Left to God

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

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

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

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

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.