Monthly Archives: May 2010

May 30, 2010

Mysterious Math

By marciglass

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010


Proverbs 8

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;  beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.
The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought  forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the  face of the deep, when he made    firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the  waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker;  and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

John 16:12-15“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day in the church calendar where we acknowledge the threefold nature of God, commonly proclaimed as Father Son and Holy Spirit. It is mysterious math, indeed. One God, three persons, equals blessed Trinity.
Last year, on Trinity Sunday, I preached about all of the different heresies that the church has named over the years that are related to the Doctrine of the Trinity. I won’t subject you to that again, but as we start looking at Trinity Sunday this year, it is worth noting that heresies don’t develop mainly because people are trying to get themselves kicked out of church or because they seek to be wrong. Heresies develop because people are trying to make sense of things, and don’t quite get it right. And, over the years, most of the reasons people were labeled heretics by the church were because of Trinitarian issues.

Every year, the church spends exactly one day acknowledging that we have this doctrine that is so confusing that it leads well meaning people into heresy.
This week we also finish up our Year of the Bible readings. To those of you who have kept up your readings all year—congratulations on a big job well done! In our discussions about the readings, one topic has come up again and again—and that is that people feel like they have fewer answers about faith AFTER reading the whole Bible. We’ve talked about how you can’t look to the Bible for answers. Rather, we look to the Bible to guide us on a journey. Last week, we decided that we don’t always trust people who tell us that Faith is simple and that the answers are easy.
And this week, I’ve been pondering this quote from Augustine:
“If you comprehend something, it is not God”.

In other words, the mysteries of our faith should, to some degree, remain mysteries. Yes, we keep seeking to understand, but we also recognize that it is in the seeking that we see God.

So, on this one day of the year allotted to this most complicated doctrine, we can’t definitively answer the questions about how the Father is related to the Son or from whence does the Spirit emanate.
But we consider the Trinity because it is the language we use to try to understand who God is.

The doctrine of the Trinity—one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is not spelled out clearly in Scripture. But there are many passages that make reference to the relationships of God. Our Scripture passages this morning are just two of many passages that suggested the Doctrine of Trinity to our early church mothers and fathers.
In our passage from Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman who stands on the street corners and in the market place, sharing her knowledge with anyone and everyone who will listen. Wisdom, which is closely connected to God is not limited to the temple or to the religious realm. God’s Wisdom calls to us from places that are accessible to all of God’s children. So, while we do believe that God is in this place here today, we shouldn’t believe that God is only in this place. God is also standing out there at the corner of Cole and Overland, calling out as Wisdom.
And we’re told that her cry is to all who live.
Clearly not everyone chooses to listen to Wisdom as she cries out, but it is not for us to determine whom God may be calling.
Perhaps my favorite verse from this passage is at the end, “and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
Wisdom delights in humanity.

Wisdom rejoices in God’s world.

Wisdom and God really enjoy each other’s presence.

Wisdom is, daily, God’s delight.

Whenever you think that church, or faith, or God, is all about rules or judgment or seriousness, remember this passage. In God’s own relationship there is delight and joy and enjoyment. If that is how God exists, then shouldn’t we consider that it is how God wants us to exist as well?
How often do we take the time to delight in each other’s presence? I confess, not enough. This week, especially, I feel like I was crabby and frustrated too much of the time. This coming week, I will do my best to remember God’s delight. I apologize that it is something about which I need to be reminded.

Some people think Wisdom in this text is a stand in for the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps that Old Testament Wisdom stands for Jesus. I am okay with letting Wisdom just describe herself, without her having to be a code for something else. She was the first act of God’s creation. She is literally older than the hills and is not to be confused with any of God’s later works of creation because she was there first and saw some things that you and I can only imagine.

“When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies     above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not     transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker.”

So, this passage on Wisdom may not help clarify the doctrine of the Trinity—we don’t, after all, say “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, oh yeah, and Wisdom needs to fit in there too”. But this passage does call us to remember the importance, joy, and love of God’s creating acts. As we look at the world around us, we should remember that God created this world in love and with care. As we continue to watch oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps Trinity Sunday should remind us to be more mindful of God’s creation entrusted to our care because we aren’t just connected to each other, we are connected to this world in which we live, and which God created with joy.
The personification of Wisdom in Proverbs also makes me think of the diversity of God. God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, the Word. Last week, when talked about Babel, we considered the idea that diversity is God’s intention for humanity. When we think about following a triune God, we need to consider that there is diversity within God’s very being.  Think of the diversity of God’s expression to us—

as a peasant from Nazareth named Jesus,
as a voice from a burning bush,
as a pillar of fire for the Hebrew people to follow as they wandered in the desert,
as Wisdom calling out in the market place,
as the voice that spoke our world into being,
as the Spirit that blew through the gathering of disciples at Pentecost,
or
as God the Father of Jesus.
None of these expressions of God are complete alone, but each of them contributes to what we know of God and how we experience God.  God’s very nature is diverse.
And God’s very nature is a relationship.
We see another piece of that relationship in the passage from John’s gospel. These few short verses are taken from a rather long section toward the end of John’s gospel where Jesus gives final instruction to his disciples.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

John’s gospel, while it is my favorite, might fairly be called odd or strange by some people. Because John is very comfortable with this idea that God is a relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He sees no apparent problem to recording a conversation where Jesus is talking about two characters that none of us have ever seen. It isn’t the same as me telling you about what Randy and Julie said to me this week—because you know them. You can go up to them later and verify my story.

But we can’t do that as easily with God and the Holy Spirit. And John seems to be okay with that. Because for John, everything you want to know about God, you can learn from Jesus. And here we see that Jesus does not see himself as a solo act.

The implications of following a triune God, one who sees God’s own self as a team effort and a relationship, is that we need to model our lives in Trinitarian terms. If God—who could certainly have flown solo had God chosen to do so—chooses to be in relationship, then we should reconsider how we relate to each other.
The other day, one of my friends told me about a Zulu proverb—
‘A person is a person through other persons.’

This idea is called Ubuntu.
I don’t think this means you need to be in crowds all the time. But I do think this means that we only know what it means to be human through our relationships with others.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks about this African idea like this:

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

I think this is a good reminder for us, on Trinity Sunday, of what it means to live in relationship with others. Yes, we as individuals seek to be good people and to succeed in our lives. But if our individual pursuits are in opposition to the common good, I don’t think we’re living triune lives.
There are voices in our culture telling us that our Christian faith should be only about what we do as individuals, and Trinity Sunday reminds us to question those voices. Yes, our faith is personal—what we each do matters. But that doesn’t mean our faith is private—or only our individual concern. In other words, we shouldn’t be seeking a relationship with God just to benefit our individual selves. Our relationship with God should lead us to live lives that benefit those around us.
God calls us into community because God’s very nature is community. And God’s Wisdom is out there standing on the corners, calling us to

live lives of connection with each other and the rest of God’s creation,

to live in community,
to live with delight in our brothers and sisters,
and to live with joy that we follow a God so mysterious that our lives are filled with the journey of discovery.

Amen

Leave a comment | posted in John 16, Proverbs 8, Trinity Sunday, Ubuntu

May 23, 2010

Pentecost

By marciglass

May 23, 2010

A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian

Gen 11:1-9

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.
And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

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 these who are speaking Galileans?
And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
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 through 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.’

Diversity.
Is it a good word or a bad word for you?
Diversity is not very popular in some political circles right now. Many countries in Europe, most notably France, are debating whether or not women should be allowed to wear their traditional Muslim veils, or other obviously religious clothing or symbols. Switzerland banned the building of minarets on mosques. Arizona has now made it illegal to look like you’re illegal.
The movement of people, scattered abroad, across the face of the whole earth, is causing nations to struggle with their identities. What does it mean to be German, French, or American if people don’t speak the same language or function in the same cultural values?

Many of us, however, claim to value and seek diversity, believing that there is value to be gained from the sharing of ideas, language, and culture.

Yet the reality is, even when we claim diversity, we often seek out sameness. It is human of us to be like the people in Genesis who wanted to build a city with a big tower, so that they could stay together, united as one, and not be scattered abroad, across the face of the whole earth.

This story in Genesis is told in  “a long time ago and far, far away” manner. Even way back in the days of the ancestors, they were struggling over diversity, trying to come up with an explanation for our differences that made sense. But for me, the truest part of scripture is that a story that was written thousands of years ago is still as true for us as it was for the original audience.
Because we still seek to build towers to sameness.  We want to be with people who speak our language, whether that’s literally or figuratively. Perhaps the walls and tower they were building was to keep difference outside. Perhaps it was to make them self sufficient and enclosed, set apart from the world. Why did they do it? Why do we?

They had one language and the same words. And they made the mistake of using those words to clearly state that the whole reason for the building was not to glorify God, or to provide affordable housing for widows and orphans, or to appropriately plan for urban growth. The whole reason for the building, for the hard labor of making bricks out of mud, burning them until they are solid, and for collecting bitumen was to make a name for themselves.
oops.
The Lord came down to inspect the building and to see what the humans were up to as they industriously worked on their buildings and God realized….one language….same words….and the first thing they do is forget who they are and whose they are. The first thing they do is try to make a name for themselves.
I like that image in this text, of the Lord walking through the construction site with a hard hat on, inspecting what the people had built. And quickly, the Lord finds about 47 different code violations. Most importantly—the foundation is shaky. Rather than building on a solid foundation, they’ve built on sand. They have built to glorify themselves instead of God. So the Lord gathers together the whole construction crew and sends them off, scattering the people over the face of the earth, confusing their language, to keep them from continuing to build on a shaky foundation.

Because the truth is, when we only build towers to sameness, when we surround ourselves with people who agree with us, who think like us, who look like us, we can become unnecessarily prideful and assume that we have more of the answers than do the people on the other side of the walls. We can become arrogant and think that people who don’t agree with us, or who don’t speak our language, are wrong, or less than, or dangerous, or not beloved children of God.
People have often seen the Babel text as a story of punishment—because you built this tower, God is punishing you and confusing your language.
I wonder if this is a story of grace and gift—because you surround yourself with sameness, God is going to scatter you and confuse your language so that you won’t forget who you are and whose you are. The gift of diversity, of scattered language and culture, is the gift God has given us so that we’ll remember that we are stronger, when like the people of Babel, we leave off building the walls to the city of sameness and go out and live in a diverse world.
I read a story in the news this week that reminded me of the best parts of living in diversity. It also reminded me of America’s great legacy of being a melting pot, where people from all over the world can come here, work hard, and make our great nation stronger. The news was from Houston, Texas and was about a boy named Victor Cardenas. He had a rough home life and he ended up homeless when his mother kicked him and his siblings out of the house. So, friends from his high school would let him stay with them for a while. Finally, one of his teachers, a Russian immigrant, had him move in with her family. Once he had a stable home, he began to thrive and this month is graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class. In the fall, he’ll be going to Texas A & M on a full scholarship to study bio-chemistry. “In a suburb of Houston, Texas, the Mexican street kid had found a home, with a family of intellectual, Russian immigrants.” Stories like Victor’s can only happen when we see value in diversity, in people who are so very different than we are.
This story, and the story of Babel, reminds us that God wants us to seek out people who are not like we are.

Unlike the world around us that tells us to be just like everyone else. God has scattered us across the face of the earth and confused our language just so we will not seek sameness. Which means we need to resist our inclinations to surround ourselves with people who will only say the words we want to hear. We all might have to set aside our prejudices and actually consider that the other isn’t different from us because they are wrong, but because God wanted them to be different. Perhaps God scattered us over the face of the earth and confused our language in order to keep any of us from thinking that we, alone, have a handle on God’s truth, that we have all the answers.

Easy.

Right?

We’ll all just sit down and have a cup of tea and everything will be fine.
Or not.
What is a problem for us today was a problem for the church in the book of Acts as well. The followers of Jesus were all gathered together in one place when the Holy Spirit descended on each of them. And then, just as at the end of the story of Babel, when people were scattered all over the face of the earth, the text of Acts chapter 2 tells us that there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.
Notice how both of these texts are cosmic and universal stories. In Babel, they are spread over all the face of the earth. In Acts, the people are from every nation under heaven. These are not small stories about someone else long ago and far away. They are about us. These stories could be pulled from the headlines today.
Because what do these people from every nation under heaven say when they hear these Jesus followers speaking in their languages?
They are amazed and astonished because the people speaking are Galileans.
You can fill in the appropriate insult today. But Galileans could certainly never speak all of those languages. A bunch of uneducated fishermen speaking Greek, Latin, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Korean, Chinese, and Swahili?

Come on.
Even the early church tried to build towers of sameness, seeking to define people by their otherness.

But the great irony, of course, is that God brought us reconciliation, redemption, salvation through an outsider, a peasant from Galilee. It is through Jesus the Christ, the son of a Carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee,  that we come together.
Pentecost, today, is the day we celebrate this pouring out of the Spirit upon the church. And I think we need to focus on the gift of the Spirit if we want to make diversity work. When left to our own devices, diversity just sounds like chaos—a bunch of different languages that we don’t understand.  Without the Spirit, diversity is scary.
But the spirit didn’t erase diversity and cause them to all speak one language. The diversity that mattered so much to God at the end of Babel is still operating. The Spirit gave them understanding, so they could hear about God’s deeds of power, each in their own language. Additionally, the work of the Spirit at Pentecost is what really allowed Jesus’ followers to obey his command to take the gospel to the ends of the world. Since the time the Book of Acts was written, the Bible has been translated into over 2,000 languages. The Holy Spirit does not seem to share our tendency to build walls to sameness. She seems to be more than generous and inclusive with sharing the gospel.

So perhaps we need to spend less time trying to get everyone around us to speak our language—literally, or culturally, or theologically, or politically—and spend more time discerning how we hear about God’s deeds of power from people speaking other languages, trusting that the Spirit is at work in our midst with a mysterious abundance that is not in our control.
As we celebrate this day of Pentecost, I pray that the Spirit will fall on us, will help us hear of God’s great deeds from voices to which we don’t usually listen. It is appropriate that today, on Pentecost, we are ordaining and installing officers. Listen to the language as our new elders and deacons are installed. Because we call on the Spirit to guide our work. We call on the Spirit to grant us wisdom in our leadership, compassion in our service.
Even if you aren’t being installed or ordained today, I invite you to consider how the Spirit may be calling you this day. Come Holy Spirit, dwell among us. Amen.

Leave a comment | posted in Uncategorized

May 16, 2010

Slave and Free

By marciglass

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian

May 16, 2010

Acts 16:16-40
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.
While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”
She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.
When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.”
The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.
Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”
The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.”

And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.”
But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.”

The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.
After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

God called Paul and Silas to go to Phillipi. There were people there who need to hear the liberating word of God. So they go. And first they meet a woman named Lydia. She is a successful business woman who operates an upscale fabric trading outfit. She and her household are baptized by Paul and she becomes a leader and important supporter in the early church.

But they next encounter a woman who is the opposite of Lydia. This slave girl is un-named. She has no resources or social standing. But as Paul and Silas walk through the streets of town, she follows behind them, announcing that these men are slaves of the most high God, here to proclaim to you a way of salvation.

Paul does his best to ignore her, but we’re told he gets annoyed and he turns and commands the spirit leave her, freeing her from possession. The men who own her, however, aren’t happy with this interruption of their cash flow. Because this slave girl was a money maker for them. What she was proclaiming about Paul and Silas was true, after all. So maybe she was right at least part of the time.

Some commentators get angry with Paul here because he doesn’t respond to this slave girl in Christian compassion. He doesn’t take her owners to task for her enslavement or subjugation. He doesn’t ask her name. He only exorcises her demons to get her to  stop   talking.

I’m more inclined to cut Paul some slack here. How many of us, after all, stop and ask the name of every homeless person we encounter on the street? How many of us, after all, go out of our way to share Christian compassion with every person who is yelling at us or about us on the street corner?
Perhaps we should. But we don’t. And Paul was human as we are human. We get annoyed.

Perhaps Paul was annoyed because one of the few people who correctly identified Paul and Silas as “slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation” happened to be a nameless, demon possessed teenaged girl. Perhaps he was annoyed because he’d been preaching in synagogues and living rooms, and the city leaders want him thrown in jail, refusing to hear the truth. But just seeing him walking down the street, this teenaged slave girl proclaims the truth about him.

One of the other reasons I am willing to cut him some slack is that even though he doesn’t greet her as a sister in Christ and buy her coffee, what he does—the casting out of her possession—has a real impact and consequence in her life. Once she’s no use as a fortune teller, once she stops bringing in money for her owners, she’s no longer the same value as a slave. In some ways, he frees her from captivity. His commanding the demon to depart is, how does she say it, the way this “slave of the Most High God, proclaims to her a way of salvation.”

And that, my friends, can get you in trouble. He could have just turned to the community and before going on his merry way, said, “slavery is wrong. Why do you trouble this poor girl?”

But he didn’t. He liberated her from economic slavery and showed the people that systems of this world that subjugate one person for the benefit of another are not the way God calls us to live.

And they drag Paul and Silas through the marketplace, right down Wall Street, and make an interesting claim. Remember when they arrested Jesus, his crime was making claims that put him in opposition to the Emperor. But here is Paul and Silas’ crime: “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.”

They aren’t in trouble for political subversion. But for threatening the cultural and economic realm. And challenging unjust economic systems, challenging the status quo, threatens people. It allows fear to rise up and overwhelm our rational thinking, enslaving us to a cycle of anxiety.
Yes, the current system has some flaws, fear tells us, but we have figured out what to expect. We are comfortable in our prison of subjugation, and that fear of change leads us to throw in jail anyone who speaks against our enslavement.

Paul was a Roman citizen, who should have had rights, yet he was beaten, given an inadequate hearing, and thrown into the deepest corner of the jail. Needless to say, they didn’t read him his Miranda rights.

Paul and Silas, slaves of the most high God, have just freed the fortune telling slave girl from her possession, and find themselves imprisoned in a jail, where they meet the jailer, who is as much a slave of his situation as they are.

Paul and Silas, we’re told, are carrying on an impromptu worship service at midnight in the jail. And suddenly, there was an earthquake that broke down the walls imprisoning them. The jailer, when he realizes what has happened, is ready to kill himself because if he doesn’t keep the people behind bars, he isn’t serving his master. So By not walking out of the jail, Paul frees the jailer too, even though it is the jailer who holds the keys. Once again, Paul is subverting societal expectations and understandings of slavery and freedom—because what would we do if we were wrongfully imprisoned and then the walls fell down?

I, personally, would get the heck out of there.

The jailer quickly realizes that Paul is operating under a different paradigm than the rest of his inmates. Perhaps the jailer has even heard the cry of the slave girl, about being slaves of the most high God, here to proclaim a way of salvation. In any case, the jailer asks him, “what must I do to be saved?”

In the moment of grace he receives, when his prisoners don’t walk out to worldly freedom, the jailer realizes that he’d rather be a slave of the most high God than be free in a system of economic injustice. “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will saved, you and your household.”

That’s the great paradox of the gospel. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”

The gospel, the good news proclaimed in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is foolishness in the world’s terms. And in God’s kingdom, the terms of the world are revalued, redefined, and messed up.

And Paul proclaims it publicly. Even at the end, when the authorities realize that perhaps they’ve arrested the wrong people, and ask Paul and Silas to just go on their way, Paul refuses. “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.”

Because when your freedom comes from being a slave of the most high God, your whole life—the good, the bad, and the ugly— is a public proclamation of the Good News. I hope this story of Paul and Silas gives our courage to live our lives publicly. It seems that too often we are shamed into silence because the world around us tells us that we should just go on with our lives, not bring attention to the realities of our lives.

But the problem with that kind of silence is that it isolates us and it perpetuates a lie. It leaves us as slaves to the notion that everyone is perfect, except us.

For Paul, I imagine that being in jail wouldn’t have made his PR team happy. Because who invites ex-cons over for dinner? Can’t you just hear his people now? “Paul, we’re glad that you love the gospel, but the next time you’re offered a chance to sneak out of jail quietly, could you please, pretty please, do it? We want people to think you are trustworthy and an upstanding member of society.”

There are times to be silent, don’t get me wrong. But they need to be on your terms. Not the city officials in Phillipi. Because when you let the world usher you silently out the back door, when no one is looking, you end up alone.

But when you live your life publicly on God’s terms, you aren’t alone. In this place, especially, we ought to be able to live publicly, to tell our stories and seek support from each other. When people say, “how are you doing?”, we tend to say, “fine”, even when the answer is:
I’m sad.

I’m lonely.

I’m scared.

I’m sick.

I’m depressed.

I’m in debt.

I’m worried.
Our silence keeps in place the cultural norms that say that everyone is okay, that people in church have it all figured out. But we know that’s not true. Slavery to the world tells us to keep up the charade. Freedom in God tells us to be honest about who we are and whose we are.

We can’t know all of the stories of all of the people sitting around us, but I do hope that in this place, at least, we can live our lives, publicly, in the freedom we get when we believe on the Lord Jesus.

Paul and Silas, slaves of the most high God, walked around publicly proclaiming salvation through Jesus Christ. Salvation that tells us that a nameless slave girl is as valuable to the kingdom as Lydia the cloth merchant. Salvation that tells us that we don’t have to be enslaved to the economic, political, or cultural systems of this world. Salvation that allows us to live authentic lives, encouraging the brothers and sisters around us.

What must I do to be saved?, the jailer asks Paul and Silas. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Friends, salvation has come for us. Thanks be to God for the mysterious and inexplicable grace that welcomes offers us this freedom! Amen.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Acts 16:16-40

May 9, 2010

Teach Your Children Well

By marciglass

A sermon preached at Southminster

May 9, 2010

Revelation 21:1-6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 22:1-6

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him;  they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

Proverbs 22:6

Direct your children onto the right path,
and when they are older, they will not leave it.

The National Day of Prayer was this past Thursday. And it was a day with some controversy. A court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the government to declare a national day of prayer.  But President Obama called for it anyway.
Here are my problems with a national day of prayer. We need a lot more than one day a year.
We should be praying, each and every day, for the well being of our nation, for wisdom for her leaders, and for the health and success of all members of our society, among other things. So, on one level, I don’t think one day is enough.
But on another level, I don’t think the government should be the ones reminding us to pray.
No matter what you think of our government, I hope you’ll agree with me that elected officials are not the best qualified people to guide us in the ways of faith.

That’s what we should be about. We should be the ones teaching our children about faith.  Not the government.

Today we are recognizing those people who teach our faith to kids, youth, and adults. When we call their names a little later in the service, I hope that you will join with me in thanking them for the time, creativity, and love they give each and every week to the education of this congregation.

But the other reality is that even if our kids were here each and every week, that is still less than 40 hours of faith instruction a year in Sunday School.

Which is why we will also be giving our 3rd graders bibles. So they can learn to read the Bible at home with their families. Teach your children well, as the prophets Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young said. I won’t sing the lyrics, but here they are:
“Teach your children what you believe in.
Make a world that we can live in.”

And whether or not you have children in your home, that’s what we’ve been called to do as the church. To teach what we believe and make a world that we can live in, to children, to adults, and to the wider world.

Now, I’ve already told you I don’t think our government, as great as it may be, is the best place to look to teach our children well about our faith.

And, with all respect to the public school teachers in this room, I don’t think the public schools are the best place to teach our faith either.
I think our public schools are the best place to prepare kids to use their minds, to acquire skills and abilities that will help them in the world and work place, to learn what it means to be a member of the broader society.

And yet, today is Grace Jordan day here at Southminster.

I, who argue for the separation of church and state, am asking that you respond to the Mission Committee’s request to focus our mission efforts on Grace Jordan Elementary.

But we aren’t asking you to it so that you can make those kids all Presbyterian.

We’re doing it because they are our neighbors, and they need our help.
As you’ve heard from Principal Tim Lowe this morning, the realities facing many of these kids are very different from when many of us were in school. And some of these kids need someone to spend time with them. Eat lunch, play board games, just listen.
Some of these kids need more food in their homes, and so we ask that your support the pantry as we collect food that they can take home from school. The city and state are cutting school budgets due to this economy, and so we’ll be paying for buses, helping each class go on a field trip this year, and we’ll be helping teachers keep their classrooms supplied with Kleenex and paper towels.

Some of you are wondering if I’m going to get around to the Revelation text. Some of you are hoping I forgot all about that book! But here it is. The book of Revelation gives us images to remind us of WHY we take time to help out our neighbors. Because, really. It would be a lot easier to not get involved. Surely would require less from us. We could just leave everyone to pull themselves up by their own proverbial bootstraps and go on our merry way.

But we have this image in Revelation. Of God’s New Heaven and New Earth. Of the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And it is this kingdom toward which the church is working.  Where God will live with mortals. Where nobody will cry anymore. Or be hungry. Where children won’t have to flee their homes and come to a new country as refugees to escape war, starvation, and famine. Where families will be whole and healthy.

The author of Revelation tells us that these words are trustworthy and true. And so we keep going back to these beautiful images from the end of Revelation—where we won’t need light because God will be our light. Where we won’t need water, because God will provide the living water. Where the streets of the city will be safe for all, where the leaves of the tree of life will provide healing for the nations.

This is the vision of Revelation, a vision of hope for people who need it.

And so, we look around our community and our town, we look at the world we live in, and we figure out what we can do to be a part of God’s vision for the world.

But we don’t bring about God’s vision for the world merely through charity. Charity, or the voluntary giving of aid, is important. But we need to be about more than charity, which just addresses the symptoms of a broken world. We need to be about justice, which addresses the causes of our broken world.

So how can our new partnership with Grace Jordan be about justice?  Well, for one thing, it makes a claim about the importance of a publicly funded education system to support our society. Additionally, it will help us better connect to our neighborhood, helping us to know the needs and issues that are facing the families who live around the church but may not be members of the church.

I hope this program will be helpful for Grace Jordan. But I also hope it will call us to be active in the community to seek systemic changes that will give all of God’s children the resources they need to succeed in this world. When Boise schools opened this new elementary school almost two years ago to replace McKinley, Franklin, and Jackson schools, they named it after former Idaho First Lady Grace Jordan, and we are happy to have some of her family here today. Grace Jordan was a mother, a teacher, an author. Her daughter is quoted as saying, “She encouraged us, and people around her, to always look for the best in everyone your life touches. She wanted everyone to live a life that may be a light unto the world around them and to encourage others to do likewise.”

That is what we are about here too. Helping children to succeed in their education is one way to shine a light for them, so that they may see more clearly the benefits of education, and in turn, let their lights shine for others.

This vision in Revelation is of a world that we can’t quite see yet. It seems to be just around the corner, just beyond our horizon. And still, we follow Jesus, the lamb, who calls us to hope, to have faith, to make a difference, and to believe that the work we do in his name will share God’s love with the world. Amen.

Leave a comment | posted in National Day of Prayer, Revelation 21 and 22, separation of church and state, social justice, Uncategorized

May 2, 2010

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Hospital…

By marciglass

A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian

May 2, 2010

Rev 12:1-6, 13-17

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.
So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she was nourished for a time, and times, and a half a time. Then from his mouth, the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.

The Book of Revelation occupies an odd place in our culture. There are references to Revelation in movies, books, and even in the news, but few of them are taken in the context of the book. Because a lot of people think they know what Revelation is about, but few of us actually read the book.
And we don’t read it because it is weird. It is a genre of literature with which we are not familiar. It uses imagery that is unfamiliar to us. It talks about things in very visual and allegorical language.
It is NOT a news report. This is not literal history. This isn’t literal anything.
It is also NOT a fortune telling book. This isn’t a book to read like a map, seeking clues to predict the future.

It is a book, perhaps surprisingly, of HOPE. Written for people who need to be reminded of God’s love and care for all of creation, even when the lives they may be living can make it hard to see.
And it is a book that is consistent with the rest of the Bible. You don’t have to agree with me about my interpretation of Revelation, but I do think you need to read it with the rest of the Bible in mind. Because God creates the world and humanity in Genesis and calls it good. God cares enough for humanity to send the son, Jesus Christ, to save the world. And Jesus, in his living, teaching, and dying, tells the world that God’s kingdom is different than the kingdoms of this world. Jesus consistently refuses military power and strength. Jesus consistently shows power in weakness. So, to get to Revelation and then read it as if God is going to demolish the world God so lovingly created? To read Revelation as if Jesus is going to become just like the powers of this world he stood against? I don’t buy it.
The word “Revelation” is the English translation of the Greek word apocalypse. Apocalypse does not mean the end of the world, even though it is used that way in popular culture. Apocalypse means to reveal, to unveil. And it is a particular kind of book. Daniel is also an apocalypse—a book of mystical symbolism meant to give hope and direction to people in pain. The best illustration of apocalypse might be the apostle Paul. According to Acts, he was on the road to Damascus, when he encountered God. And he became blind. And the more he learned about God, the more things were revealed to him, the scales fell from his eyes and things were made clear. In Galatians, Paul describes his conversion as a revelation, an apocalypse.
If you haven’t been coming to Sunday school after worship, I invite you to come for our next few weeks as we finish up a discussion on this book. Because it is worth reading. And it is easier to read, I believe, in community.
So our text this morning is from the middle of Revelation. And if the woman at the well in John’s gospel is my favorite character in scripture, this woman in Revelation is a close runner up.
I don’t know about you, but this was NOT one of the Sunday school lessons I heard as a child. David and Goliath. Noah’s Ark. Jesus and the little children. The woman who gives birth in space while a dragon waits to eat her baby.
We have been offered female “role models” from scripture before. We’re told we can be like Ruth or Esther, fulfilling their destinies as best they are able in a world that denies their full humanity. Or we can be like Mary, the pregnant teenager who ponders all these things in her heart. Or the other Mary, the one who sat at Jesus’ feet. Of course, we can’t be that Mary until we’ve first been Martha and gotten the cassarole in the oven, the table set, and the laundry hung to dry. We’re even told we can be like Christ, as long as we are the suffering servant Christ, emptying ourselves in service to others.

But how come, in all my years, nobody has ever suggested this woman in Revelation, clothed in the sun, as a role model for us?
Because she’s amazing and a model for men as well as women. And here’s why:
She knows how to dress. Stars on her head. The moon at her feet. Actually wearing the sun. She’s got style.
She’s strong. How do I know that? Well, for starters, she is giving birth.  in space. Additionally, she’s giving birth, even though there is a seven headed dragon standing there, just waiting to EAT her baby.
That also shows the woman has courage. Dragon, schmagon. She is bringing a child to life who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

Which means she has faith. Faith that the dragon she sees in front of her will not have the final word.
She is resourceful. While the cosmic forces are conspiring against her, she commandeers the moon, sun and stars as clothing. She flies with the wings of the great eagle. She gets the earth to come to her aid, swallowing up the flood.
I don’t know everything about the symbolism of Revelation, but I recognize a strong woman when I see one. Which was why I was surprised when I read a commentary and the author called the woman “passive”.
I don’t know anything about the author, but I would be willing to bet he has never seen a woman give birth. passive. Honestly, I find it hard to believe he’s ever seen a woman.
Here are his words:

“On the other hand, John depicts the woman of chapter 12 as a passive figure. She is the subject only of the verbs connected with birthing and fleeing. It is perhaps fair to say that she does not usually act in this text but rather is acted upon. She is threatened by the beast, and consequently she has to flee into the wilderness, to a place which had been prepared for her by God. The next part of the scene reinforces the passive nature of the woman. In the wilderness, the woman is fed and protected by God. Later in the text she is pursued, again by the beast, and again she is saved, this time by the earth. Note that the active roles in this text belong to the beast, the deity, and the earth.” (Paul B. Duff “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing” in Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students edited by David Barr (Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta 2003) p. 73-4.)

Is that what it means to be passive? To have life happen to you and to react to save yourself, save the ones you love, and trust that God will provide?
What he calls “passive”, I call living your life.
Because, you know what? Some days there are seven headed dragons standing at your door. Some days you have to flee to the wilderness to be nourished. Some days you have to use all of your wits to escape the beast and the flood he’s sending your way. She flies away on eagles’ wings and convinces the earth to swallow the flood and he calls her passive?
What he calls passive, I call not being in total control.
I’m certain that if this woman had choices about how she was going to bring her baby into the world, it would not have involved the moon and a dragon. She might have wanted a quiet, candle lit room, attended by midwives, with her partner holding her hand and supporting her through the experience.
But that wasn’t what she got. She ended up as a cosmic figure giving birth in front of a dragon.
Which cable channel is it that has the show about birth stories? TLC? Discovery channel?
In any case, can you imagine the promo for the episode that told this birth story?

Tonight! 8 pm eastern. Woman gives birth in space! Watch the doctor be eaten as he asks a seven headed dragon to leave the room! Will the baby make it? Does the woman need an epidural or does zero gravity alleviate the pain? Tune in tonight to find out.

Because what TV shows like that illustrate is that no matter how much you plan, no matter how well you prepare, you can’t control everything that happens to you. Women don’t give birth in taxis on purpose, after all. We are not as in control as we pretend to be.
Another reality about birth stories is that not all experiences are the same. Women giving birth today in Darfur or in Haiti during an earthquake as their hospital was being evacuated certainly know more than I what it is like to give birth in the presence of a dragon and without control.
But, whether or not we’ve given birth to babies, our lives are like this. We are not in control. Life happens to us. And this doesn’t make us passive.
I don’t know what the seven headed dragon looks like in your life. Cancer or health problems, maybe. Or financial insecurity because of the economy. Family problems.
But there are days, and sometimes years, when we think we have it all in place. We think we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, being good Christian people, and then a funny thing happens on the way to the hospital and you’re giving birth in space. With dragons.
The Book of Revelation was written for people like that, for people like us. People who do their best to follow God and end up being persecuted by Rome. People who live the best lives they know how to live and are waking up today in Nashville and across the South to discover that their churches and communities flooded because of horrible storms this weekend. People who wear their seatbelts and obey the laws, but are killed in a car accident because the other driver was typing a text message on their phone while they drove down the highway.
Life is not in our control. And we don’t like it.

We get hung up on the vagueness of John’s language in this book. Only rarely does it feel as if anything is being “unveiled” or “revealed”. Who is the seven headed dragon, we wonder? Why does it have 10 horns? What does it all mean????
But I wonder if the author used such highly unusual images so that we’d be able to find ourselves in the story. Rather than saying, “the bad emperor in Rome is afflicting God’s people”, the author gives us language that allows us to interpret our own situations in light of the text.

So, back to my new role model. What does she do after she gives birth in the presence of a dragon? In space?
She hands the baby over to God, who snatches him away and keeps him safe at the throne. A dragon may show up on the moon, but even a seven headed beast KNOWS he can’t get at the baby in the throne room.
Then the woman flees to the wilderness, where God has provided for her. She will be there for a time, for times, for a half a time.  And Jesus went to the wilderness as well, remember. After Jesus is baptized, as soon as God says, “you are my beloved child, in you I am well pleased”, Jesus is whisked away for temptation in the wilderness.
I find some comfort in the fact that Jesus was God’s beloved and was still sent into the wilderness. By the Spirit, no less. And it was the beasts and the angels who took care of him.
So, the wilderness is the place we wander for 40 years, or only 40 days if you’re Jesus. But the wilderness is also the place we are intentionally sent by God for our own safety and for our nourishment. For a time, and times, and a half a time.
And I recognize that what is wilderness to me might be someone else’s walk in the park. But whether our wilderness is the relatively tame foothills of Boise or the untamed deadly parched earth of Somalia, God is with us. Perhaps that is easier for me to say than for some others, but it is none the less what I know to be true.
As the writer of Revelation shown us, in his somewhat metaphorical way, there is a battle being waged. In the cosmos. On earth. And that battle has been won. Not by us. Not by our brilliant thoughts or plans, but by Christ. We may not be in control. But God is.

I know this to be true. And the rest of the book of Revelation will show this to be true as well.
You may or may not feel as if you are located in a wilderness today, but whenever you do find yourself there, I pray that you will feel nourished and cared for. I pray that you will not see your time there as a time of passivity, but as a time of life. While life happens to you, may the hope that comes from Christ give you the strength to face your dragons. For a time, and times, and half a time.

Leave a comment | posted in Apocalypse, Bad Birth Stories, Revelation 12, Uncategorized

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