January 14 Mark 4:1-34 Sermon

             We’re going to discover that just about every time we encounter Mark’s gospel there is going to be something that’s going to trip us up.  Even the biblical experts can’t make sense of it most of the time if they’re honest.  Today we read a collection of parables from Jesus.  Or maybe we should call them riddles since the word can be translated either way.  Jesus gives the riddle in public but often doesn’t give its answer, or a way to interpret it.  Then in private Jesus gives the answer to the disciples.  Fortunately we get to be an insider too and hear the answer. 

Why does he do this?  Loosely quoting from Isaiah 6 he says, “To you has been given the secret to the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in riddles; in order that, ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

What?!?  Is Jesus deliberately teaching in a way that excludes people?  Is God damning people and hardening their hearts so that he has all the more reason to do it?  No, of course not.  That would be counter to everything Jesus embodied.  But that is just the kind of question biblical scholars wrestle with in Mark’s gospel.

Actually it gets at a bigger question.  Mark isn’t the only gospel that has Jesus quoting from Isaiah.  It also shows up in the gospel of John, in Acts, and in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Always the question is why don’t people accept the loving Word of God as it comes to them?

I think Jesus is getting at a deep issue within people.  Why don’t people respond to the pure and simple truth?  Why can’t people believe that God loves them and then live that out?  I think we’d all like to say of ourselves that if you give us pure and simple information for our own good we’ll follow it.  Sometimes we may approach the Bible’s teachings and say, “Forget all this complex nonsense.  Keep it simple.”

Yes, that would be nice.  Or would it?  How many times has a doctor sat down with a patient and said, “Your blood sugar is too high.  You have Type 2 Diabetes.  You can control it but you have to lose weight, eat less sugars and carbohydrates, and exercise more.”  Or, “Your blood pressure is too high.  You’ll have to severely cut your sodium intake.”

Or my favorite I heard from a speaker whose name I’ve long since forgotten.  In a different lecture he had asked the crowd how many people had major bypass surgery.  And then he asked them how many people had changed their lifestyles because of the surgery.  Few had, and one guy raised a donut in his hand and said, “You mean like not eating these!?”

The sad truth is that we don’t respond to the simple pure truth.  People believe what they want to believe.  They ignore what they want to ignore.  You’ve probably heard sayings like, “Don’t bother me with the facts.”

Generally people will believe any truth that is convenient and beneficial for them.  They will reject anything and everything that has a deep cost.  That goes for religion, politics, economics, science, or quality of life.

We all remember and love to hear the things that make us feel good about ourselves and our way of life.  We reject and forget that which challenges us.

Why does Jesus preach in riddles?  Why do so many of the Bible’s authors use complex patterns and strategies and contradictions?  Why does Jesus use stories rather than straight facts?  Because maybe, just maybe, they will stick with us longer.  Maybe, just maybe, we’ll remember them later.

I wish I were a better story teller, because people remember stories and images better than facts.  When I tell a story in a sermon or relate an antidote far more people remember it than the facts I preach.

May we all have the insight to hear God’s truth, and believe it, and live it; whether it be a convenient truth or an inconvenient one for our lives.  Jesus promises good things for those who can hear God’s truth.  He doesn’t mean just in eternal life, he means for this life too.

Let’s turn to the parable of the sower.  It’s a detailed parable, or riddle.  It’s a familiar one and it’s very vivid.  Even if you’ve never scattered seed in a field or even grass seed in your lawn, you can get the picture.  You also get the absurdity of it.

If you’re seeding a new lawn you would not scatter the seed so crazily that it flies out onto the street or the sidewalk.  That’s pure waste.  And if there is a series weed problem somewhere, or too many rocks, or whatever the case may be, you’re probably not going to waste seed on those areas.  Maybe you landscape it rather than seeding it.  Or maybe you dig out the rocks or put in another layer of soil overtop them.  Whatever the case, even though grass seed isn’t overly expensive, you still don’t waste it.

But the sower in the parable does.  And we know that sower represents God.  The seed is God’s love, God’s word, and he scatters it wildly – on places no smart person would waste a valuable commodity.  I’ve never seen a person mow the grass in the street outside their house.  A bit of grass may grow in a crack in the pavement, but not a lawn.

Jesus wants all his hearers to know that God sows indiscriminately.  God’s goodness is for those who think they deserve it, and for those who people would say don’t deserve it.  God’s goodness goes where it is likely to do some good, and it also goes where it will probably do no good at all.  The key is that it goes there, because you never know.

When hiking in the Adirondacks it’s not at all unusual to come across a tree growing from the crack between rocks.  Somehow it’s there.  And often it’s even flourishing.

And flourish God’s goodness does!  Jesus says that when it truly takes root and produces the yield is incredible: thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.  Even with all the advances of modern agriculture, yields like that are almost impossible.  I think corn is about the only mass grown crop that can produce a hundredfold of what was planted.  Usually thirty fold in other grain crops is doing well.  And you can forget it when you get out of grains.

Consider our church’s garden project.  Last year we planted 150 pounds of seed potatoes.  It was a bad year, and from those 150 pounds we harvested a little over 900 pounds of potatoes.  It is said that a good potato yield is a tenfold increase, so you get ten pounds of potatoes for every pound you plant.  If it had been a good year we would have harvested 1500 pounds of potatoes.  But can you imagine if we would sometime get a hundredfold increase in potatoes?  That 150 pounds of seed would then be 15,000 pounds of potatoes!  I don’t know what the food cupboard would do with so many!  I don’t think our harvesting equipment could handle it, let alone our volunteers pick them all up!

Let’s not turn this into a prosperity gospel though.  Jesus has no teachings where those who follow him are blessed by being healthy, wealthy, and wise.  Many people think that is what being blessed by God means.  But the abundance of the kingdom is the abundance of the kingdom in God’s terms.  Ideas of wealth and prosperity are our ideas, not God’s.  How many miserable rich and prosperous people are there?  A lot!

Let’s conclude by noting an evangelism part about the abundance of the kingdom.  The fields yield an abundant harvest, the lamp is put on the bushel to give light, the mustard seed grows into a large shrub providing shelter, and on it goes.  Notice how the abundance of the kingdom has a purpose and direction that benefits more than just the listener.  Evangelism is not about embarrassing yourself and your neighbors by inviting them to go to church with you.  Evangelism is a sharing of the abundance.  It is faith that is not turned in upon its own consumption.  Rather it is turned outward so that the blessing continues.

People have a hard time believing the truth.  So our job is to not only speak it, but to share it in such a way that others benefit from it.  Provide: light, shelter, food, blessings to others.  That is effective evangelism.  That is growing the kingdom in word and deed, and in language that many people will understand.

December 17, 2017 Advent 3 Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

The cover of our bulletin brings up the contrast between the love of power and the power of love.  That is the basic conflict in just about every story ever written.  It’s the basic premise of the Harry Potter book series.  And also the Hunger Games, and Divergent.  Disney cartoons from Snow White all the way to Aladdin, Mulan, and Frozen are all about the contrast between the power of love and the love of power.  With a new Star Wars movie coming out I’d better not ignore that.  I’ll bet just about anything that it’ll be about love and virtue overcoming evil.

            Who wants to read a book or watch a movie where power wins and love gets defeated?  Of course some stories are that way.  Look at The Diary of Anne Frank.  And yet, that book is only interesting because the Nazis lost the war. 

            The story of Jesus from beginning to end is about the conflict between the power of love and the love of power.

            Despite the fact that about the only kind of story we love is this kind of story it is a much harder reality to live out.  Most everyone thinks he or she is a basically good person, or tries to do what is right, but when it comes down to it the love of power usually wins in their lives.

            The love of power wins whenever a person’s chief aim in choosing a house is status it bestows upon the buyer; or when a person chooses a car mostly because of how it will make him or her look when driving it.  The same goes for clothing.  How many times have teenage girls said, “I don’t want to be seen in public wearing that!”  I have a colleague whose daughters, when they were teenagers, would only carry things in bags from the Gap.  They would certainly not carry anything in a bag from Walmart.  And they probably would have died of shame if they were forced to go in public with a bag from Kmart.

Boys are no better.  How many teenage boys at the height of cool go cruising the streets in minivans?  Adults are also no better.  At that business meeting when everyone puts their cell phones on the table don’t you check out what other people have; and then make a subtle judgement?  Admit it, you do!  What do you think of that person who whips out an old flip-phone?!?

This may not seem like the love of power, but it is.  It is about creating a preserving your image and status; in other words, your power.  No one wants to slip down.

The book of Isaiah had something to teach the people of that day, but they had a hard time getting it.  And it has something to teach us too, but we’ll also have a hard time getting it.  It is about how the power of love truly works and expands.

Last week I mentioned that the book of Isaiah was almost certainly not written by just one person.  Almost all biblical scholars agree that chapters 1 through 39 are based on the teachings and writings of the historical prophet Isaiah.  His writings come from the time between 740 and 701 B.C.  That is the time period when ten of the northern tribes of Israel were destroyed by the Assyrian Empire.  Only two southern tribes were left with the city of Jerusalem as the capitol.  It was a tense time for the Jews.  They were too weak to defend themselves against the mighty empires that surrounded them, for there was also Egypt threatening from the south.  Isaiah exhorted the Jewish leaders that they should trust God because God had promised to divinely protect Jerusalem forever.  That sounds like a good teaching, and it was, but it also led to arrogance, the idea that God would protect Jerusalem no matter what.

A century later the Babylonian Empire had grown in the east and it not only threatened Jerusalem, but it 587 it destroyed Jerusalem and hauled off the Jewish leaders into exile in Babylon.  You’d have expected a small nation, only the size of a couple counties with a population of a few thousand, to go extinct.  But it didn’t.  Ironically it was in total loss and defeat that the Jews began to realize how big and powerful God really was.

If you look at Jewish writings prior to the destruction of Jerusalem they describe God as being their God, and while they understand God as being big and as the creator of the universe, it is still more limited than later writings.

When you hit chapter 40 in Isaiah you’re reading from a different author.  While there are connections to the historical prophet Isaiah, which is probably why these chapters were attached to Isaiah and didn’t become their own independent book, the understanding is bigger.  Ironically, in dealing with economic collapse, loss of the Davidic dynasty, and military conquest their view of God becomes bigger.  The only thing they have left is God, and that reveals greater things about God’s power and God’s love.  They begin to realize that while they are God’s chosen people, the world is not about them.  Rather, God will use them as a vehicle to work in the whole world.  They start to see God’s work as being cosmic, and God holding everything together.  As the Jews see themselves as smaller they start to see God as bigger.

The first week of Advent we read from the original prophet Isaiah.  Last week we read from this second author in Isaiah.  His work goes up through chapter 55.  This week we’re reading from a third author whose work covers the rest of Isaiah.  He is writing from an even later time period.  By this time the Babylonian Empire has be destroyed by the Persian Empire.  The Persians allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it.  The Jews have spent decades in exile.  An entire new generation has arisen.  It should be a time of rejoicing and restoration, but it is not.  Corruption is back.  Pagan practices are back.  Work on the temple and the city is slow and stumbling.  Nothing has improved!  Plus, the Babylonians did allow some people to remain in Jerusalem, mostly poor and weak people not worth hauling off.  Even so, those who remained have scraped out a living.  Now they aren’t too happy about all these people coming back and wanting to rebuild the city, upending all that they have created to survive.

Do you have a friend or family member or maybe a co-worker that whenever they show up they completely upend all that you had planned?  That’s what the people who stayed felt about those coming back.

Where was this blessed time of peace and prosperity and restoration that the second author in Isaiah wrote about?  Is God still failing them?

            You can guess what happens.  In this third author in Isaiah they realize God is even bigger.  They realize that God is not only interested in saving Jerusalem and the Jewish people, God is at work saving the entire world.  The entire way of living called the love of power will be destroyed and the power of love will prevail.

            This will all be done by God, not by people.  Prior to our verses we read for today we find this in Isaiah 59:15b-18, “The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him.  He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as a mantle.  According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital.”

            Notice God does the work, not people.  Notice how God dresses himself as a warrior for battle.  Now contrast that with our verses where the prophet says, “…for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.”  God is again doing the dressing, and it is dressing the faithful people for a celebration.

            God’s work.  God’s celebration.  This is the power of love overcoming the love of power.  As the ancient Jews discovered their incapability they became aware of God’s capability.  God’s full capability would not be seen for a few more centuries, when Jesus is crucified.  Then we see the true power of love.

            The love of power is easy to see.  It is intoxicating and all of us fall victim to it, at least from time to time.  The power of love is sometimes almost impossible to see.  Yet its great strength is there always.  It is God’s way.  May we, like the ancient Jews before us, recognize God’s enormous power and tendency to work in unpredictable ways.  And then trust in that so that we too can be dressed by God for celebration as God’s ultimate victory comes.

December 10, 2017 Advent 2 Isaiah 40:1-11

Feeling anxious?  You have every right to!  Christmas is coming up.  You’ve got lots to do.  Plus there’s plenty on the news to worry about: wildfires and natural disasters, North Korea’s missile program, the proposed changes to the federal tax code, health care legislation, and the seemingly endless stream of executives or public persons going down on sexual harassment charges.  Then there’s the greater social tension of our nation dividing itself into groups of political ideology and being unable to listen to each other, let alone work together.  What should you worry about, and what shouldn’t you worry about?   And how do you know what’s true and what’s not.  Sometimes even the truth gets skewed into absurdity. 

It happened decades ago, but the 1950 senatorial primary campaign in Florida is a great example.  Incumbent Claude Pepper was opposed by George Smathers.  Pepper was especially strong in the “Bible belt” or northern part of Florida.  To shake the hold Pepper had on these people Smathers developed a special speech making use of certain facts:  Pepper was a Harvard Law School graduate.  He had a niece who was a member of a Senate subcommittee.  And he had a sister who was an actress in New York.

His speech went something like this, “Are you aware, my friends, that in his youth Claude Pepper was found matriculating in Harvard, that before marriage he habitually indulged in celibacy.  Not only that, he was practicing nepotism in Washington with his own niece; and he has a sister who is a thespian in wicked Greenwich Village.  Worst of all, my friends, Claude Pepper is known all over Washington for his latent tendency toward overt extraversion!”

It was all true.  It was all compliments!  But the way you say it changes the tone entirely.

What’s true?  What’s not?  And there’s more than national affairs to make you anxious.  As individuals we have our own livelihoods to worry about, our own children to worry about, our own health and wellbeing to worry about.  There are family dynamics and tensions.  There are financial challenges, and on and on can go the list.  Enter then the prophecy we read from Isaiah 40.

Usually when I preach about a text I tell you to pay close attention to the text.  Don’t overlook important details, and don’t bring to the text all sorts of assumptions that aren’t there.  But in the case of this one you probably understood it more clearly if you weren’t really paying attention!

The details of this are confusing and a little bizarre.  Perhaps the biggest is in verse 2 when it says, “[Jerusalem] has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

What does this mean that God would be demanding double payment for sins?  Talk about something to make you anxious!  How cruel could God be?  Biblical scholars go all over the place on this one.  Many try to find a root to it in the religious laws.  Others try to say it’s a bad translation and that the Hebrew root word really is intended to mean more completeness than double.  I even pulled out my commentary on Isaiah published in 1852 to find out what they said about it!

Most scholars say not to get too worked about it, that it passage is more of a poem than a literal teaching and the author is just using the word double as a literary flourish.

Once you’ve swallowed that pill there are plenty of others.  Let’s look at one other in the text.  God says that all people are like grass, their constancy is like the flowers of a field. Is that an insult? 

Commentators go all over the place with that one too.  But in the end most agree that it is best to take a step back from the text and just let the whole thing, troubling parts and all, speak to us tenderly.  After all, it is intended to be a prophecy of peace.

In this busy season with: shopping and cards and decorating and baking and parties and concerts and all sorts of things it all seems important and everyone in anxious.  A message of peace would be nice.

But a message of peace can go two ways.  Let’s also be aware that not everyone is busy this time of year.  I think this is the time of year that if you’re too busy you wish you could take a break.  But if you are someone who is not busy at this time of year – if you have no one to shop for, and no one to see your decorations, and no one to write cards to, and no concerts or parties to attend, and no one to cook for, you start to think something is wrong with you, or wrong with your life.

Last week I was visiting one of our members who lives in a nursing home.  In one of the big central rooms there was a small band playing and singing all sorts of Christmas carols.  They were singing with great gusto, and the nursing home staff were trying to be as energetic as possible, but nearly all the residents just stared off into space, taking in nothing.  I do remember one old lady enthusiastically stomping her foot on the footrest of her wheelchair.  And there were a few people nodding along in time to the music, but otherwise there was no response.  Not even music therapy could spread Christmas cheer there. 

For many of those residents Christmas probably meant an extra visit from their children who lived nearby.  Maybe a grandchild in college would stop in to say high while he or she was home on Christmas break, and maybe bring a flower or a card.  It was a memory care unit, so many of the residents aren’t even aware that it’s Christmas.  On the whole it was a pretty depressing scene.  I credit the staff and the band for doing their best, but what was the point?

At that moment I was glad to be too busy, but the scene also creates anxiety for the future.

Too busy… not busy enough… anxiety everywhere… the world’s always in a tail spin.  Let’s let that ongoing reality really sink in. 

Then Isaiah speaks, “Comfort, O comfort my people says your God.”  Prepare the way of the Lord, make a smooth place.  God is at work and God is coming.  The biggest, grandest, most important plans and accomplishments of our lives are to God nothing more permanent than the flowers in a field.  Our constancy is like grass which withers.

We are nothing, and all that we worry about is nothing compared to God.  The word of our God will stand forever Isaiah says.  God comes with might, true might, mightier than any earthly arsenal than can ever be put together.  At the same time Isaiah tells us that God will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom.

Though we are nothing, our mighty God claims us and keeps us.  Too busy, not busy enough, the world endlessly going crazy, God is here.  God is at work.  God is in charge.

That is the perspective Isaiah wanted his original readers to have.  And that is the perspective we should have too.  There are many things to be anxious about in life.  Anxiety can be a good thing sometimes.  But ultimately let God be the anxious one.  And we instead hear the words of Isaiah as he speaks that our lives can be ones of calmness, wholeness and peace when we can trust things to God.

December 3, 2017 Advent 1 Isaiah 11:1-10

            The cover of our bulletin has the artwork called “The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks.  It is a famous painting and you may have seen it before.  The original hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.  It is based on Isaiah 11:1-10 which we had for our first Bible reading today.  It’s small and hard to see the details, but in the foreground you find an image from the second half of our reading.  There is a wolf beside a lamb.  A leopard and kid are lying down together.  A cow and a bear are grazing.  A lion and ox are eating straw.  A little child is playing over the hole of a snake.

            In the background is something to make my Pennsylvania roots swell with pride.  The background is an American expression of the first half of the passage.  The first half of the passage talks about a righteous ruler who governs with wisdom and understanding, with counsel and might, and with the spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  And so depicted in the background is William Penn Jr., the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania.  He is kneeling.  With him are other English citizens, fully dressed and with hats.  Penn is kneeling before a group of Delaware Indians, who are also dressed in official attire and wearing head pieces.  The scene depicts Penn buying part of Pennsylvania from the Indians.  This is historically accurate in that Penn would buy land from the Indians, then sell it to settlers; then use that money to buy more land from the Indians and so own.  My own family was one of the original settlers that moved into the Susquehanna River area purchased in 1701.  And as you may know, there are no Indian reservations in Pennsylvania and no Indian land claims.

            William Penn Jr. was one of those rare leaders who had incredible power yet embodied the spirit of Isaiah 11.  Penn’s reputation was that he was first and foremost kind and peacemaking, as his Quaker beliefs required him to be.  Yet he was also a solid businessman.  He knew how to make deals.  He knew how to keep order and he knew how to administer discipline.

            Would that our political leaders today lived by those same principles, but all too few do in any of our political parties.  Yet as Penn demonstrated, it can be done.

            These are the same principles we want to live by.  As Christians we read of the peaceable kingdom in Isaiah 11 and we say that it points to Christ.  Indeed Jesus did fulfill it.  So let’s look at it so that when we are in a position of power or leadership over others, we know how to lead in a Godly way.

            It starts off: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  Biblical scholars believe this portrayal comes out of the period of the Syro-Ephraimite war in the 8^th Century B.C.  You’ll remember that Jesse was the father of King David.  After the war the Davidic dynasty appeared a mere stump compared to its enemies.  We learn that God can pull great leadership from seemingly small and weak places.  You don’t need an exquisite education, a fine pedigree and all the right connections in order to be great and effective in God’s work.

            While Jesus could claim a bloodline to David he did not have a formal education.  He was not rich and he was not well connected.  None of his disciples were either.  We should never think ourselves incapable just because life didn’t give us the perceived advantages of some.

            The verse goes on, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him…”  Here the word spirit is the same Hebrew word used in Genesis 1:2 to talk about the spirit of God in the work of creation.  The idea is that a leader’s inspiration comes from God’s own spirit, God’s own creative purposes.

            That’s a sweet thought, but one that is hard to feel.  Most every person feels that his or her faith is too weak, or not up to the task.  Rarely do people feel a confident sense of God’s presence and inspiration in their lives.  The good thing for us is that the text goes on to describe that spirit.  So for those many times when we doubt or don’t feel it we can still know how to live it.

            According to Isaiah the spirit of the Lord endows a faithful leader with three pairs of gifts: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and the knowledge and fear of the Lord.  Those words might sound familiar to you.  We pray them over our confirmands when we confirm them and every time we do an Affirmation of Baptism service.

            It only takes a few moments’ worth of contemplation to realize what these gifts are intended to do.  A wise and understanding leader is able to face reality and deal with it fairly, including politics and law. 

            The spirit of counsel and might refers to diplomatic and military judgment and authority.  Those who think the world is a safe and sweet place are kidding themselves.  Jesus is often portrayed as a sweet and kind guy.  Indeed he probably was.  But he could also be forceful.  He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple.  He verbally conflicted with the religious leaders on many occasions.  He challenged people, refused some people, and called many people into dangerous situations.  Having faith in God does not mean one becomes a cream puff for life.  And when you are in leadership you should have the courage to use force when necessary, but also the resourcefulness to be able to avoid it.

            William Penn Jr.’s great city of Philadelphia was first built without any walls or defenses.  Why?  Because unlike other colonies Penn worked with the Indians and made sure they had all the rights and privileges of a fair legal system.  If you were a European looking to move to the New World Pennsylvania looked pretty sweet.  It was safe.  Plus, places like Philadelphia could be built much faster and cheaper if defense wasn’t a constant worry.  Penn could be forceful, but he knew how to create a situation where it was unlikely to be needed.

            And the third pair of gifts are knowledge and fear of the Lord.  I want no leader – whether it be in business or politics or religion who does not have some fear of God.  This doesn’t have to be a trembling fear, but it does have to be the fear that causes respect in the face of ultimate power.

            When a pastor is ordained he or she is reminded that one day her or she must be ready to give account to God for what they do in ministry.  While God is gracious, loving and forgiving, that does not give leaders the license to exploit.  Leaders in business, politics and religion are not less likely to become arrogant and greedy if they truly respect God.

            And while we’re talking about real leadership let’s also remember something very important as we look at this from the point of view of Christ – that is, incarnation.  Remember, incarnation means God coming to earth in human form and fully embodying his form.

            I want to conclude with this clip from the radio program On Being which WXXI airs on its AM station on Sunday mornings.  In last Sunday’s show the host, Krista Tippett, interviewed Jesuit Priest Greg Boyle, who works with gang members in Los Angeles.  I think it speaks to how Jesus relates as a leader. 

Ms. Tippett: What your ministry so bespeaks is this incarnational heart of Christianity, but that it always comes down to relationship between people — that that’s where we discover God, as well.

Fr. Boyle: Well, it’s relational, but it’s also — I think we’re afraid of the incarnation. And part of it, the fear that drives us is that we have to have our sacred in a certain way: It has to be gold-plated, and cost of millions and cast of thousands or something, I don’t know. And so we’ve wrestled the cup out of Jesus’s hand, and we’ve replaced it with a chalice, because who doesn’t know that a chalice is more sacred than a cup, never mind that Jesus didn’t use a chalice?

And a story I tell in the book about a homie who was — on Christmas Day, I said, “What’d you do on Christmas?” And he was an orphan, and abandoned and abused by his parents, and worked for me in our graffiti crew. And I said, “What’d you do for Christmas?” “Oh, just right here.” I said, “Alone?” And he said, “No, I invited six other guys from the graffiti crew who didn’t had no place to go,” he said. “And they were all…” He named them, and they were enemies with each other. I said, “What’d you do?” He goes, “You’re not gonna believe it. I cooked a turkey.”

[laughter]

I said, “Well, how’d you prepare the turkey?” He says, “Well, you know, ghetto-style.” And I said, “No, I don’t think I’m familiar with that recipe.” And he said, “Well, you rub it with a gang of butter, and you squeeze two limones on it, and you put salt and pepper, put it in the oven. Tasted proper,” he said. I said, “Wow. Well, what else did you have besides turkey?” “Well, that’s it, just turkey.”

[laughter]

“Yeah, the seven of us, we just sat in the kitchen, staring at the oven, waiting for the turkey to be done. Did I mention it tasted proper?” I said, “Yeah, you did.”

[laughter]

So what could be more sacred than seven orphans, enemies, rivals, sitting in a kitchen, waiting for a turkey to be done? Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred. He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, and that’s the incarnation, I think.

Greg Boyle didn’t intend to speak of the peaceable kingdom, but that’s it.  Enemies gathered around to share, held together by our Lord, our Lord who creates, sustains, and saves.  And may we always be gathered in the same.

November 26, 2017 Christ the King Sunday Matthew 25:31-46

            Some time ago a person who is not a member of our church asked me what my thoughts were on apocatastasis.  Now, maybe you use that word on a daily basis, and if you do, good for you… I guess.  But I replied that the first thing I have to do is to look up what apocatastasis means!

Now I could have pulled out my phone and looked it up, but I was hesitant.  In matters of theological terms I don’t trust Google.  I like to turn to stodgy old textbooks and dictionaries.  Google is too often wrong, and also other books are often wrong. 

This may seem like an aside, but it will be relevant in a couple minutes, with all our Reformation celebrations in the last few months I saw a posting in the Sunday School wing about the five solas in Lutheran thinking, and they were linked to the Luther’s Rose symbol.  Five solas?  No.  There are only three: sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura.  Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.  But online people will tell you there are five.  They add Christ alone, and sola deo gloria, which means, “To God alone be the glory.”  And not just online.  I’ve seen a children’s book that lists five also. 

You have to be able to go to the raw sources if you want to be right.  Even Wikipedia notes that the extra two solas are not supportable.

Anyhow, so I turn my Handbook of Theological Terms to apocatastasis and read this, “a Greek word referring to the final and complete salvation of all beings.  It suggests universal redemption or universalism.”  The idea developed in Christianity in the second century by church leaders who could not believe that if God was loving he wouldn’t condemn anyone to eternal punishment.  In other words, everyone goes to heaven regardless.  This is a key teaching in the Unitarian Universalist Church.

The idea of apocatastasis is both supported by scripture and rejected by scripture.  In support we have passages like Ephesians 1:9-10, “With all wisdom and insight God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

            But of course there are other passages like our gospel reading today.  Some go to heaven.  Some go to eternal punishment.  The Matthew scene is a frightening one.  But what is perhaps the most disconcerting about it is that it contradicts the idea of the three solas: grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.  From the Matthew text it looks like not only is it all about doing the right works to earn God’s pleasure, things like grace and faith have no part!  If all we had was Jesus’ words in Matthew we’d have to teach that salvation come exclusively by helping the poor and needy.  That is a mess too!

            After doing a bit of research I got back to this person saying I don’t know.  (How’s that for a professional answer!?!)  And truthfully we don’t know.  It is God’s business, not our own.  In regards to salvation this is what we teach.  We know we are loved by God and we live in confidence in that love.  That confidence drives and shapes our lives.  As for those who from our perspective appear to be outside of God’s love, or who reject God’s love, we just can’t speak.  As St. Paul wrote, “It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?”

            So how should we understand Jesus’ teaching in our gospel?  Commentator Eugene Boring says that we should not force our gospel writer Matthew to be more consistent than he is.  We spent the first half of this year reading through Matthew’s gospel and you may remember that it is full of contradictions.  In fact, teaching in contradictions is a technique often used in ancient Hebrew thought.  That doesn’t do much for you if you want a concrete answer, but some things don’t have concrete answers.

            If someone asks you, do you believe in universal salvation; or do you believe God eternally punishes some people for their wrongdoing on earth? they’re actually asking an entrapping question.  They’ve gotten the whole idea of life and salvation wrong.

            My kids used to like playing Mario Kart with a neighbor boy.  And if you’re familiar with that game there are twelve competitors in each race.  The fastest six characters seem happy and cheer when the race is over.  The slowest six seem sad and moan and groan.  The neighbor boy used to call it the, “happy cut.”  If you at least made the top six you should be happy.

            Questions like heaven and hell and who goes where make an artificial distinction.  They’re asking who made the happy cut.  And being the humans we are, we’re going to try to leverage it.

            I remember guys in college asking, “What’s the least I can do yet still get a passing grade?”  That’s missing the point of the course!  The point of the course is not about passing.  The point of the course is to learn and to be effective.  Passing or failing just shows whether you understand the material or not.

            Life is not about doing the minimal amount necessary to get to heaven.  Life is about knowing you are loved by God, and then you live out that love.

            In the weakness of our faith I think we all ask ourselves the heaven or hell question.  But a deepening and maturing faith stops asking the question, because it isn’t a real distinction at all.  Simply trust God and live in that trust.  God will work out the rest.  Live in trust and all the judgment stuff that Jesus talked about in our gospel reading will automatically be taken care of.  The faithful ones even answer Jesus that they didn’t know that what they were doing was actually serving him.

            Thanksgiving was last Thursday and I asked myself what I am thankful for.  I can list a lot of things, but central to the things I am thankful for are things like my ability to work, my ability to learn, and my ability to grow.  I realize that the things I value the most in life are not things that have come cheap or been free.  They are things I have worked and worked hard to have.  Somehow in working for something you invest a part of yourself in it.  Because of that you appreciate it more.  If I were to win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes I don’t know what I’d do with the money.  Many people would be thrilled to be able to buy just about anything they wanted for the rest of their lives.  I don’t think I’d be so happy.  I’d have lost appreciation for all that I get.  It wouldn’t cost anything.

            I think our ability to work and to earn and to grow are actually examples of God’s grace.  God doesn’t make life easy for us.  That would deny us appreciation, and it would make our lives meaningless.

            If God miraculously solved all the world’s problems simply because we prayed about them then this would be a pretty pointless life.  Instead we have meaningful work to do.  It costs us.  It hurts us sometimes.  We do things right and we do things wrong.  We don’t see that work as getting us to heaven and keeping us from hell.  That work is shaping our identity and making us stronger and deeper.

            May you do for others not for the purpose of buying God’s favor so you make the happy cut after you die.  May you do for others because you realize God has empowered you to do for others, and like God, you do not overlook the broken parts of the world around you.

November 12, 2017 Joseph's Coat Genesis 37

It seems like everyone has seen the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  The only thing is, what does the Bible say about that amazing coat?  Was it actually colorful?  No, the distinguishing characteristic of it was long sleeves, not colors!

            The idea that the coat was colorful came about because of a mistranslation from Greek.  And that mistranslation happened 500 years ago and it can be traced to the source, one man – Martin Luther.  When Luther was translating the Old Testament into German he found it difficult to know how to translate what Joseph’s coat was like.  What was distinguishing about it was that it had long sleeves.  So what?!?  Luther’s writing to Germans.  Winters are cold.  Everyone’s coat has long sleeves!  But what people don’t have is colorful clothing.  Only rich and powerful people have colorful coats.  A colorful coat was a sign of leadership and power.  The long sleeved coat that Joseph was actually given was a sign of power in his day.  It was a sign of authority in the family and leadership.

            Do you remember the parable of the Prodigal Son?  What does the father do when the prodigal returns?  He commands the servants to bring out a robe, the best one, and put it on him, and put a ring on his finger.  The robe would have been a long sleeved robe and the ring was the signet ring used to seal official documents.  All of this conveyed authority in the family.  That is why the faithful brother is so jealous.

            It is this priority and leadership Luther wanted to convey in his translation.  And a father giving his son a long sleeved coat just wasn’t going to cut it in Germany.  Somehow though Joseph’s colorful coat has caught people’s imaginations for centuries.

We’ve stepped away from Genesis for several weeks so let’s remind ourselves of the family dynamics that have led to Joseph getting a special coat from Jacob, his father.  You’ll remember that Jacob is far from a perfect man, but in later life he starts to show some courage.  He was tricked into marrying his first wife, Leah.  His really loved his second wife, Rachel.  But Leah could have children and Rachel couldn’t; at least not at first.  In competition and jealousy Leah and Rachel throw their maids into the mix, and by the time we get to our story today Rachel has died giving birth to Benjamin, the youngest of all the children; and Jacob’s had a total of twelve sons and one daughter to four different women.  The true firstborn is Reuben.  He is the first son of Jacob’s first wife, Leah.  Joseph is the firstborn of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel.  You’ll note that both Joseph and Reuben had a part in today’s story.

The Bible’s story is far more complex than the musical it inspired.  But we should not be surprised that the ten brothers older than Joseph are jealous of his position.  Is he daddy’s favorite only because of his mother, or is he truly of superior moral character than the rest?  As the story goes on we’ll discover that he is truly better, but that all the other brothers aren’t the same.  Even in today’s story we learn that Reuben doesn’t want to kill Joseph, but he doesn’t want to stand up to his brothers either.  It is interesting because you’d expect Reuben to be the most jealous.  He is, after all, the true firstborn.  He should be getting the special coat.  In the end Reuben though comes off being spineless.  He participates in the deceit of destroying the coat and smearing it with goat blood.

The brother Judah also stands out for being scheming and seeing a way to make a profit for selling Joseph, rather than killing him.

No family is perfect.  I’d say this one is as messed up as it can get, except we meet the Herod family in the New Testament and they’re even worse!

Anyway, what to make of all this…

What stands out the most to me is something that I find still existing strong in human nature.  People can be very tolerant of an opposing viewpoint or something they disagree with, but only until it starts to hurt their bottom line.  The other brothers certainly did not like Joseph.  They could tell he was daddy’s favorite but they didn’t do anything about it.  However, when Joseph receives the coat which proves his superior status then it is time to take action.

Last week I brought this up to the confirmation class.  I used the example of Martin Luther and the 95 Theses.  Don’t for a minute think that one day Luther got mad at what he was seeing in the church and suddenly decided to post his complaints and immediately the church went wild.  No, Luther had been preaching against the sale of indulgences for years.  And in September of 1517 he released what he called Disputations Against Scholastic Theology.  These 97 theses were far more challenging to the church than the famous 95 Theses he posted on October 31^st of 1517.  But no one responded to Disputations Against Scholastic Theology, and it has largely been forgotten. 

Why did the 95 Theses stick, while a more shocking document earlier didn’t?  Because Disputations Against Scholastic Theology didn’t hurt anybody’s wallet!  The 95 Theses only got Luther into trouble because Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Mainz, was in desperate need of cash.  The 95 Theses ruined his fundraising campaign.  Otherwise the 95 Theses would have been ignored as yet another silly theological rant by an over-zealous monk stuck in his own righteousness.

I told the confirmation class that they should always stand up for what is right.  But that they will probably be ignored until standing up for what is right starts to impact someone’s wallet or their power or their public image.  Then watch out!

It happens every day.  We know what is right and what is wrong.  We like to think we’ll choose what is right, but that gets hard when it starts to cost us.  Sexual harassment has been in the news a lot lately.  I certainly hope you’re not guilty of it, but when you see it happening do you do anything about it?  Maybe, maybe not.  I have a feeling that for most people they will consider the cost to themselves or their careers when they decide whether to do anything about it.  If there’s no cost, then standing up against it isn’t hard.  But if you know it’ll cost you your job or an advancement then you think twice.

Racism is another big issue.  The entire membership of this congregation is categorized as either white or Asian/Pacific Islander.  We don’t experience racial discrimination as a group.  It’s an issue for us, but not one that really hurts us.  My colleague Imani O’Lear, the black pastor at Reformation Lutheran Church is only one of two black pastors in our conference.  She leads excellent presentations and workshops about racial issues.  I’ve thought about bringing her here to do one.  But how many people would actually come?  I’m sure you’d appreciate what she does and you’d be impressed if I had her do something during worship time.  But of course she’s a pastor and she has her own church on Sunday mornings.  If I scheduled something some other time would you feel a pressing need to make time for it in your schedule?  Maybe, maybe not.  The point is, you can afford to ignore it.  If violent racial riots erupted in Ontario County and several of your homes were vandalized and people were killed you’d have a different approach.

There is so much brokenness in the world.  We pray “thy kingdom come” but it is so easy to not do anything about it. 

Now there’s nothing wrong with living in a nice and safe community.  And there is wisdom to knowing when to fight and when not to fight.  But it is very easy to cross the line into doing nothing about an injustice because it doesn’t impact you, or if doing something will hurt you.

Remember, we are children of God.  That is our first and our last identity and it is our identity every day of our lives.  Let us not be selfish weaklings who go through life seeing only to ourselves and avoiding all conflicts except those that directly impact us.  Let us use being children of God with boldness and confidence, knowing that God is by our side.  Next week we’ll again look at Joseph, then we’ll see he’s become a powerful man who could seek revenge against his brothers.  We’ll see that his brothers have not changed.  Not surprisingly though, Joseph will stay true to what is godly and right, even though it brings him no benefit.

November 5, 2017 All Saints Sunday 1 Corinthians 15:35-44

                I love this line from Mark Twain, “I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.”  Hmm, you can take that any number of ways. 

                On All Saints Sunday we remember those who have died and gone on before us, and we also consider our own mortality.  I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, “I plan to live forever.  So far so good.”  But of course that only works for a while. 

                The way we consider our mortality and death changes as we go through life.  Little children take a very simplistic view, like dying is just a long nap.  Adolescents tend to think they will live forever.  They act and drive like it too.  Young adults become a bit more introspective but they see it as something that is still too far off to worry about.  Middle age people consider their mortality more, but they still see death as being decades off.  In senior citizens I see a variety of responses.  Some deny it.  Some see death as looming ever closer.  Some, like Harry Braunlich, say they refuse to buy more than one or two bananas at a time lest they not live long enough to eat them.  I know senior citizens who would go to the post office and only buy enough stamps to mail what they had to mail that day, lest they die and the stamps go to waste.  I roll my eyes thinking that someone is sure to use the stamps.  And who really cares whether they get used or not!

                My colleague Mary Johnson used to be a hospice chaplain.  She says that typically as a person approaches death their priorities change.  Many day to day things that they used to think were important aren’t so important anymore.  The traffic, or getting to appointments on time, or how the Bills season is going, or the stock market, or how many likes their post received on Facebook doesn’t matter anymore.  They are focused on deeper and more significant issues.

                When I’m visiting someone in the hospital I sometimes look out the window and see all the people scurrying around in their day to day tasks, all of it seeming so important at that moment, but not really so in the grand scheme of things.

                And yet not everyone who is about to die has deep thoughts.  I remember working with one person who was endlessly concerned that her income taxes would be filed correctly and on time.  I imagined the IRS having a special operating room where they have auditors gathered and they endlessly revive people until they pay their taxes!

                William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania said, “He that lives to forever, never fears dying.”  It’s a noble thought, but one that is hard to live into.  Death is the great mystery.  It is something we all must face sooner or later; but what is it like?

                Our gospel reading was the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  They speak of a great reversal of fortune for many who are suffering now.  The text from Revelation shares a great vision.  A vast multitude from every nation is gathered around the throne and the Lamb crying out praises to God.  We are told they will never hunger any more or thirst any more.  The sun will not strike them nor any scorching heat, and God will away every tear from their eyes.  It is a wonderful vision and sounds great.  But if you think about it for a while you start to have questions.  Do I really want to stand around the throne of God and sing praises to God forever and ever?   That doesn’t sound like fun.  Plus, how narcissistic can God be?!?  And if you are like me, doesn’t everything get boring after a while?

                By the time my one grandfather died, well into his eighties, he developed the sense that he had seen what he wanted to see in life and done what he wanted to do in life, and he was ready to die.  He wasn’t depressed or anything and he didn’t become a recluse, just things of this life no longer attracted him. 

                Eternity is a long time.  Just about anything is sure to become boring.  I love a meal of prime rib, potatoes, grilled vegetables, a nice glass of wine, and hot apple pie with ice cream for dessert.  But to have that every meal forever and I’m going to get sick of it!

                What is eternal life, resurrection life like?  If we are to be as William Penn suggests, living to forever, what does that mean?  If we are to look forward to God’s promises and use them to help us get through the hard times of today, then it would be good if we had a clear and solid sense of that.  The more clearly I can imagine a good future the more able I am to get through a tough time now.

You can search the Bible all you want.  You won’t get definitive answers.  Eternal life is simply something beyond what we can comprehend.  I suppose we could call it unimaginably good.  That might be good news for you, but I still want more.  I want something more concrete to understand. 

I think St. Paul was trying to help the Corinthian Christians with just that when he wrote what we read as our second lesson today.  He doesn’t give an answer.  That would be impossible.  But he does try to describe what God is really up to.

He uses the image of a seed and the way the seed contains all that is needed to grow a plant, but the plant and the seed may not look at all alike.  While no image is perfect, Paul’s image here is powerful.  Throughout Christian history people have said that things in this life don’t really matter.  Not so.  If this world and this life really don’t matter at all then why the crucifixion?  Jesus could have just come a been a teacher that told everybody to be nice and good to each other and that would be that.  No, this life is vitally important.  Just like a seed is vitally important to grow the plant.  And so, we, the seed, will be transformed but still recognizable in a further stage of existence. 

Paul’s writing also teaches us something else.  Salvation is not just an individual act between God and ourselves.  Salvation is a cosmic undertaking on God’s behalf. 

St. Paul understood that everything had a body, and that nothing exists outside of a body.  He doesn’t mean just people but all creatures and all plants, and the air and the ground and the water and the whole planet and the moon and the stars; and if he had known about them, whole galaxies. 

All of those bodies are seeds.  All of them are part of God’s cosmic work of salvation.  We think ourselves pretty high and mighty if we think God is at work just saving us and the people we love; or saving our lifestyles.  We are kidding ourselves is we think that heaven is like living forever at Disney World with no lines and no waiting. 

God’s salvation isn’t about making you happy forever.  While God certainly considers you worthwhile, God is at work saving the entire universe.  Somehow, someway, every blade of grass your lawn mower has ever cut and every fly you’ve ever swatted is part of God’s redeeming work.

Now I have absolutely no idea how mosquitoes will have a place in heaven, but they are part of God’s work of salvation.

Perhaps the best way for us to live out the promise of eternity is to not think about ourselves.  I think people make a mistake if they think something like, “I have to suffer now so that God will reward me later.”  That is pure nonsense.  Better to think that the world is broken.  You are suffering and if you are suffering and there is a way out of it then take that way.  And in so doing you help to ease the brokenness of creation.

When you think about heaven and eternity think about God’s great work, and pray to find ways to engage in it.  That will bring about satisfaction this day and in every day to come.  God is not saving the universe alone.  God has equipped your body to help.