September 23, 2018 Zion Anniversary Mark 9:30-37

            Do you remember the first test that you were ever given?  You probably don’t.  And if you were born after 1952 you almost certainly don’t remember the first test you were given.  In 1952 the Apgar Test began to be used on newborn infants, and based on your vitality at birth you were given a score between zero and ten.  Your medical records have that number – your first test score.  And ever since then you’ve been tested and graded and ranked constantly.  You certainly received measurable grades and rank in school, but there are also lots and lots of other things.  People judge each other by their looks, their income level, whether they’re stylish or not, their charisma, and on and on it goes.

Though we don’t do it in any formal way, we have a very strong social pyramid.  Those people who are smart, talented, rich and good looking tend to end up at the top.  And let’s just be blunt, on the bottom are those who are stupid, ugly, and poor.  There are advantages to being on top, and there are penalties at the bottom.

From the moment you are born until the day you die you are in a life of earning status and approval.  It can get exhausting!

I don’t think we should be too hard on the disciples in our gospel reading when we learn that they have been arguing amongst themselves who is the greatest.  The Bible doesn’t giving us the details of their argument, but their life situation is probably a lot like ours – constant striving for status.  You want to be as close to the top as you can, because that is where the best benefits are.

When Jesus asks them what they were talking about I imagine there was embarrassed silence among them.  It was the silence of a child caught guilty by his or her parents, and the child is frantically trying to come up with an excuse or lie.

            Jesus then teaches, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

            Now, you’re all clever people and so am I.  It doesn’t take long for the wheels in our brains to start turning.  So, that means that the way to greatness is through servanthood, a sort-of reverse psychology.  We could all easily strategize that we will accomplish true greatness with Jesus through servanthood. 

But is that what Jesus meant, just an alternate path to the same greatness?

Of course not!  He’d be just swapping one pyramid of status with another.

To make it clear what Jesus really means he takes a child into his arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

            Children in those days had no rank whatsoever.  Parents wouldn’t haul them off to all sorts of events and activities like sports or music lessons.  Parents wouldn’t rearrange their lives around a child’s schedule.  Yes, parents certainly loved their children but still, at a social level children were of no account.  Helping a child would do nothing to advance you at all.  Jesus’ teaching to his followers creates an entirely different model – an equal status model. 

Today we celebrate Zion’s 175^th anniversary.  It’s certainly a milestone to celebrate!  It is a celebration of God’s grace active in this community for quite a long time.  It is a good time to ask ourselves what makes a church a church.  You all know the answer, at least to some level.  I remember learning the song here in this building during Sunday school.  I’m not going to sing it because you don’t want me to, but you’ll recognize the words: 

The church is not the building. 

The church is not the steeple. 

The church is not a resting place. 

The church is a people. 

And then it goes on:  I am the church.  You are the church. 

We are the church together.

All who follow Jesus

All around the world

Yes, we’re the church together!

            That’s absolutely true!  The church is the people!  But in time I’ve learned that there is more.  The Lions Club is also the people.  The same goes for the Grange or Masons or a garden club.  What makes a church a church?  What makes it distinct from other people organizations?

            What makes a church a church is that it is a community of grace.  Everywhere you go in the world you are judged and ranked – we talked about that before – your intelligence, your looks, your income level, who your friends are.

But you aren’t – or you shouldn’t be in church.  In church we all have the same very simple rank.  We are all sinners in need of God’s grace.

At my church in Victor, New York, we have a sign over the sanctuary door.  It says, “Sinners Only.  This is a Space of Grace.”  It’s kind of cute but also deadly serious.  If you don’t see yourself as a sinner in need of God’s grace then you’re not going to find anything of value for you inside.  If you think you can save yourself by your good works, or your social status, or your wealth, then my congregation has absolutely nothing to offer you whatsoever.  And I know I can say the same thing goes for this space.  Our need for God’s unearnable favor - God’s grace – unites us and equalizes us.

            To me, what has made Zion Zion for 175 years, and for Salem, its older sister, Salem for over 200 years is being a community of grace.  Sinners united in common need.  They are communities where people can breathe, they can be their true selves, and they can escape the pointless rat race of status and power that exists everywhere else in the world.  Churches are communities where people can be real before God and truly receive God’s grace.

            Now I know full well from growing up in this congregation that not everybody got along with everybody else.  There were differences of opinion and there were conflicts and fights.  Some things went well and some things failed.  And I know full well that there are people in this room that you delight to be around, and there are people in this room who you wish weren’t here and you’d never see again.  And sometimes people try to one up each other.  And sometimes conflicts and issues in families and the community outside these walls spilled over into here.  No church is perfect – we are indeed sinners after all – but there is still something deeper at work.

            When you’re celebrating Holy Communion and you see someone you don’t like stand up and walk up to receive have you ever gotten up from your seat and stood in front of them blocking their way and said, “No, you can’t receive communion.  You aren’t worthy of it.”  No, you haven’t done that.  And you’ve never seen anyone else do it either.  Part of that is because of the social pressure, it would be embarrassing to do it.  Yet there is something deeper going on too.  You know deep inside that you have no right to bar someone from receiving God’s grace in the body and blood of Christ.

            And have you yourself ever sat here and said to yourself, “I’m not going up for communion today because I don’t need it.  I’m too good for this.”  I hope you haven’t felt that way!

            This building was built in 1882 – Zion’s second sanctuary – and since that time thousands of people – rich and poor, clean and dirty, reputable and shameful, have knelt down before this altar in need of grace.

            Similar things could be said for baptism.  You know the old wedding ceremonies where the pastor would ask, “Does anyone have any reason why this man and woman should not be wed?”  Do we ask that at baptism… Is there any reason why this child should not be baptized?  No!  That’s totally absurd!  The child is a human being created in the image of God.  It needs God’s grace and no one dares get in the way of God’s work.

            There is no ranking in any of those things.  None is higher or lower than another.  Jesus’ teaching to the disciples is just that.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

            And so, as Zion celebrates 175 years of being a community of grace we pray that God would continue to bless and nurture this community.  We pray that it may remain a place where we go to be freed from the world’s constant judgement and criticism and ranking.  Here we can be ourselves: children of God, sinners in need of God’s grace, Christians empowered to share God’s love We can be ourselves before each other and ourselves before God.  That is God’s good and wonderful blessing to us in Zion.

September 9, 2018 10 Commandments Exodus 19:9-20:26

I think it is important to approach the 10 Commandments the way we are today.  That is, not reading just them, but the whole story that leads up to them.  For when you read just them you get the idea they are simple list of ten dos and don’ts.  But when you put them in their broader story you understand them far more deeply.

We’ve been following the Israelites from slavery and now into the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.  Last week we encountered the somewhat terrifying text where God asks them if they will be his chosen people.  They say yes, but we are wondering if it was a decision made out of devotion or out of fear.  Indeed if it was fear it was justified, for look at how our text begins.  Limits are set between the people and Mt. Sinai.  And at the appointed time God comes upon the mountain.  There is thunder, lightning, thick clouds and trumpet blasts.  God’s presence is blinding, deafening, and completely overpowering.  It is as if the fabric of the earth cannot withstand it and is coming apart.  It creates a fear which penetrates to the toughest of people and leaves them trembling and terrified.  And just as you think it cannot possibly grow more deafening, more blinding, or more terrifying it does.  And then it does again and again and even more terrifying still.  God’s presence creates fear beyond imagination.

We should never make the mistake of trying to tame God.  The ancient Israelites knew that.  Sometimes the love of Christ makes us think we can domesticate the all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present creator of this universe.  Nothing, nothing ever has and ever will be able to put up any resistance to our God whatsoever.  God is God.  Always and forever.

In the midst of this terror something unexpected happens.  Theologian Walter Brueggemann notes this, “The terrible, holy God of Sinai is always at the brink of “breaking out” against Israel and spilling over in self-aggrandizing destructiveness.  We are, in light of that danger, hardly prepared for the proclamation of the Ten Commandments in this next unit.  The God who threatens to break out in inexplicable rage instead breaks out in magisterial command.”  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1, Pg. 839) 

In my opinion that is key to understanding the Ten Commandments.  That sets us up to see a progression forming.  The Ten Commandments are usually broken into two tablets: one concerning relations to God and one concerning relations to neighbors.  If you remember in art they are often depicted as four Roman numerals on one stone tablet and six on the other – not divided equally as five and five.

I do not believe the scene of God’s terrifying presence is intended to frighten the people into obedience.  It is a statement of reality.  God’s power and presence is so infinite that not even something as tough the nuclei of atoms in the rocks can bear his presence.  With that in mind, hear the first four commands: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself and idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth...

“You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy…”

All of these commands are in light of God’s presence and in light of God’s creative work.  God is infinite.  Do not turn elsewhere for everything else is false hope.  Do not make a graven image.  Nothing made by human hands of created matter can contain or express the unlimited power of God.  Here are Walter Brueggermann’s words again, “The command asserts that nothing in creation is usable in making God visible or available.  God’s sovereign mystery is discontinuous from everything and anything in creation.  The propensity to encapsulate God in creation leads to an attempt to retain for ourselves control over some piece of creation…  To imagine that anything in creation could possibly embody the creator God is a result of ‘futile thinking’ and ‘senseless darkened minds’”.  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1, Pg. 843-4)

Continuing with the commands, do not use God’s name wrongfully, for you are calling upon a power you do not understand and cannot control.  At its worst are those who seek to do things in God’s name that are not God’s will, but are their own wills.  God does not take lightly those who use his name for selfish ends.  And yet this command does direct us to use God’s name.  We should invoke God’s power and sovereignty when we seek to build up, to be constructive, and when we try to improve.  What football coach would start a second string quarterback when the first string guy is healthy and ready?  Similarly, don’t attempt to do things on your own when God’s big power is there for the connecting.

I want to make an interesting jump before going on to the second table of the commandments.  Consider the final verses of our reading: “You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.  But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones, for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it.”

What an interesting teaching following after the centrality if the 10 Commandments.  To be honest, no one knows exactly what this means, but I feel a sense that in light of God’s majesty and creative power that we began with, God does not want humans thinking they can improve upon God’s own materials to create worship sites.  For God the purest form of a worship and sacrifice site is for the materials to reflect the forces of nature – the world’s own creative and shaping techniques: water, wind, geologic processes, perhaps even natural decay.  In time this would change.  The temple would be built in Jerusalem, but even then, there was a command to hew all the stones and cut all the wood off site so that the sounds of human changing would not take place on the temple sight.

We humans have this arrogance that we can improve on things.  Don’t get me wrong, with my own engineering background I’m not suggesting we should go back to living in caves and become hunter gatherers.  But we do tend to get impressed with our own constructive abilities.  We love building and improving: skyscrapers, sports stadiums, and cathedrals name just a few.  There’s also a micro sense too.  Remember the old DuPont ad campaign? “Better living through chemicals.”  As if life could be better through human manipulation.  I think God laughs, perhaps scoffs, at our feeble attempts at improvement – at making things holy.

And now we conclude with the final six commandments – the ones about human relationships.  Do you understand the progression that has taken place?  First acknowledge God’s sovereignty.  Because of that be in right relationship with God.  And because of being in right relationship with God, now you have the foundation in place to be in right relationships with others. 

The second tablet: honor parents, don’t kill, steal, have out of bound sexual relationships, lie, or crave things that don’t belong to you is not a set of virtues on its own, but built upon God’s own revelation. 

Again Walter Brueggemann, “The second tablet is not just a set of good moral ideas.  It contains conditions of viable human life, non-negotiable conditions rooted in God’s own life and God’s ordering of the world.  Thus it is important to ‘get it right’ about Yahweh, in order to ‘get it right’ about neighbor.”  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1, Pg. 839)

In other words, to say things like the Bible’s moral codes are simply based on fairness and decency is to miss the point.  To say that Biblical ethics are about being a good person is also to miss the point.  The Bibles moral codes are based on God’s creative work and respecting God’s sovereignty.  When you know who you are before God, then and only then are you ready to truly know who you are with others, and who they are before God and you.

May you fear and love the Lord, knowing that God is infinitely powerful, but also gracious, merciful and abounding in steadfast love.  And may that serve as the foundation for all your relationships everywhere.  

September 2, 2018 Mt. Sinai Exodus 19:1-9

            How many of you went on your first date with your spouse and then got married as your second date?  Unlikely!  Even if you knew each other a long time before your first date you still want to get to know each other better!  And yet, this idea is what comes to my mind when we read the Exodus text for today.  While God certainly has perfect knowledge of the people, they know almost nothing about God.  They don’t know what they’re getting themselves in for.  There’s no religious law yet, no 10 Commandments, no social structure.  And yet God asks them to make a commitment.

God says to the people through Moses, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.  Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” 

What should they say?  How about, “Let’s have some details about this covenant and what do you expect us to obey?”  Indeed, consider it from the perspective of the Israelites.  They’ve lived in slavery for centuries.  They had no real religion, no social structure, and really no god.  Then suddenly this old man shows up out of the wilderness with a stick in his hand and his brother beside him and says that God is going to set them free.  Yeah, right!  Things get worse and worse.

But then all these calamities start happening to their owners, the Egyptians.  Supposedly this God is causing all this destruction on their behalf.  And one day, after a particularly devastating plague, they are set free – no, they are driven out by the Egyptians. 

It’s a time of celebration until they get to the Red Sea and discover Egypt’s army pursuing them.  But this God again rescues them and hurts the Egyptians.  Then further into the wilderness; no food, no water.  But this God always provides.

Okay, they’re getting an idea of what this God is like, sort of like a first date, but they want to know more.  Up till now this God’s actions are quite possibly like the actions of a bully – beating up on the Egyptians.  And when God says he wants them as a possession, doesn’t that sound more like an abuser than someone you’d want to be in a relationship with?

Given all that it’s kind of surprising the people say a few verses later, “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.”  And yet it’s not at all surprising.  Again, consider that this God has led them into a wilderness.  There’s no food or water.  God alone is able to provide.  And now out there with no options they’re given an offer – be my people.  Can they really say no?  Nope, they have no other options.

In short order the people will be given the religious law, including the Ten Commandments.  And they will discover that God is merciful, caring and forgiving.  But at this point they don’t have a choice.  Indeed there are threads of Jewish thought throughout their ancient writings that suggests they didn’t feel like they had a choice to be God’s chosen people.  It is more like something thrust upon them than gladly accepted.

Well, though God is one of the partners, and it is God’s idea from the beginning, let’s not say this is a match made in heaven!  God frequently gets frustrated with the people.  The people repeatedly get frustrated with God.  They break the rules.  They aren’t faithful.  Yet it continues on and on.

Though we are Christians, not Jewish, I think we may sometimes have the same feeling.  We follow God – like we had a choice.  Like Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  It wasn’t like we got to be on the TV show The Bachelor and we got to pick our favorite from a bunch of stunning candidates to be our god.  Nope, no choices.

So we turn to God in prayer.  Often we don’t get an answer we like, or we don’t get an answer at all.  We do our best to be faithful, but we mess up all the same.  If only God would be more visible, more obvious, we think, being faithful would be so much easier.

I said a little bit ago that in time the Israelites would come to understand God as being not only strong but also merciful, caring, and forgiving.  They would learn that the religious laws God laid out were to create good order for their society.  They would create safety and promote justice.  And they would also learn that God wasn’t a stickler for technical following of the laws.  They discovered that behind the law was actually love.  By the time of Jesus it was a common answer to say that the greatest two commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul; and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Those are open ended commandments, not “Thou shalt nots”.

But there was still something missing.  The whole attitude was still backwards.  It was still forced.  And it was still all about doing things to make God happy with you, as if that were an end unto itself.

            Enter God’s new revelation in Jesus.  Notice Jesus does not drag people into the wilderness after showing great deeds of power and say, “Will you follow me… and I’ll tell you where we’re going later.”  No, Jesus comes, as just a man; no using power for plagues and destruction.  And Jesus invites rather than commands.  While the first covenant was made with love, the new covenant embodies love.

            Still, the old thoughts die hard.  I cringe every time I hear someone say, “I want to do what pleases God.”  It should be a commendable thought, but it’s still rooted in Exodus thinking.  God has not created you and set out a bunch of rules and regulations for you to follow.  And if you do them God is happy with you.  If you don’t, maybe God will forgive you but reluctantly.  It is as if some people think of all of us as God’s children, and they know in some sense that God loves us all, but they want to do things to be sure they’re God’s favorite.  But it just doesn’t work that way.

            The revelation that comes through Jesus is not so much a release from the rules but a new foundation for the relationship.  Yes, God still wants you to be loving and caring and constructive, but what is the root reason for why you do it?  That is what changes.  Do you do it to please God, or do you do it because you know God is already pleased with you?

            That may not seem like much of a difference, but it is all the difference in the world.  Maybe I can borrow an image that J.K. Rowling wrote into the 6^th Harry Potter book – it is the difference between being drug into the boxing ring against your will, and going in voluntarily.

            Our relationship with God is not one caused under duress.  It is one of invitation.  God says I choose you.  I love you.  You are a delight to me.  Now, will you come and work with me?

            And what work it is!  I sometimes think people discern too long and too hard about what God’s will for them is.  It should be obvious, and it’s all around.  Just pick!

            The world, God’s creation, is a broken place.  God invites us to have a part in its restoration.  That’s a huge and multifaceted task, but it is what God is up to with us.

            I want to turn our attention to the next hymn we will sing.  It’s one I’ve pretty sure we’ve never sung before: The Lord Now Sends Us Forth.  At the time the Red Hymnals were published the publisher didn’t know the name of the composer.  Since then he’s been discovered.  It’s Jose Aguiar, a Pentecostal pastor from Cuba of all places – that explains why we had a hard time tracking down its origin!

            These aren’t the thoughts of the composer, but of Gerhard Cartford, the one who translated it into English, and Pablo Sosa, through whom it came to be in our hymnals:

Though the message is simple and almost too obvious, it is nonetheless profound, we who receive Christ’s body and blood at the communion table are that body and blood in the world – not angels, but we who are the baptized ones grafted into Christ the vine, freed to be what we are in a world of pain.  This is not a strong declaration of a hero ready to change the world, but a confession of someone who is sharing a mission with us.  There are no heroes in this, just the seemingly impossible task that “falls to you and me,” with God’s help, to “make of all the earth a better place to live.”

            May you feel God’s love for you and may it inspire you do work with God in God’s great task of restoration and redemption!