible meaning for us today.
Could this story in fact be a great turning point in the Gospel of Mark?
It is always good to remember that the Gospels were written 50 -70 years after Jesus died.
They were each written in a particular community
that was still in process of transitioning from a Jewish community into a Christian one.
They each had particular questions to answer that influenced the stories that were told
and the way that they were told.
Could the struggles of the early church, which produced this narrative,
be evident in the tension it expresses and resolves?
They had to answer the question, “Do we welcome Gentiles into the church?”
Do we welcome women into positions of authority in the church?
Is God’s love for everyone?
Just before Jesus left the crowds of Galilee
for the hoped for seclusion of the Gentile lands,
he had shocked the religious authorities by declaring all foods clean
and by focusing instead on what lives in our hearts.
Whether he wanted to or not, he encountered a tenacious, determined mother
in search of healing for her little girl,
a woman who would not be turned away from the table of God's grace,
even if all she got was the crumbs that fell to the floor.
She used her wits in a culture that valued riddles for figuring things out,
and she won both the argument
and the healing she had requested of this teacher from another religion
and another land.
The heart of Jesus is touched, even moved in new directions,
by love,
the love of a mother for her child,
that is at the heart of God's own love.
Something deep inside Jesus remembers and recognizes this.
We might even say that something in Jesus' heart and mind is "opened up" by this love.
Borders were crossed,
boundaries broken down,
hearts were opened,
and so was the Christian mission,
as Gentiles and women
embraced the good news of the gospel,
and were welcomed into the Christian community
Just as Jesus declared all foods clean, then,
he declared all people "clean," acceptable, included at the table.
Is Mark I writing this story this way, saying to his fledgling Christian community,
“If Jesus can expand his boundaries of who is acceptable, can we?
The second story relates another kind of opening.
Friends brought a deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus.
Jesus touched the man’s ears,
Touched the man’s tongue,
Looked up to heaven and said the eph-phatha! (Be opened)
Eph-phatha is an Aramaic word, and aramaic was the native tongue of Jesus and those among whom he ministered.
The multiple layers of the Aramaic word, eph-phatha are interesting in this story.
On one level it simply means opening, such as opening the man’s ear passages.
On another level, it addresses the fears that are stopping us from becoming who we are.
The healed man is able to speak plainly after his ears were opened and his tongue was released.
It is good to remember the connection between listening and speaking.
For the church to become a place where hearts are allowed to open slowly
it is also good to remember to have an ongoing dialogue with God.
To speak your need for guidance and then to listen…….
In other words, to be in prayer with God on a daily basis.
I personally don’t see how it is possible to do the work of fostering
the intellectual, spiritual and emotional growth
of our fellow human beings
without that listening and speaking,
humble asking and courageous responding,
dialogue with God.
I don’t see how we can do any of this without prayer.
Prayer that directs our attention to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit
That touches our deafness,
our inability to speak,
our frightened place
With love, not judgment.
With prayer that opens the heart slowly.
May our time of holy communion this morning be a time be a prayer
where we hear the word and feel the touch of the compassionate healer,
Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom we call Christ.
May our time of sharing the pieces of the bread broken open for us
and the cup emptied for us
be a time of remembering both our need and our strength,
our need for one another and for God,
who is the loving heart at the center of the universe
who wants the best for everyone.
Let the people say,
Amen.
For the Biblical interpretation of the Gospel of Mark passage I thank Kate Huey in her article that can be found in the worship section of ucc.org
Thursday, August 27, 2009
A Soul Repair Shop
Psalm 84 John 15:10-12
August 23, 2009
In my sermon two weeks ago I reflected on the challenging Bible passage from Paul’s letter the church in Ephesus where he wrote,
“It’s OK to be angry, just don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”
I don’t know about you, but I kept thinking about that passage,
and did a little play on words with that phrase, “don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Usually we take that to mean, address the problem quickly. Don’t hold onto your anger.
It takes far more energy that carry the burden of anger than it does to simply express it.
This is wise advice.
In playing with the words, I took, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,” to mean, don’t let the light go out on your anger.
Let the anger guide you to its source.
I have been preparing for the classes that I will be offering beginning next month.
One of those classes is called Compassionate Communication and it is based upon the work of Marshall Rosenberg. And so I have been reading the book for the course, Nonviolent Communication, A Language for Life.
The wisdom in that book is what made me see the passage from Ephesians in an unorthodox way, turning, Don’t let the sun go down on your anger to mean, don’t let the light go out on your anger. Let the anger guide you to its source.
Because in Marshall Rosenberg’s book we learn that behind every feeling there is a met or an unmet need.
If the feeling is a positive one, then a need or a value that you have is being met.
Behind every negative feeling, such as anger, there is an unmet need.
Follow that feeling to its source.
One of the scary things about anger, or many strong emotions, is that sometimes we don’t know their source.
We may know the person who is causing to be angry, but we don’t really know why.
Following the anger to its source within us, whether that is an unmet need, or an unconscious habit, can lead us to an understanding that will help us resolve our conflict with our neighbor by finding a way to get both of our needs met.
The work of Compassionate Communication that we will be studying this fall is that when we can move into a place of understanding our needs and the needs of the person or persons with whom we are in dialogue, we are more likely to deepen our relationship and find a solution that is mutually agreeable.
As we explore the source of our feelings we are also deepening our relationship with our self, our soul.
What am I feeling?
Where in my body am I feeling it?
Where is the feeling coming from?
Am I angry and not expressing it because of an internalized a pattern of behavior that I learned from my parents?
Am I sad and lost because I have lost something:
my job,
my spouse,
my physical abilities?
Am I angry because my identity is defined by my political or religious viewpoint and another point of view is an attack on my identity?
Following our feeling to their source in met or unmet needs may help us to re-evaluate what we really need.
Following our feelings to their source may in fact help us to re-evaluate a Source we really need.
There has been a common thread in conversations that I have had with people recently. That common thread was heard
In a conversation with a person who is slowly dying
In a conversation with a person recently retired
In a conversation with a person who felt that their values were attacked simply in hearing someone else expressing an opposing viewpoint.
The common thread through all of these conversations is,
“Who am I when my usual sense of identity is taken away?
When I am no longer identified by my employment,
my relationship with a spouse, my identification with a political party,
with a functioning body, who am I?
Whenever we face a time of transition in life, from youth to adulthood, from employment to unemployment, from health to sickness, from a familiar home to a new home, we often face a crisis of identity.
Who am I ………….now?
Now I don’t want to even try to offer anything that would take away the pain and struggle of transition. There is great wisdom in simply saying that the emptiness caused by transitions is difficult. There is no way around it. But I am wondering if there is a way through it.
And I am wondering, if I could find my most basic identity, my Source, in my relationship with God, with Christ, with the Holy Spirit, then would I be better able to find a way through the loss of identity that comes from my work, my family roles, my age, my health?
Wondering about all these things in light of today’s scripture reading, made me think of the church as a repair shop for the soul.
In Psalm 84 the temple, the resting place of God and sparrows nourishes the soul.
In the Gospel of John Jesus says that our connection with him connects us with God just the branches are connected to the vine. And we are invited to abide in this connection.
Dwelling in the temple and abiding in love nourishes the soul.
How does our church nourish the soul? What tools do we have in this repair shop for those times when are yearning for an identity in something eternal? One tool we have is ritual. In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, makes a wonderful statement about ritual after experiencing a ceremony of forgiveness.
“This is what rituals are for. We do ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. If we bring the right earnestness to our ceremonies God will provide the grace. And that is why we all need God.” (pg 187)
In our church we have two sacraments, two rituals that we honor as doorways to God, openings to the sacred, two ceremonies for creating a safe resting place for God’s grace.
These two sacraments are baptism and communion.
Both Baptism and Communion take place in the midst of community.
They are not private events. They take place within a worship service.
In communion, in offering the bread to our neighbor in the pew we are imitating the love of Christ.
In our receiving the bread and the cup from our neighbor in the pew we are imitating the vulnerability of Christ.
We have love to offer. We have love to receive.
In baptism a similar thing happens. At whatever age a person is baptized, whether as an infant, child, or adult, they are welcomed in to a community connected by love.
A person is welcomed into an ancient story that has shaped us a people. A story that we reshape as we tell it, hear it, and live into it. A story that begins in creation, wanders in the wilderness, builds tribes, communities and nations. A story that sees how tribes, communities and nations can be built or destroyed depending upon how the care for the “least among us.”
A story of shepherds and saints, kings and rebels, the best and worst of humanity.
A story of mothers and children, brothers and sisters, fathers and prodigal sons.
And a story which has within it the constant invitation to choose life. To begin again. No matter what is ending, no matter how have come to this end, begin again. The story of resurrection is found throughout the Bible for God is always our Loving Companion Presence.
In baptism a person is welcomed into an ancient story and a local story;
a story of a denomination; Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ; and a story of a local church, First Congregational Church, Murphys.
A person is welcomed into the community as a gift from God to the community. The community welcomes each person baptized into the community as a complete and worthy human being.
For in that moment of baptism, in the holiness of the worship service, we uphold that aspect of the person, which is the real person
and the soul beyond their own self-doubt, their own actual or potential shortcomings.
In that moment of baptism as with communion we are welcomed with a radical hospitality that says whoever and wherever you are in journey, you are welcome here.
I was a part of a sacred conversation of Friday. It was the monthly meeting of the Committee on Ministry, which reviews candidates for ordination. Students seeking ordination in the United Church meet annually with the Committee on Ministry for support, guidance, and challenge as the Committee is charged with the responsibility of recommending this candidates for ordination.
One of these candidates said something very beautiful about the sacraments of baptism and communion. This candidate is in 50s. He had a very successful career in business, including owning his business.
He was used to being in control. He was used to being important because of his status.
He was used to people saying what they thought he wanted to hear.
He was used to people caring about what he had to say.
All of that went away when he followed the call to ministry. He was no longer important because of his identity as a business owner. And it had a profound impact on him.
He relaxed.
He accepted life as it came to him not as he wanted it to be. He paid more attention to his heart than to his head. He stopped analyzing and began paying attention to his feelings and the feelings of others.
And he came to wonder, what a Christian community would be like, if we could greet one another as we are greeted at our baptism,
“You are well loved.”
“You are worthy”
“You are a part of this perfectly imperfect community.”
And he came to wonder, what a Christian community would be like, if we could serve one another and be served by one another as we do when we share communion.
This bread that was broken for you and this cup that was emptied for you, we share with one another. In our sharing, in our giving and our receiving, we know Christ.
We abide in Christ.
In Psalm 84, the Psalmist remembers the temple and says, “Oh how lovely is your dwelling place.”
The interesting thing is that that Psalm may have been written long after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. It may have been written during the time when the people of Jerusalem were in exile in Babylon.
And they were asking that question, “Who are when we are away from the land promised to us by God?”
In that time of exile, of loss, they found the eternal.
The temple is not a place, the temple is verb,
Jesus is not a set of doctrines to believe, he is a relationship in which we live.
Abide in me.
Abide in Christ as Christ abides in God.
Drink the living water, eat the bread that multiplies itself as it is used and broken and blessed.
Find your identity in God.
Seek first the kin-dom of God Jesus says.
We do find our identity in our work, in our family, in our health, in our political parties, in our nation.
But they all pass away.
In this sanctuary of place and time, our souls are repaired as we remember what is eternal,
And as we are given our lesson to practice for the week ahead,
Remember your baptism,
Remember your communion,
Offer welcome and self-giving love to one another.
Build the temple again.
It is within you when you give yourself to the Source of life.
Place your feelings in the holy container of the baptismal font, the plate of broken bread, the cup of self-giving love, and lean on Jesus, lean on your brother, lean on your sister.
And let them know that they can lean on you also. How lovely is this dwelling place.
Let those who love mercy and do justice say. Amen.
August 23, 2009
In my sermon two weeks ago I reflected on the challenging Bible passage from Paul’s letter the church in Ephesus where he wrote,
“It’s OK to be angry, just don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”
I don’t know about you, but I kept thinking about that passage,
and did a little play on words with that phrase, “don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Usually we take that to mean, address the problem quickly. Don’t hold onto your anger.
It takes far more energy that carry the burden of anger than it does to simply express it.
This is wise advice.
In playing with the words, I took, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,” to mean, don’t let the light go out on your anger.
Let the anger guide you to its source.
I have been preparing for the classes that I will be offering beginning next month.
One of those classes is called Compassionate Communication and it is based upon the work of Marshall Rosenberg. And so I have been reading the book for the course, Nonviolent Communication, A Language for Life.
The wisdom in that book is what made me see the passage from Ephesians in an unorthodox way, turning, Don’t let the sun go down on your anger to mean, don’t let the light go out on your anger. Let the anger guide you to its source.
Because in Marshall Rosenberg’s book we learn that behind every feeling there is a met or an unmet need.
If the feeling is a positive one, then a need or a value that you have is being met.
Behind every negative feeling, such as anger, there is an unmet need.
Follow that feeling to its source.
One of the scary things about anger, or many strong emotions, is that sometimes we don’t know their source.
We may know the person who is causing to be angry, but we don’t really know why.
Following the anger to its source within us, whether that is an unmet need, or an unconscious habit, can lead us to an understanding that will help us resolve our conflict with our neighbor by finding a way to get both of our needs met.
The work of Compassionate Communication that we will be studying this fall is that when we can move into a place of understanding our needs and the needs of the person or persons with whom we are in dialogue, we are more likely to deepen our relationship and find a solution that is mutually agreeable.
As we explore the source of our feelings we are also deepening our relationship with our self, our soul.
What am I feeling?
Where in my body am I feeling it?
Where is the feeling coming from?
Am I angry and not expressing it because of an internalized a pattern of behavior that I learned from my parents?
Am I sad and lost because I have lost something:
my job,
my spouse,
my physical abilities?
Am I angry because my identity is defined by my political or religious viewpoint and another point of view is an attack on my identity?
Following our feeling to their source in met or unmet needs may help us to re-evaluate what we really need.
Following our feelings to their source may in fact help us to re-evaluate a Source we really need.
There has been a common thread in conversations that I have had with people recently. That common thread was heard
In a conversation with a person who is slowly dying
In a conversation with a person recently retired
In a conversation with a person who felt that their values were attacked simply in hearing someone else expressing an opposing viewpoint.
The common thread through all of these conversations is,
“Who am I when my usual sense of identity is taken away?
When I am no longer identified by my employment,
my relationship with a spouse, my identification with a political party,
with a functioning body, who am I?
Whenever we face a time of transition in life, from youth to adulthood, from employment to unemployment, from health to sickness, from a familiar home to a new home, we often face a crisis of identity.
Who am I ………….now?
Now I don’t want to even try to offer anything that would take away the pain and struggle of transition. There is great wisdom in simply saying that the emptiness caused by transitions is difficult. There is no way around it. But I am wondering if there is a way through it.
And I am wondering, if I could find my most basic identity, my Source, in my relationship with God, with Christ, with the Holy Spirit, then would I be better able to find a way through the loss of identity that comes from my work, my family roles, my age, my health?
Wondering about all these things in light of today’s scripture reading, made me think of the church as a repair shop for the soul.
In Psalm 84 the temple, the resting place of God and sparrows nourishes the soul.
In the Gospel of John Jesus says that our connection with him connects us with God just the branches are connected to the vine. And we are invited to abide in this connection.
Dwelling in the temple and abiding in love nourishes the soul.
How does our church nourish the soul? What tools do we have in this repair shop for those times when are yearning for an identity in something eternal? One tool we have is ritual. In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, makes a wonderful statement about ritual after experiencing a ceremony of forgiveness.
“This is what rituals are for. We do ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. If we bring the right earnestness to our ceremonies God will provide the grace. And that is why we all need God.” (pg 187)
In our church we have two sacraments, two rituals that we honor as doorways to God, openings to the sacred, two ceremonies for creating a safe resting place for God’s grace.
These two sacraments are baptism and communion.
Both Baptism and Communion take place in the midst of community.
They are not private events. They take place within a worship service.
In communion, in offering the bread to our neighbor in the pew we are imitating the love of Christ.
In our receiving the bread and the cup from our neighbor in the pew we are imitating the vulnerability of Christ.
We have love to offer. We have love to receive.
In baptism a similar thing happens. At whatever age a person is baptized, whether as an infant, child, or adult, they are welcomed in to a community connected by love.
A person is welcomed into an ancient story that has shaped us a people. A story that we reshape as we tell it, hear it, and live into it. A story that begins in creation, wanders in the wilderness, builds tribes, communities and nations. A story that sees how tribes, communities and nations can be built or destroyed depending upon how the care for the “least among us.”
A story of shepherds and saints, kings and rebels, the best and worst of humanity.
A story of mothers and children, brothers and sisters, fathers and prodigal sons.
And a story which has within it the constant invitation to choose life. To begin again. No matter what is ending, no matter how have come to this end, begin again. The story of resurrection is found throughout the Bible for God is always our Loving Companion Presence.
In baptism a person is welcomed into an ancient story and a local story;
a story of a denomination; Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ; and a story of a local church, First Congregational Church, Murphys.
A person is welcomed into the community as a gift from God to the community. The community welcomes each person baptized into the community as a complete and worthy human being.
For in that moment of baptism, in the holiness of the worship service, we uphold that aspect of the person, which is the real person
and the soul beyond their own self-doubt, their own actual or potential shortcomings.
In that moment of baptism as with communion we are welcomed with a radical hospitality that says whoever and wherever you are in journey, you are welcome here.
I was a part of a sacred conversation of Friday. It was the monthly meeting of the Committee on Ministry, which reviews candidates for ordination. Students seeking ordination in the United Church meet annually with the Committee on Ministry for support, guidance, and challenge as the Committee is charged with the responsibility of recommending this candidates for ordination.
One of these candidates said something very beautiful about the sacraments of baptism and communion. This candidate is in 50s. He had a very successful career in business, including owning his business.
He was used to being in control. He was used to being important because of his status.
He was used to people saying what they thought he wanted to hear.
He was used to people caring about what he had to say.
All of that went away when he followed the call to ministry. He was no longer important because of his identity as a business owner. And it had a profound impact on him.
He relaxed.
He accepted life as it came to him not as he wanted it to be. He paid more attention to his heart than to his head. He stopped analyzing and began paying attention to his feelings and the feelings of others.
And he came to wonder, what a Christian community would be like, if we could greet one another as we are greeted at our baptism,
“You are well loved.”
“You are worthy”
“You are a part of this perfectly imperfect community.”
And he came to wonder, what a Christian community would be like, if we could serve one another and be served by one another as we do when we share communion.
This bread that was broken for you and this cup that was emptied for you, we share with one another. In our sharing, in our giving and our receiving, we know Christ.
We abide in Christ.
In Psalm 84, the Psalmist remembers the temple and says, “Oh how lovely is your dwelling place.”
The interesting thing is that that Psalm may have been written long after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. It may have been written during the time when the people of Jerusalem were in exile in Babylon.
And they were asking that question, “Who are when we are away from the land promised to us by God?”
In that time of exile, of loss, they found the eternal.
The temple is not a place, the temple is verb,
Jesus is not a set of doctrines to believe, he is a relationship in which we live.
Abide in me.
Abide in Christ as Christ abides in God.
Drink the living water, eat the bread that multiplies itself as it is used and broken and blessed.
Find your identity in God.
Seek first the kin-dom of God Jesus says.
We do find our identity in our work, in our family, in our health, in our political parties, in our nation.
But they all pass away.
In this sanctuary of place and time, our souls are repaired as we remember what is eternal,
And as we are given our lesson to practice for the week ahead,
Remember your baptism,
Remember your communion,
Offer welcome and self-giving love to one another.
Build the temple again.
It is within you when you give yourself to the Source of life.
Place your feelings in the holy container of the baptismal font, the plate of broken bread, the cup of self-giving love, and lean on Jesus, lean on your brother, lean on your sister.
And let them know that they can lean on you also. How lovely is this dwelling place.
Let those who love mercy and do justice say. Amen.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Prayer: 100 Foot Clearance
John 17: 6-19 I John 5:9-13
May 24, 2009
Let’s set the scene.
First of all we have the way that the authors of the Gospel and the Letters of John, and their community sees the world. Throughout the Gospel and the Letters we read of a cosmic drama that is played out in terms of pairs of opposites: light/darkness, spirit/flesh, above/below, of this world/not of this world.
Understanding itself as set squarely against a hostile environment, the Johannine community, believed that those within its circle lived in a realm or sphere of spiritual influence fundamentally opposed to that which lay at the heart of the world outside. In that broken world, Evil ruled; in their world, God ruled—and there was no middle ground or grey area.
Characters in the Gospel of John continually misunderstand Jesus, because he always speaks on the basis of the realm above, from which he comes, whereas they always think on the basis of the realm below.
With that as the author’s background we continue to set the scene of this morning’s scripture reading, the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. These words are part of a prayer that Jesus offers after his last meal with his followers and just hours before his arrest and crucifixion.
The chapters 15-17 in the Gospel of John are called the Farewell Discourses which are set in the moment where Jesus and his disciples are together for the last time. This is the moment when Jesus is able to give his last instructions to his disciples, his final lecture to his students.
In a way, these words are Jesus' last will and testament.
After he concludes the instructions in chapter 16, he ends the meal with a prayer; a prayer for his disciples. Knowing that he is about to be crucified and that his vision, his knowledge, his connection with God will now have to be carried by his disciples, he prays for them.
It is not like the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane where he understandably prays for himself. In the Gospel of John he prays to God for his disciples and blesses them so that they may carry in the work that he has begun.
And though these words are in the form of a prayer of intercession, because they are requests from Jesus on behalf of his disciples, they have the weight & substance of Jesus' declaring the estate & his blessing that his followers will inherit after his death.
What Jesus wills to his disciples is:
· that Jesus is honored, glorified, in them (verse 10)
· that they are protected so that that may be one as God and Jesus are one (verse 11)
· that they are guarded even when they are lost (verse 12)
· that the joy of Jesus is made complete in them (verse 13)
· that they receive the mandate, the mission, the same purpose that Jesus had - they are sent into the world, created holy and complete, but broken with misuse and neglect, because God so loves the world that God created
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may become
“Christ's body doing Christ's work with Christ's heart.” (David Ewart)
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may know that
“Loving God leads to loving who God loves the way God loves.” (David Ewart)
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may know that
“God has all the power that love has.” (David Ewart)
I wonder,
are we the descendants of those disciples.
Are we a part of that inheritance?
Do we want to be a part of that inheritance?
We may not want to rejoice too quickly and easily hearing that we are the benefactors of such an inheritance. Recall that in a few short hours, after sharing the meal with this disciples and offering this prayer on their behalf, Jesus' dedication to truth will end with him before Pilate, and then on a cross.
Whenever we are offered a blessing in the Bible, we might be tempted to run and hide - because a blessing never comes without a God-sized mission. And God-sized missions never come without a cost.
We do well to remember and confess that though we are called to be a holy people, a beloved community, sent to heal a broken world, we are ourselves, broken, prone to self-centeredness, fear and hopelessness.
On a week-end such as this, Memorial Day week-end, when we remember sacrifice in time of war, and the nobility of the cause of WW II in bringing and end to the Nazi regime, that war is always a sign of our brokenness. Because from a wider viewpoint of history we take a closer look at the way that WWI ended and see how it laid the seeds for the desperate situation in Germany that could support the rise of a person such as Hitler.
And even though we claimed victory in WW II we now also see the seeds for war were sown in the Middle East and eastern Europe when the treaties were signed. Even as we acknowledge and remember the sacrifice and of soldiers and civilians who endured the horror of WW II we confess that in many ways we are still fighting WWI and WW II.
We are still fighting.
We are still using war to end solve economic and social problems. We are still living in fear of the other, instead of trying to understand the economic and cultural causes of suffering. We are still relying on quick displays of force instead of finding sustainable ways of making peace even in the face of tyrants.
At the time of WW II it was right to pray for the destruction and replacement of the Nazi regime. But when will pray for the end of the cycle of violence and live our lives in such a way that shows we accept that inheritance offered by Jesus to his disciples?
“We live in a time in which many of our efforts to build a truly just, peaceful, and sustainable social order have seemed to fall flat and in which progressives often feel alienated because of the strength of regressive forces and discouraged because of the compromises made by progressives who do achieve power.
It is important, of course, to think horizontally—that is, to maintain historical hope which is at the very core of all that is good in the Bible.
But it is equally important to think vertically—and to remember that the good we can experience and do even in a broken world is of lasting value. [It is important to see] God as working in all things, luring the world toward the good.
It is important to see that it is possible for God to work within our perfectly imperfect lives, just as God did in the perfectly imperfect lives of the disciples.
Will we ever achieve just distribution of wealth and lasting peace in this world? Will we be able to save the earth from our own destructive lifestyles? No one knows. But to believe in God is to believe not only that God is working toward that end, and engaging us in the task, but also that every act of human kindness and every effort toward justice is retained forever in the heart of God. Whether performed in a whole or a broken world, our actions count.” (Russell Pregeant)
In today’s broken world there is so much information that wants us to convince of one thing: be afraid.
In today’s holy world there is another message: be alive.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew that God created the world good, blessed, whole and holy.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew what is possible when a human being centers his or her life in self-giving love for God and all that God loves in the way that God loves.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew we need protection from the storms that threaten our homes, our communities, our world.
Jesus knew God completely and he prayed for us.
A life of prayer,
that is both communal and personal,
that is spoken both in words and in actions,
that is silent and patiently waits for the heart to open and the courage to act upon God’s guidance
that sees how God's work done God's way blesses us and all God’s creation
is the 100 foot clearance around our homes that will protect us from the storms within and the storms without that would separate us from our holy inheritance.
May this church be a place where every act of human kindness and every effort toward justice is a blessing for our community.
The community that we touch when we support the Heifer Project, and Habitat for Humanity
or teach our children and youth,
or contribute our time, talent and treasure to the ministries of this church and the United Church of Christ,
or dedicate ourselves to welcoming everyone no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey into this community.
In all that we do may we remember that Jesus prayed for us and sent us into this world just as it is so that we might be echoes of God’s love for all creation.
Veni Sancte Spiritus. Come Holy Spirit Come.
It’s me, it’s you, it’s us, standing in the need of prayer.
Let’s stand and sing our hearts open.
Thanks to Russell Pregeant and David Ewart for many of the wonderful ideas in this sermon. I am just a tailor.
Russell Pregeant is Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Chaplain, Emeritus, at Curry College in Milton, MA, and Visiting Professor in New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, MA.
www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearB/2008-2009/2009-05-24.shtml
David Ewart, is a United Church minister in Canada
www.davidewart.ca
www.holytextures.com
May 24, 2009
Let’s set the scene.
First of all we have the way that the authors of the Gospel and the Letters of John, and their community sees the world. Throughout the Gospel and the Letters we read of a cosmic drama that is played out in terms of pairs of opposites: light/darkness, spirit/flesh, above/below, of this world/not of this world.
Understanding itself as set squarely against a hostile environment, the Johannine community, believed that those within its circle lived in a realm or sphere of spiritual influence fundamentally opposed to that which lay at the heart of the world outside. In that broken world, Evil ruled; in their world, God ruled—and there was no middle ground or grey area.
Characters in the Gospel of John continually misunderstand Jesus, because he always speaks on the basis of the realm above, from which he comes, whereas they always think on the basis of the realm below.
With that as the author’s background we continue to set the scene of this morning’s scripture reading, the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. These words are part of a prayer that Jesus offers after his last meal with his followers and just hours before his arrest and crucifixion.
The chapters 15-17 in the Gospel of John are called the Farewell Discourses which are set in the moment where Jesus and his disciples are together for the last time. This is the moment when Jesus is able to give his last instructions to his disciples, his final lecture to his students.
In a way, these words are Jesus' last will and testament.
After he concludes the instructions in chapter 16, he ends the meal with a prayer; a prayer for his disciples. Knowing that he is about to be crucified and that his vision, his knowledge, his connection with God will now have to be carried by his disciples, he prays for them.
It is not like the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane where he understandably prays for himself. In the Gospel of John he prays to God for his disciples and blesses them so that they may carry in the work that he has begun.
And though these words are in the form of a prayer of intercession, because they are requests from Jesus on behalf of his disciples, they have the weight & substance of Jesus' declaring the estate & his blessing that his followers will inherit after his death.
What Jesus wills to his disciples is:
· that Jesus is honored, glorified, in them (verse 10)
· that they are protected so that that may be one as God and Jesus are one (verse 11)
· that they are guarded even when they are lost (verse 12)
· that the joy of Jesus is made complete in them (verse 13)
· that they receive the mandate, the mission, the same purpose that Jesus had - they are sent into the world, created holy and complete, but broken with misuse and neglect, because God so loves the world that God created
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may become
“Christ's body doing Christ's work with Christ's heart.” (David Ewart)
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may know that
“Loving God leads to loving who God loves the way God loves.” (David Ewart)
Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may know that
“God has all the power that love has.” (David Ewart)
I wonder,
are we the descendants of those disciples.
Are we a part of that inheritance?
Do we want to be a part of that inheritance?
We may not want to rejoice too quickly and easily hearing that we are the benefactors of such an inheritance. Recall that in a few short hours, after sharing the meal with this disciples and offering this prayer on their behalf, Jesus' dedication to truth will end with him before Pilate, and then on a cross.
Whenever we are offered a blessing in the Bible, we might be tempted to run and hide - because a blessing never comes without a God-sized mission. And God-sized missions never come without a cost.
We do well to remember and confess that though we are called to be a holy people, a beloved community, sent to heal a broken world, we are ourselves, broken, prone to self-centeredness, fear and hopelessness.
On a week-end such as this, Memorial Day week-end, when we remember sacrifice in time of war, and the nobility of the cause of WW II in bringing and end to the Nazi regime, that war is always a sign of our brokenness. Because from a wider viewpoint of history we take a closer look at the way that WWI ended and see how it laid the seeds for the desperate situation in Germany that could support the rise of a person such as Hitler.
And even though we claimed victory in WW II we now also see the seeds for war were sown in the Middle East and eastern Europe when the treaties were signed. Even as we acknowledge and remember the sacrifice and of soldiers and civilians who endured the horror of WW II we confess that in many ways we are still fighting WWI and WW II.
We are still fighting.
We are still using war to end solve economic and social problems. We are still living in fear of the other, instead of trying to understand the economic and cultural causes of suffering. We are still relying on quick displays of force instead of finding sustainable ways of making peace even in the face of tyrants.
At the time of WW II it was right to pray for the destruction and replacement of the Nazi regime. But when will pray for the end of the cycle of violence and live our lives in such a way that shows we accept that inheritance offered by Jesus to his disciples?
“We live in a time in which many of our efforts to build a truly just, peaceful, and sustainable social order have seemed to fall flat and in which progressives often feel alienated because of the strength of regressive forces and discouraged because of the compromises made by progressives who do achieve power.
It is important, of course, to think horizontally—that is, to maintain historical hope which is at the very core of all that is good in the Bible.
But it is equally important to think vertically—and to remember that the good we can experience and do even in a broken world is of lasting value. [It is important to see] God as working in all things, luring the world toward the good.
It is important to see that it is possible for God to work within our perfectly imperfect lives, just as God did in the perfectly imperfect lives of the disciples.
Will we ever achieve just distribution of wealth and lasting peace in this world? Will we be able to save the earth from our own destructive lifestyles? No one knows. But to believe in God is to believe not only that God is working toward that end, and engaging us in the task, but also that every act of human kindness and every effort toward justice is retained forever in the heart of God. Whether performed in a whole or a broken world, our actions count.” (Russell Pregeant)
In today’s broken world there is so much information that wants us to convince of one thing: be afraid.
In today’s holy world there is another message: be alive.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew that God created the world good, blessed, whole and holy.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew what is possible when a human being centers his or her life in self-giving love for God and all that God loves in the way that God loves.
When Jesus prayed for his disciples he knew God, and he knew we need protection from the storms that threaten our homes, our communities, our world.
Jesus knew God completely and he prayed for us.
A life of prayer,
that is both communal and personal,
that is spoken both in words and in actions,
that is silent and patiently waits for the heart to open and the courage to act upon God’s guidance
that sees how God's work done God's way blesses us and all God’s creation
is the 100 foot clearance around our homes that will protect us from the storms within and the storms without that would separate us from our holy inheritance.
May this church be a place where every act of human kindness and every effort toward justice is a blessing for our community.
The community that we touch when we support the Heifer Project, and Habitat for Humanity
or teach our children and youth,
or contribute our time, talent and treasure to the ministries of this church and the United Church of Christ,
or dedicate ourselves to welcoming everyone no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey into this community.
In all that we do may we remember that Jesus prayed for us and sent us into this world just as it is so that we might be echoes of God’s love for all creation.
Veni Sancte Spiritus. Come Holy Spirit Come.
It’s me, it’s you, it’s us, standing in the need of prayer.
Let’s stand and sing our hearts open.
Thanks to Russell Pregeant and David Ewart for many of the wonderful ideas in this sermon. I am just a tailor.
Russell Pregeant is Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Chaplain, Emeritus, at Curry College in Milton, MA, and Visiting Professor in New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, MA.
www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearB/2008-2009/2009-05-24.shtml
David Ewart, is a United Church minister in Canada
www.davidewart.ca
www.holytextures.com
Leaping Christians
May 17, 2009
I John
John 15:9-17
Observations made while attending the Calaveras Frog Jump for the first time:
The novice jumpers, the young jumpers, gently caress their frogs, gently set them down on the pad, and then wait. The frog is thinking, this person likes me. I am going to stay with them. I am going to come back to them. I am never going to go far from them.
Eventually the novice is convinced by others to jump up and down, slam their hand on the floor, and shout. The frog makes an instinctual jump, but quickly remembers. I like this person. I am going back to the shade.
The serious jumpers handle their frogs very differently.
They just let their frogs hang there. Belly exposed to the sun, long legs dangling. Just lets them hang there. The frog is thinking, this person doesn’t like me. As soon as I can I am getting as far away from this person as I can.
And so soon as the serious jumper puts their frog down on that pad, they themselves are down, on all fours, like the frogs themselves, and they shout and pound the floor and jump right behind the frog.
And the frog? They are saying, I am out of here. I have got to get away from this person as far and as fast as I can.
While I was watching all of this, I couldn’t help but think of that Danish religious existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard.
I realize that not many of you were required to read Soren Kierkegaard as I was as a philosophy major in my undergraduate studies. So you might not know why I thought of Soren Kierkegaard while watching the constant failed attempts of frogs to escape from their tormentors. But I do believe that if I ever enter a frog in the Calaveras Frog-Jumping Contest I will name him "Soarin' Kierkegaard," in honor of the philosopher who wrote so eloquently about the leap to faith.
Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher, not the frog, believed that there are limits to reason. We cannot make every action in our lives based upon knowing all the pros and cons, forecasting all the possibilities. This is especially true for a Christian, or a person following any spiritual path. Christianity is based upon the idea that Jesus can be both human and divine. This is doesn’t stand to reason. Christianity is based upon the idea that we can look at a symbol of death, the cross, and see life. This doesn’t stand to reason. And Christianity is based upon the idea that we, as individuals and as a society, can live our lives based upon compassion, forgiveness, humility, grace, sharing of goods so that there is no one in need. This does not stand to reason. It requires a leap to faith.
And yet, we believe, we trust, we know, that that this leap to faith, though it does not stand to reason, is not irrational, because we believe all of God is in all things. God is the Creator, and we are a part of God’s creation that includes sea turtles that navigate their way through thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean to return to their home.
God, is the Vine and we are the branches. When we connect with the source of creation, we will find many moments when reason is a our helper and guide. And we will also find something more, when we leap to faith. We will find moments of grace and love, forgiveness and purpose we will experience miracle and wonder, that cannot be explained by reason alone. They are a gift and our response is gratitude.
And as it turns out, there are ways to develop this ability to leap to faith. There are practices for trusting the leap, trusting the landing, that do not require fearing punishment, or someone shouting at us or slapping their hand on the stage behind us.
Would you like to know what they are?
Well you have already accomplished one this morning. You came to worship. You entered the door of the sanctuary. You chose to put yourself in this community devoted to God, to neighbor and to a healthy self.
Your coming through the doors of this Sanctuary are akin to Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem on Holy Week. You don’t really know what is going to be asked of you, but you do know that at some fundamental level you are going to be asked to go a little deeper and discover something new about yourself, about God, and about loving your neighbor.
Coming to worship is an excellent spiritual practice that helps us trust the leap to faith.
And then, after awhile, after you have been in worship for a few months you decide to step a little further into this community of faith leapers. You offer to be a Greeter, you show up on a Thursday night and join the choir, you attend a class, you offer to bake some cookies, you take the minister out to breakfast. (How did that get there?)
Or you begin reading the Bible, you begin your day with prayer and end your day with gratitude.
Or you make a new friend with whom you can share your true feelings. Or your find a partner who has the same concern for social justice that you do. You begin by walking through a door and then…
You hear words like we heard last week.
Perfect love casts out fear.
And your rational mind may hold up its defenses and say that’s impossible.
And yet there it is, in Scripture. Perfect love cast out fear. How can we leap to that?
Perfection is a limiting term, because it isn’t something we can achieve. But there is another way to understand that word perfection. We can look at as meaning complete, whole, living as intended, the lily in the field that doesn’t worry about beauty or tomorrow, it simply is.
This is something that we all desire. The spiritual view of the world says we can reach this sense of wholeness and peace through love. The materialistic view of the world says we can only reach this sense of wholeness and completeness through possessions and looking out for ourselves.
One of the things that is happening in our world today is that the materialistic worldview is collapsing on itself. The economic meltdown, the pollution of our water and rivers, global warming which is putting all of life at risk, are all signs of the failure of the materialistic viewpoint.
The spiritual view of the world says that we can have basic needs met, food, shelter, health, beauty, and purpose if seek love first, love of God, neighbor and self.
The spiritual view may one day win out when the broken world finally says, “Well we might as well try it. Our current way of doing things sure isn’t working.”
We as a society are kind of like those frogs, just hanging, dangling, knowing that our feet and bellies belong on the ground, but we don’t know where the ground is anymore.
The blessing, the resurrection that is potentially within this moment, is that we will see that our current economic and political systems based upon greed and self-centeredness, are dysfunctional and we will begin to work for more sustainable practices.
I want to look a little more at the phrase, perfected in love. Let’s assume that perfection means wholeness, completeness, acting as intended. Let’s also assume that love in this case means the willingness to extend oneself for the purpose of another’s spiritual growth.
Let’s assume that we have become perfected in love.
Now what happens to fear? Scripture says that perfect love casts out fear.
What does perfect love reel in, bring in? If perfect love casts out fear what does it bring in? Peace, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, joy.
Complete love brings in peace, confidence, reconciliation, giving oneself way to someone else. Complete love brings in a sense of having all that I need, I don’t need anymore. This is enough. I am not going to get talked into buying something I do not need.
My joy, purpose, and meaning are all satisfied with what I have. In fact I have so much I am going to give it way. To the church rummage sale. The food bank. To the Heifer Project. To my next door neighbor. To my next pew neighbor.
And when I find myself in a place of not feeling peace, completeness, joy, purpose, I am still perfected, redirected in love. I am not going to be afraid. I am going to pray. I am going to ask for help. I am going to go for a hike in the Sierra. I am going to do a watercolor, sing a song, bake some brownies, call a friend. I am not afraid.
I am going to abide in love. I am going to remain in love. I am going to be healed in love. I am going to be patient in love. I am going to put some space around myself and see myself as God sees me, well-loved.
I am going to put some space around myself and see that person in need as God sees them, well-loved. I am going to put some space around my God-created-self and see that person, who is making me angry, as God sees them, with compassion, understanding and patience.
Trusting that from that place of complete compassion, true action is born. True peace is born. The kin-dom of heaven is born.
So praying for perfection in love, that is your birthright, perhaps forgotten but able to be remembered, is one way to leap into faith.
Another is given in this morning’s scripture.
John 15: 9-17
If you live in my instructions you will live remain in my love.
I have told you all this so you can be the source of my happiness.
Love each other as I have loved you.
No one can love to a greater extent than to give up life for friends.
I have called you friends, not slaves, I have let you know everything I know.
I chose you and I delegated you to go out and produce fruit.
You fruit will last because God will provide you with whatever you request in my name.
Love each other.
Worship, study, and living in compassion are all ways to leap to faith. But I encourage us all to remember that “Finally, and most important, transformation is not something we do, certainly not something we do by ourselves. It is God’s work. It is God who works transformation.
Getting a new heart, [leaping to faith], [being perfected in love], means opening ourselves to God, seeking God, turning to God, surrendering to God, and relying on God. I does not mean giving up responsibility, but it does mean surrendering our illusion of control. It means letting God be God for us.”
(Anthony Robinson, pg 79, Changing the Conversation)
Let me close with this proverb and a story.
First the proverb from Ghana
" If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Can a community of faith leap together? With God's help we can.
Let all people who do justice and love mercy say amen.
I John
John 15:9-17
Observations made while attending the Calaveras Frog Jump for the first time:
The novice jumpers, the young jumpers, gently caress their frogs, gently set them down on the pad, and then wait. The frog is thinking, this person likes me. I am going to stay with them. I am going to come back to them. I am never going to go far from them.
Eventually the novice is convinced by others to jump up and down, slam their hand on the floor, and shout. The frog makes an instinctual jump, but quickly remembers. I like this person. I am going back to the shade.
The serious jumpers handle their frogs very differently.
They just let their frogs hang there. Belly exposed to the sun, long legs dangling. Just lets them hang there. The frog is thinking, this person doesn’t like me. As soon as I can I am getting as far away from this person as I can.
And so soon as the serious jumper puts their frog down on that pad, they themselves are down, on all fours, like the frogs themselves, and they shout and pound the floor and jump right behind the frog.
And the frog? They are saying, I am out of here. I have got to get away from this person as far and as fast as I can.
While I was watching all of this, I couldn’t help but think of that Danish religious existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard.
I realize that not many of you were required to read Soren Kierkegaard as I was as a philosophy major in my undergraduate studies. So you might not know why I thought of Soren Kierkegaard while watching the constant failed attempts of frogs to escape from their tormentors. But I do believe that if I ever enter a frog in the Calaveras Frog-Jumping Contest I will name him "Soarin' Kierkegaard," in honor of the philosopher who wrote so eloquently about the leap to faith.
Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher, not the frog, believed that there are limits to reason. We cannot make every action in our lives based upon knowing all the pros and cons, forecasting all the possibilities. This is especially true for a Christian, or a person following any spiritual path. Christianity is based upon the idea that Jesus can be both human and divine. This is doesn’t stand to reason. Christianity is based upon the idea that we can look at a symbol of death, the cross, and see life. This doesn’t stand to reason. And Christianity is based upon the idea that we, as individuals and as a society, can live our lives based upon compassion, forgiveness, humility, grace, sharing of goods so that there is no one in need. This does not stand to reason. It requires a leap to faith.
And yet, we believe, we trust, we know, that that this leap to faith, though it does not stand to reason, is not irrational, because we believe all of God is in all things. God is the Creator, and we are a part of God’s creation that includes sea turtles that navigate their way through thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean to return to their home.
God, is the Vine and we are the branches. When we connect with the source of creation, we will find many moments when reason is a our helper and guide. And we will also find something more, when we leap to faith. We will find moments of grace and love, forgiveness and purpose we will experience miracle and wonder, that cannot be explained by reason alone. They are a gift and our response is gratitude.
And as it turns out, there are ways to develop this ability to leap to faith. There are practices for trusting the leap, trusting the landing, that do not require fearing punishment, or someone shouting at us or slapping their hand on the stage behind us.
Would you like to know what they are?
Well you have already accomplished one this morning. You came to worship. You entered the door of the sanctuary. You chose to put yourself in this community devoted to God, to neighbor and to a healthy self.
Your coming through the doors of this Sanctuary are akin to Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem on Holy Week. You don’t really know what is going to be asked of you, but you do know that at some fundamental level you are going to be asked to go a little deeper and discover something new about yourself, about God, and about loving your neighbor.
Coming to worship is an excellent spiritual practice that helps us trust the leap to faith.
And then, after awhile, after you have been in worship for a few months you decide to step a little further into this community of faith leapers. You offer to be a Greeter, you show up on a Thursday night and join the choir, you attend a class, you offer to bake some cookies, you take the minister out to breakfast. (How did that get there?)
Or you begin reading the Bible, you begin your day with prayer and end your day with gratitude.
Or you make a new friend with whom you can share your true feelings. Or your find a partner who has the same concern for social justice that you do. You begin by walking through a door and then…
You hear words like we heard last week.
Perfect love casts out fear.
And your rational mind may hold up its defenses and say that’s impossible.
And yet there it is, in Scripture. Perfect love cast out fear. How can we leap to that?
Perfection is a limiting term, because it isn’t something we can achieve. But there is another way to understand that word perfection. We can look at as meaning complete, whole, living as intended, the lily in the field that doesn’t worry about beauty or tomorrow, it simply is.
This is something that we all desire. The spiritual view of the world says we can reach this sense of wholeness and peace through love. The materialistic view of the world says we can only reach this sense of wholeness and completeness through possessions and looking out for ourselves.
One of the things that is happening in our world today is that the materialistic worldview is collapsing on itself. The economic meltdown, the pollution of our water and rivers, global warming which is putting all of life at risk, are all signs of the failure of the materialistic viewpoint.
The spiritual view of the world says that we can have basic needs met, food, shelter, health, beauty, and purpose if seek love first, love of God, neighbor and self.
The spiritual view may one day win out when the broken world finally says, “Well we might as well try it. Our current way of doing things sure isn’t working.”
We as a society are kind of like those frogs, just hanging, dangling, knowing that our feet and bellies belong on the ground, but we don’t know where the ground is anymore.
The blessing, the resurrection that is potentially within this moment, is that we will see that our current economic and political systems based upon greed and self-centeredness, are dysfunctional and we will begin to work for more sustainable practices.
I want to look a little more at the phrase, perfected in love. Let’s assume that perfection means wholeness, completeness, acting as intended. Let’s also assume that love in this case means the willingness to extend oneself for the purpose of another’s spiritual growth.
Let’s assume that we have become perfected in love.
Now what happens to fear? Scripture says that perfect love casts out fear.
What does perfect love reel in, bring in? If perfect love casts out fear what does it bring in? Peace, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, joy.
Complete love brings in peace, confidence, reconciliation, giving oneself way to someone else. Complete love brings in a sense of having all that I need, I don’t need anymore. This is enough. I am not going to get talked into buying something I do not need.
My joy, purpose, and meaning are all satisfied with what I have. In fact I have so much I am going to give it way. To the church rummage sale. The food bank. To the Heifer Project. To my next door neighbor. To my next pew neighbor.
And when I find myself in a place of not feeling peace, completeness, joy, purpose, I am still perfected, redirected in love. I am not going to be afraid. I am going to pray. I am going to ask for help. I am going to go for a hike in the Sierra. I am going to do a watercolor, sing a song, bake some brownies, call a friend. I am not afraid.
I am going to abide in love. I am going to remain in love. I am going to be healed in love. I am going to be patient in love. I am going to put some space around myself and see myself as God sees me, well-loved.
I am going to put some space around myself and see that person in need as God sees them, well-loved. I am going to put some space around my God-created-self and see that person, who is making me angry, as God sees them, with compassion, understanding and patience.
Trusting that from that place of complete compassion, true action is born. True peace is born. The kin-dom of heaven is born.
So praying for perfection in love, that is your birthright, perhaps forgotten but able to be remembered, is one way to leap into faith.
Another is given in this morning’s scripture.
John 15: 9-17
If you live in my instructions you will live remain in my love.
I have told you all this so you can be the source of my happiness.
Love each other as I have loved you.
No one can love to a greater extent than to give up life for friends.
I have called you friends, not slaves, I have let you know everything I know.
I chose you and I delegated you to go out and produce fruit.
You fruit will last because God will provide you with whatever you request in my name.
Love each other.
Worship, study, and living in compassion are all ways to leap to faith. But I encourage us all to remember that “Finally, and most important, transformation is not something we do, certainly not something we do by ourselves. It is God’s work. It is God who works transformation.
Getting a new heart, [leaping to faith], [being perfected in love], means opening ourselves to God, seeking God, turning to God, surrendering to God, and relying on God. I does not mean giving up responsibility, but it does mean surrendering our illusion of control. It means letting God be God for us.”
(Anthony Robinson, pg 79, Changing the Conversation)
Let me close with this proverb and a story.
First the proverb from Ghana
" If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Can a community of faith leap together? With God's help we can.
Let all people who do justice and love mercy say amen.
Enfolded By Love
I John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18n
May 3, 2009
The great German theologian of the 20th Century, Karl Barth said, that “there is no such thing as an individual Christian.”
What he meant when he said that is that Christianity isn’t a personal, save-me-get-me-into heaven, just-me-and-Jesus relationship but that of a community, a flock, watched over by the Good Shepherd.
Remembering the metaphor of seeing Jesus as the Good Shepherd helps me illustrate the meaning of this idea, that there is no such thing as an individual Christian.
Let me share with you this profound thought:
There is no “separate singular form of the word sheep.”
Now that’s profound. The word for one sheep or 100 sheep is ....sheep.
We are not separate from one another: “In our essence, our being is bound up with the entire flock: with people who break bread and recite prayers with us, with people who go to work and enjoy week-ends with us, with people who begin young and grow old with us.
To be a Christian is to be a person in community, a community that is founded not upon doctrinal unity, but upon God’s knowing us and being for us.
To be a Christian is to be a person in community, a community that is founded, not upon economic status, or political party affiliation, or sexual orientation, or ethnic identity, but upon God knowing us and shepherding us.
Now this is where things become more difficult, making room for one another in the fold of God’s love.
It seems like we ought to find it easy and even natural to relax into the warmth of God’s care, to move over and make room for everyone else. And yet we oftentimes have a hard time thinking about who’s in the flock, and who isn’t.
That can equate with who’s loved by God, and who isn’t…or at least, who isn’t loved by God quite as much, or in the same way, as we are.
And yet, it’s not up to us to decide who’s in or who’s out. The passage from the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus has “other sheep” elsewhere and that he intends to draw them in, too. The flock is growing. New people are coming in.
How will we welcome the stranger, invited into the community by the enfolding love of God?
So as comforting, even warm and fuzzy, as we’d like to think this image of the good shepherd is, it’s really quite unsettling. Jesus often unsettled his listeners, so he might as well unsettle us, too.
“The life of a shepherd was anything but picturesque. It was dangerous, risky, and menial. Shepherds were rough around the edges, spending time in the fields rather than in polite society. For Jesus to say, 'I am the good shepherd,’ would have been an affront to the religious elite and educated. The claim had an edge to it. A modern-day equivalent might be for Jesus to say, ‘I am the good migrant worker’”
We’d rather not talk about anything that might disturb the peace and quiet tranquility of our little flock, safely gathered behind our protective doors. It’s too much of a challenge to shine the light of the gospel on our communal decisions about the rights and the very lives of all God’s children in this community.
“Jesus did not exclude people based on the standards of the day….He embraced the outcast, the oppressed, and the overlooked.
The Gospel of John makes it clear that the work of gathering the flock belongs to Jesus and God – we are to provide a space where all are welcome. The community that John envisions is open and celebrates its diversity as a gift from God”
Like Jesus, we are to provide a space where all are welcome. The flock is open-ended, not closed. Jesus owns up to having “others” that he cares about, too, and remembering that, nurtures in us a whole new perspective on hospitality. It’s more than a warm welcome to worship and a cup of coffee downstairs afterward (although those are very good things).
Hospitality is difficult; it tests us. It calls, even pushes, us out to our growing edges. In Barbara Brown Taylor’s new book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, she reflects on “encountering others” as a spiritual practice, and she expands our understanding of hospitality:
“In biblical tradition, the practice of encounter shows up most often as the practice of hospitality, or philo-xenia. Take the word apart and you get philo, from one of the four Greek words for love, and xenia, for stranger.
Love of stranger, in other words,
which is about as counterintuitive as you can get.
For most of us, xenophobia – fear of stranger – comes much more naturally, but in that case scripture is unnatural. According to Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain, ‘the Hebrew Bible in one verse commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” but in no fewer than 36 places commands us to “love the stranger.”
In many ways, we’re not living in the same situation as John’s early community, but we still have to consider this question of “the stranger” and of being loved by God, and what it means to be a flock together, sharing the goods God provides to us all, not just to some of us.
How can we read a question like “Who is ‘stranger’ for us?”, and hear about the Good Shepherd, and not think of those who feel outside the flock, who perhaps feel abandoned by their family or community, but who are loved by God the Good Shepherd nevertheless?
Last Sunday, when you all were worshiping here together, listening to a great sermon preached by Yolanda Randlett, another excellent anthem sung by our choir, and moving with a hip-swinging hula-hooping children’s moment led by Cynthia Restivo, I was sitting in the sun on a park bench in Stinson Beach, reading these words, written by Marianne Williamson, in her book Return to Love.
“Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that God has created, we have arrogantly thought we could create ourselves, and then create God. Because we are angry and judgmental ,we have projected those characteristics onto God. We have made God in our image. But God remains who God has always been: the energy of unconditional love. The problem is that we have forgotten this, and so we have forgotten who we ourselves are.” (pg 20, Return to Love)
Well, I liked that, and I liked the feel of the sun on my face and hearing the children having fun and conflict in the playground, so I kept on reading.
“I had never realized that depending on God meant depending on love. I had heard it said that God is love, but it had never kicked in for me exactly what that meant. God is within me.”
When we choose to love, choose to allow our minds to be one with God, then our house is built on rock, then it is sturdy and strong and the storms cannot destroy it.” (pg. 18 Return to Love)
Each one of us, as human beings, are beloved by God. In this very room, there’s quite enough love to go around. In this very community, there’s quite enough love to go around. On this very planet, there’s quite enough love to go around.”
If we choose love, if we trust love, we expect love, if we give love. If we receive the love that is at the heart of the reading from the first Letter of John that we heard just a moment ago.
“We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” I John 3: 16ff
It was almost time to leave the sunny bench and rejoin my musician friends but I wanted to read just a little more from Marianne Williamson,
“The love in one of us is the love in all of us.”
When love becomes empathy we see in the stranger the same need that we have. We all share the same needs, for shelter, for food, for purpose in our lives, for acceptance within our community. We may have different strategies for achieving those needs, but we all have the same needs.
Our needs are no different than those of a migrant worker wanting to provide food and shelter for his family, or a gay couple wanting acceptance within their community, or a man at the end of his life wanting to know his life had purpose beyond his days, or parents expecting the beginning of a new life and praying for a healthy baby.
Everyone one of us has the same basic needs. Each of us is carrying a great burden. Let us care for one another, as Christ was cared for us.
Each of us is suffering at sometime from spiritual amnesia, forgetting that God is the most real thing that there is within us, let us be sources of remembrance for one another.
There is no singular for the word sheep. And so it is with the word human. Our humanity is enriched when we see that we do hold all things in common.
Let us be human and marry our fortunes together.
Let us surrender our egos and in our daily prayers place our trust in the caring and guiding love of the Good shepherd so that all of our wants are satisfied and we are not afraid, and goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives, and strangers will become friends.
Let us remember, when reading the 23rd Psalm to emphasize the Lord is my shepherd before going on to the rest of the Psalm and hearing the promises.
Let our days begin and end with the affirmation, the Lord is my shepherd.
When anxiety, anger, fear begins to enter our mind, may we pause to remember those words that like a shepherd’s crook can return us to love. The Lord is my shepherd
Then with that pause to remember love, we can truly know and trust, we shall not want, we shall not fear, our soul is restored, we will eat at the table prepared for us by God and where everyone received an invitation to come. Everyone received the invitation. What we have to do is show up with an open heart.
May those who love mercy and seek connection say,
Amen
John 10:11-18n
May 3, 2009
The great German theologian of the 20th Century, Karl Barth said, that “there is no such thing as an individual Christian.”
What he meant when he said that is that Christianity isn’t a personal, save-me-get-me-into heaven, just-me-and-Jesus relationship but that of a community, a flock, watched over by the Good Shepherd.
Remembering the metaphor of seeing Jesus as the Good Shepherd helps me illustrate the meaning of this idea, that there is no such thing as an individual Christian.
Let me share with you this profound thought:
There is no “separate singular form of the word sheep.”
Now that’s profound. The word for one sheep or 100 sheep is ....sheep.
We are not separate from one another: “In our essence, our being is bound up with the entire flock: with people who break bread and recite prayers with us, with people who go to work and enjoy week-ends with us, with people who begin young and grow old with us.
To be a Christian is to be a person in community, a community that is founded not upon doctrinal unity, but upon God’s knowing us and being for us.
To be a Christian is to be a person in community, a community that is founded, not upon economic status, or political party affiliation, or sexual orientation, or ethnic identity, but upon God knowing us and shepherding us.
Now this is where things become more difficult, making room for one another in the fold of God’s love.
It seems like we ought to find it easy and even natural to relax into the warmth of God’s care, to move over and make room for everyone else. And yet we oftentimes have a hard time thinking about who’s in the flock, and who isn’t.
That can equate with who’s loved by God, and who isn’t…or at least, who isn’t loved by God quite as much, or in the same way, as we are.
And yet, it’s not up to us to decide who’s in or who’s out. The passage from the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus has “other sheep” elsewhere and that he intends to draw them in, too. The flock is growing. New people are coming in.
How will we welcome the stranger, invited into the community by the enfolding love of God?
So as comforting, even warm and fuzzy, as we’d like to think this image of the good shepherd is, it’s really quite unsettling. Jesus often unsettled his listeners, so he might as well unsettle us, too.
“The life of a shepherd was anything but picturesque. It was dangerous, risky, and menial. Shepherds were rough around the edges, spending time in the fields rather than in polite society. For Jesus to say, 'I am the good shepherd,’ would have been an affront to the religious elite and educated. The claim had an edge to it. A modern-day equivalent might be for Jesus to say, ‘I am the good migrant worker’”
We’d rather not talk about anything that might disturb the peace and quiet tranquility of our little flock, safely gathered behind our protective doors. It’s too much of a challenge to shine the light of the gospel on our communal decisions about the rights and the very lives of all God’s children in this community.
“Jesus did not exclude people based on the standards of the day….He embraced the outcast, the oppressed, and the overlooked.
The Gospel of John makes it clear that the work of gathering the flock belongs to Jesus and God – we are to provide a space where all are welcome. The community that John envisions is open and celebrates its diversity as a gift from God”
Like Jesus, we are to provide a space where all are welcome. The flock is open-ended, not closed. Jesus owns up to having “others” that he cares about, too, and remembering that, nurtures in us a whole new perspective on hospitality. It’s more than a warm welcome to worship and a cup of coffee downstairs afterward (although those are very good things).
Hospitality is difficult; it tests us. It calls, even pushes, us out to our growing edges. In Barbara Brown Taylor’s new book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, she reflects on “encountering others” as a spiritual practice, and she expands our understanding of hospitality:
“In biblical tradition, the practice of encounter shows up most often as the practice of hospitality, or philo-xenia. Take the word apart and you get philo, from one of the four Greek words for love, and xenia, for stranger.
Love of stranger, in other words,
which is about as counterintuitive as you can get.
For most of us, xenophobia – fear of stranger – comes much more naturally, but in that case scripture is unnatural. According to Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain, ‘the Hebrew Bible in one verse commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” but in no fewer than 36 places commands us to “love the stranger.”
In many ways, we’re not living in the same situation as John’s early community, but we still have to consider this question of “the stranger” and of being loved by God, and what it means to be a flock together, sharing the goods God provides to us all, not just to some of us.
How can we read a question like “Who is ‘stranger’ for us?”, and hear about the Good Shepherd, and not think of those who feel outside the flock, who perhaps feel abandoned by their family or community, but who are loved by God the Good Shepherd nevertheless?
Last Sunday, when you all were worshiping here together, listening to a great sermon preached by Yolanda Randlett, another excellent anthem sung by our choir, and moving with a hip-swinging hula-hooping children’s moment led by Cynthia Restivo, I was sitting in the sun on a park bench in Stinson Beach, reading these words, written by Marianne Williamson, in her book Return to Love.
“Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that God has created, we have arrogantly thought we could create ourselves, and then create God. Because we are angry and judgmental ,we have projected those characteristics onto God. We have made God in our image. But God remains who God has always been: the energy of unconditional love. The problem is that we have forgotten this, and so we have forgotten who we ourselves are.” (pg 20, Return to Love)
Well, I liked that, and I liked the feel of the sun on my face and hearing the children having fun and conflict in the playground, so I kept on reading.
“I had never realized that depending on God meant depending on love. I had heard it said that God is love, but it had never kicked in for me exactly what that meant. God is within me.”
When we choose to love, choose to allow our minds to be one with God, then our house is built on rock, then it is sturdy and strong and the storms cannot destroy it.” (pg. 18 Return to Love)
Each one of us, as human beings, are beloved by God. In this very room, there’s quite enough love to go around. In this very community, there’s quite enough love to go around. On this very planet, there’s quite enough love to go around.”
If we choose love, if we trust love, we expect love, if we give love. If we receive the love that is at the heart of the reading from the first Letter of John that we heard just a moment ago.
“We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” I John 3: 16ff
It was almost time to leave the sunny bench and rejoin my musician friends but I wanted to read just a little more from Marianne Williamson,
“The love in one of us is the love in all of us.”
When love becomes empathy we see in the stranger the same need that we have. We all share the same needs, for shelter, for food, for purpose in our lives, for acceptance within our community. We may have different strategies for achieving those needs, but we all have the same needs.
Our needs are no different than those of a migrant worker wanting to provide food and shelter for his family, or a gay couple wanting acceptance within their community, or a man at the end of his life wanting to know his life had purpose beyond his days, or parents expecting the beginning of a new life and praying for a healthy baby.
Everyone one of us has the same basic needs. Each of us is carrying a great burden. Let us care for one another, as Christ was cared for us.
Each of us is suffering at sometime from spiritual amnesia, forgetting that God is the most real thing that there is within us, let us be sources of remembrance for one another.
There is no singular for the word sheep. And so it is with the word human. Our humanity is enriched when we see that we do hold all things in common.
Let us be human and marry our fortunes together.
Let us surrender our egos and in our daily prayers place our trust in the caring and guiding love of the Good shepherd so that all of our wants are satisfied and we are not afraid, and goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives, and strangers will become friends.
Let us remember, when reading the 23rd Psalm to emphasize the Lord is my shepherd before going on to the rest of the Psalm and hearing the promises.
Let our days begin and end with the affirmation, the Lord is my shepherd.
When anxiety, anger, fear begins to enter our mind, may we pause to remember those words that like a shepherd’s crook can return us to love. The Lord is my shepherd
Then with that pause to remember love, we can truly know and trust, we shall not want, we shall not fear, our soul is restored, we will eat at the table prepared for us by God and where everyone received an invitation to come. Everyone received the invitation. What we have to do is show up with an open heart.
May those who love mercy and seek connection say,
Amen
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