Hope

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday September 25, 2016, the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 32:1-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I might have told you before, and shared this with the Lunch and Liturgy participants on Tuesday, that when I look at the Sunday scripture, I look at several translations. As I said last week, all translation is interpretation. When I look at the Old Testament scriptures, I look at the Jewish Publication Society translation alongside the English language versions I use for the New Testament. I do this because I want to see how Jews translate and interpret their own scriptures and compare it to the versions used by Christians.

I find this version interesting not just because of its wording, but because of its rhythm. There’s a lilt to the way it can be read, but Hebrew is that way to someone who speaks the language well, which I don’t. But in the English, I hope you agreed.

There are a few people in this narrative you need to know, the first of course being Jeremiah. Jeremiah prophesied from the thirteenth year of King Josiah until the end of the reign of King Zedekiah. The biblical books of Kings, Jeremiah, and Lamentations are all ascribed to Jeremiah, via the hand of his scribe Baruch the son of Neriah. It was Jeremiah’s lot in life to be known as “the weeping prophet,” it was Baruch’s to record these histories and prophecies, to document the weeping. It is important to know Baruch because without him we would not know Jeremiah.

Then there is Zedekiah, the king of Judah mentioned in this narrative. Jeremiah prophesied over the reigns of five kings of Judah, Zedekiah being the last because, well, we read that prophecy today. A prophecy which came to be. As Zedekiah’s reign ended, not only did the prophesied destruction occur, Solomon’s Temple was destroyed as Jerusalem was taken.

In short, Zedekiah imprisoned Jeremiah because every time Zedekiah asked Jeremiah to prophesy, praying he would prophesy deliverance, Jeremiah would say, “Well Zed, The Lord is going to deliver you and all Jerusalem to the King of Babylon and not you’re not going to escape. In fact, you’re going to be his prisoner until the Lord decides to remember you. Fight all you want; it won’t matter.”

Jeremiah was under arrest in the court of the guard. He could wander as he wanted on their grounds and the public areas of the guardhouse, but he was not free. He was constantly being watched. He would be allowed visitors, certainly Baruch came to bring food and wine and hear and take Jeremiah’s prophecies, but he was in a fancy jail. Prophecy the reason for his confinement.

So, how’s that for a beginning. The Weeping Prophet is in jail for giving the king the Word of HaShem, the Word of the Lord. He’s wasting away. He knows that the city will fall sooner or later. He knows one day, one day soon or years away, the guard will leave only to fight the last valiant, futile battle to save Jerusalem, save Judah, and save Zedekiah; and he has a vision from the Lord. Hanamel, the son of Jeremiah’s Uncle Shallum will come to offer to sell the family field in Anathoth.

Hanamel will come to Jeremiah because he has the primary right to redeem the purchase of this land. At the time in Israel and Judah, the tribal lands had to be kept within the families, you couldn’t just put land on the market for sale. Then not only did the land have to stay in the family, there was a hierarchy of who the land had to be offered. In this case, Jeremiah had the first right of refusal.

Sure enough, Hanamel comes to Jeremiah and asks him to purchase the plot. Realizing this is the way of HaShem, Jeremiah agrees. He weighs out the seventeen shekels of silver and the deeds are prepared. One deed is prepared as a public record, the other to be sealed and put into an earthen pot, a jar of clay. This is the safety deposit box of the day. This cool dry storage will ensure the safety of the document. Baruch takes the silver and the documents to the Elders at the city gate, because Jeremiah can’t go, he’s in jail. These Elders are the official witnesses of all major transactions.

Together they make the deal.

The deal though is not complete until Jeremiah makes an important prophecy. Baruch delivers the word of the Lord from Jeremiah saying, “For thus saith HaShem of hosts, the G-d of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land.”

Jeremiah is in prison. The city will be sacked. The temple will be destroyed. The king will be taken to Babylon. Everybody worth anything will be taken too. Judah and Israel will be left to the aged and the infirm. Jeremiah will be taken to Egypt, but before all of this happens and before all of this ends, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Judah has a future. People will return. The nation will rise again. Things will be better.

How do we know this? Jeremiah prophesies “houses, fields, and vineyards will be bought in this land again.” The people will return. There will be life. Families will return and thrive. There will be crops and there will be vines. There will be bread and there will be wine. The people will return and there will be a need for records in earthen jars, so they must be kept.

In the midst of siege, battle, prison, prophesy, fear, despair, and a king who will be the last of the Kings of Judah, there is hope. There is hope because the weeping prophet says there is. Jeremiah proclaims a future in the land for the people. Thus saith HaShem of hosts.

Because there is hope, Paul tells us through Timothy, “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Promises made in the waters of our baptism.

We aren’t called to be trapped by harmful desires. Righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness are the marks of life well lived. What we consider wealth is uncertain, so Paul warns the rich not to be haughty, not to flaunt their wealth. Paul instead bids we become “rich in good deeds, to be generous and willing to share.” So that for the coming age, an age that may not be unlike Jeremiah’s, we will have a firm foundation so that we may take hold of the life that is truly life.

What is life that is truly life? I like this story from Luke’s gospel, not only for its wonderful lesson about “life that is truly life,” but for its implicit irony. You see, Luke’s gospel was written sometime between 75-85 AD. So when Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus and the rich man cries out to Father Abraham…

“Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.

“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

The irony of this is that by the time of the recording and telling of this tale, Jesus has died and risen. I like that, not the community patting itself on the back which is haughty, but the humor of Father Abraham saying “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” after Jesus has been risen from the dead.

The main lesson though, the flashy life of the rich man is nothing in the realm of true life. For all of the abuse the world laid at the feet of Lazarus, his life was true and he receives his reward.

The hope that comes from this story is that there is hope. There is repentance. Our Lord does not turn his back on those he loves and the Lord loves us all. Yes, there are consequences for our actions. Zedekiah found that. Jerusalem found that. The entire nation found that. The rich man in the parable finds that there may be no hope for his brothers. I refuse to believe there is no hope, repentance may yet come, but if they continue as their brother did there is not.

Paul was a Pharisee and a citizen of Rome was one of those rich men. He met the man who died and rose to live again. He found the difference between the good life he led and the true life he could have, and he took it.

What does “true life” mean to us? As this part of the body of Christ what do we need to do to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness? I thank God for what we do. Meals on Wheels, the Food Banks, the Ministerial Alliance, Positive Pathways, Denominational Support, because those are good missions, that’s good outreach.

I thank God for what we do in Christian Education, teaching and learning and growing in God is important. Good examples like Jeremiah, Baruch and Timothy and bad examples like Zedekiah show us where God delights and where God does not.

But there is more. There is so much more. The Lord does not want us to be anxious. Anxiety doesn’t even sniff at that list of qualities that defines true life, things like righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. So let us pray. Let us seek. Let us plan. Let us go forward. Above all let us hope because that is true life where HaShem finds delight.

Dishonest? Unrighteous? Shrewd?

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Waterford, Oklahoma on Sunday September 18, 2016, the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

As you recall, last week I mentioned that there are some Sundays pastors don’t look forward to preaching. Welcome to one of those Sundays. It seems logical that the parables are ready made for sermons, Jesus tells a story, the pastor explains the story, we have coffee after church and go to lunch. Unfortunately, parables aren’t that easy. Give me an Old Testament narrative for that sort of sermon any day.

The parables are often filled with strange twists and turns that betray simple retelling. On top of twists, there are cultural variables we don’t understand. So if the pastor tries a simple retelling, it’s possible to skate across the surface of the parable glazing over important points. Skating across the text reminds me of the line from an old song, “If you should go skating on the thin ice of hot life, don’t be surprised if a crack in the ice appears under your feet.”

Jesus teaches his disciples, out loud, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” If you aren’t confused, you aren’t paying attention. I’ve preached this passage several times and it never ceases confusing me. With this paragraph is Jesus commending dishonesty? It seems so out of character. What’s going on here?

Let’s look at the parable again. There was a manager who was being wasteful with a Rich Man’s possessions. This isn’t refuted by the manager; he squandered the rich man’s possessions. So the rich man pulls the manager aside and says, “‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.”

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’”

First, the rich man did something silly. To put this in modern terms, he fires his manager, then demands he go back to his office and put his books together so he can report on whether he was wasteful or worse. These days you’re met at your desk by security and the forensic accountant and you might get to leave with the photograph of your wife and kids; but not until security makes sure you haven’t written any computer codes on the back of your pictures.

Second, let’s give this manager some credit, he’s self-aware. Too proud to beg, too weak to dig, he needs a new job and he’s sure he’s not going to get a letter of recommendation. So what does he do, he plots to endear himself to the people who may give him his next job, people who need managers, the people who owe his master money. So he gets in contact with them and plays “Let’s make a deal.”

This is where I got the cover for today’s bulletin: The boss yells “You’re fired” and the manager responds “Okay, mind if I take care of a couple things first?”

He calls in the first debtor and asks, “‘How much do you owe my master?” Let’s pause here. There’s one guy in charge of knowing how much Olive Oil Guy owes his master and he doesn’t seem to know. If there were three or four people in the books that’s one thing but there aren’t. It’s just the manager and he doesn’t know, he should be fired for that alone.

Then again, he could be shrewdly offering Olive Oil Guy a chance to set his own terms. He may know good and well the master is owed nine hundred gallons and hoped Olive Oil Guy would take his own discount? “How much do you owe? Wink-wink.” “Ah, four hundred and fifty gallons? Wink-wink?” but this little conspiracy doesn’t play out.

Alas the manager was clueless or Olive Oil Guy was honest; so the manager says, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.” This continued with the man who owed his master wheat who got a 20% discount instead of a 50% discount.

When the rich man caught wind of what happened and scripture gives us this gem, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” This is where knowledge of the languages hurts more than it helps. The word our bibles translates as “master” is very common in the Greek New Testament, usually it’s translated as “Lord.” Imagine how dizzy that made the disciples, this is the Lord? I’m dizzy? How are you doing?

John Dominic Crossan quotes other bible scholars when working this text saying this man wasn’t stealing from his boss, he was stealing from himself. This is what made him dishonest and shrewd rather than a felon. Let me explain this in a modern setting which may make more sense.

Let’s say a big boss has someone in sales working on commission. The boss gets the quarterly reports and notices that somebody has been very naughty. Office supplies have gone missing and somebody has traded up their office chair for something nicer, a Cadillac Escalade (Boy, those “Push it in, pull it in, drag it in” trade-in sales are great, aren’t they!).

Knowing who has mismanaged corporate assets, the boss calls this shrewd employee in and as a good reformed Christian believes in grace; so the boss tells the employee to get their stuff in order and get out. Too proud to beg, too weak to dig what does the employee do? Go to the clients and give them discounts. But if there is any more theft from the boss, grace will turn to disgrace and a place on the Police Report in the paper. So the employee gives discounts from their commissions hoping for a quick job offer.

Yes, it’s a kickback. Yes, this is illegal in America, but this isn’t America. This isn’t even real; this is a parable. So Crossan and these scholars aren’t looking at the grand action of the parable like theft like I have for years. He’s seen as being shrewd; though shewed isn’t a particularly complementary word.

The Greek word used here gets a workout from the translators. Some use dishonest, others use shrewd, others unrighteous. You will hear me say this time again, all translation is interpretation. The word used depends on the intent and the theological slant of the translation committee.

Dishonest? He’s not telling anybody where their discount is coming from. The master will know. Do the debtors? The parable doesn’t say, but they might. But who would hire a crook? The parable tells us the manager was wasteful, but is that the same as dishonest? He doesn’t lie to the boss, he just discounts everybody’s debt without telling the boss. Not good, but not dictionary dishonest.

Shrewd? Yes, he is being shrewd. He’s taking his share and he’s using it to try to secure his future without telling anybody what he’s doing. Unfortunately, there’s too much melodramatic baggage with “shrewd” to suit my taste. I imagine the manager twirling a handlebar mustache while not doing his job and pursuing a soft landing. It works, but it’s not quite right.

Unrighteous? That’s the word I prefer. While dishonest and shewed can work, I prefer unrighteous because there’s a theological basis to it. Job is righteous. This guy, not so much because his actions served his lifestyle. He did whatever he had to so he could keep living not like a rich man, but in a rich man’s house. He didn’t want to do the work to be a master, a Lord, he wanted to be his slave, as long as he was a comfortable slave.

We read in 1Timothy our Lord sent his Son so that we may come to the knowledge of truth, the truth of the righteousness of Christ. Seeking righteousness in the love of cash, status, comfort—especially comfort in slavery, will never get us where we want to be, where we need to be, where God wants us to be. We cannot love these things equally. As I said last week, we must love Christ above everything if we are to love at all.

In 1987, Oliver Stone made “Wall Street” starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. This is the movie where Douglas made the famous “Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good” speech. Since the movie came out Douglas has lamented that speech. Not the quality of the words or even the acting, but its interpretation by now two generations of business school yuppies who think that wealth is all that matters. He tells them that they don’t get it. They forget that Sheen’s character goes to jail. Douglas’ character is yet to be dealt with by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Greed is not good. It’s not dishonest. It’s not shrewd. It is unrighteous. We need to spend our time and commit our energies to the one who is righteous instead. Amen

The Missing

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday September 11, 2016, the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There are certain Sundays pastors look forward to preaching, and certain Sundays we don’t. They vary from pastor to pastor of course. As for me, I believe this is the first time I have ever preached on September 11th. It’s not that I’ve avoided it in the past, and I might be wrong. If I did the sermon wasn’t memorable. This year is different for some reason.

Fifteen years ago I was sitting in a seminary classroom learning the Hebrew alphabet. At 9:30ish there was a commotion in the hall, but I thought nothing of it. Some classes let out at that time. It was louder than usual, and Prof. Rev. Dr. Kathryn Roberts did not take interruptions lightly, she took them personally. So I focused on the board instead of the distraction.

I went down to Financial Aid after class. That was when I first found out about what had happened in New York City. None of the computers at the seminary were powerful enough or fast enough to process video, except for the server room of course. So Financial Aid Director Glenna Balch and I listened on the radio. I told her this must have been what listening to “War of the Worlds” felt like, except this was really happening. Then I rushed back to our apartment where I found Marie in shock.

In New York City people started putting up signs almost immediately. There were flyers with people’s pictures everywhere asking “Have you seen…?” followed by somebody’s name. Pictures from people hoping, begging that someone might have seen someone else. Had a piece of news. Maybe a friend of a friend or something.

First responders, police, firemen, EMT’s, nurses, all sorts of people came out of the woodwork to make things better. They became helpers. Some became heroes. Some became fallen heroes. Some were looking for loved ones. Everybody was looking because it was the right thing to do.

The last missing person, Michelle Guzman McMillan became a survivor when she was pulled from the rubble at about 12:30 pm on September 12. That was more than 27 hours after the North Tower fell. Her office was in that tower on the 64th floor.

But I don’t have to tell a Sooner about any of this. A little over six years earlier, Oklahoma City had its own disaster at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. On April 19, 1995, a Ryder truck loaded up with fertilizer and diesel was dropped off and detonated in front of the Murrah building blowing the front third off of the building killing 168 people, 19 of whom were children under the age of six and wounding 800 more.

At 9:03 am, the first of over 1,800 911 calls were received by the OKC Emergency Medical Services Authority, but by that time, EMSA ambulances, police, and firefighters were already headed to the scene, because they heard the blast. People who had witnessed or heard the blast arrived to assist the victims and emergency workers soon after. Within 23 minutes of the bombing, the State Emergency Operations Center was set up, with representatives from the state departments of public safety, human services, military, health, and education. Assisting the them were agencies like the National Weather Service, the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, and the American Red Cross to find the lost, tend the wounded and recover the dead. Immediate assistance also came from 465 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived within the hour to provide security, and from members of the Department of Civil Emergency Management because heroes need heroes too.

The summer of 2002, the summer after 9/11, Marie and I stopped at the Oklahoma City National Memorial traveling from Austin to Kansas City. I’m getting choked up, forgive me. Two things left me raw, emotionally raw from the visit. The first was the 168 chairs on the lawn, each one bearing the name of one of the victims ripped from this life. Of course there was a special punch in the stomach for the 19 child sized chairs. The other was the chain link fence that still bore the flyers with people’s pictures everywhere asking “Have you seen…?” followed by somebody’s name. Pictures from people hoping, begging that someone might have seen someone else. Had a piece of news. Maybe a friend of a friend or something.

Brandy Ligon was the last person to go from missing to found from the Murrah building bombing. She was fifteen at the time. She was in the nursery and could hear children crying after the bombing. Of course she heard children stop crying too. She was saved thirteen hours after being listed among the lost.

This is the week when we read that a shepherd will leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep to return it to the flock. This is the week when we read that a woman will sweep her house until she has blisters on her fingers if it means finding a tenth of her wealth. Both then will call everyone they know to celebrate because what was missing, is now found.

Most pastors at this point in the sermon take apart the parable to make sense of it. I have preached this passage before and that’s what I did, but not this year. The usual lesson we take from this is that we are called to seek the lost to make life whole again.

But after considering 9/11 and 4/19, it hardly makes me think we will ever really feel whole again, not this side of glory.

This year I stopped reading the passage after verse two, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
So why did I stop here?

These readings are about the missing, the lost. These two short parables preface the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s gospel, a story of a wayward son, but even more so, the story of a Father who longs for his son’s return.

These parables, the two we read today and the parable of the Prodigal, are about the missing which is found. So instead of saying we are called to seek the lost, which is surely true, let me say this instead, in Christ, we are never missing.

In Christ we are never missing.

So often, the Pharisees of this world look at those they call “sinners,” and call them the lost. They have left the fold. They are weak. They are soiled. They are unclean. They are broken. They allow themselves to be used. They point and ask “Where is God?” and the answer is found right here. God in Christ is right there, at the table, breaking bread with them.

I often talk about of our baptismal identity because baptism is the sacramental symbol that shows how Christ joins us. Being celebrated once, unless we make a real effort to remember our baptism, its importance wanes, and I want us to stem that tide, so I remind us to remember our baptism.

Today we look at the other sacrament we celebrate, the Lord’s Supper. Jesus feeds his disciples, his children, the missing and the lost of this world because we are all missing and lost. The Apostle Paul knew this, maybe a bit melodramatically he shares this with Timothy. For all of the good that Paul has done and for the status he holds, he knows that he has done horrible things and is a man of sin, not grace. Paul also knows and shares that salvation comes through grace alone, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He writes, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

This grace comes not because of who Paul is or anything he did, but because of who Jesus is and what he does. Who is Jesus and what does he do? He is Immanuel, God with us, who comes and he sits with sinners, breaks bread and shares a meal. Through the Lord’s Supper, a meal only he can invite us to take and eat, we continue to share this meal.

In a few minutes, we will hear from Ashlyn Dillon who will tell us about her African mission trip last summer. This was not her first trip, and maybe not her last. The recurring theme I hear from missionaries is that when they return, their faith is stronger. I’m sure there are many reasons this could be, but I have a guess… I bet they sat down, shared a meal together, and discovered that in Jesus Christ, they weren’t among the missing anymore.

Amen.

God's Little Instruction Book

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church on Sunday September 4, 2016, the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 18:1-11
Psalm 139:
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, oh Lord, our rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Over the last few weeks we have been on the road with Luke as Jesus travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. In this time Jesus has been welcomed and rejected. We have been with Jesus as he has taught and healed in the synagogue and in homes. He has welcomed the outcast and rebuked the powerful. We have seen humility and hypocrisy. We have joined Jesus for meetings with Pharisees, publicans, and prostitutes. We have heard him speak of love, grace, and forgiveness. We have seen Jesus in action and we have heard him teach with authority. So by this time it is no wonder large crowds were travelling with him.

Because of the way Jesus turned and spoke to the crowd I make these two assumptions: First, that there were true believers in the crowd, those who believed they were ready, come what may, when they reached Jerusalem. But secondly, I am just as sure that there were people who followed because it was a great crowd.

Sensing the time was right; Jesus turns to the mass of followers and announces what it takes to complete the journey, what it takes to be his disciple. He tells the crowd that to be his disciple they must hate their families and their own lives. He ends by telling the crowd that to follow him they must give up everything. I can only imagine this must have put quite a damper on the festivities.

When I started seminary, one of the supplementary textbooks for Introduction to the Old Testament was Michael Joseph Brown’s, “What They Didn’t Tell You, A Survivor’s Guide to Biblical Studies.” This book offers twenty-eight “rules of thumb” for seminarians. Some of the information was useful, some wasn’t. But one of the rules has stuck with me like a stone in my shoe. Rule ten says, “The Bible means what it says, and says what it means. Except when it doesn’t.” Luke’s discourse on hating family is the essence of this rule.

The original language of the text is an idiom, an expression unique to the culture. Fortunately for us, the parallel in Matthew’s gospel expresses what Jesus said in a way we can better understand. Matthew’s gospel records Jesus saying “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” While it is probable that Jesus said what was recorded in Luke’s gospel, its meaning is better rendered in English the way it is written in Matthew’s.

Either way, Jesus calls for a radical realignment of priorities. What has been acceptable in the past isn’t anymore. Anyone who is not ready to make the sacrifice Jesus demands follows at their own peril. The law isn’t changing, but its interpretation in Christ is new and different.

This is an example of scripture meaning what it says, except when it doesn’t. We aren’t supposed to hate, loathe, and despise our families and our lives. To follow Christ, we must love the Lord our God more than we love our families and our lives. In their place, Jesus put discipleship above all other obligations. Inherently we knew that Jesus did not abolish the law to honor thy father and thy mother; but it is difficult to understand that from this passage’s English translation.

The final verse in this reading was difficult for many in the crowd to hear then and it is now too. Jesus tells the crowd none of them can become his disciple if they do not give up all their possessions. Jesus doesn’t offer any wiggle room here; this is not an expression. Just as we are called to put Jesus above all human relationships we are called to part from all things for the sake of discipleship. This reading points to a renunciation of all possessions as a part of the radical realignment of our lives. To be a disciple of Jesus, we must put Him above everything.

Jesus goes on in this lesson to warn us about what will happen should we fail. If we cannot bear the cost of discipleship, we stand to be mocked just as the builder is ridiculed when unable to finish building a tower. Just like a warrior who doesn’t bring enough firepower to win a battle.

But I skipped something, and this sentence is the hinge pin between the two parts. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” We are told we have to put Jesus above all else. And we are warned about the results of following without being fully engaged. But what does it mean to carry our cross?

Theories abound. Some New Testament language scholars see bearing the cross as the metaphorical beginning of discipleship. We do in our lives as Jesus does on his journey. Others compare this to taking on a yoke, its mantle representing the patibulum, the horizontal piece of the crucifix. Others attribute this phrase to a popular expression which was originally a curse applied to the zealots and later to Jesus’ followers, “Ah, take up your cross.” Perhaps it was some sort of rallying cry having militaristic characteristics. “Take up your cross!” But there is one theory I find quite interesting.

In ancient Israel, the Greek letter “Tau”, our letter “T” was worn by some as a cultic mark, a sign of protection and possession. After the crucifixion, the Tau was related to the historical cross of Jesus as a seal of possession in Christ. While scholars do not think that this was in the mind of Jesus, perhaps it was in the mind of those who wrote this gospel. Now, don’t worry, this is not a call for all of us to go and get tattoos. The Tau is a sign, a symbol. Symbols communicate action; they do not perform the action. We have another symbol to communicate this action.

We carry the cross in the waters of our baptism. As some took the Tau as a symbol, we accept the water as the sign that we rise and die and rise again with Christ. As Jesus called the followers to take up the cross daily, we are called to remember our baptism. In our baptism we accept Jesus’ call to faithfulness, rebirth, and covenant into the body of Christ.

Several years ago, on a rainy Easter Sunday in Austin, Texas, the Reverend Doctor Ellen Babinsky began the service of the Lord’s Day by saying that it was damp and that in our baptism we are called to live wet. The morning was rainy and sloppy. We were never promised that living wet would be tidy; on the contrary, living wet is frequently sloppy.

In 1993, Honor Books published “God’s Little Instruction Book, Inspirational Wisdom on How to Live a Happy and Fulfilled Life.” What the book does is couple little insights with scripture. I’ll admit some of them bother me. For example, “There is a name for people who are not excited about their work—unemployed.” This isn’t a pastoral thing to say.

Another is “the best way to forget your own problems is to help [solve someone else’s].” While this is not inappropriate under many circumstances, this advice can be a disaster for problem solvers with mental health issues. This “inspirational wisdom” could make matters worse for both.

When the authors remind us “If at first you don’t succeed, try reading the instructions,” I just hope the instructions don’t contain an idiom translated from Ancient Greek. This is the problem with clichés. These guides to a “happy and fulfilled life” are so glossy that when forced to bear the weight of the cross they crumble like sand castles. The way of the discipleship is more precious than simple sayings.

One of my favorite movies is Rob Reiner’s “The Princess Bride.” If you have never seen it, then after church get supper to-go from Lucille’s or Benchwarmer Brown’s or Taco Mayo or Micky-D’s or your favorite restaurant and pull it up on Netflix. You’ve deprived yourself and your children too long.

The image from the cover of the bulletin has two characters from the movie, Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, and Wallace Shawn as Vizzini. Vizzini has been hired to kidnap the Princess Buttercup and has hired a swordsman, Inigo, and a brute played by the late professional wrestler Andre the Giant to assist him. Vizzini as the brains of the operation has laid out a diabolical plot, but he is being followed by a Man in Black who seems intent to thwart their plans.


Every time the Man in Black gets closer, Vizzini gets more flustered. Every time Vizzini gets flustered, he cries out, “Inconceivable!” Finally, after the fifth time Vizzini cries out “Inconceivable” Inigo says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” As for our reading, Jesus says we have to hate our families, but as we now know, that does not mean what we think it means.

As for me, I believe that the bible is always right; but I know I get things wrong. There are things we don’t understand. Great is the mystery of faith. What we must understand is that we are called to live in community, in the assembled body of Christ, living wet, and bearing our crosses.

Fortunately, we have the perfect role model for this relationship. We have the example of Jesus who as a person teaches us how to relate to one another with humility, love, grace, and forgiveness. We have the example of Christ the Lord who models the perfect relationship; existing as one in three in an eternal dance of being in community. When we live wet, when we bear our cross in Christ, then we can follow and be his disciple. Amen.

His Name Was Earl

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 28, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

This is an odd story, as many stories are. Of course if all stories were "normal" there would be no point to recording or telling them. This is the story of someone I met one day at First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas named Earl. I'll let you decide if this story is worth recording and telling.

Early one Wednesday afternoon I had a meeting with my Spiritual Director. According to the Spiritual Director's International Website, Spiritual Directors are folks "who share a commitment to the art of contemplative spiritual compassionate listening." The closest certified Spiritual Director to Weatherford is the Rev. Carol Waters in Clinton.

Spiritual Directors aren’t counselors. They are fellow travelers who listen and ask good questions like a counselor, but their concern is with spiritual health and development instead of mental health. The image they use to describe their work is called The Three Chairs. This description of The Three Chairs Concept comes from their website:

In one chair a seeker sits, desiring a deeper relationship with God, a Higher Power, or Ultimate Reality. In a second chair, a spiritual director listens, inquires, and holds the space for the seeker to encounter the true Spiritual Director in the third chair.

On that Wednesday afternoon, to help me encounter God, he asked me how I had been blessed lately. I talked about my second anniversary at the church (celebrated about ten days earlier) and about other stuff, but he knew there had been so many stresses in my life that sometimes the tiny diamonds of blessings got buried under tons of dung. One comes sprinkled like pixie dust and the other comes dumped from a bucket truck. Ever feel like that? Can I get an "Amen"?

Not long after my Spiritual Director left, a man rang the church doorbell. He was a black man at the door, maybe in his late 20's but looking much older. He told me his name was Earl and he could not read or write; and he sounded like someone who could not read or write. I hate using what we from Kansas called "discouraging words," but it was true. He was dirty. His clothes were in tatters. He looked, moved and sounded like the walking-talking stereotype of an illiterate black man in deep east Texas. God forgive me for this overgeneralization, this stereotype; but then again, this might have been a part of some sort of test. More on that in a couple.

When I answered the door, he said that he was sent over to us from another church because he was looking for some bibles. While he couldn’t read, that was no problem because his mamma could. While he couldn’t read them for himself, he knew some bible stories but he had no idea what they were called or where to find them.

I said "Sure" and headed toward the chapel where there was a surplus of bibles. Georgia, the church secretary, offered to go and get some from the spares stored in the choir room instead. That was perfect. So he came into my study while she went to the choir room for the bibles. I also gave him a Gideon New Testament-Psalms-Proverbs book. He asked for three of those. No problem, there are plenty more where that came from.

He asked me to mark some things for him. No problem. He asked me to mark "that place where it says 'the Lord is my shepherd.'" No problem, the 23rd Psalm coming right up! By this time Georgia got to my office with the other bibles and she started marking them. Then he asked for that story of the guy who "Satan took everything he had but God returned it seven times. "No problem, Job coming right up!”

This is when Georgia told me she had to leave. She had an appointment. No problem, it had been in the works all week. That left us alone, Earl and me, just the two of us.

This is when Earl made a less precise request. He said that he was watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network the other day and they mentioned a scripture "where God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both."

I thought about it for a moment. By this time, I had begun to believe Earl was a soul God placed in my day so I could be blessed, and be a blessing too. Kind of the on the nose about what my Spiritual Director said not twenty minutes earlier.

I told Earl that I didn't know the verse they used on TBN or what they were talking about, but I wanted to share Hebrews 13:2, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." I told him that as much as we were a blessing to him by giving him the bibles, he was a blessing in my life. He was the man I needed to see that day. So I marked it in the bible he handed me and that's when it got weird.

Suddenly, Earl's demeanor completely changed. He stood taller. His eyes became clear. His voice took on a power and command I did not expect. He blessed me. I mean he blessed me, not in some general “you are a blessing in my life” way, he blessed me. I don't know exactly what he said because I was so taken aback that I didn't hear everything he said. What I did hear was, "We won't see each other again for a long time, but we will see each other again," and that's where it got fuzzy again.

As he started to leave he dropped one of the small Gideon testaments, and when it hit the floor, the moment was over. The electricity in the room was gone. His old voice returned, he smiled and said "Whoops."

It's said that the vast majority of people never have a spiritual experience while in church. Well, I had mine that day. I met a man who seemed to shrug off his human facade like I’ll take off this robe after church. He blessed me and told me that we will meet again one day. He spoke with a voice of peace and authority that I haven't ever heard another human being use. Was Earl an angel? Perhaps, I think so. Biblical Greek translates the word we use for “angel” as “messenger” and I got a message.
Does that make me crazy? Well, if I’m crazy, that’s not the reason.

I was asked if I had been blessed lately and not an hour later, there’s a man who in his own way is giving me the message that “God said ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” Don’t get me wrong, at that moment my life didn’t turn around. Life wasn’t a bowl of cherries. Every moment hasn’t been “happily ever after.” There is struggle, but as much as I have ever felt helpless I have never felt hopeless.

If Earl had walked into most offices, he would have been ushered out as quickly as security could get there. That’s the nature of most offices. Not so in the church, thank God. So it was my good fortune to be blessed that day to offer him a seat and because of that he blessed me.

There was nothing tangible, physical on this earth he could offer me. Nothing. He had nothing, he owned nothing. He was waiting on his mamma to bring back the car. They might have been sleeping in it for all I knew. All he wanted was the Word of God and I had plenty of the printed variety. He wanted some instruction too and so I could offer him the Word of God proclaimed. He had nothing, but he had a lot of it.

So in a way, without intending to, purely because I was living in the moment, I was doing as Jesus commanded in Luke 14:12-14. There was a man in my office who could never repay me. He had nothing to give me; and I didn’t know he had anything I wanted. I was able to have him sit at the table and feed him with the bread of life and give him the living water that satisfies hunger and thirst, the Word of God. By this I was blessed. I was blessed by an angel named Earl.

Come to think about it, maybe those were the verses the folks on TBN were talking about. “God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both?”

After he left, about five minutes later our Worship Leader, a man named Al, came in to pick hymns for Sunday’s worship. I asked him if he saw a black man leaving, either getting into a car or walking away on foot, because I wanted to tell him this story. He said he didn’t. I didn’t think there was any way Earl could make a “quick getaway” and was sure Al would have seen him. No, Earl was gone.

Friends, I keep asking if you have had any experiences like this. Last week’s board meeting included this story and three others from three board members. So that you know, the other six aren’t off the hook, there’s another meeting in two months.

There are so many questions of faith, but here’s one for the people of faith: How have you been blessed? How have you been blessed lately? How does your faith make a difference in your life? As Christians in a world that has a warped view of Christian values, we are like Jesus, we are being carefully watched, and when we live our lives like our faith makes a difference, the world sees. That’s when the world begins to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s time to show the world the Gospel again.

A Most Unlikely Sword

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 21, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Reading Paul’s epistles to the churches is a lot like reading a Jeopardy board. The board is filled with answers and the contestants come up with the right questions. His first letter to the church at Corinth contains the answers to questions from that congregation which are still used. The latter part of Chapter 14 deals with answers about worship.

Starting at verse 26, Paul gives instructions about psalms, doctrines, tongues, revelations, and interpretations and their use in worship. The verse ends saying that the purpose of these things is to edify, to build up the Church. Through verse 39, Paul goes into who can, who must, and who mustn’t participate in worship. He also speaks to propriety in worship. He sums up his talk in verse 40 which I share with you from the King James because it cuts to the chase, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

There is a joke among Presbyterians that this verse is tattooed on us before leaving seminary. Actually Presbyteries quit mandating the tattoo in the early 80’s. (Small joke, very small.) But I say this because pastors, especially freshly minted pastors, often get wound a little tight. Everything has to be just so… I was a basket case on my first Easter Sunday in the pulpit. If I knew then what I know now. A couple of years later, I was so comfortable in worship that on a Sunday when preaching on “good gifts” my children’s sermon included me taking a bite out of a Milk Bone brand dog biscuit.

Just so you know, you will never find a Milk Bone in the Communion tray replacing our traditional wafer, and that is not a joke.

I imagine all denominations have their own stories about “decently and in order” and today we hear one where Jesus is the star of the story.

We begin with a woman. There isn’t much we know about this woman. There is much we assume, but not much we know. We know she has what the King James calls “a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.” While the NIV’s language may be more accurate, “she was bent over,” there is a poetic quality to being “bowed together” which captures her plight better than “bent over.”

We really know nothing else about her. She could be in her late 20’s, her back bowed because of an accident. She could be in her 30’s and bowed from childbirth and work. She could be older and with these same conditions and have a disease like arthritis. We know so little about her, she could have a birth defect and this eighteen year “spirit of infirmity” may be visited upon an eighteen-year-old.

There is no talk of other family. Is she a teen? Are there children? Are they young or adult? Is she a respected woman, a real “Proverbs 31” gal whose body has paid the price? Is she a widow? We know nothing. What do we know?

We know this. Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues. The crippled woman was there. Jesus saw her. Jesus called her forward. Jesus said, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he laid hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. This we know. Then we get an earful from a synagogue leader who seems to have been a fan of Paul from his “decently and in order” Pharisee days.

Back to the King James, “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people,” Notice his indignation is toward the people, not Jesus, “‘‘There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’” The synagogue leader is doing what he’s supposed to be doing, keeping order in the assembly. If he doesn’t, worship doesn’t glorify God. Right?

Jesus made a rookie mistake, he’ll get a talking to in the coach’s office in the clubhouse after the game, but not in front of the press or the other players.

But Jesus isn’t going into the clubhouse. This is the second time in two weeks of readings Jesus has called people “hypocrites.” Last week he dropped “the H-Bomb” on the crowd who couldn’t tell what direction the wind was blowing. This week he drops it on religious leaders who think order is more important than relationship. Hypocrite is a word that’s bandied about often, especially these days, so what does it mean?

Random House tells us a hypocrite is somebody who pretends to have virtues, morals, religious beliefs, or principles that they don’t actually possess. Especially a person whose actions go against those stated beliefs. Another slightly different nuance is someone whose public persona doesn’t match their private attitudes.

In biblical Greek it literally means to judge or to decide from under. Not very helpful, is it. It’s because it’s an idiom, an expression, one that came from the theater. It means “to act from under a mask” like the Greeks did in the theater, using masks so you could see what character they were portraying. Another way to approach that, two-faced. That’s what Jesus was calling the people when he was calling them hypocrites. He was calling them two-faced.

Jesus is saying that it’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference. It’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference.

There’s more flooding in South Louisiana. The Disciples of Christ and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance are already on the ground in South Louisiana, and do you know why? It’s because they’re still down there because of Hurricane Katrina. There is still so much to do post-Katrina that the people of God are still on the Gulf taking care of God’s business. They are there ready to meet the challenges of this new crisis. What they need is reloading.

Our denominations are working with disaster assistance in Syria and throughout the Middle East. They are in Nepal after the latest round of earthquakes. They are working in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Sweden, and other nations to help settle refugees. Here in Oklahoma they have helped provide emergency relief and helped rebuild after tornadoes and ice storms. They do this seven days a week, even on the Sabbath.

Last week our Gospel reading talked about how Jesus would separate families. Jesus wields a most unlikely sword, a sword of love, separating the people of faith. Today he separates those who only serve in robes from those who serve with their heads, hearts, and hands. Jesus shames the leaders, all powerful, affluent men. They untie their livestock so they can get water on the Sabbath, but they disgrace a sister, a daughter of Abraham who has been bowed under crippling pain for eighteen years. They will free their animals, but not their own people.

Eighteen years of crippling pain, Jesus sees her and “Plan A” takes a back seat to grace and mercy. “Decently and in order” get put on the back burner and a relationship is kindled instead. Jesus could have gone along with the liturgy, but his spirit is grieved by the condition of one of his lambs. She is lifted to a place she never imagined being, a place known only to those who know Jesus.

We end hearing, “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” We have to be careful with this though. Forgive my foray into the political, but there’s a problem with people who delight in gaffes, when someone powerful is disgraced. There are people who wait for the humiliation and find elation. They find joy in others’ embarrassment. They delight in shame. They don’t find relief or relationship.

What our reading says is “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” They were not delighted in the humiliation of the powerful, but in the lifting of the infirm. They found joy in the building of the synagogue through the new work of Jesus Christ, the work of relationship and service. Joy was found edifying the body as Paul would tell the church in 1Corinthians. As tempting as it may be to delight in the shame of others, it never glorifies God.

You know, there’s a funny thing about Jeopardy. The questions the contestants give aren’t always the ones that go with the answer Alex Trebek reads. We read Paul’s answers, but we really don’t know the Corinthians’ questions, just like we don’t know exactly who the bowed together woman is. What we know is Jesus, the fully human and fully divine Lord of all chose that moment, stopping all that was seemingly holy, to make a holy moment of gracious connection.

It was out of everybody’s comfort zone, I imagine the leader, the woman, and the crowd wondered what Jesus was doing. I imagine the woman was both physically and emotionally uneasy coming forward too. But she did, and she received the blessing of encountering God. Let us rejoice! It is good to worship decently and in order, but we can’t let decency and order become a straightjacket that prevents us from encountering God and being healed.

He Knew

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday August 14, 2016, the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I haven’t watched a lot of TV lately, but I do see some. With some TV come some TV ads. Geico Insurance ads never fail to amuse me. The “...it’s what you do” campaign has been entertaining. One of the most recent is a band of pirates taking a British frigate. The pirate tells the captain what he’s going to do and his parrot repeats everything he says… and more.

“Let’s feed him to the sharks…”

“AWK, Let’s feed him to the sharks…”

“And take all of his gold…”

“AWK, and take all of his gold…”

Then the parrot keeps talking! “AWK, and hide it from the crew.” This is when the pirate crew stops in their tracks and gives their captain the stink-eye. “AWK, they’re all morons anyway.”

It’s damage control time for the captain, “I never said that.”

“They all smell bad too. AWK.”

This is when the pirate crew surrounds their captain who’s talking fast, “No, you all smell wonderful, I smell bad.” In the meantime, the British captain skirts away from his captors.

Then the voiceover says, “If you’re a parrot you repeat things, it’s what you do. Wanna save 15% or more on auto insurance…” and so on.

I love it when a plan comes together, then parrots repeat things. It’s what they do. There’s no reason we shouldn’t expect the unexpected, but we don’t. When the unexpected happens, everyone is in shock. This is our reading from Luke.

Over the past two weeks, we have read warnings and encouragements, the Parable of the Rich Fool, do not be afraid, and a treatise on watchfulness from Luke’s gospel. Today we read something completely unexpected, something never read in Sunday School. Today we read that Jesus comes not to bring peace but division.

This is not the Prince of Peace we’ll find at Advent. Frankly that Jesus is a lot more likeable.

Every week I begin worship saying “May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Every week I end worship saying “May the grace of God, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” It seems like nobody read this when putting together the liturgy. So we should ask, if what Jesus said is true, and we always begin there, then what does it mean?

Let’s go to the beginning of the reading, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” To find more on the Baptism of the Lord, let’s go back a little further.

In the third chapter of Luke we find John the Baptist in the wilderness, “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’” When Jesus speaks of bringing fire, he’s simply reminding us of what John has already said. This isn’t anything new, but from the mouth of the Lord it sounds far more ominous.

Then Jesus speaks of his coming baptism, though he has already been baptized in the waters of the Jordan. There are many images wrapped around baptism, washing, cleansing, renewal, birth, life, new life; but one that often gets overlooked is death. Yes, death is found in the waters of baptism. Ask any sailor about the dangers and terror of the water and they’ll tell you death is a possibility. Jesus knows that he is on his way to his death, to his tomb. His death is as much a part of his baptism as his life. To teach this will take time, and he knows that he will be pressed for time.

He does not have much time to be with his apostles, his disciples, the people he calls his Body. He knows that time is short before this Earthly part of his mission will be completed, so yes, his time is constrained. This brings him distress. It is because he loves so much that he feels the pain of his limited time. He knows his time is limited and his work is eternal. So much to do, so little time.

Now let me ask this, is there anything particularly divisive in the Gospel? The gospel, it’s love. It’s grace. It’s peace. It’s service. It’s caring. There is sacrifice and that’s not anybody’s favorite, but we get grace and peace in exchange, definitely the better end of the deal.

Still Jesus knows people will make decisions about him. Who he is, his Lordship. Is he God? Is he a man? Is he perfect? Is he crazy? How do we follow him? Do we follow him? And every time people make one of these decisions about Jesus, it creates something of a theological crossroads. Some will go one way, some another.

As people make those decisions, Jesus knows what will happen next, division. This is why he says “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” It’s tempting to lay this indictment at the feet of those who do not believe in God, but this wasn’t who Jesus was talking to. He was talking to his people. He was talking to believers.

He knew how people would interpret his nature and his message would cause division. The first division was between the Jews and the Jewish Christians, the Jewish followers of Jesus, both followers of the Lord God, the God of Abraham. Their first decision was whether Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, or not? This division was during his lifetime and led to his death.

Then came the division between the leaders of the Jewish Christians and the leaders of the Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christian leaders taught followers had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. It made sense, Jesus was Jewish, most Christians were Jewish Christians. That turned out to be a stumbling block to the Gentiles so a council was held in about 50 AD, not twenty years after Jesus’ death. Acts 15 is where this council’s decision is reported and the division was made. In its wake came two branches, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

Splits like these have been happening ever since. As for the denominations that form The Federated Church, five American denominations came out of the late 18th century movement that birthed the Disciples of Christ. Presbyterians take the cake. Presbyterianism in America dates back to 1706, but because of schism, reunification and schism again, there are ten branches of Presbyterians in America, the most recent schism in 2012. (Actually, I thought there were twelve.) As for the United Churches of Christ, in 1957 the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united to form the UCC. So in a world of division, there is hope.

So people love the gospel, even if we don’t believe the same things the same way. We received the gospel of love and grace and peace and service and caring and sacrifice and some things we don’t like as much. So it’s easy to see that there’s something for everybody to love and something for everybody not to love. So then what was Jesus trying to tell his disciples?

The Church (the capital C Church) must take heed. Some churches will say this scripture is about nonbelievers, but Jesus wasn’t talking to nonbelievers, he was talking to his children. The scandal is splits between believers; the division in the pews, and the witness that is to the world.

Next Jesus tells us the Body of Christ can’t say things like “Come join with us, not him, he doesn’t love Jesus like I love Jesus.” That sentence says one of two things. The first is that I love Jesus better than my neighbor; or the second my neighbor doesn’t love Jesus at all. This puts the speaker in the place of God, saying who is faithful and who is not.

So, we must remember in accepting the truth of the gospel, in sharing the gospel, in teaching the gospel, in living the gospel, not everybody is going to accept the Good News the same way if at all. Some will want to live by their old ways, but remember, we are reformed and always being reformed. God is continuously showing us new life. We are called to be faithful and follow.

Importantly, we have to realize since decisions about who is faithful and who is not aren’t up to us the subject and the object of our faith is the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. When we make decisions about the gospel, and we will, divisions will be made. Let us pray our decisions are faithful.

Finally, this is the good news; God is faithful even when we are not. Our reading from Hebrews is known as the “Heroes of the Faith.” They were heroic because they were faithful. The scripture continues, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Here is the hope for humanity: In Christ, by Christ, through Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of faith—one day all of the things that we let divide us, the things that seem so important, one day, because of Christ’s great love, none of these divisions will matter. Not one little bit. Jesus knew this.

He knew this all along.

Swing Your Feet

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday August 7, 2016, the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

On our first date, I took Marie to the North Pole, a delightfully cheesy Christmas themed amusement park at the foot of Pikes Peak. The buildings were like Swiss Chalets. There are odd statues on the grounds. And elves; some of the elves are people in costume, others are statues, some are painted wooden cutouts. One of these had this mildly malevolent expression so Marie and I named him “Omar the Evil Elf.” In my study there is a picture of Marie posing with Santa I took that day.

Something you always discover on first dates are the things that you like and the things you don’t. Me, I don’t like super spinney rides. I get dizzy, I get nauseous, and that’s a bad look on a first date. Marie hates, loathes, despises, abhors, roller coasters, cable gondolas, generally things that hang you over the ground with little support. She’ll tell you. She doesn’t even like bridges.

She was a good sport that day, she went on the gondola ride with me. It’s not a 100-yard-long loop and doesn’t go higher than 20 feet. Not much unless you hate these rides like Marie does. She got on. We were going up and I was falling in love with this wonderful woman.

I was having a great time. She was in abject terror. I told her “Swing your feet!” and she said “NO!” She had a white knuckle grip on the bar that she released one hand just long enough to show me her sweaty palm. Then suddenly the ride stopped, with us about 50 feet from the end, 15 feet in the air. At the end of the ride they helped two people jump down from the gondola in front of us because they couldn’t get the ride going and it was “close enough.” After we got off I didn’t think she would talk to me for the rest of the day.

So if she feels that way about a puny gondola ride at a cheesy amusement park, you know the chances of me getting her on one of those glass walkways like the one over the Grand Canyon or Tower Bridge in London are bad. What is infinity to the power of infinity against? Those chances got lower last year when one of the panels on the Yuntaishan Scenic Walkway in China’s central Henan province cracked, well, shattered.

Nobody was in any danger according to Chinese officials. Each panel was three pieces of tempered glass about nine square feet. Built like a piece of plywood, it was designed to support 1,700 pounds, and that much weight on one square yard isn’t that much if you consider three guys my size couldn’t stand comfortably in one square yard and don’t weigh 1,700 pounds. Then consider people would be walking along so these panels wouldn’t have to tolerate sustained weight. What would cause the impact needed to crack one of these panels is a dance team doing high kicks in stiletto heels. That would put tremendous force on a very small space. But scenic bridges were not made for a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader high-kick routine and they don’t wear that kind of heel anyway.

The whole idea of the glass bridge is to give us a different way to see the glory of creation while asking us to have faith that something we don’t think should hold us will. But when one layer of glass cracks, when what was once clear became pebbled, when what was filled with the laughter of people filled with awe became screams of people yelling “get out of my way,” when what was stable shuddered with the fracture causing just a tiny panic; faith gave way to “feet don’t fail me now.” Park officials reported nobody was injured, but they also reported the entire structure trembled with the break.

So when we hear our reading from Hebrews, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” we get it. We can’t really see the clear bridge panels, but we know they’re there. We can walk on them, but stepping out takes faith because walking on glass seems unreasonable. We’ve seen too much broken glass to have faith in it as sidewalk material, but these walkways keep going up.

That verse is one of scripture’s more renowned, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” And surely this is true. The remainder of the reading from Hebrews is filled with examples from the most ancient ancestors of the Hebrews, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord made them promises, promises which were kept. The ending to our reading makes an important point.

The ending of the reading notes that the most important promises, those of a nation so vast that they will be as countless as the sands by the sea and the stars in the sky, was not kept during their lifetimes. While the means to keep that promise was finally put in place during the life of Jacob, it was not fulfilled before the deaths of these Desert Fathers.

As our reading reminds us “they did not receive the things promised,” but they had the promise. They had faith in the promise and the one who made it. Their faith endured even though they did not. Their faith endured in the hope that God would fulfill the promise, if not today, if not soon, one day. Their faith had a long memory, back to the days of the covenant of Noah, their faith had a basis in promises kept by the Lord. They had faith that the promises of the Lord, the promises that we know as the covenant with Moses and the Exodus would come.

They had a vision of the heavenly country to come. By their great faith in the promises of God for this world and for the next, as it says in Hebrews, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” This is all because by faith, by faith alone we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. As this is from the New Testament, fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is old news to those who know. And by faith, faith that profits from the experiences of our forbearers, we share in the covenants of old and the new covenant sealed in the blood of Christ.

Luke shares one of the most common commands in scripture, “Do not be afraid.” This command is found 70 times in the NIV. This is both a promise as well as a command. He promises us something better commanding us not to fear. Jesus offers more than fear. Jesus offers light. Fear should not be our guiding light, though all too often it is.

Then come the words “little flock.” Jesus describes his followers like a shepherd describes lambs. Lambs not ready for slaughter.

Jesus realizes that in our own way we have come together, but not always of our own volition. Often we are herded. We are small and we are weak and with just the wrong push at just the wrong time in just the wrong way we panic, like crowds on a bridge of shattered glass. It may be safe, but you can’t look to a flock for wisdom. We may not be ready for slaughter, but our own fear may take us over an edge we were never intended to find. Think about lemmings. Think about how natives used to hunt buffalo off of a cliff.

Is this an excuse for “peer pressure?” I’m acknowledging that when people fail to see that our Heavenly Father is pleased to give us the kingdom, we’ll settle for less. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” We are meant to be children of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. When we give up our liberty in Christ for safety in what we know, we don’t deserve either and often seem to lose both.

But God in Christ knows we will be anxious, liberty can be scary and a little flock is never known for its confidence. This is where we must rely on faith, the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is where we have to remember to store treasures in heaven, in a purse that will not tear. Treasures that will not spoil.

I was at the Hyatt Regency Chicago for a convention in 1982. Coming through the front door I saw a decorative hanging covering construction over the lobby near the front wall. A minute later another man who had just checked in said, “I wonder what they’re doing up there?” I said, “I bet they’re fixing the skywalks like the ones that fell in KC last summer.” He looked at me and agreed, then he asked how I knew so quickly. I told him I was from Kansas City; my second grade teacher was among the dead. He nodded, we parted.

Faith in what looks secure, steel and concrete. Faith in what had held for years. Faith in what the engineers said would hold. Faith that the change order placed by a later architect was tested. Faith that the best laid plans of mice and men don’t go askew. Faith in the greatest structures built by men. This faith lasts as long as it takes for the first pane of glass to crack and send men, women, and children scurrying like so many lost sheep.

We are to have faith in the Lord who loves us more than that. The Lord who gives better gifts. The Lord whose promises were kept yesterday. The Lord whose promises are for today, tomorrow, and more tomorrows than we can count. We are to have faith in one another in God’s holy name, not in our own. We are called to love in his name. We are called to give in his name. We are called to have faith that surpasses all understanding… not in us, but in Christ and Christ alone.

So on this holy ride we call life, rely on the promises of God, look at the person next to you, let go of that hand rail, and swing your feet.

God, Christ, Earthly Things, Life

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday July 31, 2016, the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary

Time.

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

On the cover of your bulletin is a piece of art known as a word cloud. This particular one is called a Wordle. To make one, you put together a piece of text, this is Colossians 3:1-11, paste it into the Wordle generator, make a couple of style choices, and “Bingo!” your Wordle is created.

To create the design, Wordle takes out words like conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. If it didn’t, words like “and,” “but,” “about,” “a,” and “the” would dominate the piece. Then it takes the words used most often, makes them larger, and moves them toward the center of the design. In its way, Wordle shows us the most used, most important words in a piece of text. In Colossians 3:1-11 that would be God, Christ, Earthly, Things, and Life. “Honorable Mention” goes to Self, Also, and Now for their importance, but let’s look at these.

Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossae. He wrote from his prison cell having never been there. This congregation was a church plant by a man named Epraphas who had filled Paul in on their plight. Modern church leaders think they have it tough, Paul was in jail and local pastors were seeking his advice. In this part of the letter, Paul was giving instruction and encouragement.

He reminded them that they have been risen with Christ! Since they have risen with the Lord they should set their minds, hearts, and hands to the things of the Lord. They should “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” not on earthly things.

Oh, and what a list of earthly things we have. He tells the Colossians to do away with whatever belongs to their earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. Now here’s something tricky where the original languages come in handy. When this was read in worship today, Marie read “greed, which is idolatry.” Because of how English arranges itself, it sounds like greed is the only item on the list which is idolatry. When we take a closer look at the Greek, the word “idolatry” actually describes the phrase “whatever has to do with your earthly nature.” So greed isn’t the only thing on the list of “earthly things” which is idolatry, they are all idolatry. None worse than any of the others.

From here, people tend to ask a lot of questions, technical questions, about what exactly idolatry is. Here’s the easiest answer, anything that anyone puts between themselves and the Lord is an idol. Worshiping that earthly thing is idolatry. I mentioned the Rev. Bill Clarke to you a couple of weeks ago, the Pastor from First Presbyterian Church in Lamar, Colorado. He considered professional football an idol because of the way it is worshiped. Stay with me here…

Being raised in the Central Time Zone, and a fan of a Central Time Zone team, games begin at 12:00 Noon. I could easily go to church, pick up some Pizza-Pizza, and get home before the end of the first quarter. First Presbyterian Lamar started worship at 10:30 but because Colorado is in the Mountain Time Zone, the early game begins at 11:00 am. Folks who went to church and had lunch with the family might make the fourth quarter.

This was the 1990’s, John Elway’s first Super Bowl victory run, and people stayed home from church to watch the games. People who had tickets to Mile High Stadium in Denver were minor celebrities next Sunday, especially if it was a good game. People would take AMTRAK from Lamar to Kansas City to wear orange in the sea of red. To Bill, the NFL was idol, it came between the congregation and worship, between the people and the Lord.

Idolatry, it’s not just the Baal’s anymore.

Paul not only wants us to do away with our earthly nature, the things that rest in our minds and in our hearts, Paul wants us to change our behavior. Since we are raised with Christ, new creations in God, setting our minds above earthly things; Paul now expects us to change our lives!

Paul wants the Colossians to be rid of ill will from your lips. Once again, the English would have think it was only filthy language that Paul wants rid from our lips, but no, it’s the entire laundry list. I suspect this was literal in the day, but now must be dealt with on social media. Paul not only wants that language from our lips, but from our fingertips, which calls for the need to be rid of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from Facebook and Twitter too.

So, in God, in Christ, our old selves are gone. Everything we were before is now gone. So what are we? Well, we aren’t Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. Thank you, Paul, The Artist formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, you have told us what we aren’t but not what we are.

In God and in Christ, we aren’t who we used to be, separated by our faith like Jews and gentiles. In God and in Christ, we aren’t who we used to be separated by the scars put on bodies by our faith like circumcision. In God and in Christ we aren’t barbarian or Scythian. Now that one escapes us because we don’t know their history, but the Scythians were a tribe of, for want of a better word, Black Sea pirates, worse than barbarians. Then whether we are slaves or free.

We look a little deeper into what Paul said here. First he said that the Colossians were no longer worse than barbarians and people worse than barbarians. He also said that they weren’t slaves. These people lived on the Black Sea, modern day Turkey. Many of these people were Roman citizens, most were free locals. I imagine they looked at this letter and asked “Paul, buddy, you’re the one in jail, we were never slaves?” Paul says they were raised, so we had to be raised from something? What they were slaves to was, wait for it, the people they were in the beginning of this reading. They were slaves to everything they put before God. They were also slaves to rage, anger, malice and slander.

For any Colossian who wanted to believe the misguided assumption Paul wasn’t talking to them, they must not have paid attention to the preceding sentence, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

These are people Paul never met, but he knew them. He spoke with them just like they were friends because they were. They were friends in Christ. He spoke to them like he knew them because in a way he did, they were all washed in the same baptism as the children of Christ.

I’ve often talked about our Lord’s vocal inflection. In the “Parable of the Rich Fool” as the NIV calls it, I imagine Jesus looking at this man and mourning “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” This is the way Jacob Marley cautions Ebenezer Scrooge, with pity that is filled with love.

We read this and we don’t see him as such a fool. This man is the essence of the Protestant work ethic. He’s a hard worker, not a freeloader. He’s not sitting around, he’s about to begin an expansion project and God calls him a fool? Yes, he is a fool.

In this parable there is no mention of family or heir or even a friend. God’s question about who will get what he has prepared isn’t mocking. It’s a real question. Who will get his goods? Recently the rock star Prince died without a will or family. Who will receive his wealth? Half of it will go to the lawyers who act as the points on the swords of the people battling over his wealth. As for this rich fool, who, indeed who, will receive what he leaves? Who will receive what he leaves? Ashes to ashes. Rust to rust.

The reason this man, steeped in hard work and careful planning, successful by every measure the world uses, the reason he’s a fool is that he’s alone. He’s a fool because he is surrounded by all of his wealth, and he’s all alone. In a world where he is judged a success he’s about to die alone, judged by his God who sadly declares him a fool. Say this for the Colossians, whatever they had, they had each other.

Life isn’t about tools and schools and programs and projects. It’s about living together. It’s about caring for one another. It’s about fellowship. It’s about community. It’s about coming together. It’s about living with, in, and by the words and life of Christ as our one best example. It’s about seeing what’s important, God, Christ, and Life; Life in God and in Christ. It’s about who we bring along for the ride. It’s about sharing all these things. All of that, all of that is worship. It’s not about our stuff.

So here’s our Wordle. God, Christ, Earthly Things, Life. Important either for what they should mean or important for what they shouldn’t. Jesus isn’t telling us not to work hard, he is telling us to balance our time and other scarce resources between God, family, and work. As for wealth, I like what John Wesley says, “make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Work hard, be fruitful, be prudent, and be generous. I like that. And always put relationships before wealth. Wealth fades, but love endures. Amen.

Audacity

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday July 24, 2016, the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I love that over the past eight weeks we have had an opportunity to get to know one another better. Some of you I have gotten to know better than others. Over the next couple of months, I hope to rectify that further. Today I am going to share another bias with you, I am a fan of the New Revised Standard Version of the bible. There’s nothing wrong with the New International Version, but sometimes it loses some of the nuance the New Standard Revised keeps. Then again, there are times I prefer the NIV over the NRSV, and last week I showed used the New Living Translation, so I do tend to look around and see what’s faithful to the original text and what’s not. The reading from Hosea got a white-washing from the New International Version.

The NIV reads… “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” Yes, I called that white-washed.

In the NRSV that same half of Hosea 1:2 goes like this… “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”

No good editor likes to use the same word three times in the same sentence, but who says the Lord needs an editor? I won’t say the NIV sounds appealing, what with promiscuous, adulterous, and unfaithfulness, but each of these words have different shades of “bad” in English as we read them. I mean it’s not good, but it could be worse, right?

The New Revised Standard gives us the “what’s worse,” whoredom, whoredom, and great whoredom. Perhaps the most concentrated use of the word “whoredom” in scripture. It’s a blue ribbon for Holy Writ! We have reached maximum whoredom.

Another translation I find useful is the New American Standard Version because it provides a very good word for word translation. The Hebrew here is translated as harlotry, harlotry, and flagrant harlotry. What’s flagrant harlotry? Is it like basketball where you get two shots from the line and the ball back when your team gets a flagrant harlotry foul? Whatever it is, Israel has done it. Mazel tov Israel, the Lord is done with you.

Gomer bore Hosea three children. The first is named Jezreel, named after a nation of people wiped off of the face of the earth. The second is named Lo-Ruhamah which means “no love” or “no pity.” Their third child is named “Lo-ammi.” The NIV says this means “not my people.” The NRSV doesn’t offer up the translation in parentheses, it goes straight to the explanation, “you are not my people and I am not your God.”

Over the past couple of weeks we have sung, “Seek Ye First.” The second verse goes like this:

Ask and it shall be given unto you,
seek and you shall find;
knock and the door shall be opened unto you -
Allelu, alleluia!

These words come loosely from today’s Luke reading. This is often used to tell people that if you only ask, God will provide. This has given way to something called “The Prosperity Gospel.” Prosperity proponents see faith as a contract, not a covenant between God and God’s own. If we have faith, God will deliver us not only in the heavenly realm but here on earth with security, health, and prosperity. If we act in faith, God will deliver. So if you give, God will give you wellness and wealth. I believe the scriptural term for this is “hogwash,” or at least it is in Arkansas, home of the Razorbacks.

But you know, these words are in scripture, so what do we do with them? First, we keep them with the words that precede them. This a parable about a man whose guest arrives late at night, so late that he didn’t have any bread to serve when he arrives. So he goes to see if his neighbor has three loaves. He knocks. He knocks loud. He knocks hard. He knocks often.

His neighbor is ticked off, and who wouldn’t be. It’s after midnight, and while the man wasn’t up watching Colbert (again, my preference) he had to get up early in the morning to work and work hard. The kids were in bed, with him. That was a cultural thing. Houses didn’t have rooms and beds for everybody. Getting up is a bother. Getting up would wake the kids. Then again, it’s not like the knocking and yelling is helping anybody sleep.

Now here’s an instance where I prefer the New International over the New Revised, the NRSV says the man with the guest will get bread because of his “persistence.” In the NIV the man gets what he needs because of his “shameless audacity.” Everything else being equal, give me the more expressive translation. Yeah, shameless audacity. Jesus tells his disciples to pray like this man asks his neighbor for bread, with shameless audacity.

I have a friend, Dr. Steve, who once preached on prayer and used this children’s sermon. This is the condensed version.

Once upon a time on the Barbary Coast, a bunch of school children and their teacher were going to go to the beach for a picnic. They hoped and prayed for good weather because there was only one day they could picnic and if there was bad weather there would be no picnic that Spring. Well, the big day came and it was pouring rain so the picnic was cancelled and they were all disappointed. They all wailed and cried. BUT what they didn’t know is that because of the weather Pirates couldn’t come ashore, pirates who surely would have taken them and their teacher and made them all slaves. The End.

Notice I didn’t say it was a good children’s sermon. His lesson was that we should just pray “God’s will be done” because what God wants is best for us. As far as it goes, I can’t disagree that what God wants is best for us and we must pray God’s will be done. We’ve just prayed “God’s will be done,” it would be foolish to preach against that. There’s nothing audacious here except for the nightmare ending, but there has to be more.

Did Hosea pray to God, “Golly Lord, thanks for telling me to wed this promiscuous woman, er, whore of whoredom, ah, I mean harlot?” No, I can’t imagine that was a good time at family dinner during the Shabbat either, “Mom, Dad, this is Gomer. Yes, I know her name means “complete” but the Lord is done with us as a nation, so it’s appropriate. Look I brought wine! (Gomer, Strong’s Concordance, 1584)” I can’t imagine that was a nice dinner at all.

This is the life of the prophet Hosea, with his harlot wife and children of harlotry named after the fate of Israel, flagrant harlotry; and how does our reading from this disaster end? Israel will be decimated, but… but the Lord prays, “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Now that’s a prayer you don’t expect after whoredom, adulterous, and flagrant harlotry. Even the Lord prays with shameless audacity. What can come from shameless audacity? This is a piece of a letter from a Texan living in Chicago named Chris Ladd:

Watching Ronald Reagan as a boy, I recall how bold it was for him to declare ‘morning again’ in America. In a country menaced by Communism and burdened by a struggling economy, the audacity of Reagan’s optimism inspired a generation. (https://goplifer.com/2016/07/22/resignation-letter/)

Say what you will, Reagan had some audacity. Like him or not, Regan had some audacity. Right or wrong, and history will be the judge, Reagan had some audacity.

Like him or not, like his policies or not, Reagan was largely responsible for ending the Cold War. Agree with how he did it or not, Reagan was responsible for making the United States the last standing super-power in a world of tiny little despots and frightened rulers. Like it or not, agree with him or not, say what you will, audacity was not lacking.

Yes, we need to seek God’s will in our lives. We need to come together in prayer. We need to come together. We need to see where God is leading us and his church. As I said last week we need to sit at his feet, we need to be close so when God moves we can move with God. Yes, it begins with prayer, then it goes further.

As Jesus teaches us “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We are called to pray for the greatest gift of all; not a car, nor a house, nor any other wealth which rots on this earth. We are called to pray to receive the greatest gift God can give us. His spirit. Come Holy Spirit. And through the Holy Spirit, we will be able to seek God’s will for our lives and the life of the Church which is his body. That is audacity at its most valiant.

Busyness

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-25
Luke 10:38-42

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

It’s one of the great “Women’s Fellowship” questions of all time, are you a “Mary” or a “Martha.” Ladies, you can help me here. The Martha’s do the work in the kitchen. The Martha’s are the women who make up the Funeral Dinner and Kitchen committees. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these women are passive homebodies. These women know how to get things done and if you should besmirch the church kitchen you will pay. The Reverend Bill Clarke at the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar, Colorado, one of my mentors, taught me to be careful when putting away silverware because spoons put in the wrong drawer can bring a fate worse than death.

Now when it’s time to come to the lessons and the worship and such, that’s where the Mary’s take over. They are a little more studious and are definitely more comfortable presenting it. Before the event, they’re the ones doing the organizing. They’re doing lesson plans and putting together the teaching supplies too. Of course, it’s the Martha’s who make sure the snacks are on the table to gnosh.

I’m not saying Martha’s can’t have Mary traits and Mary’s can’t have Martha traits, but I am saying that we have comfort zones. Not many of us excel in both, some do, but not many. Both are blessed. Both are necessary. I’m glad we have both in this congregation.

When it came to Vacation Bible School I was blessed. At the first organizing meeting, I did my part, then the women, I was the only man at that meeting so I repeat, then the women ran with it. When I had to go with Marie to the doctor’s office on Friday, all I had to do was put together the lesson plan and one of the Mary’s took it and made it sing. It’s as if the theme for the week was “No Problems.” Some of the ladies apologized to me for this or that. I smiled to say that everything was fine because it was. It wasn’t perfect because nothing is, but the lessons, the music, the crafts, the play; was glorious. God bless all of you Mary’s and Martha’s. It doesn’t always run that way though. It didn’t with the first Mary and Martha.

According to Luke’s gospel: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?’” It’s that last sentence I want to focus on.

Hospitality is important. It has been important since Abram and Sarai (that’s right, they weren’t Abraham and Sarah yet) hosted three travelers in their tent. It was at this meeting where they were blessed with their son Isaac and their new names. Martha wasn’t fishing for a blessing, she just had her Lord, his disciples, probably various hangers on and very little warning that they were on the way. When she got the news, she went into “Martha Stewart Mode.” She had to get everything just so and it wasn’t when he got there.

The New International Version says Martha was “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” The New Living Translation said Martha was “distracted by the big dinner she was preparing.” In this case, like the New Living Translation, it’s a bit more descriptive. It has that feel that the Messiah has come for dinner with the feel that Martha is trying for a spot on “Iron Chef Palestine.” She’s got her sauces on. The meat is over the spit. The naan is being baked and it’s going to be yummy. Maybe there’s an antipasto ready to be passed around. Everybody has washed their feet and she has that laundry sorted.

Everything’s going according to plan, almost. Jesus is teaching but Martha’s sister Mary is at the feet of the Lord. She’s taking the position of a disciple instead of helping which is her place not only as a woman but as the younger sister. Doesn’t she know her place?

Here’s today’s bible study lesson. We need to know what translations or paraphrases we are reading. All translation is interpretation; you’ll hear me say that a lot. The New International is a very good translation. The NIV is a pretty easy read and has a more evangelical tilt. That doesn’t mean conservative/evangelical, it means it’s accessible to new seekers.

Paraphrases take more risks and generally aren’t translations from the original Hebrew and Greek at all. They rephrase other versions to make them easier to read. Unfortunately, in making things easier, some things get lost, some things get tacked on. In the NIV we read “She [Mary] came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’”

Eugene Peterson’s famous paraphrase, The Message this reads, “Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. ‘Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.’” Gosh Martha, passive-aggressive much? No other translation takes this tone with the Lord. Martha is so lost in her busyness that she comes off cranky.

This is the normal point in the sermon where the pastor points out that Jesus points out Martha is worried about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will be better. Remember, after “Iron Chef Palestine” Mary will have the learning and Martha will have the dishes, thus comes the rhetorical question “who is wiser?” Well I’m not going there.

Now, something I find interesting as a language geek is the Greek verbs used in this passage to describe what Mary and Martha are doing. More accurately, I find their prefixes interesting. The prefix used in the Mary verb is para-, it means alongside. The Martha verb prefix is peri- meaning around. We say Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet and Martha is distracted, but to peel the Greek verb like an onion, Mary is literally sitting alongside and Martha is literally hovering around. Other ways to translate the verb used to describe Mary’s activity include overburdened or overwhelmed. Mary is being with Jesus while Martha is doing things for Jesus. Martha is paying attention to cultural norms and Mary is not, but because Martha is not paying attention to Jesus, she doesn’t really know what he wants, does she?

So the question for us isn’t study vs. service, or active vs. contemplative, the question is where do we put ourselves in relationship to Jesus? Do we sit alongside him or do we hover around him? Do we rest at his feet, moving when he moves? Or do we constantly work anticipating our Lord’s next move, his next need, making plans which may or may not come to fruition? When we are alongside Christ, as he moves we can move. If we are constantly in motion, making contingency plans, when the Messiah moves we might be in a committee meeting trying to figure out the next big thing for ourselves. Or worse, we could be trying to figure out how to recapture the glory of days gone past.
It is better to be alongside than around.

I know cradle Disciples and UCC members may not be familiar with this, but if you have ever been to a church that used creeds, our reading from Colossians may sound familiar. Colossians 1:15-20 says:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

It’s very nice to say, “I have no creed but Christ,” but in the earliest days of Christianity, theologians had too many different ideas about what that meant and some of the crazier ideas needed to be weeded out. So, in 325 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine called a council of Bishops to make the very important decisions about “what is the nature of God.” Decisions which split the church between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. In 381, Roman Emperor Theodosius I continued and completed this work which became the Nicene Creed. I could tell you more, but then you’d have to kill me, or at least you'd want to kill me.

All you need to know is that the writer of Colossians, thought to be a student of Paul from sometime around 80 AD, wrote this to remind his readers, the church at Colossae, Paul’s thoughts on the nature of Jesus which are orthodox in the church around the world. Many of these words making their way into a creed used over 1600 years later. This is the same Jesus we all understand. This is who we stand alongside.

So yes, Mary chose the better way, not because there are fewer dishes or because the meal Martha prepares nourishes for a time and the Body and Blood of Christ nourish for a lifetime but because it is better to be alongside Christ than it is to be around Christ. We do this through study. We do this through contemplation. We do this through remembering our stories. And we do this through sharing our stories. It’s not a bad idea to have something to gnosh on, but a genuine word of God and a Chips Ahoy are in the words of our Lord, “what is better.” After all, if the word is sincere, store bought cookies will be good enough.