Pastor Dora's Sermons

Apple Festival Sunday

2011-09-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

The Lord be with you./And also with you.
Our God is always working within us, so that we can follow God’s will.
Come, let us worship.

Sermon for 9.25.11: Apple Festival Sunday
Psalm 78.1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2.1-13; Matthew 21.23-32

When things seem all at sixes and sevens, I try to remember a blessing that I’ve just received. This can sometimes turn me around. It’s comforting to me that Paul is doing much the same thing in this famous passage from Philippians. There are problems in the church at Philippi and Paul hopes to help. He himself is in prison, waiting to be executed, and he wants to lift his own spirits too. I’m sure that the early church saved this letter in part because it showed the way faith can bring us through hard times.

So Paul starts by reminding the Christians of Philippi of all the good that they have experienced through Christ. Our translation starts with a series of “if”s: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit,” Actually the passage is a series of statements with which Paul knows the Philippians already agree: “Since there is encouragement in Christ, since there is consolation from Christ’s love, since there is fellowship in the Spirit”—since we know these things are true and since we know we are the better for them, it is possible to live in an even more Christ-like way. Doing so will bring us closer to salvation, will be pleasing to God, and can only make matters better among us in our community.

But how do we live in a more Christ-like way, with the same attitude or mind that was in Christ Jesus? How do we respond more appropriately, more fully to our blessings? To answer his own question, Paul quotes a hymn to Christ that also explains who Christ is. Maybe the most exciting part is that Paul introduces the hymn by asking us to be part of it: “let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ Jesus.” Eugene Peterson, in his interpretation, the Message, is bolder. He writes, “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.”

The first part of the hymn states what we know: Christ “did not regard equality with God as something to be [all puffed up about], but emptied himself, taking the [status] of a slave, being born in human likeness.” In other words, Christ, because he was God, was not only willing to humble himself in order to be born as a human. To become human, he had no choice.

The second verse too is familiar: Here is the Resurrection and Ascension! Because of Jesus’ humility, God exalted him and made him Lord over all, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend…and every tongue …confess that [He] is Lord”-- a power greater and better than anyone can imagine.

But first Christ had to be humble. Look at the way Christ’s humility is described. The hymn says he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (vs. 7). The Greek word that Paul used became important theologically: It’s kenosis. I want you to hear it, even if it sounds like the name of a disease or maybe an imported sausage: kenosis. Paul is imagining what it meant for Christ to empty himself of his Godliness in order to become one of us, to become Jesus. Self-emptying. The word asks us to think about the Incarnation, not only for Christ but for us.

To become man, Christ had to be humble, had to empty himself of all that Godly power and might, and-- to live among us—you know He had to be incredibly loving and humble. Not in the abstract, not remotely, from on high. Humble towards us, loving towards us, loving creatures so different than God’s own self.1 And because of this, Christ—the God/man---had to love justice, peace, and the well-being of all creatures. Such self-emptying was a passion for him—a passion great enough to die for. So how can Paul start with asking us to think of ourselves the way Jesus thought of himself?

In the second verse, we are told that we respond to Christ’s emptying of Himself by bowing before Him: “At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow” (Hymn 168). This doesn’t only mean praising God or a motion we go through in church before prayers. It means that we respond to Christ’s self-emptying with an emptying of ourselves. This isn’t just theology. There’s a message, a real hope here for each of us. Christ is asking something that might seem strange, impossible even, but in silencing our mind chatter, we are allowing Christ to enter our lives.

We get all puffed up with ourselves, our ambitions and dreams, all filled with our worries, our burdens, our anger, our hurt. But Christ, a higher authority, asks us to be like him. He tells us to have the mind of God’s humble servant and empty ourselves sufficiently to allow God to work within us.

Christ’s authority begins to come from within as we listen. As we allow God to work within us, we are more likely to act on God’s authority. Allowing the divine presence to work in us takes prayer work, the discipline of specific time given not only to talking with God, but listening to God speak within us. This is also humbling work. Sometimes we have to admit that maybe God is working within us in ways we can’t yet hear, ways we can’t yet understand. But if Christ could empty himself, we can at least try to do so.

There’s the old joke: If you were accused of being a Christian, what is the evidence that would convict you? After the last month, many of us would have the right to say: Lord, I was faithful. I came and worked at the church for hours, day after day, until I was exhausted. And this past weekend, Lord, was over the top! While pastor was upstairs happily typing, many of us were doing heavy kitchen duty downstairs. And all for your glory.

This is true and this is good. And yet, when we get a little rested and begin to recover, help us to remember that there are many ways to act on the Lord’s authority. Help us to remember that they also serve who only stand and wait for the Lord’s presence to fill the space prepared within our hearts.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, let us enthrone you in our hearts. Let us allow you to transform all that is not holy, all that is not worthy of you. Give us the humility to empty ourselves so that we leave room for you and your authority. Let your will enfold us in its light and power and love. Let our work be for your good pleasure. Amen.

Grumbling vs. Honest Questions

2011-09-18T07:42:00.003-04:00

The Lord be with you / and also with you
Our God is more generous than we can ask or imagine
Come, let us worship!

Sermon for 9.18.11: “Grumbling vs. Honest Questions”
Exodus 16.2-7, 10-15, 19-21; Matthew 20.1-16

I realize that “Revised Common Lectionary” may be a strange term. It’s important because it represents a huge ecumenical effort over decades and Methodists are asked to follow it. Last week, for good reasons, I made my own choices from Scripture, but usually we are to read and preach from four passages: a psalm, the Old Testament, something from the New Testament, and then the Gospel. We can use a psalm during our opening and then follow with two or three of the others. Two passages are ok, but using three is traditional and unites us with mainline Christians, including the Roman Catholics. That doesn’t mean that everyone does this; often they don’t. But the idea is for all Christians to be united in as many ways as possible. And so, for me, the idea that on Sunday morning, we are all focusing on the same texts, praying over them, trying to understand them better is a truly holy thing. We should never discount the power of Christian unity: working together and praying together as the full body of Christ, even across denominations; honoring together the words that have been saved for us in Scripture to tease our minds into more active thought.

That being said, I read only two passages this morning, and I did play around a bit with the verses in Exodus. These two readings and the psalm--considerably shortened--are from the Revised Common Lectionary. Note the word “Revised.” Pastors, priests, and scholars struggled over the selection for years because they hoped that by following these readings in three-year cycles, the faithful would hear or read the crucial parts of the Bible. Not everyone loves their choices. Another way is to read chapter by chapter on a daily basis, and many of us do. But this lectionary attempts to showcase those parts most relevant to our growth as Christians. That means a lot of history and those “begots” can be put to one side. Sexy parts too. There has also been a heroic attempt to chose passages that go together in some way. Sometimes pastors tear out their hair; sometimes pastors try very hard to draw them all together; and sometimes we just give up.

This morning I left out the passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, although it would have been fun to tie it in with the grumbling of the children of Israel wandering in the desert and the workers in Jesus’ parable. Paul is grumbling because he’s in prison and wants out so badly that he wishes that God would end his life. You can read any of the passages on your own before church since I print the readings for the following week. When I was sitting in the pews, I liked to try to guess which the Pastor would pull. This wasn’t so much an intellectual exercise; I wondered how to make a fuller picture of God’s Word.

There is a common thread in Exodus 16 and the parable from Matthew. In Exodus, the people haven’t been on their journey for very long, but they’re already complaining: Not “Are we there yet?” but “Why did we come at all?” They had been desperate to escape Egypt, and for good reasons. Now a very small part of their life in Egypt becomes what they long for most: the familiar taste of bread. This is so human and so true to life.

The people make life a nightmare for Moses and Aaron. But God hears anyway. "They want bread," says God, "I’ll give them bread." And it was wonderful bread: with the taste of coriander and honey. HOWEVER: God’s ground rules are different. If they tried to hoard this bread, it became unfit for consumption: full of worms. Could it sound like "Give us this day, the bread that we need for this day—that we actually require"? God’s blessings, like manna, cannot be hoarded. God’s blessings, like manna, are fresh every day.

The complaints in Jesus’ parable are different: There everyone gets paid the same wages for the day, even those who had been hired for just a few hours. It’s tempting to side with the workers who’d gotten out early and sweated through the entire day. Their question is an honest one: We ask God such questions all the time: Is this fair? I don’t understand, God. Why? And especially, Why me?

But this is not a story about labor relations or even about God as a rigid parent/boss who requires that we follow the rules, whether we like them or not. Don’t forget the opening. This is a parable that describes the kingdom of heaven. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who….” And then it explains how things work in this kingdom that we pray will come to us on earth and that we will find in heaven. A kingdom that we pray will come, even though we can only dimly grasp what that means in moments of grace, in those moments in which we transcend out usual selves. God answers the workers questions. The first may seem authoritarian: “Can’t I do what I want with what belongs to me?” But listen to the second: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

The message here is about a world, here and hereafter, that is not run by clocks or payscales. That is not run the way we usually think things should be run. It is not about the way we compare ourselves to others. It is a way of showing God’s generosity. The kingdom of heaven is conceived and implemented by a generosity that our conditioning makes hard to accept. Too bad this isn’t a sermon on stewardship; the message applies. It is a message that shines upon those who in so many ways work hard for the good of this church, even those who come to help at the last minute or who hope that whatever their honest contribution, it may be of some use. It is a message that shines upon those who seek to learn how to be emergency responders for a crisis the likes of which our region has not experienced in some time.

The kingdom of heaven comes a little closer as we stretch towards generosity of spirit through time, money, and whatever talents God has graced us with. Remember the father in the parable of the prodigal son. The father is willing to wait until his son is on the road home and then welcomes him with the fullness of love. Even if we show up later than others, God longs for our hearts to be moved in this way. And God can be patient. As for those who were First Responders for the Kingdom, that’s cool too. God pays them in full. As the father says to the son who has labored at home all those years, “I am always with you and all that I have is yours.”

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, thank you for your overwhelming generosity to us. Give us the grace to trust it, even when to us it seems slow in coming. Help us to be more generous to those whom you have given us to know. Help us to be more generous in the way we see others. Help us to be more generous in the time that we spend with you. Help us to be more generous in judging ourselves, for we are your laborers, valued and provided for by you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

We Have Options

2011-09-11T19:38:00.001-04:00

The Lord be with you/ and also with you
No matter what happens, even when shadows gather, we can trust our God.
Come, let us worship!

Please pray with me: Dearest Lord, by the might of your Spirit lift us to your presence, where we may be still and hear your word and your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
From today’s Gospel: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

These have been sobering weeks for us—as a congregation, a town, and a region. We have said our earthly goodbyes to two women loved in this town, Mabel Myers and Ruth Van Leuven. Kingston paid its final respect to Doug Cordo, the young soldier killed in Afghanistan. And then our region was ravaged by winds and floods, with many still in desperate need of help.

Now we are observing a national day of mourning, the tenth anniversary of the attack upon our country by terrorists. If any of you had personal losses on that day, I invite you to lift them up during our time of concerns. But even those of us who were removed from the carnage and grief, remember the disbelief and then the horror and despair of that first 9/11. The unthinkable had happened. I was in New Haven at seminary. I remember the vigils all over campus. There were a few angry signs painted on plywood as I drove home. But mainly people stood in speechless sorrow with their flickering candles, looking for some way of being with others when words were impossible.

How is such a wound healed? How is such a nightmare quieted? How do we live with such memories? Where is God in all this? As I read through the special issue of New York Magazine this week, I was haunted by a photograph of two men who jumped from the towers. Many such photographs have been suppressed, considered an insult to the dead and too shocking for the living. These photographs make us realize in one more way just how vulnerable the victims were. Probably 7 percent of those murdered on 9/11 died by jumping. “Those trapped in the towers had only two choices--, “ wrote the reporter Susie Linfield (p. 82), “to jump to their deaths or to be incinerated—which is to say they had no choice at all….What the 9/11 victims faced was the absence of options.” It is essential that we honor all those faced with the absence of options.

We must also honor those who, God knows how, made options for themselves. Those directly affected have been telling their stories this week. There was the firefighter father who went to ground zero looking for his son. He didn’t find him, but as he looked he found others. Here is someone’s son, he realized, here is someone that needs to be found. I heard an interview with a young woman who must have been barely twenty when she lost her mother. She has spent the last ten years making documentaries of terrorist action in the Muslim world to show the many caring and reasonable members of Islam the horrors that are being enacted in the name of their faith. And there was David Bouley, owner of a 4-star restaurant near Ground Zero, who for weeks afterwards fed any worker who came in.

These people, in the midst of grief, either their own or that of others, found options. In some way, they were beginning the process of healing by reaching out to others, known and unknown. They were proving that peace and community are stronger than hate and violence. Think of the concentrated emergency-service response—the largest in American history (New York, 62). Despite all the horror, the outpouring of energy and courage and selflessness of the next days and weeks cannot be forgotten. It was as though the only possible response was to give all one had, without thought for the consequences, even though, for many of the rescuers and workers, those consequences were fatal. They were and must remain amazing role-models.

God had to have been moving the hearts of many in that tragedy. God had to be at the side of those struggling to respond and then struggling with the toxic after effects, either physical or spiritual. As Christians, we can honor “the circles of fellowship” that formed and that continue to strengthen those changed by that day. Without in any way minimizing the tragedy, we must realize the gift that those responders and those survivors have left us. I see in them a gift of healing and a gift for our future together as a nation and beyond. I see in them a reminder that as Christians, we have options.

In looking for Scripture that would comfort and guide, I was drawn to Isaiah’s God-given vision of a world in which there is neither weeping nor cries of distress. In which there is neither murder nor destruction. These are powerful words. They are not fantasy or poetry. They are words of prophesy, even though, in their own way, they are as hard to believe as news reports of sudden tragedy. They are the words of a God who gives us options.

The first Christians believed that such a world was possible if they worked towards it together under the guidance of Christ. In the passage from Acts, we are told of the choices they made, the options they forged for themselves. They ”devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” They gave to any in need. They were inspired to do so “because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” We read of conversions, even of public officials, and of countless physical healings.
Such productive fellowship may well seem unrealistic, beyond our reach. And yet, at times, we approach it. I have seen it in this church, among us here, over and over again. All Christ asks is that we fall in love with the possibility and that we see it as an option. Christ asks that we work our hardest to listen and follow his parting words: I leave you my peace, but my peace is not what the world gives. As your pastor, I cannot presume to say what each person’s individual choices might be, but I am convinced that, as a start, we must seek and nurture God’s peace within ourselves, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation in any part of our lives where they are needed.

Each one of us can begin with basic questions: Am I willing to be forgiven by God? By myself? By someone else? Am I willing to forgive someone else? Am I willing to be the one to act? Am I praying for any group toward whom I feel fear, anger, resentment, or indignation? Am I also praying for myself?

For me, it is good to remember the prayer of St. Francis: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant they we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

A Celebration of the Life of Ruth M. Van Leuven

2011-08-26T18:37:00.000-04:00

August 23, 2011
Sermon

Dearest Children of God,
We are here to celebrate the life of Ruth Margie Van Leuven, a descendant of some of the first settlers of this region. Like her forebears, Ruth was a hard and conscientious worker, one of those whose steady commitment to their job and their family keeps the community going. Ruth had dreamed of becoming a model. She certainly had a beautiful figure and was accepted at modeling school, but because of an accident that was not to be. Instead she became a nurturer, in her paid work and beyond.
She was always buying presents for the children she knew. She cared for her brother Walter’s home and those of many others. She’d do anything for anybody. She was good to her neighbors. She’d take them on errands. Does it matter that sometimes she’d get a bit annoyed when they asked her to take them to one place and ended up asking her to go to four or five? She was a woman of strong feelings. Her neighbors probably knew that finally Ruthie wouldn’t say no.
The bottom line for Ruth was always to be there for those she knew. Her heart was as big as this world. If you were a little short, she gave you money. She loved to cook: her family remembers her mac and cheese and her fried chicken, even though she herself stopped eating meat years ago because she could not bear the suffering inflicted upon the animals used for food. She loved to go fishing, but never brought fish home because she would usually let them go. One hobby that she dearly enjoyed was doing ceramics. Her class was every Tuesday night. Should we be surprised that she made animals and angels? She loved her church as well, and was a shining light in the Church of the Nazarene in Kingston until it closed. More recently she began coming to this church and would have continued except that her illness made it impossible.
Ruthie’s first love was her family. She took care of her parents when they became ill. Her nephew Jimmy remembers the wonderful Sunday drives that she, he, and Walter would take. They’d go to Vermont looking for antiques or to Lake George where they could enjoy the horses, or to Connecticut, and they’d have a nice meal on the way. In time, she began looking after her sister Elaine in Port Ewen. First, she would have coffee every morning with her sister Eloise who lived around the corner from her in Kingston: coffee in the morning and a little visit and TV at the end of the day. Even after she became ill, she continued going to her brother Walter’s house to care for Elaine. She did not shirk her responsibilities.
Her three-year fight with cancer was terrible and so hard to accept. Why would this happen to such a good, upright, and caring person? There is no easy answer. She did not deserve to suffer. Anger at this ending of a life is fully understandable. The hole that she will leave in the hearts of her family and of those of us who knew her is huge. But we must be thankful that her suffering is finally over.
Now bear me out and understand the comparison I am going to make. Ruth had a little dog named Chance, who is still alive and well at Walter’s. Chance was a rescued dog, so named because Ruth knew she was giving her a second chance. That is what God does for each one of us. We no longer see Ruth, but she is not gone. God takes each of us from wherever we are in this hard and sometimes harsh mortal life. God surrounds us with a divine love and care and mercy that we can hardly imagine. God gives us a second chance. This is our faith and this is our hope.
Ruth is now resting safely from her pain and her labors. There can be no doubt in my mind that she is a lamb of our Savior’s own flock. She has been redeemed by our Savior’s own life and terrible death among us, and freed by our Savior’s mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension. Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light. Our faith tells us that Ruth has been received into everlasting peace and into that glorious company of the saints of light. She has been raised into new life, a life that everything in her life among us was preparing her for. This is cause for celebration and for praise, and this is why, despite our terrible grief, we know there can be joy in this day.
I must say of Ruth what I love to say of each blessed departed soul: She now knows so much more than we do. She is in the presence of the one Beloved. We are still pilgrims with miles to go, but Ruth has finished her course, living in her heavenly home for eternity. We sing Alleluia--Praise the Lord--with the hope and faith we can muster, but Ruth’s hope and faith have finally been fulfilled. Her song is richer than we can yet know, but we can join her in saying tegether: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. So may it be, Lord Jesus. And let the people say,
Amen.

Who Is Jesus?

2011-08-26T17:46:00.001-04:00

Sermon for 8.21.11, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: “Who Is Jesus?”
Common Lectionary Scriptural Lessons: Psalm 124; Exodus 1.8-2.10;
Romans 12.1-8; Matthew 16.13-20

Please pray with me: May my words please you, dear Lord, and may your Holy Spirit speak them to those gathered before you, here, in your holy place. Amen.
From today’s Epistle: “…We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.”

Sometimes the lessons chosen for the Common Lectionary really support each other as a unit. Today they seem to have gotten it right! In Exodus, the women work together to disobey Pharaoh so that the children can survive. In Romans, Paul asks us to think of ourselves as one body, each part absolutely connected to the other and each part not only having different functions but having unique and true value. And then in Matthew, we hear Christ proclaimed by Peter as the “Son of the living God.”

These passages are a perfect introduction to the themes of the combined Vacation Bible School that took over the Reformed Church this past week and took over the schedules of some of us on the VBS Committee here. The Vacation Bible School is offered by the combined efforts of three churches in Port Ewen: Town of Esopus United Methodist Church, the Reformed Church, and Presentation Roman Catholic Church. Two years ago, when I first came, there were 44 students. Last year there were 59, and this time we had 70. The upper classes that Susan Dolce and I taught (grades 5 & 6, 7 & 8) topped out at 18 students. We don’t usually see all those children in our churches!

It was clear that the children genuinely enjoyed their time. Through their collections each morning at worship, they brought $219 to the Port Ewen Food Pantry (housed and run by our Methodist Church) and over 157 items of food. They brought materials for 11 school kits. The older students, under Susan’s direction, packaged 18 full and 7 partial kits of toiletries. These older ones came down to the Pantry and helped inventory and shelve the donations. From the questions they asked—such as “Why are there so many cans of green beans?”--it was clear that this work made an impression on them. They also gifted us with the blankets that we have placed over the altar rail; these are for us to give out in winter so that a few people at least can feel cozy.

But the week was far more than these statistics. VBS is community building and mission in the deepest sense. Children are our future, our responsibility, and a way that God blesses us. They bring their individual and age-related gifts to the body of Christ of which we are all a part. How good it is that there were so many and that some will remember that at least three different churches gathered them. The children may not yet know how serious the differences among our denominations can be. More important is that we prayed, sang, played, and talked about God together. There were unchurched children there as well and children from other churches. Many some from each group came in part because their friends were going or because it gave their moms some precious mornings off. What nobody knows is that word, what activity, what response will come back to them, maybe years from now and maybe in an hour of need. Let them remember that diverse as we may have been, we are all the children of God. So much the better that the space we shared was safe and the time filled with laughter.

The lessons were organized around five very basic yet important questions. We didn’t start, as does Jesus in the passage from Matthew, by asking, “Who do people say that I am?”. Instead we asked much the same question that our Lord was really interested in: “Who do you say that I am?” Tuesday’s question was “Why can I trust Jesus,” then “Why do I need Jesus,” then “How can Jesus help me when I mess us,” and finally, on Friday, “What does Jesus want me to do?” I could spend the rest of my life on these questions!

I taught two days, Pastor Jim Beukelman two, we overlapped on Friday, and Susan Dolce, bless her heart, was our five-day continuity. We wanted our examples to be as concrete as possible for our age group, and so we chose Bible stories that we thought the students could imagine themselves into. For warm-up, we tossed beach balls back and forth; the one left holding them when I chapped had to give a quick answer to a question such as “What makes a friend?” of “Tell us something that no one would guess about you”—questions that we could apply to Jesus later on. But sometimes we popped the big question: “Who is Jesus?” Aside from “Miracle Worker,” “God,” and “Savior,” we got “someone who helps me with my fears” and “Jesus is bread.”

For the balance of this first lesson, we had them divide into small groups, read the stories of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, and then draw pictures showing what kind of person they thought Jesus was in the story. The results were telling: Often the Jesus figure looked very much like them, small and vulnerable, but not backing down, despite a huge or very red devil, surrounded by amazing clouds and lightning.

There was also a Bible verse for each day. On Wednesday, the day of looking at why we need Jesus, the verse was from John 10.10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” As we worked through our story choice for that day, the feeding of the multitude, the students translated “abundant” as: “amazing,” “more than enough,” “as much as I need,” “feeling filled,” “an awesome life,” “graceful/grace filled,” “filled with wanting to give,” “enough for others,” and—simply—“satisfied.” We then asked them to complete two questions: “I need Jesus because…” and “Jesus needs me because….” Here’s what we heard: “He fills us,” “He understands us,” “He listens,” “He notices us.” And conversely: “Jesus wants us to pray,” “to love him,” “to care,” “to continue his ministry,” “to protect his church from harm.”

I’m sure that some of these responses began developing on the previous day when the students did a trust exercise: They were blindfolded and someone told them how and where it was safe to go. On the next day, the students loved pantomiming the story of the Prodigal Son. No words, just actions, as they considered this story of a messed-up boy and a God who is always waiting.

Susan and I struggled to find the right story for the last day. We didn’t just want to preach discipleship in the abstract. We wanted a story for the students to act out that would show Jesus reaching out to someone no one else would go near. It was Susan who came up with Zaccheus, the tax collector. Our play opened the Evening for Families and Friends on Friday night.

Susan Dolce: We wanted to end the week with something that would tie together the five questions proposed by the VBS program. I thought of the story of Zaccheus because I wanted something that would hold the interest—and energy-- of 5th through 8th graders and help them answer the questions. We thought of making it into a play because the interaction would help them understand the story better. For those not familiar with the story, it would be easy to follow.

A tall and gentle young man named Tayshan Grey portrayed Jesus. Zaccheus was portrayed by one of the shorter members of the class, Mike Miller. The tree that he climbed was a ladder draped in table clothes. I put a slit in the top, so Zaccheus could pop his head out of it and wear it like a poncho. Of course the audience laughed! Our two narrators, Robert and Olivia, helped the audience picture the scenes. The rest of the class and Pastor Jim were the crowd that followed Jesus and tried to stop him from going to Zaccheus’s house. But Jesus refused to listen, and the two sauntered off, with a changed crowd following behind.

The class became very involved in the play and those with reading parts wanted to practice them over and over. The rest of us noticed that the more they read out loud, the more they seemed to understand. When we had our final rehearsal, I asked how the play answered our questions from the week’s lessons. And here’s what we heard: Clearly this is a man we can trust and one we need. Look how he turned around that awful tax collector who worked for the Romans! Look how he changed someone who had been really messed up. Look how he changed us in the crowd! Pastor Dora and I loved our interactions with all the boys and girls and the insights that the young are so able to provide when we give them a chance and a way.

Pastor’s closing prayer:
Dearest Lord: May we remember your gifts to us: that you are in our lives; that we can trust you; that we need you more than we might know; that we can always turn to you, even when we’ve messed up—or find ourselves with others who have; and, finally, that you want us to reach out in love even to those who are very different from us. Give us grace to remember that all of us, diverse as we may be, are part of your body, are part of your love. Help us to keep asking the questions we asked the children this week and to live into them more deeply day by day. We pray in your name. Amen.

Living Hope

2011-03-28T16:55:00.001-04:00

Morning Worship
Third Sunday of Lent – March 27, 2011
“Living Hope”
Lectionary for Fourth Sunday of Lent:
1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Invocation (in unison):
Holy and awesome God, we come this morning for hope that will sustain us in times of fear and confusion and doubt. Wash us today with the living waters of your presence so that we may accept your mercy and your grace for ourselves and, in so doing, be able to offer them to others. Open us to the possibilities of encountering you in unexpected ways and of sharing your love and generosity in unexpected ways with those whom we encounter. Amen.

Prayer for Guidance: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised. Amen.

Prayer of Confession (in unison):
Patient and ever-faithful God, we confess that we can be an unsatisfied people. When things do not go as we wish, we murmur and complain and doubt. We lose hope in the people around us, and we lose hope in you. We put you to the test rather than trusting your loving kindness. Forgive us, we pray. Let us quench our thirst through you. Amen.

The Lord be with you/ and also with you
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
May your name be praised!
Come, let us worship!

Sermon for 3.27.11, Third Sunday in Lent: “Living Hope”
Exodus 17.1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-42

Please pray with me: May my words help turn our hearts to you, Dear Lord, and may the Holy Spirit add its blessing. Amen.

From today’s Gospel: “Jesus replied, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”

Such an unexpected thing happened to me on Tuesday night. I was on my way back to Connecticut at about 9:45 and thought I’d stop on 9W to get gas and a hard roll. But when I walked into the station, not one roll was left. “Not one roll anywhere?” I moaned because I know the people who work there. “Not one,” they said. Then behind me, I heard a lovely male voice, “Rolls? You want rolls? I have rolls.” None of us knew him, but he was apparently making his delivery rounds for the next day—not to the station where I was, however. When I followed him outside, he opened the back of his truck, handed me a bag and said, “You may have two.” Inside, the women were waiting with butter. “Dinner on the world tonight, pastor!” We were all laughing, and I certainly had what I’d longed for.

The Children in the Wilderness had a far greater need than mine, but an unexpected blessing was waiting for them too. They’re stranded miles—even years—from nowhere and there is no water, for them, their children, or their livestock. Moses was to hear this story over and over again. Whenever anything went wrong, they would grumble and complain, “You couldn’t just have left us to die in Egypt!” God, who’s heard it all before too, of course, provides them with real and good water in the most improbable way—by having Moses strike a rock. This was not the first time God, through Moses, had given them living hope. They might have remembered the parting of the Red Sea. Still, God’s people are easily frustrated and frightened. Who can blame them? The story can really come alive because of the many places today, including Japan and refugee camps, where people don’t have good drinking water. The point is that God still loves those wandering in desert places and does not allow that love “to be soured [or] frustrated” by short memories.1

The woman at the well in the Gospel of John, on the other hand, certainly didn’t know what it was that she needed. In the middle of everyday chores, a thirsty Jewish man suddenly asks her for water. She’s perfectly aware that Jews and Samaritans have had religious differences for centuries and that they regard one another as outsiders. But this one is thirsty and she has the water bucket. Because of her five husbands, the usual interpretation is that she is a loose woman and, when she begins to ask Jesus questions, bolder than she should be. But John is clever; he’ll tell you one thing—and it will be true, but only partially, for it will also have another meaning.

So we need to look at something else here, and that’s why I wanted Ed and Lisa to read together this morning. I wasn’t type-casting them as Jesus and the Samaritan Women. For one thing, they’re married; they’ve made a covenant with one another. Well, where did boy meet girl in ancient Israel? In case we’ve forgotten, Jacob is mentioned three times at the start of this very passage! And Jacob fell in love with Rachel at the well! There were usually onlookers, so one had to behave, but the conversation could begin. When Lisa and Ed read, they were playing their parts, but the truth of who they really are underlies that, and we here know it. In this case, who they really are adds to our understanding of the passage.

So too with Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Jesus is the thirsty traveler and the Woman has the bucket. And then the roles reverse and a love story of sorts begins. Unlike Nicodemus, just one chapter earlier, the woman does not back off. She begins to engage Jesus in real conversation. She asserts herself as a Samaritan and defends the authority of her ancestor, Jacob. But she is a good listener and only a few verses later, she asks for the water that Jesus is offering to her. Notice that Jesus doesn’t chide her for being literal, or make fun of her, as he did Nicodemus. He could have considered her an outsider, a woman, and therefore invisible. Instead, he talks to her and offers her eternal life. As she begins to understand and accept this hope, as she starts her new spiritual life, he keeps the conversation going. He is not condescending, but amazingly reveals himself as God, as the “I am.”

The woman is as overwhelmed by his respect and his kindness as by his revelation. Leaving her water jar behind, she rushes into the city to proclaim her Good News. She cannot keep her experience to herself. “He told me everything I have ever done,” she keeps repeating, and with no suggestion of having been found out or disgraced. “Come and see,” she says, echoing the words used by the first disciples as they recruited others. She essentially becomes a disciple herself and “many Samaritans …believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” They proclaim him “the Savior of the world.” They are ready to accept his new covenant.

We don’t hear more of the woman’s story, but we know that Jesus has started her on a serious journey and that a covenant of faith has been established between them.2 Faithfulness between God and God’s people is often described as a marriage. It is certainly a mutual relationship, for if Jesus has offered her a living hope and shown her the face of the Messiah, she has accepted his words, become his apostle, and already begun living the hope he has given her. She has begun to embody that hope for everyone she meets.

We too are people who hunger and thirst. Like the Children in the Wilderness, we may lose hope because we think God does not love us sufficiently. It may be easier to hold onto our Massahs (places of testing) or our Meribahs (places of quarreling) than to do the hard work of turning ourselves around. Or we may try to tough things out ourselves without developing that closer relationship to God that the Woman begins to realize she longs for. We may also forget that Jesus offered living water to the Woman through patient and kind conversation, through a caring relationship. We can live that way with others as well.

We meet the Woman as she begins her discipleship. We see the Children of Israel in the thick of crisis. The walk to Golgotha that we are invited to take with Jesus during this season of Lent is not easy, but if we persist, we will not only develop endurance and character, as Paul tell us, but we will begin living that hope with which Christ longs to fill all hearts. He carries the burden of our utter helplessness and he carries it with immense love for each one of us. His immense love and the peace that it brings are as inexhaustible and sometimes as surprising as a spring of fresh water that suddenly gushes up from the earth.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, give us the courage or the humility—whatever is required—to know that you are waiting for us wherever we are in our lives. Let us not reject your love or take it for granted, but let us long for it and cherish it. Let us take time, each day, to be with you. And if you surprise us with your presence, let us, like the Samaritan Woman, respond by seeking to know you further. Finally, dear Lord, let us live our hope in you. Let others feel your grace pouring through us. Amen.

Just How Hungry Are We?

2011-03-14T14:53:00.003-04:00

Morning Worship for the First Sunday of Lent
March 13, 2011
“Just How Hungry Are We?”
Lectionary for the Second Sunday of Lent: Genesis 12:1-4a;
Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Gathering
Announcements
Organ Prelude
Greeting by Pastor
Invocation (in unison):
Great and holy God, awe and reverence, fear and trembling do not come easily to us, but we come before you this morning, the first Sunday in Lent, knowing that your eyes are upon us and that your love surrounds us. It is you, Lord, who teach us and guide us. Help us to hunger after you. Help us to want what we need. Help us to rejoice in the gift of your unfailing love. Amen.
The Entrance
*Introit #269 “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days” (vs. 1 & 2)
*Call to Worship: Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people’s plight.
Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.
Help me to take responsibility for my own life;
So that I can be free at last.
Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with other workers.
Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.
Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world. Amen.
*Opening Hymn #402 “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian”
*Greeting One Another with the Peace of Christ
Anthem by Our Choir
A Time for Children of All Ages
(Children 3 and older may proceed to Children’s Church.)
Proclamation of the Word
Old Testament Lesson: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 (New Living Translation)
Musical Interlude
New Testament Lesson: Romans 5:12-19 (The Message)
Musical Interlude
The Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 (The Message)
Sermon: “Just How Hungry Are We?” Pastor Dora J. Odarenko
Response to the Word
*Sermon Hymn #397 “I Need Thee Every Hour”
Prayer of Confession (in unison):
Dearest Lord, we are afraid to face the reality of our mortality and of our sins. Turning to you seems like too great a burden or we are ashamed to begin to admit our misdeeds. Instead we busy our minds with all manner of self-important distractions and worries. Forgive us for hiding from you or simply thinking we can turn our backs. Forgive us for tiptoeing into your presence with little expectation. Forgive us for finding it so hard to turn fully to you. In your steadfast love, cleanse us. In your Holy Spirit, restore us. In the name of our Savior, we pray. Amen.
(A period of silence for reflection and prayer will follow.)
Words of Assurance and Hope
Sharing of Joys and Concerns
Silent Prayer followed by Pastoral Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
The Offering of Our Gifts
*Doxology
*Prayer of Thanksgiving
Sending Forth
*Sending Hymn #398 “Jesus Calls Us” (vs. 1, 3-5)
*Dismissal with Blessing
Organ Postlude

Sermon for 3.13.11, first Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17, 3.1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s Gospel: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

I have to start this morning with my goats. In this season of self-examination and repentance, it’s not bad to see ourselves through an outrageous comparison. Goats are so determined: determined to find a way to push down the fence, to get into the garden, to whip around me and get into the grain bin. It’s not only about eating. It’s about independence and being what they please, over and over again. It’s about their understanding of freedom, which they love.

Our love of these same traits may help us look at our first story from Scripture: Adam and Eve in the Garden. We’ve heard it described so often as a tale about sin and sex. We all know the terrible rap that Eve and women have had to take because of this way of reading it. But the words “sin” and “punishment” do not appear. Maybe we should think about this account as a way to talk about God’s purposes for us.

Into this garden of original blessings, God placed the first humans, giving them clear instructions. The Hebrew tells us they were “to serve and to preserve or protect” this garden, not simply till and keep it. God is giving the man and the woman a vocation.1 This vocation is not to lord it over the garden or see what they can get out of it. It is to be responsible for what had been placed in it, and watch over it. In other early creation stories, the gods often created people as a by-product or a mistake. It was the most earnest belief of these first writers of Scripture that our God created us for a holy purpose, to care for what God had made and loved.

In doing so, God gave us a great deal of freedom, but the freedom was not total. God asked for trust and intimacy. And so this vocation and its freedom had limits, constraints considered appropriate by God, and consequences if these constraints were ignored. These limits are made real for us by that famous tree with its apple.

When the serpent asks the woman whether God really gave them such a command, he’s trying to redirect the way Eve thinks of her vocation. He also wants to erode her trust in God. “Think about what you can gain for yourself. You’ll have a whole new kind of seeing,” he argues, “You’ll know so much more.” Trying out his suggestion, Eve looks at the tree again: it certainly seems to have good fruit; it’s beautiful—and therefore can’t be all that bad for her; and she will have a whole new and broad range of experiences. So she decides to go her own way and eat.

The result of her hunger and that of her husband is to estrange them from God and, as we hear them quarreling, from one another. God didn’t simply want them to behave,2 to fall into line. God wanted fullness of life for them in that fertile garden, through a balanced relationship with God and all that God had placed there with them. But their desire to put their own personal knowledge ahead of God’s guidance means that they tried to become like God. They were no longer simply and wonderfully in God; they acted against God.3 Actions against God’s creation must follow.

Such willful breaking of their relationship with God is what we must call sin. It is a pattern for a whole list of sins—many of them horrible. Cain’s murder of Abel will follow. But we may take more from this story if we think about how subtlely the problem starts and repeats itself: with lack of trust in God, lack of relationship with God, with turning away from what God is calling us to do, with forgetting God’s gracious limits on our own self-centeredness. This is the human condition without grace.

God wants so much more for us and with us than that. And so we are given a second story from Scripture this morning, the story of Jesus in the wilderness. Just as we know that Eve will say yes, we know that Jesus will say no. But Matthew wanted us to hear Jesus say no, wanted us to hear the way he refused to act against God. Matthew also wanted us to realize that even for the beloved son there was testing. Just as the serpent wanted Eve to question God’s loving instructions, so that voice in Jesus’ ear wanted to mislead Jesus about sonship with God.

Each of the temptations is a variation on the desire for power or control. Each would separate Jesus from God and lead to self-destruction. These temptations continue to haunt us. Can stones become bread? Should we demand miracles? Should the laws of nature be pushed aside? As we increasingly learn to do so, should we abandon or mistreat the natural world that we have been given? What about spectacle, outward show, and risk taking? Should we long for such abilities in our leaders, our entertainers, and in our culture? How high have we turned the volume of our own lives? Who and what suffers because of such priorities? What about the sheer drive for power, political or otherwise? What models shape our decision-making, our conversations and our meetings: in our churches, school boards, and assemblies? How hungry are we for authority and esteem? How far do we allow jealousy and the desire for privilege to drive us? Who and what do we overlook and abandon?

As Jesus rejects each temptation, he prepares himself for the cross. He prepares us, as we begin this season of Lent, to understand the cost of the cross that we are approaching with him. Jesus last temptation will come as he hangs “despised and rejected” and is mocked by those who pass by, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40).

But Jesus is not yet there. In the wilderness, he drives Satan away with his final great assertion: “Serve the Lord your God with absolute single-heartedness.” Then angels come and bring him the food and drink his body must have longed for. I love the tenderness of the older translations here: “Angels came and waited on him,” angels “ministered unto him.”

In his systematic rebuke of Satan, Jesus shows, despite fatigue and hunger, that we do have incredible freedom, the freedom to be obedient and to trust the relationship and the vocation for which God created us. This is the freedom to which Lent invites us. This is the hunger that Lent helps us discover and promises to fill. Most of us are recovering sinners,4 needing over and over again to speak our misdeeds to God. But God’s grace and God’s vocation call us by name. Every day and every Lent.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, Give us the grace to trust you even when it is hard for us to believe that you are near enough to help. Even when it is hard for us to realize how deeply you love us. In this time of Lent, help us to turn our sins over to you. Help us to stop thinking so much about ourselves and to come closer to you and the creation in which you have placed us. Through our care of what you have given us and through mindfulness of your Word, let us return your love. We pray in your dear name. Amen.

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-10T12:53:00.000-05:00

Ash Wednesday, 9 March 2011, 7:30 pm
Joint service for Town of Esopus UMC and the Reformed Church of Port Ewen

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From tonight’s Gospel: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret….”

This is an evening to pray about our own mortality and to pray for greater love, and so I’d like to start with a story about three of my young nephews.

These boys had shared their home for most of their lives with Grandma Rose. After she was widowed, she really had no place to go. No one wanted to see her in a home, and so in love and compassion, the boys’ mother, my niece Li, invited her to live with them, even though it complicated an already exhausting life of motherhood, running a growing accounting firm, and serious involvement in church. But Li also wanted her boys to see such love and compassion in action, in the daily life of the household.

When you take an older person with some frailties into your home, there can be a risk. And so on Valentine’s Day, Grandma Rose was not in the kitchen when the family got home after school. When they went upstairs, they found she had died—apparently very quickly—of a massive stroke. You can imagine the shock, distress, and grief.

But there was something else they understood and that will continue to strengthen them despite and through their sorrow. Grandma Rose died at home, in her own pretty room, with all her familiar memories and expectations around her. The ones who found her and made the first decisions about her were not strangers, but those she deeply loved. In this, she was blessed. Her family too was blessed in its faithfulness and will continue to be blessed by their experience of love.

When I visited this past weekend, the boys were showing me samples of their dad’s cabinet work, but when we entered Rose’s room, the youngest went right to a dish of candy and brought it over to me. “Would you like some?” he asked. “Grandma always had it for us.” Just so, there could be sweetness in Rose’s passing because it was so tied to the sweetness that had been offered and shared.

And so I hope it may be with us. Who knows really why we come to an Ash Wednesday service. We know we are supposed to. We are present on this night because our faithfulness has led us here. Somewhere in our hearts, we may be telling God that we’re already as faithful as we know how to be. Are we really being asked to do even more? But once we are here, the ashes remind us of what we really know, but often try to forget: that our mortal lives—good, bad, mixed—will not last forever. The ashes will remind us that whatever our excuses or reasons, there are moments in our lives—perhaps more than moments—that might have been lived in a far better way. Because our misdeeds surely involve our relationship with others, we are also here to pray for those whom we have slighted or treated ill in all those ways spelled out in the opening prayer, given us by Isaiah.

There is another reason. We are here because this night is the beginning of a time given to us by Our Lord to be with him, to watch with him, as he begins his last walk to Jerusalem, and then beyond Jerusalem to Golgotha and the cross. Lent is an invitation to cease to know ourselves, for a little while, and to know Christ, to keep our eyes on him alone, to allow nothing to come between Christ and ourselves, if only in a few deeply prayerful minutes each day.

Surely this is one way to understand Jesus’ instruction to go into our most private room, our inner sanctum, and lock the door before we pray. We must enter deeply into the innermost layers of our being and invite Christ to be there with us, to guide us—no one else, nothing else. I literally have to set a timer during my serious prayer time so that I have no excuse to glance at my watch. It’s hard to put Christ first and make Christ all-important. Yet only in this way, can God begin making us part of the heavenly Kingdom for which we pray.

And so maybe most of all, in the middle of lives that are busy and often stressed, we are making time to be here because we love Our Lord, we love Jesus. But here’s the catch: we’re not only being invited to “do Lent.” It’s not a quick fix that will be over before we know it. We’re being asked to live Lent, to use Lent to shape a new life. This time set aside begins to get us into shape for Christ. The discipline of Lent can push other hungers to the side so that we hunger for Christ alone: His name, His Kingdom, His will.

Not long ago, I heard a wonderful organ piece that was inspired by Bach’s chorale prelude “Dearest Jesus, we are here.” This is how it begins: “Blessed Jesus, at thy word/ We are gathered all to hear thee./ Let our hearts and souls be stirred/ now to seek and fear and love thee.” Before we go home tonight, we will share together, and with Our Lord, a meal of sacrifice and praise and thanksgiving. We will hear the words that he spoke to his first disciples and to us. Communion is a meal that Christ gives us in an immense act of love. Gathering to receive it in this way, our hearts and souls can be stirred not only to seek and fear Christ, but to offer that love back to Christ, and to one another, and even to ourselves.

“Blessed Jesus, we are here:” The words are wonderfully direct, and so I had another more immediate thought as I heard this piece for the first time. “We are here:” I realized that this statement is an answer to the hymn we all know and sing, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” On this night, we are all there—and here—together: Now is the acceptable time! We are here to admit our own mortality and the vulnerability that Christ is willing to share with us. We are here in sorrow. We are here in repentance for all we have done to waste God’s gifts and all we have done to cause Christ pain. And we are here in ever deepening love.

Let us pray: Dearest God, may we keep a holy Lent. Give us grace to treasure this time with you and prepare for our Lord’s passion and resurrection by self-examination and repentance and renewed faith. Grant us humility to understand that our chief end is to know and be known by you. Let us discover, more fully than ever before, how much we hunger and thirst for you. May our hearts be sustained by love of you alone. Amen.

Seek We First

2011-02-28T12:27:00.001-05:00

Sermon for 2.27.11
Psalm 131; Isaiah 49:8-16a; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34

Please pray with me: May my words and the responses of each of our hearts bring us closer to You, our God, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning's Epistle: “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries.”

We are a consumer society, no doubt about it. Enough plastic water bottles last year, in the US alone, to go around the earth 190 times. To say nothing of all our discarded microwaves and refrigerators. We're running out of land fills. And then there are people who try very hard not to contribute to this. Take me. I always wanted a nice big house that would have room for anything I need to save: nice old hand knit sweaters that no longer fit, extra supplies for school and camp projects, pretty saucers that have lost their matching cups! An attic stuffed with things I'll probably just have to add to that landfill some day.

And then along comes Matthew's lesson for this morning. Last week we were being told to love our enemies. Not necessarily live with them, but forgive them. But this week we're being told to trust God. Full-time. Of course we love God and God loves us. Isaiah and Psalm 131promise that God loves us intimately, even more faithfully than a mother loves her newborn. But then—why do we worry so much? Why are we so anxious and why are we constantly making projections, financial and otherwise?

We may be a consumer society because we are an anxious society. I squirrel away all that stuff in part because I want to be sure it's there should I need it. It's my form of security. It's also my attempt at control. Control over any future emergency that might leave me in want. In bigger ways too, we feel that what we own—or are in the process of paying for or paying insurance or taxes for—provides security and freedom from anxiety. “I'll always have my house. I'll always have my land.” And yet these very things can be the source of anxiety, of the burden we carry. Hoping to use them as bulwarks against tomorrow, we try “to drive out care with care.”1 Keeping up with the standards of our community is even more burdensome.

Jesus is so smart. He understood our need—certainly mine—for comfort and pride and knowing what's ahead. He realized our need to believe in our own achievements. He also knew that so much of what we think we're building is a mirage. A mirage that looks like the real thing until we get closer—and then it shimmers into nothing. Jesus remembered that the manna found by the children of Israel spoiled if they tried to save it for the next day. And he understood that any number of things can turn our lives upside down.

And so he tells us in this passage not to idolize the rewards of this life, not to fuss “about what's on the table” or whether our clothes are the latest fashion. “There is far more to your life,” he says, “than the food you put into your stomach, more to your outer appearance then the clothes you hang on your body.... Don't worry about missing out” (The Message). More profoundly, Jesus tells us not to worry if we face real lack. Our heavenly father knows our needs and is far more powerful than we are. “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now,” Jesus says. “God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes” (The Message).

This is a pretty tall order for faith. For our basic well-being, do we trust what our Bibles call Mammon or the wealth of the world for which we labor, or do we trust God? This brings me back to our bottles encircling the globe, even if they can be reused and even though water is very good for us. Are we running our lives by what everyone else does, even if this endangers the planet? Or are we striving to live more simply so that others—including creatures unlike us and plants—can simply live? Are we trying not to turn wants into needs? I remember the reaction of a young teen, returning to her parents' home after a mission trip to a small village in Honduras. At 4 am, she was walking around the house saying, “Too much stuff. Too much stuff.”

The faith-based trust that is being called upon in Matthew is not irresponsible. Jesus is not preaching an easy prosperity gospel: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything will fall into your lap now. Nor is Jesus suggesting that if we can work, we should neglect it. We have a bounden duty to care for ourselves and our loved ones to the best of our abilities. But we need to remember that these are distinct and subordinate concerns to our real work.2 “Before we start taking thought for our life, our food and clothing, our work and families, we must seek the righteousness of Christ.” 3

Making a commitment, even to a job, is tricky. That job, together with its rewards and anxieties about doing even better, can become a trap for our hearts or our lives. It can also drive us into the Little Red Hen Syndrome: “Well,” said the little Red Hen, “I'll do it myself.” And she did.

But in truth, we are not in charge, and to think this way is to dethrone God. That is why service to God and service to the world are incompatible. Upstanding, reasonable, church-going people that we are, we would so like to honor both: the God whom we love and the good things of this life. We'd like to think that we are building the kingdom when we are working for our families and our bread and our houses. And those are important things. But as sources of real security, they can compete with God. Unless we know who the real big boss is; unless we are first focused on our Creator above all else; unless we are first seeking our Redeemer's and our Sustainer's righteousness with a single and focused vision, there's going to be a tug of war. That will raise a barrier between us and God.

The call “not to be anxious for tomorrow” is not just an upbeat saying decorated with bluebirds and blossoms. Nor is Jesus giving us directions that we cannot follow. He is not mocking those who literally are in danger of starving. He is reminding us that desire, even need, for food and clothing is not the same as desire, even need, for the Kingdom of God. He is asking us to consider seriously what the joys of a kingdom of peace and justice might be. And to consider how we might bring that kingdom closer. Jesus is telling us of God's hopes for God's people: “Desire first and foremost God's kingdom and God's righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Common English Bible translation).

Jesus is urging us towards such desire with our hearts and minds and deeds. This is what we must seek first. First thing in the morning. A cup of coffee or tea is allowed, but then a real time of prayer before the news or the weather or our emails. Before we are much distracted by many things. Before what we consider our “real” day starts. And this isn't an excuse to put off work. This is spiritual discipline and it is our real work: seeking first!

There is something more wonderful for us than anxiety about the world and its pulls. Paul tells the Corinthians to think of themselves as “stewards of God's mysteries.” Stewards are managers who watch over and have access to the wealth and resources of a community. They are subordinates who must be trustworthy and who will be judged if they are not.

As good stewards, we can together rejoice in the shared life of the body of Christ, shaped by our obedience to his gospel and to God. The hidden wisdom of God—God's mysteries—will not always be discernible and will not always be delivered quickly or on demand. But God's wisdom will guide our lives and our community as we understand ourselves, each one of us, as God's special creations, and as we place ourselves fully under God's cherishing care.

Let us pray: Dear Lord of our hearts, may you be the one with whom we start each day. May you be the one in whom we rest no matter what our other tasks. With the bread that we need for today, feed us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. Give us the grace to find You at the very center of our lives. Amen.

I would like to express gratitude for continuing conversations with Brother James Michael Dowd of Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY.

Homily for Robinson/Duffy Wedding

2010-10-16T13:36:00.000-04:00

A Celebration of Christian Marriage for
Katelyn Elizabeth Robinson & Christopher Ryan Duffy
5:00 P.M. on 15 Oct 10
Town of Esopus United Methodist Church
Port Ewen, NY

Scriptural text is from John 2:1-11.

The Wedding in Cana is a perfect Scriptural reading for the wedding of Katelyn and Christopher. This is the only time that we actually see Jesus at a wedding, and the story appears only in the Gospel of John. I love to wonder about those who repeated the story so many more would know about it: the disciples were there and it increased their belief. But the servants who drew the water must have known and then the steward, who probably sampled both batches of wine. How else would he have known that the second batch was better?

Now look at the similarities to us here: We too are celebrating a wedding in a small village, like Cana. We too are a gathering of family and friends—and there are mothers present! These families also want everything to be just as it should be to honor this decisive moment in the lives of their children, to honor the new extended family that is being formed, and to honor all of us, their guests. Finally, our story today contains a miracle, one that I hope will be remembered by us who are here and told by those who are blessed by the married life of Katelyn and Christopher in the years to come.

We are not turning water into wine. And our feasting this evening is not a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice for us. But in a cynical time of quick decisions and casual arrangements, we are celebrating true love in the sight of God and the Church. Katelyn and Christopher have worked together. They have been friends and have taken the time to know and understand one another. I can’t forget what the couple said during our first conversations: Katelyn spoke of Christopher’s work ethic and of how much she could depend on him in every way. And Christopher said that he loves Katelyn’s “joy for life.” It was clear that they wanted their love blessed in the presence of God and of God’s people.

Our miracle starts, therefore, with the recognition of love that goes beyond self and self-interest. The vow that Katelyn and Christopher will shortly make is to give all that they are and all that they have. The poem we heard and Scripture readings speak of this amazing power of love. Marriage is a commitment to cherish so fully that two people are willing to trust their inner selves and hopes—and their daily lives—to one other. They must not only be willing to comfort; they must allow themselves to be comforted. I’m sure Katelyn and Christopher already know what it means to be pushed a little beyond their comfort zones.

And so there are risks in a commitment to marriage as well. The party in Cana ran out of wine; there was the danger that the rejoicing might end early. As the reading from Proverbs reminds us, in every marriage, there is the need to search—to stretch—for insight and understanding, knowing they are more precious than silver or a hefty bank account. Only with insight and understanding—and forgiveness—can a relationship survive. And when insight and understanding are not enough, Katelyn and Christopher will find themselves turning to God’s grace for comfort and help. The miracle of this evening is that Katelyn and Christopher are starting on a journey that will bring them even closer together and that will transform them and those who know them.

Katelyn and Christopher, with the commitment that you are pledging to one another this evening, the common everyday stuff of life—the water, if you like—can be turned, over and over again, into the wine of rejoicing. Remember this holy evening. May it bless your days together and may your happiness increase.

Let us pray:
Eternal God, creator and preserver of all life,
author of salvation, giver of all grace:
Bless and sanctify with your Holy Spirit
Katelyn and Christopher, who come now to join in marriage.
Grant that they may give their vows to each other
in the strength of your steadfast love.
Enable them to grow in love and peace
with you and with one another all their days,
that they may reach out
in concern and service to the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Intercessory Prayer from Service of Christian Marriage,
United Methodist Hymnal, p. 866)

A Spacious Place

2010-10-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 10.10.10

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s Psalm: “Come and see what God has done.…Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard….We went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.”

Recently, I heard a letter sent by a nurse in a mission orphanage in Africa. A young mother had given birth. Shortly after, she died, leaving her infant and a little girl. Utterly without equipment, the staff had to try to keep the newborn sufficiently warm. One of the children in the orphanage knew that Jesus could help. She prayed to Jesus to send a hot water bottle for the baby and a doll to comfort the sister. The nurse confessed a reluctance in saying “amen” to the prayer since she didn’t see how Jesus could do what the child had asked. But that very afternoon, a package arrived from her former Sunday School students in the states, mailed five months earlier. It was the first package she had received from home. In it were brightly colored T-shirts for all the children, and—needless to say—a hot water bottle and a lovely rag doll. How could God have known, five months before, that those last two items were so needed!

That letter was not only an act of praise for the Lord who hears before we call, but an act of remembrance for a mercy received and an act of profound gratitude to the Lord who knows before we ask. These are the powerful messages of our Scripture this morning. Our Call to Worship, Psalm 66, insists on God’s grace to us and urges us not only to accept grace but to accept the possibility of grace, for us, and for all the earth. We are not alone even when we in some remote settlement in Africa or wrestling with a problem on our own laptop or waiting for a specialist to read our x-rays. We are, all of us, saved from our own human misery by the ever-presence of God’s grace.

There are examples every single day. But it’s also worth remembering those times in our lives when something wonderful occurs at just the right time—improbably, impossibly: a letter, a phone call, a chance meeting, a reconciliation, an outpouring of generosity and effort in time of need. Suddenly things open up before us. We can stretch and breathe again. We tend to speak of “coincidences” and “the miracle of human kindness,” when in fact these are blessings of God’s love at work in this world through us. Who would have expected a simple Carpenter to be our Redeemer? God’s love always has the last word and God is always up to something greater than we can imagine. As the Psalm tells us, God has “brought us [and is bringing us] out to a spacious place.”

But once there, it is essential to mark that moment, to say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!” and then recount, as does Psalm 66, the delivery from Egypt, the later crossing over the Jordan River to the spacious Promised Land, and anything else for which we owe God thanks. So Timothy is told, “Remember Jesus Christ.” “Remind” people that even “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” Again and again, Scripture tells us to remember: There is the commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” At the Eucharist, Jesus urges us to eat and drink “in remembrance of me.” In this way, no matter what else is happening, we will become more Christ-like, workers who need not be ashamed.

Aren’t we sometimes like the nine lepers this morning, a story that only Luke remembers? They cry for healing and then go rushing off to resume normal lives. Not that anyone can blame them. It’s so tempting to put the bad memories behind us and enjoy normalcy again. These lepers were social outcasts, banished from their homes and families. They were appalling to look at and their condition was associated with sexual misconduct, like someone with syphilis or AIDS. No one would touch them and even their shadows were thought to carry infection. No wonder they want to return to human touch and society.

But one, the Samaritan, is willing to put off that precious moment of return. He seems willing to transform normalcy and keep some of the sacred within it. He turns back, praising God and thanking Jesus. He remembers to stop, to praise, and to thank. This remembering and this gratitude cause Jesus to say, “Your faith has made you whole.” It wasn’t that this particular man deserved to be healed because of an extraordinary record of faithful belief. Simply by giving thanks, he was acknowledging God and therefore living out faithfulness, putting it into practice. He stopped his own urgent business of being declared clean by the priests in order to mark his personal encounter with a saving God.

Jesus’ farewell to him, “Your faith has made you whole,” has tied some Christians up into guilty knots. They fear they have not been healed because of their own lack of belief. But what Jesus is honoring is the man’s deep gratitude. Jesus defines that as faith, for gratitude is life affirming and life giving and acknowledges the source of life. C.S. Lewis has written, “Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.”[1]

The grateful Samaritan was, in fact, a man at worship, remembering not only praise to God but thanksgiving to someone from another culture—an outsider in fact—Jesus, a Galilean. In these acts, the Samaritan was doing what Jeremiah urged the children of Israel to do in exile. In a sense, Jeremiah is telling them to shape up and accept the new conditions of their lives with good grace and as normally as possible: plant gardens, marry, have children. But he’s also telling them to pray. To pray their way through the lives they must now live, rather than pining for the good old days. He tells them to pray for the city in which they now live and in its welfare to seek their own.

Jeremiah was writing long before Jesus told us to love our enemies and to bless them that curse us. But this powerful prophet also knew that worship has the power to heal and that worship right where we are, right here, right now, opens up spacious and healing places for ourselves and, quite surprisingly, for those around us.

Our encounters with a saving God may be monumental, truly miraculous, or quite personal and seemingly modest. But acknowledging any of these encounters, remembering and treasuring them, is the faith work and the worship that God asks from us. This practice of gratitude, not only inside but outside these doors, even in the present-day Babylon that assaults us in so many ways—subtle and not—is unexpected news, but it will lead us to the “Good News,” the spacious place of the kingdom of God.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, we are blessed to be able to praise you this morning and in this place for all that you have given and are giving, known and unknown by us. We thank you for our life and for this earth on which you have placed us. Let us not forget even your smallest mercies and, through them, help us to grow more like the one who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

[1] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (London: G. Bles, 1958), 78-81.

Relational Disasters

2010-10-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 10.03.10
Lamentations 1.1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1.1-14; Luke 17.5-10

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, dear Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s Epistle: “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”

Years ago, when we were living close to the UN, Karl and I would often walk our dog quite late. On one bitter winter night, I noticed a nice lined glove lying on the pavement. About a block later, stretched out on a bench, we saw one of the homeless deep in sleep, covered with sacks and old clothes. My bright idea was to run back and get the glove for the woman. Then an odd thing happened. Although she was sound asleep and I had a man and a large dog with me, I was hesitant to go up to her. Possibly because her total isolation and misery made her seem so alien and that possibility frightened me. Taking Karl’s hand, I laid the glove next to her and we returned to our home, but the memory has remained.

Our Scriptural readings this morning talk about isolation and misery. Lamentations describes a people that have gone into exile, groaning, grieving, powerless. Our psalm describes people so full of despair that they’ve given up playing their musical instruments. Whenever I hear that line, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” I think of those times when I, or people I know, have felt so cut off from joy and even from God’s mercy, that it’s hard to find a hymn to sing or a prayer for comfort. We feel alien, wrapped in a cold and dangerous misery that sets us apart. Even the New Testament letter to Timothy, speaks of Timothy’s tears, the tears of a faithful Christian who has become discouraged by what is happening to his church and who seems to be having doubts about his faith.

I’m grateful for such passages because we have felt heartbreak too in this church, certainly tears and fears. These passages remind me that we are not the only ones. All through history, the faithful have had moments of isolation and despair. But Scripture gives help in tough times too. Even when our faith is being tested, it is possible to pour out our distress, to call out to God. In fact, it is essential. The psalmist realizes that at the moment of greatest fear and pain, we can and must remember blessings: “Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set [the temple of] Jerusalem above my highest joy!” And the Letter to Timothy outlines a way of living through tears: Even when there is disaster, there is still relationship.

There is relationship with God, who continues to call us into a life that is holy and blessed; who saves us, not because of our own actions—or lack of them—but because of an all-embracing love and grace; who is a continuing presence in our lives. The wonderful thing about a deepening relationship with God is that it leads to a full range of relationships with others and with all of God’s creation.

There is relationship with the faithful and not only the holy memories of Scripture. Timothy is reminded of his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. They were good Jewish housewives, witnesses to faith in God’s power whom Timothy can look back to. We are witnesses, reminders to one another of the spirit of God. We can nurture ourselves and one another in goodness, in hope, and in Christian joy.

Moreover, Timothy is told to rekindle the gift of God. Think about rekindling a fire: You have to rearrange the little pieces of wood, add larger ones, stir around in the ashes, blow gently. Life requires similar discipline. The work of rekindling is sometimes tricky and sometimes hard. Sometimes we have to start over again. But there is that gift of God living within us, that divine spark that through God’s grace and the Holy Spirit glows and burns.

And we have the saving help of Christ. Today we will be given the great gift of that help through the sacrament of Communion, through the living presence poured out among us that “makes us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.”

These things—the good news of Christ, the mercy and peace of God, the power of the sacraments, and the faithful nurture of one another—are the treasure with which we have been entrusted, regardless of our present circumstances. I think of this treasure horizontally, stretching across the world, touching those people and places we may never know. I also think of it vertically, extending from the past into the future. We can’t know how fully it will extend in either direction. We certainly can’t yet know what it can be. But just as we know that we will not receive God’s treasure all at once, so we know that God’s power, working in us, will do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. This is our certain hope and therefore our faith.

Let us pray: O Lord God, you call us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending and through dangers unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us. Amen.

The Blessing of the Animals

2010-10-03T12:55:00.000-04:00

Second Annual Blessing of the Animals
October 3, 2010
Pastor Dora and Fred Rhoda, guitar

Welcome by Pastor

Hymn: “The Friendly Beasts” UMH 227

Scripture:
But ask now the beasts,
and they shall teach you;
and the fowls of the air,
and they shall tell you:
Or speak to the earth,
and it shall teach you;
and the fishes of the sea
shall declare unto you. (Job 12:7-8)

Prayer (all together):
Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals, especially for animals who are suffering, for any that are hunted or lost, or deserted or frightened or hungry, for all that must be put to death. We entreat for them all thy mercy and pity and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessings of the merciful. (Albert Schweitzer)

Hymn: “God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale” UMH 122

The Blessing:
Praised be the Creator, who has given every creature its own wisdom and in whose clear eyes we can see the miracle of creation. We pray, dear God, that you will protect and bless all things that have breath, and especially these animals gathered here.

Individual Blessings as guests come forward:
Bless, O Lord, (name of pet and name of friend),
and fill our hearts with thanksgiving for their being.

Dismissal (all together):
May the Creator of us all continue to protect and sustain us, now and for ever. Amen.

Apple Festival Sunday Service

2010-09-27T12:58:00.000-04:00

Morning Worship – September 26, 2010
Apple Festival Sunday
A Service of Song and Thanksgiving

Lectionary for next Sunday:

Lamentations 1:1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Gathering

Announcements

Instrumental Prelude

Greeting by Pastor

Invocation (in unison):
God our Redeemer, draw unto us as we draw unto you in worship. We have pushed ourselves in service to you this week, and we give you thanks for all our many blessings. Now open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our spirits to encounter your will for us this day. Transform us with the truth of your love and grace, in the name of the one who loved us and gave his life for us. Amen.

The Entrance

*Introit “Softly and Tenderly” (see insert)

*Call to Worship: Psalm 91:1-6, 11-16 (no refrain) UMH 210

*Opening Hymn #600 “Wonderful Words of Life”

Prayer of Confession (in unison):
Gracious God, you lavishly bestow the gift of your love. Forgive us, we pray, when we don’t recognize your gifts; when we think we are entitled to your generosity; when we constantly ask for more; when we do not hear the cries of those around us. Teach us the ways of godliness. Grant us a spirit of contentment that we may be grateful for your provision and share what you give. As we are blessed by you, so may we be a blessing to others, in the name of your matchless gift, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

(A short period of silence will follow.)

Words of Assurance

Anthem by our Choir

*Greeting One Another with the Peace of the Lord

Time for Children of All Ages

Proclamation of the Word

New Testament Lesson: 1 Timothy 6:6-19

*Gospel Hymn #156 “I Love to Tell the Story” (vs. 1, 3, 4)

The Gospel: Luke 16:19-31

Response to the Word of God

Congregational Hymn Sing

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

Silent Prayer followed by Pastoral Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

The Offering of Our Gifts

*Doxology

*Prayer of Thanksgiving

Sending Forth

*Sending Hymn #64 “Holy, Holy, Holy!”

*Dismissal with Blessing

*Hymn of Blessing #673 “God Be with You”

Instrumental Postlude

Speaking Truth

2010-09-20T13:12:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 9.19.10
Jeremiah 8.18-9.1; Psalm 79.1-9; 1 Timothy 2.1-7; Luke 16.1-13.

Please pray with me from today’s psalm: Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake (Psalm 79.9). Amen.

From today’s Epistle: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone.”

There are words of hope and comfort for us at the end of the sermon, but first I have some slogging to do. Please bear with me!

Our psalm this morning announces that the world has trashed the inheritance given us by God and defiled God’s holy temple. These words refer to conditions in ancient Israel, but I think most of us would agree that God’s gifts to us are not fully loved and that God’s holy laws are often broken, even though these gifts and laws are our sacred inheritance. In Luke, we have the story of the estate manager who cleverly uses his last days on the job to swindle his master. At the end of the passage, we are told bluntly that we “cannot serve God and wealth.”

Scandalous use of inheritance, scandalous use of responsibility. These readings are asking us to think about a wiser use of blessings, of our gifts, our time, talents, and service. No wonder they are sometimes used to launch a discussion of annual giving and the dreaded “M” word. Rather than doing that, let’s consider that such passages are asking us to think about speaking truth to a misuse of power or a misuse of assumed power. As such, the readings certainly ask us to think about stewardship—and that leads us straight to what is most important, namely our relationship with God.

Let’s start with that manager who is the steward of his master’s estate. The money and the deals he’s working with are not his. They have been delegated to him by a superior who expects that he will make the best returns possible. (You can see where Jesus is going with this so far.) But the steward has been caught in dishonesty and is being sacked. He doesn’t seem to desire confession, repentance, or contrition. In fact, he continues his dishonest behavior, brokering deals with debtors, while he has the power, to insure that he will have friends on the outside later. The final twist is the master’s commendation of his shrewd behavior. I’d bet that the master is pretty shrewd himself. Even though his steward’s behavior has cost him assets, it seems that he is intrigued and impressed by the other’s sheer, gutsy cleverness.

People really struggle with this parable, as you can imagine. Why is dishonesty being applauded? And then why do the next verses condemn dishonesty? And in what way does all of this build to a warning that money pulls us away from God? Does it always?

Maybe a number of sayings of Jesus were combined in this passage by disciples who didn’t want to lose a single word. It would be wonderful to be able to hear Jesus’ tone of voice. Maybe he was being sarcastic or ironic when he used the word “dishonest.” Maybe he was critiquing the economic system of his time with its exploitation by the wealthy of the poor or even middle class. Maybe Jesus was suggesting that there was no way to be honest in a system that was so brutally unjust. Maybe Jesus was speaking truth to power.

Here there is a bridge to our understanding of stewardship: We know about dishonest wealth in our society and we know about its effects on the poor and even not so poor. There are also those who must be considered ethically disadvantaged. How do we assess our actions now that we have no excuse for not knowing how they affect others, in sweat shops for example, on the other side of the globe? Jesus may even have been pushing further by showing us how a clever manager could undermine the landlord’s means of building his wealth. He’s a kind of Robin Hood, speaking truth by stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In God’s kingdom, after all, aren’t debts forgiven (“Forgive us our debts”) and aren’t slaves the equal of masters?

Maybe Jesus was sharing insights about means and ends. Maybe this is the way that Jesus was speaking truth to power. Think of an Andrew Carnegie: his wonderful philanthropy and the strike-breaking that helped build his fortune. Through the dishonest steward, Jesus may be asking us whether we are willing to say that part of our life can be peripheral to the Kingdom. What means do we use to accomplish good ends? What are our motives for the relationships we build? How are these relationships limited by the people we are willing to acknowledge as worthy of friendship?

And so we come to that famous rule: You cannot serve God and Mammon. That is true if by extreme love of wealth, we are pulled away from the serving love of others that witnesses to our love of God.

This truth leads to the beautiful passage from the letter to Timothy in which we are urged not only to prayer but to prayer for everyone, starting with those in high positions and moving right down the line. Lord knows we need it—all of us.

Sooner or later, prayer will draw us to the knowledge that God, revealed through Christ, wants every broken soul healed and loved. This is the true starting point of stewardship: using our heritage, our gifts and graces, our time, talent, and service to love as fully as possible; to bring the healing of comfort, support, and the power of God’s new life to everyone. That everyone includes each of us. Bringing healing to others brings it into our own hearts.

We are stewards, entrusted with life, companion creatures, and the world we share with all other life. Neither life nor planet is ours, although we seem to have a great deal of power over both. They are loans from God, given us to care for and enjoy in the very best ways we can. In creating us and all that surrounds us, God loved and loves us fully. So much so that God’s own goodness is also our most fundamental being. It is that which makes us, and it makes us whole.

The Anglican Bishop of South Africa and Nobel Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, writes that understanding our heritage of goodness “changes the way we see the world, the way we see others, and, most importantly, the way we see ourselves. The way we see ourselves matters. It affects how we treat people. It affects the quality of life for each and all of us” (7).[1] Treasuring the heritage that Bishop Tutu describes is stewardship.

And stewardship of God’s gifts goes further. God not only made us like God’s self but for God’s self. God’s Holy Spirit is within us and we are temples of that Holy Spirit. That means that the spirit of peace and of healing is within us also. We can call upon it. Doing so will fill us and our world with hope and joy. And there’s no telling where that will lead!

Let us pray with the words, once again, of Bishop Tutu:
My child, I made you for myself.
I made you like myself.
I delight in you….

You run everywhere looking for life,
Searching for the life of life.
All the while I am here.
I am as close as a prayer.
I am breathing in your breath….

Listen! For I have carved in you the heart to hear.
Listen and know that I am near.
I am as close as a prayer.
I am breathing in your breath.

Before you speak the word of worry or worship I hear you.
Before you sing your delight or moan your anguish I speak.
I am here.
I am as close as a prayer.
I am breathing in your breath….

With each breath you choose, my child, for you are free.
Will you breathe with me the breath of life?
Will you claim the joy I have prepared for you?
Will you seek me out and find me here?
Will you whisper the prayer?
Will you breathe in my breath? (16-7)

Amen.

[1] Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu, Made for Goodness and Why This Makes All the Difference (New York: Harper One, 2010).

Throwing Pots

2010-09-06T11:06:00.000-04:00

Morning Worship with Holy Communion, September 5, 2010
Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Luke 14:25-33

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From the prophet Jeremiah: “Then the word of the Lord came to me: … Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

I’ve never used a potter’s wheel. Maybe some of you have or have handled clay enough to know that it can really give your hands a workout. It’s messy. It can push back and that also allows it to be molded and to take and hold a shape. So I love Jeremiah’s comparison of God to a potter. God can be imagined as a five-star general (the Lord of Hosts) or, in Matthew, as a mother hen longing to gather her chicks under her wings. But for us, this morning, God is a down-to-earth potter working at the wheel, working hard because some of the pieces aren’t turning out so well and badly need reworking.

Now a potter can obviously smash, discard, or at least smush down a faulty pot before it’s dried. But what draws me is the way Jeremiah presents God as a creative force in our lives. First, this God is a professional, fully engaged, intent on drawing a good vessel from the clay, one that is useful and beautiful. Every turn of that wheel must be watched. This is not aimless, casual, or part-time work. Secondly, the clay itself is not passive like water or sand. It offers resistance to the potter’s hand. It can also be flawed because of impurities or because it has not been worked enough, prepared, before the actual shaping begins.

The comparisons to God and us are all too obvious: God, as watchful potter, intends—longs—to shape us as vessels. God knows there is something of sterling quality in our clay. It is too valuable to be thrown aside and discarded, and so God reworks and reshapes “as seems good.” God is aware of the condition of our clay and will do God’s best to draw us in ways that we could not imagine or were not willing to strive for. Throwing pots requires constant discernment of the piece and response to how it is coming along. The work of God-as-Potter is to help us become vessels of divine love and justice. And our Potter’s Grace will reach us, often when we are at our lowest or least expect it.

But there’s still us, so practiced at resisting over and over again that shaping—and reshaping—hand, that watchful eye and often fast-turning wheel. Jeremiah’s words describe us too. In our personal and common life together, we can choose to hear and respond. Or, like the crowd Jesus tries to shock into awareness in Luke this morning, we can care less about discipleship and relationship with God than we do about our own concerns, our own individual lives, acquisitions, achievements.

I didn’t include our usual Prayer of Confession this morning, but our Invocation asks that our worship may be a longing to find God and ourselves through God. It is that longing and a joy in finding that shapes our time together into worship. This morning, we do not have special Words of Assurance either, but in our prayer after the holy receiving of Communion, we will thank God from the bottom of our hearts for the “mystery in which You have given yourself to us” as Creator, ever-creating and shaping our lives. Without the mystery of God’s ever-present love, we are lost—just so much clay. Without the mystery of God’s ever-present commitment to us, we cannot experience the release of forgiveness, or any relief of pain and sorrow. After all, God-as-Potter is not only willing to take creative risks and get all messy for our sakes. Through the Incarnation, God was willing to live as clay—though without sin. God was willing to live as clay the better to understand us and the more fully to shape and to draw out our stubborn, self-involved selves.

Finally, the mystery of God-as-Potter and the often-resisting stuff with which God is committed to work—that would be us—calls me to separate the redemptive work we are given to do as disciples from those moments of pure Grace that can truly be considered miracles. Miracles do occur and we are right to pray for them, but let us first do all that we can to transform our lives and our world by the hard spiritual work of discipleship—by the hard spiritual love of discipleship—by actions that are in fact within our power. It’s sometimes easier to long passively for a miracle—“Wouldn’t it be a miracle if….” than it is to allow ourselves to respond to the firm, guiding hand of our ever watchful, laboring, and loving Potter.

Hear now our concluding prayer by the theologian Jack Riemer (slightly altered):[1]

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war;
For we know that You have made the world in a way
That man must find his own path to peace
Within himself and with his neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end starvation;
For you have already given us the resources
With which to feed the entire world
If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
To root out prejudice,
For You have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all people
If we would only use our eyes rightly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair,
For You have already given us the power
To clear away slums and to give hope
If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to you, O God, to end disease,
For you have already given us great minds with which
To search out cures and healing,
If we would only use them constructively.
You have already given us great hearts with which
To bring comfort and support to those who are ill
And to be present with them.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,
For strength, determination, and willpower,
To do instead of just to pray,
To become instead of merely to wish.

Amen.

[1] Quoted by Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Anchor Books, 1981), 130-1.

For Such a Time as This

2010-06-21T14:45:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 6.20.10
Father’s Day & Report on Conference
1 Kings 19.1-8, Galatians 3.23-29, Mark 1.29-31

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s Gospel: “Then the fever left her and she began to serve them.”

Last weekend was my first Conference, although I’d almost gotten there several times before. I’m afraid I wasn’t looking forward to a long drive and navigating new territory, I felt squeezed enough by my schedule and responsibilities here, and we all know the intensity of our grief last week for the loss of Olivia Belfiglio. Also, unless there’s a really good reason, I’m not usually one of your casts of thousands kind of person, and the Bishop had promised an assembly of 5000. (Actually, it topped 5500.) But I must tell you that I drove home Saturday afternoon with a full and grateful heart, so much so that I need to tell you about it.

Even before the grand procession with banners and the prayer service that followed, I began to be drawn in by the friendliness, high energy, and diversity of the crowd in the exhibit tents and open spaces. I actually found myself wondering whether heaven might not be a bit like that: joy, so many different kinds of people, and somehow a shared beat connecting us. To say nothing of all those chance encounters in the crowd of people I knew or know! Virginia and Lisa found me, even without a cell phone!

But what I equally wish each of you could have experienced was Worship. Of course Bishop Park warmed us up by having us sing every hymn imaginable and then, to illustrate the health of the body of Christ, he did 120 push ups. The service began cooking as several people rushed up to match him with checks of $120. I really understood the need for pushups when our preacher was introduced: Bishop James E. Swanson, Sr. whose Conference includes parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and West Virginia. Much as I would like to, I won’t try to imitate his good old Gospel style preaching—I won’t ask Steve to supply a background of music as I reach my main point; I don’t have a tie to loosen and you’re not going to allow me 45 minutes. But Bishop Swanson was a powerhouse, fully capable of focusing and unifying a crowd of thousands. Fully capable of giving us a vision, so that we and our church will not perish. It’s worth going to Conference even once, just for such an experience. We may not want this every Sunday. But it’s good to be reminded of who we are as a larger body and to hear that body sing, pray—and sit on the edge of its chairs in silence.

This message, based on our Gospel lesson, was simple and direct. There was Jesus, come into Peter’s house. And there was Peter’s mother, too sick to move. The Bishop reminded us that we don’t have to go halfway around the world to find people who are hurting. There are people right around our churches in need. People in our own congregations who may leave the service as sad as when they entered. Even when people are very different from us—male, female; Jew, Gentile; slave, free—they are still, as Galatians tells us, “children of God” in Christ Jesus. Don’t forget Elijah in 1 Kings: First, he is killing all the false prophets with a sword, and next, he is an exile, running for his life. Without the food and drink of angels, he would have perished.

And so the need around us is greater than we can anticipate. Our own needs, yes, but also the needs of others. We need the world so that we can be the people God created us to be. But many of us are suffering from spiritual fevers, lying flat. Then who serves? Except after the Resurrection, Jesus wasn’t usually the one to whip up a meal. That was the job of Peter’s wife’s mother—and she wasn’t doing it. The choice was to sit there and not eat—or heal the cooker! Jesus doesn’t discuss her. He goes to her, pays her some mind, reaches out to her, and lifts her up. She then does what any respectable Jewish woman would have done: she serves them. To illustrate, the bishop leaped off the stage, going up and down the aisles, raising people to their feet as he grasped their hand.

Here’s a concept! Here is Jesus’ challenge: Reaching out with the power, love, and energy of God. Christians pray to do this with all their heart and soul. We do it in this church. It happened yesterday as people brought dishes and deserts for the luncheon after the Memorial Service, a service for a family that has no relation to this church, but asked if we would serve them, asked if I would be willing to say the 23 Psalm over the ashes of a beloved wife. It happened yesterday as Shandy and Mike and their boys cleaned and scrubbed and made everything sweet-smelling and ready, as Joan and Edith cooked and presided. And the family was filled.
Yesterday, we were doing our best to witness to what Bishop Swanson was preaching. He knew he was preaching to people who try their best. But he wanted us to take as our own this example of our Lord. So in true evangelical fashion, he reminded us of the power of the Invitation at the end of a service. He wanted to give us his own energy and he wanted us to energize one another. And he didn’t want all the energy of that meeting to stay in the room.

I’m not going to invite you up to our altar today, but I’ll tell you the response to his altar call was serene, holy, and considerable. I was sitting next to Ann Rossini, whom some of you know. She had just been ordained the night before. I looked at her and she looked at me, offered her hand, and together with others we took our walk to the altar to give ourselves newly to Jesus and to those we would serve through him. This was a first for your pastor, although once, when I was thirteen and a high Episcopalian, I heard an invitation of this kind at an Evangelical church service and knew it included me. As I start my second year among you, I will continue to try my very best to be true to that call and to our Lord.

And now, it seems our best response to the invitation of Conference and to our Lord is that we reach out to one another with the peace and energy of Christ. People of God, let us greet one another in the name of Christ!

Prayer of Commendation

2010-06-10T10:37:00.000-04:00

Commendation for a Service of Life, Death, and Resurrection for
Olivia Rose Belfiglio
at St. James United Methodist Church, Kingston

Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Pastors: Rev. David M. Jolly, St. James UMC
and Dora Janeway Odarenko, Town of Esopus UMC

The following were the concluding words offered by Pastor Dora:

Today we are praying for Olivia Rose and for ourselves. We can pray because we are a community of hope and we are not alone! Heaven and earth touch one another in an awesome and mysterious way at the time of death. There is comfort for us that Olivia is now in the eternal camaraderie of heaven into which she has been received as a friend and not as a stranger. We know that Olivia is now safe in the blessed company of the faithful, surrounded by hymns of joy and praise and victory.

When we celebrate the life of Olivia, we celebrate her continuing life with God and her new life in the true home to which she has been called and to which we too one day can go. This is our real cause for celebration today. Olivia is now a tenderly nurtured lamb of our Lord’s flock. Scripture assures us that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” Our Savior can lose none of the children that God has entrusted to His mercy and care. Olivia has been received “into the arms of mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints of light.”

Olivia now knows so much more than we do! For us still here below, perhaps it is heaven enough to imagine the heaven to which Olivia has been called, a heaven now filled with Olivia’s energy! Imagine the special gifts that she is bringing to heaven, her joy and spontaneity among them! Let us cry Alleluia for the full security that she now enjoys. We have work ahead of us, but Olivia is at rest from her labors. We are still wayfarers, but Olivia is living in her own country eternally. For us the Alleluia is sung in hope, but Olivia is singing it in hope’s fulfillment. Let us join her in that great song, all saying together, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!” AMEN.

And now with the security of the children of God, let us pray,
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name….

Remembrance Prayer

2010-06-01T10:39:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day
May 31, 2010

Dearest God, we bless you for gathering us together here in safety. We praise you for all the good that you shower upon us in our county and in our land. We thank you on this Memorial Day for all Veterans, our best and brightest, who chose to put loyalty to freedom before love of self.

We thank you especially this day for those who, filled with honor, did not return. Their bravery and their supreme sacrifice must never be forgotten by anyone here. May their faithfulness and their great gift to each of us and to our country bring comfort to their families and friends. May our continuing tribute and pride ease the sorrow of those who love them.

We would also lift up to your mercy this day those whose names and whose sacrifice have not been remembered. They too were godly, and their righteous deeds have not been forgotten by you, our Heavenly Creator.

Righteous God, ruler of nations, preserve all who serve our country. Guide them and us into Your peace. AMEN.

Mindful of Us?

2010-05-31T11:08:00.000-04:00

Sermon for Trinity Sunday (5.30.10)
Psalm 8; Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Please pray with me: Dearest God, come and nurture in us the spiritual gifts on which life in all Your fullness relies. We pray to You through your Son and in the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

From this morning’s New Testament Lesson: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Years ago, as the Red Army was marching into the Ukraine, a father prepared to say goodbye to his son, an officer in the White Army. The intensity of feeling, the love and pride, were understood by each. It was also understood that these were dangerous times and that they would probably not see one another again. There was little need for words, but the father gave his son a small coin minted in the year of the young man’s birth. The young man, who eventually became my father, entrusted the coin to me and it is one of my treasures.

The feelings generated by this story help me understand what Jesus and his disciples might have been feeling in our Gospel passage this morning. There was to be a parting and it would be very hard, too painful to put into words. But the love is so powerful that there will always be a connection. My grandfather gave my dad a coin, a token of enduring love that he could hold when everything else was gone, something he managed to keep through an escape that eventually led to New York. Jesus promised a gift to his frightened disciples. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who will guide and protect and speak in the name of Jesus and of the Father Almighty.

This Holy Spirit is an enduring lifeline from our Lord. And so for two centuries, Christians typically pray to the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit. We call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the Trinity, and on this Sunday, the Sunday after the excitement of Pentecost, we are invited to consider what thinking of our God as three-in-one might mean.

There are the historical events. Jesus was born as a human being, spoke of his heavenly Father, and promised a Comforter, an Advocate, who would remain with us after he ascended back to his Father. That Comforter announced itself with passionate urgency and inclusiveness on the Day of Pentecost. We are wonderfully prepared for the Comforter by the description of Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.” And so we can think of the identity of these three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You may also have noticed that because I love to think of their function, I address them as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. But churches have fought bitterly over the complicated relationship among the persons of the Trinity. Different answers are one reason for the schism between the Churches of the West and of the East. Arguments over the divinity and humanity of Christ are only one example, but such arguments caused blood to be shed. There are churches in the South today that are “Jesus only” churches. All of this means, of course, that students in seminary are tortured by having to write papers about the finer points of these controversies.

Far more important is for us to realize how blessed we are that our God is complex and rich in identity. Other religions attempt to capture this by having a pantheon, a whole collection of gods. We express God’s personhood as three-in-one, diverse and with differences, yet working together, in a harmony that is often a wonderful counterpoint of independent melodies joined into one. Our poor brains need to have something like a Trinity to hang onto since the fullness of God, the awesomeness of God is far beyond anything we can comprehend. It’s like the old story of the blind men and the elephant: to the one touching the leg, the elephant is like a tree; the tail feels like a rope; and the trunk seems like a snake. Both elephant and God are vaster.

Part of that vastness is the incredible generosity of God’s creation, a generosity that is also mindful of us, that sent Jesus to be one of us. This is also called love, the love—the letter to Romans tells us—that God poured into our hearts through Jesus and that Jesus pours into our hearts in the Holy Spirit, that he has given to us and wishes us to give to others.

For Proverbs, the incredible generosity of the Spirit of Truth is called Wisdom, a figure who is a continuing presence in our lives. For Proverbs and the great collection of Wisdom literature, she is a woman, Lady Wisdom. The description here is poetic and powerful. Proverbs describes Wisdom/personifies her as calling to us publicly, from the crossroads. The point is that she is strong and assertive, with a fresh perspective that she is not afraid to express. Because she stands in the crossroads, she speaks to everyone. She was not just added at the time of Jesus, but was there from the beginning, helping God. She is still here, helping God and us. She is “mindful of us,” not as a chore but with gladness, “rejoicing in [God’s] inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” She is our Sustainer, connecting us to past, present, and future. What companionship do we look for with her? What companionship do we have with her as part of God? How are we willing to witness to her as an aspect of our God?

What appeals to me most about the Trinity is its reciprocity. This reciprocity is basic to our lives as Christians: God giving to Jesus, Jesus giving to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit beside God, “like a master worker,” God’s daily delight. The suggestion of attraction is appropriate here. For the Trinity is a circle of holy love. The Eastern Church—the church that is struggling now so desperately because of the wars in the Middle East—has always described the Trinity as perichoresis (peri + a Greek chorus), literally a group of dancers moving all around. Beautiful dancing always involves a give and take and the dance of the Trinity is no exception. Or here’s another metaphor of intimate involvement: Imagine “the Trinity as a plant, with the Father as a deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks forth into the world, the Spirit as that which spreads beauty and fragrance” (Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, 291).

Clearly this group of persons called the Trinity is not static, each person in its own little box with a fixed identity or function. Such a bureaucratic God wouldn’t be very helpful. Think of all the spiritual paperwork. It’s fine to turn in prayer to the sympathy of the Son or to the power of the Parent. But the compassion is united to the power. They are connected, united in the Trinity. Our God is whole. God is not fractured, broken, or partial, as we are. We can turn to God’s wholeness and be gathered into it.

Our Godhead/our Trinity is organic, either growing or dancing or both! It’s “a community that holds together by containing diversity within itself” (Norris, 289). It’s a community that’s diverse and yet works in harmony. It’s a community that not only needs the totality of itself and totally loves itself, but that draws us into itself as well. God is not a maker or owner. It is as One who suffers and who self-gives that God can claim “creation and all creatures as creator and redeemer” (M. Douglas Meeks in God’s Life in Trinity, 17). This is crucial: God as first person may be seen as a mighty honcho, if looked at in one way, but God as Trinitarian community owns and receives by giving and by the giving of self.

In this way the Trinity is mindful of us, draws us in, by overwhelming gift, example and precept. God’s community-with-us invites us into community with God and with one another. It fully shares our suffering and our joys. It connects us in full openness and receptivity to those families who are about to join our church. It invites us to recognize the fullness, the richness and the life-giving power of a community shaped and guided by such an awesome God.

Please pray: Dearest Triune God, joyful and faithful and strong, gather us into your fullness. Nurture us, teach us, and build within us a fuller understanding of you and of your ever-responsive and dynamic love for us. Teach us to hope despite the sorrows of this life. Keep us open to fresh encounters with you in all that you have been and are and will be. Through your love for us and in the way that you know best, set us free to become your children. Amen.

Stay Right Here with Us

2010-05-24T11:18:00.000-04:00

Sermon for Pentecost (5.23.10)
Psalm 104:24-34; Acts 2:1-15; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:15-17, 25-27

Please pray with me: “May our meditation be pleasing to God, for in God we rejoice.” Amen. (from Psalm 104)

From today’s Gospel: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you and he will be in you”

We all seem to like excitement, especially when it involved drama or danger. How many times on a Saturday night, when I’m sitting in my office, have I heard the fire sirens go off. And then how many times on Sunday morning are those sirens the first topic of conversation. “Did you hear them? What was going on?”

Something of the sort happened on the Pentecost after Jesus’ Ascension. This holy day, still called Shavuot by observant Jews, was one of the three great festivals of Judaism. Held on the “fiftieth day” after Passover—Pente-cost, it was a time when the first fruits of the harvest were given to God and it was a celebration of the giving of the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Torah, and, within the Torah, the Ten Commandments. Let’s not miss an exciting connection here. In both cases, it’s a question of something new: the excitement of the first crops of the season juxtaposed to the memory of early covenants with God, a Promised Land, and new rules—the Ten Commandments—for governing the community of faithful and oneself. And so this was considered a time to honor once again the covenants of God with God’s people and to renew covenants.

Jerusalem must have been crowded, not only with pilgrims to the Holy City for this festival, but with immigrants—“devout Jews from every nation”—who were living there. This immigrant group is important to the story. Chances are that they were at least bilingual. They probably spoke Greek, the language of the Roman military and the language of business for that period. But they also probably spoke their native language, and that often only at home or with those from their home country. And here, let’s not miss the contrast: there is the language of Empire spoken by those subject to Empire and there is the language of childhood and safety and comfort.

There is a third group in this story, the group that we begin with: “They were all together in one place.” The “they” and “all” seem to refer to the entire community of Christians, some 120 according to the previous chapter of Acts: women and men, the Disciples, and all those others whose names have been forgotten. The space must have been large, probably the courtyard of the temple, and it is this group that the fire engines can be imagined rushing to.

It’s not just a question of son et lumiere, a sound and light show. Suddenly there is what might to be called chaos. Out of nowhere and into the space where they are sitting comes the sound of a roaring wind, and then there are flames dancing, with a tongue of flame, “as of fire,” on the ready, above each head. We grownups know that in the Bible this kind of energy can only come from God: think Moses (Exodus 19), think Elijah (I Kings 19). But it’s really wonderful to give Sunday School students paint—lots of it, mural paper, and time to express this event, to really go for it. For what Luke is trying to capture here is something so mind-blowing that only images such as “as of fire,” can approach it—images, and then the crowd that quickly gathers.

Their curiosity and their group identity are soon transformed as each hears about “God’s deeds of power” in his or her own native language. This is no propaganda spoken in the language of Rome. The speakers seem to be Galileans, but their words, provided by the tongues of flame, burn into the hearts of the crowd. Acts records that 3,000 that day were baptized

I wanted us to hear Scripture read by youth this morning because I wanted to capture some of the freshness of what happened on that first Pentecost. These youth will shortly enter a Confirmation class and that means new beginnings and new commitments, both of which were there on that first Pentecost. I also wanted a surprise and some sense of overlapping realities as we heard the languages of the various prayers all at the same time: Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English.

I’ll bet that a literal translation of those first “deeds of power” would not have been identical. So for today, I asked people to think of a prayer; I didn’t tell them what. I hoped each person would concentrate on their particular text or message as they spoke. Obviously it’s not a question of out shouting one another. On that first day, the words were intended for specific ears and apparently reached them, despite the din.

It was interesting to call people this week to find who might be able to speak in another tongue. Those you heard this morning seemed really willing to take on the challenge and to think about how to pray in a language that they do not use every day. As a result, I began thinking about how differently we each pray all the time, even when we are given the same words, and about how right it is that we can do this. I began thinking too about praying and then acting upon those prayers in a way that transcends differences of cultures, backgrounds, circumstances. Such praying, speaking, and acting transcend the world’s expectations.

The first Pentecost promises us an Advocate, a Holy Spirit sent by Jesus Christ that abides with us, even though the world with its conventional wisdom cannot understand or accept such power. For me, this morning, this story of the first Pentecost is about the miracle of speaking so that the people who need to hear us can do so, whether they be family members, colleagues, or strangers, and it’s about hearing what God wants us to hear. We can wish to do this all we like, but the actual doing comes as we invite and allow the grace of the Holy Spirit to breathe deeply into our lives and actions. After all, every day the Holy Spirit invites us to use a new language, to find a new way of doing things.

And so is today the birthday of the church, as it is often called? In terms of the number of believers who are added and the way of life that they begin to follow, one might say so. But it seems to me that today is far more the arrival, and hence the birthday, of the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus, to quite literally enlighten the disciples and those that happened to be around them that day. That same Holy Spirit animates our churches and each one of us. Through it, God’s word is still active, still brooding over the waters, still creating: now serenely, now restlessly. God’s covenants with us never grow old. The Spirit of God is something that church can help us experience. It is also something that each of us can bring to church and that can transform that institution into the sacred body of Christ, thus bringing a little closer the day of the Lord.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, help us to obey the Spirit’s call, both through speaking and listening to the languages you want us to hear. Remembering the light of our Christ candle and the living presence of Pentecost, let us show forth the glory that you are shining on us today. Remembering our Christ and the living presence of Pentecost, let us proclaim God’s deeds of power and God’s love, even when the world thinks otherwise. Remembering our Christ and the living presence of Pentecost, let us be the active peace of Christ to all whom we meet and to this earth that God has entrusted to us to share. We trust your sweet Holy Spirit to stay right here with us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

Lively Faith

2010-05-17T18:59:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 5.16.2010, Ascension Sunday (Observed)
Psalm 47; Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s New Testament lesson: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

I have a friend, an African-Cuban, who likes to tell me about her old-fashioned, devout mother. When, as a teen, Estella would droop around the house, disappointed with school, or a boyfriend, or whatever, her mother would say emphatically, “Daughter, look UP!” She wasn’t talking about posture or manners. She was talking faith: Raise your eyes, daughter. The King of Glory is in charge!

Estelle’s mother knew the passage we heard today, knew that when the time came for Jesus to end his time with his disciples on earth, he blessed them and as he was blessing them, he was “carried up into heaven.” Acts tells us that “a cloud took him out of their sight.” In the Bible, a cloud often indicates the presence and power of God. Remember “the pillar of cloud by day” that guides the Children of Israel. Certainly Jesus disappeared in a way that made them understand that he had moved beyond ordinary human sight and had joined God. The notion of the Trinity had not yet been developed and so the first Christians speak of “being seated at God’s right hand—the favored side—in heavenly places.” They certainly understand that the one who had been so disgraced by the crucifixion is now exalted beyond our comprehension.

Although the disciples may not have been able to put the experience into words, they knew how to act upon it. For the first time, they worship him. They finally understand that this man whom they have loved as a friend and teacher, and with whom they have broken bread, is also greater and more powerful than they could have imagined. Like one’s response to God, adoration and reverence and praise are what are now appropriate for Jesus. And so, when they return to Jerusalem, the joy of this realization is so great that they continually seek the holiness of the temple as the most fitting place to bless God for what has happened.

We often talk to God like a friend, a relative, an authority figure who needs to listen more fully, maybe even needs to be whipped into shape. But haven’t there also been times when the awesome nature of our God assails us? There is a healing, a new diagnosis, a change of heart, a job, a gift that can only be God-sent. One winter when I was in an elementary school in inner-city New Haven, I was assigned a group of non-readers who had to reach a certain level to be promoted. As you can imagine, there was real pressure from the District, and so I got to work in small groups or one-on-one, my favorite way to teach. Many of the students were able to make the grade and the consequences for them were powerful. But I remember one in particular. At the end of the year, I made an appointment with his mother. “Javon has passed,” I told her. Her immediate reaction was “Thank you, Lord Jesus!” These words were neither casual nor perfunctory. They were a cry of adoration to the One from whom all blessings flow. For several moments, the power of Jesus filled the room. Finally she was ready to turn to me for our conference. Her faith moved me one step closer to seminary.

So this is what Luke records for us and urges us never to forget: There was a birth, a ministry, a terrible death, a resurrection, and many appearances after that resurrection. And then there was also the Ascension, one of the principle days of celebration for the Universal Church. We have to have Ascension to mark the end of the earthly life of our Lord and to give it closure. Ascending completes his life by incorporating it into the life of God from which he came. After that everything is touched by something greater, something bigger, something awesome and often hard for us to wrap our hearts around. When our lives need something far bigger, far greater than we can imagine for ourselves, I urge us all to remember the Ascension.

And yet, as always, there is something more. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, we’ve just seen that Luke records that the disciples worship Jesus and commit themselves to praising God for what they have experienced. Well they might. Well we might. But Acts was written by the same author as Luke, and in Acts, there is a slightly different take. As the disciples are staring up into heaven—sometimes I think they’re gawking, sometimes I think of them in a holy trance—two men appear to challenge them and get them moving: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus…will come in the same way as you saw him go.” Come how? Come when? That is not explained. But if Jesus is now right next to God and if he’s capable of returning, our worship and praise fill us with power that we can exercise in any number of ways as witnesses for Jesus Christ.

It’s appropriate that these two men/angels/heavenly messengers appear in Acts since Acts is a book of works, of witnessing. The witnessing of the first apostles, largely of evangelism, may not be our witnessing, but there is certainly the expectation that, like them, as our spiritual experience deepens, our faith and our witness of our faith will deepen as well. How can we not? I’m not only talking about food pantries, or community gardens, or suppers, or Apple Festivals, although you know how much I love them. This witness can also be personal, for us to work out in deep prayer with God and with one another.

I included the passage from Ephesians because of its suggestions for the way this witness is nurtured. Ephesians speaks of the “wisdom and revelation” that develop as we “come to know” Jesus. Gradually we can better understand the “hope to which he has called [us],” “the riches of his glorious inheritance.” The power that pulled Jesus from the tomb and transformed his disciples with a new faith is the same power that seats Christ Jesus next to God and makes him the fullness of God in all things. Our Lord Jesus Christ fills all things, is filling and will fill all things in ways we cannot imagine.

This new Jesus is the light we see by. As the theologian Rowan Williams has said, “We see the world in a new way because we see it through him, see it with his eyes” (Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness, p. 69). As we do this, we become committed to the world and its creatures—including ourselves—in a new way. This is a lively faith—a faith that is alive and a life that is holy because it is transformed by love for God and neighbor and with gratitude and humility for ourselves and our own private weaknesses and struggles.

In our opening prayer this morning, we prayed to Christ as higher than high and yet with footprints that are still warm on earth. That is the paradox of Ascension and that is its blessing: Because Jesus’ life after Ascension is so clearly bound up with God’s, heaven and earth are also bound together, and earth does not have the last word. Isn’t this really what the Incarnation—the coming into flesh of Christ—has prepared us for? What we think of as the powers and realities of this life—its evils, and illness, and death—are not the ultimate power.

The gravity of this world has been undone. We are free to look up. We are commanded to look up. God has put all things under Christ’s feet, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This day completes Easter. Now both heaven and earth are filled with Christ’s presence and with a totally new kind of power. We are commanded to look up—and then to look around and about where we are placed. There is a new era, a new vocation for us to be engaged in and committed to.

Let us pray: Dearest Christ, keep us lifted up with you so that we may grow in faith and the fruit of that faith. Lead us in our journey with you and enlighten our hearts so that we may know the hope to which you are calling us. Give us the grace to trust in you as the continuing source of power and strength and to imagine your ever unfolding lordship over the whole of creation. Amen.

Mapmaking

2010-04-26T18:47:00.000-04:00

Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Easter (4.25.10)
Psalm 23; Acts 9:36-43; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, you who are both Shepherd and Lamb, both our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

From the book of Revelation: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This fourth Sunday of Easter is loaded with special significances. It’s called Good Shepherd Sunday, Heritage Sunday, Earth Day Sunday, because of Earth Day last week, and now Faith in Action. The image of the good shepherd comes from Psalm 23 and from the praise of Christ the Lamb that we just heard read from Revelation. Heritage Sunday commemorates the creation of our church, The United Methodist Church, from the joining of The Methodist Church with the Evangelical United Brethren Church on April 23, 1968. It also celebrates the courageous people whose witness we are continuing by being here this morning. The convergence of the two churches that formed our present church points to the kind of unity promised in the passage from Revelation: a multitude, from every nation and tribe.

The subject of Earth Day—the third possible name for this Sunday—and our relationship to creation will require a whole service in the near future. But today we must look at Faith in Action because we have been asked today by our District to declare our Faith through Action. That is certainly a continuing commitment of this congregation, even if we are not out on the streets at this moment. It is also the theme of our central story for this morning about Tabitha, a widow. What Acts really wants us to know is that she was a disciple. The word, in its feminine form, is used right away to describe her: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha…She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.”

That is an exciting introduction, especially in a culture that devalued women unless they had wealth or wealthy connection. The early Christian community, on the other hand, was committed to mutual sharing and support. The community took responsibility for its widows. Tabitha is therefore neither invisible nor seen as useless. In fact, these first Christian communities were greatly empowered by the labor of such women. Tabitha is one of them. When Peter arrives, summoned in haste by two men—don’t you love it!—all the widows show him “the tunics and other clothing” that she had made. She is not a person they want to lose.

Peter brings her back to life. His raising her from the dead is an awesome and powerful action that is meant to remind us of Jesus’ raising of Jairus’ daughter and of his own resurrection. Peter’s action produces many converts. But the story is probably more about Tabitha and the kind of community that she is helping shape than about this action of Peter.

What church doesn’t have a Tabitha? I’m looking right at many of you—and there’s always room for more. You are those who demonstrate your wealth and power by compassion. I felt surrounded by Tabithas as I chatted with our Wednesday morning Crafts Group this week. Or as I spoke with Food Pantry people. Or as I prepare to meet with Church School teachers or the Vacation Bible School Planning Committee. The list goes on and on. And for the men here, I’m not forgetting Peter, a disciple of boundless energy.

There are several basic ideas embedded in this small but important story about a woman whose example was too important to let die. First: What is central to this new reign of Christ is God’s value system based on mutual compassion, not gender or membership in a particular family or social group. At the end of our reading, to underscore the point, we are told that Peter goes off to stay with a tanner, of all people! Tanners by definition would be unclean—Gentiles—since they carried the smells and blood of dead animals.

Second is the interconnection of faith and good works. Since Tabitha is a disciple, she must also have been a believer. But her life of faith isn’t being examined. What is stressed here is that faith and acts of service or charity or compassion go together. One may even be evidence of the other. The point is made in our Gospel reading from John today, when Jesus tells his adversaries: “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me.”

Third is the glimpse into this early community that has developed beyond Jerusalem, on the coastline, in Joppa. I’d love to know more about this life of disciplined sharing. What other forms might their compassion have taken? What simple kindnesses were extended and what small cruelties or careless talk avoided? We know from many of the letters written by Paul that problems developed in the young churches, but the snapshot this morning from Acts gives us a healthy glimpse of a good woman who was loved, mourned, and wonderfully restored to life.

Loved and mourned. Note that she does not seem to have been ignored in her illness or her dying. This simple detail in the story is important for us today: No one should have to face disease or sorrow or death alone. Prayer partners and pastoral concern through cards, emails, calls, and visits are crucial for complementing medical diagnoses and treatments. They too are Faith in Action, our Prayer Life in Action. Our Joys and Concerns, lifted up before the community here on Sundays, are an essential beginning of that process. Coming to church as we do suggests that, to some degree at least, we wish a common life together. Living in community invites us to resist the intense protectiveness and habits of privacy and proud individualism that much in our culture fosters. When harm strikes, we pull into ourselves so no one will know that we or our bodies have failed us, so no one will know how vulnerable we really are.

Here is a quotation from The Sacred Journey by the Frederick Buechner:

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from (p. 46).

What we are meant to remember from Tabitha’s story is a community that suddenly finds itself in distress and therefore vulnerable. And so together they weep, together they care for the deceased, and together they dare to hope that Peter will be able to help them. By doing these things, they are actually putting all of their spiritual strength and energy into life and service. The story that restores Tabitha to the community that is her family is a wonderful one for the Easter season.

But what happens to spiritual strength and energy when the healing does not come or does not come in the way we hope? When we have drawn up our own personal maps for a particular cure rather than for God’s plan for our healing? Our Easter readings recognize those many moments within the life of our community that continue to try us and test us. This is why the passage from Revelation is included this morning.

John of Patmos reminds us that the Lord who is always our Shepherd was also the helpless lamb that was slain and who first knew despair and pain. That too is the message of Easter. When John writes so powerfully in this chapter from Revelation of those “robed in white” who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” he is most obviously describing those who have been martyred for their faith. But who is to say that those who have suffered horribly from cancer or Parkinson’s or discrimination or domestic violence will not also have their robes of pain and humiliation washed white through the redeeming love of Christ, either here or hereafter? John is celebrating Christ’s transforming, healing love that renews spiritual strength and energy. And so this morning’s text from Revelation can proclaim that the lamb who is our shepherd will guide us to springs of the water of life and wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, let us rejoice in the strength that we can find in our church community and that we can offer to it. Let us know that we each can be Tabithas, disciples blessed by God and dearly beloved, whatever our contribution. Let us also be humble enough and brave enough—either in our times of success or of sorrow—to let go of our own carefully drawn roadmaps for you. Rather may you work within us through the grace of those around us in this holy fellowship and through your own great love and mercy. Amen.

Rescued from Ourselves

2010-04-19T09:16:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 4.18.10, 3rd Sunday of Easter
Psalm 30; Acts 9:1-20; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s New Testament reading: “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

This week I was introduced to two families. The first consists of an elderly brother and sister. The sister has Alzheimer’s. One of her grown nephews lives with them. They are known to be very poor and if the condition of their modest house is any indication, this is probably the case. They have been reported for the outside appearance of their property and have made some attempts to neaten it, but they long for a railing on the porch that extends from the second story, so that they can go out on it without fear of falling. I learned that some members of the family had attended Trinity Methodist Church before it closed and then had come here briefly.

I also learned that the brother, now 83, works at the Esopus Dog Shelter where he is known for his extreme kindness to the strays who must make that their home. People give him cans and bottles to redeem, perhaps for his own needs. He spends every penny from them for the dogs, buying them extra food or toys or blankets. The hot dogs he brings may not be good for them and he may be misguided in thinking that they need more protein, but he is loved for his generosity and love for his poor kennel friends.

The other family consists of a mother and son. The son has a dog who is his best buddy. The house in which they have always lived has just been condemned. The mother, who has a number of serious health issues, has been sent to live with a daughter in another town and the son with his dog has been placed in The Capri. Their plight was uncovered in January when it was discovered that they had neither heat nor running water. The mother has asked to be allowed to reenter the house to save some little objects that are precious to her; when I asked whether anyone else could help, I was told the building was too unstable to enter.

I am describing residents of Esopus, people who have lived here all their lives. They have not drifted here from Kingston or elsewhere. I had heard something of these people, but learned more as I searched for work for Faith in Action, the project that had been suggested by our District for next Sunday.

Once I learned—only this week—that the Clean Sweep was going to take place on Saturday, I felt momentary panic, wondering what on earth we’d do to fulfill our obligation to the District! As I called the Town Hall yet once more, I began looking for something personal, more one-on-one. The Faith in Action proposal has gotten me thinking deeply about how our faith might take action, beyond the many ways in which it already does in this church. I’m not a believer in quick fixes, and I suspect that right now we could start planning an action for a “Faith in Action” next April.

One of the people I’ve described has been coming to our Food Pantry and so that is good. But perhaps there will be other ways in which we’ll be able at least to touch families or people in need in a meaningful way and in a way that they will perceive as caring and God-sent. I am not dreaming that we can fix everything or even very much of what is broken. That would be foolish as well as arrogant. But this week we have been given a much fuller vision of the possibilities. No matter what we do—or chose not to do or realize we are unable to do—we have, in fact, been given a larger view. We’ve been invited to see some of the neighbors we hadn’t seen. There are concerns and joys to be awakened and they lie all around us.

Is this so unlike what happened both to Saul (alias Paul) and to Peter? The wonderful thing about comparing our lives to Scripture is that Scripture does not mince words about God’s role. Scripture makes it clear that God intervenes. Saul, an earnest and educated man, had clearly been on the wrong path, thinking that sweeping up dirty Christians was the best service he could offer his faith. He had just been present at the stoning of Stephen, the first to die in the name of Christ, and now Saul is breathing murder against other disciples as well. But Stephen had begged God not to hold the sin of killing him against those who were throwing stones, and what shortly afterwards happens to Saul is clearly God’s doing. God’s perspective was that Saul was a forgiven man—and, moreover, a useful man, too good to waste. And so God works to change his life. When God tells Ananias to heal Saul, the poor man is afraid that maybe even God is confused. “Surely not Saul,” he says. But Saul is precisely the one.

Saul’s story is as dramatic as his crimes. Maybe we think God is only present when there are flashing lights and a provocative question from on high. But we’ve all been on the wrong path and God doesn’t have favorite sinners to convert. God turns me around too, even at my most normal and boring. Since God is the primary agent of change, God can transform even the most ordinary. The fact is that God isn’t done with any of us yet, nor does God consider any of our actions as merely a private affair. In our collective foolishness, rottenness, or brokenness, we are never too damaged for God to use. Or for God to combine together for the common good.

And so Christ appears to Peter and to the others on the seashore, after they have gone back to their former livelihood of fishing. This is the Resurrected Christ but remember the powerful description in Revelation this morning. This one is also the Lamb, the totally weak creature who was slaughtered, but who then is praised by the united singing of every single creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. There are no divisions, no rejections, no shunnings here. This lamb in his weakness revealed the power of God that moves and unites the world—and so certainly God will move us and those around us.

And so to the total amazement of Peter and to the others on the seashore, Christ appears, cooking them a sacred meal, showing that he will continue to bless and feed them. For Peter, who had let Christ down so badly, there is the additional blessing of forgiveness and self-forgiveness, followed by an invitation to start doing. Just as Peter denied Jesus three times, so Christ leads Peter in affirming his love for him three times, followed by the command that will shape the rest of Peter’s life: “‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’…And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

In both these Scriptural accounts—as well as in our own story here this week—we are reminded that it is in God’s light that we see light and that it is by God’s love that we discern our path. Remembering this will allow hope and trust to arise when we feel we have gone down into the Pit. When things go well, we love to say “I know what I’m doing, I’ve got it all figured out,” but when we crash, we need not burn. We do need to confess that it is God who will save us because we certainly cannot do it alone. In trusting and waiting, in praying and praising, we are allowing God to direct our lives.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, take our brokenness and that of others and make it into your victory. Let us know that we are too good to waste. May our steps be guided by you and may our sight be opened by your Holy Spirit. May our hearts and lives be a worthy witness to your goodness and glory and may we remember to give you our unending thanks and praise. Amen.

Now What?

2010-04-12T09:46:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 2nd Sunday of Easter (4.11.10)
Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s New Testament reading: But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

In the Children’s Time, I encouraged us all to whoop it up. Meanwhile, in the Gospel passage, the disciples are hiding. In Acts, Peter and the other apostles are in deep trouble with the Sanhedrin, the central religious council in Jerusalem. And in Revelation, seven churches are under attack. There are big mood shifts here. As we begin our post-Easter life this morning, what are we meant to take away as gifts and responsibilities or challenge?

For us, Easter evening may mean cleaning up the kitchen. In the Gospel on this night, no matter what Mary may have told them earlier, the disciples are behind locked doors. Suddenly Jesus appears among them. Although he greets them traditionally, “Peace be with you,” these words should remind the faithful of his promise at their last meal together, when he urged them not to be troubled or frightened because he is leaving his peace with them and that this is the peace of God. He then shows them the evidence of his crucifixion.

As they rejoice, he moves quickly and, with his action, this day takes on a new meaning. The peace that he immediately offers them this time begins a commissioning: They are to do God’s work in the world, empowered by the Holy Spirit that he breathes upon them. It is an investiture that carries its own power. The seminary term for this is “epiclesis” and I speak it every time we celebrate Holy Community: After the affirmation of our faith—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” the Service of Word and Table directs me to pray, “Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine.”

The ones to whom Jesus speaks on this evening are now his apostles, literally “his sent ones,” with the power not only to forgive but to judge the broken, flawed humanity of which he has clearly himself been a part. Forgiving and judging—it doesn’t get much tougher than this. But, for us, rather than thinking of all those others in Christian history who have used such authority to excommunicate or deprive or shun, perhaps we should link them, as Jesus does, to the authority of the peacemaker who brings comfort to the afflicted and shows affliction to the comfortable.

So maybe this is what we—ordained or not—are being given for Easter: the challenge of bearing Christ’s life-breath to the world, the holy responsibility of speaking words of peace, of saying what God wants to hear spoken so that humankind and the creation of which it is a part do not perish. If any of you are puzzled here, you should be. According to John, the Holy Spirit is being given on Easter, rather than on Pentecost as in the Book of Acts. Pentecost is a wonderful moment in the history of the church—and I’ll get all excited about it when the time comes, but I love the way John ties the breath of Resurrection as the particular Eastertide gift to us. Surely each of us can embody some part of the new breath, the new life that comes with Christ’s Resurrection.

And we’re only getting started: Thomas was not in the room that Sunday evening and when his friends told him that Jesus had been with them, his response is basically “No way, unless I see for myself.” And so the scene repeats itself a week later—this evening, in fact. This time Jesus invites Thomas to touch his wounds. Interesting when we remember that Jesus asked Mary not to touch him, not to reduce him to the human being she had cherished. Thomas, on the other hand, must be given permission to touch so that he can know that Jesus is not simply an apparition. We will never know whether Thomas really accessed that proof; instead we are given Thomas’s powerful affirmation: “My Lord and my God!” (These were the words that, years ago during Confirmation, I was taught to say during the consecration.)

I think that we get sidetracked by making a big fuss over Doubting Thomas. Thomas simply hadn’t seen Jesus yet. The others, including Mary, had. Perhaps only the Beloved Disciple deserves special credit, since John (who was writing for the Beloved Disciple of course) says that after seeing the linen wrappings in the tomb he believed, though as yet even he didn’t understand the Scripture. The point is that up to this moment, belief depended on physical evidence of some kind directly connected to the person of Jesus. Jesus is now preparing his disciples and all who follow them to this very day to believe based on hearing. I am not discounting visions or gifts of pure grace received through the most ordinary event or the most profound moment of sacramental worship. But right here, still well within the Easter moment, Jesus is birthing a church’s ongoing life as a community of faith that sustains itself by comparing testimony and witness: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is what we do in church or when we learn our prayers at our parents’ knees.

Loving and understanding Thomas’ stubbornness, which surely we also share, and then his complete and immediate capitulation, of which we are also capable, we might only wish that Thomas had been willing to believe the friends with whom he had lived and worked during their time with Jesus. At least for ourselves in our own worshipping communities, it is probably important to believe in the goodness and the witness of one another, without receiving a direct tap on the shoulder from on high. How much we have to learn from one another’s spiritual journeys and derailments. At least, we can check our tendency to discard opinions or dedications or motives that differ from our own.

And so my question: Now what? In our short passage from Acts, we see the immediate and inevitable response of some who were in that locked room. Summoned before the Sanhedrin, Peter and the other apostles get a taste of the hostility that will shortly lead to the martyrdom of Stephen by stoning. But Peter’s answer is clear: Because of what he has witnessed and because of the power of the Holy Spirit, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

Easier said than done. Peter is asserting that his membership in the newly emerging church requires that he follow the life of Christ and in so doing become a part of the body of Christ in this world. Peter is not defying the authorities, he is simply faithful to his witness. Christ and Christ’s body in this world will always suffer the same fate. But to be a witness is to take an active stance. Not aggressive but not passive either. It is to act on principle, to seize the opportunity to make known—in ways that prayer and the strength of community must reveal—the truth of God’s Word and God’s Word made Flesh. So here is another Easter gift—maybe not so much the gift of gumption (although a lot of us are good at that) as the desire for discernment, for fuller faithfulness and more faithful choices, for the energy of witness.

Such choices were being demanded of the seven churches to whom another John was writing in the letter that we call the Book of Revelation. We’re not sure which of two different and horrible persecutions they were enduring, but it’s clear that for them, as for us now, times were hard and full of fear. Once again, peace is offered from the faithful witness, Jesus Christ, who is here clearly empowering them to “be a kingdom,” a community of “priests serving” God. John wants to inspire his readers, fill them with hope that God controls human destiny, and that Christ will come again. John doesn’t know when, but he writes boldly since for him all times are held in the hand of the Lord God who is the first and the last, the one who is and who was and who is to come.

We can bask in Easter resurrection and victory over death, but we are absolutely right in feeling that much remains to be done. There is sometimes a flatness to Easter. We inwardly ask why there is so much joy when so much suffering remains. Our Easter celebration must not discount the pain around us. The point, I think—and this is surely another Easter gift—is the knowledge that God’s triumph is not finished.

The promise of Easter is waiting to be embodied by each of us. Easter challenges us to consider what relationships look like for Easter people. What our own behavior looks like. What issues, locally and globally, can begin to usher in the Kingdom. Being faithful as Easter people means remembering the God who is and who is to come.
Let us pray: Dear Lord, give us the grace and the will to inwardly digest the gifts of Easter so that we may be even more faithful witnesses and so that we and the creation of which we are a part may be transformed by your life-giving spirit and filled with the joy of Resurrection. Amen.

This Unexpected Day

2010-04-05T09:17:00.000-04:00

Easter Day 4.4.10
Psalm 118:14-24; Isaiah 65:17-25; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18

Please pray with me: On this Resurrection morning, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”

We have had a wonderful Holy Week, a week that I will not soon forget. Even though not all of you were able to attend all of our events, I believe that the spirit of our church has been strengthened in the last few days as we have reflected upon Jesus’ great love for each of us—my own spirit has been renewed—and I know that each of us will be blessed in unexpected ways. And then there was yesterday. Often we don’t know what to do with Holy Saturday, but it has been described as a time of holding our breath, waiting in faith and hope for what will surely happen.

And now we have reached Easter! Easter stands for everything life-affirming, for everything that fills us with joy. Christians call themselves Resurrection People. And that is true. This week I have loved rereading John’s story of the very first Easter morning. Each book of the Gospel records a somewhat different experience, but we are always allowed to preach John’s account on Easter morning. Maybe it never contains precisely these things. It does not start with joy and celebration. Instead it mirrors what can be our faith journey. It is initially a story of shock and disappointment, grief, confusion, and then mistaken identity. But it ends with such a powerful affirmation of the Easter promise that it thrills me. This is our story as Christians, this is Easter, and we can’t remember the first Easter too often.

First of all there is Mary, coming by herself to the tomb in the dark and discovering that the heavy stone has been rolled away. Grave robbers, some evil-minded authorities who are not yet satisfied with their cruelty? By simply calling them “they,” Mary registers her despair. There was at least one occasion when, as a chaplain intern, I rushed to say a final prayer over a patient, only to find that the body has already been removed and the bed was empty. In Mary’s case, she wanted a chance to say a final, private goodbye—a hopeless memorial really—but she needed to make sure that the mortal remains of Jesus’ tortured body had been treated with respect. She had one fixed idea, fueled by her loving obligation as an observant Jewish woman to tend the deceased. She expected to find that dead body, surely not a grave that had been tampered with. There had to be something, for one last time, to which she could connect her memories. She probably did not remember Jesus saying on several occasions that “where I am, you cannot come.” If she did remember, she could hardly have understood.

Peter and the Beloved Disciple, whom we know as John, responded immediately. There is that amazing race to know! Peter is the first into the tomb. The way in which the head cloth has been rolled up by itself is puzzling and the two do not know what to think. Probably not grave robbers. John writes that the Beloved Disciple saw and believed, but did not yet understand that Jesus was risen. He believes the Empty Tomb and maybe that Jesus himself has had something to do with that. He may remember that Lazarus had to be freed from his graveclothes. But as yet there is no evidence for Resurrection. And so the disciples return home. The Empty Tomb is not Resurrection. Non-believers will grant us the Empty Tomb. This is not yet the Easter we know and love.

For reasons we can understand, Mary simply remains. But when she actually peers into the tomb, she sees two angels. Not that she’s impressed or even acknowledges them as significant. In fact, she turns her back so that she can look hopelessly around outside. There has been no God-talk from Mary. This impersonal “They” she is blaming is not God. And so when a figure appears, she supposes that he is the gardener. She is totally incapable of recognizing him. Think about it: a gardener makes sense; it’s what one would expect. Not a “God-related being” (David Kelsey, Imagining Redemption, Lousiville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), not the risen Christ.

But then the unexpected happens! Christ does what he promised he would do for each of us. He calls Mary by name, and faith and hope rush in! How often does this happen! We think we have totally lost Jesus’ voice and then suddenly, unexpectedly, the grace of His love finds us and we are aware of His presence.

In Mary’s story, he calls her by name, but he does not want her to touch him. This is not intended as a reunion story with hugs and eager conversation. That makes it merely sentimental, not Gospel-worthy.

It is also not a complete story. It will be complete only with Jesus’ ascension. That is the news Jesus wants her to spread. It includes us as well, and here comes the good news of Easter: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary is not complicated when she delivers Jesus’ first Resurrection message. That is why I quoted it at the beginning of the homily. What is important to her is that she has seen the Lord. After Jesus’ death, she has actually seen him. She now knows that the love of God embodied in him did not last only as long as the Incarnation. It is not temporary. Cross/resurrection/ascension, those three, forever change the way God can be experienced in this world and by us.

This is the day when we know, because of the witness of Mary and others, that Christ is risen, that Christ is risen indeed, that Christ is a living presence among us. We can still turn our backs on him. We can fail to recognize the Risen Christ in our midst—to say nothing of angels. We think we know the Easter story. I dare say, we may think ourselves superior to Mary and the male disciples. We know what is coming. Or do we? By its very nature, Easter must overthrow every expectation that the world and nature give us.

It is also true that Easter will affect each of us differently, as it does in our Gospel this morning. Sometimes, as on that morning for Peter and John, the process is incomplete—even though they raced with one another to find out what had happened to Jesus. Sometimes, as for Thomas, there must be proof. But we mustn’t trash Thomas; he is the first to call Jesus “My Lord and my God!” Sometimes the emotional love for our Christ, our Jesus, is so absorbing, as it was for Mary, that we miss Christ’s new word to us. Mary almost does, and yet Christ’s word of Grace reaches her. She is blessed enough to hear him call her by name and to respond.

She had loved Jesus. She had been faithful. Still, on the first Easter morning, she needed conversion. Turning her head and her heart to believe something that she had not anticipated, had not thought possible, she begins to experience a fullness in a Christ whom she must know in a new way. She is immediately given a task by Jesus and she goes to witness.

Mary announces, proclaims what she has seen. But this Lord is our Lord, this God our God. At Easter—on Easter morning—Jesus tells us that our conversion is still unfolding. And, like Mary, after conversion, comes commissioning. We are being commissioned this morning. The news of the ongoing Resurrection is bursting to be shared. Like Mary, we are invited to find our own voices by speaking this news! We know it is true. Resurrection is here! We can start by saying it again: The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Let us pray: Dearest Lord Christ, this day of Resurrection is a day of new beginnings. Help us to turn around and recognize you wherever you choose to be. You have loved us to the end. You have spoken to us in many ways. Give us grace to love you in return, to be messengers of your love and doers of your word in ways as unexpected as your own. Help us to fill all of creation with your hope. We pray in your name. Amen.

Third Last Word

2010-04-03T09:39:00.000-04:00

Fair Street Reformed Church, Good Friday Service, 4.2.10

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing behind her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

These words are heart-wrenching. Here is Jesus, in the fullness of his agony, acknowledging his imminent death by entrusting his dearest friend, the beloved disciple, to his mother and his mother to this friend. Every piece of physical evidence points to his approaching death: his mother will lose her son and John will lose his teacher. Ever the dutiful son, ever the Good Shepherd who cares for his own, Jesus provides for each, giving Mary a protector and John one who can nurture. There are two other Marys as well near the foot of the cross, but it is to these two special ones in the crowd that Jesus speaks. These two who might be most devastated by what is happening are right there, where each of their senses is assailed by the gasping of breath, the sweat, the blood, and the immediate presence of unbearable pain. They didn’t choose “to remember him as he was.” They are there with him. Every ounce of their love and loyalty keep them close to watch and to witness. After that, the time moves with merciful quickness. Jesus asks for wine, and then it is finished.

But if Mary and John are devastated by the crucifixion, they must also be devastated by what this means for the ministry of the one they call Lord and the ministry to which they have committed their lives and the safety of their lives. Jesus has promised them joy and a comforter, but at the moment the future must seem pretty dark, a time in which new mother and new son must cling together, doing the best they can with teachings and memories.

John, the witness to these things, will neither forget them nor allow us to. He will realize and urge us to realize the deeper importance of what Jesus is entrusting to him and to Mary. Even at the moment of his physical death, Jesus’ love embodies the depths of his teaching, a new teaching that must affect every one of us, even here, even now. The disciple honors this by the formal way he records Jesus’ words: Here is your son, here is your mother.

The community that Jesus has gathered around him might seem to be in disarray, but in Jesus’ simple, profound statements directed to these two, he is connecting—for them and for us—even this terrible moment on the cross to all of his previous teachings. In this Gospel we see Mary only one other time, at the first miracle at the wedding in Cana. And John was last seen asking about the betrayer of his Lord and will be the first to look into the empty tomb.

Furthermore, Jesus is preparing John and Mary for a new community, the community we heard about from John last night, at the Maundy Thursday service. Family is no longer a matter of blood kin. Family is a community of serving and of love. As one kind of son and teacher seems to be dying, Jesus creates a life that connects each of us in comfort and hope, even when grief seems to be the victor.

We are heirs to this family, this family that is totally inclusive, totally forgiving, and filled with miraculous connections waiting for discovery. As we come today to the cross, with our own heavinesses and our fully legitimate fears for tomorrow, may we embrace this double gift: nurturing and protection within an ever widening community. In fact the gift is a directive and it is fourfold: In his third last word, our Lord empowers us to nurture and protect all those whom we meet, as well as to seek those blessings from him.

Dear Lord, may we be worthy. Amen.

A Royal Waste?

2010-03-22T11:55:00.000-04:00

Sermon for fifth Sunday in Lent (3.21.10)
Isaiah 43.16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3.4b-14; John 12.1-8

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Epistle: “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

As I was preparing my sermon this week, I came upon the following anecdote. The writer says that he “will never forget the furor sparked at a stewardship conference at which an ecumenical group of pastors gathered to discuss generosity. One presenter spoke about offering a gift directly to God, and the clergy began to yawn. Then he pulled a $100 bill from his wallet, set it on fire in an ashtray, and prayed, ‘Lord, I offer this gift to you and you alone.’ The reaction was electric. Clergy began to fidget in their chairs, watching that greenback go up in smoke as if it were perfume. One whispered it was illegal to burn currency. Another was heard to murmur, ‘If he is giving money away, perhaps he has a few more.’ There was nervous laughter around the room. ‘Do you not understand?’ asked the speaker. ‘I am offering it to God, and that means it is going to cease to be useful for the rest of us.’ It was an anxious moment.” My question is whether the presenter’s action was a great waste, a royal waste.

Something of the same thing happens in our Gospel this morning. Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, takes a pound of costly perfume, anoints Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her hair. Remember that Jesus had a deep friendship with this family. Their house was probably more home to him than any other. The event also takes place not long after Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead, and so Mary’s action can be seen as an act of extreme, extravagant gratitude. The cost of such perfume would have been almost a full year’s salary for a working person. Mary uses it so lavishly that the entire house is filled with the fragrance. Her gift may in part have been meant to counteract the memory of the stench that overwhelmed Martha as she approached the tomb where her dead brother lay. Is it a royal waste?

The family may or may not know that because of raising their brother, both Jesus and Lazarus now carry death sentences. Jesus’ power with the people was simply considered too dangerous to ignore. At first Jesus retreats into the wilderness with his disciples. But then he returns to Bethany, less than a week before the Passover. We all know what this means, even if the people in the household do not.

They hold a dinner for him and Mary anoints his feet. She doesn’t say a word, drawing attention only to the One she anoints. We don’t know how she would explain what she did. But the extent of her love is clear. It’s the deep love that defines being a disciple. It’s also intuitive, spirit-driven. Jesus hasn’t yet given his explicit commands about loving, hasn’t told her explicitly that his body will be broken—tortured—on the cross. But she knows how to respond to the situation without being told. She longs to honor him and give comfort. She also anticipates the foot washing at the last supper when he illustrates servant ministry to his followers. When Jesus raised Lazurus from the dead, he revealed how the fullness of God is available. Now, in advance of instruction, Mary reveals the fullness of discipleship. She gives boldly as Jesus will give boldly, and without his telling her what to do. She simply understands—and acts. Only at the end of the passage does Jesus explain that this ointment is for his burial and that his death will not be far off. Her liturgy of love—for that is what it is—creates connections far beyond the act itself and can hardly be called a waste.

Judas, on the other hand, does not understand. Even if we weren’t told that Judas was about to betray him and that he stole from the common purse, we can hear that point of view which sees only what is useful, practical, and cost effective, what adds up in human terms. Judas does not understand the fullness of who Jesus is. He does not understand that Jesus is the gift of God and that we respond to God’s gift by loving Jesus and those whom he has entrusted to us.

But just as we had to take a closer look at the Elder Brother last week, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, so we must not dismiss Judas so quickly. If it is Jesus’ mission to save the lost, who is more lost than this one who betrays him? Judas may well have been called to do this terrible thing so that crucifixion and resurrection may follow. Yet if the Good Shepherd will leave the ninety and nine to seek for the one that is lost, can we say that any sheep has wandered too far for the Shepherd to find? These are hard questions and I’m not sure that the Gospels give us a clear answer. These questions are worth pondering in humility and prayer. If Isaiah asserts that even the jackals and the ostriches honor God, which of us can reject any of God’s creatures, judging them simply a royal waste?

Our job is probably not to see ourselves either as Mary or Judas, but to understand that they are models, paradigms, and that we undoubtedly combine both. At times like Mary, we adore and give thanks to our holy and awesome God. But in the figure of Judas, we see all those who have gone astray. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am not excusing the actions of the historical Judas. But surely the grace of Jesus must extend to those who are at least sometimes unfaithful. Peter, who becomes a leader of the church, denied Jesus three times. Without sinners, there would be no need for the pain and the light of the cross.

Paul is wrestling with these questions in the passage from Philippians. In him, we see a person in the round, and also ourselves. Paul is asking us to draw up a life assessment, a ledger in which we note gains and losses. All of the considerable perks with which Paul came into the world, all his accomplishments and achievements, he is discarding because nothing equals “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.” What does that mean: “knowing Christ”? Mary presumably does know him; Judas presumably does not. Knowing Christ Jesus is not abstract or theoretical or a matter of a few prayers. For Paul it is a privilege and it calls us to set aside what we formerly valued, to turn away from what keeps us from Christ, and then act. To act because Paul wants to share in Christ’s “sufferings by becoming like him in his death” so that somehow he may attain also the resurrection from the dead.

This isn’t just fancy language. Paul is asking us to dive in royally, even if it is painful. This is where we need to be extravagant with our time and efforts. With our very being. Paul calls us to look hard at our own definitions of righteousness and to turn to God’s grace for answers. Paul urges us to participate in resurrection by finding our story as part of God’s larger story. Paul asks us to identify so closely with Christ that we seek where he continues to bring life into places of death and that we join in that resurrection. This is work for what remains of Lent and beyond. It reminds us that we can be part of God’s continuing faithfulness and join God in bringing about new things for our own broken hearts as well as for a broken world. Any apparent waste of our lives and labor in this way will indeed be royal.

Let us pray: Dearest God, Heavenly King, let us remember that you are still at work in us and in your world, and that you invite our participation. As we faithfully accompany our Lord through the darkness of Holy Week, let us offer Him all our love and gratitude. Let us accept whatever discomfort or sorrow occurs as we try to know Him better, assured that we are not alone and that we can press forward for the new life of resurrection. Amen.

Prodigal Love

2010-03-15T11:57:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 3.14.10 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)
Joshua 5.9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5.16-21; Luke 15.1-3, 11-32

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.”

Last week’s parable of the fig tree reminded us of the need to be fruitful and of the likely need for repentance in order for that to happen. Although God will often give us time and the support of his word and sacraments, we do not really know how much time we have. Today’s gospel shows how God receives our repentance, how God seeks out what is lost. Right before the parable that we have just heard this morning, Luke tells us the parable of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. But the final and longest is the Story of the Lost Boy. It is only found in Luke.

This is a story to break our hearts, for very personal reasons. In the inevitable process of growing up and separating from the parent, how often does a child make poor, even dangerous choices, sometimes over and over again. As Jesus tells the story to us, there is only one disastrous self-imposed exile on the part of the boy, but Jesus only needs to tell the story once since he is focusing on the significance of the younger son’s behavior.

The actions of the younger son are shameful and would have been considered even more so in ancient Palestine. He rejects family solidity and makes the incredibly insulting demand for his inheritance before his father’s death. It’s not really important that the father doesn’t refuse and that the older son doesn’t object. This is a worst case scenario. The inheritance the son demands would have been a portion of the family’s land holdings, presumably ancestral. In a land-based economy, a family needed its lands. What is truly shocking here is the sale of land that families believed were a gift to their family from God and then waste that money on a shameless lifestyle.

Money goes fast and it’s clear that the son would have gone broke sooner or later. He’s unlucky enough to encounter a recession—a famine—and a job shortage. The only work he can find is tending hogs. Hogs are not kosher and no Palestinian Jew would have been caught dead taking care of them, much less asking to share their food. So he’s lost his family, his hometown, and his religion. Perhaps worse than death is the feeling of being lost, having become a nonperson.

But when bottom has been hit, through some miracle, some memory of home or love, the boy realizes that who he has become is not who he really is—or was. He takes the most difficult first step of facing himself in that pigpen. Somehow then he is able to speak the word “father,” that word he used with such arrogance and entitlement when he asked his father to hand over what was not yet his. The only place to go is home and home means a restored relationship. And so on the way, he rehearses a speech of deep apology, a speech that acknowledges that he can no longer be called his father’s son. Knowing this, he intends to beg for a job as a servant.

Then, of course, the miracle happens. One has the sense that the father has been waiting, praying, and watching, longing to see that dust on the road. Without regard for his dignity or his previous humiliation, he runs to embrace his son. The boy then delivers the first part of his speech, but before he can beg for anything, his father orders all the signs of sonship: the best clothes, a ring, and sandals.

What a wonderful way to describe Grace. If we can cry out to God and try to find him, God’s prodigal love runs out to meet us and we begin to realize that we have been found, that we are precious enough to be worth finding! I suspect that many of us can see something of ourselves in this younger son and hope that such unconditional love will be waiting for us too. That is true, but even more important; it is true because of God’s incredible love and the abundance of God’s grace. No matter how much stuff we’ve thrown at God, God is determined to find us, if at all possible. The son turned home, but the reconciliation in the story comes from the father’s huge generosity. The father did not respond to separation by distancing himself; the boy always remained his son.

The father’s deep love is key to his relationship to his older son. I can so easily see that son’s point of view. Sin is a serious thing—especially since he is assuming that his younger brother enjoyed it. He, on the other hand, has been responsible, hard-working, respectful. And so he’s angry. When I asked the children this morning which son needed God the most, I was hoping they had seen that there are two lost boys here. This older one is in danger of being lost in his self-righteousness, his pride, and jealousy. By making his father leave the guests and come out to beg him, he is not showing respect. He’s smart enough to know that the party is not only for his younger brother, but is face-saving for the entire family, showing the neighborhood that they are united again. Notice that the father doesn’t defend the younger brother nor does he criticize the elder. He speaks only of his own love and abundance, which is more than enough for both of them: “You are with me always, and all that I have is yours.” These words are counter-intuitive for us, difficult to understand. Something limitless, something that is given away and yet still remains; something that can belong to all equally?

We don’t know whether the Elder Brother finally comes in to the party or not. Clearly Jesus is giving the same invitation to the Pharisees and Scribes who had been complaining about the people Jesus was eating with. The party, whether in the story or anywhere else, is God’s party, thrown for many more than we like to imagine. We had a party here last night. Not large, but a real gathering. We knew everyone who came, including friends from the Reformed Church. Everyone, that is, except one. I’d hoped something like this would happen. A man just walked in, first name only, ate, talked with those at his table, obvious knew Port Ewen and families from this church. Then he left. Who knows?

God is planning the party of God’s mercy even before we think of responding—and certainly before we contribute very much. It is the party that asks us to think less about ourselves, about how things may affect us, and more about how we can build up the body of Christ in this world. God’s on-going party urges us to come to our senses, our right minds; to come to our selves and never stop praying that the world and our loved ones will return home as well. All of this means not forgetting the determination with which even the wronged and humiliated father—Our Lord as well—waits and watches and longs for each of us to return.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, it is hard to admit that we have strayed from our best selves, following too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. It is hard to forgive the sins of others and to ask the same tolerance, the same mercy for them that we ask for ourselves. Help us to see your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created. Help us to live into your abundant, prodigal love. Amen.

Drinking Sand

2010-03-08T12:11:00.000-05:00

Homily for 3.07.10 (Third Sunday in Lent)
Isaiah 55.1-9; Psalm 63; 1 Corinthians 10.1-13; Luke 13.1-9

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s gospel: “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.”

I made a quick trip to Pittsburgh midweek for the Confirmation of one of my nephews. He’s a wonderful 13-year-old, he took this step very seriously. We were all so proud and happy for him—and for ourselves in being part of his growing up in this way.

Two people were not able to be present however, Patrick’s godfather and his wife. Ten days ago, she was delivered of her first child by C-section. Little Bryce is fine, but some twelve hours later Katie began to have seizures and was found to have a blood clot on her brain. She is now breathing on her own, but is in a coma with massive neurological damage. Imagine three such events colliding. The birth and the confirmation were full of hope and promise, and then this totally unexpected tragedy. I am telling you, not only so you can grieve and pray for Katie, but because it has shocked me into taking Jesus’ words today more seriously.

People have been telling Jesus about two horrible events, wondering what the victims had done to deserve them. Unlike Job’s friends, however, Jesus refuses to speculate about crime and punishment. “Do you think they were worse sinners than anyone else because they suffered?” he asks. There are no simple answers. Shallow theological thinking about those others keeps us from thinking about ourselves. It also betrays a very deep fear. Something like this might happen to us—has happened to us or those we love. Over and over again, we ask “Why?” Should we fear divine retribution? Jesus challenges us in two ways: Knowing that we are all flawed, he asks each of us to consider the state of our own souls and then helps us understand what to do next.

He uses the word “repent.” That’s a hard word to swallow and it means hard work. To explain, Jesus tells us the parable of the fig tree. Fig trees are pretty important in the Middle East with their juicy, fat, ripe fruit. Substitute pear or peach, if you like, fresh-picked in summer from your own tree. Now think of yourself as a dead-ripe fig or pear or peach, the perfection of what you were created to be.

Well, here comes the absentee landlord, all ready for his harvest, and for the third year in a row a particular tree has produced nothing for him! It’s wasting the soil. Chop it down! Certainly a tragedy for the tree. But the gardener—could this be Christ?—has another idea. What he doesn’t say is “Oh, we have plenty of other trees and plenty of room. Let’s not be hard on that poor old tree. I love it; I’ll just let it be.” No. He gives it another chance. He will loosen the soil around it and add compost to nourish it. Well, actually, he doesn’t say compost; he uses the blunter word “manure.” Maybe such effort will transform the tree and it will become more productive.

Jesus was talking about us! Are we bearing fruit or just taking up space, year after year? Maybe we can become juicier. We can interpret the challenge of this parable in many ways. One thing is clear. The parable ends without an ending. The gardener doesn’t know for sure what the results will be. What the future may bring is a mystery, known only to God, whether it is a physical healing, or the gradual transformation of a stony heart, or the success of a mission project that we’re involved in only at the beginning.

The returning landlord in Jesus’ parable might be dismissed as the God of the Old Testament, a God of power, anger, and judgment. But it would be unwise, I think, to believe that God never judges. For Jesus, God’s judgment can be balanced, softened, restrained by mercy. In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus’ warning is also a compassionate invitation. God wants us to share in unfolding a fruitful future for ourselves and for those in widening circles around us. He wants us to drink deeply, and not of sand, which sticks in the throat and cannot hold any nourishment.

How do we do that? Repentance or metanoia requires us to turn around, to change direction. What kind of tilling, what kind of manure will it take? Because of my farm, my own manure pile at home is impressive. We call it Mount Muckmore. Powerful stuff—and transforming! It’s black gold, a constant source of nutrients for any garde, if my woodchucks allow me to have one. Sometimes I think I need a Mount Muckmore of the soul: an endless composting of humility, of selflessness, of obedience, of faithfulness, of trust. You can fill in your own needs.

What Jesus urges is for us to start that tilling and composting. We know that life is fragile and that all the foresight and love in the world cannot protect everyone we love or ourselves. Jesus tells us here that such tragedies are not God’s doing. If we are given another year or five or ten, that time is a gift of God’s love and mercy: A time to gather together the gifts we will present to God and a time to make the best use of the gifts given to us by God.

These gifts are not only personal. They are also sacramental and that means that in our work, we are not alone. On a Sunday on which we share Holy Communion with one another, surely we might see that the prayers, the bread, and the cup are ways in which Christ, our gardener, tills and nurtures us, pouring his sacrifice, his very life, into the roots of our being. Through the gift of his flesh and his blood, he transformed and is still transforming the soil in which we are planted and from which we can grow and flourish.

Let us pray: Dearest God, through your grace, open our hearts to praise and thanksgiving this morning, so that we can take your sacrament to our comfort, knowing that the Holy Spirit makes us one with your Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world. Amen.

Strength in the Wilderness

2010-02-22T16:54:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 2.21.10 (First Week of Lent)

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

Have you ever felt that things were going really well, that all your ducks were in a row, and then suddenly, everything starts to fall apart? You lose a job or don’t get the one you wanted; there are family problems, health problems you hadn’t expected; you begin to wonder what you are doing with your life. You may have achieved all your goals and yet still feel something is missing. And so you enter your own wilderness, you find yourself walking through a period so dry that you can feel the sand in your mouth and the horizon keeps receding. If you have ever experienced this, then our Lenten readings are probably for you.

One could say this is what happens to Jesus in this morning’s Gospel from Luke. Just after he has been baptized in the Jordan by his cousin John, the Holy Spirit in a visible form has descended on him and identified him as God’s beloved son! We don’t know whether anyone else was aware of what happened, but clearly Jesus has had a visionary experience. And Luke reports that Jesus feels “full of the Holy Spirit,” as well he might. But then the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness and that is a very different experience. When we are told that it lasts for 40 days, Luke means that it went on for a long time, reminding us of the 40 years that the children of Israel spent in their wilderness trying to create a new life after their slavery in Egypt. Unlike them, however, Jesus is not fed by manna and he is understandably famished and weak. Were he not, he would not be human. His humanness is important here.

During this period, Luke tells us that the Devil tempts him. That may be a stumbling block for many of us. Who is this Devil? Do we want to believe in him? Luke probably thinks of him as the Lord—a kind of head honcho—of the demons and unclean spirits that Jesus will encounter in so many of his crowd scenes. We encounter them ourselves and in ourselves—not only in the mentally ill. This unsavory figure pretends to have power, people give power to him, and mischief is certainly caused as a result, and he is meant to personify evil. He is a symbol of what Jesus will have to confront in his ministry. Some Bible scholars argue that these temptations didn’t even happen. After all, Jesus doesn’t report the event himself and there are no other eyewitnesses. The story may have been created through combining the well-known testing of Job with a series of actual verbal challenges that are recorded throughout the Gospel of John. The story also has the same kind of power that our Westerns do: good guy vs. bad.

I’m not trying to question Scripture. But I do want to suggest that this is not a story about temptations as we often understand the word: “My, that second piece of cake is tempting.” What matters here, I think, is that Luke is using materials legitimate for his time to show us his portrait of Jesus, to show us Jesus sorting out the words that he heard at his baptism and even his inner struggle over the implications of these words: What does it mean to be God’s chosen? It also helps to remember that the Spirit led him into this time of retreat. This is necessary prayer work. And in fact the devil or—if you’ll permit me—the inner voice actually proposes some fairly legitimate scenarios.

If Jesus is hungry; why not use some of his own power to feed himself? Moreover, if he can turn stones into bread, he will be able to feed all those poor hungry people who will soon be thronging around him. Moses fed his people. Isn’t Jesus at least as responsible a leader? As for the kingdoms of the world: Most of the known world was cruelly oppressed by Rome. Why shouldn’t Jesus use his power for good by overthrowing that kingdom as many hoped the Messiah would do? Finally, that inner voice reminds him of the very 91st Psalm that we prayed this morning. Go to the temple in Jerusalem, the tempter says, and by flinging yourself down right before the priests show everyone what God’s Chosen can do. The Psalm says that the angels will catch you.

Jesus says no to each suggestion and finds strength in his wilderness because he is unwilling to test God, is unwilling to trust God only if God performs certain tricks on demand, like changing stones into bread or rescuing someone from a gratuitously rash action. Nor can Jesus take on Rome by entering its political arena. Ultimately Jesus will say yes to each of these suggestions, but in God’s way: He will feed the 5,000; he will challenge all political systems that are not modeled on justice and peace; and he will climb the cross and empty the tomb to show God’s high regard for saving life.

Luke ends his account on a true reality-series note by telling us that the devil departed from him but only “until an opportune time.” These impulses to test God, to put one’s own ambitions or abilities first, or to shut down when the demands get too great will become evident again at the end of Luke when Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and urges his disciples to “pray that you may not enter into temptation.” He himself initially prays to be delivered from the crucifixion.

But what happens in the Garden, like what happens in our passage this morning, is really about the responses that Jesus gives under pressure. If Jesus uses this time, at the beginning of his ministry, to decide what kind of responses he is going to offer to God, we can also use our reading of this passage to decide what kind of responses we will offer as followers of Jesus. We too have been baptized and on the second Sunday after Epiphany had the chance to reaffirm our baptismal vows. Like Jesus, we have very human needs and wants. But we often turn most whole-heartedly to God when we are in our own wildernesses.

Maybe that is just as well, even though such behavior could be described as mercenary—we’re in it for what we can get. When we’re in trouble, we sometimes have to relinquish our whole way of looking at things. We must let go of all of our need to be in control, of all of our presences, even what we consider our accomplishments. We must take seriously our petition, “Thy will be done,” just as Jesus remembers the teachings from Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone”; “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him”; and “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Our story this morning and the three challenges presented to Jesus uncover the way in which evil thrives on distortions and lies: wants are seen as needs (one can turn stones into bread), falsehoods claim to be truths (one can gain influence through power), and our faith is presented as something that we challenge God to earn. We encounter such distortions and lies all the time. But Jesus trusts God’s word alone and God’s unfolding directions; he worships and serves only Him. For us to do that may well take the rest of our earthly lives and beyond. But Jesus’ responses to the questions that tempted him can strengthen us in our dry times here and now. As we return again and again to the Lord our God, evil—by whatever name we call it—does not have charge over us.

Let us pray: Dearest God, You are our refuge and our fortress and your angels have charge over us, to guard us in all our ways. Help us to be more receptive to your grace. Help us turn towards you always and not only during our trials and temptations. Let us remember that you are the strong and faithful God who goes with us into the wilderness and the God who leads us through it. Amen.

Time with God

2010-02-15T17:14:00.000-05:00

Sermon for Transfiguration, 2.14.10

Please pray with me: May we turn and listen when you call; may we open our eyes to see what you have given; may we let you live in us so that people, knowing us, may also know you. Amen.

From today’s Gospel: “And while [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”

You’ve made a choice to come here this morning—at least I assume most of you have come of your own free will. Many of you make that choice every Sunday. In doing so, you’re like Jesus. You’re making the Jesus-like choice to dedicate a time to God on a regular basis and to see what God has in mind.

In Luke this morning, Jesus takes his best friends up a mountain—in other words, away from the crowds—so that he can have some piece and quiet and get down to what he really needs, which is to pray. Peter, John, and James probably could have used some prayer time too, but what happened to them is what can happen to me: Given a little time for prayer, a chance to close my eyes and relax, my system tells me it’s the perfect time to take a nap, and off I go. That’s exactly what happens to the disciples. Now naps are the chocolate of the soul—but prayer is too, and sometimes it’s helpful not to be too comfortable when you’re serious about it. The disciples start to nod off and miss some of what happens next. Jesus, on the other hand, enters deeply into prayer as he always does at crucial times. Here he is preparing to begin the trip to Jerusalem that will end in crucifixion.

As he prays, something wonderful happens: His face and even his clothes begin to glow. There’s a radiance about him. We don’t really know what he’s feeling or even how conscious he is of how he has changed. But the disciples notice; there’s no more talk about how sleepy they are. They also see that he’s not alone. They’re able to identify the two striking men who are with him as Moses and Elijah, two great heroes from the past. They probably don’t hear the conversation. They don’t grasp the significance of this “departure which Jesus was able to accomplish at Jerusalem,” and they’re not ready to accept that Jesus will have to die. All they know is that something important is happening. It’s big enough so that, for the time being, they keep it a secret.

It’s important that Jesus is not alone at this time in his life. The friends in whom he often confides—Peter, John, James— are with him, even if they don’t quite get what’s about to happen. But even more important is that Moses and Elijah have come to be with him and to speak about what will happen during Holy Week and Good Friday. They’re as close to being his equals as we can imagine. Are they offering comfort? Supporting his determination to do what he must do? Giving him moral support? We don’t know. What we do know is that God has the last word: From a cloud the disciples suddenly hear, “This is my Son, My Chosen. Listen to him.”

Sounds like marching orders. And I don’t think the experience is totally new. Remember the crucial times when, during prayer, you haven’t been alone either. Sometimes memories come of people important to us—a strong sense of their presence or of words they’ve spoken. Sometimes during or after prayer, there’s a wonderful knowledge that God is with us; everything around us seems brighter and clearer. Sometimes there’s an unexpected phone call that seems like an angel message straight from God.

My mother had a particular love for one of her grandmothers. She was always in some physical pain and her life was sustained by prayer. Every morning after breakfast, she would go back to her bedroom to pray. As a small child, my mother would wait outside until she had finished. She loved seeing her come out of her room because, she said, Grandma’s face always glowed. I believe this was something that my mother really saw. She realized that private morning prayer was this woman’s way of life. Even a young child like my mother was impressed by how this time alone with God was a strength and comfort. I have seen faces glow during a church service, and this is all the more striking because I have sometimes known that the person was in real physical or emotional pain.

Regular prayer can be part of a way of life, as it was for Jesus. For centuries, the Church has called doing so a Rule of Life. Sometimes in monasteries, the rule was pretty strict. But really a Rule of Life is not a matter of ought and should. It’s more like a measuring line that we can use as a guide, the way we do when laying out plans for a room or a building. In his autobiography, St. Augustine prayed that God would make him into a house, fit for God to enter.

Like Jesus, when we feel a longing or a need to feel God’s presence with us, a regular practice of having already done so can be a huge help. I’m thinking of the role that the 23rd Psalm has played in my life. I pray it every morning and sometimes I know I’m just saying the words. Then suddenly there will be that day when a line will strike me in a totally new way. One morning, several months before I had even heard of Port Ewen, I realized that rather than saying, “God restores my soul,” I was saying, “God is restoring my soul.” With those words, I was aware of a lightening and a healing of my spirit, and it was wonderful. I don’t think it’s an accident that the call to come to this church followed soon after.

So the best way to start a Rule of Life is probably to notice what we’ve been doing all along, to be proud of it and to claim it as an important part of our life with God: Church on Sunday, prayer when we wake up in the morning and right before sleep, regular thanks to God during the day and when we sit down to eat, some reading of The Upper Room and of Scripture, finding ourselves humming a hymn every once in a while. If we’re doing any of this, we’ve already begun the awesome practice of a Rule of Life, a relationship with God aided and abetted by the Holy Spirit. We are being formed by God. St. Paul would say, we’re “being transformed… from one degree of glory to another.”

Can each of us do more? Can we fight the temptation to fall asleep on God and miss important moments of our own possible faith journey? Of course. You know I’m not going to let us enter Lent without hoping that each of us will extend ourselves a little. The point of Lent isn’t deprivation, subtraction. And here’s the thing: Because it’s a limited period, it can be a safe window in which to try an additional devotion as a grace or a blessing. Far better than fasting during Lent—with the real intent of losing weight—might be making more time to write in a journal, or go for a walk or a run to secure a place apart for ourselves where we can be attentive to God and God’s creation. If we want to fast, we can fast from our cell phones or the internet or—you name it—to make more space for actually getting down to prayer. We can fast from our consumerism and make different spending and giving choices. All that we do can be transformed.

Here’s another thing about a real McCoy Rule of Life: It’s nobody’s business but yours and God’s. Discuss it with a friend or pastor, but only if you like. It isn’t something to beat yourself up over and it certainly shouldn’t be a way to set yourself up for failure.

It also isn’t only prayer and study. The third ingredient is the kind of deeds that you, as a congregation are so good at. I was thinking this week that our Mailbox Ministry is a glorious way in which prayer and outreach become one. I am hoping that we will be able to welcome the larger community of Port Ewen to a simple supper at some point during Lent.

After all, the Gospel this morning doesn’t end until Jesus connects his time of prayer, transfiguration, and holy, distinguished conversation with an act of mercy and of healing. The very next day, he’s verbally assaulted by a man crazed with grief over his son’s dementia. For whatever reasons, the other disciples have failed. But Jesus heals him, transforms—even transfigures—him into a normal boy. You can’t tell me that the faces of both father and son didn’t glow.

We too can be formed in the presence of Christ. This will be our Easter blessing and our Easter challenge. And even before Jesus reaches Jerusalem, he shows us how to be faithful in spiritual disciplines that bring him and us into the presence of the Father. It is Jesus’ promise that as we are faithful to his example and to his mission, we too, here and now, will be transfigured. And then, you may be sure, there will be a call to use this gift!

Let us pray: Lord, it is good to be here and to remember your faithfulness as well as your glory. Help us to see you for who you really are, the Chosen One of God. Help us to listen to you, to walk in your light, and to carry your mercy into the world. Amen.

Going Deeper

2010-02-08T17:03:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 2.7.10, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 6.1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15.1-11; Luke 5.1-11

Please pray with me: Dearest Lord, in our meditation on your scripture, may your word be heard; in the thoughts of our hearts, may your word be known; in the faithfulness of our lives, may your word be shown. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Thanks to the Scripture this week, I’ve been thinking of experiences that take my breath away, that fill me with awe: Fresh-fallen snow and clearing sky after a heavy storm; the Vineyard sound when I get to see it again each July; my memory of the open, active volcano crater on Hawaii’s Big Island and, around it, the ever-widening fissures pushing steam and gases up through the earth. Awe-filled moments are hard to forget. You’ll have your own versions. For me, there’s always something of resident power in each of these scenes that makes me feel my own vulnerability, even some fright: harsh weather threatens life, the ocean must always be respected, and volcano-watching should not be a casual activity.

That tension between admiration and fear is at the heart of Isaiah’s experience and also Peter’s. Such tension is actually a pretty good definition of awe: mingled reverence, dread, and wonder. And we’re being shown this week that such conflicting and powerful emotions are part of our relationship with our God who is awesome, not to be trifled with. I wonder how often we squarely face the fact that we are loved by and in turn love a God whose immediate presence would be too dazzling for us to bear. The Scripture for next week will build on that realization. Today we are asked to take the experience of awe seriously as two great Biblical figures are changed, transformed by their encounter—their epiphanies—with God.

It’s worth noting that Isaiah is in the temple—in church—when his epiphany occurs. Not a bad place to encounter grace! In fact, Isaiah’s probably only in the doorway since he tells us that “the hem of [God’s] robe filled the temple.” Think scale for a second and imagine how huge a figure would need to be for just his or her hem to fill a large interior. The Divine Figure here is incomprehensible and yet the Divine has also given Isaiah ways to know him. Here a formal and beautiful service is going on: There is the hymn of praise, “Holy, holy, holy,” sung by a choir that shakes the foundations, and there is the smoke from the offering. Perhaps Isaiah’s cry of confession comes because he is so awed by what he is experiencing: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” He’s packing a lot into that confession: We don’t know exactly what “unclean lips” means, but Isaiah sees clearly that neither he nor his society has been obeying God’s commands. But even so, he realizes that God or at least God’s messengers have appeared to him.

His feelings of being both lost and found are confirmed by the ritual of purification that follows. Just as Isaiah would not have been able to bear the direct sight of God’s burning glory, so he could not bear the burning coal directly from God. For these reasons, God sends one of the Seraphs as a mediator, a messenger, first to wield those terrible tongs and then to speak the words of assurance: “Your sin is blotted out.” Isaiah doesn’t promise to try to be better; he confesses his fault and is then transformed by a power vastly beyond anything he could have imagined before his vision.

Isaiah was not only changed by repentance. That in itself can be powerfully troubling, even painful. Isaiah has now not simply been forgiven and folded into a safe, holy world. He will be transformed for his call and that too will be troubling and painful. Now Isaiah hears the actual voice of God and God’s directions are like the parables that are so hard to understand: God commands Isaiah to tell the people to “keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.” God no longer seems to be warning the people to repent; God’s new prophet Isaiah is to preach judgment, to proclaim God’s “no” because they so often only wanted to hear a “yes.” Poor Isaiah even asks God how long he will have to preach in this way, and again, the answer is blunt and realistic. The people need to hear that there is judgment.

By the end of God’s speech, even the saving remnant—the best 10 %—will be burned away. But despite darkness, 9/11s, Haitis, or the darkness of the cross, there is a ray of light. In the words of this passage, God tells Isaiah that a stump will be left and from that stump the holy seed will spring.

The Jesus, whom we meet on the lakeshore in Luke, is that holy seed, the Beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased and whom the Father sent so that Divinity could be among us. In this passage too there may be a kind of worship going on as Jesus teaches the crowds that gather to hear him, but it’s a realistic scene, in the fresh early morning as the fishermen are cleaning their nets after a night’s work. Jesus seems perfectly accessible, a simple man of flesh and blood. And then mystery and power enter the passage. Jesus commands Peter to go back out onto the water, the deep water, and start fishing again. Peter protests that they’ve been trying all night with no results. But he does as he is told and, as we all know, they catch so many that their nets began to break and their boats began to sink.

At this point, Peter, like Isaiah before him, realizes that he is in the presence of something far beyond him. “Depart from me, Lord,” he says, “for I am a sinful man.” Notice that Peter now calls Jesus not “Master” or “sir,” but “Lord”—kyrios—a word of high respect. His fear is so great that he uses the same word that Jesus had used in exorcising a demon just one chapter earlier: “Depart!” We don’t know what sins Peter might have been hiding, but Peter certainly realized that there can be no secrets from someone like this miracle worker. Better admit to the worst right away and have done with it: “I am a sinful man.” Maybe then this Jesus will leave him alone.

On the other hand, maybe it was an epiphany that drove Peter to his knees, a humble admission that he is a normal, fault-filled person who can only capitulate before this stranger whose power is surely divine. Jesus responds by saying, “Do not be afraid.” This is what angels usually say to mortals. And they probably say it because on some level we really should be, not because of who they are but because of who we have been. But Jesus, who is capable of the power that Isaiah encountered in the temple, was sent to live among us and be a Lord whom we could know and love. He can speak directly to Peter. Jesus wants Peter to move forward into his true vocation and so he simply tells him, “From now on you will be catching people.” And Peter and the others leave everything and follow him. There is no burning coal for Peter, at least not yet. But he will be drawn from his mundane life into waters far deeper than he ever expected.

And what of us? In just 10 days, on Ash Wednesday, we’ll be reminded that we too are simply mortal. What awe do we feel before the divine presence, even before the divine presence of our dear Lord Jesus? What do we need to leave behind so that we can follow his call? How can we become more attentive? As we prepare to hear the great story of Jesus’ Transfiguration next Sunday and then begin the final journey to Jerusalem with him, we can surely take some time for looking and listening and for allowing God to call us in God’s own way and time.

Let us pray: We thank you, dearest Lord, that you do not give us brightness that is too dazzling for us to bear or allow us to live in darkness that shuts out every hope. Be with us as we move through each day. Help us to know that we receive our life from a power beyond ourselves and that we live by a life that is not our own. Amen.

(With thanks to Bonnie Thurston)

God Chooses

2010-02-01T01:27:00.000-05:00

Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (1.31.10)
Jeremiah 1.4-10; Psalm 71.1-6; 1 Corinthians 13.1-13; Luke 4.21-30

Please pray with me: Dear God, May we turn and listen when you call; may we open our eyes to see what you have given; may we let you live in us so that people, knowing us, may also know you. Amen.

From today’s New Testament Lesson: Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Last weekend, I finally saw Avatar. Now I can’t see a film without wanting to critique it, but as you can imagine—knowing my passion for the earth—there was much in this story that pulled me in. Afterwards I kept thinking of the enormous energy shared by the native people of Pandora and the creatures among whom they live and with many of whom they hook up. It’s wonderful, if a little scary: Each person’s head has a long braid ending in tendrils that are alive with nerves. By plugging these long braids into similar neural cords that hang from giant animals and birds, the Na’vi achieve union with them. The coupling isn’t easy, but, when successful, the thoughts of the Na’vi now govern the creatures’ behavior. And it isn’t brute conquest. This bonding, blatantly physical as it is, is possible because of the deep spiritual interconnection among all living things in that world.

There is something of this raw energy in our psalm today. Even from our translation, we realize that the speaker is up against it, terrified, and not for the first time. But there’s more. This is not a politely-worded cry for help. Throughout his life, the psalmist has known that God’s power to rescue is loving but also very physical. So when he asks God to “deliver me,” in verse 2, the verb really means “snatch.” In a tough world, God, you’re going to have to reach down and snatch me away from, tear me from, those who now grasp me with their own wicked hands (in verse 4).

Then, the psalmist adds, what I also need, God, is “a strong fortress.” Fortress is a wonderful—and traditional—metaphor for protection, but what it means is the need, the requirement for a sturdy place, a safe place, a sacred space which a person can always find, a place where that person is held in God’s hand. After all, life began in God’s hands. Verse 6 tells us that “it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.” But our translation is once more too abstract. The Hebrew might better be translated, you were the one who “pulled me out of” my mother’s womb, or even who “cut me out.” This is not some vague comforting memory. It insists that God’s power and love are physically present for us. More like: I am alive because you wanted me to exist, you chose me to be. The point, I think, isn’t so much that the psalmist wants us to think of God as rough and tough. But, on the other hand, it isn’t a polite gloves-on exchange either to someone we hope might be listening. The person praying this prayer has strong needs and, through faith, must believe that The Creator is strong and present.

The words put in Jeremiah’s mouth by the Lord confirm both strength and presence. We don’t know how young Jeremiah was. But like Moses, he feels insecure amd frightened: “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” The answer is that of a Commanding Officer who is not aloof but active and engaged in the lives of his people, a CO to whom, through respect, fear, and experience, one can only say “yes.” And so God replies, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you”—to snatch you away from danger. And the reason is that you are mine.

C.S. Lewis answers question about our relationship with God in words too direct to ignore: “God made us,” writes Lewis, “invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other” (Mere Christianity, 39). So God will lift us up, as on eagle’s wings—and with the help of eagle’s claws because we are God’s and therefore God cares.

So much so that God made God’s physical presence known on this earth through the incarnation of our Lord. Where then is the energy in our meeting with Jesus in the Gospel today? This passage is amazing. I’m sure you recognized it as the second half of the Gospel lesson from last week. Last week, all was well in the synagogue after Jesus finished reading. There was the kind of stunned silence that can mean that the words have sunk in. After their epiphany, there was the happy conversation about it. People were amazed by this young man who had simply been seen as “Joseph’s son.” I don’t hear any sarcasm in that remark. The trouble hasn’t started yet.

It’s Jesus, in fact, who stirs things up. By the time he’s finished speaking, they are “filled with rage.” Why doesn’t Jesus let well enough alone? Because like Jeremiah, words have been put in his mouth and he cannot be afraid. “I’m not going to let you accept me as your hometown boy. I haven’t been sent just for you.” He’s actually pretty heavy-handed. Not once but twice, he reminds them that the prophets Elijah and Elisha were not sent to the widows and lepers of Israel—“to none of them…none of them”—but to unbelievers. This is a new narrative for Jesus’ neighbors. A message to dismantle the status quo requires a new understanding that can be too much to bear. And so, in a move that Satan in the desert temptations would have applauded, they try to hurl him off a cliff at the edge of town. In a way that we don’t really need to understand, Jesus was able to pass through them and go on his way—to much harsher moments, as we know.

What about us? Does our faith—do our prayers—raise questions that are hard to bear? Certainly our lives do, and so like Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus himself, we ask God for help. Sometimes it seems that the deeper we go into our time with God, the more challenging are the demands that God throws back. A real life with God is not always comfortable. Maybe Epiphany has a side that’s a little tougher than basking in this glorious light that we have been given. That real side of life with God is clearly explained in the familiar passage from I Corinthians.

This passage, which does not mention God or Christ, can easily seem like the perfect manual for human relationships. That’s probably why it’s often used at weddings. But we should also remember that it is part of Paul’s letter to his difficult church in the sophisticated and pagan city of Corinth. Here, in a pastoral crisis, he is calling them to account for their behavior. Various members there were doing everything Paul said love or caritas should not do. They were boastful, competitive about their various spiritual gifts, still interested in the mysterious religions of their culture, and condescending to the poorer members of their community.

The whole letter makes it clear that the love that Paul is describing is the love of which Christ gave us an example, in fact the love of God revealed in the cross: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” It’s not an emotion or feeling, this love. It’s an action that seeks the good of another. It is not one more spiritual gift, but the way through which God wants us to live out each of our gifts. It’s the basic deal maker or breaker, and without it, as Paul says more than once, “I am nothing…I gain nothing”—or most pointedly of all, I’m just so much ugly, pointless noise—“a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

God snatches us from harm so that we can live in and live out the fullness of Christ’s love. Fullness of love is not a bargain; it’s what God longs for. This is what God has chosen for us, each doing so in our own way. Martin Luther was fond of saying that since parenting was a Christian vocation, even changing diapers is for the glory of God. One of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, spoke of vocation—God’s choice for us—as “fellowship with Jesus Christ…and therefore” service to God and our fellow creatures. Vocation, so understood, gives us so many options. Maybe this is the true gift of Epiphany: recognizing that the light of Christ, the radical loving grace of Christ must transform all that we do.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, when we are distressed, help us to remember that you are there; when we are afraid for ourselves or others, let us remember the sanctuary your strong love provides; when we despair of “getting it right,” let us remember that we are chosen to be agents of God’s love in this world, working in fellowship with and for one another. Amen.

Gifts in Abundance

2010-01-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

Second Sunday of Epiphany (1.17.10)

Isaiah 62.1-5; Psalm 36.5-10; 1 Corinthians 12.1-11; John 2.1-11

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s psalm: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

Last week I was at a wedding in a small UCC church in rural Nebraska, and it was a wonderful celebration! Both our Sunday morning worship and then the wedding in the afternoon included communion. The whole little town was invited and before, after, and in between we had a potluck feast. Even the weather cooperated. On Friday and Saturday, it was -17 during the day, even without wind chill, but by Sunday it was in the 20s.

And now today we have another wedding. In this celebration from Scripture, Jesus turned the water into wine in the little village of Cana so that the feasting could continue, the guests could enjoy themselves, and the family responsible for the hospitality wouldn’t feel disgraced. Moreover, Jesus didn’t produce just any old wine. The chief steward, who didn’t know where the second batch of wine came from, was confused and then amazed that the host had saved the best for last. And, for the record, it didn’t seem to matter to Jesus that maybe the guests would not be in the best condition to judge the quality of the wine.

This story is considered important because it’s Jesus’ first miracle and because the wine is said to anticipate the wine of the last supper and then the Eucharist. There are other riches as well. At first Jesus didn’t seem to want to be involved. But isn’t it wonderful that he decided it was important, after all, to allow this celebration to continue and doing so was—at least in the Gospel of John—the start of his public ministry. I also love the fact that our Lord must have enjoyed seeing—must still enjoy seeing—people laughing and having a good time. And doing so together in groups: at a wedding, a church, a family, a gathering. I thought of that at our Twelfth Night party when one of our visiting teens got a little loud tooting his party-favor horn. Although the staff worker tried to shush him, I said it was fine; the boy was simply having fun.

Maybe this is Mary’s role in the story. She isn’t so much a nagging mother who may also want to show off her son; she is reflective enough to believe that God might care about a situation like this one, might care about social embarrassment or guilt or shame. She is bold enough to wonder whether even God might just be willing to offer abundance to a small-town couple and their guests.

Such a disposition is worth remembering in other contexts as well, when God doesn’t seem to be responding to what we consider our legitimate human needs, and we want to protest, “But they have no wine.” Just wine, you may say. Just a party. But what about, “But they have no bread.” Or “But I have no job.” Or “But I feel no joy.” Or “But their country is in ruins and there are too many bodies to bury.” By extension, Mary shows us that it is legitimate to encounter the divine by asking, even demanding. We can remember too, from this story, that the wine that is provided is not simply adequate, something left over that no one else had been willing to serve. Here the wine is first class, and God’s gifts always speak of God’s abundance and of God’s love.

The passage from Isaiah 62 is a match for the passage from John, and it too draws upon our understanding of weddings. The opening lines are powerful: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn and her salvation is like a burning torch.” This is the prophet announcing his deepest feelings. He reminds God of the humiliation suffered by Israel in Babylon, a shame that Israel still feels. The good news of the Bible is essential. But the strength of the Bible also comes from its ability to record and name our fears, our past. These may still be our reality.

The worship/study group that spent time with the psalms this Advent discovered such passages. We discussed the fact that the Good News can seem insubstantial if we don’t first vent our pain and that the psalms allow us to do this. A marvelous Old Testament scholar by the name of Walter Brueggemann has written of the psalms: “There is nothing out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate. Every properly belongs in this conversation of the heart. To withhold part of life from that conversation is in fact to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God” (The Message of the Psalms, 52). Nothing can be withheld from the sovereignty of God. How we move past such moments, cannot be controlled or predicted. But it helps to be open to God in crisis as well as out of crisis. It’s not hard to praise God for the goodness we see and understand, but we must also keep our hearts open to God’s mysterious ways and, like Mary and Isaiah, keep asking our questions.

Once having cried from the heart, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the new work, the new name that will be given. God may even be the speaker in text at this point: “You shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight is in Her and your land Married.” The poetry of this passage is here compressing the history of a people, Israel, into the story of a couple’s wedding. The crisis in this story is more critical than running out of wine. Here Israel is desolate because she had been forsaken; she is like a woman without the protection off a husband. But now, Isaiah tells us, Israel is like a woman chosen, a woman in whom God delights and rejoices as a bridegroom at his wedding.

The author of the Gospel of John must have known such comparisons, such metaphors of celebrating. They are all through the Old Testament. Our Psalm for today contains them as well. It tells us that God’s steadfast love is all about feasting and drinking “from the river of [God’s] delights.” Such celebrations of God-among-us take place in groups, and not only among those we know well. Psalm 36 tells us that “all people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings…and feast on the abundance of your house.”

We are very much a church of celebrations, of food preparations, and of feasting together. These passages may well be inviting us into further kinds of table fellowship, even with those we do not know, such as boys who have to live in an institution or people whom we hope will trust us enough to come to our Food Pantry seeking food for basic survival.

John and Isaiah and Psalm 36 have each compared God’s presence—in fact, our intimacy with God—to the experience of dining well, with joy and abundance and with others. There is light at God’s table, a light that allows us to see the others who have gathered there or come to it as a place of refuge. We have no idea whom or what we may see or even how our image of ourselves may change. I need to repeat that: We can have no idea whom or what we may see or even how our image of ourselves may change. We cannot, in advance, define or even imagine God’s abundance. What Psalm 36 tells us is that God’s love and God’s abundant gifts reach as high as the heavens and may be found to the depths of the earth, and that they extend to humans and animals alike.

When we gather as God’s people, when we act as God’s people, we commit ourselves to seeking that all-encompassing love, to believing that it is there for others and for us. It may be most difficult to accept that abundance for ourselves. It may also be hard to answer the following questions: What does it mean that we are promised a feast from the abundance of God’s house? Not in the sky by-and-by, but now. What is God calling us to share? What are we leaving in our fields for someone like Ruth to glean? Certainly Scripture this morning tells us that each time we drink from God’s fountain of life—through prayer, song, or fellowship—we are taking only a sip from God’s inexhaustible resources for each of us.

Let us pray: Joyous God, thank you for taking such delight in us and for entrusting us with your many, generous gifts. Strengthen us and guide us—alone and as a community—to proclaim your abundance in all that we say and do. Shine through our lives so that we are able to see all your creatures transformed by the eyes of your love. Amen.

What Grounds Our Hope?

2009-11-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

“What Grounds Our Hope? ‘The Angels’ Point of View,’ a short story by J. B. Phillips”

Sermon for 1st Advent, 11.29.09

Jeremiah 33.14-16; Psalm 25.1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3.9-13; Luke 21.25-36.

Please pray with me: May we take heed and watch; for we do not know when the time will come. Amen.

From today’s Gospel: “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

On a long drive, who doesn’t remember the inevitable question: “Are we there yet?” And the inevitable answer, “Not yet.” Only a few days ago, I flew to Pittsburgh. Of course there were delays and this time it was adults who were asking “how much longer,” followed by a flurry of cell phone activity. This is part of Advent: impatient waiting and urgency in all we do because we must finish all those cards and presents on time.

But it’s not only secular. As the days become shorter and as the cold really sets in, it’s hard to wait for the warmth and wonder of our caroling, of our Christmas Eve service, and of the days that follow, filled with memories and singing, generosity and hope. Once more the airport can provide an analogy: We wait and wait for those connections and finally, if we are blessed, we land where family and friends have also been waiting. And then what celebration, even from dignified grown-ups: hugs, smiles, laughter. If there are children, they may fling themselves at you, with total abandon.

This too is Advent, the longing for the blessing of a savior who comes as a beautiful baby, who is sufficiently like us so that we can believe in his friendship, sufficiently noble, powerful, and humble so that we can depend on his love. What if we ran towards the holy moments of Christmas and the Christ child with the same uncensored trust and love that we receive from the children who love us? What if our joy were so infections that it pulled others along with us? And not just for the celebration of his birth but for all that follows?

There’s even more to Advent. You’ll notice that our Scripture readings this morning don’t tell us about Mary and Joseph or the shepherds or the kings. They come later. Instead the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah won’t let us forget that this world in which we must live is far from perfect. We long for rulers who will execute justice and promote equitable relationships. The Psalmist’s troubles, on the other hand, are personal. He is tortured by memories and longs for a God who will be gracious, who will deliver, who will “remember not” the sins of his youth; a God who will forgive. These writers are looking for the baby who will be born in Bethlehem.

Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is more complicated, however, because it speaks of the many ways in which Christ comes. How do we respond to the Christ who has already come and who can direct our imperfect ways? Furthermore, Paul reminds his young church in Thessalonica that the risen and ascended Christ will come again. His letter prepares us for the shocking Gospel lesson from Luke that describes universal distress and the shaking of heaven and earth.

Unlike the first Christians and some fundamentalist Christians today, we may not believe that the Second Coming is about to arrive. But it is basic to our faith and a certainty built into every Creed of the Church worth its salt that God has the power to intervene and that Christ’s work is not yet finished. Whether people preach on it or not, the coming of the Son of Man is one of Jesus’ major themes in the Gospels.

We are kidding ourselves, therefore, if we don’t remember that the Church has always understood Advent in at least two ways: God’s gift of mercy in the manger is a wonderful beginning, but it must be balanced by God’s eventual coming in majesty at the end of time. As we rejoice and reflect upon the first so we must reflect and prepare for the second.

There are two important points here: Because everything earthly must come to an end, each new day is precious, not only to each of us as individuals but to us as members of a community that longs to bring God’s kingdom to completion. There is much to do.

That is why it is so important to link the two understandings of Advent: The Lord who will judge is the Jesus whom we have known as a baby and whose teachings we follow. We know he loves us. Continuing to follow him will turn the Day of Judgment—or days of our own tribulations—into times of grace and redemption.

As we begin our Advent journey, it may help to consider “The Angels’ Point of View.” This is the name of a story, written some 50 years ago, by J.B. Phillips, a giant among the translators of the New Testament:

“The Angels’ Point of View” by J.B. Phillips

Once upon a time a very young angel was being shown round the splendours and glories of the universes by a senior and experienced angel. To tell the truth, the little angel was beginning to be tired and a little bored. He had been shown whirling galaxies and blazing suns, infinite distances in the deathly cold of interstellar space, and to his mind there seemed to be an awful lot of it all. Finally he was shown the galaxy of which our planetary system is but a small part. As the two of them drew near to the star which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the little angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he had seen.

“I want you to watch that one particularly,” said the senior angel, pointing with his finger.

“Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,” said the little angel. “What’s special about that one?”

“That,” replied his senior solemnly, “is the Visited Planet.”

“Visited?” said the little one. “You don’t mean visited by ———?”

“Indeed I do. That ball, which I have no doubt looks to you small and insignificant and not perhaps over-clean, has been visited by our young Prince of Glory.” And at these words he bowed his head reverently.

“But how?” queried the younger one. “Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince, with all these wonders and splendours of His Creation, and millions more that I’m sure I haven’t seen yet, went down in Person to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?”

“It isn’t for us,” said his senior a little stiffly, “to question His ‘why’s’, except that I must point out to you that He is not impressed by size and numbers, as you seem to be. But that He really went I know, and all of us in Heaven who know anything know that. As to why He became one of them—how else do you suppose could He visit them?”

The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?”

“I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them ‘creeping, crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him.”

The little angel looked blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.

“Close your eyes for a moment,” said the senior angel, “and we will go back in what they call Time.”

While the little angel’s eyes were closed and the two of them moved nearer to the spinning ball, it stopped its spinning, spun backwards quite fast for a while, and then slowly resumed its usual rotation.

“Now look!”

And as the little angel did as he was told, there appeared here and there on the dull surface of the globe little flashes of light, some merely momentary and some persisting for quite a time.

“Well, what am I seeing now?” queried the little angel.

“You are watching this little world as it was some thousands of years ago,” returned his companion. “Every flash and glow of light that you see is something of the Father’s knowledge and wisdom breaking into the minds and hearts of people who live upon the earth. Not many people, you see, can hear His Voice or understand what He says, even though He is speaking gently and quietly to them all the time.”

“Why are they so blind and deaf and stupid?” asked the junior angel rather crossly.

“It is not for us to judge them. We who live in the Splendour have no idea what it is like to live in the dark. We hear the music and the Voice like the sound of many waters every day of our lives, but to them—well, there is much darkness and much noise and much distraction upon the earth. Only a few who are quiet and humble and wise hear His Voice. But watch, for in a moment you will see something truly wonderful.”

The Earth went on turning and circling round the sun, and then quite suddenly, in the upper half of the globe, there appeared a light, tiny but so bright in its intensity that both the angels hid their eyes.

“I think I can guess,” said the little angel in a low voice. “That was the Visit, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that was the Visit. The Light Himself went down there and lived among them; but in a moment, and you will be able to tell that even with your eyes closed, the light will go out.”

“But why? Could He not bear their darkness and stupidity? Did He have to return here?”

“No, it wasn’t that,” returned the senior angel. His voice was stern and sad. “They failed to recognize Him for Who He was—or at least only a handful knew Him. For the most part they preferred their darkness to His Light, and in the end they killed Him.”

“The fools, the crazy fools! They don’t deserve ———”

“Neither you nor I, nor any other angel, knows why they were so foolish and so wicked. Nor can we say what they deserve or don’t deserve But the fact remains, they killed our Prince of Glory while He was Man amongst them”

“And that I suppose was the end? I see the whole Earth has gone black and dark. All right, I won’t judge them, but surely that is all they could expect?”

“Wait, we are still far from the end of the story of the Visited Planet. Watch now, but be ready to cover your eyes again.”

In utter blackness the earth turned round three times, and then blazed with unbearable radiance a point of light.

What now?” asked the little angel, shielding his eyes.

“They killed Him all right, but He conquered death. The thing most of them dread and fear all their lives He broke and conquered. He rose again, and a few of them saw Him and from then on became His utterly devoted slaves.”

“Thank God for that,” said the little angel.

“Amen. Open your eyes now, the dazzling light has gone. The Prince has returned to His Home of Light. But watch the Earth flow.”

As they looked, in place of the dazzling light there was a bright glow which throbbed and pulsated. And then as the Earth turned many times little points of light spread out. A few flickered and died; but for the most part the lights burned steadily, and as they continued to watch, in many parts of the globe there was a glow over many areas.

“You see what is happening?” asked the senior angel. “The bright glow is the company of loyal men and women He left behind, and with His help they spread the glow and now lights begin to shine all over the Earth.’’

“Yes, yes,” said the little angel impatiently, “but how does it end? Will the little lights join up with each other? Will it all be light, as it is in Heaven?”

His senior shook his head. “We simply do not know,” he replied. “It is in the Father’s hands. Sometimes it is agony to watch and sometimes it is joy unspeakable. The end is not yet, but now I am sure you can see why this little ball is so important. He has visited it; He is working out his plan upon it.”

“Yes, I see, though I don’t understand. I shall never forget that this is the Visited Planet.”

Let us pray: Dearest God, help us remember that we have been visited by the King of Glory who came into the world as an innocent and vulnerable baby. Give us grace to celebrate both his first and his second coming. Give us grace to keep his light burning steadily. May his Advent be as a sanctifying time of both repentance and anticipation. AMEN.

Discerning Obedience

2009-11-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 11.22.09, Christ the King/Reign of Christ

2 Samuel 23.1-5; Psalm 132.1-18; Rev 1.4b-8; John 18.33-37

Please pray with me: May our soul wait for you, O Lord. May Your word be our hope. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

If I didn’t love being your pastor, I would probably spend much of my time painting. I don’t draw with ease, but I can be totally absorbed by color and especially the transparency of color possible with watercolors. One starts with the lightest tints, the least amount of pigment, and then gradually lays on shades of stronger colors. This layering can create an effect far richer and far more exciting than the most carefully mixed color that is applied only once. A mixed color can become heavy or muddy, whereas in a series of applications, the first washes allow light from the paper to shine through, and this translucency can be retained even with several subsequent layers.

Perhaps I thought of painting when I read David’s last words from 2^nd Samuel. David says that a just ruler “is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.” One has the sense of gentleness, beauty, clarity, and the integrity of the whole under such kingship.

The emphasis in the passage from Revelation is different because of the historical situation. Given the persecutions during which it was written, the author, someone named John, makes strong assertions about a God who moves effortlessly through time and who has not yet finished his work, a god “who is and who was and who is to come.” When he does come, every eye will see him, and the result will not be subtle: Everyone still totally committed to this world—“all the tribes of the earth,” the persecutors—will wail. Which picture is more appropriate for this Sunday that is entitled Christ the King or The Reign of Christ—David’s or that of the author of Revelation? Which picture fits us?

The Gospel of John gives us a drama that seems to have escaped from Holy Week. This passage asks us to think about transparency or its lack in the context of Kingship. There Christ, on trial for his life before Pilate, is asserting his Kingdom and his Truth. Pilate certainly has power of life and death over Jesus, but is there clarity in Pilate’s arraignment? As we listen, Pilate’s predicament deepens. Pilate understands kingship in earthly terms, and, for a Roman, “king” has political and insurrectional meanings. Pilate may not even yet fully realize the subversive nature of Jesus’ total loyalty to God. But he does try to trick him, to catch him in a capital offense: “Are you the King of the Jews?”

And then Jesus is his usual brilliant self. He realizes what a murky situation he is in, but he asks Pilate a direct question: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” He knows that the Jewish leaders may be cornering Pilate and that Pilate may be wondering whether he has enough troops to quiet them should they not get the execution they want. Pilate’s main goal may be to stay in control at whatever cost and avoid being dragged back to explain things in Rome.

Even so Jesus, ever the teacher—ever the savior—explains that he is operating out of a very different notion of kingship and that his kingdom is not from here. He is inviting Pilate to listen, to be authentic, to be transparent—to let light shine through. “Everyone,” Jesus says, “who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Jesus is not speaking of intellectual truth, that which is reliable, quantifiable, or merely believed in. This is truth as reality, as revelation. “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Really listens, and follows through on that listening. Doing so is the opposite of unrighteousness and for this reason, Jesus’ truth must be an active thing; it is doing, it is faithful living and witness.

And so, aren’t we also on trial here, right along with Pilate? If Christ is our King and we wish to live under his reign, honor and extend it—if we love David’s luminous vision of “the light of morning”—we’ve got a lot of listening to do. Listening that is predicated on being transparent to God. Wise and humble listening that discerns the truth and then acts upon that discernment. Listening that constantly tries to distinguish the murky promises of this world from the light and reign of Christ. We’re not just talking about a contemplative high here. As one of the brothers in the monastery recently reminded me, “spiritual formation and Christian discipleship are the same.” This is Brother Charles, who runs their bookstore, but who knows that it’s not the reading of the books that matters, but moving beyond into Christian loving and living, into mission, into holy practice. Into discerning obedience.

This phrase comes from the book Beyond Mere Obedience by a wonderful theologian named Dorothee Soelle. She urges weaning ourselves from authoritarian models of obedience that can blind us even to the ethics of this world and then blind us to Christ, our king. Discerning obedience is “an obedience which has its eyes wide open, which first discovers God’s will in the situation” (p. 25). This doesn’t mean that we shrug off the world, but that we seek to transform it through the Grace of Christ. This is a tall order and I think it’s one of the reasons that we have church, so that we don’t have to do it alone.

On this Sunday, the Church Universal, including our own Methodist Church, declares that Christ is King. This has only been a day of observance only since 1925 when it was created by Pope Pius XI—you’ll love this—because of the spread of democracies. It’s a kind of paradox because Americans, who don’t usually bow to their elected officials, belong to churches that announce that we do bow, but only to Jesus the Christ. And Americans, who profoundly believe in the cult of the individual and the individual’s own right to decision-making, support churches that urge us to attend to the sovereignty of Christ.

And this is why we need discerning obedience as a daily spiritual discipline, a transparency before God that faces the truth about who we are, whom and what we worship. Our sovereign, resurrected Christ is also our shepherd, “the king of love whose goodness faileth never” and who, having ransomed our souls, continues to lead us throughout our length of days. There is a freedom and a joy in this commitment to discovering Christ’s truth, Christ’s revelation, both individually and in community over and over again. I am convinced that living into Christ’s reign, doing Christ, as best we can and through the grace of God, can be progressively transforming for us and for our communities, even here and now.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, we bless you for a Kingship that is both powerful and liberating, for your truth that gives us strength, courage and hope. Help us to be transparent before you and before one another. Thank you for loving us and for filling each stage of our lives with your luminosity. Amen.

Radical Reliance

2009-11-16T12:35:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 11.15.09

1 Samuel 1.4-20; 1 Samuel 2.1-8; Psalm 113; Hebrews 10.11-25.

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From today’s Call to Worship: “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.”

A number of years ago when I was teaching at Columbia College in New York City, one of my students was arrested and had to appear in court. He had no family nearby and asked if I would go with him for moral support. He was basically a good young man and had been assessing what he had done; he was also very apprehensive. I knew nothing about the judge, but the moment my student stood up in front of him, he snapped: “Take that gum out of your mouth and show some respect.” My student replied, “I mean to show respect for the court, your honor, but it’s my tongue, you see. I’m frightened.”

I remembered this incident when I read the story of Hannah this week. Seeking the security and comfort of the temple, Hannah fled there to weep out her grief to God. Since prayers were usually said out loud, when Eli saw only her lips moving, he dismissed her as a worthless drunken woman. To his credit, he accepts her explanation and gives her a blessing. This is the same Eli to whom she will later entrust her young son. But how often do we misunderstand the depths of someone’s pain or the way they are reacting to it? Such a poignant detail in Hannah’s story makes her hard to forget. Her story is too important to miss.

Like Ruth and Naomi last week, Hannah has been defined, limited, and devalued by her culture. It’s true that she has a generous husband who loves her despite the fact that she cannot bear children, but she is tormented by his other wife and she lives in shame. We can feel the “bitterness of soul” that prevents her from eating her share of the meat that her husband has sacrificed.

Many of us may remember leaving a room quickly to hide embarrassment, grief, or anger. We may recall making extravagant promises if only God will fix things: “I’ll never leave my project for the last minute,” “I’ll never lose my temper again.” Such is Hannah’s promise. Although men usually took nazirite vows only for a limited period of time, she will dedicate the son she needs to the Lord “until the day of his death.”

But in her deep trouble, she also enters deep prayer. She pours out her very soul to God, not caring about her appearance. It is this commitment to prayer, I believe, rather than Eli’s rather perfunctory blessing that allows her to return to Elkanah, her husband, to eat and drink with him, and be sad no longer. She has done all she can; she has put her life totally into God’s hands.

And God hears her! A baby is born! We all love babies and new life. But things get complicated again very quickly for this baby happens to be Samuel, a tremendously significant figure who lived in troubled times and who, with severe misgivings, anoints the first king of Israel. Since this account, this Scripture, is sacred history, the struggles of Hannah and then Samuel must be important to us too. They also remind us that nothing in this life is static and that all things must grow and change. Through that growth and change we are, like Hannah and Samuel, totally dependant on God’s grace.

This total dependence—a reality that it is often convenient to push to one side—brings us to the dialogue from the 13^th chapter of Mark and the need for God’s grace on a more cosmic scale. To the innocence of the disciples’ opening line, “Look, what large stones and what large buildings!” Jesus replies—coolly, emphatically, gently, we don’t know—“Not one stone will be left here upon another.” As you probably know, Mark was written either right before or after the destruction of the temple, the temple Jesus knew during his life. Certainly by the end of the Jewish-Roman War of 66-70 CE, that temple was demolished for ever.

Think of our modern parallels: Who would have thought the twin towers would crumble or that a tsunami would leap across great portions of the Pacific Rim or that New Orleans and her people would be submerged or that someone would go amuck at Fort Hood. Innocently, we long for what is secure: the baby in our arms, a civilization, a culture and an earth that are predictable and safe. It is not always so and our sense of innocence is cruelly taken away.

Mark’s 13^th chapter can be read in many ways, but Jesus and his disciples are only a few days away from the Passover and his time with them is getting short. When the disciples ask him when the temple will come crashing down, he doesn’t answer directly. Instead he urges them not to let anyone—themselves included—lead them astray. We too can become so focused on analyzing the signs of the times that we forget that something even greater is taking place. Jesus calls it the start of birth pangs. He may well be referring to God’s final judgment and to his own second coming. We must understand that behind such thinking is the conviction, central to Judaism of this time, that God controls not only individual lives but all of history and that the evil of the world is so great that only God can save it by establishing a new creation.

Such assertions may overwhelm us, frighten us, even though we are troubled by what we see around us. It is more comfortable to ask God to fix smaller things, like us, bit by bit. And there is nothing wrong with that. What we shouldn’t lose, however, is the bigger picture and the chance to see how Salvation is challenge as well as hope. Salvation brings the birth of a new age, and Salvation is not a static event for any of us. It is a Grace-driven process—a birthing—of repentance, forgiveness, and regeneration. It is manifest in individuals and in a dedicated faith community. And so we start by lamenting what we see around us just as we lament what we detect in our own hearts. One of my teachers from Divinity School puts it to us squarely: Our witness is to “move from darkness to light, from alienation to divine community, from guilt to pardon, from slavery to freedom, from the fear of hostile powers to [the] liberty and assurance” [of children of God] (Emilie M. Townes). This is the work of faith, and through faith, by God’s grace, we are saved. And we need to be.

This was also Hannah’s work. Although she did not know Christ, her connection to God is inspiring, almost mystical. She knew how to give herself totally, not with formal petition or with traditional sacrifice. The abandon with which she opens her heart speaks to her certainly of being heard.

Hannah’s story is too important to miss because it can also be our story. We are not always as grief-stricken as Hannah, but remembering her surrender, her humility, and her conviction that God is close by, we too can come to God in our awkwardness, our fear, our brokenness. In doing so, we move through and beyond isolation, insufficiency, and worry, beyond appearances, to the newness of life that is Christ’s gift to us.

Let us pray: Dear God: The pillars of the earth are Yours, and on them You have set the world! Your blessings are beyond our comprehension and often we cannot fathom them. But You are still God and still our God, ever near. Even in our moments of disappointment and pain, may we remember Your power and remember to magnify Your name. And in all that we do, open our hearts to the great gift of Your son, Jesus Christ, our companion in the way and our Savior. Amen.

Faithfulness: A Love Story

2009-11-09T12:31:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 11.08.09

Ruth 2.1-8, 10-12; 4.13-15, 17; Psalm 42; Mark 12.38-44.

Please pray with me: May we love the Lord your God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind…[and] love our neighbor as ourselves.”

From today’s Gospel: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow…out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Sunday evenings seem to be God’s time for epiphanies, for taking me by surprise. When the phone rang this past Sunday, it was my friend Cathyann. We hadn’t had a phone visit since I started coming to Port Ewen. We became friends in seminary. She had just become a single mom with a daughter to raise, essentially on her own. She was determined not to let circumstances hinder her call. By the time she was ready to take a church, the only available full-time job was two half-time churches in the middle of rural Kansas. There’s nothing wrong with Kansas, but Cathyann had never lived anywhere but the East Coast. She had no friends, relatives, or associations with the Midwest. But off she went.

Unfortunately, one of the churches did not work out and so, two years later, she was without a job. Because she is United Church of Christ, there was no connectional network to place her. She would have had no place to go had not a friend from seminary, now in Nebraska, invited her. The next year was tough, lonely, and poor—another displacement for a woman now in her mid-50s. She refused to give up, responsibly reshaping her life through hard work and faithfulness to the covenant that she had made. She became a chaplain, began to do supply work, and then was invited to become a full-time interim pastor in a church that loves and appreciates her. This has been her dream and the Nebraska part really didn’t matter.

But she called me last Sunday to invite me to her wedding! After her painful divorce, I’d never heard her express any desire to remarry. And she fought the proposal at first, but then realized that this man is someone she simply loves being with. We never thought that so much good—a church and personal happiness—was waiting for her, and especially in Nebraska!

What does this have to do with the book of Ruth? Actually, quite a bit. This is as much the story of an older woman as it is Ruth’s and it also is a story of exile and emptiness. As such, it speaks to us.

The story begins with famine in Bethlehem that forces Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons to immigrate to the land of Moab, even though the people of Israel had no respect for Moabites or their strange gods. These people were descended from Lot, for heaven’s sake, and if you don’t know what that means, you’d better read Genesis 19 as quickly as possible. The sons are described as “taking” Moabite wives, rather than marrying them. Then all three men die, leaving Naomi and her two childless daughters-in-law as widows. Naomi feels that God has turned against her and well she might. As a woman past child-bearing years with no male protector, she is destitute, and so she tells the two young women to go back to their own people where there is some hope of starting again.

Orpah does so, but Ruth refuses, speaking those words that are now read at weddings: “Where you go, I will go…your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” What is behind Ruth’s risky decision to make such a covenant? Was her love for Naomi or her compassion—her call to responsibility—so great that she ignored common sense? Was she moved by hesed, the deep loving-kindness of God? In the newness of her loss, did she reach for relationship? For someone to whom again she could show hesed?

Naomi’s reaction is odd. She doesn’t speak to Ruth during the trip back to Bethlehem. Her name means “pleasant,” but she tells the women at the gate to call her Mara or “bitter.” She certainly doesn’t introduce her daughter-in-law when they walk into town, and the story insists on labeling Ruth as “the Moabite.”

In the section that we heard this morning, Ruth, the Alien, goes out to glean or gather left-over grain in the fields. The laws of Israel specified that a certain amount must be left even for alien beggars. Then the narrator slyly tells us that she “just happened” to go to the right field and is seen by Boaz. Boaz may not really have been a kinsman. If he were, he would have a responsibility towards these women. The word could equally mean “close friend” of Naomi’s husband.

The passage is full of ambiguities. Boaz is described as “prominent” or “worthy.” Old Testament readers, knowing that his ancestors were Jacob and Tamar, as dubious as Ruth’s ancestors, would be on the alert. His words are certainly pious sounding, but can we be sure? Although he might very well have been drawn to Ruth, he might also have been simply curious. He also might have worried that if he showed her too much favor, other gleaners or even his field hands would expect more. So he says, conventionally enough, “May the Lord reward you for your deeds.” Ruth may sound humble, but she subtly switches the agency from God to Boaz: “May I continue to find favor in your sight,” she replies.

Such wordplays and ironies continue and, in the end, there is a marriage and a baby, but the story is not just about one happy couple. The women of the town give Ruth’s baby to Naomi, presumably to tend, but they call him Naomi’s son. Her emptiness has been filled, her barrenness has been compensated, her bitterness has turned to joy, and she is no longer homeless. And the story doesn’t stop there.

The story records a chain of events, a chain of faithfulness and loving-kindness. Ruth, an alien, persuades the prominent Boaz to show her loving-kindness. He, in turn, had been touched both by her faithfulness to Naomi and, more, by her willingness to chose him, an older man. And first there was Ruth’s loving-kindness, her hesed to Naomi.

It doesn’t matter that Naomi is uncivil when the story begins or that Boaz’s motivation may not be clear because the story is also shot through with God’s own hesed for all of these people. God sends Naomi and Elimelech to a place that brings disaster and yet she comes home with a gift. The gift appears to be a liability, a despised foreign woman, and yet she is guided to just the right field. Finally this baby of less than perfect lineage doesn’t only comfort Naomi’s old age but becomes the grandfather of David, the ancestor of Jesus who is the Incarnation of God’s Love and the Redeemer of the world. No wonder we are given this reading only weeks before Advent.

A good read becomes first a parable about true fidelity across age and ethnicity. About giving out of what seems to be a poverty, about being able to give when it seems that there is only poverty to draw from. About discovering and fulfilling God’s law through self-giving love. A further beauty is that this story seems to be telling us that human being personify and communicate God’s hesed to each other. But finally the love story is about God’s enduring faithfulness and love for us, unlikely agents that we are.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, to whom will we cling with steadfast love? To whom will we do hesed? Will we allow those who seem alien to be agents of our redemption? Will we see that a Ruth is standing there? Who gleams among us and how much do we first take from what we consider our own fields? These questions are difficult, but help us keep asking them. Help us tear down those walls that have been so carefully crafted. Help us embrace the scandal of your faithfulness and your fierce inclusivity. Amen.

Hearing God's Song

2009-11-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

Sermon for 11.01.09, All Saints’ Day
Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10; Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12

Please pray with me: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

From today’s New Testament Lesson: After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Today is All Saints’ Day, a day to remember our departed and to consider our own lives. It dates from the 4th century and it celebrates all Christian saints, those known to us and those unknown. I love the unknown part because we just don’t know all of those who have served or in what way—and we’d better not try to second-guess God. The passage from Ecclesiasticus reminds us that “of others there is no memory. But these also were godly people, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.” The Roman Church has a complicated and very careful way of canonizing saints, and that is fine for what we call the Church Expectant—the church in process. None of us knows who will be included at the end of time in the Church Triumphant.

It’s probably for that reason that even books compiled by Roman Catholic authors now include other categories: prophets, witnesses, those who were spiritual giants. Who would have thought, in the thick of the Civil Rights struggle, that Martin Luther King would become an “official saint.” On various lists, we find Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kierkegaard. These and many others are those who mediate—who are connectors—between this world and God.

One of my favorites is a man simply known as Brother Lawrence. He became a lay brother of a monastery in Paris in the 17th century where he spent 40 years working in the kitchen. We know of him only because a visitor happened to begin a conversation with him and was so astonished that he needed to talk with him again and again. For Lawrence, things were quite simple. God, he said, “regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”

For hundreds of years, All Saints’ Day has been followed by another, called All Souls’ Day. This day is meant to commemorate “the souls of the faithful departed.” Protestants choose not to rank or grade the faithful, and so we tend to combine the two days. For us, the term “saint” may indeed refer to an extraordinary person—a spiritual giant—but it may also describe someone as modest as a Brother Lawrence. Thus we use it as the New Testament does, for all Christians serving a community and serving Christ. And we leave it for God to judge.

There are so many saintly paths. There is the deep love of God to which Brother Lawrence refers. Two others are perhaps less obvious but thought-provoking: The English writer G. K. Chesterton defines a saint as one “who exaggerates what the world neglects.” On a different tack, Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that he must struggle “to be more than his weakest qualities.” (All Saints, Robert Ellsberg, Crossroad Pubs) To a greater or lesser extent, each of us—with all our faults—is sometimes capable of both of these things: lifting up what no one else has noticed and managing to be better than we could be.

Last week I asked what it would be like if we tried imagining our church as a song. I had an answer sooner than I expected. On Sunday afternoon, I went to a concert that I had been told not to miss. The program was Bach’s Art of the Fugue, performed on two pianos. For an hour and a half, without a break, the two musicians each played his own melodic lines (his own piece, if you like), but always listening for the way in which a similar melody was being repeated or imitated or changed by the other. The pianos were placed so that it was possible for the two to be aware of one another, by a slight nod or by eye contact or even by their breathing. In ways that became more and more complex and intense as the concert progressed, the two independent voices interwove to form a richly layered whole, greater than either of the parts. The last section was never finished by Bach and so it stops, unresolved, in the middle of a phrase.

There I sat listening as dusk gathered. Suddenly I realized that this is the way church can work and the way in which the saints work together with God. We each are singing our own melody and God is singing God’s. At our best, we realize that we are not alone. God certainly knows this. And so, while being ourselves, we are also making our song with God. At times, through a prayer, a sigh, an action, a meditation, tears, or a moment filled with love, we are aware of a connection. The result is awesome. And our work need not be finished—all of our songs need not have been sung—before we are called away.

Our own music here at church echoes this interweaving when the instruments play different parts, or when one plays a descant melody over the others, or when we sing a round. Our sermon hymn will allow us to experience this. First we’ll hear the basic melody that we all will sing. Then we will hear the descant. Finally we will put the two together. Saints in training!

And what of those whom we no longer see? Later in the service, we will have a chance to name, either silently or aloud, those loved ones who have gone to their reward. In the Scripture for today, there is much to reassure us. The Beatitudes tell us of the comfort the departed will receive: They will be filled with good things and they will see God. So too in Revelation, we must not miss God’s tenderness for those whom God now fully shelters. God’s graciousness responds to the most elemental human needs: “They will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb…will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

In different way, we each know hunger and thirst; we are scorched and stricken. We long to be understood and to be guided to living waters. We struggle to be better than we have been and to realize a vision with which we are sometimes graced. With our Hope in God as well as our failings, we want to be of that number when the saints come marching in.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, we give thanks for those who have died and are now at rest in your presence. By your grace, count us as one with them. Stir up in us, by the power of your Holy Spirit, a love for singing in harmony with you. Enable us to learn by the example of your saints in glory, that we may proclaim to all the world that nothing can separate us from your love. AMEN.

*** BULLETIN ***
Morning Worship with Holy Communion - November 1, 2009
Additional reading for today: Psalm 24
Lectionary for next week: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Psalm 127 or Psalm 42; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Gathering
Instrumental Prelude
Greeting by Pastor
Invocation (in unison):
We bless your holy name, O God, for all your servants who, having finished their course, now rest from their labors. Give us grace to follow your holy saints in all virtuous and godly living, to your honor and glory and so that we may come to those joys, which you have prepared for those who sincerely love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Entrance
*Introit #64 “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty”
*Call to Worship #652 “Canticle of Remembrance” Response 1
*Opening Hymn #711 “For All the Saints” (v. 1, 2, 5, 6)
Prayer of Confession (in unison):
Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rejected your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy.
Forgive us, we pray. Bring us to joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Words of Assurance
Time for Children of All Ages
(Children 3 and older may proceed to Children’s Church.)

Proclamation of the Word of God
Old Testament Reading: Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 44:1-10
Instrumental Music
New Testament Reading: Revelation 7:9-17
Instrumental Music
Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:1-12
Sermon “Hearing God’s Song” Pastor Dora J. Odarenko

Response to the Word of God
*Sermon Hymn #405 “Seek Ye First”
Offering of Congregational Joys and Concerns
Silent Prayer followed by Pastoral Prayer
The Offering of Our Gifts
*Doxology
Prayer of Thanksgiving

Holy Communion
The Sacrament of Holy Communion
The Pastor will be using The Great Thanksgiving for All Saints Day, but the people’s responses are found as usual in the Hymnal, pp. 13-14. After the Consecration, you will be invited to name, either silently or aloud, those who have died in the past year.
Invitation
The Great Thanksgiving UMC p. 13
The Lord’s Prayer
Giving the Bread and Cup
*Post-Communion Hymn #614 “For the Bread Which You Have Broken”

Sending Forth
*Dismissal with Blessing
Organ Postlude

The One Who Serves

2009-10-26T14:55:00.000-04:00

Please pray with me: Put a new song in my mouth, O Lord, a song of praise to you (Psalm 40:3, adapted).

From our Old Testament Lesson: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job38:4).

I want to start with a Shirley Corder story. The morning of Sara’s wedding last week, I was looking for a steam iron to take the wrinkles out of my robe. Before offering her iron and her living room, Dorothy smiled and said, “If Shirley were here, she’d do it for you.”

I never met Shirley, but from an assortment of stories I feel I am getting to know her. Here was a woman with strong notions, to be sure, but who was committed to take up tasks and serve. What a legacy: to be so present that even when you are no longer physically there, people reach out in memory, as though you were. What makes a Shirley? What leads to those generous impulses of giving of ourselves? The great Christian novelist, Tolstoy, observes, “As soon as a person asks the question, ‘How do I live my life the best way?’ then all other questions are answered.”

Our Gospel today speaks of serving, but uses blunter terms: servant and slave. “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Perhaps it’s not coincidental that just last week, we heard a homily about one woman’s battle against slavery. But here Jesus seems to be endorsing the word. Why would he, in a world in which slavery was visible and usually horrible? Then there are the terms in our reading from Hebrews, words like “reverent submission” and “obedience.”

Do these words seem old-fashioned and do we shy away from them? How seriously can we take them? Think for a moment about how you use them. “I’ve been slaving over the hot stove all afternoon,” probably isn’t exactly the application Jesus had in mind. We’ll comment with varying seriousness that someone is a slave to fashion or cigarettes, or to their family or job. Then again, to what do we submit and to whom do we give obedience? Maybe we back off from confronting local policies or cultural habits that we feel powerless to change, thereby submitting to them? It’s not only teens that “go along with the crowd” or choose to let a cruel remark pass without comment. Perhaps we ask our children for “cooperation” or “a good attitude,” rather than using that more direct term “obedience.” But God certainly challenges Job and the demands are clear: “Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me... Tell me, if you have understanding.”

I have a barn kitty at home. That means a stray who has decided to check out my various outbuildings—and me with them. For months I have been trying to win her trust, hoping to get her into the house before winter. At first she wouldn’t let me get near her. Now when she sees me, she rushes up, flings herself on the ground at my feet, and turns over to expose her entire tummy for tickling. That marked Beta behavior before an awesome human is certainly a kind of kitty/Dora relationship and it sure looks like submission.

Psalm 34 this morning is interesting in this regard: It begins, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” Bless: Say nice things about? Thank God? Praise? Closer, but in Hebrew “bless” also means kneeling in homage to the one on whom one’s life depends. The psalm is also meant to include others. The New Revised Standard Version in our hymnal reads “let the humble hear and be glad [because of the Lord].” While the New International Version has “let the afflicted hear and rejoice....” The Hebrew permits both translations since the humble are probably those who are afflicted and the afflicted have no choice but to be humble. And the singer of this psalm offers his/her own praise to such persons in proof of God’s goodness.

Perhaps these connections can take us back to Jesus’ use of the term slave, a term odious and unacceptable in any other context: “To be first [in God’s eyes], you must be slave of all.” For starters, Jesus’ use of the word is and was meant to be both shocking and eye-opening. Jesus did not only renounce power by accepting a shameful death. He also renounced ordinary greatness by his wholehearted service of others. He knew well what was expected of a pious God-fearing Jew. Proper speech was to be combined with reverent body language or at least with a heart disposed to utter reverence. One was also to depart from evil and do good; one was to seek peace and pursue it. Your spiritual checklist, like mine, probably tries to include these things.

But Jesus pushed further. The hopes of those around him for a Messiah usually included a triumphant moment when the humble and afflicted—or maybe simply the righteous—would triumph over their former masters. The good inherited this earth. I see something of this in the Prosperity Gospel Movement, when people are told to expect financial rewards here and now. But when James and John ask for a place of glory, Jesus deflates hopes for power and status. Jesus has conversations like this with his disciples more than once, and it is clear that rejecting honor, power, and status is hard for them.

Is a reversal of the world’s expectations hard for us? I know you to be generous, hard-working, and unassuming people, a church that welcomes and does not pass judgments. More than that, we are what I have begun to call “bright-eyed people,” people who give energy back on Sunday morning. Because of who you already are as a Christ-centered community, I have been wanting to report some of the ideas about the culture of our churches that were discussed at the Bishop’s retreat at the Mount several weeks ago.

First is the realization that this church of ours in Port Ewen has a culture, and that we love it so much that we long to invite others into it. Perhaps we could spend some time, individually and in our committees, talking more fully about what that culture is. What is it that we are seeking to say with our church? If our church were a sermon—or a poem or a song or a dance—what would it be like? To whom could it be sweet and chewy, like a honeycomb?

I don’t think we are a fortress, built only for our own protection. But that image has stuck in my mind because some churches are like that, proud of a splendid (and growing) isolation. We certainly do not isolate ourselves from our town or neighbors. We are not a club. But perhaps we could be even bolder and dare to innovate.

There is an urgency in God’s conversation with Job, in our psalm this morning, in Hebrews, and in Mark’s Gospel. Expect that urgency; train yourselves to hear it in Scripture, maybe in your own spiritual journeys as well. I know that when I am writing seriously, I have moments of insight, gifts of God’s grace that I must record even in the middle of the night or the words will evaporate. It’s actually exciting, I think, never to know when—or from whom—that amazing Grace will come. Let’s think in terms of now, therefore, rather than later. After all, we each have a certain time in which to make the difference God sent us here to make, each of us with our unique and precious talents.

And that brings us back to the Servant Heart, the slave’s heart, really, since we acknowledge God to be our architect, not only master but the source of all sweetness; the One who sends us forth with blessings and longs for us to magnify His name.

Let us pray: Dearest God, we thank you and we bless you. Continue to startle us with your truth and with the energy that allows us to open our hearts fully to you and to others. We pray in the name of Christ, whose serving ministry was simply his love for those most afflicted, and for you. AMEN.

Grace to Help in Time of Need

2009-10-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 10.11.09
Psalm 22.1-11; Job 23.1-9, 16-17; Hebrews 4.12-16; Mark 10.17-31

Please pray with me: In your light may we see life clearly and in your service find perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

From today’s Gospel Lesson: His disciples “were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

I have a friend who is charming, warm, intelligent; a mother of four, a grandmother, and now a great-grandmother. One has to know her pretty well before learning how sad her childhood was. The issue was poverty of affection. Her mother was not a nurturer and she was kept from knowing her father. As a result, she grew up feeling abandoned and that is an identity that she has never totally been able to shake. Recently we were talking about those times when the sadness seems overwhelming. I asked her whether it was possible to reach out to God in these moments. She thought and then said, “Oh, God still exists for me. It’s just that He’s busy with someone else. I’ve been abandoned.”

Job is in the same situation. One of the reasons that I hope you will read the lectionary readings in advance is that there is so much of our own lives in them. (They’re pretty dramatic at times, as good as a movie or novel. They’re also complex and require time to absorb.) So here is Job, good, decent, and pious, thoroughly God-fearing, suddenly deprived of all of his prosperity through no fault of his own. We hear his anger in the passage read just now. He complains bitterly because, despite his groaning, God’s hand is heavy on him. Job wants to be able to engage God, to argue with him. He wants God to listen; he wants to know God is there listening to him. And then, he wants an answer. In fact, the answer he wants is for God to agree with him. If God would only be reasonable—and see things Job’s way—everything would be all right. But Job cannot find him. He has lost his sense of God’s presence and feels helpless, terrified… I have been there with Job, haven’t you?

Much the same argument is going on in the psalm that we read together. Psalm 22 is typically prayed during Holy Week, as the altar is stripped on Maundy Thursday or on Good Friday. Its opening line is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as the one that Jesus cries out during his crucifixion, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus probably prayed out the entire psalm in his agony, just as we refer to an entire prayer when we describe someone saying the “Our Father.”

In Psalm 22, we hear the argument that Job wanted to have with God. The poet reminds God—and himself—that “it was you who took me from the womb” and “kept me safe on my mother’s breast.” This knowledge kindles—or attempts to kindle—faith, even in a time of despair, and responsibility on God’s part. It leads to the plea to God to be present, even though God seems to have abandoned him: “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.” I have had such conversations with God, fearing that they were only one-sided.

But then we come to Hebrews, and we are in a different world. For what it’s worth, this text is neither a letter, nor by Paul, nor written for the Hebrews. It is a profound essay on Christ that probably took decades to develop, and it proclaims that we have access to God through Christ, that God sent Christ so that we would have access to our Maker. As we heard this morning, “before [God] no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare, but we now have a high priest who is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses” and who “has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Knowing this we can be bold in asking for mercy and finding grace.

On a daily basis, we can remind ourselves that God is aware that we sometimes feel forsaken, that God understands those conversations in which we seem to be chasing ourselves in circles and digging holes to hide in. The Bible has preserved accounts like that of Job so that we know we are not alone in these feelings. God also gives Job a stunning reply before the book is over. Moreover, God has responded to our feeling of abandonment through giving us the life and continuing mystery of Jesus Christ among us, so that there is a leaven that will cause our hopes to rise.

That God’s reshaping of us may be a leavening process connected to the total way in which we orient our lives is indicated by the linked episodes that we heard today from Mark. First there is the young man who has followed all the rules, who has kept the commandments from his youth. There must have been something truly winning about him because Mark tells us that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” But when Jesus invites him to join his movement, the young man cannot let go of his wealth and privilege.

The point, I think, is not that we should all give away everything we have, although it certainly should encourage us to think about the stewardship of money, material possessions, and our habits of consumption. Jesus was hoping to weld the young man’s understanding of a good and blessed life to his relationship to God. In his day, being pious and being prosperous were intertwined and that notion is still alive. This young man’s prosperity, like the prosperity that Job initially enjoys, was thought to be a sign of God’s favor. That same piety would cause him to be a benefactor to others from the wealth that God had helped him acquire. This in turn would win him gratitude and a prominent place in society. None of this is wrong, but it is incomplete. A too-easy correlation between prosperity and blessedness can hide the blessedness of those who have nothing. Preoccupation with personal prosperity can distract from the task of bringing in God’s kingdom. Most important, it can create the illusion that one is pulling this off on one’s own. Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he says it will be hard “for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

The disciples, the straight-men as usual, are amazed. If the wealthy, who have the leisure to observe God’s commandments and the means to do good, can’t be saved, then who? Peter even gets all defensive and reminds Jesus of all he has personally sacrificed. Who can be saved? Jesus just gives them that look they must know so well and says, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God.” He is urging them—and us—to remember who is in charge and who loves us.

We have tasks to do and commandments to internalize, as Job and the young man apparently had been doing for years, but we don’t have to go it alone. We don’t have to and we’re not supposed to since God’s plan of salvation has invited us into ongoing conversation. This may be hard to get used to, but it should also be comforting. The answer may not be immediate and God may not respond with the exact script we have supplied, but our prayers, our Bible study, our worship, our actions—all the marvelous variety of the “means of Grace” as they are called—shape us and warm us. It turns out that God is always responsible and acting responsibly. Then we suddenly realize that God has never just been busy with somebody else. In God’s way and in God’s own time, the miracle of God’s living yeast has always been there, growing within us as well.

Join me in prayer: Thank you God for your mighty gifts to us in creation and in Jesus Christ. Let us know that we may approach you with boldness and that we will find grace to transform our lives. Take the common stuff out of which we are made and touch us with your presence so that we may nourish hope within ourselves, peace among humanity, and health for our earth. We pray trusting in your name, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Prayer to All Animals

2009-10-06T13:25:00.000-04:00

A poem by the Kingston, NY poet Maureen O'Sullivan read by Pastor Dora at The Blessing of the Animals in The Yard Beside the Church, Oct 4, 2009 at 3:30 P.M.

PRAYER TO ALL ANIMALS

We gather together to celebrate the sacredness of our animal relations,

to rejoice in the beauty, grace and magnificence of all animals everywhere.

To the cats, birds, dogs and other creatures who share our homes,

We honor you and bless you.

To those running free in great herds across the African plains...

to those in rainforests… on rugged mountaintops...

and in feedlots and labs…

We send you our love, and bless you.

We honor the sacredness and holiness of all animals everywhere,

and together in loving remembrance

of the countless generations of animal companions of fur, feather or fin

who shared their lives with humankind from our earliest days on Earth.

They who blessed our homes with their affection, beauty and joy

In every land and through long eons.

You who were our most loving and faithful companions

always and everywhere.

Though your names may now be long forgotten through the mists of time;

we honor your memory and celebrate your earthly lives.

Most blessed and beloved children of our Divine Creator,

Divine Light shines down upon you always,

and lights the path of your life's journey.

Though you may walk unsteady in a crowded feedlot

Or gaze out at the world through cold cage bars,

you are never truly alone.

We behold the full range of your intelligence,

goodness, and sentience,

And rejoice in the full glory of your innate dignity,

compassion, and depth of feeling.

May you grace our world with your holy presence

now and forever.

Your Pastor's Witness

2009-10-04T16:59:00.001-04:00

Sermon for 10.4.09
Genesis 32:24-28; Psalm 139:1-12; Hebrews 12:1-2, 12; Luke 12:22-31

Please pray with me: “O Lord, you have searched us and known us. You know when we sit down and when we rise up; you discern our thoughts from far away.” Amen.

From today’s Epistle: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith….”

When my grandmother was twelve, she asked her father, a physician, for a dissecting kit for her birthday. He replied—tough old Presbyterian that he was—that she could have one if she perfectly dissected a robin. She did, and so he did. She went on to a remarkable witness: a practicing physician, wife and mother of five children, and my dear grandma. But she followed a specific and early call, and that was to become a doctor at a time when few women were able to do so.

I, too, had an early and specific call, though I didn’t share it with anyone. It was a kind of inner light that I held within me for years. The wonder to me is the way in which God has brought this call to birth and growing fruition, even though I seemed to have buried it.

When I was still in elementary school, I remember putting myself to sleep at night after prayers with my mother, by imagining that I was in a pulpit preaching. There I was in that pulpit, telling the people all about Easter and Christmas! That I did so seems unusual to me since I did not attend a traditional Christian church and had been in such churches only a few times. I know I loved going and longed to go more often.

My mother, a deeply spiritual woman, could not accept the harshness of the theology of the Presbyterian church of her childhood and had been seeking a more mystical and loving path. I remember her telling me about Saint Francis and the witness of relatives when I was quite small. She honored the daily prayers and Bible study that she had learned from her grandparents and parents and taught me to begin each morning in that way. One of her favorite memories was of her grandmother, who was actually in physical pain most of her life. My mother would wait outside the bedroom where her grandmother went to pray. She emerged, Mother said, looking like an angel. My mother eventually became a Christian Scientist and I went to church with her, although I always struggled with the basic beliefs of that church. By my mother and my Sunday School teacher, however, I was given an unfailing sense of God’s love and a knowledge of the Bible. Both have supported and directed my life.

When my father had to flee his native Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, he also left the Orthodox Church of his childhood. I know the church was precious to him because of stories he told me. But once in his new country, he turned to nature and the out of doors for his sense of God and of the holy. This was one of his great gifts to me. I have wonderful memories of being in his garden with him when we lived in rural New Jersey, of walking, and of flying over the fields with a horse borrowed from neighbors.

Once I left home for college, I was free to look for a church on my own. My extended family had sent a number of faith missionaries to the Far East and others were Presbyterian or Episcopalian. I spent many weekends in Connecticut with cousins whose lives centered around their Episcopal church. They always invited me to come. Sometimes—if I slept in—I would hear their voices drifting into my window as they came walking back from church, and I was nurtured by the calm, kindness, and steadiness that they carried with them. I truly felt that I was beginning a new life when I asked them how I could be baptized. A year later, I was confirmed and joined their church.

I remembered my early dreams of preaching and being a church leader, but in the 1960s, there were no women priests in the Episcopal Church. I became a teacher and loved sharing what I knew with my students and mentoring them. It wasn’t until I had taught in a shelter and then in two inner-city districts, that I knew I needed a fuller way to serve the spiritual life of my students. I was pushed in my search by the witness of my African-American colleagues. It’s wonderful how such things work: I was standing by the door after the students had left one day, looking I’m sure, as though I’d been hit over the head by a log, and one of the other teachers simply came up and said, “Jesus loves you.” Next thing I knew, I was invited to early morning prayer meetings. These are not mentioned during teacher training, but they must go on all over the country. When you’re there, you know that everyone in the system needs God’s help. I was also struck by how powerful these times were, even though our prayer styles were so different. I surrounded my students with the light of Christ; they covered the students with the blood of the Lamb. We were all inviting God to be with us.

Then an enrichment course offered to public school teachers by Yale University led to my working with a professor who sometimes taught at the Divinity school. When she handed back my project, she told me that she would help if ever I should want to do more graduate work. For the first time, it occurred to me that it might now be possible for me to attend seminary.

But something else happened as well. Shortly before I began teaching in New Haven, I became the sole bread-winner for the household; I felt overwhelmed and frightened. I was tired, money was short, and I seemed to have lost my spiritual direction. On Christmas Eve, I decided there was no sense in going to church. It was bitterly cold and I was anxious to get the animals into the sheds and fed as quickly as possible and go back into the house to huddle by my own fire. Then I realized that my smallest sheep was missing. Turning around, I saw her against the snow. Suddenly she was more than a little grey rescue. Her poise and sweetness spoke to me of the Lamb of God. This was perhaps my first real experience of the risen Christ, but given to me so gently, on the eve of Jesus’ coming to be with us. As Lissa trotted into the warm shed to join the others, I realized that there was a place of warmth and community for me too. I quickly went inside, changed, and was just in time for a service a few minutes from my house.

But the Holy Spirit wasn’t stopping there. Once I began teaching in New Haven, I was awakened on at least two nights, perhaps a month apart, by hearing my name called. So clear was the voice that I jumped out of bed to see if anyone in the house was in trouble. Since everyone was snoring away, I went back to bed and prayed to know why I had been awakened. On a third occasion, I was awakened by my own voice saying so clearly that I can still hear it, “I must preach God’s creation.” And once more, my experiences crystallized through the witness of others. This time it was the women in a small squatter’s village in Honduras. When a group from my church visited, I was awed and humbled by the way the women prayed for the hearts and souls of us rich Anglos.

What followed was my rejection for ordination, on the basis of age, by the Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and several years of struggle and prayer in which I begged God to help me reshape my life and lift the burden of failure and worthlessness. I could not dismiss the call I had been hearing and the love and purpose I had been experiencing in my classes at Divinity School and in my internships in several Episcopal churches.

It never occurred to me to jump ship and change denominations, but it had occurred to God! Gradually I began realizing that the Methodist Church had already touched my life. I had always been attracted to John Wesley and felt that I would had to have followed him had I lived in his time. I owned a little cottage in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on the Methodist Camp-Meeting Grounds for some twenty years, often spending most of the summer. Central to those summers was the community life that centered around the Tabernacle with its services and hymn sings. My ministry of bringing my farm animals to Advent Pageants brought me into two outstanding Methodist churches. In each case, I was impressed that these big churches were not producing lavish Christmas shows but offering the Good News of Jesus through outdoor events to the community. At Yale, meanwhile, I began to work at the Ministry Resource Center, under the direction of an outstanding Methodist married to the then District Superintendant.

Finally, when I had a liturgy project for school, I decided to attend several Methodist churches. In them, I felt fully at worship. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw a posting for a job as Youth Director at Katonah United Methodist Church, called and was hired. I joined the Methodist Church several months later. Only later did I remember that years ago my dad had been brought to this country by a Methodist group. He always spoke with gratitude of “the Methodists” as having been responsible for his coming here and being my dad.

After a year and a half in which I built a Youth Group at Katonah, I wanted time to worship from the pew. I joined my local Methodist Church and actually listened when the pastor urged me to write to the Bishop. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I received a phone call from Jim Moore on Memorial Day, inviting me to interview here! This church is an inspiration and a joy, with so many possibilities for growth and fuller community engagement. Your witness is the latest in such a wonderful series of gifts. There may well be some differences ahead, but with the help of the Holy Spirit and of you, we’ve gotten off to a solid start.

Note the “we.” This sermon of Witness has not been only about me. It’s been about the active faith, the doing, of my people, of my colleagues, of women met briefly in Honduras—and about you. These continuing threads that we weave together are formative lifelines, Witness in the fullest sense for us all. And we’re not in it alone. I hope you’ve heard my awe at the way in which Christ, our sustainer, is always at work among us.

Let us pray: Dearest Lord, Thank you for being with us on our journeys, even when we think we can’t see you. Be with us here, now, as we begin another part of our journey. Help us find marvelous opportunities for learning, leading, and serving together. Continue to startle us with your love! AMEN.

Outrageous Sowing

2009-09-28T14:50:00.000-04:00

Apple Festival Sermon for 9.27.09
Lectionary selected by pastor: Psalm 17:1-8a; 2 Corinthians 9:6-10; Mark 4:26-32

Please pray with me: “O Lord, I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:5, 6).

From today’s Gospel: “When [the mustard seed] is sown, it grows up… and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

I have witnessed a miracle this week, the miracle of work and prayer and hospitality. Many of you came here to peel apples after a long day of work, some took days off, or simply did not go to work at all so that you could help. People came who don’t belong to our church. The Children’s Home sent two groups of boys on consecutive nights, with a staff member, to peel apples—and the Director phoned me the next day to thank me and tell me what a wonderful time they’d had. Your former pastor David Houston arrived with a whole group from his church! And after the day-long Festival, there was dinner—two seatings worth! People were still down in the kitchen cleaning up as I finished this sermon at 9:30.

Several workers introduced themselves to me as “I’m one of your parishioners who doesn’t come to church.” Well, they were here this week, drawn by something that only a community of many hands and hearts can achieve. We stretched ourselves and made Esopus a happier place. I believe that we found the will to do this day proud—that we were stretched—by something bigger than all of us.

Because I’m your pastor, I want us to know how Biblical we have been. As a Community of the faithful, it is so important for us to realize this. The passages that Marilyn and Joy read so beautifully to us describe and affirm what we have seen here with our eyes, hearts, touched, and tasted of the word of Life!

You have the passage from Corinthians right in front of you on your leaflets. In this passage, Paul shows his love of the idea of sowing and reaping, and he starts by describing us: “The one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” How does this happen? Here are Paul’s guidelines: #1 We give, each one of us, just as we have decided in our hearts to give (NIV translation). “Hearts” is better here than “mind,” which sounds calculating, too rational, and certainly doesn’t describe our energy. #2 We give “not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Clearly this was the case. #3 In fact, our sense of well-being, of having done what was simply good—exhausting as it may have been—brings blessings “for God loves a cheerful giver.” #4 Moreover, says Paul, the Creator who orders the seasons for sowing and harvest, will also “increase the harvest of your righteousness.”

You have been doing this Apple Festival for a long time and the harvest of your righteousness has grown. I am taking nothing from you, I hope, when I involve God, our Creator, in the whole process. Here is verse 10 again from Corinthians: “He who supplied seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Paul uses the image of sowing and reaping because it captures the interplay between God, the seed giver, and us, the harvesters. God is not only the source of abundance, but the source, the supplier, the initiator of the Grace that allows us to respond with goodness and generosity. This wonderful interplay is one reason that I start so many of my prayers by asking God to be with us and by thanking God for being with us. For me, this week was indeed filled with important human interactions. The week was also overflowing with God. Dancing in the light of God, actually, as one of our hymns puts it. I think that’s pretty awesome.

And that brings me to the gospel of Mark. Mark is telling us a story about bringing in the Kingdom. “The kingdom of heaven,” he loves to say, “is as if…” and then he fills in the blank. Guess who filled in the blank yesterday! We were living in the Kingdom, good people.

Mark’s first parable suggests that this happens slowly, mysteriously, almost without people knowing it. “The seed would sprout and grow,” Paul writes, the farmer “does not know how.” And then suddenly, there it is, something immense!

Mark also gives us a second parable of the Kingdom. How on earth, he says in effect, can we describe the Kingdom of God? Well, it’s like a mustard seed, so small, and yet when it grows, it “becomes the greatest of all shrubs.” In the Middle East, it typically grows from about two to six feet. And I’ve seen fields of it in India, spreading across the landscape like great golden saris.

As Paul’s listeners knew, this plant is both hardy and intrusive; once it takes hold, it tends to take over. What’s more, it “puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” Please savor every word here: The branches of the mustard plant are strong and wide enough so that creatures can find refuge, a place that is home. This week, I felt as though I was watching mustard seeds—or maybe apple seeds—pushing up and taking over.

I saw how happy the boys were who came from The Children’s Home. I watched people really enjoying themselves. There were reunions—with Pastor Johnson and his wife, for example. There were chance encounters, serendipity all over the place. Because we drew from all over our township, I was able to meet people whom it would have taken me hours to find otherwise. I was able to have conversations with them about the town and the people here. I believe there will be harvests from these conversations for our church and for our town. And harvests of different kinds for each of us.

But I hope we will remember the outrageous nature of that mustard seed: It can shelter because it is hardy and persistent. It knows its potential for good and achieves it. Such is God’s Kingdom on earth of which we, this church, in this time and place, are a part.

Let us pray: Dear God, help us to build on our time together this week, with one another and with you. Let us not forget our energy and excitement. Let us go from strength to strength, praising you who are the course of that strength and of our abundance. Thank you for loving us as the apple of your eye. AMEN.

*** BULLETIN ***
Apple Festival Worship – September 27, 2009
Lectionary readings for next Sunday: Genesis 1:20, 22-26, 28, 31; Psalm 148; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 25:31, 34-40

Gathering
Organ Prelude
Greeting by Pastor
Invocation (in unison):
Grant us, O God, a mind to meditate on you; eyes to behold you; ears to listen for your word; a heart to love you; and a life to proclaim you; through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Entrance
*Introit #707 “Hymn of Promise”
*Call to Worship: Psalm 17
Pastor: Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;
People: Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
Pastor: From you let my vindication come;
People: Let my eyes see the right.
Pastor: If you try my heart, if you visit me by night,
People: If you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress.
Pastor: As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.
People: My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.
Pastor: I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
People: Incline your ear to me, hear my words.
Pastor: Wondrously show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.
People: Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me.
*Opening Hymn #170 “O How I Love Jesus”
Prayer of Dedication (in unison):
Lord, hear; Lord, forgive; Lord, do. Hear what we speak not; forgive what we speak amiss; do what we leave undone; that not according to our words or our deeds, but according to your mercy and truth, all may work for your glory and the good of your kingdom, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Words of Assurance
*Assurance Hymn #128 “He Leadeth Me”
Greeting One Another with the Peace of Christ
Time for Children of All Ages
(Children 3 and older may proceed to Children’s Church.)

Proclamation of the Word of God
New Testament Reading: 2 Corinthians 9:6-10
Instrumental Music
Gospel Reading: Mark 4:26-32
Sermon: “Outrageous Sowing” Pastor Dora J. Odarenko

Response to the Word of God
*Hymn #83 “Canticle of God’s Glory”
Sharing of Joys and Concerns
Silent Prayer followed by Pastoral Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
The Offering of Our Gifts
*Doxology
*Prayer of Thanksgiving

Sending Forth
*Closing Hymn #711 “For All the Saints”
This hymn is dedicated to Shirley Corder, Roger Mabie, Ethel Howard, Ann Petrizzo, Nat Ciccone and all of our Apple Festival Champions.
*Dismissal with Blessing
Organ Postlude

Who Is the Body of Christ?

2009-09-21T21:44:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 9.20.09
Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13–4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:33-37

Please pray with me: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you” (Psalm 26:2-3).

From today’s Gospel: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

One of the Bible verses that sticks with me from the beloved King James Bible of my childhood is “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). I’m sure I wanted Jesus to love me, but I wasn’t so sure when it was explained that Jesus loved sweet, dear little girls. I wasn’t always sweet and dear. Thus my first real theological dilemma: Did Jesus love ME or only the little girl that others expected me to be? I didn’t need to have worried, and I’m going to tell you why.

This verse from my childhood actually comes from another chapter in Mark, but we often import the interpretation I just gave to our passage this morning. The disciples have been arguing about who will be the greatest in the Kingdom and, to put an end to their quarreling, Jesus takes a little child and tells them to be more concerned about welcoming such a child because this is the way to welcome him and to welcome God.

Sounds a bit like our last sermon? With the ante raised? Deny your own self-centeredness, Jesus said last week, and enter fully into a relationship with me and the journey into which I invite you. Is Jesus now extending that relationship to those who are pure in heart? Some of us don’t have a whole lot of little children to welcome.

And this is the point. We romanticize childhood, at least for our own children and grandchildren. Some of our hardworking grandparents or parents very much wanted a more carefree growing-up than they had experienced in the Depression. And at present, the huge development of markets for pre-teens, children, and even babies gives at least the illusion of total gratification and privilege.

In the time of Jesus, however, children were invisible, non-people. Galatians 4:1 sums it up: “Heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property.” Children who were not to be heirs were virtually slaves. Think of the African-American children on the pre-Civil War plantations. In fact, the child whom Jesus takes in his arms in this passage may well have been one of the slave children of the household that he and his disciples had entered. Mark’s language is so economical that it’s easy to miss his emphasis, but here Jesus is Rabbi. He sits down to assume the formal position of a teacher. Next he gathers his disciples around him and makes a pronouncement: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he does the “Show and Tell.” Taking a child and standing him or her in their midst, he clarifies his statement, “Whoever welcomes one such child….”

To complete the sentence by saying, “whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” is not shocking since kings and generals sent emissaries to deliver their commands. But for a child, a slave, a nobody, to represent God is something else. Children were to be with the women, and slave children had to work. To receive such ones was certainly not what a serious teacher and serious male disciples would expect. And yet Jesus gives the worthless child enormous value. The worthless child becomes a stand-in for him. “Such a one” becomes a stand-in for him and therefore a source of great concern for any of his disciples—including us.

Jesus’ “Show and Tell” gives me much to think about, to pray about, to watch in myself, whenever I am in a situation that gives any possible advantage: as teacher, pastor, family member who knows all the histories, as friend who knows all the vulnerabilities. It also gives me sure footing when I am in a situation that may provide very little advantage. There is a whole culture outside these church doors that ranks us according to birth, brains, success, personalities. Given our environmental crisis, I must also say that our culture ranks creatures and natural resources according to perceived usefulness to us and our perceived need.

Jesus sees it differently. We can take seriously the words of our hymn this morning, “God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale.” The hymn asks questions, and Jesus answers that for creatures—and our children—to praise, and to say “life,” “peace,” and “home,” “the first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Jesus is urging humble service of others, including even the oddest Other. He is urging his disciples to recognize him and God in those who are given no significance and those outside of our own safe groups, even our own safe mission projects. Jesus insists that his sphere of influence and his power transcend the security of our own community and our own church. In taking such risks, we begin to discover who is the body of Christ, who else is in this body of Christ of which we are a part.

As a corollary, it is only fair to admit that there are many children who are not protected in the way we have tried to protect our own. The notion of privileged childhood is an illusion of innocence when youngsters even in our own county are poorly fed, undereducated, under loved, and totally without adequate medical resources. We are not a society that nurtures all of our dependants, either young or old, and yet Jesus states that our discipleship can be measured by how we regard our most vulnerable.

Those vulnerable ones can be in our own families. The youngest of my cousins was always something of an odd duck. A sad fellow, really, without close friends, and so uncomfortable socially that I’m afraid I sometimes hoped I wouldn’t bump into him when we were both students at Columbia. Then one of our aunts died, leaving her money only to her nieces. Unfortunately Sandy thought that she had loved him. In his hurt, he decided to boycott the lot of us. Nothing that we did, including offering him some of our inheritance, made any difference. He refused to see us, letters were returned, phone calls rejected. He had two master’s degrees and an excellent position with a major corporation, but in his anger and isolation, he made himself an outcast, a kind of non-person. For ten years, his sister and I prayed for the healing of this breach, surrounding him with all that we knew of God’s love. We never stopped trying to reach him. Through my prayers, I found—not surprisingly—that I really longed to see him in a way that had not been the case before. And finally there was a break-through. When a second aunt died, he agreed to come from California to the funeral. When he walked through the passenger gate, we all fell into one another’s arms. Something had happened that we could not have done on our own. He finally agreed to some testing and we found that he had Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition that explained much of the behavior that the family had found difficult. Our full love for him is now accepted and returned. Like the little child described in Mark, he is among us and welcomed, for himself and as a child of God.

Jesus’ teachings may demand that we do the hard work of changing long-established patterns, but that is because Jesus is challenging us to respond as he does, to respond with the fullness of God. In responding—rather than reacting—to one of those “others,” there is a wonderful exchange, a recognition of kinship. We will probably encounter some Others during the Apple Festival, but that’s all right: they are not only our guests, but God’s. Another of our hymns this morning expressed it beautifully—and in words closer to our notions of childhood: “Like a child we receive all that love can conceive, like a child we believe, Jesus comes.”

Let us pray: Dear God, confirm and strengthen us in all goodness so that in discovering and cherishing more of Your own, we may learn more of Your beloved son, Jesus Christ, and more of You, both in this world and the next. Amen.

Must I Take Up the Cross?

2009-09-14T15:58:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 9.13.09
Mark 8:27-38

Please pray with me: “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long” (Psalm 25:4,5).

From Today’s Gospel: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

This Gospel verse gives us three directives: We are to deny ourselves, we are to take up our crosses, and we are to follow Jesus. In certain parts of the southwest and in Latin American countries, there is a tradition, on Good Friday, of walking the way of the cross in a dramatically literal way. The one staggering under the load of the cross beam is often really flogged, and the faithful, who follow along the path to Golgotha, thoroughly immerse themselves in the tragedy of Christ’s suffering.

We Methodists are less comfortable with drops of sweat and blood, at least in church. We find other ways to revere Jesus’ sacrifice. Perhaps we are more private until grand old hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross” or Spirituals such as “There is a balm in Gilead” draw out grief and devotion. Then again, while our lives are often difficult, even harsh, we may not have known the desperate poverty and oppression that lie behind Latino reenactments.

Thus, as the children discovered this morning in our time together, we have crosses in our churches, rather than crucifixes. And the wonderful symbol of our church is the cross draped with the living flame of the Holy Spirit. And yet the words of Scripture remain: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Do we shy away from what seems like an overly difficult, even unfair demand?

In fact, many of us—right here, right now—are carrying huge burdens, crosses of our own. All we need to do is to feel the tightness in our backs, the knots at our trigger points, and the tension is clear: Illness of body, of mind, of ones we love; financial, workplace, or personal difficulties; worries about our children, spouses, parents. This is the human condition, and some of us, it seems, are hit far harder than others. Most of us don’t have to look around for a cross to carry to show our devotion; it’s already there—or waiting. We are already right in the middle of that Gospel verse, sharing Christ’s suffering. The verse promises that Jesus is also sharing ours.

And those of us who are ashamed of our troubles might also remember how incredibly shameful Jesus’ punishment was. Crucifixion was not only torture, it was the death reserved for slaves, those considered worthless except for labor and profit. The extreme dishonor of crucifixion not only confirmed their status, but spelled it out publically. There were a number of times when 1,000 or more at one time were nailed on crosses along a roadway.

Second-century non-Christians considered Christians insane for associating a crucified one with God. Some Gnostics even argued that Christ—the real and spiritual Christ—had to be outside of the body of Jesus on the cross. Thus the crucifixion was not even depicted for some 250 years, or if it was, the cross was a support for vines so that it became a tree of life. The little painted cross from El Salvador that I showed to the children belongs to that category: It’s filled with hope. Animals and a plowed field and children and a teacher!

By giving such details, I’m not trivializing what I’ve said about taking up our own crosses. Our troubles are dignified by the comparison. The symbol that links us and these hapless slaves to our Lord must be taken very seriously. The troubles, mistakes, conditions of none of us are worthless. It is the Christian promise that the cross is always taken seriously by God.

Acknowledging our cross, therefore, is actually good news. But first we are to “deny” ourselves. This may be harder. Let’s be clear about what it isn’t: There is no evidence that Mark is talking about further punishment for us here—the kind of no-candy-in-Lent mentality. What Jesus is asking is for each of us to give up our place as the center of things, to let go of that tightness that whispers that all else must revolve around us. It’s what I call the ego rampant! Even bruised, the ego manages to arrange this. Psalm 25 says it so well: “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.”

Sometimes we have to get to the very end of our rope before we are willing to give over pride of place, pride of ego, even pride of suffering. This is, in part, the fear of having to do it on our own and the fear of not being tough enough or strong enough or loving enough. Since Jesus is reaching out his hands to us from the cross, we must also be willing to reach out and grasp them, again and again. To do this is not to follow behind him, but to enter into relationship with him.

And then the story is not over. The third requirement, that of following Jesus, takes us beyond the tomb. New life is shown on the little painted cross in terms of this life; that would be the hope of mission, of programs for food and education. But for every one of us—so-called privileged or so-called poor—there is the hope of new strength, of renewed purpose, of healing of spirit as well as body; the promise of victory and triumph. These are Transfigurations, right here, right now; they prefigure Resurrection.

One of the crosses I showed the children is called the “tau cross” or the “T cross.” In Hebrew the letter for T is “tav” and it is the last letter of that alphabet. Just as the omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet and reminds us, in our own church windows, that God is the center and circumference of all things—the beginning but also the end—so this “tav" cross reminds us that God, in God’s way and God’s time, ends all things well. This is why we are signed with the cross at Baptism. In the words of our hymn this morning: “Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, by the cross are sanctified; peace is there that knows no measure, joys that through all time abide.” Since the final word from the cross is alleluia, we cannot do better than to take up the cross that we are given, knowing that it is draped with the living flame of the Holy Spirit.

And so we pray: May our proclamation be that God is worthy of our trust and Christ of our discipleship. May we know that we are not alone. In the midst of this life, may we live as followers and heirs of Christ. May we know that we are in a world that God is endlessly creating and loving. Amen.

Recognizing God's Messengers

2009-09-06T22:56:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 9.6.2009
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125 or 124; James 1:1-10 (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

From this morning’s Gospel: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

I’m sure that each of us has felt exhausted, overloaded, underappreciated, ignored, and even desperate. These emotions are the starting point for the account from the Gospel of Mark this morning, the story of the Syrophoenician woman. A similar woman also appears in Matthew, but there are details in Mark that make the situation for both the woman and for Jesus more pointed. I must add the obvious: whatever the difference in details, the appearance of a similar story in more than one Gospel suggests its importance to those living within the memory of Jesus’ earthly lifetime.

In both Gospels, Jesus enters Gentile territory after what can only be described as a grueling schedule: crowds of people, denseness on the part of his disciples. In Matthew, the woman sees him and runs after him shouting for help for her daughter. But Mark creates a special setting. There Jesus—who often seems to have the introvert’s need for withdrawal—enters a house and does “not want anyone to know he was there.” In other words, he hides. Yet even in the house, Mark tells us, “he could not escape notice.” Hearing that he is in the house, somehow—the Gospel doesn’t explain—the desperate woman gains entrance.

What we must realize is how truly shocking her entrance was. Whether the door was locked, closed, or simply an open passageway, for that day and time, the woman’s action was appalling. For any woman other than a wife to intrude upon a single man was unheard of. The fact that she was a foreign woman and therefore unclean made matters worse. This is the behavior of a prostitute…… or of a mother who is so desperate for a miracle for her daughter that nothing else matters. Once there, she is hard to ignore because she bows at his feet and begs Jesus to exorcize the demon out of her daughter.

But hers is not the only character study in this account. Many readers find the passage difficult because Jesus is so harsh. He is not the gentle “suffer the children to come unto me” Church School poster. Of course, one can say that he was only testing the woman’s faith, but this is not the only possible reading. We can also imagine that he had had a really hard, exhausting day. Now he simply wanted to be alone, without demands. And suddenly, here is this unappetizing, aggressive woman making demands that suggest that there is still more lying in wait for him. As though the Jews, crowds and rulers are not enough, is he now supposed to take on the Gentiles as well?

Perhaps this is why he speaks so rudely, comparing her to an unclean animal, a dog. His doing so is roughly equivalent to calling someone a swine—or even worse. No other supplicant in the gospel receives such treatment. But at this point, I think it is important to allow Jesus his fatigue, and thus, in fact, accept his humanity.

In response to his fatigue comes the marvelous tour de force of the woman. Jesus has used the diminutive of dog, “little dog” or “house dog,” but he also uses the verb “throw,” which suggests flinging the food out of doors. The woman throws the remark right back at him, changing the metaphor while reverently addressing him as “Sir,” actually as “Kyrie,” or “Lord.” “Sir, even the little house dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Are the children careless or do they love to slip little treats to their pets? Either way there is precedent, she suggests, challenging the exclusive right of the Jews to the mercy and love of God.

Commentators like to speak of the Greek/gentile custom of allowing pets at meals and so point to the symbolic cultural gap that is preserved in this story. I am much more interested in the woman and what this exchange can mean for us. Her keenness must come from her despair buoyed by a wonderful faith. Moreover, her wit—if that is what we want to call it—her response comes from the depths of her being as a mother, a caregiver. Her world is the household, where creatures are nurtured, loved. As a mother, she knows that love cannot be limited or selective and that to do so sours the entire home. We too deserve your mercy, she says in effect, and such is its power that even the portion that you give me will be enough.

And Jesus does respond: “Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’” Note the “then” that starts the sentence. We never quite know whether that means a time for deliberation or an instance response, but whichever way, it is equally unequivocal. These two worthy opponents have come to a rich understanding. Healing and grace result.

As so often in the Bible, I see templates for us in both characters. This is a moment in the life of Jesus in which we can fully place ourselves. In the presence of this good woman, this good mother, Jesus himself moves a little more into the fullness of his mission. His heart is stretched, I may even say graced by her. If even Jesus—who was as human as we are yet without sin—can be discouraged and then pulled by experience into a greater understanding of who his people—the sheep of his pasture—really are, isn’t there a demand that we love more fully as well? And isn’t there also hope for us when our vision is narrow? If we allow Jesus his humanity, we can be more forgiving of our own failures and those of others. And so we can pray even more fervently: “O God, grant us grace to receive Jesus Christ in every person and to be Jesus Christ to every person.”

As for the woman: She is a role model for me in assertiveness, even with God. Her faith and passion for her child are such that nothing stops her. In so doing, she must have love for herself as well. She is sure enough of her own worth to ask, to enter, to barge into the presence that she knows is holy and that she treats with reverence but firmness.

If Jesus was stretched by her, we can be too. That may include loving ourselves more fully, seeing ourselves as fully worthy. We each have that right, for ourselves as well as for our loved ones. Jesus’ response makes that clear. Our memory of this is critical on those days when others—or even we ourselves—regard our mountains as molehills, not worthy of attention, and God doesn’t seem to respond as quickly as we want.

And so we may now pray: Lord, grant us eyes to see your messengers, your presence and your peace in strange places and unlikely people, even in ourselves. AMEN.

When Scripture Seems Too Challenging

2009-08-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

Sermon for 8.23.09
1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69

Please pray with me: Dear Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our strength and our redeemer.

From today’s Gospel: “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

I long for reassurance and for clear answers, especially sometimes when I escape from the world and go to church. I want the “blessed assurance” we receive from the kind of grand old hymns we sang this morning. But there are certainly times when neither easy comfort nor a clear answer comes. I can be patient and trust in God’s fuller mercy and judgment. With Psalm 130, I can wait upon the Lord. There are also times when, like the disciples, I feel my heart sinking as I try to live up to Christian teachings.

Let’s be honest here: Some of Jesus’ teachings are difficult. Think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew or the even tougher version in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. Here are clear directions to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” We conclude Scriptural readings with, “This is the Word of the Lord” or “Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” Have you never thought—and I mean no offense to you or to God—“All very well for you to say!” or “You really have to be kidding!” or “What is the Spirit saying to the churches?” We are, of course, at liberty not to think about it at all as we tuck into a favorite and comforting hymn.

A desire to face some of these hard moments led me to go to a retreat last weekend called “Provocative Grace,” led by the Reverend Robert Morris, an Episcopal priest from South Orange, NJ. “Provoke” is strong language since it’s roughly synonymous with incite or stir up. I can remember hearing the small arguments of my mother and my grandmother in the kitchen. Maybe about what they were cooking or how to raise me: “Don’t be so provoking, Kate,” Grandma would say. The workshop sounded like a more positive application. I was intrigued.

The weekend was held at Adelynrood, a retreat center just below the New Hampshire border in the town of Byfield, Mass. I’ve been there before and love it its calm and holy way of life. It’s run on a volunteer basis by laity, a community of women called The Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. It’s a big rambling summer-only structure with wonderful and gracious living rooms and an excellent kitchen. We sleep in tiny bedrooms that are surrounded by generous screened porches. “The Rule of the House,” as they say, wakens us with bells at 7:00 so that we can go out on those porches to pray together. Then there is morning worship. There is no conversation until the breakfast hour that follows. We sing grace before each meal. There is noon worship and then an evening service at 9—both of them also announced by bells. Then there is silence until the next day. Doesn’t sound very provocative, I must admit.

The center was built just after the turn of the last century by a group of women, one of whom, Vida Scudder, was married to my great uncle. Vida was committed to social reform, especially for the women who worked in the mills in places like Lawrence. But she and her friends were pulled together in a special way when one of them, Adelyn, while still a young woman, was diagnosed with cancer. Her friends saw it as their first priority to companion her. After her death, they decided to dedicate themselves to a ministry of presence to those who were ill and ill-treated. That decision led to the founding of their society, often known simply as Companions. They named their retreat center Adelynrood (Adelyn’s cross) in honor of their friend. Over the years, the work and goals of the Companions have profoundly shaped my priorities.

Appropriately enough, the theme of my workshop was the way in which the Jesus of the Gospels “challenges us to find and use our strengths” (18).[1] It’s so easy to think of Jesus’ sayings as rules that are almost impossible to live up to, impositions too idealistic for serious discipleship. And if that’s the case, maybe we have an excuse for giving up. We probably don’t think of God as the giant eye in the sky keeping a book with gold stars and black marks. But deep down we may still feel that since God is the boss, we need to respond with a “Yes, Boss,” mentality. Well, of course, sometimes we need to. But Morris suggests that it may be more useful to think of Jesus’ teachings as “provocations to grow step-by-step, by trial-and-error learning, into the best possibilities of our nature” (17).

This is also pragmatic given the fact that Jesus’ apparently “simple” statements aren’t all that simple. For one thing, they are filled with contradictions: “Judge not that ye be not judged,” he says. And then at another time, he says, “Judge with right judgment.” This is the maddening way wise sayings often work: “Look before you leap,” must be balanced against “She who hesitates is lost.” Obviously, the trick is to be wise enough to know when to use which, how to deal with the paradox.

In an ethical/religious context, the ticket is a willingness to enter into a discernment process so that in fact we become partners with God. Jesus tells us as much when he says, “I don’t call you slaves but friends.” Why? “Because the works I do you will do also. In fact, greater works you will do.” This is the goal of good teachers, good parents, who love admiration but really want the child to surpass them, or at least long for the child to meet them halfway. To continue only in worshipful adoration, with child-like obedience, can be to remain immature.

So maybe the partnership can be a richer exchange, and maybe this is what God longs for. As we hear in Acts, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” There is a kind of synergism to grace, a cooperation. Wesley loved to speak of prevenient or anticipatory grace, that grace that comes before our efforts. Thus our sails are filled with wind, and we also need to do a little steering. We don’t earn love, but we create a place for it to dwell.

We really need to spend quality time with God and with Jesus, practicing, tending relationship through worship, through our imagination, through various practices of prayer, such as chants and silence, through service. There’s not just one way! For years, I’ve turned to the Taize chant, “Be with me, Lord.” Reaching out, with that kind of invitation, suggests mutuality, as much as a cry for help. Falling in love can be almost instantaneous, but truly loving, Morris reminds us, takes a lifetime of growing gradually, “through challenges that unmask our blindness and resistance. Beginning in our interactions with those closest to us, [love] grows strong by facing all that would hinder or undermine its full and complete reign in our lives” (38).

Morris left us with four challenges of his own: to encounter Jesus through the Gospel, really practice going beyond. This is the real meaning of the Greek word metanoia that is usually and too succinctly translated “repent.” Two: to practice using the Gospel sayings as challenges to grow up. Three: to mentor each other as apprentices of Christ. And four: to consider why we matter to God. I hope we can explore such challenges. Together, let us allow ourselves to be incited, provoked by Grace.

Let us pray: May we walk each step
in this moment of grace,
alert to hear you
and awake enough to say
a simple Yes. Amen.
(Prayer adapted from Robert C Morris, copyright 2004)

[1] Quotations are taken from Robert Corin Morris, Provocative Grace: The Challenge in Jesus’ Words (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2006).

For the Life of the World

2009-08-10T11:14:00.000-04:00

“For the Life of the World” Sermon for 8.09.09
2 Samuel 18.5-9, 15, 31-33; Psalm 130; Ephesians 4.25–5.2; John 6.35, 41-51

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

I love food. To eat, of course, but beyond that, it’s the variety that makes me happy; its diversity, color, and texture, the smell of herbs and spices, of fresh fruit and veggies. I pour over cookbooks, over possibilities I would never attempt or even order in a restaurant. I’m so impressed that other people are able to pull them off. But I also enjoy my own basic cooking and especially working with someone else in the kitchen. The give and take and sharing of space become a kind of dance. For me, the kitchen is the heart of the house, comfortable and comforting, a place to put elbows on the table and have a really good talk. When I come upon the aroma of bread baking or a simmering soup, I am drawn back into early memories of home and of the life shared there.

All of this, curiously enough, is not unrelated to Jesus’ continuing conversation in the sixth chapter of John. In today’s reading, the people that we’ve been talking about for a couple of weeks have become the Jews who object to Jesus’ claims of a heavenly Father. After all, they know his father was Joseph, and they are loyal to the teachings and law of Moses. How can there be a bread greater than the life-giving manna of the Children of Israel, a ritual greater than the Passover? Jesus is preaching powerful new stuff and we too must admit that it ends with a kicker, perhaps even for us: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

We think of this flesh that Jesus gave as metaphor for his suffering, a way of referring to pain too horrible to consider; we may pull back from connecting that to the loaf that I pull apart on the alter. On the other hand, we know the bread from that loaf, which we quite literally ate and swallowed at the table last week, is a holy meal, “a holy gift” through which we receive Christ’s grace. Our partaking becomes a memorial of God’s “mighty acts in Jesus Christ” through the “remembrance” of which “we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.” As metaphor and remembrance, the bread and the wine prompt deep devotion, change of heart and life.

On this Sunday, when John 6.51 is the appointed text, we are invited to consider how Jesus’ choice of words illumines that precious and central experience of our faith. To do so, we need some sacramental theology,[1] and that takes us back to food. Jesus is being quite graphic here. He does not say “the bread that I give is my teaching, my words that inspire belief.” He describes his self-giving in terms of his “flesh.” Next week, you will hear that his listeners are horrified.

Genesis starts with God’s command to humankind to eat of the earth, from every herb, every tree that God has so graciously blessed for our use. We must do so in order to live. And simple—basic—though it is, it is a banquet. This image of a banquet goes through the Bible: there is the Promised Land, “the land of milk and honey,” the wedding at Cana, and, at the end of life, the promise of eating and drinking “at my table in my Kingdom.” And thus we say, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

I remind us—myself included—of this because there can be a tendency to think of the spiritual life, the religious life, as one of abstinence or deprivation, the opposite of a secular life of ordinary eating and drinking. I think of those 4th century monks in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts: awesome in so many ways and yet priding themselves on making one loaf do for a year. And then there is the story of the Fall, once again a matter of food. Among all the bounty, there was one tree in the Garden of Eden that was not meant to be eaten. The choice to eat of it anyway, despite God’s command, was a choice to be independent of God’s blessings, to go it on our own.

The point, I think, is that right here and right now, God is the abundant giver. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said it so well, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God/ It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;/ It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil/ Crushed” We turn our back on this vibrant, living world when we divide its God-bestowed grandeur into sacred and secular. We steal from the greatness of God’s world when we separate workday from Sunday. We are hungry beings, but God has provided us with abundant resources to fill that hunger and, moreover, with the ability to thank and bless God for those gifts. This is my understanding of the “dominion” that is lavished on humankind in Genesis: Receiving the world as a blessing from God, we offer it back again and again with respect to it and in reverence to God, transforming ourselves in the process. Our life, both here or hereafter, is life in and through God.

This communion with God is basic Eucharistic thinking. Again and again, we became confused about our identity and about the source and object of our hunger. To relieve that confusion, God sent his son Jesus Christ, the light that shone in the darkness and that all our mistakes couldn’t extinguish. In Jesus Christ, life in its fullness was and is returned to us. What Jesus is proclaiming to his questioners in John is that his Father, God, has sent him to be a new life that will not end. This new life-giving source comes naturally and logically in a new and far superior manna. It might be easier to say that it comes as food and drink provided by Jesus, but he is more direct: the bread that will provide life for the world, he says, “is my flesh.”

God’s gift of life-giving food to the world, not only to one people, is perfected in his son. Jesus ate and drank just as we do, but in him the stuff of this world—his life, his body that people could touch both before and after his Resurrection—was constantly offered to God. Jesus’ sacrament, the gift of his body that we receive from his hands, will lift us up and return us to the relationship that God wanted with us and originally intended. Through Jesus’ life in this world, the world that God created as food for us and as means of communion with Him is returned to us as well, along with some of the wonder and joy and loving presence of that first creation. Jesus’ flesh therefore is the living bread that nourishes the hunger for God in the way we need and long for. All our bread is in fact a symbol of this new relationship, a new way of sharing our kitchen with God, as it were, and with a wonderful diversity of others who seem so different from ourselves. The bread that we break with Christ’s blessing is the new food for our new life in Christ that will be fully realized in the world to come, but that can also be experienced far more fully than we may realize in the here and now.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, thank you for making us Eucharistic people, people of your flesh. We thank you for the bread that makes us like you, and like others. Make all our meals holy. Help us to offer ourselves to you and to others this week in the same quietness and hiddenness as you give yourself to us in the quietness and hiddenness of bread and wine. Amen.

[1] I am drawing here upon Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002). Highly respected across denominational lines, Schmemann was dean and professor of Liturgical Theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary.

Gifts Beyond Our Understanding

2009-08-03T16:13:00.000-04:00

“Gifts Beyond Our Understanding” Sermon for 8.02.09
2 Samuel 11.26-12.13a; Psalm 51.1-12; Ephesians 4.1-16; John 6.24-35

Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From this morning’s Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Like so many of us, I’ve been picking wild raspberries. I spot a few really ripe ones, but to pick them I often have to move around the thicket, and then I see more. To get them I lift some leaves, and bending over I see others, way deep down. What started out as a mouthful ends up as a tasty dessert. And then, of course, there are all of those half-ripe ones, waiting for me—if I’m watching.

My faith life has been somewhat like that. I am blessed by some encounter or event, and that in turn leads to other. Or maybe it doesn’t—immediately.

Our continuing story from the Gospel of John this morning tells much the same story in terms of bread. In last week’s installment, the people were fed so wonderfully that they wanted to make Jesus king. This week, they notice that he’s somehow gotten to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They follow him right after him and now they’re asking questions. It’s a real exchange that can sound innocent or somewhat suspicious: “Rabbi, when did you get here?” “What must we do?” “What sign do you do that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?” And as a reminder, just to let him know that they know, “Our ancestors ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Sound familiar, this interior conversation with God: What? When? How? And “Remember the promise that we’ve heard from Scripture and from our pastors?”
I love Jesus’ initial response and it too can be read as annoyed or as loving: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” It’s true that Jesus identifies their motives—pretty base-line survival—but the double “Amen”—yes, it shall be, yes, it shall be—suggests a confidence in God’s care for his people, and therefore a rebuke motivated by gentleness and understanding of their weakness. The bread had satisfied a real need, but it was also a sign for something more lasting, something greater.

The distinction between the bread that satisfies immediately—the deep purple berry all ready to pop into my mouth—and the sign—the berry as yet unripened, the significance that will emerge—has become precious to me. This is the gift that is more than it seems and that is so often beyond our understanding, beyond our ken. This distinction has become precious to me as I put together some events in my own life.

From the time I was a child, I heard a call to ministry. But when I was small, the ministry was not open to women in the Episcopal Church and so I became a teacher, a profession I have loved. By the time I was in my late 50s, the call came again so strongly that I had to respond. Through discernment in my church, I was encouraged to go to seminary and seek ordination. I was 60 by the time I entered Yale Divinity School. I had the time of my life and did well. Nonetheless, people who knew the Bishop’s feelings about age were afraid that I might be disappointed. But I was determined.

My bishop, who had been on Sabbatical when I first started the process, confirmed the fears of my friends. He felt that the church needed candidates under the age of fifty. Unwilling to allow for exceptions, he turned me down solely on the basis of age. I tried some other dioceses, but somehow nothing worked.

It was a bleak day when I finally realized that I would never be ordained as an Episcopal priest, made none the cheerier when my Dean told me to stop banging my head against the wall. Perhaps you can imagine my sense of failure, made all the harsher by the first serious discrimination I had ever personally experienced. What was I to do with my life, with my career, and worst of all, with my burning call? I kept asking, “Why?” I knew I had been hearing God’s voice, and I couldn’t reject that.

Only very gradually, through prayer and discernment and through the enormous support of friends, did I understand that my call and ordination did not have to be the same. Through it all, I kept saying the words that Pam sang to us so beautifully last week, “Here I am, Lord. It is I Lord. I have heard you calling in the night.” I became a Methodist, entered the Candidacy process, and, God willing, will become a licensed local pastor. My call, my passion for divine service, was a sign, not to ordination but to serve God’s people in God’s church as the Conference and you are allowing me to do here.

In a sense I had been banging my head against the wall because I had limited my call through one particular set of actions, one particular path. As I stopped punishing myself, as I listened to God’s continuing voice of affirmation and love, I found myself changing my church and changing my life.

What I realized—and it was not easy—is waiting for us in the exchange between Jesus and the crowd in our reading from John this morning. “What must we do?” asks the crowd. And Jesus answers, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Greek has so many more interesting tenses than English and this verb “believe” is a subjunctive that expresses duration: We must continue to believe. We must not stop believing.

We are impatient with signs and we get confused about them. A sign obviously points to a thing, to something greater than itself. But we need immediate comfort, healing, affirmation, direction. God knows our need as Jesus knew the need of the crowd on the mountain last week. Sometimes the feeding comes very quickly. And sometimes it is a slower process, not—I think—because God wants to test us, melt us down as in a refiner’s fire, but because God’s ways are mysterious to us.

Like the crowd, I was confusing signs and things. The people thought the bread was it. I thought it, the gift, was ordination, and that without it I couldn’t live out my call. But through God’s mercy, my desire for ordination actually became a sign that pointed beyond itself to another way in which God is now letting me serve. The gift beyond my understanding was indeed the service of God’s people in God’s church—but not in the church or the process that had long seemed the only possibility.

I’ve come to feel that the journey from sign to the real gift to which that sign is pointing—whatever it may be—is proof of God’s continuing love. Not only the Gospel stories but the stories that we tell one another help us remember God’s love as both sign and nourishment beyond that sign. The bread that we will share at the table this morning is both sign and gift from our God who provides us with never-failing nourishment, with life, both here and hereafter.

Let us pray in the words that we heard last week from Ephesians: Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.