Seat at the Table

August 29, 2010

A Sermon Preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Aug 29, 2010

Luke 14:1-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy.
And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?”
But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away.
Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?”
And they could not reply to this.
When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.
But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.  For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Randy and I like to banter about which Gospel is the “best”. He’s a big fan of Luke’s Gospel. I am not. There are certainly stories and passages I appreciate in Luke, but it is not my “go to” book. In this story, I appreciate that Jesus calls us to be humble. I appreciate that Jesus reminds us that hospitality and generosity are done best when they are shared with people from whom you aren’t expecting a return invitation.
But I don’t always agree with Jesus.
I recognize there are some problems with that.

I know he’s the Son of God and all that.

I know he has a bigger perspective on things than I do and I’m willing to acknowledge that he’s the one you should listen to, not me.

But here’s what I want to know.

Why would he go and eat dinner at the home of a Pharisee?

The Pharisees didn’t like him. They’re trying to kill him, after all. He’s a threat to everything they hold dear—their power, their authority, their privilege.

Did he end up there because they are trying to trap him? They’ve already asked him some “gotcha” questions in Luke’s gospel. And if that’s why he’s been invited, I want to say, “Jesus! Don’t do it. These people don’t like you. They want to use this against you. Be careful.” But Jesus doesn’t need my advice.

Did he end up there because there’s a Pharisee who is convicted by Jesus’ teachings and wants to learn more? Even then, I feel myself being stingy with grace. “But the Pharisees are so mean, Lord. Do you really want him as a follower? What will it look like to the people who have been judged by them to see you eating at this table?”

Why would he go and eat dinner with Pharisees when he could have gone out for pizza with the man he just healed?

Why would he go and eat dinner with Pharisees when he could have eaten at a homeless shelter, or been at the CATCH fundraiser—bidding on items at the auction to raise money for homelessness relief?

Why would he go and eat dinner with the Pharisees when he could have been marching in a Civil Rights march with Martin Luther King, Jr?

The frustration that hits me again and again when I encounter these stories of Jesus is that he is beyond my control or my ability to predict. Even when I think I know something about Jesus—he’s the champion for the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed—then he stops what he’s doing and says to me—Marci, I am also the champion of the rich, the oppressing, and those who have bought in to the illusion of their own power.

ARGH….

Jesus drives me nuts! Can’t he just like the same people I do?

It would be so much easier.

The writer Anne Lamott, when referring to someone she didn’t like much, said that she was sure God couldn’t stand this person either. “Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Perhaps I don’t like Luke because I don’t like the way he throws Truth in my face.

Okay, so Jesus is having dinner with Pharisees and I should too….

And while there, Jesus comments on a particular 1st century Palestinian custom. As people would gather in homes for meals, it was the custom to have the more prominent people, who were all men, at the head of the table near the host. The lower down you were on the social ladder, the further away from the host you sat. So when Jesus comments on their seating arrangements, he’s making a broad comment on cultural behavior.

“Do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.”

I don’t know about you, but this is a tough custom for me to understand. I can’t quite find the 21st century parallel. I would feel, I am sure we would all feel, horribly uncomfortable if we showed up late to a dinner party and the host told someone they had to move further away so that we could sit where the other person had been.

For many of us, taking the seat furthest away is just the polite thing to do, right?

Isn’t that why you are all in the back pews?

But this humility that Jesus is talking about plays out in different ways for different people, often depending on the situation. Sometimes we are over prideful, which keeps us from recognizing the gifts and the worth of others.

Sometimes we have too much humility, not thinking that our gifts are worth sharing, not clear on what we bring to the table. Perhaps this can even keep us from sharing our gifts at all, afraid nobody would come to our dinner party.

Sometimes we don’t have enough humility and limit who we invite to the table.

But it is important to remember that whenever Jesus starts talking about tables, meals, and invitations, he is NOT just talking about your next dinner party.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”

Whenever Jesus talks about inviting people to the table, he is talking about this Table. About his Table.
And at this Table, there isn’t room for excessive pride because it isn’t our table. It is Christ’s Table. And we are but guests.

At this Table there isn’t room for false modesty either. Because God knows our hearts and recognizes, as we do, when the words we speak don’t match what we believe.

At this Table, there isn’t room for excessive and untrue humility, because we come to this Table as God’s own children, who have been uniquely gifted. So to say, “I have nothing to offer. I don’t bring anything to the Table”, is to deny the gifts of the one who created you.

So when we’re here we can say, “thank you” for the gifts we have to share with the world.

At this Table, there isn’t room for exclusion. Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts. Jesus ate with Pharisees and Tax Collectors.

Today, we’ll baptize Milly, and we’ll set one more place at the Table as welcome one more member into the family. What a gift and a responsibility for us to have the privilege to welcome her to our family!

And this Table is a reminder to us that we are all connected. That our gifts are supposed to come together for the benefit of all. Yesterday was the anniversary of the day in 1963 when Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream speech” in front of 200,000 Civil Rights Supporters and before the entire world. I missed that speech the first time around, but we listened to it yesterday, and I was struck by the importance he placed on mutuality—about how it matters not just that people of all colors are free to live their lives, but that they are free to live together, holding hands as brothers and sisters. We are NOT called to just live our lives as if the well being of those around us is unimportant.

Here’s a quote from Dr. King, from a commencement address he gave at Oberlin College in 1965.

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

This is, I think, what Jesus’ speech about the Pharisees dinner party is about. At the very end of his instructions, he tells the people at the table, “And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

So, friends, who is invited to this Table?

Who are you inviting to this Table?

Because this is no place for either excessive pride, for false modesty, or for exclusion.

When you look around at the people in your life, don’t limit your invitation with thoughts of “they wouldn’t want to come eat with me” or with thoughts of “I wouldn’t want to eat with them”. Because Christ has called us all to feast together.  So live lives of invitation and welcome! And when we live into Jesus’ call to inclusion at the Table, we will see more clearly how we are an “inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny”.

May it be so. Amen.

3 Comments | Luke 14, Martin Luther King Jr | Permalink
Posted by marciglass

Love’s Labors Lost?

August 15, 2010

A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Boise, Idaho

August 15, 2010

Isa 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people of Judah,
judge between me
and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!

I’d like to apologize for our Scripture passage this morning.

I didn’t like it any more than you did.

On first glance, it appears that Isaiah was having a no good, very bad day when he wrote this passage.
I thought about abandoning it in favor of something light and easy, like Leviticus or Judges.

But it wouldn’t let me go. This morning, I invite you to rest in the discomfort this text brings and together seek the Good News where it may be found.

“Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning my vineyard.”

We begin today with a love song. It is easy to forget this is a love song by the time you get to the end, with all of the trampling, devouring, and desolation. This oracle of doom takes place in a love song.

The owner of the vineyard puts love and care and back-breaking labor into this vineyard. Digging and clearing a field, investing in choice vines and the infrastructure needed to make wine are all signs of the owner’s love and of his hope for a future of prosperity.  And this isn’t just a garden of pretty flowers. This is a vineyard that will bear fruit—so that people can eat, so people can drink. It isn’t just for the benefit of the gardener. It is for the benefit of the community.

Many of you grow zucchini and other produce in the summer, and I know this because you leave them outside my office door. I’ve been warned not to leave my car doors unlocked in the summer, or my car will be filled with zucchini when I leave church. And let me state for the record that you would never hear me complain about too much zucchini.

But I digress.

Those of you who garden and farm know that the harvest is too much to only benefit one person. An abundant harvest benefits others.

Well-tended vineyards and gardens are illustrations of abundance, of how you live when your cup is runneth-ing over.

So the owner of the vineyard has done everything that can be done to assure that this vineyard will be a blessing.

But, as evidenced by the wild bitter grapes, there is clearly only so much that the owner can do to affect the harvest.  What else, he asks, was there for him to do for the vineyard that he had not already done?

Somehow the vineyard doesn’t produce the good grapes it should. There is no abundant harvest.

This really just doesn’t make sense.  Good champagne grapevines just can’t decide to disobey the gardener and grow into wild bitter grapes. And why would they?
When they could be champagne?

But of course this story isn’t about grapes. It is about us. “For the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting.”

This story is about us.

We, who have been created in love, and put on this earth to be an abundant harvest of good things for the world, choose, instead to be bad grapes.

Much like the grapes in the story, it doesn’t make sense. Why don’t we, as humans created in love by God, live our lives as blessings to the world?

Love’s labor is lost when we don’t.

Before this story was about you and I, this story was being told about Israel. And God’s expectation, for all of the care and provision he had given Israel, was for Israel, God’s pleasant planting, to share the abundance of the harvest. A harvest of justice and righteousness. These two words function together in the Hebrew scriptures to remind us of a “society in which the rights of all, including the most marginalized, are respected. This is God’s reasonable expectation, given the divine provision.” (Anna Case-Winters Feasting on the Word Year C, Vol 3 (WJK, 2010), p 344.)

But this love song has gone terribly awry. Justice and righteousness were not what the people experienced. “He looked for justice but saw bloodshed. He listened for righteousness but heard a cry of oppression,” is another translation of verse 7. “Isaiah’s words…picture what happens when a people refuse the care and nurture lavished on them—or accept it, but keep it only to themselves.” (Stacey Simpson Duke, Feasting on the Word Year C, Vol 3 (WJK, 2010),p. 344)  Isaiah is telling Israel that the people can continue to live for themselves, instead of pursuing justice and righteousness, but if they do, God will leave them to it.

Listen again to the middle verse of our love song:
And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.

Israel, who had been carted off into exile by this point in their history, had seen Isaiah’s words come true. They knew what it meant to live through the devastation described.

Where do we see this story playing out in our lives today?

Isaiah functions under a model of retributive justice, as do most of the other writer’s of the Old Testament. We’ve heard it before. 
“Israel sinned and did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hands of their enemies.”

While this tactic does have the unpleasant side effect of kicking people who are already down—“Yes, you are in exile and dealing with destruction and let me also point out that the fault is yours”—It also serves to reassure the people that they are NOT where they are because God has abandoned them. God did not change his mind and get a new people. “You want to know who to blame for this mess you’re in?”, God seems to be asking them, “here’s a mirror.”

But when you are in the midst of crisis, it helps to take stock of your responsibility. When you feel you’re hanging on by a thread, it can be helpful to figure out which part of the problem is within your control. What role did you play in getting here and what can you do, now, to get through the day.

But I want to be clear that while there is a connection between our sinful behavior as humans and the judgment of God—not all suffering that we experience on this earth is deserved or caused by divine judgment.

In light of the world falling apart around him, Isaiah is wise enough to suggest that our response to God matters. God expects a right response to the love, care, and work that God has put into the people.

While the Israelites can’t immediately change the reality of the crisis they are in, they can start paying attention to justice and righteousness. They can take control of their own behavior. They can turn back to God.

And if they were to start being a good vineyard of righteousness and justice, it would look like a healthy vineyard at harvest time, with abundant fruit to share.

Here is the Good News, friends. Despite the brokenness of the world in which we live, despite the fact that we turn away from the goodness of God, God is still singing a love song for us. And we can yet choose to be God’s justice and righteousness in our world.

And, of course, we have already been doing this. The history of Southminster is a story of people standing for justice in the community and in the world.

But this is a story that ever needs to be told.

Each day we have to decide to stand for justice and righteousness.

Each day we have to seek the common good and the larger welfare of our community.

It begins, of course, with prayer. Opening ourselves to hear God’s voice and direction in our lives. This year, as we begin to focus on our Year of Prayer, I invite you to pray to bear fruit of justice and righteousness. I invite you to use the Prayer Center, either during worship, or during the week, to be called into prayer in new ways.
And after we pray, I invite you to be the harvest of God’s justice and righteousness in the world.

The Mission Committee would be glad to help you participate in this harvest. Whether it is helping out at Jazz in the Park in 2 weeks to raise money for CATCH, helping people get out of homelessness and back on their feet. Or whether it is supporting our neighborhood school, Grace Jordan, by being a presence in the life of a kid.
You can join Randy and others tonight at Brewed for Thought, as they continue a discussion about how the choices we make in our lives contribute to justice.

The Session is continuing the discussion of how we can continue to work for God’s justice and righteousness. I invite you to share with them your ideas. I invite you to join with them in making those ideas concrete actions.
Another thing to consider about vineyards is this—grapes don’t grow overnight—whether they are actual grapes or the fruits of justice and righteousness.

It takes a long time.

And even when you can’t yet see the fruit on the vine, you have to continue to water, prune, and care for the plants. God as the owner of the vineyard has done that for us. We continue to receive the nurture and care we need to become a harvest of justice and righteousness. So, as we work toward justice and righteousness in our community, we also need to remember it is a long process.

As we spend time with the kids at Grace Jordan, we need to remember that the fruits of that labor may not be seen by us. But we need to trust that it still matters. We need to trust that somewhere down the line it matters that people gave of their time to be present in the lives of these children. In 1850, abolitionist Theodore Parker said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

As we seek justice, in whatever area, we need to remember this and not lose hope.

In yesterday’s New York Times, Gail Collins wrote a piece about the anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. Suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, estimated that the struggle to give women the right to vote had involved 56 referendum campaigns directed at male voters, plus “480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 campaigns to get constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party campaigns to include woman suffrage planks in party platforms and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.”

The work to get women the vote took a long time and a lot of work.

But the people working for justice and righteousness never gave up hope. “Susan B. Anthony… never lost hope. The great day was coming, she promised: “It’s coming sooner than most people think.” She said that in 1895.” Women’s Suffrage wasn’t ratified in the Constitution until 1920.

So we work for justice and righteousness. And we do so in hope with an eye to the future, which is coming sooner than most people think. Because God is still singing a love song for God’s vineyard.

If Israel can face the devastation of exile, if we can face the devastations at play in our lives and in the world, “we might just be ready to submit again to the bruised and aching hands of the master gardener, who still dreams of—and sings for—a vineyard yielding fat, gorgeous fruit for the whole world.” (Stacey Simpson Duke p 344)
May it be so.

Amen

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Posted by marciglass

Faith, Faith, Faith….

August 8, 2010

A sermon preached August 8, 2010 at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.
By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised.
Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

If I were to ask you how to describe the word “faith”, I am confident there would be 100 different definitions. And that’s a good thing. It’s okay. One of the great things about being Presbyterian is that we believe, we have faith, that God intends for diversity of expression.

But part of the reason there are so many understandings of faith is that the word, itself, contains so many meanings in its definition. The dictionary defines faith as “complete trust or confidence in someone or something”. But the second definition “is strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”

So, one could say, “I have complete faith that my Faith is the most faithful expression of a Faith.”

Faith is both the act of believing, and often the object of that believing.  No wonder it is so difficult to speak of.
The author of Hebrews was writing to people just like us. People who were living after the Resurrection and waiting for God’s kingdom and reign to fully break into this world of human brokenness and pain.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

And our experience of faith is just one of those things. I can’t just stand here and tell you what your faith should be, because it is a very personal thing.

What looks like faith to one person looks like foolishness to another.

About six years ago, our family was living a comfortable life in Farmington, New Mexico. Justin had a job he loved. I enjoyed only working part time and being able to spend time in the kids’ school, serving as PTA president and class volunteer. Justin’s whole family was in this same town. Life was good, by all measurements.

But I was uncomfortable. Nothing felt right.

One of my friends, who knew I had been thinking of seminary for a long time, said to me one day, “Marci, maybe the time has finally come for you to go to seminary.”

I can still picture everything about that moment because it was such a moment of truth and clarity for me.

I went home and told Justin the time had come. The next year involved applying to seminary, Justin interviewing for jobs, selling our house, saying goodbye to friends and family, and moving across the country to Georgia.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

I have a friend whose faith in Jesus Christ compels her to pick up hitch hikers. She has been known to bring these kids into her home, let them shower, give them a change of clothes and then call their parents in whatever city to let the parents know their runaway is okay before she takes them to the bus station and sends them on their way.

But she says that the Gospel compels her to look at these kids and see Jesus. And surely, if we saw Jesus on the side of the road, we’d give him a ride? And her faith tells her that Jesus wasn’t kidding when he told the disciples, “when you ministered to the least of these, you ministered to me”.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

I have another friend who recently quit her job. She doesn’t have another job yet, but she felt certain that the time was right to leave her last job to prepare for whatever was waiting for her. Many of her friends, perhaps including me, suggested, ‘you know, you could just stay in your current job a little longer until something better comes up’.  But in the time since she’s left her job, I don’t think she’s regretted her decision one little bit.

Because she has faith that the right position is out there for her.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

I could name tons of other examples of people acting on faith. And I’m sure each of you could share stories from your own life.

And I bet that there were people sitting by you who told you it was foolishness.

And the reality is that sometimes both sides of the argument are right. Sometimes they both have valid points.

The Session is dealing with one such situation right now. The Personnel Committee requested that we run an additional pledge campaign to raise money to hire a youth director. This is an act of faith, trusting that the future of our church will be stronger if we put our resources in the nurture and support of the youth of our church. But raising the extra money can also be seen as an act of foolishness. We are behind on our giving this year and running a deficit. Is it responsible of us to ask for more money?

Both sides are speaking truth. And I confess I am stuck living in both of those viewpoints. As your pastor, I feel responsible for both the financial health and the spiritual health of this congregation.

So what should we be doing?

The author of Hebrews doesn’t just define faith for us, but also gives us some reminders that we aren’t the first people being called to live in faith.

Abraham and Sarah lived in faith. If you go back and re-read Genesis, from about chapters 12 to 25, it is a testimony to their life by faith. From leaving their home and becoming wanderers in a new land to changing their names. From trusting that God would make them, as a barren couple, ancestors of all the nations, to having faith in God’s promise even as God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the son of his old age.

And their story isn’t pretty. There are times in their story when they laugh at God, when they doubt God, when they ignore God all together and try to chart their own course. But, in general, they respond in faith.

And you can just imagine that in all of those faith moments in their lives, there were well intentioned friends and family standing by, giving them different advice.

“Abraham. Why would you sell the ranch and all of these camels to become a sojourner? In this community, you are a man of wealth and importance. Where are you even going?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But God told me to go to the Promised Land and said I’ll be the ancestor of the nations.”

“But you and Sarah don’t have any children. And you’re OLD. And you just remodeled your kitchen! Sarah isn’t going to leave those granite counters without a fight!”

But the writer of Hebrews does something more than just remind us of our ancestors in faith, as important as those reminders sometime are.

Listen to the text again:

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Abraham and Sarah died before they ever met their great grandchildren.

They died before Israel became a nation and before the Promised Land was settled.

They died long before the shepherd boy David grew up to unite the people.

They died long before Jesus came for the salvation of human kind.

They died long before the church went from group of frightened disciples hiding in an upper room and spread to the corners of the world, even to Boise.

They died before the church stood up to advocate for the end of slavery, and for voting rights for women, and for child labor laws.

They died before the church went to stand with African American Christians in the South to show their support for the Civil Rights Movement.

They died before Southminster was founded to share God’s love in this neighborhood in Boise.

And that is something for us to remember as well. Because we are a part of a much larger narrative. Because of what Abraham and Sarah did thousands of years ago, we are here today. Because of what those who have come before us have done, we are here today.

So, how are we participating in this great faith experiment, so that people down the road will benefit from God’s love?

A little later in worship, we’ll be blessing these backpacks, which the Presbyterian Women will then distribute to schools and agencies in Boise so that kids who can’t afford to buy school supplies will have them. Over 400 children in this community will begin the school year with dignity and with the basic needs that you and I take for granted. I don’t know how long it has been since you last started a school year, but a new backpack can be a powerful thing.

You have participated in this great faith journey by supplying backpacks and school supplies to fill over 400 backpacks, even though none of these backpacks will benefit you directly.

And that’s another part of faith. Often the times we answer in faith are times that we do things to benefit someone else. Like Abraham and Sarah, who didn’t get to know their great grandchildren, we still respond in faith so that our children and our children’s children will have a better life.

More than that, we respond in faith because, like Abraham and Sarah, we are seeking to participate in bringing the Kingdom of God to this world.

And that is something worth having faith in. Because the God who has called us is dreaming a future for us that is better than anything we could dream up on our own. I want to leave you with some quotes about faith that I collected this past week.

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” Kahlil Gibran

“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” Oswald Chambers

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

Elie Wiesel

“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.” 
— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

Thomas Aquinas

“Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence; faith is daring something regardless of the consequences”.  Sherwood Eddy

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.
                                                                           -Rabindranath Tagore

And, finally, from my Aunt Gail: “Faith is trusting that the unknown will turn out to be loving.”

Friends, may we walk in faith, trusting that the unknown future will turn out to be loving. Amen

1 Comment | Faith, Hebrews 11 | Permalink
Posted by marciglass

Lion’s Roar

August 2, 2010

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho

Aug 1, 2010

Hosea 11:1-11

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall return to the land of Egypt,
and Assyria shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.
The sword rages in their cities,
it consumes their oracle-priests,
and devours because of their schemes.
My people are bent on turning away from me.
To the Most High they call,
but he does not raise them up at all.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

They shall go after the LORD,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.
They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the LORD.

The Book of Hosea is a good illustration of why we should take the Bible seriously, but not take it literally. Because Hosea is filled with all kinds of metaphor and imagery. In the beginning of the book, God gives Hosea an odd instruction: “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

The idea that Israel, by following false Gods, was behaving as a spouse who doesn’t just cheat on their spouse, but does so for supposed gain as a prostitute. But the imagery is strong, none the less. Because nobody wants to be in a relationship with someone who intentionally hurts them. And, for Hosea, that is exactly how it felt for God to be in the covenantal relationship with the fickle and unfaithful Israelites.

By the time Hosea is writing, in the 8th century BCE, the Northern Kingdom is about to fall to Assyria. Hosea sees a direct connection between this failure of the Nation and the behavior of the King and the people. Worshipping other Gods, seeking alliances and making compromises with other nations, rather than trusting in God. For Hosea, these actions are proof of Israel’s infidelity and their tendency to prostitute themselves to their neighbors.

But by the time we get to chapter 11, which we read this morning, we have some additional imagery. In this chapter, God takes on the role of parent.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

Whether or not we are parents, we have seen parents doing exactly what God did for Israel. Holding out arms and encouraging a toddler to take their first steps, all the while ready to catch them before they fall. Kissing boo-boos and putting Hello Kitty band aids on invisible wounds. Giving hugs and lots of affection because it is just what parents do. And it is how children grow up to be secure and confident in themselves. Knowing that they are loved.

Being followers of Christ is no guarantee of the easy life, or the tame life. But it is the rewarding life. And today Hosea calls us to remember that life to which we have been called. To listen for the roar of God’s voice calling us home. Because God will continue to roar until all of God’s children are safely home. May it be so. Amen.

But the truth is that we don’t consciously remember our own childhoods, at least not the early parts.   I have pictures from my first Christmas, just a few days after my parents adopted me. But I don’t remember that Christmas. But in the photo, I can see my mother looking at me, not leaving my face to smile for the camera. In this image, I remember that I am loved.

I have pictures from the day I was baptized. I also don’t remember that day. But I see the people in my life who gathered to welcome me into the Faith. My parents, grandparents. My sister. Our next door neighbors, who stood in as my godparents. Visible signs of the communion of saints. I don’t remember that day, but through this picture, I can remember my baptism and I can remember the people who love me and who brought me up in the faith.

That is what Hosea gives us in this chapter—Israel’s family album. So that we can look through it and remember how much God loves us.

We’ve heard the story of Israel before. The Old Testament tells us again and again of God’s love for Israel and of Israel’s tendency to walk away from that love. Again. And again. And again.

But while Hosea does hit Israel over the head with reminders of her infidelity, he wants to do more. He wants them to REMEMBER.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

Hosea wants Israel to look back at their collective memories and to remember who they are and whose they are. He wants them to remember how much they are loved and cared for. He wants them to remember their covenant relationship with the God who has delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

This part of the text reminded me of the Prodigal Son text in Luke’s gospel. He takes his inheritance from his father, while his father is not yet dead, and then he squanders his inheritance on, how shall we say, bad choices. He wakes up one morning, homeless, hungry, and wishing he had even the food to eat that he was feeding someone’s pigs. And the text says, “when he came to himself”. When he remembered who he was and whose he was, he realized he could go home again. He remembered the love of his father whose heart he had broken. And he went home. He remembered and repented and had his relationship with his family restored.

This is what Hosea offers in the 11th chapter.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.

But then there’s the whole Assyrian invasion problem. The behavior of God’s people leads them into some dangerous situations, like invasion, destruction, and exile at the hands of the Assyrians. Our behavior, and the behavior of others, does that to us as well. We end up far away from home, starving in a pigsty like the prodigal son. We end up in exile in Assyria, or alcohol, or homelessness, or whatever it may look like for each of us.

And the text tells us that God can’t just leave us there.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;

As we navigate this earthly life, things are going to happen to us that cause us pain and sadness. And those things cause God pain and sadness too. “My heart recoils within me. my compassion grows warm and tender”.
And this is where we realize that God’s love for us is different than our human relationships—even the best human relationships. Because God, who calls us, again and again, to return to God, has the right to be angry with us when we don’t repent. God has every right to leave us to our own destruction and the messes we make.

But God doesn’t do that.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

God chooses not to exercise God’s fierce anger and Hosea reminds us why: because God is God and no mortal—the Holy One in your midst.

Friends, God’s voice will roar and call us and, quite frankly, scare the pants off of us at times. Yet, like Israel, we are called to remember God’s claim on our lives. We are called to remember exactly who we are and whose we are. Like Israel, we are called to remember and to have faith in the gifts God has given us.

This is Good News! God NEVER gives up on us. Even after we have given up on ourselves and given up on others, God remains on our side. For God is God and no mortal, the Holy One in our midst.

This is Good News, for sure. But it is not necessarily easy news. God is not all sweetness, light, and cute little puppies. Hosea describes the return of the people to God like this:

They shall go after the LORD,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.
They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the LORD.
I can’t help but think of CS Lewis when I read this last section from Hosea. In the Chronicle of Narnia books, Aslan is the Christ-like lion who helps and guides the characters through their journeys in Narnia. But the characters in the books take care to remind people that “Aslan is not a tame lion.” I don’t know how much time you have spent in the presence of a lion, personally, but it isn’t something that sounds comfortable, safe, or even vaguely relaxing.

God’s call to us is like that. God roars like a lion and when God roars, we shall come trembling from wherever it is we have been scattered.

The difficult truth in this passage is that God’s voice is not the comfortable one in our lives. The sweet and pleasant voice in our lives might be the one Israel heard, telling us to rely on Egypt, or to rely on any power but God’s. Yet God’s voice of steadfast love roars at us.

Or it might be the quiet voice that tells us that we are just fine on our own, that we are better looking out only for ourselves, causing us to forsake each other, our community, and the Kingdom work that God has in store for us. Yet God’s voice of justice and compassion roars at us to love each other, to care for those less fortunate, to reach out in love.

The comfortable voice might be the one that tells us we can keep quiet when people are victims of prejudice, hate, and bigotry. Yet God’s voice roars at us to stand with the oppressed, the outcast, and to hear the voices of those long silenced.

1 Comment | Hosea 11 | Permalink
Posted by marciglass

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