Crucified With Christ
03 Pentecost C 10
June 13, 2010
Crucified With Christ
1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a
Psalm 32
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3
A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good. ---Stephen Wright
A minister asked a group of children, "What's the first thing you have to do to be forgiven?" And one of the kids said, "You have to sin!"
I saw a posting on facebook this week of a friend of a friend, someone I know through Amy Hurd. Her name is Jen Lawton and she wrote in her status, "Perspective, consider this an open invitation."
Perspective. Maybe it's time to get down on the floor. (Getting down on the floor.)
Here I am, at the feet of Jesus. Here I am, a worthless sinner, deserving only the cross, in the presence of a God who loves me anyway. Hmm. It's not too bad really. Nowhere to go but up, you know.
Would anyone like to join me? I don't want anyone to injure themselves, but you know, it's really not too bad.
It's a relief you know. Nothing to prove. Nothing to insist on. Nothing I'm entitled to.
You could come down here and we could just lay on the floor at Jesus' feet and we could tell him all our problems. Bring some oil and we'll anoint his beautiful, calloused, dirty feet. And maybe we'll do some crying too. Not a bad thing to do in the presence of the Lord. If you'd like to let some tears go now, by all means, offer them up.
You know down here, it's not hard to love God. Down here, it's not hard to love the whole human race. It seems like love is inversely proportional to pride. The lower you are on the pole, the easier it is to love.
You know, the scripture says his feet are beautiful, and they sure are.
(Standing and continuing the service.)
It's important in understanding Paul's message to the Galatians to understand that even at that amazing moment when the church was born, conflict arose. It's one of those things that troubles us in churches. Somehow we all have this idea that the church is supposed to be this kind of mid-sixties TV family. We're shocked when there's conflict. We're even more shocked when people behave like old Ahab and Jezebel.
And yet the bible is full of stories like that.
Even old Peter was kind of two-faced, at least according to Paul. Paul went to Jerusalem and pitched his whole idea of being apostle to the Gentiles. We've heard some of the stories of what was happening in Jerusalem after the resurrection, about how Peter had the dream about the animals and welcomed the Gentile centurion. So Peter agreed with Paul that the Gentiles didn't have to be circumcised, at least to his face. But apparently, after Paul left, Peter or someone in Jerusalem put together a group to follow after Paul and clean up after him. This group got to the Galatians and said, "What Paul told you was all well and good, but it lacked the whole circumcision thing. You really can't be a member until you're circumcised."
Now, this is not about Paul rejected the Old Testament. We know from all the rest of Paul's writing that he believed and taught the Old Testament. That was in fact the only scripture he had. And it wasn't just that he was opposing people who were clinging to old and useless traditions. He didn't see the law as old or useless.
As for Peter and the Judaizers, they also weren't necessarily being unreasonable. There was a lot of tension in the synagogues about this news about Jesus. A lot of Jews were very receptive. You remember that thousands were baptized the very first day Peter started preaching in Jerusalem. Imagine managing 3,000 new people here at Philippi. Then as now, so many new people brought all kinds of unexpected problems and difficulties. One of them had to do with Jewishness. Gentiles were converting upon hearing the news of Jesus. Didn't that mean they needed to become Jews?
Peter vacillated about the question, a vacillation that appeared to Paul to be hypocrisy. But think of it. Peter saw a tremendous wedge potentially coming to split his new movement in two. What might he do to minimize the damage? Maybe he needed to concede to those who wanted to keep Judaism intact. What kind of chaos might ensue if any part of the law were jettisoned?
It's not that Paul didn't believe in circumcision. It's that he believed in a greater and more perfect circumcision. He believed, and I believe, that God had come into the world to dwell with his people. Not some new God, but the same God who had ruled over Israel from the time of Abraham. The question was not about keeping the law or not. It was about where one goes to start a relationship with God.
The message for today is about the cross. The cross is the place where God enters the world. It's not in the temple. It's not in the beautiful town square. It's outside the usual paths and walkways, outside the house of worship, in the place where people are cast off and forgotten. The cross is the place where God comes into the world.
God prefers the company of those farthest from him. He bypasses all those who are jockeying for status before him and runs right to the ones who are the least worthy. He whips people in the house of worship and comforts people who are being executed for robbery and murder.
I think we like to imagine, at least us males like to imagine, that the woman bathing Jesus' feet with her tears is a prostitute. Jar of ointment, the hair let down, kissing; it's hard not to think about sex. But the text doesn't say that. It just says a sinful woman. What if that woman were Jezebel? Not the somewhat titillating and lovely temptress, but the scheming and vicious murderer, maybe even with with beady eyes, straggly hair and bad skin? A woman who had done real and terrible wrong to lots of people, who really deserved to be executed and have her remains eaten by dogs?
That's the kind of offense that the Jewish Christians were taking at Paul for welcoming non-Jews into Christian fellowship without circumcision. It's like he was saying, well, that God loves sinners, for heaven's sake.
But Paul's own experience of conversion was exactly this. In the midst of doing the most terrible wrong a person can do, Paul encountered Jesus Christ. Christ met Paul on the cross. Paul found himself hanging on a cross next to Jesus, like the rebel robber in Luke's gospel, guilty of what Jesus was not, of insurrection and rebellion and murder, crimes against the kingdom of God. Jesus, though he was not guilty, was there with him, welcoming him into paradise.
Some of us encounter the cross in the course of experience, without actively seeking it. But it is possible, and this is a wonderful gift from God, to seek the cross. It's possible to find in oneself the many ways, through commission or omission, we make ourselves superior to others, the many ways we plot and scheme to undermine our perceived enemies, the ways we stand quietly by and say nothing about injustice because it so richly benefits us, the tantrums we throw when we don't get what we want or think we deserve. We can seek the cross by seeking out our rebellion and our willfulness. When we find our sin, when we find enough evidence to convict us of rebellion against the kingdom of God and yes, even murder, we will find Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross next to ours.
It's at the cross that we encounter God, and it is the only place we can encounter God, at least in the sense of being able to begin a relationship. Forgiveness and salvation are really something else. The cross is simply the place we begin. It's the place everyone has to begin. There's no other entrance into God's presence. If there is, to paraphrase Paul, Christ died for nothing.
What if we saw our worship on Sunday the way the "sinful woman" saw it? What if we came intending to lay on the floor and bathe the beautiful feet of Jesus with our tears?
Amen.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Second Sunday After Pentecost Year C 2010
And They Glorified God
02 Pentecost C 10
June 6, 2010
1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
In a newspaper commentary I read yesterday a guy named Matt Bai observed that we've been living in what feels like a crisis for about forty years. Of course, for a lot of that time, at least half of the people felt like something positive was getting done about whatever it was. It was usually only the other half who felt like things were getting worse and worse. Now, we're in a rather special moment in this country. I think everyone is pretty convinced that things are spinning out of control and show no signs of getting sorted out. You don't hear too many people saying hopeful things.
Mr. Bai said that if you wanted a metaphor for the growing sense of crisis we've been experiencing over the past forty years, you couldn't ask for a better one than the oil leak. A slowly and steadily spreading disaster of unimaginable proportions with results that are almost impossible to imagine or predict. Think about it. For forty years the situation between Israel and the Muslim world has gotten worse and worse, and now is getting critical. The uneasy peace between the Koreas is now descending back toward war. Iran is working on a bomb, we're still at war in two countries, Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, the continent of Africa continues to waste away with AIDS and coups and massacres, and the world's economy is shaky at best. And nothing anyone has done seems able to stop it. No one has been able to plug the leak.
At Regional Assembly over the last two days, I have to say the message was somewhat gloomy all-in-all. The two authors who came to speak seem to specialize in writing books with catchy titles with nothing in them but the same message as the title. This one was "Getting People Under Forty While Keeping People Over Sixty." And if you read the book, it basically says we should get people under forty and keep people over sixty. It never really tells us how.
The fact is that the mainline church has been in decline for forty years and hasn't really done a thing about it. Nothing that's worked anyway. Even the Baptists are declining. I remember thinking yesterday that I've been going to assemblies for eighteen years, literally, because I was ordained 18 years Friday, and I've pretty much been hearing the same message. We need to change but we aren't changing. If we don't change we're going to disappear. And everyone nods and applauds and heads back to their congregations ready to change the world. But the oil just keeps on pumping. The church keeps declining. There are fewer and fewer Christians in every generation.
I think about a year, maybe two years ago, we all started feeling like the metaphorical oil leak was pumping away and no one was able to stop it. I think the feeling is getting really pointed now, and it's beginning to infect every aspect of our lives. It's not only the world that's coming apart, it's our older parents, it's our kids, it's our church, it's our own communities and neighborhoods.
Some of us are angry. Some of us are exhausted. Some of us are still hopeful. But all of us finally know that the leak pumps on.
There's a drought in Israel, don't you think? Not only has the widow lost her husband, but now, cruelty of all cruelty, she's lost her only son. Not only has Jesus been crucified, but this guy Saul has it in for everyone who believes in Jesus. Insult upon injury. Trial upon trial. Do you know the root words for "pandemonium?" "Demons everywhere?"
At some point or another, the solution really does have to come from outside. At some point, there's no one to hire, no one to fire, no one brilliant enough, can-do enough, insightful and wise enough, to fix this. Nor is there any way we can all consult one another and thrash it out and make it all work.
At some point or another, the savior has got to step in. At some point or another we really have to get on our knees. And I don't mean as some kind of metaphor for giving it more thought, or as some kind of show of piety. I mean surrender. I mean making that last loaf of bread, eating it and laying down to die. I mean just loading the body on the bier and having the funeral. Just go on and say, "This is all wrong, and I have not the foggiest idea what to do about it." Just go on and grieve. Just go on and admit the battle's over and we lost.
When Paul is saying that his gospel comes from God, he's really not trying to validate himself; he's trying to validate his gospel. He's not affirming himself, though it rather sounds like it, doesn't it? He's affirming the message he's been given. He's trying to point out that the thing that comes from God is the thing that saves. Ideas that come from people are not saving. They might put a bandaid on the wound, they might redirect the oil leak in some other direction, but the solutions that come from us usually make the situation worse. The ongoing effort to keep improving and solving and fixing actually amounts to a spreading field of poison.
The answer will come from God, and it will come when we cry "uncle" and not before. When we become as ready as only the dying can be, room is made for a miracle.
I'm wanting to glorify God. That's the path I'm interested in this morning. That's the salvation I'm looking for this morning. I'm ready to say I'm licked. I don't know what the right thing is to do. I don't know how to fix any of it. I don't know what the moral choice is, the righteous choice, the effective choice. I don't have the magic technique or the perfect ideology. I'm looking for the miracle. I want to give up and lay down and wait to die, and see what God does.
Just when I thought the Assembly was pretty hopeless a bunch of young people of multiple colors got up on the stage and told all us old fogies that we needed to figure out how to get blacks and whites together, that all our talk about acceptance and unity was hollow to them. And they proposed a simple plan to make it happen I don't know why but tears started flowing down my face. Maybe its just that I so badly needed a little hope. I think I was glorifying God there fore a minute.
And later, I went to a workshop where a congregation in Lynchburg told how it had come to openly welcome and affirm everyone at their church, particularly people of different sexual orientations. One of them said, "if you are worried about being accepted at a church for any reason at all, find an open and affirming church. They really mean it when they say they accept you." Wow. In Lynchburg of all places. I did a little glorifying God right about them.
Will you all do a little exercise with me right now? I want you to think of two phrases. The first phrase is "God might be..." And the second phrase is "But soon God will..."
Now you're going to complete the phrase. The first phrase is about the punishment of the trial God might be visiting upon you. Like that old widow who told Elijah it was God who took her son. Like the early Christians who though of Saul as God's test for their faith. Now don't bother arguing about whether God causes bad things to happen or not. That's why the word "might" is in there. God might be causing that oil leak to spew. God might be giving me cancer. God might be taking my mother away from me piece by piece. God might be putting my church through a trial. God might be brewing another war in the Middle East. Put it all on the list. Just close you eyes and list all the terrible things God might be doing.
Now I'd like you to complete the second phrase. The second phrase is about the sudden reversal that God is going to bring about. Like the widow's declaration about Elijah, like the congregation's that had feared Saul glorifying God because of Paul, like the people of Nain glorifying God because the widow's son was brought back to life. "But soon God will..." But soon God will restore his creation to wholeness. But soon God will liberate my mother and comfort me. But soon God will deal with my cancer. But soon God will bring peace in war-torn places. But soon God will...
I'm looking to glorify God. How about you?
Amen.
02 Pentecost C 10
June 6, 2010
1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
In a newspaper commentary I read yesterday a guy named Matt Bai observed that we've been living in what feels like a crisis for about forty years. Of course, for a lot of that time, at least half of the people felt like something positive was getting done about whatever it was. It was usually only the other half who felt like things were getting worse and worse. Now, we're in a rather special moment in this country. I think everyone is pretty convinced that things are spinning out of control and show no signs of getting sorted out. You don't hear too many people saying hopeful things.
Mr. Bai said that if you wanted a metaphor for the growing sense of crisis we've been experiencing over the past forty years, you couldn't ask for a better one than the oil leak. A slowly and steadily spreading disaster of unimaginable proportions with results that are almost impossible to imagine or predict. Think about it. For forty years the situation between Israel and the Muslim world has gotten worse and worse, and now is getting critical. The uneasy peace between the Koreas is now descending back toward war. Iran is working on a bomb, we're still at war in two countries, Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, the continent of Africa continues to waste away with AIDS and coups and massacres, and the world's economy is shaky at best. And nothing anyone has done seems able to stop it. No one has been able to plug the leak.
At Regional Assembly over the last two days, I have to say the message was somewhat gloomy all-in-all. The two authors who came to speak seem to specialize in writing books with catchy titles with nothing in them but the same message as the title. This one was "Getting People Under Forty While Keeping People Over Sixty." And if you read the book, it basically says we should get people under forty and keep people over sixty. It never really tells us how.
The fact is that the mainline church has been in decline for forty years and hasn't really done a thing about it. Nothing that's worked anyway. Even the Baptists are declining. I remember thinking yesterday that I've been going to assemblies for eighteen years, literally, because I was ordained 18 years Friday, and I've pretty much been hearing the same message. We need to change but we aren't changing. If we don't change we're going to disappear. And everyone nods and applauds and heads back to their congregations ready to change the world. But the oil just keeps on pumping. The church keeps declining. There are fewer and fewer Christians in every generation.
I think about a year, maybe two years ago, we all started feeling like the metaphorical oil leak was pumping away and no one was able to stop it. I think the feeling is getting really pointed now, and it's beginning to infect every aspect of our lives. It's not only the world that's coming apart, it's our older parents, it's our kids, it's our church, it's our own communities and neighborhoods.
Some of us are angry. Some of us are exhausted. Some of us are still hopeful. But all of us finally know that the leak pumps on.
There's a drought in Israel, don't you think? Not only has the widow lost her husband, but now, cruelty of all cruelty, she's lost her only son. Not only has Jesus been crucified, but this guy Saul has it in for everyone who believes in Jesus. Insult upon injury. Trial upon trial. Do you know the root words for "pandemonium?" "Demons everywhere?"
At some point or another, the solution really does have to come from outside. At some point, there's no one to hire, no one to fire, no one brilliant enough, can-do enough, insightful and wise enough, to fix this. Nor is there any way we can all consult one another and thrash it out and make it all work.
At some point or another, the savior has got to step in. At some point or another we really have to get on our knees. And I don't mean as some kind of metaphor for giving it more thought, or as some kind of show of piety. I mean surrender. I mean making that last loaf of bread, eating it and laying down to die. I mean just loading the body on the bier and having the funeral. Just go on and say, "This is all wrong, and I have not the foggiest idea what to do about it." Just go on and grieve. Just go on and admit the battle's over and we lost.
When Paul is saying that his gospel comes from God, he's really not trying to validate himself; he's trying to validate his gospel. He's not affirming himself, though it rather sounds like it, doesn't it? He's affirming the message he's been given. He's trying to point out that the thing that comes from God is the thing that saves. Ideas that come from people are not saving. They might put a bandaid on the wound, they might redirect the oil leak in some other direction, but the solutions that come from us usually make the situation worse. The ongoing effort to keep improving and solving and fixing actually amounts to a spreading field of poison.
The answer will come from God, and it will come when we cry "uncle" and not before. When we become as ready as only the dying can be, room is made for a miracle.
I'm wanting to glorify God. That's the path I'm interested in this morning. That's the salvation I'm looking for this morning. I'm ready to say I'm licked. I don't know what the right thing is to do. I don't know how to fix any of it. I don't know what the moral choice is, the righteous choice, the effective choice. I don't have the magic technique or the perfect ideology. I'm looking for the miracle. I want to give up and lay down and wait to die, and see what God does.
Just when I thought the Assembly was pretty hopeless a bunch of young people of multiple colors got up on the stage and told all us old fogies that we needed to figure out how to get blacks and whites together, that all our talk about acceptance and unity was hollow to them. And they proposed a simple plan to make it happen I don't know why but tears started flowing down my face. Maybe its just that I so badly needed a little hope. I think I was glorifying God there fore a minute.
And later, I went to a workshop where a congregation in Lynchburg told how it had come to openly welcome and affirm everyone at their church, particularly people of different sexual orientations. One of them said, "if you are worried about being accepted at a church for any reason at all, find an open and affirming church. They really mean it when they say they accept you." Wow. In Lynchburg of all places. I did a little glorifying God right about them.
Will you all do a little exercise with me right now? I want you to think of two phrases. The first phrase is "God might be..." And the second phrase is "But soon God will..."
Now you're going to complete the phrase. The first phrase is about the punishment of the trial God might be visiting upon you. Like that old widow who told Elijah it was God who took her son. Like the early Christians who though of Saul as God's test for their faith. Now don't bother arguing about whether God causes bad things to happen or not. That's why the word "might" is in there. God might be causing that oil leak to spew. God might be giving me cancer. God might be taking my mother away from me piece by piece. God might be putting my church through a trial. God might be brewing another war in the Middle East. Put it all on the list. Just close you eyes and list all the terrible things God might be doing.
Now I'd like you to complete the second phrase. The second phrase is about the sudden reversal that God is going to bring about. Like the widow's declaration about Elijah, like the congregation's that had feared Saul glorifying God because of Paul, like the people of Nain glorifying God because the widow's son was brought back to life. "But soon God will..." But soon God will restore his creation to wholeness. But soon God will liberate my mother and comfort me. But soon God will deal with my cancer. But soon God will bring peace in war-torn places. But soon God will...
I'm looking to glorify God. How about you?
Amen.
First Sunday After Pentecost Year C 2010
God's Approval
01 Pentecost C 10
May 30, 2010
1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39
Psalm 96
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10
The opening of Galatians lets us know that it is a letter. It wasn't written as a theological treatise for the centuries. It's a letter to a particular congregation at a particular juncture in its life. Nevertheless, this letter was saved, copied, circulated to other churches at other times. Eventually, teachers in the church decided that it contained such truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ that it needed to be called holy scripture for all time.
We have quite a few letters written by Paul. All of them follow a certain pattern. Usually, right after the greeting, Paul writes a thanksgiving section. He finds those things about the congregation he's writing to that he loves or admires and he gives thanks to God for them. Here, however, we have no thanksgiving section. This is the only letter of Paul without one. It begins instead with an accusation. The Galatians have turned to a different gospel, which of course is no gospel. What that false gospel is, we don't yet know.
Paul goes on to curse anyone who teaches the Galatians a different gospel from the one he taught them. Now, we have lots of stories of Paul's power over supernatural beings. He encountered his share of demons and so on, and he had the authority to command them. So this would have been no small thing. He lays out a curse that's provisional, only to go into action if someone, even him or an angel from heaven, ever teaches a false gospel.
People pleasing is the theme of this line, and I have to say I struggle with this temptation all the time. Now we might ask ourselves, what's the matter with pleasing people? Don't we all want to please people? Well, first let's do a little bible detective work here and ask ourselves, why is Paul asking this question? Well, at least one speculation we could make, I think, is that someone has accused him of people pleasing. That is, someone has said, "That Paul is not teaching a true message. He's watered it down to make it easy for people to buy into it. He's pleasing people, not God." Now I think it's also interesting that he uses the phrase, "If I were still pleasing people." Does this mean that there was a time when he was still pleasing people, before he became a servant of Christ? Could he be referring to his career as a Pharisee and persecutor of the church?
Then it seems that Paul has either changed the subject or he is making some kind of case. He is no longer talking about pleasing people or pleasing God. He's now talking about the source of the gospel he preaches. Why is he doing this? Perhaps he is making his case. In other words, "I couldn't be guilty of pleasing people because my gospel didn't come from people. It comes from God."
I feel led to preach Galatians over the next few weeks. And it seems fitting to begin this preaching on Memorial Day, when we remember those who lost their lives in the defense of the United States. We often say that they were killed defending our freedom. The opening passage of Galatians doesn't tell us the main theme of the letter, but we will discover in the coming weeks that its theme is freedom.
Memorial Day is a National Holiday, and the church is not a national institution. Nevertheless, we are mindful of those who lost their lives in the various wars our nation has been involved in. And some are thankful to God for them. Personally, I celebrate Memorial Day not as a happy day to have a party, but as a day to mourn. To me, war is a tragedy.
Be that as it may, the word freedom certainly comes up a lot on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, doesn't it? It's a lot of what the US stands for. And this is indeed the theme of Paul's letter to the Galatians, which has been called the Magna Carta of Christian Freedom.
But Paul hasn't mentioned freedom yet in today's passage. The first thing we know about the letter is that Paul is not at all happy with the Galatians. The second thing we know is that he believes they have turned to a different and very false gospel. The third thing we know is that Paul feels the need to defend himself. And the overall theme of the letter seems to be about the simple question of real versus false gospel.
I model my ministry very much on Paul's. Paul's primary methods involved persuasion and encouragement. But there were also times when Paul admonished and scolded. There is a long history of Jewish and Christian religious leaders admonishing and scolding their congregations, both before Paul and after Paul. I agree that it can get out of hand, but I also observe that in our commodified culture, admonishment is not a dish anyone wants to be fed, and so if a pastor admonishes a congregation, he or she will often find himself or herself without a congregation. This is a part of freedom we enjoy in our country. The freedom to walk away. It does however make the traditional role of the prophet rather difficult. In our society, the minister is supposed to be a "people person," as Ethel Wiley often reminds me, friendly, warm and accepting to all. Paul is obviously not being friendly, warm or accepting here.
But the accusation being leveled against Paul is not that he had been too hard on the Galatians, but that he'd been too easy. We don't know yet what the false gospel was, but at least a part of it was that Paul's gospel was somehow too easy, somehow not hard enough. The claim was being made by leaders in Galatia that Paul was a people-pleaser, that he'd built his church by proclaiming a false, easy, popular gospel in order to fill up the pews.
This is a common accusation against the big mega-churches springing up all over the country, that they kow-tow to the masses, feed them the religious product they want to buy, whereas all us little churches are much more faithful, since we make Christianity really, really hard.
Because we all know, don't we, that when it comes to God, it's got to be really, really hard.
The funny thing is, if you study the churches the way I do, you quickly find out that the message of many of the biggest of the mega-churches, though certainly not all of them, is a lot harder than the message of the small churches. It seems the more popular message, the most attractive gospel out there, is the one with all the rules. Check out the belief statements on the websites of the country's biggest churches. Check out their requirements for membership.
The revelation from God in the crucified and risen Jesus is just that, a revelation. You know, let's take a moment with this shall we? Jesus is really of no interest to anyone if he didn't rise from the dead. Let's just admit that right now, shall we? This supernatural event is the center of the whole thing. Everything we are as Christians and as the church radiates out from the main point: Jesus was executed by the most powerful government in the world, but he rose from the dead, and rules over God's kingdom forever. He didn't defend his freedom. God defended his freedom. He died without raising his hand to anyone. And God raised him from the dead.
The revelation of God is so hard to take simply because it proposes something rather easy. It's so easy it couldn't come from people. It is to stand aside, do nothing, and let God rule. That's it. That's the whole moral equation. God makes righteous. God makes holy. God makes free. Period.
This is from God, not from people. If it were from people, it would be a list of difficult rules you must always follow. It would be a bunch of magical incantations that you have to say just right. It would be a lot of sacrifice and self-injury. It would be a lot of fighting and dying and violence and bloodshed. But it's from God, and it's strangely easy. God says, "Let me do it."
What's hard about the gospel is not that it's full of impossible rules. What's hard about it is that isn't.
What do we have to do to gain God's approval?
Perhaps we just have to accept it.
Amen.
01 Pentecost C 10
May 30, 2010
1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39
Psalm 96
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10
The opening of Galatians lets us know that it is a letter. It wasn't written as a theological treatise for the centuries. It's a letter to a particular congregation at a particular juncture in its life. Nevertheless, this letter was saved, copied, circulated to other churches at other times. Eventually, teachers in the church decided that it contained such truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ that it needed to be called holy scripture for all time.
We have quite a few letters written by Paul. All of them follow a certain pattern. Usually, right after the greeting, Paul writes a thanksgiving section. He finds those things about the congregation he's writing to that he loves or admires and he gives thanks to God for them. Here, however, we have no thanksgiving section. This is the only letter of Paul without one. It begins instead with an accusation. The Galatians have turned to a different gospel, which of course is no gospel. What that false gospel is, we don't yet know.
Paul goes on to curse anyone who teaches the Galatians a different gospel from the one he taught them. Now, we have lots of stories of Paul's power over supernatural beings. He encountered his share of demons and so on, and he had the authority to command them. So this would have been no small thing. He lays out a curse that's provisional, only to go into action if someone, even him or an angel from heaven, ever teaches a false gospel.
People pleasing is the theme of this line, and I have to say I struggle with this temptation all the time. Now we might ask ourselves, what's the matter with pleasing people? Don't we all want to please people? Well, first let's do a little bible detective work here and ask ourselves, why is Paul asking this question? Well, at least one speculation we could make, I think, is that someone has accused him of people pleasing. That is, someone has said, "That Paul is not teaching a true message. He's watered it down to make it easy for people to buy into it. He's pleasing people, not God." Now I think it's also interesting that he uses the phrase, "If I were still pleasing people." Does this mean that there was a time when he was still pleasing people, before he became a servant of Christ? Could he be referring to his career as a Pharisee and persecutor of the church?
Then it seems that Paul has either changed the subject or he is making some kind of case. He is no longer talking about pleasing people or pleasing God. He's now talking about the source of the gospel he preaches. Why is he doing this? Perhaps he is making his case. In other words, "I couldn't be guilty of pleasing people because my gospel didn't come from people. It comes from God."
I feel led to preach Galatians over the next few weeks. And it seems fitting to begin this preaching on Memorial Day, when we remember those who lost their lives in the defense of the United States. We often say that they were killed defending our freedom. The opening passage of Galatians doesn't tell us the main theme of the letter, but we will discover in the coming weeks that its theme is freedom.
Memorial Day is a National Holiday, and the church is not a national institution. Nevertheless, we are mindful of those who lost their lives in the various wars our nation has been involved in. And some are thankful to God for them. Personally, I celebrate Memorial Day not as a happy day to have a party, but as a day to mourn. To me, war is a tragedy.
Be that as it may, the word freedom certainly comes up a lot on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, doesn't it? It's a lot of what the US stands for. And this is indeed the theme of Paul's letter to the Galatians, which has been called the Magna Carta of Christian Freedom.
But Paul hasn't mentioned freedom yet in today's passage. The first thing we know about the letter is that Paul is not at all happy with the Galatians. The second thing we know is that he believes they have turned to a different and very false gospel. The third thing we know is that Paul feels the need to defend himself. And the overall theme of the letter seems to be about the simple question of real versus false gospel.
I model my ministry very much on Paul's. Paul's primary methods involved persuasion and encouragement. But there were also times when Paul admonished and scolded. There is a long history of Jewish and Christian religious leaders admonishing and scolding their congregations, both before Paul and after Paul. I agree that it can get out of hand, but I also observe that in our commodified culture, admonishment is not a dish anyone wants to be fed, and so if a pastor admonishes a congregation, he or she will often find himself or herself without a congregation. This is a part of freedom we enjoy in our country. The freedom to walk away. It does however make the traditional role of the prophet rather difficult. In our society, the minister is supposed to be a "people person," as Ethel Wiley often reminds me, friendly, warm and accepting to all. Paul is obviously not being friendly, warm or accepting here.
But the accusation being leveled against Paul is not that he had been too hard on the Galatians, but that he'd been too easy. We don't know yet what the false gospel was, but at least a part of it was that Paul's gospel was somehow too easy, somehow not hard enough. The claim was being made by leaders in Galatia that Paul was a people-pleaser, that he'd built his church by proclaiming a false, easy, popular gospel in order to fill up the pews.
This is a common accusation against the big mega-churches springing up all over the country, that they kow-tow to the masses, feed them the religious product they want to buy, whereas all us little churches are much more faithful, since we make Christianity really, really hard.
Because we all know, don't we, that when it comes to God, it's got to be really, really hard.
The funny thing is, if you study the churches the way I do, you quickly find out that the message of many of the biggest of the mega-churches, though certainly not all of them, is a lot harder than the message of the small churches. It seems the more popular message, the most attractive gospel out there, is the one with all the rules. Check out the belief statements on the websites of the country's biggest churches. Check out their requirements for membership.
The revelation from God in the crucified and risen Jesus is just that, a revelation. You know, let's take a moment with this shall we? Jesus is really of no interest to anyone if he didn't rise from the dead. Let's just admit that right now, shall we? This supernatural event is the center of the whole thing. Everything we are as Christians and as the church radiates out from the main point: Jesus was executed by the most powerful government in the world, but he rose from the dead, and rules over God's kingdom forever. He didn't defend his freedom. God defended his freedom. He died without raising his hand to anyone. And God raised him from the dead.
The revelation of God is so hard to take simply because it proposes something rather easy. It's so easy it couldn't come from people. It is to stand aside, do nothing, and let God rule. That's it. That's the whole moral equation. God makes righteous. God makes holy. God makes free. Period.
This is from God, not from people. If it were from people, it would be a list of difficult rules you must always follow. It would be a bunch of magical incantations that you have to say just right. It would be a lot of sacrifice and self-injury. It would be a lot of fighting and dying and violence and bloodshed. But it's from God, and it's strangely easy. God says, "Let me do it."
What's hard about the gospel is not that it's full of impossible rules. What's hard about it is that isn't.
What do we have to do to gain God's approval?
Perhaps we just have to accept it.
Amen.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Day of Pentecost Year C 2010
"What Was Spoken"
Pentecost C 10
May 23, 2010
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, (25-27)
"God declares" is the classic phrase of prophecy. Throughout Israel's history, the Old Testament tells of certain men and women who received God's Spirit. The prophet's job in the drama of history was to bring God on to the stage.
All our little dramas proceed along, you know, our household struggles and our family tragedies and our political conflicts and our international disasters and our oil spills and our recessions and so on, and what the prophet does is play the part of God. In the prophet, God just walks into the scene and starts talking.
Now it might be about the future or it might be about the present, but usually it has to do with a warning or a promise, and not so much fortune-telling. Not "You will meet a tall dark stranger," but more, "If you do what I tell you you will meet a tall dark stranger, but if you don't, you will only encounter short, pale people you've known for years." Do you hear the difference? There is something of a prediction here, but there is also a choice offered. In many cases, there are multiple futures out there and God is saying, "OK, you've done thus and such, and so that leaves you these two possible futures, one that I'd like you to have, and one that you will have if you don't listen to me."
Yes, sometimes the future God announces is a fixed thing, like with his message to Noah. "It's going to rain, buddy. Therefore, build the boat." But even there, the idea is that Noah has a choice. Maybe not much of one, but a choice. Build the boat or drown. And in Joel, the passage Peter quotes to help everybody understand what's happening, well, it would seem this was a fixed future, a certain thing, not dependent on human choices.
But it wasn't really. Joel was asking for Israel to remain faithful. He was granted to see this vision of the future to encourage everyone to keep on being faithful, even though being faithful didn't seem to be getting them anywhere at the time. That's the thing about faith, you know, the thing about faithfulness. The main thing about it is not giving up, even though it might not appear to be working. Why? What Joel says is, at the end of the day, finally, when all is said and done, God's going to do this amazing thing, and if you give up, you'll miss out.
Presumably, all the Jews who were present, all those people who lived scattered all over the Roman Empire, a people who were broken and oppressed, but who struggled to remain faithful to their heritage, presumably all of them knew that Joel passage and others like it, and that's why they were there in Jerusalem. They'd most of them been there since Passover, and most of them had either seen or heard about the crucifixion of Jesus, and the strange rumors that some of his followers had seen him risen from the dead. They were all there to keep the faith, even though it was expensive and inconvenient to drop everything and make the journey to Jerusalem, even though belief in their God apparently hadn't delivered them out from under the Romans, they were there to keep the faith. Their priests were corrupt, the Jerusalem Council was self-righteous and hypocritical, the king Herod was a murderous monster, but they came anyway, they came for the festival, because they were keeping the faith, hoping against all odds that God might someday do the things he promised he would do.
And what had he promised to do? Well, he promised that instead of just one person here and there becoming a prophet, one big-shot per generation, a Moses here, an Elijah there, an Isaiah and then a Jeremiah, everyone, his whole people, would become prophets. From King down to dishwasher, from daycare center to nursing home, the whole shebang. God's people, what we now call the church on earth, would become one big prophet. And the church would then take on the job that Moses did and Elijah did and all the prophets had done. Whatever was going on in the world, whatever was going on wherever the church was, the church would be God walking into the scene, making warnings and promises, and doing various miracles.
And what's going on? Portents, Joel says. I think of portents as the terrible things that drive us to our knees before God. It interested me that people did not flock to church when the economy went south. Actually the trend has been in the other direction. People have been leaving church. Now no one has studied this or figured out why. My take on it is that we are still trying to fix this thing ourselves. We haven't been driven to our knees yet. But we're getting there, I think. We'll be on our knees sooner or later, and probably sooner.
Blood and fire and smoky mist. Crucifixions and oil spills and old friends suddenly dying, bloody wars and terrorist bombings and parents getting Alzheimer's, political stalemates and rampant dishonesty and a son or daughter who's addicted, blood and fire and smoky mist, the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Things that are just wrong. Things that just aren't supposed to be.
But there are the very things, old Joel is saying, these are the very things that should give us hope, because these are the things that set the stage for our longing, our calling, our shouting out for God. These are the very things that prompt us to open ourselves, to give up and ask for help.
What was spoken was a prediction that we would someday come, my friends, we, the church of Jesus Christ. Waitresses and doctors and store clerks and contractors and farmers and therapists and soft drink salesmen and professors and boatyard workers and bank tellers, that we as one body, filled with the peace of God, would walk on to the world stage, the world full of darkness and blood, to speak and act for God.
This is why the church building stands here, why we gather each week, why we collect our resources at this table, why we listen to the word of God each week. This is a last day thing, the ultimate purpose of God, to be his presence in a broken-up and frightened world. Through us and through the whole church on earth, we are each of us being saved, and are each of us also be drawn into the saving work of God for all the world.
Today is our day to pray for God's Spirit. To cry out to God in our powerlessness, to turn to God with our incapacity to make right what is clearly wrong, or even understand which is which. It's our annual day to ask God for his Spirit. We are not asking that certain of our members receive it, that we lift up this one or that one, we are not asking that the pastor receive it, so that the rest of us need not be bothered by it, we are asking for what was spoken by the prophet Joel. We are asking that we all receive the Spirit, and not only us, but everyone worshipping at Zoar, and everyone worshipping at Clarksbury, and everyone worshipping at churches in Bali and South Africa and Germany and Japan. We are asking for the one Spirit of God, the one voice that we all understand, that makes us all one child of God.
In my last long conversation with Mrs. Miller, she was telling me a good bit about what used to be at Philippi. But then she stopped and paused and thought a moment. Then she smiled and said, "But Mr. Used-To doesn't live here anymore."
There's a book we'll all be studying at the Regional Assembly called Reaching People Under 50 While Keeping People Over 60, and one of the studies it reports says that people under 50 tend to look into the future, while people over 60 tend to look into the past. And that has been true in my experience.
I remember a woman named Hildegarde. She was in her early eighties when I met her while serving her church, Faith Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was thinking of her this morning. She's long since passed on, but she was my Liz's godmother when I baptized Liz in 1998. Most of the members of Faith were over 60, and most of them talked more or less all the time about the way it used to be.
But Hildegarde wasn't like the other older people at Faith. Mr. Used-To was really of no interest to her. Right up until she died, she was a visionary at Faith. She saw what God had in store for that church. One Sunday she came into my office and talked with me about her dreams for the future of her congregation, and at one point tears began to run down her face. I asked her what was wrong. And she said, "I just wish I could be here to see it."
But of course, she was there, and she was seeing it. She was living it. She was living what was spoken by the prophet.
"In these last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, so that your young people shall see visions, and your old people will dream dreams."
Amen.
Pentecost C 10
May 23, 2010
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, (25-27)
"God declares" is the classic phrase of prophecy. Throughout Israel's history, the Old Testament tells of certain men and women who received God's Spirit. The prophet's job in the drama of history was to bring God on to the stage.
All our little dramas proceed along, you know, our household struggles and our family tragedies and our political conflicts and our international disasters and our oil spills and our recessions and so on, and what the prophet does is play the part of God. In the prophet, God just walks into the scene and starts talking.
Now it might be about the future or it might be about the present, but usually it has to do with a warning or a promise, and not so much fortune-telling. Not "You will meet a tall dark stranger," but more, "If you do what I tell you you will meet a tall dark stranger, but if you don't, you will only encounter short, pale people you've known for years." Do you hear the difference? There is something of a prediction here, but there is also a choice offered. In many cases, there are multiple futures out there and God is saying, "OK, you've done thus and such, and so that leaves you these two possible futures, one that I'd like you to have, and one that you will have if you don't listen to me."
Yes, sometimes the future God announces is a fixed thing, like with his message to Noah. "It's going to rain, buddy. Therefore, build the boat." But even there, the idea is that Noah has a choice. Maybe not much of one, but a choice. Build the boat or drown. And in Joel, the passage Peter quotes to help everybody understand what's happening, well, it would seem this was a fixed future, a certain thing, not dependent on human choices.
But it wasn't really. Joel was asking for Israel to remain faithful. He was granted to see this vision of the future to encourage everyone to keep on being faithful, even though being faithful didn't seem to be getting them anywhere at the time. That's the thing about faith, you know, the thing about faithfulness. The main thing about it is not giving up, even though it might not appear to be working. Why? What Joel says is, at the end of the day, finally, when all is said and done, God's going to do this amazing thing, and if you give up, you'll miss out.
Presumably, all the Jews who were present, all those people who lived scattered all over the Roman Empire, a people who were broken and oppressed, but who struggled to remain faithful to their heritage, presumably all of them knew that Joel passage and others like it, and that's why they were there in Jerusalem. They'd most of them been there since Passover, and most of them had either seen or heard about the crucifixion of Jesus, and the strange rumors that some of his followers had seen him risen from the dead. They were all there to keep the faith, even though it was expensive and inconvenient to drop everything and make the journey to Jerusalem, even though belief in their God apparently hadn't delivered them out from under the Romans, they were there to keep the faith. Their priests were corrupt, the Jerusalem Council was self-righteous and hypocritical, the king Herod was a murderous monster, but they came anyway, they came for the festival, because they were keeping the faith, hoping against all odds that God might someday do the things he promised he would do.
And what had he promised to do? Well, he promised that instead of just one person here and there becoming a prophet, one big-shot per generation, a Moses here, an Elijah there, an Isaiah and then a Jeremiah, everyone, his whole people, would become prophets. From King down to dishwasher, from daycare center to nursing home, the whole shebang. God's people, what we now call the church on earth, would become one big prophet. And the church would then take on the job that Moses did and Elijah did and all the prophets had done. Whatever was going on in the world, whatever was going on wherever the church was, the church would be God walking into the scene, making warnings and promises, and doing various miracles.
And what's going on? Portents, Joel says. I think of portents as the terrible things that drive us to our knees before God. It interested me that people did not flock to church when the economy went south. Actually the trend has been in the other direction. People have been leaving church. Now no one has studied this or figured out why. My take on it is that we are still trying to fix this thing ourselves. We haven't been driven to our knees yet. But we're getting there, I think. We'll be on our knees sooner or later, and probably sooner.
Blood and fire and smoky mist. Crucifixions and oil spills and old friends suddenly dying, bloody wars and terrorist bombings and parents getting Alzheimer's, political stalemates and rampant dishonesty and a son or daughter who's addicted, blood and fire and smoky mist, the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Things that are just wrong. Things that just aren't supposed to be.
But there are the very things, old Joel is saying, these are the very things that should give us hope, because these are the things that set the stage for our longing, our calling, our shouting out for God. These are the very things that prompt us to open ourselves, to give up and ask for help.
What was spoken was a prediction that we would someday come, my friends, we, the church of Jesus Christ. Waitresses and doctors and store clerks and contractors and farmers and therapists and soft drink salesmen and professors and boatyard workers and bank tellers, that we as one body, filled with the peace of God, would walk on to the world stage, the world full of darkness and blood, to speak and act for God.
This is why the church building stands here, why we gather each week, why we collect our resources at this table, why we listen to the word of God each week. This is a last day thing, the ultimate purpose of God, to be his presence in a broken-up and frightened world. Through us and through the whole church on earth, we are each of us being saved, and are each of us also be drawn into the saving work of God for all the world.
Today is our day to pray for God's Spirit. To cry out to God in our powerlessness, to turn to God with our incapacity to make right what is clearly wrong, or even understand which is which. It's our annual day to ask God for his Spirit. We are not asking that certain of our members receive it, that we lift up this one or that one, we are not asking that the pastor receive it, so that the rest of us need not be bothered by it, we are asking for what was spoken by the prophet Joel. We are asking that we all receive the Spirit, and not only us, but everyone worshipping at Zoar, and everyone worshipping at Clarksbury, and everyone worshipping at churches in Bali and South Africa and Germany and Japan. We are asking for the one Spirit of God, the one voice that we all understand, that makes us all one child of God.
In my last long conversation with Mrs. Miller, she was telling me a good bit about what used to be at Philippi. But then she stopped and paused and thought a moment. Then she smiled and said, "But Mr. Used-To doesn't live here anymore."
There's a book we'll all be studying at the Regional Assembly called Reaching People Under 50 While Keeping People Over 60, and one of the studies it reports says that people under 50 tend to look into the future, while people over 60 tend to look into the past. And that has been true in my experience.
I remember a woman named Hildegarde. She was in her early eighties when I met her while serving her church, Faith Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was thinking of her this morning. She's long since passed on, but she was my Liz's godmother when I baptized Liz in 1998. Most of the members of Faith were over 60, and most of them talked more or less all the time about the way it used to be.
But Hildegarde wasn't like the other older people at Faith. Mr. Used-To was really of no interest to her. Right up until she died, she was a visionary at Faith. She saw what God had in store for that church. One Sunday she came into my office and talked with me about her dreams for the future of her congregation, and at one point tears began to run down her face. I asked her what was wrong. And she said, "I just wish I could be here to see it."
But of course, she was there, and she was seeing it. She was living it. She was living what was spoken by the prophet.
"In these last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, so that your young people shall see visions, and your old people will dream dreams."
Amen.
Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C 2010
And the Prisoners Were Listening
07 Easter C 10
May 16, 2010
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
Happy Easter! Yes, it's still Easter. It began at the beginning of April and here we are halfway through May and we're still celebrating.
I've been led (I believe by the Spirit) to preach on the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. And I've been asking along the way if you can see Philippi, our own church, in these stories of the church in its infancy.
I know of an alcoholic, I won't name her, and she might not even be a woman, who found her way into a spiritual life and thus out of the grips of her addiction to alcohol. She had been a terrible drunk, ripping, as the twelve-step literature says, though the lives of those she knew and loved like a tornado. Her husband, especially, suffered. She was no kind of partner, of course. Her spending and her laziness and her moodiness and self-centeredness all conspired to make her terribly difficult to love. But the man was really a saint. No matter how often she disappointed him, he was always there to help her, to clean up the mess.
So of course, when she got sober, there was much rejoicing. The husband was very excited and all his friends congratulated him.
Then, one night, she came home from a meeting to find a bottle of her favorite gin on the table in the kitchen. It had a note taped to it. "I want my wife back."
The husband had bought her the alcohol not because he wanted her to continue to suffer, but because his own identity and status had become dependent on her being sick. When she began to heal, he suddenly lost his sainthood status. He had nothing further to suffer.
Exploitation takes many forms. In our story today, the slave girl's owners make money on her ability to predict the future. When she is healed she becomes useless. The resurrection agitates and unsettles a world that often exploits the suffering of many to make secure the happiness of a few. When God comes on the scene, wrapped in the flesh of the people of the church, those in bondage are set free, those in power are knocked down a notch, and those who are weak are lifted up.
So much of our daily efforts around the world are based not on healing the creation, but on servicing its disease. So many of our institutions and business ventures depend for their survival on the presenting problems they address remaining unfixed. We make a virtue of suffering and then laud the overworked and underpaid, instead of simply treating them fairly. We have a huge and costly health care system that depends for its profits on rampant food and drug addictions. We also have a huge and costly criminal justice system that depends on many of those same addictions. We have an increasingly global economic system that lays the prosperity of a relatively few on the back of a relatively large majority in poverty. Then, social service organizations, including the church, expend tons of life-draining energy putting bandaids on those who are bleeding to death, instead of loudly and fiercely casting out the demons that are doing the cutting.
How many of the working poor in our community might have been okay through this economic downturn if they'd been paid a living wage when the economy was good? How many Mexicans would be staying in their own country now if our nation's farmers hadn't dumped cheap corn on their markets? How much might our health care system have benefited if something other than economic growth at all costs were not the defining value taught and preached from every pulpit in the country, therefore encouraging compulsive behaviors that become the cornerstone of big profit?
The resurrection is the power of God to save the world. It is not give to us to help us cope with problems that can't be fixed. It is not given to us to favor a few at the expense of the many. It is not given to us to help us put up with injustice and keep our mouths shut. It is not given to us to gain social status as saintly individuals dependent on the suffering around us to look important. It is the power of God to save the world.
Harry Leach often serves as a spiritual mentor to me, and the Serenity Prayer is one of his favorites. He often reminds me that serenity depends on my willingness to put into God's hands those things over which I have no control. It is a worthy and important lesson, but one that can be misinterpreted.
That prayer is the favorite of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts all over the world, who begin their recoveries by recognizing their powerlessness over their own addictions. Giving their problem into the hands of God does not mean that they simply give into it. Turning something over to God doesn't mean forgetting about it, not thinking about it anymore, not doing anything about it. Recovering addicts turn their problem over to God through a series of very difficult steps. I believe those steps are the path taught by Jesus Christ. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" does not mean accepting a life of active addiction. It means accepting that I must turn to God to change things I cannot change myself. I will need tremendous courage to do the things that I must do to turn my problem over to God.
This is the church's work, friends, the work of resurrection, of getting up from the dead, of being reborn as new creatures, of saving the world.
When Paul and his companions were locked into the prison, they sang praises to God. And Luke tells us that the prisoners were all listening to them. Think of that for a moment, friends. Think of that rotting, stinking, dark and dingy jail, the prisoners in near despair. Think of the sound of songs of praise drifting through those hallways.
That's the sound of resurrection.
Amen.
07 Easter C 10
May 16, 2010
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
Happy Easter! Yes, it's still Easter. It began at the beginning of April and here we are halfway through May and we're still celebrating.
I've been led (I believe by the Spirit) to preach on the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. And I've been asking along the way if you can see Philippi, our own church, in these stories of the church in its infancy.
I know of an alcoholic, I won't name her, and she might not even be a woman, who found her way into a spiritual life and thus out of the grips of her addiction to alcohol. She had been a terrible drunk, ripping, as the twelve-step literature says, though the lives of those she knew and loved like a tornado. Her husband, especially, suffered. She was no kind of partner, of course. Her spending and her laziness and her moodiness and self-centeredness all conspired to make her terribly difficult to love. But the man was really a saint. No matter how often she disappointed him, he was always there to help her, to clean up the mess.
So of course, when she got sober, there was much rejoicing. The husband was very excited and all his friends congratulated him.
Then, one night, she came home from a meeting to find a bottle of her favorite gin on the table in the kitchen. It had a note taped to it. "I want my wife back."
The husband had bought her the alcohol not because he wanted her to continue to suffer, but because his own identity and status had become dependent on her being sick. When she began to heal, he suddenly lost his sainthood status. He had nothing further to suffer.
Exploitation takes many forms. In our story today, the slave girl's owners make money on her ability to predict the future. When she is healed she becomes useless. The resurrection agitates and unsettles a world that often exploits the suffering of many to make secure the happiness of a few. When God comes on the scene, wrapped in the flesh of the people of the church, those in bondage are set free, those in power are knocked down a notch, and those who are weak are lifted up.
So much of our daily efforts around the world are based not on healing the creation, but on servicing its disease. So many of our institutions and business ventures depend for their survival on the presenting problems they address remaining unfixed. We make a virtue of suffering and then laud the overworked and underpaid, instead of simply treating them fairly. We have a huge and costly health care system that depends for its profits on rampant food and drug addictions. We also have a huge and costly criminal justice system that depends on many of those same addictions. We have an increasingly global economic system that lays the prosperity of a relatively few on the back of a relatively large majority in poverty. Then, social service organizations, including the church, expend tons of life-draining energy putting bandaids on those who are bleeding to death, instead of loudly and fiercely casting out the demons that are doing the cutting.
How many of the working poor in our community might have been okay through this economic downturn if they'd been paid a living wage when the economy was good? How many Mexicans would be staying in their own country now if our nation's farmers hadn't dumped cheap corn on their markets? How much might our health care system have benefited if something other than economic growth at all costs were not the defining value taught and preached from every pulpit in the country, therefore encouraging compulsive behaviors that become the cornerstone of big profit?
The resurrection is the power of God to save the world. It is not give to us to help us cope with problems that can't be fixed. It is not given to us to favor a few at the expense of the many. It is not given to us to help us put up with injustice and keep our mouths shut. It is not given to us to gain social status as saintly individuals dependent on the suffering around us to look important. It is the power of God to save the world.
Harry Leach often serves as a spiritual mentor to me, and the Serenity Prayer is one of his favorites. He often reminds me that serenity depends on my willingness to put into God's hands those things over which I have no control. It is a worthy and important lesson, but one that can be misinterpreted.
That prayer is the favorite of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts all over the world, who begin their recoveries by recognizing their powerlessness over their own addictions. Giving their problem into the hands of God does not mean that they simply give into it. Turning something over to God doesn't mean forgetting about it, not thinking about it anymore, not doing anything about it. Recovering addicts turn their problem over to God through a series of very difficult steps. I believe those steps are the path taught by Jesus Christ. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" does not mean accepting a life of active addiction. It means accepting that I must turn to God to change things I cannot change myself. I will need tremendous courage to do the things that I must do to turn my problem over to God.
This is the church's work, friends, the work of resurrection, of getting up from the dead, of being reborn as new creatures, of saving the world.
When Paul and his companions were locked into the prison, they sang praises to God. And Luke tells us that the prisoners were all listening to them. Think of that for a moment, friends. Think of that rotting, stinking, dark and dingy jail, the prisoners in near despair. Think of the sound of songs of praise drifting through those hallways.
That's the sound of resurrection.
Amen.
Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C 2010
"Come and Stay"
06 Easter C 10
May 9, 2010
Acts 16:9-15, Psalm 67, Revelation 21:10, 22:1-5, John 14:23-29
Happy Easter!
Yes, I know it's Mother's Day. And we're not going to let this worship service go by without honoring that national holiday. But it's also still the season of Easter. Today is the sixth Sunday we celebrate the resurrection, and next week will be the seventh and last. Of course, every Sunday worship service is a celebration of the resurrection.
I've been moved this Easter season to preach on the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which we have said seems more like the book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's Luke's sequel to his Gospel. In today's movie sequel language, The Gospel of Luke 2. It's the story of what happened in the few years immediately after Jesus rose from the dead. It's a protracted story of his resurrection.
It's Christ, through the Holy Spirit, who is running the whole show. Christ enables Paul to have the vision of the man from Macedonia. And it's Christ who opens Lydia's heart to the message about Jesus.
Now before we all start talking about our dreams and telling each other how our own desires and choices are actually God's mystical guidance, let's remember that both Paul and Lydia are described in the scriptures as practiced and experienced believers. I know there are a lot of ideas I have that are not at all Spirit-led, and discerning between what comes from heaven and what comes from my own belly is not always easy. Paul grew up in the Jewish faith, and after his conversion to faith in Christ, he also received significant training. Similarly, Luke describes Lydia as "a worshipper of God," which means she has been at this thing for a while.
Lydia is of course another of Luke's women. Luke, of all the gospel writers, seems most interested in the ways in which the resurrection uplifted women. We've heard this Easter season about the wonderful saint Dorcas, the wealthy woman who bestowed lavish gifts on the poor, and here we are introduced to another wealthy female merchant, who becomes the founder of the original Philippi. You might call Lydia our congregation's spiritual mother.
When I read the passage, and the other passages appointed for this day, I was struck by the idea of God making his home in the midst of his people. In a very real sense this is what the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus points to. God coming among his people and making his home there.
And so it was Lydia's simple words, "Come and stay," that struck me. Lydia, she of the God-opened heart, invited Paul and his companions, the emissaries of the risen Christ, to "come and stay," and in so doing, invited the risen Christ as well. And in inviting the risen Christ, she also invited God.
"Come and stay," she said.
Our own Walter Deagle has been to the city of Philippi and has visited the ancient sites. Some of his compatriots in the army were even baptized at what is believed to be the church founded by Lydia. He has a particular fondness for the place and told me yesterday that he really wishes he were here today. Philippi went on to become a major city in the ancient church, where a number of congregations sprang up, all because God opened this woman's heart. God came, and God stayed. God made his home in Philippi.
Despite the importance of women in the early church, as late as about a century ago, it was virtually impossible for a woman to become an ordained leader of the church. Many who were drawn to ministry ended up taking another route, marrying ministers. There are any number of famous ministers' wives in American history. In some cases, the minister's wife ended up having more of an impact than her husband.
In the black church, there's an honorific for a female leader, one who exemplifies everything Christians strive to be. She is called "the mother of the church." Just as Lydia was the mother of the ancient church at Philippi, so Elaine Miller is the mother of our modern Philippi. It's obvious to all of us who have gotten to know her that God indeed had opened her heart, and she, like Lydia, invited him to "come and stay." Come and stay in my heart. Come and stay in my home. Come and stay in my village. Come live with us.
I asked Mrs. Miller yesterday if she was afraid at all. Of course she wasn't. And despite her discomfort and being away from home, she grasps the hands of everyone who visits and tells them as best she can that she loves them. She's not frightened because the Spirit of God has come to her and stayed in her. And there is nothing, nothing in this world, that can kill or destroy the Holy Spirit.
I feel led to announce this morning that the church is Jesus risen from the dead. I want to say that again, "The church is Jesus the Christ risen from the dead." Another way of saying this is, "The church is God in the flesh." Another way of saying this is "The church is God's way of making his home in the world."
Let me say more about this, and I hope you're listening, because this is important. The church is meant to be a unified body of Spirit-filled members, working together to manifest the presence of God where they are. From among those members certain leaders emerge who carry the message elsewhere. Members like Paul and Peter and all the ordained ministers of the church since.
But for most of us, all the other ministers, the church is the particular embodiment of God's Spirit at home among humankind in any given place or time. It is Jesus Christ risen from the dead in the form of a bunch of people who collectively welcome his Spirit and allow him to Lord over them.
Now this may not be how we experience the church. We might experience it as yet another consumable. Another thing on the list of things we want in our lives, another thing we go out and purchase and use to improve the quality of our lives. And at the point where the church meets North American 21st century culture I suppose this is pretty much what it is. And for some, perhaps, it never ceases to be that.
For others, the church is a social club in which one works at improving one's status in the community. It's all about the public perception. I saw a play recently in which a character described a certain perfect Christian. She said, "If you just stand next to him, you just feel vile." Some folks are aiming at creating that impression. Personally I like Harry Leach's favorite Mark Twain quote: "It's my vices that endear me to my friends, my virtues that annoy them."
But deeper in, where the real church resides, are the people who have embraced the practices of prayer and meditation and deep investigation of scripture and self-examination and repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation, seeking to be filled the God's Holy Spirit, and to encounter Christ alive as Lord. And no matter who appears to be in charge, at the heart of every real church are at least a few people who are filled with God's Spirit, who are literally transformed into God's flesh, at least at those times when they are spiritually healthy.
Mrs. Miller is certainly one of those people, and it is her lifelong work and passion for Christ that has blessed this church, just as Lydia's did the ancient church at Philippi.
Let's not forget this, friends. Let's not forget that we are hear not so much to have our needs met as to have our hearts opened by God. Let's not forget that the purpose of our being here is not so much to get what we want, but to be filled by God's Spirit, who will give us far more than we could even imagine to ask for.
Let's not forget to invite God to come and stay.
Amen.
06 Easter C 10
May 9, 2010
Acts 16:9-15, Psalm 67, Revelation 21:10, 22:1-5, John 14:23-29
Happy Easter!
Yes, I know it's Mother's Day. And we're not going to let this worship service go by without honoring that national holiday. But it's also still the season of Easter. Today is the sixth Sunday we celebrate the resurrection, and next week will be the seventh and last. Of course, every Sunday worship service is a celebration of the resurrection.
I've been moved this Easter season to preach on the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which we have said seems more like the book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's Luke's sequel to his Gospel. In today's movie sequel language, The Gospel of Luke 2. It's the story of what happened in the few years immediately after Jesus rose from the dead. It's a protracted story of his resurrection.
It's Christ, through the Holy Spirit, who is running the whole show. Christ enables Paul to have the vision of the man from Macedonia. And it's Christ who opens Lydia's heart to the message about Jesus.
Now before we all start talking about our dreams and telling each other how our own desires and choices are actually God's mystical guidance, let's remember that both Paul and Lydia are described in the scriptures as practiced and experienced believers. I know there are a lot of ideas I have that are not at all Spirit-led, and discerning between what comes from heaven and what comes from my own belly is not always easy. Paul grew up in the Jewish faith, and after his conversion to faith in Christ, he also received significant training. Similarly, Luke describes Lydia as "a worshipper of God," which means she has been at this thing for a while.
Lydia is of course another of Luke's women. Luke, of all the gospel writers, seems most interested in the ways in which the resurrection uplifted women. We've heard this Easter season about the wonderful saint Dorcas, the wealthy woman who bestowed lavish gifts on the poor, and here we are introduced to another wealthy female merchant, who becomes the founder of the original Philippi. You might call Lydia our congregation's spiritual mother.
When I read the passage, and the other passages appointed for this day, I was struck by the idea of God making his home in the midst of his people. In a very real sense this is what the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus points to. God coming among his people and making his home there.
And so it was Lydia's simple words, "Come and stay," that struck me. Lydia, she of the God-opened heart, invited Paul and his companions, the emissaries of the risen Christ, to "come and stay," and in so doing, invited the risen Christ as well. And in inviting the risen Christ, she also invited God.
"Come and stay," she said.
Our own Walter Deagle has been to the city of Philippi and has visited the ancient sites. Some of his compatriots in the army were even baptized at what is believed to be the church founded by Lydia. He has a particular fondness for the place and told me yesterday that he really wishes he were here today. Philippi went on to become a major city in the ancient church, where a number of congregations sprang up, all because God opened this woman's heart. God came, and God stayed. God made his home in Philippi.
Despite the importance of women in the early church, as late as about a century ago, it was virtually impossible for a woman to become an ordained leader of the church. Many who were drawn to ministry ended up taking another route, marrying ministers. There are any number of famous ministers' wives in American history. In some cases, the minister's wife ended up having more of an impact than her husband.
In the black church, there's an honorific for a female leader, one who exemplifies everything Christians strive to be. She is called "the mother of the church." Just as Lydia was the mother of the ancient church at Philippi, so Elaine Miller is the mother of our modern Philippi. It's obvious to all of us who have gotten to know her that God indeed had opened her heart, and she, like Lydia, invited him to "come and stay." Come and stay in my heart. Come and stay in my home. Come and stay in my village. Come live with us.
I asked Mrs. Miller yesterday if she was afraid at all. Of course she wasn't. And despite her discomfort and being away from home, she grasps the hands of everyone who visits and tells them as best she can that she loves them. She's not frightened because the Spirit of God has come to her and stayed in her. And there is nothing, nothing in this world, that can kill or destroy the Holy Spirit.
I feel led to announce this morning that the church is Jesus risen from the dead. I want to say that again, "The church is Jesus the Christ risen from the dead." Another way of saying this is, "The church is God in the flesh." Another way of saying this is "The church is God's way of making his home in the world."
Let me say more about this, and I hope you're listening, because this is important. The church is meant to be a unified body of Spirit-filled members, working together to manifest the presence of God where they are. From among those members certain leaders emerge who carry the message elsewhere. Members like Paul and Peter and all the ordained ministers of the church since.
But for most of us, all the other ministers, the church is the particular embodiment of God's Spirit at home among humankind in any given place or time. It is Jesus Christ risen from the dead in the form of a bunch of people who collectively welcome his Spirit and allow him to Lord over them.
Now this may not be how we experience the church. We might experience it as yet another consumable. Another thing on the list of things we want in our lives, another thing we go out and purchase and use to improve the quality of our lives. And at the point where the church meets North American 21st century culture I suppose this is pretty much what it is. And for some, perhaps, it never ceases to be that.
For others, the church is a social club in which one works at improving one's status in the community. It's all about the public perception. I saw a play recently in which a character described a certain perfect Christian. She said, "If you just stand next to him, you just feel vile." Some folks are aiming at creating that impression. Personally I like Harry Leach's favorite Mark Twain quote: "It's my vices that endear me to my friends, my virtues that annoy them."
But deeper in, where the real church resides, are the people who have embraced the practices of prayer and meditation and deep investigation of scripture and self-examination and repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation, seeking to be filled the God's Holy Spirit, and to encounter Christ alive as Lord. And no matter who appears to be in charge, at the heart of every real church are at least a few people who are filled with God's Spirit, who are literally transformed into God's flesh, at least at those times when they are spiritually healthy.
Mrs. Miller is certainly one of those people, and it is her lifelong work and passion for Christ that has blessed this church, just as Lydia's did the ancient church at Philippi.
Let's not forget this, friends. Let's not forget that we are hear not so much to have our needs met as to have our hearts opened by God. Let's not forget that the purpose of our being here is not so much to get what we want, but to be filled by God's Spirit, who will give us far more than we could even imagine to ask for.
Let's not forget to invite God to come and stay.
Amen.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C 2010
What God Has Made Clean
05 Easter C 10
May 2, 2010
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
It amazes me how difficult it is for me to change how I feel about something or someone. In fact, I would say it's impossible. My emotions seem to have a compulsive power, even though I know they don't represent reality or fact. There are times, though, that I become convinced that how I feel about something is connected to facts and reality, even when it isn't. This is the greatest trap of all.
It may be our culture has taught us to trust our feelings above all other things. We are trained, day in and day out, to assess our feelings, to ask ourselves if we are happy, if we are getting what we want and what we need, to put everything we spend time doing to that test. Is it making me feel good? This seems to be the ultimate question in a consumeristic society.
But I have learned the hard way that my feelings can't be trusted, that chasing what I feel is right and good for me or even for others can often be deeply wrong. My salvation does not come from within. It comes from God, through Jesus Christ, in the gift of the Holy Spirit. I can trust the Holy Spirit. I can't trust Mike. And you can't trust Mike either, by the way. But you can trust the Holy Spirit.
In whatever culture we belong to, there are all kinds of distinctions that are made. We are taught to stick to our own, to stay close to those we "belong to." Those outside of that circle are of no concern, or at least of less concern, than those inside it. Moreover, we are taught that we can be compromised by spending time with outsiders, that we will lose our purity or identity if we don't keep the boundaries clear. All of us, whether we are Jewish or not, have an idea of what is unclean for us, what is dirty for us.
I think at least one of the most basic issues causing the decline of the church in the Northern hemisphere is our growing inability to simply stay in the sandbox with our neighbors, to simply stick by them, stay faithful. We're always looking for someone to push out of the sandbox, or else we're looking for a new sandbox. Either way, we give up on each other, we give up on partnership, we give up on community.
This passage teaches us that, if we pay attention to the leading of the Spirit, it will almost certainly lead us to those we would not ordinarily relate to. And if we don't pay attention to the Spirit's leading, the Spirit will find whom she will find, and may in fact abandon us.
The book of Acts has been called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's probably the bible's premiere book on the subject. And one of the chief markers of the identity of Christ's Holy Spirit is faithful community. The Spirit seems most interested in drawing people together around the table of Jesus Christ, and keeping them there. The Spirit seems interested most in building a bigger and bigger sandbox, and keeping people together within it.
It's the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ that gives us all our energy and power and distinctiveness and purpose. In this story from Acts, Peter remembers the word of the Lord, who said, "John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The purpose and intention of the Holy Spirit is primarily creative. God's Spirit is the breath that animates life and growth and newness. Whatever it is that may be wrong with us or with our community or with our world is fixed not by our efforts or ideas or opinions or power, at least not finally, at least not completely. But anything may be made whole through the infusion of God's Holy Spirit.
We in the Disciples tradition have a few slogans that address this issue. One of them is "In essentials, unity, in non-essentials freedom, and in all things, love." Unfortunately, these days I think the essentials have come into question. We have plenty of freedom and plenty of love, but in the essentials, I don't think we are unified.
Without unity in the essentials, we can't be the church. Giving up this essential unity, even for the sake of a good thing like diversity, ultimately undermines the church and robs it of its energy. It is essential for example that Jesus Christ be the center of everything we believe and do as the church. I would submit that few rank-and-file Christians could tell you much that is accurate about Jesus Christ, much less articulate how he is actually the Lord of their lives. Instead, I think we tend to follow charismatic individuals who appeal to what we feel we need or want, and justify it all in the name of Jesus. We can have all the liberty and charity we want, but without the unity in this essential, we cease to be the church and become instead just another human institution, without the Holy Spirit.
But when we come to believe Jesus Christ is alive, we receive God's Holy Spirit, and we are transformed. We see what we could not see before, we hear what we could not hear before, we do what we could not do before. Our feelings no longer rule us. We are ruled instead by God. This is how God makes us holy. And one of the many things that we can see and hear and do, that we couldn't do before, is to share this same Holy Spirit.
Peter's dream writ large has to do with the cleansing of the whole creation. It has to do with the ways in which we draw lines between what is holy and what is not, what is of concern and what is not, who is acceptable and who is not. And it is about the spiritual process, the path of Christ, toward a greater and greater presence of God in and through all people and things. It's a pivotal story in the book of Acts, because it points to the whole story, the story of the spread of the Holy Spirit, like some spiritual flood, pouring out into Jerusalem and spreading throughout the Roman empire.
God doesn't condemn the unclean. We do. It is true that there are things that have not been suffused with God's Spirit. But this is not because they can't be. It is because we haven't suffused them.
What God has made clean, we should not call profane.
05 Easter C 10
May 2, 2010
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
It amazes me how difficult it is for me to change how I feel about something or someone. In fact, I would say it's impossible. My emotions seem to have a compulsive power, even though I know they don't represent reality or fact. There are times, though, that I become convinced that how I feel about something is connected to facts and reality, even when it isn't. This is the greatest trap of all.
It may be our culture has taught us to trust our feelings above all other things. We are trained, day in and day out, to assess our feelings, to ask ourselves if we are happy, if we are getting what we want and what we need, to put everything we spend time doing to that test. Is it making me feel good? This seems to be the ultimate question in a consumeristic society.
But I have learned the hard way that my feelings can't be trusted, that chasing what I feel is right and good for me or even for others can often be deeply wrong. My salvation does not come from within. It comes from God, through Jesus Christ, in the gift of the Holy Spirit. I can trust the Holy Spirit. I can't trust Mike. And you can't trust Mike either, by the way. But you can trust the Holy Spirit.
In whatever culture we belong to, there are all kinds of distinctions that are made. We are taught to stick to our own, to stay close to those we "belong to." Those outside of that circle are of no concern, or at least of less concern, than those inside it. Moreover, we are taught that we can be compromised by spending time with outsiders, that we will lose our purity or identity if we don't keep the boundaries clear. All of us, whether we are Jewish or not, have an idea of what is unclean for us, what is dirty for us.
I think at least one of the most basic issues causing the decline of the church in the Northern hemisphere is our growing inability to simply stay in the sandbox with our neighbors, to simply stick by them, stay faithful. We're always looking for someone to push out of the sandbox, or else we're looking for a new sandbox. Either way, we give up on each other, we give up on partnership, we give up on community.
This passage teaches us that, if we pay attention to the leading of the Spirit, it will almost certainly lead us to those we would not ordinarily relate to. And if we don't pay attention to the Spirit's leading, the Spirit will find whom she will find, and may in fact abandon us.
The book of Acts has been called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's probably the bible's premiere book on the subject. And one of the chief markers of the identity of Christ's Holy Spirit is faithful community. The Spirit seems most interested in drawing people together around the table of Jesus Christ, and keeping them there. The Spirit seems interested most in building a bigger and bigger sandbox, and keeping people together within it.
It's the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ that gives us all our energy and power and distinctiveness and purpose. In this story from Acts, Peter remembers the word of the Lord, who said, "John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The purpose and intention of the Holy Spirit is primarily creative. God's Spirit is the breath that animates life and growth and newness. Whatever it is that may be wrong with us or with our community or with our world is fixed not by our efforts or ideas or opinions or power, at least not finally, at least not completely. But anything may be made whole through the infusion of God's Holy Spirit.
We in the Disciples tradition have a few slogans that address this issue. One of them is "In essentials, unity, in non-essentials freedom, and in all things, love." Unfortunately, these days I think the essentials have come into question. We have plenty of freedom and plenty of love, but in the essentials, I don't think we are unified.
Without unity in the essentials, we can't be the church. Giving up this essential unity, even for the sake of a good thing like diversity, ultimately undermines the church and robs it of its energy. It is essential for example that Jesus Christ be the center of everything we believe and do as the church. I would submit that few rank-and-file Christians could tell you much that is accurate about Jesus Christ, much less articulate how he is actually the Lord of their lives. Instead, I think we tend to follow charismatic individuals who appeal to what we feel we need or want, and justify it all in the name of Jesus. We can have all the liberty and charity we want, but without the unity in this essential, we cease to be the church and become instead just another human institution, without the Holy Spirit.
But when we come to believe Jesus Christ is alive, we receive God's Holy Spirit, and we are transformed. We see what we could not see before, we hear what we could not hear before, we do what we could not do before. Our feelings no longer rule us. We are ruled instead by God. This is how God makes us holy. And one of the many things that we can see and hear and do, that we couldn't do before, is to share this same Holy Spirit.
Peter's dream writ large has to do with the cleansing of the whole creation. It has to do with the ways in which we draw lines between what is holy and what is not, what is of concern and what is not, who is acceptable and who is not. And it is about the spiritual process, the path of Christ, toward a greater and greater presence of God in and through all people and things. It's a pivotal story in the book of Acts, because it points to the whole story, the story of the spread of the Holy Spirit, like some spiritual flood, pouring out into Jerusalem and spreading throughout the Roman empire.
God doesn't condemn the unclean. We do. It is true that there are things that have not been suffused with God's Spirit. But this is not because they can't be. It is because we haven't suffused them.
What God has made clean, we should not call profane.
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