—Liza Neal
Genesis
21:8-21
“The child Isaac grew, and was weaned; and
Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac
was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing
with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast
out this slave woman with her son; for the son
of this slave woman shall not inherit along with
my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing
to Abraham on account of his son. But God said
to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because
of the boy and because of the slave woman; whatever
Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it
is through Isaac that offspring shall be named
for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I
will make a nation of him also because he is your
offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the
morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and
gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder,
along with the child, and sent her away. And she
departed, and wandered about it in the wilderness
of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast
the child under one of the bushes. Then she went
and sat down from him a good way off, about the
distance of a bowshot; and she said, “Do
not let me look at the death of this child.”
And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her
voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the
boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from
heaven, and said to her, “What troubles
you, Hagar? Do not be afraid for God has heard
the voice of your boy where he is. Come, lift
up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for
I will make a great nation of him.” Then
God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.
She went and filled the skin with water, and gave
the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he
grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became
an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness
of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from
Egypt.”
“Whose Child
is that?”
Village Church
June 22, 2008
Today is World Refugee Day, a day to remember that millions of people all over the world have been displaced due to famine, violence, and political turmoil, a day to recognize the hardships and the contributions of those people. Last year at this time, Kelly and I were in Kakuma, one of the largest refugee camps, in the northwestern part of Kenya. The Lutheran World Fellowship runs it with support from many churches along with the United Church of Christ. The camp houses refugees from all over the world but their largest groups are refugees from Sudan. Day long celebrations were held with performances of traditional music and dance with wooden instruments and colorful clothes, performances of contemporary music with modern rap and break dancing wearing shirts sporting US logos, skits were done to illustrate what life was like in the camp, to comment on the practices and policies of the government of Kenya, to encourage education for the young and equality for the women, and of course, there were speeches inspiring courage and perseverance.
The UN secretary-general reminded us,
“As humankind enjoys unprecedented mobility, with more people than ever before changing countries and even continents in pursuit of better opportunities, let us remember that not everyone who leaves home does so by choice. Refugees do not leave their homes and villages willingly. They are forced to do so by conflict or persecution. In many cases, they are fleeing for their very lives, trying to find safety, protection and a way to meet their most basic needs. For tens of millions of people, exile has brought untold hardship. Rather than an opportunity to pursue education or employment, leaving home has meant traumatic experiences of uncertainty, deprivation and intolerance... Entire communities may also seek refuge within their own countries. Living in refugee-like conditions within their borders, internally displaced people have the same need for protection and assistance, education and a safe environment… And then there are the stateless, those who because of their ethnicity or history are simply denied the right to a nationality. For them, “going home” may not depend on a peace accord and repatriation, but rather, on overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and securing an official identity.”
We live in an area that has many refugee communities. We have Cambodians, Tibetans, Russians, Sudanese, and more, just within the Pioneer valley. Our own town of Cummington has a great history of being a refuge to Jews when it was not popular to do so, not to mention being one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Sometimes we forget that we are a country of refugees. Not just today but from the earliest points of our history as a country our ancestors left the countries that they were born in because of famine, violence, political, social, and religious oppression.
Not only our country but also and even more importantly our very faith is based on the stories of refugees. The people of the Bible are a people of refugees. They become refugees in Egypt because of famine. Then they become refugees in Canaan because of the oppression of slavery. As Persia, Babylon, and Rome become rulers of Israel, they become refugees all over the world.
The story we heard this morning begins before all this, and it is a more personal story of becoming a refugee, a story of someone completely inconsequential and powerless, a slave and her son.
Abraham makes a covenant with God. He promises to have a relationship with God and God promises to give Abraham and Sarah a son whose children will develop into a great nation that will bless the entire world. But God takes God’s time, as God so often does, and Abraham and Sarah get impatient. They start to doubt that God is going to come through. So Sarah tells Abraham to sleep with her slave Hagar. This is not an unusual thing to do at the time for women who cannot have children but are wealthy enough to own slaves. Abraham, who pretty much goes along with whatever anybody tells him, agrees. Ishmael is born.
But then Sarah gets pregnant and Isaac is born, and everything changes. Sarah, who’s the reason Ishmael was born in the first place, now is unhappy. She does not even want the children to play together. She interrupts the children’s natural tendency to play together and treat each other as brothers to instill in them the hierarchy, classism, and racism of their society. Even worse than that, she convinces Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael out in the desert.
In truth, this means sending them to their deaths. Hagar was a slave, a woman, and an Egyptian far away from Egypt. She had no protection and no way to survive, and she was sent out into the desert with nothing but bread and a skin of water. But Hagar is no passive victim. She has an incredible strength of character and she has something that no other woman in the Bible has. She has a covenant with God.
Before Hagar gave birth, while she was still pregnant, she ran away into the desert wilderness. She had been proud of the fact that she was pregnant, and Sarah treated her harshly because of it. As she wanders in the desert, tired and afraid and alone, God comes to her asking, “where have you come from and where are you going?” She explains that she is running away. God tells her to return, but God promises her that not only will her son be born but healthy and well but that he will have so many offspring, they will not be able to be counted for the multitude. She too is promised a great nation. Thus Ishmael becomes the ancestor to the Arab people, and to the religion of Islam, as Isaac becomes the ancestor to the Hebrew people, and the religion of Judaism.
God saves Hagar and her son twice in the desert, and she is the only person in the Bible to name God. Naming implies power and intimacy and relationship. She names God “Elroi” or God who sees, because she asks, “Have I really seen God and remained alive?” God not only sees Hagar, but God loves her.
This is where we see the uniqueness of the character of the God we have come to believe in through the stories of these refugees. All people throughout time and history have had gods. They have all had creation stories and gods whom they prayed to and they all considered themselves special and chosen by their own gods. The unusual thing about this one was that the God that came to Hagar was not one that cared just for the chosen people. The God who Sees cares for all people.
God made a covenant with Abraham and chose the people through Isaac. However, they are not God’s only concern. God also made a covenant with Hagar. God has a role and a purpose for every people. And in fact, God demonstrates to people again and again that God’s concern is not just for the favored son but also for the son of the slave. God’s concern is for the orphaned, the poverty-stricken, the enslaved, the imprisoned, the tortured, and the abandoned.
God does not stop Abraham and Sarah from doing wrong in this story, just as God does not stop us from doing wrong to each other. Yet God is constantly working to draw good out of the situation, to lead us to the well of living water in the desert that we too might have life just at the moment when we are certain we will die. God is always working to turn the tables, that the first might be last and the last might be first. Our God not only cares for us and the people that we love, but for all peoples, our enemies, immigrants, refugees, and strangers. On top of that, God calls us to care for all peoples as well.
If we are to be the people of God, if we are to be followers of God, then God calls us to care for the orphaned and welcome the stranger. We should never be asking ourselves, whose child is that? We already know. That is God’s child, and thus, whoever she is, wherever she is from, whatever she has done or not done, however old she is, we must welcome her, care for her, and love her as the child of God she is.
Let us pray.
Hosea, 5:15-6:6
I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
In their distress they will beg my favor:
“Come, let us return to the Lord,
for it is he who has torn, and he, will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
What shall I do with you, 0 Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, 0 Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and My judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called
Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said
to him, “Follow me.” And he got up
and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the
house, many tax collectors and sinners came and
were sitting With him and his disciples. When
the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors
and sinners?” But when he heard this, he
said, “Those who are well have no need of
a physician but those who are sick. Go and learn
what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
For I have come to call not the righteous but
sinners.”
While he was saying these things to them, suddenly
a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before
him, saying, “My daughter has just died;
but come and lay your hand on her, and she will
live.” And Jesus got up and followed him,
with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who
had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve
years came up behind him and touched the fringe
of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If
I only touch his cloak, I will be ‘made
well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said,
“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made
you well.” And instantly the woman was made
well. When Jesus came to the leader’s house
and saw the flute players and the crowd making
a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the
girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they
laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put
outside, he went in and took her by the hand,
and the girl got up. And the report of this spread
throughout that district.
"Hearing, not hearing,
the story"
Village Church
June 8, 2008
Sermon given by John Maruskin
Our Liza is a hard act to follow, so I hope you’ll
be patient with me.
It can be a challenge to work up a message from
the lectionary. There are usually a number of choices to work
with. For today there were four possible selections
from the Old Testament, and two from the New.
Some seemed related, but they didn’t all
have an obvious connection. What to do?
I emailed Liza about this and she replied that
she considers which reading will flow best from
the previous Sunday, or is more congenial to her
theologically, or one that just gives her an idea
while she’s reading it.
Well, that’s easy for her to say.
Nevertheless, I tried to follow her method and
I chose Hosea and Matthew from this weeks selections—because
I saw something there which echoed from one to
the other, because Matthew continues, sort of,
from last week, and because I got an idea.
Be aware that the opinions expressed here are
my own and not necessarily endorsed by the management
(point upward).
In this part of Matthew, in the sections we have
been hearing for the last week or two, Jesus is
laying it out for people— what he believes,
what he expects, where people are going wrong
and where they can go right.
In last week’s lesson we heard Jesus say
“Everyone who hears these words of mine
and does them will be like a wise man who built
his house on rock.” Also that not everyone
who says “Lord, Lord” will enter heaven.
In today’s lesson, Jesus calls Matthew,
a tax collector, to come follow him. Jesus does
more than just call him—he sits and eats
with Matthew and his fellow tax collectors and
other miscreants. When the Pharisees asked “Why?
Why are you eating with THOSE people?” Jesus
says that it is the sick, not the healthy, who
need the doctor. Then he rebukes the Pharisees
further, saying “Go and learn what this
means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”
Jesus is quoting that sentence.
Hosea, speaking as God rebuking Israel for her
transgressions, says “I desire steadfast
love and not sacrifice.”
Perhaps this is where Jesus got his quote. Perhaps
“mercy” and “love” are
two ways of translating the Hebrew from Hosea.
Perhaps mercy and love are linked in Jesus’s
eyes.
Here Jesus is continuing his custom of turning
conventional wisdom and practice upside down,
to let his listeners see the parts of their faith
which have become merely religion by rote, rule-following
without heart, and without soul.
Sacrifices can be good, but not sacrifices of
the fatted calf kind. I think Jesus is telling
the Pharisees that if they are going to sacrifice,
it should be their pride, their prejudices, their
belief that they are already doing everything
right which should be sacrificed. He wants them
to show the kind of mercy that will allow them
to forgive a tax collector, eat with him and welcome
him back into the community of worship.
Mercy and love are not good works, nor are they
faith. They are a way of being. When someone is
merciful, they are not doing something so much
as being something. Their being may lead to good
work, but it is not the work in itself, and the
work is not the necessary goal. There is no goal.
When a person is truly merciful, he or she is
not trying to be merciful, they just are merciful.
And the being is more important than any action.
There is an inherent contradiction in the idea
of “acting” mercifully. If one IS
merciful, IS loving, in their very being, and
not just in their desires for gratitude, or some
kind of recognition, or from fear, there is no
need to act, and good works which really mean
something will follow.
Is there anyone I haven’t confused yet?
There is a sermon, or a fragment of a sermon,
from the great 13th century preacher and mystic
Meister Eckhart, which goes along these lines.
He imagines asking a “good man” some
questions. Eckhart says that everything in time—by
which he means, in our world— has a reason.
“Why are you eating?” “For Strength”,
“Why do you sleep?” “For the
same reason” etc.
But if you ask the good man or woman, “Why
do you love God?” she will reply “I
don’t know— because he IS God!”
“Why do you love truth?”
“For truth’s sake.”
“Why do you love goodness?”
“For goodness’ sake”
And finally “And why do you live?”
“On my honor, I don’t know—I
like to live.”
Notice that none of the answers are “Because
I can make a difference in the world” or
“Because God or my church or my government
wants me to” or “Because I can save
souls” or “Because God will get mad
at me if I don’t.”
Love God because he is God. Love goodness for
goodness sake. Be merciful for mercy’s sake.
Don’t expect anything from it. I think that
Jesus is telling us that this is what we are meant
to do, this is what we are meant to be.
It’s not all that easy of course. We have
to train ourselves away from worldly expectations,
we have to think about what we are doing, and
why we do it. It takes questioning our reasons
and motivations. It takes humility. Acting as
Jesus would have us act will create in us not
a faith that we have, but a faith that we are.
In today’s lesson we hear of a sick woman
with real faith. She didn’t think she deserved
anything. She didn’t promise to be a better
person, or do good works or praise God. She just
trusted in Jesus, trusted in his holiness and
goodness, trusted it so much that she thought
if she could just touch his robe that would be
enough to cure her. And she was cured.
There is an interesting parallel to this Jesus
story in a Hasidic story of the Baal Shem Tov,
one of the great founders of the Hasidic movement
in Judaism. Baal Shem Tov is an honorific which
means “Master of the Good Name.” His
real name was Israel ben Eliazar. The Baal Shem
believed the world was full of God and for that
reason we should be joyful and our prayers should
be offered with joy. In this story, a sick woman,
another woman of great faith, sees the Baal Shem
Tov and touches his robe just like the woman in
Matthew touched Jesus’ robe, and she also
was cured of her ailment. But there is a twist
to this story. A twist that shows the difference
between real faith and the faith which we think
we have.
As the miracles of Jesus were broadcast throughout
the land, so it was with the miracles of the Baal
Shem Tov. Another woman suffering from a similar
ailment heard about the cure of the first woman.
So she sought out the Baal Shem Tov where he was
preaching and she also touched his robe. But she
wasn’t cured. Later she accosted him and
complained. “Why wasn’t I cured like
the first woman?”
The Baal Shem replied, “Because you already
heard the story.”
Don’t be good, merciful, loving because
you already heard the story.
Be good, merciful, loving without reason, without
justification, without hope of gain or salvation,
but with great joy. Be it because it is the way
we are meant to be, with the help of God.
Let us pray.
Deuteronomy 11:18-25
“You shall therefore lay up these words
of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you
shall bind them as a sign upon you hand, and they
shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you
shall teach them to your children, talking of
them when you are sitting in you house, and when
you are walking by the way, and when you lie down,
and when you rise. And you shall write them upon
the doorposts of your house and upon your gates,
that your days and the days of your children may
be multiplied in the land which the Lord sore
to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens
are above the earth. For if you will be careful
to do all this commandment which I command you
to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all
God’s ways, and cleaving to God, then the
Lord will drive out all these nations before you,
and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier
than yourselves. Every place on which the sole
of your foot treads shall be yours; your territory
shall be from the wilderness and Lebanon and from
the River, the river Euphrates, to the western
sea. No man shall be able to stand against you
upon all that land that you shall tread, as God
promised you.”
Matthew 7:21-29
“Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but the one who does the will of my Father who
is in heaven. On that day many will say to me,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name, and cast out demons in your name, and do
many mighty works in your name?’ And then
will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you;
depart from me, you evildoers.’
“Every one then who hears these words of
mine and does them will be like a wise man who
built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat
upon that house, but it did not fall, because
it had been founded on the rock. And every one
who hears these words of mine and does not do
them will be like a foolish man who built his
house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat against
that house, and it fell; and great was the fall
of it.”
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds
were astonished at his teaching, for he taught
them as one who had authority, and not as their
scribes.
“Eschewing Power
for Will”
Village Church
June 1, 2008
The Catholics were a little off too. They said we are saved not by what we believe but rather be what we do. We are made righteous by our good deeds. And it is true that we are called to seek justice, to care for the poor, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, and more. But that is not all of it. We can never do enough. There will always be more to do, and we are not always perfect. We can never balance the scales of individual and collective wrong in the world by our own actions.
So how then are we saved? If faith alone is not enough, if works are not enough, how are we to be saved?
God saves us. Salvation is a gift, pure and simple, to humanity. Like the gift of life, salvation is given to us out of love, a pure act of grace on the part of the God in whom we live, move, and have our being. We do nothing to deserve it or earn it or gain it, whether through our deeds or our beliefs. It is given to us, like the beauty of the earth is given to all.
This we find troubling. Salvation is completely out of our control, and as human beings, we find this frightening. We want to be able to have control over what happens to us. We want to be able to have control over others. We want to be able to decide who gets in and who gets out. Thus we create elaborate structures, hierarchies, doctrinal beliefs, and hoops that we might determine our future and the future of others.
Yet, God asks us to trust. God asks us to eschew power for God’s will. God asks us to give up our desire to be in control, in charge of everything, and instead to let God be in charge. God wants us to let go of our own desire for power and seek out God’s will.
Jesus tells us ‘not every one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of the Father in heaven.’ In Jesus’ day, there were those who believed that only those who did good deeds would get into heaven and thus accounted their deeds like money in the bank. They did not have to have a relationship with God or with the people who were oppressed and sick and different, they just had to follow certain rules. There were also those who believed that only those who were Jewish would get into heaven and thus as long as they were, they were all set and could do anything they wanted.
But according to Jesus, not every one who called ‘Lord, Lord,’ would be saved. And to even those who had done deeds of power, who had preached and healed and done good works, to them Jesus said, I never knew you.
Today there are those who think you have to be a Christian or you will not go to heaven, and there are those who think you have to be a Christian who does good deeds. But you do not have to be a Christian to get into heaven any more than you had to be a Jew in Jesus’ time, and your good deeds can never be enough just as they were not enough in Jesus’ time. Salvation is a gift, freely given, out of the love and grace of God to all. To all who would do the will of the God in whom we live, move, and have our being.
In other words, like the gift of life and the gift of the earth, salvation is a gift that we may do with what we please. It can be embodied or it can be struggled with or it can be thrown away. It is a gift we must be responsible for. We must nurture it and live into it in the ways that we live our lives, in our relationships to one another, and in our relationship to God.
Originally being a Christian meant following the way of Christ. It was not an identity but rather a lifestyle, a lifestyle of constantly seeking out what God wants for our lives. Salvation is not about justification by faith or works righteousness. It is about following the path that God sets before us and when we find ourselves at a crossroads, seeking out God’s desire for where we might go next, what we should do, how we should live, and who we are becoming. It means allowing ourselves to be dependent on God. In weakness, we find God’s strength. In God’s strength, we find power greater than our own or that of the world.
We must allow God to be God, and ourselves to be human. We must trust God, and trust in the gift of grace and love that offers salvation to all. We must embody that salvation in both our whole being- mind, body, and soul- seeking out with each step the will of the one who holds us all in life, in death, and in the beyond.
Let us pray.
Isaiah 49:8-16a
“Thus says the Lord: In a time of favor
I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have
helped you; I have kept you and given you as a
covenant to the people to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to
the prisoners, “Come out,” to those
who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways, and on the bare
heights shall be their pasture; they shall not
hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun
shall strike them down, for the one who has pity
on them will lead them, and by springs of water
will guide them. And I will turn all my mountains
into a road, and my highways shall be raised up.
Lo, these shall come from far away, and lo, from
the north and from the west, and these from Syene.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break
forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord
has comforted the people, and will have compassion
on the suffering ones. But Zion said, “The
Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget
her nursing child, or show no compassion for the
child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet
I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you
on the palms of my hands.”
Matthew 6:24-34
“No one can serve two masters, for a slave
will either hate the one and love the other, or
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve God and wealth.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat and what you will drink,
or about your body, what you will wear. Is not
life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow
nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly
Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than
they? And can any of you by worrying add a single
hour to your span of life? And why do you worry
about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet
I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not
clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes
the grass of the field, which is alive today and
tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not
much more clothe you- you of little faith? Therefore
do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’
or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What
will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who
strive for all these things and indeed your heavenly
Father knows that you need all these things. But
strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s
righteousness, and all these things will be given
to you as well.
So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble
is enough for today.”
“Quieting the
Voice of Worry”
Village Church
May 25, 2008
Today’s passage in Matthew is about perspective. It is about keeping your eye on the prize, it is about the goal; it is about what we keep our mind focused on and how that affects our lives here and now. Of course we all need to eat and drink and be clothed but it is not the most important thing.
The passage begins by reminding us that we cannot serve God and wealth. When we are focused on seeking out the kingdom of God, we live simply having enough for ourselves and enough to share. When we focus on wealth, there is never enough.
We live in a consumerist society. We spend hours a day listening to ads on television and on the radio telling us all the things we need to buy to make us happy. Our leaders tell us to shop in order to be patriotic. In our society, we can never have enough because it is always important that we buy more. We must have more, we must spend more, and we must get more so that we can be happy, so that we can be good citizens. This is the brilliance of consumerism. With consumerism, we can never have enough because we must always get more. It breeds unhappiness even as it promises happiness. It breeds fear, anxiety, worry, and debt even as it promises answers and security.
Yet Jesus tells us that life is more than food and clothes and the things we have. In our relentless pursuit for wealth and security, we have lost sight of what is valuable. What we spend our time thinking about most becomes what we value most. Yet life is more than food and clothes and the things we have or don’t have.
If we focus our thoughts on seeking the kingdom of God, seeking out justice and healing and community, then we will be able to learn what is truly of value. What reminds you what is truly valuable? Perhaps it is the lilies of the field. Perhaps it is the music of the sparrows. Perhaps it is the laughter of children. Perhaps it is the sacrifices of friends. Focus on that which draws you back to God, which draws you back to wholeness and the truth that the Universe will provide.
Yet, how can we not worry? Especially today on Memorial Day weekend in the midst of war, when at this very moment young men and women are risking their lives, as we remember those whose lives were lost in the wars of the past, as we remember our own grief. How can we not worry? I know I worry most about losing the ones I love, even as I know that it is inevitable because we all die. I say not yet, not now, let us have just a little longer.
God does not promise us that bad things will not happen in our world and to us. Yet God does promise us that all things work together for good for those who are called according to God’s purpose. That means you and I. We are called according to God’s purpose, and so we can trust that whatever happens in our lives, God is working for good. It does not mean that bad things will not happen in the world and to us personally. It means that when bad things do happen, we will get through them and God will work some good from out of that situation. There will be redemption. At all times God is the energy that works toward good, and that energy continues always and in every circumstance, even when we cannot see it.
The world tells us that there is a scarcity in the world. A scarcity of food. A scarcity of goodness. God tells us that we have enough if we can just learn to share it. We hoard, whether it is our food or our love, out of fear. Thus we end up without enough even for ourselves. When we keep our eyes on God’s love, we can trust that there is enough. We can trust that we have enough and share it, so that we end up not only with enough for ourselves but also enough for everyone. This is the miracle of the loaves and fishes, which no one understood. God has given us all that we need, we have enough, if we can just learn to reach out to one another.
Isaiah’s words are born out of this trust in God’s redeeming love; “saying to the prisoners, “Come out,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”’ These are not people who have had easy lives. These are not people who have had nothing bad happen to them. They have been imprisoned. They have walked in darkness. They have been through war and lost people they love. They have lost their homes and their livelihoods. They have been hungry and thirst and lost. Yet God promises that even still “they shall feed along the ways, and on the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down for the one who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.”
The world wraps us in sorrow and difficulty, some of which we create through violence and war and mistaken priorities, and some of which are just part of the natural cycle of birth and death, of the movements of the earth and loss. Oftentimes it breaks us. Yet God is here longing to shower us with compassion, to wrap us in Her arms and nurse us to health and wholeness throughout every sorrow and throughout our lives. God wants to rock us singing a lullaby, to assure us that despite all we experience, we will come to goodness and redemption in the end.
This is the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Regardless of the evils of the world demonstrated in violence and injustice and empire, regardless of even the natural cycle of birth and death, the story ends in transformation and union with God. Every Sunday you hear the prayer, God loved when you were born and God will love you when you die, as God will always love you. God’s love transcends our life here on this earth even as it is expressed through it.
There is a radio in our heads and it is running with the voice of consumerism, which tells us we do not have enough, the voice of worry, which says we cannot trust in the goodness of God. Yet God has demonstrated for us in the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that there is no boundary between God’s redemption and ourselves. Neither life nor death nor principalities nor powers nor height nor depths nor nothing else which is on heaven or on earth can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God has inscribed us in the palm of God’s hand.
“And God will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of God’s hand.”
Let us pray.
Acts 2:1-21
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they
were all together in one place. And suddenly from
heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent
wind, and it filled the entire house where they
were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared
among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit
gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under
heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound
the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because
each one heard them speaking in the native language
of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are
not all those who are speaking Galileans? And
how is that we hear, each of us, in our own native
languages? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents
of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and
Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts
of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from
Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-
in our own languages we hear them speaking about
God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed
and perplexed, saying to one another, “What
does this mean?” But others sneered and
said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his
voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea
and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known
to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these
are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only
nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is
what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions, and your
old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves,
both men and women, in those days I will pour
out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I
will show portents in the heaven above and signs
on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky
mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and
the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s
great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
“Lighting the
Flame”
Village Church
May 11, 2008
This is the moment when the disciples go from confusion to clarity. They go from worshipping at the temple to building the church. John says it best in his blog— “This is a big day for those guys. This is where it all starts to come together for them. Before, they have been sort of mixed up all along about what was going on. Very confusing, seeing their leader betrayed by one of their own, he dies, then he comes back, then he goes away again. Who wouldn’t be confused? Poor guys. But now they start to see what the job is all about.
Basically, the disciples are a rum lot. Always confused, always looking in the wrong direction, as it were. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels leaves one with the idea that Jesus really could have used a good Human Resources person to vet the disciples. But he didn’t have one and there it is. One changes the world with the people one has, not necessarily with the people one might desire.”
At Pentecost the disciples experience what their mission is. They are the redemption of the tower of Babel. Do you remember the story of the tower of Babel? It is way back in the beginning of time in Genesis. It is post-Adam and Eve and pre-Noah. Humanity has gotten together and decided to create a great tower. This tower is going to be so massive and high that it will reach all the way to heaven. Then God says, “oh no, you are not going to get into heaven that way” and proceeds to give everyone different languages in one instant. Suddenly no one can understand each other so they cannot work together anymore and the tower is abandoned. The divisions between humanity and between humanity and God are explained and maintained.
Now it is Pentecost though and the Holy Spirit has come to change all of that. The Holy Spirit comes and the disciples being speaking spontaneously in all different languages. Each person who hears them hears in their own language no matter where in the world they are from. The barriers are removed! God wants to be reached.
And we don’t even have to build a tower to do it. God has come to us. God has smashed the barriers between earth and heaven, and sent God’s self to rest upon our heads. We lay hands on people’s head for two reasons: healing and the anointing of power. God sent the Spirit to rest upon their heads to heal them and to anoint them for their mission. God sends the Spirit now to heal and to empower because we too have a mission. Each one of us has a role and a purpose.
When Peter spoke he explained that each one heard in their own language because each one had a call from God. We need each one in order to build the kingdom of God. We cannot do it on our own because we only know our own way. In God’s way, each one has his and her part to play. “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Everyone will be intimate with God. Everyone will have access to the Spirit. None of the barriers that will place upon God will be recognized. Peter and the prophet Joel say, “Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” Who we say is not holy enough changes with each generation. Who we say is allowed to come to God, who we say is allowed to speak for God, changes with each generation. But on Pentecost, the Spirit has come to say that all people, regardless of where they are from, what their gender is, what their position is society is, whatever boundaries have been erected, all people will hear the voice of God and witness the Spirit.
This is the Lord’s great and glorious day, the day the Spirit comes. In fact every single day that the Spirit comes is God’s glorious day, and the Spirit comes all the time. Most often in ways we do not take notice. We notice the wind when it is loud and rushing, yet it blows constantly wherever it wills sometimes in gentleness and in silence perceptible only in the slight movement of the leaves.
Yet we get all caught up in the signs and wonders. We are waiting for the fire, for the blood to boil, and the sun to go dark. Hasn’t it already though? Haven’t you come to a moment in your life when the world for you ended? What about the Holocaust? What about the war? What about the destruction in Burma? It is no wonder there have been so many end of the world movements within Christianity. The great Biblical writers knew how to write about tragedy and destruction. Which is not surprising, their world had been destroyed so many times- as even now it continues to be destroyed through the wall and the checkpoints and the suicide bombs and the violence.
Yet even in the midst of these tragedies, the mission of the Church goes on. In fact in the midst of the tragedies the mission of the Church that was born on Pentecost becomes that much stronger and more important.
The Spirit has come rushing like a mighty wind, lighting a flame that rests over our heads. Who will speak the words beating against our hearts? Who will translate the Spirit to a world in desperate need of healing that breaks barriers? Who will translate Spirit to a world in desperate need of a Power that reconciles rather than divides?
Each one of us has a place and purpose here in God’s world, no matter who we are, where we are on our journey, or what our qualifications are. God has called us together to do something important. We need one another. We need one another that we might know and understand and feel the intimacy of God. We need to remember and then to speak the memory of God’s promise to one another, the promise that despite all of our tragedies, whatever violence or death or terror we encounter, our lives and the lives of the world will end nurtured in the arms of God. The God who comes to us when we cannot come to God.
Let us pray.
Acts 1:6-14
6So when they had come together, they
asked him, “Lord, is this the time when
you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7He replied, “It is not for you to know
the times or periods that the Father has set by
his own authority. 8But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9When he had said this, as they were watching,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of
their sight. 10While he was going and they were
gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white
robes stood by them. 11They said, “Men of
Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into
heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him
go into heaven.”
12Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount
called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath
day’s journey away. 13When they had entered
the city, they went to the room upstairs where
they were staying, Peter, and John, and James,
and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and
Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the
Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14All these were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together
with certain women, including Mary the mother
of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
“Becoming Witnesses”
May 4, 2008
Village Church
The disciples are still not getting it. Jesus has died and been resurrected, and stands amongst them about to ascend into heaven. Yet they still misunderstand his mission on earth. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” They are tired. They have been through a rollercoaster of emotions in the past few days- complete terror, total grief, despair, confusion, bewilderment, hope, and transforming joy. They are ready now for it all to be over. They are ready for the happy ending and the curtains to come down. They are ready for paradise, the end of everything.
That’s not what Jesus has in mind though. This is just the beginning. They are not going to usher in the restoration of the earthly kingdom of Israel. They are going to become witnesses. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
What does that mean, to become witnesses? Jesus told them again and again that his power was not of this world. He was not here to renew a Davidic line of royalty in the throne of Israel. He was here to renew the Spirit. He was here to reveal the kingdom of God on earth wherever it appeared, and to plant its seeds in the places where it was absent. He was here to restore the world through healing it not through ruling it.
And so the disciples do not get to escape. They do not get to stand on the sidelines, or in the removed world of wealth and royalty. They must wade knee deep into the sin and suffering of the world. They must become a witness by literally witnessing what is going on in the world. When injustice happens, it must not happen silently with no one there to speak out. When violence happens, it must not go unnoticed and unremarked upon. It is too easy for us to believe that the world is the way that it is because it has to be or there is no other way. Fear and apathy and ignorance convince us that inequity, injustice, and oppression are just the rules of life and so we ignore them. But not the disciples. The disciples are to witness the sin of the world. They are to be in places of war and poverty and hopelessness.
The disciples are there to restore the kingdom of God on earth. The disciples are to be witnesses to the ways of God. They are to bring healing in the midst of sickness, to bring hope in the midst of despair, to bring light in the midst of darkness. They are sent to plant the seeds of another vision of how we might live. They are sent to plant the seeds of how we might love one another in the midst of the message of selfishness and hate that surrounds us.
It is not easy. We are inundated with it through advertising, television, news, what we have been taught, what has been passed down, our own fears and weaknesses. Where do we hear messages of love and commitment to others and to changing the world? How often do we hear those messages in comparison? How often do we spend time thinking about it or doing it? We have been given a responsibility as disciples of Jesus to be his witnesses, to bear the weight of the world, to shine love and light upon it. How are we going to have the strength to do that when we hardly have the strength to bear the weight of the sorrow and injustices in our own lives? Yet Jesus tells the disciples they will receive the power to do this. They will not have to do it on their own. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
This is why we gather. We need one another for encouragement. We need one another for comfort. Without support, we cannot be a voice of difference and compassion in this world of consumption and self-absorption. We need one another and we need to pray for the Spirit.
At the end of the passage we read today, it says that the disciples gather together including the women and the family of Jesus. Jesus’ family had become distanced from him during his ministry. They had tried to shut him up because he was causing trouble and reflecting badly on them. When they went to see him, Jesus did not even recognize them as family but rather said to the crowd, “Whoever does the will of God is my mother and brother and sisters.” Yet here at the end they have become one family with his followers. They have become one in their suffering, in their grief over the loss of Jesus and in their transformation at this resurrection; they have become one. Now they gather to be empowered together by the Spirit that they might become witnesses.
It is a powerful demonstration of the central message of Jesus ministry: the message of reconciliation. Jesus called together those who had no connection to each other- the rich and the poor, the sick and the whole, those of different religions and those who understood their religion differently, the ungodly and the righteous, the oppressed and the oppressor. That they might all be one. Jesus called them together not to be the same but that they might love one another in their differences.
In South Africa when apartheid ended, Bishop Desmond Tutu formed the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. This committee became witnesses- hearing for the first time the truth of all the sins of apartheid; the small acts of hatred and the huge acts of murder, personal and systemic degradation. In becoming witnesses, they created the space for forgiveness and reconciliation. They created the space for the kingdom of God to reveal itself from within.
It was a radical act of healing and lives were changed. Now this does not mean that everything is all set now in South Africa. It is not a paradise on earth. There is incredible economic poverty and injustice. The need for witnesses goes on. And that is where you and I come in. Not just in South Africa but all over the world.
We are the disciples. We are called to become witnesses, here and now, and everywhere we go. We are called to the task of healing and reconciliation. We have been promised the power of the Spirit that we might do this work. Have you come today to gain that power? Have you come today to be comforted? Have you come today to lift up your brothers and sisters? Have you come today to learn to love in the midst of differences, to become one? Then let us constantly devote ourselves to prayer.
Acts 17:22-31
“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus
and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely
religious you are in every way. For as I went
through the city and looked carefully at the objects
of your worship, I found among them an altar with
the inscription, “To an unknown god.”
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I
proclaim to you. The God who made the world and
everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven
and earth, does not live in shrines made by human
hands, nor is served by human hands, as though
the Holy One needed anything, since the Holy One
gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit
the whole earth, and God allotted the times of
their existence and the boundaries of the places
where they would live, so that they would search
for God and perhaps grope for God and find God-
though indeed the Holy One is not far from each
one of us. For ‘In God we live and move
and have our being’ as even some of your
own poets have said,
‘For we too are God’s offspring.”
Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not
to think that the deity is like gold, or silver,
or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination
of mortals. While God has overlooked the times
of human ignorance, now God commands all people
everywhere to repent, because God has fixed a
day on which God will have the world judged in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed,
and of this God has given assurance to all by
raising him from the dead.”
“Hail to the
Unknown”
April 27, 2008
Village Church
The Athenians are not like Paul. When they hear about the resurrection of the dead, they think that sounds a little nutty. Tell me more. They are open-minded. Paul when he first heard about Jesus, cried blasphemy, and joined in arresting, stoning, and persecuting the followers of Jesus. Paul had to be knocked off his horse in the middle of the road by God’s self before he would listen to the words of Jesus.
The Athenians understand humility. They embrace the reality that they do not know everything. Despite their many very detailed stories about the gods and goddesses of their land and culture, they erect an altar to an unknown God. They leave room for the unknown. Instead of fearing the unknown, they honor it.
We are not like the Athenians. We think we know God. We have our sacred texts. We have our theologians and our centers of learning. We have our great historical tradition. Although, these things tell us many different even contradictory things about God. But no matter because we go to church. Although we believe different things in our church when we sit down and talk about it, and so it’s not this that makes us think we know God. We insist that we do though. We divide religions and churches and families over it.
The unknown is a place without image or clarity, it is a place of darkness and in our culture we fear the darkness. In fact it is our fear of the darkness that drives us to insist that we know God. We look and we cannot see an image of God and so we look to other images. We look to nature and we see God as the Great Mother Earth, birthing at spring, growing old at winter and being reborn. We look to ourselves and we see God as the great human being in the sky, with all our best qualities, mercy, kindness, justice, compassion, and wisdom.
We are not wrong in this. Yet, the place that we get tripped up is where we insist that we know the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We get tripped up when we insist that we know, when we do not leave room for the unknown. God is always larger than whatever our conceptions are. We risk putting God in a box. We risk missing a deeper understanding of God because we are not willing to listen to a different conception of the Divine. We risk missing God entirely because we have created a space so small that God cannot fit.
Many of the early church fathers such as Athanasisus, the bishop of Alexandria, one of the attendees of the councils that defined orthodox Christianity in the fourth century through the Nicene Creed believed in a theology called apophatic theology. In essence they believed we can never know or say what God is. How can we possibly know what God is when God is inherently higher and larger than we. We can only know what God is not. God is not hatred. God is not violence. God is not a destroyer.
Paul reminds us that “in God we live, move, and have our being.” We are like fish in the ocean of the Divine. We breathe God in; we swim through God’s depths. How can we know what is all around us when we cannot see it, touch it, taste it? We describe it. We describe it all the time. That is what all of our hymns and sacred texts and my sermon today are all about. Yet it is all just descriptions of something we cannot quite put our hands on because it is all around us and inside of us.
Humanity sees wealth and beauty in things so we see God in gold, silver, and stone. Paul tells us though that this is not where God is to be found. They are just images, just lovely manifestations. God is not to be found in the stone of the church sanctuary, or the beauty of the printed word in the Bible, or the gold of the cross on the altar. They are just signposts. God is not in them but rather through them and beyond them. If in God we live, move, and have our being, we must open our eyes to all that which lives, moves, and has being. We must open our eyes to one another and ourselves. We must open our eyes to see what is around us. We must open our eyes to the living that we might find God.
Paul tells us that we have been created with the desire to seek God…”so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God- though indeed the Holy One is not far from each one of us.” We have to grope because we are in the darkness here. Not because it is night or because it is evil but rather because we are moving within the territory of the unknown. God has created us with a hunger to know God that we might reach out in the darkness, that we might grasp God’s hand in our need.
We will never know everything. There will always be more, until the end of time. And even that is merely our hope. This may be an endless search we are on. Not because we have received no answers but rather because there are always more questions. We have been created with a quest. Still, God has promised us that when we seek, we will find. We must keep in mind that no matter where we are, we are still only in the midst of our journey. Whatever we have found or do find is not all there is to know. There is more. God is deeper than our deepest knowledge.
Paul Tillich said that God is the Ground of All Being. How can we know the ground that we stand upon? We cannot entirely, but with humility and in recognition of that, we can reach down our hands and thrust them into the dirt, feel the dust of galaxies, feel the stardust, which is our dust as well, the dust into which God breathed giving us life.
Let us pray.
Acts 7:55-60
“Now when they heard these things they were
enraged, and they ground their teeth against him.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into
heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold,
I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing
at the right hand of God. But they cried out with
a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed
together upon him. Then they cast him out of the
city and stone him; and the witnesses laid down
their garments at the feet of a young man named
Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And
he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord,
do not hold this sin against them.” And
when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Village Church
April 20, 2008
The Christian community in Jerusalem was growing.
They had so much to do between sharing their possessions
with one another, healing the sick, caring for
the poor, and spreading the good news of God’s
reconciliation to all that they had to appoint
more apostles. They needed more leaders. Stephen
was one of these leaders, and his job as you can
gather from the story, was preaching.
At the time the Christians were not called Christians.
They were members of the Way, a strange small
sect of Judaism that believed the Messiah of the
Jews had come in a man named Jesus who was crucified
and resurrected, that Israel and in fact the entire
world was redeemed and reconciled, despite appearances
to the contrary. They were still part of the Jewish
community as there were a number of sects within
Judaism that held variant theologies. They still
celebrated the Sabbath, went to temple, and the
synagogue with the Jewish community as a whole.
Then in addition they gathered to celebrate the
transformation that had been wrought in them through
Jesus. They were passionate and preached that
others could be transformed as well; that the
world itself was already.
The major appearance to the contrary was the Romans.
The Romans were increasing their pressure on the
Jews. They were crucifying people daily, not just
in the major center of Jerusalem but also along
the side of the road. They considered the Jews
atheists because they believed in one God rather
than in many gods and goddesses, and would not
worship the emperor as one. They considered them
troublemakers and always rebelling. The Romans
wanted to squash that rebellion, and in a few
years would destroy the temple in doing that.
So the Jewish leaders, who at other times in history
were open and welcoming of religious debate and
differing ideas and interpretation, were cracking
down on the populace. They were trying to keep
their religion together in a difficult time and
their people safe and alive. They reasoned that
if there were dissent and fighting amongst themselves
it would just give the Romans an excuse to kill
them. Therefore, it was time for the sects to
be brought into line. There would be one doctrine
and one practice. It is the same reasoning that
later on Christians used attacking Gnostic sects
within Christianity.
So the persecution began really with a misguided
attempt to keep the community as a whole safe.
Of course, it didn’t work. Not only did
the Romans continue to attack Jews, they took
up the persecution of Christians as well. It was
a dangerous time to speak what was on your heart.
My aunt Stella went to Turkey a few years back.
She called me when she came back and said to me,
“I don’t know if I am a Christian.”
I was a bit surprised. My aunt was raised seventh
day Adventist, which is a branch of Christianity
that is very strict even worshipping on the seventh
day. In her later adult years as her spirituality
grew more progressive she became a Methodist,
but she was always a believer at heart. “What
happened?” I asked her. While she was in
Turkey she visited a series of underground caves
that Christians hid from the Romans in. She stood
bent over in that tiny dark space and wondered
whether or not she would be willing to die for
her faith. “I don’t know,” she
said, “I don’t think I could do it.”
What do you think? Would you die for your faith?
Would you stand like Stephen before a crowd with
stones, and insist that you still believe Jesus
can be seen standing at the right hand of God?
Would you allow yourself to be torn apart by lions,
or would you capitulate? Would you save your life
with a lie?
Jesus said ‘greater love has no one than
the one who gives her life for her friends.”
What would you give your life for? Your children
perhaps? Your husband or wife? Your parents? Your
best friend? God?
The question brings into sharp relief what is
truly most important to us. It may be God. It
may be our family. It may be our own life. We
often talk about the things that are most important
to us. But it has been my experience that often
times we are lying to ourselves. We tell ourselves
whatever we want to be most important to us rather
than what truly is. We do not actually need to
have our lives threatened to figure it out. We
can look at where we spend our money and our time.
Not where we would like to spend our money and
our time, but where we actually spend our money
and our time. Is what you spend your money and
your time on worth dying for? If not, then perhaps
it is not worth what you spend on it either.
Now I do not want you to get the wrong impression
about martyrdom. Jesus is not asking you to get
killed. Being willing to die does not mean seeking
out death. Jesus tells the disciples they will
be persecuted if they are living as he has urged
them to live. He does not tell them to go looking
for persecution. Jesus tells the disciples that
giving one’s life for another is an act
of love. He does not tell them to go looking for
the executioner.
Martyrdom should never be sought. In fact when
it is sought, then it becomes vainglory. It becomes
sin. It becomes idolatry. Glory and personal righteousness
are being worshipped, not God. When we seek after
our own destruction and suffering out of a desire
to worship God or be a better person, then we
have lost our way. We are seeking justification
of our own self, justification of our own way
of thinking, believing, or living.
We can have tendencies towards this kind of idolatrous
martyrdom without actually seeking violence. I’m
talking about emotional martyrdom. Sacrificing
and sacrificing, never taking care of my self,
but don’t worry about me, I’m happy
to do all of this for you. Of course, in my heart,
I feel you owe me. In my heart, I believe that
I’ve got it right and everyone else if they
were a really good person would be following suit.
We all have this tendency, whether it is our way
of life, our government structure, our economic
policies, our way of thinking. We know the right
way and if we give people room, it is usually
because we figure they will come around to our
way of thinking eventually.
This is why Jesus tells us that we must never
go to remove the speck in our brothers’
or sisters’ eye without first removing the
log in our own. This is why Jesus tells us that
it is not just a sin to murder someone, but also
to have hatred in our heart. We must look to our
intentions. We must look to our actions, yes,
and we must also look to what is motivating our
actions.
Jesus calls us to a live lived out of the principles
of loving everyone- your self, the people you
hate, the people who hate you, strangers, family,
loving God, and seeking justice for each one in
a world that would deny it and distract you with
bread and circuses. Jesus calls us to live a life
of self-examination, that these principles may
be present in our actions and in our hearts.
The early Christians died for their faith, and
we are hardly willing to talk about ours. The
early Christians died for their faith, not out
of a desire to die or be really great saints or
sit at the right hand of God in heaven. They died
because they told the truth about love offered
to everyone no matter who that was. They died
because they wanted to live that love out, share
with the poor so that everyone had enough, reach
out to their enemies and outcast so that everyone
was part of the community. It seems simple when
you say it and not something you’d kill
someone over. Yet throughout history when leaders
reach out in love and non-violence, they are cut
down.
Sometimes people say what new thing did Jesus’
teachings really add to the world. Love your neighbor?
That’d been said before. Love your enemies?
Well, he was not the only one to say that. And
there is nothing radical here. Just a way of life
that when lived, from the heart through the mind
and into action, changes everything, changes hearts
and minds and lives, even the life of the world,
even your own life.
Let us pray.
Acts 2:43-47
“And all who believed were together and
had all things in common, and they sold their
possessions and goods and distributed them to
all, as any had need. And day by day, attending
the temple together and breaking bread in their
homes, they partook of food with glad and generous
hearts, praising God and having favor with all
the people. And the Lord added to their number
day by day those who were being saved.”
“Day by Day”
Village Church
April 13, 2008
A little boy once asked in Sunday School, “what is the most difficult miracle that God performed? Was it parting the Red Sea? Was it feeding the five thousand with only a few loaves and fishes? Was it tumbling the walls of Jericho? Was it the resurrection? What do you think the most difficult miracle was? Of course everyone had a different idea.
He kept asking the question to everyone he’d meet. Some would say the creation of life. Some would say the destruction during the flood. Finally having grown older and pondered many years, he figured it out. The most difficult miracle that God performed was this time in Acts when all who believed were together and held all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.
Can you imagine living that way? We have a hard enough time figuring out how to agree and disagree, much less sharing all of our stuff. We are a cantankerous and quarrelsome lot, humanity. It is not just that though. It is not just selfishness and self-focus. In our society we are defined by what we have. Who we are in the world depends on what we are able to get in life. A car, a house, television, a cell phone—you know, the necessities. Success in life is defined by our ability to get what we want and maintain it. We are a consumer society.
Even people become defined as objects. People are something we acquire as well. We get a wife and children, at least in our vision of successful life, in much the same way we get a car. First we make our selves a success getting a job that can get us lots of things, thus being able to attract the highest status partner, so we can then get more things together.
It used to be that when you met someone you would tell them who you are related to, and perhaps this is still true in small towns, perhaps even for some in Cummington. But in most places now when you meet someone you tell him or her what you do. Your job defines you and it signals how much you are able to participate in the getting of things. American society was built on individualism. We’ve stopped sharing even among families. Whereas once there might have been a family car, now each individual member needs a car. It is no surprise that we use up most of the world’s resources, despite our smaller population.
vThere’s been an advertisement on TV recently for a show in which they laid out side by side all the things that an average American is likely to own in a lifetime side by side. Although I have not seen the show, the commercial alone shows a shot of stuff stretching out for miles in every direction. In traditional society, there are elaborate gift-giving ceremonies where all the goods are redistributed amongst the people. We have elaborate gift-giving ceremonies but all the gifts must be brand-new each time, using up more resources and waste and straining our budgets. Otherwise we are re-gifting, thus signaling that we don’t really like the person. What do we do with all our stuff? Well, either we pack it in the basement and the attic, or periodically we give to goodwill, or we throw it away.
We would like to pretend that we are a classless society. However, we continue to oppress and group people based on their economic circumstances. We continue to tell ourselves that if someone is struggling, it is their fault because we live in a society where certainly everyone has access if they wanted. In other words, we lie to ourselves. We have created what scholars call a false middle class, folks who do not want to appear to be of a lower class so they buy all the things that signal success- car, television, furniture, clothes, computer, cell phone, ipod. But they buy on credit creating a life of debt, which they cannot get out of.
We are afraid of being poor and we buy to insulate ourselves from that fear. We are unhappy and we buy because we have been told that it will make us happy. That is the cornerstone of the consumerist society. Unfortunately, unhappiness is built into a consumerist society. We can never buy enough to make us happy, because then we would stop buying. There will always be something more to have, something more that we need to satisfy us. It is the great irony tragedy of our wealthy society that there is no peace to be found in seeking happiness this way.
Peace only comes in knowing what is truly of value. There are numerous economic practices commanded in the Bible that we pretty much ignore, even our most literal brothers and sisters, that attempt to remind us what is truly of value. The point of tithing 10% of one’s income to God is to remind us that all we have is God’s anyway, that it is all on loan to us from the Creator who made heaven and earth and every resource in it. Giving back reminds us that what we have does not belong to us, but rather is shared with us through God’s good nature. Every 50 years is supposed to be a jubilee year. In that year, everything that was bought, sold, or seized should be returned, including land and housing. In other words, in every generation, wealth should be completely redistributed.
Focusing on God and our relationship with one another redefines our priorities. We are not meant to take from one another, but to share with one another. We are not meant to use as many resources as we can pay for, but to live simply and sustainably. Not holding on to what we have and sharing with one another gives us back our humanity. We stop being objects. We stop being obstacles and competitors of one another, but rather members of a community. We become focused on one another instead of our pursuit of success and wealth. We become a success based on how well we have loved.
The disciples had what they truly needed: fellowship with God and one another. “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.”
We may not be ready to sell all we have to give to others as they have need. Even the disciples only managed to live this way for a short period of time before the community began to struggle with dissension, greed, and the valuing of objects over humanity. However, they always knew the way in which they should live and that it was possible to do so.
When our actions flow out of our focused on God and loving one another as ourselves, we are less focused on what we have and do not have. Day by day our consumerist society distracts us with messages about with messages about what is important. Day by day we must counteract those messages with acts of love towards ourselves, towards others, and towards God. Simply following the words of the song- day by day, day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.
Let us pray.
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