A Well-Lighted Pathway
Jonah 1-5, 10 Mark 1:14-20
Rev. Alan Claassen January 25th, 2009
I have a confession to make.
I have preacher envy.
I want to be Rev. Lowery,
the minister who gave the benediction at President Obama's Inauguration.
It was a serious moment. It was a reflective moment.
He began his benediction by quoting from that great African-American national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” invoking the memory of the civil rights struggle. And then the tone shifted, though the message didn’t. It was the core message of the entire inauguration, namely that every one is welcome at this table; red, brown, yellow, black or white, we are all precious in God’s sight. And in that change of tone he moved President Obama, he moved him from all the appropriate solemnity of the moment, from carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He moved President Obama from eyes closed in prayer, to eyes open, and smiling and looking at 2 million people smiling at him.
All of sudden something had changed and people were smiling, knowing that the task at hand is daunting, but somehow believing we are going to make it together.
I want to be Rev. Lowery.
And I realize that the only way I could ever hope to come close to the blessed wisdom of that preacher is through prayer.
Let us pray;
From the cowardice the does not face the truth
From the laziness that accepts half truths
From the arrogance that thinks it knows the whole truth.
Lord, deliver me
On this Sunday, when our Congregational Meeting follows worship, when we will approve our budget for this year, it is good to remember Ron Buford. Ron Buford was our guest preacher, our Consecrating Steward on the day when we offered our pledges of time, talent, and treasure for the continued ministries of this church. On that day when we offered our commitments for the future, which became a significant benchmark for what the Budget Committee could imagine for the year ahead, Ron called upon us to claim and proclaim what is unique in the history of this congregation and the United Church of Christ. He challenged us to be ready for success, because he believes that there are people looking for we have to offer: a way of being Christian that welcomes us whoever and wherever we are on life’s journey.
This past week Ron Buford wrote one of the daily devotionals that is a ministry of the national level of the United Church of Christ. This on-line/e-mail devotional is an excellent way to add a prayer to your daily spiritual practice as well as connecting with United Church of Christ ministers from around the country. If you would like to know more about this and you have an e-mail address let me know. Or go to ucc.org
Ron chose to write a devotion based upon a passage from the Bible, from the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 20, verse 9
“then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
Here is Ron’s reflection on that passage:
“On a beautiful Kaua'i beach, en-tranced by ocean and sunset with five male friends and almost no one else around, a beautiful young woman runs to us, screaming. Internally flipping into rescue mode, I think something must be wrong. But this young woman's crisis is a happy one. "I just got engaged!" she exclaims, having run from a lone man 350 feet away, now looking in our direction and somewhat perplexed.
Her buoyant overflow of love and joy still rescues me. As long as I live, I will never forget the reflection of fire and joy in her eyes, as if from fire shut up in her bones. Nor will I forget the look of pride from her fiancé. Her joy, his pride, and our need to experience it--all connected by one authentically unrestrained, generous, and joy-filled act.
Sometimes love can also be that way when you can think you are done with it. But it comes again, like fire. "I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." When I feel that way, I think of the look in her eyes.
As great as it can be to be in love, our love of God has the power to be so much greater as we pursue it with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. It can sometimes feel consuming.
It can sweep us off our feet. It can change our world overnight.”
As great as it can be to be in love, our love of God has the power to be so much greater…
It can change our world overnight.
We find in the Gospel of Mark the same kind of enthusiasm. If you were to read it at one sitting you would notice that the word most often used is the word, “and.” Mark is telling the story of Jesus with the same enthusiasm and sense of urgency as that newly engaged young woman on the beach in Kauai.
First this happened, and then this, and then that, and then he said this, and then he did that, and then….
In the first chapter of Mark, "Jesus sweeps through Galilee and takes it by storm….the underlying sense is that God is on the march in the ministry of Jesus".
Which brings us to this morning’s passage from the Gospel of Mark.
Reading from The Message, Eugene Petersen’s translation of the Bible.
Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you.
I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.
A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee’s sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made them the same offer.
Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the fired hands, and followed.
This just does not make sense. Where is the flow chart on this project?
Mark doesn’t give us any explanation. Any background. Any motivation. He just gives us, God, and a man, Jesus, who surrendered himself and was baptized in the Jordan River and received the God’s spirit, looking like a dove, and hearing a voice saying, You are my beloved.
This same Spirit pushed Jesus into the wilderness where he was tested and cared for.
And walking along the shoreline of Lake Galilee he called out, the Spirit called out four men, and they surrendered all that they had, their livelihood, their family, their home and they followed Jesus.
This doesn’t make sense. This is Spirit made. What made the disciples follow Jesus? More importantly, what calls us to follow? And what must we surrender?
Every first Wednesday of the month about 30 people gather here in this Sanctuary for a time of prayer, a time of chanting, a time for silence. This form of music and prayer comes to us from a spiritual community founded in Taize, France by a Catholic priest named, Brother Roger. Listen to what Brother Roger wrote about this moment that the fishermen experienced when Jesus called them to leave their nets and boats.
“Without looking back, you want to follow Christ:
remember that you cannot walk in Christ’s footsteps and at the same time follow yourself. Christ is the way leading you irresistibly to a life of sharing.
The Gospel calls you to leave all things behind.
But leaving yourself behind is not a matter of self-destruction;
it means choosing God as your first love.”
This is exactly what I discovered for myself this past week as I continued to try to understand what it means to surrender my way to God’s way.
I was thinking that Jesus did not surrender himself into nothing.
He surrendered himself to John the Baptist’s strong arms as he was lowered into the Jordan. He surrendered himself to the water, which when we relax, when we trust, will hold us up. He surrendered himself to God.
Surrendering to God is choosing God as our first love. When we begin our day, continue our day, end our day, surrendering to God’s love, God fills us up with energy, strength, a hope that overflows to others. Even fishermen.
It is not a matter of how great or wise we are. Especially in comparison to others, Like Rev. Lowery. The call is to live the little bit of the Gospel that we have grasped. Proclaim it! Trust it. Light fire on earth like a young woman running down the beach shouting, “I’m engaged!”
Get engaged with Christ! Follow the teachings. Say your prayers. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies, nothing upsets them more. The pathway is clear. Take it.
I was thinking about closing with a verse from Lift Every Voice and Sing, but that would just be copying Rev. Lowery. One of the things I have to let go of is envy.
If you would like to read the words it is on page 593 in our hymnals.
Instead I would like to close with this poem, called “Sometimes” by Sheenah Pugh. It speaks to this Spirit-made moment where God seems to be rushing through the countryside, stirring things up, beginning a new thing, creating a new world, calling us to give ourselves to love.
Sometimes
Sheenah Pugh
“Sometimes things don’t go, after all from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost, green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometime will step back from war, elect an honest man;
decide they care enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best efforts do not go amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow that seemed hard frozen;
may it happen for you.”
May it happen for you. May it happen for our nation, all nations, all peoples, all creation.
Let all who do justice and love mercy say Amen!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Light of Surrender
The Light of Surrender
Mark 1:4-11
Rev Alan Claassen
January 11, 2009
When did Jesus have his first full experience of the presence of God?
When did Jesus become, ‘the son of God?”
Where did Jesus learn all that he knew about Jewish scripture and wisdom?
Who was his teacher?
When did he receive his call to be a preacher, a healer, a prophet, the messiah?
Each of the great figures of the Jewish tradition had experiences of God that called them to begin their work on God’s behalf.
Moses saw a bush that burned without being consumed and from the bush heard the voice of God speaking to him.
The authority with which the prophets speak comes from their direct experience of God. In a cave on a mountainside Elijah heard God not in wind or storm but in a “still, small voice.”
Isaiah call to be a prophet began with a vision, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, attended by two angels who said to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.”
And for Ezekiel he had a vision where “the heavens were opened and I saw a visions of God.” And later Ezekiel says that he had the experience that the “Spirit of the Lord fell upon me.”
Even in the time of Jesus there Jewish charismatic leaders such as Hanina ben Dosa who heard God’s voice from heaven saying, “The whole universe is sustained on account of my son, Hanina.”
There were many charismatic leaders a the time of Jesus, and one of them, known as John the Baptist, may well be the answer to the question, “Who taught Jesus about the Scriptures and how to pray, how to become immersed in the reality of God.
2
This morning we heard a reading from the Gospel of Mark. You may already know that Mark was the first gospel that was written. In the gospel of Mark there are no birth narratives, no angels, no shepherds, no Mary, Joseph, no manger, no wise men. There is John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness, baptizing people, calling them to repentance.
Those wonderful characters that we love to read and sing about at Christmas come to us from two other Gospels; some from Matthew and some from Luke.
And this wonderful story, which contemporary Biblical scholarship does not see as historical accounts, can influence how we might first answer the question I asked earlier, “When did Jesus first experience God?”
“According to the stories of his birth in Matthew and Luke, in which Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God, God was in “Jesus” from his beginning.” (Jesus, Marcus Borg, pg 137)
And if we read the Gospel of John, Jesus was with God at the beginning of time, and so first experienced God with the very creation of the univers.
With the Gospel of Mark we come a little closer to seeing Jesus from a historical point of view. And many contemporary scholars believe we also have an answer to the question,
“Who was Jesus’ teacher?” Many believe it was in fact John the Baptist.
John the Baptist was an important figure in first century Judaism. In fact, he still has a small of followers to this very day. And the Jewish historian of the time, Josephus, gives more space to John than he does to Jesus in his book, Antiquities.
What can we learn about Jesus by looking at John the Baptist?
John dressed like Elijah, the great prophet of the Jewish Bible.
And John created, in the wilderness, by the Jordan River, a new seat of authority, that was a direct affront to the priests in the temple. There were many leaders like John, who had many disciples, who met together in the wilderness, who were critical both of the Temple priests in Jerusalem and the Roman authorities and culture that ruled their land and indeed all the Mediterranean in what we know as the Pax Romana.
“John subverted the temple’s role as mediator of access to God by proclaiming a means of forgiveness—repentance and baptism—that bypassed the temple.” (Jesus, Marcus Borg, pg 118)
John was an anti-temple prophet. And he publicly criticized the political leader of the land, Herod Antipas, and as a result was arrested and executed.
John and his followers were like many people at the time. They objected to the occupying Roman army and they objected to their own Jewish religious leaders who were cooperating with the Romans in order to keep their own powering place.
John’s baptism was both spiritual and political at the same time.
In the Gospel of Mark we are introduced first to John the Baptist and his mission, “John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism for the repentance of sins.” (Mark 1:4)
The word “repentance” meant something quite different in the time of the John the Baptist that it came to mean in Christianity where it came to mean “being sorry, remorseful, or penitent for one’s sins…It was associated with return from exile; to repent is to return, to follow the “way of the Lord” that leads from exile to the promised land.” (Jesus, Borg, pg 118)
That is why John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River. Centuries earlier Joshua completed the journey begun by Moses when he led the Hebrew people into the promised land. They had to cross the Jordan River to enter the land of milk and honey.
The River Jordan is chilly and wide and it is deeply meaningful in the self-understanding of the Jewish people.
For John the Baptist and so many other prophetic communities of the time, the religious leaders of the day had abandoned the covenant. And the people had followed.
John the Baptist was renewing the Covenant, by calling people to return to their promise to God.
And in the act of baptizing people in the Jordan River John took a common purification rite of ritual washing for purification before entering the temple into an act of initiation for a band of followers who were going to re-enter the Promised Land remembering the promise made by Moses to faithful to the commandments of loving God and neighbor.
And Jesus was a follower of John’s. There is no way of knowing how long Jesus might have been with John the Baptist in the wilderness. We do know that the first story of Jesus as an adult is with John at the Jordan River and when he begins his public ministry he preaches the same message as John’s. Repent, return, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And in this story of John and Jesus we also have a possible answer to my first question, “When did Jesus first experience the reality of God?”
As told in the Gospel of Mark, “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
Like Ezekiel six centuries earlier Jesus saw the heavens opened as if they were torn apart.
And the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice, “With you I am well pleased, My Beloved Son.”
“…the story of Jesus’s vision at this baptism places him in the Spirit-filled stream of Judaism.” (Jesus, Borg, 122)
And the fact that this baptism was performed by John, who may well have been Jesus’ teacher and mentor, places Jesus within the circle of many at the time who believed it was time for a change in Jerusalem.
From his own unique gifts as a human being, from his study with John, and from his vision at this own baptism, Jesus experienced the real presence of God.
Our visions of God are not likely to be as profound as the one the Jesus experienced. But there is something in the act of baptism that is a vitally important aspect of the spiritual life for all of us. And that is the act of surrendering.
The first act of Jesus life as an adult as reported in the Gospel of Mark is to surrender. Thinking of baptism as a symbol of returning to a God centered, to a Spirit Centered life, rather than a self-centered life, the act of trusting someone who will support you as you go under the water and come back out of it again is an act of surrendering. It is surrendering control, it is surrendering having to be in charge, it is surrendering having to be right. It is an act of humility and trust and somehow it is an act of freedom that brings a force greater than ourselves into play.
I was working with a Spiritual Director up in Portland. I would visit with her on a monthly basis, share with her what was going on in my life, where my moments of joy and my moments of struggle were and how I was responding to them. One day after I had shared my story she asked me, “Are you ever going to let God do anything in your life?”
More recently I was working with a Life Coach here in Murphys, which as it turns out has a lot in common with a Spiritual Director. Once again, I was sharing my moments of joy and frustrations and my attempts at trying to figure things out. The Life Coach warned me to be careful of my attempts to figure things out. It might just be another vain attempt on my part to be in control.
If we don’t surrender, on a spiritual level, if we are not practicing gratitude, humility, and compassion where can God enter our life?
Jesus, the great teacher of the way of the Spirit, began his own ministry with an act of surrendering.
As we continue to follow the ministry of Jesus over the next few months, leading up to Easter, we will see the act of surrendering in all its power.
I would like to close with the words of Brother Roger who founded the Taize community in France.
Hear these words from Brother Roger, Founder of the Taize Community in France.
"Without looking back, you want to follow Christ: remember that you cannot walk in Christ's footsteps and at the same follow yourself. He is the way, a way leading you irresistibly to a simple life, a life of sharing.
"Following Christ means choosing God as your first love. Simplify in order to live intensely, in the present moment: you will discover the joy of being alive, so closley linked to joy in the living God." Parable of Community Brother Roger
Mark 1:4-11
Rev Alan Claassen
January 11, 2009
When did Jesus have his first full experience of the presence of God?
When did Jesus become, ‘the son of God?”
Where did Jesus learn all that he knew about Jewish scripture and wisdom?
Who was his teacher?
When did he receive his call to be a preacher, a healer, a prophet, the messiah?
Each of the great figures of the Jewish tradition had experiences of God that called them to begin their work on God’s behalf.
Moses saw a bush that burned without being consumed and from the bush heard the voice of God speaking to him.
The authority with which the prophets speak comes from their direct experience of God. In a cave on a mountainside Elijah heard God not in wind or storm but in a “still, small voice.”
Isaiah call to be a prophet began with a vision, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, attended by two angels who said to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.”
And for Ezekiel he had a vision where “the heavens were opened and I saw a visions of God.” And later Ezekiel says that he had the experience that the “Spirit of the Lord fell upon me.”
Even in the time of Jesus there Jewish charismatic leaders such as Hanina ben Dosa who heard God’s voice from heaven saying, “The whole universe is sustained on account of my son, Hanina.”
There were many charismatic leaders a the time of Jesus, and one of them, known as John the Baptist, may well be the answer to the question, “Who taught Jesus about the Scriptures and how to pray, how to become immersed in the reality of God.
2
This morning we heard a reading from the Gospel of Mark. You may already know that Mark was the first gospel that was written. In the gospel of Mark there are no birth narratives, no angels, no shepherds, no Mary, Joseph, no manger, no wise men. There is John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness, baptizing people, calling them to repentance.
Those wonderful characters that we love to read and sing about at Christmas come to us from two other Gospels; some from Matthew and some from Luke.
And this wonderful story, which contemporary Biblical scholarship does not see as historical accounts, can influence how we might first answer the question I asked earlier, “When did Jesus first experience God?”
“According to the stories of his birth in Matthew and Luke, in which Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God, God was in “Jesus” from his beginning.” (Jesus, Marcus Borg, pg 137)
And if we read the Gospel of John, Jesus was with God at the beginning of time, and so first experienced God with the very creation of the univers.
With the Gospel of Mark we come a little closer to seeing Jesus from a historical point of view. And many contemporary scholars believe we also have an answer to the question,
“Who was Jesus’ teacher?” Many believe it was in fact John the Baptist.
John the Baptist was an important figure in first century Judaism. In fact, he still has a small of followers to this very day. And the Jewish historian of the time, Josephus, gives more space to John than he does to Jesus in his book, Antiquities.
What can we learn about Jesus by looking at John the Baptist?
John dressed like Elijah, the great prophet of the Jewish Bible.
And John created, in the wilderness, by the Jordan River, a new seat of authority, that was a direct affront to the priests in the temple. There were many leaders like John, who had many disciples, who met together in the wilderness, who were critical both of the Temple priests in Jerusalem and the Roman authorities and culture that ruled their land and indeed all the Mediterranean in what we know as the Pax Romana.
“John subverted the temple’s role as mediator of access to God by proclaiming a means of forgiveness—repentance and baptism—that bypassed the temple.” (Jesus, Marcus Borg, pg 118)
John was an anti-temple prophet. And he publicly criticized the political leader of the land, Herod Antipas, and as a result was arrested and executed.
John and his followers were like many people at the time. They objected to the occupying Roman army and they objected to their own Jewish religious leaders who were cooperating with the Romans in order to keep their own powering place.
John’s baptism was both spiritual and political at the same time.
In the Gospel of Mark we are introduced first to John the Baptist and his mission, “John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism for the repentance of sins.” (Mark 1:4)
The word “repentance” meant something quite different in the time of the John the Baptist that it came to mean in Christianity where it came to mean “being sorry, remorseful, or penitent for one’s sins…It was associated with return from exile; to repent is to return, to follow the “way of the Lord” that leads from exile to the promised land.” (Jesus, Borg, pg 118)
That is why John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River. Centuries earlier Joshua completed the journey begun by Moses when he led the Hebrew people into the promised land. They had to cross the Jordan River to enter the land of milk and honey.
The River Jordan is chilly and wide and it is deeply meaningful in the self-understanding of the Jewish people.
For John the Baptist and so many other prophetic communities of the time, the religious leaders of the day had abandoned the covenant. And the people had followed.
John the Baptist was renewing the Covenant, by calling people to return to their promise to God.
And in the act of baptizing people in the Jordan River John took a common purification rite of ritual washing for purification before entering the temple into an act of initiation for a band of followers who were going to re-enter the Promised Land remembering the promise made by Moses to faithful to the commandments of loving God and neighbor.
And Jesus was a follower of John’s. There is no way of knowing how long Jesus might have been with John the Baptist in the wilderness. We do know that the first story of Jesus as an adult is with John at the Jordan River and when he begins his public ministry he preaches the same message as John’s. Repent, return, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And in this story of John and Jesus we also have a possible answer to my first question, “When did Jesus first experience the reality of God?”
As told in the Gospel of Mark, “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
Like Ezekiel six centuries earlier Jesus saw the heavens opened as if they were torn apart.
And the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice, “With you I am well pleased, My Beloved Son.”
“…the story of Jesus’s vision at this baptism places him in the Spirit-filled stream of Judaism.” (Jesus, Borg, 122)
And the fact that this baptism was performed by John, who may well have been Jesus’ teacher and mentor, places Jesus within the circle of many at the time who believed it was time for a change in Jerusalem.
From his own unique gifts as a human being, from his study with John, and from his vision at this own baptism, Jesus experienced the real presence of God.
Our visions of God are not likely to be as profound as the one the Jesus experienced. But there is something in the act of baptism that is a vitally important aspect of the spiritual life for all of us. And that is the act of surrendering.
The first act of Jesus life as an adult as reported in the Gospel of Mark is to surrender. Thinking of baptism as a symbol of returning to a God centered, to a Spirit Centered life, rather than a self-centered life, the act of trusting someone who will support you as you go under the water and come back out of it again is an act of surrendering. It is surrendering control, it is surrendering having to be in charge, it is surrendering having to be right. It is an act of humility and trust and somehow it is an act of freedom that brings a force greater than ourselves into play.
I was working with a Spiritual Director up in Portland. I would visit with her on a monthly basis, share with her what was going on in my life, where my moments of joy and my moments of struggle were and how I was responding to them. One day after I had shared my story she asked me, “Are you ever going to let God do anything in your life?”
More recently I was working with a Life Coach here in Murphys, which as it turns out has a lot in common with a Spiritual Director. Once again, I was sharing my moments of joy and frustrations and my attempts at trying to figure things out. The Life Coach warned me to be careful of my attempts to figure things out. It might just be another vain attempt on my part to be in control.
If we don’t surrender, on a spiritual level, if we are not practicing gratitude, humility, and compassion where can God enter our life?
Jesus, the great teacher of the way of the Spirit, began his own ministry with an act of surrendering.
As we continue to follow the ministry of Jesus over the next few months, leading up to Easter, we will see the act of surrendering in all its power.
I would like to close with the words of Brother Roger who founded the Taize community in France.
Hear these words from Brother Roger, Founder of the Taize Community in France.
"Without looking back, you want to follow Christ: remember that you cannot walk in Christ's footsteps and at the same follow yourself. He is the way, a way leading you irresistibly to a simple life, a life of sharing.
"Following Christ means choosing God as your first love. Simplify in order to live intensely, in the present moment: you will discover the joy of being alive, so closley linked to joy in the living God." Parable of Community Brother Roger
Monday, January 5, 2009
Light is Returning
Light is Returning
Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12
Rev Alan Claassen
January 4, 2009
Children’s Moment: Shared Betsy’s Christmas present. A GPS. Said the magi had a GPS too: God Positioning Star.
I have been thinking about these three wise men all week. Leaving home, following a prediction, traveling through unknown lands, asking questions along the way. And as they got close to their destination they even sought the counsel of a King. King Herod.
As it turns out, King Herod is a little threatened by this announcement from foreigners that a new and great leader is about to be born in his territory. So he asks that three magi to come back to him once they have found this Messiah so that he can pay homage to him.
Once the magi have visited Jesus themselves and experience an epiphany, a manifestation of God in the form of the Christ child they see life very differently and being warned in a dream they do not go back to King Herod, but instead went home another way.
That is such a wonderfully rich phrase, going home by another way.
Approximately 50 years later the Apostle Paul will write to the community of followers of The Way in Corinth the beautiful letter that includes the well known verses,
“If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Love is patient and kind…
Love does not insist on its own way…
It does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right…
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Faith, hope and love abide; but the greatest of these is love.
In the verse that immediately proceeds these verses Paul wrote, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”
Another way back home. Another way to live. A journey of a lifetime.
Each Sunday morning our worship begins with the words, Whoever and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.
Thinking about the three magi this past week, I have been thinking where this journey is actually taking us. Where are we going? What is our guiding star? What keeps us focused and together, respecting our differences, both in needs and viewpoints, and moving forward as a progressive Christian church for Calaveras and Tuolumne counties?
And then I took a journey myself.
On New Year’s Day I flew to Portland, Oregon with our son, Cody. He was on route back to the Seattle area for his next semester of college. I decided to go with him to pick up our daughter, Lauryn’s car that had been left behind in Vancouver Washington in the snow storms that hit the northwest the week before Christmas.
So on Friday I began the journey from Vancouver, Washington to Murphys. A drive that I have only done once and that was on Labor Day of 2007 when Betsy and I drove it together.
The drive went better than I expected, given the rainstorms that passed through Portland the evening that I arrived, and the snow that was on the ground when I woke up, and the forecast of snow on the Siskiyou Pass. I made good time. Such good time that I decided to take an alternate path once I reached Red Bluff. I has stopped at a rest area, looked at a map and saw a route that would take me through Chico, Oroville, and eventually to HiWay 49. I decided to go another way.
And it was wonderful. The radio was playing a favorite guitar concerto by Rodriguez, the sun was setting through the clouds and the orchards north of Chico. It was very beautiful.
Then my daughter, Lauryn called me and asked if I could pick her up at the Dublin Bart Station and bring her to Murphys so she could get her car back.
Always ready to jump on an offer for a visit from one of our children I said yes.
I imagined a route. Keep going south on HiWay 99 until I reached I-80, get over to the 5 south to Manteca and west on 580 to Dublin.
And that was when I remembered I had Betsy’s new GPS in the car with my. Cody had taught me how to use it. So I turned it on. It figured out my current location. I entered the Dublin Bart as my destination and it gave me a route.
Not one I expected. It wanted me to take 113. I didn’t know 113. What kind of road was it? Where did it go? What was it like to travel at night? But it said that it was the quickest way to go and so I followed.
And it is a dark and lonely road at night. And it seemed to take forever before I finally reached HiWay 505. And it had been so long since I had driven 80 from Sacramento or Davis to the Bay Area that I couldn’t figure out where it was taking me.
But still I followed. At this point in time it had to be a quicker route than getting on the 5 all the way to 580.
And so there I was on I-80 heading for the Bay Area wondering how I was going to get to Dublin.
And then I remembered 680 drops down at Fairfield. I was going to make it after all.
I eventually arrived at the Dublin Bart station just 8 minutes after Lauryn arrived herself.
Thanks to the GPS.
And thinking about the three magi, trusting a prediction and a star, I thought about the trust that is necessary to begin a journey that takes us home by another way.
However and whenever it is that God speaks to us, we have a question to answer. Are we willing to go where God is leading us? Are we willing to believe that through the events of our lives God is leading us? Which star are we following?
This morning we celebrate communion together. And there is guidance for us in this sacred meal. For this bread is broken to be shared that compassion might increase among us. And the grapes are pressed down so that the juice of life is released and poured into a cup so that love might increase among us.
The gift that we have been have been given shows a way of moving away from fear, guilt, and shame and into a way that of giving and receiving with compassion.
This gift of God’s nature is for the salvation and healing of the world. Not just for some of us but for all of us. Through this sacred feast of Holy Communion we are made into the body of Christ, the beloved community.
This table is symbolic of the vision, the north star, the gives us our bearings, through the tears and joys, confusion and clarity, hopes and disappointments of being alive. In sharing the bread and the cup this morning we see one another as fellow travelers on the journey of another way; the way that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and sets free the captive. The way of peace that Jesus taught and that someday we will learn and trust and put into practice on our lives.
This sacred table is an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s love for all creation.
It was given to us by Jesus to remind us of what brings light into this world.
Light is returning. Light, returns us, directs us, guides us back home.
The Sermon title was taken from a song written for the winter solstice, the time when the light of the day begins to increase and the darkness decreases, a perfect time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Light is returning even though this is the darkest hour.
No one can hold back the dawn.
Let’s keep it burning, let’s keep the light of hope alive
Make safe our journey through the storm.
And from the first hymn that we sang this morning,
Star of wonder, star of light…still proceeding…guide us with the perfect light.
May we take time each day to turn on our God Positioning Star that connects earth with heaven, so we always know how to get back home, so that we will not feel lost even when we are going home by another way, so that we will make our choices, and choose our words, based upon gratitude, humility, and compassion.
Whoever we are and wherever we are on lives journey let us choose the way that takes us to our joy of giving and receiving compassionately.
And let the people say:
Amen
Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12
Rev Alan Claassen
January 4, 2009
Children’s Moment: Shared Betsy’s Christmas present. A GPS. Said the magi had a GPS too: God Positioning Star.
I have been thinking about these three wise men all week. Leaving home, following a prediction, traveling through unknown lands, asking questions along the way. And as they got close to their destination they even sought the counsel of a King. King Herod.
As it turns out, King Herod is a little threatened by this announcement from foreigners that a new and great leader is about to be born in his territory. So he asks that three magi to come back to him once they have found this Messiah so that he can pay homage to him.
Once the magi have visited Jesus themselves and experience an epiphany, a manifestation of God in the form of the Christ child they see life very differently and being warned in a dream they do not go back to King Herod, but instead went home another way.
That is such a wonderfully rich phrase, going home by another way.
Approximately 50 years later the Apostle Paul will write to the community of followers of The Way in Corinth the beautiful letter that includes the well known verses,
“If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Love is patient and kind…
Love does not insist on its own way…
It does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right…
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Faith, hope and love abide; but the greatest of these is love.
In the verse that immediately proceeds these verses Paul wrote, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”
Another way back home. Another way to live. A journey of a lifetime.
Each Sunday morning our worship begins with the words, Whoever and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.
Thinking about the three magi this past week, I have been thinking where this journey is actually taking us. Where are we going? What is our guiding star? What keeps us focused and together, respecting our differences, both in needs and viewpoints, and moving forward as a progressive Christian church for Calaveras and Tuolumne counties?
And then I took a journey myself.
On New Year’s Day I flew to Portland, Oregon with our son, Cody. He was on route back to the Seattle area for his next semester of college. I decided to go with him to pick up our daughter, Lauryn’s car that had been left behind in Vancouver Washington in the snow storms that hit the northwest the week before Christmas.
So on Friday I began the journey from Vancouver, Washington to Murphys. A drive that I have only done once and that was on Labor Day of 2007 when Betsy and I drove it together.
The drive went better than I expected, given the rainstorms that passed through Portland the evening that I arrived, and the snow that was on the ground when I woke up, and the forecast of snow on the Siskiyou Pass. I made good time. Such good time that I decided to take an alternate path once I reached Red Bluff. I has stopped at a rest area, looked at a map and saw a route that would take me through Chico, Oroville, and eventually to HiWay 49. I decided to go another way.
And it was wonderful. The radio was playing a favorite guitar concerto by Rodriguez, the sun was setting through the clouds and the orchards north of Chico. It was very beautiful.
Then my daughter, Lauryn called me and asked if I could pick her up at the Dublin Bart Station and bring her to Murphys so she could get her car back.
Always ready to jump on an offer for a visit from one of our children I said yes.
I imagined a route. Keep going south on HiWay 99 until I reached I-80, get over to the 5 south to Manteca and west on 580 to Dublin.
And that was when I remembered I had Betsy’s new GPS in the car with my. Cody had taught me how to use it. So I turned it on. It figured out my current location. I entered the Dublin Bart as my destination and it gave me a route.
Not one I expected. It wanted me to take 113. I didn’t know 113. What kind of road was it? Where did it go? What was it like to travel at night? But it said that it was the quickest way to go and so I followed.
And it is a dark and lonely road at night. And it seemed to take forever before I finally reached HiWay 505. And it had been so long since I had driven 80 from Sacramento or Davis to the Bay Area that I couldn’t figure out where it was taking me.
But still I followed. At this point in time it had to be a quicker route than getting on the 5 all the way to 580.
And so there I was on I-80 heading for the Bay Area wondering how I was going to get to Dublin.
And then I remembered 680 drops down at Fairfield. I was going to make it after all.
I eventually arrived at the Dublin Bart station just 8 minutes after Lauryn arrived herself.
Thanks to the GPS.
And thinking about the three magi, trusting a prediction and a star, I thought about the trust that is necessary to begin a journey that takes us home by another way.
However and whenever it is that God speaks to us, we have a question to answer. Are we willing to go where God is leading us? Are we willing to believe that through the events of our lives God is leading us? Which star are we following?
This morning we celebrate communion together. And there is guidance for us in this sacred meal. For this bread is broken to be shared that compassion might increase among us. And the grapes are pressed down so that the juice of life is released and poured into a cup so that love might increase among us.
The gift that we have been have been given shows a way of moving away from fear, guilt, and shame and into a way that of giving and receiving with compassion.
This gift of God’s nature is for the salvation and healing of the world. Not just for some of us but for all of us. Through this sacred feast of Holy Communion we are made into the body of Christ, the beloved community.
This table is symbolic of the vision, the north star, the gives us our bearings, through the tears and joys, confusion and clarity, hopes and disappointments of being alive. In sharing the bread and the cup this morning we see one another as fellow travelers on the journey of another way; the way that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and sets free the captive. The way of peace that Jesus taught and that someday we will learn and trust and put into practice on our lives.
This sacred table is an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s love for all creation.
It was given to us by Jesus to remind us of what brings light into this world.
Light is returning. Light, returns us, directs us, guides us back home.
The Sermon title was taken from a song written for the winter solstice, the time when the light of the day begins to increase and the darkness decreases, a perfect time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Light is returning even though this is the darkest hour.
No one can hold back the dawn.
Let’s keep it burning, let’s keep the light of hope alive
Make safe our journey through the storm.
And from the first hymn that we sang this morning,
Star of wonder, star of light…still proceeding…guide us with the perfect light.
May we take time each day to turn on our God Positioning Star that connects earth with heaven, so we always know how to get back home, so that we will not feel lost even when we are going home by another way, so that we will make our choices, and choose our words, based upon gratitude, humility, and compassion.
Whoever we are and wherever we are on lives journey let us choose the way that takes us to our joy of giving and receiving compassionately.
And let the people say:
Amen
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