11-27-2022 Advent and Hope

Jay Rowland

Advent and Hope

Isaiah 2:1-5

November 27, 2022 Advent 1A

It feels like only a week ago we had just enjoyed another “Trunk or Treat” Halloween event here in our church parking lot on a beautiful warm and sunny late autumn afternoon. But it’s like I looked down for a moment to check my phone or something and when I looked up again it was Thanksgiving and now here we are on the First Sunday of Advent.

Sometimes Advent begins in November which feels “early” and sometimes it begins in December which feels more on time. Either way, this year I find myself thinking about how the month of November provides a gateway or threshold into Advent. November has some unique happenings and dates which prepare us for the unusual ritual of time known as Advent.

November begins with All Saints Day (Sunday) when we remember and honor the people in this congregation who died in the past year. As part of this ritual and liturgy, we cherish each of them by name, lighting a candle to the sound of bells.

And as it happens by the time of All Saints a celestial rite of passage has been playing out above us for many weeks as the Earth in its orbit around the sun gradually & silently changes our perception of daylight which mysteriously recedes to the encroaching darkness of the winter months.

Something about these altered patterns of daylight and darkness coming in the wake of All Saints finds purchase deep in our spirit probably beneath our conscious awareness. Meanwhile, the ever-unfolding saga of the world around us combines with our own personal lives in orbit around it all; which can bring about a shift in consciousness as Advent returns.

This shift in consciousness shows up for me in the laying bare of our basic human vulnerability … the intricate, delicate, complex interplay of life in the midst of death, and light in the midst of encroaching darkness. All of this, it seems to me is the spiritual threshold and gateway known as Advent which comes to us in four movements: Hope, Love, Joy, Peace. And begins today with hope.

The brief poem before us today from the prophet Isaiah begins with an image of a high mountain, representing the house of the Lord, rising above all other landmarks. This image echoes later in the imagery of all Creation laying down--leveling off--in anticipation of the coming Savior. Vitally connected with this imagery is human movement toward that lofty place; our ascending, going up. Which is a poetic way of saying that much our life and our faith resemble a steady uphill climb.

Especially lately. Recent years have made it fairly clear that life in this complicated world isn’t getting any easier. Significant problems cast a pall over our days. Some days are better than others, of course, but sometimes it seems like we are engaged in a steady uphill climb that is becoming steeper and downright wearying.

And so it is good that Advent begins with the movement of hope. Because hope is as indispensable today as it’s ever been for God’s people.

With the dawn of Advent here in the fading light of 2022, the enveloping darkness of late autumn and winter signals to us that God is once again drawing near. A vision from God is shared with us through the poetry of the prophet Isaiah. Woven into the images of this poem is a promise emanating from the heart and the mind of God—rising before us like a mountain:

In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

… above the hills ...

All nations will river toward it,

people from all over set out for it.

They’ll say, “Come,

let’s climb God’s Mountain,

… to the House of God …

so we can live the way we’re made.” (The Message Bible)

This whispered promise God is shouting through the prophet Isaiah is given to break through the imposing darkness surrounding God’s people.

Isaiah’s poetic voice is declaring that a time is approaching when the nations shall stream together “to learn the ways of God” and when they do God shall bring about a settlement of all disputes, resolve even the most ancient of ethnic, creedal, tribal differences among nations and families; and this shall capture the attention of all people.

What’s truly engaging about this vision is who it is that takes the decisive action toward peace (turning war equipment into farming tools). This passage is just familiar enough to remind us that we’ve heard it before, and so perhaps we don’t notice some of the words or their significance, or we’ve always heard this passage in Isaiah according to a sort of default attention which presumes that God always performs the decisive action. But look again … listen again … from verse four:

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

Notice the pronouns, “they” and “their”. That’s what makes this prophetic promise so intriguing: this bold, hope-filled transformation is not something God inflicts upon the nations independent of their/our actions or inclinations, but is rather a human response to the reality of God.[1] The people are not passive recipients but active participants, deciding and striving to work together to live God’s ways for the good of all--all nations, all people, all creatures all that lives and breathes and relies upon God’s Creation for sustenance--from human to mammal to animal to the most microscopic form of life.

Now this may or may not strike some of us as obvious good news. Because before this is to happen, there is much work to be done by God’s people. In other words, again, the mountain of God is an uphill climb. How could it not be?--given where we are as a people and a planet, where we all long to be and all that God longs to provide.

Herein lies a critical detail in all of this: We cannot do any of this without God, and God will not do any of this without us. But that is what makes this hope something more than a mere wish or a pithy sentiment. This vision of hope involves everyone; excludes no one. For God’s vision and peace to become reality depends upon humanity rising to the opportunity. Peace has always been much more complicated and harder work than conflict. Thus the uphill climb. But we do not embark upon the climb alone or isolated, left to our own wits or resources, but rather we do so with (and because) God who is faithful, has always been faithful, and has always shown us that God will see us to it and through it

I realize so many of us feel as if the world is in greater peril now than it’s ever been. The world certainly is in peril. But sometimes I wonder how prior generations dealt with their own perilous circumstances. Threats to human existence and to the earth itself have happened before. One example is the plague which must have appeared to everyone at the time to be the end of the world. More recently, the rise of fascism and Nazism and all the perils of WW2 clearly changed the scope of destruction to include, ultimately, total annihilation. My point is that prior generations have all faced what they thought was The End of the World. The only difference is that their experiences all reside in the past and were resolved. Whereas our experience of this threat is immediate and global but with no resolution. And so this fully captivates our attention and threatens to steal our hope.

The prophets and the Psalms wisely advise us to be leery of our human leaders no matter how dangerous or promising they may appear to be. History and the Bible show us that Israel and Judah had both disastrous and divine leader-kings, neither of which guaranteed that either good or evil would prevail. And even the destruction of Jerusalem, which was akin to the “end of the world” to the Jewish people didn’t bring about the end of God’s presence or God’s people.

And so this Advent, whether or not you’re convinced the world is spiraling toward annihilation, today’s vision from God in Isaiah reminds us of the hope that can and shall transform all of life: the hope God has in God’s people: The nations shall stream to the mountain of God.

The prophet Isaiah presents an alternative vision for the world, a vision boldly declaring God’s expectation that we learn to live in peace. A reminder that God has created this world—Creation itself for peace. And so peace shall come one day, but not without us, not without our participation, because that would be something other than a lasting peace. God’s promised peace depends upon us doing our part to keep that expectation and hope of God’s promise alive in our generation.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way:

“The impressive art of Isaiah involves taking the stuff of our ordinary and often disappointing human experience and showing us how it is the stuff that God uses to create and save and give hope. As this vast panorama opens up before us, it turns out that nothing is unusable by God. [God] uses everything and everybody as material for [God’s] work which is remaking the mess that we have made of our lives” and the world. (Eugene Peterson, “Introduction to Isaiah,” The Message Bible)

A contemporary poet/prophet, Danna Faulds[2] expresses this hope another way,

Take all the fear in the world and bring it here.

Throw it in a heap.

Now find Insecurity and Doubt

Locate Shame and Anger

Hatred and Depravity

Add them to the pile.

Find every obstacle to love.

If the whole world’s suffering can’t asphyxiate the love in you,

Then there’s hope for us.

Hold your love aloft in the gathering darkness

And watch peace spread wide it’s brightening wings

If you could keep your love alive

Then war and madness won’t have the last word.

Look

Even now the dove is flying.

Advent’s return turns us toward the hope that has always sustained God’s people in times of darkness. And so, dear friends,

come, let us walk

in the light of the Lord

Notes

[1] This idea has likely been published or expressed elsewhere. The work of Otto Kaiser in Isaiah 1-12, The Old Testament Library Series (Second Edition. pp.54-56, et al.), may even suggest as much but certainly influenced my interpretation as I express it in this sermon.

[2] read by Tara Brach during “Three Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope”, podcast 11/3/2022, https://www.tarabrach.com/three-practices-nurturing-wise-hope/

Isaiah 2:1-5

1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

2 In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hills;

all the nations shall stream to it.

3 Many peoples shall come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

4 [The Lord] shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.

5 O house of Jacob,

come, let us walk

in the light of the LORD!

11-13-2022 By Your Endurance

Thomas J Parlette
“By Your Endurance”
Luke 21: 5-19
11/13/22
 

          When was the last time you settled into a good disaster movie? I know it sometimes seems like watching cable news is as good as watching a disaster movie – but I mean a more traditional one like Armageddon or The Towering Inferno?
          Disaster movies tend to do pretty well at the box office, whether they feature frightened people battling floods, or volcanos, or Godzilla, or even zombies invading major cities.
          Speaking of zombies, there is a company in London called Vollebak that manufactures what they call an “Apocalypse Jacket.” The word Apocalypse generally refers to the ultimate disaster drama – the complete final destruction of the world, something like what is described in the Book of Revelation. The Apocalypse Jacket is meant to protect its wearer from such things as extreme heat and chemical attacks. They advertise it with the tagline, “Zombies will hate it” – assuming you run into any Zombies.
          The Apocalypse Jacket uses a special fiber created by NASA that is incredibly strong and has no melting point. This fiber is then blended with the cloth fibers used in “ballistic-rated body armor.” It may be the sturdiest piece of clothing on earth, nearly indestructible. It can withstand exposure to black lava from volcanoes and sulfuric acid. These jackets have 23 pockets with hidden zippers all throughout the interior jacket, so you can carry everything needed for escaping a natural disaster or even a zombie apocalypse. (1) A good Apocalypse Jacket might be just what we need after hearing this passage for today with it’s note of impending threats.
          There is something thrilling about facing down an impending threat, isn’t there? I think that’s why disaster movies do so well at the box office. We like to sit on the edge of our seat and feel our hearts pound as the hero or heroine overcome nearly impossible odds to save the world.
          The highest-grossing disaster movie in the U.S. so far is Independence Day, the movie about a worldwide alien invasion. Roland Emmerich, the director of Independence Day, claims that disaster movies are cathartic. They allow the audience to release tension over their fears of the future. As he says, “You see all this destruction and everything, but at the end, the right people save the day.”
          Wheeler Winston Dixon is the chair of the Film Studies Program at the University of Nebraska. In his book Disaster and Memory, he writes, “People go to disaster movies to prove to the themselves that they can go through the worst possible experience, but somehow they’re going to come out the other side.” (2)
          That may be the perfect summary for today’s passage from Luke 21 – people go through the worst possible experience, but somehow they’re going to be ok. And if we can really believe that – that should somehow change the way we live in these disturbing times.
          Our scripture lesson opens with Jesus and his disciples standing in the Temple in Jerusalem, admiring its strength and beauty. The Temple wasn’t just a building – the Temple courts sat on 36 acres of land. The giant stones that made up the Temple were dazzling, blinding pinkish-white marble, and over some of the stones was gold plating that reflected the sunlight. From a distance, the whole complex looked like a glowing jewel. Up close, it was one of the most impressive buildings in the Roman Empire. (3)
          And Jesus had the unenviable task of telling his disciples that one day this beautiful Temple would be destroyed – which it was in 70 AD. To make matters worse, Jesus said, “False prophets will preach in my name and turn people away from the truth. Then there will be wars and famine, earthquakes and pestilence.” And before the worst of this can happen, Jesus’ followers will be arrested, put in prison, betrayed by loved ones, and some will even be put to death. And yet, in the face of all this – all this that sounds disturbingly current in our time – Jesus promises that there is still reason to have hope.
          So, the first thing we can say in the light of this passage is that vision without hope is a dangerous thing, but with hope, all things are possible. When we envision a hopeless future, we become fearful, angry, and anxious. And these are just the opposite of the fruits of the Spirit we receive according to Paul in Galatians – the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
          Paul shares a vision of hope in his letter to the church at Ephesus. He writes, God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ – which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Jesus Christ – everything in heaven and on earth.” In other words, someday everything in creation will be under the authority of Jesus Christ. If we understand and believe that promise – we will view the future with hope.
          Jeff Immelt became the CEO of General Electric on September 10th, 2001. The next day, Sept. 11th, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, sending our nation reeling and causing a worldwide meltdown of financial markets. To make matters even more challenging, the World Trade Center Towers were insured by one of General Electric’s subsidiaries, GE Capital. The company experienced tremendous financial losses over the next few weeks and months. There could not have been a worse time for a new leader to take the helm of a  company.
          Looking back on his leadership during this time, Immelt said, “I think what you learn in a crisis is that good leaders absorb fear. They are not accelerators of fear – they know how to manage a sense of calm while still being really clear about the challenges ahead… You learn to hold two truths. You learn to say, “Things can always get worse, but here’s a dream that I have for the future, and I’m not going to give up on that.” (4)
          In this passage from Luke, Jesus is teaching his disciples to hold to these same two truths: Things can always get worse, but here’s a dream I have for the future, and I’m not going to give up on that dream. And so, in spite of these fearful events, Jesus can say to us, even in our own time and place – Beware that you are not led astray. Do not go after the false prophets and promises. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed by parents and brothers, by relative and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance – you will gain your souls.”
          Vision without hope is a dangerous thing, but with hope all things are possible. Another thing we can say here is that we can have hope if we make up our minds beforehand to see the future through Jesus’ eyes. Instead of dwelling solely on the problems and challenges before us, keeping our focus on God’s promises and God’s love lets us view the future with hope and courage.
          When Gwenyth Todebush’s 5 year old son, Clark, was anxious at starting kindergarten, Gwenyth taught her son to calm his nerves with daily affirmations, encouraging words to prepare him to face the day with positivity and courage. One morning on their drive to school, Gwenyth mentioned to her son that she was nervous about a meeting that day. Clark, all of 5 years old said, Mom, I’m nervous all the time, but I know what to do.”
          He said, “You gotta say your affirmations in your mouth and your heart. You say, “I am brave. I am loved and I smell good today! And you can say it three or four times – maybe even ten, until you believe.”
          But Clark wasn’t done. Clark was a big fan of Dolly Parton and Dinosaurs, so he said, “Mom, you gotta walk big. You gotta mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur, because you got it.” (5)
          That’s what it’s like to prepare yourself beforehand to not be afraid. Clark had hope and courage because he viewed his future through his mom’s eyes. You and I can conquer fear if we practice looking at the future through Christ’s eyes.
          Adoniram and Anne Judson sailed to Burma in 1812 to serve as missionaries there. Adoniram spent long, tiresome years translating the Bible into the Burmese language. They served in Burma for 6 years before seeing their first convert. In 1824, Adoniram was accused of spying for the British government. He was thrown into prison where he suffered frequent torture for 20 months. Shortly after his release from prison, his beloved wife Anne died. Then he contracted a lung disease that sapped what little energy he had left. He served in Burma for 37 years until his death. His dedication and joy in spite of his suffering inspired many other people to enter the mission field. He was well known for one particular saying. “The future is as bright as the promises of God.” (6)
          When we see the future through Jesus’ eyes, we can say with confidence, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”
          Jesus also tells us that we can have hope in difficult times if we make up our minds beforehand to view hardship as an opportunity to tell about the truth of God. A faith that has been tested is a faith that can be trusted. Hard times and challenges to our faith both serve as testing grounds to dig into what we really believe, whether we truly base our hope on the character and promises of God, and whether we put we put our faith into action even when it costs us something. If our faith is not a source of hope, peace and strength in difficult times, then others have good reason to question whether Jesus is real.
          In the country of Yemen, it is a crime to convert from Islam to another religion. So when a man named Ibrahim became a follower of Jesus, he studied his Bible in secret and didn’t tell his family about his newfound faith for four years. Then one day during his prayer time, Ibrahim decided that if Jesus really was God in the flesh, then it didn’t make sense to live in fear any longer. He said, “I was tired of fear, and I asked myself a question: If I believe in Jesus and this is true and He grants me eternity – who should I fear? So if they come to kill me, I am ready to say, ‘Welcome.’”
          Ibrahim was baptized in 2002 and shared his faith with his wife and extended family. The family disowned him, Ibrahim’s wife demanded a divorce. But when she saw how Ibrahim’ behavior had become much more respectful of her, she retracted her demand.
          Ibrahim established a church in Yemen and led many others to become followers of Jesus. But when local authorities made false accusations against him, he and his family fled Yemen and settled in a  neighboring country. There they set up an outreach to Yemeni refugees and they continue to share their faith. (7)
          Ibrahim is someone who has made up his mind to use his hardships and trials as an opportunity to tell about the truth of God.
          There was once a pastor sitting at the bedside of an elderly parishioner who was dying. The man said, For 87 years, I have been feasting on the promises of God, but this morning, I woke up, and I couldn’t remember a single one of them.”
          And the Pastor said, “Don’t worry my friend, God has not forgotten.”
          In times of fear and hardship, it is easy to forget the promises of God. When our faith is shaken, when we see news reports of impending or ongoing war, or financial collapse or environmental disasters, it is easy to react with fear, anger and anxiety.
          But God has not forgotten God’s promises.
          God has not abandoned the Divine purposes.
          And God will not forsake God’s people.
          Don’t wait until difficult times come to figure out what you believe or how to respond.
          Make up your mind beforehand to view trials and hardships as an opportunity to tell about the truth of God.
          As Jesus said, “By your endurance – you will gain your souls.”
          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, p 47.
2.    Ibid… p 47.
3.    Ibid… p 47.
4.    Ibid… p 48.
5.    Ibid… p 48-49.
6.    Ibid… p 49.
7.    Ibid… p 49.

11-06-2022 Children of the Resurrection

Thomas J Parlette
“Children of the Resurrection”
Luke 20: 27-38
11/06/22, All Saints

          In any civilized society, there are laws that cover almost every facet of human life. And sometimes those laws can be overreaching or burdensome. That’s the price we pay for living as part of a community instead of as a bunch of disorganized loners. But at least most of our laws make sense, they do serve a purpose and for the most part they are well-intentioned. But not all laws make sense. For example, how about a law against dying?
          That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, to create a law against dying? So, your very last action in life is to break the law – really? How do you even punish something like that. I don’t know. But throughout history, there have actually been governments that have tried to outlaw dying.
          For example, over 2500 years ago, the Greek island of Delos tried to ban being born or dying on that island. You see, Delos was considered to be the birthplace of the mythical gods Apollo and Artemis. Local authorities considered the island to be sacred. Consequently, they didn’t want anyone to claim inheritance rights to the land of Delos through being born there or having an ancestor buried there. So, the authorities decreed that that all graves on the island were to be dug up and the bodies buried elsewhere, and ordinances were passed forbidding any more births or deaths were to occur on that island. So, by decree, it became illegal to die on Delos.
          Kind of ridiculous, right? That’s not something you can really control. But it’s not an isolated incident. Something similar happened on a Japanese island which was considered sacred to the Japanese Shinto religion. And at least five small towns in Europe have outlawed dying within their town limits as a way to force their town council to approve permits for more cemetery space.
          For example, a mayor of a small village in Southern Italy who is also a pediatrician, became concerned that his elderly constituents weren’t visiting their doctors enough and weren’t maintaining their health. So he passed ordinances trying to make it more difficult for citizens to get ill or to die in his town. His concern was that the residents needed to protect their health, or they would all die off. He said, “Those who don’t take care of themselves, or who take on habits that are against their health, will be punished with more taxes.” The Mayor’s ploy worked. Within weeks of passing the ordinances, 100 residents of the village signed up for regular health checks.
          And then there’s the mayor in a small town in France, who passed a similar ordinance when the local cemetery became too full. He applied to the local town government to build a cemetery on an unused plot of land. His proposal was turned down. So he passed an ordinance forbidding any of the town’s residents from dying. This was obviously a publicity stunt – but it worked. The story of the town that banned dying got picked up by media outlets all over Europe. Within three months of passing the ordinance, the mayor received approval from the local town government to build a cemetery (1)
          On the surface, our passage for today is about death and the afterlife, which is appropriate on this first Sunday of November as we remember the saints of our own church who passed on to join the great crowd of witnesses in heaven. But in reality, this passage is more about the limits we place on God. As our passage goes, “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question”
          I like to think that as Luke told this story, he began “Some of the Sadducees”…. Long pause, as Luke lowered his glasses and looked out over his listeners…. “who say there is no resurrection,” – he let that hang in the air for a moment and continued – came to Jesus with a question.”
          “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s wife dies and leaves a wife with no children, the man must marry the widow and raise the children for his brother. Now, what if there are seven brothers. The first one married a woman a died childless. The second and then the third brother married her, and in the same way, all seven brothers died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, (another long pause, this time from the Sadducees)– “at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since all seven brothers were married to her?”
          Now there are some things you need to know about the Sadducees. These men were a Jewish religious sect representing the high priests. They dominated the Temple and the priesthood, at least until the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The Sadducees believed that all God’s laws and divine revelation were contained in the Books of Moses – the Torah – which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books were the basis of their religious practices. This also meant that the Sadducees rejected the idea of the immortality of the soul, the afterlife, the resurrection of the dead, and the existence of angels. (2)
          So the Sadducees asked this question of Jesus even though they didn’t really care about the answer. They were simply trying to start an argument to make Jesus look foolish. They thought they could trip him up or trivialize his teachings. They are mocking Jesus here. They hoped to dilute his power and popularity with the people. But what they saw as a challenge – Jesus saw as an opportunity. Jesus, just days away from his arrest, crucifixion and death – couldn’t care less right now about an argument. In this moment, all Jesus cares about is showing us the truth of God’s character and purposes.
          A major part of Jesus’ ministry involved challenging our limited view of God. That’s one of the reasons Jesus so often answered a question with a question, or with a story. Rather than giving us a set of rules to live by, Jesus gives us an enlarged view of God. So often, our arguments and questions and doubts about religion stem from asking the wrong question. And one of the toughest questions is often, “Why do people die?” “Why this way? Why now?”
         Good questions – important questions. But what if we started with a question like “What is God like?” How does God see death? Once we understand what God is like, then we can use that as the foundation of understanding every other question, doubt or argument we might have. So let’s see how Jesus answered the religious leaders.
          Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the world to come and in the resurrection from the dead – will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They ae God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”
         “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection… But in the account of the burning bush,” he continued, “even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to God all are alive.” How does God view death? There is no death for God – to God, all are alive.
          God’s ultimate purpose for us is revealed right there in verse 36 – “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” Through Jesus, we have been adopted into God’s family. We have been adopted into all the fullness of God’s love and care.
          There is a woman named Lori Wood, who was working as an ICU nurse at Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Newnan, Georgia. In 2018, she met a patient named Jonathan Pinkard. Jonathan was 26 years old, autistic, and was in heart failure. He needed a heart transplant. His grandmother had been his guardian until her death. Now Jonathan was a ward of the state. Because donor organs are so rare and precious, they are only granted to people who have the ability or the support system to follow a strict health regimen to ensure the organ recipient lives as long as possible. With no family to help him and a disability that made it difficult for Jonathan to care for himself, he was taken off the transplant list. Doctors at Piedmont Newnan did not expect him to live much longer. Without a parent to care for him, Jonathan couldn’t receive a new heart – and without that new heart, he would die. Lori Wood was haunted by one question – “What if he were one of my children?”
          So, to put yourself in the story – what would you do to save your child’s life. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Whatever I have to.” Verse 36 of this passage calls us God’s children, children of the resurrection. So, God will do whatever has to be done. We are assured of resurrection.
          So, Lori applied to be Jonathan’s temporary legal guardian. He moved in with Lori and her youngest son, Austin, who willingly gave up his room so Jonathan could have a room of his own. On August 19th, 2019, they got the call that a heart had been found for Jonathan. He came through the surgery just fine – and with Lori and Austin’s help, he learned to follow the strict health regimen necessary to keep his new heart healthy. After a few months, he was even able to live on his own. As Lori wrote in Guideposts magazine, “God orchestrated everything to heal Jonathan, beyond anything I could have asked for.” (3)
          Jonathan is alive today because of the love Lori and her family had for him. We can be assured of eternal life for one reason alone: We are loved by God, just like that. Jesus is proof that there is no limit to God’s love for us.
         Genesis 1 and 2, the creation stories, tell us two essential pieces of information about God and God’s purposes:
1.    We were made in God’s image.
2.    God breathed God’s own life into us.
All the other living creatures were either spoken into existence or formed by God. But humans are unique. It was only for humans that God breathed life force into us. And if God is eternal, and we were made alive by the very breath or spirit of God, then God made us to be eternal as well.
          Some of you are familiar with the origin story of the classic gospel hymn that we will sing in a few minutes, “Precious Lord, Take my Hand.” It was written by Thomas Dorsey, who was born in 1899 in rural Georgia. He grew into a prolific songwriter and an excellent gospel and blues musician. As a young man, Dorsey moved to Chicago and found work as a piano player in the churches as well as in clubs and playing in theatres. Struggling to support his family, Dorsey divided his time between paying in the clubs and playing in church. After some turbulent times, Dorsey began to devote his artistry exclusively to the church.
          In August of 1932, Dorsey left his pregnant wife in Chicago and traveled to be the featured soloist at a large revival meeting in St. Louis. After the first night, Dorsey received a telegram that said – “Your wife just died.” Dorsey raced home and learned that his wife had given birth to a son before dying in childbirth. The next day, his son died as well. Dorsey buried his wife and son in the same casket and withdrew in sorrow and agony from the world. He was despondent. He refused to compose or play any music at all for quite some time.
          While still in the midst of despair, Dorsey said that as he sat in front of a piano one day, a feeling of peace washed through him. He heard a melody in his head that he had never heard before and began to play it on the piano. That night, Dorsey recorded his classic:
         “Precious Lord, take my hand,
         Lead me on, let me stand:
          I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
          Lead me on to the light;
          Take my hand, precious Lord,
          Lead me home.”(4)
          Thomas Dorsey understood that God’s purpose for us was not to leave us in death, but to lead us back home. We don’t need a law against dying. Christ has already taken care of that matter on our behalf. When we leave this earthly realm, we too will be led home to join the great cloud of witnesses who stand in the presence of God – because we are, children of the resurrection.
          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No.3, p 43.
2.    Ibid… p 44.
3.    Ibid… p 45.
4.    Nancy Lynne Westfield, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 312.

10-23-2022 Waiting

Jay Rowland

“Waiting”

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

October 23, 2022

This sermon features the ideas and quotes from Walter Brueggemann, Exile & Homecoming—A Commentary on Jeremiah, Erdmans; pp.134-141

Waiting

I feel like I owe you an apology for choosing this passage from the available lectionary choices for today. Because--just in case you hadn’t noticed--it’s harsh. There’s very little if any material that’s explicitly inspiring or uplifting. And I admit I prefer scripture choices that are explicitly inspiring and uplifting. Especially in the past 2-3 years, when it comes to selecting one of the four lectionary choices to preach on, I find myself looking for one that is capable of propelling me into the world with a big, bright light of hope and a fearless trust in God.

But Jeremiah 14 is not one of those scriptures.

Sorry about that.

I blame Walter Brueggemann. I’ve been spending lots of time with him lately. You may have heard me refer to him in the past. Full disclosure: Brueggemann is, in my opinion, his generation’s most important and gifted scholar of the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) in general, and the prophets and Jeremiah in particular.

One of the reasons among many that I hold this opinion is that Brueggemann taught me that the struggles of the time in which Jeremiah lived and preached profoundly mirror the struggles of our own time.

So as I blame Brueggemann for my decision to land on Jeremiah 14, I lean upon his knowledge and interpretive insights of Jeremiah to help me make sense of the struggles confronting the world today.

This past week, I made the mistake of watching the daily headlines with my first cup of coffee. I did this for three days in a row and I don’t recommend it--it’s demoralizing. There is no new information or insight to be gained. It’s merely the daily repetition of a discouraging and continuing narrative—including the slaughter of the innocents in Ukraine and in US schools and cities from gun violence; doom and gloom economic trends; dissonance from politicians, influencers and candidates posturing for midterm elections; evidence of our critically ill planet in the form of hurricanes, forest fires, drought and flood; injustice tormenting communities of color, gender and other people cast to the margins of society

Given this daily backdrop of profoundly demoralizing and discouraging realities bombarding us every day this passage from Jeremiah is strangely appropriate. Jeremiah refuses to put any “spin” on reality for the Hebrew people of Judah and Israel. Jeremiah does not waste any words or attention on pithy slogans or on rants identifying easy scapegoats.

This is significant because, as Brueggemann points out, Jeremiah was competing with other “credible and recognized voices” clamoring for the attention of his people—voices presenting a different view of reality, one that is whitewashed and simplistic so it can be carefully managed, packaged and manipulated.

Just like right here in 2022.

So yeah, bring on Jeremiah.

But first let’s set the context. The situation being lamented in Jeremiah 14 is a prolonged drought that has brought widespread suffering and death to the people. A drought so severe it no longer discriminates between the nobility and the peasant, or between plants and crops, animals, and humans; all are suffering and slowly dying.

Brueggemann calls it the waning or the reversal of creation.

Whatever you call it, the people of Israel are crying out to God to save them. In the midst of the widespread suffering and death, the people of Israel and Judah are moved to humility, something which, up until the drought had been mostly non-existent.

Up until the drought, the dominant voices and citizens of Israel and Judah were so busy wandering away from God, they didn’t notice when they crossed the line into an outright rejection of God and the covenant.

Until the drought brought creation itself to a screeching halt. That got everybody’s attention.

Brueggemann’s curious description of the drought as the reversal of creation leads me to interpret it as not so much punishment from God, but rather a natural consequence of the people’s long-running determination to live apart from God. And so, from God’s perspective, after being ignored and insulted by the people, God decides, “ok. Have it your way.” And so God steps aside so that the people can live the full experience of creation without the life-giving care and presence of the Creator.

But thus confronted by Creation without a Creator the people plead with God for forgiveness and restoration, pleading to the same God they previously ignored and insulted ...

7 Although our iniquities testify against us,

act, O Lord, for your name’s sake

This is a savvy prayer. The people openly admit that they have provoked God and that they deserve God’s punishment. And so they plead for mercy by intentionally appealing to God’s character and God’s covenant promise. Their sincerity is in question. Between the lines, for the people’s expectation is that of course God will show God’s characteristic mercy and uphold God’s covenant with the people.

And so what is unique about this interaction between God and God’s people in Jeremiah 14 is God’s response. Properly understood, it is disturbing. It was certainly disturbing to those who pleaded for God’s mercy in Jeremiah. But it remains disturbing to us as we read and hear it from our vantage point today:

10 [Thus says the Lord] concerning this people:

Truly they have loved to wander;

they have not restrained their feet;

therefore the Lord does not accept them;

now he will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins.

Brueggemann acknowledges this is a harsh word but clarifies that God is not being vindictive or reactive. Rather, God through Jeremiah is establishing boundaries that God expects God’s people to respect, “limits beyond which [God] will not be pushed.”

This is unique among the prophets. It is unexpected. The expected response, which shows up repeatedly throughout scripture is that God will remember their sin no more. But here in Jeremiah 14:10 God’s response to the people’s plea for mercy is a rejection of their plea. And it’s Jeremiah’s unenviable calling to articulate God’s rejection to God’s people against the widespread assumption that God would never do that (p.136).

Brueggemann points out that there were “other credible prophetic voices in the community (who) perceived reality very differently.” (see Jer. 14:13-14). I can’t help but think of all the “other credible prophetic voices” in our time--voices in government, politics and even religion--all of which perceive reality very differently. Credible voices who inflate their own importance by blaming the complex problems of our time upon scapegoats and subterfuge. Credible voices constantly working to distract and confuse, destabilize and provoke, rather than doing the hard, disturbing, uncomfortable work required to truly move toward common good and common ground.

This is the exact sort of dis-orientation toward humanity, the world and God that the leaders and people of Israel fell into at the expense of their God-orientation. A rejection of the God of Creation who lives and moves in creation and in humanity through diversity and who moves and works through consensus and cooperation

Brueggemann sums up the situation in Jeremiah 14, “The prayer asking God to remember the covenant is a dangerous prayer because it has already been asserted (verse 10) what God will remember. … One memory leads to death. The other memory yields continued life and possibility. This poem (Jeremiah 14) gives no hint of which (memory will prevail)... The poet (Jeremiah) hopes that God will remember (the covenant rather than the sin), but the poet does not dare prescribe the memory for God.”

To clarify: Jeremiah chapter 14 ends with the people waiting on God’s mercy.

And that is also where we find ourselves today it seems to me.

Krista Tippett from the public radio broadcast/podcast On Being describes something she is doing and recommends to her listeners as a way to process the uncommon difficulties of our age. I share it here because it is an invitation to cultivate spiritual wisdom and guidance as we wait upon God’s mercy.

Tippett acknowledges that the profound problems of our time are “vast, aching, questions for which no answers are forthcoming anytime soon.” As an antidote to despair, Tippett shares a spiritual practice inspired by the poet Rainer-Maria Rilke. She calls it Living The Questions an intentional leaning into the troubling questions of our time (rather than ignoring or avoiding these troubling questions). I’ll include the link in my sermon manuscript online.

To learn more: https://onbeing.org/on-being-foundations/

It’s a simple practice designed to help us to reframe our encounter with (or retreat from) the profound problems of our time. It caught my attention because, being inspired by the poet Rilke connects with Brueggemann’s reminder that Jeremiah (and all the prophets) were also poets. The prophets created poems and poetry to help God’s people process the profoundly difficult reality of their own time.

Tippett embraces this practice by noting that our changing world requires us to ask new and different questions. And wisely declares that the questions we’ve become most accustomed and conditioned to asking are not suited to the pressing need of our times to move toward God’s re-creation of our broken world.

Brueggemann sees this happening all around us now. A new world is emerging from the broken world that is passing away before our very eyes. Brueggemann emphatically declares and interprets and recognizes this same situation in the core of the prophetic witness of Jeremiah and all the Hebrew prophets.

Like our Hebrew ancestors, we are living in a time of vast change and chaos. The harsh word from God through Jeremiah to the people of Israel and Judah reflects that chaos and change. Jeremiah chapter 14 ends without any clear resolution. Of course we know what they could not see in that moment: that God continued to love the Hebrew people and lead them forward.

But the way forward brought the people into unthinkable disruption and disorientation.

Perhaps like our ancestors, we are not ready or willing to see the new world that is emerging. Perhaps unlike our ancestors, we can allow our hearts to be broken open in order to see the new reality God will reveal. In the meantime, it’s up to us how we choose to abide with God in the midst of our own profound waiting.

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

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet:

“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves

as if they are locked rooms

or books written in a foreign language

“Don’t search for the answers

which could not be given to you now

bc you would not be able to live them,

“But rather live everything;

live the questions now,

perhaps then someday far into the future

you will gradually without even noticing it

live your way into the answer.

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

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

7 Although our iniquities testify against us,

act, O Lord, for your name’s sake;

our rebellions indeed are many,

and we have sinned against you.

8 O hope of Israel,

its savior in time of trouble,

why should you be like a stranger in the land,

like a traveler turning aside for the night?

9 Why should you be like someone confused,

like a mighty warrior who cannot give help?

Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us,

and we are called by your name;

do not forsake us!

10 Thus says the Lord concerning this people:

Truly they have loved to wander;

they have not restrained their feet;

therefore the Lord does not accept them;

now he will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins.

19 Have you completely rejected Judah?

Does your heart loathe Zion?

Why have you struck us down

so that there is no healing for us?

We look for peace but find no good,

for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

20 We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord,

the iniquity of our ancestors,

for we have sinned against you.

21 Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake;

do not dishonor your glorious throne;

remember and do not break your covenant with us.

22 Can any idols of the nations bring rain,

or can the heavens give showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God?

We set our hope on you,

for it is you who do all this.

10-09-2022 Where People Meet Jesus

Thomas J Parlette
“Where to Meet Jesus”
Luke 17: 11-19
10/9/22
 

          I love trivia. I subscribe to more than a few daily emails that bring me all sorts of trivia questions on travel, other countries, inspiring quotes from well-known people and obscure figures you’ve never heard of. So I was intrigued by a recent piece of trivia asking “how loud is too loud?”
          For most people, anything over 100 decibels is probably going to be too loud. To give you some context -  a quiet rom would register around 10-20 decibels. Raindrops falling outside would come up to 40 decibels. A normal conversation would run about 60 decibels. Your average restaurant usually checks in at 70-80 decibels. A vacuum cleaner and city traffic would come in around 85 decibels. And here’s where it starts to get uncomfortable. A hair dryer or a lawnmower would generate around 90 decibels. A helicopter or your average rock concert would run around 105. If you’re working with a chainsaw, that’s about 110 decibels, that’s why you should wear ear coverings. By the time you get to 130 decibels, that’s the threshold of pain – anything above that and you’re running the risk of damage to your hearing.
          If you are interested, there is actually an app you can download called Sound Print that lets you measure the decibel level anywhere you are. In fact, Sound Print actually has measured certain places, including restaurants, so you can find a suitably quiet place if that’s what you’re looking for.
          So, just out of curiosity, I looked up restaurants in Rochester, Minnesota. The quietest restaurant in Rochester was a bit of surprise to me – it was Applebee’s, at about 32 decibels. Sorry, it didn’t specify which one. Others were not so surprising – India Garden, Lord Essex Steakhouse and Chez Bojji were all ranked among the quietest in town. But I was surprised that the Tap House, Outback Steakhouse and Fiesta were also ranked in the quiet category.
          Coming in at the Moderate level – between 70 and 75 decibels – were Victorias, Terza and Hollandberry.
          Moving up into the Loud category of over 75 decibels was Five West, Cameo and The Purple Goat.
          But the loudest restaurant in Rochester according to Sound Print came in at 82 decibels – and I wouldn’t have guessed this. The loudest restaurant in Rochester is The Canadian Honker. Who knew!
          You might wonder why I dove down this rabbit hole of decibels and loud restaurants. Well, throughout much of his ministry - especially on this travel narrative section of Luke – Jesus is surrounded by large crowds. I have no idea what the decibel level was, but I bet it was loud. If you’ve ever tried to shush a large crowd of people, you know how difficult that could be. I also notice how many times people in the Bible yell for Jesus’ attention. That’s what happened with the group of lepers in our passage for today, they shout out to get Jesus’ attention.
          In the NRSV translation of the story, it starts out, “On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.” That first sentence is very important to story. The people hearing this story would have been taken aback to hear that Jesus took this particular route. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, which was around Galilee. That was familiar territory for him, that was his home, his comfort zone. You might say that Galilee was Jesus “stomping ground.”
          Most of Jesus’ ministry took place in the region of Galilee. But sometimes, Jesus went rogue, at least in the eyes of the religious establishment. The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans can be traced back to at least 700 years before Jesus’ birth, when the Assyrians conquered the Jewish city of Samaria. Marriages between the pagan Assyrians and the Samaritan Jews led to changes in the way that Samaritans practiced their faith. Samaritans were considered impure, heretics, sinners to be avoided at all costs. In Jesus’ day, devout Jews avoided Samaria. They deliberately planned their travel routes to go around that area, not through it.
          Dr. Courts Redford, a pastor and former President of a Baptist university, once wrote about visiting a poor, run-down neighborhood in St. Louis. As he walked the streets, Dr. Redford met a dejected looking man standing on a street corner. He struck up a conversation with the man and began telling him about the peace and hope he found in following Jesus.
          The man responded, “Mister, nobody with peace and hope ever comes down here. I guess even Jesus wouldn’t come here.”(1)
          But Jesus did go there. He went exactly to the people and the places that everyone else avoided – because Jesus loves those whom the world rejects. Jesus loves those who are at the margins of society. Jesus’ first public sermon in his hometown synagogue came from the writings of the prophet Isaiah – “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
          From the beginning, Jesus never hid his agenda. He couldn’t have cared less what the religious establishment said, or what would make him popular with the crowds. He cared about bringing God’s love to everyone. And he didn’t wait for anyone to come to him. No, Jesus went outside his home turf and into the “bad neighborhoods” to find people who needed to see that love in the flesh.
          Singer and songwriter Rich Mullins could have made a lot of money and gained a lot of fame in the Christian music industry. He wrote best-selling songs for some of the top Christian singers in the 70’s, 80’s and into the early 90’s. He could have had a comfortable life as a Christian celebrity. But instead of seeking fame and attention, Mullins gave away most of his money, shunned the spotlight, and dedicated the last years of his life to teaching music to children on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Tragically, Rich died in a car accident in 1997 at the age of 42.
          In 1996, while performing at a Christian music festival in Kentucky, a fan asked Mullins if God had called him to the Navajo reservation to share his faith and convert the Native Americans. And Mullins said, “No. I think I just got tired of a White, Evangelical, middle-class perspective on God, and I thought I would have more luck finding Christ among the Navajo.(2) I think all those from our church who have visited B’decan and the Pine Ridge reservation would agree.
          Mullins also said in another interview, “If we want to meet Jesus, it won’t likely be at church, although I’m a big believer in going to church. I think when we meet Jesus, it will be somewhere outside our camp. It will be where people have been marginalized, people who have been literally imprisoned. We will meet God where we least expect to.”(3)
          If we want to meet Jesus, it will be somewhere outside our camp. Jesus, who revealed to us the very heart of God, loves those whom the world rejects. The folks standing at the margins of society – the sick, the invisible, the “sinners”, the rejects. Jesus didn’t just see them. He went looking for them. Which tells me that those ten men with leprosy didn’t have to shout out to Jesus. We never need to shout. Jesus already knows our need.
          Our story continues, “As Jesus entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.”
          That brings us to another insight we get in this passage – Jesus, God in the flesh, loves to show mercy to those who are hurting. That word “mercy”, also means “compassion”, or sometimes “pity.” There are seven instances in the Gospels – in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – in which people come to Jesus asking for mercy. And in every instance, all 7, Jesus responded. He never turned them away. That’s the whole reason he was walking along the border between Galilee and Samaria – because he knew someone there needed some mercy, some compassion, and Jesus, the Healer, the One known as Creator Sets Free, goes to where the hurting are.
          The play Green Pastures won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was ground-breaking in many ways, but most notably because it featured the first all-Black cast for a Broadway play.
          There is a scene in the play where God disguises himself as a poor country preacher and walks among God’s people on earth. God meets a man who begins telling him about how he worships the Lord God of Hosea. Hosea, you might recall, was an Old Testament prophet who preached a message of mercy and sacrificial love. God called Hosea to marry Gomer, an unfaithful woman who left Hosea and ended up being sold into servitude in the local marketplace. God commands Hosea to buy her out of servitude and restore her as his wife. In this way, Hosea serves as a witness to the mercy, sacrificial love and restoration of God.
          So God, in disguise, asks this man,” What kind of God is He, this God of Hosea?”
          “Well, He is a God of mercy.”
          “Where did Hosea learn that?”
          And the man answers, “Why the same way anyone ever learns it – through suffering.”(4)
          Until you have suffered, until you have been cut off from the life and hope you used to know, you cannot fully appreciate the mercy of God. There are only two instances in the Gospels where people hesitated to approach Jesus – the woman who was hemorrhaging blood who reached out to touch Jesus’ robe, and Zacchaeus, the tax collector who was despised by the Jews. In the first case, Jesus saw the woman, spoke to her, and, of course, healed her. In the second instance, Jesus approached Zacchaeus and invited himself over for lunch. In both cases, Jesus approached them and offered mercy. Even when they didn’t ask for it. Even when they didn’t know they needed it. Jesus, God in the flesh, also known as Creator Sets Free, loves to show mercy to those who are hurting.
          So, where do you go to meet Jesus?
          Go to the borders, go to the margins, go outside your camp. If you want to meet Jesus it won’t likely be at church. You will meet God where we least expect it, because God loves those who are cast aside and marginalized.
          And when we do meet Jesus, rest assured that the One also known as Creator Sets Free, will live up to that name, and free us with abundant mercy and compassion.
          May God, also known as the Great Spirit, be praised. Amen.
 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, p 25.
2.    Ibid… p 25.
3.    Ibid… p25.
4.    Ibid… p 26.

10-02-2022 Dutiful Faith

Thomas J Parlette
“Dutiful Faith”
Luke 17: 5-10
10/2/22

          After much scholarly consideration, I have come to believe that Jesus’s favorite condiment was mustard. What kind of mustard, I don’t know. Could be traditional yellow, or maybe it’s spicy brown, or it could even be grey poupon, I suppose. But ketchup and mayonnaise are not mentioned in the scriptures as far as I am aware.
          But mustard is mentioned many times, or at least mustard seeds. Luke 17 is one of five places in the gospels where Jesus makes a comment about a mustard seed. Three of those references are essentially the same as three of the gospel writers record of Jesus telling how the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. One of the other references to a mustard seed is when Jesus explains to the disciples why they were unable to cure a demon-possessed boy. The final mustard seed citation is in our text when Jesus responds to the apostles’ request that he increase their faith.
          The word used here in Greek for “increase our faith” is prostithemi. You can probably hear that is the same word from which we get prosthetic, as in a prosthetic arm or leg. A prosthetic is not a natural appendage. A prosthetic is a manufactured piece added to the body to replace a natural limb that was lost. So, essentially, the disciples are asking for Jesus to give them a crutch.(1) They are saying “We can’t do this on our own. This life you call us to is too hard. You need to give us something to help us out, some special supernatural power or something. Increase our faith.”
          Because of how small mustard seeds are, we tend to hear this repeated metaphor as a comment on the quantity of faith one possesses. Yet, it’s unlikely that’s the intended meaning in any of these usages, and it’s especially not the case here where Jesus responds to the apostles’ request for more faith. In this setting, where the comment appears right before Jesus’ parable of the dutiful servant, the point seems to be that the apostles need is not for more faith, but for re-directing what faith they have toward dutiful service to God rather than grand exploits.
          That said, we also have to acknowledge that this is probably not anybody’s favorite parable. It includes no heroic figure, like the Good Samaritan. It’s as heart-warming as the Prodigal Son. There is no dramatic and satisfying turning of the tables like in the Rich Man and Lazarus. No, this parable is more prosaic; it has to do with “your servant” who labors long hours in the field and then is expected to fix dinner for his master before having any food for himself.
          If Jesus were telling this parable today, he’d probably substitute “your employee” for “your servant,” but the point would be the same: Does your servant or employee deserve thanks for doing what is expected? Does your employee deserve thanks for giving you eight hours of work? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘we are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”
          The “unworthy” word, or as the NRSV says, “worthless”, really bites, for it implies that no matter how much we do in service to God, we are only doing what is expected and that it is impossible to do more than what’s expected of us. We can never put God in our debt. We will never be able to say to God, you owe me big time. In fact, when it comes to serving God, Jesus is, in effect, telling us to forget the old idea of having “stars in our crown” – special recognition or reward in heaven. Although Jesus does mention in Matthew that those who endure persecution or do charitable works in secret will have rewards in heaven, so there are some exceptions.
          The famous biblical scholar William Barclay points out that some of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament do not have that word that’s translated as “unworthy” or “worthless.” Instead, those manuscripts just say “We are servants.” But Barclay says that that is enough in his opinion. The point of the parable is that in relationship to God, we are always servants.(2) In the biblical paraphrase The Message, Eugene Peterson makes that same point plainly without using “unworthy” or “worthless”, or any similar term. Peterson translates the verse; “Does the servant get special thanks for doing what’s expected? It’s the same with you. When you’ve done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, ‘The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.”
          On the face of it, I know that sounds kind of joyless. We did what we were told to do. We did our duty and should expect no special credit. But there are two things we can say about that.
          First, while the parable tells us not to expect divine thanks for serving God, there are human thanks that come to us nonetheless. It may not happen often, and we’ve all had occasions when those we help appear to be ungrateful – enough so that we know the bitterness behind the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” But there are still times when someone says “Thank you” in such a way that really warms our hearts. When we see someone lifted from trouble because of something we did, or when someone tells us that something we said helped them make a good decision, we are understandably uplifted and encouraged. In fact, it’s unlikely that we can be faithful in our Christian duty without receiving at least occasional expressions of appreciation. Jesus’ parable, however stresses that we should serve God because it’s the right thing to do, no because we’re chasing a divine reward.
          Second, doing the right thing without being praised or rewarded brings a kind of satisfaction of it’s own. I have a friend who tells about the early days of his marriage when there was some friction between he and his wife. He was quite happy to let her do all the housework and go to work as well. She, of course, would get upset with him for not helping out around the house. After several heated discussions on the topic, he finally realized he was being unreasonable, so he decided to pitch in. He started in the kitchen – he did all the dishes, wiped down the counters and even ran a swifter broom over the floor. Then he sat down in family room to watch some TV and wait for his wife to come home – and lavish him with praise.
          When his wife got home, she came in through the kitchen, walked through the family room and went right upstairs to the bedroom. Never said a word. She had to have noticed the clean kitchen, but she said nothing. Finally, my friend couldn’t take it any more. He went up to the bedroom and blurted out, “Did you see I cleaned up the kitchen?”
          “Yes,” she said.
          He waited…. But his wife had nothing more to say. So he blurted out again, “Well, don’t you appreciate it?”
          “Well, I’m glad you’ve done the work,” she said, “but we both live in this house and keeping it clean is just part of our responsibilities. I’ve never been thanked for all the housework I’ve done, and I don’t expect to be. Why should either of us be thanked for doing what’s necessary to live decently.”
          It took some time for that to sink in – but my friend got the point, and his attitude changed. And yes – they’re still married and he still does his share of the housework. Even though he has never enjoyed cleaning, he has come to take pride in keeping the house reasonably tidy. Likewise, there can be a certain satisfaction in serving God, even when no “Thank you’s” seem to be forthcoming.
          This parable invites us to see ourselves in relation to God as servants – in our work, in our church life, in our leisure, in the unexpected things that come to us and require a response. However, servant is not the only biblical image for the divine-human relationship. Another comes from Paul when he describes that relationship as being a family member. Each image serves a teaching function, and this one from Jesus steers us away from the notion of entitlement and reminds us that we don’t earn our way into the kingdom of God but are granted entrance because of God’s graciousness to us.
          It also reminds us that it’s not the quantity of our faith that matters, but putting what faith we have into service.
          There’s an old story about a man seeking entrance to heaven based on his good works. He gets to the Pearly Gates and asks Saint Peter for admission.
          “On what basis” says Peter.
          “Well,” said the man, “I worked most recently in the world of financial management, and I worked hard to make even that realm a place where God’s will was done.”
          “Yes,” replied Peter, “but of course, we expected that.”
          “Uh, well, sure… earlier I worked several years making almost nothing in the mission field. I tackled the causes of poverty and injustice in the Third World. I worked directly with children, families, and their communities. I even helped some people escape from human traffickers.”
          “We know… but that needed to be done.”
          “But look here… I’ve worked hard to be faithful ever since God called me. I’ve kept my hand on the plow, so to speak, and I never looked back.”
          “And your point is…?”
          The man was clearly disconcerted, and stammered, “That’s all I’ve got! There’s nothing more but the grace of God!”
          Exactly,” said Saint Peter, opening the gate. “Come on in.”(3)
          As we gather at the Lord’s table on this World Communion Sunday, remember we are here by God’s own invitation, not because we’ve earned a place at the Table. What God expects is that we do our duty, nothing more and nothing less. God is pleased when we live our lives with dutiful faith.
          May God be praised. Amen.
 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVIII, No. 3, p20.
2.    Homileticsonline, retrieved Sept. 15th, 2022.
3.    Ibid…

09-25-2022 The Good Fight

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

1 Timothy 6 (selected verses)

Jay Rowland

The Good Fight 

In the fall of 1976 I entered 7th grade at Susan B. Anthony Junior High School in South Minneapolis. … I was 12 years old.

 What I remember most about those two years of junior high is the energy I spent avoiding bullies.

 For someone as little and as lightweight as I was, avoiding bullies was Survival 101

But it was also a fool’s errand.

Because you gotta go to class, you gotta take the bus, you gotta do what you gotta do.

And they do too.

All my life, guys were always bigger and stronger, tougher and meaner than me. And in junior high some felt compelled to remind me of this (in case I forgot?)

… between classes

… or during lunch recess

… or at my morning bus stop. 

You might perceive that 7th and 8th grade were not my favorite years; too many knuckle-heads determined to humiliate pip-squeaks like me.

I remember wishing, if only I was bigger,

or at least a scrappy little fighter with a mean streak and a reputation

and a sneaky left hook.

But that just wasn’t me.

So I had to summon the courage to walk out my front door every morning because one of those bigger, stronger, meaner dudes rode the same bus as me and waited at the same bus stop as me.

I remember starting most of my days feeling a lump in my throat and a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut as I walked to my bus stop each morning.

If I ever thought about Jesus back then it didn’t last long. I was too preoccupied by my daily predicament. I didn’t think Jesus could help me if He even cared to.

But I never gave Him the chance.

I didn’t realize back then Jesus could have become a vital lifeline.

It didn’t occur to me then. But I know it now.

And I remember this every time I drive past or walk into a middle school.

And I remember what it was like for me.

What I didn’t know then is that Jesus faced bullies too.

On a regular basis.

He faced real bullies, in real-time, without any script. Real bullies with real power. And allies.

And armies too.

Jesus faced them all

armed only with the love of God,

twelve friends

and a multitude of followers comprised of the rejected and the despised,

the wounded and the weak,

and the lost.

Today I understand that God values

and blesses

and expects us to value human dignity and decency and kindness

wherever it is found.  Just as I naturally did as a 12-year-old, just as we all naturally do.

What I know now but didn’t know then

is that God stands with the vulnerable and the weak

all who are preyed upon by the strong and the arrogant.

I offered a different translation for Psalm 91, and changed some of the verses from the Timothy passage assigned in the lectionary in order to highlight God’s expectations articulated and proclaimed throughout Psalm 91 and affirmed in Paul’s letter to Timothy.

 My experiences as a 12-year-old in 7th grade sensitized me to other situations where the strong prey upon the weak. And for that I’m grateful today; even though at the time I was not.

I got older and wiser and realized that bullies are not limited to middle school, or any school, or any one place; bullies are out there. Everywhere. They always have been. They’re never hard to find.

They continue roaming the hallways and highways of our lives.

Some rising to the heights of the World Stage

bullying their way and their view of world.

I can’t help but grieve how unnecessary that is, to have strength and power

but use it to oppress others, inflicting damage and torment upon the innocent.

Rather than uphold the wounded and the suffering.

Hard as it is to accept, it reveals the beauty of the Gospel and the power of Jesus Christ

spiritually enabling us and empowering us to face life on life’s terms.

Paul passed on to Timothy what he learned first-hand

that bullies are not only “out there” they’re in the church too.

 Paul invited people from diverse backgrounds and faiths and cultures;

a volatile mixture of myths and heresies.  That was the church. And it still is.

 As the Timothy passage reveals, Paul was continually refuting false teachings and interpretations of the power of Jesus Christ in the church.

Some were adept at attaching personal and cultural preferences and expectations, teachings that intentionally distorted the truth God reveals to the world in the person and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 These distortions were circulating in the very congregations and people that Paul invited into the Gospel community, the early churches he founded:

3 Some people will teach what is false and will not agree with the true teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here Paul is describing for Timothy what he (Paul) is facing from people inside the church communities he founded, people intentionally creating confusion and division in these new and vulnerable church communities:

They will not accept the teaching that produces a life of devotion to God. 4They are proud of what they know, but they understand nothing. They are sick with a love for arguing and fighting about words. And that brings jealousy, quarrels, insults, and evil mistrust. 5They are always making trouble, because they are people whose thinking has been confused. They have lost their understanding of the truth. They think that devotion to God is a way to get rich.     (1Timothy6:3-5 ERV)

If I hadn’t known this came from the Bible I might have thought it came from a recent Op/Ed piece. Remarkable—two-thousand years later, these words still resonate.

This passage bears witness to what we know all too well today

but perhaps don’t realize about the earliest faith communities,

how even there, the strong couldn’t resist the impulse to bully and torment the weak.

But the good news is that God,

our God,

is all about rescuing everyday people from the traps and snares of bullies and their strong-armed tactics. And the sneaky ways some people twist and manipulate the truth for their own purposes leaving God’s people confused and divided.

If we ever doubt or forget that God stands with the vulnerable and the lost and the weak, with all who are oppressed and tormented by the proud and the arrogant and the strong in any community but especially in the community of faith, Psalm 91 is a powerful reminder.

So I am going to repeat these verses, yes! Again!

When these words pass through the air, I pray that the power of God expressed in this Psalm may rest deep in your soul and deep in your heart … and that it may speak to you wherever you are right now. And give you courage to face life right now on life’s terms:

3 God will save you from hidden dangers

    and from deadly diseases.

4 You can go to him for protection.

    He will cover you like a bird spreading its wings over its babies.

    You can trust him to surround and protect you like a shield.

5 You will have nothing to fear at night

    and no need to be afraid of enemy arrows during the day.

6 You will have no fear of diseases that come in the dark

    or terrible suffering that comes at noon.

My 12-year-old self would not have been impressed.

 Because God isn’t promising to remove any bullies or enemies from our midst.

The pain they inflict still happens and it still hurts.

Deeply.

Way down deep in the spirit and soul.

Believing in God does not change any of that.

But I’ve learned over time how God’s presence changes ME.

 And how it changes God’s people.

Changing our impulse to fight power with power, to meet violence with violence, to oppose force with force, and to instead lean deeper into Jesus

who empowers and resides most meaningfully in community,

who reveals the power that comes when we realize

that we don’t face the bullies of life and grief alone.

God spoke through this Psalm long ago; God speaks through it still.

Reminding us that however bleak our present moments may seem,

God holds our future in God’s Heart.

God speaks words of life to us each day,

when we feel on top of the mountain where life is good,

and when we are suffering alone in anguish, reeling from illness or regret or grief.

God’s words of Life call out

again and again and again.

For God comes to guide us and to help us make our way

through this at-times harrowing and wonder-filled life.

God comes alongside us to help us fight the good fight:

14 The Lord says, “If someone trusts me, I will save them.

    I will protect my followers who call to me for help.

15 When my followers call to me, I will answer them.

    I will be with them when they are in trouble.

    I will rescue them and honor them.

16 I will give my followers a long life

    and show them my power to save.

Long life is ordinary life affirmed by the power of God

alive in communities of faith

and wherever we are held when we’re falling or lost or empty or grieving.

Long life is a place within and a place held

by community. A place where people return day after day, week after week, year after year, generation after generation.

 A place where we are met by the God who saves.

The God who loves.

Show us, O Lord, your power to Save.

Speak your life-affirming words again. Speak Lord. We are listening.

 Speak to us and empower us O God

to live

in the name

and in the Love of Jesus Christ. 

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16    Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)

You can go to God Most High to hide.

    You can go to God All-Powerful for protection.

2 I say to the Lord, “You are my place of safety, my fortress.

    My God, I trust in you.”

3 God will save you from hidden dangers

    and from deadly diseases.

4 You can go to him for protection.

    He will cover you like a bird spreading its wings over its babies.

    You can trust him to surround and protect you like a shield.

5 You will have nothing to fear at night

    and no need to be afraid of enemy arrows during the day.

6 You will have no fear of diseases that come in the dark

    or terrible suffering that comes at noon.

14 The Lord says, “If someone trusts me, I will save them.

    I will protect my followers who call to me for help.

15 When my followers call to me, I will answer them.

    I will be with them when they are in trouble.

    I will rescue them and honor them.

16 I will give my followers a long life

    and show them my power to save.

1 Timothy 6 selected verses (3-5, 11-16) (ERV)

3 Some people will teach what is false and will not agree with the true teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. They will not accept the teaching that produces a life of devotion to God.

4 They are proud of what they know, but they understand nothing. They are sick with a love for arguing and fighting about words. And that brings jealousy, quarrels, insults, and evil mistrust.

5 They are always making trouble, because they are people whose thinking has been confused. They have lost their understanding of the truth. They think that devotion to God is a way to get rich.

11 But you belong to God. So ... stay away from all those things. Always try to do what is right, to be devoted to God, and to have faith, love, patience, and gentleness.

12 We have to fight to keep our faith. Try as hard as you can to win that fight. Take hold of eternal life. It is the life you were chosen to have when you confessed your faith in Jesus—that wonderful truth that you spoke so openly and that so many people heard.

13 Before God and Christ Jesus I give you a command. Jesus is the one who confessed that same wonderful truth when he stood before Pontius Pilate. And God is the one who gives life to everything. Now I tell you this:

14 Do what you were [born] to do without fault or blame until the time when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

15 God will make that happen at the right time. God is the blessed and only Ruler. … the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.

16 God is the only one who never dies. [God] lives in light so bright that people cannot go near it. No one has ever seen [God]; no one is able to see [God]. All honor and power belong to [God] forever. Amen.

09-04-2022 A High Price

Thomas J Parlette
“A High Price”
Luke 14: 25-33
9/4/22

          One of the most important, but overlooked characters in the Gospel of Luke is the crowd. Starting in Chapter 4, more and more people began flocking to Jesus as he healed the sick and preached in the local synagogues. He was very popular at first. The crowds couldn’t wait to see what he would do next. They saw Jesus heal people who were paralyzed or had withered limbs. They saw him raise two people from the dead, chase away demonic spirits and even feed 5,000 people.
          But then after the Transfiguration, Jesus begins to teach some hard lessons to the crowds traveling with him. Scholars call this section of Luke’s gospel the “travel narrative” – because everything for the next few chapters happens while Jesus is traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem.
          Our passage for today is right in the middle of Jesus’ road trip. Verse 25 tells us that large crowds were traveling with Jesus, when Jesus stopped abruptly and delivered some pretty harsh words
          “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
          This is another one of those times that Jesus’ words make us stop and say “Wait – did I hear that right. That can’t be. Jesus is telling us we have to hate our loved ones? I thought Jesus was all about family values? What’s he talking about?
          We get a lot of these hard sayings during this travel narrative section of Luke. This impromptu speech while on a road trip is meant to underscore the cost of discipleship – and it’s a high price indeed.
          Jesus uses two quick stories to illustrate the need to count the cost before you set out on the path of discipleship. If you are going to follow me – count the cost, are you prepared to go all in, because that’s what it takes.
          First, there’s the story about the man building a tower. Don’t you sit down and estimate the total cost first? Otherwise, you might run out of money before it’s done – and everyone will ridicule you for not counting the cost ahead of time.
          On a hillside above the picturesque seaside town of Oban, Scotland, sits a brooding, gray granite structure known as McCaig’s Tower. It also has an alternate name – McCaig’s Folly. Passengers waiting to board the ferry to the sacred Isle of Iona can look back over their shoulders and see this circular stone wall looming over them. It vaguely resembles the ancient Colosseum, but through it’s gaping windows you can see nothing but sky. It’s nothing but a shell.
          This massive stone monument was never finished. John Stuart McCaig, a wealthy banker was the man who conceived the project. You do have to say this on Old man McCaig’s behalf – he did count the cost before the first stone was laid. The tower was supposed to cost 5,000 pounds sterling. Taking inflation and currency-exchange rates into account, that’s nearly 1$ million on today’s money.
          Work began in 1897 and continued until 1902, when McCaig died of a heart attack. Part of his purpose had been to give off-season work to local stonemasons. The project surely fulfilled that purpose for as long as it lasted. But – even though McCaig had made provision in his will for the tower to be completed – his heirs didn’t like the project. They saw it as a costly waste of money that would hang as an albatross around their necks for years to come with all the maintenance and upkeep.
          So they went to court and successfully challenged the old man’s will. Work ground to a halt, and to this day, McCaig’s Folly stands as a monument to a dream never realized.
          Mr. McCaig had grand visions for his tower. Conceived as a lasting monument to his family, it was to include a museum and art gallery; a real showplace for the little town of Oban. A central tower would display heroic statues of McCaig himself, his siblings and their parents.
          But that’s not how people remember it today. They don’t remember the dream – only the disappointing reality. When tourists ask what’s that up on the hillside, the locals gesture at the gaping windows and lack of a roof. They sigh, and reply, “That’s McCaig’s Folly.”(1)
          You always have to count the cost – and not just the money, but the desire and support from your heirs as well. Don’t let that happen to you, says Jesus.
          Then Jesus tells the story of a King going out to wage war against another King. The first thing to do is consider how many soldiers you have. And if the other King has twice as many, well, the smart thing to do is negotiate a peace treaty instead of losing the battle. In each of these illustrations, discipleship is compared to a different task that is better left undone than attempted and failed. Thus Jesus makes it clear that following him is not a recommended option for the faint of heart.
          Commenting on this passage in his book “Luke for Everyone”, N.T. Wright poses the hypothetical situation of a politician making a stump speech. This hopeful office-seeker calls to the crowd, “Vote for me, and you’ll lose your homes and families. You’ll be voting for higher taxes and lower wages. You’ll give up everything for me.”
          How does that sound to you? Not very good. How would that candidate get even a single vote?
          But try changing the scenario, Wright says. What if the speaker is not a politician drumming up votes, but the leader of a mountain climbing expedition asking for volunteers? The task before this team of climbers is a risky trek to an isolated village, bringing food to the starving inhabitants. “The dangers are real,” warns the leader. “We may not make it back alive. But people are starving, so somebody has to do it. So, who’s with me?”
          Wright says it pays to read harsh-sounding words of Jesus more like the second scenario. Jesus isn’t looking for fans here. He’s recruiting disciples to do important and necessary work. There’s a huge difference.(2)
          As Amy-Jill Levine says in her book “The Difficult Words of Jesus” – “To understand the Gospel – indeed to follow Jesus – should not be a continuing effort of making the teachings less demanding. Jesus never said being a disciple would be easy; to the contrary. But he did assure his followers that being a disciple would be worth their while.”(3)
          To wrap up his impromptu lecture on the cost of discipleship, Jesus utters perhaps the hardest words of the passage:
          “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
          A high price indeed. But the cost of discipleship is…. Everything. Giving up our attachment to everything.
          As the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once put it:
          “It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or even adherents. No – he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for…”
          “Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not instructing it. At the same time – as is implied in his saving work- he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower.”
          “What then, is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower strives to be what he (or she, or they) admires. An admirer, however, keeps themselves personally detached. They fail to see that what is admired involves a claim on their life, and thus they fail to be or strive to be what they admire.”
          “If you have any knowledge at all of human nature, who can doubt that Judas was an admirer of Christ! And we know that Christ at the beginning of his ministry had many admirers. Judas was precisely such an admirer and thus later became a traitor…”
          “The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. They always play it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, they are inexhaustible about how highly they prize Christ, they renounce nothing, will not reconstruct their life, and will not let their life express what it is they supposedly admire. Not so for the follower. The follower aspires with all their strength to be what they admire.”(4)
          Does discipleship come at a high price? Yes.
          As T.S. Eliot once said about our spiritual journey it is “a condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything).”(5)
          But Jesus assures us that the high price will be worth it in the end.
          May God be praised. Amen.

 1.    Retrieved from homileticsonline.com, Aug. 2022.
2.    Ibid…
3.    Amy-Jill Levine, The Difficult Words of Jesus Abingdon Press, 2021, p35, 42, 43.
4.    Retrieved from homileticsonline.com, Aug. 2022.
5.    Ibid…

08-28-2022 A Hebrews Solution

Jay Rowland

A Hebrews Solution

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

August 28, 2022

Here we are on the cusp of summer’s end and autumn’s approach. This time of year my mind is pre-occupied with thoughts about our Sunday morning and weekday programs which run from September through May.

This year the anticipation feels different than the past two covid summers. The danger and the burden of covid appears less volatile these days. Of course, it can always surge again--and if that happens we know what to do. Unless I’m deceiving myself, it seems like things are a bit more stable lately.

And yet I find myself just as perplexed as ever--but also more excited and hopeful about the future. Perplexed because two-plus years of covid disruptions and interruptions have altered levels of participation which complicates planning. Our Sunday morning and weekday programs are still in recovery mode. That’s what two-plus years of a pandemic will do amid ongoing societal and cultural shifts.

In the months ahead we’ll have numerous opportunities to pray and ponder, discuss and discern together how God may be calling us to respond with compassionate wisdom and creativity during this unique time. The congregational survey you all completed will help drive and navigate that process.

I am so energized and excited. Even with the ongoing uncertainty we’ve all been learning to live with. I have to say uncertainty feels especially strange here amid the familiar trappings of church routines and schedules and presumptions. But it’s also exciting because the pandemic allows us more opportunity than usual to experiment with new forms and structures for learning together, gathering, worshiping, and mission-ing together in this time and place.

I’m excited about the opportunities we now have to revitalize our mission, to rediscover our purpose and to renew our faith community together. I trust that God is doing something new and will faithfully guide us as we ask the hard questions and do the hard work necessary to discern what God is calling us to do and to be in this time and place.

All of this is on my mind as I engage with the Hebrews passage before us today. I asked the Lord the Holy Spirit to reveal something in this passage to help us engage the perplexity and the opportunity before us as a congregation.

I leaned on Rev. Tom Long, Presbyterian minister and scholar, and his Interpetation commentary on Hebrews.* I will borrow liberally from his skilled insights to help us in this task (page references will be noted in parentheses)

Long identifies several characteristics which distinguish Hebrews from all other books of the New Testament and the bible. Among those characteristics, Long shows how Hebrews is actually a sermon rather than a letter; a sermon preached to a particular faith community. And while the identity of the preacher preaching this sermon is uncertain, the congregational problem being addressed in Hebrews is very clear to Long.

Any guesses what that “congregational problem” could be?

Good guesses would be “conflict” or “theological differences” or “personality clashes” etc. But the congregational problem being addressed by the Preacher of Hebrews is identified by Long to be

EXHAUSTION

The congregation is exhausted.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read that.

I don’t recall ever encountering that word in any commentary before and would never expect to.

And yet as we may have noticed, “exhaustion” is one of the terms often used to assess life after two-plus years of the covid pandemic—life in general and congregational life in particular. Listen to Long’s description of the situation in Hebrews:

“They are tired—tired of serving …, tired of worship, tired of Christian Education, tired of being peculiar and whispered about in society, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going, tired even of JESUS. Their hands droop and their knees are weak (12:12), attendance is down (10:25), and they are losing confidence … (congregational morale is dangerously low).” (Long, p.3)

I’ve had this commentary on my shelf since the late 90’s but this quote sounds like something that would be written today. All the more astounding is that Long is describing one of the earliest Christian “congregations”.

Having said that I find it fascinating that the Hebrews Preacher does not explore the “why” question… nor what it means or how to change it. What the Hebrews preacher concentrates on first and foremost is the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ (aka “Christology”).

Long comments that this approach is so counter-intuitive that “it probably should be seen as refreshing and maybe even revolutionary”.

As we tread the waters of congregational discernment using the best contemporary resources and tools available, how might we use our imaginations and prayers to let the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ be our foundation … our guiding principle?

As we begin to discern and untangle where we are now in order to discern where God might be calling us to be it would seem that the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ is an excellent starting gate in which to gather. But that’s such a vague phrase—so let’s see what other insights we can glean from Long’s scholarship.

In chapter 13, the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ is fleshed out in some of the common areas of church life--specifically hospitality, visitation and stewardship. Interestingly Long calls this section a “minute for mission” (ancient style). Here’s a quick “tour” (Long, p.142-146) :

Hospitality. The Hebrews preacher shows concern lest the mission of hospitality be tainted by expectations or aspirations about increased church membership or church attendance. Hospitality is in service to offering people an experience of “mutual love” (v.1) For example: Long clarifies what we’ve long known: church suppers are about more than food and eating. Church suppers and the other simple ways of gathering/fellowship and building community is a reflection of the ongoing “gathering and worshiping in the heavenly city where there are innumerable angels ready for the feast (12:22).”

At any particular time the faces in our church building or YouTube screens may be familiar or unfamiliar but, Long notes, “when they enter our community of faith, they bring the presence of God with them.”

Think about that for one second. Hospitality creates opportunities for the presence of God enter our community through all who come—known or unknown to you or me.

Long comments: Mutual love must not be so ingrown that it does not set a place at the table for the stranger, “for by doing so some have entertained angels without anyone knowing it.” The preacher’s wording here alludes to several OT stories but especially the story of Abraham, Sarah and the three strangers at Mamre (see Gen. 18:1-15) and ultimately to Mount Zion, that symbolic place known to all Hebrew people where all find welcome in God’s house.

The next so-called common area of congregational life in this minute for mission is visitation or prison ministry or as Long defines it visitation with the wounded, which includes all of us, Long comments:

“The church is not to engage in condescending charity but to provide a ministry of empathy as though you yourselves are in prison too … as though you yourselves are experiencing torture too. We do not do this because we are naturally compassionate, but as an imitation of Jesus who entered … fully into the human situation.”

Long thus links the curious phrase about remembering your leaders to Jesus, noting, “Jesus, after all, is the first and quintessential leader who spoke the word to us.” And so as the Hebrews preacher says, to consider the outcome of (Jesus’) way of life and to imitate his faith means potentially facing the same abuse Jesus faced and making our own unique sacrifices.

“We do not, of course, make the same sacrifice that Jesus offered,” Long writes. “His was ‘once for all’ (10:10). Our sacrifices are to be about praising God, confessing God’s name in public, doing works of mercy, and sharing what we have with others.”

The term sacrifice is carefully and intentionally chosen by the Hebrews preacher. And so in this context let us be bold to proclaim that we are called to sacrifice exhaustion and discouragement upon the altar of the past, following Jesus Christ into the current perplexities of the unknown. For this is the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ among us… this is the way we can become the church the Lord longs to create with us and for us.

And “while there is plenty for us to fear,” Barbara Brown Taylor adds, “there is also plenty for us to hope. Our God who does not break promises can be trusted to go on creating the world out of darkness and chaos, putting breath into our dust and dry bones, turning our lives and deaths inside out in order to set us free.”

Let us imagine this church--First Presbyterian Church of Rochester MN--becoming a place where people learn they can be set free from all that leaves them depleted and exhausted. For such is the saving work of Jesus Christ in every time and place. Particularly this time and this place.

* Long, Thomas G. Hebrews Interpretation Commentary. John Knox Press. 1997

Hebrews 1-8, 15-16 NRSV

Let mutual affection continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them, those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. 4 Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he himself has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” 6 So we can say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper;

I will not be afraid.

What can anyone do to me?”

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

08-21-2022 Three Questions

Thomas J Parlette
“Three Questions”
Luke 13: 10-17
8/21/22

          Have you ever wanted to trade lives with someone for just a day or two – just to see what it’s like to be them. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Freaky Friday series of movies. The first one came out in 1976, and since then, three more versions of that movie have been made. Freaky Friday is actually part of genre of movies called body-swap movies. Some of the more well-known ones are 13 going on 30, with Jennifer Garner, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa, All of Me, with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin sharing a body, and perhaps the best one of all, Big, starring Tom Hanks. In some of those movies, they don’t actually swap bodies, sometimes they swap ages, experiencing life as themselves but older. In each of the movies, the characters get a new perspective on life from their swap. They come away with a deeper sense of empathy and respect for the struggles of other people or people of a different age.

          I wonder what we would learn if we could swap bodies, or just sit down for 30 minutes or so with the woman in this Bible story today. The story begins, “Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for 18 years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.” Crippled by a spirit for 18 years. Unable to stand up straight for all that time. I wonder what questions we might ask her. A good place to start might be, “What do you miss about your old life? What can others do to help you? What do you wish people understood about your condition?”

          The story continues, “When Jesus saw her, he called her over…” Think about that for a moment. What if I called you up to the front of the church this morning – no warning, no explanation, just come on up here for a minute - what would you do? Would you smile and say, “Sure, on my way.” Or would you maybe cringe a little, slump down in your seat and avoid eye contact? Or just shake your head and wave off the request.

          Most people aren’t comfortable getting called to the front of any kind of gathering. And Jesus calls a woman who is so bent over that she can’t stand up straight at all. Put yourself in her shoes. What must she be thinking? “Who is this guy? What does he want with me?” I wonder how she felt as she made her way through the crowd of worshipers to stand beside him. I think one good question to ask her would be “What did you expect when you came to Jesus?

          In fact, that’s a good question for all of us to consider. What did you expect when you came to Jesus? What did you expect when you came to church today or turned on our livestream? Maybe you expected a guilt trip. Maybe you expected a little wisdom, a little inspiration, a little comfort to brighten your day. A little music and a funny story or two. Or maybe your only expectation was to have a donut. Or maybe, like the crippled woman in the story, you’ve been waiting and hoping for so long that you are afraid to expect anything. Maybe you’ve gone numb. The Greek word Jesus uses to describe this woman’s condition means “weakness.” I can understand someone who has spent 18 years struggling under a spirit of weakness would be too numb to expect anything anymore. Why get your hopes up, you know.

          I once read about a man named John Patterson who grew up hearing about a God of anger and judgment in his childhood church. Not surprisingly, Patterson grew up into an angry adult who didn’t want anything to do with God. But his life changed when he attended a church that taught him about God’s love and mercy. He never expected to meet the God he met in the life of Jesus. He said, “To say I was surprised by God’s love would not be sufficient. I was completely overwhelmed. I asked God over and over to forgive me and told God whatever life I had left, no matter how much or how little, I wanted it to count.”

          One year after John Patterson’s life-changing experience with God’s love, he was scheduled for a heart transplant. He was only 49 years old. On the night before his surgery, John’s surgeon came to him and told him about a 17-year-old boy who was dying. Would he be willing to give up his donor heart and let this boy have it instead. John had no idea when he might get another heart – if ever. But with his new found confidence in God’s love – he agreed to let the boy have the heart meant for him. The boy’s surgery was a success – and a week later, another heart became available for John.(1) He sure did make his life count.

          It’s hard to find a story in the Gospels where people got what they expected from Jesus. In fact, almost every person who walks away from an encounter with Jesus is surprised, overjoyed, challenged or changed in some way. But when you read through the Gospels, you will see one undeniable thread: Jesus is always looking to transform people’s lives with God’s truth, God’s healing and God’s love. Sometimes people fell to his feet in gratitude. Sometimes people plotted to kill him. But no one was neutral. An encounter with Jesus will always challenge you or change you.

          That brings up a second question for the crippled woman. How did the world look different after Jesus set her free from this spirit of weakness? Only those set free from a burden truly know how to praise God. It is only through our suffering that we understand the power of joy. Luke only needs one sentence to show us what this moment meant to the crippled woman. “When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”

          Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a surgeon in Nepal, has performed cataract surgery on more than 100,000 Nepalese citizens. He has literally restored sight to blind eyes. Dr. Ruit grew up in a small village in Nepal. His parents were illiterate. The closest school was 11 miles away. Dr. Ruit’s village had no electricity or medical facilities. In spite of all the challenges his family faced, Dr. Ruit’s parents were determined to get their son an education.

          Coming from the background he did, Dr. Ruit’s accomplishments are considerable. But his greatest accomplishment is pioneering a cataract microsurgery technique that does not require the advanced machinery necessary for cataract removal in the U.S. or Europe.

          Ali Gripper, a journalist, interviewed Dr. Ruit and was given permission to observe the responses of patients when their bandages were removed right after they underwent surgery to restore their sight. Gripper writes, “They squint, and then slowly look at their own clothes and hands. Then, as their line of vision expands out at faces, neighbors, then further afield to buildings, mountains, the sky. They break into ecstatic smiles or cry with pent-up relief. Some get up to dance.”

          “In a moment, the patient starts looking ten years younger. They come into the eye camp led by someone, hunched, withdrawn, and they leave walking upright, beaming and proud.” (2)

          I think that’s the way the crippled woman left the synagogue that day – walking upright, beaming and proud and praising God all the way home.

          It’s sad that we don’t know more of her story. We get to see her when Jesus sets her free, but we don’t know what happened next for her. If it’s true that the most important moment in a person’s life is when they come to Jesus, the second most important moment is when they decide what to do with their transformed life.

          In fact, that’s the third question we might ask this once crippled woman: What will you do now. What’s next? Now that Jesus has changed your life, what will you do with the rest of your life?

          Another good question for us all to consider. How do you put praise into action when you walk out of these church doors or turn off your TV or computer. How do you share the transforming power of Jesus with other people who want be set free from their burdens?

          In January 2007, a young couple in Knoxville, Tennessee – Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom – were brutally tortured and murdered. Channon’s father, Gary Christian, had been a devoted Christian all his life. But as he left the police station after learning the details of his daughter’s death, he screamed at the sky.

          “I’m done with You,” he screamed at God. “I don’t want You in my life. I don’t need You in my life, and I don’t trust You with anything.”

          Gary was consumed with rage and fantasies of revenge against his daughter’s killers. For the next 10 years he stayed away from church and any thoughts about God. He started a motorcycle club called the Shepherd’s RC. This club held a special ride each year to raise funds for college scholarships in Channon’s memory. The Newsome’s and the Christians advocated for a new law in Tennessee, the Channon Christian Act, which was passed in 2014, that put limits on how criminal defendants and attorneys can negatively portray the victim of a crime.

          On Easter 2017, some members of the Shepherds RC motorcycle club invited Gary Christian to their church. The message that morning was on Jesus’ encounter with Peter after Jesus’ resurrection. You remember that Peter had denied Jesus three times and abandoned him and yet the first time Jesus meets Peter after the resurrection, he forgives him and restores him to his place as a disciple.

          A few weeks later, on the Sunday of their annual ride for Channon, the Shepherds RC members convinced Gary to attend church with them again. After church, they headed to the cemetery to visit Channon’s grave. The only thing Gary could think about on their ride that morning was the recent sermons he’d heard. He says that when they finally got to Channon’s grave, he asked God, “Just like You did with Peter, restore me. Take me back, Lord.” And that’s just what God did. Ten years after Gary Christian screamed at God in the police station parking lot, he was finally set free from his burden of anger and hatred.

          Today, Gary Christian speaks to churches and other groups about his spiritual journey and the restoration he found in Jesus. He has spoken to more than 30,000 people, and never charges a fee. He says, “I told God that I would tell my story in every corner of the world if he restored me. And if just one person rededicates their life to God – then it’s worth it.”(3)

          We don’t know much about this crippled woman in the synagogue. She disappears from the scriptures after this encounter with Jesus. In fact, she disappears from her own story very quickly. The leader of the synagogue quickly changed the focus to whether or not Jesus should be healing on the Sabbath in the first place. It’s a shame that no one at the synagogue that day appears to offer anything but indignation at this woman’s healing.

          It would have been nice to hear her perspective on what this all means and what she’s going to do now. But we do know one thing for sure. If we come to Jesus with a burden that is weighing us down – physically or spiritually – Jesus will see that need and will bring healing. And just like the crippled woman, we will be able to stand up straight, praise God, and be on our way, beaming and proud, to share our story of the transforming power of God through Jesus Christ.

          And for that, may God be praised.

 1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, p 76.
2.    Ibid… p 77.
3.    Ibid… p 77-78.

08-14-2022 Did I Hear That Right?

Thomas J Parlette
“Did I Hear That Right?”
Luke 12: 49-56
8/14/22

          How do you measure popularity? These days, lots of people measure popularity by social media followers. But that’s not always an authentic measure. There are companies out there that will sell large blocks of followers to those who wish to boost their twitter followers and appear more popular than they really are.

          And this isn’t really a new thing. Back in 300 BC, there was a performer named Philemon – not the one from the New Testament, a different one – who hired audience members to laugh loudly at his jokes. The paid laughers were so effective that Philemon routinely beat out his competitors in local comedy competitions.

          Shakespeare did the same thing in the 1600’s, paying audience members to respond with laughter, cheers and clapping to his plays.

          In the 1800’s, theater managers in Paris paid select audience members to clap, laugh or weep at appropriate points in the show. And in the 1950’s, the first “laugh track” was created. It was a recorded loop of pre-taped audience laughter that was played at appropriate spots in the show to convince audiences that shows were funnier than they actually were.(1)

          There’s even a company in Los Angeles that provides fake crowds of adoring fans and paparazzi for a price. The company is called Crowds on Demand. And if you really want to spend some money, they can provide a luxury car and bottles of champagne, and drive you to the swankiest shopping districts in L.A. - the full celebrity experience. Their website claims that they hire “top notch professional talent with significant acting experience for our crowds.”(2)

          In the beginning of Luke 12, we hear that Jesus’ popularity had become so great that he and his disciples were being followed by a crowd of thousands of people. And I’m sure he didn’t pay any of them. The crowd was so boisterous that Jesus and the disciples were in danger of getting trampled.

          I imagine that the disciples must have been feeling pretty good about their decision to follow Jesus, seeing as how his ministry was becoming so influential. Only Jesus understood that they were following him, not to a throne or a new political movement, but to his death on the cross. From popularity to shame and suffering and persecution. In a short time, that crowd of thousands would be lining the streets of Jerusalem and loudly demanding his death at the hands of the Roman government.

          So Luke 12 is basically one long teaching on how to disengage from the world’s attractions, from its values, from its popularity contests. Jesus is trying to warn his disciples that they can’t count on the crowd’s approval for long. He knows he will be leaving them soon, and they will suffer greatly as they try to carry on his mission without him. They will pay a price for following him, so they’d better be prepared for it. But he can also see how the holy spirit, his Spirit living in them, will lead them to change the world.

          Many leaders and churches gauge the success of their ministry on its popularity – they measure their success and health on the numbers. But Jesus did things differently. Jesus gauged the success of his ministry on his obedience to God. And he warned us that obedience to God will make us unpopular with the world. In Luke 12, he’s teaching his disciples, “Don’t let your current circumstances blind you, or your current comforts bind you to this world. Saying “Yes” to me means saying “No” to this world and its comforts and priorities and value systems.”

          These leads us into some pretty shocking words from Jesus:

          “I came to bring fire to the earth…

          “Do you think I’ve come to bring peace – no, rather division…

          “Households will be divided – father against son, son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother…”

          Not what we’re used to hearing from Jesus. Jesus is the love of God in the flesh. One of his names is the Prince of Peace. So these words seem very out of character for him.

          Have you ever been watching the news or a show on TV, and someone says something that stops you in your tracks, you just have to rewind and listen to that again because you think – “Did I hear that right?” That’s what happens with this passage. You have to pause and think – “Did I hear that right? Are those words really coming out of Jesus’ mouth?

          Biblical scholar Audrey West points out that this passage is best understood as DESCRIPTIVE rather than PRESCRIPTIVE.(3) That is, it is not Jesus’ purpose to set children against their parents or parents against their children. He is pointing out that a kind of rupture, regrettable as it may be, is possible when you live your life like Jesus. Jesus doesn’t intend or want to bring division, but he is realistic in pointing out that it may happen.

          Van Varner, the former editor of Guideposts magazine, tells of driving through the Rocky Mountains with his godson David. They passed a sign reading “Continental Divide.” A continental divide is a boundary that separates a continent’s river systems.

          David pointed to the sign and said, “This is the great watershed. From here the waters flow either toward the Atlantic or the Pacific.” As Varner considered David’s comment, he realized that the decision to follow Jesus is that kind of decision. It is a watershed moment. Once you commit to following Jesus’ example, you leave your old life behind and take up a new life that is not under your own control.(4)

          There is a great quote from British philosopher Gordon Graham. He writes, “Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight; indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it.”(5)

          Decisions are not the same as opinions or feelings. Decisions require action. Decisions have a result. Decisions effect change. Molding your life to the character, priorities and actions of Jesus isn’t an opinion or a feeling – it is a decision.

          “Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight…” That’s what Jesus is talking about here. And once you make the decision to live like Jesus, sharing his priorities and concerns, there might be some people, some values, some comforts that will be cut loose. There are three ways that living like Jesus creates division, and we need to keep those clearly in sight as disciples and apostles.

          First, living like Jesus divides us from the person we used to be. Paul said it best in his second letter to the Corinthians – “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” You are a new creation.

          And Paul should know. When he became a disciple of Jesus, he became an entirely different person. In the letter to the Philippians, Paul talks about influential and connected he used to be. But when he started following Jesus, he lost his status, his privilege, his power and connections. But he had no regrets. In fact, he described all those perks of his old life as “garbage compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” Decision is a sharp knife, and living like Jesus divides us from the person we used to be.

          Living like Jesus also divides us from the people around us. Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in his identity and ministry until after his resurrection from the grave. Jesus understands how painful such separation is. It’s a natural consequence of living out the radical priorities of Christ, priorities such as loving your enemies, speaking the truth, pursuing peace, and not conforming to the value systems of the world. You are going to make others uncomfortable around you. Your character and lifestyle might make others question their own values and priorities – and lots of people don’t really want to do that.

          For instance, there was a man named Franklin McCallie who was raised in a prominent, wealthy family in Chattanooga, TN. One of Chattanooga’s most prestigious private schools is named after his family.

          Franklin was born around 1940. His family were staunch supporters of segregation. Franklin’s only contact with Black people were with his nanny and the Black men who served as his family’s household staff. Even though they were devoted Christians, the McCallie family had for generations assumed that separation of the races was right and good in the eyes of God, and that Black people were not meant to be equal with whites.

          In 1961, when the Civil Rights movement was gaining influence on college campuses across the country, a college friend of Franklin’s invited him to a small gathering of white and Black students from separate Tennessee colleges.

          When Franklin heard the stories of discrimination against these young men and their families, he began to question his family’s acceptance of segregation, inequality and racism. When he returned home and tried to tell his family about his new insights, his uncle called him an embarrassment to the family name.

          Later, when Franklin moved back to Chattanooga to take a teaching position with The McCallie School, he insisted that the school be integrated. His father refused. So Franklin took a job at the all-Black Howard School. He took his passion for integration and equal rights to the churches, to the politicians and to the streets. Occasionally, Franklin’s father would call to criticize him for his activism – didn’t he realize he was ruining his reputation? But Franklin didn’t care.

          One day, Franklin learned that the local Kiwanis Club had accepted its first Black member. He visited the head of the Club, a family friend, to thank him and to ask how he had convinced all those white men to finally accept a Black man as a brother.

          “Franklin, didn’t you know. It wasn’t me. It was your father who convinced us.”

          Franklin rushed over to The McCallie School to find his father. They embraced. And Franklin’s father said the words he never thought he’d hear – “I’ve been wrong about Black people my whole life.” I’m sure a thought crossed Franklin’s mind – “Wait, did I hear that right?”

          Not long after, Franklin McCallie’s father opened up The McCallie School to boys of all races, and all the other private schools in Chattanooga followed their example.(6)

          Jesus knows that these types of transformations don’t always happen. Decision is a sharp knife. Living like Jesus can divide us from the people around us.

          And finally, living like Jesus divides us from the value systems of this world. Jesus was very upfront about this. He lived to teach people about the kingdom of God and its values. He never tried to gain influence with the power players of his day, as tempting as it would have been. He even tried to turn people away from following him – some of you aren’t ready for this. Jesus would not conform to the culture, even for the sake of popularity or success. Even for the sake of saving his own life. And if we are new creations in Christ, we follow his example.

          Pastor Corey Fields tells a story about a successful pastor he admired who suddenly began questioning his own values in light of Jesus teachings. Rev. Brian Zahnd was pastoring a growing and dynamic church. He was becoming something of a Christian celebrity among other pastors.

          But as his church grew, Zahnd became concerned that its spiritual life didn’t reflect the spirit of Jesus. So through Bible study and prayer, Rev Zahnd began to align his life and the ministry of the church more closely with the teachings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He preached a sermon series on Jesus’ blessings for the poor in spirit, for those who mourn, for those who are persecuted. He taught his leaders to organize the mission and ministry of the church around the Sermon on the Mount.

          And this new direction made some people very uncomfortable. They were being challenged to live sacrificially, to grow spiritually and some people weren’t ready for that. They just wanted to come to church, a bright, clean modern facility – hear an inspiring message, some uplifting music, maybe some small group time around the espresso bar with a donut or a croissant. That’s all they wanted. They certainly didn’t want to change their lifestyles and priorities to do the work of Jesus in their community. So people starting leaving the church.(7)

          It’s not easy to walk away from the life we know, the people we know, the values that have defined us. It’s not easy to live like Jesus. That’s why Jesus used such strong language here that causes us to ask – “Did I hear that right?” No matter how popular and successful he looked at the moment, Jesus knew that he was walking towards the cross.

          But Jesus valued obedience to God over popularity. “I have come to bring not peace, but division.”  Yes, you heard that right. Decision is a sharp knife, and sometimes it cuts things out of our lives. But as Paul reminded us – what we gain from living like Jesus is of far greater value.

          May God be praised. Amen.

 1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No.3, p 71.
2.    Ibid… p 71.
3.    Audrey West, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 360.
4.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, p 72.
5.    Ibid… p 72.
6.    Ibid… p 72.
7.    Ibid… p 73

08-07-2022 Faith and Despair

Jay Rowland

“Faith and Despair”

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (ERV) Easy-Read-Version

August 7, 2022 +Pentecost 9C

Faith and Despair

On my drive home from church last Sunday, my car radio tuned to public radio, I happened upon a conversation between two young men. As I waited at the red light I figured I’d give them until the light turned green to find out what they were talking about or change the station for something better.

When the light turned green I still hadn’t figured it out, but something in their voices caught me. So I kept listening. At the next stoplight it became clear to me that both men were talking about despair–not the concept but their own actual, current suffering. It was a strangely upbeat discussion given their state of distress. As I wondered about that one of them mentioned almost casually that when he wakes up, it hits him so hard that some days he cannot summon the energy to get out of bed.

That statement was jolting. I knew this was a serious conversation, but I didn’t sense it was that serious. They had just shared about the comfort they’ve found in literature, writing poetry, other activities. But some days unable to get out of bed? I wondered, what’s this all about? Long Covid? Mass shootings? Ukraine? Racism?

Then I thought “no it can’t be anything like that; unable to get out of bed: that’s clinical depression or grief, my mind declared. Then one of them suddenly named it—the source of their despair:

“the climate change crisis”

Wait … what?

I nearly changed the station—not because I don’t take climate change seriously, but because I just didn’t have it in the same category as clinical depression and grief. To me mental illness and grief can catapult people into despair. But climate change? I just never thought about it in those terms. But this was their point—both men felt totally isolated by not only the source of their despair but by the common reactions like mine. Their closest friends, family members, peers, social circles—none understood or accepted that the (still-developing) crisis of climate change was worthy of such debilitating despair.

So they were all alone, they felt, except for the comfort they somehow found in each other

This has been on my heart all week. The Spirit was whispering about this to me all week. The radio conversation I stumbled upon reminded me that there are people who are so despondent, so weighed down by despair that they are barely coping … perhaps including some of you hearing my voice this morning. I think we all know this on some level, but if we let that really sink into our soul, it ought to provoke some action or response.

And so I want to take this opportunity right now to acknowledge this epidemic of debilitating despair we’ve all been hearing about in the background and bring it into the foreground. Jesus compels my heart to do so, to create some space for this reality and for any and every person who can hear my voice (or read these words) right now who suffers and endures despair, depression, anxiety. …

Please know I “see” you suffering. Please allow yourself to hear/absorb this: You are not alone. Yes of course you feel alone. Yes—depression, anxiety and despair create isolation. Yes. AND yet: there are people who care about you and who want to come alongside you and be helpful somehow.

The Lord knows I’ve been there. Many times. So if you are hurting and suffering today please know that your suffering and your struggle is not invisible, I see you …

… your isolation and your struggle is important--to me and to God and to the people gathered here this morning—and in other places like this all across our city, state, and nation… across all space and time too.

I pray to our Loving God that you may come to feel the care and the love of community -- this community and others like this one all across our city, state, and nation … across all space and time too.

And so if you find today that you are weighed down by depression, by anxiety, if your life and peace is being disrupted by despair, please don’t keep this a secret. Please share this with someone you trust.

Please don’t try to tough it out …

… please don’t minimize it.

And please don’t let anyone (including yourself) talk you out of reaching out.

Make a call.

Stand up. Walk across the room. Change your immediate space somehow. Do something different.

Reach out for help. It’s closer than you think or feel. There are people out there like me who care about you.

And there is a God who IS LOVE, who deeply cares for you and longs to help you through this (temporary but) serious situation.

I won’t throw pithy religious slogans or concepts at you. Religious buzz-words and baggage have no place in this space. But I believe with every fiber of my being that God loves you so much that God wants to help you get through this using whatever will be most helpful to you.

I've learned from my own experiences that in times of uncertainty it’s important to find some source of hope to keep myself centered, otherwise the anxiety builds and that leads to alienation and isolation and everything builds then tumbles and spirals downward … until the simplest activity, like eating or getting out of bed or taking a walk outside becomes seemingly impossible as the mysterious weight weighs heavier and heavier until everything comes to a screeching halt–and life just falls and breaks apart.

Whether or not this registers right now, I feel it’s important to share that in my experience and struggle I have learned over time that multiple resources are necessary to begin to recover life. And in addition to resources such as therapy and medication and support groups and so on, I have been enormously helped in the long term by finding a centering “power” through the Spirit of God through the wisdom and practices of faith. Not religious-speak or buzz-word religion or any of the guilt and shame-thumping which often passes as “faith” and “religion”, but rather, delving into the deep and ancient mystery of God … a faith relationship with God which has endured for millennia and has seen multitudes of people through, generations of people through personal despair … communal despair … national nightmares … world wars … pandemics … unbearable reality.

“All these great people continued living with faith until they died. They did not get the things God promised his people. But they were happy just to see those promises coming far in the future. They accepted the fact that they were like visitors and strangers here on earth. When people accept something like that, they show they are waiting for a country that will be their own. If they were thinking about the country they had left, they could have gone back. But they were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God. And [God] has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:13-16 ERV)

This wisdom and faith to which I refer started with a man named Abraham. His story of faith in God is inspiring, embarrassing, appalling, at times hard to explain. In other words, compellingly human. His journey is recorded in the Bible, in Genesis (chapter 11-25). For now, what’s most important to understand about Abraham is what the New Testament says in bearing witnesses to his faith in the promise of God,

God called Abraham to travel to a[nother] place that [God] promised to give him. Abraham did not know where that other place was. But he obeyed God and started traveling because he had faith. Abraham lived in the country that God promised to give him. He lived there like a visitor who did not belong. He did this because he had faith. He lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who also received the same promise from God. Abraham was waiting for the city[a] that has real foundations. He was waiting for the city that is planned and built by God.

What this passage reminds me is how faith in God does not mean we’ll ever feel comfortable wherever we may find ourselves. It is hard at times, but there’s a purpose. And when it’s all said and done, there is an eternal city built by God where the worst of humanity’s inhumanity is burned away during entry/re-entry into this Eternal City. It’s a place where God’s love animates every molecule of air and every life. It’s a city whose essence is God: the God who created and gave birth to the beauty of earth and sea and sky and star and moon and mountain and prairie and human love; a place where all that God intends for humanity comes to fruition as nature always displays to us each spring. In this Eternal City of God, your every tear and every wound of body, mind, spirit is healed. That’s the promise. That’s our future. Just as nature reveals every spring.

It is a place we will instantly recognize and freely enter—home—because we endured times and seasons of pain and struggle and despair.

It’s the place Jesus pointed to with every word and every act on his way to the cross.

It’s the place of love for which Jesus endured the cross.

No matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’re going through today, God cares about you.

God cares about you so much that God took on a human body in the person of the man named Jesus of Nazareth.

And in this way Jesus lived and died to reveal God, and God raised Jesus from the dead so that God could then take up residence in your body and my body too--so that you might know that every breath you breathe is God breathing in you.

Every breath we breathe today is God breathing in us. So that we would understand and know that when we breathe our final earthly breath, our very next breath will be our first resurrection breath in the Eternal City.

In the meantime, let’s not lose sight of today: here is a community of people who trust in this Faith and Promise of God. Each of us here today. Plenty more people “out there” .. multitudes who trust in God and trust in the promise of God.

And that is a resurrection experience we don’t have to wait for or die to experience.

There are so many caring people who surround you right now, who support you and uphold you that you haven’t even met yet.

So please don’t give in to despair. Yes despair happens to us. And yes, it is real. Yes, it sucks.

But please don’t give in to despair … hang on … reach out. Please. There is hope yet untapped for you.

If you can’t even summon the energy for hope or trust this promise and faith … then let us hold that hope and faith for you until you can feel your feet beneath you again.

Let us hold out trust and faith for you until you can take hold of it yourself.

In the meantime, let us pray for you. Let us know you.

Meanwhile, know this: that this community of faith (and most all communities of faith) strive to create a community and a world where you know that you matter, no matter what. Because you do matter.

You matter to God.

You matter to Jesus.

You matter to me.

And you matter to every person hearing my voice (or reading my words) today.

Because faith isn’t merely something to read about in a book. It is something that we LIVE. It is a relationship we have.

And—praise God for this—it is something shared not something private or hidden—or even prescribed for others.

The Faith I’m talking about helps us understand that God created the whole world out of (God’s) LOVE for you.

The faith I’m talking about promises that the purpose of life in this world is to discover God’s love for you.

The faith I’m talking about promises that the destination of this life is God’s love for you.

That’s why we return to this place of worship again and again—even when the “doors” are “closed” because of a pandemic WE STILL GATHERED. Because we all need this. Because God gave this to us, and it is dear and sacred… we return to worship again and again because we believe in the Love of God that creates life, sustains life and resurrects life--every life that lives and dies.

And so I pray this may be in your heart today as we return to the table of the Lord–this table of Promise.

Here at this table we receive into our body and bloodstream and our into our spirits this sacred love that is God’s Love for you—in the sacrament called “the Lord’s Supper”.

We receive it again and again … for each breath we take to the last breath … we receive God’s Love embodied in Jesus Christ. Christ Bread of Life and the Christ Blood of Life passes our lips and enters into our bodies to remind us where He Lives; and so again and again, every time we “do” this, the receive again and again the most sacred One, the God of Love, who IS our Faith and our Destination.

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

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

(ERV) Easy-to-Read Version

Faith is what makes real the things we hope for. It is proof of what we cannot see. God was pleased with the people who lived a long time ago because they had faith like this.

Faith helps us understand that God created the whole world by [God’s own] command. This means that the things we see were made by something that cannot be seen.

…

God called Abraham to travel to another place that [God] promised to give him. Abraham did not know where that other place was. But he obeyed God and started traveling because he had faith. Abraham lived in the country that God promised to give him. He lived there like a visitor who did not belong. He did this because he had faith. He lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who also received the same promise from God. Abraham was waiting for the city[a] that has real foundations. He was waiting for the city that is planned and built by God.

Sarah was not able to have children, and Abraham was too old. But he had faith in God, trusting [God] to do what [God] promised. And so God made them able to have children. Abraham was so old he was almost dead. But from that one man came as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. So many people came from him that they are like grains of sand on the seashore.

All these great people continued living with faith until they died. They did not get the things God promised his people. But they were happy just to see those promises coming far in the future. They accepted the fact that they were like visitors and strangers here on earth. When people accept something like that, they show they are waiting for a country that will be their own. If they were thinking about the country they had left, they could have gone back. But they were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God. And [God] has prepared a city for them.

07-31-2022 When God 'Roars'

Jay Rowland

When God Roars

Hosea 11:1-11

7/31/2022

This sermon utilizes published material, some of it verbatim, from Walter Brueggemann: “Who am I? Rant vs. Relationship” (Hosea 11:1-11), ON Scripture, July 25, 2016.

When God ‘Roars’

In every intimate human relationship, problems and conflicts are inevitable along the way. So naturally this has been the case for God and God’s people–aka “Israel”.  A quick scan of the Table of Contents of the Bible reveals a list of many books named for each of the prophets in the so-called “Old” Testament (Hebrew scriptures). Seeing how many there are, it isn’t necessary to read them all to figure out that after God rescued the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and lead them to the Promised Land, it doesn’t proceed to “and they all lived happily ever after” from there.

Call me Captain Obvious, but I think it’s still worth pointing out that the prophets have a difficult job. They are never called to service when the relationship between God and God’s people is clicking and pleasant. Rather, God faithfully calls prophets when things couldn’t be much worse. 

What’s more, when this relationship is most dire or contentious some of the prophets turn to poetry.  Poetry helps the prophets deliver difficult truths to God’s people and begin the process of restoration. Poetry allows the use of metaphor and vivid imagery and imagination to probe the depths of the relationship problem(s) between God and God’s people.  All of which is to say that the passage we have before us today from Hosea chapter 11 is indeed a poem.

Since most of us, including myself, are not Hosea scholars, a quick summary of the situation is appropriate. God calls the prophet Hosea to minister to an Israel which is teetering on the brink of self-destruction. It’s gotten so serious that God is actually troubled, aggrieved about the situation—which is unique among all the prophets. The poetic imagery in Hosea, particularly in the earlier chapters, is perhaps the most disturbing of all the prophets. It has ignited a fierce scholarly debate over the treatment and portrayal of women in the Old Testament which is an important, but veers away from my intended focus upon Hosea chapter 11—but I wanted to note this for any who are interested in reading Hosea.  

Brueggemann notes that “the poetry (in chapter 11) is cast in the imagery of "father-son," with God cast as father and Israel cast as son. It could just as well have been cast as "mother-daughter," but that would not happen in that ancient patriarchal society. The imagery of "father-son" was the operative image in Israelite imagination ever since God declared in Exodus 4, "Israel is my first born son" (4:22).”

The poem summarizes the relationship which begins in Egypt with the emancipation of the Hebrews from slavery. It then jumps to their settlement into the Promised Land. Once there it doesn’t take long for Israel to start asserting its independence from God, as in, “Thanks God! We’ll take it from here.” Whether this assertion is was conscious or not, it is human nature. But it’s also the beginning of Israel’s relationship problems with God. Hosea uses the image of God as the doting parent to reveal the sense of betrayal God feels as Israel entertains other “loyalties” (idolatries).

Even so, God the parent is patient and kind, teaching the “little child” to walk; carrying the little child … attending to every fall, every scar, every scab, every wound, and every fear.  God the parent cares for the little child Israel with embraces of love, holds the child close, stoops low to attend and feed and heal the child, guarding and protecting the child through its most vulnerable years. 

Then suddenly the tone of the poem shifts when the vulnerable little child grows into its defiant adolescence  … rejecting and refusing all parental advice.  In real life terms, Israel the nation enters into military alliances with its powerful neighbors Assyria and Egypt.  This is a tiny nation compared to the surrounding ones, and with limited resources and This decision to play these superpowers off against each other clearly violated the covenant between YHWH and Israel, which provokes Hosea’s attention.

Rather than trust that God who delivered the people out of slavery in Egypt, and look to this God to defend and help them, the decision to make alliances and trust in worldly ways puts Israel in harms way but leads to the nation being, in Brueggemann’s words “devoured by militarism”.  Putting its trust in military strength or agreements, rather than in God. The poem cries out with God’s roar of woundedness.  Israel’s rejection of their life-giving relationship with God wounds God so much that when the foolish adolescent child calls for help God does not answer. Brueggeman imagines God’s roar of protest erupting in God’s own mind … God struggles with how to respond.  Brueggeman calls it a rant, the kind teenagers regularly evoke from even the most caring parents” as the poem continues. The parent is completely exhausted with the adolescent youngster and is willing to let the consequences of adolescent defiance carry the day.  Brueggemann again, “Israel is abandoned to its self-destruction, the kind in which any teenager can find themselves when a parent shows them tough love.”

In a fascinating turn, the poem takes us into the inner workings of God’s own mind! Brueggemann again: “...here the poet gives us access to divine self-critical reflection in which God recalibrates … (like a parent) in the middle of a rant, … wonders, "What am I doing?" 

As The divine parent comes to recognize that the one against whom he rants is his well beloved first-born son.  As a result, the father asks himself four probing questions that are in exact parallel:  "How can I...?"  Give up, hand you over, treat you like Sodom (Admah), like Gomorrah (Zeboiim)!  It is as though God recognizes the unacceptable conduct of treating his well-beloved son in such a harsh, rejecting way.  These are serious probes on God's part, as the father sees that his actions toward his son are not really what he wants to do and are quite inappropriate.

The divine parent responds promptly to this probing self-wonderment:  "I am a (parent) with warm and tender compassion.  That is who I am."  The parent suddenly wakes up from this ranting and railing against the defiant adolescent, and God fully regrets the angry reaction sounding much like God does in the Genesis story of Noah and the flood:

I will not act that way again; I will not destroy again.

And the reason is a fresh self-recognition of identity: "I am God."

I am the Holy One of whom more is expected and from whom more is promised.  I, as Holy One, can turn ordinary rage into viable relationship.  More than that, I am the Holy One in Israel.  … I made a covenant with this people, defiant or not. So I will not go against my better self.  And so the child Israel, by the will of the divine parent, will be restored to home & well being. Because unlike we earthly parents God will no longer react to our defiance but according to God’s covenant promise and love declared in Hosea 11:1.

This extraordinary poem dares to take us inside the conflicted interior life of God in order to see that God is not aloof or unfeeling, not some cosmic computer running on autopilot, rather, God as our parent suffers when we go rogue.  God actually feels torn between emotive rage and self-disciplined patience.  Brueggemann:  This is not the God of popular piety who is "best friend" in a therapeutic culture.  Rather, this is a God of deep and complex emotive honesty which runs contrary to most religious “God talk” and which must therefore be rendered in poetry, because poetry is well-suited to process the powerful emotions, feelings and inner turmoil of the human being and our God!

            You may rightly wonder, so what?

Brueggemann responds by noting that at least concerning the prophet Hosea’s presentation, “the future of God and the future of God's people (and the future of the world) all depend upon both God’s and our own willingness to ask ourselves "What am I doing? What will I do differently to be my true self?"  Without such self-critical reflection, Brueggemann adds, “the future can only be a continuation of the present.  To have a future that is in any way discontinuous from the present depends upon "coming to one's self" in a self-critical way.  God models and performs that self-critical act in this rhetorical move from oracle to soliloquy.  We might indeed be imitators of this God who moves from a naked rant or lamentation to genuine and deeper relationship with God’s beloved.

And so as uncertainty and fear swirl all around us and even within our own souls, let us dare to listen for that imperceptible roar of God, reminding us that God is with us in the midst of these seemingly unprecedented struggles of our time. God remains with us, committed to us in spite of our foolish and self-destructive ways. But let us not fool ourselves into believing that God is somehow willing or able to ignore or overlook all our self-destructive habits, but rather than waiting for us to change, God is instead willing to walk with us into the heart of self-destruction to show that God’s love for us and God’s love for Creation will not die …  In the meantime, listen closely when God roars into your heart. 

07-17-2022 The Better Way

Thomas J Parlette
“The Better Way”
Luke 10: 38-42
7/17/22
 

          If you’ve ever hosted an event at your house – a Super Bowl party, a holiday meal, a graduation party, a book club meeting – you know there are a hundred little details that need to be taken care of before the guests arrive. And one or two details could make all the difference between a great event and a party hosting nightmare. So it takes a certain spiritual gift and an inner fortitude to be a good host. Not everyone is cut out for the job.
          A woman once wrote to a humor website to share the story of visiting her son at his first ever apartment. When she and her husband walked in, her son asked if they would like a cold drink. The mother was so proud of her son for being a gracious host. She said, “Yes, what do you have?”
          Her son opened the refrigerator door, stared inside for a couple of seconds and then said, “I have pickle juice or water.” (1) Nice. I assume they had water.
          A journalist with Bon Appetit magazine once asked readers to submit examples of their worst dinner part experiences. One woman wrote in that some candles on her patio table once fell over and set the whole table on fire. Another person wrote in about the time that he had 50 people coming over for brunch when the city utility department cut off his water. Another woman shared about the time she tried out a new chicken recipe that was so bad, she threw the whole thing away and ordered pizza instead.(2) It’s not easy to host a group of any size, that’s for sure.
          Whenever I read this passage from Luke, I wonder how Martha had the energy and skill to host a large group of people on such short notice. Apparently she had almost no advance warning that Jesus, with at least his twelve disciples and probably some more followers that go unnamed in the story, stop by, seemingly out of the blue. But Martha opens her home to them and rushes around making preparations. As she is breathlessly seeing to all the details that you need to think about, she noticed that Mary – her sister – wasn’t doing anything to help. She was just sitting at Jesus feet listening to him teach and tell stories.
          But Martha was distracted by her many tasks. The Greek word used here for “distracted” literally means “to drag all around.” I think we all know what that feels like. You get home from work, and you are still dragging around the events of the day. We drag around others demands on our time and energy. We drag around other’s expectations and standards for us. The burden can get heavy. But you are dragging around other people’s priorities. It’s stressful – we can understand why Martha was stressed out and distracted.
          Author Anne Lamott has a great definition of “Fear” that fits this story for today. She says that “Fear” – F. E. A. R. – stands for “Future Event Already Ruined.” Isn’t that what kinda happens when we get worried and distracted and weighed down by other’s expectations and demands? That’s exactly what Martha was experiencing in our story today – future event already ruined. Here was Jesus himself, sitting in her home, and the visit was being ruined by her fear and stress.
          So, our first takeaway from this passage is to realize that in this life, our time is limited, but our demands are endless. Most of us live in a permanent state of distraction and anxiety because we have a limited amount of time and energy to deal with an unlimited number of options. And this was not God’s design for human beings. That is why God established the Sabbath right at the beginning of Creation.
          Sabbath – rest is essential for health and peace and restoration. Rest is essential for joy. At some point, if we want to live the life God made and intended for us, we have to lay down our burdens and distractions and take up the rest that God offers.
          Author Bronnie Ware once wrote a book called, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, based on her years of work in palliative care, and the book’s message is vitally important for those of us who are dragged down by the demands on our lives. She wrote that in all her years of working with persons who were dying, she discovered the five most common regrets were:

1.    I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2.    I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3.    I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4.    I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5.    I wish I had let myself be happier. (3)

In this life, our time is limited, but our demands are endless. How do we keep from getting distracted and dragged down by the constant demands on our time? And what would it look like to live the life God intends for us?
Which brings us to a second insight from this story. Jesus shows us here how to live with no regrets. In verse 38, it says “Now as they went on their way…” Jesus and his disciples were on their way – on their way where? They are on their way to Jerusalem at this point to celebrate Passover. Only Jesus knows that he is on his way to arrest, torture and crucifixion.
If anyone had the right to be distracted and anxious about many things, it was Jesus in this story. And yet, he wasn’t. He was at peace. His life had a singular focus – sharing the truth and love of God through teaching, preaching and healing. His priorities were clear. His focus was unwavering. His mind was at peace. And Jesus wants that same peace for all of us.
For more than a decade, British journalist Oliver Burkeman wrote an advice column for The Guardian newspaper. In his final column, he shared some of the lessons he’d learned over the years on the secret to living a happy life.
Here is part of what he wrote – “There will always be too much to do – and this realization is liberating. Today, more than ever, there’s just no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time – all the things you would like to do, or feel you ought to do – and the amount of time available… The only viable solution is to make a shift: from a life spent trying not to neglect anything, to one spent proactively and consciously choosing what to neglect, in favor or what matters most. (4)
I think Jesus would agree. We need to proactively and consciously choose what to neglect in favor of what matters most. We simply can’t do it all. We simply can’t have it all. In fact, no matter how hard we try, the “all” we work towards can’t be achieved by our own efforts. The “all” we so desperately need for peace and fulfillment and happiness can only be found in knowing God. Jesus knew that, and he focused his time and energy accordingly. Mary seems to understand that as well, so she chose to neglect her hosting duties in favor of the better way – enjoying her time with Jesus.
In a Scandinavian country there is a statue of Jesus. A tourist standing in front of it appeared dismayed. A local resident asked what was wrong.
“I can’t see his face.”
And the resident said, “If you want to see Jesus’ face, you must kneel at his feet.”(5)
If we want to see the face of Jesus, we must kneel at his feet. We can’t get to know him if we’re rushing around chasing our own agenda. It’s time to put aside everything that doesn’t really matter and put time into what matters most. That’s what Jesus is getting at when he says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or really, just one. You see Mary – she has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.”
Historian James Truslow Adams tells a time-honored story he heard from a friend who had spent a few years living with indigenous people in the upper Amazon. A group of Amazonian men had been traveling through the forest for two days, making great progress in their journey. But on the third day, they stopped and rested. There seemed to be no reason for their stop. No one was injured. They weren’t suffering from exhaustion or anything. The American asked the group leader why they had stopped.
The leader replied, “They are waiting. They cannot move farther until their souls have caught up with their bodies.” (6)
When Martha brought her stress and complaints to Jesus, he heard her deepest need. You could say that Jesus wanted Martha’s soul to catch up to her body. So he encouraged her to follow Mary’s example and put the work aside for a bit – rest, spend time with me instead. Jesus was saying to her – and by extension us, “Put aside your temporary burdens and choose the better way – my eternal way. It’s the only thing that can never be taken from you.”
In 1938, a Jesuit priest named Pedro Arrupe moved to Japan to serve as a missionary there. After the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, Arrupe led one of the first rescue groups into the area. He and his colleagues risked their own lives to find survivors and get them medical care. He was also influential in getting the Jesuit order to focus their ministries on those living in poverty. (7)
          Friar Arrupe wrote a wonderful poem about what it means to live with one purpose and one focus. He could have written it with Jesus, Martha and Mary in mind. He wrote:
          “Nothing is more practical than
          finding God, than
          falling in love
          in a quite absolute, final way.

          What you are in love with,
          what seizes your imagination,
          will affect everything.         

          It will decide
          what will get you out of bed in the morning,
          what you do with your evenings,
          how you spend your weekends,
          what you read,
          whom you know,
          what breaks your heart,
          and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.   

          Fall in love,
          stay in love,
          and it will decide everything. (8)
 

          Stress comes from the sense that someone always needs something from you. Peace comes from the realization that you need something from God. The one thing we need, the only thing that can never be taken away from us, is our love for Jesus Christ. And this love will change everything about our lives. It will decide what gets us out of bed in the morning. It will decide what breaks our hearts. And it will decide what amazes us with joy and gratitude. And that love comes from spending time at Jesus’ feet.
So, lay aside your agenda and your distractions and spend time praying and meditating and worshiping Jesus every day. Choose the better way – fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
          May God be praised. Amen.
 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, p55.
2.    Ibid… p55.
3.    Ibid… p55-56.
4.    Ibid… p56.
5.    Ibid… p56.
6.    Ibid… p57.
7.    Ibid… p57.
8.    Ibid… p57.

07-10-2022 In Sync with the Heart of God

Thomas J Parlette
“In Sync with the Heart of God”
Luke 10: 25-37
7/10/22

          First off, let me say that I have no intention of preaching about the boy band, Nsync, this morning, in case all you children of the 90’s might be waiting for a shout out to Justin Timberlake or Lance Bass. You can just say “Bye, Bye, Bye” to that notion.

          But I do have a bit of a riddle for you today: What is something essential for human life that is highly contagious, and yet most of us take it for granted? The answer – Kindness. You might think, “Alright, kindness is nice and all – but is it essential for human life, and is it really contagious?” Well I think maybe “yes” – on both counts.

          Consider that a student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a society. What separates an uncivilized collection of people from a true civilization? Mead could have mentioned the first sign of tools, like grinding stones or clay pots for holding food and water. She could have mentioned art, like cave paintings or carved statues. Instead, Mead said the first sign of civilization in her opinion was when an ancient skeleton was found with a healed thigh bone. Why is that a sign of civilization?

          It was Mead’s estimation that in a competitive, primitive culture where people had to hunt and escape predators in order to survive each day, the fact that someone set aside their own work in order to care for another’s injury was a sign of civilization.

          As Mead said, “A broken femur that is healed is evidence that someone had taken time to stay with the one who fell, had bound up the wound, had carried the person to safety and had tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” (1)

          I like that. “Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” In other words – Kindness. That’s a great thought to hold onto as we revisit one of Jesus’ most famous stories – the story of the Good Samaritan.

          Last year, the BBC teamed up with researchers from the University of Sussex in the UK to study the topic of kindness. They published an online questionnaire called The Kindness Test, and asked people all over the world to share their attitudes and experiences on the topic of kindness.

          Research on kindness shows that when we experience or witness acts of kindness, we are much more likely to offer kindness to others – that’s why we could say that kindness is contagious. When we perform an act of kindness, the reward system in our brain lights up, which gives us pleasure, which causes us to look for more opportunities to be kind. A neuroscientist working on The Kindness Project said, “Kindness can cost us, yet we experience a sense of reward in parts of our brain when we are kind to others, just as we do when we eat tasty food or have a pleasant surprise. These parts of the brain become active and motivate us to do them again and again.(2)

          “Kindness can cost us” – that’s a good point to consider, too, as we look at this morning’s story from Luke 10.

          The story begins, “Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher’, he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

          “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” answered Jesus.

          Have you ever noticed how many times in the Bible Jesus answers a question with a question? Martin Copenhaver has written a book titled Jesus Is the Question – kind of a different take on the bumper stickers and billboards you often see that say “Jesus is the Answer.” In his book, Copenhaver shares a fascinating insight: “In the gospels,” he writes, “Jesus asks more questions than he answers. To be precise, Jesus asks 307 questions. He is asked 183 questions, of which he only answers 3.”(3)

          Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, had all the answers in life, yet he asked far more questions than he answered. “Why? Maybe because an answer provides certainty, but a question promotes growth. Which was more important to Jesus? Questions that promote growth, I think. Sometimes we get frustrated or disillusioned when we read the Bible or pray or come to church and we’re not finding answers to our questions. We feel like we’re spiritual failures or that we’ve been let down somehow. We might wonder, what am doing wrong here? But notice how often Jesus, who could have easily given us all the answers, asked questions instead. Wrestling with your questions does not make you a spiritual failure and it doesn’t mean that God or the church has let you down. It may be God’s greatest tool for forming us into the people, into the church that God wants us to be.

          So, let’s get back to our friend, the lawyer. He asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked a follow up – “What is written in the Law? What do you read there?”

          The lawyer answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

          Good answer. “You have given the right answer, said Jesus. Do this, and you will live.” Don’t just know the answer, do the answer.

          So, the first question this story raises is, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be right with God? Would you rather have all the answers, or would you rather have a relationship with God – even if that relationship doesn’t answer all your questions?”

          The story continues, “But wanting to justify himself,” the lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbor.”

          Neuroscientists from the Paris Brain Institute conducted a fascinating study in which they hooked up volunteers to an electrocardiogram machine and measured their heartbeats as they listened to a story being read aloud. And they found that as volunteers listened to the story, their heartbeats synchronized with one another. Even when the volunteers were physically in separate places, their heartbeats eventually synced up with the heartbeats of the others who were listening to the same story.(4)

          In this famous story, Jesus is trying to synchronize our heartbeats with the heart of God. The more you love God, the more your life will be in sync with God’s heart. What does it look like to love God with everything you’ve got, and to love your neighbor as yourself? “Well, let me tell you a story,” says Jesus.

          A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half-dead.

          Dan Dailey, writing in the New York Daily News, tells about overhearing a woman in New York discussing her neighborhood. New Yorkers often divide Manhattan based on the location of Houston Street. If you live south of Houston Street, you live in SoHo; if you live north of Houston Street, you live in NoHo. But this woman lived in a troublesome neighborhood somewhere in between that she referred to as Uh-Oh.(5)

          Jesus’ listeners would have understood that the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was an “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood. That road stretched for 18 miles through desert terrain – hot, dry, rocky and rough. In Jesus’ day, it was common for thieves to hide among the rocks along that road and attack travelers passing through. So they would not have been surprised about the man’s fate – they may have even blamed him a bit for getting caught in this “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood.

          Jesus continued, “A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite, when he came to the place, passed him by on the other side.”

          Lawrence Richards, in his Devotional Commentary, makes an interesting point that the priest and the Levite were both going away from Jerusalem. This implies that they had just left from serving their religious duties in the Temple. If they were going up to Jerusalem, they could claim that their duties to God were more important than their duty to the injured man. But they had no excuse. In essence, they represented the first half of Jesus’ teaching: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, all your strength and all your mind.” But they failed to do the second part. Their hearts were out of sync with the heart of God. If they had loved God more, they would have loved the injured man the way God does.(6)

          Jesus continues: “But a Samaritan, while traveling came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.” The particular word used here for “moved with pity” refers to a deep sense of compassion, a compassion that you feel deep in your gut. Biblical scholar A.T. Roberson notes that this word is only used 12 times in the New Testament, and 8 of those times refer to Jesus’ sense of compassion for others, and one of those is right here.(7)

          And considering how Jews in Jesus’ day had such contempt for Samaritans, this sense of compassion on the part of the Samaritan would have seemed extraordinary. They would have been amazed that “The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, poured on oil and wine. He put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day, he took out 2 denaraii and gave them to the Innkeeper, saying ‘take care of him, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any further expense.’”

          Jesus let the story hang in the air for a moment – and then asked the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man fell into the hands of robbers?”

          The lawyer has no choice – the answer is obvious. “The one who had mercy on him.”

          And Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

          Fred Craddock tells of meeting Rear Admiral Thornton Miller many years ago when he was the chapel speaker at Johnson Bible College. After the chapel service, Rear Admiral Miller spent some time chatting with the students and answering questions. They all wanted to ask him about his experiences serving in World War II, especially on D-Day in Normandy. Rear Admiral Miller described the firefight that day in vivid terms. As a military chaplain, he had gone up and down the beach, dodging bombs and gunfire while praying with injured soldiers, doing anything he could to help.

          A student asked him why he had risked his own life on the beach that day, and Miller simply replied, “I’m a minister.”

          So the student tried to re-phrase his question. “But didn’t you ask if they were Catholic or Protestant or Jewish? Did you just… if you’re a minister…”

          And Miller interrupted him – “If you’re a minister, the only question you ask is, ‘Can I help you?’”(8)

          The priest, the Levite and the lawyer all failed to ask the most important question: “Can I help you?” And this failure reveals that they are out of sync with God.

          Because Jesus makes it clear, in this story and in his own life, that the heart of God is a heart of mercy. Jesus doesn’t commend anyone for their religious credentials or their knowledge of polity and the law. Jesus commends the one who puts love for a stranger into action. He commends the one who risks himself on behalf of an enemy.

          In 1992, a man named John Jordan saw a news report on the war going on in Bosnia. Firefighters in Bosnia had almost no protective equipment, yet they were called upon the fight continuous fires caused by bombings in their city. Jordan, an ex-Marine and firefighter from Rhode Island, felt such compassion for those firemen halfway around the world that he gathered up donations of equipment and protective gear and moved to Sarajevo to start a firefighters training program there. He also recruited experienced firefighters from the U.S. to go to Sarajevo and help him in the training program.

          It takes a tremendous amount of work and energy to set up a program like that. Why would John Jordan put himself in that situation? Jordan said, “I was at home watching the news about how these guys in T-shirts and jeans and not much else were fighting fires in the middle of sniper and mortar attacks. It’s like coming on a car accident. You either stop and help or you drive by. I stopped.”(9)

          So, who was a neighbor to the injured man in this story? The one who had mercy on him.

          And Jesus slowly nods, a little smile sneaking across his face as he says, “Go and do likewise.”

          When we stand before God one day in the hereafter, will God care about whether our theology was correct or does God care more about our merciful acts. Look at the life of Jesus and decide which is more in sync with God’s heart. Then go and do likewise.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVIII, No. 2, p50.
2.    Ibid… p50.
3.    Ibid… p50.
4.    Ibid… p51.
5.    Ibid… p51.
6.    Ibid… p52.
7.    Ibid… p52.
8.    Ibid… p52.
9.    Ibid… 53. 

07-03-2022 A Prayer for Volunteers

Thomas J Parlette
“A Prayer for Volunteers”
Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20
7/3/22
 

          I would be willing to wager that most of you at one time or another have volunteered for a cause you believed in. Maybe you helped collect canned goods for a community kitchen, or tutored a student, or sold Girl Scout cookies, or ran a 5K race for a good cause.

          We all have different causes we believe in and motivations for volunteering. But I have to admit sometimes I hear about people willing to volunteer for some pretty strange things.

          For instance, a few years ago, NASA advertised for volunteers for a study on how space flight affects healthy bodies. They recruited fit, healthy volunteers who matched the general physical profile of their astronauts, and asked these volunteers to spend 15 weeks in hospital bed, so they could measure how this bed-rest position affects human fitness and functioning. 15 weeks! In a hospital bed! Most of us would be climbing the walls after a couple days, let alone almost 4 months. That sounds pretty miserable – but they got volunteers for it.

          Or, there’s the Swedish university who recruited healthy young volunteers to eat four cupcakes every day for six weeks for a study on the effects of fat on the human body. The volunteers weren’t supposed to change anything else about their health and fitness routines or their daily habits. Just eat four cupcakes a day for six weeks. That doesn’t sound so bad – but that’s a lot of cupcakes. I think I would put on 20 pounds or so. No thanks.

          But that doesn’t compare to what the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in Hampden Township asked of their volunteers. They recruited a small group of volunteers to purposely drink too much so their officers could get training in the using the Standardized Field Sobriety Test. They had no trouble getting volunteers. (1)

          One of the strangest volunteer opportunities I’ve ever heard about happened several years ago when an author named Shelley Jackson asked for volunteers to help her publish her latest short story. The story, titled Skin, was 2095 words long. And according to The Associated Press, Jackson wanted to publish it by tattooing the story, one word at a time, on the skin of volunteers. Jackson began by tattooing the first word of the story on her own wrist. Surprisingly, in a very short period of time, she had more than enough volunteers from all over the world who offered their bodies for her project. (2) Interesting – but not something I would volunteer for.

          When I stop and think about how a small group of basically volunteers spread the message of Jesus from Jerusalem to the whole world, while facing persecution, poverty, beatings and imprisonment, not to mention cultural and language differences, I am amazed that it all came together. How is all that possible? And how did it all start? That is what our passage today from Luke deals with.

          Our passage begins, “After this the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them out two by two ahead of him to every town and place he was about to go. He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few: ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’ “

          Simply put, Jesus is telling them to pray to God for volunteers, for new Christians, to help with the harvest. Jesus is thinking about the future here. Eventually he would be leaving his disciples. It’s time to pass the torch. It’s time for his disciples to carry the message and continue the mission.

          So he appointed 72 of them and sent them ahead like his advance team to round up volunteers. Reminds me of an old story about an Army sergeant who came into the barracks one morning and asked if anyone in the squad knew shorthand. The guys in his squad thought that sounded great. Finally, an assignment involving no physical labor – just sitting around and writing shorthand – so all of them raised their hands.

          “Good,” said the Sergeant, “They’re short-handed in the mess hall! Get moving.”(3)

          In this passage Jesus is saying, “We’re short-handed for this mission. You don’t get it yet, but I’m sending you out to the ends of the earth. So you’re going to need to pray to the Lord for more workers to help you.”

          This is the moment when Jesus’ disciples officially become his apostles. In verse 1, where Jesus sends them out two by two, the verb used there for sent is “apostellw” Jesus literally “apostled” them into the world.

          A disciple is simply a student or a devoted follower of a teacher.

          An apostle, on the other hand is “sent out” or a “person sent.”

          There is a big difference. You need wisdom and humility to be a disciple, but you don’t need power. You can be a disciple your whole life. But you’re not an apostle until you go out and share the message and ministry of Jesus with others. That’s when you need power, the power to see and love others with the same passionate, sacrificial love God has for them. That’s when you need the power, the courage to announce the kingdom of God to a sometimes hostile culture. That’s when you need the strength to heal the sick and cast out demons. That’s when you need the power to stand up for truth and light in a world that often embraces darkness and lies.

          So if you are ready to move from disciple to apostle, there are three primary steps to the process that we can find in today’s lesson.

          The first calling of the apostle is to pray. In our lesson for today we read, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his field…” There are five different Greek words used for prayer in the New Testament. Each one has a slightly different meaning and portrays a different approach in our relationship to God.

          The word used here for “Ask the Lord…” is the Greek word deomai. It is used in the New Testament to refer to the act of begging or pleading.
·     In Luke 5, a man covered in leprosy falls on his face in front of Jesus and begs, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
·     In Luke 8, a demon possessed man begs Jesus not to torment him. After Jesus heals him, he begs Jesus to be allowed to follow him.
·     In Luke 9, a father begs Jesus to heal his sick son.
·     In each of these passages the word used is “deomai.”
·     If you have ever prayed from a place of desperation or brokenness, then you understand the concept of “deomai.” That’s the attitude that Jesus is asking for here as the apostles pray for help in sending laborers into the harvest. Pray for them as desperately as a parent prays for their sick child, says Jesus. Because that kind of love and prayer will then motivate you to go.

          In 1905, E. Stanley Jones was a student at Asbury College, a Christian school in the tiny town of Wilmore, Kentucky. He was planning to become a lawyer. Jones and three friends were praying together one evening when they experienced the Holy Spirit moving amongst them. Within days, a spiritual revival broke out on the college’s campus, and it spread to the town of Wilmore. It was during this time of revival that Jones experienced God calling him to the mission field.

          In 1907, he moved to India to minister to the untouchables – the lowest-caste citizens there in that society. He respected the culture and traditions of the Indian people and did not try to impose Western culture or practices on them. Soon his ministry also began attracting well-educated and influential Indian citizens who appreciated his ability to share his faith with intellectual rigor and respect. He brought together people from different faiths to discuss their religious experiences. He was so influential at bringing people together in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect that he was invited to participate in political negotiations not only in India, but in Africa and Asia. Before his death in India in 1973, he had preached to thousands of people, served as a voice of conscience to world leaders, and written 28 books, with the royalties devoted to various church ministries.

          Once, while reflecting on the small prayer meeting that motivated him to become a world-changing missionary, Jones said, “Be careful how you pray. You may be the answer.”(4)

          Good point. If we pray in the spirit of deomai, begging the Lord to work in and through us, then God will answer us. And we just might be the answer to that prayer.

          Another calling of the apostle is to go – offer peace and cure the sick. In verse 5 of this passage we read, “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house…’ “ Peace is critical to Christ’s ministry.

          There is a great story of a medieval knight who returned to his castle one evening looking like a bloody mess. His armor was dented. His face was scarred. His horse was limping. The lord of the castle asked, “What happened to you, Sir Knight?”

          “Well, sire, I have been laboring in your service, robbing and burning and pillaging your enemies to the west.”

          “What?!? – but I don’t have any enemies to the west!”

          “Oh,” said the knight. “Well, you do now!”(5)

          Jesus was very specific in telling his disciples to go in his spirit, a spirit of peace, not pillaging.

          In verse 9, we also read “cure the sick, and tell them ‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

          Healing and proclaiming the kingdom of God were also at the heart of Christ’s ministry. In his three years of ministry recorded in the Gospels, this is what Jesus’ daily schedule looked like. He went out, he offered peace to all who would receive him, and he healed the sick. Read through the New testament and compare how many times Jesus preached in the synagogues versus how many times Jesus taught, preached and healed people in the marketplaces, in the fields and in their homes. The great majority of his time out there was not in a church or a synagogue. Inside these doors, inside this sanctuary, we grow as disciples. Outside of these doors, we go as apostles, to proclaim God’s kingdom in all that we do and all that we say, demonstrating God’s kingdom by the lives we lead. So, our first calling as apostles is to pray. Our nest calling is to go – offer peace and heal the sick.

          Our final, and perhaps most important calling as apostles is to announce the coming of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, simply put, is the world as it will be when God rules over all the world. It will be the kingdom of justice and the fullness of peace. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Let your Kingdom come, let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” this is what he was referring to. The birth of Jesus served as a starter’s pistol that announced creation’s race toward the fully realized kingdom of God, when Jesus returns as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Until that day, we are called to announce the Kingdom of God with our words and even with our lives. As apostles, part of our deomai prayer should be to ask God to show us how we can contribute to the causes of peace, justice, mercy and righteousness in our community and in our world.

          You may remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr as he contemplated his death just two months before his assassination. He said, “Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize… I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that Martin Luther King Jr tried to love somebody… say that I was a drum major for justice… for peace… for righteousness. I just want to leave a committed life behind.”(6)

          Jesus told his apostles, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” You are here today in this sanctuary, in person or virtually, because someone prayed this prayer and someone responded to this prayer. You are here today because 72 believers prayed and went and offered peace and healing and announced the coming of the kingdom of God. But the work isn’t done yet. Jesus calls us to be apostles. I hope that when you walk out of these church doors or walk away from the screen you are using, you will take your part in the greatest mission and message in the history of the world – to announce the coming of the kingdom of God until the day Jesus’ return makes it so.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, p46.
2.    Ibid… p46.
3.    Ibid… p47.
4.    Ibid… p48.
5.    Ibid… p48.
6.    Ibid… p49.

06-26-2022 Freedom and Spirit

Jay Rowland

“Freedom and Spirit”

Luke 9:51-62 & Galatians 5:1, 13-25

June 26, 2022 Pentecost 3C

 Freedom and Spirit

I’m fairly sure we can all agree that freedom is a good thing.  Right?

 It feels odd to say “I’m fairly sure” because I’ve always thought that’s a “no-brainer”, but recent years have me feeling less certain. We Americans have always had a fierce independent streak, so whenever we talk about, think about or in any way consider freedom, we’re more likely referring to our independence more often than not.

 As people of faith we live in ongoing tension between our preference for personal independence on the one hand, and the sovereignty of God—God’s will, if you like—on the other. Both of the scriptures before us today feature this inherent tension.

 In the passage from Luke's gospel, conflict erupts when the Samaritan village does not welcome the messengers Jesus sent ahead to make arrangements. Those darned Samaritans. This offends not Jesus but the disciples of Jesus, namely James & John. So they ask Jesus if Jesus wants them "to command fire to come down from heaven and consume” those darned Samaritans.

Now isn’t that something?! I have to confess I’ve glossed over this part in the past. But for some reason this time, their words stopped me in my tracks today—so ugly and disturbing and so contrary to everything Jesus is saying and doing. And I suppose I’ve always glossed over it because it’s so easy to say, “oh those dumb disciples-they just don’t get it.” And just move on  Yet, there it is and it is unflinchingly human–their rush to judgment. That’s And so, when Jesus rebukes them and rejects their smug proposal he reveals God’s shocking willingness to let people make their own choices.

It need not be shocking to them or to us. After all, it’s right there in the story of Adam and Eve in the Creation Account in Genesis chapter 1. 

God loves us that much to give us that choice-that freedom. Jesus shows consistently during his life and even in his death that God will not force or coerce anyone into relationship. We are free to ignore, free to reject God, free to even “play God”. We are free to declare our independence from God without any divine retribution. Now that does not mean that God doesn’t care, God is not neutral about this, of course God wants us to choose God, but God is generous, more than we may realize. 

 Sooner or later in life, we wrestle with that tension between our free will, our independence and our dependence upon God. Most people at various times in our lives give themselves the permission and the freedom to ignore God or keep God in the background until we need God.

That doesn’t mean our faith is weak or flawed. It doesn’t make someone bad or evil. It simply means we’re human.  

As I’ve struggled with this tension, I’ve told God I don’t want so much freedom. I’ve asked God nicely and not-so-nicely MANY MANY TIMES to just take over! But God refuses. God will not put my relationship with God on auto-pilot.  God isn’t interested in turning me or any of us into a marionette puppet--programmed.

I’ve discovered over the years that eventually the consequences of living life my way, on my terms—all the scrapping and fighting and clawing it takes to do that … all the energy … is exhausting.  Eventually I run back into God’s loving, accepting presence and jump into the arms of Jesus.  Every. Single. Time.

I wish that wasn’t true, but that’s the recurring pattern or movement of my life: backing away from God; running back to God. 

But to me that’s what the spiritual life is all about.  It’s the process by which we learn and grow in the spirit. Our relationship with God grows best through our questionable choices, through our mistakes. God gives us the “freedom” to live in self-induced exile from God’s spacious love and kingdom because I guess that’s what it takes for us to realize, to learn and to choose God’s way over our own. Meanwhile, while we’re figuring that out for ourselves God, ever-loving, is ever faithful, ever vigilant, ever ready to welcome us back every time. Every time we exhaust ourselves and sprint back to God, God never hesitates, God never punishes, God doesn’t hold that against us … which is more than I can say about myself.  I definitely have always held that against myself. But God doesn’t!

That’s where the passage from Galatians comes in. In this passage Paul discusses the problem of Self which it seems to me is our basic human-spiritual dilemma. The very freedom we seem to expect and demand: the freedom to do what we want-when we want; the freedom to have as much as we want; the freedom to follow our impulses and instincts—all this so-called “freedom” is also what often ends up enslaving us and imprisoning us. 

Let’s call that the Cliff Notes summary of Paul’s theology.  Paul says “what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh …”  In other words, the biggest obstacle to living in communion with God on a daily basis is that constant impulse to gratify self.  That’s what Paul calls “living in the flesh”. And although he didn’t really need to do so, Paul provides us with an exhaustive list of examples of living-in-the-flesh-behaviors, a Top Ten list of “no-no’s” if there ever was one (okay, there’s more than ten).  And then, att the end of this list Paul barks:

“I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 

I want to stop right there b/c I worry that whenever people read words like this in the Bible people “hear” that whenever we do such (bad) things, God will getcha.  Somewhere along the line we are all taught or learn that God will punish us whenever we do things like what Paul lists. But that’s not what Paul actually says here. Paul says those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By that I take Paul to mean that the consequence of our own flesh-driven choices puts us on a path apart from the kingdom of God.  In other words, God doesn’t need to punish us or banish us from God’s kingdom because these behaviors and choices do that already. The consequence of those behaviors is alienation, suffering and isolation. Chasing the desires of the flesh is truly an earthly, earth-bound impulse rather than a spacious, grace-filled impulse. Our flesh-driven motivations move away from rather than toward the spacious kingdom of God, a place that has room for all of us.  For our real self, not the polished version…

The spiritual dilemma is that the self cannot overcome self.  Only God can do that.  I’m endlessly fascinated, again, that God doesn’t inflict Gods-self upon us.  God loves us unconditionally and God will indeed come to our aid and even save us from ourselves but, at least in my experience, not without our permission or invitation. 

Now that’s good news and bad news.  The good news is that God is faithful and God is able to save us from ourselves and by extension I hope that means the planet and all the other crises percolating all around us right now. 

The not-so-good news is—again this is my experience—God doesn’t seem (to me) willing to hijack our lives.  Perhaps God does that with some people. I just haven’t met anyone that’s happened to (yet). It seems to be very important to God that we ask God for help. There’s something important that happens inside of us when we ask God for help. And so asking for God’s help is a spiritual discipline.  It takes work to recognize our limited capacity to save ourselves from ourselves. It takes work to identify our self-gratifying impulses.  And we’re not always up to the task. It’s hard! So God will not inflict this upon us.

So how do we know if or when we’ve started moving in that direction? Paul identifies nine fruits of the spirit that start showing up more frequently in ourselves and “out there on the road” as we make our way home toward God: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There’s “no law against any of these” Paul reminds us. 

Or stated more positively, these fruits of spirit-living are a natural outcome of living more deeply in communion with the Lord.  When these fruits of the spirit are seen in us, this becomes contagious --blessing is contagious! … and so the kingdom of God advances …  It’s a beautiful thing.

I’m not saying anything any of us didn’t already know.  And I don’t mean to suggest that this easy.  I say all of this because it helps ME to remember: this is a fairly SIMPLE process—it’s not easy or automatic but it is simple … basic.  If it was easy we wouldn’t have communities of faith to nurture and practice the spiritual principles which produce true freedom. 

The closing words from the Gospel of Luke today are a stark reminder of how easy it is to put just about anything in front of our relationship with God.  Jesus finds among his followers people who hesitate to experience the freedom he offers—Yes I’ll follow you Jesus, but first I must take care of ______…  I see myself in those dialogues with followers of Jesus Luke recounts—in their hesitation, in their postponement of the divine offer from Jesus.  The problem staring back at us is that these people are referring to legitimate reasons for delay.  This is, again, the spiritual predicament of every era.  We worry that to truly follow God, in the way that makes it worthwhile, means we must abdicate some other important responsibility.  This will forever be our spiritual predicament—the tension we live in as people of faith.  

The GOOD NEWS again is that God is generous, patient, loving! As it turns out, God is all the fruits of the Spirit that Paul lists.  And God’s invitation is open-ended … eternal … there’s no time limit, no statute of limitations, no conditions or fine print trickery.  God forever offers us an alternative to the way we are living. An alternative way to life that in turn enhances our life and our health and our fulfillment which also impacts those around us in a positive way!  All of this is possible even in the midst of all the dissonance and chaos and the frenzied pace of life—in the midst of illness and death, and all of the crises distracting us, the Lord is steadfast in His offer to us: an alternative to the infinite number of “choices” we put before our choice to choose the Lord.  God remains forever diligent, forever willing and forever able to assist us in the difficult work of overcoming self … for that is the way home.

It is indeed elusive … but we do know when we are experiencing God’s grace. Thank God we have moments, however fleeting, moments when we feel that sense of home, that presence of God well up in us, and we experience that sense of home ...  I guess that’s what it all leads up to. In God’s wisdom God has planted in our core a restlessness … a spiritual restlessness … an ill-at-ease-ness, that lasts until and unless we choose to find rest in the One who is our true home, our true alternative, the truest way, and the truest FREEDOM. 

Amen.

06-12-2022 Can We Trust God?

Thomas J Parlette
“Can We Trust God?”
Romans 5: 1-5, Trinity Sunday
06/12/22
 
       Does it seem to you that it’s getting more and more difficult to trust anybody? It seems to get more and more discouraging to simply answer the telephone, for fear of being bombarded with scam telephone calls. It’s just as discouraging to open emails or look at news stories online out of fear for falling for fake news. In fact, according to Worldstart Computer Tips and Techniques Newsletter, yet another email scam has been making the rounds on the Internet, and it’s kinda scary.
       This scam is going by the name of the “Hitman Scam.” What happens is you receive an email from an unknown scammer who claims that they’ve been hired to put a “hit” on you – either murdered or hack into your computer systems and steal your identity and ruin your life. Then they tell you that they can stop this from happening if you pay them a certain amount of money. They go into a long spiel about how they were hired and why you are being targeted, so it sounds legit. And then they ask for anything between $50,000 -$150,000, It all sounds legit and very scary. But don’t fall for it – it’s all a scam. There is no plot, there is no hitman.
       This scam might sound far-fetched, but according to the Worldstart newsletter, it has been verified by the highly credible fact-checking website Snopes – as well as other media sources. It seems to have originated back in 2006 and is now starting to re-surface.(1)
       Every year, agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau publish statistics on the number of people in the US who lose money to scams, and the costs are staggering. Sadly, according to a report by ADT Security Services, in 2018, US citizens lost 26 million dollars to a wide variety of scams.(2)
       The financial losses from all these scams are staggering. But the loss of trust is vastly more important. It is hard to recover from a violation of trust. Losing trust in someone may be the most difficult loss of all.
       It hurts when we put our trust and hope in the wrong people. Trust is a fragile thing. When we trust in something or someone and they deceive us, we are left angry, disappointed and perhaps ashamed. Violations of trust leave us cynical, disillusioned and less likely to trust anyone in the future.
       It can be especially painful when we question whether or not we can trust God. Many people, even regular church goers, believe in God, but they don’t really trust God. And because they do not trust God, they miss out on the peace, joy and hope that is their inheritance as Christians. Many people can’t exactly pinpoint why they are lacking the peace, hope and joy they crave – they only know that something is missing from their relationship with God.
       For instance, there is a city in Bolivia that has been known for centuries for its rich silver, tin and zinc mines. Mining is a dangerous, unpredictable trade, and many miners lose their lives every year in the mines of Potosi, Bolivia. The result of this danger is that a primitive superstition has taken hold among the miners of Potosi. Even though the people of Potosi are largely Catholic, when they descend into the mines, they offer sacrifices to an entity they call Uncle Tio. They believe that Uncle Tio holds the power of life and death underground, so they pray to him and offer rolled up coca leaves or alcohol to gain his favor.
       Saturnino Ortega, a mine boss in Potosi says, “Outside, we believe in God, who is our savior” But down in the mines, it’s a different story. He says, “We ask Uncle Tio for favors, sometimes on our knees. Our belief is split into two worlds.”(3)
       Many people live like that, with their belief split into two worlds. We trust God in certain areas of our lives, but in other areas, like business or work or investing – perhaps our trust lies elsewhere. So what causes us to lose trust in God?
       Whether we admit it or not, many of us have a faith that is largely conditional. As long as things are going well in our lives, trust is easy. But let life turn against us, and for many of us, our faith proves to be sadly fickle.
       Dr Ronald Brown, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, contends that we need to recognize two categories of trust, whether we are dealing with people or with God. He breaks these categories down into “Iffers” and “Untillers.”
       “Iffers” refers to the thought that “I will trust you IF you live up to my expectations.” For example – “I will trust you if you are consistent, if you are honest, if you can control your emotions, if you don’t exaggerate. I will trust you IF, you earn my trust.”
       “Untillers” refers to the idea that I will trust you UNTIL you violate some of my expectations. For example – “I will trust you until you lie to me, until you talk about ne behind my back, until you violate one of the criteria from my “ifs’ list Everybody has their own list of “ifs” or “untils” when it comes to establishing or breaking trust, but they may not be aware of their criteria until they see it in black and white.(4)
       So what are your “if” and “until” criteria for trusting God? Maybe it’s something like – “God, I’ll trust you if You speak to me in a clear, booming voice from heaven.” Or, “I’ll trust You until my bank account drops below a certain level.” Or, “I’ll trust you until something bad happens to a member of my family.”
       I suspect that the presence of suffering is the number one obstacle that hinders our trust in God. That’s only natural. No one really understands why good people suffer.
       A man named Rob Davies from Horsham, Australia, wrote in an article a few years ago about how an unexpected tragedy caused him to turn away from God. Rob said that before he became a Christian, his life revolved around accumulating things and abusing alcohol. He had spent a lot of time in and out of substance abuse rehab centers. But at a Salvation Army service one night, Rob and his wife made the decision to trust their lives to Jesus, and Rob’s lifestyle and attitude began to change. All was well and good.
       However, not long after, Rob’s wife died suddenly. He was left a single dad with two young daughters. He didn’t understand how a loving and powerful God could let this happen, and he struggled with his questions.
The years went by – Rob rarely went to church. He returned to drinking, got remarried, but eventually he got divorced because of his drinking. After that, Rob admits, “He gave up on life.” He blamed God for everything that had happened – how could God let this happen?
       Unfortunately, Rob’s story is all too common. Many people find themselves struggling with the same questions. In our verses from Romans today, Paul draws on his own life to offer his perspective on suffering.
       You will no doubt remember that Paul was no stranger to suffering. He was thrown into prison, ostracized and beaten on account of preaching about Jesus. But in this passage, Paul writes “… we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
       This is why Paul could trust the goodness and the power of God even in his suffering. God’s blessings aren’t just reserved for eternal life. By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, Jesus walks with us through our every struggle, heartbreak and challenge. We are no longer alone. We have the strength and love of Jesus empowering us to persevere. And when we persevere, we grow in the likeness of Jesus. And as we grow more like Jesus, we grow in hope. And we can put our full trust in the hope of Jesus. Jesus will never scam us. Jesus will never deceive us. Jesus will never violate our trust.
       Let’s return to that story about Rob Davies. One morning, he hit rock bottom. And he started to pray. “Things were good when I was with you Jesus. Take me back. I give you my life, I choose you, Lord.” And Jesus answered his prayer and gave Rob the strength to stop drinking for good, and today he has healed from his hurt and anger and finally found some peace in his suffering.
       He writes, “Today my life is the opposite of what it used to be… God has given me peace, joy, happiness and an overwhelming desire to live, give and share how the love of Jesus changes lives – especially mine.”(5)
       Paul builds his argument in these verses to show us that it is through our suffering that we truly understand the love and hope of God. Suffering, if it doesn’t turn us away from God, leads to perseverance, then character and finally results in hope. And what is that hope? It is that a God who loves us so abundantly will, as Romans 8:28 reminds us, “work all things for the good of those who love God, who have been called according to God’s purposes.”
       Pastor David Platt tells about a woman who lost a child to a congenital heart defect. She described how painful it was to sit in the waiting room while her second child, who was born with the same defect, underwent heart surgery. And yet, during that experience, she discovered something. She came to recognize that even suffering can be a blessing for those who trust in Christ. She wrote that she wouldn’t trade the suffering her family has experienced for anything, because if what it has taught them about God.
       She writes, “This is the essence of eternal life, knowing God as God is. How often we are guilty of seeing God as we’d like God to be.” She says the only way she survived that painful time was because she wasn’t suffering alone. As she wrote, it was Christ living in her by the power of the Holy Spirit, making God’s power perfect in her weakness, that allowed her to persevere and find hope.(6)
       It is only in our suffering that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. We can never understand the nature of God, we can never understand the power of God, and we can never truly trust the promises of God until we have endured suffering and persevered. And according to the vision and promise found in these verses, one day the glory of God that we once hoped for will become the reality in which we live eternally.
       And for that - May God be Praised. Amen.

1.              Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, p 34.
2.              Ibid… p 35.
3.              Ibid… p 35.
4.              Ibid… p 35-36.
5.              Ibid… p 36.

06-05-2022 Passion, Promise and Prophesy

Thomas J Parlette
“Passion, Promise and Prophesy”
Acts 2: 1-21, Pentecost
6/5/22

        Let me ask you a question this morning – how many of you are bilingual? Anybody trilingual, speak languages? If so, were you raised speaking something other than English, or did you learn that second language as an adult?
       There is a Federal agency called the Foreign Service Institute that trains diplomats to operate in other countries. The folks at FSI also provide advanced language training in over 65 languages.
       Sometime back, they ranked all the major languages according to how difficult they were to learn. They discovered that among the easier languages for English-speaking people to learn are Swedish, Spanish and French. You might be able to guess the harder ones to learn – Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.(1) Of course, some of us who speak only English have a  difficult time getting it right.
       It reminds me of a story I once heard, told by Rev. J. Barrie Shepherd. Shepherd is a pretty well- known Presbyterian pastor who has served church all over the country. Rev. Shepherd is originally from Scotland. He came to the US to study at Yale Divinity school- a close second to Princeton Seminary, of course. After he had been in this country for a couple of weeks, he needed to catch a cab to the local Department of Motor Vehicles.
       The cab driver heard his thick Scottish accent and asked how long he had been in the country.
       Shepherd said two weeks.
       The cabbie said – Well you sure did learn the language fast!(2) I guess that cab driver didn’t realize that they do speak English in Scotland.
       If you are looking for a new challenge, though, and have some time on your hands, you might want to consider learning another language – especially if you have any travel plans coming up. You never know when it might come in handy.
       For instance, during the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo, there was a wonderful scene which a Japanese surfer lost an event to a Brazilian surfer. The Japanese surfer handled his defeat with grace, however.
       In an interview after the competition, a reporter asked the Brazilian surfer a question in Japanese. The Japanese surfer spoke Japanese, English and some Portuguese, and he realized that his rival spoke only Portuguese – so he graciously stepped in and translated for him. Fortunately, the interview went off seamlessly much to the relief of all. A true example of the Olympic spirit.(3)
       That’s a great example to keep in mind as we approach this well-worn scripture passage for today as we celebrate Pentecost. That is, of course, the day when the Holy Spirit was given to ordinary men and women and they found they had the ability to share the message of Jesus in multiple languages. In this way, they were able to fulfill the promise and commission Jesus gave them to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
       Our story begins like this – “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.” “They” refers to about 120 people, followers of Jesus, both men and women, who were waiting for the baptism that Jesus had promised them just before he ascended into heaven. For now, let’s focus on the last part of that verse – “they were all together in one place.”
       The actual Greek word used here is a compound word, two separate words, actually, mashed together to create a new word. The word – “hom-oth-oo-mad-on” is used only twelve times in the Bible, and ten of those twelve occur in the Book of Acts. The two words separately mean “to rush along” and “in unison.” To rush along in unison. It’s a good word to apply to a  close-knit sports team, or even a professional orchestra. In the Book of Acts, it refers to a group of people who have one mind, or one passion.(4)
       If we want to understand the story and miracle of Pentecost, then we must understand how it began. The blessing of Pentecost began with a shared passion. The idea of a group of people rushing along in unison, operating with one mind or one passion is a powerful thing. And that passion was to talk about Jesus and what he meant in a time and place where telling that story could get them into serious trouble, possibly imprisoned or even killed.
       When I think of the power of a shared passion, I think of the life of Frank Laubach, a missionary to the Philippines from 1915 to the late 1950’s.
       There were few people who could read or write in the remote Philippine communities where Frank Laubach served, so he developed a simple literacy method that employed charts linking pictures with words and syllables. His instructional method was so effective that it was easily adapted into a worldwide system for teaching literacy, in any language.
       But then Frank Laubach’s funding was reduced, and he couldn’t hire and train enough teachers to meet the needs of his community. When he told a local community leader about the problem, the man replied that he should encourage every new learner to teach someone else. They adopted the slogan “Each One, Teach One,” and they encouraged new learners to pass on their skills to others in their community. It didn’t take much encouragement because the new learners were so overjoyed and empowered by their newly acquired ability to read and write in their own language. And they were passionate about sharing the gift of literacy with friends and neighbors.
       Since it was developed in the 1930’s, Frank Laubach’s “Each One, Teach One” system has been used to teach 60 million people around the world to read in their own language. You might be interested to know that Frank Laubach is the only missionary in the US to have a postage stamp issued in his honor.
       Frank Laubach once wrote of his passion for this mission of literacy – “Every person we ever meet is God’s opportunity.”(5) I like that. Every person we ever meet is God’s opportunity.
       So let’s return to our passage. As the believers were joined together with one mind, one passion, waiting for Jesus’ promise to be fulfilled, the Holy Spirit came from heaven with a sound like a violent wind and something like tongues of flame resting on everyone’s head, And suddenly, each one of the 120 believers could speak in other languages. And verse 11 tells us they were “declaring the wonders of God.”
       So, the first blessing of Pentecost was a shared passion. That shared passion resulted in the second blessing of Pentecost - an outbreak of praise.
       In World War II, sisters Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were imprisoned in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. In the evenings, after the two sisters had finished their hard labor, they led a worship service in the women’s barracks. The women knew that if the guards caught them worshipping together, they could be beaten or killed. Still, the risk was worth it to them. They gathered around a Bible that someone had smuggled into the camp. They began each service by singing hymns so softly that they were almost a whisper. And then Corrie or Betsie would read something from their smuggled Bible.
       There were women from various countries in the concentration camp, and they all spoke different languages. So Corrie and Betsie would read the Bible in their native Dutch, then translate it into German. Then other women would translate from German into French, Polish, Russian and Czech. In waves of whispers, the women ensured that every person in the barracks heard the word of God in their own language,
       As Corrie would later write of these secret worship services, “They were little previews of heaven…”(6) Or perhaps little models of Pentecost.
       In Revelation, chapter 7, John writes about a vision of what heaven would look like. He says he sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” They are gathered to sing their praises to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. So Pentecost was a preview of this explosion of praise that naturally flows from God’s people.
       Every time Jesus-followers get together to worship and pray and sing, study the Bible or engage in mission work – there should be an outbreak of praise.
       The final blessing of Pentecost is a call to prophesy. That may sound a little intimidating. Not many of us think we have the gifts to prophesy. But don’t let that word “prophesy” scare you. Prophets are simply truth-tellers. They are chosen by God to share the message of God. Sometimes it’s a message of warning – but it can also be a message of hope. In verse 21 of our passage we read, “All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” That is the truth we are called to tell, to prophesy. We share that message with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers… everyone we meet. Share it with our words. Share it with our actions. Share it with our lives.
       God didn’t pour out the Holy Spirit so we could keep God’s glory, power, love and truth inside these four walls. A Franciscan friar from the 14th century once said, “There is little good in filling churches with people who go out exactly the same as they came in; the call of the church is not to fill churches but to fill heaven.”(7) I like that too. The call of the Church is not to fill churches but to fill heaven.
       A woman named Helen shares her story of how a moment of truth-telling brought her to God. Helen and her husband were having marital problems, and they had separated. While separated, Helen’s husband returned to their home country of Russia to get his citizenship papers straightened out. He ran into an old friend who invited him to church. And Helen’s husband was so impressed by the change he saw in his old friends life that he agreed to go with him. When he got back to the United States, he began reading his Bible and attending church. He even got baptized, and he and Helen reconciled.
       However, Helen wanted nothing to do with her husband’s new-found faith. A few months later, some friends invited the two of them to church. Helen was resistant, until her husband said, “Honey, I love you. You’re beautiful, kind and smart. You are the love of my life. But you’re dead inside without God.” A tough bit of truth-telling to be sure. And then he said, “I believe it’s time for you to go and learn the truth about yourself.”
       So, Helen started attending church, and reading the Bible for herself. As she was reading through the Gospels, Helen suddenly realized that she believed in Jesus. She went to her husband and said, “I want what this Jesus offers.” And her life was changed for good.
       We heard Peter quote Joel saying, “And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” That’s what Helen found out. As Helen says about her faith journey, “You have to love somebody enough to tell them the truth.”(8)
       Pentecost was a world-changing moment. It was the moment when the Spirit of Jesus was poured out on ordinary people, men and women from every tribe and nation and tongue for the purpose of accomplishing the work of Jesus all over the world, until the day Jesus returns. It began with a shared passion. It resulted in an outbreak of praise. And it left behind a calling for us to prophesy, to tell the truth, to share the awesome grace of a God who promises that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
       And for that, May God be praised. Amen.

1.              Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, p 29.
2.              Ibid… p 29
3.              Ibid… p 29
4.              Ibid… p 30.
5.              Ibid… p 30
6.              Ibid… p 30-31.
7.              Ibid… p 32.

05-29-2022 Outward, Upward and Onward

Thomas J Parlette
”Outward, Upward and Onward”
Acts 1:1-11
5/29/22, Ascension

       Pastor and writer James Moore tells a wonderful story from the days of the old west, when the major means of transportation across the country was the stagecoach. What you might not know, says Moore, is that the stagecoach had three different kinds of tickets – first class, second class and third class. If you had a first class ticket, that meant you could remain seated during the entire trip, no matter what happened. If the stagecoach got stuck in the mud, or had trouble making it up a steep hill, or broke a wheel, you could remain seated and let other people deal with the situation. You had a first class ticket.
       If you had a second class ticket, you could also remain seated – until there was a problem. If something came up, the second class ticket holders would have to get off the stagecoach until the problem was fixed. You could stand off to the side and watch, but you weren’t expected to do anything or get your hands dirty. You just had to get out of the coach until things were ready to go.
       Now, if you had a third class ticket, you would not only have to get off the stagecoach, but you were expected to help fix the problem. You might have to get out and push the coach out of the mud or up a hill or help fix a broken wheel. As a third class ticket holder, you were expected to chip in and help if a problem arose.(1)
       Sometimes we see this issue become a problem in the church – not because we use stagecoaches anymore, but people sometimes come to think of themselves as ticketholders in the church. Sometimes it seems we have too many people who think they are first class ticket holders. They expect to be catered to, waited on, and pampered. If a problem comes up, they stay seated and watch while other people deal with the problem.
       Some people might act like second-class ticket holders. These folks ride along until something comes up, and then they became detached spectators. They’ll attend church regularly – but don’t expect them to get involved.
       But thank goodness we have some people in the church who are willing to travel like third-class ticket holders. Every church has that small group of members who are ready to get out and push when they have to. They are the ones who are not afraid to get their hands dirty.
       There was once a pastor who was talking with a man who was about to join the church he served. The man said, “I want to join the church because I want to be fed.” And the pastor replied, “Well, that’s fine – but we’d all be better off if you would take off your bib and put on an apron. We’ll still feed you.”(2)
       The disciples were certainly the kind of people who took off their bibs and put on their aprons – you could say the disciples were third class ticket holders in the Kingdom of God. They were the ones who were charged with the responsibility of telling others the good news of Christ – to go out into the world and get their hands dirty. This Ascension story tells us a couple of things about this mission that we are called to.
       First, the Christian faith always looks outward. In some religions the emphasis is on looking inward. “Navel-gazing” is what it is sometimes called. And there is a time and place for some introspection, to be sure. But the primary focus of Christianity is to look outward at the world around us.
       Jesus challenged his disciples to “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” He was calling them to a great adventure. They were to leave their homes and familiar surroundings and travel to the far corners of the world proclaiming the Gospel. They were to look outward.
       Dr. Harry Ironside used to tell a story about a group of dissidents who left a church to begin what they hoped would be the “perfect church.” The new congregation considered themselves to be such a spiritual blessing to God that they put a sign outside their church: “JESUS ONLY!” The church didn’t reach out to their community, however, they only ministered to themselves. One day when Dr. Ironside went by the church, he noticed that the first three letters had fallen off their sign to reveal a new message: “US ONLY!” How fitting – the new sign revealed a lot about that church’s ministry(3) The Christian community is called to look outward, not just inward.
       The church is also called to look upward. Christ told his disciples to wait and pray. If we’re honest about it, there is something about waiting and praying that goes against our nature. We don’t like to wait for anything or anyone. We want immediate results, with our satisfaction guaranteed or our money back. We want instant happiness – instant success. We don’t want to wait for the good life – we want it now immediately. And if we don’t get what we want, we’ll look someplace else for it. Who wants to sit around and wait? Who wants to sit around and pray? That feels a lot like doing nothing. Maybe –  or maybe not.
       In his book, The New Art of Living, Norman Vincent Peale gave us an interesting picture of our modern situation. He tells about a man in London years ago who had regained his sight after having been blind since he was two years old. He could not remember his perceptions from his infant years, of course, but he had certain images in his mind about how people looked. For example, he imagined most people to be tall and slender. But the most startling image he kept in his mind was that all human faces looked peaceful.(4)
       Tomorrow morning as you make your way to work, look around and see if most of the people you encounter have a peaceful expression on their face. You might find a few – but I would guess not too many.
       I once heard about a lady who was riding a considerable distance on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for the first time. This meant she had to go through some long tunnels. Her son asked her how she enjoyed it. She replied that one of them was a 2 ½.
       “What do you mean… 2 ½ miles long, 2 ½ minutes to get thru/”
       She replied that it was 2 ½ times through the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd…”(5)
       I know just the tunnels she was talking about.
       There is a peacefulness that only waiting and praying can give us. There is also a power that only waiting and praying can provide. That’s what the disciples discovered. Prayer and waiting are necessary preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Followers of Jesus are to look outward. They are to look upward. And finally, they are to look onward.
       The apostles watched as Jesus was taken up to heaven in a cloud. They stood there looking up, amazed at what had taken place. Suddenly two men in bright white robes stood before them. They asked the apostles, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way…”
       And then the Apostles looked onward. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They met daily for prayer. They began to prepare themselves for what lay ahead.
       Billy Graham once told of visiting an elderly man who had spent most of his life in China as a missionary. This former missionary had always enjoyed good health and was an unusually strong man. His deep dedication to Christ and his love for his wife made people love and admire him. He was indeed a faithful witness.
       Unfortunately, this former missionary contracted cancer which spread to many parts of his body. Graham went to minister to him and share some words of comfort. But instead, the sick man ended up ministering to Dr. Graham. “There was a joy and radiance about him that I have rarely seen,” recalled Graham. “He got up out of his bed and walked me to the car when I left. I’ll never forget my last glimpse of him. With a great smile and a cheery wave, he said, “Keep on preaching the Gospel, Billy. The older I get, the better Christ is to me.”(6)
       The good news for today is that can be true for all of us. The best is yet to come.
       Jesus had not gone away, not completely. He had gone…up. His disciples received a promise that one day he would return. That’s an important promise. It says that this world is headed somewhere. It says that third-class ticket holders will one day see the fruits of their labors. It says that one day Christ will reign over all the Kingdoms of this world.
       Several years ago, a group of Christian musicians traveled to Russia to proclaim the Gospel in word and music. They had the privilege of taking their talents to Moscow during the Russian Orthodox Easter. They met in the Palace of Congress where the Supreme Soviet had met for years. It was a massive room, with the enormous oversize picture of Lenin hung in front for all to see. Except that day, Lenin’s portrait was covered. In that massive hall the gospel of Jesus Christ was preached to a huge gathering of Christians and non-Christians alike. The hall was filled with glorious music, and Christ’s message of forgiveness and grace was broadcast by television to millions of viewers throughout Russia. For the American Christians who made the trip, it was an experience they would never forget.
       On one Sunday afternoon, the group went into Red Square and distributed more than a hundred thousand pamphlets about the Gospel, including small Bibles in Russian. They were warned against doing that too aggressively – but not for the reasons you might expect. Turns out the authorities were not opposed to it, they were concerned that the group might be mobbed by people hungry for more information about Jesus and Christianity.(7)
       That is but a foreshadowing of the way the whole world will look someday. There will come a time when Christ will rule over all, and people will hunger for God’s Word.
       In the meantime, let us look outward, let us look upward and let us look onward – anticipating the day of Christ’s return.
       May God be praised. Amen.

1.              Dynamic Preaching, Vol.XXXVIII, No.2, p22.
2.              Ibid… p22.
3.              Ibid… p23.
4.              Ibid… p23.
5.              Ibid… p23.
6.              Ibid… p24.
7.              Ibid… p24.