02-14-2021 Flat on Their Faces

Thomas J Parlette

“Flat on Their Faces”

Mark 9: 2-9

2/14/21

It’s always interesting when a secular holiday coincides with a Sunday – especially today when we have a religious holy day to celebrate. It’s impossible not to acknowledge that today is Valentine’s Day. I hope everybody remembered that. You’re probably in trouble if you forgot. If you’re not sure, perhaps you’d be interested in this list that someone compiled and posted online called “How to Tell if You Forgot Valentine’s Day:

1)   Hallmark calls, offering discounts on apology cards.

2)   Your kids tell you Mom “went to bed early” … and “locked the door” … while you were taking out the trash.

3)   You wake up with a florist’s ad taped to your forehead.

So I hope you remembered Valentine’s Day. But in church life, the liturgical calendar takes precedent – and today we celebrate the Transfiguration. Today we journey to the mountaintop with Jesus and three of his disciples where they have an unforgettable experience.

 The Transfiguration is one of the central stories of Jesus’ life. All three synoptic Gospels tell this story, in remarkably similar ways – although I confess, I do prefer Matthew’s telling. In Matthew, the disciples fall face down on the ground because they are so terrified at hearing the voice of God speak. I’ve always loved that little detail, but Mark doesn’t mention it. Mark just says they looked around and didn’t see anyone. A little anti-climactic, I think. I like the falling flat on their faces reaction. That seems more in line with the moment.

 An unknown author tells about another mountaintop experience. A group of mountain climbers set out to conquer a tall mountain. One member of their group was making his first really big mountain ascent.

The climb was a tough one, but at last they reached the small plateau at the top of the mountain. The inexperienced climber was so excited that he immediately sprang to his feet, raised his arms in the air and shouted, “I did it.”

 Just then a strong gust of wind nearly blew him off the mountain. The experienced climbers had a good laugh at this, then explained to him that when you get to the top of a really high mountain, you never stand straight up, rather you drop to your knees to avoid being blown off the mountain.(1)

 That’s a good lesson when it comes to mountaintop experiences – go to your knees, or maybe, fall flat on your face.

 Chapters 8 and 9 of Mark’s gospel contain some of the most important events in the New Testament. Chapter 8 starts off with the feeding of the 4,000 and ends with Peter declaring that Jesus is the Messiah – and then Jesus predicts his own death.

 The disciples were shocked and confused when Jesus said he must suffer and die. This wasn’t what they were expecting at all. So at the beginning of Chapter 9, Jesus gathered his inner circle of Peter, James and John and up the mountain they went – to get a little private time, and maybe the disciples thought they could get a better explanation out of Jesus.

 There was no way the disciples could have prepared for what would take place on the top of that mountain. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was transfigured, in the presence of his three closest disciples, according to Matthew, Jesus’ face became as bright as the sun, and Mark tells us his clothes became dazzling white and Luke relates each of those details as well.

 As if this weren’t enough, the disciples saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had been dead for hundreds of years. These two great figures of Israel represented the Law, and the Prophets, the sources of authority in Jewish life.

 Peter, as usual, has something to say. All three Gospels tell us that Peter said, “Rabbi it’s good for us to be here. Let’s put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

 Then a cloud rolled in, covering them all – and a voice speaks, identifying Jesus as God’s son, and instructing the disciples to “listen to him.” And the disciples were so overwhelmed with fear and awe that they fell flat on their faces.

 It was such a striking experience that the disciples would remember their time on the mountaintop for the rest of their lives. Years later, Peter wrote in his second epistle, “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory… We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” It’s not hard to imagine what an impact this mountaintop experience had on the disciples. They were kneeling in the presence of God’s Son, and the voice of God spoke.

 Jon Tal Murphree in his book, Made to be Mastered, tells about the impact that walking on the moon had on two of America’s astronauts. For one of them he says, “Moon walking had been his greatest goal in life, and he labored tirelessly toward achieving that goal. But once it was attained, he explained, there was no higher goal and he became disillusioned. He lost his ambition and his drive. Finally, he suffered an emotional breakdown.”

For another astronaut, however, the moon visit meant something totally different. In his autobiography, To Rule the Night, James Irwin wrote, “As we flew into space, we had a new sense of ourselves, of the earth and of the nearness to God. We were outside ordinary reality; I sensed the beginning of some sort of deep change taking place inside me.”

 Irwin continued, “The ultimate effect has been to deepen and strengthen all the religious insight I ever had… On the moon the total picture of the power of God and his Son Jesus Christ became abundantly clear to me.”(2)

 Who could not be affected by walking on the surface of the moon? And who wouldn’t be affected by being in the presence of Christ as his divinity came into focus?

 But the time came for Jesus and his three disciples to come down off the mountain. As Peter, James and John descended, they pondered the significance of what they had just experienced. I like to think they walked along in silence as they processed everything they had just witnessed.

 On the way down, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone about this time on the mountain, at least not now. Save it, says Jesus until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

 The time to share this experience would come – but just not yet. The time wasn’t right. Keep it to yourselves for now. Jesus knew that he and the disciples still had work to do. That’s why they couldn’t stay on the mountain.

 Theologian Henry Drummond says, “God does not make mountains in order to be inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the mountaintops. It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don’t live there. We don’t tarry there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.”(3)

 Dwight L. Moody, an American evangelist in the 1800’s, once wrote about meeting a man who testified that he had “lived on the Mount of Transfiguration” for 5 years. I suppose he meant that he had lived in the presence of Jesus for that long.

Moody asked him, “How many souls have you led to the healing light of Christ?”

The man said, “I don’t know.”

“Have you saved anyone from the pit of despair or the sting of death?”

“I can’t say that I have,” said the man.

“Well, that’s not the kind of mountain top experience that makes any difference,” Moody said. “When we get so high that we can’t reach down to other people, there is something wrong.”(4)

 Jesus told the three disciples with him on the Mount of Transfiguration that they were to keep silent about what they had seen until after he was resurrected from the grave. Then, there were to tell everyone. After the resurrection, the streams of the Holy Spirit would quickly descend and gladden the valleys below.

And that’s where we are this morning. In our time together today we’ve been with Jesus and those three disciples on the mountain top. In our minds and hearts, hopefully been flat on our faces as the disciples were. Now that we are leaving this time of worship, it is our turn to witness with our lives as well as our speech that we have been in the presence of the transfigured Christ – the Son of God, the Savior of the World. Immanuel – God with us.

 May God be praised. Amen.

 1.           Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No.1, p32.

2.           Ibid… p34.

3.           Homileticsonline, retrieved 1/26/21.

4.           Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVII, No1, p34.

02-07-2021 The Wonder of Awe

Rev. Jay Rowland

Isaiah 40:21-31

February 7, 2021, First Presbyterian Church, Rochester MN.

This sermon utilizes commentary material, some of it verbatim, published by Doug Bratt https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/epiphany-5b-2/?type=old_testament_lectionary

THE WONDER OF AWE

Sooner or later, we all encounter situations in life which cause us to feel abandoned or defeated, or convinced that we face this life all alone … situations which tempt us to doubt that God cares about us; situations which at first seem so final or which make the present and future appear so bleak that we wonder, what’s the point of praying or trusting God anymore.

Sooner or later, we encounter situations also, moments when we feel small or insignificant in a more hopeful way. Like, for instance, a moment when we’re hushed by the brilliant colors of a sunset, or the silent mystery of the Northern Lights, or standing near the ocean or Lake Superior feeling and hearing the power of the surf.

I recall a time at my parents’ lake place many years ago, it was a completely calm, moonless night. I pushed a canoe out into the middle of the lake. I could feel it before I looked up to behold it: the vast Milky Way above me--immense and glorious. Beneath me the sound of the lake lapping at my canoe. I was in awe of the beauty enveloping me, the unmistakable feeling of a Living, Benevolent Presence—whispering to my soul a quiet assurance of God’s care, God’s goodness, God’s readiness to make a way, come what may.

Perhaps you’ve had moments like that, fleeting moments of profound peace and beauty … seeing God’s fingerprints upon Creation and feeling in awe, feeling the wonder of awe, sensing the presence of God in that moment.

This passage from the Prophet Isaiah highlights such wonder as a way to minister to suffering Israel on God’s behalf. The prophet turns to the creative power of poetry to describe God’s goodness and beauty visible in creation. Isaiah is trying to encourage a demoralized people who feel forgotten, abandoned by God. Israel was overrun by Babylon, the superpower of the ancient world. Their best and brightest neighbors and citizens were forcibly exported to live in that foreign, pagan culture year after year after year. It’s been so long they feel like life back in Jerusalem was only a dream, standing in the sacred space of the Temple worshiping together. The long years of exile in Babylon have put them into what I imagine to be a functional sort of trance--going through the motions, doing their best to tend to birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, births and deaths, meaningful milestones and rituals, etc., but always with a sick feeling in the pit of their gut.

That’s how I see it as I contend with the sick feeling in the pit of my gut, a constant companion these many long days and months of pandemic. I imagine what God’s people living in exile in Babylon must have felt, as I often do, that they were losing (or lost) whatever capacity for endurance they once had—as if running in a marathon where the finish line keeps moving further away. Did they feel, as we often have, worn down by being continually forced to compromise, continually making unbearable choices between “bad” and “not good” amid unrelenting instability and uncertainty.

Into this weariness, Isaiah boldly reframes their reality *and ours* by reminding them *and us* of God’s wonder. Isaiah assures us that God both knows about and sees everything. Everything. And, furthermore, that God helps tired, weary and weak people like the Israelites, you and me. (Bratt) If so, perhaps we are left to wonder whether or not our God is then willing to help us?! To which Isaiah again insists that God loves to help people who feel abandoned, forgotten, left behind, overlooked, overwhelmed.

While “most of us naturally want to do something to fix whatever’s wrong with our world, and with those we love and who love us. You and I, however, can’t fix [most] of the things that make us most weary and weak.” Perhaps we can find ways to temporarily revive our energy, but only God can give strength that lasts to those who “hope in the Lord.” (Bratt)

Our predicament, it seems, is waiting for God to work in our lives and world yet not passively, not with our collective head in our hands, but rather with the expectation that God is moving now to revive us and even use us to help revive our world and its people. After all, Isaiah insists that, as surely as God created the “ends of the earth,” God “increases the power of the weak.”

And we are weakened to be sure. It’s exhausting to reconcile this pandemic, and the lurking catastrophe of climate change, and the ongoing political and racial turmoil with God as described here by and through Isaiah. Or perhaps it’s more honest to admit how much our fears, our doubts, our worries can become irreconcilable with faith in our caring God.

God declares through the prophet Isaiah (here in chapter 40), that those who rely on the Lord shall find that help. If doubt clings too strongly, go beneath a starry-filled sky one night soon, maybe tonight. Look up and feel.

We know that God doesn’t simply just take away the world’s overwhelming problems. But I have learned that what God does give, in abundance, is spiritual stamina needed to endure and deal with these problems. God helps vulnerable people like us to keep on keepin’ on--to keep on living, to keep on caring, lest we tire of caring, lest we give up on caring. God lends us God’s own inextinguishable hope and energy, and tenacity, all that is needed to walk these long and winding roads of hardship without growing too weak, to run toward that moving finish line without becoming too weary to try anymore.

Which seems to me to be the most dangerous predicament of all. These crises we’re enduring can and do deplete us spiritually. The danger is that we can become so depleted or defeated that we become effectively blind to the beauty that remains ever-present all around us in so many ways, in so many beautiful people in our lives.

There is no fairy tale happy ending ahead of us. But that doesn’t mean God doesn’t care or that God refuses to help us, or that has abdicated being God. It doesn’t mean that God is being somehow being blocked or overpowered by some other force in the universe.

The prophet Isaiah refuses to engage in naiveté … no frivolous guarantees that God will suddenly just make all this suffering simply disappear. Instead, Isaiah reminds us of the sheer beauty of God, the sheer power of God’s love and God’s Creation, God’s creative power which heals and transforms ... and which has always lead us through every difficulty, every hardship, every crisis. The Creative Power and Beauty of our God who gave us the dazzling stars will make a way where there is no way visible to us in our weariness and grief.

In the meantime, we look for and remember the awe and wonder of God’s glorious creation. Remember the starry sky above, the rushing waters, the wonder of snowfall and the evocative stillness of winter nights. To know God’s character is to be in awe of God’s character. God’s presence with us, Emmanuel, “God-with-us” gives us daily provision and the hope-filled energy needed to see us through this present suffering come what may. Jesus himself will be our nourishment for the journey: given to us in this small piece of bread, with this simple cup. Together let us partake of the beauty that is God with us and follow in the wonder of awe.

01-24-2021 I Am Zebedee

Thomas J Parlette

“I Am Zebedee”

Mark 1: 14-20

1/24/21

I am Zebedee. I’m a fisherman. I own a little fishing business here in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. It’s a lake really, but we call it a sea, even though you can see the other shore on a clear day.

My family has lived here in this area for generations. We’ve always been fishermen. That’s one of the most common ways to make a living in Capernaum. We have some carpenters in town, some bakers, some people who make clothing and sandals, farmers and shepherds too. But my family have always been fishermen. I grew up learning the trade from my father. He taught me where the fish were likely to be at what time of day. He taught me how to cast the nets and how to haul them in without falling overboard. Nothing more embarrassing for a professional fisherman than falling overboard! He taught me how to make repairs to the boat when I needed to, and of course, how to mend the nets. We do a lot of that. After every catch is hauled in, it seems we get another tear in the net. So we spend a lot of late mornings and afternoons sitting on the beach weaving rope together and tying off knots to fix the holes in our nets. Most days it’s a pretty nice way to spend your time – sunshine, a breeze coming in off the water, something worthwhile to do. I spent a lot of time talking to my father and my brothers about the ins and outs of life while we sat on that beach.

So as I grew up and my father handed the business over to me, I was thrilled when my own sons were old enough to start working with me. They started coming out on the water when they were pretty young – they were always big, strong boys. They were forever wrestling and rough-housing – you know how boys are. They had a bit of a reputation around Capernaum. “Loud” and “Boisterous” would be the words most people would use. And they’re boyhood friend, Simon, was the same way. The three of them together would rush head long into things, not giving a thought to the consequences. More than once I had to give them a stern talking to – but they were good boys. Their hearts were in the right place.

I loved those days when they were just learning the trade with me. I passed down my knowledge to them just like me father had down for me. How to keep your eyes on the water to see the shadows that might mean a school of fish, how to position your partner on the hillside on shore to see what you could not, how to recognize a change in the wind or the clouds that might mean a storm was rolling in. That was an important skill on the Sea of Galilee – weather could change in a flash and all of a sudden a squall would roll in and you are just hanging on in the midst of three feet white caps. That might not sound like much, but in our little boat, that was a big deal! It was easy to fall overboard or capsize. Things happen fast on the Sea, even if it is really a lake.

But my favorite times were onshore, sitting around a little fire, eating some fresh caught fish, usually carp or tilapia. We would mend our nets, rib each other about the events on the water and laugh a lot. Every so often things would get serious and I would talk to them about the young ladies of the village – their mother and I always had our eyes peeled for who might be a suitable wife for our sons. We would talk about the future and how one day the business would go to them. I remember they would glance at each other and look away without saying a word. I never said anything to them, but I always had a vague suspicion that they might want something more than a simple life on the water in my beloved Capernaum. Just a feeling I sometimes had.

Then one day, there he was. I had heard stories about this teacher who had created quite a stir in a synagogue in Nazareth, about 30 miles away. He had just recently come to town. We were all a bit wary of this guy – who was he? Why was he here? What did he want? And then… there he was… by the shore of the Sea.

His first stop was up the beach a bit where we could overhear him talking to Simon and his brother, Andrew. Sound carries around the lake, it’s easier to hear what everyone is saying. I remember what he said like it was yesterday – “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Fish for people – yea right, what does that even mean? I scoffed a little under my breath at this teacher they called Jesus. But then I could see him coming our way. We were sitting there in our boat, working on our nets with a couple of other guys from the village I had hired for the day. Jesus says “Follow me…” My boys glanced at each other, took a beat – and then put down the net, hopped out of the boat and started walking down the beach with Simon, Andrew and Jesus.

I couldn’t believe it! I was flabbergasted. At first, I couldn’t say a word. I stood up in the boat and shouted after them – “Where do you think you’re going! You can’t just up and leave! What about the business! I need you.” But they just kept walking.

At first, I was angry. How could they do this! I could understand Simon being taken in by a smooth talking prophet – he was always a little rash – but I thought my boys had more sense than that. I thought they wanted to take over my business, make a good life for themselves. Guess I was wrong. After my anger subsided, I just felt sad. I felt abandoned. I was afraid of what the future held for my sons.

I felt like that for a couple of days. I lost my appetite. I couldn’t bring myself to go fishing. I couldn’t do much of anything. I would just sit outside the house and whittle a piece of wood.

One day, a friend of mine from the village stopped by to see me. He had heard what had happened on the beach – everybody in the village knew, everybody talks so everyone knows everybody’s business. He knew I was having a hard time with this, so he stopped by to see me.

He told me about a dream he once had. He dreamed he was laying on his deathbed, close to dying. All around his bed were ghostly figures representing all the potential life choices he could have chosen, but didn’t. Ghosts of wasted potential. Gifts and talents and opportunities that he had never acted on. And these ghosts were angry. They were angry because their presence had been wasted on him. All that potential – wasted! One of the ghosts glared down at him and said, “We came to you because you could have brought us to life. And now we go to the grave together.”(1)

I thought to myself, what a terrifying dream!

And then my friend suggested, “Maybe the boys felt those ghosts hovering around them and they didn’t want to waste this opportunity to follow Jesus.”

I didn’t sleep much that night. Or the night after. But then one morning, I took a long walk in the countryside to clear my head. Maybe my friend had a point. Maybe James and his little brother John needed to go off and take a new opportunity, a new adventure to fulfill their potential. Maybe they felt this prophet Jesus met a need they needed to fill.

I was mulling this over when I met a young traveler on the road. We stopped on the path, sat down in the shade of an olive tree and shared a drink of water. He was on his way to Jerusalem to find a job and make a life for himself. His family were farmers and not doing well, so he wanted to go into business in Jerusalem, maybe become a merchant or something, so he could send money home to his family. Then he said something I’ll never forget. Something I needed to hear as I pondered my son’s life choices. This young traveler said, “A good provider is One who leaves.”(2)

Initially that made no sense to me. I had always thought that a good provider stays – a good provider sticks around, stays with what he knows, plays it safe and makes the family business work. A good provider doesn’t leave – a good provider stays put.

But this young man pointed out that he wasn’t running away from his life – he was running towards something better. It was risky, yes. It was going to be rough and uncomfortable for a while. He was probably going to be in over his head for a time, living out of his comfort zone. But he was confident that road would lead him somewhere better. And if he wanted to be a good provider, this is what he needed to do.

We parted company – he went his way, I went mine. I thought about what he said as I walked home to Capernaum. A good provider is one who leaves. The idea stuck in my head. Then I thought, maybe that applies to being a disciple as well. When you commit to following someone, to be a disciple, you commit to leave your work to serve somewhere else. Maybe a good disciple is also one who leaves the comfortable for the uncomfortable. Maybe a good disciple is the one who leaves the familiar for the unfamiliar. Maybe the good disciple is one who leaves?

That’s what my boys James and John had done, along with their buddies Simon and Andrew. They left what they knew to follow one who offered them more.

I felt much more at peace when I got home. I slept better than I had in days. And when I got up in the morning, I was finally ready to get on the water again and catch some fish.

By the way, the boys did come back to Capernaum with Jesus and a few other guys. They stayed for awhile, living out of Simon’s house. Jesus did some pretty amazing things. He was a great teacher, I will give him that. And he was a gifted healer as well. He healed Simon’s mother-in-law and a bunch of other people around town, including one local guy who was possessed by a demon.

But then they left, as good disciples do. And they travelled all over Galilee. I will miss my sons, James and John. But I understand their choice and I wish them well. They go with my blessing.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Based on a story in Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, p19.

2. Based on a story in HomileticsOnline, retrieved 12/28/2020.

01-17-2021 A Village with a Poor Reputation

Thomas J Parlette

“A Village with a Poor Reputation”

John 1: 43-51

1/17/21

According to a recent report from the BBC News, inhabitants of a village in northern Nigeria are celebrating to renaming of their village. The old name of the town was “Area of Idiots.” I understand the desire for a name change. So the new name of the village is “Area of Plenty”- definitely an improvement.

The local emir announced the name change after residents complained that they had been mocked for years because of that name. Who could blame them – would you want to tell people you come from “Area of Idiots.” Of course not. The village had gotten this unfortunate name because there is a river that flows near town called the Idiotic River. It is not clear why the river has that name – but that’s where the name of the village originally came from.(1)

Being a naturally curious person, I did a little research on my google machine and found some other interesting, and unfortunate names for towns right here in the United States. How would like to come from Nothing, Arizona? Or Nowhere, Colorado? Or Hell for Certain, Kentucky? How would you like to tell people you are moving to Boogertown, North Carolina? Or Boring, Oregon? All real places.

But my favorite of these unusual town names is probably Uncertain, Texas. The rumor is that in the 1960’s, a public official filed the paperwork with the State of Texas to move from being a village to a town, and he wrote in “Uncertain” next to the name, because a vote hadn’t been taken yet on the new name. But the State official in charge of such things didn’t read the application very closely, so that became the official name – Uncertain, Texas. An unfortunate name – but it could have been worse. He could have written in “To Be Determined,” I guess. Not as catchy as Uncertain. Still people might wonder if anything good can come from Uncertain.

In our scripture lesson for today, a man named Philip has just encountered Jesus and has been bowled over by him. He, in turn, reaches out to a friend, Nathanael, and tells him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth?” Nathanael scoffs. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Obviously, Nathanael wasn’t very impressed with Nazareth. While it doesn’t have an embarrassing name like Boogertown or Boring, there was obviously nothing impressive about Nazareth. And yet, Nazareth was chosen by God as the village where God’s own Son would spend his childhood. That’s the kind of thing God loves to do – take an unimpressive village or an unimpressive person and do extraordinary things through them.

On some level, Nazareth deserved its poor reputation. Remember when Jesus preached his first sermon here? In Luke’s gospel, he tells us that it was in the synagogue, on the Sabbath. Jesus stood up to read and opened the scroll to the prophet Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind. To set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll and sat down. At first, everyone was very impressed with Jesus. But then the sermon took a twist – Jesus said to them “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.”

We’re not sure why Jesus spoke in such an insulting way to his hometown synagogue – maybe there were lingering rumors about his birth, maybe he was teased or bullied as a child. But whatever the reason may have been, the people in the synagogue were aghast. They were furious at what Jesus had to say. They drove him out of town, right to the edge of a cliff, where they intended to throw him over the edge.

I’m sure there are a lot of churches that have been tempted to throw their pastor off a cliff, but fortunately, I’ve never heard of it happening. And I’m happy to say, it didn’t happen in Nazareth that day either. Jesus just walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Luke doesn’t include many details to explain why this confrontation occurred, but it’s hard to feel sorry for Nazareth. There were obviously some hot heads in town. Throwing someone off a cliff over an unpopular sermon is a bit extreme in any time and place. Still, there must have been some positive things about Nazareth for Mary and Joseph to settle down there – small town life does have its advantages.

One of our takeaways from that story is the fact that Jesus didn’t please everyone. Not everyone who heard Jesus or encountered him in the street was thrilled with everything he did and said. Just goes to show that if you think you can sail through life with no one criticizing you, no opposition, no one making catty remarks about you every once in awhile – well, eventually you are in for a rude awakening. Not even Jesus could please everyone.

The important thing was that he stayed true to his values. Do you think everyone in town agreed with him when he said turn the other cheek? Do you think people liked it when he used Samaritans – the very people his neighbors despised the most – as heroes in any of his stories? Do you think everybody liked his teachings on wealth? No they did not.

And that’s still true today. In many ways, Paul is easier to preach on, he’s far less controversial. Let the preacher stay in the Epistles or the Old Testament. Let’s not struggle with Jesus’s teachings. They clash too much with our culture’s views on life.

But Jesus stayed true to his values – even when people got upset. Even when they threatened to throw him off a cliff or nailed him to cross. Now you expect that of Jesus, don’t you? He is the Son of God – you expect him to practice what he preaches, right. But the question this text asks – do you expect it from yourself as well?

There is a classic story told of a Baptist church that was seeking to hire a new pastor. In Baptist churches a search committee visits several churches to listen to prospective pastors preach, and then invites the pastor that best meets their needs to come preach for the whole congregation. Then the congregation votes on whether to hire the pastor – very similar to our call process in the Presbyterian Church in a lot of ways.

This particular church invited a pastor so chosen to come preach for them. Afterwards, a vote was taken and the committee informed the pastor that he was hired. Later, one of the members said to the pastor the vote was “almost unanimous.” This alarmed the newly hired pastor, and he asked, “What was the vote?” and he was told 230 “yes” and 2 votes “no”.

Well, this so disturbed the new pastor that he spent the first six months trying to find out who the two no votes were. When he finally figured it out, he spent the next six month trying to please those two people. At the end of the year, the church voted again and fired the new pastor. This time the vote was 230 to fire him and to votes to keep him. You can probably guess who wanted to keep that pastor – the two he worked so hard to please – which, of course upset everyone else in the congregation.(2)

That pastor was not called to make two people happy. He was called to minister to everyone in that congregation. If he had stayed true to his values and treated the two dissenters like he treated everyone else, then his ministry would have been more productive.

Jesus stayed true to his values. He was sent by God to demonstrate a new way of living which he termed the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ goal was plant the seeds of that Kingdom in every heart. He never wandered from that path. And because Jesus stayed true, one third of the world calls him Lord.

It’s interesting how this story ends. Nathanael discovers just what can come out of Nazareth.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one that Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

          “Nazareth?! Can anything good come from there.”

          “Come and see,” said Philip.

          When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

          That’s interesting. With just a glance, Jesus sizes up Nathanael and recognizes that here is a person who is true to his values. Jesus appreciates people of character and integrity.

          “How do you know me?” asks Nathanael.

          “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

          And this is enough for Nathanael to take a step beyond simple integrity. He commits to a purpose. He declares, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are king of Israel.”

          And with that, Nathanael becomes a follower of Jesus. He discovered who Jesus really was and he wanted to follow him. Jesus already knew everything about Nathanael. He knew he wanted Nathanael on his team. All Nathanael had to do was “Yes.”

Apparently something good CAN from Nazareth.

And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.                Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, p15.

2.                Ibid… p17

01-10-2021 Baptism Identity

Baptism Identity

Rev. Jay Rowland

Mark 1:4-11

Baptism of the Lord, January 10, 2021, First Presbyterian Church, Rochester MN.

This sermon utilizes material, some of it verbatim, published by John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus (pp. 19-21), and by Peter Lockhart, "Jesus’ Baptism" Reflections on Faith and Spirituality, 2012, https://revplockhart.blogspot.com/2012/01/?m=0

As has happened too often in recent months, something upsetting has happened … again.  Something has seized our attention, the attention of our nation and the attention of many around the world.

The scene in Washington DC on Wednesday, the day of Epiphany, diverted our attention from anything else we were concerned about.  As if the ongoing crisis of the global pandemic and deadly resurgence weren’t enough, … as if previous months of racial and civil and political upheaval were not already overwhelming … what we saw on Wednesday afternoon and evening was indeed an Epiphany of sorts: surreal images of an angry mob invading the Capitol building, smashing and grabbing and fighting their way past police … storming the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives in an attempted coup.  

Anything I had planned to say prior to Wednesday now seems somewhat untimely, like whatever I say will sound something like, “Meanwhile, back in Nazareth of Galilee ... “ and that feels naive … unworldly.

But perhaps whatever’s “going on” back in Scripture compared with the chaos going on around us is not so untimely. Perhaps it’s critically important. Perhaps the Gospel comes to us for just such a time as this, able to powerfully re-calibrate our attention to reality through the presentation of the overarching Story within which--under which--our story is forever unfolding. And so it is that …

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole (Judean) countryside and all the people (of Jerusalem) were going out to (John), and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. … In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “you are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:4-5;9-11

The importance of Mark’s brief description of what was then and continues to be a world-changing event is somewhat camouflaged, hidden between the lines of what Mark presumes his ancient audience understood implicitly about identity and kinship and matters of paternity and community. 

To help us see what they saw and understood, I turn to Biblical scholar John Pilch and his work, The Cultural World of Jesus (quotation marks below indicate words belonging to Pilch). Pilch points out something I never previously saw: that when Jesus goes to John (to the Jordan River) just outside of Jerusalem this in itself is almost literally a matter of life and death:

“In the ancient Mediterranean world (because) it was impossible to prove who was the actual father of a child ... only when a father acknowledged a baby as his own did that boy or girl truly become a (legitimate) son or daughter.” 

“And we know that even though Mary was not pregnant by Joseph, when Joseph agrees to wed her, he publicly acknowledges that Jesus is his son and embeds Jesus into his family to give Jesus honorable standing and a secure setting in which to live.“ … In the ancient Mediterranean world, family of origin is everything. An Individual has no identity or meaningful existence apart from family. “… a person not embedded in a family is as good as dead.”

And so when Jesus leaves behind family and village to go to John in Jerusalem he is taking a great risk. He is, practically speaking, cutting himself off from his family, abolishing his prior identity, declaring himself dead for all intents and purposes in society.

“The circumstances of the baptism of Jesus provide an immediate answer to this startling situation. A voice calling out from the torn-open heavens declares Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, beloved and highly pleasing to God, (the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth …)”. The term torn-open heavens isn’t fanciful language, it declares that this is a public event. Otherwise this experience is merely personal to Jesus, meaningless to wider society.”

 “But Mark does not mention crowds or any witnesses. So who else hears God’s declaration? Who will acknowledge and confirm this public claim to honorable status for Jesus? Mark … expects those who hear and read the gospel to recognize the exalted source of Jesus’ honor and provide the required confirmation. That is, his original followers, and so on down to you and I who are expected to recognize Jesus’ identity as the Beloved and pleasing Son of God.”

 And so, Jesus’ baptism of repentance is not a baptism for his sake but for ours, on our behalf, for our sake. Jesus does need to turn back to God, we do. … This is why our own baptisms ... are so important: because they signify that our lives are drawn into Jesus’ own baptism and our lives are now shaped by being baptized people who in Christ and by God’s grace are turned back to God, not through our action of turning towards God but [through] Jesus.  (Lockhart)

 It is not for Jesus’ own sake that the Spirit is seen descending like a dove but for all who testify to God’s love. The Holy Spirit shares in the life of God just as Jesus the Christ accommodates the Spirit into his own fleshly life. It is in the sharing of this life that the Spirit of God is then poured out after Jesus’ death into his disciples and then among all peoples drawing all into Jesus and by the Spirit into sharing in God’s own life. (Lockhart)

 What is occurring in and through Jesus is no less than the re-creation of the world! …  just as the Spirit hovered over the waters at the moment of creation (Genesis 1:1-5) so too the Spirit hovered over Mary’s womb … and now today over Jesus’ baptism.  (Lockhart)

This is the story of God’s decision and action in and through Jesus Christ to renew Creation. It is a story bigger than any of our personal experiences yet compassionate and aware enough to draw in our personal experiences into that grand narrative of God’s love for the world. (Lockhart)  Including our experience of living during a global pandemic, witnessing an attempted coup in Washington DC after months and months of political and civil and racial upheaval…

Jesus’ baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit point to the reality of God. It is a promise of God’s intention not simply for those who may have seen or heard that John baptized Jesus but for you and me and all of God’s Creation.

The act of Jesus’ baptism is a decisive act revealing God’s love and grace for all the world.  In the same way that Jesus’ baptism declares God’s love and action in the world, so too our gathering as baptized people here today--be it digital or physical--declares that God is in charge, keeping the world with all its calamity and chaos.

For we live in a world that continues to live and act as if there is no God.  And so, our gathering and the gathering of congregations everywhere—whether it be digital or physical--declare by Jesus’ repentance our resistance against the forces of chaos in our midst.  Our worship today celebrates the promise and hope for all creation: Everything shall be made new! We are people of this new creation as we have a foretaste of all nations at peace with God and one another. (Lockhart)

In this, the church is that which it signifies, it is the beginning of the new creation. We did not and do not make this new creation; we cannot offer any word to the world; nor any other salvation to the world other than one already given in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension. (Lockhart)

We are to be a light to the nations not because we behave or live as people returned to God but because we live acknowledging the One who turned back to God on our behalf and in whose life we share by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (Lockhart)

Our purpose in being the church is none other this: to point away from ourselves and the powers and principalities of this world and point instead to the Author of our Salvation who has made us a light among the nations, just as the Israelites were to be a light among the nations. We exist as the church not for our own ends, not as ordinary social gatherings (Lockhart) … but to remind the world that God is and God has a future for the whole creation even when all we can see is chaos and human arrogance and death and despair.

In Jesus God has redeemed the world and has begun a new creation in which by grace and through the Holy Spirit you and I are already citizens!

Remember this as God with Holy wisdom and the Spirit guides us all into the living of these days.

01-03-2021 Don't Forget the Best

Thomas J Parlette

“Don’t Forget the Best”

Isaiah 60: 1-6

1/3/21

There is an ancient Scottish legend that tells the story of a shepherd boy tending a few straggling sheep on the side of a mountain. One day, as he cared for the sheep, he saw at his feet a beautiful flower – one that was more beautiful than any he had ever seen in his life. He knelt down and scooped up the flower very carefully and held it up close to gat a good look.

As he held the flower close to his face, suddenly he heard a noise and he looked up to see the great stone mountain opening up right before his eyes. As the sun began to shine on the inside of the mountain, he saw beautiful gems and precious metals sparkling in the sunlight.

With the flower in his hands, he walked inside. Laying the flower down, he began to gather all the gold and silver and diamonds he could carry. Finally, with his arms full, he turned and began to walk out of the great cavern, and suddenly a voice said, “Don’t forget the best.”

Thinking perhaps he had overlooked some great treasure, he turned around and picked up even more. His pockets were overflowing and his arms were straining to hold all the valuables as he walked slowly and carefully out of the mountainous vault. And again, he heard that voice, “Don’t forget the best.”

But this time he knew he could not carry another thing, so he walked outside. And as soon as his feet crossed the threshold, the treasure turned to dust. He looked around just in time to see the great stone mountain closing its doors again. And then he heard the voice for a third time – “You forgot the best. For the beautiful flower is the key to the vault of the mountain.”(1)

As we celebrate this first Sunday of the New Year, we don’t want to forget the best.

We don’t want to forget the joys we have shared – admittedly in a different way than we’re used to in this age of Covid. For some of you, there are great things to remember about this year. Maybe there was a wedding, a graduation, a new child or grandchild… There are many such events that even in a year as challenging as this last one, we will want to remember and cherish for a lifetime.

And of course, there are some events that we would just as soon forget – the closing of businesses, financial hardships, sickness, death, a divorce, the loss of a job… the list could go on. The late Charles Kuralt once observed, “There are three kinds of memories – good, bad and convenient.”(2)

He was right, of course. We don’t want to remember everything. There is an old Japanese proverb that goes like this: “My skirt with tears is always wet – I have forgotten to forget.” There are some things that ought to be forgotten. Certainly the hardships brought on by this pandemic is something we’d all like to forget.

Fortunately, our faith helps us deal with the good and the bad in life. And, as we make our way out of the Christmas season and into the year 2021, we may want to remember that story about the shepherd boy and mountain vault – we don’t want to forget the best.

John Wesley, the spiritual father of the Methodists, said on his deathbed: “The best is God with us.” The biblical word for that, of course, is Emmanuel.

God with us – what great news to take into the New Year. God is with us. Our problems and inadequacies seem to fade in the light of that staggering truth. God is with us – is there any obstacle in this world that we cannot surmount if that be true? God has come down. God is with us in the Christ Child of Bethlehem, and that is reason to rejoice. What Isaiah prophesied long ago has come about – “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you… the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” The Lord has come, the prophecy has come true – and there is reason to rejoice.

Isaiah’s vision of the glorious restoration of Jerusalem was probably originally intended to inspire returnees from exile, but for our modern ears, it is no less glorious. The Lord has come. God has come down. The prophecy has come true – and there is reason to be radiant, to rejoice and offer praise to God!

On May 9th, 1961, the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded a short piece at the Thirtieth Street Studio in New York. It is called “Charles Matthew Hallelujah,” a tune that burst into being the day Dave and Iola Brubeck’s sixth child was born.

That day Brubeck had stopped by the hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, on his way to a recording session in the city. When he arrived at the hospital, he learned that Iola had just given birth to their grand-finale son. When Brubeck finally arrived at the studio, he told the band the good news, went directly to the piano, and started playing.

Light notes announced the birth. The saxophone, bass and drums responded with joy. The song was inspired and recorded on the spot, but listening to it today we might think every note was meticulously placed and well rehearsed.

When she first heard the piece, Iola Brubeck said it sounded as if each band member was presenting her newborn with a gift. Three Kings of Jazz at the time – Paul Desmond on saxophone, Eugene Wright on bass, and Joe Morello on the drums – captured the joy of Epiphany that Isaiah foretold – “arise, Shine, your light has come… rejoice and praise the Lord.”(3)

A story told by the great Scottish preacher, Dr. Murdo Ewen MacDonald, captures the excitement in another way.

MacDonald was a prisoner of war in World War II, captured by the Germans. MacDonald learned about the invasion of Normandy and the events of D-Day in a most unforgettable way. Early in the morning as American shook him awake, shouting into his ears, “The Scotsman wants to see you – it’s terribly important.”

MacDonald ran over to the barbed wire fence that separated the British and the American camps, where a man named MacNeil, who was in touch with the BBC by underground radio, was waiting for him. He spoke just two words in Gaelic that translated to “They have come!”

MacDonald then ran back to the American camp and began waking up the soldiers. He said again and again, “They have come! They have come!” The reaction was incredible. Men jumped up and started to shout. They hugged each other. They rolled around on the ground. The Germans thought they were crazy. They were still prisoners – nothing had changed. But the soldiers knew that something was different. Their light had come. Allied troops had landed. Their deliverers were on the way. They have come!(4)

Soon after his birth, when the time was right, Jesus’ parents took him to the Temple in Jerusalem where they were met by an elderly priest named Simeon. Simeon sang out just as those soldiers had – “He has come! Now I can die in peace. He has come.” The best is, God is with us – our deliverer has come. A voice says to us today, “Don’t forget the best.”

Sir Walter Scott wrote an interesting novel which he titled “Old Mortality.” It was the last novel he ever wrote. In this book, he describes a character who lived in the middle of the 18th century, and he was nicknamed Old Mortality.

Old Mortality had a unique, but noble hobby which he had taken up late in his life. He rode about the countryside on his old horse, with a bag of tools and searched out the graves of the Old Scottish Covenanters, who had died a martyr’s death for their faith. The Covenanters were a Scottish Presbyterian movement that played an important role in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent that of England and Ireland during the 17th century.

When Old Mortality, whose given name was Robert Paterson, came upon one of these graves, he would scrape the moss from the tombstone. Where the carving had grown dim with wind and weather, he would sharpen the lines with his chisel and hammer. Where the stones had fallen over or disappeared, he would reset them.

It was only a hobby, but one which made him quite a character in the lowlands of Scotland, where it was said that not a single cemetery could be found in which his work had not been done. He wanted to make sure that no one forgot what these men and women had done.(5)

We should not forget either – we should not forget what God has done in Jesus Christ. Do not forget the best.

One final word as we enter this new year: As we remember the best perhaps we should make a new commitment in our own lives to seek our best and give our all – because after all, Jesus gave his all for all of us.

In 1907, in his parting address to the National Council of Congregational Churches, Washington Gladden urged his peers to see the church as a manifestation of Christ. For Gladden, one of the chief reasons for Christ’s life and for the life of the church was “to make men and women feel that the great joy of life… is the joy of service; to populate this world with a race of people whose central purpose shall be, not to GET as they can, but to GIVE as much as they can – this is what Jesus came into the world to do.”(6)

To give all we can… in praise of what God has given us. That’s what Isaiah says. That’s what the Kings did. That is our example – to give all we can in praise of what God has given us.

Dr. Leonard Sweet, in his book, Giving Blood, tells a wonderful story about one of the finest performers who ever graced America’s stages – the incomparable Judy Garland. He tells about a night in 1961 when 3,100 people packed Carnegie Hall to be a part of what is now known as “the greatest concert ever given.” Among those present for “Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall” were some names etched into our memories – Carol Channing, Rock Hudson, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda and Julie Andrews.

Everyone present that night knew that Judy Garland was the consummate performer – that she would sing until exhausted and depleted. Garland felt she owed everything she had to her audience.

In this concert she sang a remarkable 26 songs – giving her all in every one. A live album was made of her performance that went on to win 5 Grammys.

But Leonard Sweet was struck by something Garland did just before walking out on stage. She repeated to herself, and to anyone else who happened to be in earshot, an unusual mantra. “It was not the time honored ‘Break a leg’,” says Sweet. “But rather, it was this – ‘Time to give blood’.”(7)

Time to give blood. Certainly, if anyone ever “gave blood,” it was Jesus himself. And he did it for us. As we leave this Christmas season and begin a new year, may God help us not to forget the best – that God is with us. God who came to us in Jesus Christ and gave all for us, so we can give all we can to the world.

As we gather at the table today, let that be our prayer.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No.4, p75.

2. Ibid… p75.

3. Andrew Nagy-Benson, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, p194.

4. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No.4, p77.

5. Ibid… p77.

6. Andrew Nagy-Benson, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, p198.

7. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No.4, p78.

12-24-2020 PIctures of Christmas

Thomas J Parlette

“Pictures of Christmas”

Luke 2: 1-20

12/24, Christmas Eve

Tonight is a special night, as we await a special gift. For some that gift comes from Santa Claus. It used to be that you would mail a letter to Santa with a list of gifts you would like to receive. Macy’s department store used to be very helpful in this effort as they had those big red Santa mailboxes in all their stores – maybe they still do, it’s been awhile since I’ve been to a Macy’s.

But in our modern era, kids have taken to writing emails to Santa – much more efficient, although I don’t know what kind of internet access Santa gets at the North Pole. The means of communication might be different, but the requests remain remarkably similar.

For instance, 7 year-old Jon writes, “I’m sorry Santa, but I don’t have a chimney. But I’ll leave the cat flap unlocked for you, but watch out for the litter box!” Good advice.

Eight year-old Christian writes, “Mommy and Daddy say I haven’t been very good these past few days. How bad can I be before I lose my parents?” Good question. Future lawyer right there.

Or this, from Bruce, age 7, “I’m sorry for putting all that Ex-Lax in your milk last year, but I wasn’t sure you were real. Boy, my Dad was really mad.”(1) I bet he was.

Years ago, there was a cartoon in the Family Circus comic strip. A little girl is depicted standing on a chair and looking down into an open drawer. Behind her is a lovely creche’ scene. It’s obviously Christmas. But in the caption the little girl calls out, “We forgot to put the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve, Mom. He’s still in the drawer.”(2)

I hope that’s not the case in your household. I hope you haven’t left Jesus in the drawer. On this night, some gather in hopes of a gift from Santa. But we gather to celebrate the gift we receive from God – the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

I sometimes wish I could have been there on that first Christmas with my camera – don’t you? We could have filled our Facebook pages for sure.

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was Governor of Syria. And everyone went to their own town to register.”

Ah, yes, Caesar Augustus – that would be our first picture for this night. He’s the one who gets the ball rolling. Augustus assumed he was the most powerful man in the whole world – and he probably was. Roman coins even bore a graven image of Caesar Augustus. A caption on the coin read – “divi filius”, meaning “Son of God.” Romans believed that Augustus, the first of the Roman Emperors, was divine – conceived by a serpent as Augustus’ mother lay asleep in the Temple of Apollo.(3)

Augustus had thousands of Romans bow down at his name, tremble at his power: but he didn’t have a clue that in a few short years his reign would come to an end. Meanwhile, a boy was about to be born whose reign would last forever – King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Augustus had no idea that this baby born in the small town of Bethlehem in Judea was the true “divi filius”- Son of God.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Augustus played his part. It was his decree that put Mary and Joseph in the right place at the right time – in Bethlehem, to fulfill an ancient prophecy about the birth of the Messiah.

Augustus accomplished many fine things as the first Roman Emperor, among them the Pax Romana – Roman Peace, a largely peaceful period of two centuries in which Rome imposed order on a world long torn with conflict. He built roads and vastly expanded the empire. In fact, ironically, this allowed the spread of the Christian faith as the world became much more accessible thanks to the Roman network of Roadways. Augustus thought he was the most powerful person on Earth, in control of the whole world – and yet God was using him to accomplish the Divine mission of giving the world the gift of Jesus. That’s our first picture of Christmas – Caesar Augustus.

Our second picture is quite the contrast. It is the humble stable in which the newborn baby lay. It has always fascinated Christians that when God came down to Earth, God chose such simple surroundings.

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey tells of a visit Queen Elizabeth made to the United States. He says that reporters delighted in spelling out the logistics involved: for example, “her four thousand pounds of luggage included two outfits for every occasion”… For some reason she carried 40 pints of plasma – just in case she was in an accident, I suppose. Most unusual of all, the list included “white leather toilet seat covers. She also brought her own hairdresser, two valets and a host of attendees. A brief royal visit to a foreign country can easily cost twenty million dollars.”

Yancey adds, “In meek contrast, God’s visit to earth took place in animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn King but a feed trough. Indeed, the event that divided history and even our calendars, into two parts may have had more animal than human witnesses… ‘How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given’.”(4)

Professor Malcolm Tolbert once wrote an article asking and answering why Jesus was born in a stable. “Had Jesus been born in a mansion on the hilltop, few people would have felt welcome in His presence. But he was born in a barn – anyone can go there. The lowly shepherds did not hesitate to enter a stable and bow before the child. Then and now, anyone willing to humble themselves may come to Jesus.”(5)

So our second picture of Christmas is that simple stable with cattle and sheep and a humble couple with their newborn son.

The third picture is of shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flock by night. I’d like to capture that moment when the angel appears and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. What a moment! And the angel says perhaps the most important thing for us to hear – “Don’t be afraid – I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born! He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you – You will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

And then suddenly you would need a wide angle lens, as a great company of angels appear, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.”

It’s interesting that the first thing that an angel invariably says in these biblical encounters is “Don’t be afraid.” Fear is perhaps the most common emotion we have – fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of failure, fear of losing your job, fear of doing the wrong thing and embarrassing yourself - the list goes on and on, humans are a fearful breed.

The angels proclaiming a message of “Do not be afraid”, is one we all need to hear and take to heart.

Some of you may have the tradition of watching the popular TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas each year. Thankfully, Apple, who owns the copyright now, gave permission for it to be shown on network TV this year. James Moore, in his book Christmas Gifts That Won’t Break, tells about a beautiful moment toward the end of the program – a moment I’ve seen many times, but never really saw in this light before.

The scene, of course, is Linus, the fearful kid known for his security blanket that he carries with him everywhere he goes. Linus calls for a spotlight, and begins to recite the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke – but he adds a little bit of drama when he comes to the part about the shepherds receiving the news of Jesus’ birth. When he quotes the angel saying, “Fear not,” Linus tosses his blanket aside and finishes the story with both hands free so he can give gesture to the amazing announcement of the gift of love in the baby Jesus. I never really noticed that before. James Moore writes, “There are many messages of Christmas, but there is one that everybody in the story received as still receives today. And it is – Fear not. Don’t be afraid. It seems that everybody needed to hear it.”(6)

We do need to hear it. The world can be a scary place. But the world is far less scary to those who trust in the message of the Christ Child.

Three pictures – Caesar Augustus, the unsuspecting pawn in God’s grand plan; a humble stable where the true “divi filius,”- Son of God - was born; and the shepherds out in the field, watching over their flock, when an angel arrives to bring the Good News of Great Joy.

The Son of God has come to dwell with us. For to us, a child is born.

May God be praised. And shall we join together in prayer….

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, pg71.

2. Ibid… pg71.

3. Ibid…pg72

4. Ibid… pg72-73.

5. Ibid… pg73.

6. Ibid… pg74

12-20-2020 When Angels Come Calling

Thomas J Parlette

“When Angels Come Calling”

Luke 1: 26-38

12/20/20

In our Gospel passage for today, the angel Gabriel comes calling with an announcement to a young girl named Mary that will change the world forever. We wonder a lot about angels. I know several people who are convinced that they’ve had angelic encounters. I have no reason not to believe them. After all, nothing is impossible with God.

But we wonder all the same. Consider these interesting thoughts about angels from some young people aged 5-9.

Gregory, 5 years old has this to say, “I only know the names of two angels – Hark and Harold.”

Olive, aged 9 says, “Everybody’s got it all wrong. Angels don’t wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it.”

And Matthew, also 9 years old, reminds us that “It’s not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to heaven, and then there’s still the flight training to go through. And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes.”(1)

But today, we are concerned with one angel in particular – not Hark, or Harold, but rather Gabriel. Long ago, in a remote corner of this earth, God broke into our world through the voice of an angel named Gabriel. Gabriel came to a young woman named Mary.

As was the custom of the day, Mary’s parents made all the arrangements for her marriage. At the proper age she would marry Joseph, the local carpenter. The negotiations were made between Mary’s parents and Joseph’s parents with the couple having little say in the matter. Since Nazareth was a small village, Mary probably knew Joseph quite well already. Perhaps she had seen him working in his shop.

Then came the day when Mary and Joseph were betrothed to each other. Betrothal was a period of one year and was as binding as marriage. It was so official that, during this year, if Joseph died, Mary would be considered a widow.

One day as Mary was probably daydreaming about her upcoming marriage, she looked up and saw an angel standing before her. She was startled and a bit frightened. Mary never in a million years dreamed of being visited by an angel.

“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you,” Gabriel said to a frightened Mary. What an unusual way to begin – “Greetings favored one!” Why was she favored? Mary was just an ordinary girl, barely a teenager. There was nothing special about her, not that we know of. She didn’t come from a wealthy family. She wasn’t listed in the society pages of the Nazareth Times. No one outside of Nazareth had ever heard of her. She was just your average young woman.

Mary was confused, and Gabriel sensed her fear. He tried to comfort her, reassure her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.”

Mary didn’t realize it at the time, but God had chosen her for a very special purpose. “You will conceive and give birth to a son,” said Gabriel, “and you are to call him Jesus.” Mary was mystified. What could all this mean?

Mary listened to the angel’s words. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Still, Mary was bewildered – who wouldn’t be. “How can this be,” She asked, “since I am a virgin?”

And Gabriel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”

To satisfy her confusion about bearing a child and yet being a virgin, Gabriel reminded her that her cousin Elizabeth was far past the child-bearing age, but she was six months pregnant. This was God’s doing, the angel told her, for nothing is impossible with God.

At this point in the story, I think there was a long pause as Mary turned this over in her mind and considered the many ramifications of this announcement. She is a thirteen- year old girl after all, and this is life changing news! But she takes the angel at his word and believes him. She accepts her role in God’s divine plan. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” And Gabriel left. Mary believed Gabriel’s message, and they rest, as they say, is history.

Although we know very little about Mary and her family, we can assume that she was a devout Jew who had listened and believed the scripture lessons read at the local synagogue. Although she was certainly startled by the appearance of an angel, his words didn’t seem foreign to her. Deep in her heart she believed that one day the Messiah would come. She just never realized that she would be chosen to play a part in the Messiah’s birth.

It’s a beautiful story, one that will live in our hearts forever and teach us some things about the life of faith.

First of all, we see a young woman’s obedience to God. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” Mary says. “Let it be with me according to your word.”

When a pastor asked a class of boys and girls, “Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem?”, one boy raised his hand and relied, “Because his mother was there.”

True enough. Without Mary’s obedience to God, the Christmas story would be quite different. “Obedience,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “is the key to all doors.”

I once read about a remarkable young woman named Maria Dyer. Maria was born in 1837 in China where her parents were missionaries. Both of her parents died when Maria was a little girl, so she was sent back to England to be raised by an uncle.

Like her parents, Maria felt a call to be a missionary. So at age 16, she and her sister returned to China to work in a girl’s school there. Five years later, she married a well-known missionary named Hudson Taylor.

Life was not easy for the Taylor’s. Their ministry was harshly criticized and only four of their nine children survived into adulthood. Maria herself died of cholera when she was just 43. But she believed the cause was worthy of the sacrifice. On her grave stone these words were inscribed: “For her to live was Christ, and to die was gain.”

Pastor Paul Chappell makes this comment about the Taylor’s ministry. “In a day when many are self-absorbed and care more about what they can get rather than what they can give, we need a renewal of sacrificial love. It was God’s love for us that sent Jesus into the world to die for our sins, and it is that kind of giving love that our world needs so greatly today. When we love God as we should, our interests fade as we magnify God.”(2)

That was true of Hudson and Maria Taylor. Without obedient servants like the Taylors we would not have the Gospel today. Certainly without the obedience of a young woman named Mary we would not have the story of Christmas.

The second element of the story that endears the Christmas story to us is how God chose to work to accomplish this mission. God chose to work through the least and the lowest of people and places – reminding us of our responsibilities to the least and lowest as well.

Many of the deprived and outcast of this world identify in a special way with the Christ child who lay in a feeding trough for a bed and was attended by shepherds, donkeys, and cattle. Everything about Christ’s birth affirms God’s love for the least and the lowest.

Galilee, the region where Jesus grew up was sort of an Appalachia of its day – up in the hills, and a bit backward compared with Judea.

Nazareth, the village that Mary and Joseph called home had such a poor reputation that in John 1: 46, Nathaniel sums up its disrepute like this: “Nazareth?! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Even that little town where Jesus was born was not exactly a teeming metropolis. Bethlehem was the city of David, but as cities go, there wasn’t much to make it stand out. It was a small town not too far from the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Then there were the cattle and the shepherds and the bed of straw because there was no room for them anywhere else. How astonished Mary and Joseph would have been if they could see what Jesus’ humble birth means to us now, how it has morphed into a materialistic extravaganza. However, remember that the first Christmas was aimed at the humblest of people – it is a reminder that we who follow Jesus have a responsibility for those for whom life is a constant struggle. And there are many who struggle in these difficult times.

There was once a story that appeared in AARP magazine a few years ago. It was about an unemployed salesman in 1971 who received an act of kindness that changed his life. This man was living in his car, just scraping by, when a local diner owner gave him $20.00 and a tank of gas.

Fast forward eight years. That unemployed salesman in now hugely successful. He begins giving away money anonymously in order to repay the kindness of that diner owner. What started as a simple gesture of gratitude has grown into a wonderful Christmas tradition. Over the last few decades, this anonymous businessman has given away tens of thousands of dollars every Christmas to people on the streets of Kansas City, Missouri.

And just a few years ago, the businessman returned to the old diner to thank the man who changed his life. The diner owner was retired now and taking care of his ailing wife. Imagine his surprise when a man showed up on his doorstep and handed him $10,000 and then disappeared without a word.(3)

It’s amazing how often things like that happen at Christmas time. Christmas brings out the generosity in us. And it should. Christmas began in a stable surrounded by shepherds and animals, and a humble young couple and a baby in a manger.

But most importantly, Christmas is the celebration of God’s greatest gift to humanity – God’s own Son. The tradition of giving gifts at Christmas time is usually tied to the story of the Magi giving gifts to baby Jesus. But surely the far greater gift at Christmas time is the gift of the baby Jesus himself. There is no greater gift than that.

Most of you probably remember the late Dave Thomas, the founder and long-time CEO of Wendy’s hamburger chain. Dave Thomas wrote a book in which he told about an incident out of his own experience.

Dave was scheduled to film a short television spot urging people to consider adopting a child. Dave himself had been adopted as a child, so he was happy to support the cause. He and a friend of his were to meet with a brother and sister, potential adoptees, to talk with them before they filmed the TV spot.

It was shortly before Christmas, but these two children had little hope of celebrating the holiday with a family of their own. Dave helped the TV spot would help. Unfortunately, the little girl had a problem that couldn’t be hidden. She had an ugly scar across her face where she had been hit with a beer bottle by her father.

As they were talking with the children, the boy blurted out, “I don’t want to be adopted with her – just look at her ugly scar!” The boy was worried that his sisters scar might mess up his opportunity to be adopted. Dave knew how important it was that they be adopted together but he was at a loss as to what to say.

Fortunately, his friend saved the day. He took two $100.00 bills out of his wallet and gave one to each child. He told them that the money was for Christmas presents – but there was one catch. They had to use the money to buy something for their sibling, something that would make them very happy. Then he asked that they both write him a letter and tell them what they bought.

And his plan worked. The children actually bonded more strongly after buying presents for each other. They were eventually adopted together, and their adoptive parents remarked on how well the children took care of each other.(4)

A gift given in the right spirit can carry with it a wondrous amount of love. That was God’s intent in the gift of God’s Son. In the Christmas story we see a young woman’s obedience to God, we see God’s love for the least and the lowest, and most importantly, we see God’s love for each of us, as well as all people on earth, through the gift of Jesus Christ our Savior.

And for that, May God be praised. Amen.

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p66.

2. Ibid… p68.

3. Ibid… p69.

4. Ibid… p69-70.

11-29-2020 Come Down

Thomas J Parlette

“Come Down”

Isaiah 64: 1-9

11/29/20, 1st Advent

When I was an elementary school student, I remember how we’d get those book order forms from Scholastic – I used to love those. I loved looking at all the cool books I might order. One of my favorites was the Guinness Book of World Records. I loved just browsing through it and seeing all those obscure, weird records that people set – wondering if maybe I might be able to break one myself. Like this one from the 1999 edition – “The longest time living in a tree.”

It seems a man in Indonesia named Bungkas went up a tree in 1970 and has been there ever since. He lives in a crude tree house he made from branches and leaves of the trees.(1)

No one knows exactly why he took up residence in a tree, but 29 years later he was still there. He might be still living in his tree. Neighbors, friends and family have repeatedly tried to get him to come down, but he won’t budge. “Come down Bungkas, come down.” To no avail. He won’t come down.

That’s an interesting story for this First Sunday in Advent. It fits pretty well with this text from Isaiah. Isaiah cries out to God, “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

Isaiah’s desperate plea was the result of a great feeling of helplessness in the face of two troubling phenomena: the suffering and the sinfulness of God’s people.

The people of Israel have known great suffering throughout their history. It was true in Isaiah’s time and it was even more true in the twentieth century when Hitler and his Nazi storm troopers put millions of Jews to death. Even today, there is a strong undercurrent of Anti-Semitism, even though we should know better.

On the one hand the Jewish people believe themselves to be a chosen people with a special relationship to God. And on the other hand, there have been times when God seemed very far away from them.

How is it possible to reconcile the notion “We are God’s chosen people,” with the reality of six million Jews slain under Hitler alone? We can appreciate the difficult dilemma faced by the devout Jew as he or she wrestles with what it means to be a descendant of Abraham in the face of unmitigated tragedy.

It’s like the story Elie Wiesel used to tell. Wiesel himself was a Holocaust survivor. He would tell about a Jewish rabbi during that terrible time. The rabbi would faithfully come to the synagogue each day and pray, “I have come to inform you, Master of the Universe, that we are here.”

As the number of slain, deported and missing Jews increased, the rabbi still came faithfully and prayed, “You see, Lord, we are still here.” Finally, he is the only Jew left alive. With a heart that is numb with grief he comes to the synagogue once more and prays, “You see, I am still here.” Then the rabbi asks, “But you, where are you?”(2)

Many people have asked that question. Where were you God. When my son was in that terrible accident? Where were you, God, when my wife suffered so horribly before succumbing to cancer? Or, as we view the world’s enormous problems such as out-of-control viruses, who has not asked, “Why doesn’t God just come down and straighten the whole mess out? Then there would be no more starvation or war or oppression or disease. Why don’t you come down, O Lord?” Isaiah, the most sensitive of all the prophets, was struck to the core of his being with the suffering of his people.

Just as troubling, however, was the sinfulness of the people. Listen as Isaiah prays, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.”

More than any other faith on earth, the Jewish faith is one of doing right. The Jews were called together as a people to give witness to God’s moral law. They had the law before they had a temple or a homeland. This was their mission, the reason for their election – to maintain the law.

In the beginning, they believed, God created humans to live in perfect harmony with creation and with the Creator. But something was amiss in the very heart of humanity. Something there was that alienated human beings from their environment, from their fellow human beings, and even from the loving God who had created them. That something was humanity’s sinful nature.

It was sin that dug a chasm between God and humanity. It was sin that made humanity unacceptable to God – for the very nature of God is holiness and righteousness. Thus, the Psalmist wrote, “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god…”

The law was given to bring light to humanity’s dark existence. But here were God’s people who were to witness to God’s law, and they were people with dirty hands and impure hearts. That sounds like us today, doesn’t it? We, too, are people with dirty hands and impure hearts.

We are like the three young men many years ago from a conservative denomination who were caught red-handed breaking the Sabbath by playing poker. Guilt-ridden for their sins and fearful of the punishment they were likely to receive, they stood before their stern pastor. They shook with fear as he asked for an explanation of their behavior.

The first young man, feeling great guilt, said, “Sir, I was absentminded and forgot it was the Sabbath.”

“That could be,” replied the pastor. “You are forgiven.”

Also very upset, the second young man said he too was absentminded. “I forgot that I was not allowed to gamble on the Sabbath,” was his excuse.

“Well, that could be,” said the pastor. “You are forgiven.”

Finally, the pastor turned to the young man who had hosted the card game, “Well, what is your excuse? I suppose you were absentminded, too?”

“I sure was, sir,” said the young man, who had a reputation as a troublemaker. “I forgot to pull the shades down!”(3)

Quite a modern attitude. He’s not sorry he did it – he’s sorry he got caught. You know, there is an unspoken rule in pick- up basketball, “no harm., no foul.” If I don’t get caught, it’s all right. If no one gets hurt, what’s the problem. It’s only myself that I’m hurting, so it’s my business, isn’t it? No harm, no foul.

Somehow, we, like ancient Israel, have deluded ourselves into thinking that sin is no big deal. We ignore its power to destroy health and home, to damage our witness and impede spiritual growth. We disregard its power to block our view of God and leave us slaves to our own passions. It was as a warning to us that Jesus taught, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” In other words, there is something about sin that coats the soul with grime and prevents us from seeing God. Rare are those who listen, however, until it’s too late.

There was once a policeman who watched as a young man backed his car around the block. Then he did it again, and again. Finally, the officer stopped the young man and asked him why he was driving backward. At first he was hesitant to explain, then he admitted that he had borrowed his father’s car and driven farther than he said he was going to – he was driving backward to try to take some miles off the odometer.(4) By the way, odometers don’t work like that – and neither do our spiritual lives.

Isaiah saw that there was no hope that Israel could save itself from the moral abyss into which it was drifting. The only hope was that God would come down and bring healing to its people. Isaiah knew that was the only thing that would work.

Standing on this side of Jesus’ birth and resurrection, we know that God has come down. That is what Advent is all about. God has come down to share our humanity. In a little obscure town outside of Jerusalem, in a simple stable, God came down as a tiny baby born to a humble couple from a little village called Nazareth. God has come down. That which Isaiah prayed for has happened. God has come down in the person of Jesus Christ, and he is the answer to humanity’s sin and suffering.

There is a story told by the late Dr. John Claypool about a play written in 1945 by a German pastor named Guenter Rutenborn. This story was set at a time when Germany was still reeling from the tragic impact of World War II.

Many people in Germany were agonizing with the question of who was responsible for the terrible agony that the Second World War had brought on the world. Characters in the play voiced the opinions of those who were looking for answers. Was Hitler alone responsible? What about the munitions manufacturers who financed him? Did an apathetic German population share the blame?

But then a man comes out of the crowd and says, “Do you want to know who is really to blame for all the suffering we’ve been through? I’ll tell you. God. God is to blame. God is the one who created this world. God is the one who has let it be what it is.” Soon everyone on stage is echoing the same indictment – “God is to blame. God is to blame.”

And so, God is put on trial for the crime of creating the world… and is found guilty. The judge sentences God to what he considers to be the worst of all sentences. He sentences God to live on earth as a human being. Three archangels are given the task of carrying out the sentence.

The first archangel walks to the edge of the stage and says, “I’m going to see to it when God serves His sentence that He knows what it’s like to be obscure and poor. God will be born on the backside of nowhere with a peasant girl for a mother. There will be a suspicion of shame about his birth, and God will have to live as a Jew in a Jew-hating world.”

The second archangel adds to that harsh penalty: “I’m going to see to it that when God serves His sentence that He knows what it’s like to fail and to suffer disappointment. No one will ever understand what He is trying to do.”

The third archangel said, “I’m going to see to it that when God has served His sentence, He will know what it’s like to suffer. I’m going to see to it that God suffers all kinds of physical pain. At the end of His life, He is going to be executed in as painful a way as possible.”

And suddenly the three archangels disappear and the houselights go down. The play is over. And the audience is left for a few moments in darkness as the reality dawns upon each person that God has already served the sentence. God knew what it’s like to be obscure and to be poor. God knew what it’s like to fail and suffer disappointment. God knew what it’s like to suffer a horrible death. God experienced all of this in the life and death of Jesus.(5)

Jesus is the answer to humanity’s suffering and sin. He has come down, just as Isaiah prayed so long ago.

Once there was a little girl named Annika, not quite four years old. Annika was fascinated by a waste basket filled with scraps of fabric left over from one of her mother’s sewing projects. Annika decided to root through the scraps of fabric and retrieve some brightly colored scraps for a project of her own. She took the scraps out to the backyard. Her mother found her there sitting in the grass with a long pole. Annika was attaching the scraps to the top of the pole with giant wads of sticky tape. “I’m making a banner for a procession,” she said. “I need a procession so that God will come down and dance with us.”

“With that,” writes her mother, “she solemnly lifted her banner to flutter in the wind and slowly she began to dance.”(6)

There you have the spirit of Advent. We call out to God and ask God to come to earth once again and dance with us.

“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…” prayed Isaiah. That prayer was answered. God did come down, in the person of Jesus Christ. God has come down, and will come down again to join the procession and dance with us, God’s children.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p51.

2. Ibid… p51-52

3. Ibid… p52-53.

4. Ibid… p53.

5. Ibid… p53-54.

6. Ibid… p54.

12-06-2020 Before the Comfort

Before the Comfort

Jay Rowland

Isaiah 40:1-11 (Psalm 85)

One of the major themes in the Old Testament is the social disruption and difficulties experienced by our religious ancestors, the Hebrew people, but also God’s faithfulness and guidance along the way.  Exodus describes their suffering as slaves in Egypt, but also their deliverance by God through Moses leading them to freedom. In between the lines, we discover that God’s ways usually defy expectations and assumptions. For instance, all would agree that freedom is good and slavery is bad, but the process of extracting them from slavery involved unanticipated struggle and social upheaval: forty long years of living in transition, traveling on foot through the wilderness until they reached the land God chose for them. 

Another major theme is the struggle of God’s people to trust and obey the God who adopted them, saved them and delivered them. From Exodus onward we learn of their settlement into a land of their own which is surrounded by warring nations and superpowers who have their own gods, customs, laws and expectations all of which clash with their identity as God’s people. Ultimately this results in the unimaginable invasion and destruction of their capital Jerusalem including the Temple where they believed God resided. It’s hard for us to imagine the trauma of living as an occupied territory, and the deportation of the best and the brightest religious, community and civic leaders, as well as artists, tradesmen, craftsmen, etc.

Today’s passage from Isaiah is addressed to these exiles “but also to people in all times and places who have experienced intense feelings of dislocation and anger about the way things are or about what they have suffered.”** The phrase that jumps off the page for me is God’s cry through the prophet, “Comfort, comfort my people”. We hear this every year during Advent. But for the first time it has dawned on me that the comfort we long for from God requires more from us than simply waiting passively for it to happen. For the first time I see in this passage that the process leading to the comfort of God’s people is just as messy as the process that created discomfort and suffering in the first place.

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” 

I’m all-in on the good tidings implied announced by God first through Isaiah, then John the Baptist, that God is preparing a way home, a return from living in exile—both actual and metaphorical exile.  Hearing this lyrical announcement every year during Advent I seem to have stopped paying attention. I’ve managed to overlook the possibility that these familiar words may describe the challenges yet to come, before the promised comfort, that the way “home” the journey to home and comfort involves a deep valley, a rough and twisting road, even a mountain standing in the way.  

Perhaps it’s taken the upheaval of the COVID19 pandemic and the social, racial, and political upheaval of this past year to hear this announcement of comfort with different ears. This year the imagery of the prophet’s cry hit home:

wilderness … desert … valley … mountain … uneven ground … rough places

These terms, these images could sum up the year 2020. What my heart and spirit “hear” through Isaiah after this year is that perhaps we have yet to fully realize how much we have yet to learn about God’s promise of comfort and what it will take to get there from here.  

It’s not as if life before the pandemic was without struggle or discomfort. It’s just that this year we’ve felt the sting of everyday losses much more deeply and devastatingly than ever before because of the overwhelming limits and impositions unleashed by this pandemic upon previously “normal” everyday life. Loss is always disruptive if not traumatizing. “Sometimes loss is sudden and searing. Sometimes it includes a long, aching decline. Sometimes loss comes from injustices that demand every possible individual and institutional redress. And sometimes loss just happens … by no fault of our own or anyone else:  loss of work, loss of opportunities and dreams … seasons, semesters, ceremonies, … friendships, marriages, loved ones, identities, … able bodies, healthy minds, ... possessions,^ etc. 

Whether or not we accept it, loss is part of life. But so is joy.  And yet we seem to have an expectation that we’re supposed to figure a way out of (or around) loss and the suffering it inflicts, as if loss is some sort of accident or foreign evil rather than a natural, fundamental component of life. 

Sometimes we do contribute directly or indirectly to the losses we suffer. That’s sin in a nutshell. But many if not most of the loss and heartache we suffer have no one to blame, no reason to help us understand it. And yet we often seem to seek comfort there.  But when there’s no one to blame or no reasonable explanation, sometimes we blame ourselves--perhaps without even realizing it.

Meanwhile, God longs to comfort us in the midst of our most inexplicable loss, in the depths of our grief.  God desperately wants to free us from the burdens to which we cling—especially those we impose upon ourselves. Even so, I’ve learned that God does not force comfort upon us. God does not rip our grief or our guilt or our shame from our spirit or our body. Whatever reason or reasons we tell ourselves to justify our self-imposed burdens, God honors our choice. God waits for us to decide we’ve had enough of shouldering life’s burdens by ourselves. God is ready to unburden us but unless and until we trust God enough to ask God to help us with these heavy burdens, God waits.

Meanwhile, our self-imposed guilt and shame weigh us down. Our faces, our necks and our backs bend downward, groundward. The Lord walks alongside, longing to see our faces and our eyes again. When our faces are lifted, we are better able to see life in all its fullness and we are better able to cultivate hope. 

Seeing life in all its fullness is to see how our lives are marked not only by the pain of our losses but also by the balm of hope. To see life in all its fullness is to understand and accept that “even amidst loss, life-giving goodness still resides in this world and invites our participation....”  ^ To recover life in all its fullness can “rekindle the fire in our bones in ways that bless us and enable us to be a blessing to others. And however unclear the way forward lies, we each radiate gifts and graces that the world needs, that can brighten the lives of neighbors near and far.”^

Every loss we suffer “is something love divine not only mourns alongside us, but leads the resurrecting charge against, inviting us to join (or re-join) God’s life-giving ways. The comfort God longs to give to us is hidden in trust. Trusting that no matter what is happening right now,

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps. (Psalm 85)

Precisely how and when we will experience the unique comfort only God can provide is beyond our knowing. Ultimately, though, the comfort of God constantly seeks us out to sustain us through every desert, every twist and turn on the road, every valley, every rock-strewn path and every mountain rising before us on our way.  

Perhaps Advent isn’t so much about our waiting for Messiah, but Messiah waiting for us, waiting to be asked to join us, even now, before the comfort. 

** From “Looking Into the Lectionary: 2nd Sunday of Advent, with Roger Gench” of the Presbyterian Outlook (https://pres-outlook.org/category/ministry-resources/looking-into-the-lectionary/
^ Nelson Reveley, “Wrestling with Loss,” The Presbyterian Outlook, November 20, 2020 (online)

11-15-2020 Entrusted and Afraid

Thomas J Parlette

“Entrusted and Afraid”

Matthew 25: 14-30

11/15/20

           Let me pose a question. If you could choose to visit a famous site somewhere in the world, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the Colosseum in Rome or the Great Pyramids in Egypt – which would you choose? I know that’s not an easy question to answer. There are so many beautiful places in the world to visit – that’s why Juliet and I like to watch the Amazing Race!

           British photographer Oliver Curtis has created a very successful career in films, television and fashion photography. His success revolves around capturing the perfect picture at the perfect moment. But he also has an odd side project. He likes to visit famous places and monuments around the world, and then point his camera in the opposite direction, away from the famous site. So he’s taking pictures of the scenery around these world-famous monuments, like the Taj Mahal in India, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but ignoring the monuments themselves. He has published these pictures in a book titled Volte-Face, or in English, About Face. (1)

           We use the term “about face” to refer to someone who experiences a complete change in attitude or opinion.

           Think about Oliver Curtis’ project for a moment. This photographer is in the presence of a well-known monument, but he wants to gain a new perspective – a perspective gained by focusing on its setting. And, as a consequence, he sees things most people never notice.

           How often do you stop and question why you notice the things that catch your attention? Generally, we follow the crowd. We fit in with our peers and our cultural expectations. We rarely question our priorities or our choices. What would it take for you to make a complete “about face,” a reversal in your choices, ideas or priorities? What if you could see your life from God’s perspective? That’s a question to consider as we approach this text from Matthew today.

           The story goes that a man went on a journey and entrusted his wealth to his servants. The man represents God, we are the servants, and the wealth – well, we’ll get to that in a minuet. There are two keys words here that we have to consider if we’re going to understand this story and apply it to our lives. Entrusted and Afraid.

           You’ll see some reference to entrusted or trustworthy at least three times in these verses. The man entrusted his wealth to his three servants. He presented them with a big responsibility and a big opportunity. This man obviously had great faith in his servants, he believed them to be trustworthy. He saw great potential in them, and great opportunities all around them. He saw them as God sees us – great potential and great opportunities to excel in the world. Why else would the master have entrusted his wealth to them?

           The first and second servants invested the wealth of their master as he hoped they would. When the master returned, they presented him with a considerable profit on his money. And the master praised their efforts and invited them to share in his happiness.

           But the third servant hid his master’s wealth and did nothing with it. Why? Because he was afraid. He was afraid of the master. He was afraid of the opportunity. He was afraid of the responsibility. And when his master returned, the third servant dug up the wealth and gave it back to the master. No return on the investment. Just one big lost opportunity. And the master condemned the servant for letting his fear override his responsibility.

           Perhaps the saddest and least productive emotion in life is fear. It is the least fruitful emotion. Fear’s only fruit is regret and lost opportunities and an increased focus on self and your own security.

           Over the last year, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a new vocabulary for many of us. We are now familiar with “PPE”, and “social distancing” and “flattening the curve.” I read that in Germany, a new word was created to describe the hoarding of food and staple items brought about by the pandemic – Hamsterkauf. The German word for hoarding is “Hamstern,” which comes from the image of hamsters storing up food in their cheeks.

           During the Cold War, the German government published a list of items that the average German household should have on hand in case of emergency – like pasta, painkillers and, of course, toilet paper. Germans referred to this list as the Hamsterkauf list. (2)

           The third servant in this parable was guilty of Hamsterkauf. He was afraid and hoarded his master’s money because he didn’t trust his master’s character. Just like us, he’d had a few heartbreaks and setbacks in his life. And he no longer trusted the master’s goodness or the master’s priorities. So he decided to focus on his own security. Dig a hole in the ground, bury the wealth, take no chances, and wait for the master to return. No risk, no responsibility – but also, no reward.

           Think of all the things in life we miss out on because we are afraid. We don’t trust God’s goodness and God’s promises. Think of all the opportunities we could harvest with our God-given talents and opportunities if we were just bold enough to base our goals and priorities on God’s promises instead of our own security.

           Amy Purdy was a typical 19-year-old with a bright future ahead of her when she came home early from work one day with what she thought was the flu. She woke up from a nap, and her hands and feet were numb, And purple. Her blood pressure began falling. She was rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest. Amy had contracted an often fatal form of meningitis. The nurse attempting to put an IV in her arm announced that Amy had only a few hours to live.

           When Amy awoke from a coma, her doctor explained that they would need to amputate her legs below the knee to save her life. You would think that someone facing that situation would not only be in despair at the loss of their legs, but also consumed with fear about what life would be like moving forward.

           But Amy faced her new life with determination. She wasn’t going to give up, even without her lower legs. She tried to return to snowboarding, one of her favorite hobbies, but she couldn’t find prosthetic legs that allowed her to snowboard well. So Amy did a lot of research, partnered with a doctor who provided her prosthetic legs, and they created new legs designed especially for snowboarding. And Amy Purdy became the first woman to win a bronze medal in snowboarding in the Paralympic Games.

           Amy and her husband also founded Adaptive Action Sports, an organization that helps athletes with disabilities to participate in the sports they love. Amy even competed on “Dancing with the Stars”, and she had the opportunity to share her story on television and at major speaking engagements.

           Amy says that when she lost her legs, she set three new goals for her life: “I’m never going to feel sorry for myself, I’m going to snowboard again, and that whenever I figure this out, I want to help other people do the same.” And that’s exactly what she’s doing. Her sports organization helps athletes with disabilities to reach their full competitive potential. Her best-selling book and speaking engagements inspire people who face unexpected losses. Amy Purdy’s challenges could have caused her to live the rest of her life in fear, watching out for her own security and comfort. Instead, she is investing her life in helping others. She is pursuing opportunities to do good works. She is living with Holy Boldness. (3)

           The saddest and least productive emotion in life is fear. Amy overcame her fear and she is having a fruitful life.

           Think how often the scriptures say “Don’t be afraid.” As I’ve said before, it could be a subtitle to the Bible. Could it be that the opposite of faith is not unbelief, but fear? That command – to live without fear – isn’t linked to some promise that nothing bad will ever happen to you. It’s not linked to some promise that God is going to answer your every question and always work according to your expectations and your timeline. The command is linked, however, to the promise that God will be with you through every challenge.

           This story from Matthew tells us that Christ is looking for people with Holy Boldness. The boldness to let God direct your talents and energy toward good works that bring glory to God. A mind-blowing responsibility, yes. A mind-blowing opportunity, also yes. Notice that the outcome of this story rests on faith in God’s character and obedience to God’s commands. Both faith and obedience require the boldness to let go of your own security and comfort, and let God use you for something bigger.

          Robert Young was a successful businessman in Seattle when, on a business trip in New Mexico, he noticed a newspaper headline that read: “Elders Freeze to Death.” The article detailed the crushing poverty on local Native American reservations, and the horrible living conditions of many elderly Native Americans. Robert couldn’t explain why the news story grabbed at his heart, but it did.

           A few weeks later, when Robert learned of an “Adopt-A-Grandparent” program for Native American elders, he called the number and signed up. Robert was paired with a 78-year-old Native American woman in South Dakota named Katharine Red Feather.

           Katharine welcomed Robert into her family as her newest “grandchild.” In spite of her poverty, her letters to him were full of joy, proudly sharing news of her large family. When Robert asked Katharine if there was anything he could send her, she asked only for a bottle of shampoo and some aspirin. Robert couldn’t imagine living in such poverty that shampoo and aspirin were such luxury items. He determined to visit Katharine Red Feather and see her living conditions for himself.

           Robert and his wife, Anita, were shocked by the poverty they saw on Katharine’s reservation. And he was humbled by the joy and love of Katharine and her family. When he returned home, Robert couldn’t find satisfaction in his work. He worried all the time if his adopted grandmother was safe and warm and had all she needed. That summer, Robert, Anita and a handful of friends travelled back to South Dakota to build a house for Katharine. As news of their project spread on the reservation, Katharine’s family and friends showed up to help, and they had a big celebration when the home was complete.

           Now Robert could relax and get back to his ambitious and successful life, right? Not exactly. God had given Robert a new vision and Robert knew he couldn’t bury his talent in the ground and do nothing. So after a lot of research and thought, Robert Young sold his half of his successful business. He and Anita moved to Bozeman, Montana, and started the Red Feather Development Group, to provide affordable, secure housing to Native Americans. (Americans. (4)

           Remember the two words that we had to consider in order to understand this Bible passage? Entrusted and afraid. God has entrusted you with great wealth. Your life. Your talents and energy, your intellect and influence. God can’t use you if you are afraid of investing your life in good works for God’s glory. So now is the time to ask yourself, what do you want to hear at the end of your life? What will it take to hear God say “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

           May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p37.

2.    Ibid… p38.

3.    Ibid… p38-39.

4.    Ibid… p40.

11-08-2020 Now Is the TIme

Rev. Jay Rowland, “Now Is the Time” a sermon based on Matthew 25:1-13. This sermon utilizes material published by Jill Duffield, “All Time Belongs To God” in presoutlook.org, Looking Into The Lectionary, 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

Now Is the Time

Given the events of this week and recent months too, I want to start by quoting our denomination’s Declaration of Faith:

“There is no event from which God is absent; [God’s] ultimate purpose in all events is just and loving. That purpose embraces our choices and will surely be accomplished. [God our] Creator works in all things toward the new creation that is promised in Christ.”

Faith statements such as this are not only “Affirmations of Faith” but also Assurances of Faith.  I find myself leaning hard upon any and all words of assurance passed down to us by previous generations as well as through the scriptures.

It is very easy these days to lose perspective, to feel as if what we’re experiencing is unique or somehow more difficult than any previous generations have had to endure.  And so, given everything we’ve endured so far in the year 2020, it seems to me that what is most called for right now is perspective.  Perspective infused by the Holy Spirit, perspective through which we may see current and recent events as the medium through which we must and we shall live in hope and act in love as carriers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I think it has now become painfully clear that living faithfully as disciples of Jesus Christ does not come easily nor inevitably. Christian discipleship in all its self-emptying is hard work. Spiritual work.  I wonder if we perhaps believe that spiritual work, spiritual maturity isn’t “work” but is instead supposed to be peaceful and serene like watching a sunrise or sunset. If so, then it can be painful to experience the difference between faith and fantasy.

To put it another way, choosing to serve our living God who demands our all is difficult.  And dare I say it, no more difficult for us than it was for those whose faith was challenged by the living during the Plague, or the Reformation or any of the bloody wars and conditions of the Middle Ages while social upheaval swept across Europe. Or here in America how can it be said that life in 2020 is more difficult than it was for those who experienced Slavery, or the Civil War, or the “Spanish Flu” or WW1, WW2. Christians who lived through those times surely struggled to cope with what must have appeared to them to be the end of the world.

Just as we are now, prior generations also had to discover, rely upon, and practice resilience and faith. Resilience from their faith in the midst of the chaos of what must have appeared to be “the end of the world”

Resilience can be thought of as keeping oil in our lamps despite the late hour. Resilience is a miracle in how it can see us through fatigue and disappointment, through myriad distractions, disillusionment, weariness, complacency, temptation. Navigating times like these requires all the virtues of Christian maturity we can muster. With much intervention by the Holy Spirit.

Because contrary to the dominant narrative and myth that proclaims “failure is not an option” reality has a way of forcing us to confront the fact that we do fail. Often. Failure is nothing to hide or be ashamed about.  As people of faith, we confront our failure and we practice repentance, forgiveness & seeking forgiveness, and we learn humility … all of which contributes to a truly holistic, healthy, and mature faith rather than the illusion, denial, and self-deception which runs rampant in the halls of government and “modern” society 

As we continue to endure uncertainty in the wake of this last week’s election and the world near to us and far from us continues to suffer from COVID-19 ... climate change … and the fall-out from recent natural and human-created disasters, all of this continues to impact how we live and move and have our being as disciples of Jesus Christ in the year 2020.

I was tempted to skip the gospel parable from Matthew today. Like most of the parables of Jesus, this one comes across as harsh, exclusionary, judgemental.  But I decided to take it on in the hopes of perhaps opening our eyes and our hopes--with the help of the Holy Spirit.

For centuries the parables of Jesus have been inflicted upon people by a distinct group of other people for their own particular purposes.  Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, at Vanderbilt Divinity School, has taught me this, among other things. Parables challenge presumptions among religious authorities and people.  Jesus’ parables are stories that intentionally create discomfort among any who are comfortable or complacent with spiritual corruption, to challenge human patterns and structures which displace and divide people.

Today’s parable is another example: 

The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.'

 But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.

 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.'

 But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.'

Most of us have been conditioned to project God into this scene rather than see ourselves in it. But parables are not metaphors or allegories about God. But unfortunately, that’s how parables have long been taught, interpreted and presented. And in this parable, many of us are conditioned to hear God saying to someone, if not us: “truly I tell you, I do not know you.”  But that is a direct contradiction to most everything Jesus says and does in the Gospels.

What if Jesus intended this parable to be a mirror? What if Jesus hoped to expose our accepted patterns of living and relating to one another as a way to remove the blinders covering up our behaviors, structures, and institutions? 

What if this parable is intended to help us feel what it’s like to be on the losing end of human patterns and practices of division and enmity and competition?

What if Jesus tells this parable in order to reveal the deeply entrenched, hidden patterns and structures and presumptions of those who wield authority and power upon those who have no authority or status or power? What if this parable reflects the damage we inflict upon our own communities —particularly our own faith communities?!  

What if the whole point is that Jesus wants us to see whom we truly serve as opposed to who we think or say that we serve? … confront us with the question: are we truly serving God’s kin-dom or the status quo?

Our ways of living and being in this world either serve God or they don’t. 

Who in this world today benefits most from our way of living and being and relating? 

Can any of us say without hesitation: God 100%?

Of course not.  Which brings us back to the importance of admitting our human failure, the importance of discovering humility.

The gospel calls us to always be ready to welcome and reflect Jesus Christ as Savior not because it comes naturally to any of us, but because it does not, or as someone somewhere once famously said, “ … not because it is easy, but because it is HARD”

Keeping the oil in our lamps requires much of us if we are serious about reflecting the true Light of the world.

Jill Duffield puts it this way, beautifully:

Ours is the oil of gladness that comes with unity, regardless of our differences.

Ours is the oil of anointing that marks us for priestly service … that prays for everyone and asks God to intercede in ways that bring repair and reconciliation.

Ours is the oil of healing that eases the suffering of those left beaten and battered and abandoned on the side of the road.

Ours is the fragrant oil of burial that the women took to the tomb when they discovered it empty.

Ours is the oil that dedicates to God all spaces & places, reminding us that we stand on holy ground whether our feet are standing in church, synagogue, or mosque … or standing on the streets, the floors of our homes, or the floor of factories, hospitals, boardrooms, courtrooms or classrooms.

Ours is the expensive oil that we pour out on Jesus' feet in adoration and worship, knowing that the unabashed love of God bears witness to the grace we receive from Christ and extend in his name.

Now is the time to fill up our lamps with the oil of Scripture that informs and encourages, shapes, and guides us.

Living faithfully in this time demands that we choose to serve God no matter how much it puts us at odds with our culture, or our political affiliation, or our even our blood relatives.

Duffield continues,

Now is the time to stock up on the oil of gladness and healing, the oil of dedication and anointing.

All time belongs to God. No chapter of history is abandoned by the Creator.

The God who so loves the world, enough to send the Son to save it, calls us into covenant to love it, too. This is by no means easy. In fact, it requires all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

I believe we are called, no, wait, I believe we were born for this: to be filled by God’s Holy Spirit, to let the Lord fill up our lamps, and keep our lamps lit—not hidden in embarrassment, nor hidden behind our failures, our shame, our privilege or our wealth or our possessions.  

Because Jesus is surely coming--ready or not. But Jesus does not come wielding fear or punishment—no, that’s how the world comes to us.  Jesus does not want any of us to be afraid of Him, or of God; Jesus does not want us to live in fear of any man, or any person, or any thing. 

Jesus simply calls us to be ready.  Regardless of the hour. Regardless of whatever seemingly dire situation seems to be bearing down on us. Because to be “ready” means understanding that we truly need Jesus and we want Jesus to appear just as He promised!

Because if ever there was a time in our lives that we truly need Jesus, now is the time. 

So be ready!  Let that lamp of God that is in you shine God’s light.  For the time has surely come.

Now is the time. 

11-01-2020 What New and Better World Awaits?

Thomas J Parlette

“What New and Better World Awaits?”

Matthew 5:1-12

11/1/20

In 1987, the band REM released a song that could have been written yesterday. You probably know it. It’s called “It’s the end of the world.” It contains a refrain that seems to sum up our world today:

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

Sure feels like it. It sure feels like REM looked into a crystal ball and saw into the future back in 1987.

In the most recent issue of Christian Century, Layton E. Williams writes, “I’m not sure the world has ever felt as upside down as it has in 2020.” And he is right. This whole year deserves one big asterisk. A global pandemic, economic crisis, political division and discord, protests for justice and a better world for all people, and every week it seems, some new catastrophe or news story that makes us roll our eyes and think – “Now what? What else can possibly happen?”

A year ago, life included parties, happy hours, and travel. It’s more mundane activities included public transportation, workdays in an actual office, going to church, shopping for groceries, picking the kids up from school not located at the kitchen table and hugging other people. That world is gone now. Every single one of those elements of normal life we once took for granted has been disrupted, destroyed and turned on its head. The world we inhabit now is strange, unfamiliar, scary and just downright exhausting. We don’t know what the future will hold or how long this season of upheaval and uncertainty will last (1).

Many times in recent months I have thought that the world is broken. Ending, even. That everything has become messed up. I have longed for the world I knew pre-pandemic. Despite its imperfections and injustices, it was a world that was largely comfortable for me. I know, I know – my white privilege is showing.

But the beatitudes we have before us today offer us hope. In this series of blessings, Jesus reminds us that the world as we have generally encountered it is not at all the world that God intends or desires for us. Indeed, in many ways God’s desired world is an inversion of the world we expect and feel comfortable with and perhaps even entitled to – particularly those of us who benefit from privilege.

With these eight strange and unexpected blessings, Jesus of Nazareth begins his epic Sermon on the Mount, throughout which he offers instruction, parables, promises and commands to his followers about the ways that God intends for us to live and the world God calls us to work toward. It’s significant that Jesus begins here, with these upside-down blessings. And to be honest, there’s a sermon in every verse here today – but we’ll save some for another day.

Jesus begins by centering on those who suffer, those who remain faithful in the face of hardship, those who focus themselves on compassion and care for others, on justice and righteousness and on making true peace for a better world for all.

These are not the groups of people that our world tends to favor or exalt – in fact, it’s just the opposite. In our dog-eat-dog world, the spoils go to the victor, the glory to the powerful. We celebrate those who are dominant, aggressive and competitive. We reward those who prioritize themselves above all else, who win at any cost.

Meanwhile, we avoid suffering, we reject calls for justice and peace and we see self-emptying concern for others as weakness.

Our misaligned and unholy priorities have been painfully and devastatingly evident over the course of this pandemic. As a result, we have a great many more names and lives to remember on this All Saints Day than we should, with over 220,000 deaths nationally as I write this and there’s no doubt the number has grown by the time you watch this online.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus makes a promise: that regardless of how this world fails us, God’s commonwealth or kin-dom, if you will, will ultimately comfort and lift up those who are faithful and good. At the end, in verses 11 and 12, Jesus speaks directly to his hearers, not only naming abstract groups, but also reassuring those listening that if they also seek to be faithful and good, no matter what the world throws at them, God will ultimately be faithful to them, as any good parent is faithful to their child. And as we heard from 1st John, “We are God’s children now.”

In verse 11 of this passage, Jesus turns the Beatitudes from a lecture into an invitation – an invitation to live the blessings he describes. Jesus frames the Beatitudes into a description of the kind of people we ought to strive to be,

After all, those who mourn do so because they love someone who has been lost, or something that has been lost. Do we care enough about those who have died in this pandemic to mourn them? Will we care mercifully for those being hurt by this situation, whether in terms of health or finances or safety? Will we let ourselves feel the pangs of hunger at the persistence of unrighteousness and the pervasiveness of systemic racism? Will we do the hard work of making real and holy peace – instead of settling for the comfort of keeping a false peace that allows injustices in this world to continue? As Ken Bailey points out, biblical peace is not just the absence of violence and war, but the presence of true reconciliation and spiritual health.

In times of crisis, our impulse is to shore up our defenses and do whatever it takes to keep ourselves alive. But God has created us not simply to be mortal but to be moral as well. Our call from God is to have a broader vision of care for all people. Those who do this, Jesus says, are blessed. Perhaps not in the world that we know – the one that props up powers and principalities, that celebrates individual freedoms over collective flourishing – but certainly in the kin-dom of God (2)

Our world has been turned upside down for 8 months now, with no real end in sight – and that upending has meant immense suffering and struggle. I don’t imagine any of us would identify a global pandemic as good, nor do I believe God would call it so. I believe God is as deeply grieved at the situation as we are. Our faith tells us that God doesn’t keep these things from happening – but God suffers with us along the way.

          But while we have been shaken up, while we are in this space of upheaval, perhaps we can see our reality from a different vantage point.

           Ken Lindner is CEO of Ken Lindner and Associates and the author of the book Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions at the Right Time (2004). He is also a championship Paddle Tennis player.

           A few years ago, Ken’s team lost in the final round of a national Paddle Tennis tournament. Ken was determined to learn from this disappointment. So he decided to go up into the stands and watch the winning team play a few rounds.

           Ken got an entirely different view of the game and of his opponents when he saw them play from up in the stands. From up there, he could see the Big Picture. He recognized the other team’s techniques, their strategy and their weaknesses. As Ken sat there and soaked up a whole new perspective on his opponent’s game, he realized that he could apply this wisdom to every part of his life. As he writes in in his book Crunch Time, “The lesson was: Far too far too often, while fighting our day to day battles on the ground, we never look beyond ourselves, or the immediate moment, situation, need or craving at hand. Therefore, we fail to view things from the fuller, richer, wider context of the Big Picture.”(3)

           Perhaps we might consider the Big Picture as we lean into the discomfort of asking ourselves why we were so comfortable with the world as it was before. Why was that world in so many ways the inverse of the world Jesus illustrates in the Beatitudes, and was it ever right side up in God’s eyes?

           For those of you who know that song from REM, “It’s the end of the world”, you know I left out a vital piece of the refrain. It goes like this:

          “It’s the end of the world as we know it.

          It’s the end of the world as we know it.

          It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

           If this is the end of the world as we knew it, I wonder, what new and better world might lie ahead? We can feel just fine, as the song says, because we can be confident that God is leading us somewhere. We are God’s children, and a new and better world awaits. A world closer to what Jesus describes in this passage for today.

           May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Layton E. Williams, Christian Century, Oct. 21st, 2020, p22.

2.    Ibid… p22.

3.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p11.

10-18-2020 Another Trap

Thomas J Parlette

Another Trap

Matthew 22: 15-22

10/18/2020

          Leadership is an important topic in today’s world. You know, there is a professor from University College London who has written many books on personality and leadership. And he has some strong views concerning incompetent leaders. He says incompetent leaders create a toxic culture that drags everybody in their sphere of influence down. And he claims that the number one trait that incompetent leaders possess is arrogance. According to this professor’s studies and experience, an arrogant leader is a toxic leader.

          This professor put together a simple, but amusing, 10 question quiz to measure a leader’s level of arrogance. Here are some of the questions he asks:

          “Do you have a special gift for playing office politics?”

          “Are you blessed with a natural charisma?”

          And this one, my favorite, “Are you just too talented to fake humility?”(1)

          If you answer yes to too many of these questions – you might be a bit arrogant.

          In our passage for today, the Pharisees join forces with the Herodians, and they try to make Jesus look like an incompetent leader. They lay yet another trap for Jesus by asking him a loaded question – “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

          The Pharisees were sure that they had Jesus cornered. Whichever way he answered, he was going to make somebody angry. The Romans demanded heavy taxes from the Jewish people while at the same time oppressing them. Zealous Jews believed that paying taxes to Rome was not only a burden on them, it was also dishonoring God because they believed they owed their ultimate allegiance to God – not Caesar. If Jesus wanted to make himself popular with the Jewish people, he had only to say it was against God’s law to pay taxes to Caesar. However, if he did that, advocated in public against paying taxes, well the Romans would not be pleased.

          Nobody likes paying taxes. And to be honest, the Pharisees didn’t really care about Jesus’ opinion – they only cared about ruining his popularity with the people. Jesus, of course, didn’t care about his popularity or even his safety. He cared about only one thing – doing the work of God. So Jesus didn’t have to struggle with his answer. He said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Just as some people resent paying taxes, some people would rather not give God the things that are God’s.

          Pastor Brian Kluth tells of a friend’s four-year-old daughter, Amanda, who was determined not to put her quarter in the offering plate one Sunday. Amanda’s parents were trying to teach her to be a faithful and cheerful giver. But Amanda wasn’t having any of it. Her parents were embarrassed that they had to pry the quarter out of her little hand and drop it into the plate.

          Later that afternoon, Amanda’s mom heard her playing on the backyard swing. Every time Amanda got the swing to it’s highest point on the swing set, she would shout at the sky, God, I want my quarter back! God, I want my quarter back!(2)

          Some people are like Amanda – they would rather not give God that which is God’s.

          Jesus wasn’t trying to pile extra stress on us when he pointed out our responsibility to both pay our taxes to the government and give to God’s work. He was trying to teach us an important spiritual principle – Giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God.

          If you want to know what you really believe about God, examine your checkbook. Your level of giving toward God’s work matches your level of trust in God. Do you believe that, if you invest in God’s work, God will always provide for your needs? This where the rubber meets the road when it comes to faith. Do you trust God enough to give a portion of your resources to do God’s work?

          Consider the story of Jerry and Muriel Caven. The Cavens had started numerous successful businesses over the years. As they reached retirement age, however, they realized that accumulating wealth was not what life was all about. They believed God was leading them to participate in a new venture. That venture was overseas Christian missions.

          Instead of jealously protecting their retirement savings as most of us do, the Cavens decided to give away larger and larger portions of their income to God’s work. Jerry Caven says that their generosity was stoked by the realization that God was the true owner of all they had anyway. As he says, “Once we understood we were giving away not our money, but God’s money to God’s work, we had a peace and joy we never had back when we thought it was our money.”(3)

          Trust in God leads to greater peace and joy.

          Trusting in money and material things for our security or status or identity is a sure path to misery. Do you really want to put your trust in something you can lose? Trusting in material things leads to anxiety, fear, greed and conflict – all the qualities that are out of alignment with God’s will for our life. The path to joy lies in sharing with God in the work of the Kingdom.

          God wants to save us from the empty, frustrating, meaningless insecurity that comes from putting our trust in material things. The life of greed is a bottomless pit. There is never enough to satisfy. But giving to the work of God gives our lives meaning and purpose.

          And that brings us to the second thing Jesus was teaching us in this passage. First of all, giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God. And secondly, giving is the ultimate opportunity we have to impact the world.

          Sometimes we look at giving money to God’s work, and we see a loss from our bank account – we see a minus sign on the balance sheet. And that’s where anxiety and greed kick in. But what if we looked at giving to God as an opportunity instead? Because our giving to God’s work is the greatest way to impact the world in a concrete way.

          Pastor W.A. Criswell once told the story of a man who was asked, “What did you do yesterday.

          And the man said that yesterday he taught a class in a church college. On Tuesday, he was down in the Rio Grande Valley working in a Vacation Bible School. On Wednesday, he was operating in a church hospital in Nigeria. On Thursday, he was teaching the Bible in the Amazon jungle. On Friday, he was building a church in the Philippines. On Saturday, he was preaching in Tokyo, Japan.

          His friend stopped him – “You’re kidding me right? There’s no way you could do all that!”

          And the man said, “But I do it every day. I make a pledge to my church and my money goes all over the world doing good in the name of Jesus.”(4)

          It’s probably true that you may never physically go to Haiti to feed a starving child, or dig wells in Honduras, or provide after-school activities to needy kids in inner city Detroit. But through your giving, you can do all these things and more. Your money can fuel ministries that save lives all over the world.

          You may be unsure about which ministries God is calling you to. You may be super-busy and not know how you can fit ministry into your schedule. You may not have much money and feel that your giving wouldn’t make an impact anyway – but you would be wrong. Truly every little bit helps. Through giving what you can to God, you can be in ministry all over the world. You can bring hope and resources and life and salvation to people everywhere – not because you have superhuman talents and a fat bank account, but simply because you trusted God and gave what you could.

          In 2011, former University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt and his wife Katharyn, both devoted Christians, sold their second home – an eight room mansion worth almost 2 million dollars – so they could give more time and money to charities. Mark and Katharyn had been reading the book The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision.

          The book created in them a passion to contribute to international missions. As Mark Richt said, “You know what? I don’t want to pour money into a home like that when I can use it for better things, for eternal things.”(5)

          Most of us don’t have a 2 million dollar house to sell to give to missions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have the same joy that the Richts discovered. Every dollar we give to the work of God is an eternal investment in sharing life and hope.

          Giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God. Giving is the ultimate opportunity to impact the world. And finally, Jesus is teaching us that giving is the ultimate pathway to joy. Every hard teaching of God results in a blessing for those who believe and obey. When Jesus taught, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it,” he was teaching a profound and eternal truth. He was teaching us to live in faith rather than in fear.

          Fear tells us that we need to maintain control of our lives because there isn’t enough to go around. Fear tells us that happiness is found in comfort and certainty. Fear is the little voice in our heads that says, “I’ll start giving to God’s work once I get a new job, or I pay off my car, or when the kids are grown.” But joy and peace and fulfillment are only found in following Christ and aligning our priorities with God’s will for our lives here and now. Today. Chances are that if you keep putting off making God first in your life, it will probably never happen.

          When Johnny Jennings was 18 years old, he visited a children’s home associated with his church. He tells how moved he was when 3 little boys at the home came running up to him and begged to be adopted.

          Johnny was too young to consider starting a family at the time. But he knew God was calling him to do something to help. So, at 18, he began collecting money to give to the children’s home. He would go around town collected cans and aluminum scraps, anything he could recycle. And he gave his recycling money to the home. This became his lifetime act of faithfulness.

          That is why recently, at the age of 88, Johnny Jennings was honored by the state of Georgia for giving more than $400,000 to the Georgia Baptist Children’s Home through his recycling work. When asked why he dedicated his life to this mission, Jennings says, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”(6)

          Giving to God’s work is the surest way to maximize your impact and experience more joy in life. There is nothing else you can possibly spend your money on that can offer you a better return on your investment. But to experience that joy, you have to take the step of giving sacrificially to the work of God. So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But more importantly, render unto God the things that are God’s.

          Your giving shows you trust God. Giving is the ultimate opportunity to impact the world. Giving is the also the ultimate pathway to joy.

          So, in a few weeks, when you receive your pledge information from the church, I hope you will take advantage of an opportunity to give to God’s work.

May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p 13.

2.    Ibid… p14.

3.    Ibid… p14.

4.    Ibid… p15.

5.    Ibid… p15-16.

6.    Ibid… p16.

10-11-20 When God Lets Us Down

Rev. Jay Rowland

Exodus 32:1-13

Psalm 106:1-6,19-22

Philippians 4:4-9

As I’ve thought about everything that’s been happening recently I’ve found myself wondering if people are starting to believe that God is asleep at the wheel. Or asking, “where’s God?” in all this, wondering if/when God will show up.

Maybe you are having similar thoughts.

And so that’s what I’d like to explore with you today. But I must clarify that this reflection is not about whether or not God lets us down but, rather, how to handle it when we feel like God is letting us down--which is just as hard. I want to reflect upon this because it’s very human and totally appropriate.

I don’t believe that God ever intentionally lets us down, but I know that we can be quick to think so, especially during a crisis. Another of my beliefs is that I do not believe that God causes suffering. I know many of us wonder why God allows suffering—and that’s a very important question. But right now I’m more interested in the “what now, God?” question than in the “why, God?” question. Because the “what now, God?” question invites us toward acceptance more readily than the “why” question. The “what now, God?” question allows us time and spiritual space to express our grief, our disappointment, our pain and suffering to God who suffers with us and longs to lead us through it.

I also believe that we can be disappointed in God--even angry at God--while also still trusting in and counting on God to see us through. This is one of the most important facets of our Judeo-Christian faith: lament. Lament is an ancient gift of our Judeo-Christian faith tradition found throughout the Old Testament.

Another important note to reveal is that I do not personally fancy, as some do, an adversarial relationship between God and us (or between us and God). But clearly, in the living of life, adversity happens to us. “Stuff” happens that wrecks us and ruins us and threatens our faith. We suffer terribly whenever our life, our sanity, or our family is hurt or suffers. There’s no shortage of suffering going on lately and it’s still too raw, so I prefer to address our common reality indirectly by considering the crisis situation faced by our religious/spiritual ancestors the Hebrew people as told in Exodus.

To briefly review what lead up to our reading today, God has rescued the Hebrew people from their brutal enslavement in Egypt and choses Moses to lead this rescue mission. The good news is that it succeeded. The Hebrew people are free thanks to God. But this good news is tempered by the reality that they now have no place to live. They are, effectively, homeless for the foreseeable future, living “on the road” day after day until a place is found where they can start a new life together. God is putting as much distance between the Hebrew people and everything that went with their previous life of slavery and abuse. God has done everything possible--even the “impossible”--to prove to the people that God is with them.

But the people are sort of like, “Thank you for setting us free from slavery. But … this is dangerous! We’re stuck way out here in the wilderness--totally exposed and vulnerable! We could easily die out here! This feels nearly as bad as slavery in Egypt. At least there we had food, water & shelter”

The Exodus story presents to us the narrative of the relationship between God and God’s people--beginning with the Hebrew people. Exodus documents the beginning of this relationship and some of the um, complexities along the way. Exodus reveals so much about our ongoing relationship with God, the complexities of the God-human relationship and the human-human relationship too. After God rescues the Hebrew people from the brutality of slavery in Egypt, the days pass slowly. The people realize their newly won freedom has created a different kind of struggle, now they are worried about food and water. This is totally appropriate. But God responds and provides for their most basic needs faithfully, patiently.

Whenever adversity strikes, we worry and we easily panic. And when we panic, we tend to presume the worst possible outcome and assume that God Has Let Us Down. We forget how God has always come through for us.

An example comes from our Exodus story. God calls Moses up the mountain to meet with God to make plans for their new life together in a new place. But after Moses is gone for many days the people worry, then panic. They presume the worst, that Moses is either dead or missing and that God has suddenly forgotten them. And so they decide to make their own “god” - one they can see and touch and project themselves onto; one they can literally pick up whenever their panic-driven impulses run wild, a god to help them feel (falsely) secure while they do whatever they want to do.

It goes to show how in any crisis, whether it be it in Exodus or in life in the year 2020, we can see how easily panic and anxiety-fueled assumptions only add more confusion and stress to an already confusing and stressful situation. This is a recurring theme throughout the Bible and in our life together: God’s people worry, panic, act on panic and end up making a very difficult situation even worse. Even so, throughout Exodus, God (just like God does throughout our life) faithfully responds and provides. In the midst of a crisis, in the panic and the fear, we’re often too upset to see that God is intimately involved. And so it FEELS like God has let us down.

Let me back up a bit. Wanting the end of something bad is good, of course. But when the bad thing is finally over, life doesn’t instantly switch from being all bad to being all good. On the contrary, when we spend so much time and life-energy wanting something bad to end, this does nothing to prepare us to live without it. It’s one of the complexities of life— longing to be free of something “bad” in general or in particular is one thing; living free of it is quite another thing and perhaps creates complexities we didn’t see coming, whether the bad thing is slavery or bullying; heart-break or heart disease; addiction or cancer.

Whatever bad thing we long to be rid of has the power--or is it the consequence--to warp our perception of good and evil; faith and fate; fair and unfair, God and people; etc. So how do we handle that?

The Apostle Paul has some thoughts worth considering. Paul and his congregations faced all kinds of adversity and complexity. His letters and his prayers are not pithy, flowery, “Hallmark” sentiment, but, rather, honest responses to life & death crises—both for Paul personally and for his friends and congregations too.

When life spirals out of control, whenever we are provoked to panic and presume the worst, whenever we start believing that God Let Us Down, Paul shows us how to turn toward God and trust God in those moments: how to hang on until things settle down and we can respond from a place of calm and faith rather than panic; to hang on until we can process what’s going on, give it more thought, seek support, apply our imagination, and spirit.

And so Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always” —but this can be counter-intuitive especially during a crisis, so Paul repeats this"—”again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

Remember that the Lord is near Paul says. Keep that in mind when fear and panic and presumption and chaos are spirling all around you seeking to pull you down too. Instead of joining that current of panic, Paul says, “let your gentleness be known to everyone”

Gentleness. Sounds impossible. But how? Here’s how, Paul says: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Set down worry and panic; choose instead to not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Paul offers himself as an example, he’s saying, “hey if I can do this, you can too.” Paul has learned to lean on the Lord in the midst of crisis and panic, in the midst of beatings, imprisonment, hostility, isolation. And so he says to us, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.

What things? All the things God has shown us in Christ; all the things Paul has done and shown through crisis after crisis he has endured. And what does he say will be the result? Total unfiltered, unbridled success? Total Victory and domination? The end of our problems? The end of all crises? No.

Only this: “and the God of peace will be with you.”

And this: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

10-04-2020 Only One Goal

Thomas J Parlette

“Only One Goal”

Philippians 3: 4b-14

10/4/20

I have never been a morning person. It has always been a challenge to roll out of bed and get going in the morning. Juliet and Thomson pop up out of bed every day at 5:00 or 5:30, no problem at all. But for me, it’s really easy to just roll over and go back to sleep. That’s why I always used to love staying in hotels and getting a wake up call.

One of the small luxuries that used to be available in most hotels was the personal wake-up call. Remember when the desk clerk would ask you when you checked in, “Would you like a wake-up call?” Then a real live person would call at the appointed time – “Good morning, Mr. Parlette, this is your wake-up.” And then you could decide if you wanted to go back to sleep or not. Alas, these days wake up calls are now assigned to computers and there is no one at the other end of the line. I know that many people use their phones as an alarm clock, so the idea of a wake-up call seems a little out-dated.

But they are not completely gone. There are still a few high-end hotels that will provide a wake-up call that is guaranteed to get you out of bed. One luxury hotel in Aruba makes an initial wake-up call, then sends an employee to knock on your door a few minutes later to ensure that you are indeed up. Another hotel sends a butler with coffee, tea and pastries to knock on your door. Works for me! At the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, if you miss your wake- up call three times, the hotel manager will send a security guard to bang on your door until you answer. No chance you’re missing that kind of wake-up call!(1)

Speaking of ways to wake up, a mother once wrote in to a college’s online parent forum asking for ideas for really annoying wake-up songs to help her teen-age son get out of bed. Turns out that her son had a hard time getting out of bed, so he was missing a lot of his classes. So she had taken to creating music playlists of annoying or embarrassing songs to get her son out of bed, which she downloaded onto his phone to be his alarm songs. She had some success with songs like “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Rock a Bye, Baby” and a couple of cheesy disco songs. But she was hoping to get some more suggestions from fellow parents. Everything from “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham to “In a Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly made the list.(2)

In today’s passage from Philippians, Paul refers to a different sort of wake-up call. He recalls the time he had a personal wake-up call to change the way he was living.

Paul, whose Hebrew name was Saul, was an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. He had a respected family heritage. He was a student of the Law of Israel. He studied under Gamaliel, a widely known and respected Pharisee. Paul was educated, influential and respected. By all measures in his society, he was a success. And he had one singular goal in life – to protect the Hebrew law. That was his only goal.

Now we should note that successful people usually have worthwhile goals for their life. If you want to honor God with your life, if you want to make sure that you don’t waste the precious gifts God has given to you, then the best thing you can do is create some worthwhile goals for yourself.

Goal setting comes from the belief that your life has purpose. If your life were random and meaningless, then setting goals wouldn’t make sense. But if your life has purpose, if you have the opportunity to make an impact in your sphere of influence, then setting goals is the best way to do it. Worthwhile goals require vision, planning, discipline and sacrifice. Successful people have a vision for where they want to go and who they want to be, and they create a plan to get there.

Such was the case for a young man named Chad Williams. Williams was partying his way through community college when he experienced his personal wake-up call. He realized that his life was going nowhere and he needed some worthwhile goals for his life. So he chose the toughest goal he could think of – he decided to join the Navy SEALS.

As you probably know, the Navy SEALS are an elite special operations force. Their training is so rigorous, and their missions are so demanding, that only a tiny number of people who apply for SEAL training ever complete it.

Chad’s father put him touch with an active Navy SEAL, Scott Helvenston, who began mentoring him. In 2004, just before Chad entered the SEAL training program, Scott, his mentor, was captured in Fallujah, Iraq. He and three other SEALS were murdered, and their bodies were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. Their fate was broadcast by television news stations around the world.

Chad’s goal in life suddenly and dramatically changed. Chad was now focused on becoming the best Navy SEAL possible in order to honor his mentor, Scott Helvenston. Seems like a worthwhile goal. Chad trained hard, made it into the SEAL team, and served in missions all over the world. He had achieved a goal few people could even dream of. But after all his sacrifice, dedication and hard work, Chad still felt empty and restless. He began to wonder, had he invested all his energy and skills and time in this goal only to find that it wasn’t what he truly yearned for in life? That same thought had once occurred to Paul as well.

At one time, Paul proudly sought his own worthwhile goals. He describes himself as being zealous for God. “Zealous” isn’t a word we use much anymore. It means being “enthusiastic or passionate for a cause.” Paul wanted to honor God and his religious heritage as a member of the tribe of Benjamin. He demonstrated his commitment to these goals by carefully studying the Hebrew Law and by persecuting those Jews who didn’t strictly obey the Law – particularly this new sect of Jews who followed a rabbi they claimed had been raised from the dead and taken into heaven named Jesus.

In fact, his goal – which he was totally committed to – led him to go house to house in Jerusalem, hunting down followers of Jesus and dragging them off to jail. He even participated in an act of mob violence when a crowd of equally zealous Jews stoned to death a young preacher named Stephen. By his own standards, Paul was very successful in achieving his goals. But what does it mean if you are very successful at achieving your goals, and they turn out to be the wrong goals?

You may have heard the name Jon Krakauer before. Jon is a mountain climber and best-selling author of books about his climbing adventures. In his book Into Thin Air, he writes of the day in May, 1996 when he finally reached the summit of Mt. Everest. A number of his fellow climbers had died along the route. Krakauer wrote, “I understood on some dim, detached level that it was a spectacular sight. I’d been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”(3)

What do you do when you finally arrive at your goal, your mountaintop, and the thrill that you thought you would get from achieving your goal, isn’t all that great?

Sometimes our goals and our definition of success need to be pried out of our hands before we wake up to what’s really important. Many of you know what it’s like to have a wake-up call like that. You are consumed with thoughts of a promotion at work until you get the call that your child is in the emergency room. Your priorities get sorted out really quick at a time like that. And that’s what happened to Paul. While on the road to Damascus to arrest more followers of Jesus, Paul (who was going by his Hebrew name, Saul, at that time) was struck blind by a flash of light from heaven. And then he heard a voice – “Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul spent three days in Damascus, blind and helpless, questioning the direction of his life. Suddenly his one and only goal in life was called into question. Now what?

From a young age, Stephen Sutton, a native of the United Kingdom, dreamed of becoming a doctor. But when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 15, his dreams changed. Stephen started a blog on Facebook and wrote a bucket list of things he wanted to accomplish. Among those items were “learn to juggle,” “skydive for charity,” and “get my name in the Guinness Book of World Records.” As Stephen’s cancer progressed, he also added to his list the goal of raising 10,000 pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust, a cancer charity in the UK. And he selected one more goal: to inspire someone else to become a doctor since he wouldn’t live to fulfill that dream.

Stephen’s blog inspired people around the world. He had the opportunity to speak at numerous places, and even met British Prime Minister David Cameron. He had an amazing impact on everyone who came into contact with him. Unfortunately, Stephen passed away in 2014 at the age of 19, but people continued to donate to the Teenage Cancer trust in his honor. As of 2017, 5 million pounds had been donated in memory of Stephen Sutton.(4)

It is amazing how one young man’s worthwhile goal not only had a positive effect on others, but it lives on after him. More than one young person was inspired to become a doctor because of Stephen Sutton. That’s the power of a truly worthwhile, God-honoring goal. And that brings us back to the story of Paul.

Paul had encountered Christ on the Damascus Road. After three days of blindness, Paul was healed through the intervention of a follower of Jesus named Ananias. And at that moment, Paul’s previous goals for his life began to look like rubbish, as Paul says.

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage…” Later he declares, “I want to know Christ – yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead…”

Later still, he sums up his new goal – to serve Jesus Christ, to be an imitator of Christ in all he did.

And he encourages the Philippians and us, to make that our goal as well. You were made to serve Jesus Christ. You were made to live out Jesus’ values and priorities. You were made to do good works that express the love and hope of Jesus Christ in the world. That is our only goal.

And that brings us back to the story of Chad Williams, our Navy SEAL who thought he would find fulfillment in a military career with one of the most elite special forces teams in the world.

One evening, Chad and his girlfriend were invited to a worship service. The Speaker, Greg Laurie, preached on a passage from the Old Testament about Naaman, a commander in the Syrian army who contracted leprosy.

You might remember the story – in order for God to heal him, the prophet Elisha told Naaman he had to remove all his armor and bathe himself in the Jordan River. Laurie made the point that Naaman had to humble himself, give up his symbols of strength and protection, and submit to God’s plan before he could be healed. Something in the story of Naaman spoke to Chad Williams deepest need, and he became a Christian that night. Today, Chad Williams is a best-selling author and speaker who shares his faith in Jesus all over the country.(5) In his estimation, being a Navy SEAL is great, but being a disciple of Jesus Christ is of far greater significance.

If you want to move forward in life, if you want to accomplish something significant in life, then you’ve got to set worthwhile goals for yourself. That’s what successful people do. And that’s great. But if you want to honor God with your life, if you want to make a positive impact for God, an impact that lives on after you are gone, then you need to have only one goal in life – serving Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean you need to be a missionary in a foreign country or a Christian worker in the inner city. It does mean that you will seek to be the person God means for you to be wherever you do end up. It is what you were made for. It is where you will find your identity and purpose and peace. It is the one thing that will make the most difference in the world.

To imitate Christ – that is our only goal.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p3.

2. Ibid… p3.

3. Ibid… p5.

4. Ibid… p5-6.

5. Ibid… p6.

9-27-2020 No Good Answer

Thomas J Parlette

“No Good Answer”

Matthew 21: 23-32

9/27/20

          Dr. Phil, the well-known television psychologist and celebrity was once asked “If you could interview anyone in the world, past or present, who would it be?”

          And Dr. Phil responded, “I would like to sit down and interview Jesus Christ. I would really like to talk to him about the meaning of life.”

          I don’t know about that. I think Dr. Phil might want to go back and re-read this passage from Matthew. Because when you start asking questions of Jesus, it usually doesn’t go as you expect. Your question gets turned on its head, Jesus confuses and confounds you and you are likely to get a question back in return, and probably a story as well. It can be dangerous to ask Jesus’ questions.

          Our passage this morning comes in two parts. The first part is a confrontation with the Temple leadership in Jerusalem. The second part is a quick parable about two sons being asked to go work in their father’s vineyard.

          Jesus has just arrived in Jerusalem. The previous day he entered the city to shouts of “Hosanna, Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Then he goes to the Temple and causes a scene by overturning tables and throwing out all the merchants and moneychangers.

          Our passage occurs the next day when Jesus returns to the Temple and the Chief Priests and the elders of the people were waiting. And they had a question for Jesus – “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority.” Note that they do not say he has no authority, because clearly he does. They want to know where the authority came from.

          They are saying, “Look, you just rolled into town and started this commotion in our Temple. Who are you? Where did you go to school? Who did you study with? What are your credentials, are you even board certified to do this, do you have a license to preach and teach?”

          And it’s a legitimate question. The Priests own authority in Israel had been given to them in the time of Moses and had been passed down for generations. Now they wanted to know where Jesus’ authority had come from and who gave it to him.

          But Jesus cleverly avoids giving an answer, because there is no good answer – the question is a trap. If he answers their question, Jesus risks being rejected by the people and condemned by the religious leaders – or he risks being untrue to what he knows about God.

          So, as any good Rabbi would do, Jesus answers their question with a question of his own. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” Another question with no good answer. Jesus has turned the tables. And the Priests and elders know it. They quickly confer – “If we say from heaven, he will say then why didn’t you believe him. If we say it was of human origin, the crowd will turn on us, they think John was a prophet.”

          Since there is no good answer, the Priests and elders shrug their shoulders and say “We don’t know.”

          “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I am doing these things… but I have a story for you. What do you think?”

          “A man had two sons; he went to the first and said ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today. He answered, ‘I will not’, but later he changed his mind and he went. The father went to the second son and made the same request and the son said, ‘I’m on my way’ but he didn’t go at all. Which of the two did the will of the father?”

          This time there is a good answer, and it’s the only answer – obviously the first.

          In this parable of the Two Sons, we see two types of people. The response of the first son was defiance. “No, I won’t go. How dare you even ask. I have other plans.”

          A lot of people are like that – a little defiant, a bit stubborn.

          Former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion Mark Spitz might have had a touch of that stubbornness and defiance. Spitz, you may remember, won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, all in world record time. This was an achievement that lasted for 36 years until it was surpassed by Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

          Some of you may also remember that, in an era when other swimmers were starting to shave their body hair, Spitz swam with a moustache – the Tom Selleck look, before Tom Selleck. When asked why he grew a moustache Spitz said, “I grew it because a coach in college said I couldn’t grow.” We probably all know someone like that – someone who does things just because they were told they weren’t allowed.

          A coach from the Soviet Union swim team once asked Spitz whether having a moustache in the pool slowed him down. So Spitz decided to have a little fun with the Russian and said, “No, in fact, it deflects water from my mouth, so it makes me even faster.” Then he added that this was the real reason he was so fast – he owed it all to his moustache. Spitz was just joking, but the Soviet coach took him seriously. And the following year, the entire Soviet team grew moustaches. All because a coach once told Mark Spitz he wasn’t allowed to have one.

          We all know people whose first response to anything might be a little defiant. Fortunately though, many of these somewhat stubborn people have good hearts, and when they have time to reconsider and think it over, they come around, in fact, sometimes they become the most valuable workers. The first son in this parable is just like that. He was initially defiant, but after he thought about his father’s request, he changed his mind, put on work clothes and went out into the vineyard.

          Now the second son, though he was quite polite, his response was really much worse than his brother’s initial defiance. His response was insincere. The second son was like a lot of us. There are many people who are nice, very friendly, good Christian people who will never argue when asked to do something, never protest, and yet getting them to actually do anything is nearly impossible.

          Years ago, the City Commission of Miami, Florida established a municipal beautification committee. They appointed 25 members to the committee. But the word got around town and it seems that everyone wanted to be on that committee – they all wanted a say about the beauty of their city. Nothing wrong with that. Request after request was granted until finally 131 people were appointed to the Miami municipal beautification committee.

          Then the committee scheduled their first meeting to get organized and begin the work. Only 19 people showed up. 131 appointed – 19 showed up.

          Oh people wanted to be on the committee, but they didn’t want to do the work involved.

          That the second son in this parable – he said he would work in the vineyard, but he never showed up. This parable asks us “What’s more important – saying the right words or doing the right action? Words or Actions? Lip service or doing something? What is essential if one is to be judged righteous, is doing the will of God, showing up and doing the work.

          During the Revolutionary War, a young man is reported to have come to George Washington and said – “General Washington, I want you to know that I believe in you and your cause. I fully support you.”

          Washington graciously thanked him and asked the young man, “What regiment are you in? Who is your commander? What uniform do you wear?”

          The young man answered, “Oh, I’m not in the army. I’m just a civilian.”

          Washington replied, “Young man, if you believe in me and my cause, then join the army, put on a uniform and join the fight.”

          That is what Jesus expects us to do as well. It’s not just lip service, you have to do something, get some skin in the game, support a cause or project that means something to you in bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth.

          In her commentary on this passage in the series Connections, Shawnthea Monroe writes:

          “What is more important, getting the words right or the work right?... On a personal level, the parable of the Two Sons fills me with hope. My congregation includes many older adults whose children do not attend church. This “lack of faith” is cause for much concern among a generation raised to believe that church attendance is a requirement for salvation. These children are good people who donate to charities, volunteer at homeless shelters, and work at the food pantry, but rarely attend church. I often use this parable as a way to reassure parents that people who do good work are still doing God’s will, even if they will not enter God’s house.”

          And we’re seeing this with the millennial generation as well. Monroe goes on to say:

          “There is a growing body of evidence that millennials are generous with their time and money. They seek out ways to connect to those in need and have a desire to live out their values, not just write a check or make a pledge. In many ways, they are the first son – they say they will not do the will of the father, but at the end of the day, they do the work.”

          And that’s good news! The Christian faith is more than a set of words and ideas – it is a way of acting in the world.

          God blesses those who put on their boots and overalls, and show up to work in God’s vineyard.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Charles Campbell, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p. 117.

2.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 67.

3.    Ibid… p68.

4.    Ibid… p69.

5.    Shawnthea Monroe, Connections, Westminster John Knox Press, 2020, p. 351.

6.    Ibid… p351.

9-20-2020 Thinking Out Loud

Thomas J Parlette

“Thinking Out Loud”

Philippians 1: 21-30

9/20/20

In what is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest play, we see Hamlet thinking out loud about whether it is better to suffer the tragedies of life or just end it all.

“To be or not to be…

To live, or to die? That is the question.

Is it nobler to suffer through all the terrible things

Fate throws at you, or to fight off your troubles,

And, in doing so, end them completely?

To die, to sleep – because that’s all dying is –

And by a sleep I mean an end to all the heartache

And the thousand injuries that we are vulnerable to –

That’s an end to be wished for!

To die, to sleep. To sleep, perhaps to dream – yes,

But there’s the catch. Because the kinds of

Dreams that might come in that sleep of death –

After you have left behind your mortal body –

Are something to make you anxious.

That’s the consideration that makes us suffer

The calamities of life for so long.

Because who would bear all the trials and tribulations of time –

The oppression of the powerful, the insults of arrogant men,

The pangs of unrequited love, the slowness of justice,

The disrespect of people in office,

And the general abuse of good people by bad –

When you could just settle all your debts

Using nothing more than an unsheathed dagger?

Who would bear his burdens, and grunt

And sweat through a tiring life, if they weren’t frightened

Of what might happen after death –

That the undiscovered country from which no visitor returns,

Which we wonder about and which makes us

Prefer the troubles we know rather than fly off

To face the ones we don’t? Thus the fear of

Death makes us all cowards, and our natural

Willingness to act is made weak by too much thinking.

Actions of great urgency and importance

Get thrown off course because of this sort of thinking,

And they cease to be actions at all.

But wait, here is the beautiful Ophelia!

Beauty, may you forgive all my sins in your prayers.”(1)

Paul, too, is thinking out loud today as he faces the very real possibility that he will be executed. Paul’s words here are reminiscent of Hamlets soliloquy when he says, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. I do not know which I prefer, I am hard pressed between the two.” Although they muse on the same topic, the two come to very different conclusions.

Philippians is the most unabashedly affectionate of Paul’s letter. There is nothing here like the frustration found in Galatians or the chiding tone in the Corinthian letters. No, the church in Philippi is clearly near and dear to Paul’s heart.

Paul has three main points he wants to communicate to he friends in Philippi. First and foremost, he wants to thank them for there are and generous support of him.

Paul also wants to encourage the Philippians to be steadfast and single-minded in their loyalty to the gospel and to each other.

And finally, Paul wants to comfort and strengthen the Philippians in the light of some kind of unknown persecution that they were facing or expected to face in the near future.(2)

It is this theme – comfort in the face of suffering and single-mindedness among believers that informs this passage for today.

Paul uses his own possible execution as a starting point. He ponders aloud if it might be better to die – and be with Jesus, than go on living and dealing with all the persecution that comes his way.

Ultimately, unlike Hamlet, who seems to end his soliloquy in a rather hopeless state, Paul comes to the conclusion that it is better to suffer his “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” because the Philippians need him around to encourage and guide them. Paul encourages us to choose life, as the t-shirt from the 80’s used to say, which allows us to continue to witness to the power of the Resurrected Christ.

“Paul’s own afflictions,” writes Professor Morna Hooker, are not described in a negative way. Instead, they “are seen as an opportunity for the gospel: people talk about his case; therefore, they learn about the Christian faith, and other Christians are encouraged to make a similar stand.” Faced with an ending, Paul becomes stronger, more focused, more productive and more positive. As Paul muses about death, he sees new life.

The church can take comfort from Paul’s words, especially in times of struggle and persecution. “Throughout history, persecution has often strengthened the church,” writes Professor Hooker. “The amazing fact that oppression leads to growth reflects the paradox that lies at the heart of the gospel – namely, that God’s power is revealed through the weakness of the cross and that victory comes through apparent defeat.”(3)

Knowing that his on end may be near, Paul offers some advice to the Christians in Philippi, advice that is equally valuable to us today. Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or I am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.

Paul wants us to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, always showing the grace and love of Jesus Christ. He wants us to become stronger and more focused, standing firm in one spirit and striving side by side with one mind. Such strength and unity doesn’t often happen in good times. In fact, it usually happens in difficult times.

Arlington Presbyterian Church, west of the Pentagon in Virginia, worshiped in a beautiful stone sanctuary for more than 80 years. But over the years, the congregation had watched their numbers dwindle, and it’s aging building had become a burden. But instead of selling its 10 million dollar property and building a new sanctuary somewhere else, the congregation made a bold move, meant to benefit their surrounding community.

As you might expect, the cost of living in Arlington in extremely high – many teachers, store clerks and first responders can no longer afford to live where they work. So Arlington Presbyterian joined forces with a nonprofit group that builds affordable housing. The church sold its land to the nonprofit group, and then the group constructed a six-story building on the site of the church, with five floors of affordable housing above retail space on the first floor. On the first floor, the church now rents space for offices, meetings and worship.

The transformation of Arlington Presbyterian was not an easy process, and there was struggle both inside and outside the church. Paul’s words to the Philippians provided good advice to them – to live in such a way that you are “in no way intimidated by your opponents.” The congregation “risked it all for the sake of their neighbors,” says Ashley Goff, who became the pastor of the church after the change had begun. “It’s almost like they became curious about death, the curiosity of how to die well,” says Goff.

Fortunately, the church did not die. More than 400 people have moved into the building, and Arlington Presbyterian is now meeting in its new space. The congregation has become stronger and more focused, standing firm and striving side by side with one mind. They are experiencing new life after looking death in the face. And this, Paul would say, “is God’s doing.”(4)

This text from Philippians, Paul’s soliloquy on life and death, is an invitation to focus on hope, to find joy in the midst of all of life’s circumstances, so that God may be glorified. Gospel living is not about finding an easy way out. It is about learning to see hope and possibilities even in the darkest moments of our lives.(5)

By choosing life instead of dwelling on death, we choose to look beyond our circumstances and believe that God will show us a way through our difficult times. God will lead us out. There is no need to abandon hope; rather, we may embrace it and live.(6)

That is God’s invitation for all of us today. In the midst of whatever you are living through, choose life.

May it be so for you and for me.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Ben Florman, www.litcharts.com, retrieved 9/10/20.

2. David Bartlett, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p87, 89.

3. Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/8/20.

4. Ibid…

5. Gilberto Collazo, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p88.

6. Ibid… p90.

9-13-2020 The Challenge of Forgiveness

Rev. Jay Rowland

Romans 14:1-12 and mostly Matthew 18:21-35

Romans 14:1-12 key verses; my own transliteration

1 Welcome those you consider “weak” in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. ... 4 Who are you to pass judgment ...? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

7-9 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. … 

12 So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Matthew 18:21-35

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

24 “‘When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him;25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.

26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”

35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The Challenge of Forgiveness

In case you haven’t heard, this is an election year [sorry: my lame attempt at sarcastic humor]. Weeks ago, the political ad machinery started the requisite full-court press. Most of these ads exert considerable effort to convince us to vote for [insert candidate or party here] because [insert candidate or party here] has ALWAYS been all about upholding the VALUES we all care about. Kathryn Matthews rightly notes that our super-charged political culture has always been enamored with so-called “values issues” which present hard-line, party polemics exclusively applied to wedge issues such as sexual orientation or, say, reproductive rights rather than, say, racial and economic justice.  Most candidates who espouse so-called “values” proclamations in public discourse often claim some justification from Christianity or religiosity for whatever stand is taken. 1

Whenever any so-called “Christian” or “Evangelical” politician refers to “values” in public discourse they inevitably create and perpetuate a false impression, a caricature, of Christianity and faith. Candidates love to grandstand their political positions and do so with either near-divine certainty, or claiming divine endorsement (or both), yet flippantly, even casually reject and demonize entire classes of people using their own narrow interpretation of religious standards, the Bible, and even Jesus Himself. 

And of course, too often this spills over into faith communities.  And so too many people feel unwelcome or rejected by God or a church based on what they’ve heard from politicians rather than what faith communities actually stand for.  What makes this even worse is when churches spend any time making similar judgments about who's worthy of full inclusion in the life of the church. Because what that means is that little or no time or focus is devoted to considering the challenges Jesus presents to all of us through such basic notions as, say, forgiveness. To put it into proper perspective, Kathryn Matthews asks, have you ever heard of a church or denomination refusing to ordain someone for failing to forgive? 1

So why, then, do we allow ourselves to get distracted by someone’s sexual orientation? However we may feel about something or someone on any given day, I think we all know what it feels like to long for forgiveness. Or if not that, then perhaps how hard it is to forgive someone who has hurt us.  What breaks my heart is that so many people come to worship every Sunday bearing heavy burdens, anger and resentment, guilt, shame and they long for something to help ease or share this burden rather than stir up feelings about issues or people which divert our attention which are far less important at the end of the day (every day!).

This very human struggle and difficulty regarding forgiveness persists in every period of history, in every nation, in any and every setting of the church, and in most every human heart.

The good news if we choose to be honest, is that each and every one of us has at one time behaved like the first servant/slave in Jesus’ parable—the one who received grace beyond measure. As Tom Long describes that situation, it's "something like saying that a lowly mail-room clerk owed the CEO of IBM a 'bazillion dollars.' It was hard to know who was more foolish--the servant-slave, for getting into that size debt, or the king, for extending that sort of credit line to a servant-slave" (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion via Matthews1).

The hypocrisy on display when the tables are turned and he has the opportunity to forgive seems absurd if it did not describe us so well (Matthews). Do we even understand how much we have been forgiven or do we instead only think about how much or how often we have been wronged?  Henri Nouwen writes, "Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family." 1

Before we can ever come close to understanding the radical notion of grace, let alone the spiritual power of the Grace abundantly and freely offered to each one of us through The Lord, perhaps we must first confront the matrix of our own lives when we’ve been in a position to extend grace or forgive someone.  If this was “easy” we would probably never fully appreciate its considerable power and worth within the human heart.

Like air and water, forgiveness is both precious and necessary to life. If someone is genuinely, deeply sorry and has truly understood the pain and injury they have caused, how many times should they be forgiven? (Matthews) If we only forgive begrudgingly, or because we see it as a commandment there is little if anything to be gained or healed by forgiveness. Until we ourselves have longed for or asked for and received forgiveness ourselves, perhaps we will never trust that forgiveness is a good thing in reality as opposed to in theory.  

Professor Richard Swanson articulates2 the conflicting impulses provoked in many of us  by this exchange between Peter and Jesus in the Matthew’s Gospel today: 

(my partial paraphrase): if Peter is asking Jesus if we are religiously obliged to let people walk all over us, and if Jesus’ answer provokes anyone to absorb abuse only to “forgive, and forgive, and meekly forgive, then Jesus gives a bad answer.” As a professor and as a pastor [Swanson notes that he has] heard stories of abuse from [his] students and parishioners and declares that [he] has not, does not, and will not EVER suggest that Jesus is telling anyone to merely accept abuse…”  

Forgiveness has been known to set one free from the toxicity of holding onto the anger and rage abuse unleashes upon the one abused, but Swanson rightly cautions, “there is a difference between that and forgiveness which perpetuates abuse.” Indeed, we are all painfully aware of the considerable harm and injury inflicted by priests, clergy and other predators who have manipulated Jesus’ words here in Matthew 18 (or elsewhere in the Bible or “church doctrine”) in order to perpetuate abuse.   

So, given the fine line between healthy forgiveness and the perpetuation of evil or abuse, what does forgiveness need to look like in the life of the church and in our own lives? 

The answer, of course, depends upon the situation and the harm that was done. There is no easy answer or one-size-fits-all application. When it comes to such weighty matters perhaps it is useful to recall Jesus’ words in a different context, that we must be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Perhaps it ultimately depends on how long we are willing to carry the burden of withholding forgiveness. Withholding forgiveness trap us in the past and destroy the possibility of any future joy.  I recall a Zen or Buddhist proverb which compares the withholding of forgiveness to carrying hot coals in one’s hands. 

The challenge of forgiveness is that it disrupts a delicate balance. Timing is critical. Sometimes the time isn’t appropriate or healthy to forgive … yet. Yes, forgiveness gets abused and manipulated. But what anyone does with our forgiveness is beyond our control. It is out of our hands once we extend it. Jesus challenges us to trust in the potential for forgiveness to nurture the health and well-being not only of the wider community, or the one who is forgiven, but above all the heart and soul and spirit of the one who forgives. 

Preacher Tom Long puts it this way: "We know too well that the little boat in which we are sailing is floating on a deep sea of grace and that forgiveness is not to be dispensed with an eyedropper, but a fire hose" (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion).1 With that clever image in mind, perhaps it comes down to this: 

Do we want to live in a world, in a nation, in a church community where people dispense forgiveness with "an eyedropper," or with "a fire hose"?

NOTES

1 I acknowledge my use of Kathryn Matthews’ on-line commentary, including the two quotes by Tom Long, and especially her organization of material and ideas:: https://www.ucc.org/worship_samuel_sermon_seeds_september_13_2020

2 Richard Swanson, blog, https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/a-provocation-fifteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-september-17-2017-matthew-1821-35/

9-6-2020 Jesus' Keys to Resolving Conflict

Thomas J Parlette

“Jesus’ Keys to Resolving Conflict”

Matthew 18: 15-20

9/6/20

          From the very beginning of Creation, there has been conflict. It’s right there at the start when Cain killed his brother Abel. Conflict has always been with us. One of the great challenges of being human is getting along with others.

          The famous dramatist George Bernard Shaw and the legendary British leader Sir Winston Churchill had several disagreements. You might remember the story where Shaw once sent two tickets to Churchill for opening night of one of his plays, with instructions for Churchill to “bring a friend – if you have one.”

          Churchill sent the tickets back with a note that said, “I will come on the second night – if there is one.”(1)

          It’s not just interpersonal relationships that can be difficult. For instance, in 1325, a group of rowdies from Modena, Italy invaded the town of Bologna, also in Italy. This group of miscreants from Modena caused considerable mischief and upheaval in Bologna – they even stole the oak bucket from the public well.

          This incident incited a 12- year war between the citizens of Modena and Bologna. Thousands of men died in the fighting. When the war ended after more than a decade, Modena re-claimed their oak bucket – and it’s been housed in the bell tower of a local cathedral ever since.(2) 

          Many of you are familiar with a statue called “Christ of the Andes,” which stands high in the mountains between Argentina and Chile. It’s supposed to symbolize peace between the two countries, but it ended up causing some conflict. Shortly after it was put up, the Chileans began to protest that they had been slighted by the placement of the statue. The issue? The statue has it’s back turned to Chile.

          Fortunately, just when tempers were at their highest in Chile, a Chilean newspaper man saved the day. In an editorial that not only satisfied the people but made them laugh, he wrote, “The people of Argentina need more watching over than the people of Chile.”(3) Conflict resolved!

          In this morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus gives some guidance on how to deal with conflict, especially with conflict in the church. Jesus gives us his three keys to resolving conflict.

          Jesus’ model of conflict resolution is a carefully staged process. If another member of the church has wronged you, he says, take out Key One – Go to the other person and point out what this one has done wrong. No witnesses. Just the two of you.

          If that doesn’t work, try another key, Key Two. Take one or two others along with you, and repeat the process. There’s a very practical reason for bringing the others along. They can serve as witnesses if Key Two likewise doesn’t work.

          You’re going to need those witnesses if you pull out Key Three. Using this key, you “tell it to the church.” There’s still hope the other person will come around, realizing what pain he or she has caused, and repenting for it. But “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

          A careful, measured series of escalating steps was the grievance procedure for the first-century church. It also became the foundation of the disciplinary procedures of a great many modern Christian Churches.

          The theological foundation of this process is the power of the keys. The Roman Catholic Church assigns this power to priests and other church leaders under the authority of the Pope. Every parish priest exercises this power by pronouncing absolution – declaring to people that their sins are forgiven. For those in the heritage of the Protestant reformers, the power of the keys flows directly from the word of God in Scripture, as people understand it through the act of preaching.

          To the question “What is the power of the keys?”, the Heidelberg Catechism supplies this answer: “The preaching of the holy gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance. Both of them open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers.”

          The goal of the process is reconciliation, not punishment. But there are times when that is impossible. Sometimes there’s no admission of wrong, no move toward reconciliation, not even when the whole church is calling for it. In such a case, then Jesus’ advice is to “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

          Now incase that last bit sounds a little harsh coming from the mouth of Jesus, consider this for a moment. How is it that Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors” Did he ignore them? Did he abandon them? Did he avoid them?

          No – he went out of his way to eat with them, to spend time with them. He was famous for that – actually infamous in some people’s eyes. Jesus never gave up on them. He always reached out to them. He always hoped for reconciliation. True, they were outside the group of disciples, but Jesus reached out to them anyway.

          As the biblical scholar Warren Carter has pointed out, Jesus did not see the Gentile and tax collector as outcasts, he saw them as “objects of restorative action.”

          It’s a shame really that this passage has been used to justify throwing people out of the church, when Jesus is not talking about that at all. Jesus’ keys to conflict resolution are all about reconciliation, not excommunication. The Three Keys are about restoring relationship and understanding each other.

          The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”(4)

          Or, in more practical terms, we could follow the advice from an old U.S. Army training manual for non-commissioned officers. Sergeants were given advice on how to handle two soldiers from the same barracks who keep fighting and arguing with each other. Assign them both to washing the same window, the manual advises: one on the outside, the other on the inside. As they stand there with their cleaning solution and rags, moving them in the same circular motion, they can’t help but look each other in the eye. As they do, they realize they have more in common that they have differences. They may even start laughing, as the common problem – the dirty window- takes precedence over their petty conflict.(5)

          Jesus’ Three keys to resolving conflict seek to bring us closer to each other, and ultimately closer to God, the only one who can bring about full reconciliation.

          Hunter Farrell tells a story on PrebyterianMission.org about the night he walked with Pastor David into the New Jerusalem Presbyterian Church, in the indigenous community of Santa Barbara in one of the poorest of Peru’s 25 regions.

          He says, “As we walked into the sanctuary on that bitterly cold night, Pastor David looked at me and whispered, ‘Pray with me brother, because I’m going to do something different’.

          The Pastor David did something I had never seen anyone in Peru do before – after inviting the 50 or so people who had gathered for worship to stand in a circle, he took his Bible and placed it on the ground. Now, among the indigenous folks of Peru, allowing the Word of God to touch the ground was a sign of disrespect, so Pastor David quickly got the attention of the members of New Jerusalem – you could hear a pin drop!”

          Then Pastor David spoke: “Brothers and Sisters, what is the one thing we must do each day to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?”

          There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, a teenager answered, “We must follow Jesus every day.”

          “Yes, said Pastor David, “so everyone – take a step toward the Living Word,” and we all took a step toward the Bible.

          “What happened?,” he asked.

          Again, silence. He asked us to take another step toward the center of the circle. Now we were standing uncomfortably shoulder to shoulder. Again he asked – “What happened?”

          Finally, a young girl responded, “Pastor, we came closer together.”(6)

          Jesus’ Three Keys to conflict resolution give us a strategy to work towards reconciliation among the members of the Body of Christ – but only God can bring about full and complete reconciliation.

          That is what we seek when we gather at the communion table. We gather around the Living Word and we take one step closer to the reconciliation that God offers.

          May God be praised. Amen. 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 50.

2.    Ibid…p. 50.

3.    Ibid…p. 50-51

4.    Homileticsonline, retrieved 8/20/20

5.    Ibid…

6.    Ibid…