01-16-2022 For the Common Good

Jay Rowland

“For the Common Good”

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable.

Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. … [The Message Bible]

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (NRSV)

I love the premise of this passage as it’s rendered in The Message Bible:

“What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives.”

To me that’s what life is all about: the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives.

That right there is pure gold to me. Good News!

Regardless of what is going on in your life or the world, no matter what is bothering us or wreaking havoc or inflicting suffering or sorrow, God’s Spirit is working in our lives.

That is something that’s worth stopping to think about. In the midst of the ongoing and pressing problems of the world, it’s worth spending these few minutes together this morning to ponder the presence of God’s Spirit.

I know that life can beat us down and leave us hard-hearted and doubtful.

I know that for some, talk about “spirit” can be opaque, elusive, hard to grasp let alone trust.

That’s okay. Bring your disappontment. Bring your objections. Bring your skepticism. Bring your best critical thinking. It’s good to be wise and discerning when it comes to matters of faith. Just as long as you keep your heart open to possibilities. As Paul says about the workings of God’s Spirit, “this is complex and often misunderstood”.

We don’t want to be sold a bill of goods, right? We don’t want to be naive or foolish, easily manipulated.

To me, Paul or for that matter the Lord doesn’t have any problem with such concerns. Better to have a mature relationship with the Lord than a grown-up fairy-tale. And Paul certainly knows how easily we human beings can be deceived especially by ourselves. He recalls how some members of the congregation in Corinth (and we ourselves by extension, no?) lived before they met Jesus. He recalls how they were “... led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did”.

This is different, Paul says. God wants us to use our intelligence, he says. God wants us to seek to understand, he says. Because that means we’re probably paying attention.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel would agree, “He who is swift to faith is swift to forget. Faith does not come into being out of nothing, inadvertently, unprepared, as an unearned surprise. Faith is preceded by awe, by acts of amazement at things that we apprehend but cannot comprehend.”

Like Paul, I want us to sense the full weight and importance of what Paul is declaring. It is there in verse 7, almost the middle--the heart--of this passage:

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

This is the beating heart of these eleven verses.

Paul doesn’t say, “to some is given the manifestation of the Spirit,” he says “to each is given …”.

Paul isn’t wondering whether or not God’s Spirit is at work in and through God’s people, Paul is declaring it definitely IS. Not once in a while, or sometimes, but in various ways. And there are no restrictions on it, meaning, God’s Spirit at work in us and through us isn’t restricted by age or gender or race or class or job status or sexual orientation or gender orientation … there’s no qualifications or pre-requisites.

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit

That means you.

And me.

And everyone here.

Do you know this about yourself?

To you has been given a manifestation of God’s spirit.

Too many say to that, “well, not me. I’m too old or too young or too this or too that.”

Such was the case among the Christians in Corinth. Some felt that they had a manifestation of the Spirit which gave them authority and status over any and all other members. Hogwash, says Paul. Everyone is given a manifestation of God’s Spirit.

For a different angle on this hope, The Message Bible translation puts it this way,

“Each of us is given something to do that shows who God is. Everyone gets in on it. Everyone benefits.”

Something to do

This different angle reveals that the spiritual interaction between God and us is not something that happens in isolation. It may start in quiet moments of reflection or meditation or prayer, but it moves toward the common good.

The gift(s) of God’s Spirit alive in you or me is not some ethereal, obscure feeling or sensibility, it isn’t something we keep to ourselves, it shows up in our action and activity. That’s the best indicator that the spiritual gift comes from God: it shows up in our actions and activity, and best of all, it shows up as both our personal fulfillment and the fulfillment of the common good.

It’s how Martin Luther King Jr’s “dream” and vision and hope for our society becomes reality. Our own spiritual formation, in turn, fuels the spiritual formation of community, nation and world. The poetry of the prophet Isaiah we heard moments ago describes what this looks like in the aggregate—spiritual formation takes root in the person, then the community, then nation, and ultimately the world:

righteousness blazes down like the sun

… salvation flames up like a torch.

Foreign countries will see your righteousness,

and world leaders your glory.

You’ll get a brand-new name

straight from the mouth of God.

You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand,

a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.

No more will anyone call you Rejected,

and your country will no more be called Ruined.

You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),

and your land Beulah (Married),

Because God delights in you.

(Isaiah 62:2-5 The Message Bible)

Each of us is given something to do that shows who God is.

Something to do that shows who God is.

Few if any of us recognize the spiritual gift/gifts God has planted in us.

And so it’s important to create time and space in our lives to discover the particular manifestation/s … expressions … of God’s Spirit God has given to you.

It’s not so much about identifying the specific spiritual gift so much as it is about our time spent engaging with God in a process of discovery so that it becomes a lifetime endeavor. The quest to discover how God’s spirit is expressed in us has the power to move us and keep us moving in a direction God uses to shape us and lead us to fulfillment … not only our own personal fulfillment, but also the fulfillment of the common good.

The spiritual power of this is not only what it shows others about God, but also what it shows us about ourselves.

God shows us who God is through the spiritual gifts working in people we meet every single day.

And God shows others who God is through the expressions of God’s spirit that God has set within each one of us.

It’s so easy to overlook. We’re so busy. So preoccupied. So weighed down by this pandemic, by all of the social and political strife and division, by all the trouble in the world.

But through it all, God never leaves Godself without a witness.

Sometimes that witness is someone we would never have imagined or chosen.

Sometimes that witness is you.

And that’s the beauty of God’s Spirit working in our lives, the wonder of faith community: when I cannot “see” or trust or believe that God’s alive and at work, you do something that shows me, reminds me who God is. Likewise, sometimes you may not be able to see or trust or believe that God is alive and at work in you and in the world. And when that happens there’s something I’m doing to show you, to remind you who God is.

When all else seems lost. Remember: To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit of God …

… for the common good.

“… there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. … All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who gives to each one of us individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

12-05-2021 Laying the Groundwork

Thomas J Parlette
“Laying the Groundwork”
Luke 3: 1-6
12/5/21, 2nd Advent
 

        Even if we dread deadlines, many of us would admit that we work better when we have a deadline staring us in the face. But few of us have to face the kind of deadline the White House Staff does when they welcome a new President to D.C.
        Kate Anderson Brower has written a New York Times best-selling book titled The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House which shares a behind-the-scenes look at all the work that goes into a Presidential transition. There are only about 90-100 residential staff members at the White House, and it is their job to prepare the White House whenever a new President moves in. However, they can’t start their preparations until the sitting President moves out. That means they only get about 6 hours on Inauguration Day to clean, decorate and prepare the official residence of the President of the United States.
        I can’t even get our house totally clean in six hours, so I can’t imagine trying to clean a place like the White House in that time. And that’s not all the residential staff does. They also move in and unpack the boxes of personal items for the new President and the First Family. They stock the White House kitchen with the new family’s favorite foods and fill the bathrooms with their soaps and shampoos. By the time the new President and First family arrive, every room should be perfectly cleaned, decorated, and stocked with their belongings. All the boxes should be gone. And all this is hidden from the view of the public and news cameras surrounding the White House on the big day.(1)
        And if you think the White House residential staff has a hard job preparing for a new President, imagine how hard the U.S. Secret Service works to protect the President. Interviews with Secret Service agents describe the incredible amount of work that goes into laying the groundwork for a presidential trip.
        It requires thousands of people to coordinate all the details of such a trip. At least three months before a U.S. President travels anywhere, Secret Service agents travel there first. They meet with local agencies, plan motorcade routes from the airport, and contact the nearest trauma hospital.
        Agents also remove all phones and TV’s from the hotel rooms in which the President and his staff will be staying. They sweep the rooms for listening or recording devices, even taking apart picture frames to check them.
        In the days immediately before the visit, agents close off the city streets surrounding the Presidents route and hotel. They even shut down highways for the Presidential motorcade. On the day of the President’s visit, they bring in bomb-sniffing dogs to check out all the stops along the way.
        Finally, it requires 6 airplanes to transport the President and all his staff and equipment for a presidential visit. In addition to all the security agents and staff, the planes carry communication equipment, helicopters and the Presidential motorcade’s limousines.(2)
        If you’re the President, it’s very impossible to slip into town unnoticed.
        Which makes the Advent season, the season when we celebrate the coming of the messiah, so amazing. Because if it weren’t for John the Baptist, Jesus might have slipped into town unnoticed. Jesus didn’t have an advance team or security detail to prepare the way for his arrival. He didn’t have a public relations firm send out a press release. Instead, he had John the Baptist, a traveling preacher, who was chosen by God to announce the Good News.
        Dressed in wild animal skins, eating locusts and wild honey, John the Baptist would stand out in any crowd. Yet this was the guy that God chose to announce the coming of his Son, the Messiah. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
        During this season of Advent, we are preparing our hearts to celebrate Christ’s coming. We are, in essence, laying the groundwork for Christ’s arrival. We are buying our presents, putting up our lights, and baking up a storm. The preparation and anticipation are a big part of the joy of Christmas. But all the stuff we do to prepare for Christmas, is it really enough? In light of John’s message, it could actually be a whole lot simpler and less-stressful. John points out today that there are some other things that need to be a part of our preparation.
        First of all, there’s that word we love each holy season – repentance. Luke tells us that repentance was at the core of John’s message.
        A few years back, a man named Frank Warren handed out 3,000 self-addressed, stamped, postcards to random people on the street. Warren asked the recipients to write their deepest secrets on these postcards. He warned them not to identify themselves, don’t sign the cards, he wanted everyone to remain anonymous. He only asked that they send the cards back to him. Words spread of Frank Warren’s project, and people from all over the country began sending him anonymous cards with their confessions, secrets, regrets and longings. Many of the postcards are featured on the website PostSecret.com and in Warren’s book, The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book.
        Turned out, lot of people really needed and opportunity to repent and unburden themselves of their shortcoming and mistakes.
        Among the many anonymous cards Warren received was one that featured a pair of praying hands with the handwritten note, “I don’t know how to go back to God, and I want to more than anything else,”(3)
        I want to go back to God, more than anything. That sense of longing is what leads to repentance. In a literal sense, repentance is changing your mind, turning it back in the right direction. In his baptism of repentance, John was offering people the opportunity to send an anonymous post card, to turn back towards God and align their mind with the mind of the Divine.
        The second step in preparing for the coming of Christ is a commitment to right living. “Now,” you might think, “isn’t that kind of redundant.” Maybe and maybe not. Repentance does involve a commitment to right living, as opposed to the wrong way of living, but most people don’t think of repentance that way. Most of the time, we think of repentance as synonymous with being sorry for a mistake and promising not to let it happen again. And that’s part of it. But repentance is a bit more than being sorry. Repentance is a complete change of direction – a reshuffling of priorities.
        It’s difficult to think of 2020 and 2021 as being thought of as anything but the time we dealt with an unprecedented pandemic – but in addition, 2020 will be remembered as a time when our nation once again confronted systems of inequality and racism in many different forms. One sign of this reckoning was the number of cities and institutions that decided to remove Confederate statues and symbols from their buildings and public spaces. And during this same period, tattoo artists across the country reported a surge in the number of clients asking them to transform and remove racist tattoos.
        Billy White, owner of Red Rose Tattoo in Zanesville, Ohio, offers his services for free to clients who want to alter or cover up racist tattoos. Some of his clients weren’t aware of the implications of their tattoos when they first got them. Other clients are former members of white supremacist groups. Before White will agree to cover up or remove a racist tattoo, he spends a lot of time with the client. He wants to make sure the client has had a sincere change of heart and mind. Once he is sure that this is what the client truly wants, he does what he can to cover up or remove their tattoo for free. And Billy White is not the only person helping people to repent in this way and live differently.
        Atlanta Redemption Ink – that’s spelled with a “k” – is a non-profit organization that provides free tattoo removal for victims of sex trafficking. In 2020, they reported that a significant number of people contacted them asking for help in covering up or removing racist tattoos. Corey Fleisher is founder of the nonprofit Erasing Hate, which organizes volunteers to remove or cover up racist or hateful graffiti in public spaces. In 2020, he has also served as a middleman, helping connect tattoo artists with those who want to rid themselves of such tattoos. Fleischer says of the people who reach out to him, “I don’t care what the back story is, I care about tomorrow. You want to erase it, then I’m going to be here for you… And we’re just going to move forward and I’m going to help give you a new way in life.”(4) That is repentance and changing your life. Sounds like a modern day John the Baptist to me.
        A commitment to right living is a commitment to move forward into a new way of life. Maybe not a comfortable life, but a new way of life.
        Finally, we prepare for the coming of Christ by receiving God’s grace. We are not disciples of John the Baptist – as much as we might admire him and as much as we try to heed his words. We are disciples of Jesus. We do repent of our sins. We do try to live the right kind of life, what the Bible calls a righteous life. But we acknowledge we don’t have the power within ourselves to succeed at this on our own. So we throw ourselves on the mercy of God.
        I know that might not sound too “christmasy” – but it’s the truth. Guilty people need mercy. Broken people need mercy. Unworthy people need mercy. But we have a God who loves us and is willing to meet us right where we are. That’s why God sent Jesus to walk in our shoes. Immanuel – God with us. We depend on God’s grace to supply us, unworthy as we are, with a righteousness that only God can give.
        On July 26th, 1987, while Rev. Walt Everett was preparing to leave for a mission trip with Habitat for Humanity, he got the call that his son, Scott, had been shot and killed by a neighbor, a drug addict named Mike Carlucci. Understandably, Rev. Everett struggled with a horrible anger toward his son’s killer. After meeting other parents in a grief support group, however, he realized that his anger was poisoning his life. He prayed that God would help him to forgive his son’s killer.
        One year after his son’s murder, Walt Everett sat down and wrote a letter to Mike Carlucci, who was now serving a five- year prison sentence. In the letter, he offered Carlucci his forgiveness. Mike Carlucci wrote back, and the two men began a regular correspondence. A few months later, Mike asked if Walt would visit him in prison. And by the grace of God, these two men created a friendship on the foundation of heartbreak, forgiveness and faith.
        When Mike Carlucci’s father died while he was in prison, Rev. Everett preached his funeral sermon. When Carlucci came up for parole, Everett spoke on his behalf. When he was released from prison, Carlucci and Everett began traveling to churches and schools and prisons to share their story of forgiveness and faith.(5)
        When the two men were on the Today Show, the host asked Walt Everett if he could ever look at Mike Carlucci and not think about his son’s murder. Everett replied, “I can never forget what happened to Scott… But when I look at Mike, I don’t see the person who harmed Scott. I see somebody who’s been changed by God, and I celebrate that.”(6)
        That’s what John the Baptist was sent to announce. That’s what he is offering today – a chance to be changed by God. Laying the groundwork for Jesus to be born into this world is more than twinkling lights, Christmas trees and cocoa with cookies. It’s about repentance, committing to right living and receiving God’s grace.
        So I invite you to gather around the table today and prepare your hearts for the coming Messiah.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVII, No. 3, p61.
2.   Ibid… p61.
3.   Ibid… p62.
4.   Ibid… p62.
5.   Ibid… p62-63
6.   Ibid… p63.

11-28-2021 The Days Are Surely Coming

Thomas J Parlette
“The Days Are Surely Coming”
Jeremiah 33: 14 -16
11/28/21, First Advent

        One of Juliet’s childhood friends is an accomplished Broadway actress and singer. In fact, she just got cast in the Broadway revival of Music Man coming up this season.
        Whenever we see her around the holidays, she has wonderful stories to tell about the theater world. One of our favorites is about the time she was performing in a touring company doing children’s theater all over the country. She had been cast as Cinderella, and in one particular scene, her Prince Charming was singing about his love for her. The lyrics spoke of the burning love inside of him, but in the middle of the song, the words just flew out of his head and he got stuck on the phrase “I’m burning… burning… burning. I’m burning… burning… burning,” until the music director finally shouted out the lyrics and got him going again.
        Actors live in fear of that happening, “going up” on their lines, as they say. You try to have something in your back pocket, some way to get out of a situation like that, but it doesn’t always work out – and as poor Prince Charming learned, you get burned.
        Actress Jennifer Laura Thompson recalls how her cast mates in a production of Wizard of Oz tried to improvise when the set machinery broke down. Thompson was playing the role of Glinda, the Good Witch, who was supposed to descend to the stage in a large bubble. But as Thompson began her descent, the bubble stopped working. She was stuck 40 feet in the air as her cast mates down below ad-libbed, “She’s coming… it’s Glinda… she’s coming… she’s almost here… do you see her… Glinda’s coming,” until finally the crew was able to lower her down manually, albeit a bit quicker than expected, but still, just short of a crash landing.(1)
        If you can put yourself in the shoes of those actors, improvising and acting excited as they nervously waited for the crew to fix the problem, then you can probably muster up some sympathy for the prophet Jeremiah as he tried to point the nation of Israel to the coming of their Messiah. Israel was hurting. They needed a savior. That savior was coming. But they couldn’t wait. They needed hope now. In the last days of ministry, Jeremiah gave them that hope.
        In his book The Rest of God, Pastor Mark Buchannan tells of counseling a young woman who was struggling on two fronts; she had never healed from a childhood of abuse and neglect, and those painful experiences fueled her present bad choices that were messing up her life. Nothing he said could heal her past or undo her present situation. And it was in this moment of despair that Pastor Buchannan realized that God still had plans and promises for this woman’s future. Her hope lay in trusting her future to the God who promised to be our Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
        Pastor Buchannan writes, “Since that day, this is mostly what I do when I counsel – I help people anticipate… What I do best is describe, as much as human words allow, the hope to which they have been called, the glory we are to receive. I describe how Jesus has the power to bring everything under his control.”(2)
        I help people to anticipate. That was the message of Jeremiah to his people and to us as well.
        “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I shall cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he will execute justice and righteousness in the land…”
        It’s kind of sad that Jeremiah is most remembered as the “weeping prophet.” He always seemed to be on the unpopular side. His inability to hold his tongue really cost him dearly. He was banished for a time from the priesthood. He was physically beaten and publicly humiliated on more than one occasion for expressing his unpopular convictions. But he just couldn’t keep quiet. The voice inside him, the voice of God, just wouldn’t allow him to remain silent.
        When we first meet Jeremiah, he is a preacher of righteousness – he is a real firebrand, telling the people how they were greedy and disobedience and God had forsaken them. Ho wonder he got beat up a lot.
        But by the time we encounter Jeremiah in this last chapter of his book, he has turned to words of comfort. Some would say that he had mellowed. Perhaps so – but the situation had changed as well. Before, his people needed to be confronted, now they needed to be comforted. Before, they needed words of judgment, now they needed words of grace. Before, they deserved condemnation, now they needed hope. So instead of offering a word of punishment, Jeremiah offers a word of promise.
        “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth from David – and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land… And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
        Sixteen times in his book Jeremiah uses the phrase “the days are coming.” He is announcing the coming of Jesus. He didn’t realize at the time just how God would fulfill the messianic promise, but it was an announcement of Christ’s coming just the same. And like all of God’s promises, it would be fulfilled. It took 600 years – but that’s like an afternoon in God’s time. The important words are these – the days are surely coming.
        And that is what this first Sunday in Advent is all about. The days are coming when there will be justice. That is the first promise Jeremiah reminds us of. There will be justice.
        There is an old Arabian story about a wealthy prince who claims the land of a poor widow so that he can expand his palace gardens. The poor widow brings her complaint before a local judge, a man known for his character and integrity. But the judge is also smart enough to know that the wealthy prince could ruin him. So rather than summon the prince to his court, the judge loaded a large sack on his back and went to the palace. The judge asked the prince if he could fill his sack with dirt from the palace garden. The curious prince agreed. After the judge had filled the sack to the brim with dirt, he asked the prince to lift it. The prince said, “That sack is too heavy even for both of us to lift.”
        And the judge replied, “This sack which you think too heavy to bear, contains only a small portion of the land that you took from the rightful owner. How then, at the day of judgement, will you be able to support the weight of the piece of land.”(3)
        We have an innate need for justice, don’t we? We want to see the bad punished and the good rewarded. There is something built into the very fabric of our being that yearns for justice. Until the Messiah comes, what is our role in creating justice? All we can do is pursue righteousness – doing the right thing.
        Tom Long writes, “Righteousness is not a sweet virtue that everybody in the world desires. Those who take advantage of others for their own gain do not want the world to be fair and just. Those who benefit from the weakness of others do not want the world to be compassionate. Much money and power are invested in maintaining injustice. If every wage were fair, if every person were honored as a child of God, if every human being were safe from exploitation, many would lose their grip on status, self-gratification, and affluence.”(4)
        We might squirm when we hear those words – but prophetic words are meant to be uncomfortable, they are meant to challenge us. They are meant to wake us up. Life is not fair. Nevertheless, the days are surely coming, says Jeremiah, when the playing fields of this world will be leveled. The days are coming when that which is unfair will be set right. For when the Bible speaks of justice, it is not merely talking about individual justice. God’s call is for a just society. God’s call is for basic fairness for all people. God’s call is for a new kind of society – a society where all people will live with dignity and freedom. That is what justice is all about.
        Jesus said the days are coming when the last will be first and the first shall be last. During Advent we need to take those words seriously and ask ourselves whether we are contributing to a just society or whether we are one of those who are contributing to the status quo. The days are surely coming when there will be justice.
        The days are also coming when there will be righteousness. Justice refers to the state of our society. Righteousness refers to the state of our individual souls.
        A Yiddish term for “righteousness” is zaddik. It refers to a saintly person, someone whose character and actions are aligned with the will of God. Dr. James Qualben tells a story to illustrate the meaning of this word.
        A few years ago, his car’s fuel-injection system was malfunctioning, so Dr. Qualben took his car to a mechanic. The mechanic happened to be an orthodox Jewish man. He listened carefully to the engine, then took apart the fuel injection system, carefully cleaned each individual piece, and put the whole thing back together again.
        The car worked perfectly. The mechanic closed the hood and announced with a satisfied smile – “Zaddik!” The fuel injection system and the engine were working precisely as the engineers had created them to work. They were in perfect harmony with their creators intent.(5)
        Justice and righteousness – we can’t choose one over the other. We have to have both. Righteousness on a  personal level and justice in our society - they go hand in hand.
        The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when justice and righteousness will prevail. It’s not enough on this First Sunday of Advent to focus on the peripheral elements of the season – the lights, the decorations, the trees, the cocoa and the cookies. We need to think about the very heart of the Advent message – the coming of the Messiah, who brings justice and righteousness. The redemption of our society as well as the redemption of individual souls.
        Ruby Bridges was just six years old when, in 1960, she was chosen as the first Black child to integrate the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Photos show the incredible courage of the little girl who was escorted to school each morning by federal marshals to protect her from the angry white parents who shouted curses, insults and threats at her each day.
        Dr. Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist from Harvard, interviewed Ruby Bridges in an effort to determine how young children learn to cope with such frightening and dehumanizing abuse day after day. In the interview, Ruby told Dr. Coles that she prayed for the people who threatened her, insulted her and spat at her. Her mother and her minister had told her that God was watching over her each day, and it was her duty to pray for and forgive the people who opposed her.
        When Dr. Coles asked Ruby if she thought this advice was correct, she said, “I’m sure God knows what is happening… He may not do anything right now, but there will come a day, like they say in church, there will come a day. You can count on it. That’s what they say in church.”(6)
        There will come a day. You can count on it. That was Jeremiah’s message more than 2000 years ago. And it is the church’s message still today. Jeremiah the prophet was a lonely man, but he had a burning in his bones. Jeremiah had a passion for righteousness and justice. He announced the coming of the One who would bring righteousness and justice into the world. Surely the days are coming. You can count on it.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.               Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, p57.
2.               Ibid… p57.
3.               Ibid… p58.
4.               Ibid… p59.
5.               Ibid… p59.
6.               Ibid… p59-60. 

11-21-2021 The King and I

The King and I

John 18:33-37

Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday

Jay Rowland

This scene from the Gospel of John may feel a bit out of place today. As the calendar races toward Thanksgiving and Advent, we are confronted by the Passion of Christ: Jesus is standing before Pilate--a scene we’re accustomed to meeting during Lent and Holy Week, on the springtime side of winter rather than here on the threshold of another Advent winter.

Given that today is Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday. And given that next Sunday we begin searching anew and waiting anew for the One whose birth triggers hope and singing and celebration, it’s important to realize that Jesus entered this world, our world, to reveal God’s world; to open our eyes and our hearts to God’s presence here in our midst.

Jesus is the best and ultimate expression of God’s Great Love

God’s Great Love is how Jesus was born. It is why Jesus was born.

God’s Great love is the crown Jesus wears among us.

The crown of thorns.

So there is perhaps no scene more poignant than this scene from John’s gospel as we end another church year and look to prepare for Advent. Look and see with your mind’s eye: Jesus over there, under arrest, wounded and bruised and man-handled. A prisoner in the custody of Pilate

Pontius Pilate, that is, the man in charge of Judea for the Roman Empire. Pilate is the Emperor’s authority--comparable to a king--over this tiny speck on the map of the vast Roman Empire. Pilate answers only to the Emperor when it comes to the people and the goings-on in Judea. He has the authority to end your life or to spare your life. It fazes him not at all. He does it all the time.

“King Pilate” looks at “king Jesus” and sees no threat to his authority nor to that of the Emperor. To Pilate this is just another irritating conflict among those monotheist Hebrews who frequently object to Roman policy interfering with their religious practices. The official policy of Rome is to let conquered people do their religious thing as long as it doesn’t stir up any religious passion which might destabilize the occupation of Judea. Pilate wants this religious argument settled quietly and among themselves. That is, until the designated religious authorities insist that Jesus is guilty of treason for promoting himself as a king above the Emperor and the Empire.

That word treason elevates this situation to something more than a simple complaint among religious big shots. A charge of treason is something Pilate cannot ignore and must examine more closely. After meeting with the religious authorities outdoors for they refused to enter into his headquarters lest they defile themselves, Pilate steps back inside to face Jesus.

So begins Pilate’s brief interrogation of Jesus.

“Just what kind of King are you?” Pilate asks Jesus.

Pilate’s question lays bare the ages-old system of human-centered, earth-bound authority over and against any so-called authority of God over the everyday lives of people.

Pilate’s question prompts a question from Jesus in return, words which I understand him to say, do you ask what kind of king I am because you want to know me or are you merely curious?

Ultimately, Jesus describes his mission rather simply: “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

In the very next verse, Pilate asks, “what is truth”?

Who would have ever thought that Pilate’s question would resound with such perilous consequences in recent years?!

Pilate stands tall but not alone in his verdict condemning the kingdom of God. It is a common, daily verdict pronounced and practiced nearly every day in this world. We frequently ignore or reject the kingdom of God because we are mesmerized by the legion of mirage kingdoms daily occupying our minds, our time and our interest. The chaos and the craziness of human-centered kingdoms is a result of our depleted understanding of truth, which we have painfully realized is vital to the human activity of exerting authority over other human beings.

Meanwhile, Jesus calls us away from all of that chaos, and away from everything distracting us from the harm and death being wreaked upon creation and human life.

But we hesitate to follow and heed this call. I guess that’s because when it comes right down to it, Jesus seems like a king for fools compared to the forceful talk and actions displayed by kings and presidents and leaders of nations. We are easily overwhelmed when earthly kings and leaders of nations resort to force, coercion and manipulation. And we are dismayed when our leaders utilize nearly all of their resources and privileges toward remaining in power rather than toward improving the lives of the people they govern.

Which is entirely different from and foreign to the kingdom of God.

Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, so neither is his “power”. “His is not power over people, it’s power with and for people.” I see more and more references to the term kin-dom, emphasizing our human kinship under God rather than the term Kingdom with its emphasis upon authority and conformity. “When we do the work of the kin-dom in this world, we witness Jesus’ power through people”, rather than power enacted upon or over people. 1

To answer Pilate’s question what kind of king is Jesus? My answer--inspired by scripture, Handel’s Messiah and my own experiences with Jesus--is this:

Jesus is a king of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

He is a king of pain. Human pain.

Jesus is a king who regularly travels the valleys of shadows and death, continually crossing back and forth while leading us, his beloved to higher ground along the way to bask in the glory of creation and savor the beauty of life, the fruits of the Spirit and the goodness of people.

Jesus is a king who is the Source of incredible power, a power we are in some ways accustomed to and yet always yearning for--a sort of constant, ever-present power we rely upon but often overlook, like sunshine. Jesus our king radiates Life and thrives on Love and the love of God’s people.

King Jesus is the only viable alternative to all of the mirage kingdoms clamoring for our allegiance.

King Jesus comes to save and shield our life with his own body, with his own pain and with his very own blood, infusing the very blood flowing through every vein of our bodies.

King Jesus is the unlikely, unseen king who stands with us in every experience of injustice and betrayal, in the rooms and hallways of diagnosis and treatment, in the lonely valleys of darkness and confusion where death prowls and taunts the innocent. Jesus is the only king who will stand there in that place of threat with us. Come what may.

I recently read a description of the Kingdom of God and Christ the King written by a contemporary theologian named Frank Thomas published in Christian Century . I found it so practical and meaningful I decided to use it as our Affirmation of Faith today. If it touches your heart as it did mine, you can speak the words yourself in a few moments. But first, just listen and follow along in your bulletin as I speak Thomas’ words aloud:

The kingdom of God is God’s reign—not over a country or a group of people but over the whole of human history.

The realm of God affirms what is good, true, and just in every age, and it corrects what is misguided, unjust, and wrong.

It is not about a geographical country nor a particular race or ethnicity.

God’s realm does not settle on boundaries that we make … Nor is God’s realm a national or political entity.

It is a community in God’s care that lives in radical love, joy peace, truth, and righteousness.

The kingdom of God is rooted in the paradoxical name and nature of God.

The realm of God is preached and therefore inaugurated: it is here, but it is also on the way.

God’s reign is plain, but it is also mysterious.

God’s realm is open to everybody, but it is also hidden.

Though it somehow is never fully realized, it is so profound and so real that we cannot escape its claim.

The church is God’s realm in its most visible but fallible form, it participates in the inauguration of the reign of God.

This kingdom of God is the most beautiful and alluring facet of life, yet it is also the most demanding and radical thing one could ever know or do. 2

Rejoice and be glad, for we are citizens you & I of the Kingdom of God

A Kingdom created by God’s Great Love;

A world revealed by Jesus through his birth, life, death, resurrection, and promised return.

It is the reason we were born and live this life!

God’s kingdom is with us every day,

… it is there in the valleys of shadow and confusion.

… it comes alongside us to guide us and catch us and help us and save us each day.

… it is ever and always among us, moving with us along the highways and hallways of life and death in this world.

The kingdom of God is the Passion of Christ.

And the passion of Christ is the Advent of Christ.

Look for it.

Pray for it.

Imagine it.

Wait for it.

For it is coming to meet you and I in the place of our greatest need.

Thanks Be To God!

******************************

Notes:

1 pastor Chris Mereschuk offers a timely example of the kin-dom/Kingdom dichotomy in his wonderful devotional, https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/thy-kin-dom-come/

2 Frank A. Thomas, in Reflections on the Lectionary for November 21 Reign of Christ Sunday, Christian Century, November 3, 2021

11-14-2021 A Peek at the Ending

Thomas J Parlette
“A Peek at the Ending”
Mark 13: 1-8
11/14/21

        Most of you are familiar with the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical “Joseph and the Amazing, Technicolor Dreamcoat.” It has had multiple successful runs on Broadway and has become a staple of community and school theater groups all over the country.
        Joseph tells the story of the biblical character Joseph and his brothers – how he is sold into slavery in Egypt and yet finds favor with the Pharaoh because of his ability to interpret dreams.
        There is a song in the musical, a big cast number, that comes when Joseph is seemingly at his rock bottom. He is in a prison cell after being abandoned by his jealous brothers and then sold into slavery. It’s a rousing number called “Go, Go, Go Joseph.” The lyrics go like this:
        “Go, Go, Go Joseph,
         Hang on now Joseph, you’ll make it someday.
         Don’t give up Joseph, fight till you drop,
         We’ve read the book and you come out on top.”
       I love that little wink and a nod to the audience that assures us that even though Joseph is in a bad way, things will work out in the end. Sometimes it helps to have a peek at the ending.
        Our passage from Mark for today is part of the apocalyptic literature of the Bible. In very vivid terms it describes the last days of humanity. Each time predictions are made using this passage as guidance, there are people who sell their homes, cash in their life insurance, and turn toward the heavens for signs that the end is near. Of course, this is nothing new.
        Historians believe that the first apocalyptic cult in the United States was established in 1694, just 74 years after the pilgrims immigrated here. A mystic from Transylvania named Johannes Kelpius was the leader, and he and his followers settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in what is now Fairmount Park. There were 40 so-called “monks” in Kelpius’ cult because they believed that the number 40 had a spiritual meaning. They believed that the End was coming soon. So they lived in a small settlement in the wilderness where they studied astronomy, and made art and music.
        Kelpius predicted that the End would come on the last day of 1694. That day came and went. Nothing happened. A new day dawned on January 1st.
        However, his followers didn’t abandon him, as you might expect. Instead, they continued to live in the woods and study the stars. After Kelpius’ death, his followers disbanded and went on with their lives. As a side note, Kelpius was the subject of the first known oil painting done in the United States. It was painted by one of Kelpius’ followers, Christopher Witt.(1) If you’re ever in Philadelphia, you can visit Fairmount Park and see a cave purported used by Kelpius.
        And of course, there are still groups around that believe the end times are near.
        But there is nothing in the Bible that gives us a specific date or timeline. There are many passages like this one that give us an idea of what things might be like. There are certainly passages that talk about the need to prepare for the end of time. But no clear date or timeline exists. However, there are a few things that Jesus says to us about the end of time and his return.
        The first thing to say about any of these apocalyptic texts is – we cannot know the future. Only God has that information. Jesus’ disciples fully expected his return in their lifetimes, they expected to see all this happen. But it didn’t. A new day dawned every time. Only God knows the future.
        There was once a woman named Leta Davis who tells of sitting in church one day with her family listening to her pastor preach on the end of time. She didn’t know that her three-year- old son, Christopher, was paying attention to the sermon until the pastor asked the congregation a rhetorical question – “What preparation do we need for the final days?”
        And Christopher whispered, perhaps a little too loudly, “Preparation H.” Apparently Christopher watches a lot of TV.(2)
        Anytime society faces a major change or crisis – such as a pandemic, rising unemployment, natural disasters –  people search for some sense of control. We either seek someone to blame or someone to guide us. Just look at the myths, lies and conspiracy theories that circulate on social media. We gain a sense of control when we find someone to blame for our problems.
        A mother once asked her son what he would like for his birthday.
        “I’d like a little brother,” he said.
        Mom was a little taken aback. “Oh my, that’s a big wish. Why do you want a little brother?
        “Well, said the boy, “there’s only so much I can blame on the dog.”(3)
        When we fear the future, we look for someone or something to blame.
        Another way of dealing with an uncertain future is by looking for someone or something to guide us, to provide us with a sense of direction, a sense of comfort or certainty. We turn to anyone who offers us answers – politicians, religious leaders, internet influencers, celebrities, and even psychics.
        There is a woman in New York city, a psychic named Hae Jun Jeon, who makes a good living as an advisor to major financial and technology firms in New York. She uses tarot cards to guide her clients in their decisions about investing and money matters. There are many who swear by her abilities.(4) I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want my financial adviser turning to tarot cards.
        There was once a New York City detective who was interviewed about the psychics practicing in the city. She said, “You know, I’ve gone into hundreds of fortune-teller’s parlors, and been told thousands of things about myself and what’s going happen in the future. But not once has any psychic said to me, ‘You are a police officer getting ready to arrest me.’ ”(5) Some things not even psychics can foresee.
        Jesus does not promise us any answers about the future, at least not when it comes to specific dates and times. In fact, he says to watch out for those people who claim to know the future, because they are deceiving us. We can’t know the future, only God knows.
        So since we can’t know the future, our task is to make the most of the present, the here and now.
        Writer Myrko Thum notes that, “The present moment is the only thing where there is no time. It is the point between past and future. It is always there and it is the only point we can access in time. Everything that happens, happens in the present moment. Everything that ever happened can only happen in the present moment. It is impossible for any to exist outside of the present.”(6)
        Wayne Dyer advises us: “Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.”(7)
        Eckart Tolle traces how we manage the present moment to almost ill that affects us. He writes:
“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear- are caused by too much future and not enough present. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough present.”(8)
        We can’t know the future, much less control it – but we can control how we use the present moment.
        God does not give us all the answers about the future, but God does give us incredible opportunities to live and be followers in this present moment.
        Another important thing we can say when we read these apocalyptic texts is that God does know the future. We don’t, but God does. That is our chief source of comfort and strength.
        Professor and author Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1986. He is best known for his book Night, a memoir of his family’s suffering in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Elie was just fifteen years old when his family was deported from Romania to Auschwitz. His mother, father and younger sister were murdered in the camps.
        You would think that suffering a tragedy this great would make him deeply pessimistic about the future. Instead, Elie Wiesel encouraged people to live with courage and hope, to choose their attitude toward the future. In one of his works, he writes, “One must wager on the future. To save the life of a single child, no effort is superfluous. To make a tired old man smile is to perform an essential task. To defeat injustice and misfortune, if only for an instant, for a single victim, is to invent a new reason to hope.”(9)
        Realizing that God knows the future gives us a new reason to hope. If we know God’s character, then we trust God’s purposes. In spite of uncertainty, in spite of suffering, in spite of circumstance, we can trust the future to God and give our best to the present moment. Rather than wallowing in speculation our fear, we can focus on doing good works and sharing God’s love right now in our present circumstances. And in this way, we can discover new reasons to hope.
        The biblical testimony is that there is a basic pattern to all of life. You and I can’t discern it any more than a fish can analyze the water in which it swims. If we could step out of space and time with God, we could see the pattern, and we could see that all things do work to the good for those who love God, but right now, we can’t make that out. All we know is that God knows and therefore things are all right.
        In 1941, while confined as a prisoner of war in Germany, a young Frenchman and devout Christian named Olivier Messiaen composed an instrumental piece called, “The Quartet for the End of Time.” It’s inspired by a passage from Revelation 10- especially the phrase, “there shall be time no longer,” which Messiaen took quite literally as he followed a very complicated time signature throughout the piece. As Messiaen liked to say, “A steady beat has no life in it.” And he meant it.
        Even though he was in prison, the guards were supportive of Messiaen’s music, providing him with pencils, erasers, music paper and even instruments – although his piano was missing some keys, which Messiaen simply worked around it.
        “The Quartet for the End of Time” is notoriously difficult to play, but it is a beautiful piece of music, written to remind his fellow prisoners that no matter how horrible their circumstance, at the end of time God would triumph over the forces of evil and redeem humanity’s brokenness and suffering. 
        In most musical scores, there are notations to play a certain section slowly or quickly. Messiaen cared more that his musicians play with great emotion. Instead of using notations to drive the pace of the music, his notations read, “Play tenderly, play with ecstasy, play with love.”(10)
        Even if we don’t know the future, we don’t have to live in fear. Like the beautiful quartet written in a prisoner-of-war camp, we can live tenderly, live with ecstasy, live with love. We only have to trust that God knows the future, and our time is safe in God’s hands.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, p46.
2.   Ibid… p47
3.   Ibid… p47.
4.   Ibid… p47.
5.   Ibid… p47.
6.   www.myrkothum.com, retrieved 11/2/21.
7.   www.themindfool.com, retrieved 11/2/21
8.   Ibid…
9.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, p48.
10.  Ibid… p48-49.

11-07-2021 The Widow Returns

Thomas J Parlette
“The Widow Returns”
Mark 12: 38-44
11/7/21

        Jon Krakauer is a mountaineer and the author of the best-selling book Into Thin Air. The book is about his 1996 expedition to Mount Everest in which numerous climbers died in a blizzard. Krakauer was not prepared for the deadly storm. He didn’t know it was coming. He stood on top of Mount Everest and just saw some cloud formations and thought nothing was wrong.
        Later, he met another climber who had returned quickly to base camp when he saw those same cloud formations. He had hustled back down the mountain. Why? This man was a pilot. In his years flying over dangerous storms, he had come to recognize thunderhead cloud formations. He had studied them from high overhead. These were a sure sign of dangerous weather. So when he was down below a thunderhead, he recognized it instantly and turned around and headed for safety.(1) Sometimes it pays off to be a keen observer.
        Jesus was just such a keen observer. He was a master at people watching. In today’s passage, Jesus is in the Temple. As he taught the crowds that came to the Temple for worship and instruction in the faith, he observed two groups of people. First, there were the scribes. Jesus wasn’t too impressed by them. Listen again to Mark as he describes the scene:

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

        Harsh words for the scribes. These were the most religious people in the community and Jesus judges them quite severely. It is clear that these holy men weren’t as holy as they wanted people to think they were. Of course that is not as unusual as it may seem – there are a lot of people that are pulling the wool over people’s eyes, just keeping up appearances for the neighbors.
        Recently I came across an interesting story about a man in the sports world – a moderately talented soccer player, who attempted to pull the wool over people’s eyes for years.
        In his newsletter Now I Know!, Dan Lewis tells the story of Carlos Kaiser. Carlos was born in 1963 in Brazil, a country that is known for its superb soccer teams. Carlos was a naturally athletic young man, and at age 16 he joined a professional soccer club. Sadly, he was cut from the team not long afterwards. In spite of his athletic abilities, Carlos’ soccer skills simply weren’t at a professional level.
        But that wasn’t the end of Carlos’ professional soccer career. If this were a Hollywood movie, we would get the classic training montage, like in one of the Rocky movies. Carlos would begin a punishing workout of soccer drills every day, change his diet and his mindset and become the most formidable soccer player in all of Brazil – all set to a driving rock song like “Eye of the Tiger.” The movie would fade out with Carlos being hoisted on his teammates shoulders after he kicks the winning goal in the World Cup. That’s how Hollywood might do it. But that not how Carlos Kaiser did it.
        Carlos decided to con his way onto as many professional soccer teams as he could. Whenever coaches were looking for a few extra players, Carlos would apply. After all, he looked like an athlete. His friends all claimed he was a great athlete. They just never said he was a great soccer player.
        So Carlos would get a short term contract with a professional team. Then he would claim that he needed at least a month to get in peak physical condition before he could go out on the field. During that time, he would collect a paycheck without actually playing much soccer. When he finally did get called out to play on the field, Carlos would suffer an alleged “injury” very quickly in the game – a pulled muscle was hard to disapprove back in the 70’s and early 80’s. So he would need another month to six weeks to recover from his injury before he could play.
        But while he was on the bench – and still receiving a paycheck – Carlos would bribe local reporters to write stories about his amazing athleticism and soccer skills. Fans demanded to see him play. Teams would compete to offer him better contracts. All told, Carlos Kaiser had paid contracts with ten different clubs without ever having to play a full soccer match.
        Carlos’ con almost got exposed in the late 80’s when he played for the Bangu soccer team. The owner, Castor de Andrade, demanded that his coach put Carlos into a game. Carlos had to think quick. He ran over to the opposing team’s stands and started a fight with a fan who was heckling his team. The referees threw Carlos out of the game. But to escape the wrath of the owner of the team, Carlos claimed the heckler had insulted his boss’s honor. The owner was so pleased about how Carlos had defended him, he gave him a 6 month extension on his contract.(2)
        Some people have a talent for pulling the wool over people’s eyes. And some people, like Jesus, have a talent for recognizing such people. Jesus could examine people’s hearts. He could see what they were really like on the inside. And that’s what Jesus saw when he looked at the religious leaders of his time.
        The scribes, the teachers of the law, were the most respected members of their communities. They had spent years studying and memorizing religious law. They were the ultimate religious authorities in their society. They expected praise and honor for their spiritual leadership. They expected to be applauded for their faith. But Jesus was not all that impressed by their posturing. Jesus didn’t care about the outward appearance. He knew that sometimes things are not as they appear.
        Every year, the American Institute of Architects has an awards program that recognizes some of the best buildings in the country. In 1976, they chose the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, to receive one of the highest awards. In 1979, The American Institute of Architects held their annual conference in Kansas City, and they offered tours of Kemper Arena to their attendees. Everyone was, of course, impressed with the massive structure.
        The day after the architect’s tour, a major storm swept through Kansas City and destroyed the roof of the Kemper Arena. A later investigation showed that the roof bolts weren’t strong enough to support the massive roof. So as soon as the guest architects left town, the roof quite literally fell in on the Kemper Arena, which was rebuilt and now goes by the name Hy-Vee Arena.(3)
        Jesus aggravated the religious leaders of his day because he wasn’t impressed by their outward appearance; he knew that structurally they were weak. Jesus was repulsed by people who made a show of their religion.
        All the praise and prestige that they so enjoyed, went straight to their heads. Even worse, some of them abused their position of spiritual leadership to manipulate their followers into giving more money that they could afford. You know, every time I read this passage about the faithful widow, one phrase always jumps off the page – “devouring widow’s houses.” Pretty graphic imagery.
        Rodney Cooper, writing in the Holman New Testament Commentary, explains it like this: “In speaking of the scribes “devouring widow’s houses”, Jesus was condemning the greedy, predatory way in which scribes or other members of the religious establishment would not hesitate to mercilessly drive people into poverty while enriching themselves through their demands for offerings and payments in the name of religion, even if those payments would include the seizure of a widow’s estate, leaving her with no means of support or a place to live.”
        “Despite this deliberate cruelty, the scribes would then put on a visible appearance of being very religious by saying lengthy prayers in public, and otherwise displaying their supposed piety in places where other people would see them do so and praise them for it, while also enjoying all the tangible benefits that came with their status as members of the religious hierarchy, such as seats of honor at religious feasts, or in synagogue during worship. Jesus said that their punishment in eternity would be greater because of their hypocrisy.(4) It doesn’t look good for the scribes.
        And that brings us to the second thing Jesus saw as he people watched at the Temple that day. He saw a poor widow. As Mark says: “Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. He called his disciples and said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
        Widows in Jesus’ day were uniquely vulnerable. There was social security back then, the only social safety net they had was the synagogue and their extended family. If others did not help them, they would be hungry and homeless. And yet in spite of her low status and her poverty, she gave what she had to the Temple. She didn’t draw attention to her sacrifice. She didn’t do it to impress anyone. If it hadn’t been for Jesus pointing it out, no one would have known. But this widow trusted God’s character and she obeyed God’s commands. Because loving God is its own reward. And the greater we love God, the more willing we are to sacrifice to follow.
        You’ve all heard the name Corrie Ten Boom. Many of you have probably read her books. Corrie and her family had constructed a secret room in their house to hide Jewish citizens from Nazi deportation to concentration camps. It is estimated that the Ten Boom family was able to smuggle roughly 800 people out of the Netherlands. Sadly, one of their neighbors turned them in, and the Ten Boom family was sent to concentration camps.
        Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to the brutal Ravensbruck concentration camp. They were tortured, beaten and nearly starved to death. But they never gave up on their faith in God.
        In December 1944, Betsie died at Ravensbruck. Corrie was released 12 days later. A few days after Corrie’s release all the women of her age group at Ravensbruck were sent to the gas chambers.
        After Corrie’s release, she returned to the Netherlands and opened a rehabilitation center for victims of the concentration camps. She wrote books about her family’s experiences in the war and travelled all over the world sharing her faith. One of her more famous quotes is “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”(5)
        Every year around this time, the widow returns to remind us of the truth of Corrie Ten Boom’s words – Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. That was the widow’s secret. That is the essence of faith. Faith is not an outward show of piety but an inner trust that God will provide. The widow in the Temple had that kind of trust, The scribes – not so much.
        The religious leaders put on a show for the people who were under their care. The poor widow only had an audience of one – and that is God. The widow returns today to say once more – “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, p 42.
2.   Ibid… p 42-43.
3.   Ibid… p 43.
4.   Ibid… p 43-44.
5.   Ibid… p 44.

10-24-2021 Old and Full of Days

Thomas J Parlette
“Old and Full of Days”
Job 42: 1-6, 10-17
10/24/21

        In 1958, Archibald MacLeish wrote a play in verse called “J.B.” It would go on to a long and successful run on Broadway and was a staple on college stages through the 1960’s and 70’s. In 1959, “J.B.” won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony award for Best Play.
        MacLeish was moved to write the play as a response to the horrors he saw during two world wars – including the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So turning to the Book of Job seemed like the thing to do.
        In the forward to the acting edition of his play, MacLeish explained that turning to the Bible for a framework seemed sensible “when you are dealing with questions too large for which, nevertheless, will not leave you alone.”
        “J.B.” tells the story of a 20th century American banker and millionaire whom God commands be stripped of his family and his wealth but who refuses to turn his back on God, saying in the face on each crushing loss, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” MacLeish wondered how modern people could retain hope and keep living with all the suffering in the world and offered this, his play, as an answer. At the end, JB learns that there is no justice in the world, that happiness and suffering are not deserved, and that people can still choose to love each other and live.(1)
        All those lessons are creeping into view as we wrap up the story of Job.
        In last week’s passage, we heard God finally respond to Job’s questions and complaints out of the whirlwind. Turns out, God has some questions as well. “Where were you?” That is the refrain that was repeated over and over again. “Where were you? You just don’t understand who you are dealing with Job. I have knowledge, wisdom and power that are simply beyond your capacity to understand.”
        That was last week. This week, we visit Job in the aftermath of the Divine Whirlwind. There is Job, his hair blown back – he’s cowering, face down with his hands over his head hiding from the whirlwind of God. When he’s sure it’s safe, when he’s sure he’s not going to be struck down in divine fury – Job peeks through his fingers and whispers in essence: “When I asked you to meet me in court, O Yahweh, I simply didn’t know what I was talking about. But things are clearer to me now. I no longer wish to challenge you; I only want to learn from your wisdom. I will be quiet while you answer my questions.”
        And then, as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translates it, Job says, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
        That seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it – despise myself, or. as the King James Version renders it, “I abhor myself.” Seems too harsh, especially in our modern times when self-esteem is such a big deal. We would never want to hear someone say they despise or abhor themselves. And, truth be told, there are difficulties with the translation here. The NRSV holds to the long tradition of translating the Hebrew as “despise myself”, instead of the King James “abhor myself.” But there are other possibilities that are just as valid and just as faithful to the language. For instance, the editors of the New English Bible have chosen to say, “therefore I yield” instead of “therefore I despise myself.” In light of the previous verses that seem to reflect more of a sense of humility rather than self-loathing – maybe “I yield” is a better translation of Job’s mental state here in the aftermath of the Divine Whirlwind.
        And then there’s the idea of repentance, which is never as easy concept to come to grips with. Repentance usually means to be sorry for sin, to turn around, take a new path, change your ways. So when we hear the word “repent” and we immediately think of changing our evil, sinful ways. But what if no sin has been committed? What if there is no evil way to change? We know that Job is righteous and good and faithful – why is he repenting?
        And again, perhaps a fuller translation would be helpful. The Hebrew word here actually has a wide range of possible meanings, such as “to have pity”, “to have compassion”, or even “to comfort oneself”, are just a few possibilities. So one possible translation of the text could be… “Job admitted his mistake in attempting to challenge Yahweh.” That perhaps gives us a better sense of what Job’s repentance is all about here.
        As Irma Zaleski has written in her book “The Way of Repentance”: When we repent, we give up our illusions, our compulsions, our self-centeredness as soon as we notice them; we cry for mercy and we always go on. We don’t expect any quick answers or ask for any revelations. We look only to Christ our Lord and follow him step by step…”(2)
        I think that describes Job here after the whirlwind pretty well. He repents in that he gives up his illusions of God’s justice – and instead, Job cries for mercy. He stops expecting those quick, sure and certain answers that we’d like to have and learns to live with uncertainty, listening instead for the answers God wants to give. As we all know, living with uncertainties is never easy.
        I like the story about noted mathematician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, who used to type all his work on an old Remington typewriter that he had customized. He had removed the number 1, the exclamation point and the question mark – and replaced them with specialized mathematical symbols. Someone once asked him how he managed to write without using question marks and he answered, “Well, you see, I deal in certainties, not questions.”(3)
        Certainties are something we’d all like to deal in. But Job is not a story about certainty – it’s a story about trust. It’s a story about trusting that God will continue to love us through any circumstance – as God continued to love Job right through his time of torment.
        In Job, God gives us some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that we don’t get what we deserve. And the good news is the same – we don’t get what we deserve. God is at work in each and every situation to help us find meaning and purpose. In love and mercy, God sticks by us through the tragedies that are a part of this life.
        From his face down position, Job whispers, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. As Carl Jung once said, “Job caught a glimpse of the shadow of God.”(4) As a result of his whirlwind encounter, Job experiences God in a completely new way – as the mysterious, all-powerful, unknowable, Creator of the Universe, but also as a merciful God who would stoop to lift us up and stand by us in the most troubling times.
        Perhaps the apostle Paul had Job in mind when he wrote his spontaneous burst of praise in Romans:
        “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! For who had known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” This is one of the texts that gave birth to the theological idea of doxology, to God be the glory.
        In a well-known sermon called “Doxology”, Fred Craddock preached on those words from Romans. He writes: In the fall of the year, even after the days grow short and the air crisp, I still go out on the patio alone at the close of the day. I sit there remembering, trying to understand the painful distance between the day as I planned it and the day as it had been. The growing darkness seeped into my mind and heart and I was as the night. Looking back on it, I know now that it was that evening on which the Idea came to me.” It was an idea he called, for lack of a better name – Doxology.
        Doxology began to follow Craddock throughout his days. Doxology joined the family at the dinner table, as the question was asked, “What was the worst thing that happened today?”
        “The school bell rang at 8:30.”
        Well, what was the best thing that happened?
        “It rang again at 3:30.”
        The family agreed, Doxology belonged at the family dinner table. They even took Doxology along to the beach on vacation. No doubt about it – Doxology was good company.
        Doxology even joined Craddock on routine errands around town. Together they laughed with children, talked to the banker and enjoyed the bustle of life. But when it was time to stop at the hospital to visit Betty, who was dying from cancer – well, Craddock felt it was inappropriate to take something as joyous as Doxology along. Doxology insisted – but Craddock locked him in the car and went on his own. After an awkward visit and a quick prayer, Craddock slunk back to the car.
Doxology asked, “Should I have been there?”
“Yes,” said Craddock. “I’m sorry – I didn’t understand.”
        Doxology is the simple idea that God deserves all the glory and praise. As Paul said, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To God be glory forever.” There is never any situation in life where our Doxology – our words of appreciation and wonder at the awesome being of our Creator – is inappropriate. As Craddock says near the end of his sermon, “If we ever lose our Doxology we might as well be dead.”(5)
        I think Job re-discovered his own Doxology at the end of his days. He lived through his sufferings and the advice to curse God and die. He lived through his searching and questioning God’s presence. He lived through his anger and bitter complaints. He even survived the whirlwind of God’s response. He lived through it all to discover that God had stood by him the whole time – offering not justice, but something even better. Infinite mercy. Or as J.B.’s wife Sarah says in MacLeish’s play: “You wanted justice and there was none – only love.”
        There are a lot of satisfying endings in the Bible. Some of my favorites are the story of Moses. God shows Moses the Promised land right before his death. He dies at the Lord’s command and only God knows where he is buried. And the scripture tells us, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew, face to face.” Great ending.
        Or there’s Elijah, when the chariots and horses of fire descend and a whirlwind lifts him up to heaven. And of course, there is Jesus, ascending through the clouds from Bethany on the Mount of Olives. All satisfying endings.
        But I have to say, the ending of Job is probably my favorite. As the text says, the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. His fortunes restored, his life rebuilt, Job sits on his front porch, sometime in the autumn of his life, rocking back and forth in his favorite rocking chair, watching the seasons change. Watching his beautiful, successful daughters, now with kids of their own, his grandchildren, running around the front yard. And after Job lived 140 years, he died, old and full of days. He wanted justice, but instead found only love and infinite mercy.
        A satisfying ending to the story of Job.
        May we all be so blessed.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   The Gale Group, A Study Guide for Archibald MacLeish’s “J.B.”, The Gale Group, 2002, p. 1-2.
2.   Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/20/21.
3.   Ibid.
4.   Ibid.
5.   Fred Craddock, As One Without Authority, Abingdon Press, 1971, p. 163-168.

10-31-2021 All Things New

All Things New

Jay P. Rowland

10.31.2021

Revelation 21:1-6a

See I am making all things new  Rev.21:5

Change is a basic ingredient of life.

Change is inevitable.

So why run from it? Why not lean into it? 

Change--or perhaps the anticipation of change--provokes our most impulsive anxiety and fear. We tend to cling to the familiar past (or present) while backing away from the unknown future.

Sometimes change can be so profound and disorienting we are left grieving in its wake.  Death is certainly one example of that. But whether it’s death we’re grieving, or the loss of certainty, or the loss of what we thought we knew or understood, whatever the profound change may be that’s left us disoriented, grieving is essential. It’s essential to the process of re-orienting to life on life’s terms while grieving the loss of ours.  

And when it comes to grieving, it’s essential to include the Lord. And don’t hold anything back. Share your anger, your rage, your sense of disorientation; let it all flow.  But don’t stop there.  We are not wired to grieve in isolation—all by ourselves.  It doesn’t work.  We all need some framework of personal support—grief support group, counseling, all of the above.  When it comes to life’s most profound and significant changes grieving is not only beneficial, it’s appropriate. And necessary.  But opposing change? Good luck with that.  Resistance to change is futile. 

But it’s understandably common.

Change sometimes brings unmitigated suffering and harm.  We’ve been experiencing that together on a global and national scale in recent months and years.

But some change is desperately needed, longed-for, and long-awaited. And prayed for.

Either way, we usually cannot stop or prevent the most profound changes we encounter. Yet we often expend a great deal of energy fearing or opposing what we cannot stop, when we could instead put quality time and energy into praying and meditating our way toward a deeper mindfulness and trust in the Lord.  When we take the time to do so, we discover this creates mental/emotional/spiritual “space” to counterbalance our reactive fight/flight response.  God enables us to resist our primitive brain’s fight/flight/freeze constriction and resistance through meditation; meditative prayer which allows us to be open to the new … open to the good that always comes along with any change no matter how awful that change may appear.

I think we know deep down in our spirit-heart that change has just as much potential to enhance life as it does to diminish it. In my own life I experienced unwelcome change in the form of corporate downsizing and the sudden loss of a job and the instability and fear that comes with it.  Not once or twice, but three times.  And yet, if those changes hadn’t happened, I might not have ended up being a minister.  It wasn’t on my career radar back when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life.  Those changes led to a new direction and vitality of life for me that I did not self-orchestrate nor imagine.

Of course it all depends on what the change actually is.  But change in and of itself is neither inherently good nor bad.  It just is.  It’s too easy to react to change impulsively with great fear and anxiety.  I totally understand that.  I’ve been there many times.  But whenever my head was spinning from the reactive fear and anxiety, my breathing shortened, and it so easily compounded and built upon itself.  And that process saps most or all of the valuable spiritual energy and resources which move us into reorienting to life anew.

We are living in a time of vast social and cultural and political shifts.  This is disorienting.  We don’t like it.  We feel powerless.  Even our most well-established religious practices and expectations will not be spared the changes these societal shifts are creating. So much is changing happening in so many areas of life people are reacting and clinging as a result.  I see people becoming rigid and inflexible over the littlest, insignificant things.  This is what happens when we get caught up in blind fear of change.  Plenty of fight/flight/freeze on display out there. 

Meanwhile, this is nothing new. It just is for us. History reveals that every 500 years the dominant form and structure of church has changed.  The first major shift was when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.  This created the Monastic movement.  Then 500 years later the eastern and western churches split.  Islam started to grow and “threaten” Christianity.  Then in the 1500s the Reformation happened.  And here we are 500 years later. 

Rather than fear these momentous but natural shifts we cannot stop, rather than claim the sky is falling and the “church is dead” it’s far more life-affirming (and interesting) to engage and look to God to help us discern how God’s calling the church to new ways as God has faithfully done all along.  The church is NOT DEAD.  But it is changing.

The church is changing because society and the world is changing. The church offers nothing to us or to the world if it resists change while everything else adapts and re-orients to a changing world. Worship has always helped God’s people navigate the perils of change. 

In his Introduction to The Book of Revelation (The Message Bible), Eugene Peterson noted that the early church learned in the midst of suffering from persecution that “if worship is neglected or perverted, our communities fall into chaos or under tyranny.”   Forms of church and worship change every 500 years.  But because worship and community are two sides of the same coin of the realm of God, the church continues wherever its worship remains robust and accessible.

Revelation was written by John of Patmos. Patmos distinguishes the John of Revelation from the other important New Testament figures also named John. The John of Revelation was a pastor. At the time, his congregations were living under intense persecution. First-century Christians were being arrested, tortured and executed for worshipping God in Jesus Christ rather than the Roman Emperor.

Revelation is a vision John received which he attributed to Jesus. It’s a vision noted for its mysterious symbolism and otherworldly imagery. Even so, this vision brought encouragement and hope to God’s people in the midst of their living nightmare. John refused to let the coercive, corrupt powers of empire corrupt and obliterate the most sacred expression of his people’s faith in God. 

Because John knew that without worship neither John nor his congregations would hold up under the strain lurking over them every time they gathered to praise the True Source of Love and Life they needed more than anything else. But John was living in exile on the island of Patmos cut off from his other churches spread across the Roman Empire.  What could he do in the face of the overwhelming power of the Emperor and the state?  

What could John do? Not much.

The real question is what did Jesus do?

John received a vision while he was worshiping.  John wrote down what he saw and heard and he sent it to the seven churches he pastored. John’s words were read aloud whenever these seven churches gathered to worship. Any one of these churches and worship services could at any time be attended by spies for the Emperor. 

John was determined to keep worship alive for his congregations despite the constant risk of arrest and death. Today, two-thousand years later we find his terminology and imagery and symbolism difficult to understand. But we must realize there were hostile eyes and ears looking at and listening to his words.

Eugene Peterson notes, “Besides being a pastor, John is a poet, fond of metaphor and symbol, image and allusion, passionate in his desire to bring us into the presence of Jesus believing and adoring. … The rush of color and sound, image and energy, (can leave) us reeling.  But if we persist through the initial confusion and read on, we begin to pick up the rhythms, realize the connections” to the profound and recurring themes and promises of the entire Bible. 

The most important thing about the Book of Revelation is John of Patmos’ passionate desire to reveal the saving power of the presence of Jesus to his suffering people.  And the natural human response was and is to believe and adore Him.

There are so many problems and crises and situations which divert our awareness toward just about anything and everything other than the presence of Jesus.

Why not invite John’s passion to compel us to pray about our own passion for Christ in the midst of our own strange and disorienting times. Revelation has nothing to offer if we are all doing fine and feeling content with how the world is and where our life in this world is leading.  But if you’re not “fine”--if you’re reeling from grief or anxiety or any particular situation in your life or the world right now, then Revelation 21 invites you into John’s personal vision of hope and trust that springs from the power of the Love of Jesus Christ to make all things new. 

All things!

New.

That’s not good news to those who don’t want anything to change or become new.

We overlook the presence of Jesus every day.  But that’s our loss. Life has a way of squeezing from us our awareness of the presence of Jesus and squelching our trust in Him. Such was the case for John’s congregations in the first century. Such is the case today given everything we’ve experienced lately. This doesn’t mean we lack sufficient faith or that we’re not strong or courageous enough.  It means we’re made of flesh and blood and spirit.  It means we bleed, we hurt and we suffer. It means we are mortal.

If you identify with any of that, then the vision shared in Revelation 21 is worth your attention.  This vision of hope and assurance is presented through unusual and unbound and otherworldly images of the presence of the living Christ.  Maybe our concept of the living Christ has become stale, predictable, insufficient for life on life’s terms.

Hear the voice from the throne today saying loud and clear for all to hear,

See, the home of God is among mortals.

The home of God is not in any building or buildings. 

God does not dwell in any singular place or time or among any single nation or people.

The home of God is among mortals.  That’s wherever people are. 

Where is God? God dwells with you, me and us. 

And God dwells with those people too--they and them. 

God’s dwells among God’s people throughout God’s creation.  Therefore God’s creation will prevail.  Oh, we all see creation is getting abused, scarred and damaged.  Just like Jesus was.  Brutally treated.  But God raised Jesus. And so God’s creation, including you and me, will live on.  But it will be different.  The risen Jesus wasn’t recognized by those who knew him best.

All things new. 

We don’t know exactly what new will look like.  But the former things are passing away:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God …”

Because God dwells with us God will see us through.  And so one day we will know the truth of the vision:

 God will wipe away every tear …

… death will be no more …

…. mourning and crying and pain will be no more. …

… for the first things will have passed away ... 

… And the Lord will swallow up death forever …

It will be said on that day, Lo this is our God for whom we have waited these many years so that he might save us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited.

Then, and soon, we will behold:

See, I am making all things new.

In the midst of all the change and fear and anxiety, here is something worth remembering and holding onto today; here is something to cherish, here is something worth thinking about and reflecting upon and bringing into prayer every morning when we awaken and every evening when we lie down … 

“See, I am making all things new.”

 All things

new

10-17.2021 Out of the Whirlwind

Thomas J Parlette
“Out of the Whirlwind”
Job 38: 1-7, 34-41
10/17/21

        Often on Saturday afternoons when I’m not invested in any of the college football games, I will flip around and see what movies are on. There are some movies that I will always stop and watch. Apollo 13 is one of those movies. Any of the Marvel Avenger movies will catch my eye as well. On a recent Saturday afternoon, the Ohio State game had ended and was flipping around looking for one of my favorite movies. And I happened on Forrest Gump.
        Forrest Gump isn’t on my all -time Top Ten movies list, but I like it – so I stopped and watched it for awhile. I’m sure you remember the movie. Tom Hanks stars as a mentally challenged man who has a knack for stumbling his way into historic moments. The movie gave us such classic lines as “run, Forrest, run”, and “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
        Among his many adventures, Forrest ends up serving in Vietnam, where he meets once his close friends, Lt. Dan, portrayed by Gary Sinise. After having his legs blown off in Vietnam, Lt. Dan felt life as he knew it was over. Back home, he fell into an awful funk of despair that led to alcoholism and drugs. But somehow, he meets up again with his friend Forrest.
        Lt. Dam comes to work for Forrest on his shrimp boat. One day, a hurricane comes up. Lt. Dan climbs up the netting to the top of the mast, and there swaying and swinging in the wind, he vents his anger at God. The words stream out in a furious torrent. He challenges God to appear, to show up like a man. He ridicules the God who has taken away his legs, his livelihood, his pride, his very manhood. “You call this a storm?!” he shouts into the wind.
        And just then, there is a tremendous “BOOM”, a blaze of lightning and a crash of thunder. It’s as if God has responded in the winds of the hurricane, saying “I’m here” in the thunder and the lightning.(1)
        Lt. Dan has a lot in common with our friend Job. I can picture Job, hanging from a mast, yelling at God about all the suffering he has endured, just like Lt. Dan.
        When we left Job last week, he was complaining bitterly that God was nowhere to be found. No matter where he turned – left, right, forward, backward – God remained hidden. All Job wanted was a fair hearing before God, he wanted a day in court to air his complaints and get a few answers.
        But no – God was not around, and apparently, at least in Job’s opinion, not even listening.
        Well, today Job’s prayers are answered – or at least his request to have a hearing before is honored. God shows up. And as they say, “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
        This morning, God shows up – not with thunder and lightning, but in something resembling a hurricane. God shows up in a whirlwind. And God speaks to Job from out of the whirlwind- “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”
        Then God hits Job with some questions of his own. Actually, it seems like the same question over and over again. “Where were you?” asks God. Where were you when I created the world? God pulls rank on Job. God puts Job in his place and reminds Job that he is not God.
        Now, in all honestly, this does not seem like the best pastoral response. This is not what they teach you in seminary. My pastoral care professors at Princeton would have fallen out of their chairs if any of us asked such condescending and insulting questions like – “Where were you?... What right do you have to question me?... What business is this of yours…”
        No, what they teach you in Seminary is to quietly listen with compassion and be a non-anxious presence. This kind of response would have been seriously frowned upon.
        On the surface, God’s response to Job seems rather heavy-handed and harsh. But be sure to look closely at the text. Notice that God never condemns Job for asking questions. God is actually reprimanding Job’s friends when talks about those who darken counsel by words without knowledge. God never demands an apology from Job for his complaining – God never tells Job that he better take it all back. God’s response to Job is not – “I’m in control, how dare you judge how I run the universe!” That’s not really what God is saying here.
        God’s response is to ask Job if he understands the deep wisdom upon which the foundations of the earth were laid. God turns the tables on Job and reframes the question. God is telling Job that he needs to look for wisdom, not simply raw power, in his search for God. In other words, this is not meant to be a put down, but simply a reminder. “You are out of your league Job. I know things you can’t comprehend. I am God, and you are not.” God possesses knowledge, wisdom and power that is simply beyond our capacity to understand.
        Through Job, we are reminded that we live and move and have our being in a world we did not create, with a God we cannot comprehend. Especially in a world now far advanced in scientific knowledge and technical capabilities, where many of the questions that God poses to Job can be answered scientifically, this is a timely reminder of our mortality and our limitations. However clever and searching our scientific knowledge of the natural world may be, there are limits to what we can know. Of course the greatest questions of all – Why is there something instead of nothing? Why do we exist? What is the purpose of my life? – are no more answerable today than they were in the ancient world. Job chapter 38 is an invitation to stop in our egocentric tracks, put down our mirrors, and contemplate the wonder of our existence and the awesome being and mystery of God. A God who cannot be fully known and is not accountable to humanity.
        Nancy Guthrie writes, “Sometimes what causes us the most pain and confusion is hot what God says to us, but the fact that in the midst of difficulty, God seems to say nothing at all.” Just silence. The silence of God is something that has been explored by many novelists, playwrights and theologians over the years – and by most people who have gone through tough times. We may not eloquently articulate our questions, but they still boil deep within us. The answers we receive can feel inadequate to provide comfort or explain in any genuine way what bewilders and troubles us. We long to know why devastating things happen to us. Like Job, we long for understanding so we can bear the pain.
        As we see today, God does answer – but with more questions, “Where were you,” and a long dramatic monologue describing birds, animals, mountains and storms – all the wonders of creation. Where were you, Job, when I made all this?
        Guthrie writes, “God doesn’t explain. Instead God reveals the Divine Presence and in the midst of this awesome presence, Job’s question are not answered, they simply disappear.”
        Magnificence and Mystery – those are the two “answers” the Book of Job reveals to us. We can find much wisdom, guidance and truth in God’s word, that’s true. But we also find a lot of mystery as well. Our minds cannot even frame the right questions.
        We’ll never solve all the mysteries, but we know all that happens is weighted down with significance. As Guthrie writes, “Job had no idea he was a player in a cosmic confrontation.” He had no idea his faithfulness in extreme suffering mattered so much. But it did.”(2)
        It does for us as well, as we worship God and pray that God will keep us faithful in these trying pandemic days. Each follower of God is a key player in this magnificent mystery.
        This scene of God speaking from a whirlwind is certainly an encounter of unequal power. God is God – and Job is not. God possesses knowledge, wisdom and power that we cannot understand. Ultimately, God speaks out of the whirlwind and doesn’t provide any answers – just a sense of magnificence and mystery.
        I will not claim that that is an easy thing to hear. It certainly isn’t. There is no way to wrap up Job’s whirlwind encounter with three points and a poem. It’s impossible to send you home today with a comforting sound-byte. This passage demands that we struggle with it, think deeply about it and spend time wrestling with our incomplete knowledge of an unknowable God.
        What Job discovered in his whirlwind encounter is what we have been promised in Jesus Christ – that God hears our cries and feels our hurts. God cares, and shares our pain. God is present with us in our sorrow and in our suffering and gives us the courage to go on.
        The word of hope I can offer today us that when we’ve exhausted our human resources, our wisdom and our knowledge – isn’t it comforting to know that God can step in like a whirlwind with Divine, unknowable power, both magnificent and mysterious, and stand with us in our suffering?
        That may not be what we want to hear from this divine hurricane. But that’s what we have. And it will be enough to sustain us – as it did for Job.
        God is God, and we are not. Let us find our rest in the wisdom and the power of a magnificent, mysterious God who is wiser, kinder and more powerful than we can ever know.
        And for that – may God be praised. Amen.

1.   Homileticsonline, retrieved 9?20/21.
2.   Harold Myra, The One Year Book of Encouragement, Tyndale House Publishers, 2010, p. 287.

10-10-2021 Job's Complaint

Thomas J Parlette
“Job’s Complaint”
Job 23: 1-9, 16-17
10/10/21

        A few years ago, the English comedian and actor Stephen Fry, who is a self-declared atheist, was interviewed by Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne. At one point, Byrne said to Fry, “What if it’s all true, and you walk up to the pearly gates, and are confronted by God. What will Stephen Fry say?”
        And Fry responded, “Bone cancer in children; what’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? He then added a second question he’d an answer to: “Why should I respect a God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain?”
        Well, that segment of the interview was soon posted on YouTube, where, within days, it was viewed over 5 million times. Not surprisingly, the responses to the clip ranged from admiration to outrage, with the head of Ireland’s Presbyterian Church branding Fry as “spiritually blind.” Fry later apologized for any offense he might have caused and said he wasn’t referring to any specific religion. He explained that he was merely saying things that many better thinkers than he had said over the centuries.(1)
        Many of us have likely had similar thought and questions. Just imagine if you could be transported to heaven for an hour to talk face to face to God – with the assurance that God would answer one question for you. What question would you ask? Would you ask for the winning lottery number? Or perhaps when the Vikings might win the Super Bowl? Or would you ask something a little meatier? Like…

        Why am I suffering from this cancer?
       Why are some people capable of child abuse?
        Why can’t we have wisdom when we’re young and could really benefit from it?
        Why must we have earthquakes, hurricanes and wildfires?
        Why the endless violence in the Middle East?
        Why the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide or the Khmer Rouge slaughter of millions?
        Why?

        There really is no limit to the questions we’d like to ask God, and not just out of idle curiosity. Many of us experience some pain or grief to the human condition. We’re invested in the questions we’d like to ask, and, we think God’s answers might help us deal with what we cannot avoid.
        Questions – specifically complaints – that’s what’s on Job’s mind this morning. He has never sinned in his life, and yet God has seemingly punished him like this. It makes no sense to Job. “Why?”, he asks.
        Our passage for today comes from chapter 23, which is part of a longer section that runs through chapter 24. Job’s friends have arrived and try to comfort him in his misery. But in all honesty, they fail miserably. For 20-some chapters Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar take a tag team approach to make sense of Job’s suffering. They pretty much repeat each other’s arguments – “Job, you must have sinned somewhere along the line, you must repent, for God punishes the wicked and your guilt deserves punishment.” Nice friends. They don’t offer much in the way of comfort; they just point their fingers accusingly at Job.
        But Job stands his ground. He maintains his innocence. But he also laments that there’s no place where he can put his case before God to receive a verdict of “Not Guilty.” He says, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him… I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me.”
        In other words, Job wants his hour with God at the pearly gates. He wants God to answer a question for him. And Job seems confident that if he could only get such an audience, he’d be acquitted.
        When we read the whole book of Job, of course, we find that, while God does eventually respond to Job, God never really answers Job’s questions – but more on that next week.
        Isn’t that how it is for us with the many questions we’d to ask God? God is simply not going to answer them – no matter how good the questions are. Stephen Fry is unlikely to have his questions answered, and we’re unlikely to have ours answered either.
        You might remember a TV show called Joan of Arcadia, that was on CBS from 2003-2005. Unfortunately, it is not available to stream on any platform I can find, although you can find clips on YouTube. It was one of the few shows that actually took God seriously. The show revolved around a teenage named Joan who hears message from God. Initially Joan thinks she can’t be hearing from God, but eventually she learns to trust the voice and follow God’s instructions – but not without some questions, which, of course, God does not answer.
        I do want to make a distinction here. God does answer prayers – but not questions. When we pray, we ask God to help us, to meet a need. Questioning God is something a little different. God will answer prayers, but will not answer questions.
        Back to Joan of Arcadia – While the series was still running, Barbara Hall, the show’s executive producer explained, “In trying to write God, I obviously don’t know what God is thinking. On the show, God says he won’t answer any direct questions because he chooses not to explain what is going on, because God is a mystery. The show is really a lot about posing theological and philosophical questions and not about answering them.”(2)
        And that’s how it often is for us as well. We can pose all kinds of questions, but if we’re waiting for God to answer them, we may have to wait a lifetime. That silence – that absence – can be maddening. The poet W.H. Auden once said that, “Our dominant experience of God today is of God’s absence, of God’s distance.”(3) That is true for many people these days, as it was for Job so many years ago. All Job knows is that in spite of being upright and faithful to God, terrible troubles still came upon him. He has no idea why, and when he complains, when he tries to get God to answer his questions, he gets nothing. Silence. Job is left to assume that God does not care to answer – or worse, perhaps God is not even listening.
        Yes, we find within ourselves much empathy with Job on this point. In his essay, God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis describes how we tend to deal with God these days:
        “In ancient times, people approached God as an accused person approaches a judge. But in modern times, the roles have reversed. We put ourselves on the judge’s bench, and God is in the dock, or in court as a defendant, as it were. If God should offer a reasonable defense for being a God who permits war and poverty and disease – well, we’re ready to listen. The trial might even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that we put ourselves on the bench and expect God to answer us.”(4) That’s what Stephen Fry wanted to do - put God in the dock, on trial, to get some answers to that question “Why.”
        But let’s not forget that we know more than Job. We know that God is still there throughout this whole story. God is allowing these horrible things to happen as a test. Job doesn’t know that. He didn’t get to see that opening scene in God’s heavenly throne room when God and Satan made that wager about his faithfulness. That means that what may seem to Job as God’s indifference is really God’s restraint to allow the test of Job’s faith to continue. It’s not that Job needs a date in small claims court to trumpet his complaint against God, but that God needs someone like Job to stand the test and still trust in God.
        And that is what Job ultimately does. Though he is filled with a sense that he is suffering unjustly and that God will not give him a fair hearing to plead his case, he does not lose his faith, and eventually he receives a response from God.
        In the end, Job’s story is a faith story, it is about trust. We might generally describe faith as a movement toward God that goes beyond evidence or reason. Faith takes us to a place where language bends and the best we can do is jump for metaphor and analogy. Job is in such a place, trying to find words for his bitterness. He is going through a long dark tunnel in which his prayers seem trapped, and he is unable to get an answer from God. Yet, in the longer view of his life, in what he had seen and heard and felt before the troubles came upon him and what he would see and hear and feel later – he had found and would find again, that faith is not forever unsupported – only that in some of the deepest valleys, faith is all we have to keep us going.
        The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”(5)
        Living the questions themselves, living the questions and the complaints now – that’s what Job is doing.
        The Quakers have something that they call “queries”, a series of questions used for individual and collective reflection, spiritual growth and prayer. Historically at least, one purpose of queries was to check how members of the fellowship were upholding the already agreed upon testimonies.
        Quaker Martin Grundy tells of one experience: “The most recent query we discussed came at the end of a rather tedious, long-winded, not particularly well-grounded, meeting for business. The query we were considering was simply, “How do we recognize what we are called to be obedient to?” As people spoke to it, the silence deepened and lengthened between speakers. Finally, the speaking ceased altogether, and we were wrapped together in quietness and love. The clerk ended the meeting, but we were loath to leave. We were in the presence of God, and found it good.”(6)
        In the end, perhaps that’s what we should expect from our questions and complaints for God – not answers, but a dialogue with life and the experience of God’s presence in our daily life. Perhaps we should expect not answers but faith. Faith to keep trying. Faith to keep believing that God is still there listening, sitting with us in the silence. That’s where we all find ourselves sometimes – needing faith to live the questions and the complaints, while God works things out.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Homileticsonline, retrieved Sept 20th, 2021.
2.   Ibid.
3.   Ibid.
4.   Ibid.
5.   Ibid.
6.   Ibid.

10-03-2021 Once Upon a Time in the Land of Uz

Thomas J Parlette
“Once Upon a Time in the Land of Uz”
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
10/3/21, World Communion

        Have you ever gotten the cold shoulder from someone? You walk into a gathering or a meeting, or even your own home and a friend, a co-worker, perhaps a spouse or maybe your child won’t look you in the eye. They seem kind of distant, uninterested, or even downright mad. They seem to go out of their way to avoid you, or even make a point to stand up and leave the room when you sit down. If so – you’ve been given the cold shoulder.
        It’s an interesting expression, “cold shoulder.” There was a time when giving someone the cold shoulder meant more than simply snubbing them in public. During the Middle Ages, if your guests had overstayed their welcome, you served them a big shoulder of old beef rather than a nice hot roast. With any luck, they would get the message and leave.
        The English language has a lot of curious idioms like that. How about “bringing home the bacon”? It now means coming home with a paycheck, but it used to be understood more literally. In the 12th century, a church in Britain started to award cured bacon strips to newly married couples if they could pass a particular test- they had to swear, after one year of marriage, they had never once regretted the decision. If they passed, they could bring home the bacon. Not sure if that promoted happy marriages or encouraged lying – I wonder.
        Or how about the phrase “stewing in your own juices”? Today it means to suffer the consequences of your own actions – “you reap what you sow”, “you made your bed, now you have to lie in it” sort of thing. But in the 13th century, that phrase was a euphemism for being burned at the stake, a horrible fate in which you would quite literally simmer in your own bodily fluids – gross, I know.(1)
        All of this brings us to the idiom that arises from our text for today – the well- known phrase “the patience of Job.”
        The idea comes from the Old Testament story of Job, the tale of a poor soul from the land of Uz, described in today’s passage as a “man blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Despite his moral and spiritual virtue – or perhaps because of it – Job is subjected to a seemingly random and rather mean supernatural test in which he loses his property, his children and his health, and is challenged to retain his integrity and remain faithful to God. It seems that perhaps God is giving Job the cold shoulder – ignoring him in his suffering and callously letting these disasters come upon him.
        Virginia Woolf once wrote to a friend, “I read the Book of Job last night – I don’t think God comes well out of it.”(2) She has a point. God does seem cruel here at the beginning of Job – all these tragedies over a simple wager between God and Satan.
        The idea about Job’s patience actually comes to us from the letter of James in which the author says in the King James version, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Oddly enough, the word patience doesn’t appear anywhere in the Book of Job itself. Modern translations like the NRSV and the NASB got away from that idea of patience and went with “endurance” instead, as did The Message paraphrase that went with “staying power.” Even the NIV chose to render James words as “perseverance.” All good choices. But the phrase, “the patience of Job” still lingers.
        Conventional wisdom argues that the patience of Job enabled him to endure suffering as he still kept his faith in God. Job took the long view in life, looking well beyond his considerable, heartbreaking losses – and because he was able to do this, eventually he experienced the compassion and mercy of God.
        All good to say at the end of the story. But what about at the beginning and middle of the story. Enduring and keeping his faith – being patient – is that really true about the story of Job. Does his virtue lie in the fact that he is patient and that he is able to endure so much?
        Not exactly. There are many adjectives that can be used to describe Job, but patient might not be the best choice. Blameless? - Ok. Upright? - yes, the text says so. Faithful? At the conclusion, yes. Long-suffering and steadfast? - true. Honest? - certainly. All those words work on some level.
        But does Job bear his affliction calmly, as a patient person would? No – instead he cries out, “I loathe my life; and I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.”
        Far from showing “cheerful endurance”, Job screams out, “My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me.”
        The he moans, “God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!”
        Quite a list. But you have to hand it to Job – he is an honest man. But a patient man? Not so much.
        There are many life-changing lessons in the story of Job, but patience is not really one of them. It is more fruitful to focus on several other messages that are delivered with far greater clarity, messages about the nature of suffering and the importance of faithfulness to God. These are not clichés like the patience of Job, but are, instead, insights that leave us with something truly nourishing to chew on. A focus on suffering and faithfulness enables us to read Job and then- bring home the bacon, I suppose.
        First, Job teaches us about the nature of suffering. The book of Job makes it clear that not all human suffering is deserved – it is not necessarily a punishment for a life of debauchery and greed. Job is a righteous man, described by God as being “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”
        And yet he loses everything. He loses his property to raiding Sabeans and Chaldeans. He loses his sons and daughters in a natural disaster. And then he loses his health as he comes down with painful sores all over his body. Job is an absolute mess, leaving onlookers to wonder, “What did he do to deserve this?”
        The answer, of course, is – nothing. This intense suffering descends on Job through no fault of his own. Jesus himself knew this. Remembered how he once observed that God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. We should never be too quick to conclude that anyone deserves the suffering they experience – anyone, including ourselves.
        Gerald Sittser was a history professor with a wonderful family. But one day, his wife, his 4-year-old daughter and his mother were all killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Sittser’s life had been going very well, but then, in a horrible moment, he lost three of the most important people in his life.
        His suffering was compounded eight months later, when the driver of the other car was acquitted of vehicular manslaughter. The attorney was able to cast enough suspicion on the testimony of several witnesses that he was able to get his client off the hook.
        Sittser was enraged. But then he began to be bothered by his assumption that he had a right to complete fairness in life. He wrote in his book A Grace Disguised: “Granted, I did not deserve to lose three members of my family. But then again, I am not sure I deserved to have them in the first place.” His wife was a woman who loved him through some very hard times. His mother lived well and served people all her life. His daughter sparkled with enthusiasm and helped to fill his home with noise and excitement. “Perhaps I did not deserve their deaths,” says Sittser. “But I did not deserve their presence in my life either.(3) Instead, he was lucky and blessed to have them at all.
        We should never be too quick to conclude that people deserve the suffering they experience… but at the same time, we should never jump to the conclusion that people deserve their blessings, either. Job makes much the same point when he asks the question, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
        The second clear message of Job is that faithfulness to God is of critical importance, in bad times as well as in good times. Gerald Sittser did not turn his back on God after his family was killed by a drunk driver, nor did Job abandon the Lord in his time of overwhelming loss. It is essential that we not give God the cold shoulder when we encounter a period of undeserved suffering.
        Can we scream and yell at God? Sure. “I will not restrain my mouth,” shouts Job, a little later in the story. “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” There is nothing wrong with offering up a passionate and honest complaint, as long as we direct our complaining to God. Job grabs hold of the Lord like a dog with a bone, and he won’t let go until responds – but more on that later. What saves Job is that he remains faithful to God always demanding that God hear him and take him seriously and respond to his concerns.
        As we approach the table on this world communion Sunday, let us remind ourselves of the good news of the gospel – God is good, all the time. God never abandons us. As John Greenleaf Whittier once wrote:
“Yet in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings:
I know that God is good…
I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.”(4)
        Whittier was convinced that greater than the reality of evil and suffering in this world, is the reality of the goodness and mercy of an ever-present God that underlies our lives.
        In the end, I think Job would agree.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/20/21.
2.   Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent, Rowan and Littlefield Publishing Group, 1998, pg. 68.
3.   Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/21/21.
4.   Ibid.

09-26-2021 The Patron Saint of Whistleblowers

Thomas J. Parlette
“The Patron Saint of Whistleblowers”
Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10; 9: 20-22
9/26/21

        This morning we hear the story of the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers. Today we hear from the Book of Esther. It’s good to think about Esther and her story today – because this is the only time any passage from Esther comes up in our three-year cycle of lectionary texts.
        Our cut and paste passage for today acts sort of like a summary of the story as Queen Esther blows the whistle on the wicked Haman.
        Esther is actually a Jewish novel written for Jews living in Exile in Persia. It isn’t meant to be an historical record or a book of prophecy. It’s meant as a satirical novel poking fun at the Persian culture, where the Jewish people lived as outsiders. The King referred to, King Ahasuerus, never actually existed and there is no historical record of Queen Vashti either. King Ahasuerus is likely loosely based on King Xerxes, an actual King in Persia.
        Queen Vashti gets the story rolling when she disobeys the King’s order to join him at a lavish banquet. The King is unhappy about this and decides to hold basically a beauty pageant to find himself a new Queen. Esther wins this pageant and becomes the new Queen. Her older cousin Mordecai, who has basically raised her, sees the benefit to having a Jew in such a position of power and influence, and tells her to keep her Jewish heritage a secret – which she does.
        Sometime after Esther is made Queen, her cousin Mordecai overhears a plot to kill the King. He sends a warning to Esther, who, in the name of Mordecai, warned her husband. The plotters were executed and the King was saved.
        Now highly placed in the King’s court was a devious man named Haman, a sycophant with substantial wealth and power. Haman hated Mordecai, largely because Mordecai refused to bow before him, but really it was because Mordecai could see right through his pompousness. In a calculated response, Haman persuaded the King to issue a death edict against “certain people” living in the empire. Haman did not tell the King the targets were the Jews, and the King didn’t bother to ask.
        When Mordecai learned of this edict, he asked Esther to intervene with the King, producing the best known verse in the Book of Esther, “for such a time as this.” What followed was an intricate and carefully planned approach to the monarch, which was nonetheless quite risky for Esther. She was in effect functioning as a whistle blower and having to do so in the face of the King’s own edict.
        She was successful, however, and in the end, Haman was hanged on the very gallows on which he had planned to execute Mordecai. And though the original edict could not be withdrawn, the King issued a second edict that permitted the Jews to defend themselves – which they do.
        As a result, the Jews in Persia were saved. This whole story and the good outcome that came out of it are celebrated to this day in Judaism in an annual festival called Purim.
        Esther is unique in our Scripture because there is no mention of God. God moves behind the scenes and in people’s dreams, but is never expressly named, acknowledged or called upon. There are plenty of feasts and banquets and royal proclamations and edicts in Esther – but very little religious ceremony. The closest we get is when Esther asks other Jews to join her in a three-day fast before she goes to the King. Otherwise, God doesn’t seem to have a direct role in the Book of Esther. We may even wonder – why is Esther in the Bible then. It’s good story – sure, but plenty of good stories didn’t make it into the Bible. We don’t consider them scripture. Why Esther? What can we take from this story to inform our spiritual lives?
        I’m glad you asked …
        First, Esther shows us that goodness is courageous, but not in a superhuman type of way. Once Mordecai informed Esther of Haman’s plot against the Jews, the immediate problem was how to get an audience with the King. The Persian Empire operated on protocols, and by those protocols, the Queen was not supposed to ever approach the King unless he summoned her – and he had not done that for the last month or so. The King held Esther’s life in his hands. If she violated the protocols, and the King was so inclined, he could have her executed. By the way, Esther pointed all this out to Mordecai, but he urged her to proceed anyway; there was just too much at stake for Esther not to make the attempt. And so she finally agreed, saying, “I will go to the King, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” I will do the right thing to save my people, what will be, will be.
        That is how a whistleblower thinks. It is not a chest-thumping, “Only I can save the day” exclamation, but a quiet, perhaps even fear-filled resolve to do the right thing despite the potential cost.
        Second, Esther shows us that goodness is rooted in God, even though God is never directly named. God is still there, moving behind the curtain, just off stage. We see it when characters dream and have trouble sleeping, and especially when Esther resolves to act, and asks her fellow Jews to join her in a  three-day fast – a spiritual discipline, a means of seeking God’s help and blessing.
        Third, Esther shows us that goodness is “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” to use Jesus’ phrase from Matthew. Goodness, far from being a weak, doormat attribute is a characteristic of the Divine. Thus it is both innocent and wise. After Esther took the huge risk of approaching the King on her own, he welcomed her. But then, instead of blurting out her request, she invited both her husband and Haman to a banquet. At that occasion, the King promised her anything she wanted, but all she asked was that the two men come back to a second banquet. Only at that one, when the time was right, did she make her request – that she and her people be spared. Even then, however, she was very careful how she worded the request, so that the King could act without accepting any blame himself for the situation. Esther never lost sight of her goal, and she wisely crafted a careful plan to get there.
        Esther also shows us that goodness is oriented toward others. Esther herself was in no immediate danger. If her goal had merely been to save herself, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut, as nobody in the court knew she was Jewish. Mordecai had told her that once the purge began, even she would not be safe, but when she chose to act, it wasn’t her own hide she was thinking of saving. Mordecai had painted the larger picture: “Who knows?” He had said, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Mordecai was suggesting that God had strategically enabled Esther to become queen for the good of others, and that was her main goal.
        And finally, the story of Esther shows us that goodness does not seek martyrdom – it does not needlessly provoke the ungodly to violence. It does not throw life away when there is no other possibility. Wisely, when Esther told the King her request, she first mentioned the sparing of her own life, and then added the sparing of her people. She named herself first, not out of self-interest, but because she astutely knew that saving her would be more important to the King, and the rest of her people could ride to safety on the tails of her royal gown.
        Even Jesus himself didn’t set out to be martyred. He knew it was going to happen, but that wasn’t his intent. His intent was to be about God’s business. But goodness also does not conclude that keeping one’s own life safe above all else is the highest value.
        Goodness is a powerful force, but it often operates through those who seem to have little power, through ordinary people who seemingly are not in positions of great influence, people who see something they know will harm others, and they act or blow the whistle for the good of all. It can be a way of loving our neighbor.
        Writer Doug Bender shares a moving tribute he discovered while visiting Medellin, Colombia. In the middle of town, there was a park that contained numerous statues celebrating Medellin’s greatest leaders in art, politics, business, the military, and other fields. But the first statue in the park is of a relatively unknown judge. On the base of the statue is a plaque that says: “In a city full of corruption, this man did what was right.”
        As you probably know, Medellin is known for harboring dangerous drug cartels. The wealth and the violence of the international drug trade have also fostered corruption among the police and public officials. But this particular judge was so respected for his incorruptible character that the city of Medellin commissioned a statue to honor him. “In a city full of corruption, this man did what was right.”(1) That’s what Esther did in her time. That’s what all true whistleblowers try to do.
        We may never be in the position in which Esther, the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers, found herself. But God calls us to holiness, and doing good, doing what is best for everyone, in whatever circumstances we face, is a crucial part of both good and holy.
        Living in this time of division, where it’s difficult to agree on much, dealing with a pandemic which has probably changed us for good in ways we can’t even see yet – perhaps we have more in common with Esther and the Jewish people living in exile than we might have thought.
        If so, the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers can serve to remind us that perhaps faithful people doing what is right were made for such a time as this. May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, pg 5.

09-12-2021 People are Talking

Thomas J Parlette
“People Are Talking”
Mark 8: 27-38
9/12/21

        When people were talking about something in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s, it’s pretty likely that Larry King was the one asking the questions. King died this past January after a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. He was probably the most well-known interviewer of his time, credited with over 50,000 interviews over the course of his career.
        Back when Larry King was celebrating the 40th anniversary of his broadcasting debut, the tables were turned. He became the interviewee instead of the interviewer. Bryant Gumbel had the honor of asking King some interesting questions about his life and career. Possibly the most interesting question came at the conclusion of the show when Gumbel asked, “What questions would you ask God, if God were a guest on your show?”
        Well, you could see Larry King’s eyes light up as the master interviewer’s mind was flooded with potential questions, but the first question out of his mouth was “Do you have a son?”
        Although Larry King claims to be an agnostic, he understands the importance of asking that question first. Establishing Jesus’ identity, asking “Who is this?” – that is the first question. And it’s a particularly good question to consider this morning as we begin a new program year here at church.
        That’s certainly the question that has people talking in this passage from Mark today. We are at the beginning of a section of Mark’s gospel that many scholars believe is the central section of Mark’s story. Leading up to today’s passage, Mark has used two chapters to tell us such stories as the feeding of the 4,000 and the feeding of the 5000. The reaction to these miracles was that the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign. I wonder, what else did they need to see? What kind of sign did they want? Wasn’t it enough of a sign to feed 10,000 or so people? The Pharisees have eyes – but they can’t see. They are blind to who Jesus really is and why he has come.
        Then the disciples enter the picture. After Jesus feeds the multitudes, the disciples are in a boat with him and they only have one loaf of bread, and the disciples express concern about how they will all eat from one loaf.
        Now, they’ve just seen Jesus feed all those people – twice – and now they’re wondering how they will make it with one loaf for 12 guys.
        I can see Jesus sitting there, utterly amazed. “Come on guys! Are you kidding me!” Even his own disciples could not see. They just didn’t get it. Their eyes are still closed to the truth of who he is.
        So now we move into a new section of stories. You might call the theme of this section “on the way”- because Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem. And while he is on the way, Jesus is trying to open his disciples’ eyes. He is trying to show them who he is. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus is slowly re-defining what the word “messiah” means. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus literally opens people’s eyes.
        Mark makes this point by telling stories in which Jesus actually opens blind eyes. This section begins with a story about Jesus opening the eyes of a blind man in Bethsaida, and two chapters later it concludes with the healing of another blind man – Bartimaeus.
        “Seeing” and “Opening the eyes of the blind” are very important themes for Mark in this part of the story. He wants us to see something about Jesus. Jesus may be able to open the eyes of the physically blind in this section of Mark’s gospel, but he is unable to open the eyes of his own disciples to who he is and what it means to be the “Messiah.”
        And so we come to this story for today. Jesus and his disciples have come to the villages of Caesarea Phillipi – a beautiful little town with lovely green meadows and little streams running through the countryside, a perfect spot to spread out a blanket and have a picnic. Dominating the town of Caesarea Phillipi was an enormous shrine, carved out of the side of a mountain, dedicated to the Greek god, Pan. This shrine had dozens of little alcoves where many other gods were honored with small statues and other artifacts. As Jesus and his disciples arrive in Caesarea Phillipi, Jesus is aware that people are talking. And he is wondering what they are saying. So, in the shadow of this monument to all the gods of the day, Jesus asks them – “Who do people say that I am?”
        Some say you are John the Baptist – a rather outlandish idea since John the Baptist was dead.
        Some say you are Elijah – an even more outlandish answer since there was no bigger prophet than Elijah, only Moses shared that kind of status. Elijah was the one who was going to return and defeat the enemies of Israel and save God’s people. Quite a statement that people were saying Jesus was Elijah.
        Still others say you are one of the prophets – probably the safest answer of all, because that was a way of saying that people thought Jesus was simply a wise teacher, inspired by God.
        Ok. I imagine sitting there, nodding his head in response to their answers for a couple of seconds. Then Jesus poses another question – “But who do YOU say that I am?”
        Here is a spot in the gospels where I have always thought there was a long pause. The disciples stand there, awkwardly shuffling their feet and kicking at the ground, looking at each other and shrugging their shoulders. Peter finally offers the tentative reply – “You are the Messiah.”
        Yes! – finally, good answer Peter. It’s about time, the disciples just might be getting it. This is the first glimmer of hope that maybe their eyes were beginning to open and they were starting to realize who Jesus is.
        This is a turning point in Mark’s story. We are at the exact middle of the story here in Chapter 8, and from now on, everything moves quickly toward Jerusalem and the cross. Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah is an important moment.
        But something is not quite right. After Peter makes his confession, Jesus orders them not to tell anyone – at least not yet. Because they don’t know the whole story. They don’t have all the facts. Not yet. Jesus goes on to tell them what’s going to happen in Jerusalem. That he will suffer, be rejected and killed and that he will rise again on the third day.
        Now all this was just too much for Peter. He took Jesus aside and “rebuked him.” In other words, Peter scolded Jesus for talking this way. If he was the Messiah, these things must not happen, indeed they could not happen – because if the Messiah were to suffer, be rejected and die – well, then – by definition, he would not be the Messiah. The Messiah would bring victory and glory – not suffering and defeat.
        But Jesus fires right back and rebukes Peter. In no uncertain terms he lets Peter know that he is wrong about what “Messiah” means. You see, Peter was right in principle – but he was wrong in context. He got the job title right – Jesus is the Messiah. But he got the job description wrong – the Messiah is not bringing glory and victory. The Messiah will bring sacrifice and service. Jesus is re-defining the picture of what a Messiah looks like, and what a Messiah will do. The Messiah will not come riding a white stallion and carrying a golden sword. No – the Messiah will come on a donkey carrying a basin of water and a towel. The Messiah will come, not to conquer, but to serve.
        Peter knows who Jesus is – that’s the first question. He’s the Messiah, he got that part right.
        But Peter doesn’t understand yet what the Messiah has come to do. He can’t accept the idea that the Messiah is coming to suffer, take up a cross and die.
        Peter is still caught up in “glory thinking.” He and the other disciples are still thinking about their place with Jesus in the coming Kingdom. They will be winners, enjoying the spoils of victory.
        But Jesus is talking about a different kind of thinking. Jesus is talking about “cross thinking” – the cross he is heading towards, and the cross that his followers must take up. If you’re going to follow me on this way, open your eyes and see what that means. The path to life is sacrifice – not glory.
        Jesus presents a completely new picture of what it means to be the Christ. The Messiah, the Christ, will be the one who suffers. God says in effect:

“I am God revealed in Jesus. I am a God who must suffer.
 I suffer in order to share in your sufferings.
 I identify with you when you suffer.
 I will walk with you when you suffer and raise you on the third day.
 I will walk with you in your trials and bring you to new life.
 I will die with you when you die and bring you with me to eternal life.”

Jesus presents a whole new picture of Messiah.
        Back in 1999, when everyone was thinking of ways to celebrate the new millennium, The National Catholic Reporter announced an interesting contest for artists. To celebrate the new millennium, they hosted a contest to discover a bold new image of Jesus. Everyone was welcome to enter any visual medium – computer art, stained glass, silk screen, photographs – whatever they wanted. The only criteria were “there ought to be something new that we haven’t seen before.” Michael Farrel, the editor of the magazine at the time, came up with the idea because he was frustrated that the year 2000 was being dominated by survivalists, doomsayers and the Y2K computer bug – remember that? He said, “Nobody is talking about Jesus right now. Until our time, Jesus was always the most popular subject for our artists. I hope this contest will be a step towards changing that. And thus, the Jesus 2000 contest was born.
        And the idea was a success. On the front cover of the December 24th, 1999, issue of the National Catholic Reporter was the winning image – submitted by Janet McKenzie, it was called “Jesus of the People.” It’s the picture in your bulletin today, or I invite you to take a closer look at a print I have set up in the Atrium. As you can see, it is not the more anglicized Jesus that most of us grew up with. This image of Jesus is decidedly more Middle Eastern, more African in its influences. It’s quite a different picture of Jesus than we are used to – and if we’re honest, it’s probably closer to the truth about what Jesus actually looked like. At the time, it sure got people talking about Jesus. It still generates discussion even 21 years later.
        Jesus once said to his disciples, “I know people are talking. What are they saying? Who do people say that I am?”
        John the Baptist… Elijah… One of the prophets.
        And who do YOU say that I am.
        You are the Messiah.
        Yes, you are right. Now let me paint you a new picture of Messiah that will keep people talking. So, take up your cross, and follow me.
        May God be Praised. Amen.

09-05-2021 Talkin' Back to Jesus

Thomas J Parlette
“Talkin’ Back to Jesus”
Mark 7: 24-37
9/5/21

         You may have heard the old joke about the pastor who was giving the children’s sermon on Sunday. He was talking about the beauty of the fall season and going back to school. Near the end of the children’s time he asked, “What is brown and furry and scampers around your yard gathering nuts for the winter?”
        After a short pause, one of the more talkative youngsters answered, “Well it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer has to be Jesus.”
        When we come to church, we expect the answer to be Jesus. And when we read the stories of the Bible, we expect a certain Jesus to emerge. We expect a Jesus who is kind and welcoming and generous with his time. We expect a Jesus who is anxious to serve others, ready and willing to heal our minds and our bodies and meet our every need. That’s what we expect. And that’s usually what we get. But not today.
        Today we meet a Jesus who is having a bad day. He is trying to get away for a bit, relax, regroup. Jesus wanted to find a place where he could be alone, a place where no one would know him, where no one would bother him, or ask anything of him. Jesus was looking for a vacation, a Sabbath, if you will.
        But of course, he couldn’t be hidden. Jesus has just come from another confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, he is tired, perhaps maybe even a little irritable. And then in walks the first of two people who are in desperate need.
        Today we have two stories about people who talk back to Jesus.
        In the first story, we meet the Syro-phonecian woman whose daughter has a demon. After Jesus initially refuses to do anything, she talks back to Jesus, he changes his mind and she gets what she wants – her daughter is healed.
        In the second story, we hear about a deaf man who also cannot speak. His friends bring him to see Jesus, and because of their faith, Jesus heals him, and he gets what he wants – he is able for the first time in his life to actually talk back to Jesus, and it is a miracle.
        These stories are unusual for a variety of reasons. To start with, they take place in the north, along the Mediterranean Sea, in a predominantly Gentile area. This is the first time Jesus has ventured beyond his Jewish homeland. He is outside his usual territory. In his first encounter, with the Syro-phonecian woman, there are a number of unusual elements. First of all, there is the fact that she is a woman talking to a man – something that just wasn’t done in that time. And to top it off, she was a gentile woman, she wasn’t even Jewish. In fact, this is only the second time Jesus talks to anyone who isn’t a Jew, and it’s only the second time he talks with a woman. And then there’s what he says to her. First, he refuses to do much of anything, and then he calls her a “dog” – a very cutting insult. For years, scholars have tried to soften Jesus’ words here, saying that ‘dog’ was a commonly used expression, a term of endearment, so it wasn’t that offensive. Or that Jesus said it with a smile and just wanted to see the woman’s reaction, whether her faith was strong enough to offer a comeback. Whether that was the case or not, it is still a shocking thing to say, something we would never expect Jesus to say.
        The woman responds with a very cheeky reply – “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This would have been an unexpected turn of events – women did not talk back to men. But this woman does. And it works. Jesus changes his mind and heals the woman’s daughter.
        And, take note that Jesus doesn’t go to see his patient. This is one of the few times when Jesus heals from a distance. Usually Jesus goes to the sick person’s house and lays hands on them, or at least meets them first. But not this time. This time he simply says, “The demon has left your daughter.” Very unusual.
        Moving to the second story, it’s very interesting that this is such a physical story. Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ears, uses a bit of saliva, and even uses what sounds like an incantation in his healing. In fact, when Matthew and Luke tell the story of the Syro-phonecian woman, they actually leave out the story of the healing of the blind man completely. Scholars have guessed that perhaps they did so because this story is so different from Jesus’ other healings and it sounds so similar to the way so-called “magicians” healed people. So Matthew and Luke possibly skipped this story because they didn’t want people to get the impression that Jesus was just a magician, or some sort of magical healer.
        They are unusual stories indeed. But they do have some things in common. First, both stories drive home the idea that Jesus comes to break down barriers that divide us. Geographic boundaries, racial ethnic boundaries, gender boundaries – Jesus crosses them all in order to bring healing to these two desperate people. The Gospel cannot be contained by any kind of barrier that we try to impose upon it. As disciples of Christ, we are called to reach across dividing lines and offer healing to all God’s children. We are called to tear down the walls that divide us.
        Consider the story of a fourth grade teacher named Miss Thompson. One year, she taught a boy named Teddy Stallard. Teddy was a slow, unkempt student, kind of a loner, shunned by his classmates. The previous year, his mother had passed away, and what little motivation for school he might have had simply disappeared. Miss Thompson didn’t particularly care for Teddy either – he was sometimes a difficult student and hardly ever did his homework. But at Christmas time, he brought her a little gift. A gaudy rhinestone bracelet and a cheap bottle of perfume, wrapped in a brown paper bag. The other children snickered, but Miss Thompson saw the importance of the moment. She splashed on some perfume and made a big show of how much she liked the bracelet, pretending that Teddy had given her something very special.
        At the end of the day, Teddy worked up enough courage to say, “Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother… and her bracelet looks real pretty on you too. I’m glad you like my presents.”
        Miss Thompson worked extra hard with Teddy, and the other kids that were a little slower than average, and by the end of the year, he had caught up with most of the other students.
        Miss Thompson didn’t hear from Teddy for a long time after that fourth grade year. But then one day, she received this note: “Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating this year second in my class. Love, Teddy Stallard.”
        Four years went by, and another note came in the mail: “Dear Miss Thompson, I just found out that I will be graduating first in my class from the University. I wanted you to be the first to know. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve learned a lot. Love, Teddy Stallard.”
        Four more years went by, and another note arrived: “Dear Miss Thompson, as of today, I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that! I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month and I would like you to come and sit where my mother would have sat if she was still alive. You are the closest thing to family I have now. Dad passed away last year. Love, Teddy Stallard.”
        Miss Thompson went to the wedding and she sat where Teddy’s mother would have sat – all because she reached across the barriers and offered a word of love and healing to a struggling fourth grade boy. Jesus came to show us how to do the same thing – how to reach out and break down walls that divide us and offer healing to a broken world.
        Another important thing this text shows us is the communal nature of our faith. Notice in these two stories that other people intervene and bring the ones in need of healing to Jesus’ attention. The Syro-phonecian woman goes on her daughter’s behalf. Jesus never meets her daughter; it is by the mother’s faith that she is healed.
        What about the blind man who can’t speak? – his friends bring him to Jesus, just as the paralytic’s friends lowered him through a roof to get to Jesus. It is by the faith of his friends that the man is healed.
        Both these stories show us that faith is not strictly an individual thing. Sometimes we must rely on the faith of our community, the faith of our friends and family to bring us the healing we need.
        We don’t often think of faith that way. We tend to be rugged individuals in America. Faith is more of a private concern and there are many people out there who think that they really don’t need to go to church, they don’t need a community of faith, because they consider themselves to be spiritual and can read the Bible and pray at home just as well as at church.
        But I think these stories show us something different. Reading and praying on your own is a great discipline – but it doesn’t take the place of being a part of a faith community. Sometimes we all need to be carried, sometimes we all need someone to go to Jesus on our behalf and ask for the healing we desire.
        George Gallup, famous for conducting polls and public opinion research, is also a devout Christian and has done a great deal of research on the American spiritual life. In one poll, he found that the number one spiritual need that people had was to believe that life was meaningful and had purpose.
        The number two need was for a sense of community and relationship. From there, the next four spiritual needs were to be appreciated and respected; to be listened to and heard; to feel that one is growing in faith; and to receive practical help in developing a mature faith.
        Where else does all that happen, where else can that happen but in a community of faith. It is impossible to meet our spiritual needs in isolation. We can’t do it by ourselves. We’ve all felt that component missing throughout these pandemic days. We did our best to stay connected – but it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t quite the same. But to truly be a disciple of Christ, you must be an active part of a community of faith. It is only by acknowledging the communal nature of our faith that real healing can take place.
        These stories about two desperate people in need of healing who end up talking back to Jesus – they are unusual. It’s not the same old story this morning. We don’t meet the Jesus we might expect. But we do meet a Jesus who shows us that there are no barriers, no limits to God’s love and blessing. We also see that sometimes we need a little help from our friends to bring about the healing we desire.
        May God be praised. Amen.

08-29-2021 Living Cathedrals

Thomas J Parlette
“Living Cathedrals”
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
8/29/21
 

        I have a riddle for you this morning. What is something that was declared illegal 100 years ago, but is perfectly legal today? I’ll give you a hint – it inspired the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. In what was termed the Noble Experiment, the United States government made it a crime to manufacture, transport or sell alcoholic beverages. From 1920 to 1933 – a period referred to today as the Prohibition Era – all the bars and saloons and liquor stores in the nation shut down – at least “officially.”
        What really happened was that the practice of drinking just went underground. For example, in the city of Los Angeles there were 11 miles of service tunnels that became secret passageways to hidden saloons and clubs. In fact, the mayor of Los Angeles at that time helped to supply illegal liquor to these hidden establishments. By 1927, seven years after the passage of the 18th Amendment, there were approximately 30,000 illegal bars or speakeasies in Los Angeles – twice the number of legal bars that had been operating before the law was passed.(1) Seems a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?
        Or consider this interesting story. Cecil T. Turner of Louisville Kentucky, a seemingly religious man, was arrested in 2003 for burglary and fraudulent use of a credit card. The sticky-fingered Mr. Turner had obtained the card and several other items by ransacking several women’s purses while they were attending a church meeting.
        The curious part of the story though, is the business where Mr. Turner chose to use the stolen credit card. The police traced it back to Christian bookstore in a nearby town, where he had used it to purchase ten copies of a Bible study called “Making Peace with your Past”, as well as a follow-up study called “Moving Beyond your Past.” Seems he was stocking up on resources for his bible study group. When they searched the suspects home, police found receipts for those purchases which clinched the indictment. Again – the hypocrisy of using stolen credit cards to support your bible study habit – hard to believe.(2)
        It’s easy to shake our heads in disbelief at these stories of hypocrisy, but to be honest, we all have problems with moral and ethical consistency. We all fail to meet our own standards sometimes. That’s not an excuse, it’s a reality. Somehow our hypocrisy radar fails us when we point it at ourselves. And it’s an especially difficult issue for church leaders. Realistically, if you call yourself a Christian, a Jesus-follower, then you are a leader. Other people will watch you and draw conclusions about the character of God and the authenticity of your faith by how well your words and your actions match up to God’s standards. It’s a tough position to be in.
        A few years ago, a young man named Tyler started a controversial Instagram account called PreachersNSneakers. It was controversial because Tyler began posting pictures of prominent, hip young pastors and worship leaders leading worship services while wearing expensive designer clothing and sneakers, worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. Now Tyler is a Christian, he wasn’t looking to cause controversy, but he was concerned about the message that was being sent by these “pastor influencers” who were preaching the message of a poor, humble carpenter while wearing ridiculously priced sneakers. He started questioning, “What is OK as far as optics… as far as pastors wearing pricey designer clothes?”(3)
        Our Bible passage for today revolves around a question of proper optics as well. The Pharisees and some teachers of the law noticed that Jesus and his disciples were not following the Jewish laws of ceremonial hand washing before they ate. The Pharisees were concerned about this – surely this invalidated Jesus’ authority as a religious leader! But instead of hanging his head in shame and slinking away, Jesus turned the tables on the Pharisees.
        Jesus says, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the command of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
        The great sin of the Pharisees was their hypocrisy. They loved the Law more than they loved the Lord. They cared more about keeping religious rules than knowing and honoring God. They said all the right things, but they weren’t motivated by the will of God. They set a standard for others that they didn’t live up to themselves. And the Pharisees’ hypocrisy was doubly dangerous because it was driving people away from God, as well as getting in the way of their own relationship with the Lord.
        Pastor Ron Dunn of Irving, Texas, had an unsettling experience a few years ago when he discovered that there was another man in his small rural town also named Ron Dunn. And this other Ron Dunn was well-known around town for passing bad checks.
        Imagine the embarrassment of Pastor Dunn and his wife when store clerks stared cynically at the name on their checks and then refused them service. In this small town, many stores didn’t take credit cards because of the fees, so the Dunn’s had to carry cash everywhere because no one in town would take their checks. Pastor’s Dunn’s wife began going into all the stores and announcing loudly, “We are not the Ron Dunn you are looking for!”
        Pastor Dunn wrote of this situation, “Now it’s okay for someone else to have my name; I do not have a copyright on it. But what really disturbed me was the fact that people were judging me by what someone else with my name was doing. I sometimes fear that the reason the world has such a distorted view of Jesus is that he has been judged by what others who carry his name “Christian” have done.”(4)
        As followers of Jesus, we carry his name, “Christian”, into the world. What we do reflects on that name. We can listen to a lifetime of sermons, give to charities, and memorize Bible verses, but we can still miss the joy of knowing God. Remember when the Pharisees asked Jesus to name the greatest commandment? Jesus didn’t point to a rule or a religious observance or a church tradition. Jesus pointed to a relationship. He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
        Jesus is saying, “God isn’t pointing you toward the Law. The Law is pointing you toward God. Once you understand God and live the way God wants you to, once you love God more than you love yourself, then you won’t need the Law. Instead, your goodness will be replaced by Godliness.”
        When some of the great medieval cathedrals were built, like Notre Dame in Paris, most of the population in Europe was illiterate. So architects, sculptors and artists created these amazing cathedrals full of carvings and statues and stained glass windows to tell the story of God through art. They assumed that the average citizen might never read a Bible – but they could “read” the story of God through the images in the church buildings.
        And that’s still the best way to spread the message of Jesus. Most people in our society will never read a Bible, or will only read parts of it. So it’s up to us to be “living cathedrals” in our society. Others will read the story of God in the way we live our lives. As James put it in our Epistle reading this morning, “Be doers of the Word, not merely hearers.”
        Author Brennan Manning wrote, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable.”(5) I see his point.
        Many years ago, missionary E. Stanley Jones met Mahatma Gandhi. Jones asked Gandhi, “How can Christianity make a stronger impact on your country?”
        And Gandhi gave Jones three key insights. He said Christians need to live more like Jesus. Second, he said that Christians must present the message of Jesus without adulteration, or cultural baggage. And finally, Gandhi said, Christians should emphasize love, the core message of the faith.(6) Or, as James says, “Be doers of the word, not just hearers.”
        Will Campbell was a Baptist pastor and civil rights activist who passed away in 2013. Campbell was known for his love for the poor, and for putting his faith into action, even when it required great sacrifice. One Sunday, he was preaching at Duke University Chapel. An ice storm had blanketed the area the previous night, but plenty of people showed up to hear the prominent preacher and theologian speak.
        But instead of an inspiring and well-researched sermon, Campbell simply said, “Had an ice storm last night. Lots of trees are down. Lots of poor people in this town. Electricity is off, they got no heat. I got my pickup outside, my chain saw and my wood ax. I’m going out to cut some firewood from those trees to help people out. Who’s going with me?”
        And then he stepped out of the pulpit and walked out the back doors of the church. And he left a bunch of mystified people sitting in the pews.(7)
        Will Campbell didn’t just honor God with his lips. He honored God with his life. When it came time to preach a sermon that would honor God, he preached through his actions, not his words. He was a doer, not just a hearer.
        We are all hypocrites. Jesus knew we would be. But he loves us too much to leave us in our hypocrisy. Jesus knew that our half-hearted, insincere faith gets in the way of our relationship with God and drives other people away as well. The source of our hypocrisy is honoring God with our lips when our hearts are far away from God. The cure for our hypocrisy is loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Be doers of the word, not just hearers. Become Living Cathedrals of the Word of God. That’s the only way to move our testimony from our lips to our life.
        May that be so for us all. May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, pg84
2.   Ibid… pg84
3.   Ibid… pg84
4.   Ibid… pg85
5.   Ibid… pg86
6.   Ibid… pg86
7.   Ibid… pg86-87

08-22-2021 In All Circumstances

Jay Rowland

“In All Circumstances”

Ephesians 6:10-20

August 22, 2021

We’ve been walking along with Ephesians in recent weeks, and today we reach the conclusion. Today we just heard (most of) the closing words of the Apostle’s letter to the church in Ephesus. It is perhaps best remembered for the vivid imagery of the “armor of God” which the Apostle urges the faithful to recognize and employ. I’ve always been rather intrigued by this passage because of that, I suppose, but this time I find myself intrigued for other reasons.

First, I’m intrigued by the urgency on display in this passage. The imagery, the tone, the language, the terminology all add up to an intensity suggestive of being under attack or at war. There are unspecified threats to community and to individual well-being. The intensity is a reflection of the conviction that the people are under attack not by a particular army or country or leader, but by the invisible forces of spiritual darkness and evil (v12). The thing about evil is it never introduces itself to anyone as evil. Instead, what makes evil so evil is that it comes to us disguised as something very attractive and appealing to distract us from its deceptive, clever, and manipulative ways. And so we are all vulnerable to evil.

That’s intriguing. 

Because our modern society clearly sees such ideas as outdated.  It’s very easy to dismiss references to spiritual forces of evil as a relic of ancient society which is no longer relevant.  Modern society as well as our personal intellect have become so sophisticated, rational, and analytic-minded that such notions of spiritual darkness and evil forces aren’t taken seriously now compared to ancient times.  We’ve clearly evolved to a higher level of consciousness and understanding. 

Except for the stubborn fact of evil in the world.  Some things happen in life and in the world which certainly seems like evil forces at work behind the scenes. 

These ten verses in Ephesians 6 also make an urgent reference to another spiritual force or power at work in the world with its own unique sense of urgency and intensity. And that power at work in the world is the presence of Jesus. Jesus empowers his people to resist or recover from evil.

Jesus does not give us power over or against whatever circumstances or obstacles are creating havoc or harm in our lives. He did not use force or coercion against the forces that had him arrested, beaten and crucified.  So Jesus doesn’t offer us any sort of personal or individual power over our enemies or circumstances. The empowerment Jesus gives is located in Jesus himself, inhabited in him and exerted by him on our behalf. 

But empowerment for what exactly?

The intensity and urgency evident in Ephesians 6 speak directly to our life and circumstances today. For more than a year we’ve seen covid19 wreak havoc on human health, life and community. What’s worse, it has also triggered alarming rips/tears in the social fabric of our nation and world which once furnished some stability and order for previous generations during national and international crises. All of which renders the concurrent crises of climate change and racial disharmony all the more discouraging.

 As we have slowly come to accept that none of these crises will be resolved soon enough nor without more sacrifice and struggle we have somehow adjusted by necessity to the accompanying mental, spiritual and emotional exhaustion. And our faith and trust in the Lord and in our fellow human beings is in many ways under attack.

I’m not saying anything we don’t already know on some level. I find myself worrying about the cumulative toll all of this is taking on all of us. Day after day the everpresent intensity hums in the background, then suddenly flares up and captures our full attention, then settles into the background again.  This pattern has been going on for so long that it is straining our everyday decisions and efforts, interests and responsibilities and our relationships.

 I apologize for the reality bite.  But I’m convinced that the Good News of God’s commitment to us is only as real as the reality we are willing to acknowledge. I believe it’s important to say this stuff out loud to each other, in our prayers, and even to ourselves, and on a regular basis. … important to acknowledge the difficulty and the ongoing intensity of life at this moment in history in order to keep open the well of compassion for ourselves and each other that we are in danger of losing. It isn’t helpful to run from the truth or to sugar-coat our common distress. When we can stay present in the midst of all this difficulty, we are fastening the belt of truth around our waist, standing firm with Jesus Christ amid the raging forces of chaos or denial.

In my experience, acknowledging reality need not be discouraging, it can actually help relieve pressure--the invisible build-up of the cumulative pressure and strain. It’s important to our sanity and our energy and our faith in God that we understand that we are up against far more than we can handle on our own (v.13 MSG).  We are doing the best we can each day to live firmly grounded in reality while also living firmly with hope and trust in God and with compassion for one another.

I read an essay this week that offers some insight into this tension between reality and hope. It’s written by Rick Lawrence who credits another writer Jim Collins.  The essay is entitled “The Stockdale Paradox '' [1] The Stockdale Paradox is named after a man named Jim Stockdale, a naval fighter pilot in the Viet Nam war. In 1965, his fighter plane was hit by enemy fire... He parachuted into an enemy village where he was captured and severely beaten. Dragging a shattered leg from the beating, he was taken to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton," where he was imprisoned for nearly eight years. Stockdale was relentlessly and ruthlessly tortured. Eventually, he and nearly a dozen other prisoners were taken to a nearby holding facility dubbed "Alcatraz," where he lived in a 3-foot-by-9-foot cell with a light bulb that burned around the clock.

Somehow Stockdale survived. He was released in February 1973—his body so broken that he could barely walk. After a lengthy recovery he managed to live an active life … and a distinguished career in public service …  Collins asked Stockdale how he managed to not only make it out of the Hanoi Hilton but how he’d been able to live a vibrant, engaged, public life after experiencing so much trauma. Stockdale’s answers led Collins to coin the phrase "The Stockdale Paradox" which Collins distilled into the following phrase:

 "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

Collins also asked Stockdale what he thought was different about those who survived compared to those who didn’t.  Stockdale’s answer was startling, "Those who didn’t make it were optimists,” he said. “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We're going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart." 

To experience true empowerment while suffering life-shattering trauma, Stockdale discovered how to embrace both the brutal realities of his circumstances and a prevailing hope at the same time.

In a crisis situation, especially a long-term crisis, optimism is difficult if not impossible to sustain--and is perhaps even inappropriate.  Sooner or later in life, our capacity to help ourselves fails or is exhausted. But if we don’t accept our human limitations we don’t and won’t seek the empowerment Jesus offers. The amplified bible translation says when we learn to “draw our strength from [Jesus] we are empowered through our union with him” (Ephesians 6:10, AMP).  Put another way, “we’re empowered by our union with Jesus when our intimate attachment to him releases his core strength to flow into and through us.” (Rick Lawrence)

Most of us know very well how to muscle through hardships and make the most of what we have. And that’s fine. But it’s only a matter of time before we reach the bottom of our own well—when our personal determination to “hang in there” and “keep fighting” flounders.  Each of us has some natural ability to persevere through great challenges, but eventually, each person confronts or is confronted by circumstances that leave us in desperate need of a well with deeper resources than our “try harder” determination.

This reminds me of something Walter Brueggemann describes in one of his books.  Brueggemann identifies a pattern experienced by God’s people throughout scripture--which is also our experience too. Brueggemann applies the terms “orientation, disorientation, re-orientation” to this pattern. Most of the time we are humming along in life, able to deal with the normal ups and downs of life for the most part--that’s orientation. But there are times when we are overtaken by circumstances beyond our control--and that leads to disorientation. Don’t let that simple word fool you, disorientation is devastating. And when we’re thrown into disorientation it’s extremely difficult, even impossible to reorient by our own power. Whenever this happens to us (not if but when) only a power greater than ourselves can bring about reorientation.

Lawrence writes, “It’s not Christian principles or even the best qualities of Christian character that empower us, it’s the way we are captured by the heart of Jesus.  Relational intimacy with God generates the inner resolve and perseverance we cannot summon on our own power alone.”  Psychologist and spiritual director David Benner shared his experience with Lawrence,

“After decades of Bible reading, I realized that my relationship with God was based more on what I [understood] than on what I experienced. I had lots of information about God but longed to deepen my personal knowing. Getting to know Jesus better seemed like the right place to start. It was.”

Lawrence writes, when we learn to pursue the heart of Jesus, rather than try harder to apply everything he says and does to our life and experience, we find the “something higher” that leads us into reorientation to reality and a hope for the future.  Our journey from naked belief to “personal knowing” shows that reorientation comes about through our experience of Jesus’ heart, his presence, not simply the information we collect about him.

As we continue to plod our way through this time of extended disorientation, we are confronted by our limited capacity to persevere by our own strength alone. Sheer personal determination eventually wears out during long-term crises as we are discovering. Empowerment from Jesus provides us an orientation toward the Divine. The creative love of God that made the heavens and the earth, and which beats in the heart of Jesus, beats in our hearts too. When we discover the heart of Jesus beating in ours, we discover empowerment that surpasses our understanding and even our imagination. Ephesians 6 reminds us that we all have equal access to Jesus’ empowerment. We are called to pray in the spirit in all circumstances, by which we learn to face disorientation and discover the heart of Jesus empowering our reorientation in these circumstances and in all circumstances.

[1] Rick Lawrence, The Stockdale Paradox, in “Friday Thoughts” an on-line blog published/emailed weekly by vibrantfaith.org. Some of Lawrence’s essay is included verbatim.

08-15-2021 The Way of the Wise

Thomas J Parlette
“The Way of the Wise”
Ephesians 5: 15-20
8/15/21

        When you were a kid, did you ever fantasize about finding a magical being who would grant wishes for you? Kids see endless possibilities in the world, yet their power is fairly limited, so they get a lot of satisfaction from imagining magical beings, like a genie or a fairy or an angel, who can instantly give them whatever they want. But the movies and stories along these lines almost always come with a moral – Be careful what you wish for- because you just might get it!
        It reminds me of an old story known as “The Dean’s Dilemma.” An angel appears at a college faculty meeting and tells the dean, “In return for your unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward you with your choice of infinite wealth, infinite wisdom, or infinite beauty. What is your choice?”
        Without hesitating, the Dean answers, “Give me infinite wisdom.”
        “Done,” says the Angel, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
        All heads turn to the Dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. “Well,” says one of his colleagues, “say something brilliant.”
        The Dean stands, with a blank expression on his face, looks around the room, and confesses, “I should have taken the money.”(1)
        An interesting choice between wealth, wisdom or beauty. Which would you choose? Wealth and beauty are certainly highly valued in our society – and yet we know, wisdom is ultimately more valuable.
        In our Old Testament passage from 1st Kings, Solomon has the Dean’s Dilemma presented to him as well. He chooses wisdom, so that he might lead the people after his father David’s death. And the Lord is pleased with his choice.
        Our Epistle reading for today continues in Ephesians as Paul makes it clear that the way of the foolish person leads to emptiness and even death, while the way of a wise person leads to joy, peace and eternal life.
        Paul understood the Dean’s Dilemma better than most. Before he became a follower of Jesus, he had been a member of the Pharisees, an influential Jewish sect that practiced strict, legalistic observance of Jewish traditions and religious observances. As a Pharisee, Paul would have held a position of respect in his community. But when he became a Jesus-follower, he gave all that up. He gave up his influential, respected place in society. He gave up his former occupation. He gave up his community and home to travel all over the Roman Empire training early church leaders. He gave up his safety and security, and sometimes his freedom. For the remainder of his life, he faced persecution, beatings and imprisonment on account of his faith.
        In fact, the words we are reading today were written during Paul’s first stint in jail. He knew what his decision to follow Christ had cost him, and he knew what life with Jesus was really worth. And he spent the rest of his life serving Christ. So it was from the wisdom that only personal experience can bring that Paul wrote, “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs of the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God for everything, in the name of Jesus Christ.”
        The first thing Paul wants us to understand is that the foolish person lives as if there is no God. And if there is no God, life has no purpose. If there is no God, then it’s perfectly logical for everyone to simply do their own thing – like it says in the book of Judges, : “In those days there was no King in Israel; everyone did that which was right in their own eyes.” As you might imagine, chaos ensued.
        If there is no God there are no absolute values, no right or wrong. Like the Psalm says, “The fool says in their heart, ‘There is no God’.” And thus, the foolish person lives only for themselves and only for the moment. The foolish person doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions, or the legacy they leave behind.
        Warren Buffet, the self-made billionaire, is one of the richest people in the world. One time, Buffet was speaking at the University of Georgia. A student asked him for his definition of success. Part of what Warren Buffet answered went like this: “I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners, and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”(2)
        Excellent advice from a man who has more money than most. Mothing matters more than being loved and respected and leaving a legacy of loving God and loving your neighbor.
        The second thing Paul wants us to know is that wise folks know that every moment of their life is an opportunity to know God and live in God’s will. James Merritt, in his book Friends, Fools and Foes, defines wisdom as “seeing life through the eyes of God, and living life in the will of God.”(3)
        Paul knew that every Christian is like a magnet. You have an opportunity to draw others to God. You have an opportunity to draw others to hope, to truth and to life. But magnets also have the power to repel. If you claim to be a Christian, but are living like a foolish person, then you will repel people away from God.
        Most younger people have heard of the artist, Chance the Rapper. Chance is one of the most successful artists in the music industry right now. He’s won a Grammy, his concerts sell out, he is an anti-violence activist in the city of Chicago and he has donated over $1 million dollars to Chicago’s public school system. Professionally, he is a tremendous success.
        He tells an interesting story of his grandmother’s reaction to his career. In his early days, when he was first starting to experience some success, his grandmother took him aside and told him that she didn’t like the way his lifestyle was changing. She told him that she was going to pray for him.
        In an interview with GQ magazine, Chance shared his grandmother’s prayer. She prayed out loud over him, “Lord, I pray that all things that are not like you, you take away from Chance. Make sure that he fails at everything not like you. Take it away. Turn it to dust.”
        Wow – I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a prayer like that before. But Chance the Rapper’s grandmother cared more about her grandson’s soul than his success. She cared more about him knowing God and living in God’s will than she cared about offending him.
        And it was that prayer that brought Chance the Rapper back into a relationship with God. Many of his lyrics reflect his faith. At his sold-out concerts, he speaks about God and his own spiritual journey. His success is now rooted in knowing God and living in God’s will.(4) Like most wise folks, Chance knows that every moment of his life is an opportunity to know God and live in God’s will.
        And finally, when you know God and live in God’s will, then you can’t help but be thankful. You see every moment of your life as a blessing, a God-given opportunity. An essential part of living in God’s will is living with an attitude of gratitude. Paul closes our passage for today by writing “sing and make melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Keep in mind, Paul is writing these joyful words while he is in a Roman prison. There is nothing comfortable or predictable or controllable about his life. He has lost everything that once defined him. And yet the joy and thanksgiving that flow from his letters are a powerful witness to the truth of God. This kind of thankfulness and joy can’t be found in any earthly possessions or power or success or status. This kind of thankfulness is clearly a gift that comes from knowing Jesus Christ and having his spirit live in you.
        Dr. Mark Jacobson graduated as valedictorian of his class at Harvard University. He earned top honors in medical school at Johns Hopkins University. He is the best of the best in his field. He could have chosen a job at any of the most prestigious and high-paying hospitals in the country.
        Instead, Dr. Jacobson headed to Arusha, Tanzania, to work among the impoverished people there. He helped found a clinic, then a hospital. He sees about 35,000 patients each year. When asked if he had ever thought about moving back to the States to practice in a more comfortable environment, he says he thinks about it at least once a day. But he’s not going anywhere. Dr. Jacobson has been working in Tanzania for 22 years. And he says that he knows that this is the place God wants him to be. Dr. Jacobson explains, “Early on in my faith life, I realized that I had been wonderfully blessed and that I had some responsibility and call to give some of that back to others.(5) He is living in God’s will, even though it requires sacrifices. He is walking in the way of the wise.
        So which life looks more attractive – the way of the wise, or the way of the fool? “Be very careful how you live – not as unwise, but as wise, make the most of the time because the days are evil.” Paul wasn’t being harsh. He knew what he was talking about. He was trying to save us from living as if there is no God and as if life has no purpose. To live like that is an empty, meaningless life. It’s a foolish way to live. But there is another life available to us. One that is centered on knowing God and living in God’s will, responding to those little nudges God gives us. That is a way of life marked by contagious joy and thankfulness. And the end result of this life is purposeful living now, and eternal life with God.
        Through Jesus Christ – the way of the wise has been opened for us.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVII, No. 2, pg75.
2.   Ibid… pg76.
3.   Ibid… pg76.
4.   Ibid… pg76-77.
5.   Ibid…pg 77.       

08-08-2021 Walking and Talking Like a Christian

Thomas J Parlette
“Walking and Talking Like a Christian”
Ephesians 4:25-5.2
8/8/21

        I’ve got a pop quiz for you today – how many steps does it take to walk around the world? Since we aren’t Jesus and can’t walk on water, we are excluding oceans and major bodies of water. Well, there is a website that measures such achievements as walking around the world. According to their calculation, it takes the average person around 20 million steps to make that walk. Can your Fitbit measure 20 million steps? I don’t know – it might melt down at 10 million.
        Among the handful of people who have proof that they completed this walk is Steven Newman, the first person to walk solo around the world. It took him 4 years.
        The first woman to do it was named Rosie Swale-Pope, who at 57 jogged around the world to raise money for various charities. She wore out 50 pairs of running shoes by the time she finished.
        A man named George Meegan holds the record for the longest unbroken walk. He traveled 19,019 miles in 2,425 days. (1) My legs are tired just thinking about these walks.
        Did you know there is a travel company in England called WorldWalks? They specialize in setting up walking and hiking tours all over the world. They hire experienced world travelers and hikers to serve as guides. However, there a few walks that even their guides won’t attempt. On their blog, WorldWalks list 5 of the toughest walks in the world. These hikes are so challenging that you can’t even hire a guide for most of them. But you better not try to walk them alone – because there is a high risk of injury.
        One of these walks is called “The Snowman’s Pass” in Bhutan, a tiny nation near the Himalayan Mountains. The Snowman’s Pass takes at least 20 days to complete, and even the most experienced hikers say that only about half of the people who attempt actually finish it. I don’t know about you – but they lost me at Himalayan mountains. Nope, don’t walk to go on that hike, thank you very much.
        Another challenging walk is in the Kalalau Valley in Kauai, Hawaii. This trail winds through jungles and under waterfalls and through steep, narrow passageways that are so dangerous, no guide will accompany you on this trip. If you choose to tackle the Kalalau Valley trail, you’ll have to walk it alone.(2)
        We often speak of our faith as a journey, a walk with God – which can also be considered among the hardest walks you can do. Our Bible passage from Paul’s letter to Ephesus alludes to this walking in the way of love, walking in the footsteps of Christ, in the things we say and the way we live.
        Paul wrote this letter to the believers in Ephesus to teach them in practical terms how to be Christians, how to be the church. The early church was made up of all sorts of people – rich and poor, Gentiles and Jews, slaves and free, men and women. They were confronting centuries of prejudice and cultural differences. People who were completely divided by ethnicity, race, class, culture and gender were coming together to create a brand-new, never before seen movement.
        And imagine how these new believers felt when they understood Paul’s background. Before Paul became a Jesus-follower, he was a member of the prominent Jewish sect called the Pharisees. The name Pharisee actually means “the separated one.” Pharisees separated themselves from the people around them by their religious devotion. And Paul’s commitment to the Pharisees drove him to persecute those who followed Jesus, even participating in the stoning of a Christian named Stephen.
        So when Paul speaks about the life-changing, radical love of Jesus, people sit up and listen. Paul is making the point here that their commitment to Jesus doesn’t set them apart from others. In fact, Paul says, Jesus-followers will be known by how well they live in community with other people.
        Paul’s strategy for teaching these new Christians how to be followers of Christ, how to be the church was really quite simple. He pointed them to Jesus himself. Live like that. Be imitators of God. Live in love or as it says in some translations, walk in the way of love, just like Jesus did. Basically, Paul points out three kinds of ways that we show the love of Christ.
        First of all, walking in the way of love requires an active love. In Jesus’ life, love was a verb, not a noun. Love was an action, something you did, something you engaged in – not a feeling or an emotion.
        Almost 100 years ago, there was a Scottish pastor by the name of George Morrison who preached a sermon on the subject of “unconscious ministries.” He said that other people watch what we do more than what we say. Anyone with children knows this to be true. Our attitudes and actions have a tremendous influence on those around us, even if we don’t realize it. By remaining faithful in hard times, by choosing our words and attitudes carefully, by humbling ourselves in a culture that glorifies self-promotion, by choosing to walk in the way of love, we are exercising an “unconscious ministry” that causes others to experience the presence of God.(3) To accomplish this, it might take a radical transformation.
        The Gilman Greyhounds are a high school football team in Baltimore, Maryland. Back in the early 2000’s, they had a coach named Joe Ehrmann. Under Ehrmann’s leadership, the Gilman Greyhounds went undefeated for a number of seasons and were the top-ranked football in the Baltimore area.
        But Joe Ehrmann’s main purpose wasn’t leading a winning football team. Joe Ehrmann saw his main purpose as teaching his players a new definition of masculinity. According to a profile of Ehrmann in Parade Magazine, he believed that true masculinity is based on “loving relationships and living for a cause greater than yourself.”
        Ehrmann taught his players the ethic of servant-leadership, putting others’ needs before their own. He even created a rule that if any of his players saw a student sitting alone in the cafeteria, then that player was required to join the student and eat with him.
        Seniors on the Gilman football team were also required to present an essay at the end of the year with the theme, “How I Want to Be Remembered When I Die.”(5)
        Coach Ehrmann brought about a radical transformation in the culture of his football team because he encouraged his team to walk in the way of love.
        Quentin Hogg was a British educator in the late 1800’s in London, England. He felt such compassion for the poor street kids in London that Hogg disguised himself as a shoeshine man and worked alongside them so he could understand their needs. He realized that many of these children were in desperate need of an education, so he began teaching them to read by using Bible texts. Hogg founded a training school for the poorest children in London to provide education, job skills and religious training.
        Quentin Hogg once wrote to a former student, “We hear much talk about creeds, professions of faith and the like; but I want you to remember that when God started to write a creed for us, God did it, not in words that might change their meaning, but God set before us a life, as though to teach us that whereas theology was a science which could be argued about, religion was a life and could only be lived.”(5)
        When God started to write a creed for us, God didn’t do it in words. God did it through the life of Jesus. Jesus went out into the community, into the fields and marketplaces, the synagogues and the homes to meet people where they were. By some estimates, Jesus walked over 3,000 miles during his three years of ministry. He wasn’t waiting for people to come to him, he went to them. He was always going out to preach and teach and heal and spend time with people. He put his faith into action and walked and talked in the way of love. And that’s exactly what we are called to do today – to demonstrate an active love.
        Walking in the way of love also requires consistent love. In the Bible, this is referred to as “steadfast.” It refers to love that is reliable and unchanging. The Christian life would be so much easier if God would let us define love any way we wanted to. We want to define love in terms that are conditional, emotional or circumstantial.
        Conditional love says, “I love you if…” or “I love you when…” Conditional love says, “You’re not lovable yet. You’ve got to earn my love. Once you meet my standards, then I will love you.”
        Emotional love says, “I will love you until my feelings change. Until I no longer get that spark when I see you. Until you make me angry or disappointment me.”
        Circumstantial love says, “I will love you until our circumstances change. Forget about those old wedding vows of “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.”
        But God’s love, as demonstrated through Jesus Christ, is consistent, it is steadfast, unconditional, everlasting love. People will experience the presence and love of God when they see us walk in the way of love consistently.
        There is an old story about 4 religious scholars who were debating about their favorite translation of the Bible. One of them liked the King James version. One of them liked the Good News version, and another stood by the Revised Standard version. Finally, the last scholar spoke up and said, “I personally prefer my mother’s translation.”
        The other scholars were amused by this statement until the man explained his choice. “My mother translated each page of the Bible into her life. It is the most convincing translation I’ve ever seen.”(6)
        Walking in the way of love requires an active love. Walking in the way of love requires a consistent love. And finally, walking in the way of love requires a sacrificial love – just as Paul notes that Jesus gave himself up as an offering for us all.
        There is a mission organization in Grass Valley, California, called Christian Encounter Ranch. It is a residential counseling program for young people who come from backgrounds of substance abuse, abandonment, neglect, and many other forms of abuse and trauma. Through outdoor activities, Bible studies, and counseling, many young people find healing from their traumas and a new life of hope and purpose.
        Almost 40 years ago the board and staff of Christian Encounter Ranch came up with a unique way to raise money for their ministry. They sponsor an annual 24-hour bike ride on the last weekend of July. It consists of 24 hours of riding through challenging nature trails in the hottest part of the summer months in California. It’s no surprise that this unique fundraiser is named the Agony Ride. Every year, the Agony Ride raises thousands of dollars for ministries at the Ranch.
        Mikenna Kossow is a former resident at the Ranch. Now she participates in the annual Agony Ride. She says, “I struggled with feeling loved, seen and important when I came to the Ranch as a student. During my first Agony Ride, I was amazed that complete strangers who didn’t even know me or the other students, would put themselves through complete agony for 24 hours to make sure we could experience the healing we needed and could feel the love of Christ from being in community. I ride now to show current students that they are not alone, that someone cares about their healing and that they are deeply loved.”
        The Executive Director at Christian Encounter Ministries, Nate Boyd, says, “Many of our residents have wrestled their whole lives with a haunting question – “does anyone actually care about me?” The Agony Ride answers this with physical, indisputable evidence. It stirs up hope that life may be worth living after all, and it provides the means to pursue that hope.”(7) You could say those people who ride the Agony Ride are actually riding in the way of love.
        In our passage for today, Paul invites us to walk and talk in the way of Christ. You can invite people to church, you can study the Bible, you can participate in community ministries, you can do all kinds of things to tell people that you are a follower of Jesus. But if you walk in the way of love and speak life-giving words to people, you won’t have to tell them. They will know your faith by your active, steadfast, sacrificial love.
        May that be so for us all.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, pg71
2.   Ibid… pg71
3.   Ibid… pg72
4.   Ibid… pg72
5.   Ibid… pg72
6.   Ibid… pg73.
7.   Ibid… pg73-74

08-01-2021 Expectations

Thomas J Parlette
“Expectations”
John 6: 24-35
8/1/21

        So we are heading into the second half of 2021 – so it’s probably a good time to check in with our expectations for this year and see if anything needs to be re-adjusted. Some of us have had a better year than we expected; some of us, worse than we anticipated. All of us have certain plans and expectations for how the rest of the year will go. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the next 5 months? I’m trying to be optimistic – but I admit, some days it’s a challenge.
        Pastor Daniel Chambers learned an expression from a college professor: “Expectation is the mother of regret.”(1) I guess that professor could be called a pessimist. Evidently some of the things he expected didn’t turn out like he thought.
        There was once a man who had a nephew named Harvey, and throughout the man’s life, this nephew had, on every occasion they met, said to the man, “I hope you will remember me in your will.”
        So the man died, and the time came for the family to gather for the reading of the will. The lawyer came to a line which read like this, “And to my nephew Harvey., who has over and over again asked to be remembered in my will, I say…. “Hellooooo, Harvey.”(2) And that was it. Harvey didn’t inherit a thing – but he was remembered in the will. Expectation was the mother of regret.
        People also had their expectations when they came to Jesus. The crowds had seen Jesus perform miracles. He healed the sick, he fed thousands of people and he walked on the water. So, in today’s lesson, what did people expect when they came to Jesus? Did they expect a magic show? Did they expect a twenty-four hour, all –you- can- eat buffet? Maybe – I’m sure some did. But here is what they did not expect. They did not expect Jesus to confront them about their real motives for coming to him. Jesus says to them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” Remember, in John’s Gospel, miracles are reported as signs that Jesus is who he says he is. That is the purpose of miracles. That was the real reason Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves. But the crowd saw only the fact that they were bountifully fed. And Jesus knew they would come back for more.
        Don’t you hate it when someone makes you confront your true motives? Barbara Brown Taylor is a nationally known Episcopal priest and author. She is someone whose books I read often. She tells the story of a retreat she led one time in the Carolina Mountains. One evening she asked the retreat members to answer this question – “Who in your life reminds you of Jesus?”
        There were the usual answers: My grandfather… my mom… my best friend…” One woman didn’t jump right in though; she was giving the question some serious thought. Finally, she looked up and said, “I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, “Who is it that told me the truth about myself so clearly that I felt like I could kill him for it.”(3) Interesting she said “Him.” Think about that for a moment and apply it to your own faith journey. “Who is it that told me the truth about myself so clearly that I felt I could kill them for it.”
        If we listen, Jesus will tell us the truth about ourselves – and it might not be pretty. In the words of that woman at the retreat, “We might want to kill him for it.”
        The religious leaders of his day, did exactly that. They killed Jesus for telling the truth about God, and about their own true motives.
        When you look at the times that Jesus confronted people in the Bible, his motive was never to shame them or to prove his superiority over them. His motive was to bring them closer to God. Jesus uses truth-telling to make us aware of the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually believe.
        We say, for example, that God is love – pure love, everlasting love, agape love – the one who always has our best interest at heart. But, in truth, most of us don’t really trust God with our future, our family, or our finances, do we? We lie in our beds at night worrying about what the next day will bring, forgetting what is taught in Romans – all things work for good for those who love God. We say Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, but we don’t believe it enough to actually tell our friends and family about him. They might think we were religious zealots or something. We say we believe in God’s word, but we rarely open the Bible unless it’s in Sunday School or a bible study group.
        The crowds following Jesus said, “We’ll believe you, Rabbi.  Just give us a sign. Feed us bread every day, like Moses fed the people of Israel with bread from heaven.” Jesus knew their real motives. And he knew that they would never be satisfied if they didn’t confront their own lack of truthfulness. Our passage says, “Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus is saying, “I didn’t come here to make your life more comfortable. If that’s what you’re looking for, you better keep looking. I came here to show you that I am the only one who can meet the deepest needs in your life – because I am life itself.”
        There seems to be a universal feeling in our society, the nagging question – “Is this all there is?” Somehow I expected more. Something seems to be missing. Something’s missing, and in its place, we substitute all sorts of things.
        In our society, we are fed a constant stream of “If only’s.” For example, “if only I had a little more money…” How many of us have thought that at some time in our lives? “If only I had more money,” we say, “my problems would be solved.” Maybe – but it might create more problems as well.
        Why do we continue to believe the secret to life can be found in accumulating great wealth? Because money can give us a sense of control. Because we can use it to keep score – to prove we are somebody. That’s why we continue to hunger for wealth or fame or power. But many of those who attain wealth and fame know them to be empty and unfulfilling.
        Every wise person who has ever lived knows what is missing in life – and it is not material possessions or recognition or power. What is missing is a sense of meaning to life. Why are we here? Where are we headed? What does it all mean? For many people there is no meaning.
        There is an author and philosopher named Roman Krznaric who encourages people to live more meaningful lives using a visualization exercise he calls, “The dinner party of the afterlife.”
        He says to imagine yourself at a dinner party in the afterlife. Who else is at the party? All the “yous” who you could have been if you had made different choices in life. All the good and bad paths you could have gone down if you had just changed one or two decisions. If you had chosen different friends, a different career, different principles or priorities to define your life. All the paths you might have taken if you had been more proactive, or less fearful, or more generous with others.
        Look around at these alternative “yous”, advises Krznaric. Which ones do you admire, even envy? Which ones do you want to avoid? After meeting all the possible yous that you can imagine, it’s time to make the decision: who do you aspire to become and why?(4)
        That’s a worthwhile exercise. Visualize who you would be if you gave your life entirely to the purposes and priorities of God. If you found your identity in becoming the person God made you to be. Who would you be if you put your whole trust in God and committed yourself to knowing God and aligned your life with God’s will?
        Anglican priest John Stott was a very influential leader in Christian circles. In 2005, he was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He talks about the moment when he finally realized that Jesus is the bread of life, the source of life. He wrote, “I was defeated. I knew the kind of person I was and the kind of person I longed to be. Between the reality and the ideal there was a great gulf. And what brought me to Christ was the sense of defeat and the astonishing news that the historic Christ offered to meet the very needs of which I was most conscious.”(5)
        When you sit in church and hear about the goodness of God and the joy of knowing God, do you sometimes feel empty and disconnected, like you’re missing something? Do you feel that great gulf that Stott wrote about?
        If so, there is good news. Jesus came to meet that need, to fill that emptiness. “I am the bread of life…” says Jesus. You can search all over the earth to find that thing that is missing, but until you feed on the bread I offer, you will never be satisfied.
        I appreciate the way pastor and author Frederick Buechner expressed this idea. He writes, “Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained God away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through silence and absence, so that we know God best through our missing God.”(6)
        Interesting. Maybe our sense of emptiness is God’s gift to us. Maybe it’s a sign that we are missing God, aching for God, needing God in our lives. And if that is the case, then God is more than happy to fill that sense of emptiness with the power and peace and joy of God’s presence. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
        That’s what brings us to worship today – we want to fill the emptiness within. The more we focus on our own needs, the less satisfied and secure we are. But when we turn our focus to God – searching for God, enjoying God, serving God – the more joy and peace and hope and purpose we experience. We were made to worship God. Worship is giving God the honor and glory that God deserves. But worship is also a gift to us, because it is through worship that we experience the joy of knowing God.
        We all search for that one thing that will satisfy. Maybe it’s a status symbol or a title or an achievement of some sort that will make us feel complete. But none of them can supply what our soul is really hungry for. Bread from heaven – that is our greatest need. Christ is that bread. Jesus came into the world to love people to life. And you will only find your identity and purpose and your best life when you eat of the bread Jesus provides.
        So come to the table today, and be fed for the journey.
        May God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, p66
2.   Ibid… p66
3.   Ibid… p66
4.   Ibid… p68
5.   Ibid… p68
6.   Ibid… p68

07-25-2021 Food in Due Season

Thomas J Parlette
“Food in Due Season”
John 6: 1-21
7/25/21

        What’s your favorite food? The food you could eat once a day for the rest of your life, if you had to? At this time of year, you can find food festivals all over the U.S. that celebrate just about any kind of food you might enjoy. There’s a Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. Waikiki, Hawaii, hosts a Spam Festival every year. And in Atlanta, Georgia, there is a Chomp and Stomp Festival every year that features a chili cook-off and bluegrass concert and dance. I’m sure you can think of a few of your favorites. If not, google it–I bet you’ll find some interesting food festivals.
        For example, the town of Yamagata, Japan, holds a festival every year to celebrate a traditional soup called imoni. Thousands of people come from all over Japan, indeed, from all over the world to eat imoni and have a good time. So the folks in Yamagata built a massive soup pot, which they fill with 6 tons of water, 1 ½ tons of beef, 3500 onions, and lots of other ingredients, and let the soup cook for hours.
        As you might imagine, cooking that amount of soup can be a real challenge. And then you have to wonder – how do they serve it? Target doesn’t see 1- ton soup ladles, at least not the last time I checked. So a few years ago, a team in Yamagata found a creative way to solve this problem. They bought two brand new earth diggers with specially made and sanitized buckets. The baskets allowed them to dip out hundreds of servings of soup at once. In 8 hours’ time, this team of cooks fed 12,695 happy festival goers bowls of hot imoni soup. They even earned the title for “Most Soup Served in 8 Hours” in the Guiness Book of World Records.(1)
        Feeding thousands of people: that’s what brings us to the passage for this morning. When you think about this story from John, think about it through the eyes of Jesus’ disciples. They had traveled to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee hoping to get away for some rest. But the crowds of people, thousands of people, followed them to this remote area. They were hungry for a miracle or a message of hope. The tired disciples hoped Jesus would send them away, so they could all get some rest.
        The situation of these tired disciples is reminiscent of a study that the U.S. Army did a few years ago to determine the factors that contributed to the maximum level of output they could get out of their soldiers. How far could soldiers push themselves before their performance started to decrease? They determined that after seven consecutive days of hard work without any rest, the soldier’s performance level dropped. The interesting thing is, the soldiers weren’t aware of this. They thought they were fine. In their worn out state, they believed that they were still operating at peak performance levels.(2)
        Jesus’ disciples needed some rest–that is why we have a  thing called the Sabbath. They wanted Jesus to send the crowd away. Instead, Jesus asked Philip how they were going to feed this crowd of thousands of men, women and children. Philip was probably taken aback when Jesus asked this question about something so seemingly impossible. He answered, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread to feed all these people.”
        Fortunately, another disciple named Andrew at least tried to be helpful. “Um, Jesus–there’s a boy here who has 5 barley loaves and a couple of fish, if that helps.” But then he changes his tune–“But what is that when we have so many to feed.”
        I like to think Jesus had a wry little smile on his face as he said, “Make the people sit down.” And then. I’ve always loved this little detail of this story–“for there was a great deal of grass in the place, so they sat down.” It’s like they were all getting ready for a relaxing little picnic.
        The feeding of the five thousand is a marvelous story of God’s provision for our human need. The focus is on bread and fish, but the real lesson is about all of life. So, let’s break this story down a bit.
        First of all, we experience God’s blessings when we take time to sit down. I know, it sounds simple. But many of us say we’re too busy to read the Bible ar attend fellowship groups or just take a minute to meditate. We pray in our cars as we rush to and from work or class or running our kids around town. The idea that we should stop for a minute and sit down–well, its almost unthinkable. It’s like we’ve forgotten that we have a God who is just waiting to supply what we need–we’ve just got to slow down for a minute and listen.
        There was once a man who was waiting for a bus to Pasadena. In the bus station, he spotted a machine advertising: Your height, weight and your fortune only $1.00. So he decided to give it a try. So he popped in a dollar and stepped in front of the machine. Out popped a card that read: “You are 5’10”. You weigh 160 pounds. You are waiting for a bus to Pasadena.”
        The man was amazed–and intrigued. He wondered if he could somehow fool the machine. So he went to the men’s room and tried to change his appearance. He turned his cap around backwards, put on some sunglasses, turned his shirt inside out, pulled a jacket from his bag. Finally, he stuffed the jacket full of toilet paper so he’d look heavier. Then he went back out and stepped up to the machine again. Another dollar and another card popped out. “You are still 5’10”, you’re still 160 pounds. And while you were wasting time in the men’s room, you missed the bus to Pasadena.”(3)
        How many of us get so busy messing around with lesser priorities that we spend our whole life disconnected from God? Time with God is not a burden. It’s what we were made for. We find our identity, our purpose, our strength and our wisdom in spending time with God. But we get so caught up in doing, so caught up with the details of everyday life, so pressed for time, that we end up cutting out what gives us the strength we need to live richly. We need to do what this passage says and sit down in the presence of Jesus.
        Then, we need to receive what Christ has to offer us, just as the crowd received the loaves and fish. We have a generous God, a God that wishes to give us everything we need. When we shut God out of our lives–whether intentionally or unintentionally–we shut out the One who has everything we need and wants nothing more than to give it to us. Our God is a generous God.
        Famous dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse was known for being abundantly generous. When he went out with friends or colleagues, he always grabbed the check and paid for others. And when he died, Fosse set aside $25,000 in his will with instructions for 66 of his closest friends to use the money to go out to dinner together one more time. Even toward the end of his life, he was still thinking of ways to show his appreciation for his friends.(4)
        In the same way, God never stops thinking about us. God awaits the opportunity to meet our needs, but we are not accustomed to receiving from God’s loving hand. And it never occurs to us to pray. So we wander blindly from problem to problem.
        “Make people sit down,” said Jesus. Then he took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed both the loaves and the fish to all who were seated, as much as they wanted. So also do we receive God’s blessings when we sit and wait, and receive what God has to offer.
        Notice, finally, how John concludes this story: “When they had all had enough to eat, he said to the disciples, “Gather the pieces together that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” There was more than enough to go around.
        When we receive what God has to offer us, we discover that God is a wondrous provider for our needs. One of the lessons Christ tried to teach us was the extravagance of God. Our God is the one who provides food in due season, as the Psalmist said–who sets before us a table in the midst of our enemies–who fills our cup to overflowing. The God who, when wine is needed for the wedding feast tells us to fill the water pots, and fill them to the brim–who when the prodigal returns home kills the fatted calf and throws a big party.
        Our God is the God who provides in abundance. A group of children was once asked to describe what abundance means to them:
* Alison, age 7, said “Abundance is an extra bowl of ice cream and getting to stay up late and laughing a lot.”
* Emily, age 9, said, “Abundance means I have as many books as I want to read and lots of warm clothes for the wintertime. And it means there’s always lots of love.”
* Brian, age 10, said, “Abundance means having everything we need even though we don’t have everything we want yet. It makes me feel safe.”(5)
        Abundance means we have everything we need even though we don’t have everything we want yet. It makes me feel safe. Every miracle Jesus ever performed, including this one, was meant to show us the priorities or the nature of God. The healings, turning wine into water, feeding the multitudes, calming the storms. All the miracles in the New Testament emphasize the priorities and nature of God. So what is the reason for God’s extravagance? I think maybe God wants to prepare us for the greater extravagance of Heaven.
        In Rome, right next door to the Vatican, is a beautiful 19th century palace, the Palazzo Migliore, that was recently available for sale. It’s size and beauty and location right off St. Peter’s Square made it worth a small fortune. And someone could have made a lot of money turning it into an exclusive hotel or something. Instead, the family who owned it chose to donate this gorgeous palace to the Roman Catholic Church.
        And Pope Francis made a decision that must have made God smile. He turned it into a homeless shelter. The palace, which has 16 bedrooms, houses 50 homeless men and women. Volunteers provide them with hot meals. Residents report that the palace feels more homelike than any of the crowded shelters that are usually open to them.
        Sharon Christner, a researcher working on a project involving homelessness commented, “ …what is special about this place is that it’s not about maximizing dollar signs, but giving people a really beautiful place to be, with the idea that beauty heals.”(6)
        The Palazzo Migliore is a vision of the abundant blessings God has prepared for those who love God. Homeless people in need of food and shelter are welcomed into a luxurious mansion and fed hot meals. Curious crowds of people following Jesus are invited to sit for a surprise picnic, and they all eat their fill. And there are still plenty of leftovers. This is a vision of the priorities and nature of a loving, generous God who desires to provide for our needs. This story illustrates what our Psalmist wrote about in Psalm 145: “The eyes of all look to the Lord, and you give them their food in due season.”
        And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.   Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, pg 62
2.   Ibid… pg 62
3.   Ibid… pg 63
4.   Ibid… pg 63
5.   Ibid… pg 64
6.   Ibid… pg 64-65