Fire That Does Not Burn

Risk-taking mission and Service

2011-11-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

It was over a decade ago ... nearly two dozen of us piled into our heavily loaded vehicles and drove over five hundred miles south across the border into the teeming city of Tijuana. We pitched tents on the edge of an abandoned quarry and wondered what the days ahead would bring. None of us had ever done what we were about to do. That first evening, we lolled around the fire wondering if we’d taken leave of our senses. We had just put a lot of miles and money into a risky adventure during which we proposed building an entire house from the dirt up with our bare hands—no power tools allowed—in just four weeks. Oh wait ... no ... make that ... FOUR DAYS!

The next morning we drove what seemed an interminable distance out to a new neighborhood which still mostly resembled the level part of a mountainside that it had recently been. Our insides had been jostled into a froth by the rutted roads and now we stood in front of a small lot where a large jumble of building materials had been dumped. It felt to me like the first steps out of the hospital bearing our firstborn child ... a new and enormous responsibility matched up with a profound sense of inadequacy.

We unloaded our jumble of tools, buckled on our tool belts, tugged on fresh, pristine work gloves, looked at each other and realized there was no way around but “through”. We met the family we’d be working for--and with--and we hoped word hadn’t reached them that we were somewhat “virginal” in this endeavor, having never before built an “AMOR house”. But I’d guess that 21 people standing in one place festooned with brand new tools with their freshly gloved hands hanging limply by their sides might have been a give-away.

Soon, though, we remembered the guidelines and instructions we’d worked hard to acquaint ourselves with while planning the trip. Some of us began sorting lumber while others started leveling the 11 by 22 patch of dirt where the foundation would be poured. It was slow, dusty and dirty work ... and the temperature rose rapidly as the sun rose high in the sky.

After a considerable time, we had leveled the building site and put our form boards in place for the slab foundation. With no cement truck in sight, we transformed ourselves into human cement mixers. According to a recipe, sand and gravel and cement were dried mixed in large flat tubs on the ground. Water was added and the hard work became harder still. Rarely used muscles began to ache and we began to despair that we’d finish the first day’s work before nightfall. The ground was so dry and the air so hot that the concrete threatened to set before we could work it. By mid-afternoon, we still seemed depressingly far from finishing the slab and workers were drooping with exhaustion. Frustration and despair hovered at the edges of our work party. We were accountants and teachers and students and retirees. We had soft hands and un-tempered muscles. Our minds were adapted for other work. What were we doing, for heaven’s sake, pretending we were skilled and work-hardened craftspeople?

But by God’s grace and the good humor of the family with and for whom we worked, we persevered and very late in the afternoon, the last ghastly tub of concrete had been mixed and added to a foundation that definitely seemed to favor function over form. It ‘tweren’t pretty, but it served the purpose.

That night back in camp we collapsed into our camp chairs around the fire almost too tired to trudge to the showers to wash the crud from our hair and skin. But the ache and the weariness was suffused with an awareness that was like an inner glow ... we had taken on a hard, risky ministry on behalf of people we’d never met ... and it felt to each one of us like the closest we’d ever been to walking in the servant footsteps of the one who had called us to that place and that work. As I have said many times, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so alive and whole as in those times of simple, humble service on behalf of other members of God’s beloved family.

“If you want to ‘save’ your life,” Jesus says, “you’ll best do so by ‘risking your life’ in my name.” (my paraphrase)

For three more days we toiled and by the end of that fourth day a simple, but safe and sturdy, home stood where once there had been only a bare patch of earth. For four days our sweat and tears had mingled with the building materials even as our lives had mingled with our new friends in Mexico. And as we made our way back “home”, we returned as changed people ... and we knew that something very important had happened on that worksite. We had “lived our faith” in ways that we are not always privileged to do. We had counted for something. We had stepped way outside of what was familiar and comfortable to serve someone in need. And we had done it in ways that felt very consistent with the person and the practice of Jesus.

Christian mission and service has many, many faces. Depending on who you are, Jesus can lead you into compassionate mission and service nearly anywhere and nearly anytime. There’s almost no place Jesus won’t lead us ... if we are willing to follow. Wherever in God’s creation there is suffering or pain or need or oppression or violence or conflict there is a potential invitation to “come follow me.” Sometimes service and mission we offer can be ways that are perfectly compatible with who we are ... our interests and our training and our strength. And sometimes ... sometimes the call comes to offer beyond what we might think we are capable of offering. Sometimes the call comes with risks ... risks to our personal security ... risks to our livelihood ... risks to relationships ... risks to the cozy and comfortable lives we have worked so hard to build for ourselves.

When Jan and I came out to California 20 years ago on my second visit prior to my being called as your pastor, we stayed in the apartment of a member of this church. The apartment was temporarily empty because this church member had heard and heeded a call to volunteer mission work in that place of enormous continuing need: Haiti. She was a nurse and her skills were desperately needed by our mission doctors at the L’Hospital le Bon Samaritaine (The Hospital of the Good Samaritan) ... she served for a season and then returned to us. And I’d like to think that her acceptance of her risky call to serve helped prepare us for future calls and challenges. It was her new husband’s teenage daughter who described her mission trip to Mexico with a Catholic youth group that inspired us and became our own call to risky ministry. And as I think more about it, I think she might have inspired someone else. Her step-son ... her husband’s other child, now a grown man and married, first fostered, then adopted three young children who needed a safe and loving home and needed to be in one home together. And they have found that safety and the love and that togetherness with Matt and Golden. And Matt and Golden are simply seeking to live out the selfless and risk-taking love that the one in whose name they follow modeled for them.

Jesus told a story about three slaves who were entrusted with fabulous wealth while their master departed on a long journey. And while two of the slaves decided to continue their master’s work as though he himself were about it, the third slave took the wealth he’d been given and buried it in the ground. When the master returned, finally, at the end of a long absence, the slaves were brought to account. The first two slaves had taken risks, yet doubled the master’s money to the master’s great joy and are taken fully into the master’s life and love and work. The third slave brings the wealth back to the master from the place he had buried it. He defends his actions by saying he knew how harsh and ruthless the master was and hands back all had been given to him—no less … but also no more.

As Matthew retells Jesus’ story, it is near the end of Jesus’ life ... his “departure” is imminent and his “return” is beyond human knowing. The church that has formed in Jesus’ absence must consider what it looks like to live faithfully in the name and the manner of Jesus while Jesus is away. The needs of the world around them are enormous and they remember well that Jesus never shied away from need of any kind, but faced it and ministered compassionately to it with every resource he had—with heart, mind, soul and strength. The church in Matthew’s time knows that it has been given a treasure beyond any reckoning in the love and grace and lingering Spirit of Jesus the Christ. The treasure is in their hands and their hearts and the only question is: What will they do with that treasure? How will they spend it? What risks will they take with the treasure they have been given? Jesus’ parable is used by Matthew to make plain that possess the loving goodness and risk-taking mercy of Jesus and NOT risk it on behalf the world that God loves is a tragedy of the highest order.

We know this about that ancient time: that the safest thing to do with a treasure was to bury it. Once buried, all risk was completely minimized. Nothing ventured ... nothing lost. But there’s even one more thing to know about the action of the third servant. There is a rabbinic law that says that is you bury property right after you receive it, you are no longer responsible for it. The third servant has completed divested himself of his master’s property and work and interests. And the end result of caring only for himself and refusing to offer himself in any way for his master’s work is, it turns out, a life of separation and loneliness and regret and despair. It’s a self-selected bleak future he has created by his refusal to risk himself on behalf of anything larger than himself. As William Sloane Coffin said famously--and might well have said about this man: “There is no smaller package in the world than a man all wrapped up in himself.”

As a fellow preacher notes: “the greatest risk of all, it turns out, is not to risk anything, not to care deeply and profoundly enough about anything to invest deeply, to give your heart away and in the process risk everything. The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is to play it safe, to live cautiously and prudently.”

Early in my ministry at Shell Ridge, I was visiting in the home of an elderly member of this church. She was becoming quite frail and had lived for quite some time with a serious physical handicap. As I walked through her kitchen, I stole a glance at her refrigerator. Our refrigerators seem to be the place where our life values and philosophy gets tacked up and displayed—along with photos of every living friend and relative.

On Myrtle’s refrigerator, among the photos and tidbits of wisdom I noticed a yellowed scrap of paper occupying a prominent place. A title on the paper read: “Only a person who risks is free.” And here was what seemed particularly true and important to this frail soul who lived with a great deal of pain; here was the “life philosophy” that she put up as a reminder to herself every time she opened her refrigerator:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by their certitudes, they are a slave; they have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.

Like my elderly friend, only you know the ministries to which God calls you ... only you know your fullest and deepest capacities for love ... only you know your inner strength and the gifts you’ve been given to use. But you do know. We do know. And we know that the capacity to love and serve, and suffer if we must, is a great treasure for a world in need. And it is a treasure we are called to put to risk while we also put it to use.

Jesus says to us: “Do you want to live fully and become free?” Then be my servant ... be my slave ... love and serve as I loved and served. And in so doing, your love and your service and your very life will be a treasure beyond any reckoning.

Amen.

Let's Do Church

2011-11-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

I want you to take a journey with me. If it helps you can close your eyes. I want to imagine yourself as an astronaut in orbit around the earth. You are free-floating in space tied only by a cord to the shuttle. As you look toward the Earth, you see nothing but blackness. Then suddenly a flood of sunlight comes tearing across the globe below you filling the Earth with color and amazement. In orbit you are travelling 16 times the speed of the rotation of the earth so sunrise happens at 16 times the speed it does when you’re on the ground. So in less than a minute the earth is lit. As you gaze down you can see everything, all of the good and all of the bad that is our planet. Astronauts often refer to this perspective as all encompassing and life changing. As you picture yourself looking down on this little blue ball, you might wonder, “Why are we here?”

Now I want you to picture zooming in. The Earth becomes closer and closer until all you can see is North America. Then it becomes even closer until all that you can see is California and the surrounding states. Closer still until you are in the Northern part. You see where I am going. Closer still until you are right above Walnut Creek, until you are right above the steeple of this church. Now zoom in closer and be right where you are. Sitting in this chair listening. And I want to ask that same question. Why are we here? Why are we here? Let me clarify. I don’t mean here in general like here on the Earth, but why are we here at Shell Ridge Community Church this morning? Why do we come to church at all?

You might answer that it is for community. And that would be a very good answer. Community is important. Community sustains us and strengthens us. But we do not need to come to church to find community. We can find community at the gym, at a yoga studio, in a book club, with family and friends, with our neighbors, at a bar. We do not NEED church to have community. So why are we here?

Perhaps you feel that church is the vehicle for doing good works: for helping the poor, feeding the hungry, fighting for peace and justice in the world. I think these are wonderful things, and I think that they are also essential in creating a world we can live in. But they also do not require church. You do not have to be a Christian to do good works. Thousands of non-profits have proven that. So I come back to the question, why are we here?

What separates church from the social clubs? Or the social justice groups? What makes church, church? To answer simply, our faith. What separates us from all of the people doing similar work is the foundational beliefs we develop, the stories of believers that we share, the inspiration we gain from our scriptures and teachings. Church is a place where these things can be cultivated.

For those of you who do not know, we are in the middle of a series of exploring the Five practices of Fruitful Congregations. We have covered being radically hospitable and having passionate worship, and today we speak of Intentional Faith Development. Those are three big loaded words. Tackling them is like trying to move a heavy dresser. It is too difficult to do all at once, so let’s do it piece by piece, one word at a time.

Intentional.

As I wrote in the Ridge Runner this week, intentional is often used in the negative. For example how many of you have ever broken something in your parent’s house, or been a parent that has come home to a smashed lamp or vase? Inevitably the defense is, “But I didn’t mean to. We were just playing baseball/tackle football/Olympic wrestling in the living room. I didn’t mean to break the vase.” Or sometimes a partner or spouse can feel hurt because of the neglect of another. The defense there is often, “It was never my intention to hurt you.” In both cases the defense of intention comes of short. Not having bad intentions does not take the place of having good intentions. Not having bad intentions does not fix the vase or heal the hurt. The only way that this can be prevented is by being active, by taking the time to shape good intentions. And it is no different at church. Not intending for members to be neglected, not intending for worship to be lacking, not intending for visitors to feel unwelcome is not the same as being actively intentional. Church should be is a welcoming place that actively nurtures growth. Growth in both its membership and in faith.

It is like playing basketball. Hanging back without intention is like playing defense. You might maintain the points that you have, you might prevent further trouble, but you are certainly not going to score. In order to do that you have to play offense. You have to take the ball and run with it. For a church to make gains, it has to play a little offense. It has to be intentional.

What does that mean? The author of the Fruitful Practices, Robert Schnase says “Intentional refers to the deliberate effort, purposeful action toward an end, and high prioritization.” He highlights small group work, Christian education and formation, and Bible study. I would add to that developing a sense of calling and purpose. The passage that _______ read from Philippians highlights some more intentions. Intentional development means dwelling on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, anything that is excellent and worthy of praise. Are we starting to see intention? This all means so much more than kicking back and having a cup of coffee (although that is certainly part of it). This implies goal-setting. Forward thinking. Planning. It takes more than just the seed. It takes the whole branch.

Faith.

Speaking of trees, I want to share why I chose oranges as our fruit today. Growing up I had an orange tree in my front yard. When my father moved from Maryland to California he thought that everyone out here had a swimming pool, and orange tree and a palm tree. It was the 70’s. So when he got out here, guess what he got first. Yep, a pool, and orange tree and a palm tree. Every year I would watch the first orange blossoms begin to bloom in the spring. You can see them on the cover of your bulletin. Then out of these beautiful flowers would emerge a tiny green orb about the size of a marble. Then over the summer I would watch these orbs grow and grow until finally they were the size of a baseball. Then their green hue would turn to yellow. And then around Christmas time, they would ripen into a wonderful orange. This is why my father dubbed it the self-trimming Christmas tree.

I watched this process happen every year and every year it amazed me. Imagine telling a little kid that had never seen an orange tree before that this flower was going to turn into this fruit. It is an amazing and beautiful work of God and nature that cannot be overstated. And that is why I have chosen it today to represent faith.

In looking at the development of the orange we can see how faith works. It starts with belief. Based on what we believe about plants, the sun, the weather, and so forth, we believe we know what should happen. We believe that an orange seed will grow an orange tree. We believe in the science behind the gestation of fruit. The other part is confidence. It takes more that just knowledge to have faith, it takes confidence. How do we have confidence in the orange tree? By taking care of it. By watering it, feeding it, pruning it, making sure that it gets plenty of sunshine and nutrients. Then we can have the confidence in its production. Belief plus confidence equals faith.

The same is true for us as spiritual beings. It starts with belief. We all have beliefs. In fact we have a multitude of beliefs and we are presented with more every day. Beliefs about God, the world, the nature of humanity, the nature of Jesus, what is all means. Church should be a place where we can sort out our beliefs, talk with one another about them in a safe and open space. Share testimonies of life changing experiences, question each other and by extension question ourselves. If church becomes such a place, our beliefs can be shaped, molded, revisited and questioned. All of this will go toward them being strengthened.

We talk a lot about having faith. Just have faith, God will provide. Have faith, oranges will grow out of flowers. Have faith, the 49ers will win the Super Bowl this year. Just have faith. But to have faith, we have to have more than just belief. We have to have confidence, and like the orange tree, our spirituality needs care to have confidence. Faith I would argue is not something one can just have. It must be developed.

Development.

Development is what gives our beliefs the confidence that they need to be called faith. As an example of a faith developing community we look today to the second chapter of Acts. The passage that ______ read happened just after Pentecost. Pentecost as you might remember is the time when wind and fire of the Spirit enveloped the room of the disciples. They were so moved by this flood of the Spirit that they took to the streets and began preaching. On one day alone they converted 3000 people. But not every day is Pentecost. Bursts of fire and inspiration can only happen so often. What do you do in the meantime? Let’s take a look at the scripture. Acts reads, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Truly a sustaining and growing community.

What is the message of development that we can take from this passage today? I think it simply comes down to sharing. It says firstly that they shared their possessions and goods giving to those in need. Now I could preach a whole other sermon on the necessity of sharing in this me-first greed-based culture, but I will spare you, for now. What I want to lift up is the priority of the community. Because they put the community first, above their own stuff, they were able to foster a real sense of togetherness. Energy that could have been spent hoarding and maintaining wealth went instead to their faith development.

They also shared their time, time spent together in the temple as well as in their homes. I imagine they prayed together, told stories about this character Jesus that so recently left them, and helped each other make sense of all that they had seen. They were there for one another and they relied on each other.

Lastly, it says that they broke bread together. This is a perfect symbol of the community that they were fostering. What is more essential for life than food? By sharing their food together, they were sharing their lives. Just as Jesus had done before them. Just as we do today in communion.

This is how we develop, by sharing ourselves with each other - not just our bread, not just the cup, and not even just our money, but our lives, our beliefs, our faith. Through reading scripture, through lively discussion, through prayer. The task of developing our faith might be hard and daunting work, but with many hands the work is made lighter.

There is a saying you hear in movies sometimes when they are trying to act all Hollywood. “Let’s do lunch.” Doing lunch is very big in LA. Well, I would charge us with the task, “Let’s do Church.”

Let’s do Church in a way that moves us past Sunday morning and into the rest of the week.

Let’s do Church so that there is a sense of belonging and purpose.

Let’s do Church in a way that makes us unafraid becoming changed, and unashamed of admitting it.

Let’s do Church in such as way that gives us excitement about who we are and who we are to become.

Let’s do Church intentionally, developing our faith through sharing with each other. And the people said, Amen.

As we prepare for communion today we remember the disciples of 1^st Century Palestine. We remember the covenants that they set up with each other. We also remember the covenant that Jesus made with His Apostles. When Jesus broke bread He did it to show how his life would be taken from him. He was trying to share this part of him with His followers. When the Disciples did it in their homes they were trying to show how their lives were to be shared in every way. When we do it today we do it as an act of welcome and of sharing. This table is open to all and you are invited to come as you are and share with one another the bread and the cup.

Let us pray. God, we know that you have called us here today as your followers. We come to you in many ways. We bring to you our regrets, our sorrow, our struggles, our joy, and our praise. We bring them all to this table and share them with you. Please let this time be one of receiving. Not just bread and a cup, but of a renewed sense of purpose, a new confidence in your grace and a new sense of togetherness. We pray in the name of He who gave us this practice, in Jesus’ name. Amen

Finding our integrity

2011-10-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the end of October, well into fall with winter not far off. Already Denver and New England have seen substantial snowfall and Occupy Wall Street is getting its first taste of winter weather.

Summer seems a distant memory, but I’m indulging for a moment in recollections of several occasions last summer when we watched summer waves crashing on the shore ... on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and the Pacific. Even though I’m more a mountain person than an ocean person, I find there to be something utterly spellbinding about the constancy and the power of the ocean and its waves as they come to shore.

I’m thinking for a moment of how waves are formed ... that the rolling energy of the sea, which is nothing more than a bump and a swell in the open water, as it moves toward the upward slope of the shore, mounts up on the rising ocean bottom until it heaves itself onto the shoreline.

We are working at the end of Matthew’s gospel ... the 23^rd of 28 chapters. It is, as we noted last week, the last week of Jesus’ life. His life is moving inexorably toward the limits of his time of earth. And even if no one else wants to acknowledge that fact, Jesus is keenly aware that his “life waters” are forming a cresting wave that is about to crash onto the shoreline of history.

It seems to me that this is a fair explanation for the sharp “uptick” in the intensity of Jesus’ words and actions. Throughout Matthew’s gospel there was always great passion and intensity of purpose in Jesus, but in this last week, like a placid swell that is turning into a wave as it mounts the shore, Jesus words and actions are reaching a crescendo. Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem amidst shouting crowds ... he strides into the temple angrily and confronts religion that has turned itself into a seedy marketplace ... he curses a leafy fig tree that bears no fruit, and in so doing he is cursing the faith of his own upbringing and the leaders of that faith ... he tells story after confrontive story in public that judges and condemns the teachers and leaders and “calls them out” in a way that can only bring more trouble and shorten what is already a brief and tumultuous week. The strong, but placid swell of Jesus’ life and love and ministry is becoming a thunderous crashing wave.

What is helpful to remember is that Jesus does not see himself as having come to take away the “bad, old religion” and replace it with a “new, good religion.” He says, in essence, that the “old religion” simply needs fulfilling and living out with integrity. It’s like the classic quote by G. K. Chesterton that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” In Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.”

In our Tuesday morning Bible study we have spoken of the “letter of the law” and the “spirit of the law” ... that there is a “spirit” and an “intention” that is implicit in the religious laws and codes ... the spirit of all of Israel’s religion was to draw Israel closer and closer to the God who called them and loved and cared for them ... and in being drawn closer to God, they were to draw closer to one another in mutual care and concern. The greatest law or command of the religion of Israel, summarized in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 was to love God with all of one’s heart and mind and soul and strength. And, Jesus said: Here is another one that is just like the greatest commandment and cannot be separated from it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God ... love neighbor ... all the rest, as they say, is commentary.

This is one of the reasons that I like being involved in Logos ... every Wednesday in the heart of my work week I get a simple, but powerful reminder of the heart of my faith: “Love God ... love neighbor.” And in simple ways we try to live out those two utterly basic commands ... as we play together ... as we interact with one another ... as we sing songs and learn stories of the Bible ... as we share a meal around the “family table” ... all the while trying to live out love of God and love of neighbor. Even as a pastor, I need it broken down that simply ... that plainly ... and that regularly.

It is a simple truth, I think, that we people of faith need continual “care and feeding” ... we’re not like a kitchen gadget that we can “set and forget” ... we need reminders of who we are and who we are called to be ... we need continual reminders of the natural tendency to “drift” from our highest ideals and highest calling. There is a tendency to slowly allow words to become a substitute for action ... to speak well of our high ideals, but to not live out our high ideals ... to “talk the walk” without actually walking the walk.

Anyone who has ever gotten behind the wheel of a car knows that you can’t lock your steering wheel into one position as you drive down the road. The road turns, the wheels and the steering linkage shift slightly ... rigidly holding the wheel in one position means you’ll eventually drift off the road and crash. To avoid going off the road, the driver must continuously adjust the steering wheel ... sometimes in tiny increments and sometimes in dramatic hand over hand turns.

This tendency to drift and this need for reminders is why we do the Purple Hand Pledge and the First Rule of Logos every Wednesday afternoon and evening when our kids gather ... and if you ever join us for Logos you’ll note that the adults share in reciting the pledges with the children ... each of us adults who is gathered there needs the reminders of these basic rules of conduct as much as any one of the children. “I will not use my hands or my words to harm myself or others.” “Everyone is to treat everyone else as a Child of God. No one has the right to treat anyone else as if they do not matter.” Love God. Love your neighbor.

We all need reminders of what is essential about life and faith, of where our priorities lie as people of God and followers of Jesus. And we all need encouragement to bring our lives and actions into alignment with truths we easily declare, but find more difficult to work out in our day to day lives.

And it is in that “gap” between intention and action where Jesus’ frustrations burst forth ... Jesus rails against those who teach truthfully and well, but do not practice their own teachings ... and he rails against those who create burdens and obstacles that make lives that are already burdened and difficult even more burdensome ... and he rails against those who like the appearance of their faith more than the simple actions of their faith. The strong, but placid swell is becoming a thunderous, crashing wave.

Soon Jesus will ratchet it up even another notch, vehemently chastising the scribes and Pharisees as “blind guides”, “whitewashed tombs”, “snakes” and a “brood of vipers”. As someone has said: “No one wants to be at the other end of this pointed finger!”

Wise commentators caution us from too easily joining Jesus in his railing and fingerpointing ... “What a ROTTEN bunch those Pharisees were ...” ... as though people of our generation had graciously evolved beyond the sin of hypocrisy. As though our words and actions are in complete alignment ... as though our highest ideals have been completely fulfilled.

John Dominic Crossan is one of the best known interpreters of the life of Jesus. He’s written several books that come remarkably close to acquainting us with the real person of Jesus of Nazareth who lived and ministered and died on a Roman cross some 2000 years ago. In the prologue of one of his books, Crossan imagines a conversation with Jesus that puts a fine point on the gap between intention and action:

"I've read your book, Dominic," Crossan’s Jesus begins," and it's quite good. So you're now ready to live by my vision and join me in my program?"

Crossan says: "I don't think I have the courage, Jesus, but I did describe it quite well, didn't I, and the method was especially good, wasn't it?" Ever the brilliant scholar, is John Dominic Crossan.

Jesus says: "Thank you, Dominic, for not falsifying the message to suite your own incapacity. That at least is something."

"Is it enough, Jesus?"

"No, Dominic, it is not."

Matthew’s Jesus fairly spits out these words: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. (Mt. 23:23)

Matthew’s Jesus spews venom at the Pharisees of his day, but we modern readers need to let some of the venom land on us ... and not just “us Christians” in this room ... but all people who fail to create a sturdy bridge between their noble and well-articulated ideals and the compassionate fulfillment of those ideals. In that failure we all are vulnerable to the “wince-worthy” charge of “hypocrites” ...

I’ve spoken of my dear crusty saint of a friend to whom I was a pastor in my earliest years of ministry. Dear Frances Carter—her real name—used to love to tell of her encounters with people who defended their non-church going ways by complaining of all the hypocrites in the church ... to which Frances always shot back: “Well, there’s always room for one more.” And then she would cackle like a Halloween witch.

Yes ... there are hypocrites both inside and outside of God’s church ... hypocrites in every faith ... every walk of life. And if you want to sniff out some hypocrisy, go to where there are high ideals and yet a puzzling number of problems.

Along with you, I continue to puzzle over the extraordinary problem of homelessness in this nation. In three weeks of travel this summer on the other side of the Atlantic, I didn’t see as many homeless people as I can see in 3 minutes in San Francisco ... or Berkeley. And in three hours in our leafy, genteel ‘burbs, I can see more homeless folk than I’d be likely to see in three months in other similarly well-heeled parts of this world.

In this nation, we think of ourselves as highly civilized, thoughtful, rational, kindly, generous, principled folk. But a stroll down Market Street or Telegraph Avenue tells us that our high-minded thoughts don’t translate neatly into kind-hearted actions. The number of people in this nation who dwell at the brink of poverty is horrific, to say nothing of those who’ve already fallen into that abyss ... and the number of families and children who have to throw themselves at the mercy of public hospitals to receive basic medical care is horrific. And I think that if you want to try to get to the heart of all of the “Occupy” protests, it is that the protests are aimed at this nation’s hypocrisy ... the wide and growing gap between intention and action ... the wide and growing gap between those with and those without ... without means ... without medical care ... without meaningful employment or opportunity.

And I think that a case could be made that the unrest in the middle East that has been called the “Arab spring” is rooted in gaps like these ... and the urban riots that have torn apart European cities is rooted in gaps like these.

When the burdens of life become too much to bear, what can you do but cry out? When conditions become too revolting, can revolution be far behind?

I love modern civilization ... I love life as I experience it ... but I fear—as prophets of old and more modern prophets have feared—I fear a slow eating away at the foundations of civilization because we have not tended to the gap between our intentions and our actions. I fear the result of avoiding the gaps instead of dwelling and ministering in the gaps.

While a growing number of folk are “occupying” public squares and street corners—I suppose you could say they’re “standing in the gap”, others are more quietly trying to experience the challenges that others face. In so doing, they will bring their faith into the gap where so many live and find new strength for building bridges across the gaps.

Religious leaders and members of Congress this week are getting a firsthand taste of what it’s like to eat on $4.50 a day as part of the “Food Stamp Challenge.”

In the challenge, participants try to live for a week on the average amount received by people who use food stamps, now known as the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).

“We do need to put ourselves sometimes in other people’s shoes so we can really feel what they have to go through every day,” said Donna Christensen, a Democrat who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a nonvoting delegate.

The Food Stamp Challenge is part of Fighting Poverty with Faith, an annual interfaith initiative endorsed by 50 national religious organizations.

This year is a particularly critical one for the cause, faith leaders said, because Congress is considering significant cuts to the more than $64 billion program.

On this past Thursday, religious and political leaders teamed up with current SNAP recipients to shop at a Safeway grocery store near Capitol Hill.

One of them was one of my Facebook friends, the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches and a former adviser to the White House’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Several decades ago, unable to find a job after leaving a seminary program, Chemberlin signed up for food stamps. But she had forgotten what it was like to shop on such a tight budget.

“No soda, no magazines, no coffee,” said Chemberlin as she pushed her cart by each item. She tried not to look at the donuts, croissants and Doritos.

“Absolutely no specialty items,” she said.

Chemberlin shopped a 72 year old local resident whose only sources of income are Social Security payments and SNAP. As they shopped together, many difficult choices had to be made with such limited means available:

Chemberlin said she wished the woman could have bought more fruits and vegetables, “because it’s clear she’s very oriented toward eating healthily, but we had to choose between fruits and vegetables and protein.”

Our own Bay Area Representative, Barbara Lee, who once received food stamps as a single mother, says: “The health risks are terrible, when you look at sugar, sodium and fats in the foods you must buy on $4.50 a day.”

Since the beginning of the recession the number of those on SNAP nationally rose from 27 million to 44 million, and nearly half are children.

And so, with such a meaningful opportunity to get in touch with those in such need as they prepare to enact laws that will have a profound effect on these folk, how many of the 485 members of congress have chosen to take the “Food Stamp Challenge”? All of ... eight members of Congress, all Democrats, have agreed to take the Food Stamp Challenge.

Dear friends, the God of Israel whose first name is love and whose last name is Shalom seeks to occupy our hearts and our lives and our churches and the public square in which we live and move.

God wants to pitch God’s tent among us so that we hear again the call to love God and love neighbor.

God wants to so fully occupy us and occupy all that God’s love and mercy and justice and hope can do nothing but pour forth from us and from all ... like divine waves rising out of the divine love and crashing on shores of injustice and greed and uncaring.

Let all who will, shrug off the burdensome name of “hypocrite”, and take on, instead, the bearable yoke of Christ’s own loving challenge: to be lovers of God and neighbor, and lovers of peace with justice.

Amen.

Called to Fruitfulness : Radical Hospitality

2011-10-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite comedians is Brian Regan. He talks about the childhood horrors of daunting and complicated spelling rules. His teacher pulls him out of a daydream and asks him:

"Brian, what's the “I” before “e” rule?"

"I before e... ALWAYS."

"What are you, an idiot, Brian?"

"Apparently."

The teacher explains it to her drifty pupil:

"”I” before “e” except after “c” and when sounding like “a” as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!"

Regan says: "That's a hard rule. That's a— that's a rough rule."

Hard rules and rough rules. I want to suggest that Jesus set the bar pretty high when it came to some rules. It’s common to think of Jesus as a carpenter ... his father, Joseph was a carpenter, and we sort of assume Jesus was, too. But if he was, he was also a farmer ... a gardener ... because he spoke frequently of farms and farmworkers ... of sowing seed and gathering the harvest. One particular event in Jesus’ life shows that he was a pretty hard-headed gardener ... a pretty “stern” gardener. There were some hard rules ... some rough rules for working in the “fields of the Lord.”

Jesus entered Jerusalem in the event that we remember on Palm Sunday. It was the first day of the last week of his life. It’s now the following day in the morning. Jesus walked back into Jerusalem with his disciples. He was hungry and walked by a fig tree hoping to get some figs to eat. But where there should have been abundant fruit, there were only leaves. The tree had stopped bearing fruit ... and while it may have been a lovely tree, it no longer served the purpose for which it was intended. And so Jesus curses the tree and it instantly withers and dies. Now Jesus wasn’t being a gardening brute as much as he was making a statement, and the statement was this: “Bear fruit or go out of business.” Now be sure of this: the fig tree was not just a fig tree. For Jesus and his disciples, the tree symbolized the faith of Jesus’ upbringing ... and in his mind, that faith had stopped bearing fruit and had, in effect, put itself out of business. Jesus simply stated the obvious ... he named what was already true. The tree ... his faith ... had stopped bearing fruit and had effectively ceased to be in the business for which it was intended. These are “hard rules” ... they’re rough rules ... but they are “true” rules.

For the next five weeks we will be engaged in all kinds of ways in learning some of the essentials of being a “fruitful congregation”. And one of the fundamental underpinnings of all we say and learn and do is that congregations ... churches that bear no fruit beyond themselves whatsoever are functionally dead ... like the leafy, but fruitless fig tree. These are “hard rules” ... they’re rough rules ... but they are “true” rules.

Now, I want to assure you that I don’t think the judgment of “fruitlessness” is one that can be applied to Shell Ridge Church. But it is always fair to ask about the quantity and the quality of the fruit we bear.

At my home in my back yard is a peach tree and an apricot tree. One year about four summers ago they each bore so much fruit that some of the branches were literally torn from the tree by the weight of the fruit. Since that summer the sum total of fruit from both trees wouldn’t fill a small grocery bag. Those under-fruiting trees ought to be worried about their future. To the extent that we identify any under-fruiting tendencies in ourselves, we should be worried because the “natural law” of churches is that under-fruiting churches suffer and slowly die. It’s a hard rule ... it’s a rough rule ... but it’s a “true” rules.

Starting today and ending on Thanksgiving Sunday we will consider five practices of fruitful congregations. Congregations that are faithful in attending to these basic practices and deepening these practices will never have to worry about the quality and the quantity of the fruit they bear. The five practices are: radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity. Let me say again: congregations that are faithful in attending to these basic practices and deepening these practices will never have to worry about the quality and the quantity of the fruit they bear. Each Sunday we will lift up one of these five practices. In sermon and song and even the commitments we are invited to make, we will bolster our fruitfulness. But it won’t end there as the church’s coordinating council and ministry teams and various church committees will also consider these practices and their profound implications for bearing fruit in the world around us. We’ve heard the hard rules, the rough rules ... here’s a good rule ... a generous rule: a church and its membership that takes these five practices quite seriously and weaves them into its life at every level can expect to thrive and grow and minister compassionately well beyond its walls and even beyond what might be thought possible. That’s a good rule ... that’s a generous rule.

At this time, I invite you to take the apple out of your bulletin. Very likely it was hard to keep your apple IN your bulletin. That almost juicy red apple represents the first practice of fruitful congregations which is “radical hospitality.” What you’ll notice with this first practice is true of all of the practices. Something that most congregations might do modestly well is taken to the next level or well beyond the next level. Simple hospitality is something we do relatively well at Shell Ridge ... or so we might think. We have a fairly barrier free facility, we offer warm greetings and welcome to visitors, we sing songs like “Part of the Family”, we provide childcare and large print bulletins and even Sunday sermons carefully translated into other languages. That’s a little joke because Isabella knows that Google is the sermon translater and it does a crude enough job that she has to work even harder than you do to understand what the heck is being said from this pulpit on any given Sunday. So that’s a little of what hospitality is ... it is our sense of a warm and kindly welcome to any that might come our way. Now, even before we add the word “radical” though, we would do well to remember that that is OUR sense of our hospitality. We’d be wise to acknowledge that what we, who have been around a while, see and experience is sometimes almost completely unrelated to what a complete newcomer sees and experiences. For years the “curbside” views of this property and our buildings has been ... dismal. Landscaping in disarray ... tilting fences ... crumbling retaining walls ... peeling paint. Any of you here this morning who still think of yourselves as “new” came to us and joined with us in spite of that dismal “curb appeal” ... and we thank God that you did ... but imagine how many others have driven as far as the church driveway and then said ... hmm ... I wonder what the Unitarians are doing this Sunday?

The author of the book we’re using as our primary resource these five weeks says this about the message that something as simple and basic as our facilities say about us: “Facilities speak a message to people about what church members think of themselves, how importantly they take their mission, and how confidently they see the future of their church.”

It’s hard to practice even basic hospitality when the property and the buildings are scaring people away or making them wonder about the future of the congregation that worships here. Now be sure of it ... that’s an overstatement ... but I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say, at the other end of the spectrum, that the enormous amount of work that has been accomplished over the last five to six months speaks volumes about this congregation ... what we think of ourselves, how importantly we take our mission, and how confidently we see the future of our church.

Hospitality not only takes into account the kind of welcome that people receive when they come to us and our church, but the degree to which we are willing to take our faith and our church to them. Have I told you about my Vitamix blender that is changing my life? Did I mention to you what a spectacular book or movie or restaurant I recently read, watched or ate at? Many of us are natural evangelists and spectacular promoters when it comes to many things in life ... but when it comes to our church and our faith we can become very quiet. In the months ahead, with the help of our Outreach and Growth Ministry Team, we’ll be working to help all of us—including your pastor—to naturally “give away” our church ... and the grace and love and meaning and purpose that we find here together.

Simple hospitality should be a fundamental practice of any congregation already. But RADICAL hospitality means that hospitality gets worked into the bloodstream of everything we do together, every committee and team, every meeting and gathering, every public event, every conversation and decision. Think with me in your minds eye all of the new changes that have taken place on this property, not just over the last five-six months, but the last couple of years ... the refurbished classrooms, their new murals, the new roof, new landscaping, new retaining walls, etc., etc., etc.

Now ... imagine that we don’t stop with the physical property, but continue into all of the decisions we make and all of our practices as a church ... continue into everything we say and do as it relates to the new members we already have as well as the new members we haven’t met yet. How will that change what we do and how we do it? Radical hospitality is hospitality that goes deeper and deeper and deeper into our congregational bloodstream ... nothing we do will fail to consider the stranger who might yet be our friend and our companion in this glorious journey of life and faith and compassionate ministry.

And now, in the Spirit of the call to “Be Fruitful”, let us take our apples representing our commitment to Radical Hospitality and “hang” them on our “Tree of Fruitfulness.”

Amen.

The Church: Faithful and Bold in Times of Trial

2011-10-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

The late Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara said, quite famously: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

Has anyone been persecuted lately?

Persecution ... it’s one of those odd, old-fashioned Biblical words that doesn’t get a lot of use any more. It seems to come from a time when early Christians were being thrown to the lions by Roman empererors.

But we know that the suffering and tribulations of the early church were very real ... until the time of Emperor Constantine in the 300’s, Christianity was thought of as a cult ... a nuisance at least, but possible a dangerous cult. And if the persecution of Christians within the Roman empire ended when Constantine converted to Christianity, we know that the persecution of Christians and other people of faith continues into this very day. Mosques and synagogues continue to suffer the indignities of vandalism or the pure crime of arson. The young white supremacist that was arrested in Yuba City in recent weeks was coming to California to see how many Jews he could kill.

Persecution is described as “the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation, imprisonment, fear, or pain are all factors that may establish persecution.”

Sometimes, persecution comes simply because of who we are … our “difference” … our unique culture, or ways of observing our faith. Muslim women wearing head-scarves or Sikh men in their turbans are likely to suffer verbal abuse or worse in places where these are not common.

But sometimes, persecution comes about as a result of engaging in the struggle against injustice … speaking out against unjust systems … standing with the oppressed … aligning oneself with the poor and against those that make them that way. Even expressing your solidarity with others who are persecuted can make you a target for persecution.

In the 1990’s, a conflict was escalating among American Baptists, as well as most other Christian denominations, around the painfully delicate topic of human sexuality. The conflict centered around just who was worthy of a full place at Christ’s table. And the conflict was about those churches that offered a full place at Christ’s table without condemnation to all who came. It’s like what I heard one of the Glide Memorial Church pastors say once: “If God made you, we want you.”

The region in which we belonged had other thoughts about the relative wideness of God’s mercy and decided to kick out four churches that took the wideness of God’s mercy a little too literally. If, as we’ve heard, persecution is, among other things, “The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation ...” well, this qualifies as persecution.

Now interestingly Shell Ridge was not among those kicked out ... we were flying a bit below the radar at that time and only “came out” as a welcoming and affirming congregation some years later. We were not silent in the struggle by any means, but our solidarity was limited to our voices and our presence. Only much later did we risk our membership in a region where we clearly no longer belonged.

Persecution comes in many degrees when one struggles against injustice. A child in elementary school who befriends an outcast may get ostracized by her classmates—a heavy cost at that tender age. But an Archbishop who stands up against his entire government as it oppresses and slaughters its own people will pay with his life. This is the story of martyred El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. His is a story that has been told many times in many ways from this pulpit.

It is interesting to note that for most of his career, Oscar Romero was a “go along to get along” kind of priest. He was fairly conservative and traditional. When Romero was chosen to be the new Archbishop of San Salvador, more progressive Catholics and friends of the campesinos were horrified. Campesinos are the working rural poor against whom the U.S. supported El Salvadoran government was waging a brutal war. The Catholic church in these kinds of conflicts too often sided with the powers that be ... they implicitly and sometimes explicitly supported the oppressive government.

If Romero began that way, it was witnessing the assassination of one of his dearest friends that turned him around. Progressive Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was helping to organize self-reliance groups among the campesinos when he was shot down by government death squads. Romero went to the little village to mourn his friend and he said: "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path'". This was only a month after Romero had been appointed archbishop.

Walking the same path for Archbishop Romero meant supporting the poor in their campaign for justice and fairness and an end to the violence against them. Walking the same path for Oscar Romero meant, as he surely knew when he spoke those words, receiving the same fate as his martyred friend. Just three years into his outspoken solidarity with the poor, Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered while celebrating communion. Shot down as he lifted up the cup of Christ’s blood poured out for all. On the 30^th anniversary of his death, just last year, the government formally apologized for its role in Romero’s martyrdom.

In that time of bitter struggle in El Salvador, it wasn’t only the Catholic priests who were targets for persecution. One of the stories that has become interwoven into our own Shell Ridge stories is of Baptists in El Salvador who were also being bullied and threatened and persecuted because of their concern for the poor and their opposition to government sponsored oppression and violence.

Gerson and Carlos Sanchez became a part of this congregation a half dozen or so years ago. And we learned that, like me, they are children of a Baptist minister ... this one a longtime pastor from San Salvador, the same city where Oscar Romero was archbishop. Pastor Carlos Sanchez Sr. has witnessed the struggle for basic human rights and has become aligned enough with that struggle so that he too became a target.

We are deeply privileged to be able to welcome Carlos and Gerson’s father among us today to speak a little about his own experience with persecution and what it means to live and minister with hope in the midst of difficulties that come our way as a result of commitments we have made.

Questions for Pastor Sanchez:

Introduction:

· The background and context for this conversation is this morning’s sermon-text from First Thessalonians where Paul praises the Thessalonian church for being an extraordinary light and example of the gospel in spite of the persecution they had faced and endured.

· I feel like I know enough (but not a lot) about Primera Iglesia Bautista de San Salvador to believe that its experience--and your experience, Pastor Sanchez-- approximates the Thessalonian church in some ways. You and your congregation have been a bright light and example of the gospel of Christ in spite of the persecution you have faced and endured.

Questions

· Describe the circumstances of your “persecution” as a church and a pastor … How have you and your congregation persisted and flourished and stayed faithful in the midst of your challenges/persecution?

· What word(s) do the North American churches/Christians need to hear that grows out of today's text, your and your church's experience, and your perceptions of our world and its many needs? How might we live out the gospel message/example of Jesus more faithfully, fearlessly and fruitfully?

This morning we’ve been given an opportunity to hear a voice from beyond our walls … and beyond our borders. Persons and churches are always wise to hear and attend carefully to the loving observations of others. Even as we acknowledge the ways in which we participate in the slow birthing of God’s Shalom on earth, we know that more is needed and more is expected. It’s in our Christian DNA. It’s who are we and it’s what we are to be about.

We live in a culture which has a tendency to stifle and smother prophetic instincts and action. We live in a culture where we are encouraged at nearly every step to “go along to get along.” And in this culture where so many “small gods” capture the utter loyalty of so many, including many of us to a large degree, we have to work hard to overcome culture’s demands on us to not stand out—even if the need to stand out in the face of injustice is right before us.

And as true as it may be in our own time, it’s not a new truth. Early Christian father, St. Augustine said: "For evil to triumph, the good have only to remain silent." Shortly before his death, Martin Luther King echoed these words of Augustine when he wrote, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

A dozen or so years ago we were privileged to have Alan Boesak preach at Micky Holmes’ ordination. Boesak is a South African pastor and one of the leading lights in the movement to dismantle apartheid and bring a new era of truth and reconciliation to South Africa. In his sermon Boesak spoke of the ultimate danger of any quietism and appalling silences that the modern church might be guilty of. Boesak said: "We will go before God to be judged, and God will ask us: 'Where are your wounds?' and we will say, 'We have no wounds.' And God will ask, 'Was nothing worth fighting for?'”

As we watch the occupation of Wall Street and many other streets … as we observe the enormous inequities persist among this planet’s peoples … as we watch the degradation of our environment … as we consider the continuous struggle and mostly failure to create a just and lasting peace … it is worth looking in that proverbial mirror and asking ourselves: “Where are our wounds? And … what is worth fighting for?”

As we approach and enter our time of prayer, let us also be reminded of the joyous and redemptive communities of faith in Thessalonika of Paul’s time and in San Salvador in our time. The work of healing and peace not only does not need to be grim, joyless work by a grim, joyless people … it is that very work that can strip away our grimness and return joy where it has become a stranger to us. And the work of healing and peace, performed as we live and work and walk in the ways of Jesus, has the power to bring a deep and lasting joy to all.

Let us be called to this time of prayer and reflection as we sing together our call to prayer, “Santo, Santo, Santo” …

Clothed in Christ, Clothed in Love

2011-10-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks we've been bouncing back and forth between Paul's letter to the Philippians and Jesus' parables in Matthew 21 and 22.

The heart of Paul's letter, you may recall, lifts up Jesus as the model of self-emptying, self-sacrificing servanthood. “Here is the one you are following and whom God has exalted,” Paul says … “keep being like him.”

If Paul's letters offer warm, loving affirmation to the Christians in Philippi, Jesus' parables, which are addressed primarily to the religious authorities of his time and his faith, are anything but. In three consecutive parables, Jesus puts a sharp stick in the eyes of the chief priests and Pharisees. “You have had your chance,” Jesus says, “to welcome the new thing God is doing … and now someone else is going to get a chance … a whole LOT of someones.

Today's parable is the final one in this series of three. Like the other two parables, it's an allegory that isn't too hard to figure out. A king, meaning God, is throwing a wedding banquet for his son. The wedding banquet is God's heavenly reign and the son is Jesus. Invitations had already been delivered and the slaves are sent to escort the honored guests to the celebration. Israel and its religious leaders are the honored guests who are expected to help celebrate the culmination of God's dream for creation in Jesus: God's love incarnate … God’s love in the flesh. But one after another, the guests make excuses and back out. In a final instance, the escorting slaves are mistreated and killed. In a fit of rage, the King orders the ungrateful guests killed and their city destroyed. Because it is Matthew, the gospel writer, who is adapting Jesus' parable—and perhaps expanding it from its original telling, this part of the allegory refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple—which was the center and heart of Israel and its faith.

And it is, in fact, the destruction of the Temple and the holy city of Jerusalem that drives a huge wedge between Judaism and Christianity … the ancient, venerable faith and the younger upstart faith which had co-existed with reasonable peace for 40 years, now are set adrift from each other and the antagonism between the two now fully separate faiths becomes deadly. Increasingly, there was no middle ground between the two, and if you had a foot in each camp, you had to make a choice ... there was no room for “Mr. In-between.” Families and communities were divided in this deepening conflict. And the tension between Jesus and the religious authorities in Matthew’s gospel is a reflection of that tension.

A large part of Matthew's overall message in his gospel is to convince his Jewish listeners that Jesus really is the fulfillment of the words of the prophets and stands squarely in the shoes of Israel's great deliverer, Moses. Another word that Matthew is seeking to communicate is that Israel's leaders and authorities have come to the end of the game. God is moving on … all that God needs to say and reveal has been said and revealed in Jesus … and it's a universal message of hope and welcome … and that's just not a message that the old guard of Israel are willing to embrace … or even CAN embrace.

My vision, God seems to be saying, is an infinitely expandable vision … I mean to embrace all people, all creatures, all creation … I have shared this vision many times through many messengers, and, most fully of all, in this one Jesus who is of my own being.

This is a vibrant new wine in a rigidly inflexible old wineskin. Every time we read parables that pit the new wine of Jesus against the old wineskins of his foes we should ask ourselves where we have become rigid and inflexible ... where we struggle to adapt to the new things that God continues to do around us and seek to do through us.

We know that the brittle wineskins of many Protestant denominations have struggled to stretch to the limits of God’s own circle of welcome when it comes to welcoming and finally affirming people of all sexual orientations. When my parents were children, the church had the same struggles around people of different races and women in church leadership. When an institution as resistant to change as the U.S. military beats much of the Christian church to the punch with its repeal of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, you know the church risks the same judgment as the religion of Jesus’ upbringing. I don’t think God has given up on us ... but I’m sure that our reluctance to change through the years has made her a little grumpy.

What seems to be at stake in this parable and much of Matthew’s gospel is, to use an old cliché I don’t think I’ve ever used before, that God’s chosen people have become God’s frozen people. They are frozen in a time and a mode where strict observance of the ancient minutiae of the law takes precedence over simple mercy and compassion and kindness. I don’t know that the Chief Priests and Pharisees, as individual human beings, were cruel people, but they were a part of a faith that had lost its breath ... that is, the living spirit of God’s own heart. Much of the Law of Ancient Israel was intended to define Israel over against their neighbors ... neighboring nations and faiths. By setting them apart, God could enter a covenant relationship with God’s own people and could shape them into a people of God’s own heart, God’s own spirit of Justice and Love. But you can see, in the dreams of the prophets, inklings that God’s heart could never be forever bound to only one people, only one nation, only one faith.

Jesus’ parables are littered with characters who represent Israel’s refusal to share its table and its inheritance with the impure and the unworthy. The elder son in the parable of the prodigal son is a well-known example of this refusal. Sinners and foreigners and other unworthy newcomers are simply not welcome at the table of the faith of Jesus’ upbringing.

And so, the expanding heart of God, unfortunately depicted rather violently in today’s parable, tears up the old guest list and throws open the heavenly wedding banquet to ALL ... all people of every possible kind ... the parable even goes so far as to note that “the good and the bad” alike are to be found in God’s wedding banquet.

I would guess that a part of the reluctance of the “first invited” to come to the banquet was their suspicion that in God’s generosity, they would not be the only ones there. It’s a little like the old joke about the Catholics who’ve just gotten to heaven who are told to duck down while passing the wall where the Baptists are because the Baptists think they’re the only ones there. As I’ve heard Doug Holmes say many times, “we’re all going to be very surprised when we get to heaven and find out who’s there.”

When we were in England and Wales this past summer, one of the recurring themes among native Brits was the “problem of immigration”. Nearly every conversation we had ended up with a grumble over the challenges England is experiencing with its immigrant populations. When we first arrived in London, we stayed way out in Wembley because we couldn’t find anything we could afford closer in. When we would share where we’d stayed with British folk, they would always look shocked and ask “Why?” Wembley, like many parts of greater London, is like a mini—or not so mini—United Nations. It’s a melting pot of the many immigrants who’ve found their way to that land of opportunity. Sadly, the towns we drove through as we left London, after a few days in Wembley, were torn apart by racial rioting only a few weeks after we’d been there.

You can hear in the words and voices of established populations anywhere a yearning for “the good old days” ... simpler times when, in the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “girls were girls and men were men.” And minorities knew their place. And women could only dream about voting. And slave-owners were honest, god-fearing, upstanding citizens who made the best presidents.

We could note with irony that this is “Columbus Day weekend” ... it was Columbus’ “discovery” of this land that soon would the natives of this land yearning for the good old days.

But you can’t go back. People can’t be faulted, I suppose, for their selective memories of “the good old days”, but we not only know that they weren’t “good” for everybody, but we also know that once a circle of inclusion is expanded, it can rarely go back to its original shape ... nor should it.

Wherever we find immigrant populations that are causing the natives to grumble, we might ask ourselves what conditions have caused the immigrants to seek new opportunities in new places. The long, painful shadow of colonialism is one of the lingering realities that have stunted the people and the economies of the old colonies. Old injustices and cruelties always pay a long, slow, lingering dividend and it’s too easy and not fair to be blind or indifferent to those old, and not entirely healed wounds and the lives that are still affected by them.

In the past, our government has helped overthrow democratically elected leaders whose politics we didn’t like and in their place we propped up leaders who brutalized the poor and destroyed their ability to be free and self-sufficient. One way or another, this story has been repeated all over the planet since the time of Christopher Columbus and ever since ... ever since, the hens have been coming home to roost in the colonizing nations.

So when a teacher struggles with his students who neither speak English nor whose family seems to “get” our passion for competitive education, it would be fair, and perhaps wise, for the teacher to “step back” just a bit and try for a moment to grasp the larger picture of why any civilization in this day and age will, by necessity, be a melting pot of cultures and languages and faiths. Why the poor will seek a better way of life among wealthier neighbors.

Grasping the larger picture will not make the challenges of immigration go away, but perhaps it will make us all a bit more patient with the challenges and a bit more determined to heal the wounds of the past and help create a world of more nearly equal opportunity.

In Jesus’ parable, there is a way in which those who finally accept the invitation and show up at the wedding banquet are those that grasp the larger picture of God’s ever-widening inclusion and generosity. The description of the guests as including both “good and bad” may be intended a bit ironically ... that those are their old designations placed upon them by others who judged them that way. Whether once thought of as good or bad, the guests in attendance are those whose lives reflect God’s “open banquet” policy. And they are those whose lives reflect the generous and merciful and kindly spirit of the one who invited them.

And we’ve long puzzled over the poor soul who shows up only to discover that he didn’t get the memo about the proper wedding attire. He is simply one of the old invitees who thought he could crash the heavenly wedding banquet without changing out of his old tattered robe of prejudices and hostilities.

Paul, who wrote this morning’s letter to the Philippians, was once a Pharisee of the highest order as likely was the old invitee who gets bounced from the banquet. But that was the old self that Paul left behind to follow and live into the likeness of the suffering servant, Jesus.

Paul understood well that the old skin of the old ways needed to be shed and the new skin or the new clothing of Christ needed to be put on. It was this new wedding-worthy robe that the speechless guest who had crashed the banquet had refused to put on. And by his refusal, he self-selected a place far from the colorful joy and warmth of God’s great feast for all people. And yet ... and yet I’d like to think that the story might go on to tell how God goes out into that darkness full of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and blesses and heals the unrepentant one and finally welcomes him and all like him into the great heavenly feast for all.

Here, says Paul, the former Pharisee, here is the new garment, the new cloak, that attendees of God’s great banquet for all will wear. He writes these words to the Christians in the Colossian church:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

Put on that outfit, that outfit of heavenly love, and wear it into the classroom ... and wear up to and over the Mexican border ... and wear it into the teeming suburbs of any European city ... and, finally, into the divine banquet whose music and dancing and feasting are a foretaste of heaven ... on earth ... according to the great, expanding heart of God whose name is LOVE.

Wear that garment of love, and the peace of Christ WILL rule in your hearts ... and you will be thankful. And all will be thankful.

Amen.

Fruitful vineyards

2011-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

One of the great joys of any vacation—especially when you travel far from home—is getting to break bread in other parts of the world. One Sunday, when we were in a romantic corner on the island of Sicily, we found ourselves in a tiny English-speaking Anglican church where fewer than a dozen of us had gathered to practice the familiar rituals of our faith and share the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Breaking bread among strangers in unfamiliar places is a healthy practice for our humanity and our faith and is consistent with the intents of our practice of World Communion Sunday where we seek to understand our common identity with other members of the Christian family.

Learning to come around a common table with anyone who isn’t a part of our normal “inner circle” helps us to expand our sense of our common humanity with all of earth’s people. Sitting at a table of welcome and kindness and generosity—whether we are guests or hosts—can deepen our understanding of the need to serve each other and to share our lives and the things we have with those around us.

“Table fellowship” is a term that is critical to understanding Jesus and his ministry and his values. It seems to me that there are things that can happen around a “dinner table” that can happen nowhere else. Thursday night we had our Worship Ministry Team meeting over a meal ... around a dinner table. We had lots of catching up to do and lots of business to discuss and cover, but we started with a meal and the fellowship that is natural when breaking bread together. Every meeting of SALT, our Social Action Leadership Team, begins with a light meal. My best staff meetings are always over breakfast of lunch—but especially breakfast.

Sociologists who specialize in studying families speak of the critical importance of not forsaking meals together as a family. It’s the place where our scattered lives are brought back together ... where the most honest sharing can occur ... where love and affection can be fed and rekindled.

In our modern “Fast Food nation” culture, where a drive-through meal too often substitutes for a dinner table, we have a hard time understanding the full depth of meaning of “table fellowship” as practiced in the time of Jesus. The family table was utterly central to family life and the home in Jewish culture. And to break bread at a common table with others meant that you welcomed them fully into your life and your home ... it was a kind of “what’s mine is yours” kind of gesture. No walls or barriers or separation stood in the way any longer ... it was “communion” in the fullest sense of the word. Whoever was welcomed to your table or any table to which you were welcomed ... this was “family”. At the common table, there was a spirit of loving generosity and kindness and welcome that was more important than the food, even, absolutely essential to one’s life and wellbeing.

We know that some of the harshest conflicts Jesus had with his opponents centered on his practice of eating with “sinners” ... outcasts of all kinds ... prostitutes and tax collectors among others. Proper religious folk of Jesus’ time wouldn’t have dared to pollute the common table with such folk ... keeping clear lines of separation ... clear boundaries ... was a critical part of one’s daily life and practice of faith. For Jesus, the sad fact was that the “proper practice of faith” was leading to a kind of spiritual “stinginess” and selfishness that divided people, one from another ... and a spiritual stinginess cannot help but lead to a material stinginess. Refusing to share at a common table, in many ways, symbolized a wider refusal to share at all.

We have this morning, as our focus text, another farm story ... another parable woven out of the common elements that the listeners to the story would understand. If Jesus were here and spoke in parables today, he would speak in the language of technology or modern investment principles or modern entertainment. “A man had two sons ... one of the sons came to him and said: “Father, you know I have long been a user of PC’s and windows-based computer platforms, but now I’d like to have my portion of the inheritance so I can purchase an Apple i-mac.” The parable ends there, because the father, played in this instance by Doug Holmes, freezes into a catatonic state from which he never returns.

Jesus speaks in the language of his listeners and tells of an absentee landlord who has handed over his vineyard to tenants who will do the farming, collect the produce and hand over a portion of what they harvest. It was a common practice and one that we could easily criticize because it was one of the means by which the richer got richer and kept the poor in their destitute condition. It’s possible that a story like this was originally told to entertain and satisfy poor listeners ... when the rich landowner tries to take the lion’s share of the harvest from the poor tenants, they rise up and resist and finally claim the land by killing the landowner’s son.

Jesus, however, isn’t telling the story to poor tenant farmers, but to the religious powerbrokers of his day. The listeners are the ones who have considerable control over the social economic order of the day. In many ways they help determine “who’s in and who’s out” ... who gets to come to the common table, and who gets pushed away. In such a system, the poor often remain that way or get even poorer. And the impure—by whatever means they’ve become that way—are separated from family and community and even their faith ... their God.

Jesus story is commonly understood to be simple allegory ... and in his telling, the absent landowner is God, the vineyard is Israel and Judaism, the tenants are the religious leaders of Israel, the prophets of old are God’s messengers and representatives, and Jesus, himself, is the heir, last sent, killed and cast out. As a result of the tenant farmers’ boorish behavior and their violence to the landowner’s representatives, even great violence will be done to them ... the vineyard will be taken from them and given to more responsible tenants.

The allegory is a fairly simple one ... so simple, in fact, that the intended audience, Matthew tells us, gets the message. Matthew writes: “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they realized he was speaking about them.” It was this parable and the others that Jesus told that helped solidify the opposition to Jesus. And had not Jesus still enjoyed great popularity with the common folk who flocked to him, the religious leaders would have immediately had Jesus arrested.

How do you respond when someone points out your faults? Do you ... thank them? Offer them a tip for their good service? Or do you call the police? Officer, this man is telling the painful and obvious truth and I want him ARRESTED.

The truth can hurt and when someone we don’t much like is the bearer of the truth, it can lead us to wish unpleasant things for that person. I doubt, though, that we’re a whole lot more kindly disposed to those we care for who yet speak painful truths to us. “Your drinking is threatening our relationship.” “Your anger scares me.” “You’re ignoring your children.” “That behavior is risky.” “You seem to love your job more than me.” “We never eat meals together any more.”

One commentator likened Jesus’ parables to a drill ... he says that “the intent of Jesus’ story is to drill down through layers of denial to the level of recognition ...”. We might say that Jesus’ parable is less like a drill and more like dynamite ... because there’s a lot of violence in the story ... not only are the tenants prone to violence toward any who would threaten their denial, but when Jesus asks his audience how they violent tenants should be dealt with by the absent vineyard, they respond—perhaps not surprisingly—with more violence.

At the end of the story, Jesus asks the Chief Priests and Pharisees: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’” They said to Jesus, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’”

It is, as Martin Luther King said so sadly: “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

Jesus says to these who seem to understand the truth of his words, but have not the spiritual moral will to change: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

Now ... by the time Matthew wrote these words, weaving this story Jesus told into his gospel, the Chief Priests and Pharisees were relics from Jesus’ time ... and how much more so in our reading. If we are to “find ourselves” in Jesus’ parable—and this is the challenge of all parables and all scripture ... if we are to find ourselves in this story, then perhaps we do well to start at the end and ask ourselves: “What is the vineyard and are we being “fruitful”.

To be faithful to this sermon and to this parable, you will of course, have to continue asking yourself these questions. You must allow the story to continue to linger within you and probe you.

In a time when life is no less endangered and precarious than in Jesus’ own time, and in a time when the injustices of life are as plainly evident as in Jesus’ own time, we do well to ask ourselves about our own “stewardship” over the things with which we have been entrusted. This earth ... it’s natural resources ... it’s human resources—our brothers and sisters who share the planet with us ... our inheritances of life and substance from our families of upbringing ... even the gift of the air we breathe and the gift of each new day in which we are privileged to live. Each of these I’ve named and many more are the “vineyard” with which we have each been entrusted. And the plain truth of Jesus’ story is “use it wisely and generously or lose it.”

More of you than I can count or recall have recounted to me times in your doctor’s office where one bit or another of medical evidence has been for you a “wake up” call ... your blood pressure ... your weight ... your cholesterol level ... the condition of your liver. Your body is telling you: It’s time to listen to the message, time to wake up, time to change. Because if you don’t change, your body will return to the dust from which it came a lot sooner than you think or you’d like. Some of us heed these wake up messages ... and some of us don’t. The ball is certainly in our court when the truth is spoken to us. What does it take to get us to hear the truth? And what does it take for us to heed the truth and to discover the will to change?

The commentator who likened Jesus’ parables to a denial penetrating drill says that if you drill down through enough layers of denial, you may reach a new level of recognition and at that new level you can tap “a deep vein of contrition that can finally well up to water new life that is ‘fruitful’ in gospel terms.”

Bad news that leads to good news. Hmm. That might be one way of saying it. You may remember that Alfred Nobel is the scientist for whom the Nobel peace prize is named. But the bad news for Alfred Nobel was that he read a premature obituary of his life that described him as a purveyor of death because he was inventor of dynamite. Seeing his life summed up so grimly made Nobel determine that he would “invent” something else for which he’d rather be known: a prize for those who were purveyors of life and peace. Bad news that leads to good news. Maybe so.

Now back to Sicily for a moment. The day after we worshipped in that little Anglican church, Jan and I went to tea with the priest that presided over the Lord’s Supper. John Price is his name. John had just retired from his parish in a town north of London. It is a town that struggles with every possible blight that any of our communities here might struggle with. For six years, John worked tirelessly to turn bad news into good news. His congregation was beset by the challenges of immigrant populations washing over the community ... and so they became a profoundly multi-cultural church, embracing the unfamiliar languages and customs of Christians from other parts of the world. When John assumed the leadership of his church, the church grounds had become severely overgrown and had become a haven for drug dealers and users. The cut back the overgrowth and cleaned up the grounds. Over 1500 hypodermic needles were collected amidst the clutter. Today the cleaned up grounds serves the community as does the church in new ways that it might never had envisioned had it not faced up to the bad news and determined to bring good news from it.

This earth and these lives and any abundance we might enjoy ... they are all extraordinary gifts ... and the word to us today is that they are not to be hoarded and defended and fought over, but are for us and for all to enjoy and share. The good news is that there is within us all—all of us here, all Christians, all people on this earth ... there is a vein of “God-given goodness” that can be tapped and that can rise up like waters of new life and new fruitfulness.

Let us give proof of that goodness by hearing and heeding the call to make of our lives and of this world a watered garden, a fruitful vineyard, and a table whose generosity and welcome knows no bounds. Amen.

Impersonate? Imitate? Participate?

2011-09-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered WHO you really are? Do you look at that face that stares back at you in the mirror and wonder ... “Who am I?” What does it mean to be “me”?

The late Peter Sellers was the exquisitely talented actor of “Pink Panther” fame along many other movies. It was said that he entered into the many characters he played so completely that he largely lost sight of who Peter Sellers was ... he was an actor who portrayed other people ... and almost nothing more.

Who are you? What does it mean to be you?

These are “existential” questions ... questions that ponder one’s existence, including one’s emotions and thoughts, decisions and actions, roles and responsibilities, the meaning and the purpose of one’s life. Somehow the word “existential” kept popping in conversations this summer. When we take time away from our ordinary duties and responsibilities, existential questions are bound to bubble to the surface of our consciousness.

“Who am I?” What does it mean to be “me”? Who are you? What does it mean to be you? To ask questions like these means that we may not always be absolutely clear about who we are? They are fair questions for which we may not have easy answers.

The German martyr of World War II, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famously asked his own existential question while in residence at the Nazi concentration camp where he was later hanged for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler. “Who am I?” he asked with a deep ache in his voice. Many around him saw him as strong and self-confident which was quite at odds with the frightened and lonely person he knew himself to be. He felt like a hypocrite and a weakling mocked by what he called his “lonely questions.” But what saved Bonhoeffer, ultimately, in his existential agony was knowing “whose” he was, knowing that all of his self and his life and his purpose and his meaning—and even his lonely questions—ALL of these were wrapped up in the infinitely larger reality of God’s own being to which Bonhoeffer belonged.

It’s interesting to note that God’s own self-claims of identity stand in startling contrast to any existential mumbling or moodiness we might experience. You’ll remember that when God meets Moses at the burning bush and calls him to lead God’s people out of slavery, Moses asks God: “Who shall I say has sent me?” God says: “Tell them I am who I am has sent you.” Oooo-kaaay. Apparently God doesn’t lie awake at night lost in an existential funk. I suppose if you are, as Paul Tillich said, the ground of all being, “I am” is all the calling card you need.

It is the Apostle Paul who triggers this line of thinking with his words written in his love-letter to the Christians in Philippi. As with the God who called him, we rarely think of Paul as one who struggled with his self-identity or as being overly plagued with self-doubts. It was Paul’s uber-confidence in himself and his calling that was his great strength as well as a bone of contention for his opponents.

I have known people like Paul ... and when they get a bee in their bonnet ... when they become possessed with an idea OR the TRUTH, you’d best get out of the way if you don’t want their footprints on your back.

No ... self-doubting was rarely a problem for Paul. And certainly if there was a time for self-doubting, it would have come during his own time of imprisonment, for it was from prison that Paul writes his letter to the Philippians. But unlike Dietrich Bonhoeffer, far from weakening his confidence, Paul’s imprisonment seems to have strengthened it. I want you to know, beloved,^* Paul writes in the first chapter of Philippians, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel ... and his confidence while imprisoned has given confidence to others to proclaim the gospel “with greater boldness and without fear.”

When you read Paul’s letter to the Philippians, his deep love and affection for them is obvious. Even from a prison cell, he bubbles over them as one lover to another. The young church in Philippi has been one of Paul’s successes and it is due, in no small part, to their mutual love for each other. Paul begins his letter to the Philippians saying: I thank my God every time I remember you, ⁴constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you ... Paul has planted a seed of the gospel in their midst and he continues to be amazed at its flourishing.

But even really good people and really good churches can have their struggles. It can’t ALL be “sweetness and light” ALL of the time. Honeymoons can’t last forever. Invariably a time comes when opinions can differ and equally good folk can stand on different sides on an issue. There is a small rift in the church in Philippi that Paul has caught wind of. It grieves Paul to think of there being disunity in his beloved church. And it worries him that the disunity will weaken their ministry and their witness.

And so Paul does what any wise parent does for her or his child: he reminds them of who and whose they are.

Paul begins by reminding the people of what they already have: they find great strength and encouragement in their Christian faith, they share deeply the empowering Spirit of God, and they have great compassion and sympathy for one another that flows into the world beyond their community. These are things we would be happy to have people say about this community of faith ... about Shell Ridge. Strong faith ... deep Spirit ... compassionate ministry. That’s who you are, Paul tells them. You are these things already. Now, he implores them, “Be yourself.”

... make my joy complete: Paul tells them, be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was^* in ... and here Paul comes to the heart of the matter. If REALLY you want to know who you are, he is saying, the One who has claimed you with an undying love and filled you with an unassailable hope, that One has modeled with his own being the lives you are to live and the selves you are to be.

It is this point of his love-letter to the Philippians that Paul takes a poem or a hymn that is already well known to the Christians of that time and places it at the center of his letter ... he uses it to re-ground the Philippians in their faith and their self-identity. Paul exhorts them with the familiar hymn:

Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God ...

Jesus is God’s humble servant ... self-emptying ... refusing to grasp at power ... humbled, obedient and serving even to the point of death ... and then raised up and exalted by the Power beyond all power ... and it is this humble and serving one—not the warriors and self-exalters, but the humble and serving one who will ultimately claim the allegiance of all earth.

Carlyle Marney was an old southern preacher whom I note from time to time. He spoke with a drawling, booming voice that was described as sounding like God’s ... only deeper. Willis knew Marney, I believe. Marney was smart and wise and compassionate. One of his special passions was for preachers like himself who needed to find their way back to the simple joy of ministry on behalf of the one we’ve just heard Paul describe with the hymn of the humble and self-emptying Christ. A well-known story about Carlyle Marney has him sitting with a group of pastors helping them out the kinks in their souls when an argument broke out. Even while serving the humble, self-emptying Jesus, preachers can be haughty and proud. The argument grew hotter and fiercer until Marney, who had sat silently until that point, said: “Friends ... friends ... do ... you ... love ... Jesus?” Do you love Jesus? It was all he had to say ... it was the only reminder he had to make ... to draw back into their midst the one who had been pushed out ... God’s humble servant ... self-emptying ... refusing to grasp at power ... humbled, obedient and serving even to the point of death ... and their model for Christian life and ministry.

Do you love Jesus? It’s Marney’s question ... it’s Paul’s question ... and I suppose it’s my question to you and to me. And at this point it’s neither my intention to get “heavily theological” nor “heavily evangelical” ... but simply to ask: Does the servant of God we know as Jesus draw you, compel you, move you, deepen you, touch you, change you? Do you love Jesus?

We often say that the simplest definition of what it means to be a Christian is “a follower of Jesus”. It’s hard to bind your soul to the soul of another—be it your life-mate or the person of Jesus—if LOVE is not a part of the equation. Paul would likely agree that as we love Jesus, so we move and follow and deepen our likeness of him.

For some of us it has been many years since we trolled our souls in the waters of baptism. And like the beloved subjects of Paul’s letter, we need the simplest of reminders of whom we love and who loves us. It is Jesus the Lord, Paul says, humbled and exalted, servant of God and the very bearer of God’s own name. Remember who you are, Paul says then and says to us now. Remember who you are.

Paul concludes this word of reminder and encouragement to the Philippians with an unusual phrase. And perhaps he offers it to his beloved friends lest they or anyone else get the wrong sense of what it means to be a Christian and a follower of Jesus. He says: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

H. Richard Niebuhr was a mid-20^th century theologian and ethicist and brother to the more famous Reinhold Niebuhr. H. Richard Niebuhr was a very influential part of my own education and training as a pastor. A young evangelist once stopped H. Richard Niebuhr near the Yale campus where he taught and asked Niebuhr, “Are you saved?” “Yes,” the theologian thoughtfully replied. “When?” the evangelist pressed. “Every day,” replied Niebuhr.

You mean ... you mean there’s more? We’re not through?

Hmm ... apparently this “once and done” version of Christianity isn’t Paul’s ... the version where “dipped and saved” gets ‘er done, the version where having muttered the right sinner’s prayer and bought your soul’s heavenly fire insurance ... you can go back to being the same miserable scoundrel Jesus saved.

You’re not there yet, Paul seems to be saying. You’re on the way, the right path, but you haven’t arrived. You’re following in the right footsteps, but the journey continues.

I’m fond of quoting my dear friend and senior colleague James Chuck who like to say to people, for whom it’s true: “I like who you’re becoming.”

“I like who you are” Paul tells the Philippians. And I also like who you’re becoming. Now ... don’t stop ... don’t quit ... don’t step away from the path of the one who goes before you and beckons to you to keep following. I say these words to you and to us in the least “self-congratulatory” way possible: Shell Ridge friends: I like who you are. And I also like who you’re becoming. Now ... don’t stop ... don’t quit ... don’t step away from the path of the one who goes before you and beckons to you to keep following. Keep tending your souls ... keep deepening your being ... keep strengthening your service.

I lost a colleague recently who was a well-known and appreciated pastor. But it’s possible he was best known for something altogether different. He loved to impersonate Elvis. When the late Ted Keaton retired—Ted was a member of this church and a past president of our seminary in Berkeley, when Ted retired, my colleague put on a wild Elvis costume complete with rhinestones, bushy sideburns and white-rimmed sunglasses and crooned Elvis’ greatest hits to Ted’s great embarrassment ... and to everyone else’s enormous enjoyment.

As someone has noted, impersonators go to great pains to make people believe who they are not. Let us be very clear that Paul, in inviting us to be of the same mind as Jesus and to work out our salvation is not asking us to impersonate him. A better word that hits closer to Paul’s call is “imitate” ... striving to live up to the challenge of the person we look up to. Not impersonators of Christ, but imitators of Christ. Not a costume that we wear and words we only half-heartedly mouth, but seeking sincerely to live and work and speak and follow in the ways of Jesus.

We might add one more word to this trajectory of words if we wanted to take a final step. It would be the word: “participate”. The words means to share in ... to be involved in ... to mingle one’s self in. To “participate in Christ” is to not simply follow and imitate, but to join yourself to Christ ... to join yourself to Christ’s work ... to join yourself to Christ’s peace.

Perhaps we’re not all the way there yet. But we’re on the way, the right path. We’re following in the right footsteps and the journey continues.

Later today, those among us who are able will “participate” in Christ as they join other participants in a walk of hope on behalf of many in our world in desperate need. The CROP walk is only one of many ways we can participate in Christ with body, mind and soul. But it is a step along the way from imitation to full participation.

Shell Ridge friends, let me say it again: I like who you are. And I also like who you’re becoming. Now ... don’t stop ... don’t quit ... don’t step away from the path of the one who goes before you and beckons to you to keep following. Keep tending your souls ... keep deepening your being ... keep strengthening your service.

Amen.

Nice work... if you can get it.

2011-09-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

I began my working life as a day laborer. It was the late-1960’s on the Olympic Peninsula in the drowsy Pacific Northwest. Each morning an old rickety school bus would prowl the neighborhoods, picking up any child unlucky enough to lack an excuse to go to the berry fields where child labor laws seemed unknown. In my town, many children my age were summer produce pickers ... it was how we earned a little spending money—very little in my case. It was also how our parents got us out of their hair during the summer. It felt like punishment. I avoided it as often as I could. My heart wasn’t in it ... on one particularly memorable and deplorable day, I picked raspberries all day long and made a grand total of 67 cents. That’s somewhat less than a denarius which is the wage in this morning’s scripture which is reportedly what it took to feed one person for one day.

The day laborers of my summer childhoods were a modest help to the local farm economies of that time. But throughout history, whole economies have been built on the backs of the working poor, including their children. These working poor have been variously named, whether day laborers ... or indentured servants ... or slaves ... or sharecroppers ... or migrant workers. These are the folk who inhabit the lowest levels of any workforce. They are completely at the mercy of those who might hire them ... they are paid the most menial of wages ... they work in sub-standard conditions ... the work they perform is often backbreaking drudgery ... and all this to simply earn enough money to put a day’s food on the table.

Jesus’ parable about the workers in the vineyard does not seem to make its primary point about the plight of the working poor. It has another point to make as we’ll see. But I very much believe that the “homely” and rustic settings of many of Jesus’ stories cannot be too easily dismissed. We do well to not rush too quickly by the simple surroundings of the stories and some of the truths they can tell if we pause to watch and lean in to listen.

The secondary point of the story has to do with lifting out of obscurity these peasants who are not much better off than sparrows pecking at seeds in the dust. Every day is a monumental struggle to survive. Every day contains a belly-full of desperation. Every day one must exhaust oneself simply to earn enough bread to ease you on to the next grueling day. And there are scores upon scores of others just like you with whom you must compete for work and food. The system in which you operate, though it depends upon your life and your efforts, is utterly indifferent to you, for you are quickly and easily replaced. Your health and your strength, your relationships and your sanity are all compromised ... are, in fact, luxuries that many can never afford.

Presumably Jesus told this parable over and over ... enough times that it became embedded in the collective memories of his followers. And there must have been times when the listeners of the story would have momentarily paused to consider the humble actors who occupy the story’s stage, instead of forever looking past them to some deeper “spiritual truth.”

Every culture has its invisible people ... those who dwell in the shadowy places of poverty. The great shock for many of us in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, after the shocking power of the storm, was the extraordinary poverty that was exposed and could not be ignored. Who knew, right? Some knew, but many more assumed such poverty could only be found in so-called “developing countries”.

In India, the lowest caste of people were long known as the untouchables. Actually, they were not a caste within the caste system per se, but were below the caste system. Like the lepers in Jesus’ time, they lived in the extreme margins and contact with them was to be avoided at all costs. Even though castes have been illegal since 1948, the reality of the caste system persists. It’s estimated that 160 million Indians today are considered “untouchables”.

Gandhi was among the first to give serious attention to the untouchables and to advocate for their rights and even bestowed upon them the name “Harijan” which means “children of God.” Following in the spirit of Gandhi, a humble Albanian nun by the name of Teresa made a practice of touching the untouchables and caring for them and kissing and holding them, finally, as they died.

In telling his parable, Jesus brings us back to the humble day laborers again and again. And each visit reveals those whose plight is worse than the group before. Those who are hired in the morning may have a day of backbreaking labor ahead of them, but at least they know that at the end of the day they will eat, however simply. Each subsequent group that gets hired wonders if they’ll get hired at all until we finally come to the end of the day and the final group spells out their frustration and fears. The landowner asks them: “Why are you standing here idle all day?” We might hear in his question a sense of blame for their “idleness.” And they say in return and in their own miserable defense, “Because no one has hired us.” It’s a bleak response from a people with no prospects.

I have driven into the Home Depot parking lot on many an afternoon and I have seen our own local day laborers still waiting ... standing in a gloomy funk ... still waiting ... still wondering. If your language permitted it, you could approach them and ask: “Why are you standing here idle all day?” and the response would likely be, “Porque nadie nos ha contratado.” “Because no one has hired us.”

We could say that it’s the lucky ones who’ve gotten to spend the day mucking out ditches ... stacking rocks ... laying pavers ... doing all nature of menial, difficult work that ... somebody’s got to do. And I suppose some would say that others are even luckier who don’t have to wait around building supply parking lots for work, but have regular jobs as janitors and dishwashers and gardeners and field workers. They’re the lucky ones ... right?

It would seem to me that a compassionate reading of Jesus’ parable would insist that we do not rush through the story to its end, but pause to get to know the otherwise invisible characters who are yearning to be noticed and known and heard, who simply want a fair shake out of this life that we have in common where the roles we occupy could be so easily reversed and are ours only by virtue of the accident of our births.

In a Labor Day Sunday sermon two weeks ago, I was reminded of the saying that some people are “born on third base and act as though they’d hit a triple.” And others ... many others come to the plate with two strikes already against them. Such is the difficult and inequitable game of life.

Every time I go to Mexico to build a home ... or every time I have to participate in some particularly difficult and dirty job at home or here at a church work party ... I and others like me can often be heard to say: “Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t have to do THIS for a living.” Pity the poor souls who do ... and who barely eke out a living doing it.

When my older son, Jordan, began working as a waiter and would come home with stories of the unique difficulties of that line of work, I suddenly began to notice waiters. And around that time some of us were reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s seminal documentary, Nickled and Dimed in America which tells of the enormous difficulties of “making it” as a part of the service workforce. When you have children working in that workforce and when you read books like Ehrenreich’s, it becomes harder and harder to ignore and turn a blind eye and a cold heart to those who are bussing your tables and mowing your lawns and cleaning your restrooms.

It is at the very center ... the very heart of Jesus’ parable that the least of the least come into view and into sharp focus. With the sun beginning to set and their stomachs rumbling loudly and their hope slipping away, they are given the universal lament of anyone who has ever been out of work: “No one will hire us.” “No one will hire me.” Jesus wants us not to pass by these unhired workers without seeing their faces and hearing their voices and sensing their need.

I suppose this could be a part of the sub-text of the movie, The Help, which is moving moviegoers these days to laughter and tears. Amidst the related themes of racism and sexism, are the indignities that get heaped upon the lower working classes, servers and servants, cooks and wet-nurses. The movie invites the viewer, as with the listeners of so many of Jesus’ parables, to see people as they really are, behind the starched aprons and culturally appointed roles and the old biases and blindness that can afflict us all.

And if we were to be painfully, brutally honest, in the midst of our new vision, we might say to the servers and servants and “day laborers” among us: “Thank you ... thank you for working at odd hours doing loathsome, backbreaking work at despicable wages so that I can enjoy clean restrooms, pleasant landscapes and fresh vegetables. Thank you.”

Now it’s the end of the day in Jesus’ parable. The sun is setting, the tools have been put away, the hunger of the workers is keen. The workers file in to receive their modest pay. And in an unusual twist, the landowner makes those hired first wait while he pays those hired later. To the amazement of both the workers as well as the hearers of Jesus’ parable, those hired as the day was ending receive a full day’s wage. And so it is with those hired before them all the way to the workers who were hired in the morning and spent the whole day working in the fields.

The amazement of the first-hired turns to anger and an acute sense of injustice. And it is at this point that the story ceases, really, to be about “day laborers”, for it would be a cruel storyteller, indeed, who would pit one unfortunate and powerless person against another to make a fine theological point. It is at this point that the setting shifts and we see that what is at the heart of Jesus’ message is the enormous and overwhelming generosity of God.

To claim that point, that message … does not in any way negate the implied point which I’ve taken up the lion’s share of this sermon making … that the worker deserves her or his pay … or, more widely: that EVERYONE deserves a decent job with a living wage and reasonable benefits for themselves and their dependents. And the bridge between the two points is that it is a crime against heaven and earth for people and societies who know better and whose faith has taught them better to allow the working poor to suffer or the unemployed poor to remain that way … if it is in our power to bring change where change is needed.

Let’s come back to the reminder that the common understanding of a denarius is that it was enough to feed one person for one day. Can you imagine being an employer and having your late-starting employee come before you for her pay and saying, “I know very well that what I am about to pay you is a starvation wage … waaay less than what what it will take keep the wolves from your door … but … fair is fair … here you go and have a nice day.”

Jesus’ parable hints broadly, but strongly at a God whose generosity is … frankly … ridiculous. This landowner/God won’t stay in business very long being “compassionately equitable” in that way. But heaven isn’t a corporation and the bottom line isn’t what matters most. Better to irritate the bean-counters than to knowingly send one away to suffer.

I don’t know if President Obama’s proposed jobs initiative or the coming proposal that the rich pay a fair share of their taxes … if either of these has any rootage in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers and the generous landowner. I kind of doubt it … at least not very directly. But more and better jobs with better benefits and an equitable sharing of the burdens of life and society are, at least, moving in the right direction. It moves us ever so slightly in affirmation of a phrase that a colleague uses when he says: “Everyone has enough, no one has too much.”

I’m not a politician or a creator of public policy … no one here is as far as I know. So the challenges that grow out of this parable for us may not be the same ones that should be heard by our elected representatives. For us, it may be that the best place to start is that wherever culture and society and traditional understandings have created a gulf or built a gap and allowed these to remain … perhaps our job is to build a bridge. Last week I gave a jump start to the truck of the Vietnamese woman who takes care of the yards in our neighborhood. You’d have thought she won the lottery. She thanked me with her hands pressed together and a small bow. We’re becoming friends in our own small way. For years the Russian women from next door have congregated in the Shell Ridge courtyard and every time I see them I rack my brain for the Russian greeting that best matches the time of day … dobra utra … doba dien … dobra vee-aitcher. They’re always kind and gentle and smiling in their corrections of my mistakes.

At the restaurant … at the checkout counter … at Home Depot … in your neighborhood … in the classroom … among different nationalities and languages and faiths and varieties of ethnic dress and customs … among the varying socio-economic classes … in every setting where you are with someone who is not you and especially someone who is quite different than you … build a bridge … be a bridgebuilder and a straddler of gaps wherever they exist in the human family.

We use the word “Shalom” a lot here on Shell Ridge … Shalom is a comprehensive peace marked by a compassionate and generous justice for all. Today’s parable hints at a world marked by Shalom. Shalom is probably less a place of precise arrival than it is a goal that can be steadily sought and slowly realized. In a world marked increasingly by Shalom, it will be increasingly true that “everyone has enough, and no one has too much.” No more filthy rich and no more dirt poor. And who are the creators of Shalom? The sons and the daughters of God, which is to say, ALL people … including YOU … including ME. It’s our job. It’s what we do.

So fall in love with humanity all over again … stretch your wings and your boundaries. Mimic the best you can the ridiculous generosity of the God who gives life to one and all.

Fall in love -- you won't regret it.
That's the best work of all -- if you can get it.
Oh that is nice work if you can get it.
And you can get it -- if you try.

Amen.

Dinner Hearts and Sneezers

2011-09-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

How many Jeopardy watchers do we have in the house? Anyone watch Jeopardy? Well the title of the sermon today is a Jeopardy answer. Dinner, Hearts and Sneezers. Does anyone know the question? What do these have in common? Right they are all things that are blessed. (I cannot give it to you though because you did not put it in the form of a question.) We say blessings over our meals before eating them. If you are from the South or have a relative from there no doubt you have heard them use the expression, “Bless her Heart.” Usually this is done after some unpleasantries have been said about someone. “She’s dumb as a pole, bless her heart.”

And sneezers. Anyone have a sneeze today. Did you get a blessing? According to the Internet which is never wrong the blessing of sneezers was mandated by Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) who ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague of 590. To fight it, he called for litanies, processions and unceasing prayer. Because sneezing was thought of as a symptom of the plague, sneezers were immediately blessed in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague.

So 10 points for all those who go the Jeopardy question right today, but I have an even more pressing question. Are you blessed? Do you feel blessed? If you really think about it, it is not such an easy question to answer. For one thing, it assumes that we all have the same definition of what a blessing is. And that just may not be true. So maybe the best place we should start is by asking, What is a blessing?

Now the Bible here is full of blessings. In Genesis Abraham was considered blessed by God and was given livestock, wealth and the promise that his descendents will be like sands on the seashore too numerous to count. Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob. Jacob, who was so concerned about getting his father’s blessing that he tricked poor old Isaac out of giving it to his brother Esau. He comes away with all of the inheritance and family wealth. Jacob gives birth to Joseph who was also considered blessed by God even before his birth. He becomes one of the highest rulers in Egypt second only to the Pharaoh. There is king David and his son Solomon, who were look on favorably by God and fantastically wealthy to boot. Joseph, Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon, all considered blessed with extraordinary riches. Even Job who faced unbelievably horrific trials comes out blessed in the end with twice what he originally had.

Are you starting to catch a theme? These Biblical characters are all considered blessed and all have great wealth. Their favor with God is easily measured in stuff: gold, cattle, and slaves. Riches. Possesions. And the biggest measuring stick of them all...land. When Moses led his people out of Egypt they crossed the desert for 40 years. The reward for their perseverance? A land flowing with milk and honey, Canaan. Given to them because they were blessed. Never mind that there were people already living there.

Blessings of land. Blessings of wealth. Maybe blessings are simply something given to the people by God. Some thing. If this is the case, then it becomes easy to see who is blessed and who isn’t. The rich and prosperous are blessed. Those who occupy the land are blessed. You might think that this is ancient thinking but it is alive and well. Known as the prosperity gospel it is a theology that is preached to justify the wealthy and entice the poor. But at what point does believing that “God will provide” become “God gave me a 12 million dollar house?” Now it is not bad or wrong to be thankful for what we have. But when possessions and things become the benchmark of being blessed, then something is wrong. When the disparity between the rich and the poor grows larger and larger then we need a new benchmark. A rich man once asked Jesus how to have eternal life. Jesus replied that to be perfect, he had to sell everything he owned. This was Jesus’ new benchmark.

So I ask you again. “Are you blessed?”

Possessions are not the only benchmark in the Bible for being blessed. When the Israelites were captured, they lost their wealth. They lost their land. And they cried out. The blessing that they sought was not only that they wanted their country back, but that they wanted to feel the presence of God. They wanted to believe that God was with them. God’s very presence was the blessing they sought. Just listen to the anxiety in Psalm 121. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where will my help come? Imagine looking to the vastness of the hills and feeling that kind of emptiness. Where will my help come? The psalmist goes on, “My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth.” This psalm ends with one of the most beautiful benedictions. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. Doesn’t that make you feel blessed just reading it?

So is God’s presence proof of being blessed? Because I have felt at times like the author of this psalm. I have looked to the hills and wondered from where my help would come. I remember one particular time. I was in high school and I was having a really hard time. I carried around a lot of guilt about who I was and who I was supposed to be. I was all mixed up and very frustrated. For a long time this made me really depressed which just added to my frustration. One night I prayed for personal peace. I said, “God I don’t want everything to be figured out. I don’t need to have all the answers. I just want to feel like I have some personal peace.” After praying I opened up a devotional book and do you know what that day’s devotion was titled? “Personal Peace.” Lest anyone think that God does not have a sense of humor.

It was a reminder that God was with me. Like the writer of the psalm, I realized that my help came from God. So are we blessed because God is with us? But isn’t God always with us? Don’t we believe in an omnipresent God? If this is the case then we should feel blessed all of the time. And maybe some of you do. But maybe some of you don’t. Maybe you fell like you could use a blessing. Maybe, like the Israelites that cried out for a Messiah, like the hungry who ask for food, like the sick that cry out for comfort, maybe merely knowing that you are blessed is not enough. Maybe you need a blessing.

So I ask you again. Are you blessed?

When Jesus climbed atop a mountain to speak to those that had gathered around him, he no doubt saw people in need. His people were a people that had been occupied, people that had lost their country to Rome. They were desperate people looking to him for something. In short they needed a blessing. And Jesus gave them one.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now each one of these blessings that we call the Beatitudes is a sermon in and of itself so I will leave that for another sermon series. But there are some things that I want to point out about this wonderful list as a whole.

1. The list has a rewards system. For each condition there is a blessing that is given. But the rewards are not things like money and land. We have moved past all that. The rewards are states of being. Comfort. Mercy. Even the Kingdom of Heaven.

2. This list is not about the powerful. It is not about the political leaders or the wealthy. It is about the lowly. The poor in spirit. The meek. It is about the making the last first. These are the people that need to hear this. Both then and now.

3. Here is what is most remarkable about this list to me. Jesus does not say where these blessings come from. He does not say God blesses the meek or God blesses the pure in heart. He just says Blessed are the meek and blessed are the pure in heart. Am I being too detailed? Is it obviously implied? Maybe. Or maybe the intent was that the blessings come from one another. If we look at the beatitudes in this way then we are not only the recipients of the blessings but the givers as well. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes we are the hands and feet of God. We are the ones who bestow God’s blessings here on earth. We are the ones to bestow mercy. We give the world to the meek. We are to stand up and declare that peacemakers are indeed the children of God. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness it is we who are creating a righteous world. My Lutheran housemate says that it is God’s work. Our hands. I like that God’s work our hands.

So, maybe the question we should ask ourselves is not are we blessed? But rather are we blessing? Are you blessing? Start with dinner. Move on to sneezers. Along the way bless a few hearts. But then try to comfort someone who is mourning. Give mercy to the merciful. Lift up all those who strive for peace.

If you truly want to see how blessed a world can be, then start by giving it some blessings. And God’s people said, Amen.

Putting yourself in the presence of God

2011-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

By Karen DeWeese

The chicken or the egg?

There is an often heard old question that goes: Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The question is posed when we are confronted with a situation which calls for the determination of the causality or order of occurrence of two events or situations. So our question for today is: Which comes first? Being in God’s presence which prompts us to pray or praying and then feeling we are in God’s presence.

And what sorts of things will elicit the feelings of God’s presence? One would hope glorious music or stained glass or a lofty sermon. However equally moving can be an awesome sunrise, or a mountain’s grandeur, or even more mundane things that cross our paths in our everyday life : the smell of a fresh baked loaf of bread, a tiny, furry kitten, a pile of colorful fall leaves. In a novel by Jennifer Chiaverini, titled THE ALOHA QUILT, the main character, Bonnie, is having her first taste of taro. Her hostess says“ they’re delicious, a bit like sweet potatoes. “. Bonnie takes a small serving and samples a small bite. She wondered if she would be able to find taro in a grocery store back in Pennsylvania. She had never noticed them before but she had not been looking for them. A lot about life had escaped her notice because she had not been looking. In AN ALTAR IN THE WORLD, Barbara Brown Taylor says , “Prayer is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. When I am fully alert to whatever or whoever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the tremendous gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in, then I am in prayer. Prayer is happening and it is not necessarily something that I am doing, God is happening, and I am lucky enough to know that I am in THE MIDST.” At those moments it is not only as if we were suddenly perceiving something in reality we had not perceived before, but as if ourselves were being perceived. Prayer is more than my idea of prayer and some of what I actually do in my life may constitute genuine prayer.

Whether intentional, or simply by being in THE MOMENT, there are different prayers that are appropriate for the different times and stages in our lives. There is a prayer which I am certain we have all heard or perhaps even prayed as a child or taught to our children or grandchildren. I learned this, literally, at the knees of my grandmother. When we would stay with her in the summertime, at night before going to bed, we would kneel beside the bed and pray,: Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

This was followed by bless mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa and the list went on and on as long as we could think of people that we wanted God to bless, though I suspect it was the more people we could name for God to bless, the longer we would avoid the inevitability of having to go to bed: especially difficult during the summer when it was still light out.

There is a newer version of this children’s prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

May God guard me through the night

And wake me with the morning light.

I suspect this newer version is in wider usage because it is considered less scary though I don’t think it has adversely affected the many of us who grew up on the older version.

As we grew a little older, prayers were learned in Sunday school, or a prayer thanking God for our daily food was prayed at the dinner table. Here at Shell Ridge, prayer and learning about the presence of God is an integral part of the Logos program for our children on Wednesday evenings.

Likewise, prayers and reverence to God are an important part of the scouting program. In Boy Scouts, one of the favorite prayers at mealtimes is called the Philmont Grace: named after the scouting ranch in New Mexico by that name.

For food, for raiment

For life, for opportunity

For friendship and fellowship

We thank thee, O Lord.

And lest we think that in a preteen’s mind prayers are only for meals, there is a very popular book by Judy Blume, published in 1970 titled ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET. Margaret, an 11 year old, has grown up in a non-religious home claiming to be non religious herself. She does not doubt nor question God’s presence but is innately aware of his existence and presence. She calls on God on a regular basis with the typical worries and concerns of a pre-teen girl. She is in the 6^th grade and her family has recently relocated to New Jersey. She wants to fit in with her new contemporaries and talks to God about her new community and school. Throughout is a theme of asking God to let her be and develop normally for her age. Another theme that runs throughout is the conflict and choice of a religion. Raised with no religious training as her mother is Christian and her father is Jewish, they have left it up to her to decide when she is “older”. With family conflicts that erupt, she prays and wishes that she’d been born one or the other. Even amidst her struggles, she is constantly aware of God’s presence and grateful for all she has been given.

As we grow into adulthood, we become more aware of God’s presence as we explore the outdoor world of nature and all its wonders. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine you are sitting in the most beautiful or your most favorite out of doors spot. Now, listen to these words and envision the presence of God:

God of grave nights,

God of brave mornings,

God of silent noon,

Hear my salutation!

For where the rapids rage white and scornful,

I have passed safely, filled with wonder,

Where the sweet ponds dream under willows,

I have been swimming, filled with life.

God of round hills,

God of green valleys,

God of clean springs,

Hear my salutation!

Where the moose feeds, I have eaten berries,

Where the moose drinks, I have drunk deep,

When the storm crashed through broken heavens-

And under clear skies- I have known joy.

God of great trees,

God of wild grasses,

God of little flowers,

Hear my salutation!

For where the deer crops and the beaver plunges,

Near the river I have pitched my tent,

Where the pines cast aromatic needles

On a still floor, I have known peace.

God of grave nights,

God of brave mornings,

God of silent moon,

Hear my salutation! Marguerite Wilkinson

We must envision the finished whole from this small segment before us. Isn’t that how we all try to understand the glory of God? We glimpse only the material world, one small facet of His creation and from this alone we attempt to comprehend the eternal world of the spirit.

In the scripture readings today, we are urged to seek his presence continually (Psalm 105: 4) and be constant in prayer. Joy and perseverance grow out of the wresting and being rooted in and growing from prayer. Prayer is of crucial significance in a relationship with God from the transformed life. In prayer we must be persistent. We must ask for a response and expect that God will respond in a way above and beyond our human experience with one another. Our worship life centers, on this notion of prayer. Ask and it will be given to you. Search and you will find. If this is our way, we had better be confident that we believe this. The answers to life’s difficult questions come in the context of a community that is willing to stake its life on the belief that prayers are answered and that God does respond to human need and suffering. It means to let God have access to our own hands and feet when they’re needed.

Our worship life centers on this notion of prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is said in almost every house of Christian worship, every Sunday, all across our land. In each of these places worshippers believe that God will bring a kingdom that is peaceful, God will provide for our daily food, God will forgive our unbelief and God will shield us from trials that we can’t handle. Despite the diversity in our traditions and practices, this simple little prayer may be our most basic common denominator. Prayer isn’t for dummies. It’s for the faithful, who given power by the Spirit, and supported by their faith community, are willing to stake our lives on the belief that God will open the door when we knock.

Faithful prayer is habitual prayer, prayer that does not only occur during a crisis and does not end when a crisis is resolved. Faithful prayer is part and parcel of an ongoing relationship, a lifelong conversation, a prolonged attempt not to control God but to discern God’s presence and activity in all that befalls us- the good and the bad, the desired and the undesirable. Faithful prayer is first of all about finding and placing ourselves in God’s story, and God’s story is about the redemption of the world. My prayers are too small if they focus on me, though it is important that our prayers are about our personal, individual needs and desires. Faithful prayer certainly may ask for healing, but it does not ask only for healing. It seeks wisdom to see how Christ is reflected in circumstances- and not just a triumphal Christ but a suffering Christ, a Christ who underwent pain and want before he attained glory. Faithful prayer asks not merely for healing but for patience and discernment and continuing faithfulness. Faithful prayer is work and not always immediately satisfying. God give me- God give us- the strength continue in the work of true prayer, the very work for which we were made.

Intercessory prayer is intertwined with and the heartbeat of the Christian community. It is the way Christians consciously bring others into God’s presence along with themselves. In prayer we see others as creatures loved by God and in need of God’s grace. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, in intercessory prayer one sees other people “in all their need, hardship and distress” and grants them the “same right we have received, namely, the right to stand before Christ and to share in Christ’s mercy.” In prayer, we put others in God’s hands. He continues,” I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died.” Prayer does work- on the individuals and communities who pray.

Barbara Brown Taylor poses the question, “ Is it right for me to ask God for particular outcomes, when God alone knows what is right? Isn’t the point of prayers to sharpen my hearing, not God’s? Are words necessary at all? Is emptying the mind of all thought a surer path to God than trying to turn my thoughts to God? ““Most of the people I know hunger for some evidence that God hears their prayers. Plenty of them would settle for a divine “no” as long as it were a clear one. I once had a pastor who said that God answers prayer sin four ways: Yes, NO, Wait and “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Often we imagine and would like to think of a particular happening as an answer to prayer. When I was discerning my call to ministry, I had college prerequisites to be met before I could finish my bachelor’s program. One was passing the Junior English Placement Examination. As I drove home from the seminary one evening after a get acquainted meeting of the Conference on Ministry, I prayed that if I was meant to enter seminary and study for the ministry, that I would receive a passing grade on the exam as an indication that I was on the right path. When I arrived home, I found in the days mail, the card from San Francisco State that indicated I had received a passing grade. In a passage in Taylor’s book, she relates the following. I tell God what want. I’m not smart enough or strong enough to do anything else, and besides, there’s no time. So I tell God what I want and I trust God to sort it out. “The next day I returned to the seminary to continue the conference. During the lunch hour I was sitting and talking with the student body president. Suddenly I literally felt someone rap me on the head and I heard the words spoken in my ear, “You’ve come home, this is where you belong.” Talk about God’s presence and an answer to prayer!

In some of Taylor’s closing words she says,“ There are real things I can do, both in my body and in my mind, to put myself in the presence of God. God is not obliged to show up, but if God does, then I will be ready. At the same time, I am aware that prayer is more than something I do. The longer I practice prayer, the more I think it is something that is always happening, like a radio wave that carries music through the air whether I tune in to it or not. “

By opening ourselves to be willing to pray, we are giving ourselves the freedom to experience the presence of God. To be in the presence of God encourages and empowers us to pray. Prayer and presence go hand in hand and are very closely inseparable. Amen

When Words Fail: The Practice of Feeling Pain

2011-08-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

A sermon by Jennifer W. Davidson, Ph.D. | August 21, 2011

Throughout the summer, Shell Ridge has been moving its way through Barbara Brown Taylor’s book An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith—each Sunday devoted to a chapter in this book in which Barbara Brown Taylor introduces us to various everyday experiences and suggests how we might engage them as spiritual practices that draw us closer to an experience of the Holy in the midst of the Everyday.

This week’s theme is an odd one, in some ways. Barbara Brown Taylor calls it “The Practice ofFeeling Pain.” She shares with us some of her own experiences of physical pain—and reflects on the Book of Job.

But the idea of feeling pain as spiritual practice is a strange one for many of us. Many of the practices Taylor writes about have some element of choice to them—we can choose to encounter others in a way that helps to cultivate community; we can choose to incorporate more Sabbath moments into our lives. But pain is something that happens to us. And, whenever possible, most of us would rather choose not to experience pain. Pain is, for the most part, an unwelcome experience. More, pain can be tremendously isolating, disorienting, and frightening. Pain can be something over which we have no control. Worse, pain can be something inflicted upon us by someone else—by someone we don’t know, or by someone we love. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes ruthlessly. Nonetheless, pain is something everyoneexperiences in one way or another.

Pain is one of those topics where in order to say anything about it, it seems we have to say many things about it—and to say them all at once; because to say any one thing about pain atone time is to seem like you are lying about the other aspects of pain. In other words, it’s hard to say one thing about pain without saying it wrong. And a lot of what feels like the truth about pain depends on one thing: are you currently in pain? Pain in retrospect is something entirely different from the experience of pain in the moment.

So because this is summer, and we can do things just a little differently. And because pain is such a multilayered, multifaceted topic—I want to do something just a little differently in this morning’s sermon. I’m offering this sermon in three movements. Each movement says something about pain, but none says all that could be said. I’m also not going to try to resolve the movements, or to tidy them up in a way that gives us all one solid thing to hold onto at the end.

My hope is, in offering a sermon in this form, that we end up saying some true things about pain. And, more, some true things that carry us ever into a more intimate, more sustaining relationship with the Eternal, Loving One.

Movement I: Anguish

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, eleven years ago, my friend’s daughter was driving to a church potluck, her brother sitting beside her, when a drunk driver plowed into their car and killed her instantly. Heather was an honors student in her senior year in college. She’d just come home two days earlier for winter break. She was engaged to be married, the date set for shortly after graduation that May.

That same morning, Heather had stood with the rest of her family at the front of the church, lighting the Advent candle. My friend, her father, was the choir director there. He had been my piano teacher, but also a mentor, and a confidante.

At Heather’s funeral, three days before Christmas, I watched as the family recessed after the service. Heather’s brother, just out of the hospital himself, with long months of surgeries and recovery stretched before him, walked slowly beside his mother. My friend Tom walked alone behind them. Anguish.

The book of Lamentations from which we read this morning’s scripture is a slim volume, only five chapters long. It is a book of poetry—passionate, evocative, powerful.

As laments do, the poems hold God by the collar and call God to account for the reality of death, destruction, violence, sickness, hunger, torture, and abuse. The overall tone is one of communal mourning—the City Jerusalem speaking for the whole of its people.

But the third chapter marks a significant break as it moves from the communal lament to the personal. It’s opening line—“I am the man who has seen affliction”—alerts us immediately to this shift. It is no longer Jerusalem speaking, but one man speaking for himself, recounting what he has seen with his own eyes. We are in a new vein, the intimate realm of the heart.

Several months after the funeral, I sat across from Tom in a diner. He told me that for days, he kept trying to physically shake the words of the police officer out of his head. He felt like he was going insane with it, just trying to get away from the words that had informed him of his daughter’s death. Then he looked me in the eye and said, in a voice held barely in check, “I don’t know if I believe in God anymore, but if God exists, I hope we never meet face-to-face.”

“God has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, ‘Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from God” (3:16-18).

That day, Tom told me he’d been reading Shakespeare lately. “I find a lot more in Shakespeare than I do in scripture.” He said. This is what happens when scripture is sanitized and expurgated of anything visceral as it is in so many congregations—when we do not read together the texts of Lamentations and Job. In Tom’s experience, he was the first one to levy accusations against the divine. So he carried the even greater weight of particularity on his shoulders: the first and only one to rage at God.

Yet Tom wasn’t the first and only one to do this at all. The book of Lamentations, and Job, and many of the Psalms, provide us with models of just such behavior. What kind of God would allow such accusations to remain a part of that God’s Holy Scriptures?

For me, the answer is clear: a God who remains with us unflinchingly when we rage in despair; a God who absorbs in love all the blows we can muster; a God who desires and longs for us when we no longer know what we are capable of doing; a God whose ‘steadfast love never ceases, whose mercies never end, but are renewed every morning” (3:22-23).

All of this is true. But equally true was the rage and despair expressed by Tom and the poet of Lamentations 3. God’s love does not solve our anguish. Nor does our anguish unravel that love. Hope begins in the juxtaposition of the two, in the very collision of human anguish and God’s love. The swirling confusion, indeed the grace, is that neither one is diminished in the presence of the other.

A couple weeks ago I saw Tom again for the first time in ten years. As we sat together, talking about all that has happened over the years, it became quickly evident that Heather’s death—and his experience of grief—has been woven into the warp and woof of his everyday life. It isnot that the pain is diminished so much as it is always a part of everything he does.

The chord remains unresolved in Tom’s life, and always will be. Tom pointed out to me the photograph that hangs over the sofa in their living room. It’s a brilliant, vivid photograph of a tall tree, its branches sweeping down, a weeping willow. Tom tells me that their son John gave it to them at his wedding only a few months before. “I didn’t know what it was,” Tom said, “Until he told me. It is the tree they planted in Heather’s memory at her high school.” We gazed at the photograph for a while in silence. What is striking about it is not only how beautiful it is, but how tall the tree is.

Loss and grief—and anguish—and the passing of time. [1]

Movement 2: Isolation

When words fail. And they do fail. Harvard professor Elaine Scarry wrote a remarkable book called The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, in which she highlights for us the utter inexpressibility and incommunicability of pain. Pain defies description and therefore defies language; and in some cases erases language—reducing the sufferer to moans, groans, screams or whimpers. We don’t know how to tell others about our pain—words come up short. Even the doctor who asks us to measure our pain from 1 to 10 knows that everyone’s 1 and everyone’s 10 is different. And a number says next to nothing about how it actually feels.

It is in this sense that pain is unshareable. Virginia Woolf writes, “The merest schoolgirl when she falls in love has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her, but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor, and language at once runs dry.” Elaine Scarry goes on to add, “True of the headache, Woolf’s account is of course more radically true of the severe and prolonged pain that may accompany cancer or burns or phantom limb or stroke…Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it." [2]

One of the (many) unfortunate consequences of the inexpressibility of pain is that the one who is feeling pain, knows it is there. But the one who is not feeling the pain, can’t quite be sure.

Many, many times as a mother, I have wished that my son and I each came with dataports where I could plug a usb cord into his dataport and then plug it into my own and then feel exactly what he is feeling. I thought of it a lot when he was only an infant, and couldn’t tell me why he was crying or where he hurt. But it is really no less true today if he comes home with a sore shoulder after pitching—just how does it hurt? I want to know. Is it a dull ache? or a sharp one? Is it sustained? In the front of the shoulder? Inside the shoulder? He will try to tell me, but the truth is, I can never know.

“To have pain is to have certainty,” writes Elaine Scarry. “To hear about pain is to have doubt.”

Pain isolates because words fail. This is such an important thing to remember for those in our midst who are in the long, lonely wilderness of pain—whether it is the pain of a diagnosis, the pain of sustained illness, the chronic pain that some of us live with, or the pain of mental illness or addiction.

But there are also those who exploit the extent to which pain isolates—on the personal level—by those who abuse others. And on a communal/political level, by those who perpetrate torture. Pain in these contexts is deployed in order to separate people from one another. In order to break down relationship and connection. To isolate.

This is the pain experienced by Jesus who faced the torture perpetrated by the Empire of Rome. On the night before he was tortured to death, Jesus knew very well that the community that had formed around him was about to be torn apart. He was aware already that one of his disciples had been so gripped by anxiety that he had betrayed Jesus to those who would soon torture him. But more than that, Jesus knew that the dis-integration of his whole community was about to take place: his followers were about to abandon him and one another.

The effects of torture in the first century were the same as they are in the twenty-first century. The Center for Victims of Torture puts it succinctly: “Torture is the deliberate and systematic dismantling of a person’s identity and humanity. Torture’s purpose is to destroy a sense of community, eliminate leaders, and create a climate of fear.” [3]

It was precisely these forces that Jesus was confronting as he entered the week of his suffering. Jesus warned his disciples that they would all desert him because of what he was about to go through. He urged them to recognize that when the leader, the shepherd is eliminated, then the community, the flock, will be destroyed. Jesus knew that the torture he would face was intended to dismantle his identity and his humanity.

So he did the most remarkable thing. Before his humanity and his identity could be stripped away from him at the hands of the Empire, he gave himself away.

“This is my body,” he told his disciples—and they ate. “This is my blood,” he declared to them. And they drank. And in eating and drinking, they became—and we continue to become—the body of Christ. No longer an isolated individual, Jesus gave his identity away to his community of followers in such a way that—though they may disperse for a time—the Empire could not ultimately break that community apart.

As followers of Christ, we participate in the pain of one another—even in the midst of the isolation it perpetuates. Whether illness, abuse, or torture, to be the Body of Christ is to be present to one another, to refuse to give in to allowing another to be cast off and isolated. To be truth-tellers even when it is unpopular or even unsafe to do so. To provide places of safety, and places for story-telling, even unspeakable stories.

Movement 3: Power and Presence

It was in the experience of giving birth that I came to know, vividly and unforgettably, the power that resides in pain. In the weeks leading up to my due date, the midwife coached my birthing class, to understand that everything in Western culture teaches us to resist pain. We are taught to fight pain, to defeat pain, to defy pain. But labor pains are different, she said.

You should not resist labor pains, but enter into them. To fight pain, we tense up our muscles. But to work with pain, we must relax into it. One way to know if you are fighting pain, she advised us, is to notice if you are clenching your teeth or not. If your teeth are clenched, you are fighting the pain. You must instead relax your jaws, keep your teeth apart. Though your lips may be closed, your jaw should be slack.

You can also tell by the way you are vocalizing during labor. There is possibly no more resonant a sound than that of a woman groaning in labor pains. These groans arise from deep inside the laboring woman’s body, and accompany each wave of every contraction. As the contraction’s power rises and falls, so also do the groans—rising and falling in volume, but not, when most productively sounded, in pitch.

Groaning in labor pains, as my midwife coached, is part of what powers forth the birthing moment. Unlike the high pitched screams often heard in popularized, Hollywood depictions of labor, the groaning of labor pains are at their most powerful when the woman’s jaw is relaxed, and her pitch is low, deep, and rich. If the pitch rises, this a cue to the midwife that the laboring woman is tensing up, resisting the pain, and fighting the contraction rather than working with it.

The pain of labor, in my experience, creates its own space and its own time. But it is a space and time that is also utterly aware of this space and time. The contractions, as they grow in force and power, become absolute. They are all. Everything. There is nothing else but the contraction, the sound of the labor groans, the entering, the heart, the easing, and the absence.

The pain of labor is different from other pain because it is meaningful from the start—the woman in labor knows why she is in pain. It is a hopeful pain, though by no means danger-free—the hoped-for outcome is life, though many of us have known deeply painful other endings of labor.

But the force embodied in that pain is nothing less than the force of life. The pain of all of life is distilled in those contractions. The birthing woman must find a way to work with that power, not resist it, indeed become pain and power itself to bring forth life.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22).

The early Christian mystic Paul wrote this to the Christian believers in Rome. All of creation groans with the resonant groans of labor. We are all caught up in those labor pains those contractions of a cosmos longing to birth forth loving relationship and reconciliation.

The groans ride on the power of the birthing cosmos. It is a pain that is absolute. It is everything. And like every pain, it defies language. In fact, at times, our prayers themselves come to a place of utter wordlessness, and it is at these times that the Spirit prays on our behalf. Paul goes on to say, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

Creation groaning, the absolute power and pain of labor, the failure of words, the threat of annihilation, and the Spirit who prays on our behalf, with sighs, not words.

“Ah,” says Pat as she lays on her deathbed, holding the polished stone with a hole through its center: “Now I see. This is the way through.” [See Barbara Brown Taylor’s “The Practice of Feeling Pain” in Altars in the World, pages 107-108 for this story.]

The Spirit, praying with sighs too deep for words, carries us through (not away from, notaround) but through the pain, with hands that press down on both our shoulders so we can feel how heavy love can be. [Taylor, pages 107-108].

When we midwife one another through the painful moments we know something more of God’s faithful presence and promise. When we rage, when we feel alone, when we ride into the heart of pain, when words fail, the Spirit sighs—and in all of these: God.

____

[1] Much of the above story comes from an article I have published previously under a pseudonym.

[2] See Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, introduction. In this astounding book, Scarry investigates the intersections between the inexpressibility of pain and the political implications of this inexpressibility. William T. Cavanaugh drew powerfully on Scarry's work in his own remarkable book Torture and Eucharist.

[3] “Effects of Psychological Torture,” The Center for Victims of Torture,http://www.cvt.org/page/36, accessed August 21, 2011. For more information about psychological effects of torture, see the 135-page report Break Them Down: Systematic Use ofPsychological Torture by U.S. Forces from Physicians for Human Rights, available in pdf fromhttp://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/us-torture-break-them-down-2005.html, accessed August 21, 2011.

Digging in the Ground of Being

2011-08-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

by Sandy Mitchell

How about that for timing? During the week that we are reading the chapter of "An Altar in the World" that deals with physical labor, a new poet laureate of the US was named--Philip Levine. One of his most popular books of poetry is titled "What Work Is." Another of his books of poetry is #110 on Amazon's best seller list---a rare occurrence for a book of poetry. To be honest, I had never heard of him before, but I am fascinated by his background. He was born and educated in Detroit and worked in auto factories. At the time he hated physical labor, but then he realized that his work in the factories enabled him to read and write poetry, which is what he did during his off hours. The quote on the back of the bulletin lets us know how he feels about physical labor. I have always been in awe of people who have physical skills that are a mystery to me.

So as I looked at this week's chapter of Barbara Brown Taylor's book, I particularly loved the section about digging potatoes that Doug read for us. Chapter by chapter she shares with us how she learned to encounter God far beyond the walls of the church. In a nutshell (reading from the book flap) "she is teaching us to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see from simple practices such as walking, working, and prayer. Something as simple as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of meditation if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to notice the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocer store becomes a moment of true human connection. Allowing yourself to get lost leads to new discoveries (I really liked that chapter----that's what our family loves to do). As we incorporate these practices into our daily lives, we begin to discover altars everywhere we go, in nearly everything we do. Through Taylor's expert guidance and delicate, thought-provoking prose, we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slowdown, and practice reverence." I love book flaps---they tell so much that sometimes you don't have to read the book!

Now back to today's chapter---I don't dig potatoes, but I love digging and caring for our garden surrrounding our house. My love of gardening came from my grandmother and my dad. When my parents came to visit us each summer, my dad was soon in our backyard seeing what he could pick. Those of you who have lemon trees know that the lemons can stay on the tree for months, thereby allowing a gardener to pick the fruit as needed. Coming from East Texas, my dad was not familiar with that concept. There when the fruit was ripe, you better pick it quickly.

Well, one summer I came home from work to find my dad very proud of the fact that he had harvested every single lemon on the tree! As the old saying goes, when you are given a lemon, make lemonade. By golly, we made lots of lemonade! We ended up squeezing lemons and freezing the juice---that worked too! Instead of going to the lemon tree to pick a lemon, I went to the freezer and got out a cube of lemon juice.

When our grandchildren come to visit, one of the first questions they often ask is, "What can we pick?" As Eliza came in the door on my birthday, she asked, "Can we pick some cherries or some blackberries, Grandmom?"

I will often say to Rick, "I'm going outside for a few minutes." Those minutes usually end up being an extended period of time. It is there that I feel grounded, close to Mother Earth, surrounded by creation.

Recently a praying mantis landed on my forearm. He/she, such a good critter for the garden, just rested there and looked at me---must have been wondering what kind of big plant I was. When I encouraged it to get to work on my plants, it hopped over to my other arm. That praying mantis and I experienced a small "altar in the backyard."

In my stream of consciousness about God and groundedness I thought back to the Dark Ages when I was a college student. A person whose writings were meaningful to me was Paul Tillich, the German-born theologian, who called God the "Ground of Being." The "Ground of Being"----that has stuck with me through all these years and is still helpful to me.

While we were still in college in Texas, Rick and I had the privilege of attending a lecture given by Paul Tillich. Trying to understand him with his heavy German accent was a challenge, but it was an honor to be in his presence.

As I was preparing for today, I decided to learn more about Tlllich's life. I was fascinated to learn that his interest in theology began as a 12 year old when he was sent to boarding school. He was very lonely, and one way he tried to overcome his homesickness was to read the Bible. He eventually earned a doctor of philosophy degree and was ordained as a Lutheran minister. He lectured all over Germany but in 1933 came under fire from Hitler. Soon he was invited to Union Seminary in New York City and moved there with his family.

At age 47 he learned English (this knowledge made me much more tolerant of his strong German accent), and later wrote some of his most important works in English. He taught at Harvard from 1955 to 1962 when he took a position at the University of Chicago. Paul Tillich is considered by many to be one of the few great theologians.

For me personally I am grateful to him for the term "Ground of Being" and for his phrase describing faith as "Ultimate Concern."

The people of Shell Ridge---you---have demonstrated "ultimate concern" to me over the almost 45 years that we have been associated with this congregation. Most recently when I was briefly hospitalized and 3 years ago when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. At that time I felt that my world as I had known it was falling apart. Day after day the tears would not stop. I remember sitting in the choir with tears streaming down my cheeks. Later I learned that crying is part of the disease. After all, 80% of the dopamine in my body was gone by the time I was diagnosed. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. It also helps regulate movement and emotional responses. So I was a basket case because of the diagnosis and the lack of dopamine.

But you were there for me with hugs of support, with prayers, with cards, with words of encouragement, with food, and with information about where to turn for a support group---thank you, Carol, Kay, and Dorothy. Most recently you have been there with transportation help.

During the fall after I was diagnosed, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with our Ashland and Berkeley kids here to celebrate helped me get me on track. I could not do much in the kitchen except direct Melissa, Sharon, and Jodie. The flood of tears finally slowed down after taking a trip with Kent, Sharon, Devin, and Eliza. It was amazing how a week with 2 precious grandchildren could distract me from my own heartache.

Now I am trying to help others who are facing that devastating diagnosis----I have been there and know how it feels, as many of you know what it is like to receive unwelcome medical news. I am trying to lemonade with the lemons I have been given. Thanks for the "ultimate concern" that you have shown to me and others within this faith community.

Some of you know my last story, but others do not. This chapter of "ultimate concern" began at the pre-school that both Kent and Melissa attended. It was a coop pre-school, and I was one of the moms doing my last scheduled day of being a teacher's helper. The assignment that I was given was a craft project for the kids that involved cutting pieces of yarn for each child. I was sitting in the teacher's spot at a kidney-shaped table like we have in our nursery. For some reason, I was given a serrated knife to cut the pieces of yarn. The children had to wait a few seconds as I cut their pieces.

But there was a little hyperactive boy named Bart, who could not wait, so he quickly moved behind me, picked up the knife, and proceeded to cut his own piece. Unfortunately the tip of the knife blade ended up in my left eye.

I was rushed to the hospital where a specialist examined my eye for one solid hour. At the end of that time, he had me hospitalized in the area closest to the operating room because he wanted as little movement as possible. To that end, he bandaged both of my eyes and instructed me to be as still as possible. Surgery would probably be scheduled for the next day, he said.

Well, it was the worst of timing and the best of timing: the worst of timing because it was the Friday that we were to leave for our all-church retreat, an event that our family loved to attend. Another friend and I were leading the Bible study session, and the text was about Bartimaeus, the blind man healed by Jesus. Now it turns out that I am the blind one.

It was the best of timing because our congregation was together that weekend and upheld me in their prayers and concern. Our pastor, Dale Edmondson, came to the hospital to see me and pray with me on his way to the retreat.

To make a long story short, the next morning the same doctor came back to see me. When he removed the bandages, he was amazed at what he saw. He told me that if he had not performed the initial exam himself, he would not have believed the amount of healing that had occurred.

I was not completely out of the woods----still had to endure 6 weeks of bedrest (not too easy with a 4 year old and a 7 year old), and I was told that I would never be able to wear contact lens again. The bottom line is that I did completely recover, and I can wear a contact.

I know that a modern day miracle occurred that weekend, and the "ultimate concern" of my faith community made a difference.

As we sang in the hymn "Bring Many Names," there are many ways to think of God. A few decades ago I opened a prayer with "Dear Father and Mother of us all.." After the service an elderly friend (hummm...he must have been about my age) stopped me and commented that he had never heard of such a thing----God as Mother. Now I can think of God in so many different ways, but I still hark back to the "Ground of Being" and to the idea of "Ultimate Concern."

For me that is the foundation of my faith, my "digging in the Ground of Being."

Go knowing that God, the "Ground of Being," is always with you----in the work that you do and in your deepest valleys.
Go recognizing the little miracles around you----the praying mantis, the laughter of a child, the touch of another human being.
Go in peace with renewed energy for the week ahead.

No title Sermon

2011-08-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

The title of my meditation today is “No.” This is a No title sermon. No is one of the first words we learn as children. Why? Well the world is a dangerous place and the people around us are trying to protect us. No, don’t touch that hot stove. No, don’t run out into the street. No you can’t eat candy for dinner. And children learn to say No back. Working in a toy store I hear No a lot, especially when it is time to leave. There are many different kinds of No. There is the casual, No. You hear the parent say, “C’mon its time to go.” “No,” the kid replies as if the say is equal. Sometimes you get the curt, “No.” Strong. Defiant. Like a rock. And once in a while if you are really lucky and it is close to nap time or mealtime you get the long pronounced whiny, “Noooooooo,” which is usually followed by a full blown melt down.

Yes, kids in a toy store have no trouble saying no. But as we age, yes becomes much more popular. People love hearing yes. Just imagine the toy store parents asking their kids, “Are you ready to leave?” and receiving a resounding “Yes.” I guarantee you will have happy parents there. Yes makes for happy bosses, friends, co-workers, pastors, people asking for money, people asking for time. Yes is polite, whereas No is such a rude word.

But can we reclaim the No? As many of us read in Altar in the World this week, one way of reclaiming the No is by observing the Sabbath. Now observing the Sabbath means so much more than coming to church on Sunday. Though it is good to worship and partake in community, taking Sabbath is so much more. For starters it is a whole day. A day of saying No to the obligations of the world and taking the time for yourself and for God.
There are three points of Sabbath. The first is rest. You have to rest. God wants you to rest. In fact there is Biblical precedent for it. Genesis 2 begins, And on the seventh day God finished the work that God had done, and rested on the seventh day from all the work that had been done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that was done in creation. God does two things here. God rests and blesses the day and hallows it. This is the first thing in the Bible that is hallowed. Before this everything was good, but the day of rest was hallowed. I find it interesting that these two things, the resting and the blessing are inseparable. So if it helps, you can think of resting as a holy practice. It was so holy in fact that it was made into one of the 10 Commandments.

Another way of looking at this story is from a historical perspective. The creation story was written by a culture centuries ago that clearly valued rest. For whatever reason rest from the week’s work was important. In fact rest was so valuable that when they told the creation story to one another, they depict God resting. Their God was not at war with other gods, murdering his siblings, but resting peacefully. Rest achieves the value of being a Godly act.

Does rest retain that same value today? Do we honor the commandment? In modern society where stores are open 24/7, where a thousand channels of television bombards us without end, where people working 2 and 3 jobs to feed their families are common, where is Sabbath? Where is rest? One might think that it is gone, that the concept of Sabbath is an ancient idea whose time has past. But I disagree. I think that because it has lost so much value by the world’s (or at least American) standards, it is even more important that we try to reclaim its value. Take back the importance of rest. Make it more important than constant work. And one of the only ways that we can do that is through practice. By practicing Sabbath, we give it the value that it deserves. We honor its holiness.

After rest comes rejuvenation. This is the 2^nd aspect of Sabbath, rejuvenation. When I lived in New York, I worked out with my neighbor, Johnny, who as it happens was a former bodybuilder. Anyone who trains professionally will tell you that you cannot work out every muscle every day. It will never get stronger that way. You need to give it time to rest and recuperate. It is during that time that the muscle rebuilds. You know you get that good soreness. Just like physical muscles in a workout, our spiritual muscles need time to rest and rejuvenate as well. This is a function of Sabbath.

At first this can be quite tough. One thing that can happen is what I call activity withdrawal. People who thrive on speed and work find it hard to take time for themselves. They cannot sit without feeling guilty, feeling like they don’t deserve this time of rest, feeling like they have to take care of that one last thing. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you have suffered from activity withdrawal. In these times it is helpful to remember that this time is mandated by God. It is a gift that we are not only invited to use, but ordered to use. And the benefits of rejuvenation more than make up for the time that is “lost.”

But sitting by ourselves and with God can have other difficulties as well. Have you ever been in a car with a pile of stuff precariously balanced in the back seat? As long as you are maintaining a constant speed everything is fine. However, if something happens and you have to slam on the brakes, everything comes crashing down on you. Stopping everything in our lives can be a very similar experience. Busyness and constant motion has a way of keeping things at bay. But when we stop, when we take that Sabbath time to reflect, years of baggage can come crashing down. And it can be painful. It can leave us with sore spiritual muscles.

This process can be like a relationship. Oftentimes in some of my relationships, there have been problems or things that I have been neglecting, but they go unnoticed because there is just so much to do. Then when there is a break, or a time of rest, those issues come to the forefront. Like the junk from the backseat. Sometimes they caused an end to that relationship. But other times they provided an opportunity. Those issues gave me pause. They gave me something to think about, a way of reflecting on the relationship. And after sitting with the issues, and dealing with them, the relationship became stronger. Rejuvenated.

The same process can work with our relationship with God and our spiritual selves. When we first take a break, there might be some stuff that cascades from the back seat. It might be hard to address. But it also might give us that opportunity for reflection and growth and rejuvenation. Scripture can be very helpful during this time. There is wisdom there that has been gathered over ages by people reflecting on these notions. They can bring us comfort by assuring us that God is with us. We can flip to a proverb and meditate on the wisdom within. Or read a psalm and see the trust in God that it promotes. We can look to the life of Jesus and as a way of being mindful about out own lives. Birds of air/Lillies of the field. Filled with the wisdom and assurance of the scriptures, we can come out of Sabbath not just rested, but rejuvenated as well.

One of the reasons that I loved working out with Johnny was that he had been there before. At the front of his small gym were three pictures of him from his days of bodybuilding competition. He knew the process of building muscle. He knew that it required times of rest. And he respected those days. Respect. This is our third aspect of Sabbath. One of the results of our taking Sabbath is that we will come to respect that day, not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

In the second scripture that Kay read for us Isaiah is blasting some of the leaders for their abuse of the Sabbath. His claim is that they are pious and believe that they are following the Sabbath because they pray to God and then they wonder why God does not see them. Isaiah has no problem spelling it out. He tells them that they have lost respect for what the Sabbath truly means. He speaks for God saying, you think that this is the kind of Sabbath I care about? No way. You fill your own needs and oppress your workers. No, I want the kind where you clothe the naked, feed the poor, and let the oppressed go free. In short, he is saying that Sabbath is about respect. Respect for the Sabbath means respect for one another. This kind of respect is what the Sabbath is all about.

Laws that were written around the Sabbath idea were intended to promote respect and equality for one another. First among people. No one was permitted to work on the Sabbath. This rule was not meant to limit people from working when they wanted to, but to limit masters from making their servants work. It was intended as a protection against the powerful. And it did not stop at just work. The forgiveness of debts was also a part of Sabbath law. Again the intent was to prevent the powerful from taking too much advantage of the meager. In modern times when the ideal is to get ahead by any means necessary, valuing respect and equality is a revolutionary alternative.

Similar laws were written for the land. Every 7 years the land was to lay fallow so that it too could rest and recuperate. Any farmers out there? You know about crop rotation? As you might know, crops steal nutrients from the soil. Every few years it is good to plant nothing so that the land can revive itself and regain those nutrients. Again this is a law meant to limit the powerful landowners from abusing their land. Today as we bombard the planet with factories, pollution, over-farming, over-fishing, over-logging, and just plain overuse, we would be wise to look at the philosophy of the Sabbath and give the land some respect. This does not mean that we have to stop everything altogether, but at least let’s give the planet a bit of a Sabbath. Let it just be for a while.

Rest Rejuvenation Respect. 3 R’s that I invite you to think about in choosing time for your own Sabbath.

Though in this modern world, we may not all take our Sabbath at the same time, we can all respect each other’s need for Sabbath. We can learn to see the word “No” in a positive light. We should not longer be afraid to stand up a say no. Because No means that we will not work ourselves to the point of nervous breakdowns and heart attacks. No means that we will not put unnecessary demands on those around us. No means that we will not allow consumerism to run our lives. No means that we do not have to destroy more trees for catalogs. No means that we will not farm the land until it is unfit to grow anything. No means that we will not patronize places that treat their workers unfairly. And finally No means that we will not let our spiritual needs go unfulfilled. No means rest. No means rejuvenation. And No means respect. Amen

Who are the people in your community?

2011-07-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier today Rick asked us a question, “Who is my community?” It is a good question and it reminds me of the children’s program Sesame Street. Specifically, the song, “Who are the people in you neighborhood?” Do you remember this song? Sing it with me if you know it. Who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhood, in your neigh-bor-hood. Yes who are the people in your neighborhood? They’re the people that you meet when you’re walking down the street. They’re the people that you meet each day. When Sesame Street would do this song they would have Muppets dressed as occupations such as a Letter Carrier, fire fighter, baker (that one was my favorite). But they also touched on some of the not so obvious people in your neighborhood. Like a newsperson or a plumber. One time they even had neighborhood people of Israel (the miller, blacksmith and olive crusher). The idea of the song was to make kids comfortable with their community. If the kids had a better understanding of their neighbors, there would be more trust and less intimidation.

Of course adults never have this problem, right? We are comfortable around everyone in our neighborhood and even know everybody by name. Right? Maybe. But if you are like me, it is hard to meet and know the people that deliver your mail, check your meter, ring you up at the grocery store. It can take years and years of effort to become that comfortable. It can take time to get out of ourselves.

Our Altar in the World practices this summer have all been about getting out of ourselves. Today we turn that same kind of attention to people. The people in our neighborhood. In our community.

Encountering Others. That is what we are talking about today. Can we give the same kind of deep focus and attention to others in our lives that we can give to our spiritual practices like reading scripture, tending our gardens, or walking in the woods?

What I find remarkable about encountering others is that it is what the early church of Peter and Paul was based on. That and free health care. That’s right. FREE HEALTH CARE! Or “healing” if you want to be Biblical about it. That takes us into chapter 3 of Acts. On the surface this looks like a pretty standard healing story. A man who had been crippled all of his life was healed by Peter in the name of Jesus Christ. But let’s dig a bit further. There are three points that I want to make about this story. The first point is that a collective has greater strength than the individual. This healing was not the work of one man, but of a community that sought equality.

At the end of chapter 2 of Acts, there is a little passage that connects the Pentecost story (the story of the birth of the church) to the story we are reading today. It begins on verse 44 and reads, ⁴⁴All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. A remarkable thing: to sell all of your possessions and have fair and equal distribution of goods. This is the first step that Peter and the apostles take in becoming a new kind of community. They must first diminish the importance that they place on themselves. For they come to realize that it is not them as individuals that makes the gospel important. It is not them as individuals that will bring forth the kingdom of God. It is not through their individual gain that they will usher in a new way of life, but as something greater: as a collective, as a community.

It sounds peculiar certainly. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, to that question, I say look at the redwoods. Redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world, but interestingly they are unable to grow alone. They must grow in groups. The reason that they trees grow so tall is that their root systems are shallow and wide and intertwined with the roots of the trees around them. Each giant redwood is supported by all the other redwoods surrounding it. What more is when they die they sprout out new saplings from their roots so the next generation will stay connected. So even though on the surface they may look like individual trees, at their roots they are an indecipherable community. Strong. Connected.

The healing in our story today was not the work of an individual. Peter shows no self-importance nor claims responsibility for this healing. He gives all credit to the power of God and faith in the name of Jesus. This faith is the root system at the base of the tree that is Peter. It is a faith that is intertwined with his community and with God. With this selfless mindset it is no wonder that he and John see the man. They see him not as cripple deserving of his plight, but as a part of their community (as a person in their neighborhood) that they can help.

For the second point that I want to make we have to look at one of the details in the story. Reading from verse 2: “And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. ³When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. ⁴Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ ⁵And he fixed his attention on them expecting to receive something from them.” Imagine this man. Lame from birth. Probably hungry. All day he watches devout religious people coming and going, with their mind on temple business. Not on him. How many times had people passed by this man at the gate and ignored him? And then strolls by Peter and John. They not only stop to help, but the writer of Acts puts in a very interesting detail. It says they look at him with intent. Not with scorn. Not with judgment. Not even with dismissal, but with intent. And then they say, “Look at us.” And he fixes his attention on them. And there is a moment, a brief but important moment. If you look intently at this verse long enough you can find it. It is in the blank space between verses 5 and 6. Peter and John look at the man intently. He looks at them expectantly. And then there it is. The connection. The spark. The moment of seeing each other. Really seeing each other. Have you ever done this? Have you ever seen someone in this way? Really seen them?

And what do Peter and John see? The verse does not say. Maybe desperation. Maybe they saw years of pain and turmoil written there. The kind that comes from years of pleading for money and food. Or perhaps they saw tremendous amounts of hope and faith in this man. Whatever it was that they saw in this man’s eyes, it was profound. So profound in fact that they tell him, “in the name of Jesus Christ stand up and walk.”

Now the story could have been told without this exchange of gazes. Peter and John could have just walked up to the man and healed him. God’s power in Jesus name revealed. Done. Was this detail really necessary? I think so. Because I think that the healing was not as important as the recognition. And that is my second point about this story. To be in community with one another, we have to be able to see one another for who they are and have them see us for who we are. This is not an easy task. In fact it can be a downright scary one. Barbara Brown Taylor acknowledges this. She claims that when we care for others as intensively as we care for ourselves, it is akin to becoming that person, and that means losing yourself if only for a moment. She claims that this may be the only true spiritual discipline there is. We have a different name for it. We call it The Golden Rule, loving one another as we love ourselves.

The third point that I want to make is a simple one and it is this. Seeing one another. Really seeing one another not with our eyes but with our souls can have profound transformative effects. Certainly this man’s life was transformed by his healing, but it stretches far beyond that one act. As the story continues we learn that word spreads that something miraculous has happened. The man comes into the temple walking and leaping and praising God, and he can no longer be ignored. His transformation then has a contagious effect. The people that saw him were amazed. They too were transformed. This healing then becomes a catalyst for Peter’s message. And Peter begins to preach. He talks about faith. He talks about new life. Transforming others. And he keeps talking until the priests and the Sadducees throw him in jail for fear of what this talk can do. This is the power that transformation can have.

And this kind of transformation can have profound effects today. Imagine the way that advertising and industry would be transformed if people less concerned with the way that they saw themselves. Imagine the way the health care industry would transform if people were intent on taking care of one another. Imagine how many hungry could be served if food at every level of distribution was shared in addition to being sold.

And on a personal level imagine how many lives you could change in one day if you did as Peter and John did and practiced seeing those around you not with the intent to change them but with the intent to see who they really were. To view them as people in your community. To be of help. Then real transformation can happen.

Those of you who have been watching the news this weekend no doubt have seen the horrific massacre that happened in Oslo, Norway in the name of Christianity. This is a by-product of individualism...of thinking that division and opposition is the true calling of the gospel. To that I say this. Unless opposing groups, Muslims/Christians, Republicans/Democrats, The Right/The Left. Unless we can learn how to see one another, truly see one another then there will not be peace. Self interest will reign and there will continue to be violence. But if we can look upon one another as Peter and John looked upon the man at the gate then transformation will be possible. If we are able to see one another as people of our community, then unity can begin to be formed. Bridges can be built, and peace will be found. How can we start? It begins with a look. It begins with recognition. It begins with acknowledging the people in our neighborhood. People of God, it begins with us. And the people said Amen.

The power of words / the words of power

2011-06-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

One of things that I love about our summer devotional book, An Altar in the World, is its strive towards simplicity. The author Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.” When I read this, I cannot help but think of sunrises. I remember as a youth staying up at an all-nighter that ended with watching the sunrise on the beach in Santa Cruz. It was a beautiful sight. Shafts of light mixed with shots of color. It was static and yet it was ever changing. Concepts like Awareness. The presence of God. Being filled with the Spirit, Concepts that always seemed a bit abstract, started to much sense. You could almost hear singer Nina Simone singing in the background. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life, for me and I’m feeling good. It was truly an altar in my world.

And to think, this happens every day. Every day the sun creeps over the ocean’s horizon. And it has been doing this for years bringing it with it new dawns and new days. Today I want to talk to you about two very specific sunrises.

Our first sunrise begins long ago in the time of Noah. A few years after the flood the people of the land had settled in a place called Shinar. But God, who in this story is called Yahweh did not want them settling. Yahweh told them to branch out and repopulate the earth.

But they did not listen to Yahweh. Instead they had the brilliant idea to build a tower. “Why go out when we can go up,” they thought. “Why rest here on the land like lowly servants, when we can live like gods. Let us build a tower to the heavens.” They sought power. They sought for their own individual satisfaction, their personal gratification. And so they built bricks. And mortor. And more bricks. And more mortar. Days of labor went into the tower. Countless resources used to build brick after brick. Higher and higher, more and more, bigger and bigger. It could never get large enough. Billions and billions. Trillions and trillions.

Where was Yahweh? Perhaps Yahweh figured that they would grow tired of the endeavor. Maybe they would look around and see all that they were neglecting in building this opulent tower. But finally Yahweh could bear it no longer, and in the dark of night Yahweh made a move.

The sunrise that next morning was probably very similar to the one before it. The sun making its sleepy slow crawl over the horizon shooting burst of awake into the eyes of the sleeping workers. Now, imagine you are one of these tower workers. You get to the job site and begin working. You are making bricks or mixing up mortar and doing your thing. One of your fellow workers walks by and greets you in friendly tone, but you can’t quite make out what they are saying. It seems a bit strange but you think nothing of it and go back to work. Making bricks, mixing mortar. A bit off in the distance you can hear some commotion. Again it is a bit concerning, but you keep working. The commotion seems to be getting louder and happening from multiple directions. Then the foreman comes over frantically pointing and shouting at you. That is nothing new, but what is odd is the words coming out of his mouth. You can’t understand any of them. It all sounds like gibberish. You try to tell him to calm down. You are having trouble understanding him. You speak very slowly and calmly, but this only seems to infuriate him even more. He grabs one of the bricks you just made and smashes it right in front of you. Well, now he has gone too far. You stand up and try to talk some sense into him, but it is no use. The whole situation is senseless. Finally he gives up on you and walks away.

You look around at other stations and see the same thing happening all over. People are arguing. Bricks are being smashed. People are storming off. They don’t even care where they go. They’re just scattering. You can’t say that you blame them. Everyone seems crazy. Well you are certainly not going to sit here and build by yourself. And since there is nothing else going on in Shinar, you head home, find some people that you can understand, get your stuff and leave. As you head off to a foreign land, you and your friends talk about what a bunch of babblers everyone is back there. And that dumb tower. The tower of babblers, you call it. Later people would call it the Tower of Babel and even later Babylon.....Here ends the story of our first sunrise.

The second sunrise story comes many years after the first. There has been great progression. The earth has been filled, cities have sprung up, kings and prophets have come and gone, but the sunrise remains the same. It brings with it signs of new beginnings, new light, and new days. On this particular day, the day of Pentecost, it brings with it something else, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. For on this sunrise, on this day, a promise made by Jesus to his followers was about to be fulfilled.

The scripture starts in the upper room. Acts chapter one gives a roll call which includes the disciples, certain women including Mary, Jesus’ mother, his brothers, and other followers. The scripture does not say why they were there or what they were doing but whatever it is, it does not last long. As promised the heavens begin to rumble. There is a brief moment of anticipation as the rumbling builds. Pretty soon the sound fills the entire room. And with the sound comes fire. Fire that fills the followers with so much passion that it appears as tongues on their heads. This is the Holy Spirit that was promised. And the Spirit brought with it a gift. They begin speaking in other languages. At that moment, it all clicked for Jesus’ followers. They were not meant to sit up in the room. They were meant to go out into the four corners of the world. They were meant to spread good news to all that would hear it. That is why the Spirit blessed them with language.

So they go downstairs and do just that. Some in the crowd recognized this gift. They were amazed. They saw the power of God in these people. Others sneered saying, “They are drunk with wine.” And then Peter gives what is one of my favorite lines in the whole Bible. He stands up in front of the crowds and says, “People of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.” He might have then said, “The bars are not even open yet. We cannot even get mimosas until brunch which does not start until 11:00. So no, we are not drunk.” No one could argue with his iron clad logic.

Answering the drunk question, Peter continues and tells them what their true mission is his morning. He tells them of the prophet Joel and how Joel spoke of a time when both young and old, man and woman, slave and free would rise up with prophetic voices and proclaim the Lord’s glorious day. This new day has come. They are there to tell them good news. They are there to tell them about Jesus, about resurrection, about new life. They are there to usher in a new kingdom where earthly power has no place. He speaks the words of David who says, “You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.” Peter cannot stop talking. And people cannot stop listening. The crowd gathers and multiplies. It grows ever larger and ever stronger. Three thousand people came to believe that day. They put their old selfish and sinful ways behind them and followed a new path, a path that changed the course of history. Thus ends the second sunrise story.

Here we have two sunrise stories. It is no accident that there are distinct similarities. The author of Acts is clearly making allusions to the well known Tower of Babel story. But the goal of the Pentecost story is not to retell the Tower of Babel story but to reverse it. To tell a new story. For example in the Tower of Babel story, language is a source of confusion. But at Pentecost language leads to miraculous understanding. In Babel Yahweh is on high. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit dwells among the people. In Babel the focus was on the individual. How powerful can I get? At Pentecost the focus was on others. How can we serve our world? At Babel the people are scattered. At Pentecost people come together. Overall what I think that the author of Luke is trying to tell us is that the good news of Jesus is a story that transcends the division of language. Furthermore it transcends many divisions. Since the days of Babel, we have done a good job at dividing and populating the earth. In fact we have gone a bit too far. We have built walls, formed countries, made dividing lines and raised armies to keep those lines divided. Peter’s message about the life of Jesus was given to bring people back together. To break down divisions. The chapter ends with the followers selling their possessions and sharing bread and fellowship with one another.

This is a lesson that speaks to us today as much as it did to the people back then. We still have walls, divisions, and even Towers of Babel. Is not the recent financial crisis an example of a group of individuals building a tower of wealth for themselves no matter the cost to others?

When there is tower building, when there is a desire for power, words become very important. The power that one seeks is directly affected by the words that one speaks. Words are used to control and manipulate. Financial deals are carefully constructed amalgamations of words and legal contracts. Political careers are made and lost on the words that are used in speeches. Leaders rise up by the words that they use to inspire and incite their followers.

By contrast when empathy is sought ahead of power then language becomes less necessary. There is still a need for understanding but intention and care take the place of having the right words. I offer the testimony of Sarah Oughton of the Red Cross. After devastating floods in Pakistan, she went to help. Even though she did not speak the language, she was still able to offer first aid training to many of the local volunteers. As she puts it, first aid transcends any language barrier.

I offer the testimony of Mexico Mission people. On ten different occasions this church has gone to Mexico to aid in the building of a house for a family. Though there are some language difficulties, there is still a great intention to help. That intention is felt by the families. It is greater than any words that we could speak.

I offer one last testimony and that is of the hospital chaplains. I have many friends (Nancy Smith is one of them) who are serving as chaplains doing the very difficult work of meeting people in times of sickness and great weakness. Often there is a language barrier but sometimes they find that words are not even necessary. If there is a sincerity of purpose, a willingness to be present, and genuine empathy, then care can be given. People will feel it. That is the power of the Spirit.

Where does that leave us? As I see it we have two options. We can be Babblers, people that constantly drive for higher and higher places. Better pay grades, more expensive cars, power, control, and the greatest satisfaction of all: to be right. We can fight about words and what they mean. Or we can be people of the Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit. If we choose the latter, if we choose to be people of the Pentecost then our intention is not to go up but to go out. To go out into the world to mend what is broken. To give care where there is suffering. To bring hope where there is despair. To find altars in our world. As people of the Pentecost we focus on sharing not accumulation. Words will take a back seat to intentions, which are on the needs of others and not the desires of ourselves.

People of Shell Ridge, today brings a new sunrise. Today brings the power of the Spirit. The fire that cannot be quenched. May it fill you so that you can go out and make the world a better place. Because this world needs outward bound people. This world needs the care and compassion that you can bring. Simply put this world needs a Pentecost people. This world needs you. Amen?

Left to God

2011-06-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

1 Corinthians 13: The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Some 18 years ago, Katy, you were a babe in your parents’ arms and ... I was a young pastor, still quite new at Shell Ridge. We hadn’t met yet, but we would before long. And now jump into that marvelous and terrifying time machine and zoom forward nearly two decades and ... shazaaam, kaboom ... here we are. You’re a beautiful young woman—an adult ... and tomorrow you’ll complete this first enormous stage of your journey of becoming.

Graduation from High School is something we pay a lot of attention to, but it isn’t only because you’ve completed a baker’s dozen years of schooling—which in itself is an accomplishment worth celebrating. High school graduation symbolizes your transition into early adulthood. Up until this point we could get away with calling you a child or a youth. Now that way of thinking is reserved for only your mom ... and maybe your dad. And your grandma, of course. For everyone else, you have served notice that your childhood is in your rear-view mirror ... though don’t forget that “objects in your rear-view mirror are closer than they appear.” You’ve reached a time in your life when you can begin to make the Apostle Paul’s words your own: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

This is not to say, and I hope Paul would agree, that you bid farewell to the child within. I’ve joked with Corinne Mason as long as I’ve known her that she is a 16 year old dwelling in a gracefully aging body. (A recent tumble has Corinne wondering about the “gracefully” part.) Keep the child within alive ... your sense of wonder and hope and possibility. Even as you consider what it means to put an end to childish ways, don’t become too cynical, don’t give up too easily on the world or those around you, don’t forget what was like to ride your first bike or kick your first soccer ball. Don’t forget what it felt like to be safe and secure in mom’s or dad’s arms or what it feels like to lie on your back in the grass and watch the clouds drift by. Don’t forget what it felt like when in your young heart you really believed that love could conquer all ... that God’s love and human love really could create a world where peace and justice and harmony could be achieved and all of earth’s people could live “happily ever after”. Don’t forget these “childish” things ... keep that child and its hope and dreams and ideals alive ... somewhere.

But putting an end to childish ways.

First thing: There’s two things you need to do as you enter adulthood: learn to drink coffee if you don’t already—Peets coffee, preferably ... and learn to read the New York Times as you drink your coffee. That pretty much sums up my advice to you, Katy.

If you’re already reading the Times, you’ll have noticed a column by David Brooks, one of the New York Times’ regular columnists and a pretty wise guy. Now admittedly, David Brooks’ column was about college graduates getting ready to enter the world—which is to say, getting ready to move back in with mom and dad and spend the next several years looking for a job. But I think Brooks has some important things to say that may be even better heard as you prepare to enter college.

Brooks says that the lives of young folk of your age and generation have been “perversely structured.” He says: “This year's graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.” Katy, can I hear an “Amen.” But, he goes on to say—and better to hear and understand these words before you enter St. Mary’s than as you leave: Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured.

Even as you learn to replace your loving parents and supervise yourself, it is, I think, good to become early aware that your best laid plans will only be partly adequate for the future you will enter some four or five years from now. Being well-grounded as a human being and flexible as you enter the future will serve you well in the midst of this rapidly changing world to which we must all continue to creatively adapt.

Brooks also says that as much as we have been nurtured to think that we are at the center of the universe—that it’s all about YOU ... and all about ME ... as we emerge from childhood, we do well to early learn the simple truth that in most of the ways that matter, it’s NOT all about you or me. In the midst of all of the mantras of “expressive individualism” that tell us to “follow our bliss” and “march to our own drummer”, there are “sacred commitments” that are demanded of us: relationships to which we are called to commit, communities that call us to become responsible members, needs of a world that are well beyond our own inner cloistered worlds of self and self-fulfillment.

Brooks says that real truth that is nearly hidden by the gospel of self-fulfillment is that our real, deepest, truest selves are most often called out and expressed in the response to some demand from beyond us that has been placed upon us ... he says: Most people don't form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by a calling.

Think of Moses wandering aimlessly in the desert herding sheep until God calls from a burning bush. God calls Moses to leave the leave the sheep behind and lead God’s people out of slavery—which had not been on Moses’ “I just want to find myself” agenda. And is that call that defines Moses for the remainder of his days ... it makes Moses MOSES.

David Brooks, closes his column saying: Today's grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they'll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can't be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it's nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some [greater] task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself.

Who does David Brooks think he is ... Jesus? Remember Jesus saying: “... those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

OK, Katy ... it’s fair for you to say to me: “Hey, enough already ... I haven’t even flunked my first class in college, yet. Preach that sermon to me in four years ... or maybe five!” Fair enough. But let me say that a part of your emergence into adulthood and putting away the ways of childhood is for you to let us go and for us to let you go. And this is no easy task for there have been nearly two decades of creating ties that bind, being directed where you should go, told what you should think and value and how you should view the world. And to be sure, these are not bad things ... these are the loving lessons and relationships of childhood. And now it is time to take the training wheels off of your bicycle of your self and your soul, and peddle off into the world. It is time to begin to snip away at the many, many gossamer threads that bind you to this time and place and the many people you love—and who love you. It’s time for us all to begin to practice a little “benign neglect”.

You should know by now, Katy, that my favorite poet is Robert Frost. Robert Frost takes a lot of the imagery for his poems from the natural world of field and farm—but he applies what he observes to the human being and the challenges of being human. This is a poem entitled: “Goodbye and Keep Cold”. It’s about an orchard of fruit saplings that fare best with a little “benign neglect”. That too much care and concern, and too protective of instincts might actually be harmful to the orchard and their latent fruitfulness. And as I read the poem, I not only think of you and your need to separate in whole and healthy ways from your family of upbringing and your faith family, but I also think of my relationship to this church and it to me as I prepare to depart for several months.

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark

And cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse

By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.

(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call

I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By setting it out on a northerly slope.)

No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;

But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.

"How often already you've had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below."

I have to be gone for a season or so.

My business awhile is with different trees,

Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an axe--

Maples and birches and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard's arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

But something has to be left to God.

Katy, did you ever raise butterflies in school? ... you know, where your teacher brings in the chrysalis where the monarch caterpillar has seemingly created a tomb for itself ... and then, wonder of wonders, it breaks forth from the tomb and is released as a beautiful butterfly? It’s a real Easter moment, in some ways, and it’s the kind of transformation we hope for every child that we have been privileged to love and nurture and watch as she and he has grown wings and prepares to fly ... away ... but not far away we naturally hope.

If you observed the emergence of the butterfly from its cocoon carefully, you’ll remember that there’s a time when the butterfly seems to get stuck and you fear that is has gotten trapped and needs your help to emerge from its cocoon—that it can’t do it on its own. One person, observing the struggles of the emerging butterfly, did reach in and helped the butterfly from its cocoon and then noticed that the butterfly’s wings remained shrunken and misshapen and it was unable to fly. What the kindly person didn’t know ... couldn’t know ... was that it is precisely the struggle to free itself from its cocoon that pumps the fluids into the butterfly’s wings to help make them full and strong and capable of flight. It was assisting when assistance wasn’t needed or helpful that doomed the butterfly to flightlessness.

The author, Alan Paton, was wiser than the kindly soul who would help butterflies. He writes:

I see my son wearing long trousers; I tremble at this. I see he goes forward confidently, he does not know so fully his own gentleness. Go forward, eager and reverent child. See here, I begin to take my hands away from you. I shall see you walk carelessly on the edge of the precipice, but if you wish, you shall hear no word come out of me. My whole soul will be sick with apprehension, but I shall not disobey you. Life sees you coming, she sees you come with assurance toward her. She lies in wait for you. She cannot but hurt you. Yet go forward. Go forward. I hold the bandages and the ointment ready. And if you would go elsewhere and lie alone with your wounds, I shall not intrude upon you. If you would seek the help of some other person, I will not come forcing myself upon you. If you should fall into sin, innocent one, that is the way of this pilgrimage. Struggle against it, not for one fraction of a moment concede its dominion. It will occasion you grief and sorrow, it will torment you. But hate not God, nor turn from Him in shame or self-reproach. He has seen many such, and His compassion is as great as His creation. Be tempted and fall and return. Return and be tempted and fall, a thousand times a thousand, even to a thousand thousand. For out of this tribulation there comes a peace, deep in the soul and surer than any dream.

This, is, I think is clear, not just a graduation sermon to Katy, but a graduation sermon of life to us all. The need to let go in so many ways, at so many stages of our lives. Letting go of childhood so adulthood can come. Letting go of our children so they may emerge into adulthood as whole, capable beings ... and themselves. Letting go of certain of life’s illusions that we can seen life and ourselves more clearly, more helpfully. Letting of the need to “not struggle”, but it is often the struggles that most clearly define us and, in the end, the bring us the peace and the joy and the happiness that are so elusive when we pursue them.

So ... Katie ... so Shell Ridge ... “goodbye and keep cold” ... a little benign neglect might be just what we all need. Something has to be left to God. And out of any tribulations that might be ahead, as surely as those we’ve already known, I pray that there will come to you and to us all, a peace, deep in the soul and surer than any dream.

Let us pray:

God it is so hard to let our children go,

To life ... to suffering ... to you.

It’s hard to leave our friends alone

To work out their own problems.

Help us to trust more, and interfere less.

And so we give them and each other over to you, God.

Bend down to them, take care of them, give good things to them.

And in your time and in the uniqueness of their being, bring to them meaning and joy, wholeness and peace.

Amen.

--Adapted from a prayer by Robert Raines in “Creative Brooding”

House rules

2011-06-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to be a Christian? This is a very good question. What does it mean to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus? I believe that is what Jesus was trying to answer on his sermon on the mount. What does it mean to be a Christian?

Before I get into that, I want to talk about Monopoly...the board game. How many of you are familiar with this game, the original. Answer me this: “What happens when you land on Free Parking?” “It depends”, right? If you are playing by the written rules, nothing. But we played different. We used to put $500 in the middle of the board, the Free Parking Fund, and add to that all of the fines, taxes and fees that would usually go in the bank. Then if you landed on Free Parking, jackpot. How many other people played this way? A few? Many? Most of you? When I was growing up, this was so common that if I went to a friend’s house and we broke out Monopoly, it would always have to warrant a discussion about Free Parking. What were the house rules?

What does it mean to be a Christian? Maybe it is as simple as following the house rules. Jesus lays out a bunch of them, but today we are going to focus on two. The first is a two parter: turn the other cheek and love your enemies. Easy right? Sure. I don’t think that we will have any problem keeping that one. Right? Riiiiight.

Jesus starts this off by saying that “You have heard, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you to turn the other cheek,” which if you think about it gives access to your other eye and more teeth. This is interesting because Jesus is reciting rules and making a change. Kinda changing the rules about Free Parking. Jesus wanted to make his own house rules. See, way way back in the time of Moses and the lawmakers, this rule (an eye for an eye) was intended as a deterrent for just doing whatever you wanted without consequence. It was intended to create order and justice. But by the time of Jesus, he saw it as justifying an endless cycle of animosity. You attacked me so I will attack you which makes you feel justified in attacking me again. On and on it goes. Jesus offers a way to break that cycle.

Breaking the cycle. Loving enemies. At first brush it may seem completely unnatural. After all they are enemies, right? It reminds me of a scene in Finding Nemo. Have any of you seen this movie? It is about a clown fish named Marlin who loses his son, Nemo, and traverses the ocean to find him. Along the way he encounters a group of sharks: mortal enemies in the truest sense of the term. Large terrifying enemies with sharp teeth. But these are not any old sharks. No, these sharks are in an abstinence group wherein they have agreed not to eat any other fish. “Fish are friends, not food,” they chant. We laugh because of the absurdity of the situation. It is so unnatural. It makes me wonder how many people laughed at Jesus when he told them that they were to love their enemies.

Who are the sharks in our lives? What would it mean to love our enemies, to see them differently? To see them as vegetarian sharks? What would it mean to look at the richest of the rich, not with scorn and disdain, but with love? What would it mean for the rich to look at the poor with care and sympathy.

What would love look like to love our domestic enemies, our criminal population? Instead of building more prisons and packing them to capacity, what would it look like to approach that cycle with care, and true compassion? What if we took our eye for an eye justice system and looked deeper? Looked for root causes. We may be able to create true justice with opportunities for education, equality and development.

What would it mean to turn the other cheek if we were attacked as a country? To not respond with retaliation and violence but with attempt at understanding. Perhaps even aid. Could we break the cycle of war? Even justified war. Next week we will hear from a whole group of peacemakers who are looking to break that cycle. Those who have the courage and willingness to turn the other cheek.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Maybe a crazy idea, but then Jesus then goes on to talk about some other crazy ideas. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” What the what?!? Okay I can understand going the extra mile to help someone, but the cloak thing? That is like saying if someone sues you for the shirt off of your back, toss in your pants as well. Craziness! It is tempting here to talk about the legal system and Jesus’ issues with the establishment, but what I really think that he was talking about was attachment, particularly our attachment to stuff. The youth and I have been talking about stuff a lot lately. This week in particular we have been talking about why we are so covetous towards stuff, why we feel we need it for happiness.

It reminds me of Mr. Mom. How many of you remember the movie, Mr. Mom? It was an 80’s movie where a husband and wife that reverse roles. She goes to work. He manages the house. One of his kids, the 3 year old has a blanket that he loves, his wubbie. He carries it around everywhere. It is literally a security blanket. Maybe you had one of these when you were a kid, or had a kid with something like this. It is old, stained, has holes. You try to clean it, but it always just looks ratty. And yet the kid cannot give it up. After a heart to heart with the dad the kids realizes that his attachment to the blanket is holding him back. He is not going to be able to grow up as long as he is dragging his wubbie around. It takes great strength and courage, but he finally lets it go.

What are you holding onto? To be clear, I am not talking about stuff that we need. I am talking about attachment. Not so much as economics as MEconomics What are you holding onto that is keeping you from growing? Is some thing that you value getting in the way of connecting with another? Let it go. Many of you know Srini who comes used to visit us and now lives in LA. He had this detachment mentality. He said that when he goes shopping, he sees everything as just one more thing that you have to clean.

Jesus had a similar mentality. He said give it up. Don’t worry about it. Let attachment be someone else’s problem. What if we really followed this rule? I mean, wars are fought both in the home and beyond over stuff. I want it so you cannot have it. This is my stuff, not your stuff. Imagine how different our economic structure would be if we bought what we needed and gave to those in need. Abandoned houses for the homeless. Abundant food going to the hungry.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Follow the house rules. Love your enemies. Lose your attachment. There are plenty of others. A whole book in fact. But instead of talking about more of the rules, I want to spend a bit of time talking about the house. Paul, gives the Corinthians a great metaphor. He writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” Paul is writing to the early church at Corinth, a church that was in turmoil. It was full of bickering and one-upmanship. And Paul writes them to try and create some reconciliation. He is trying to tell them that they have a great opportunity here. They have a remarkable starting point, a foundation laid in Jesus. This same Jesus that said all of these revolutionary things, that came up with all of these remarkable rules. They had the opportunity to create something great. But it was up to them to build it. Using all of their talents and gifts, brick by brick they were building a temple. They were at the threshold of changing the world and creating something anew.

Paul’s words still resound with us today. Though 2000 years removed, we are, I believe at another threshold of change. We are still building that temple. Recently I know that we have felt some setbacks with the Ministry Center not being able to be built. There was disappointment. Perhaps hurt. We are still recovering from that. But let us not forget the words of Paul that we are God’s temple and God dwells in us. Each of us is a center of ministry with the bold charge to go into the world and build something.

And why do Jesus’ and Paul’s words still ring true? Because we still live in a world that is full of war and injustice, bickering and disjointedness. Full of the same cycles that they were trying to break all those years ago. You can almost hear them saying...

Break the cycle of answering violence with more violence. Build a cycle of peace. Break the cycle of buying stuff for happiness only to see that happiness dwindle. Build a cycle of detachment. Break the cycle of taking from one another. Build a cycle of giving to one another. Break the cycle of endlessly worrying about yourselves. Build a cycle of lifting each other up.

Like the church of Corinth before us, we are at a verge of change, a threshold of potential. But we do not enter this change empty handed. We have rules to live by. Guidance to a better world. You ask me what does it mean to be a Christian, what it means to be a temple of God? I ask you what are your house rules?

One house, many rooms

2011-05-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

John 14:1-7

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?* And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know* my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

John 3:16-17

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The Last Time

This could be the last time I awake

This could be the last breath that I take

This could be the last time that I pray

This could be the day I fly away

This could be the last time I sing a song

This could be the day I say so long

This could be the last meal that I eat

This could be the last beat my heart beats

But I can't place such a bet

So I won't just sit and fret

Until I'm gone

This could be the last day my eyes see

This could be the last day you see me

This could be the last night in my bed

This could be the last thought in my head

I won't cast my life to the wind

I'll treasure as much as I can

While I can, I can

Though I may be gone before too long

As long as I am here I'll sing this song

This could be the last time

This could be the last time...

Well, here we are. Did you have any doubts? Did you wonder at any time in the past few days or weeks if Harold Camping of Family Ministries radio just might know something you didn’t? If you lived close enough to the Hayward Fault and felt yesterday evening’s minor shaking, would you have had momentary second thoughts?

So, the end of the world as we know it did not happen ... as far as we know, everyone who started the morning on this earth ended the day on this earth. The Rapture, which some understand to be the pre-judgment sparing of the faithful, if it is ever to occur, did not happen yesterday.

It was, however, quite the truly weird day outside of the Family Ministry headquarters. Joining some of the faithful who gathered to be raptured were Christians who called Camping a false prophet ... there was a woman dressed as an angel passing out free tickets to the other side ... Santa Claus was there pouring free koolaid ... I believe everyone who drank it survived ... there was a man from Minnesota passing out free cans of beer ... and a young man from Sacramento who would pass for Jesus nearly anywhere in the world was there to add a certain note of authenticity to day that almost ran away with weirdness.

“Of that day and of that hour” it says in the gospel of Mark, “no one knows—not the angels, not Jesus, but God alone. So be alert ... stay awake.”

For as long as I can remember ... possibly even going back as far as the early 80’s, I have been bumping into Harold Camping on the television and radio ... as I scrolled through the channels or turned the knob through the stations, I encountered his droll face and low monotone voice so often that they became familiar to me. I never lingered long ... our understanding of God and the Universe and reality was so profoundly different that there didn’t seem to be any point in having a silent, one-sided argument that he couldn’t win and I couldn’t lose. But the little I did hear made it clear that he was among those who was absolutely certain that the Bible was a riddle to be deciphered and if it could be deciphered properly, then God’s hidden timeline for the universe could be teased out.

17 years ago his study and calculations indicated that the earth would end then ... and then ... well, then, as yesterday, the sun came up ... the world went about its business ... the sun set ... and another day. Sort of like the ancient story of creation ... evening and morning ... morning and evening ... and God saw that it was good. And God rested.

When I was a pastor in Vermont, I learned that our little corner of the world had been the epicenter of another failed prediction of the world’s end. William Miller was a Baptist minister who had actually grown up in my little village of East Poultney. As an adult, he moved a few miles west to New York State where he served as a pastor. In the 1830’s he became convinced that the time of Jesus’ 2^nd Coming or “2^nd Advent” was approaching. He began to spread his word and a world-wide movement of anticipation came into being. The movement took on Miller’s name and were known as “Millerites”. William Miller started spreading his message in the rural areas of New York and New England, but by the end of the decade in the major cities of the East, he proved to steadily increasing audiences of Protestants from many denominations that the end of the world was almost at hand. By 1843, probably over one million people had attended the Millerites various camp meetings, and between 50,000 and 100,000 of these were persuaded to bring their earthly affairs to an end by October 22, 1844 -- the date ultimately announced as the day the saints would be translated to the New Jerusalem while the world perished in fire beneath them.

October 22, 1844 was a day very much like May 21, 2011 ... the sun rose ... the sun set ... as it did the next day and the next.

The failure in Miller’s time was known as “the Great Disappointment” ... it was a shattering failure for tens ... maybe even hundreds of thousands of believers. Three groups emerged from the ruins of Millers failed predictions, one of those being the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

And so it goes.

The hope and belief in the end of the world and the return of Jesus in judgment and glory is as old as the faith. The early Christians, with plenty of encouragement from Paul, believed they were living in the last days ... they utterly believed that Jesus would return in their generation. In Paul’s early letters, you can sense the immediacy of that belief.

In 1^st Thessalonians 4, Paul tells the Christians there: “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

But in 2^nd Thessalonians, as the faithful begin to die without seeing the second coming, Paul—or someone writing in the spirit of Paul—writes now to counter some of the confusion and disappointment regarding the delay of Jesus’ return. This letter, as well as other writings of Paul, addresses the tendency to “put off life” ... because if Jesus is coming soon, why bother with the mundane details of life? Already in Paul’s time amidst the first generation of Christians, adjustments to expectations and reassessments of how to live while waiting were going on. Some people in Paul’s time quit working and gave up their responsibilities in the confidence that trivialities like that didn’t matter.

I find myself wondering what all of those un-raptured folk in their RV’s are doing who’ve been driving around for months spreading the word. They gave up their jobs and sold their homes and put it all on the line. I suppose you’ve got to at least admire that they gave it their all ... but I wonder what they’re doing this morning? Camped in a Walmart parking lot somewhere, I suppose, wondering if their friends and family and former employers will welcome them back.

I think it’s worth naming the implications of a “second coming” as both Paul and Harold Camping seemed to understand it. There is a savageness and a disregard for much of God’s human family that I think we should find extraordinarily disturbing. Paul’s writings speak of “punishment of eternal destruction” for those who do not confess Jesus or live by his commands. In a recent interview, Harold Camping was asked to estimate the number of people who would be spared the mayhem and destruction of God’s judgment and he guessed around 200 million. Now that’s not a small number and it’s certainly a good deal larger than the 144,000 hinted at in Revelations and claimed by some, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses who come knocking at our doors.

But doing the math on either scenario leaves about 7 billion souls heading for, in Paul’s and Camping’s words—but not mine, to eternal destruction. Endless suffering and punishment.

Now I don’t believe that ... and I don’t think it’s hard to understand that those who do believe and espouse words and ideas like that are dangerous to life on this planet. It is to say, these folk, that in God’s economy, nearly the entirety of God’s human family is unworthy and expendable ... even loathsome.

These loathsome and expendable souls would include those whose loyalty was offered to someone other than Jesus as well as those who lived and died in ignorance of Jesus. People of other faiths and people of insufficient faith and people of no faith ... all consignable to fires of everlasting damnation.

Wow ... I didn’t think I’d ever say those words in a sermon. One of my favorite religious cartoons is of a pastor standing in front of a long dressing mirror with a giant Bible perched in his hand and he’s practicing the word “Brimstone!”.

Until I breathe my last breath, whenever that is, I will bet my life and faith on a different understanding of God and God’s love.

I have a startlingly clear memory, as I’ve noted a time or two, from my childhood that has shaped my life profoundly since. I was 10 or 11 ... I was riding my bike with a friend near my home ... and I guess as we flew along we were engaged in some pretty hot and heavy theological discussions because it suddenly occurred to me as we rode and talked that I absolutely, flatly rejected any understanding that people were “going to hell” just because they didn’t believe in Jesus as we did. It was as clear to me as a bolt of lightning and as startling as a thunderclap. And every subsequent occasion in my life when I have been faced with choosing an understanding of God based on a punishing judgment or embracing grace, I have chosen ... claimed ... grace. That moment of clarity has informed my understanding of people of other faiths and people of no faith ... it has informed my understanding of race ... and gender ... and sexual orientation ... and any other area where we are tempted to draw lines of division and exclusion and judgment.

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy ...” claims the hymn that I grew up singing, “like the wideness of the sea.” And what is likely the first verse of the Bible I ever heard and learned declares that God so loved the world that God gave dearly of God’s self so that the world might not end in punishment and destruction, but in mercy and salvation.

It is absolutely true that if you want to squeeze the blood of judgment and condemnation out of the Bible, you absolutely can. Hate-mongering preachers have been doing it for nearly two thousand years. As with many other written works, the Bible can be easily shaped to serve the needs of a whole host of pre-existing biases. Let’s understand, in this “Bible as Literature” moment, that the Bible was created by the contributions of an uncountable number of people over thousands of years, and edited by scores more over still great periods of time. The thoughts and understandings of the writers and editors varied as times and needs and circumstances varied. And what we have ended up with is not a scientific textbook, or a magical book of hidden riddles, but a sacred work of extraordinary variety and depth and range of experience and understanding. And in that sacred work, our Bible of Jewish and Christian writings, we can discern a long arc understanding of the being and desires of God ... and it may be an arc that begins with God as a savage and jealous God who destroys Israel’s enemies, but it is an arc that even before we enter the Christian scriptures, as with the hopeful prophecies of Isaiah, is already showing bold evidence of God’s great dream of Shalom ... peace with justice for all people and all creation. And these prophecies and the great bold hope of the ancient prophets comes to fullness and fruition in the person and work and great Spirit of Jesus. And the arc of God’s movement from judgment to grace that is made manifest in Jesus is an arc that cannot turn back, but can only go forward seeking to make ever more manifest the saving and grace laden goodness of God’s love for all.

Dear friends, this world of God’s imagining and God’s embracing is, as we know, also a world full of pain. I believe in a God who yearns to embrace this world in hope and mercy and grace ... I believe in a God who hopes for the healing of body and spirit of all persons ... I believe in a God who will never give up on any one soul any more than God will give up on creation.

So ... back to yesterday for a final moment. I wonder how many babies were born yesterday ... I wonder how many babies were born on the so-called “day of judgment”. Here’s my take on it ... I hold to that statement that says: “Babies are God’s way of saying “The world should go on.” I trust that a normal number of babies were born yesterday. Therefore I believe, and I believe God believes ... our world should go on.

Jesus said: “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” ... it’s a BIG house ... and there’s a LOT of rooms ... about 7.2 billion rooms by current estimations.

Yes, I believe the world should go on.

So be it.

Amen.

The new community of the Spirit

2011-05-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Acts 2:42-47

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Sermon: The New Community of the Spirit

Do you remember “photo albums”? They were these big loose-leafed books that people would take and paste their photos into. My photographs don’t quite get to the “album” stage ... I have hundreds and hundreds of photos in a file cabinet in our garage that will never get pasted neatly into these photographic scrapbooks with their little handwritten descriptions that distinguish Uncle Ed from Aunt Sally as if Ed’s mustache wasn’t enough.

Photo albums represent a time before nearly everything became “virtual” ... practically real, but not quite. Anymore, we take photos that rarely get transformed into physical photographs ... most often they exist only as an assemblage of electronic information. Now I have a virtual file cabinet crammed with photos.

But whether “real” or “virtual”, there is something quite wonderful about “snapshots” ... they are instant portraits of life ... freeze-frame images of friends and family often doing what they do best ... eating a meal ... sharing a laugh ... multiple generations held in one another’s arms while also being held in one another’s love. Snapshots don’t tell us all there is to know, but they do give us a good glimpse into the life of a family or a community.

My maternal grandfather was a professional photographer, but I have to admit that as much as I cherish his artistic enlargements, such as the ones that are hanging in my office, it may be his “snapshots” that I cherish even more. Many of these are black and white photos of surprising clarity that depict my family’s life 30-40 years before I was born. There’s Grandpa Leo cutting a dashing figure with a foot perched on the running board of his latest jalopy. There’s Grandma Colene looking a bit shy and wistful. There’s little Faithe, my mom, wearing a new pinafore and looking the perfect blend of the parents who bore her. And so it goes with snapshots that give us little glimpses of worlds and lives that have gone before us.

Whereas cameras have only been recording images “instantly” for fewer than two hundred years, the act of capturing a scene through painting is thousands of years old. But I would argue that the real pre-cursor to photography ... to “snapshots” ... is the art of capturing a scene with words. This morning’s reading is a perfect example.

Our reading comes from the book of the ACTS of the Apostles. This is the second of two biblical books written by the author of the Gospel of Luke. This is, if you will, “Luke, Part II” or “Luke, The Sequel.” Or who knows? Maybe Acts was written first and Luke is the “prequel.”

In any event, Luke ends with the death and resurrection of Jesus and Acts picks up with the ascension of Jesus into heaven and the subsequent coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Now in our observance, the Day of Pentecost, as described in the first part of the second chapter of Acts, is still ahead ... some 50 days after Easter. But this morning we are given a portrait of the community of faith AFTER Pentecost. This is a snapshot of the church in the days following the coming of the Spirit. It is what the community of the Spirit looks like put into a rough sketch by Luke’s words. And so what do we see when we peer into the photo album of this “New Community of the Spirit”? What marked the life of the community?

· They shared a simple communal life of meals and prayers

· They experienced the power of God breaking forth in new ways

· There was a spirit of equality and generosity

· Their lives together were marked by a simple and abundant joy

· They lived at peace and harmony with their neighbors

· And they could not help but grow

So ... where do we sign up? How can we get some of that?

Let’s be clear that what Luke is describing is not a group of people who got together and planned and strategized this happy communal experience into existence. Luke is describing a community that the Spirit of God breathed into existence. Luke is describing a community and its characteristics that are a result of the blowing of the Spirit’s powerful, healing, motivating, transforming and unifying breath. For their part, the community simply heeded the instructions to gather and wait for the coming of the Spirit. And when the Spirit came, the community Luke describes was the result.

Now mind you, this is a community that had just lost its beloved leader and teacher ... they’d lost their heart and soul and very breath. The loss was staggering and they were still staggering. They not only had that loss to absorb and to comprehend, but they were also a community very much beset by the powers that be ... both the religious and the civil authorities. When they assembled, they did so knowing that (Life Together, again) it was at great risk to their lives and the continued existence of their fragile community.

Isn’t it true that sometimes communities on the margins and communities that live counter to the dominant culture are sometimes the richest communities there are? And not rich, of course, in monetary wealth, but rich in mutual love and meaning and joy.

And let’s be sure that Luke’s snapshot in words doesn’t tell ALL there is to tell ... it doesn’t describe what we also know to be the pain of community. It’s a rosy picture Luke creates with his words ... there are sepia tones that hint at the “idealized” nature of this portrait. It’s like a description of the early days of a marriage before the kids came and the job was lost and things got harder ...

When Luke was written, there were already “fault lines” and “hairline cracks” in the church that had taken Jesus’ name ... just as when the photos were taken of my mother’s family, there were already stresses present that would lead to my grandparent’s divorce.

It is as if Luke wants to remind future generations of “the New Community of the Spirit” of what is possible when the wind of the Spirit is allowed to blow freshly and repeatedly over their lives.

· a rich communal life

· the power of God

· equality and generosity

· simple and abundant joy

· a neighborly peace

· and growth

Don’t forget, Luke says, don’t forget what you are at your purest as God’s community on this earth. Luke lives and writes a full generation or two following the community he is describing. And he wishes to preserve this glimpse into the church at its inception so that no matter what future ecclesiastical battles and scandals were brewing, the church could look back and glimpse its younger, truer self. And seeing itself before it got full of itself and all serious and somber, it might be freed once more to be God’s New Community of the Spirit, that is: a rich communal life where the power of God is expressed in equality and generosity, and simple and abundant joy, and peace with its neighbors.

If you were here on Easter Sunday, you’ll remember my description of the group of French Catholic monks who lived and ultimately died living amongst and in service to their poor Muslim neighbors. As I read Luke’s description of the New Community of the Spirit and as I make my own attempt to distill that portrait into a few succinct words, it’s hard to think of a community I’ve “known” that better fits that description: a rich communal life where the power of God is expressed in equality and generosity, and simple and abundant joy, and peace with its neighbors.

The brothers of that little community may have wielded little power as the world understands power. But let’s be certain that the power of their “love of neighbor” on their poor neighbors was immediate and profound. And let’s acknowledge the broader effect and wider witness resulting from their martyrdom as they remained true to their love for each other and their call to serve in the Spirit of Jesus.

So here we are, many dozens of generations removed from Luke’s description of that happy little band of disciples ... as with the rapid growth of the church following Pentecost, the world has grown and become impossibly complex. And the truth we all know is that we can never go back to what was, we can never go back to when life was simpler and purer and sweeter ... we cannot recreate and recapture Luke’s description any more than can inhabit the world in my family’s photo albums before the “trouble” came.

What we can do, is what Luke, perhaps, intended all along, and that is to be challenged and moved in our own communities by the description of community at its best ... to distill his observations into some principles that can shape and guide us as we move steadfastly into a future that cannot be known ... but can be entered with a particular mindset and intentionality.

And so let me return to that succinct description of the New Community of the Spirit:

· They shared a simple communal life of meals and prayers

o No one is an island. We become complete individuals in no small part through the gifts of one another. And when the community becomes a dynamic organism of souls, it is no less a miracle than our own human bodies with its wondrous variety and interdependence and its ability to survive and thrive against so many odds. And at the heart of our communal life should be the nourishment of our bodies and souls ... simple meals and heartfelt prayers during which we can

· The power of God was breaking forth in new ways

o We can—you and I—be conduits of God’s power that is best known as “love” ... when we open ourselves to embodying and expressing that love all around us, extraordinary things can happen ... walls of enmity and distrust can fall ... lives broken by violence or neglect can find healing and new purpose ... wars can end ... the hungry can be fed ... exiles of all kinds can find their way home.

· There was a spirit of equality and generosity

o Ah ... apparently those who would shape the American policies on taxation are strangers to Luke’s description of community. If there was a single part of this description of community that could work its way into the public bloodstream, I guess this is the one I’d wish for. If our leaders and legislators could look in the mirror each morning and ask of the face looking back at them: “How could I today seek the best for those I serve? And how can I help bring an equality of safety and security and opportunity and material essentials to those I serve? And how can I engender a spirit of generosity so that I and those I serve will always seek to serve and never ignore the needs of my neighbors.

o If we’re going to talk about equality and generosity, then it’s worth noting that philosopher Ayn Rand is back in the news. She is the author of “Atlas Shrugged” which has just been made into a movie, she was the leading proponent in her time of a “rugged individualism” that is antithetical in almost every way to the word “community”. Jim Wallis called her: the shameless promoter of the gospel of aggressive self-interest. It is the “me first” and “me only” philosophy of people and communities like her that make it so hard to create of this world a neighborhood. Congressman Paul Ryan is the architect of the latest Republican budget proposal that severely punishes those who have the misfortune to be poor Americans. And it will come as no surprise to you to learn that he greatly admires Ayn Rand and requires his staff to read her. Jim Wallis notes that he wishes Ryan required his staff to read the Bible instead.

· Their lives together were marked by joy

o Joy ... “I’ve got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart” ... Joy is that deep, natural uprising from one’s soul and out of the shared soul of the community that comes when we know that we are doing our best together, serving together, tending to one another and tending to our neighbors. Joy is an outcome ... it is not a happy face and a fancy wrapping, but the result of good living and honest living and generous, purposeful living. Joy is the shared song sung by communities that live well.

· They lived at peace and harmony with their neighbors

o Healthy, well-balanced communities, like healthy, well-balanced individuals never feel threatened by others, by their neighbors, by those who are different. It is the soul-confidence and soul-competence of individuals and their communities that allows them to create inter-dependant relationships with others, not competitive relationships.

o It is puzzling and troubling to me that the church has far too often defined itself over against its neighbors in the world faith community and has felt itself to be in competition with other faiths and Jesus our champion.

o Similarly puzzling and troubling is our nation’s struggle to see the world as a neighborhood, as Martin Luther King described it ... a neighborhood we learn to care for one another and respect and value one another. If someone in any neighborhood attempts to garner all the wealth and power, that’s not a neighborhood that knows much “peace and harmony”.

o In the midst of more bombastic responses to the threats of the world around us, I’d like to think that generously serving our international neighbors may be the surest way to the security and peace that we seem to think can only be achieved through a well-funded military.

For years, cynical people have loved to poke fun at Mr. Rogers of Public Television fame. It was always a “beautiful day” in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. But beneath the seemingly child-like philosophy of the program was a very focused and determined Presbyterian minister by the name of the Reverend Fred Rogers who took very seriously the need to express and live out the simple spirit of the Christian community at its very best and its very purest, that is: a rich communal life where the power of God is expressed in equality and generosity, and simple and abundant joy, and peace with its neighbors.

No gospel of aggressive self-interest ... but a gospel of loving generosity and concern.

And let us not be surprised—and indeed, let us celebrate—that it was Presbyterians of Fred Roger’s ilk who this week helped bring Presbyterians to a new place of loving acceptance as they opened doors long closed to the full embrace and acceptance of lesbian and gay women and men into the gospel ministry—the good news of God’s love for all. It’s a beautiful day in their neighborhood.

We create neighbors and neighborhood whenever we embrace and embody those simple principles of community described in that snapshot of words by Luke so long ago: a rich communal life where the power of God is expressed in equality and generosity, and simple and abundant joy, and peace with its neighbors.

Every time one of my favorite communities prepares to sit down and share the simple goodness of their evening meal, they first stand humbly at their chairs and they sing this prayer, which is my prayer for us and our community as we seek to make of our world a “beautiful neighborhood” of mutual love and concern:

Happy those who with their hands,
bring to harvest, the fruits of earth.
Blessed are we to share this share this food,
served with loving care and faithfulness.
May we strive to share with those
whose hunger knows no end.
With thanksgiving let us be
as good as God for others.

(Weston Priory)

Amen.